Hannah’s mouth fell open with an animalistic snarl. Her lips curled back to her gums and blood came pouring down her chin into the water. Her teeth were chipped and broken in countless places, leaving her with a hideous mouthful of jagged fangs.
Horrified, Abigail let go of the girl and reeled away, kicking and swimming backward as fast as she could. But the ghastly thing that was Hannah Gill came at her, hissing and snarling and churning wildly in the water. She was fast and Abigail was weakening by the minute.
Abigail flailed and kicked, propelled by sheer panic, until her shoulders came up against a log caught in a jam. It didn’t float away or budge under the impact; it just remained there, solid and immobile. Trapped, Abigail could only watch in wide-eyed terror as the demonic creature flew at her. She saw the girl’s broken teeth gnashing in her mouth; the terrible whites of her pupil-less, bloodshot eyes.
The girl shrieked as she stretched out a claw-like hand, aiming for Abigail’s throat.
Without warning, an enormous piece of drifting timber struck the shrieking thing to the side of her head. There was a sickening crunch of bone as the impact knocked Hannah sideways and out of reach. For a moment, she bobbed motionless in the water like a buoy. Blood streamed down her pale face as she stared at Abigail with her empty, hideous eyes. There was too much blood; her skull had to have been fractured. Abigail had heard it, but she didn’t make a move.
Whatever was inside Hannah wasn’t dead—not yet.
And then—very suddenly—Hannah threw back her head and let out an ear-splitting wail as a bolt of crimson burst forth from the crack in her skull. At first, Abigail thought it was blood spurting like a fountain into the air. But that wasn’t it. Whatever it was streaked high above them and vanished into the fog.
It didn’t come back down.
For a moment, Abigail was overcome by a sense of evil so powerful, she felt her insides shriveling under its malevolent force. Darkness enveloped her and she went hollow. Despair rushed in to fill the empty void. She cringed and shrank back, cowering against the log pressing at her shoulders.
Hannah’s horrific wail came to an instant, abrupt stop. Her mouth snapped shut and her head fell forward, splashing face-first into the water—but not before Abigail caught a glimpse of the girl’s eyes. She dove forward and caught Hannah’s limp form in her arms to raise her bleeding head above the water. The girl’s eyes were no longer rolled back in her head. They were human again, but so terribly, terribly vacant. Abigail pressed her fingers to Hannah’s throat, searching for a pulse. Her hand was trembling too badly to detect anything. She lowered an ear to Hannah’s mouth. Was that a breath she heard escape the girl’s blue lips?
With one arm wrapped beneath Hannah’s armpits, Abigail spun in the water, searching desperately for the shore. It was hopeless. She was lost in a floating maze. In every direction, there was only fog and the great, hulking shapes of the logs. Struggling to keep her head above water, Abigail strained to catch the cries of the men coming to her from out in the fog. Her vision suddenly dimmed and the world seemed to blink out of existence. She was losing consciousness.
Abigail clung to the lifeless girl and struggled to focus, to keep from sinking down, down, down...
A sudden, furious splashing brought her back to her senses.
Her eyes snapped open.
Timber was there, splashing through the water.
Hovering on the edge of consciousness, it took Abigail a moment to recognize the dog as he navigated his way through the labyrinth of logs. Once she realized what was happening, she gathered all of her remaining strength and swam toward him, hauling Hannah’s dead weight along with her.
Timber had something clenched in his teeth. As he drew nearer, Abigail saw it was the end of a length of rope. She lunged for it, grasping it as the last of her strength gave out and the cold finally claimed her.
The last thing Abigail remembered before darkness closed around her was the rope going taut in her hand. She was vaguely aware of being dragged through the water, of having Hannah Gill wrapped in one arm, of bouncing and ricocheting off the logs as she went. It should have been painful, but she was too numb to feel anything. A voice in her head kept repeating, Don’t let go, don’t let go, don’t let go...
No. The voice wasn’t in her head. It was a man’s voice, Glenn Colvin’s voice. It was growing louder...
And then the voice went quiet and there was nothing.
Chapter 37
Heath MacIntyre sat hunkered on a log on the edge of a desolate tract of cleared forest. A cheerless fire burned in a pit at his feet. Behind him, the pines of the forest towered above like the seatback of a monstrous throne. Some distance to Heath’s left, a lone crow danced across the bloodstained ground where Chester Prue had died. Its shrill cry rose from the clearing and vanished into the dusky evening sky.
“Even here, in Tahawus, the works of the flesh are evident,” Heath scowled, his voice low and gravelly. He let his gaze roam around the loose, half-circle of men gathered with him around the fire. “Each of ye’ knows of what I speak. Sexual immorality, impurity, greed, lechery, drunkenness. Which of ye’ haven’t seen it for yerselves? Ye’ hide from it; try as ye’ might to blind yer eyes to it. But oh... the Almighty sees it! The Almighty sees it all! And there are none here who can hide from His wrath.”
The men sat and listened intently, eyes transfixed by the big man before them. There was a vacancy to their faces, the yielding blankness of those who have given their minds over to another.
“’Tis His will that we should die by our own hands,” Heath continued. “Hawes, Gill, Beaulieu, Prue: all were but warnings of the fate that awaits the shameful and immoral. But now has come another, sent by the devil himself to tempt us, to lead us all to destruction... Abigail Jacobs!” Heath spit the name through his lips. “Carnes would have us believe we should accept this witch. He’d have us welcome her into our fold, into our town. A heretic is what Carnes is! The only magic she wields is that of science, he says. Bah! Science? Idolatry is what it is! What is science but a blasphemy against the Almighty? Who but a charlatan would have the arrogance to presume to explain the awesome mysteries of the Lord’s creation? The Bible is all the explanation ye’ need!” Heath’s eyes narrowed, his voice dropping low once more. “And what does the Bible tell us about witchcraft?”
He paused, waiting for a response, knowing none would come. None of the men gathered here could read the Bible for themselves. Heath himself could barely put his own name to paper. But he had heard enough sermons from old Father Magraith to have committed the passages to memory.
“Ye’ shall not permit a sorceress to live!” Heath hissed. “For anyone who practices in the black arts is an abomination to the Lord!” His eyes raked across the men. “And what is the punishment for disobedience? Who here can tell me?”
Another pause. No one spoke. The men sat mute, captivated, hanging on Heath’s every word. For a moment, Heath glimpsed an image of himself, imagining what the men perceived as they gazed at him. What he saw there was every bit as righteous and mighty as Father Magraith had been in the pulpit of his old stone chapel. Heath heard his own words and felt something rising within him. He was flush with the power of his virtue. It energized him, galvanized him, gave him the only spark of life he had known since that dreadful morning he had discovered Evelyn in the woods, butchered by her own hands.
“The Lord will set His face against any man who whores after mediums and necromancers,” Heath affirmed sourly. “Any such man will be cut off from his people. Cut off from his people! Such will be yer own fates if ye’ fail to drive this witch out before ye’! One by one, each of ye’ cut down by your own hands in the black of night. Such was the reward for the kindness my poor Evelyn showed the witch!”
Heath let his voice go low once more. “And now there is poor, poor Hannah Gill... ‘Tis the witch that holds the poor child in thrall. Carnes may well tell us it was the Jacobs woman who saved the girl when she lay dying
in the street. He may try to convince us all that she risked her own life to save poor Hannah again today. But we all know better, don’t we? We all know even Satan may disguise himself as an angel of light to lead the Lord’s people astray.”
Heath’s eyes hardened to cold, sharp points. “Now... which of ye’ will be the next to suffer the Almighty’s wrath? Will it be ye’, Tibbetts?” Heath’s intense gaze fell upon a stout, thick-jowled man and remained there, as if burning a hole right through the man. “Will ye’ be the next to take a blade to yer own throat?”
Tibbetts seemed to shrink, stammering something, but Heath had already moved on to Owen Delaney. “How about ye’, Delaney? Will ye’ be the one to make a widow of yer young wife? Or will ye’ show the Lord ye’ repent of yer sinful ways?”
Heath saw the man flinch and kept his eyes on him a moment longer before swinging them back around to the others. “Suicide! ‘Tis the punishment we must suffer unless we show Him we are repentant! Death by blood or fire! There is but one way to save yerselves. Expiation! For as it is written, everything is purified with blood! Look to the Book of Hebrews!” Heath didn’t need a Bible to quote from. The words of Father Macgraith flew into his mind. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin! The Almighty demands atonement and ye’ must give it to Him or face His wrath! Atonement!”
“Atonement,” Delaney repeated softly to himself. He said it again and again like a chant. “Atonement, atonement, atonement...”
The crow let out a sudden screech as it took flight, soaring from the clearing with a beat and flutter of black wings. A strange sense of elation came over Heath as he watched it go into the twilight sky. Yes. The foul ones will flee before us, he thought. He knew then that he would be successful; he would save the wayward villagers from themselves. He would succeed where Father Carnes had failed. And he would begin with the Jacobs woman. Then Carnes himself would be punished for his heresy. And then Colvin and the heathen Josiah. Heath wouldn’t rest until he had purged the village of all its sinners. He alone would redeem his people in the eyes of their God.
This was his purpose. This was his atonement.
Heath reached down and plucked a large stone from a pile at his feet—stones he had brought from the dark and secret place he had buried his wife. One by one, he passed them around to his circle followers. The men took the stones with eager hands, their eyes shining like penitents accepting the body of Christ.
“As it says in Leviticus,” Heath intoned. “She shall be stoned. Her blood will be upon them.” He paused, his steely eyes traveling from one man to another, leaving none untouched. “Which of ye’ will have the courage to cast the first stone?”
Chapter 38
Abigail was bruised and scraped in dozens of places. With a forgotten glass of whiskey in her hand, she lay propped on her bed in the warmth of her cabin. Her eyes stared at the wall but she didn’t see it. Her thoughts were far away as she pondered what it was that linked all of the possessed victims. She was certain she was overlooking something, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. It was a nagging sensation, like an itch that can’t be reached. If she could just determine the connection between them all, it might give her some clue as to who had summoned the demon.
Why Hannah Gill? a voice in her head insisted. Is she the key? First her father was possessed, then the girl herself. Why Hannah Gill...
Abigail’s mood darkened the longer she thought about it. Night had fallen and there was still no word on Hannah’s condition. The last Abigail had seen of the girl was when she had awoken on the shore of the lake. Colvin had been there with Duncan and Carnes and Josiah and some other men Abigail didn’t recognize. Someone had gathered the lifeless girl up in a blanket and whisked her away, shouting frantically for Ned Fitch, the physician.
Abigail had spent the following hours recovering her strength and fending off Duncan’s irritating concern for her wellbeing. The wasted time grated on her nerves. Every minute that passed was one she could have spent hunting the demon.
But Abigail knew she had pushed herself too far in the lake. She had been in the icy water too long and no amount whiskey seemed to be able to warm her. She needed rest if she was going to be of any use. And so, having stoked the fire in the stove, she had wrapped herself in her thick, flannel nightgown and contemplated why Samael had targeted Hannah Gill. Was it because of the young girl’s corruptible innocence? Or was there even more to it? A pattern or link that connected all of the suicides? And perhaps most troubling of all: was it simply a coincidence that Abigail herself had been in direct contact with the last three victims? It was this possibility that she pondered the longest as she downed her whiskey. Evelyn. Keenan. Hannah. The only thing that seemed to connect them all was Abigail herself. Had she somehow been implicated in Samael’s murderous designs? If so, what role was she intended to play?
A knock at her front door jolted her from her thoughts.
Abigail set her empty glass on the nightstand and rose. She tried to ignore her aching muscles as she drew her nightgown tighter around her shoulders and crossed the room. The orange glow of her bedside lamp spilled out into the darkness as she pulled the door open.
Glenn Colvin was there. His face was drawn and grave.
“How is she?” Abigail asked earnestly.
“Unconscious, but alive. Ned’s done all he can to stop the bleeding but her skull’s been cracked. She needs a surgeon and a proper hospital if she has any chance of surviving. Ned and a couple of my men left with her by wagon an hour ago. With any luck, they’ll have the girl down the valley before sunrise.”
Abigail allowed herself a momentary relief at the possibility that Hannah might live after all. What kind of life the girl would be left with if she survived was another matter.
“The rest of the townsfolk are getting ready to leave even as we speak,” Colvin added. “It’ll be a hard go down the mountain in the dark and most will be forced to travel by foot, but there’s not a soul that wants to stay here any longer than necessary, not after what happened today. By morning, this whole place will be a ghost town.”
Abigail took heart at the news that the evacuation was finally underway. At least no more innocents would fall victim to the evil that was plaguing the village.
Why Hannah Gill? the nagging voice echoed in her head. Abigail tried to ignore it and said, “I appreciate you keeping me apprised of the situation.”
They stood there for a moment at the open door to Abigail’s cabin. The late autumn nights were growing ever colder and this one was no different. The crickets and cicadas had all but vanished in advance of the coming winter. Only a few hearty tree frogs remained to fill the silent void with their lonesome song. A breeze stirred the fallen leaves and the air whispered the promise of another storm.
“Will you come in for one last drink?” Abigail offered unexpectedly, stepping back and pulling the door open wider.
Colvin hesitated and glanced around self-consciously.
“I’m sure the presence of a man in my cabin cannot possibly lower my standing in the eyes of the townsfolk, if that is what’s troubling you,” Abigail assured him with a smirk. “They already know I’m an immoral witch.”
Colvin shared her wry smile as he entered. Abigail closed the door behind him and motioned for him to have a seat on the bed while she went to the large chest beneath the window and produced her bottle of whiskey. She pulled the cork, took a swig, and savored the warm burn before offering the bottle to Colvin.
He took it and raised it to his lips. Abigail had exquisite taste; the whiskey was just the way he liked it: strong and fiery.
Much like Abigail herself.
After a moment, Colvin said, “Listen, Abigail. You aren’t likely to hear this from anyone else in town, but I... I wanted to thank you for what you did, for saving Hannah’s life, that is.”
“She hasn’t been saved yet,” Abigail remarked bitterly as she took a seat on the lid of her trunk.
&n
bsp; “All the same.” Colvin passed her the bottle. “You risked your life going after Hannah like that. From what Emmons tells me, you didn’t think or hesitate. You simply reacted without a care for your own safety. What you did gave Hannah a chance to live and I... well, we all owe you our gratitude, even if there’s no one but me to admit it.”
“You may well consider your debt paid,” Abigail said and took another gulp. “Seeing as how I find myself owing you my gratitude for coming to my rescue.”
Something about her tone told Colvin she bore some resentment at having needed his help. He understood; she was proud and independent and he respected her for it. “Think nothing of it,” he said modestly, flashing her an easy grin. “The rope was Timber’s idea.”
A smile came to Abigail’s lips. “And here I was under the impression your dog didn’t like me.”
“On the contrary,” Colvin said smoothly. “I don’t see how he could help himself.”
They both went quiet for a moment as Abigail gazed at him from across the room. Illuminated in the warm lamplight, his eyes were deep and captivating. All at once, she had a flash of those amber eyes looking down on her as Colvin had hauled her from the lake. She remembered the sensation of his strong arms around her, his warm hands on her frozen cheeks as he struggled desperately to revive her. Not since her father had died had any man showed such sincere care for her. She had known many men over the intervening years, but she had never wanted such attention from them—never allowed it.
But now, she found herself wondering what it would be like to have those same amber eyes gazing down on her once more as she lay beneath him. To have those tattooed arms wrapped around her not on the rocky shoreline of the lake, but somewhere much more soft and warm. To have those hands gliding down from her cheeks to somewhere more intimate, more delicate...
The Suicide Lake (Book of Shadows 2) Page 21