She was what lay ahead. She would be waiting for him. He felt the whisper of reassurance in his ears; yes, Megan was the prize.
The seduction began anew… yes, yes, oh, yes, just keep moving forward, just keep feeling the soft fingers, moving so fluidly against him…
Then…
Finn screamed himself, for in the midst of his growing, erotic pleasure, the soft cool feel of fog and feathery fingers against his bare flesh, he suddenly felt as if he had been immersed in a tidal wave of fire.
He jerked up.
He hadn't been doused in fire.
Rather, water. He was drenched, from head to toe. It was dripping into his eyes.
He was still in the church, stretched out on the floor before the altar, and both Lucian DeVeau and the priest, Mario Brindisi, were bent over him.
Thank God!
Because he knew now that…
It would be Megan, but not Megan. Megan until the hurt began, and then…
It made no sense, but he knew. He wasn't being lured to his wife. They were both meant to somehow pay.
"You've brought him back, Father," Lucian said.
The priest nodded, not proud of his achievement, but relieved.
Finn scrambled to his feet, nearly knocking over the two men who had hunkered before him. He stared at them with wild eyes.
"I think they have her," he said sickly.
Lucian stared at him, frowning. As he did so, his cell phone began to ring. Still staring at Finn, he answered curtly into the phone, "Yes?"
He listened, then said, "We're on our way now. I have the items from the church; make sure you have what you need from the spell shop."
"Son, you need the Word of God," Father Brindisi said, looking white and pinched.
"Father, these people have taken their spells and incantations from both the old pagan religions, and from the church. And so we will need both as well to fight them."
"God first!" Brindisi said.
Lucian stared at him.
"Oh, hell!" the priest swore. "I'm coming with you!"
"Where is she? Could you see her?" Lucian demanded of Finn.
"She's in the woods."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"There are woods all over New England!" Lucian exclaimed.
"You're the vampire—you're supposed to know. You're supposed to read minds—"
"We're up against a demon," Lucian said levelly. "A creature well versed in slipping into thoughts and the conscious and subconscious. Think! You were with him, or he was with you; Bac-Dal was in your mind.
Where?"
Finn stared back at him, so tense he thought that his bones would shatter. "I don't know!" he grated out.
Then, "But I think I know who might."
Lucian stared back at him. "Smith—Mike Smith. The curator at the new museum?"
"Megan was confiding in him, I'm certain. And… he knows this area like the back of his hand. I personally think he's a smarmy asshole… and I'm going after him."
Fist clenched at his sides, Finn went striding out of the church.
Megan kept screaming. It was above her. The statue of the horned being. And it was still just marble and stone, but now…
The eyes moved. She was certain. The face had a life of its own. It was leering at her, laughing at her. It had been set at the end of the altar where she had been tied, and she could feel it reaching for her. The stone hands, or hooves, did not move, but she could feel. It teased, it invaded her indecently, it suggested everything that was evil, as if it ravaged hex intimately, touched with its eyes alone…
And when she had first opened her eyes…
The face that had seemed so alive had been a parody of Finn's own.
The museum had closed.
By then, the trick-or-treaters were all over the streets. Little witches, ghosts, goblins, movie stars and rock stars, princesses and more, ran about the streets, laughing, shrieking, crying out.
But as Finn paused in front of the museum building, raging against his impotence, he saw Mike Smith.
The man was hurrying away down the street.
At a distance, with all the kids between them, he suddenly looked up. He saw Finn.
And he started to run.
Finn, with Lucian at his heels, tore after Mike, finding a lung-bursting speed unlike any he had ever known in life before. Smith had a good lead on him.
But not enough.
Finn tackled Smith with the skill of one of the finest line blockers ever to grace NFL history. Smith went down. Finn straddled him.
"Where? Where is Megan?"
"What the hell are you talking about? I tried to get her to safety. Some other asshole swept her away from me. What are you, a fool? I'd never hurt her, never in—"
"Where the hell is she?"
"I don't know! Don't you get it! I did see her after the fire. I tried to get her away. But there was someone else there—"
"Tell me!" Finn raged. He was about to set his hands around Mike Smith's throat, but Lucian set a hand on his shoulder, drawing him to his feet.
"Finn!"
Finn let out a breath. Lucian drew him up, then reached down to bring Smith up to his feet as well.
"Megan has talked to you. What we need to know is if there is anything she might have said about her dreams, or any of the strange things that have gone on."
"Now!" Finn grated.
"While we're walking. We've got to get back to the others," Lucian said. "Come on—I've already got the priest headed for the car."
He pushed Mike ahead of him, eyeing Finn. "Half strangling him isn't going to help right now. We have to find out where they are and then—"
"We need the police," Finn said.
Lucian shook his head. "The police can't help us now. What we need is to find out where we're going—
and then each one of us needs to play his or her part."
"Part—in what?"
"Our counter against the Black Mass," Lucian said.
It was just a stone statue. The image of Finn faded, and Megan saw that the statue had been set at the end of the altar, as if it would come down on top of her any minute.
Her scream, however, had brought someone running. A face popped above hers.
That of Gayle Sawyer. "Ah, Megan! You're awake. How nice of you to join us."
She wasn't surprised to see the girl. She wondered if Mike, too, was in on this.
All the little piercing points on Gayle's face and ears had been filled in. She wore little silver upside down pentagrams, rams' heads, and horned gods, all about her face.
Megan pulled instinctively against the ropes binding her to the altar. Gayle saw her efforts and smiled.
"They're good and tight. Our priest knows how to tie knots."
Megan was terrified, so much so that she was afraid she'd black out again. It wouldn't help her any.
Neither would fighting with Gayle, but she thought that anger might sustain her until…
Until she died, or help came.
"You know, you're going to prison. And some biker woman who killed her husband and five other jocks is going to rip your face to pieces."
Gayle laughed. "I'm not going to prison. Once Bac-Dal has returned, his power will keep us all safe."
"So, you think that Bac-Dal will return. You don't know what you're up against."
"Those ghost busters from Louisiana? Don't be ridiculous. Sure, they've had some success, but we didn't send anyone against them who wasn't entirely expendable."
"You will be dead, or you will go to prison," Megan repeated.
"Nope!" Gayle said cheerfully. "Nope, I won't."
She walked down to the end of the altar. Megan could barely raise her head, but she did. She was covered in something of an altar cloth, a huge piece of fabric with the inverted pentagram embroidered on it. The statue was at the end, and before it, a knife. Sharp, with a curved blade. A sacrificial knife.
Gayle picked it up and smiled at Megan. She took two slow steps back to Megan's head. Laughing, she put the blade against Megan's throat, teasing it along her jawline. For a few moments, Megan couldn't help but feel the chill of fear. Then she smiled grimly. "You are such a child, Gayle. You know that you can't mar me in any way. I won't be the sacrifice that your Bac-Dal demands if you cut me."
Gayle instantly pouted, her eyes growing dark, and Megan knew that she had hit upon the truth, but it gave her little comfort.
"You're not the sacrifice, you silly twit!" Gayle told her.
Megan held still, staring at her.
"You're not to cut me, and you know it," she said, pretending she understood far more than she did.
"All right, so you won't be cut. But you'll die in pain anyway! When midnight strikes, and the priestess sheds her old skin to take on yours, the agony you'll feel will outweigh any little prick of the knife!"
Megan blinked rapidly, trying to hide the fact that she hadn't the least idea of what Gayle was talking about. But Gayle smiled. "Ah! Clever girl. You didn't really get it at all, did you? It's been so much fun, watching you and Finn. You've been so mistrustful of him. Shame, shame. That's no way to have a marriage! But admit it… hasn't it been great? The demon has gotten into his soul now and then, and I'll bet he's been a fantastic lover. Down and dirty, huh? What a pity. When he's truly come into being, he'll no longer be Finn, and you'll no longer be Megan. So you'll never get to know what it's really like, but…
think of it this way. You've had a hell of run of it, the life that you've led. And you should feel privileged, you know. Your bodies will go on—I imagine that as Bac-Dal and his priestess, you'll dress better."
Gayle laughed delightedly at her own joke.
As she laughed, someone came to her side, and slipped around Gayle's back, grinned down at her as well. "Peek-a-boo! Ah, Megan, you don't look so famous now, you know," Sara said. "You look…