by Nora Roberts
“It's in the woods.”
“Where?”
“Over there.” She gestured vaguely. “Over the rocks and through the trees.”
Acres of rocks and trees. He took a deep breath to keep his voice even. “Annie, I need you to show me. Can you take me there?”
“Oh, no.” She got up, spry from panic. “No, indeedy, I don't go there now. It'll be dark. You can't go there at night when the monsters come.”
He took her hand to still the jingling bracelets. “Do you remember Clare Kimball?”
“She went away. Nobody knows where.”
“I think someone took her away, Annie. She didn't want to go. They may be taking her to that place tonight. They'll hurt her.”
“She's pretty.” Annie's lips began to tremble. “She came to visit.”
“Yes. She made this for you.” He turned the bracelet on her wrist. “Help me, Annie. Help Clare, and I swear to you I'll make the monsters go away.”
Ernie had been driving for hours. Away from town, in circles, out on the highway, and back on the rural roads. He knew his parents would be frantic, and he thought of them, for the first time in years, with real regret and need.
He knew what tonight would mean. It was a test, his last one. They wanted to initiate him quickly, finally, so that he would be bound to them by blood and fire and death. He'd thought of running away, but he had nowhere to go. There was only one path left for him. The path that led to a clearing in the woods.
It was his fault that Clare would die tonight. He knew it, had agonized over it. The teachings he had chosen to follow left no place for regret or guilt. They would wash him clean. He craved that, thought only of that as he turned his truck around and headed for his destiny.
Bud passed the Toyota, glanced at it absently, then remembered. Swearing under his breath, he turned around and reached for the radio.
“Unit One, this is Unit Three. Do you copy?” He got nothing but static and repeated the call twice. “Come on, Cam, pick up. It's Bud.”
Shit on a stick, he thought, the sheriff was off the air, and he was stuck following some kid in a truck. God knew where, God knew why. Annoyed or not, Bud followed procedure and kept a safe distance back.
It was dusk, and the taillights of the pickup gleamed palely red.
When the truck turned off the road, Bud pulled over and stopped. Where the hell was the kid going? he wondered. That old logging trail led straight into the woods, and the Toyota wasn't a four-wheel drive. Hell, the sheriff had said to see what the kid was up to, so that's what he'd have to do.
He decided to go on foot. There was only one road in and one road out. Grabbing the flashlight, he hesitated. The sheriff might say it was cowboying, Bud thought as he strapped on his gun. But with everything the way it was, he wasn't going into the woods unarmed.
When he reached the start of the logging trail, he saw the truck. Ernie stood beside it, as if waiting. Thinking it would be his first-time-ever genuine stakeout, Bud crept back and crouched low in a gully.
Both he and Ernie heard the footsteps at the same time. The boy stepped forward, toward the two men who came out of the woods. Bud nearly betrayed himself by calling out when he recognized Doc Crampton and Mick.
They hadn't bothered with masks, Ernie thought, and was pleased. He shook his head at the cup with drugged wine.
“I don't need that. I took the oath.”
After a moment Crampton nodded and sipped from the cup himself. “I prefer a heightened awareness.” He offered the cup to Mick. “It will ease that twinge. That chest wound's healing well enough, but it's deep.”
“Damn tentanus shot was almost as bad.” Mick shared the drug. “The others are waiting. It's nearly time.”
Bud stayed crouched until they had disappeared into the trees. He wasn't sure what he had seen. He didn't want to believe what he had seen. He glanced back toward the road, knowing how long it would take him to go back and try to contact Cam again. Even if he succeeded, he would lose them.
He crawled out of the gully and followed.
They'd taken her clothes. Clare was beyond embarrassment. She hadn't been drugged. Atherton had told her, privately, that he wanted her fully aware of everything that happened. She could scream and beg and plead. It would only excite the others.
She'd fought when they dragged her to the altar. Though her arms and legs were stiff and weak from disuse, she'd struggled wildly, almost as horrified to see the familiar faces surrounding her as to recognize what was happening.
Less Gladhill and Bob Meese tied down her arms, Skunk Haggerty and George Howard her legs. She recognized a local farmer, the manager of the bank, two members of the town council. They all stood quietly and waited.
She managed to twist her wrist so that her fingers gripped Bob's.
“You can't do this. He's going to kill me. Bob, you can't let it happen. I've known you all my life.”
He pulled away and said nothing.
They were not to speak to her. Not to think of her as a woman, as a person they knew. She was an offering. Nothing more.
Each, in his turn, took up his mask. And became her nightmare.
She didn't scream. There was no one to hear, no one to care. She didn't cry. So many tears had been shed already that she was empty. She imagined that when they plunged the knife into her, they would find no blood. Only dust.
The candles were placed around her, then lighted. In the pit, the fire was ignited, and fed. Shimmers of heat danced on the air. She watched it all, eerily, detached. Whatever hope she had clung to through the days and nights she had spent in the dark was snuffed out.
Or so she thought, until she saw Ernie.
The tears she hadn't thought she had now sprang to her eyes. She struggled again, and the ropes scraped harmlessly against her bandages.
“Ernie, for God's sake. Please.”
He looked at her. He'd thought he would feel lust, a raw and needy fire inside the pit of his belly. She was naked, as he'd once imagined her. Her body was slender and white, just as it had been when he'd caught glimpses of her through her bedroom window.
But it wasn't lust, and he couldn't bear to analyze the emotion that crawled through him. He turned away and chose the mask of an eagle. Tonight, he would fly.
However immature her mind, Annie's body was old. She couldn't go quickly, no matter how Cam urged, pleaded, and supported. Fear added to the weight of her legs so that she dragged her feet.
The light was fading fast.
“How much farther, Annie?”
“It's up ahead some. I didn't have my supper,” she reminded him.
“Soon. You can eat soon.”
She sighed and turned, as instinctively as a deer or rabbit, taking a path overgrown with summer brush.
“Gotta watch out for them sticky bushes. They reach right out and grab you.” Her eyes darted right and left as she searched the lengthening shadows. “Like monsters.”
“I won't let them hurt you.” He put an arm around her waist, both for support and to hurry her along.
Comforted, she trudged ahead. “Are you going to marry Clare?”
“Yes.” Please God. “Yes, I am.”
“She's pretty. When she smiles, she has nice white teeth. Her daddy did, too. She looks like her daddy. He gave me roses. But he's dead now.” Her lungs were starting to trouble her so that she wheezed when she walked, like a worn-out engine. “The monsters didn't get him.”
“No.”
“He fell out the window, after those men went up and yelled at him.”
He looked down but didn't slacken pace. “What men?”
“Was that another time? I disremember. He left the light on in the attic.”
“What men, Annie?”
“Oh, the sheriff and the young deputy. They went up and then came out again. And he was dead.”
He swiped sweat from his brow. “Which young deputy? Bud?”
“No, t'other one. Maybe they went up to buy a house.
Mr. Kimball, he used to sell houses.”
“Yes.” His skin turned icy beneath the sweat. “Annie, we have to hurry.”
Bud stood in the shelter of the trees and stared. He knew it was real, but his mind continued to reject it. Alice's father? How could it be? His friend and partner, Mick?
But he was seeing it with his own eyes. They were standing in a circle, their backs to him. He couldn't see what they were facing, and was afraid to try to move closer. It was best to wait and watch. That's what the sheriff would have him do.
He wiped a hand across his mouth as the chanting began.
It was like the dream. Clare closed her eyes and drifted between past and present. The smoke, the voices, the men. It was all the same.
She was in the bushes, hiding, watching herself. This time she would be able to run away.
She opened her eyes and stared up at the seamless black sky, crowned by a floating crescent moon. The longest day was over.
She saw the glint of a sword and braced. But it wasn't her time. Atherton was calling the Four Princes of Hell. She wished they would come, if there were such things, and devour him for his arrogance.
She turned her head away, unable to look, refusing to listen. She thought of Cam and the years they wouldn't share, the children they wouldn't make. He loved her, and now they would never have the chance to see if love was enough. To make it be enough.
He would find them. Stop them. She was sure of it, or she would have gone mad. But it would be too late for her. Too late to talk to her mother again, to make up for the coolness and distance she'd put between them. Too late to tell the people who mattered that her father had made mistakes, had taken wrong turns, but hadn't been a thief or a murderer.
There was so much she'd wanted to do. So much left to see and touch. But she would die like this for one man's ego and others′ blind cruelty.
The rage built up in her. They had stripped her naked, of clothes, of dignity, of hope. And of life. Her hands balled into fists. Her body arched as she screamed.
Bud's hand went to the butt of his gun and stuck there, trembling.
Cam's head reared up, and the fear that shot through his veins was hot and pulsing. “Stay here.” He shook off Annie's clinging hands. “Stay here. Don't move.” He had his weapon out as he raced through the trees.
Atherton raised his knife toward the sky. He'd wanted her to scream. He'd yearned for it, sweated, the way a man yearns and sweats for sexual release. It had infuriated him when she'd lain still, like a doll already broken. Now she writhed on the altar, skin gleaming with sweat, eyes full of fear and anger.
And the power filled him.
“I am annihilation,” he cried out. “I am vengeance. I call upon the Master to fill me with His wrath so that I might slash with keen delight His victim. Her agony will sustain itself.”
The words buzzed in Ernie's ears. He could barely hear them, could no longer understand them. The others swayed around him, captivated. Hungry for what was to come. It wasn't hunger that crawled through Ernie's gut, but a sickness.
It was supposed to make him feel good, he reminded himself. It was supposed to make him belong.
But he saw her, struggling, terrified. Screaming and screaming as Sarah Hewitt had screamed. It made him ill with pity. How could he belong if he felt such things? How could he be one of them when what they were about to do revolted him? Frightened him.
She shouldn't have to die.
His fault. His fault.
Her eyes met his once, pleading. In them, he saw his last hope for salvation. With a cry that was both pain and triumph, he lurched forward as Atherton brought the knife down.
Clare felt the body fall over hers. She smelled the blood. But there was no pain. She saw Atherton stumble back. Groaning, Ernie slid from her and crumpled on the ground.
Snarling in fury, Atherton raised the knife again. Two shots rang out. One caught him in the arm, the other full in the chest.
“Don't move.” Cam held his weapon firm, but his finger trembled on the trigger. “I'll send every fucking one of you to hell.”
“Sheriff—it's Bud.” Bud stepped forward, arms shaking. “I followed the kid. I saw—Christ, Cam, I killed a man.”
“It's easier the second time.” He fired into the air as one of the men turned to run. “Take another step, and I'll show my deputy here just how much easier it is. On your faces, all of you. Hands behind your heads. Bud, the first one of them that moves, kill him.”
Bud didn't believe it would be easier the second time. Not for a minute. But he nodded. “Yes, sir, Sheriff.”
Cam was with Clare in three strides, touching her face, her hair. “Oh, God, Slim, I thought I'd lost you.”
“I know. Your face.” In reflex she tried to reach out to him but was held down by the rope. “It's bleeding.”
“Briars.” He pulled out his pocket knife to cut the rope. He couldn't break down, not yet. All he wanted was to hold her, to bury his face in her hair and hold her.
“Take it easy,” he told her and stripped off his shirt. “Put this on.” His hand trembled as it stroked over her skin. “I'm going to get you out of here as soon as I can.”
“I'm okay. I'm okay now. Ernie. He saved my life.” And his blood was wet on her skin. “Is he dead?”
He bent down, checked for a pulse, then tore the ripped robe aside. “No, he's alive. He took most of it in the shoulder.”
“Cam, if he hadn't jumped over me …”
“He's going to be all right. Bud, let's get these bastards tied up.”
“One of them's Mick,” he murmured, shamed that he was fighting tears.
“Yeah. I know.” He tossed over the rope that had been used on Clare. “Let's get it done, then you take Clare back and call the state boys. Bring them here.”
“I want to stay with you.” She closed a hand around his arm. “I need to stay with you. Please.”
“Okay. Just go sit down.”
“Not here.” She looked away from the altar. “There's more rope over there.” Where they had stripped her. “I'll help you tie them.” Her eyes lifted, glittered. “I want to.”
* * *
Unmasked, bound, they looked pitiful. That was all Clare could think as she knelt beside Ernie, holding his hand and waiting for Bud to get back with the state police and an ambulance.
“I can't believe Annie brought you here.”
“She was terrific. She'll be getting quite a charge from riding with Bud with the siren going.” He glanced down at Ernie. “How's he doing?”
“I think I stopped the bleeding. He's going to need help, but he's going to be okay. I mean really okay.”
“I hope you're right.” He reached down to brush his fingers over her hair. Just to touch. “Clare, I have to check the other one.”
She nodded. “It's Atherton,” she said flatly. “He started it all.”
“Tonight, it's finished.” He walked around the altar. Atherton lay facedown. Without pity, Cam turned him over. The chest wound was mortal; he didn't doubt it. But breath still hissed out of the opening of the mask. When he heard Clare behind him, he rose quickly and turned to shield her from the body.
“Don't protect me, Cam.”
“You're not as strong as you think you are.” He lifted one of her hands and touched the bandaged wrist. “They hurt you.”
“Yes.” She thought of what she had learned, of how his father had died. “They hurt us all. Not anymore.”