Charlie's heart was a boot kicking inside his chest. He dug in his heels and palms and scrabbled away like a backward crab.
The little girl's face crinkled up and her blue eyes danced as she giggled. Her laugh was sweet and musical. 'You look funny!'
'You can't fool me! I know what you are!'
She stepped closer. 'You do?'
Charlie kept backing away, and then he banged his dome against a wall and that was it. Nowhere to go.
'You-you a demon!'
She laughed again. 'Now you're really being silly!'
His mind screamed, What do I do? What do I do?
He couldn't think. He hadn't expected this, wasn't prepared, never believed that the demon would appear to him. Shoulda listened to the rev, shoulda took his advice and packed his gear and geesed.
Pray! Of course! Words from the Twenty-third Psalm jumped into his brain.
He raised his voice. ' 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff they-''
''Valley of death',' she said, looking around and nodding. 'Yes. That's where we are.' She pointed to the hole he'd been digging. 'You're only seven inches from my head. If you keep digging you'll find me.'
Charlie slashed the air with his hand. 'No! You can't fool me! You're not Tara Portman!'
The child frowned. 'Then why are you digging?'
The question took Charlie by surprise. Why was he digging? Because he'd made a deal with Lyle. And because...
'Because Tara Portman may be buried here, but you're not her.'
Her blue eyes turned cold. 'Oh, but I am. And I'm not the only one down here. There.' She pointed to a hole Jack had dug half a dozen feet to Charlie's left. 'Another foot deeper and you'd have found Jerry Schwartz. He was only seven. Right where you're sitting, five feet down, is Rose Howard. She was nine, like me.'
Charlie wanted to jump off the spot but couldn't bring himself to move.
Suddenly she disappeared, but immediately flashed back into view in a far corner.
'Jason Moskowski is here.'
Charlie blinked and she was in another corner of the cellar.
'Carrie Martin is here.'
She flashed to three more locations, naming another child each time. And with each name her eyes grew icier and the cellar colder.
Suddenly she was in front of him, not three feet away.
'Eight of us,' she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Lord forgive him, he was starting to buy her line. Maybe the rev was wrong. Maybe this wasn't no demon. Maybe this was the furilla ghost of a murdered child.
Or maybe that was just what the demon, kin to the Father of Lies, wanted him to believe.
Real cold in here now. His puffing breaths were smoking the air. He rubbed his bare arms. His sweaty T-shirt was freezing his spine. He saw his sweatshirt balled up by the junk pile.
He rose uncertainly. 'I'm gonna get my shirt, okay?'
'Why are you asking me?' she said.
Good question. She hadn't threatened him or nothin', but just seeing her had turned him into a scrub.
He grabbed the hoodie and pulled it on. Better, but still cold.
'You want us to find your body and the others. That it, ain't it? That why you back, right?'
She shook her head.
'Then why?' Sudden fear slammed Charlie like a truck. 'You want my soul!'
She laughed like that was such a wack idea, but the sweet sound didn't match up with her ice eyes.
Charlie's hand brushed against the pin on his shirt. He looked down at it. wwjd-what would Jesus do in a case like this?
Simple: He'd tell this spook or demon to get back where it belonged. But Charlie didn't have Jesus' power. Still... it was worth a try.
'Go back where you came from!' he cried.
The little girl blinked. 'But I don't know where I came from.'
That shocked him. 'Lie! You were in heaven or hell, one or the other! You gotta know!'
She shook her head. 'I don't remember.'
Maybe she was telling the truth, maybe she was lying, but Charlie wasn't hangin' around to find out. If she wouldn't go, then he would. Right up those stairs. That was what Jesus would say: Highside evil. Don't even give it the time of day.
He started to step around her but she flashed out of sight and reappeared by the cellar stairs.
'You can't leave. Not yet.'
'Why not?'
'You might ruin things.'
He could make a run at her, but what then? Could he knock her down? If she was a real kid, no problem. Couldn't be more than seventy pounds soaking wet. But she wasn't. Was there even anything there to knock aside? Or would he pass right through her-or her through him? That would put her inside him. He couldn't handle that. What if she stayed in?
Charlie shuddered and backed off a step. This little girl had him down and whipped. Couldn't scrap a lick against her.
'What you want with me?' He didn't like the way his voice sounded-all high up and scrub whiny.
She stared at him. 'With you? Nothing.'
'Then-?'
She raised a hand and his voice died. He tried to speak but couldn't make a sound.
'Quiet now. I'm waiting for someone else, and I don't want you scaring her away.'
Point of Grace's vocals blared to life again.
7
Gia hears the voices as soon as she steps through the door. Children's voices, whimpering, sobbing... lost sounds that tear at her heart. She recognizes the waiting room of Menelaus Manor but the voices are coming from the second floor. She rushes up the stairs and finds herself in a long hall lined with doors. Eight of them. The voices are louder here, and grow louder still as she moves down the hall. All the doors but one are open and as she passes each she sees a child, a boy or a girl, standing alone in the center of an empty room, sobbing. Some cry out for their mommies. Pressure builds in Gia's throat as she tries to enter the rooms to comfort them, but she can't stop. She must keep moving down the hall toward the closed door at its end. She stops before it and reaches for the knob, but before she touches it the door slams open and there's Tara Portman, the front of her blouse all bloody and her eyes wide with fear, and she's screaming, 'Help! Help! Someone's hurt! You've got to come! Come now! NOW!'
Gia awoke with a start and the word NOW! echoing through her head. She looked around the darkening bedroom. Through the window she saw that the sun was down and twilight fading fast.
A nap. She hadn't slept well last night. She'd kept waking from dreams, remembering little of them except that they were disturbing. Being pregnant probably added to the fatigue. But as tired as she'd felt all afternoon, she'd fought Jack's suggestion of a nap until she could barely keep her eyes open. Finally she'd allowed herself a quick lie-down on the bed, just for a few minutes... She'd just had another disturbing dream. What had it been about? She seemed to remember something about Menelaus-
Gia lunged to her feet as it all rushed back to her: Tara's terrified face as she screamed about someone being hurt and how Gia had to come now. Now!
'Jack!'
A bolt of alarm shot through her chest as she ran downstairs through the dark house to the kitchen where she had Jack's cell phone number magneted to the refrigerator door. She found it, dialed, but was told by a mechanical voice that he wasn't available. She flipped on a light, grabbed her pocketbook, and dumped it onto the counter. She rummaged through the mess until she found the Ifasen brochure she'd picked up at Menelaus Manor.
