by Norah Wilson
Brooked sucked in a breath through her teeth. “That’s horrible!”
“That’s not the half of it. It happened on Maryanne’s watch. She was babysitting him and she’d heard him crying. Crying for her. But apparently he’d been fussing all night and she was just going to let him cry it out.”
“Omigod,” Brooke said. “The poor girl! He was crying for her as he strangled—”
“And now he’s haunting her. She’s hearing his voice. Things are shaking around her. Her world is coming apart,” Alex said.
“She’s coming apart,” Brooke said. “You’ve noticed it too. I know you have.”
Alex felt the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach all over again. “Maryanne’s on a one-way path to self-destruction.”
“Yeah,” Brooke said. “She is. And she’s on her way to the one person who wants more than anything to help her with that.”
Alex said nothing at all. Not then. And not as Brooke pushed the car along faster, despite the snow still falling.
Chapter 34
And We All Fall Down
Maryanne
It had only been a few hours since she’d been here.
With the copper-heavy bag sunk into the snow below her, Maryanne waited in the cover of the fir trees. Far enough back to be well hidden, yet still able to see the shed where Bryce was now, oblivious to her nearness. The animals, however, were not oblivious. Faintly, Maryanne could hear the snorting and agitated stamping of the horses in the barn. Within minutes of her arrival, the Dobermans had hightailed it through the deep snow as fast as they could, intent on getting away from the property. Away from her. How had they gotten out of the kennel? Her heart sank as the answer came: Bryce had set them loose, probably in case she drove back to the farm again.
How he must hate her now.
It struck her as the last dog disappeared, following the trail broken in the deep snow by its kennelmates, what an odd sight it was: pitch black dog; bright white snow.
Maryanne held her hand in front of her.
Pitch black caster; bright white snow. She might as well be wearing a bull’s eye on her chest. Pretty much would be once she left her hiding place.
She was waiting Bryce out. She could just make out his silhouette passing in front of the shed window every few minutes. Though the house was no longer lit up like a Christmas tree, the light was definitely on in the shed. Bryce’s parents still weren’t home. There were no tread marks in the snow, not even by the garage door where the awning kept the wind from blowing the snow around below. Howard Walker must still be in the hospital with his heart issue, and no way would Hannah leave his side.
The snow kept falling. Maryanne watched large flakes of it land on her outstretched arms. It just disappeared when it did. She didn’t feel it fall through her. At least not in the sense that it came out the other side. Nor did it stay on her and melt away. It just somehow…didn’t exist anymore as it hit her emptiness. She didn’t feel the cold of it, and of course she left no trail through it. Maryanne looked down as she ran her foot through the snow, leaving it undisturbed. For a moment, she considered tunneling right into the snow, seeing what, if any, sensation it would give her. What would it feel like to be immersed in that particular nothingness? Would it be like a sensory deprivation chamber to her caster self? Would she feel nothing at all? What if she could just stay there in that nothing forever? Her contemplative moment was interrupted when she heard a door slamming.
She looked up.
Bryce.
Coat unzipped around him, boots on but not laced up, he slammed the door again. The door was sticking more than ever today, no doubt from the accumulation of hard-packed snow and ice.
“Son of a bitch!” Bryce gave it one more good yank and slam. Apparently satisfied, he slowly walked away.
Bryce looked terrible as he dragged his feet through the snow, as if he’d not slept since Maryanne had left him last night. No doubt he was hung over, too. Her heart went out to him, because he still had that hurt, lost look as he waded through the deep snow, lost in his own thoughts. When the shed door creaked open behind him, he seemed totally oblivious. His plodding steps did not falter as he made his way back to the house, let himself in, and closed the door behind him.
Maryanne didn’t hesitate. Given the weather, it wasn’t likely that Mr. and Mrs. Walker would come back home at any moment and catch her in the act, but Brooke and Alex wouldn’t be deterred by the storm. She tensed—both her caster self in the woods and her original in the attic—at that thought. She wanted this over and done with before either girl could get here. Before either of them could put themselves in danger. Though road conditions had to be next to impassable, Maryanne didn’t doubt that they were on their way.
Oh, man, they’d been so pissed when they’d found her original on the attic floor! No surprise there. What had surprised her was the way Brooke had squeezed her hand so reassuringly and brushed the hair from her forehead when Alex had turned back to the stairs. “Wait for us,” she’d instructed, just as Alex had.
But Maryanne had no intention of waiting. She was the one who’d put them in danger, and she’d be the one to get them out of it.
Picking up the copper-wrapped handles of the bag at her feet, Maryanne moved quickly to the shed. The horses’ snorts turned to frightened whinnies now as she emerged from the woods, but after an initial tug of guilt, Maryanne tuned them out.
She slid easily between the open door and the door jamb, not coming into contact with a single one of the many iron nails he’d laced both with. She dropped her bag just inside the door and got her bearings again.
Bryce had left in a hurry. He usually took great pride in how he kept the place, but the bedding on the old cot was in a tangle, as though he’d tried to sleep there without success. What looked to be coffee was spilled on the small bedside table and a sweater she knew to be one of his favorites lay in a heap on the floor. He’d even left the light on, and the heater, which he normally unplugged when leaving the shed, still glowed orange where it was perched at the end of the workbench. It must have been running for some time, because the frost on the window—the window he’d wasted no time replacing—had melted. She’d half expected to see iron bars in front of it. He probably just hadn’t found the time to see to that yet.
For Bryce to have left his shed like this, he must be dog tired. The hangover probably wasn’t helping.
Or maybe he was feeling like she did. Like he’d lost everything…
Maryanne reined herself in and directed her attention again to the interior of the shed. There were a half-dozen crumpled up loose-leaf pages on the floor and a number of pens scattered on the workbench. Bryce had come in here to write in the journal. To write the revelations of what he now knew for sure. Of what would incriminate them all. Now more than ever she had to get those journals.
Bryce would know it was her, of course. He’d have to know it was her. Those chips would just have to fall where they may. She was doing this for Alex and Brooke. Maryanne cared for Bryce, maybe even loved him. But she loved her friends—her sisters —more. She’d pry that cupboard door off its hinges and—
“Oh wow!” It was one of those too-good-to-be-true moments.
The cupboard door wasn’t locked! The freakin’ padlock wasn’t even looped through the hasp. She glanced around, spying it lying there on the workbench. The drinking and the lack of sleep had made Bryce careless. She’d better move fast, before it occurred to him that he’d left everything unsecured.
Moving quickly now, she selected a copper tool and used it to pry the cupboard door open.
Then she hit the ground, screaming in pain.
Nails! Old iron spikes rained down on her as the cupboard door flew open. Maryanne screamed again, not a caster primal scream but one that shook inside her mind and moaned from her original back in the attic of Harvell House. She could feel the searing of flesh in both consciousnesses. The agony.
Frantically, she tried to brush them
off, but just like the time she’d been shot, she couldn’t make her limbs obey. She was paralyzed! Pinned under the long iron spikes. A whole slew of them lay across her chest and the feeling of being unable to breathe was suddenly overwhelming. One spike leaned sideways against her neck, and two landed so perfectly as to pin her right shoulder to the floor. The pain was excruciating, as was the fear. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even turn her head to look around, and even if she could cry out, there were no casters around to hear her.
The feeling of impending doom was all consuming.
Brooke and Alex were on the way here. But just as much as she hoped they’d make it to her in time to help; a very real part of her hoped that they wouldn’t.
Me-anne…
Oh, God! Jason’s voice again.
Is this what I deserve, then? Is this my hell for what I did to Jason?
Helpless. Her baby brother had died alone and crying and helpless. Maybe this was to be her fate too. Maybe it was supposed to be all along and Jason’s spirit was here to witness it.
Maybe—
The door creaked open slowly behind her. Though she couldn’t so much as turn her head to see who stood there, as soon as she heard the jangling of metal—the clanging of iron—she knew it was Bryce coming for his prey.
The hunter had won.
Bryce closed the door to the shed—firmly this time—then he crouched down beside Maryanne. There was a look of fear in his eyes as he knelt there so close to the ‘Heller’, along with the unmistakable glitter of victory. But the sadness she’d seen earlier—that was there in his eyes, too.
He studied her. “Maryanne.”
It was all she could do to give the slightest nod.
“I knew you’d be back. I knew you’d come again to torment me. Taunt me.” Bryce was absolutely stricken. He moved the spike that leaned against Maryanne’s neck and the two that pierced her shoulder to the floor. For a moment, she thought he was going to free her, but that was the only iron he removed. The spikes lay still across her chest, and that was the worst of the heaviness weighing her down. “I put the dogs out. I knew as soon as you came back, they’d run off. And the horses started in their stalls. The animals know. The animals always know when they feel the presence of evil. Grampy swore to that fact. He wrote about it too.”
If only she could speak. Defend herself. Instead she lay there helplessly, enduring his cutting remarks. Bryce put a hand on her thigh, not aggressively, but apparently just to feel the caster flesh under his hand. She could feel the press of it. He moved his hand away and wiped it on his jeans over and over as if trying to get the feel of her off him.
“You…you used me. Playing the innocent virgin. You never wanted me…just the journals. God, it must have just about killed you to be with me, Maryanne. To have me touch you, kiss you. I’ve been such a fool! All my life I’ve been such a fool thinking there was anything to you Hellers but evil. When I think of how I argued with Grampy when he called you soul-stealing devils. I told him…I told him all you ever wanted to do was survive. That that was all you ever fought for.” Bryce’s laugh was bitter. “Even when you chased the animals, ruined the horses, I was such an idiot to think that there was some good in you. Seth knew. Seth knew better and he died because of it. I killed him because of it. But you made me do it. I fought him and he lost big time. Because he was going after you—said he knew who you were.
“Now I know who you are too! Soon everyone else will. Even if you kill me—if Alex and Brooke kill me and steal my goddamn soul, it’s in the journals. I wrote all that I know about you three, and soon all of Mansbridge will know. Do you think they’ll let you go? Let you live? Do you think they’ll let you just…be? No. And I won’t either.” He jangled the iron collar in his hands, brought it forth, and showed it to her. A slow smile formed on his face and in that moment, Bryce Walker looked impossibly like his Grandfather Walker. “This time I won’t pull up on the gun. I won’t hold back as I swing the manacles. This time, you’ll pay. You’ll suffer for what you’ve done to my family. For what you did to me! And Seth.”
Bryce clamped the iron collar around her neck, locking the other end around the leg of the workbench. Only then did he brush the iron spikes off her chest as if they were no more than feathers that had weighed her down. Now the tight iron band did the job it was intended to do. She was captive and collared and at the mercy of the hunter.
Jason had strangled to death like this! Jason had died just this way!
And now Jason cried out again, his voice desperate. More desperate than ever before. Me-annnnnnne!
Bryce stood and picked up the shotgun.
Oh, God! Maryanne flinched mentally, though her cast form remained still on the floor. But instead of swinging the shotgun her way, Bryce walked to the door and opened it. Wind swept through the room.
“I’ll be back,” he said. “Grampy was right and Seth was right. I can’t bring either of them back. But I can avenge them both! I can avenge myself.”
Maryanne was terrified. Trapped like an animal. Worse. Trapped like a soul-stealing demon from hell in this town that craved to destroy the Hellers.
And if he didn’t plan to shoot her, what did he plan to do?
He slammed the door, hard. Hard enough to knock the keys off the shelf and send the red-hot heater tumbling to the floor, where it lay face down on the sheets of paper.
Almost instantly, a small flame flickered to life.
Chapter 35
Snowblind
Brooke
Dammit all to hell! It was getting even harder to see. The snow swirled hypnotically as Brooke drove through it. God only knew how she was going to release her death grip on the steering wheel if and when they finally reached the Walker farm. Right now, her hands felt permanently clawed, and a huge knot of tension was building between her shoulder blades from hunching forward to try to see.
“There!” Alex cried. “Is that the driveway?”
Brooke braked cautiously. It had been ages since the plow had been out this road, and the snow that lay on it was heavy and wet, not soft and powdery. Driving through it was a delicate balance between not going so fast as to careen off the road and keeping enough momentum going to muscle through it.
“Yes, that’s it, but look at it! There’s more snow in the driveway than on the road. The car’ll never handle it.”
“What’ll we do?” Alex said. “We can’t leave the car on the road for someone to run into.”
“Don’t worry. I can get it in the driveway. Getting out again will be the problem. Hang on.”
Alex braced herself. Brooke turned the wheel and gunned the motor. The Intrepid shot into the driveway, half climbing, half plowing through the hardened mound of snow the plow had deposited there on its last pass. She managed to get the ass end of the car off the road—barely—before getting stuck.
“Guess you were right,” Alex said. “We’ll have to hike in.”
Brooke killed the engine. “Yeah, and Maryanne is going to owe me a new pair of suede Fendi’s,” she grumbled. Yet she was the first one out of the vehicle.
Alex joined her in front of the car. “Shed first or house?”
“Shed,” Brooke answered. “She’d go straight for the journals.”
As they jogged—okay, slogged—up the long driveway, Brooke caught sight of Bryce in the swirling snow. He seemed to be walking from the shed toward the house. She grabbed Alex’s arm. “Wait.”
Alex swore under her breath. Then, in a low whisper, “Maybe Maryanne hasn’t made her move yet. Maybe Bryce has been in the shed all this while and she’ll go for it once he’s—oh, crap.”
Bryce had swung around and was staring at them now. Brooke would have sworn their soft voices couldn’t have reached him, but some sixth sense must have alerted him. Now he was moving to cut them off. And holy hell, he looked like the wrath of God! His eyes blazed with fury, with madness. One look and Brooke knew Maryanne hadn’t waited. They’d already squared off.
&
nbsp; Dammit, Maryanne!
“Where is she?” Brooke shouted, running toward Bryce now. “What have you done with her?”
“Stop right there.” He brought his arm up and Brooke saw that he held a shotgun. The same shotgun he’d shot Maryanne with before.
Brooke slowed to a walk, but she didn’t stop advancing.
“Brooke,” Alex hissed. “He’s got a gun, for God’s sake.”
“What’s he gonna do?” Brooke responded, but her message was for Bryce, not Alex. “Murder the both of us in cold blood? Wouldn’t that make his parents proud? Probably give his father another heart attack—maybe a fatal one this time—seeing his last remaining son arrested for a double homicide. He might get away with killing a Heller, but never two innocent schoolgirls. And his mother…she’d probably wish she were dead, seeing her only remaining child tried and sent to prison for life…”
“Shut up!” Bryce yelled. “You’re Hellers! Just like Maryanne. And you need to be put down. Sent back to hell where you belong.”
Brooke finally stopped, but only because she was inches from the shotgun’s double-barreled mouth now. “Except you’ve got one problem, don’t you, Bryce? We are flesh and blood standing right here in front of you. We’re just teenage girls with parents and sisters and friends and people who would mourn us. Just like Maryanne.”
“No! She’s a Heller!” His eyes blazed pure madness now.
“What’s that smell? Is that smoke?”
Brooke heard Alex, but she was too fixated on Bryce to pay her much attention. “You don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about,” she snapped at Bryce. “Maryanne is—”
Brooke’s words were cut off by Alex’s scream.
“The shed! It’s on fire!”
Brooke turned to see dense black smoke curling out from beneath an eave of the old building, and through the window, flames were clearly visible. “Omigod!” She turned to Bryce. “Is she in there?” She didn’t have to wait for him to respond to know the answer. They all heard it then, Maryanne’s primal scream.
