Brinke gathered her courage, not a difficult task, and leaned forward. “Would it be all right for me to take a look?”
Kerwin spun toward her, his reddened eyes filled with shock and anger.
Brinke smiled. “I’m mixed race and six-foot-two, with a giant afro. I’ve been stared at a few times too.”
Kerwin raised his voice device halfway, then set it back down and returned to staring out the window.
“Would you pull over please, Doris?” Brinke asked.
The pelting rain seemed to slow with the Audi. The mayor maneuvered onto a tractor road at the edge of a pumpkin field. Kerwin glowered at his sister as though she had betrayed him.
Brinke reached up to pat him on the back, then opened her door. “Come on.”
She stretched her arms and took several splashy steps into the darkened, muddy field, raising her face to the pouring sky. Behind her, Kerwin opened his door.
As she walked to him, she brushed back the thick curls already plastered to her face. Four inches shorter than she was, Kerwin shivered worse than ever, looking at her with the frightened eyes of a feral kitten.
Standing up from the driver’s side, Doris popped open her umbrella and offered Brinke an expression that was meant to be reassuring but was closer to doubtful.
Brinke reached up to take Kerwin’s scarf. His hand shot to her wrist, clutching with a painful tightness. Brinke did not express fear or anger. She simply drew her hand away.
A moment later, Kerwin reached for the scarf and balled it in his fists as he pulled it away from his face, closing his eyes tight as a submarine hatch, squeezing out tears. He yanked it all the way off. He opened his eyes to see Brinke’s reaction.
Brinke put her hands on the prosthesis, a heavy plastic lower jawbone that was screwed into his skull just under his ears. Brinke thought of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Frankenstein Jr., a pleasant childhood memory of lazy Saturday mornings.
“Oh, honey,” she put both hands on the dripping, cold prosthesis. In the Audi’s interior light, its flesh tone was darker than Kerwin’s face, no doubt due to months of miserable indoor isolation. “A lot of dudes would kill for a jaw that square.”
Doris beamed. Kerwin gingerly touched her hand to be sure Brinke was really touching him, as his eyes made the smile his mouth could not.
* * * *
Though he knew Violina held total power over his body, Steve was no less ashamed of his own actions.
Dressed in a purple, hooded robe, tailored to fit her waist and bust, Violina set about casting her circle.
Steve could only watch, feeling the odd stress of paralysis, as she placed red votives inside pentacle-etched sconces to protect their flames from the steadily rising wind. The ritual made Steve’s skin crawl, yet another involuntary action.
Finished, she went to the body that lay across a mossy grave. “Wakey!” she sang, and Dennis sat up like a plank, shocked and confused.
“Hi, there, cutie,” she mocked. “Thank you for joining my team.”
“What the hell…?” Dennis stared at the flask shaking in Steve’s hand.
“This evil piss makes your body do what she says,” explained the tortured trucker, pointing his eyes toward the flask. “Sorry.”
“Lady,” Dennis tried to raise his voice but could only manage a strained monotone like Steve’s. “Whatever you did to me, you better undo it right-the-fuck-now.”
“My dear puerile poet,” Violina began, “threats are the luxury of those who hold power.”
Dennis intended to lunge at her but only stood still and helpless, his muscles and nerves bypassed by Violina’s will and the poisoned whiskey.
“Don’t make it worse for yourself, man,” said Steve.
To emphasize her point, Violina went to Dennis and stroked his hair. “Kiss me.”
“Hell no!” But he did, wishing and hoping to bite, or retch, or at least scream.
Violina released him and went to the towering obelisk gravestone of Wilcott Bennington that pierced a leaf-blown sky going black as midnight because of the wool-dense blanket of clouds she had summoned. “I think it would be fitting to start here.”
“Start what?” Dennis asked.
“The annihilation of your sweet little town.” She stooped to dig through her bag, coming up with the athame.
“Steve, come stand on this platform.” She pointed to the base of the massive tombstone with the athame.
As Steve strode briskly to the grave, his expression of constant dread morphed into one of utter terror.
“Dennis, my dear”—Violina extended the knife toward him—“take this, please.”
“Come on, lady. Please don’t do this.” Steve begged.
Dennis grunted with fruitless exertion as he obeyed.
Violina held up the photograph of the gateway sigil. “See this?”
Dennis tried to close his eyes.
“Damn you, boy. Stab yourself in the eye,” ordered Violina.
Dennis beheld the knife point that flew up in his hand—
“Stop!”
—and halted a mere centimeter from his eye. “Jesus!” he murmured.
Violina theatrically addressed the obelisk. “Or Saturn, right, Mr. Bennington?”
“Lady, let me go right now, or…I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life!” Steve threatened.
Violina cackled like an alpha coyote. “That’s not for you to decide, I’m afraid, little man.”
She went to Dennis. “Cut Steve open. Then paint this on the face of the beloved town father’s monument with his blood.”
“No way!” shouted Dennis, but his arm yanked the blade away from his face and pointed it at Steve.
“Don’t do it, man!” cried Steve.
“I won’t!” His right foot took a step toward Steve.
“You will,” said Violina.
Dennis’s left foot moved—and stumble-stopped halfway. “Lady, you gotta stop this now.”
His right foot rose and stepped.
“Fight it, man!” Steve’s face squeezed in on itself so tight he appeared to age twenty years, as premature night filled his wrinkles.
“So help me, bitch, I will kill you.” Dennis held himself still for a full second.
But Violina did not show her alarm at his strength “Obey me, boy.”
Dennis lurched forward.
Steve squeaked and grunted.
Dennis’s stiff arm suddenly arced around toward Violina. Stunned, she took a step back.
“You kill him now, Dennis Barcroft!” she ordered.
Dennis’s muscles ached as
