The Skull Ring (32 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The morning light trickled through the small windows, indicated the storm had passed. Julia left Walter sleeping in the loft and kindled another fire. She rummaged in Walter's backpack, found some tissue, and went outside to relieve herself. The sky was clear, and Julia's breath made a mist in front of her face.

The view was spectacular. The cabin stood in the clearing between two stands of hardwood, and a sheer rock cliff rose behind the trees. The ridge was the tallest point for miles. The blue mountaintops rolled out in the distance like the waves of a gentle sea. The clean, brisk breeze brought Julia fully awake, and she welcomed the forest smells.

Walter was right. The Creeps couldn't get her here. This was the final outpost, a majestic castle, a place where trouble and danger had no business. The woods weren't threatening. Instead, they formed walls that kept enemies away. Being out under the big sky was like being paroled from the cramped prison of her head.

She went among the trees into the hush of forest. A gray squirrel skittered along the treetops, gathering its winter stores. As she squatted behind an oak, she thought of the night before. Walter had come to her rescue yet again, her very own knight in shining armor. Just like in the bedtime stories her daddy had told her—

"And what else did Daddy do, there in your bed?
" came Dr. Forrest's voice, as if from nowhere.

She stood, pulled up the baggy jeans she had borrowed from Walter, and hurried back toward the cabin, afraid more voices would slip from the shadows beneath the oak and hickory. The sun was like the bloodied yolk of an egg over the eastern horizon. A few wisps of pale clouds were all that remained of the storm. Julia looked down the old logging road to make sure no one was approaching, and then went back inside the cabin.

Walter was up, his clothes rumpled, his chin and cheeks bristled by faint stubble. "Morning," he called cheerfully, though his voice cracked from sleep.

"Hi. Storm's over."

"I don't know if that's a good thing." Walter rattled around in a corner cabinet and pulled out a dented tin coffee pot. "Makes it easier for them to find us. If they're even bothering to look."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you when I get back."

Julia stacked some logs on the fire and went outside to gather another armload from the woodpile. Walter came back from the woods with the coffee pot. He hoisted it, and some water sloshed out. "There's a spring around back. The purest water you've ever tasted."

"And we're going to mess it up by turning it into coffee?"

Walter smiled, the sun on his face and his tousled hair making him look young. "Sounds like an improvement to me."

A soft rhythmic sound filled the air, rapidly becoming louder, beating at the air between the mountains. Walter dropped the coffee pot and raced to the Jeep. The engine started and he backed the Jeep under a canopy of spruce. Julia finally recognized the sound, and went inside the cabin as the whir grew louder.

From the window she watched the helicopter cross to the west. The Creeps couldn't have that much influence, could they? What did they want from her so badly that they were dragging out all their resources? And if she tried to dismiss her paranoia, right there was Walter, ducking under the trees and staring up at the sky.

When the whir of the blades subsided, they looked at each other.

"Do you think it was them?" Julia asked.

He pointed at the chimney. "They would have seen the smoke. If it was them, they'd already be back."

He gathered the coffee pot and returned to the spring. Julia went inside, gathered her dry clothes from the hearth, and changed quickly before Walter returned. He didn't remark on her change of clothes, nor on having slept with her. Julia realized it was the first time she'd ever slept with a man without having sex. But then again, Mitchell was the only other man to ever share her bed.

Quit comparing him to Mitchell. They’re not even on the same playing field.

He poured some coffee grounds into a metal sieve and placed the sieve in the pot. Then he hung the pot over the fire from a metal hook. "What's so funny?"

"Just figuring out which way I'm going crazy this time."

"I told you, you're not crazy. You're miles from civilization, with all the time in the world, with a nice guy who makes a mean cup of coffee. What's the downside?"

"Uh, you forgot the part where Satan worshippers want to claim my immortal soul."

"Oh, yeah. I figured this was too good to be true."

Walter brought some chipped ceramic mugs from the cupboard as the smell of coffee slowly filled the cabin. Julia sat by the fire and watched Walter.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked.

"Wait, I reckon."

"For them to find us?"

"We ought to just let things die down a little."

"I wonder what's happening back at my house."

"Depends on what they were after. Maybe all they want is you."

"I still can't understand why."

"Maybe they don't like to lose. Maybe they feel like they have to finish the job or their Big Bad Boogeyman will get upset." Walter sat beside her and placed the mugs on the hearth. He drew a couple of granola bars from the backpack and passed one to Julia.

"This doesn't fit the image of the rough-and-ready mountain man's breakfast," Julia said.

"Well, I hate to say it, but I ain't much of a mountain man. I don't even like hunting. My dad used to take me up here and make me stumble through the woods after him with a gun, but I never could stand to shoot anything."

"How long do we stay here?" Julia asked.

Walter shrugged. "A day or two. I don't know."

She leaned forward and touched his knee. "Do you think Hartley had anything to do with your wife's disappearance?"

He stared into the fire with a wounded expression. "Sometimes I'm scared that she was one of them. Then I think I'm crazy to even think that. But then you hear people talking about Satan worshippers and what they do to fetuses and babies and kids . . . and she changed after she became pregnant. She became faraway, panicky, suspicious of everybody."

Julia scooted next to him and wrapped her arms around him, feeling the hard muscles underneath his shirt. She squeezed as tightly as she could and his head leaned against her shoulder.

"Shh," she whispered. "Just let it go. Don't let them win. Don't let
him
win."

"Him?"

"Satan." Walter tensed under her embrace, but she continued. "A lot of Christians don’t think he’s real, that he’s some superstitious relic. Call it evil, bad karma, whatever. The name doesn't matter. What matters is that we don't let darkness eat us alive, from the inside out."

She looked past him, lost in the warmth of his body. Here she was, playing analyst when her own head was cluttered. It was a miracle she hadn't gone over the edge months ago. She pictured Dr. Forrest's strangely earnest face, the woman unbuttoning her shirt to show the pentagram etched in her belly.

"You're not alone, Julia," Dr. Forrest had said.

She shuddered with the memory. How many women were out there thinking they were the brides of Satan? Were most of them willing, like Dr. Forrest, or were they like Julia, lost and scared and screaming as the panic and doubt ate them away from the inside out? Were Satanic sacrifices born or were they made?

"You're not alone, Judas," Walter said.

Julia jerked away from him, stood and fled to the door. "
What did you say
?"

Walter blinked, confused. "I didn't say anything."

"Yes, you did. You said 'You're not alone, Judas.'"

"What the hell?" His confusion turned to anger.

She backed away another step, hand reaching for the door latch. "It was
you.
You took the ring, didn't you? You're the one who planted the pentagram drawing with 'Hello Jooolia' on it. And you messed with the clock. You had a
key
. An inside job."

Walter stood and held out his hands. "I don't know what you're talking about. Don't flip out on me now, Julia.
Please
."

His wounded expression almost convinced her. Almost.

Julia flung open the door and ran into the cold morning, through the trees and away from the cabin. She ran blindly, branches clawing at her face. She glanced back and saw Walter erupt from the cabin door, chasing her.

"Jooolia," he called, but she didn't slow. Her heart hammered in her ears. Thoughts spilled out in jagged counterpoint to the rhythm of her legs.

Walter. HE was the Creep. One of THEM, Satan’s sick little servants. He probably killed his wife himself and ripped out his unborn son as a token to his master.

And stupid, gullible Julia Stone had fallen right in with him, had opened herself up and trusted him on the flimsiest of reasoning. She was nothing but the perfect victim, always had been and always would be. She might as well just drop to the ground and wait for Satan to come and do whatever he did with his brides, serve whatever his dark needs were.

Her lungs burned with the coldness of the air. She headed down a slope between trees, slipped on some leaves and fell. She scrambled to her feet. She reached an outcropping of rocks and slithered between two slabs of granite. While resting, she strained her ears to listen for Walter, but all she could hear was her own frantic, ragged breath.

Giant oaks and maples surrounded her, their gnarled branches reaching across the sky. The mountains were obscured, all signs of civilization lost in leaves and bark and laurel. This was the world of nature, the one that Satan ruled. He ruled the world of human nature, as well. He owned Julia. He owned them all.

Surrender. Lie down. Let him have you.

"He owns you, Julia," came Dr. Forrest's voice.

Then, Snead: "Time for you to become the whore Judas Stone."

Walter: "You're not alone, Judas."

She clamped her hands over her ears but couldn't squeeze the voices from her brain. She staggered from the rocks, the sun crazy through the treetops, the mist of her breath making sinister shapes before her face. Satan owned it
all
.

She closed her eyes, took a few more shambling steps, and fell again. The panic rose like fingers from black graves, twisting, clawing, impatient. When the fingers–
his
fingers–touched her, she couldn't even summon the strength to slap at them. They clutched her, tugged possessively.

"Julia," it said.

Something stirred in the dark corners of her mad house. That voice. Not Walter, not Snead, not Dr. Forrest. Not Satan.

Mitchell?

"Are you okay?"

Her eyes snapped open, and it
was
Mitchell. His tie was askew, hair mussed, but he was Mitchell Austin, Attorney-at-Law, former fiancé and would-be rapist. The devil made the flesh.

"Mitchell," was all she could gasp.

"I saw him chasing you," he said. "Come on, get up. He'll see us."

He pulled her to her feet. Julia wobbled and leaned against a tree. "How . . . how did you find me?"

"Deed records." Mitchell came to her, and she couldn't will her legs into motion. He took her arm and led her toward a thick stand of laurels. "The cops told me somebody named Triplett had kidnapped you. They didn't have any leads, but we both know cops aren't too bright. The cabin was on the family property tax listing."

Julia let Mitchell pull her into the rhododendron tangles. They were hidden by the thick, waxy leaves. "Now we just have to wait for the cops to show up," he said.

"Did you tell them where we were?"

"I wanted to see you first. Maybe some dumb part of me wanted to be a hero, hoping that you'd forgive me for what I . . . " His voice fell, losing all its courtroom authority. "For what I almost did."

"
Did you tell them
?"

He nodded. "I called from my cell in town. I left my car down on the road and hiked up."

"No," she whispered.

"Look, I came to Elkwood to make things right. I'm sorry. I was stupid, I lost my temper, I guess I was afraid I was going to lose you."

"So you tried to
rape
me?"

Mitchell's eyes shifted from side to side as if he were searching through some memorized law journals for a case to cite. He looked out of place in his power suit, huddled in the middle of the forest, miles from a golf club or stock broker. The wool of his jacket was frayed where branches had picked at the fabric. "I don't blame you for hating me. But it’s your fault."

"Screw you, Mitchell." She stood in the thicket, anger reviving her strength. "Screw you and the goat you rode in on. You can’t save me."

She started from the laurel, but Mitchell grabbed at her. "No," he said. "I need you."

She jerked her arm free.

"You're
mine
," he said.

"Like hell."