Coven

Do Horse, who was at no loss for muscle, rammed his big, knuckly fist at Tom’s face. The guy must be a Democrat, Tom surmised. He held up a palm, into which Do Horse’s fist collided. Tom’s palm didn’t budge. The bones in Do Horse’s hand shattered.

—Get them! the sister ordered. —They’re getting away!

The Erblings, screaming, flew by on either side. Tom snatched each by the hair, and that was the end of the great escape. By fistfuls of scalp he held the two girls off their feet, as a fisherman might hold up two trout. The sister’s grinning face beamed within the recess of the black hood. Her sunglassed eyes drank up the sight of the girls’ nude bodies as they lurched screaming beneath Tom’s fists. Next the sister was touching them, feeling their breasts, cupping their pubes as if in awe.

Hurry up, Tom thought like a groan.

The sister’s fanged mouth stretched wide. The pink needled tether shot out too quickly to be seen and rammed its stinger into one throat, then the other. The Erblings fell limp.

Tom dropped them on the carpet. Meanwhile, Do Horse had sprung back up, bringing a Mitsubishi VCR down on Tom’s head with a heavy metallic bang.

Tom turned. “Don’t waste your time, pal.”

Do Horse grabbed a large wall mirror and broke that, too, over Tom’s head. Tom winced slightly as the mirror burst. Do Horse stared, incredulous that Tom was still standing.

“Here’s an old one,” Tom offered. “You know what a Chernobyl hooker’s specialty is? Glow jobs.”

“That’s terrible,” Do Horse couldn’t help but comment.

“Yeah, I know.”

Tom grabbed Do Horse’s throat and crushed it.

He calmly dragged the slowly strangling young man into the bathroom and dropped him in the tub. The body slapped like raw meat hitting slate. Tom ripped open the boy’s rib cage and abdominal wall, exposing the warm delicacies within.

“Soup’s on,” he said.

—Oh, good! The sister scurried in, knelt, and began to eat.

Tom rolled the two paralyzed girls up in the oval carpet, then carried them out to the car. The sister was still eating when he returned to the dorm room.

—It’s so good! she exclaimed. Tom saw with some distaste that the body part for which David Willet was nicknamed had already been eaten. The sister was now clunkily prying apart the boy’s skull and scooping out big squiggles of brains.

—Want some? she asked, offering a handful.

“No thanks,” Tom said. “I’m trying to cut down.” He cleaned up the broken mirror, faintly unnerved at the glimpses of his own graying face in the pieces. He set the VCR back, made the bed, and packed the strewn clothing into the hamper. Then he checked the fridge for beer but grimly discovered only cans of Bud. Forget it, he thought.

At last the sister emerged, her little mouth smudged red. —I’m done, Tom. I’ll wait in the car while you clean up the rest.

Tom glanced at the offal in the tub. “Thanks a lot,” he said.

««—»»

And just as the night has its share of callers, so, too, does it have its share of watchers. One such watcher was Jervis Phillips.

He’d set up an hour ago with the telescope and Czanek’s receiver, expecting Sarah and the German to repeat last night’s performance. But they’d never arrived. The only activity to be seen in Sarah’s window was Frid, the cat, which milled disinterested about the dorm room. Jervis could hear it purring over the receiver. Every so often its bottomless eyes seemed to gaze directly into the telescope, as if it knew Jervis was watching. God, I hate that cat, he thought.

But then he spotted motion in another window. It only took a moment for him to realize it was the Erblings’ room.

Jervis pulled his azimuth to the left and focused in.

Then he froze.

Jeeeeeeeesus Christ.

Insanity. That’s what smiled back at him through the telescope. This was not a voyeur’s cheap thrill. This was insanity.

The unwatchable things he watched consumed only minutes. The Erbling girls, naked, lay limp on the floor. A naked guy, who looked just like Do Horse Willet, was fighting another guy who looked just like Tom.

“It is Tom,” Jervis muttered, eye pressed to the barlow.

But why was Tom’s face gray and sunk eyed? Furthermore, what was that lunatic scene? Most bizarre of all was the woman who presided over this, a woman in a black cape and sunglasses.

Now Tom was dragging Do Horse to the bathtub. And the woman…

She’s eating him, Jervis realized.

Jervis took his eye away from the telescope, away from the crimson frenzy. Illusion, he thought. That’s all. He finished a Kirin and rationalized. Too much drinking, too little eating, and the mind plays tricks on you.

He calmed his terrors with reason, convinced himself that when he looked back in the telescope, he would see none of the rampant madness he thought he’d seen. He would see no murder, no cloaked woman, no blood. He would see normality.

He looked back into the telescope—

Jeeeeeeeesus Christ!

—and saw Tom stuffing handfuls of innards into a plastic garbage bag as the black cloaked woman pushed a final clump of human brains into her red smeared mouth.

—

CHAPTER 19

What time was it? The faintest dawn gathered in the window. Birds chirped. It must be five or five thirty.

Lydia slid carefully out of bed, slipped on her panties, and padded about the dark room. It occurred to her that she could put her clothes on and slip out right now, leave a tawdry note like “Thanks for the good time, see you around.” How would Wade react to that? It was too hard nowadays to judge the nature of emotions—a litmus test would be so much easier. Her cutoffs lay on the floor, her loaded derringer on the desk. Did she, a rather dedicated police officer, want to get involved with Wade, a rather undedicated student?

How could they be compatible? They were opposite in so many ways. The physical thing had been good; was she letting that fog her focus? This seemed different, though. The sex aside, her heart deciphered itself: she did want to be involved with him. Even better, maybe she already was.

She heard footsteps in the hall. They sounded stealthy.

Abruptly then, the doorknob jiggled.

But surely Wade had locked the door. Only idiots leave their doors unlocked, she thought.

Then the door opened.

Lydia grabbed her gun and hid behind the desk. A figure entered cautiously and took time to close the door without making noise. Lydia made no details of the shape. It crossed the room in silence and stopped at the foot of Wade’s bed.

Was the figure deliberating? It stood still a moment. Then, quickly, it began to reach for Wade.

Lydia snapped on the light and pointed the .22 at the 5x zone of the trespasser’s torso. “Don’t move,” she ordered.