Dark Homecoming (30 page)

L
iz struggled in the grip of her unknown captor. It was a man—that was all she could tell. He had one hand clasped over her mouth while he used the other to hold both her arms behind her back. Since pulling her into the secret passageway and sliding the panel shut, the man had not spoken. Instead, he had hurried down the corridor in the darkness, seeming very familiar with the layout. Several times Liz had tried to break free but she'd had no success. She tried also kicking backward with her foot, but her efforts had no impact on the man.

Finally, some ways removed—so that Nicki couldn't hear their voices through the wall, Liz presumed—the man shoved her roughly to the floor. Liz pulled herself up against the wall, her knees in front of her chest. She strained to see through the dark. The man stood over her, and she could hear him making sounds with his tongue. Terrified, Liz pulled her phone from her pocket and shined the light up at him. She gasped.

It was Paul Delacorte.

“What? Why?” Liz stammered. “What are you doing?”

He smiled. In this strange light, Dr. Delacorte looked like a ghoul standing over her. His eyes were so deep-set that they were lost in shadows. His face looked like a skull.

“I was sent to bring you to safety,” he replied. “Such a terrible storm, isn't it?”

“Safety?” Liz got to her feet. “I hardly feel safe being dragged inside the wall like that. My friend Nicki is out there . . .”

“I was only told to bring you,” Delacorte said, stroking his short, clipped white beard.

Liz wanted to turn her light away from the sight of him, but she feared being left in the dark with such a creature. “Where is Mrs. Hoffman?” she asked.

“Waiting for you. They're all waiting for you.”

“Who . . . are they?”

“Our guests, of course.”

From outside they could hear the battering the house was taking from the wind. There were snaps and cracking sounds. Even here, inside the walls, the moisture had permeated. Liz felt sticky and damp.

“What do you mean, guests?” Liz asked. “And where are you supposed to take me?”

Delacorte's smile seemed hideous in the glare of the flashlight. “Oh, we have a little time. They're trying some other things first. But I know what we really need to make our little party a success is you.”

“What are you talking about?” Liz screamed at him. “I want out of here!”

“In fact,” Delacorte said, ignoring her, “we have so enough time that maybe we can have a little fun. Afterward, you know, that won't be possible.”

“What are you talking about?” Liz asked again, her voice becoming weaker, more frightened.

He took a step toward her. Liz backed up down the narrow passageway, keeping the light from her phone shining directly in Delacorte's face.

“Come on, baby, it's now or never,” the man said.

His hands cupped her breasts.

Steady, Liz
, she thought to herself.

In one swift motion, she brought her right knee up and smashed it into his balls.

Delacorte let out a shriek of pain and collapsed. Liz turned and bolted down the narrow passageway, shining her light in front of her.

“You goddamn bitch!” Delacorte was shouting. “You goddamn fucking biiiiitch!”

The farther Liz ran the more distant his voice sounded. She had no idea where she was running to, but her brief experience with these passageways had suggested that they ran all through the house. So there had to be other exits. She just had to find one. She flashed her light along the wall, hoping to spot a seam. But she saw nothing. And she didn't want to stop and try to find one, not with Delacorte behind her. She had a sudden terrifying sense of herself, as if seen from above: a hamster running helplessly through a maze, never finding her way out.

“Get back here!” Delacorte's voice echoed through the passageway. It sounded closer now; he was gaining on her. “They are expecting you!”

Who were
they
? And why did the idea of meeting them frighten Liz even more than being caught by Delacorte?

“You can't get out of here!” he shouted, and now his voice seemed right on top of her. Liz swung her light around. She caught a glimpse of her adversary rounding the corner, panting and winded. She also caught a glimpse of something else: a ladder leading up to the second floor.

“Now listen to me,” Delacorte said, removing a syringe from an inner pocket of his jacket. “Don't struggle anymore. There's no point. You don't want to die in here when the hurricane knocks the house to shreds, do you?”

“No,” Liz said in a very small voice. “I don't want to die.”

“So be a good girlie then,” he said, approaching her with his syringe.

I'm an anesthesiologist
, she heard Delacorte saying at the dinner table.
I put people to sleep.

She waited until he drew close to her. Then she attacked again.

Her right hand clenched in a fist, she swung and connected with Delacorte's jaw. His head snapped backward in surprise. Liz heard the syringe go flying from his hand, bounce off the wall, and skitter across the floor.

In a flash she leapt onto the ladder and started up, keeping her phone gripped tightly in her left hand as if it were a magical amulet for protection.

In some ways, it was. Otherwise, she'd be plunged into total darkness.

Making it up the ladder, Liz stepped into a passageway on the second floor. Going up a floor wasn't very smart during a hurricane, Liz knew. But she'd had no choice. It was her only escape route from Delacorte. She hoped she could find an exit up here. She knew there was at least one, in the last room on the left in the servants' quarters. But whether she could find it, she wasn't sure.

Suddenly the house shook. It felt less like wind than an earthquake. There was a terrible, high-pitched screech and the very walls around Liz began to come undone. In an instant the darkness disappeared and there was light—a gray, muted light, but light nonetheless. There was also rain, and falling shards of wood. Liz looked up. A piece of the attic had been ripped off the house. The ceiling above her was buckling and collapsing in a dozen different places. Liz covered her head against the falling debris.

Yet even more horrifying than any of that was what came with the wood and plaster.

Three dead bodies—two of them practically skeletons. They fell to the floor just a couple of feet away from Liz. In the impact, the head of one corpse snapped from its spine and rolled toward her, coming to rest at Liz's feet. Dead, blackened eye sockets stared up at her.

Liz screamed.

“B
ring her here!” the Haitian woman was shouting. “Bring her to me!”

 

In a flash Nicki was surrounded by three people, a middle-aged man, a younger man, and a young woman with short black hair and bangs that were cut straight across her forehead. Nicki didn't resist. She was too scared to resist. Nor did she try to say anything. She was trembling too much to speak. She just allowed herself to be pushed into the room toward the Haitian woman, who was wearing a long red dress and bright red lipstick and fingernails.

“Let her witness,” the Haitian woman said, her enormous dark eyes locking on to Nicki's. “Let her witness the power we shall bring forth!”

“No, Variola, it is not safe to allow her to see,” Mrs. Hoffman said, coming up behind them. “She must be done away with. She cannot be allowed to tell what she has seen here!”

“Be quiet, you miserable woman,” Variola snarled. “This is to be done my way. Your way has failed miserably up to now. Look at her!”

She pointed to the naked, cowering woman in the center of the circle, her body bruised and broken, her eyes darting around the room in terror, her voice a series of guttural groans.

“Bring her to me!” Variola commanded again.

Nicki gasped as she felt someone behind her tie her wrists together with what felt like rope. This had to be some surreal dream she was having—someone had drugged her—she must be hallucinating. This couldn't be real! But the rough fibers of the rope being tightened against her wrists were all too real. “What are you going to do to me?” Nicki asked, her voice trembling.

“Keep quiet and we will do nothing to you,” Variola commanded.

Nicki was shoved down onto a chair by unseen hands behind her.

“But if she tells what she has seen—” Mrs. Hoffman objected.

“Do you really think Variola does not know how to prevent people from talking? You claim to have learned so much.” Variola spit on the floor. “But you know nothing.”

Nicki saw the look that was exchanged between the two women. It was clear how very much they hated each other.

In that moment a terrible crash startled them all. Even Variola let out a small sound of surprise. Nicki began to cry, realizing it was a section of the roof being torn off from another part of the house. The wall opposite Nicki buckled outward, with water suddenly seeping in from the seam of the ceiling, suggesting that walls on the other side of this room had collapsed. Nicki cried harder. The hurricane was going to destroy them.

If whatever these crazy people were doing didn't destroy them first.

“It is time!” Variola announced, her face triumphant in the candlelight. “The power has arrived! Can you feel it, sisters and brothers?”

The group of people, who had returned to their chairs in the circle, murmured in agreement. But one woman, middle-aged, stood.

“Shouldn't we wait for the others?” she asked. “Paul hasn't returned . . .”

“There is no time to wait,” Variola said. “We must bring her back! We must implore our master to restore her to life!'

“Hail, master,” the group chanted. The naked woman standing beside the large red candle in the center of the circle began to moan.

“Sweet Jesus,” Nicki cried. “You're calling on Satan!”

Variola shot her a look with those great dark eyes of hers. “Not Satan, you fool! Vodou does not worship the devil! It is not evil we seek, but balance.” Nicki saw her eyes shift over to Mrs. Hoffman as she spoke. “Those who use the powers for evil, for selfish reasons, will pay the price.” She returned her eyes to Nicki. “We seek to restore our sister to full and vibrant life. A life in which she will hopefully use her powers for good. And to do this, we beseech not a devil, but a great spirit, a spirit who can restore balance to our world.”

“Then restore her!” Mrs. Hoffman shouted. “Do what you have promised to do, but have so far failed!”

The naked woman in the center of the circle let out a long, low moo.

Another crash as the wind lashed the house. Several candles flickered out, and the room grew darker. A long crack made its way across the ceiling above them. Rainwater began to ooze through the plaster, dripping on all of them.

“Oh, Papa Ghede, restore her!” Variola cried. “Give our sister the life that was hers before the tragedy! We implore you, our dark and compassionate master! We beseech you!”

Outside the wind reached such a high-pitched frenzy that the candle blew out and everyone covered their ears against the sound. All except Nicki, who feared she would go deaf.

“Restore her!” Variola screamed into the sound. Her face was contorted, her eyes squeezed shut, every vein on her neck standing out in stark relief.

The naked woman collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Variola sat down on the floor herself. “She is restored,” she said quietly. “Now we must all move to safety.”

Mrs. Hoffman bolted from her chair and went to the fallen woman. “My love,” she cooed over her. “My darling . . .”

The woman turned her face up toward the ceiling.

“Speak to us,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “Your followers. We are here . . .”

The others had all stood now and were gathered around them.

“Speak to us,” Mrs. Hoffman said again.

The dazed, naked woman opened her mouth. The group waited.

And then she let out a long animal bray.

Nicki saw the fury that exploded in Mrs. Hoffman's eyes. She jumped to her feet and lunged at Variola, her hands around the Haitian woman's throat. “You failed again!” she screamed. “Your ways are wrong! Worthless and wrong!”

She was strangling Variola, who tried in vain to pull her hands from her neck.

“Stop, Mrs. Hoffman!” cried Mrs. Martinez, rushing up behind her. “You'll kill her!”

“I want to kill her,” Mrs. Hoffman said, shoving Mrs. Martinez aside. “She deserves to die!”

“We need her,” one of the men argued.

“We
don't
need her,” Mrs. Hoffman replied, but nonetheless she let go of Variola's neck and pushed her away. Variola toppled over onto the floor. “Until we have restored our true leader, I am in charge of this coven. We will do it my way.”

“The same way we have been trying for the past year,” said the woman with the short black hair. “But that way has not worked.”

“The way of death and bloodshed will never work,” Variola said, off to the side, looking utterly defeated.

“It has worked better than Variola's way, which was just a lot of hope and prayer and nonsense,” Mrs. Hoffman countered. “But the blood . . . it has brought her back, bit by bit. Do you not remember how she was a year ago, unable to walk, unable to comprehend even the simplest words?”

“I refuse,” Mrs. Martinez said, and the entire group turned to look at her. “No more. Please, no more! How many lives for hers?”

Mrs. Hoffman turned savagely at her. “As many as is needed! You fool! You are a part of this! You cannot back out! None of you can!” She turned to face them all. “You all came willingly to this coven, pledging your lives and your faith. And you have all benefited from our deal with our dark master.” She looked over at Variola. “He has given us a great deal. Call it evil, call it balance, call it whatever you will. But suddenly our coffers have filled with wealth. Suddenly our dreams have been realized.” She turned back to Mrs. Martinez. “You gave your soul so that your grandchildren might find the wealth and success that always eluded you. You can't back out now!”

“I had no idea this is what it would entail when Variola told me about it,” the older woman replied, breaking into tears.

“It doesn't have to entail this,” Variola said weakly. “Don't listen to her.”

“But it does!” Mrs. Hoffman shouted. “It is the only way to bring her back! And we are running out of time!”

The walls trembled again against the wind, as if they would collapse inward at any minute like a house of cards.

“What we need,” Mrs. Hoffman said, “what we have always needed, is blood.”

She turned and looked at Nicki.

“The blood is the life,” Mrs. Hoffman intoned.

It was a chant picked up by the others. “The blood is the life. The blood is the life . . .”

Nicki looked at their faces. All but Mrs. Martinez were glassy-eyed, and they had all turned to stare at her.

“No,” Nicki moaned.

“No!” Variola shouted, but her voice was weak, and getting weaker.

The others began moving toward Nicki.

“The blood is the life,” they chanted. “The blood is the life.”

Nicki struggled to free her hands but failed. Attempting to stand, she fell to the floor. The others gathered around her, looking down.

In her pocket, Nicki's phone began to ring, but of course she couldn't answer it. Her ringtone was the theme from the TV show
Bewitched
. A silly little jingle that seemed to go unnoticed by the people who were bearing down on her.

“The blood is the life,” they chanted in unison.

Nicki screamed.