by Mia Sheridan
Vicky was weeping quietly now, her head hung. “Come, dear,” she said to Scarlett. “Let us leave Vicky to her grief. I’ll come back and drive her home after we’ve made the call. I believe it’s best that we do not contact the sheriff.” Her face registered conflict. She knew he was part of the guild. She knew he was corrupt.
Scarlett pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “We can use my phone.”
“I’m afraid the church doesn’t have wireless service,” she said, a sad smile coming over her face. “Oh, we’re desperately out of touch, aren’t we?” She sighed. “I have the number for the state police in my office. We can call from there. You must tell the police what you know about your friend. Perhaps a DNA test . . .” She frowned. “Oh, dear, it’s going to hurt so many people.” Still, she turned and began moving toward the door. Scarlett stood, following. She appreciated that the old woman was going to do the right thing, despite that she had played a part in the town’s corruption. At the very least, she’d aided and abetted with her silence alone. Despite her words, and despite Scarlett’s hope that she was being truthful, she walked a few paces behind the old woman, as frail as a bent tree branch. She was far too feeble to do anything physically to Scarlett, but she wasn’t going to give her the element of surprise should she try.
She looked back, offering Scarlett the glimmer of a smile. “I drove out to Lilith House just a little bit ago, to offer my condolences on your friend, and see if there was anything the church could do to aid in your comfort.”
“Oh,” Scarlett frowned. “We must have just missed each other. Millie was there,” she said. “Did you see her?”
“No, just that pretty little girl of yours.” She opened the door to her office and Scarlett left it open wide. Sister Madge sat behind her desk and took out an old-fashioned phone book that appeared to be for the state of California, flipping through the pages. There was a Saran Wrap covered plate of cake bites on the edge of the desk and Sister Madge used one hand to push them toward Scarlett. “For the youth group sleepover tonight. I suppose I’ll have to cancel it now . . .” She unwrapped a corner. “Those girls do love their sweets. Have one. Something sweet to temper the sour. A comfort for the soul.” She smiled, sad and wistful. “You know better than anyone how food ministers, don’t you, dear?”
Yes, Scarlett liked to think she did. Something sweet to temper the sour. Of course, in this case, sour seemed to be an understatement. There was a lump in her throat. She didn’t really want a bite of cake, but for the sake of politeness, when the old woman went back to flipping through the phone book, looking for the state police number, Scarlett took one small cake, placing it in her mouth and chewing slowly.
It might have been good. Scarlett was so preoccupied by what she was going to say to the police, to Camden when she got hold of him, that she didn’t even register anything about the sugary treat.
Cam. Kandi. So many possibilities swirled through her mind. The state police would come back. They’d question Vicky further. Would they run a DNA test on Millie? Her thoughts felt strange. Suddenly disconnected. She massaged her temple.
“Vicky overheard Haddie telling Amelia about the horned beast she follows through the woods.”
“What?” she asked, frowning when her words came out slurred. The old nun wavered in front of her and she shook her head.
“Mm.” Sister Madge licked her finger slowly and then used it to flip another page, her gaze trained on Scarlett. “She’s seen him. She knows where he is. They’ll be after her now.”
After her? A fog descended and she felt suddenly overcome with wooziness. Haddie? After Haddie? Sister Madge replaced the phone in its cradle, leaning in and staring at her. Scarlett gripped the side of the desk, the room going blurry.
Sister Madge stood, walking around the desk slowly. Scarlett attempted to rise, but her legs buckled from under her. The nun came to stand above her, her face stark white and wobbly. “All you vile, fallen women,” she heard her mutter.
Oh God, oh no. They’ll take Millie. They’ll hurt Haddie. It was her final thought before Scarlett floated away.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Scarlett moaned, attempting to lift her head as the world slowly came back into focus. She tried to move her hands but they were tied behind her back. Fear dripped down her spine. The fog cleared minutely and she pulled herself up with effort, scooting backward against whatever was directly behind her, pressing into her back uncomfortably.
She opened her eyes, the world shifting into focus. She was in a stark, monastic bedroom, a bed against one wall with a large, metal crucifix hanging above it, a dresser on the opposite wall, devoid of any knickknacks or personal items.
A tabby cat sat on the windowsill casually licking its paws.
Scarlett gave her hands another tug, glancing behind to see that she was tied to a silver radiator.
Sister Madge’s bedroom down the short hall from the office where she last remembered sitting. It had to be. There was no way that frail old woman could have dragged her any farther than this. Panic howled through her. She’d drugged her. With a cake bite meant for the . . . what had she said? Youth group? Disbelief and sickness welled up inside of her and her panic increased. She pulled harder at whatever was holding her hands to the radiator, grunting with the effort. Her limbs still felt heavy, weighted.
The radiator rattled, tipping slightly back and forth but it didn’t give. Her brain cleared a little more and she turned her head around, looking for something, anything, that she could use to get free.
There was nothing. She stilled for a moment, listening, trying to ascertain if Sister Madge was still in the house. When she didn’t hear anything, she began yelling. “Help! Help!” over and over until her voice gave, her throat raw and painful.
Tears came to her eyes and for a moment she let the terror overwhelm her. They were going to hurt Millie. They were going to hurt Haddie. Oh God. Oh God. Are they already there? Do they have the girls?
You have to get free, Scarlett. You have to warn them. If you don’t, there’s no telling what they’ll do. Not just to them, but to you.
Where do you think Sister Madge went? To drive Vicky home? Yes, but then she’d head straight to get someone better equipped to deal with you. Or your body . . . once you’re dead.
They’d have to kill her now. They would have no choice. Her time was ticking.
Scarlett rocked the radiator with her hands again, using every ounce of strength she could muster to pull and push, pull and push, faster and faster, using the appliance’s weight against it. She cried out, her shoulder throbbing each time it wrenched farther from her body. Tears streaked down her face and she let out a yell of defeat and pain, bringing the radiator to a halt.
A light scratching sound came from behind a door next to the dresser and Scarlett stilled, her breath catching as a shadow moved beneath the frame. The scratching came again, a soft papery-sounding laugh as the doorknob began to slowly turn.
Scarlett pressed herself into the radiator, turning her face as though awaiting a blow. The door clicked open, swinging inward slowly. Something only partially human lay on its stomach on the floor, up on its forearms, its grotesquely burned face staring at Scarlett, mouth turning upward in a hideously wicked smile. It had a pair of sharp, silver shears in its disfigured hand. Scarlett’s whole body jolted, fear pinging over every nerve. She let out a strangled sound of terror, pulling on the radiator again, then pushing, creating the same rhythm she’d tried before, only this time more powerful, more intense, all the strength of her revulsion and horror behind her.
The thing she thought had once been human began crawling toward her, its piercing golden eyes wide and unblinking. “We have rules here,” it said in a scratchy voice, the shears hitting the floor heavily with each drag forward. Scarlett pulled and pushed at the radiator with all her might. It smacked into her brutally as it came forward and jerked her shoulder backward relentlessly as it rocked back. Her upper body screamed in agony. �
��You have not been granted permission to leave. She said I should stop you if you tried to get free.”
The thing was a woman, Scarlett could see that now. Its snowy-white hair patchy and stringy, attached only in clumps to the burned and mottled skin of her scalp. She dragged herself toward Scarlett, and Scarlett let out panting yelps of pain as the radiator clunked and loosened. Back, forth, back, forth.
She cried out, her shoulder at risk of coming out of its socket.
Haddie. Haddie. I won’t let them hurt you. At the thought of her daughter, she upped her effort, gritting her teeth, pulling and then pushing with all her might, her entire body slamming and rocking along with the loosening radiator. HaddieHaddieHaddieHaddie.
The burned woman was almost to her, reaching, her mouth stretched open, revealing small yellow teeth. Her legs ended at the knee, her calves and feet burned away.
With a roar of pain and one last burst of all the strength she had in her still-drugged body, every molecule of herself infused with the fierce love she had for her baby girl, she wrenched her shoulder out of its socket, the radiator breaking free from the floor and crashing heavily against the wall.
The burned woman reached her, grabbing her ankles, lifting the shears and bringing them down on the top of her foot. The shears sunk into her flesh, and then the woman tore them out, raising them again.
With a scream of pain, Scarlett pulled her foot back, blood flowing from the wound as she attempted to stand. The woman grabbed her ankle again, twisting it so that Scarlett smacked back down to the floor before she could get her bearings enough to stand.
“We started that school,” the burned woman said. “We reformed those girls!” She brought the shears down again, stabbing into Scarlett’s calf. Scarlett screamed, then wrenched her leg away just as the woman pulled the shears out of her flesh again. Scarlett tried to push herself up with one arm, her other hanging uselessly by her side, but couldn’t get enough leverage to do so.
Instead she pulled herself backward, trying again to stand while the woman dragged herself up Scarlett’s legs. She was only half a person, old and horrifically injured, but she seemingly had the strength of ten men. Scarlett cried out, her head falling backward as she hit the side of the bed so hard the wall behind it shook and the crucifix fell, landing on the mattress above.
“When the lightning strike hit, I locked those doors and Jasper blocked them. He was a faithful servant.” She pulled herself farther up Scarlett’s body as Scarlett writhed and fought, attempting to kick her weighted legs from beneath the woman’s body, delivering blow after blow to her head with her one good arm. The woman’s face was almost directly over hers now and Scarlett could see the evil in her golden eyes, smell the brimstone on her breath. She reached blindly above, her fingers brushing the cold metal of the crucifix. “The Lord wanted them all to burn,” she yelled, spittle flying from her mouth. “But he spared me! He spared me for my righteousness!”
This woman, this living demon, hadn’t been spared from anything. She’d been made to suffer, to go slowly insane if she hadn’t been halfway there already, locked away in some dark corner. It hadn’t been a lightning strike that started that fire. Or if it had been, it was brutal human evil, and only that, that had caused the subsequent deaths. Scarlett’s fingers grasped metal, curling around one slim edge of the cross from which Jesus hung.
The woman raised the shears again, her mouth opening in an unholy scream, exposed tendons stretching, but Scarlett brought the crucifix down, arcing it toward her back, the long metal spike of the vertical portion of the cross spearing through her skin and coming out the other side of her chest right where her shriveled heart lay.
The woman’s eyes widened, her head snapping back, arm frozen above. The shears dropped to the carpet next to Scarlett’s head with a soft thud and the woman’s body went limp.
With a cry of horror, Scarlett pushed her off, suddenly as light as a bag of bones. She crumpled to the carpet, and shaking, Scarlett pulled herself to her feet. She wobbled before righting herself, a river of blood trailing behind her as she gripped her elbow in her hand, holding her dislocated shoulder still as she limped out to the office.
She picked up the phone, but there was no signal. Throwing it back down, she fled for the door, turning the lock, and flying outside, tripping down the stairs, but catching herself before she fell. Haddie. Haddie. I’m coming.
Scarlett’s breath came in sharp pants as she ran from the back of the church to the parking lot, glancing behind her every few steps, half-expecting that shriveled monstrous thing to come rushing at her like a flying ghoul. She glanced at the church door, but no, she could trust no one here. I should have known. I should have known.
Her car key was in her pocket. Thank the Lord above. She pulled it out, her hands shaking as she put it in the ignition, and screeched out of the lot.
She didn’t remember much of the drive, only that she prayed the whole way there. When she burst through the front door of Lilith House, she almost ran smack dab into Mason. His eyes went wider than they’d been, the look on his face turning her blood to ice in her veins.
His gaze moved from her foot to her bloody clothes to her face. “Oh my God, Scarlett. What—"
“Haddie!” she screamed.
“Scarlett!” Mason said. “It took them.”
She whirled toward him, her heart hammering. “Who? Who took them?”
He grabbed his head. “I don’t know what it was. My crew had just left. I thought it was one of them coming back for something.” He shook his head, his expression haunted. “I only saw its shadow. It took Millie and Haddie. It had horns. Jesus, it had horns. But it was walking.” He shook his head as though trying to wake from a bad dream.
Terror zigzagged down Scarlett’s back. “When?”
“Just now. Right before you got here. I tried to call Cam, but he’s not answering. I don’t know whether to call the sheriff.”
“Don’t call the sheriff. Call the state police. Tell them there’s been a kidnapping. And keep trying Cam. I need you to stay here and keep calling Cam. As soon as you get hold of him, tell him where I am. Please, Mason, I need you to do that. I’m going after them.”
Mason grabbed her as she began to turn. “No, Scarlett, you don’t know what that thing is! And you’re hurt—”
“I’m okay. It has my girl, Mason.”
Mason let go of her, his hand dropping. Scarlett tore the hem of her long shirt with one quick yank, taking it in her teeth and ripping that in half and wrapping it around her bloody calf and tucking in the end, and then doing the same to her still oozing foot. With a grunt of pain, she pushed her feet into the tennis shoes that were sitting by the door. “It has my girl,” she repeated to Mason, and then Scarlett turned and she ran as fast as her injured foot would carry her, heading for the woods.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Thirteen Years Ago
The guild was on its way. She’d walked by the kitchen and smelled the unmistakable scent of cake baking. Her stomach rolled. Who would have ever guessed that the smell of dessert would trigger her heart to race as a feeling of dread filled her chest?
She forced herself to calm. This was her chance, as there might not be another. She’d gotten lucky their last few visits and hadn’t been chosen, but her luck would eventually run out. Possibly tonight. And though she might have been able to hide her rounded stomach before in the dim lighting while lying on her back, there was no hiding it now.
No, tonight was the night. It had to be.
Kandace walked stoically to her room, Aurora shooting her a worried look as she entered. “The guild is here,” she said, looking pointedly at Kandace’s stomach, still hidden beneath the roomy, square uniform, and the oversized black sweaters they’d been given now that the temperature had dropped.
“I know,” she said. She hadn’t told Aurora about what the guild was doing when they came to “bless” the girls of Lilith House. It was better for Aurora that she didn’t know.
But Aurora, friend that she was, worried about someone discovering Kandace’s secret, and the more people who saw her, the more likely one of them would be extra observant.
She walked to Aurora and grasped her hands. “It’s going to be fine. And remember, whatever happens, do not worry.”
Aurora’s gaze held to hers as she searched her eyes for several seconds. Finally, she nodded. I have a plan, she wished she could say. But it’s too dangerous to discuss it.
She squeezed Aurora’s hands and then let them go. She wished she could tell Aurora she’d been a good friend when she’d needed one. She wished she could thank her for being the one person she could trust in this hellish place, that if she’d ever doubted her, she shouldn’t have. She couldn’t risk a goodbye, not now, but she’d be sure to tell her all those things when she saw her again.
A friend—just one true one—could save your soul. And the gift of friendship lasted forever, its lingering grace there to draw strength from even when you were alone. Kandace knew that now.
“I’ll see you at chapel,” she said. “I’m going to go early and say a few extra prayers.”
Aurora nodded and Kandace offered her a smile, infusing all the gratitude she could in it. Then she closed the door behind her and made the slow walk downstairs and outside where the building was waiting to be filled by the fallen women of Lilith House and the good men who were there to offer atonement.
She slipped inside the door, a prayer on her lips that she had arrived before anyone else. The room was empty. Kandace exhaled a breath of relief, rushing forward and going directly to the cabinet at the back where she’d watched Ms. Wykes remove the communion wine so many times.
She glanced back, toward the closed chapel doors, before opening the cabinet and removing the corked bottle. Sweat gathered on her forehead and her hands trembled as she reached into the pocket of her uniform and brought out the piece of folded paper, unwrapping it on the floor in front of her, and then creating a makeshift funnel as she tipped it over the bottle and let the powdery grounds of the dried mushrooms flow into the wine.