The Blood of Seven

by Claire L. Fishback

  Her dad’s gun. Her dad. He was still alive somewhere.

  Keep it together.

  Before she could change her mind, she stomped to the lockers and strapped her dad’s belt to her waist. She ignored the pounding behind her breastbone as she checked the clip. No one said she had to use it.

  She called Pinky’s name, and together they strode back to her truck, but she had no idea where Maggie might be.

  They climbed in, and Ann gripped the steering wheel. Raghib was still a Messenger of the Light, which meant he must be helping Teresa, or vice versa. She put the truck in gear and backed out of the lot. Brent had photographed Teresa coming out of the abandoned funeral home. It was the only lead she had.

  I’m coming, Maggie.

  Chapter 58

  Teresa crept to the edge of the boundary and stared out at the hypo lying in the puddle. A soft sob broke through her lips. At least Ruthie couldn’t get her now. Even if she could still move, she couldn’t grab or bite.

  Derrick and Sheriff McBloat were too slow. She could dash out, grab the syringe, and get back beyond the barrier before they even knew she was near them.

  Her legs refused to move.

  One . . . two . . . three . . . go.

  Nope.

  “Do it, Mommy,” Tiffany’s voice said. Teresa cast around, but her baby was nowhere to be seen. “You can do it.” The voice carried like an echo on a whispered wind.

  “I can do this. I can do this.” Her legs still shook from the adrenaline of fighting off Ruthie.

  She jumped up and down a few times. Then, before her brain could stop her, she lunged forward and dove past Derrick, dodged around the sheriff, and snatched the hypo. Her left leg slid in front of her right. She went down onto her hip.

  Ruthie shrieked, but her body only twitched from side to side. Her legs kicked.

  “Move,” she yelled at herself. “Move it!” Her numb legs wouldn’t cooperate. Her muscles twitched with fatigue and wasted adrenaline. She let out a sob.

  I’m done. I’ve failed. I can’t do this anymore.

  She looked up. Derrick was only two steps away.

  Beyond him, Tiffany waved to her. Teresa had to do this. If not for her happiness, then for Tiffany’s. She had to get her baby away from Yaldabaoth.

  Teresa gritted her teeth, got her knees under her again, and lurched into a sprint. She knocked Derrick out of the way. He grabbed for her, found purchase in the knit of her sweater.

  Her forward momentum halted, and she crashed backward into him. They fell onto the ground. He let out a burnt-smelling oof into her ear when she landed on him.

  “No,” she yelled. His hands pawed her stomach, her breasts, below her belt.

  She slapped at them and pushed them away, but it seemed like he’d grown extra arms. The smell of him turned her stomach, turned her vision foggy. She’d never eat barbecue again.

  His hands raked her skin and forced their way down her pants. He breathed in ragged bursts in her ear and bucked and pressed his hips against her backside.

  Teresa lifted her head and smashed it back against his teeth.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again, until he let go of her.

  She scrambled to her feet and backed away. He groaned and held his burned hands over his burned face. Teeth lay near his head, gleaming white in the moonlight.

  She backed toward the creek and bumped into something soft and lumpy.

  Sheriff McMichael’s arms lifted to wrap around her. She elbowed him in the gut.

  He let out a blasting belch, foul and stinking of rotten guts, stumbled but kept his feet. She spun around him and got across the creek.

  Safe on the other side, she crumbled to her knees and collapsed onto her belly.

  The lost souls bounced toward her, congregating around the syringe. At least they couldn’t hurt her. She lay still for a moment, then got to her feet and stumbled to the house. She fell inside, and the cave appeared around her. Yaldabaoth turned from the pool.

  “Back so soon?” He fixed her with his gaze. “My, you’ve been through quite a trial, haven’t you?” He held out his hand and lifted her to her feet.

  “S–six.” She handed him the zoe and turned to shuffle back out into the cold world, but he held her hand and stopped her retreat.

  “Please, stay,” he said. His voice had changed.

  Teresa closed her eyes, turned around, and opened them.

  In Yaldabaoth’s place stood Derrick. Teresa’s heart shattered. Her world crumbled into nothing. She broke apart inside.

  “I’m so sorry, Derrick. I’m so sorry.” She cried against his neck. Even his smell was right. It was really him. Relief washed over her. He wasn’t gone. He was here, now, in this cave.

  “I love you so much. I’m so sorry for how I’ve behaved.”

  “There, there,” Derrick said. “Don’t get too gushy, my sweet. There’s one more left.” His scent shifted.

  The soft flannel shirt under her cheek turned to cold snake skin covering a strong chest.

  Teresa jerked out of his grasp. Anger tore through her now.

  “I’ll get you number seven,” she said. “If I can have my husband back, too.”

  Yaldabaoth held out his hands and shrugged. “Sure. Why not. You deserve it all, don’t you?”

  “Just like that? Sure, why not?” She stared at him, skepticism lacing her judgment.

  He’d tricked her so many times.

  Yaldabaoth shrugged again. “It’s inconsequential at this point. My power will be great. I can give you anything.” He stepped toward her. “Of course, if you’d rather spend the rest of your days by my side, I wouldn’t argue with that either.” He slid his hand over her cheek and tilted her chin up. “My queen. My bride.”

  Teresa closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw Derrick on their wedding day. She gritted her teeth.

  “No.” She stepped out of his touch and paced away. “As soon as I deliver number seven, I’m finished.” She turned around. “I want my daughter and my husband and my . . . my happiness.”

  “Suit yourself.” He moved back to his pool.

  Teresa backed away, turned, and ran out of the cave. She tripped on the porch steps, landed on her hands and knees, and vomited onto the ground. Everything hurt. Her legs, her lungs, the back of her head. Her heart. She wiped her mouth and sobbed.

  The crunch of tires on gravel drifted through the trees. She wiped her eyes and looked up.

  An old pickup truck stopped out on the road. Ann Logan stepped out. The dog from Brent’s house followed. Ann locked the door and closed it.

  Teresa slunk to the side of the house and hid among the shadows until Ann and the dog went inside. She waited a little longer. She kept telling herself one more minute just in case Ann came out at the precise moment Teresa left her hiding spot.

  When she couldn’t take it any longer, she snuck out of the shadows and back to the barrier. The lost souls paid her no mind. She thought back to the times she was in here with syringes full of zoe, how the souls had flocked to her.

  But, no. They only flocked to her that one time. Now they only flocked to the zoe. She stood straight.

  Why didn’t the souls come to her? The last shred of hope drained from her.

  The lost souls disregarded her because her soul was lost, too, corrupted by the evils she had embraced. A sudden sensation of aloneness draped over her like a death shroud.

  You can get it all back. You have to finish this.

  Chapter 59

  Ann held her free hand on the butt of her father’s gun—the feel of it brought both anxiety and a sense of safety — and used the other to shine the flashlight’s pathetic beam into the woods. She rubbed the mark over her heart. It still throbbed like another heart rhythm, giving her a strange feeling in her chest.

  The flashlight beam landed on an armless body lying just this side of the creek. The smell of burning electricity and charred flesh lingered in the air. Ann took a step back and g
rabbed Pinky’s collar, just in case.

  She told Pinky to stay, and crouched over the smoking remains. The body had been burned and showed signs of having been crushed in some places, including the head, but she could tell it was female.

  Ruthie.

  How had no one seen her body lying here all this time? She supposed Sheriff McMichael really had cracked down on kids utilizing the old funeral home. Or maybe they’d found somewhere else to go or other things to do.

  Ann looked up and peered into the trees. She called Pinky to her side and they stepped over the little creek at the edge of the woods. They trudged through the brush and went inside the abandoned funeral home.

  The furniture in the room hadn’t changed from the last time she was here, with Derrick long ago, and neither had the smell. Ann crinkled her nose against the scent of decay. Pinky sniffed around the room and down a hallway straight ahead.

  “Pinky,” Ann whispered, following. The silence in the house pounded in her ears.

  The squishy carpet turned into linoleum in a kitchen tucked away at the back of the house. Pinky clawed at a door, whined, sniffed at the crack under it, sat and looked at Ann.

  Ann swept the light over the kitchen, then turned back to the door. Pantry or basement?

  If it was a basement, she needed to clear the rest of the house before descending. If Raghib or even Teresa were still inside and Ann wandered downstairs, they would have the upper hand. Ann envisioned the basement door slamming shut and locking her in its dark, decaying depths, leaving them free to kill Maggie.

  She shuddered, circled back to the front of the house, and drew her father’s gun, ignoring her stomach’s clenching at the touch of the metal.

  “Raghib? Are you in here?” she called from the hallway. Silence. She tiptoed back down the corridor, cleared a bathroom on the way, and stepped into the living room.

  At the back wall, catty-corner to the exit, a staircase led to the second floor. Next to that, another door. Ann opened it. Closet.

  “I’m unarmed!” Ann shouted up the stairs. “I’m here to talk. Please come out.” Keeping her back to the wall, she slid up, step by step. She cleared two bedrooms and another bathroom.

  Ann returned to the kitchen. Pinky sat at the door, tail swishing across the linoleum. Ann gripped the knob. Pinky whined. Ann opened the door. Pinky blasted down the wooden steps. Darkness swallowed the wimpy light from Ann’s flashlight.

  Pinky’s frantic sniffing came from somewhere down below. If there were remains . . .

  Ann took the first few steps slowly. The wood bowed under her feet, creaking as it strained against her weight. She wasn’t heavy, not by any standards, but the old wood cried out with each shift.

  “Pinky,” Ann whisper-yelled.

  Sniff, snuffle, sniff.

  The fifth step cracked. The sound sent a shock wave up Ann’s spine. Then it gave.

  With a startled yelp, her hand flung out to grab onto anything to stop her from falling. She dropped the flashlight to catch the banister, as if the screws bolting it to the rotten wall would hold her.

  The flashlight bounced down the steps, landed at the bottom, and went out.

  Ann let out a breath and felt her way to the landing, testing each step before applying her full weight to the edges where the risers would provide sturdier footing. She pawed the ground, found the flashlight, shook it, and clicked it off and on to no avail.

  She crouched in the dark stillness and let her eyes adjust. A dark mass took shape in the middle of the space in front of her.

  Please don’t be the other bodies.

  Ann shook the flashlight again, and the bulb or batteries or whatever spiritual force might be helping her, decided to work. The beam jiggled with the tremble of her hand. She lifted the light.

  It revealed a medical table with some stained sheets piled on top of it. Ann let out a breath. Pinky had probably been drawn to the scent of the stains. The dog let out a sharp snort and moved on from the pile. She followed her nose into the dark corners of the basement.

  Ann’s racing heart slowed. She swallowed away the dryness in her mouth and throat. From the distant sounds of Pinky’s claws clicking on the cement floor, and her sniffing, the basement seemed larger than the house above it. Ann put a hand against the wall and jogged along.

  When the wall formed a ninety-degree corner, she stopped. A dark doorway stood out on the wall a few feet away.

  “Pinky?” She listened, but didn’t hear the tell-tale sounds of the dog.

  Ann turned and shined the flashlight back the way she came, then passed through the doorway to a long, narrow hall not much wider than her arm span. She kept her hand out toward the opposite wall, willing it to not close in on her. The flashlight penetrated the dark only a few feet at a time.

  After several yards, the air chilled. A couple more yards, and the hallway angled upward. Ann hiked up the concrete floor out into the night. Louise’s house slumped among the pines a handful of yards away.

  Pinky bounded out of the darkness and nearly gave her a heart attack.

  “Where did you go?”

  Pinky’s legs were covered in black dirt. The dog reared up onto her hind legs and gave Ann an urgent poke with her nose. She took off with a sharp bark.

  Ann ran to keep up, wondering if Pinky was on Maggie’s trail.

  Pinky’s bounding hindquarters flashed across the beam. Ann changed direction. A tree root snagged her foot. She keeled forward and kept falling long after she should have hit the ground.

  When her hands hit, she tumbled over and finally came to a crunching halt.

  Miraculously, she’d managed to hold onto her flashlight and the gun.

  The beam of light shined directly into a pair of bulging eyes only a foot away from where she landed. Muscle memory in her arm swung the gun to point at the face.

  It didn’t move.

  Ann scrambled backward up the short incline and bumped into Pinky. She wrapped her arms around the dog and held on as if she were drowning.

  She shined the light around. A shallow pit, roughly seven feet in crude diameter, held the remains of dozens of cats with two human corpses laying on top.

  Ann slid back down toward them to get a closer view, though she was pretty certain she knew who they were.

  Sheriff McMichael’s body had bloated. The swelling stressed the elasticity of his skin, cracking the surface. The other body was charred almost beyond recognition. The blackened skin peeled up in chunks over the arms and face.

  “Derrick.” Ann covered her mouth with her hand and stifled the emotions crowding to burst out. She closed her eyes and fell to her knees.

  You have your proof. They’re dead. You have to stop her before she takes the seventh.

  Ann collected herself. She had to keep a cool head. Teresa and Raghib and Maggie were out there somewhere, and time was growing short.

  Ann climbed out of the pit and retraced her steps to the underground tunnel. When she and Pinky reached the entrance, partially hidden by overgrown brush, Pinky bellowed and took off again.

  “Pinky—goddammit.” Ann chased after but lost sight of her. The flashlight died in her hand. Ann shook it, but it only produced the faintest light. In the distance, Pinky let out an attack growl, then a pained yelp. Ann gasped, but Pinky had run back toward the funeral home, which didn’t seem like the right direction. Ann’s gut told her to check Louise’s house.

  Glass shattered, and someone—or something—crashed through the brush.

  The book!

  Ann sprinted toward the truck. Pinky lay on the ground a few feet from the vehicle, still breathing, knocked out by a heavy tree branch laying nearby. The truck door hung open. Tempered glass from the smashed window sparkled on the ground.

  The book was gone.

  Chapter 60

  With nowhere else to go, Teresa stepped up Louise’s front porch and rapped her knuckles against the door. Louise opened it.

  “Come inside.” She closed the door behind
them. “Did you do everything we discussed?”

  Teresa nodded.

  “And the book?” Louise’s greedy hands flexed. Her eyes searched Teresa.

  Teresa shook her head. “I don’t have it.” She slumped into a chair.

  A scowl worked its way onto Louise’s horrible face. She was about to say something when Teresa glanced into the living room where an assortment of cats looked toward the couch with wide eyes. Maggie lay on the couch in a deep sleep.

  “What’s she doing here? I thought Ann had her.”

  Louise grinned. Someone knocked on the door.

  “Don’t answer it,” Teresa said, twisting in the chair. “It’s Ann. I know it’s Ann. She’s out there.”

  Louise went to the door and peeked through the peep hole. “It’s not Ann,” she said and opened the door.

  An older man stood on the porch. A satchel hung at his hip.

  “My dear Raghib,” Louise said. “Welcome back.”

  He came inside. To Teresa’s horror, Louise embraced him, and they kissed—and not just the simple smooch of long-time friends. Teresa turned away, disgusted by the wet smacking sounds. She moved to Maggie’s side to get away from their grotesque display of affection.

  Maggie’s breath was shallow. Teresa nudged her, but she didn’t rouse.

  “Is Maggie all right?” Teresa asked. Raghib snapped his attention to her.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  “Raghib, this is Teresa. Teresa, Raghib.” They nodded at each other. “Teresa is Maggie’s adoptive mother. Raghib is Maggie’s grandfather.”

  “I thought you were dead,” Teresa said. He ignored her and pulled the satchel off over his head. Louise put on the kettle. Teresa stood where she could see Maggie on the couch and the two elderlies in the kitchen.

  “She’ll be okay,” Raghib said. “A mild sedative. It’ll wear off soon.” He turned back to Louise. “I only gave her half of one.”

  “Good. We need her awake.”