John Saul - The Right Hand of Evil

Kim stopped swimming and let herself drift in the darkness. A great emptiness-as dark as the water surrounding her-yawned within her, and as she slowly let herself sink into it, the pain of not having been able to save her brother began to ease.

The darkness deepened.

Then, somewhere in the darkness, a point of light appeared. As Kim watched it, it slowly grew brighter. At first she thought she must be floating back toward the lake's surface. But when she finally opened her eyes, the water was gone.

She was back in the great cathedral-like chamber, which had somehow grown even vaster than before. Tonight there was no trace of the shimmering light she'd first seen here; tonight she felt as if she were utterly lost in the shadows that filled the huge space. Then, far ahead of her, she once again beheld the inverted cross, suspended in the shadowy light as if by some unseen force. Mesmerized, Kim moved toward it. As she did, the candles spread on the altar beneath the cross burst into flame. As the light grew, Kim saw the eviscerated body of an animal on the altar, a dagger plunged through its heart, its blood dripping into a silver chalice.

Two robed and hooded figures appeared at either end of the altar. They moved closer together, and for a moment her view of the altar-and the cross-was blocked. The two figures bent over, and a terrible feeling of apprehension came over Kim.

She tried to back away, but some unseen force held her in place.

Then the two hooded figures stepped aside and she once again beheld the cross.

A tiny figure, its face contorted in pain, was affixed to it.

Silver spikes had been driven through each wrist.

A third punctured the child's feet.

Blood dripped from a wound in the child's chest, oozing down the neck and face to mat into the already reddish hair.

Molly!

Kim screamed out loud, and in an instant that seared itself into her mind, the two robed figures whirled around.

Her father and her brother stood glowering at her, their faces contorted with hatred.

She screamed again, and jerked awake.

For a moment her head swam with the dying remnants of the dream. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it, and her skin was clammy with sweat.

A dream! she told herself. It was only a dream!

She eased herself back down onto the pillow and tried to erase the last fragments of the dream from her memory, but the faces of her father and brother kept looming up in the darkness, leering at her, almost taunting her.

She turned over in bed, but still the dream stayed with her, only now it was the twisted face of her baby sister she saw, hanging upside down from the inverted cross, impaled by the nails, her life slowly ebbing away.

Then the earlier dream came back to haunt her, the dream in which she'd seen Jared killing Scout.

She had convinced herself that it, too, had been just a dream. But when they'd gone to find Scout, he'd vanished from the house.

As the first faint light of dawn etched the sky with silver, Kim got up from her bed and tiptoed out onto the landing. The great house lay silent around her, and as she made her way around to Molly's room, she had the eerie feeling of unseen eyes following her.

She paused before the door, shivering in a sudden chill that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Finally, her hand trembling, she reached for the knob, twisted it, and slowly pushed the door open.

The chill reached deeper into her, touching her soul.

She stepped into the room, straining to catch a glimpse of her sister in the gray light of dawn, but all she saw was a mass of rumpled bedding.

"Molly?" she whispered, edging closer to the child's crib. "Molly? Are you okay?"

There was no movement at all from the crib. Kim, standing by its side, looked down at the tangle of sheets and blankets. Please, she prayed silently. Please let her be all right.

She reached out, took the edge of the blanket, and pulled it aside.

And there lay Molly, sound asleep, her thumb tucked in her mouth.

Choking back a sob of relief, Kim bent down, gently kissed the sleeping child, and tucked the blanket back around her.

All Soul's Day

Jake Cumberland's cabin looked peaceful enough when Corinne Beckwith pulled into the little clearing next to the lake. Jake's hound was lying in the dust, and he sat up when she got out of the car, cocking his head as if trying to decide whether to sound an alarm. "It's okay," she said soothingly, moving slowly toward the dog with one hand extended. The dog stood up and edged closer to her, and Corinne made certain to stay just beyond the reach of his chain until he'd sniffed at her fingers, whimpered softly, then extended his tongue to have a lick. "Good boy," she said, bending down to scratch his ears as she gazed at the house. "I bet you're hungry, aren't you? Well, that's why I'm here. First we'll find you something to eat, then we'll start thinking about where you're going to live from now on." Though Corinne was certain the dog couldn't understand her words, something in her tone must have told him that his master wasn't coming back. Whining, the dog dropped down into the dust, and Corinne crouched beside him. "I know, boy," she said, stroking his coat. "You're going to miss him, aren't you?" Patting him once more, she stood up and turned toward the cabin. It looked utterly deserted this morning, as if it, too, knew that its sole occupant had abandoned it forever. Corinne took a step toward it, but then the dog was back on its feet, growling.

"Are you going to let me take a look, or are you going to try to rip my throat out?" Corinne asked. As she reached out to him again, the dog pressed himself against her legs, looked at her through bloodshot eyes. "Guess you're not going for the throat, huh?"

Corinne straightened up once more and continued toward the cabin, and the hound followed her. When she moved up onto the porch, though, he yelped, and when she reached for the doorknob, he barked loudly.

Corinne eyed the dog speculatively, uncertain whether the bark was a warning or the animal was merely eager to get inside. Unwilling to risk arousing the dog's guarding instincts, she moved to the window, shaded her eyes against the glare of, the morning sun, and peered inside. As her eyes adjusted to the relative gloom inside, she saw the strange designs that had been smeared on the cabin's wall with some kind of rust-colored paint.

Paint… or blood?

Feeling queasy, Corinne stepped back from the window. Her hand dropped to the hound's head. "Who was it?" she asked. "Who was here?" She stepped off the porch, fished in her purse for her cell phone, and a moment later was talking to her husband. "You better get out here, Ray," she told him. "Something terrible went on in Jake's cabin last night, and after what happened in the jail, no one's going to be able to blame this mess on him."

Twenty minutes later Ray Beckwith stood with Corinne in the center of Jake's shack, his expression grim as he studied the strange and bloody symbols that stained the walls.

"Looks to me like someone was out here doin' more of Jake's voodoo stuff last night."

Corinne nodded. The first thought that had come to her when Ray had told her of Jake's death was that someone had turned Jake's own magic against him. Though Corinne had no more faith in voodoo than in any other religion, she knew that for followers of voodoo, the knowledge that someone was casting a spell had sometimes resulted in the sickness-or even death-of the victim.

The power of suggestion: if you believed you could be killed by magic, then you could be.

And if someone had let Jake know what kind of ritual would be performed, and when…

Corinne could almost see Jake awaiting the hour in his cell, feeling the power of the voodoo "magic" surround him. His belief alone could have made him hang himself. But as she scanned the pentagrams and symbols on the walls, her eyes kept going back to a cross whose transverse bar was far below the midpoint.