by Julia French
“Rachel, Rachel…” he whispered as he pried her legs open and began to thrust.
It was over in less than five minutes. He stood up, his cock glistening with moisture. As soon as his weight was off the girl, she flung herself off the bed, snatched up the pieces of her dress, and fled into the bathroom. He heard the snick of the lock and shrugged. He’d only picked her up for one reason, and already his mind was occupied with more important things.
So Rachel was shacked up with the raggedy gypsy. From the detective’s description of Donald Waverly it was clear that her affair with the fat, balding man couldn’t have been more than a brief fling, perhaps for the sheer novelty. She must have tired of Don quickly and gone on to greener pastures, although it wasn’t like her to have chosen such a lowlife character for her next lover. Was True Gannett really that good in bed? There was no other reason for Rachel to be with him. It was crucial for him to know the answer, if he had to beat it out of her.
First, though, he had to persuade Rachel to return. Once she was here he would have to get her to admit that what she had done was wrong. He was willing to do anything to help her realize her mistake—tough love, they called it—and when she had taken that first step toward healing he would forgive and forget no matter how long it took, no matter how difficult it was.
A stealthy sound from the hallway told him that the girl had emerged from the bathroom, and another tiny noise told him that she had opened the back door. Evidently the girl had sensed this was a one-time fling, and he appreciated her discretion.
Reasoning with Rachel wouldn’t bring her home. He would have to trick her. What would compel her to rush to his side? It would have to be an emergency of some kind. Perhaps if he were badly hurt…courtesy of the detective, he had the raggedy man’s phone number and his address. It was time to see how good an actor he was.
Chapter Forty
Joshua’s fingers lingered on the fever-reddened cheek. He held his hand against the ravaged face, comparing it with his smooth and unmarked skin. The whites of the man’s eyes were showing through half-closed lids. Almost tenderly, Joshua thumbed the lids all the way shut.
Bubonic plague wasn’t an easy way to die, and he had known that with the knowledge of an outsider. His own death and rebirth had given him the knowledge of experience, and like a child with a new toy, he hadn’t been able to contain himself.
“Iskus!”
The familiar trotted expectantly into the room.
“Get rid of this.” He pointed to the dead man. Obediently the creature encircled one wrist in its powerful jaws and began inching the body toward the door leading to the basement workroom. “You can have as much as you want, but clean up after yourself.”
God is Life, the pamphlet in his hand told him. And I am Death, he thought. Worship Me.
Strangely, the thought didn’t thrill him as he had expected it would. Against all odds, he had overcome every obstacle and accomplished his goal. He had pieced together an archaic puzzle and compelled the help of a powerful entity. He had defeated the clumsy attacks of his enemy. He had died and been reborn, and the memory of his own suffering would increase the pleasure of inflicting it upon others.
He should have been delirious with joy, but the elation was already leaving him. In its place crept back the familiar sensation of emptiness, a vague and indefinable hunger that wasn’t quite physical nor quite spiritual either.
More, Joshua thought, staring at the pamphlet in his hand. He needed more. More of what? More sickness? More death? More door-to-door evangelists?
Why hadn’t the plague made him happy?
He had some unfinished business with the hillbilly and his girlfriend. That would fill the void, at least for a while, and if not….if not…
There was always smallpox.
* * * *
“Why didn’t he call the hospital, Rachel? Why did he call you?”
“Mark’s in pain. He’s not thinking clearly.”
“It’s a trick.”
“Why would he fake a broken leg?”
“Why didn’t he call the hospital?” True repeated, and she brushed it off impatiently.
“You never answered my question. Why did you go to Red Ridge? To see EH? What did that man tell you?”
“Rachel, you know Joshua’s got to be stopped.”
“Harming another person is wrong.”
“You have to fight fire with fire.”
“Joshua is a human being in spite of his evil ways. You can’t take it upon yourself to punish him.”
“Yes, I can! More folks are going to die if I don’t. We might die too. Don’t you care?”
“Of course I do, but there has to be another way. Have you tried talking to Joshua? Maybe if you talked to him—”
True’s harsh laugh broke into her words.
The quarrel went on until they reached the house. As True pulled the truck into the driveway Rachel saw the front door was slightly ajar, and when they entered the house a thick, unpleasant odor hung in the air around them like a fog. True motioned for her to remain in the living room.
“Stay here. I’ll tell you what I find.”
“I can handle it, I’m not a child.”
He led the way into the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place, but in the bathroom they found a bloody washcloth draped over the sink and a crumpled bath towel on the floor. The silence in the house was deafening. At the door to the bedroom he paused.
“Let me see,” she said again, suddenly sure of what they would find.
He opened the door to the bedroom and another wave of odor struck them. He tried to block the sight with his body, but Rachel raised up on her toes and peered over his shoulder. On the bed was a mounded bundle of blankets and a shape. A shock of brown hair had peeled away from the rounded top of the shape, revealing the skull. Below the brown hair there were features, after a fashion. The mouth had fallen open and the blistered, blackened lips were drawn back in a manic grin. Upon the chin a trail of bloody froth was drying. A large blue-black lump bulged out of one armpit and strained at the confines of the stained polo shirt.
It might have been ten years she stood there staring at Mark’s corpse, when she felt True squeeze her hand hard.
“He’s done it, Rachel.”
She knew he wasn’t talking about her husband.
The amulet on her breast flared into heat. She lurched forward into the bedroom, pushing True ahead of her. Behind them the door banged shut and Joshua stood there, an insane light in his eyes.
“Welcome home, Rachel Jeffries. You too, hillbilly.” He gestured toward the thing on the bed. “How do you like my handiwork?”
“You murdered him!”
True’s mouth set in a hard line. “Why are you here, witch man?”
“My raven told me Rachel was returning to Yarwich, and I had to drop by for a visit. It’s pure luck you came along with her. I’ll get two for the price of one.”
Joshua’s eyes were living stains of black ink. The pupils grew and spread, peering into Rachel’s heart, worming among her thoughts and feelings and memories. Whatever the eyes touched they contaminated. A part of her mind began to crumble, surrendering against her will to the filthy intimate touch—
“Rachel, don’t look in his eyes!” True cried and she wrenched her gaze from Joshua’s, but it took every ounce of willpower she had.
“Oh, she can look in my eyes if she likes. Sooner or later she’ll have to.”
“Leave her be! Your quarrel’s with me.”
“You can’t protect her and you can’t beat me. Why make it harder on yourself? Walk away while you still can. Leave her with me and we’ll call it even.”
“Not while I’m alive.”
“Is that a threat? Because I’ll be delighted to take you up on that.”
/> “You’re going to feel different when I start on you.”
Joshua took a step toward True. True didn’t move, but Rachel saw the helpless anger in his face and realized he’d been caught by surprise. How much magic did True really know? Enough to take care of Joshua? Enough to get them both out of here alive? Suddenly the question of harm didn’t seem so important.
“How do you like my achievement, mountain man?” Joshua gestured toward the corpse.
“Bubonic plague gets the job done very efficiently, and of course there’s the entertainment value of that particular method.”
“You aren’t fit to walk this Earth.”
“In your own way you’ve been entertaining, too, country boy, but your time is up.” Joshua flexed his right hand, testing it. “I appreciate your empty bravado but think about it, man! Sending my spells back upon me didn’t work. Trying to murder me with a lousy piece of sewing thread didn’t work, and that entry-level locking spell was absolutely pathetic. Whatever else you have up your sleeve today, I promise you it won’t work. I’ve seen things that would give your nightmares nightmares. I’ve walked along paths you wouldn’t dare to travel to save your pitiful soul or hers! You can’t win against me, you don’t have the stones. Give up now and I won’t make you watch.” Joshua looked Rachel up and down slowly, deliberately, and True’s face went white with fury.
“Touch me if you’re going to. Touch her, and I swear on my great grandfather’s grave I’ll make you pay until the end of the world.”
“Thank you for your kind permission.” Joshua raised his hand and pointed at True, and the heavy clock radio caught him on the side of the head and sent him staggering against the dresser.
Rachel couldn’t believe she’d done it. Neither could True, but he recovered himself quickly. “Rachel, run! Get out!”
Don’t leave, stay with me, True had said to her that night, and Rachel found that she couldn’t go. She picked up the radio and held it ready for another blow.
Slumped against the dresser, Joshua made a sign with his thumb and ring finger. Instantly a fog of colored light swirled around Rachel’s ankles, and her feet grew heavy and cold. The colored light faded away to reveal the hard gray coating that encased her feet and legs up to the knees. She struggled to take a step, but the lead boots weighed her down and she collapsed onto the rug, immobilized.
“True!” It came out a high, thin shriek.
True threw himself at Joshua. The two men collided against the wall, True uppermost, and Rachel heard Joshua’s ribs snap like twigs. There was a flash of yellow light and True sprang back as if he’d been bitten.
“You’re a dead man,” Joshua snarled, holding his side.
Huge beads of sweat dotted True’s forehead. An ominous swelling sprang out on the side of his jaw, as large as a marble and growing. The skin over the swelling bloomed black, and Rachel knew that True had begun to die.
“Joshua Lambrecht, I curse you by your secret name. I curse you to Hell, Rhannock Dar, I curse…I curse you…” A spasm of coughing interrupted him. “I send thee to Perdition…and to flames…everlasting.”
“I don’t know who gave it to you, but my coven name won’t work if you’re too sick to use it properly.” Joshua lowered himself gingerly onto the edge of the bed next to Mark’s remains. “Soon you’ll look like him.”
True spat a mouthful of blood. His fever was giving way to chills. His body shuddering, he slumped against the wall until he was sitting on the floor. Rachel would have done anything to take his sickness upon herself. The Practitioner’s Almanack had told her it was possible, but she’d dismissed it as nonsense and hadn’t bothered to learn the spell that would have done it. True was finished. They both were. Even her amulet thought so, for it had gone from baking hot to ice-cold. Without True to stop him, Joshua would be free to kill and kill and kill. True had been right, only “bad” magic could save them, and she couldn’t do anything to help him because she knew nothing. She hadn’t bothered with so much of that knowledge, and she was dead set against some of the other things she had bothered to read at all and which might have saved their lives… But there was this one other thing, a silly thing really, but…
She pursed her lips and blew. She didn’t know the right pitch so she echoed what she’d heard rushing through the trees on countless summer days and endless winter nights. She waited a moment, then whistled again. This time the wind heard her summons and answered her, matching and then overpowering her imitation as it stalked screaming into the bedroom. The gale tore at the curtains and bedspread, grabbed handfuls of clothing and hair. Papers and magazines flew off the nightstand. The bedside lamp hit the floor and the light bulb exploded into shards. The wind dried the perspiration on True’s face, flung a corner of the bedspread over Mark’s rotten form, lifted the hair of Rachel’s head and beat it across her eyes, making them water. Then it noticed Joshua.
Joshua went gray with fear. He fought it, wading into it as though it were a raging river, his mouth open and shouting. He screamed something that Rachel couldn’t hear, yelling it into the teeth of the blast. Over and over he chanted as the wind pummeled his body, and the hurricane obeyed him. The shriek died down to a whine and thinned away. The swirling air plucked fitfully at his shirt sleeve, and then the wind Rachel had summoned departed from the room, stalking away from the house and leaving them utterly alone.
“Amateur,” Joshua gasped, and doubled over. Rachel hoped he was passing out, but he sat up slowly, one hand under his shirt, and she saw that his movements were less tentative than they had been. “A little occult first aid,” he explained. “It’ll last until I’m finished here, don’t worry.”
True’s breathing had worsened. Livid spots spread over his arms and chin. His eyes were fixed upon the litter of papers and magazines that the wind had heaped. Something in that mess was holding his interest, but from her position on the floor Rachel couldn’t make out what it was.
“Say, mountain man, would you like to hear what I’m going to do to her after you’re gone?” Joshua jerked a thumb toward Rachel.
“I’m…not…dead…yet.” True’s voice was rasping and hoarse.
“Soon, though,” Joshua reminded him pleasantly. “In my collection of antiques there is one very special item which I like to use for occasions like this. Let me tell you where I got it.”
True’s foot jerked. It looked to Rachel like a muscle spasm, but the movement hooked the toe of his boot around a pencil on the floor. Another jerk started it rolling toward him, but Joshua was too caught up in his description to notice.
“I bought this item in Spain. The man who sold it to me claimed it had been used during the Inquisition, but I think he was lying to drive the price up.”
Another “muscle spasm,” and the pencil was within True’s reach.
“Frankly, I find the conventional sex act boring, but there are other, more satisfying alternatives. Did you know that any part of the body can be an erotic zone? Any part at all.”
True’s thumbnail worked against the head of the eraser, scratching first a straight line, then a curved one perpendicular to it.
“After a certain point it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as there’s the stimulation.”
Painfully, slowly, pushing against the floor, True threaded the pencil between the fingers of his right hand and braced his thumb against the shaft.
“De Sade was right,” Joshua continued, oblivious. “Pain and pleasure are one and the same. Do you realize what a Spanish branding iron, properly applied, can do to a woman’s—”
True snapped the pencil in half.
Joshua’s speech cut off like a knife and his scream trailed off into a gurgle. His shoulders hitched up, and his body started to arch backward. Farther and farther Joshua’s back bowed until Rachel wondered how he could be alive. Just before he bent double, the vertebr
ae in his spine gave way and the witch man flopped across the bed, his mouth lolling open to receive the gush of stinking fluid that squeezed out of the corpse.
Instantly Rachel’s legs felt lighter.
Joshua’s arms paddled, dragging his useless legs across the mattress. At the edge of the bed he fought to pull himself erect, but his body didn’t respond. Helplessly, like a rag doll, the witch man rolled off the bed and crashed to the floor.
Around Rachel’s feet the lead boots were turning back into colored light. She was almost free, and if she acted quickly there might still be time. She groped on the floor for the phone.
“Vanilla.” True forced the words from between fever-blistered lips.
He’s delirious, she thought, the phone in her hand. She dialed 911, set the phone down, and went to him.
A blackish blotch stained True’s forehead. “Vanilla,” he insisted weakly. “Rachel, please.”
Humoring him, she ran to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of vanilla extract.
He didn’t have the strength to open it. “Empty.”
On the floor Joshua’s chest heaved up once, twice, then stopped as the nerves in his spine shut down. Uncertain what True wanted her to do, Rachel hesitated.
“Under his nose. Hold it… Great grandfather, help us,” she heard True whisper, and a faint vapor like a coil of steam began to curl up from the dead man’s nostrils.
She poured the vanilla extract onto the floor and held the bottle under the dead man’s nose. The vapor coiled, seemed to fight with itself briefly, then curled into the bottle. As quickly as she could, she clapped the cap into place.
“Don’t open. Don’t break.” True coughed again, spraying blood from his collapsing lungs. “I love you.”
Cradling his head in her lap, holding the bottle, Rachel waited for the ambulance.
Chapter Forty-One
True pursed his lips as he considered the man’s request. “Did you talk to him?” he asked, and the man scratched his forehead.
