Part 4 (2/2)

A soft gasp escaped Nancy. She tried to form a protest.

”Yes,” her companion hissed. ”Yes, soon...”

Mary turned.

Saw the man...and screamed.

On the screen, a door burst open. Jeremy. The man looked up, his face shadowed except for his eyes, which glowed like fire.

And he had fangs.

The man was undisturbed by Jeremy's presence. He strode toward him, laughing.

”Yes,” the woman beside Nancy hissed again.

Nancy turned, and her eyes widened in horror. The woman had changed. She had grown. Her eyes were glowing with a pure fire.

And her teeth...were no longer teeth.

They were fangs.

Terrified, sure she was hallucinating, Nancy forced her eyes back to the screen.

The man had reached Jeremy, still laughing. He threw his arm out, his hand connecting with Jeremy's face.

Jeremy went flying, slamming back against the doorframe.

Nancy's eyes darted back to the woman. She saw the fire in her eyes, felt her own terror rise. Watched the fangs, dripping with antic.i.p.ation.

And she could do nothing but weep in her soul. The woman's touch, her eyes...it was as if Nancy had been stung by a paralyzing spider. She could not prevent her own demise. She could not even cry out, only hear herself scream in terror inside her head.

Then there was a shattering sound. As if someone had burst into Mary's room through a window. The sound changed everything.

Or maybe the arrival of whatever...whoever...had caused the that sound. Nancy felt something stirring in her, a sense of herself, of strength. She stared at the screen. There was someone else in that room now...a presence. Broad-shouldered, tall, dominating.

A man, and something about his appearance...

What?

Changed everything. Evened the playing field. Gave her...hope. He was wearing a large, low-brimmed hat and a floor-length leather trench coat, like an old railway frock coat. And he carried what appeared to be a longbow.

The man moved with the speed of lightning, stringing his bow in a blur.

He stood still for a moment, a bastion against the insanity.

”No,” gasped the woman at Nancy's side. ”No.” she repeated, a whine of protest and even of horror.

Nancy no longer had any idea what was real and what was not, but she, too, knew that everything had changed.

The man had burst not just through gla.s.s but through the spell that had been upon them, the miasma...

The evil.

3.

T he dominatrix reached the room. She hadn't been prepared for this, hadn't believed...

She threw open the door, her heart thundering with fear, with antic.i.p.ation. What had been conjecture was now proved to be true.

He was there.

But someone else was there, as well. Someone unknown to her, yet she sensed his power.

She straightened, hesitating, knowing she had to make a split-second decision.

And then she saw the other man more clearly. Not his face, for his hat was drawn too low, but she saw the longbow, the way his head was bent, eyes on his target.

She backed away.

Who? What?

Then she heard screams coming from below.

Screams of shrill, uncanny terror.

All h.e.l.l had broken loose.

Indecision tore at her for a moment.

Alone. She shouldn't have been alone.

She should have seen to it that she had help with her. But she hadn't really known what would happen here. So she was alone.

What to do?

Whatever was happening here, there was a force at work to counter evil, while down below...

The screams continued.

She turned and ran.

She could move, Nancy realized. The sound of the shattering gla.s.s had somehow freed her.

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