by Dean Koontz
Besides Alex and herself, there were four other men and two women in the cozy room, some holding glasses of wine, some eating the hors d'oeuvres that Patricia had placed out for them, some just sunken into the heavily-padded furniture, as if they would never rise up again. Nearest Katherine, on a two-seat divan, were Nancy and Alton Harle, a young married couple who were both dark and quiet except for occasional comments about as pessimistic as anything one could imagine. They had whispered conversations together, smiled a lot, but still managed to come off like ravens bearing news of death. On the divan right after them were Leo Franks and his girl friend, Lena Mathews. He was tall and slim, she short and blonde and quite pretty. They were the most talkative of the lot and held the strongest political opinions, some of which Katherine did not even understand-and didn't think she wanted to. The last two guests were Bill Prosser and John Kline, both of whom had been in Alex's high school graduating class. The group was volatile, quick to react to one another, almost rowdy. She supposed that they had made a sincere effort to include her in everything they talked about, but she did not feel a part of them at all. She felt like a stranger. Whenever she spoke up, it was to make an optimistic observation to counter their unrelieved scorn for the condition and future of the world. Though they listened politely and sometimes even picked up on one of her suggestions and elaborated on it, she had the distinct impression they were only humoring her-that their own bleak outlook on life had not been touched at all by her arguments.
During a lull in the conversation when wine glasses were being re-filled, Lena Mathews asked, "You graduated from Lydia's old school?"
For some reason, it seemed to Katherine that the Mathews girl made her alma mater sound antiquated and out of date. Still, being polite, she smiled and said, "Yes, but not the same graduating class."
Everyone laughed appreciatively.
"What was your major?" Bill Prosser asked.
"Literature."
"Liberal arts?"
"Yes."
Patricia brought in a fresh tray of hors d'oeuvres, bringing with her another conversational lull.
As she left, Nancy asked, "What sort of things do you like to read?"
"Mysteries, love stories, anything," Katherine said.
"I'm partial to ghost stories, novels about the supernatural," Nancy said.
"I like those too."
Katherine sipped her wine. Except for Nancy and her, everyone was silent and still, as if waiting for something. She had the distinct impression that the conversation was building to a pre-planned point.
Nancy said, "Devils and demons, witches and hideous things that crawl around in the night. All of that junk gets to me, for some reason-especially since these crazy Satanists have been operating around Roxburgh."
Lena Mathews came in now, as if picking up her lines in a carefully rehearsed play. Or was that just Katherine's imagination. "I guess you've heard all about that ugly stuff."
"A good bit of it, yes," Katherine said.
"What do you think of it?"
"Excuse me?"
Lena said, "Do you think they really do summon up the devil?" She had come forward in her seat a little, holding her glass of wine in both hands, her eyes curiously alight.
"Impossible," Katherine said.
"Still," Lena said, settling back again, "if you believe in the Christian God, like we do, don't you also have to admit the existence of a Devil?"
"Perhaps," Katherine said. "But though I'm Christian, I can't summon God when I want to. I doubt that the Satanists would have any more luck in summoning their master."
A few of them laughed and applauded.
"Good point!" Alton Harle said.
Lena sighed and said, "But maybe the Satanists know the proper chants and all of that ritual stuff."
"That doesn't make sense, though. Why should they know the proper magic words to summon up the Devil when no one knows the proper magic to call up God?" Katherine asked. "If one set of data exists, then the other should be as easily accumulated, don't you think?"
The room seemed to have gotten stuffy, the air still and thick and too warm.
Katherine put down her glass of wine and decided not to drink any more of it tonight.
"I guess so," Lena admitted. "But you have probably just ruined any more supernatural novels I might pick up. They always seemed so real and spooky before. I guess, to continue enjoying them, I'll just suspend my critical judgment and let my emotions carry me away."
"As usual," John Kline said.
Everyone laughed, and that started them off on a new topic. The tension that had lain just below the surface while they had discussed Satanism dissipated in an instant.
Katherine found herself sipping the wine that she had said, only a short time ago, she did not want any more of. She frowned and put it down again.
The room was still stuffy, perhaps stuffier.
She remembered, suddenly, that she had not yet seen Yuri, had not had an opportunity to tell him about the footprints leading to Owlsden from the site of the devil's dance. She felt uneasy about being the only one with that information.
Paranoia...
She looked around at Alex's friends, but she found her judgment had not changed. Gloomy pessimists, a bunch of fault-finders. She did not care for them at all.
And she could not escape the nagging certainty that the whole conversation about Satanists had been carefully planned, that they had been...
Been what? Testing her?
Yes. It seemed almost as if they had posed a number of carefully worded test questions to ascertain where her sympathies lay, if she put any credence at all in superstitions.
But why?
It was as if they were feeling her out to see if she would like to-
"Don't you agree, Katherine?" Alton Harle asked.
She looked up, surprised that she had completely lost the thread of the conversation.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I seem to be wool gathering. I've had a very long day, and I suppose I should be getting to bed."
"It's only eleven," Harle said.
"Yes," Bill said. "We don't really get moving around here until after midnight."
And what did that mean? Katherine wondered. Did it imply that these people were somehow connected to the cultists whose ceremonies began after the witching hour? Or did it mean nothing whatsoever, merely an unfortunate coincidence?
"Stay, Katherine," John Kline said. "It's so pleasant to have a fresh point of view for a change."
"Just the same," she said, standing, "I really should turn in now."
"Next week, we'll get together again," Alex said.
"How could we survive in this backwoods place if we didn't?" Alton Harle asked.
Goodbyes were said quickly. In a moment, Katherine was standing in the main corridor with the door closed behind her. The air was still heavy and unpleasant. She had a sudden urge to lean with her ear against the door and hear if they were talking about her. Realizing how crude this compulsion was, she walked swiftly towards the main stairs before she could give in to it.
We don't really get moving around here until after midnight ...
Do you think they really do summon up the devil, Katherine.. . ?
Maybe the Satanists know the proper chants. ..
In her room, with the door locked after her, she remembered that she had yet to speak to Yuri. She reached for the bolt latch, then thought about prowling the many dark rooms of the mansion in search of him. It could wait. She could talk to him in the morning.
We don't really get moving around here until after midnight...
She undressed, put on her pajamas and got into bed. At first, she was going to let the bedside lamp burn. Then, when she realized that she must have soaked up some of the gloomy thinking that permeated the conversation in the recreation room, she reached out angrily and snapped the light off.
The darkness was not so bad at all. In fact, having overcome the momentary fear, she felt a great deal bet
ter. Aside from finding the prints in the snow, and aside from Alex's party, the day had been wonderful. More credits than debits. Tomorrow would be even better. She was sure of that...
CHAPTER 9
Again, Katherine woke because some noise had startled her, and she sat straight up in bed, listening intently to the stillness of Owlsden. The clock on the nightstand beside her read 3:08 in the morning; darkness lay in the room like thick syrup. Had the owls gotten exceedingly loud again? She listened for them, though she was certain that she had been awakened by something else altogether, something-
Like a knifeblade tapped against a hollow bone, someone knocked on her bedroom door, softly, quietly.
"Yes?"
No one responded.
"Who is it?"
When no one replied a second time, she wondered if she had imagined the noise-or if she had misinterpreted its source. Perhaps there wasn't anyone at her door, after all. She looked at the window and saw that nothing was out of place there...
The rap came again, softly, lasting a long time.
She got out of her bed and stepped into her slippers. The insides of the slippers were cold and made her shiver-or, at least, that was her own explanation for the tremors that raced up and down her spine.
"Lydia?" she asked.
No one answered.
She put on her robe, carefully buttoned it, taking her time, then she stood by the bed for a few moments, waiting for something more to happen. "Is that you, Alex?" she asked, ashamed at the quaver in her voice but unable to control it. What was she afraid of? "Yuri?"
Only silence.
She flicked on the bedside lamp and waited for the knocking sound to come again. When several long minutes had passed, she went to the door and pressed her ear so tightly against the wood that it pained her a little. She held her breath as she tried to detect the sounds of someone beyond, but she could not hear anything other than the profound silence of Owlsden.
"Who's there?"
When she still received no reply, she slid back the iron bolt on the door, gripped the antique knob and swung the portal outward onto the unlighted corridor.
The light from her own room plainly showed that there was not anyone nearby. Perhaps the darkness beyond the stairwell, in the other wing, concealed a watcher. But she did not feel much like walking down there in order to find out. Too, she had an undeniably strong suspicion that that was just what was wanted of her-to walk into the shadows down there...
Wondering if, after all, she had imagined it, she turned to enter her room and saw what had been done to the outside of her door. A large, dark circle lay in the center of the door, filled with Latin words which had been scrawled hastily in white chalk.
She looked quickly toward the far end of the corridor, hoping to catch someone unawares. She saw only the shadows.
Raising a hand, she tried to wipe away the markings. In the dim light, she had thought that the circle was drawn in a dark-colored chalk, but she now found that it was wet and sticky. Stepping back into her room, she held her hand out before her and looked at the rich brightness of fresh blood which had been used to paint the mark.
She closed the door, locked it with her clean hand, tested the bolt, then went into her private bath and thoroughly washed her hands. She scrubbed the sink vigorously when she was done, so that not a single red smear remained to remind her of what she had just done.
As she looked up to be sure that no blood spotted her face, she was shocked by her expression. Her eyes were too wide, her lips drawn into a thin, hard line, her jaw thrust forward. She realized, at the same moment, that she was gritting her teeth. Bending over, she looked away from the mirror and took several long, deep breaths. They only helped a little bit.
She washed her face in warm water, then splashed it with cold, dried on a new hand towel from the linen closet. When she looked in the mirror again, she did not look quite so close to the brink of an uncontrolled shriek, but she did not look normal. Her complexion was waxy, pale. The flesh below her eyes was smudged purple-brown, and the eyes themselves were still too open and staring.
"Where's the famous Sellers smile?" she asked her reflection.
But she knew what the trouble was. Always before, she had bounced back from an unpleasant development, swung from fear to joviality in an almost manic-depressive manner. Now, however, too many things had built up, one on top of the other, each more bitter than the last, until they smothered her optimism completely. And now, depressed and fearful, she could not summon even a small part of that bright outlook. Perhaps that meant that her optimism had never been genuine, had been nothing more than a fragile shield against the world and had dissolved swiftly the first time that the world weighed heavily against it.
No, that was as bad as something one of Alex's friends might come up with, a very negative sarcasm that was not really like Katherine and which would do her more harm, right now, than good.
She went to the door of the bedroom, and unlocked it, and looked at the signs again. Then, picking up the flashlight she had used on her post-midnight excursion on the third floor, she went down the corridor to the far wing and found Yuri's door. She knocked lightly, twice, before she could hear any movement inside. A moment later, in pajamas and a wine-colored robe, Yuri answered her knock.
"I've been trying to reach you all day," she said.
He rubbed at his eyes, yawned and brought himself further awake. He said, "Is something wrong?"
First, she told him about the prints she had found in the snow that morning.
"They came in the house?" he asked, incredulous.
"I saw the prints leading from the bonfire to the back door," she said. "They didn't lead away again."
"The locks must be changed," he said. That uneasy look was on his face again. Was it a mask, or really a true expression of dread?
"Can it be done tomorrow?" she asked.
"Or the day after," Yuri said.
"It had better be tomorrow."
"Why?" he asked, stepping forward, looking closely at her. She supposed that he had just noticed the color of her face, the smudges under her wide-open eyes.
"They've been in the house tonight," she said.
His voice dropped into a harsh whisper. "How do you know?"
"Come along," she said.
At her door, she stepped back and shined the light on the blood circle and the white Latin words which had both been smeared by her hand.
"When did this happen?"
"Half an hour ago."
"How did you find it?"
"They knocked on my door when they were done," she said.
"They were that bold about it?" he asked. His shoulders were hunched forward, as if he expected to be struck from behind. Katherine looked behind them; there wasn't anyone there.
"That bold," she affirmed. "They even knocked twice when they thought I might not have heard them the first time."
"It's been smeared-"
"I didn't know it was blood," she said. "I tried to wipe it off before I found out."
"I see."
They stood together in darkness, looking at the Satanic symbols caught in the circle of the flashlight's beam. The marks appeared to swell larger and larger as the only focus of attention in the corridor, until she angrily swung the light away from them and pointed it at the floor.
"Well?" she said.
"Well?"
"You are the expert on these things," she said.
She knew that she sounded angry, but she could not control the tone of her voice very well, not at that moment. She either had to give in to the anger or the fear -and she preferred that her voice sound tight and coldly furious rather than shaky with anxiety. Besides, as far as she knew, Yuri might have been the one who painted the symbols on her door. His sleepy-eyed confusion when he opened his door could very well have been carefully staged. She had suspected him of playing a role long before this, though she hadn't been able to determine his purpose. Had his professed fear of demon
s and such only been a decoy to prejudice her against considering him one of the enemy when the time came to choose sides?
"Expert?" he said, "Hardly that. I have seen things, learned many odd facts, but-"
"You're the closest to an expert in Owlsden," she said. "You ought to have some idea of why they broke into the house just to paint symbols on my door."
"Partly to frighten you," he said.
"Partly? What's the rest of it, then?"
"I've seen a few of these marks before," he said, stepping closer to the door and motioning for her to supply him light. "Enough so that I have a general idea of the purpose."
She waited.
"They've decided that you will be their next-associate."
"Who has decided?" she asked.
Their voices sounded uncommonly sharp in the quiet of the long corridor.
"The cult," he said.
"Associate?" she asked, though she knew just what he meant. It was, however, much easier to let him put it into clearer language than to say it herself.
"They've looked you over, passed judgment on you and marked you as a potential convert to their cause."
"I think their cause is silly."
"Do you?" he asked. Before she could answer, he said, "If you'll excuse my saying so, it's evident that you've been deeply upset by all of this and that, maybe, you're beginning to wonder whether there could be any truth in it."
"You're wrong," she said. "I'm not worried about devils and demons. Just about the people who believe in them, what they might do, what extremes they might go to."
He shrugged, as if to say that she might not really understand her motives as well as she thought she did.
"Besides," she said, "I don't even believe, want to believe, or even symphathize."
"Sympathy with the devil is not required," he said. "If they can manage to put you under the proper spell-"
"I reject that," she interrupted.
Yuri sighed and said, "Well, then, let me get tissues and water from your room, to clean your door before the blood dries."