Part 55 (1/2)
”I think they have her,” he said sickly.
Lucian stared at him, frowning. As he did so, his cell phone began to ring. Still staring at Finn, he answered curtly into the phone, ”Yes?”
He listened, then said, ”We're on our way now. I have the items from the church; make sure you have what you need from the spell shop.”
”Son, you need the Word of G.o.d,” Father Brindisi said, looking white and pinched.”Father, these people have taken their spells and incantations from both the old pagan religions, and from the church. And so we will need both as well to fight them.”
”G.o.d first!” Brindisi said.
Lucian stared at him.
”Oh, h.e.l.l!” the priest swore. ”I'm coming with you!”
”Where is she? Could you see her?” Lucian demanded of Finn.
”She's in the woods.”
”Where?”
”I don't know.”
”There are woods all over New England!” Lucian exclaimed.
”You're the vampire-you're supposed to know. You're supposed to read minds-”
”We're up against a demon,” Lucian said levelly. ”A creature well versed in slipping into thoughts and the conscious and subconscious. Think! You were with him, or he was with you; Bac-Dal was in your mind. Where?”
Finn stared back at him, so tense he thought that his bones would shatter. ”I don't know!” he grated out. Then, ”But I think I know who might.”
Lucian stared back at him. ”Smith-Mike Smith. The curator at the new museum?”
”Megan was confiding in him, I'm certain. And... he knows this area like the back of his hand. I personally think he's a smarmy a.s.shole... and I'm going after him.”
Fist clenched at his sides, Finn went striding out of the church.
Megan kept screaming. It was above her. The statue of the horned being. And it was still just marble and stone, but now...
The eyes moved. She was certain. The face had a life of its own. It was leering at her, laughing at her. It had been set at the end of the altar where she had been tied, and she could feel it reaching for her. The stone hands, or hooves, did not move, but she could feel. It teased, it invaded her indecently, it suggested everything that was evil, as if it ravaged hex intimately, touched with its eyes alone...
And when she had first opened her eyes...
The face that had seemed so alive had been a parody of Finn's own.
The museum had closed.
By then, the trick-or-treaters were all over the streets. Little witches, ghosts, goblins, movie stars and rock stars, princesses and more, ran about the streets, laughing, shrieking, crying out.But as Finn paused in front of the museum building, raging against his impotence, he saw Mike Smith.
The man was hurrying away down the street.
At a distance, with all the kids between them, he suddenly looked up. He saw Finn.
And he started to run.
Finn, with Lucian at his heels, tore after Mike, finding a lung-bursting speed unlike any he had ever known in life before. Smith had a good lead on him.
But not enough.
Finn tackled Smith with the skill of one of the finest line blockers ever to grace NFL history. Smith went down. Finn straddled him.
”Where? Where is Megan?”
”What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? I tried to get her to safety. Some other a.s.shole swept her away from me. What are you, a fool? I'd never hurt her, never in-”
”Where the h.e.l.l is she?”
”I don't know! Don't you get it! I did see her after the fire. I tried to get her away. But there was someone else there-”
”Tell me!” Finn raged. He was about to set his hands around Mike Smith's throat, but Lucian set a hand on his shoulder, drawing him to his feet.
”Finn!”
Finn let out a breath. Lucian drew him up, then reached down to bring Smith up to his feet as well. ”Megan has talked to you. What we need to know is if there is anything she might have said about her dreams, or any of the strange things that have gone on.”
”Now!” Finn grated.
”While we're walking. We've got to get back to the others,” Lucian said. ”Come on-I've already got the priest headed for the car.”
He pushed Mike ahead of him, eyeing Finn. ”Half strangling him isn't going to help right now. We have to find out where they are and then-”
”We need the police,” Finn said.
Lucian shook his head. ”The police can't help us now. What we need is to find out where we're going-and then each one of us needs to play his or her part.”
”Part-in what?”
”Our counter against the Black Ma.s.s,” Lucian said.
It was just a stone statue. The image of Finn faded, and Megan saw that the statue had been set at the end of the altar, as if it would come down on top of her any minute.
Her scream, however, had brought someone running. A face popped above hers.That of Gayle Sawyer. ”Ah, Megan! You're awake. How nice of you to join us.”
She wasn't surprised to see the girl. She wondered if Mike, too, was in on this.
All the little piercing points on Gayle's face and ears had been filled in. She wore little silver upside down pentagrams, rams' heads, and horned G.o.ds, all about her face.
Megan pulled instinctively against the ropes binding her to the altar. Gayle saw her efforts and smiled. ”They're good and tight. Our priest knows how to tie knots.”