by Dean Koontz
"How are you feeling?" Michael asked, appearing suddenly before her and smiling as if they were still close, as if nothing untoward had past between them.
"You hit me."
"I truly do apologize for that," he said, the smile fading to be replaced by an expression of shame.
"I'm sure."
"But I am!" he said. "You see, I was so certain you would welcome the family, be enthusiastic about joining it. I was willing to accept a slight rejection. But a major denial got to me. Again, I apologize."
"You're insane."
He laughed again. "Why? because I believe in Satan? You really don't think that He will show up tonight, that He will rise out of the earth to dance with you."
"No. Not for a minute."
"But He will. And once He has, there will be no more misunderstandings between us."
She said nothing.
He stood up. "I have to begin the main part of the ceremony now. Are you comfortable enough?"
"Untie my hands."
"In a while," he said.
"When?"
"When the dance begins." He turned and walked away from her, took a position in a circle of crimson cloth which had been stretched out in the snow on the north side of the fire.
Katherine wondered if anyone in Owlsden could see the glow from the fire, then decided there was no hope of that. It was not only shielded by the trees on this side of the ski run and the trees on the other side, but by the dense sheets of snow as well. If they stood by the windows for an hour, they would be lucky to see even a spark. Michael had been careful to place this devil's dance farther away from Owlsden than the previous three had been.
Michael had begun to chant, his arms raised in a pleading gesture to the leaping flames before him, his toboggan hat off, his yellow hair lying wetly across his broad, handsome forehead.
The other cultists seemed absorbed in the crazy rituals, and Katherine wondered if it would be possible to rise up and edge carefully backwards into the shadows of the trees, out of the circle of the bonfire's glow. If she could slip out of their sight, she could go any of half a dozen different ways and, surely, lose them in the storm and the night. All she would need was a two minute head start, two minutes before they saw she was gone... But when she started to get cautiously to her feet, a hand grasped her shoulder from behind and pressed her back down.
"Don't move, please," a voice said behind.
She was under the eye of a guard.
After that, she could do little but watch Michael lead the cultists through their mad brand of worship. She made a genuine attempt to understand what he was saying, but she found the twisted, consonant-choked language he was using completely alien to her. It was not Latin, exactly, but something beyond Latin, something that sounded incredibly, incomprehensibly ancient.
At regular intervals, the women in the cult came forth, one at a time, carrying small black jars from which they spooned herbs and incense into their priest's hands, then stepped quickly out of his way, bowing at him like an oriental woman in the presence of her most respected elder male relative. Then Michael said lines of verse over the handfuls of herbs and tossed them into the center of the bonfire while the rest of the celebrants echoed a chorus or two of a rhyming song in that same old language.
Perhaps it was only her imagination, but Katherine thought that the fire, at times, bent, leaned towards Michael as if it were seeking the next batch of spices before he was ready to supply them. And when it consumed the herbs, it also seemed to expand as if pleased with the offering.
That was impossible.
She directed herself not to think like that any more, for she knew that she had no chance of escape if she once let herself be caught up in their fantasies.
She wriggled her hands together in the rope that bound them, but she could not feel any loose ends.
Uneasily, she wondered when the devil's dance would begin, and if anyone in Owlsden would notice her absence in time to come looking for her in the woods.
One of those questions was answered a moment later as the cultists began slowly to form into a train that circled and re-circled the bonfire, one stationed just a few feet behind the other.
Michael came to her and helped her to her feet.
"You can still let me go," she said. Her voice was weak, cracked with strain, the first indication she had given them that she was paralyzed with fear. She could remember, in all too gruesome detail, what they had done with the kitten in the barn, and she could not help but wonder if she were truly being initiated into the family or if she were being offered as their first human sacrifice.
He ignored her and said, "You will join the dance now. And when it is finished, you will be one of us, because you will have danced with Him, and you will want to be in the family."
"I won't dance," she said.
Gently, he pushed her forward, though she tried desperately to hold her ground.
"It will be a beautiful experience, Katherine," Michael said, touching her gently on the cheek with the tips of his ungloved fingers, as if he were testing the unblemished texture of her skin.
"No."
He shoved harder.
She stumbled forward, almost fell, regained her balance just as she was caught up in the ring of Believers, found herself moving along with them as they shrieked and moaned the odd litanies, though she was not able to maintain their neat rhythm.
She stopped and attempted to push through them toward the open space beyond the fire.
Abruptly, on either side of her, two cultists appeared, one woman and one man, both with a switch in hand. The switches were much like the one that Mrs. Coleridge, of the orphanage, had always been so quick to use: thin, long, dwindling at the tip, perhaps a stiffened willow lash or the younger shoot from a birch branch. They began to herd Katherine, swatting her repeatedly about the head and shoulders until she had no other choice but to continue around the fire with the worshipers.
"Help!" she shouted.
That was no good. Her throat was so dry, her energy levels so low, the noises of the chants and the storm so strong, that she could barely hear herself.
She struck out at the switch-bearers again and again, continually missed them.
The pace of the dance seemed to be picking up, as did the choppy rhythm of the religious chants. She was moving faster herself, her face and neck stung by the thin, hard, relentless reed whips; the bright fire whirled by on the lefthand, showering sparks up like bright ephemeral butterflies while the dark, black-brown-green forest passed in a jumble of stark impressions off to her right.
"Move!" the male herder said.
"Faster!" the woman said.
She was not so terrified as she had been at the start, for she was swiftly growing too weary for terror. Her arms felt like lead weights, while her legs seemed too insubstantial too support her at all. She barely had the energy to stay on her feet, after her battle with the wind and the snow when she had fought her way from Owlsden to the head of the ski run to keep her rendezvous with Michael Harrison. Too, she had the strong feeling that none of this could actually be transpiring, that it was all much too silly and childish to be real. A dream. A nightmare. And with that notion hovering at the back of her mind, the terror was cut even further until there was nothing at all to occupy her mind but the plodding steps of the dance. If she danced, if she cooperated and moved forward around the fire, then it would all be over sooner than it otherwise might, and she could go home and rest... and wake up from the dream...
"Move!"
"Faster!"
The chants were manic now, pitched in higher voices, the words coming so fast they tumbled over one another.
Then she saw something so incredible at the perimeter of the dancing circle that it shattered her mental lethargy in the instant and filled her with the energy of pure, unrelieved horror. Her heart speeded, and her throat constricted in the initial puckering of a scream.
"Faster!"
"Move!"
; The flames danced along with the worshipers, rising and falling in their rhythm, surged higher and suddenly changed color: blue.
The thing that prowled beyond the dancing circle now kept pace with Katherine, with no other dancer but her, its fierce red eyes fixed upon her face. Its stare was obsessive, cold and patently evil. She did not want to think about it, to acknowledge it, but she had no choice in the matter. It was a wolf...
No, not a wolf, she told herself as it padded along beside her, not a dozen feet away. Just a dog.
The switches came down harder than ever.
"Faster!"
Just a dog.
She passed Michael. He was not dancing, but he was chanting even louder than the others, holding a book in his open hands as if he were a minister with the Bible. She was sure, whatever the nature of the tone, it was not the Bible.
"Move!"
The wolf seemed to be grinning at her. Its jaws gaped, revealing rows of huge, white teeth, the red maw beyond them, the lolling tongue. It was clearly a wolf, not a dog, and one of the largest wolves that she had ever seen, nearly as large as a man, with shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of a rider.
Now, that was an insane thought. Who would want to ride a wolf?
The fire changed color once again, crackling loudly as some chemical was tossed into it: green...
A nightmare, nothing more, had to be.
The wolf raised up onto its hind paws for a brief moment, quite as if it were attempting to stand like a man, and then it fell back, unable to perform the feat
Somewhere close at hand, something made a strange, low rumbling noise. When Katherine tried to locate it and understand it, she realized that she was listening to the scream that had been trapped in her throat but which was now issuing from her as an agonizingly hoarse moan.
Fire: orange.
"Move!"
She tripped, did not fall, wished that she had fallen, found herself moving forward again. Her body obeyed the thumping drive of the chants as if she had been entranced and had no control over herself.
The wolf tried to leap onto its hind feet again, failed again, dropped onto all fours.
It watched her.
She could sense an approaching end to the ceremony, and she did not want to face the ultimate moment. It couldn't happen, of course. The wolf was only a wolf, not a manifestation of a demon. Still, she did not want to reach the point of the ceremony.
The wolf tried to stand a third time. This time, it actually achieved its purpose, whirled about with the music of the worshipers' voices, leaping clumsily forward on its hind feet, watching her intently, watching...
She tried to mutter a prayer, but she could not get the words out-as if something were preventing her from praying.
The wolf howled and-
Everything came to a sudden, unexpected halt as a shotgun blast exploded in the trees and echoed deafeningly through the thick trunks of the pine trees. The moment the echo died sufficiently for him to be heard, Alex Boland shouted: "Don't move!"
CHAPTER 18
The fire continued to burn, though it did not leap quite so high or sputter nearly as bright as before, providing a properly eerie, flickering orange-yellow illumination for the final act of this unconventional drama. In its soft glow, the cultists stood with their hands at their sides, their faces slack, shoulders stooped forward as if they were weighted down with burdens that no one but themselves could see. They were physically exhausted from the long dance, emotionally exhausted by the frenzy that had so completely possessed them, and mentally disconcerted by the abrupt termination of the ritual which they had intellectually anticipated would reach a satisfying conclusion. Not a one of them made a move toward Alex where he stood directly behind Michael with a two-barrel shotgun slung across his arm and his finger on the trigger. It was not so much that they were afraid of him or of the gun, but more as if they did not even believe he was there. They had not caught up with the present, not mentally and emotionally, and they were still several minutes in the past, living through the colored flames, the heat that poured from the bonfire, the chants, the dance, the wolf...
The wolf.
Katherine looked quickly around, stepped to the right to peer beyond the flames, but she could not see the wolf anywhere. Had it really been there in the first place, she wondered, or had it been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, generated by her fatigue?
"Are you all right, Katherine?" Alex asked.
She nodded.
Apparently, Alex did not see the slight movement of her head, for he asked the same question again, his voice much more strained than it had been the first time. "Katherine, are you feeling all right?"
"Yes," she said.
She knew that she should walk over there and stand beside Alex, but she did not have the energy right now. Besides, she was depressed at the prospect of having nowhere else to turn except to the pessimistic, always-brooding Boland boy. What had happened to the world these last few days? What had happened to the happy people she had always found wherever she went?
"You weren't asked here," Michael said, slowly turning to face Alex who stood only a couple of feet away from him.
"Was she?" Alex asked, indicating Katherine with an abrupt nod of his head.
"Yes."
"In full knowledge of what was going to happen here?" Alex asked, clearly disbelieving.
"In full knowledge," Michael said. He turned to face Katherine and smiled. His eyes were bright blue again, his face in an easy pose, his smile broad and winning. But in his eyes still, no longer shielded from her, was that fanatic gleam. "Isn't that so, Katherine? Didn't you come here to join the family?"
"No," she said.
"Katherine, you knew all along that-"
"You're lying, Michael," Katherine said.
He took a step towards her.
"Stop right there," Alex said.
Michael stopped.
When Katherine spoke again, her voice sounded faint, very distant and weary, almost as if it were someone else's voice issuing from her throat. "I know that you're lying, and Alex knows it. It can't do you any good now."
"I am not lying!" He spoke slowly, enunciating each word with care, clearly on the brink of complete insanity. His plans had been brought down around his shoulders, his schemes demolished in one penultimate moment, and he could not cope.
"Yes," Katherine said gently, as if she were talking to a child. "Yes, Michael, you are."
His face suddenly twisted into the ugly lines that she had seen earlier in the evening, during the ceremony. He turned to look at Alex and then began to shout at him. Unexpectedly, he tossed the Satanic bible into Alex's face and simultaneously dived forward.
"Alex, look out!" Katherine shouted, too late to warn him.
Alex went down as Harrison twisted his legs out from under him, struck the ground hard, his head bouncing on the needle-carpeted, snow-sifted turf. The shotgun angled crazily upwards as it went off the second time; the shot pellets tore through the low branches with a crackling noise like crumpled cellophane, and a shower of pine needles fell down on the grappling men.
Katherine looked around the bonfire at the other cultists, wondering how long it would take them to realize that they could rush the struggling pair, separate them and quickly subdue Alex. He would not have a chance against nearly a dozen of them. For the moment, however, the cultists seemed mesmerized by the battle between the two men, their arms still limp at their sides, their faces oddly colored by the dwindling fire, their breaths beginning to make smoke rings on the swiftly chilling winter air.
She looked around for a club, an unburned log or something pointed that would do as a weapon, but she could not see anything that might help her.
Alex had rolled, carrying himself atop Michael Harrison, and was trying to get his hands around the larger man's throat. Harrison's neck scarf, however, was a perfect shield against strangulation. In a moment, Harrison had turned the tables again, kicking up, thro
wing Alex sideways and coming down hard atop him again.
Katherine took a step toward them, realized she would only get in Alex's way and hinder him.
She looked back at the cultists. They did not move, but how long would they refrain from taking part in it?
Michael struck Alex full in the face with his fist, reared back and struck again.
For a moment, it seemed as if Alex sagged into unconsciousness, but then he screeched inhumanly and heaved up, freed his hands which had been pinned under Harrison's weight, and tore at the man's scarf, found the ends of it and began to pull them in opposite directions.
Almost strangled, Michael Harrison yelped sickly and reared back, tearing loose of Alex's grip and rocking onto his feet. He turned, bent to the ground and came up with the unloaded shotgun, reversing it in his hands so that he held the end of the long barrel and could use the heavy stock as a club. As he raised it, preparatory to striking down at Alex's head, another shot slammed through the dense woods like a mallet against a block of iron-a rifle shot this time, not the louder boom of a shotgun.
Michael froze with the gun raised in the air and looked beyond Alex at the woods. Two other men had stepped out of hiding, training loaded weapons on him.
The first was Alton Harle.
The second was Leo Franks.
"That's enough," Harle said to Michael. "Drop the gun to your side, please, without making any quick moves."
Michael still held the gun, disbelieving.
"Drop it," Franks said.
Finally, he did.
"You all right, Alex?"
Alex got to his feet, shook his head and wiped absentmindedly at the blood that trickled out of his nose. "Okay, I guess."
"Better get the shotgun."
"Right." Michael made no move to harm him as he bent and picked it up, brushed the snow from it and slung it under his arm,
"And you better join us, Katherine," Harle said.
Numb, Katherine walked across the clearing and stood next to Alex. She felt him put his arm around her waist to help support her, and she realized that she must look as exhausted as she felt. She leaned against him, looked up at him and smiled, though she could not be sure if the smile was more of a grimace than intended. She said, "Thank you." In the face of all that he had just been through, most of it on her account, that seemed like a painfully inadequate response. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of anything else to say.
