One of the Friday the 13th movies was on. She flicked channels, coming to a Dracula movie, the Lon Chaney Werewolf, and then, on to the one of the offerings from the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
She changed the channel again—no good. Mike Myers was busy chasing the Jamie Lee Curtis character in one of the Halloween offerings.
"Surely, there's a cartoon channel!" she murmured aloud.
She found it. No good. A cartoon duck had been bitten by an evil, demon dog.
She looked for a rerun of the local eleven o'clock news.
There could be no horror movies on the news channel!
But in fact, the news was no better. The grisly remains of a girl who had been missing from Boston for several weeks had at last been discovered—washed up on a cold North Shore beach. The family had been notified, but the coroner, as yet, was not giving out any information as to the cause of death.
Detectives were dismayed at the condition of the body, because the sea-water, time, and elements would have destroyed so much evidence that might have been recovered.
She turned the channel again.
Another news channel. The dead girl's name had been Theresa Kavanaugh. Once again, the newscaster announced that the coroner's office had refused to speculate on cause of death until the autopsy had been performed.
She turned back to Lon Chaney's Werewolf.
There were the trees…
Mist rising.
She turned off the television. The bathroom door opened and Finn emerged in a cloud of steam, wrapped in a towel. His flesh seemed extremely bronzed against the white terry. Muscles rippled. Hair damp, freshly washed, slicked back. He barely glanced her way, still impatient with her, or more—
obviously still angry. He walked on by her, opening the drapes. Steam continued to waft from the bathroom.
Like the strange fog, it, too, seemed blue.
Finn, just wrapped in the towel, stood by the balcony doors, and opened them. He looked like Atlas standing there, naked back oddly evocative. She wanted to walk up and touch him, lean against him. She wasn't about to do so, not when it appeared that he would shake off her touch.
She walked into the shower herself.
That night, the dream was ever more vivid.
And incredibly … gratifying.
He was walking, walking walking. Striding… no, almost strutting with confidence. Almost floating on air. He could hear the chanting, see blurred imagines of those who were applauding him. More, worshiping him, bowing down before him as he came, leading him onward, though he knew where he was going. Instinct kept him moving. Excitement riddled his body, enhanced and increased by the chants, the cries, the applause, and the wonder. Women touched him as he moved, stroked him, eager to do anything, please him in any way. Whispers caressed his ears, tongues laved over him with hot liquid homage. They fell to the wayside, because there was only one he wanted, one worthy of all the power and wonder that was him.
He felt the bare earth beneath his feet, and even it enhanced the raw, elemental sense of rough, carnal pleasure that was enveloping him. All lay ahead… He was there…
Filled with strength, bursting with prowess, falling upon the sheer splendor of the perfection cast before him, his due. Taking what he would with ragged fury, knowing that all must fall down before him, that any decadence, any desire, must be met. He strained, blood pulsed through him with a bursting fury, his muscles tensed with power, the world, and anything he wanted, was his.
He soared higher, burning with that explosive power, none would deny him, for he was a god…
No!
He struggled inwardly. There was something very wrong… He was not a god; there was something that wasn't pleasure, that was pain. Beneath the chanting, there was a screaming, a protest. He heard his name being cried out.
"Finn, no Finn, no Finn…"
"Stop, stop, stop…"
What the hell was he doing? He had a greater strength than this, and there was a voice within him, telling him that it was so.
Never hurt…
Never hurt…
The lure, the enticement, of flesh and blood were powerful, surging a force that swept away archaic beliefs of right and wrong.
"No."
"Finn." His name. Her voice.
Drenched, sated, floating back to earth, with the chanting going on and on, he was stroked again and again, adored, and applauded…
Finn woke, groggy and miserable, only strange remnants of the dream remaining, a terrible headache plaguing him from the second he realized he was awake. He couldn't open his eyes, but rather ground them more tightly shut He groaned aloud and turned over, longing to draw Megan against him. He wanted to hold her, and tell her he was sorry, it was just that she had rather shattered his ego, being afraid of fog when he was with her, when he did love her so much, and would die to defend her.
She wasn't close. She was probably still angry. He moved his hand farther across the sheet. It was cold…
He opened his eyes. Megan wasn't there.
"Meg?"
He cast the sheets off, sliding his legs off the side of the bed and coming up. He had to sit again, his head pounded so fiercely.
He managed to rise and walk to the bathroom.
"Meg?"
She wasn't there. He walked back to the bed, holding his pounding temples.
At last, he looked around the room.
And then he realized.
Not only was Megan gone, but…
Her things… purse… makeup… clothing… luggage… all was gone.
His jaw dropped.
His wife had left him again.
Chapter 11
Her cell phone was ringing. It was Finn, and Megan knew it. She didn't answer.
She sat on Aunt Martha's porch, sipping tea Martha had made, special tea, guaranteed to soothe, she had been assured.
Martha was great.
She hadn't asked any questions, assuming that Megan would talk when she was ready. Naturally, she realized that Megan was upset. Beyond upset. Scared, dismayed, disconsolate, and still… what? Was she an idiot? She loved him so much; she didn't understand, couldn't understand, it was all too bizarre, strange.
The phone stopped ringing. The sound began again. Every strident note seemed to tear into her.
She didn't intend not to talk to him—just not yet.
Aunt Martha came out with her own cup of tea and sat quietly at Megan's side.
Megan glanced at her. "Whatever you do, please don't mention any of this to my parents."
"Dear, I can hardly mention anything to your parents because I wouldn't know what I was saying,"
Martha told her. "Besides, you know us. We're all family… but it's not as if we chat on a weekly basis or anything. Since your folks have been in Maine… it's Christmas cards, birthday cards, that kind of thing.
So don't worry."
"Thanks," Megan murmured.
"I'm sure you'll work things out," Martha said.
Megan remained silent. Martha commented on the fact that almost all the leaves had fallen. "Another winter. I don't know why I live here, sometimes," Martha said. "The cold can be so fierce up here!"
"Winter can be pretty, too," Megan murmured.
"Well, we're just chatting here, when you've much more serious things on your mind," Martha said. She cleared her throat. "Megan, you're welcome to stay here as long as you want, of course, and you know that. And I have no idea of what happened that brought you here, and I'm not asking; if and when you choose to tell me, you will. But let me just say that I think your young man loves you very much. And let's face it, you have some strange relatives here. I don't approve of Morwenna's 'religion' and you know it.
She and her coven can be downright, wicked weird! So if things are strained between you and Finn, you've got to admit that you might have thrown a lot at him, bringing him here."
"Aunt Martha, I didn't bring him here. The offer from Sam Tartan brought us both here. I didn't push it in the least. And if my relatives were Hindu, Buddhist, or something else not quite so well known in the States, anyone out there would have said that they had the right to worship however they pleased. I'm supposed to stay away from Morwenna and Joseph because their doctrine might be considered weird?"
"Of course not, dear! But to other people, Wiccans might be… There's so much that's suggestive here, that's all. Ghouls and goblins, Halloween nonsense! Then there's all that's real in history, the poor victims of the witchcraft craze, the beliefs in the devil and all that rot that went on. You are two nice sane young people with a grip on the world. You shouldn't be letting all this hogwash get to you!"
It was more or less what Mike had told her, Megan thought. But they didn't understand what was happening, and she didn't want to explain, because she wasn't sure that she was really seeing what she was seeing, that she could be seeing what she was seeing, or experiencing. And she didn't want to find out that she should be locked up herself, that she was half mad, so susceptible to suggestion that she was losing her mind.
And Finn, because of it.
But there was something happening with Finn. It seemed he was falling prey to the power of suggestion, though exactly what suggestion she didn't know. He had simply changed, and it was in the middle of the night, between the world of sleep and wakefulness, dreams and the conscious mind, that the changes took place. And she wasn't sure if they were her dreams, his dreams…
Or if it was real. If he became someone… something… else. A demon with red-glowing eyes, hands that forced rather than caressed, a touch that was cruel, rather than seductive.
Or had Andy Markham planted seeds within her mind that had made her waken to the belief that her husband was a monster? Was she the crazy one? All she knew for certain was that in what seemed like reality, she had wakened before the light had come, and had believed that she was living her nightmare of the first evening, that Finn was there, the threatened menace, ready to wind his fingers around her throat when he had used her up, and was ready to cast her aside. She had seen it in his eyes, when it seemed there was no green, only the burning reds and yellows of hell's own fires.