“When did the kidnappers release Jane Sandlin?” Nicked asked Gabriella.
“Eight days ago. It’s taken her this long to be questioned and released. After a stop in Atlanta to assure her partners that she’s alive and ready for work in a couple weeks, she flew here to vacation with Jill.”
“Doesn’t sound like vacations have agreed with her lately,” Nick said dryly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean today. Now. The reason you had me break every airport security rule and rush right over here.”
“Oh, that. Can’t you do something about getting Jane off the plane?”
He talked to one of the security men, explained the situation, and had him ask the chief to allow the passengers at Gate 22 to leave the plane. The security man did as requested and nodded the “okay” to Nick. A few passengers emerged from the ramp as he rejoined Gabriella.
A rotund bald man walked from the ramp entrance and left his briefcase under the vacated seat. As he passed Nick, a headache struck him like a thunderbolt. He waved for the closer of the two security men to detain the man.
Jill Sandlin rushed to greet a tall gaunt woman and hugged her tightly. Tears spilled down Jill’s cheeks, but her sister remained strangely aloof. After they parted, Jane spied the briefcase, opened it, and withdrew a gun.
“What . . . what are you doing with that?” Jill asked, suddenly frightened. “Put it down. Jane, put it down! It’s me, your sister!”
Jane didn’t reply. Her expression was detached. She raised the barrel at her sister and fired.
Gabriella tossed the cat off her lap and directed her outstretched fingers in Jill’s direction.
Jane Sandlin pulled the trigger again.
Nick catapulted over the seats toward the Sandlins, but stopped and turned to see what the ruckus was behind him. The bald man had changed shape. He was now Thomas in all his inhuman, reptilian glory. The security guard lay on the floor immersed in his own blood.
Nick was momentarily torn between the Sandlins and the Creeper, and in that brief time span, a mini tornado appeared between Nick and the Creeper and spun in Gabriella’s direction. The winds flung bodies in all directions. Some crashed through the thick glass windows and disappeared below, while others were hurled against the walls, becoming lifeless flotsam in the spinning vortex.
Nick held onto a seat for dear life as the raging gusts buffeted him. He caught sight of gunfire flashes beyond the tornado’s reach, but the howling wind swallowed the explosions. Jane dropped the gun and stood over her sister.
With one spell-casting hand extended toward Jill and the other directed at the tornado, Gabriella was losing ground to the tornado. As callous as it sounded, she couldn’t endanger her own life. If the world was to be rid of the Creeper and its father, she had to survive. As much as it pained Gabriella, she must sacrifice her friend, Jill.
“You will not save those meddling Sandlins, Gabriella!” The Creeper’s hollow, resonant voice carried over the wailing cataclysm. Its elliptical eyes, orange and yellow infernos, beheld Gabriella as she relinquished her protective spell on Jill Sandlin to increase her defense against the tornado.
The Creeper laughed. “Choices, choices. You made the correct one, my dear.”
Nick heard a meow beside him. Spinning around, he spied that murderous Siamese cat at his feet. She was unaffected by the powerful wind.
“You again!” he shouted, but the winds whipped the words from his mouth before they even reached his ears.
The Creeper’s Siamese cat-woman . . . alive! In a flash, it was apparent that the Florida state trooper had botched his assignment. His last.
Nick was in a Catch-22 situation. If he freed a hand to fire his gun at the cat, he’d be pulled into the maelstrom. If he didn’t defend himself, the vengeful cat-woman seemed anxious to separate him and his skin. He was dead either way.
The cat shifted its shape to the oriental woman and smiled grimly at Nick. “Thought you were real cute down there in Florida, having that cop use up my nine lives, did you?” She ran her long nails lightly along his cheek. “It’s time to use up your one, pitiful life, Nicky,” she purred in his ear.
Barring a miracle, Nick knew he was finished. The Creeper had won. Nick hated losing.
As the woman lifted her arm to claw Nick’s eyes, another meow sounded beside him. The oriental cat-woman heard it, too; she pivoted, crouched, and hissed at the intruder. Nick nearly lost his tenuous grip and sailed into the vortex at the chilling sight of the new beast in town. It may have meowed, but it was no cat. It resembled a demon that had flown nonstop from Hell. Now there were two! He didn’t stand a chance of surviving.
A stooped monster with long, curled wings, five-feet tall and covered with black, oily flesh appeared beside the cat-woman. Nick had never seen anything so hideous, and it looked like he’d never get the opportunity to again. Its anvil skull, book-end pointed ears, protruding bony brows, large crimson eyes, and a mouth crammed with yellow fangs all converged into the most frightening killer Nick had ever faced. This was going to be painful! he thought.
The beast snarled at the cat-woman. Nick was stunned. It quickly attacked cat-woman, ripping her ribs away with one vicious swipe of its clawed hands and disemboweling her with its clawed feet. Within seconds, the cat-woman was shredded cat. The ninth life spent.
The black killer fluidly morphed into Gabriella’s attractive white Persian.
Gabriella created a spell that tore an ever-widening riff in the terminal. A blinding purple light blazed from the jagged opening in the time and space continuum where matter didn’t exist. It was as if the witch had conjured a black hole inside the airport.
Infuriated at his failure to dispose of both Nick and Gabriella, the Creeper released a rumbling, earsplitting roar and vanished. The black hole swallowed the powerful tornado and abruptly closed.
Nick fell to a knee and caught his breath. Exhausted from his struggle, he used every ounce of his reserve energy to stand and step over the human and not-so-human remains scattered in his path to the Sandlins. Jill Sandlin’s bleeding body lay motionless. Jane stood rigidly beside her, as if in a trance. Nick snapped his fingers before her vacant eyes, but she didn’t flinch.
Gabriella floated above the carnage in her wheel chair and touched Jill’s forehead. “Her spirit’s near. It’s not too late to revive her,” she announced.
“But what about Jane? She’s in some kind of stupor,” Nick asked.
“She’s bewitched, and I can’t deal with her now. If I delay any longer, Jill will die,” she explained. “Just move Jane out of the way.”
Nick didn’t argue. He needed Jill’s information as much as Gabriella wanted her friend back among the living. He gently grasped Jane’s elbow and pushed her a few steps toward the boarding entrance.
“What was that thing – that creature – your familiar turned into?” Nick asked, as he hoisted Gabriella from the wheelchair and deposited her on the floor beside Jill.
“A gargoyle. Now please stand back.”
“A what?”
Gabriella didn’t respond. Instead, the beautiful witch placed her open hand over a grisly bullet wound in Jill’s chest and chanted. Moments later, Gabriella’s face contorted in pain as Jill’s wound disappeared and appeared in the witch’s chest.
“Stop it! You’ll die,” Nick insisted. “We need you!”
She ignored him and maintained her focus on Jill and the spell.
Suddenly, Jane groaned, doubled over, and crumpled to the carpet.
“What the . . .” Nick exclaimed.
Blood burst from Jane’s side and quickly stained her blouse.
“Remove her clothes,” Gabriella ordered. “Quickly.”
He ripped them off, buttons shooting in all directions, and when she was stripped to her panties, Nick wished he’d left them on. Jane’s black and blue body was dotted with open, oozing sores from months of vile torture. One sore burst and blood surged freely from it. Nick pulled
off his shirt and tore the black cotton into strips. He pressed a strip firmly on the wound.
Another sore blew with a soft pop. Blood spewed into his face. He applied another strip to the new bleeding, and then another wound popped, then another, until Jane Sandlin’s body looked like a piece of bleeding Swiss cheese.
“Get back!” Gabriella screamed.
Nick scooted backwards, but he wasn’t fast enough. Her body swelled like an over inflated balloon, and then burst, launching blood, bone, and gore in all directions.
Jill’s eyelids fluttered open, as Gabriella gently wiped the bloody gore from her face. Gabriella smiled at Jill and rolled on her side, unconscious.
“Gabriella!” Nick felt for a pulse.
“Don’t worry, she’s alive,” Jill said weakly. “You must be Nick.”
“In the flesh. So you really think she’s okay?”
She grinned. “Lift her into the wheelchair, and we’ll take her back home.”
“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance or something?”
“Her house has strong recuperative powers - much better than any hospital,” Jill explained. She sat and stretched. “Why do you suppose Jane wanted to shoot me?” A tear trickled across her bloodstained cheek.
After placing Gabriella in her wheelchair, Nick pulled Jill to her feet and they started for the main terminal.
“You know, Jill, I don’t think she wanted to shoot you. It looked to me like someone programmed her to do it. Like where to find the gun to shoot you with. By the look of her body, her kidnapper was torturing her for months. Obviously, it took a tremendous amount of conditioning to get Jane to shoot you. All of us, even the strongest, can be turned with torture. I believe she was such a difficult subject because she loved you so much,” he explained.
Tears welled in her eyes again. “Thank you for that.”
Nick nodded and pushed the wheelchair out of the Southwest concourse and down the walkway leading to the main terminal. Gabriella’s white Persian trotted along side. Nick eyed her carefully, vowing never to take another cat at face value again.
“Why would someone want me dead?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“And who?”
“Got me.”
“Liar,” she cried. “You know who tortured and murdered my sister, goddammit!”
“Whoa, Jill. Let’s wait till we get to Duneden. We can sort things out there,” he offered.
“Why not now?” she pressed.
“I’m tired and I’m hungry. Okay?”
“Just like I thought. Blood is thicker than water, you bastard!” She stormed past him toward the security checkpoints where Crow, a press contingent, and most of the Columbus police force stood waiting.
He hesitated. “What did she mean by that?” he asked himself.
Chapter 50
Withers and his mercenaries slipped into the thickly wooded hills above Duneden minutes before sunlight streaked the horizon as Nick landed his borrowed plane in Columbus to the north. Wearing forest camouflage fatigues, they rapidly deployed into their prearranged positions. Each mercenary was armed with a forty-inch, bolt-action sniper’s rifle, a Russian KLIN rifle, a semi-automatic pistol, grenades, and a combat knife. Withers had spared no expense. Mission failure was not an option.
Using his night binoculars, Withers surveyed the small town with the big reputation. If he had been military, he would have loved to demolish the place and all the creeps who lived there. Magic! He scoffed at the very idea. All smoke and mirrors. Impressive to the feeble minded, but didn’t dent his own superior intellect. The supposed witches could pull all the rabbits they wanted out of their hats, but they’d be powerless against the bullets spit from his gun.
Withers continued scanning the place. The only road in was from the south and it ran by some crumbling ghost of a dairy plant and dilapidated employee housing that made the inner-city look like millionaire’s row. He shifted his gaze to the large, mist-covered lake north of town. An island sat in the center, looking as hick as the rest of the farm community surrounding Duneden. Weathered barns, barbwire fencing, cows and hogs, stubby corn stalks, clover-speckled pastures, jagged creek beds, silos, and tractors.
Witches and hicks. He hated them both.
He switched off the night feature of his binoculars. To the west sat a mansion, isolated from the rest of the town by a wrought iron and stone fence with strange sculptures perched atop each stone post. Even in the spreading morning light, the estate remained in gloomy darkness. It appeared to be a haunted house from a Hollywood movie set.
A cemetery and aging stone markers filled the grassy hillside between his position and the backs of brick buildings lining the town’s main street. Few people were up. The houses and buildings were dark at this early hour, but he observed farmers in the distance herding milk cows into barns or filling their tractors with diesel for the long workday ahead.
He shuddered. Hicks. Slaves to the land. Well, that wasn’t for Ron Withers. Give him pina coladas and prostitutes. Rolls Royces and Armani. And of course, Nick Bellamy on a morgue slab.
He checked his men’s positions. Perfect. There was no way Bellamy could get very far into Duneden without one or all of his snipers bringing him down. The other weapons would be used to dispose of all witnesses. Messy, but effective. By the time the hicks in the hills reported gunshots and explosions, he and his merry band of mercenaries would be long gone.
He allowed himself a grin. If all went well, Bellamy would be eliminated by dinnertime, and Withers planned on celebrating his wealth and retirement with a very big steak, a very fine champagne, and a very skilled prostitute.
Thomas returned to his home base on wheels, the Reverend Elias Curtis’ Mobile Revival RV. Currently it was parked outside Manchester, Ohio, a stone’s throw from Duneden. The people in these small towns flocked to his shows and forked over large amounts of their incomes for blessings and miracles. It was the perfect cover, one that was borrowed from his father’s carnival days.
The premise was simple. Keep moving. Stay low. And only accept cash. Lots of cash. It worked. Not even his father, the well-connected senator, had been able to trace him, and he had been trying very hard for many years.
But Thomas was feeling anything but clever now. He had failed to eliminate the troublesome witch, Gabriella, the meddlesome Jill Sandlin, and his only real threat in the world, Nick Bellamy. Add to those failures the loss of his familiar, Liang, and he was livid.
He knew they were driving to Duneden after they left the airport, and he knew that Jill Sandlin and Hefe Bustillo would talk their heads off to Bellamy. By unraveling the enigma of Nick’s past, the FBI agent would become a real serious threat to Thomas’s existence. But, it was too risky to try to take-out Sandlin and Bustillo now. The powerful Gabriella, who had hated him passionately since childhood, would protect them with her potent spells just as she had protected Jill Sandlin that night at the cabin when he had taken the identity of Valerie Jacobs.
Thomas decided to hangout for a while as the Reverend Curtis until he developed a plausible strategy for destroying Gabriella and her family once and for all. Between revivals, he had another dirty job to perform for daddy-dearest, but he had alreadydevised a stratagem for that.
There was a loud commotion outside his RV that was temporarily parked in the Sportsman RV Park stretching along the banks of the Ohio River just outside Manchester. Thomas altered his appearance to that of the Bible-thumping Elias Curtis, a tall, dignified man in his late thirties with chestnut hair, brown eyes, a square jaw, and a wide mouth that spouted fire and brimstone until the revivalists parted with every cent they had before leaving the tent.
Thomas opened the side RV door and surveyed a dozen or so men and women carrying hand-painted signs that more-or-less labeled him a phony.
“Thar he is!” yelled a man with straggly gray-red hair.
The others angrily shouted recognition and thrust their crude signs with numerous misspellings in Thomas’s d
irection.
“To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” Thomas asked calmly, unfazed by their hostility.
“Yar a fake and a swindler, and we want you to git the hell out of Manchester,” the gray-red hair man shouted.
Thomas raised his arms. “God is not a fake or a charlatan, good people. He is our lord, and he works in mysterious ways through me,” he explained. “And our great and mighty God will punish all doubters and see to it that you miserable sinners spend your days repenting your disbelief in Him.”
A plain, plump young woman with frizzy brown curls stepped forward. “We believe in God, Reverend. We jist don’t believe in you!”
“What, pray tell, has fostered all this inhospitable behavior?” Thomas asked.
The young woman stepped closer. “You gave my husband back his sight; now he only has eyes for other women.” Tears pooled her eyes. “Before you came along, we had a very sound marriage.”
“A marriage cannot really be solid when one member of the holy union is blinded to the truth,” he replied.
“And what about my Myrtle?” A burly man wearing a sleeveless white tee shirt shoved the plain woman aside. “You removed the paralysis from my wife’s legs, and she keeps spreading them for every man but me!”
Thomas shrugged. “That’s not my doing. It’s her choice, and it’s pretty obvious that you can’t satisfy her.”
The man doubled his fists and rushed Thomas, but he easily flung the angry husband to the ground.
Another man advanced and helped the burly man to his feet. “You’re not God’s servant, mister,” he said. “You’re doing the Devil’s work, and you must die for it!”
The others shouted their accord and converged on Thomas.
“Burn for it!” one yelled.
“Burn and go straight to hell, you bastard!”
Mortal Eclipse Page 28
