Tymber Dalton (24 page)

“To be honest, it wouldn’t hurt to call a priest and have him do his thing, too.”

“Really?”

Julie nodded. “The more the merrier. Might not help but certainly wouldn’t hurt. Sometimes, even if someone doesn’t share the same belief system, it’s easier for people to get behind a priest than it is for them to accept a Pagan or Wiccan tradition. The truth is, it’s all in your faith. Whatever you believe, that’s what will work for you.”

Sami walked Julie to her car then stared at the house in the dusk as Julie’s taillights disappeared into the woods.

“It does
feel
a little lighter,” she said to herself. The feeling of dread had disappeared.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

No ghostly specters hung from the banister.

That’s a plus.

She called the hospital to check on Steve. He sounded groggy. “They put me on something to keep me calm. I think the nurses want to ravish me.” He giggled.

Yeah, he was on something all right. “Let them ravish you,” she joked. “Just let those antibiotics do their thing so I can bring you home.” She glanced around and realized the curtains were still open. The darkness beyond the safety of the glass wigged her out.

“They said I might be able to come home tomorrow, because my fever’s gone, but they’d make me have a…” He searched for the word. “I think they called it a port. To keep giving me IV medicine. They asked if you could give me the meds, and I told them you were used to jamming needles in the horses for their shots.” He giggled again.

She smiled. That sounded like her husband. Albeit filled to the gills with good pharmaceuticals, from the sound of it. She didn’t keep him long, and promised to come back in the morning.

“Go to sleep, Steve. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I love you, Sami.”

Her heart caught in her throat. “I love you, too, Boy Genius.”

Sami closed the windows, checked the locks, pulled the curtains tight. She realized she hadn’t heard from Matt yet and called him.

“I just got back from dinner. Mutt Man here got one hell of a doggy bag.”

“How many pounds have you packed on my pooch anyway?”

“Not too many,” he promised. “You can still squeeze him through a car door. How are you holding up?”

“Well, I had a witch come in and do her thing on the house a little while ago.”

“What?”

Admitting it, even to Matt, the man she’d lived with for three years and who made tampon runs for her without complaint, felt strange and—

Well, silly.

When she finished, she waited for the barrage of laughter but heard only silence.

“You still there?”

“I’m still here.”

“Are you waiting for the punch line?”

“I wasn’t aware there was one.”

“So say something.”

“Like what? There’s obviously something going on in that house, and whatever it takes to resolve it, as long as you aren’t sacrificing animals or children, I say do it.”

She had expected any reaction but that. “You don’t think I’m nuts?”

“Sam, you are one of the most rational people I know. If you think something weird is going on, I believe you.”

She closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was one thing to have a new age shopkeeper believe her. It was entirely another to have the faith of her closest friend, someone she considered very levelheaded. “You’re not saying that so you can have me committed when you get here, are you?”

“Of course not. What size straightjacket do you take, by the way?” They both laughed. “Sam, I don’t claim to have the answers. There are things out there that can’t be explained, and while I won’t jump onto a bandwagon without some sort of proof, I’m also not going to deny something exists simply because I don’t believe in it.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

They said good night. Sami felt relief for the first time in several days.

She arrived at the hospital shortly after eight and found Steve out of ICU and in a regular room. He was eating a small stack of pancakes and watching
SpongeBob SquarePants
.

“Glad to see you’re not letting your mind rot.”

He grinned. “Gotta keep my sanity somehow. Look.” He held up an arm free of IV tubing, although there was still a connector taped inside his elbow. The pole stood sentry next to his bed, medicine pumps and tubing hanging from it.

“They said I can go home this afternoon if the doctor thinks it’s okay and my fever stays down. They want this left in so they don’t have to start another one if there’s a problem.”

“That’s great.” She set her coffee on his bedside tray and unwrapped her bagel.

“The best part is,” he whispered conspiratorially, “they said I can take a shower.” He winked. “Want to help?”

She laughed. This was her old Steve. Hopefully for his sake the new and improved 2.0 version, and not a temporary patch model. “I think they’d throw us out of here for that.”

He flashed her a mock pout. “Not even a sponge bath?”

“There’s plenty of time for us to play doctor when we get you home.”

“Promise?”

Oh yes, this was all Steve, without anyone—or anything—else thrown into his personality. “Promise.”

Sami’s cell rang. “I’m at the state line,” Matt said when she answered.

“That’s great. You’re less than three hours away.”

“Good, because my ass is going numb.”

Steve reached for the phone, and Sami handed it over. “Matt! Where you at? You’re missing all the fun and hot nurses, dude.”

Sami imagined what Matt’s end of the conversation was like, because Steve roared with laughter. After a few minutes he bid Matt good-bye and returned the phone to Sami.

“Call me when you get to Turnpike exit so I’ll have enough time to get there to meet you.” She gave him basic directions to the front gate. “If I’m not there, wait for me at the gatehouse. See you soon.” She put her phone away and turned to Steve.

His eyes were closed. “See you soon,” he murmured. His voice sounded flat.

“What?”

He opened his eyes and glared at her. She was not imagining the red glow in his eyes. She’d swear it on a stack of—well, she’d swear it.

“I’ll
bet
you’ll see him soon,” he growled.

Sami reached across him for the call button. Steve grabbed her right arm, digging his nails painfully into her wrist.

“I’ll just bet you can’t wait—”

“
Nurse
!” she screamed, clawing at his fingers, which were now embedded in her flesh. “
Help
!”

Two nurses raced in, one helping Sami free her arm while the other paged a code. They pinned Steve’s shoulders to the bed as he thrashed and knocked over the tray. Steve’s eyes rolled back in his head.

Sobbing, Sami clutched her injured wrist as she backed away from the bed.

Two orderlies and a doctor raced in. The doctor barked an order for medication. The orderlies held Steve down while one of the nurses ran from the room. The nurse returned in moments with a syringe, and it took all five of them to hold Steve’s arm still enough for them to get the medicine into the IV port.

Within a minute Steve relaxed, his head lolling on the pillow. Only after they knew he was unconscious did they release their grip on him.

“What the hell happened?” Sami screamed. One of the nurses tried to examine her wrist. “We were talking, he talked on the cell for a minute, handed it back to me. I put the phone away, and he attacked me!” She sobbed, letting the nurse steer her to a chair on the other side of the room. “What the
hell
is wrong with my husband?”

They put arm and leg restraints on him, tethering him to the bed.

“His fever’s back, and it’s high,” the doctor explained. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ll have to start the IV again. He’s delirious. Once we get his infection knocked out, he’ll be fine. I have a feeling the wound may have abscessed. If it did, we’ll have to go in and clean it out. I know it’s upsetting, but we’ll take good care of him.”

The nurse dabbed Sami’s arm with gauze. Four nasty, deep furrows marked her wrist and forearm where Steve’s fingernails drew blood. “He got you good. Come with me to the triage room so I can dress that.”

Sami obediently followed the nurse, who put her arm around her and escorted her a few doors down the hall. Sami felt stunned, speechless. She couldn’t tell them what she knew, because they would think she needed sedation. It was her imagination, right?

He was fine! He was laughing. He was talking to Matt—

She gasped, and the nurse apologized, thinking it was from her actions.

Did Steve suspect something?

Stranger things had happened in the past couple of weeks. Her head hurt trying to make sense of it all.

With a new dressing on her right wrist to match the one on her right palm, Sami returned to Steve’s room. Her purse lay on the floor under the chair, where it fell during the scuffle. A housekeeper was mopping up the remains of breakfast and her coffee. Two doctors conferred over Steve’s chart, ordering blood work and other tests. A large orderly stood nearby.

She hated seeing Steve strapped to the bed like that.
Steve’s body
, she thought.

No telling who was in Steve’s mind.

The nurse who treated her wrist smiled. “Why don’t you go home and try to relax? He’s going to be asleep for a couple of hours, at least. There’s nothing you can do for him right now.”

Sami nodded and left. Fortunately she’d parked in a shady spot well away from the main hospital building. It allowed her the chance to sit and sob for a few minutes in relative privacy. Somehow, she managed to drive home. For the first time, seeing the house comforted her. Whether it was the way the sunlight hit it, the ritual, or her perception, something felt different.

Mutt and Jeff whinnied at her from over the fence. She stopped to pet them. She couldn’t ride, not today with all the bikes in the park and with Matt on the way.

And not with her arm throbbing like a son of a bitch.

Almost eleven. I might as well look through the folder.
She certainly couldn’t do any writing.

It was where she left it on the coffee table. Leafing through it, she found an article about a suicide in 1942. Peter Michaels, twenty-two, hung himself.

She looked at the banister where she’d seen the figure dangling from the rope. Nothing there but polished wood. The details were sketchy, but apparently he was part of a group trying to conduct some black magic ritual. They were members of a dark occult organization who thought the house would be a great location for their activities.

Except the others bailed on Peter, leaving him alone in the house, when they saw something, according to the report. When they heard nothing from him, three days later they returned and found him.

What a waste of a life.

Sami didn’t want to read any more right then. Besides, the house didn’t feel depressing anymore.
Why stir up negativity?

God, am I being too New Agey?

She watched TV until the phone rang. “Sam, this is your wake-up call.”

Matt!
“I’ll be at the front gate.” She knew it was too early, but she grabbed her keys and bolted for the truck, unable to focus on anything else.

Time slowed to a crawl while she waited. Then she spotted her Explorer on the exit ramp, Pog’s eager face pressed against the passenger window. Sami jumped out and waited. When Matt parked and stepped out, she flew into his arms.

He laughed. “It’s good to see you, too, babe.” Then he heard her sobs. He pulled back and realized she was crying. That’s when he noticed the fresh bandage on her wrist. “What the hell happened?”

She tried to talk and couldn’t. He pulled her to him, stroking her hair and softly whispering, “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m here.”

It took her several minutes to regain her composure. Pog whined and pawed at the window, trying to get to her. She opened the door and petted him.

“Things have changed since this morning, Matt.”

“Apparently.” He looked down the road and saw vehicles approaching, swapped keys with her. “You lead the way. I don’t think I want to try driving through that”—he motioned to the first sandy hill—“with the trailer.”

She nodded, still sniffling, and climbed into the Explorer.

At the house he let out a low whistle. “Day-um, it’s ugly.”

She nodded. “I know. I think it needs a coat of paint.”

“I think it needs a wrecking ball and Napalm.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “What happened?”

Her wrist throbbed, but she brought him up to date.

He hugged her. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Worry now, worry later, I’m still worried.”