The Dark Ones (17 page)

Frederick laughed. “Say hello to Sasha.”

“Ain’t that a girl’s name?”

Sasha’s nostrils flared.

Frederick smiled. “I’d advise you to keep any further comments impugning the masculinity of dear Sasha’s name to yourself, Herr Campbell.”

Norman’s head just kept spinning. “
Herr?
What in tarnation? You’re
German
now?”

Frederick barked more insane laughter and yanked the chain saw’s starter cord. The big McCulloch sputtered and roared to life. He lowered the spinning blade to dead Louella’s fragile neck. The blade bit into the flesh and made an instant, sickening mess of it, sending bits of flesh and gristle flying everywhere. Then the head came off with a pop and went spinning like a top across the plastic sheet.

Norman barely felt the pain as his knees hit the hard cement floor.

He wanted to shut his eyes against the scene of butchery, but he couldn’t. He felt nothing but repulsion. Nothing but the most intense loathing and disgust. It didn’t matter that he had killed the woman in the first place. That had been instinct. An act of self-preservation born out of desperation. This was something else entirely.

Harper’s butler—or whatever the hell he really was—was doing this for
fun
.

Holy Jesus
. . .

Through it all, he remained unable to look away, something inside him compelling him to watch and bear witness as the revving chain saw reduced his former mistress bit by bit, turning her into unrecognizable piles of bloody meat.

After a seemingly endless time, the act of butchery was at last over.

But Norman knew the horror that had invaded his life was far from over.

He was afraid it might never end.

T
WENTY-FOUR

The doorbell rang. Lydia Bell looked up from the latest issue of
Entertainment Weekly
and scowled in the general direction of the front door, which wasn’t visible from her current position, which was curled up on the leather sofa in the living room. The doorbell was an unwelcome intrusion. She was used to having the house completely to herself in the morning. With Tom at work and Mark possibly at school (or at least off drinking somewhere with his fellow delinquents), the house was normally quiet this time of day. She never had the television on or listened to music. The silence was sheer bliss. It allowed her some measure of peace in a life that perpetually felt on the edge of collapse.

The doorbell rang again.

“Goddammit!”

It was rare that anyone came calling this time of day. She had distanced herself from her friends in the neighborhood over the last year. The last time any of them had tried to reach out to her had been months ago. Apparently she’d snubbed them one too many times and they’d simply given up, which was fine with Lydia. She no longer desired human interaction or company of any kind.

She got up and stalked out of the living room. As she entered the foyer, the doorbell rang a third time and then a fourth. Each new tone felt like a knife through her skull. Her caller was impatient and obnoxious. Lydia hated whoever it was already. She unlocked the door and yanked it open, a curse dying on her lips as she saw who was standing on her porch.

“Hi!”

Suzie McGregor’s voice was bright and chirpy, a perfect match for the broad smile that showed off her perfectly white and straight teeth. Lydia’s mouth dropped open as her mind went into a frenzied overdrive. A wide array of conflicting thoughts and emotions bounced around in her head, making it impossible to respond or think straight for several long moments. The gall of this woman! Her instinct was to scream and curse at her, but she didn’t want the slut to have the satisfaction of seeing her lose her cool. As she stared in gaping amazement at the woman who had ruined her marriage, a detached, analytical part of her mind began cataloging other odd details. Suzie’s hair was perfect, a sleek and stylish cut that made her look like she’d just come from the beauty shop. She was wearing a very short and flattering green dress and high heels. Not exactly typical attire for a chilly fall day. On her ring finger was a diamond ring so big it looked like it should be adorning the finger of a queen. Her bubbly demeanor was odd for a very recent widow. Lydia felt self-conscious and inadequate in her rumpled sweatpants and T-shirt. There was one other strange thing. Suzie had a piece of luggage with her, a black suitcase on rollers with an expandable handle. Lydia hoped the fucking cunt was leaving town forever, but something in the woman’s hideously happy smile hinted otherwise.

She gripped the doorknob tighter. “What are you doing here?”

Suzie kept smiling. “Is Tom here yet? He said he’d be here around lunchtime.”

Lydia’s brain did the overdrive dance again. This time it was so intense it propelled her backward into the house. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Tom was talking to this woman again. That was all she understood. All the implications that went along with this fact temporarily eluded her. The son of a bitch had broken his solemn vow to never communicate with Suzie McGregor again. She was stunned at how deeply this stung her. She had been thinking seriously about killing the man, so why should her eyes be filling with these damnable tears now?

Suzie followed her into the house and threw the door shut.

The loud sound made Lydia jump. Then her face turned hard. “Get out of my house, you fucking homewrecker!”

Suzie laughed. “I’m not going anywhere. At least not until Tom gets here. Then we’ll go away together, leaving you all alone.” Her voice pitched higher on
all alone
, and then she laughed again. “Which is only what you deserve. Tom tells me you don’t know how to satisfy a man. He says he has to think of me to stay hard when he’s fucking you, which, by the way, he’ll never do again.”

Lydia knew her rival was baiting her by preying on her deepest insecurities. She knew damn well she could still take care of her man in the bedroom, but this knowledge did nothing to calm her growing fury. Her hands curled into fists as she considered leaping on the woman to pummel her. The only thing that held her back was noting how physically fit Suzie looked. She looked young and vital and projected strength and a surplus of confidence. Lydia was confused. The bitch looked as if a decade had magically been shaved off her age. She had never been out of shape, not exactly, but she’d carried around the few extra pounds you’d expect of a woman nearing forty.

Suzie noticed her scrutiny and smiled broadly again. She let go of the luggage handle and did a slow twirl, showing off her new physique. “You like? Isn’t it amazing? I look like I’m twenty-five again.”

Lydia frowned. There was no denying it. She thought of how haggard she must appear next to the new and improved Suzie McGregor and experienced another surge of self-conscious bitterness. “But . . . how is this possible?”

“Do you believe in the devil, Lydia?”

Lydia’s eyes widened at the seeming nonsequitur. There had been rumors in the neighborhood about Suzie. Whispers that she wasn’t quite right in the head. Lydia had dismissed this as meaningless gossip, but perhaps there had been an element of truth to it all along. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about our lord Satan. Do you believe he exists?”

“I believe you might be batshit.”

Suzie’s big smile did a slow fade. “You shut your mouth.”

Lydia couldn’t help the instinctive satisfaction she felt at wiping the woman’s smug smile from her face. It felt too good after the humiliations she’d already endured. “People talk about you, Suzie. Did you know that? They say there’s something wrong with you. Some have even said you should be locked up in a mental hospital.”

This last bit was a total fabrication, but the abrupt flare of Suzie’s nostrils told her it struck a nerve. “You lie.”

Lydia chuckled. “Do I? You’re the one raving about the devil.”

Suzie surprised her then, recovering her composure almost immediately rather than getting angrier. The big smile returned. “That’s because I believe in the dark lord with all my heart. I know this because right now my son is possessed by one of his most powerful servants. His name is Andras, and he is a grand marquis of hell.”

Lydia tilted her head. “Um . . . what?”

There could no longer be any doubt about the woman’s mental condition. She wondered if Tom had any idea how deeply unbalanced the bitch really was. She hoped not, because if he was really leaving her for this lunatic, then he deserved whatever hell Suzie would eventually put him through. But that was something she could think about later. She was suddenly certain Suzie was a serious threat in more ways than one. She took a tentative step backward in the general direction of the kitchen, where she could at least grab a knife or find some other form of protection.

Suzie kept smiling. She seemed not at all bothered by Lydia’s increased wariness. She ran a hand over the front of her body in a slow, deliberately sensual way. “Ask yourself, how is this possible? You and I both know it would take a lot of expensive cosmetic surgery over a long period of time and even then I couldn’t possibly look this good. So let’s rule that out. No doctors performed this miracle.” She squeezed her breasts and groaned as her erect nipples became apparent through the thin fabric of her flimsy dress. “No, baby,
this
miracle is a result of Satan’s exquisite grace, which deepens within me each time Andras fucks me.”

“What?”

Suzie grinned. “You heard me. I’m fucking the demon.”

Lydia squinted. “But . . . didn’t you say your son is possessed by this . . . Andras?”

“Yes.”

A wave of disgust carried Lydia backward another few steps. “But . . . that means . . .”

Suzie giggled like a naughty schoolgirl. “Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Oh, God.”

Lydia ran for the kitchen. She heard the clack-clack of Suzie’s high heels following her. The woman had made no move to attack her yet, but that didn’t matter. The bitch was chasing her at high speed. That alone was proof her fear was justified. Lydia banged a hip on the kitchen table, sending a sharp stab of agony down her leg. She managed to stay upright and hobbled as fast as she could toward the kitchen counter. The wooden knife block was finally within reach. Her fingers were just brushing the handle of the longest carving knife when Suzie grabbed hold of her ponytail and jerked her roughly backward.

She screamed.

Suzie laughed.

She screamed again as Suzie twisted the ponytail painfully enough to make her knees buckle. Suzie’s other hand curled into a fist and drilled into the small of Lydia’s back, making her cry out and drop to her knees. Suzie was laughing again as she drove her the rest of the way to the floor. She flipped Lydia over with astonishing ease and straddled her across the waist, pinning her to the floor. Lydia flailed weakly at her. Suzie giggled as she knocked each limp blow aside. Then she started slapping Lydia across the face, whipping her head side to side in a frenzy of hard blows. Lydia soon ceased struggling. She could only weep and endure it.

She had no idea how long it went on.

Backhand blows followed slaps followed backhand blows followed slaps. Her face became very sore and at some point her bottom lip split open, leaking a thin trickle of blood that spilled down her chin and then down her neck, staining the collar of her Amnesty International T-shirt.

Dimly, she heard the sound of a door opening somewhere in the house and felt a faint spark of hope. It had to be Tom coming home. She would be all right now. He might have betrayed her, and he might even have been planning to leave her for Suzie, but she knew he was a decent man at heart. No way would he let this continue.

Heavy footsteps entered the kitchen. Lydia’s eyes flicked in the direction of the sound. She saw the lean, masculine form of her husband through a mist of tears. He was in the business suit he’d put on this morning and his briefcase dangled from his right hand. He calmly set the suitcase on the kitchen table and began to loosen his tie as Suzie continued to slap her.

He cleared his throat. “What’s going on here?”

Suzie at last stopped hitting her and shot a radiant grin at Tom. “Darling! I came by to help you pack like we planned, but you weren’t here. So I decided to kill some time by beating the shit out of your hag of a wife.” Her expression became an exaggerated pout, a mock showing of sorrow for her transgression. She put a finger to her mouth and nibbled on a fingernail. “Oh, dear. Did I overstep my bounds?”

Lydia stretched a hand in his direction. “Tom . . . please . . . help . . . me . . .”

Tom started toward them and Lydia felt another brief flicker of hope.

Then he lifted his foot and stepped on her hand with the thick heel of one of his Oxfords. Lydia cried out again and stared up at him with an expression full of hurt and anguish. Even after all they had been through, how could he do this to her? She noted the huge erection tenting the front of his trousers and understood at last how completely dead the love they’d once shared was.

She wanted to die.

She also understood, belatedly, the real reason she’d never been able to kill Tom. Some unspoken part of her had known she wouldn’t be able to bear a life that didn’t include him.

Suzie said, “We should kill her. It would be fun.”

“No, there’d be too many questions. It’d be too messy. We should take her to Andras.”

Lydia whimpered.

Somehow Suzie’s delusion had infected her husband. Could mental illness really be contagious?

“Yes!” Suzie nodded emphatically. “We should offer her to him. It would make him love us even more. But before we do that . . .” She looked down at Lydia and her grin seemed broader and madder than ever. “. . . we should have some fun.”

Tom chuckled. “Good idea. Let’s take her to the bedroom. There’s some things in there we can use. Isn’t that right, Lydia?”

Lydia’s only answer was another helpless whimper.

Suzie stood and jerked Lydia to her feet.

They each took her by an arm and steered her through the house to the bedroom.