Charles Grant - Night Songs

The door opened wider, hinges silent, no light behind.

On the next page was a similar scene, except here the avid worshippers were intent on a feathered priest as he beheaded a black rooster, catching its blood in a shallow wooden bowl. The sketch was in black-and-white, but he could see the color just the same.

A shadow in the doorway.

A third picture, the feathered priest again, this time standing behind a kneeling man. In the priest's hand, a dagger he had apparently just drawn over his victim's throat. Blood spilled into a bowl. The priest was drinking from another bowl slopping over with blood.

Oh Christ, he thought-Warren. Warren was the sacrifice to give Gran the power.

Montgomery made a forced gagging sound amplified by the stairwell's narrow passage. "Great," he said as he took the first step down.

And Hattie Mills lunged from her office to grab for his throat.

Hugh whirled around in terror as Colin bellowed a warning and brought up the shotgun. The blast punched the librarian square in the side and propelled her into the wall. He pumped and fired again, and she flailed in a frenzied circle, falling out of sight into the room. Through the smoke he could see nothing but her shoeless feet at the threshold. They were kicking. She made no sound. Only the thump of her heels against the worn floorboard.

Ears ringing, nose wrinkled at the stench of gunpowder, he pressed his back against the stairwell and began to descend, one step at a time, the shotgun covering the open doorway and trembling so violently his fingers began to cramp as he tried to hold it steady.

When the first foot drew back, he knew she was trying to stand.

"That is the most fantastic and juvenile story I have ever heard in my life," Cameron said from behind his desk, his hands folded pompously on the blotter. "I cannot understand how you expect me to believe such a thing."

"Frankly, Robert," Peg said, "I don't give a shit."

Cameron held up a palm to show her he was trying. "Peg, for God's sake, I'm not calling you a liar, understand."

"It sure sounds like it to me."

"Well, I'm not. But surely you can understand my position. I mean, look at it from my point of view. The Three Musketeers come charging full-bore in here like you were chasing Dillinger or something, and you give me a lot of mysterious double-talk about Lombard and Vincent. Then two of you take off on some very mysterious mission, and then I have to sit here and listen to a story that's… well, honestly, I'm trying to be charitable, Peg, but Jesus, it's a crock of shit.".

She was sitting on the club chair directly opposite the desk, slumping wearily and knowing she hadn't done much at all to convey the urgency of their discovery. And she didn't blame him for scoffing. Despite the fact that she now insisted Tess had deliberately tried to kill Colin not five hours ago, she'd refused for hours afterward to take the final step. And when she had, she was weakened by a lethargy that frightened her as much as this nightmare; it was self-defeating, and it was dangerous, but she couldn't resist it. It wasn't comforting, but it was easier than leaping to her feet and screaming.

She also knew exactly what it meant-that she was sick and tired of fighting. Fighting with Jim until he died, fighting old-timers and the old-fashioned after his death to prove she could exist on her own without a husband to protect her, fighting her mother's suffocating sympathies, fighting to hide the fears of staying alone from Matthew when he worried, fighting Colin's reluctance to propose, fighting… all of it.

All of it, for years.

And just when it seemed as if the fighting was over, the rest of her life perhaps smoothed into some semblance of comfort, the world exploded. Nuclear wars she could understand; food riots and racism and the idiocies of politicians were standards she could depend on. But not this. Definitely not this. The dead had stayed dead until Lilla had started singing.

Lilla; she hated her. Peg felt her skin warming, her breathing erratic. Hated was precisely the word she wanted. It didn't matter that the girl had somehow been made a dupe of her grandfather, if Colin was right; it didn't matter at all. And it didn't matter that Lilla had been a dear friend for the whole of the girl's life. Lilla-and she had said it herself-wasn't Lilla anymore. She was someone else, and she was a monster. She was tearing down all Peg had worked for and was threatening the life of her child. Lilla who wasn't Lilla had started this horror; Lilla had perpetuated it; Lilla, by Christ, was going to pay. "Peg, are you all right?"

"Leave her alone," Matt said sternly, standing behind the chair and taking hold of her shoulder. She lifted a hand to cover his, made a slow effort to tilt her head back and thank him with a wan smile.

"Boy," Cameron said to him sternly, "I don't think you should talk like that to me."

"Why? You're being stupid."

"Matthew!"

"Well, you are," Matt said, ignoring his mother and glaring at Cameron. "Lilla's a witch, and she's doing things to dead people. You should have seen her."

"That's ridiculous."

"He's right," she said. "If you'd seen her-"

"But I haven't, Peg, and that's the difference here, as I see it."

"And you won't believe me."

He leaned back in his chair, toyed with a pencil and looked to the ceiling. "How can I?"

"You went with Matt to lock this place up."

He shrugged. "I don't give a damn one way or the other. Doesn't look like anyone will be here tonight anyway. Goddamn storm."

"Jesus, Bob, it isn't the storm! I told you what Lilla did to the ferry. Jesus!"

"Jesus yourself," he snapped. He threw down the pencil, watched it bounce on the blotter and fall beneath the desk. "I've had enough of this bullshit. It's been very interesting, I assure you, but I have things to do, if you don't mind."

Her eyes widened. "You can't mean it. You're telling me to leave?"

"I have work, Pegeen. This doesn't run on its own, you know. Storm or no storm, crazies or no crazies, I have a business to run. If you don't mind."

"We're not going," Matt said with a sharp nod.

"Colin said we have to stay here. He's sending all the other people here, too."

"I heard, Matt, and I'll be glad to see them, if they ever come." He strained into the desk well and retrieved the pencil, stared at the eraser for a moment before his shoulders sagged and his tan turned sallow. "It's a bitch, Peg. I thought Colin was going to help me."

"He's trying," she said tightly. "I don't mean that," he said scornfully. "I mean about a hand to help me with Lombard and Vincent."

"Vincent's dead."

"So I heard."

"My God!" she said, rising, moving into an agitated pacing. "My God, are you calling Hugh Montgomery a liar too?"

When he didn't answer, she slapped at her thighs and headed out of the office. She stood for a moment in the dim light of the restaurant, her deep breaths a hissing. Then she grabbed the back of a bar stool and spun it around as hard as she could. The metal squealed softly; the bracketed lights on the dining room posts flickered pale gold. When Matt came out to join her, she hated Lilla even more.

"Mom, what about Amy and Tommy?"

"They'll be okay," she said automatically, putting a hand on his head, caressing his hair and not feeling a thing. "Chief Tabor's gone there, remember?"

"But what if he's too late?"

The fear in his voice was matched by the fear in his dark eyes, and she knelt beside him quickly, palmed his cheek, stroked his forehead. "You know Garve isn't going to let anything happen to them, Matt," she insisted gently. "He just isn't."

"But-"

"You'll have to trust me. Garve will bring the kids here as soon as he can."

His doubt was painful, and she looked away as she stood. But there was nothing else she could say. He knew what was happening, and he knew she was only trying to show him she was brave. And she wasn't. She wasn't brave at all. She was frightened to death and she was struggling to keep her bowels from letting go and if she didn't lose control in the next five minutes, it would be a goddamned miracle.

It would get a lot worse, however, if she just stood around like an idiot and thought about it. What she needed was something else to do, a way to pass the time quickly until Colin and the others returned.

What others?

Her eyes closed for a moment-another question for which she had no answers at all. "Mom."

A slow breath; she looked down. The boy looked so old; he was too young to be so old.

Another reason to kill Lilla; she stiffened when she realized that was precisely what she meant.

"Mom, the door!"

She heard the pounding, then saw the brass bar trembling at the impact. Her knees locked and her legs would not move until she remembered Hugh and Colin, out there in the storm. But she wasn't about to open the door without a weapon. A frantic look, and she flipped up the bar panel, grabbed a bottle of vodka from a stack in front of the mirror, and paid no attention to the explosion of glass and liquor as the pyramid came down. Cameron seemed to leap into the office doorway, swearing when he saw the debris, striding furiously toward her as she moved into the foyer. Matt intercepted him with a vicious kick to the shins, and as he reached down to grab at the pain, the boy nudged him hard with one hip. He tottered, fell against the railing and had to grab it to keep from pitching over and landing on a table.

By that time Peg was at the door.

She held the bottle by its neck, knowing it was as heavy and as lethal as a brick, the movies notwithstanding.

The pounding continued, and she thought she heard voices under the wind. She couldn't be sure. It could have been a wish; it could have been a memory. "Mom!"

There was only one way to find out.

The brass bar was cold, almost burning. She grabbed it and pushed down, then she jumped back and held her breath against the wind's rush.

The door swung open suddenly, and the bottle was at her shoulder as Hugh and Colin stumbled in. The bottle fell, bounced, rolled out of the way. Matt cheered, and she embraced Colin fiercely, kissed him hard and let him virtually drag her down the two steps into the dining room while he talked about the book the doctor had found. She, in turn, railed against Cameron's callous disbelief, and Matt was demanding loudly to know what had happened.

It continued until, abruptly, there was a charged, unpleasant silence.

All the words were out and gone, the reunion complete. Colin dropped to the piano bench and opened the book in his lap.

"Ross," Cameron said, making the name a threat as he moved toward him, hands fisted. "Ross, I've had enough of this. You and these other nuts get the hell out!"

Montgomery turned to him and planted a fist in his stomach. Cameron's eyes widened, narrowed, and he fell into the nearest chair, legs splayed and hands cupped protectively over his waist.

"One more word," the doctor said, brandishing the bottle Peg had dropped, "and I'll smash this across your fucking nose."

Peg sat beside Colin and took the book gently from his hands. His fingers were trying to turn the pages, but they wouldn't work properly, and she could see his frustration building to a rage. A quick glance at the title, which meant nothing to her, and she flipped to the table of contents, then back to the index. Colin grunted and pointed.