by Nora Roberts
decided on the spot. “I would like to see Clyde's.”
“Great.” Clare lifted her bottle in an absent toast. “You'll love it. Really. It's the perfect American rural town. Nothing ever happens in Emmitsboro.”
A thin spring drizzle was falling, muddying the earth in the circle. There was no fire in the pit, only the cold ash of wood and bone. Lanterns took the place of candles. Clouds choked the moon and smothered the stars.
But the decision had been made, and they would not wait. Tonight there were only five cloaked figures. The old guard. This meeting, this ritual, was secret to all but these chosen few.
“Christ, it's shitty out here tonight.” Biff Stokey cupped his beefy hand around his cigarette to protect it from the rain. Tonight there were no drugs, no candles, no chanting, no prostitute. In the twenty years he had been a member of the coven, he had come to depend on, and require, the ritual as much as the fringe benefits.
But tonight, instead of an altar, there was only an empty slab and an inverted cross. Tonight, his companions seemed edgy and watchful. No one spoke as the rain pelted down.
“What the hell's this all about?” he demanded of no one in particular. “This isn't our usual night.”
“There is business to tend to.” The leader stepped out of the group, into the center, and turned toward them. The eyes of his mask looked dark and empty. Twin pits of hell. He lifted his arms, his long fingers splayed. “We are the few. We are the first. In our hands the power shines brighter. Our Master has given us the great gift to bring others to Him, to show them His glory.”
Like a statue he stood, an eerie mirror image of Clare's nightmare sculpture. Body bent, head lifted, arms outstretched. Behind his mask, his eyes gleamed with anticipation, with appreciation of the power he held that the others would never understand.
They had come, like well-trained dogs, at his call. They would act, as mindless as sheep, at his command. And if one or two had a portion remaining of what some might call conscience, the thirst for power would overcome it.
“Our Master is displeased. His fangs drip with vengeance. Betrayed by one of His children, by one of His chosen. The Law is defiled, and we will avenge it. Tonight, there is death.”
When he lowered his hands, one of the cloaked figures brought a baseball bat from beneath his robes. Even as Biff opened his mouth in surprise, it cracked over his skull.
When he regained consciousness, he was tied to the altar, and naked. The drizzling rain soaked and chilled his skin. But that was nothing, nothing compared to the frozen fear that squeezed his heart.
They stood around him, one at the feet, one at the head, one on each side at the hip. Four men he had known most of his life. Their eyes were the eyes of strangers. And he knew what they saw was death.
The fire had been lit, and rain splattered and sizzled on the logs. The sound was like meat frying.
“No!” He squirmed, straining his arms and legs as he writhed on the smooth slab. “Jesus Christ, no!” In his panic he called on the deity he had spent twenty years defiling. His mouth was filled with the taste of fear and the blood from where his teeth had sawed into his tongue. “You can't. You can't. I took the oath.”
The leader looked down at Biff's scarred left testicle. The sign would have to be…erased. “You are no longer one of the few. You have broken the oath. You have broken the Law.”
“Never. I never broke the Law.” The rope cut into his wrists as he strained. First blood stained the wood.
“We do not show our fangs in anger. That is the Law.”
“That is the Law,” the others chanted.
“I was drunk.” His chest heaved as he began to weep, the thin, bitter tears of terror. There were faces he knew, shadowed by the hoods, hidden by masks. His eyes darted from one to the other, panicked and pleading. “Fucking Christ, I was drunk.”
“You have defiled the Law,” the leader repeated. His voice held no mercy and no passion-though the passion was rising in him, a black, boiling sea. “You have shown that you cannot hold to it. You are weak, and the weak shall be smote by the strong.” The bell was rung. Over Biff's sobs and curses, the leader lifted his voice.
“O, Lord of the Dark Flame, give us power.”
“Power for Your glory,” the others chanted.
“O, Lord of the Ages, give us strength.”
“Strength for Your Law.”
“In nomine Dei nostri Santanas Luciferi excelsi!”
“Ave, Satan.”
He lifted a silver cup. “This is the wine of bitterness. I drink in despair for our lost brother.”
He drank long and deep, pouring the wine through the gaping mouth hole of the mask. He set the cup aside, but still he thirsted. For blood.
“For he has been tried, and he has been judged, and he has been condemned.”
“I'll kill you,” Biff shouted, tearing flesh as he struggled against his bonds. “I'll kill you all. Please, God, don't do this.”
“The die is cast. There is no mercy in the heart of the Prince of Hell. In His name I command the Dark Forces to bestow their infernal power upon me. By all the Gods of the Pit, I command that this thing I desire shall come to pass.
“Hear the names.
“Baphomet, Loki, Hecate, Beelzebub.
“We are Your children.”
Blubbering with fear, Biff screamed, cursing them in turn, begging, threatening. The priest let Biff's terror fill him as he continued.
“The voices of my wrath smash the stillness. My vengeance is absolute. I am annihilation. I am revenge. I am infernal justice. I call upon the children of the Dark Lord to slash with grim delight our fallen brother. He has betrayed, and his shrieks of agony, his battered corpse shall serve as warning to those who would stray from the Law.”
He paused, and behind his mask, he was smiling.
“Oh, brothers of the night, those who would ride upon the hot breath of Hell, begin.”
As the first blow shattered his kneecap, Biff's scream tore through the air. They beat him mechanically. And if there was regret, it did not outweigh the need. It could not outweigh the Law.
The priest stood back, his arms lifted as he watched the slaughter. Twice before he had ordered the death of one of the brotherhood. And twice before the quick and merciless act had smothered the flickering flames of insurrection. He was well aware that some were discontented at the coven's veering away from its purer origins. Just as there were some who thirsted for more blood, more sex, more depravity.
Such things had happened before and were expected.
It was up to him to see that his children walked the line he'd created. It was up to him to be certain that those who didn't paid the price.
Biff screamed again, and the priest's pleasure soared.
They would not kill him quickly. It was not the way. With each nauseating crack of wood against bone, the priest's blood swam faster, hotter. The screaming continued, a high, keening, scarcely human sound.
A fool, the priest thought as his loins throbbed. The death of a fool was often a waste-if one discounted the sweetness of the kill. But this death would serve to warn the others of the full wrath. His wrath. For he had long ago come to understand that it was not Satan who ruled here, but himself.
He was the power.
The glory of the death was his.
The pleasure of the kill was his.
As the screaming faded to a wet, gurgling whimper, he stepped forward. Taking up the fourth bat, he stood over Biff. He saw that beyond the milky glaze of pain in his victim's anguished eyes, there was still fear. Even better, there was still hope.
“Please.” Blood ran from Biff's mouth, choking him. He tried to lift a hand, but his fingers were as useless as broken twigs. He was beyond pain now, impaled on a jagged threshold no man was meant to endure. “Please don't kill me. I took the oath. I took the oath.”
The priest merely watched him, knowing this moment, this triumph, was almost at an end. “He is the Judge. He i
s the Ruler. What we have done, we have done in His name.” His eyes glittered down at Biff's face, still unmarked. “He who dies tonight will be thrown into torture, into misery. Into the void.”
Biff's vision hazed and cleared, hazed and cleared. Blood dribbled from his mouth with each shallow breath. There would be no more screaming. He knew he was dead, and the prayers that raced through his numbed mind were mixed with incantations. To Christ. To Lucifer.
He coughed once, violently, and nearly passed out.
“I'll see you in hell,” he managed.
The priest leaned over close, so that only Biff could hear. “This is hell.” With shuddering delight, he delivered the coup de grace. His seed spilled hot on the ground.
While they burned the bats in the sacred pits, blood soaked into the muddy earth.
Chapter 8
CAM STOOD BY the fence bordering the east end of Matthew Dopper's cornfield. Dopper, his cap pulled down to shade his face and a chaw swelling his cheek, stayed on the tractor and kept it idling. Its motor putted smoothly, thanks to his oldest son, who preferred diddling with engines to plowing fields.
His plaid shirt was already streaked with sweat, though it was barely ten. Two fingers of his left hand were shaved off at the first knuckle, the result of a tangle with a combine. The impairment didn't affect his farming or his bowling average in his Wednesday night league. It had instilled a cautious respect for machinery.
The whites of his eyes were permanently red-streaked from fifty-odd years of wind and hay dust. He had a stubborn, closed-in look on his lined hangdog face.
He'd been born on the farm and had taken it over when his old man finally kicked off. Since his brother, the unlucky Junior, had blasted himself to hell in the adjoining woods, Matthew Dopper had inherited every sonofabitching stone on the eighty-five-acre farm. He'd lived there, worked there, and would die there. He didn't need Cameron Rafferty to come flashing his badge and telling him how to handle his business.
“Matt, it's the third complaint this month.”
In answer, Dopper spat over the side of the tractor. “Them goddamn flatlanders move in, planting their goddamn houses on Hawbaker land, then they try to push me out. I ain't budging. This here's my land.”
Cam set a boot on the bottom rung of the fence and prayed for patience. The ripe scent of fertilizer was making his nostrils quiver. “Nobody's trying to run you out, Matt. You've just got to chain up those dogs.”
“Been dogs on this farm for a hundred years.” He spat again. “Never been chained.”
“Things change.” Cam looked out over the field to where he could see the boxy modular homes in the distance. Once there had been only fields, meadows, pastures. If you'd driven by at dawn or at dusk, like as not you'd have seen deer grazing. Now people were putting up satellite dishes and planting ceramic deer in their front yards.
Was it any wonder his sympathies were with Matt? he thought. But sympathies aside, he had a job to do.
“Your dogs aren't staying on the farm, Matt. That's the problem.”
Matt grinned. “They always liked to shit on Hawbaker land.”
Cam couldn't help but smile back. There had been a running feud between the Doppers and the Hawbakers for three generations. It had kept them all happy. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned companionably on the fence.
“I miss seeing old man Hawbaker riding his hay baler.”
Dopper pursed his lips. The fact was, he missed Haw-baker, too. Deeply. “I reckon he did what he thought he had to do. And made a pretty profit.” He took out a dingy bandanna and blew his nose heartily. “But I'm staying put. As long as I'm breathing, I'm farming.”
“I used to sneak over here and steal your corn.”
“I know.” The resentment faded a bit as Dopper remembered. “I grow the best Silver Queen in the county. Always did, always will.”
“Can't argue with that. We'd camp out in the woods over there and roast it over the fire.” He grinned up at Matt as he remembered the taste, sweet as sugar. “We thought we were putting one over on you.”
“I know what goes on on my land.” He adjusted his cap. For a moment, the eyes that shifted to the far, deep woods were wary. “Never minded you pinching a few ears. ′Round here we take care of our own.”
“I'll remember that come July.” He sighed a little. “Listen, Matt, there are kids over in the development. Lots of kids. Your three German shepherds are big bastards.”
Dopper's jaw set again. “Ain't never bit nobody.”
“Not yet.” Cam blew out a breath. He knew he could bring up the county leash law until his tongue fell off. Nobody paid much attention to it. But as much as he felt empathy with Dopper, he wouldn't risk having one of the dogs turn and bite some kid. “Matt, I know you don't want anyone hurt.” He held up a hand before Matt could protest. “I know, they're regular lapdogs. With you, maybe. But nobody can predict how they might react to strangers. If anything happens, your dogs go down, and your ass gets sued. Make it easy on everybody. Chain them up, build them a run, fence in part of your yard.”
Dopper squinted at Cam, then spat. He had reasons for owning three big dogs. Good reasons. A man needed to protect himself and his family from …His gaze drifted toward the woods again, then away. From whatever they needed protection against.
He didn't like compromises. But he knew if he didn't make one, some snotty pissant from the ASPCA was going to come nosing around. Or some asshole flatlander was going to take him to court. He couldn't afford any shit-hole lawyer's fees.
“I'll think about it.”
In six weeks of trying, it was the closest Cam had nudged him to an agreement. He smoked in silence as he measured the man on the tractor. The dogs would be chained, he thought, because old Matt wouldn't risk them, or his farm.
“How's the family?” Cam asked, wanting to end the interview on a friendly note.
“Good enough.” Dopper relaxed in turn. “Sue Ellen done divorced that worthless car salesman she married.” He grinned at Cam. “You missed the boat with her first time around. Might be she'd take a look at you now that you got some money and a steady job.”
Unoffended, Cam grinned back. “How many kids does she have now?”
“Four. Fucker knocked her up every time she sneezed. Got herself a job, though. Clerking up to JC Penney's at that sonofabitching shopping center. Nancy's watching the youngest.” He glanced in the direction of the house, where his wife was busy with their youngest grandchild.
He talked for a few minutes more, about his oldest boy, who should have been back from the feed and grain an hour ago, and his youngest, who was in college.
“Imagine that boy figuring he had to go to school to learn how to farm.” Dopper spat again contemplatively. “Guess things do change, whether you want them to or not. Got to get back to work.”
“They got chains in the hardware,” Cam said and pitched his cigarette. “Be seeing you, Matt.”
Dopper watched him walk back toward his car, then shifted his gaze toward the huddle of houses in the distance. Fucking flatlanders, he thought, and revved up his tractor.
Cam turned his car around, spewing up dust and gravel. He drove by the edge of Dopper's Woods, where the leaves were thick and green. A part of his mind swung back to childhood, to adolescence.
He could see himself, a bundle of Dopper's corn in his arms, a couple of beer bottles clanging in the sack along with a pack of Marlboros and wooden matches. He might have been alone, running off to lick the wounds his stepfather so gleefully handed out. Or he might have been with Blair Kimball, Bud Hewitt, Jesse Hawbaker, or one of the others he'd hung out with during those long gone days.
They would have sat by the fire, with the smell of roasting corn and hot dogs, guzzling beer, lying about girls, telling Junior Dopper stories designed to make the skin crawl.
Funny how often they'd gone there, even though the hairs on the back of their necks stood up. Probably because of it, he thought. It had been their place, haun
ted and eerie.
And sometimes, they had been sure that something walked through those deep and silent woods with them.
The involuntary shudder had him chuckling to himself. Some things don't change, he thought, grinning. Junior Dopper's faceless ghost could still bring a chill to the base of the spine.
He swung away from the woods, deciding to run by the development and assure the latest angry resident that Matt Dopper's dogs would be chained. The car purred up the slope, around the winding curves, making him think of his recent bike ride with Clare.
It had been fun, easy, an unexpected taste of childhood. Sitting with her by the stream, lazily talking, had been a homecoming.
Kissing her hadn't been like coming home at all. It hadn't been