The planchette came to rest in the center of the board. Sam shifted his position slightly to get more comfortable.
'Don’t remove your hands, Sam! You’ll break the contact,' said Dana.
Her warning was unnecessary, however. Sam was too engrossed in what was happening to even consider it.
Dana went on. 'What is evil? Can you tell us what evil we are to beware of, Father Castelli?' Her voice was a quiet whisper in the otherwise silent room.
Immediately: B..L..A..K..E..S..B..A..N..E.
'Bane?' someone asked.
This time it was Jake who answered, his voice low but steady, 'It means a cause of death or ruin.'
Another voice could be heard from the back of the room. 'It says Blake. Do you think it means Hudson Blake?'
No one had an answer.
Dana decided to ask for clarification. 'Can you tell us what that is, Father?'
The planchette fell still. Dana repeated her question twice, slower each time. After what seemed an age to Sam, the planchette moved again. This time it was different instead of the smooth, circular motions, it moved in fits and starts, spasmodically jerking across the board.
'B..E..W..A..R..I..T..C..A..N..S..E…' Casey called out for those who couldn’t see the pointer.
Sam stared down at the board. The planchette was still moving helter-skelter across its surface, jerking left and right like a puppet on a string. The tingling in his arms had become almost, but not quite, pain. He wanted to tear his hands away and break the contact, but something compelled him to keep them in place. He tried to reassure himself. Jake must be doing this, he thought. Jake’s just spelling out messages to scare everyone.
'Father Castelli? Are you still with us, Father?' Dana asked. A strange expression ran across her face then, part grimace, part bewilderment. 'Who’s there?' she asked. 'Do you wish to speak with us?'
Beneath his hands, Sam felt the planchette slow down, then move with deliberation.
He watched in shock as it spelled out a message directed specifically at him.
R.E.M.E.M.B.E.R.M.Y.W.A.R.N.I.N.G.S.A.M.M.Y.
Sam sat there, stunned. The others around him who could see the board gasped in surprise, then looked at him rather oddly, as if they had just discovered something mysterious in their midst.
The planchette began moving again.
GOODBYE, SAMMY, it read.
That whispery touch of fear turned into a fist clenched savagely around his spine.
Then, with the suddenness of a striking snake, the planchette spelled out another message.
FOOLS! NEITHER YOU NOR THE OLD ONE CAN STOP ME NOW! I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU LIKE THE CATTLE YOU ARE.
Seeing this message spelled out in front of him, Sam jumped, almost breaking the contact. After what happened next, he wished he had.
Dana moaned.
Sam looked at her and recoiled in shock. She was shaking fiercely, as if a high voltage current was running through her veins. Her teeth were chattering, and the sound quickly filled the room, making it seem as if a herd of skeletons were charging past. The hand on his spine squeezed tighter.
There’s no way Jake is causing her to do that, his inner voice said.
Everyone in the room was frozen in a state of shock.
No one moved to help her.
Over her shoulder, Sam was surprised to see Katelynn staring across the room in their direction, her face as pale as a ghost. He had been so engrossed he hadn’t even noticed that she’d arrived.
Beneath his fingers, Sam felt the planchette begin to move again with slow, deliberate speed.
In a voice shaking with fear, Casey read the message aloud.
'SAY GOODBYE TO DANA.'
As if in response, Dana suddenly screamed. The sound of her cry broke the paralysis that had held everyone in its grip. Sam jumped away from the board as if it were alive. Jake grabbed Dana. She was still shaking, more violently now, her heels drumming in a frenzy on the floor.
'She’s having a fit!' someone yelled.
'Hit the lights!'
A moment later the room was filled with electric brilliance as someone complied with the request.
Sam recovered his wits and moved to help Jake. He held Dana’s feet steady. Someone else, he thought it might be Bill, pinned her arms.
Blood was flowing from her mouth, and Sam realized she’d clamped her teeth down on her tongue. Probably cut the damn thing nearly in half. He watched as Jake clenched the sides of her jaw at some hidden nerve point and forced her mouth open. Inside it was a mess; blood and saliva mixing into a crimson froth that kept them from seeing how much damage she’d done to herself. Trying to find a way to prevent her from tearing herself up further, Jake forced his wallet between her jaws and then let go of his hold. Her teeth immediately clamped down on the wallet’s leather surface like a spring-loaded vice.
Katelynn pushed her way over to them. 'Someone call the infirmary and get someone up here quick,' she told the crowd. She turned to Jake. 'Is she going to be okay?'
'I don’t know. Does anyone know if she’s epileptic?' he asked.
No one did.
Another minute passed. The convulsions slowed and then stopped altogether. Dana lay in Jake’s arms, limp but still conscious.
Katelynn removed the wallet from her mouth and tried to reassure her. 'Take it easy. You’ve had some kind of a seizure. Help is on the way, just lie still.'
Her gaze rolled around the room, wide and vacant, not really noticing any of them around her. Then she saw Jake. She stiffened in his arms, her eyes growing almost comically wide. Her left hand shot up and gripped the front of his shirt and pulled, dragging his face down close to her lips. She said something to him, but Sam was too far away to hear.
Jake blanched in response.
The mobile emergency team hustled into the room then, and everyone moved back to allow them some space to work in. Sam, Jake, and Katelynn backed away as well, noticing as they did so that the party had rapidly broken up around them. Only a few people were still in the apartment.
Katelynn stood at Sam’s side, her face pale. 'What happened in there?' she asked.
'I’m not sure. We were using the Ouija board, and she suddenly went nuts, threw a fit of some kind.' He shivered. Jake was moving that planchette, he kept telling himself. Just Jake, no one else.
That small voice spoke up again. Why don’t you ask him, it said, and he decided to do just that.
The medics loaded Dana onto a stretcher and then carried her down the stairs. Jake, Sam, and Katelynn followed the emergency team out of the building and watched as Dana was loaded into an ambulance outside. Lights flashing, the vehicle roared off toward the complex’s gates.
Jake turned to face Sam.
One glance into Jake’s eyes and Sam felt his fear grow. His blood ran cold and sluggish through his veins. He wrapped his arms around his chest in an unconscious attempt to warm himself.
Jake’s scared, he realized, recognizing the look in his friend’s eyes.
That frightened Sam more than anything that had happened that night. If Jake’s scared, he told himself, then I should be terrified. Abruptly, he realized that he was.
What Jake said next made things worse.
'Were you moving that thing, Sam?'
The question froze him where he stood. Numbly, Sam shook his head. He didn’t want to hear what he knew was coming next, but there was no escaping it.
'I wasn’t either, Sam. I swear it.'
Next to them, Katelynn said, 'If it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Sam, then who…'
Jake could only shake his head in reply to her question.
