Grave Intent (35 page)

Janet sat up quickly and looked back at the
house, expecting the animal to come pouncing out of the doorway
toward them. Instead she saw an empty threshold. Sudden movement
beyond the kitchen window caught Janet’s attention, and her eyes
locked onto it. A shadow, too tall and thin to belong to the dog,
traveled closer to the pane. As it neared, the faint glow from the
stove light gave the shadow some definition. A woman—large
eyes—narrow face—long widow’s peak. Anna Stevenson? The woman
pressed a hand against the glass as though to acknowledge Janet,
then she vanished, and the kitchen door slammed shut.

“The lady’s gone,” Ellie said, her voice sad
and haunting. “They made her go away. And now I’m going to
die.”

Heather let out a hoarse sob and dropped to
her knees.

Ellie’s words struck Janet like a
sledgehammer pounding iron; they rang loud and true. They also
filled her with an overwhelming certainty that somehow Anna
Stevenson had saved their lives. She’d helped them escape. Janet
didn’t understand how or why, but right now those details weren’t
important. For she felt just as certain that this night of horrors
was far from over.

Janet scrambled to her feet; dread
obliterating the pain in her knee. “Nobody’s going to die!” she
shouted, turning toward the house. “You hear me, goddammit?
Nobody!”

The kitchen door burst open in response, and
the thick white mass that had imprisoned them earlier rolled out of
the house in giant waves.

“Mama!” Ellie broke into a run.

“Stop! Ellie, no!” Janet lunged for her
daughter, but the fog swallowed the night in an instant. “Oh, God!”
she cried, and whirled about, groping blindly. “Ellie!
Heather!”

No answer.

No children.

Only dense white walls.

Without a second thought, Janet ran headlong
into the fog.“Ellie, Heather, answer me!”

Silence pressed against Janet, and she felt
ready to implode with hopelessness. She ran, stumbling, crying,
pushing on with no sense of direction. Her world had become another
planet where nothing made sense.

Something large and blue abruptly entered her
line of sight, and before Janet could pull up short, she crashed
into it. Her brain registered
van
! as her body snapped back
from the impact and slammed to the ground.

Groaning, she struggled back up, her tongue
twitching over an odd, metallic taste in her mouth. Janet wiped
warm dribble from her chin with a sleeve. It came back stained with
blood. She ignored it and held out a hand to search for the van
that had disappeared behind the white shroud. Just as she took a
wobbly step forward, she heard a sniffle.

She froze, listening.

Another sniffle. Soft sob.

Janet inched forward, silent, following the
sound.

In a matter of seconds, the driver’s side of
the van came into view, as did Heather. The child was sitting on
the ground near the front tire, her thumb in her mouth. When
Heather spotted her aunt, she pointed up, saying nothing. Janet
peered in the indicated direction.

Ellie sat in the van’s driver’s seat, staring
at her mother through the window. A wicked grin splayed her lips as
she stroked the head of the crystal horse.

Keeping a wary eye on her daughter, Janet
leaned over, took Heather’s outstretched hand, and pulled her up.
Ellie’s eyes followed every move, her grin widening. A ripple of
nausea ran through Janet. That smirk didn’t belong on her child. It
belonged on someone wicked, someone insane. In one quick motion,
Janet yanked the car door open, and Ellie recoiled as if someone
had thrown ice water on her face.

“Mia lona!” Ellie shouted. Her eyes rolled
back, and her little body began to convulse, whipping about wildly.
She landed on the passenger seat, her head banging against the
window. “Mia lona! Mia lona!”

Shocked, Janet hesitated for only an instant
before shoving a shrieking Heather into the van, then over the
front seat to the back. Janet jumped in after her. No sooner had
she settled in the driver’s seat, than something rammed against the
right side of the van. Janet quickly reached for Ellie, but her
daughter jerked away, spitting and shouting nonsensical words.

Again something collided with the van, this
time causing it to rock. Another concussion, then another; this one
stronger than the last.

Janet gasped, reluctantly turning her
attention away from Ellie. If she didn’t get out of here soon, the
van would be destroyed. They’d be stranded. She dug frantically
through her pockets for keys, found them, and with doddering
fingers managed to shove the right one into the ignition. The
engine roared to life.

Ellie’s shouts and thrashing grew louder,
more rigorous when Janet threw the gearshift into reverse and
stomped on the accelerator. The back end of the van whipped about,
and she didn’t wait for a complete stop before slapping the shift
into drive.

The first tree came into view only after
Janet hit it. The young willow only bowed with the impact. She
backed up to dislodge it from the fender, then plowed blindly
ahead. Not twenty feet farther, a large oak appeared seemingly out
of nowhere, and Janet swerved to keep from hitting it head on. As
soon as she cleared the oak, she steered back toward its
accompanying tree line and hugged it, knowing that sooner or later
it would lead her past the long driveway and onto the main road.
From there, she could find help for Ellie, a hospital, doctors, an
exorcist—someone, anyone who could tell her what the hell was
happening to her child.

Janet was concentrating so hard on the
obscure path ahead, it took a moment for her to realize Ellie had
stopped screaming and writhing. She glanced over at her daughter.
The child stared back with dark, cold eyes. Stunned by the stark
callousness of Ellie’s expression, Janet’s foot slipped off the
accelerator. Before she could reposition it, Ellie leaped from her
seat and sank her teeth into her mother’s right forearm.

“Ellie, no! No!” Bellowing with pain, Janet
slammed on the brakes, and Ellie pitched forward, hitting her head
against the dashboard. Janet reached for her, but once again Ellie
pushed away. The small girl lifted her head and began to howl like
a lost, wounded animal.

“Go, Aunt Janet, hurry!” Heather cried from
the backseat.

At the sound of her cousin’s voice, Ellie
scrambled onto the passenger seat, sat back on her heels and
pointed a finger at Heather, then at Janet. “There will be no
escape,” she proclaimed in a deep, accented voice. “Do you hear? No
escape! And no mercy!”

A pause, breathless seconds as Janet went
numb with fear. Something thudded softly nearby, but she didn’t
bother to acknowledge it. She could only stare at the malevolent
fury marring her daughter’s face.

More thuds, softer now.

A click.

Ellie’s expression suddenly changed from fury
to one of confusion, then terror. She clasped her hands around her
throat and began to make strangling noises.

Janet threw herself across the seat, reaching
for Ellie, but she never made it past the center console.

Two strong hands held her back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“It’s me!” Michael jumped back as Janet threw
another kick at his groin. Never in his life had he been so glad to
have someone strike out at him. The fog was so thick that Michael
had run blind for what seemed like hours in useless, time-wasting
circles, fearing he’d never get to his family. Then, on the verge
of hopelessness, he’d collided with the family van. Now here he
was—looking at his wife, touching her—his breathing, living
wife.

“Get away—no—don’t! Leave us alone!” Janet
screamed, hovering over Ellie.

“Baby, it’s me!”

Janet froze in mid-kick, then looked over her
shoulder. “Michael?” In an instant, recognition and relief flooded
her face, and she sobbed, “Oh, Michael—Ellie’s—look—” She leaned
back, out of the way, and in the dim glow of the van’s interior
lights, he saw a gasping, gray-faced child.

Michael’s elation instantly evaporated. He
ran around to the passenger’s side of the van, keeping close to the
vehicle.

When he reached the door, he pulled it open
and quickly scooped Ellie into his arms. Her complexion was ashen,
and the circles under her eyes looked like someone had drawn them
in with a charcoal pencil. She gagged noiselessly, and Michael
noticed her lips were turning blue. He hurriedly flipped Ellie
around so her back was to his chest, then locked his hands together
under her sternum and pushed up hard.

Ellie’s arms flailed weakly, and Michael
leaned back a bit farther to gain more leverage, then performed the
Heimlich maneuver again.

A lump the size of a peach pit flew from
Ellie’s mouth and hit the inside corner of the door panel, sticking
there for a moment. Michael caught it as it slid down the panel.
Although covered in phlegm, he saw what looked like chewed up
leaves and grass woven through it.

“Is she okay?” Janet asked anxiously.

Ellie took a deep breath, yawned, then leaned
against her father. Michael held out his hand so Janet could see
what was in it.

“God, what is that?”

“I don’t know.” He aimed his hand away from
the van and shook the sticky lump from it.

“Michael, don’t!” Janet cried. “We should
bring it with us to the hospital—have somebody look at it.”

“Wait,” Michael said, turning Ellie around.
He held her at arms length so he could study her face. Her lips
were no longer blue, and her cheeks were gaining color. Ellie’s
breathing, however, remained shallow. Her lips moved softly,
whispering, and Michael pulled her close so he could hear.

“M-mia lona,” Ellie murmured. “Mia
r-rhine.”

Hearing those words nearly stopped Michael’s
heart. The Stevenson clan had chanted those words during Thalia’s
viewing. Only now—somehow—he understood their meaning.

“Michael?”

He glanced up at Janet, but didn’t see her.
His mind was too preoccupied. He knew now that the nightmare
wouldn’t end just because he’d found his family. It hadn’t even
been about him saving his wife or daughter from a fanatical
Stevenson tracking a gold coin. Something much bigger and even more
determined hunted the gold—and Ellie. And Michael could feel its
kiss of death even now on his daughter’s breath.

“—to the hospital.”

Michael blinked and saw Janet pointing toward
the ground.

“—might want to examine it,” she said.

Assuming Janet was still referring to the
clump of phlegm, Michael shook his head. “It won’t do any good.” He
cradled his daughter against him and quickly carried her to the
back passenger door. He slid the wide door open and was about to
lay Ellie across the seat when he spotted Heather. The child was
crouched in a tight little ball on the opposite side of the van,
sucking frantically on her thumb. Instead of acknowledging Michael,
she stared straight ahead, an empty expression on her face.

I know how you feel,
he thought. He
laid Ellie down, and only then did he notice the horse-shaped
figurine clutched in his daughter’s right hand. Slightly puzzled as
to how he hadn’t noticed it earlier, Michael gave it a scant second
look before securing the van doors and running back to the driver’s
side.

“What do you mean it won’t do any good?”
Janet asked when Michael motioned for her to scoot over to the
passenger’s seat. She climbed over the console. “They might need
it, Michael, if—”

“Baby, listen,” Michael held his wife’s arm
and looked at her intently. “Have you seen Ellie playing with
anything new, anything unusual lately—something shiny—gold—about
the size of a quarter?”

Janet frowned. “What are you talking about?
For heaven’s sake, what’s that got to do with—”

“It’s important,” he said. “No, critical.
Have you seen anything like that?”

“Of course not.”

“Where’s Ellie’s suitcase? Her toy bag?”

Janet glanced fearfully out the window, then
back at him. “Still in the cabin, but how in the hell can you be
worried about something like that when—”

“Stay here while I go and get her things,”
Michael said, already turning away, ready to jump out of the
van.

“No!” Janet grabbed his arm. “Michael, no,
don’t go in there! We—there’s—“

“Janet, I have to. If I don’t find that gold
piece and get it back—just please, you have to trust me!”

A small hand suddenly plopped onto Michael’s
right shoulder, and he looked back, startled.

Heather stood against the seat, her hair
disheveled, her thumb still in her mouth. She pointed to Ellie, who
lay behind her.

“I know, honey,” Michael said. “Ellie’ll be
all right. Don’t worry.”

Heather shook her head and fervently jabbed a
finger at Ellie again.

“What?” he asked.

Dropping down on the seat beside Ellie,
Heather pointed again, this time her finger touching her cousin’s
fanny pack.

“Shit,” Michael breathed. He scrambled to his
knees and leaned over the seat to unzip the pack.

Amid two Barbie dresses, an old bottle cap, a
wadded up piece of tissue, two cat-eye marbles, and a moldy Fig
Newton, lay the coin. Ellie groaned and stirred as he pulled it out
of the pack.

Michael studied the gold piece propped
innocently in his hand. He thought of the pomp and circumstance
involved when it had first been introduced during Thalia’s viewing.
The solemnity—the fervor. Here, he now knew, lay the icon of a
faith so powerful, it called up an ancestral community willing to
kill for it. Somehow seeing it, holding it, helped him finally
understand what needed to be done. This whole ordeal hadn’t been
about getting the coin back to just any Stevenson. It was about
getting it back to Thalia. Back to its owner.