The Devil's Labyrinth (27 page)

Teri stared at him, frozen where she stood. Who was this man? Who was this person she’d allowed into her life, who she’d trusted so much she had invited him to move into her home? This man who only a few moments ago had been so loving, so protective?

Now he was a complete stranger—there was not even a trace left of the man she’d fallen in love with. “You did this,” she breathed, the truth slashing into her soul like the blade of a knife. “You told them—” Her voice broke, and she began backing away toward the door. What was so important about the cross? Why did this man need it? And how did he know that whoever had broken into the house hadn’t found its hiding place in the attic trunk? Suddenly—even though she didn’t know why—she knew that whatever happened, she wouldn’t help him, wouldn’t tell him anything. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “All Bill brought was—”

“Don’t lie to me,” Tom Kelly said, his voice suddenly low and dangerous. “I know what he brought home, and I know it’s still here. The fireplace poker hadn’t been moved. That was our sign—if he’d found it, he’d have left the poker lying in the middle of the living room floor.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Teri insisted, edging closer to the door.

“You do,” Kelly whispered, his eyes dark and menacing. “You know, and you’re going to tell me. We’ve got all night. Trust me on this, Teri. You’ll be telling me anything I want to know long before the sun comes up.”

Teri turned and fled.

Tom lunged after her, grabbing the back of her dress. She pulled away, feeling the fabric rip, and raced toward the top of the stairs.

He reached for her again, but she twisted away from his grip. He came after her again, but suddenly skidded as a throw rug slipped out from under him on the hardwood floor. He staggered, fell to his knees, but managed to grab one of her ankles.

Now Teri, too, fell, but lashed out with her free leg, kicking at his face, at his chest, at his arms—kicking him anywhere she could, panic giving her a strength she didn’t know she had.

“Tell me, damn you!” he roared, finding a grip on her flailing leg.

She grabbed the spindles of the baluster with both hands and wrenched her ankles out of his grasp, then got her feet beneath her and ran down the stairs.

He leaped from the top stair and landed on her, and together they tumbled down the last steps.

Teri’s head smashed hard on the bottom step, but somehow she mustered one last burst of energy and started lurching through the living room toward the front door.

Tom Kelly’s arm snaked around her neck in a vise grip she couldn’t escape. “We don’t have to do this,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “Just tell me where the cross is.”

Suddenly she twisted hard, turning just enough to jerk her knee hard up into his groin. His grip weakened slightly, and for a brief moment she thought she might escape. But then his eyes filled with rage, and a furious howl erupted from his throat. His huge hands closed on her shoulders and he hurled her to the floor.

She reached out, trying to break her fall, but it was too late.

Teri’s head crashed on the marble hearth of the fireplace.

She saw a starburst of color.

And then nothing.

Tom stood still for a long moment, recovering his breath and waiting for the agony in his groin to ease. He glowered furiously at Teri’s still form, offering a quick prayer to Allah that she would live long enough to tell him what he had to know. And she would tell him; by the time she awakened, she would be completely restrained, and, if he had to, he would spend the rest of the night getting the information from her.

As the nausea from the agony in his groin passed, he went to her, knelt, and made certain she was still breathing.

She was.

Everything was going to be all right.

But as he rose to his feet to find something with which to bind her, the flare of headlights washed across the living room.

A car pulled up in front.

He stepped to the window and pulled the curtain just far enough aside to peer out.

A police car.

So he wasn’t going to have the rest of the night after all.

He ducked into the kitchen, then slipped quietly out the back door.

The one with the broken pane.

C
HAPTER
47

R
YAN’S HEAD SNAPPED UP.

A sound!

Faint, but definitely there, coming from somewhere in the blackness beyond the chapel’s altar.

Both the candle he held as he sat in the confessional and the one in the sand had burned halfway down, yet it didn’t feel like nearly enough time could have passed for that much wax to have burned.

Another sound.

This time it was the unmistakable sound of an ancient lock in a heavy door.

Then the squeal of rusty hinges, echoing off the stone walls of the chapel followed by a scraping sound.

Though he could see nothing beyond the faint pools of light cast by the two candles, he was certain the last sound had to be the vestry door sagging on its hinges and dragging on the stone floor as it swung open.

A moment later, the lights came on.

Ryan shielded his eyes against the sudden glare.

“In the confessional, Ryan?” he heard Father Sebastian ask, his voice echoing oddly. “Surely you know your sins have to be confessed to a priest, not merely to an empty booth.”

Ryan stood and stepped out of the confessional. “I—I just didn’t want to sit on the floor,” he stammered, finally dropping his hand from his eyes to look directly into Father Sebastian’s face. But the priest’s expression was as bland as his voice had been, utterly unreadable.

“I’m glad you’re here, Ryan,” Father Sebastian said now. “In fact, though you may not have been praying yourself, I think of you as an answer to my own prayers.”

A chill ran through Ryan that had nothing to do with the cold stone of the chapel, and his mind began racing. He’d heard the vestry door unlock, but had he heard the priest lock it again? Or even close it?

No! It was still open. If he could shove the priest aside—just knock him off his feet for a moment—

But then what? Where did that door lead to?

More tunnels? How would he ever find his way out? “An answer to your prayers?” Ryan echoed, stalling for time. “What does that mean?”

Father Sebastian’s lips formed a smile, but there was a coldness in his eyes that Ryan had never seen before. “I needed help, and God has sent me you. The one person I would have chosen myself. Isn’t it wonderful to have been chosen by God?”

Ryan’s eyes flicked all over the chapel, searching for a way out, but except for the vestry door behind the altar, there was none. And Father Sebastian’s tall figure stood directly between Ryan and that door.

“I—I don’t think God chose me for anything,” Ryan said.

“Ah, but He did,” the priest said, moving closer.

Ryan edged back until he could go no farther, his back pressed against the locked main door.

“The Pope is coming to visit us,” Sebastian said, moving closer. “He expects to see a miracle, and you and I, together, are going to show him one.”

Once again Ryan’s eyes darted around the chamber, coming to rest on the contorted face of Christ that was suspended high above the altar. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice from trembling. “I don’t know anything about miracles or—”

“You don’t need to know anything,” Father Sebastian said softly. “I know enough for both of us. I know all about the evil that resides inside you, Ryan. I know all about it, and I know how to draw it forth.”

“I’m not ev—” Ryan began, but once again the priest cut him off.

“There is evil inside of every Catholic, Ryan. But I know how to control it. And I know how to exorcise it as well. His Holiness will watch it, Ryan. He’ll watch me drive the evil from your soul.”

The priest moved closer, and Ryan smelled something acrid emanating from him. Instinctively, he pressed back harder against the chapel door, but when it didn’t budge he suddenly ducked his head, twisted to the right, and bolted for the vestry door behind the altar, certain that wherever it led had to be safer than the chapel itself.

But the priest anticipated his move, and grabbed Ryan’s arm with far more strength than the boy expected, pulling him off balance. A second later Father Sebastian’s free hand was clamping some kind of wet rag over his mouth and nose. Ryan fought to hold his breath against the acrid fumes emanating from the rag, but it was no use.

His own strength seemed to ebb away as the priest’s grew. Within a few seconds, Ryan’s heart was pounding in his chest, and, despite his own will, his instinct for air overcame his reason and his lungs expanded, sucking in great gulps of the terrible fumes.

It was as if a plug had been pulled inside him, and what little strength was left in his body seemed to leak out of his limbs.

He felt himself slump against the priest, and then drop to his knees on the cold stone.

“It’s all right, Ryan,” he heard Father Sebastian say. “When you wake up, you’ll be a new person.”

Ryan gazed up at the priest’s smiling, gentle face—marred only by two cold, empty eyes—and then the blackness poured in from all around him.

With no way to escape, Ryan gave himself up to blackness.

C
HAPTER
48

S
TEVE
M
ORGAN PARKED
the patrol car and switched off the headlights. “Let’s make this quick, okay? See if you can resist the urge to start thinking up new questions.”

“Just a signature,” Matt McCain agreed, opening the door to step out into the drizzling rain.

Morgan adjusted his hat, and together the two officers walked up the driveway to the front door. The house was still ablaze with lights; nothing seemed to have changed since they’d left less than an hour ago. Yet even as they mounted the steps to the front porch, McCain’s gut began to burn, always a sure sign that, despite appearances, something had, indeed, changed.

Morgan pressed the doorbell and they listened to it ring hollowly inside the house.

They waited, but there were no footsteps, no “I’m coming!” call from inside.

Just silence.

A silence as hollow as the chimes a moment ago.

Morgan pressed the doorbell again. “Maybe she went to her boyfriend’s for the night.”

Morgan shook his head. “The boyfriend’s car’s still in the driveway.” He opened the screen door and knocked loudly on the wooden door. “Mrs. McIntyre?” he called.

Matt McCain stepped off the front porch into the flower bed and peered through the picture window. Though the curtains were drawn, they were sheers, and he could clearly see into the living room. Probably one of the reasons the house had been hit—anyone watching it for more than a few minutes would have been able to see that no one was home. “Sure doesn’t seem like anyone’s in there,” he said, though the burning in his gut was getting worse, belying his own words. Someone was in there, all right. They just weren’t answering the door.

“Crap,” Morgan muttered. “Now we’ll have to come back in the morning and get this thing signed before we can turn it in.” He knocked again, harder.

McCain leaned closer to the window, shading his eyes from the porch light, then he picked his way through the garden to the other side of the picture window.

And he saw something.

Feet.

A pair of women’s feet, still wearing high heels. Someone was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace.

Face down.

“Jesus,” he whispered, unsnapping the leather safety strap from his .45 and pulling it from its holster. “She’s in there, Steve. And it looks like she’s hurt. Call for backup and an ambulance.”

Morgan keyed the microphone on his shoulder and started talking rapidly even as he drew his own weapon.

“Stay here,” McCain said. “I’m going around the back.” Moving in absolute silence, he slipped around the corner of the house, shining his flashlight ahead, alert for any movement.

Several houses away a dog’s furious barking suddenly exploded the quiet of the night, and McCain knew instantly what had caused it: Teri McIntyre’s boyfriend was gone, but not in his car—he was taking an invisible route through the backyards until he got to the park only a few hundred yards away. And just outside the park was a subway station. From there, he could go anywhere.

No longer worried about keeping silent, McCain hurried along the side of the house and through the open gate to the backyard, then crossed the patio and—after a last glance around—went through the kitchen door that was not only unlocked, but stood wide open.

A few seconds later he opened the front door for Steve Morgan, and was crouching by Teri McIntyre, feeling her neck for a pulse.

Though her head was bleeding, and she was unconscious, she was still alive.

“Search the house,” McCain told Morgan, even though he was certain that Teri McIntyre’s assailant had already vanished into the night.

His weapon still in his hand, Steve Morgan headed upstairs to search as McCain crouched by Teri McIntyre, talking softly to her, telling her that everything was going to be all right.

But even as he spoke the words, he knew everything was not going to be all right. His gut was telling him that this was more than just a simple burglary.