Nightwind (45 page)

Ben turned and stared at Syntian. “Sure I can’t get you something, Cree?”

“No,” Syntian snapped, glaring at the man. “I think you’ve done enough.”

Hurlbert shrugged then handed his soda to Lauren. “Will you hold this, darlin’?”

It was a long ride home for Syntian. He wasn’t asked any more questions and he didn’t comment on

anything that was said. He spent the seemingly endless drive to his home staring out the window, listening

carefully to what Lauren said and how she said it to the bastard in the front seat with her. When they

pulled into the serpentine driveway leading up to the house, he felt the car decelerate slower than was

necessary down the pine straw-packed lane.

“You’ll be in first thing tomorrow morning, then?” Hurlbert was asking as he tapped on the brakes,

slowing the car even more.

“First thing,” Lauren agreed.

“I’m gonna charge her with kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault and battery, mental and physical

abuse.” He chuckled. “I’m gonna throw the book at Miss High ‘n Mighty.”

“Syntian will sign whatever you want him to sign, Benny,” Lauren assured him. “Angeline Hellstrom

deserves what she gets.”

“And I’m gonna see she gets it, darling,” Hurlbert pledged.

At last the police cruiser pulled up in front of the mansion and Hurlbert bolted out of the car in his rush to

open Lauren’s door. Syntian sat where he was and watched the spectacle as the man gallantly helped

Lauren from the car, then started walking with her to the front steps. He knew the bastard thought he

couldn’t get out of the back seat without having his door opened from outside. He wondered what the

asshole would do if he made the door open.

“Oh, damn!” Ben chortled. “I better let him outta there, huh?” He ran back to the car and jerked open

the door. “Sorry about that, Cree.”

Syntian looked up at him then got out of the car. “No problem, Sheriff,” he grated.

“Thank you again for driving us home, Benny,” Lauren called as she unlocked the front door. “I really

didn’t relish coming back in a cab.”

“My pleasure,” Hurlbert acknowledged. He nodded as Syntian passed him. “Take good care of her,

Cree. She ain’t been feeling all that well since you been gone. I’ve tried to take good care of her for you,

though.”

Syntian stopped, a muscle grinding in his cheek, and he was about to make the bastard standing in front

of him sorry he had ever been born, but Lauren’s cool voice made him think twice about starting

something.

“Syntian?” she asked. “Are you coming?”

Ben Hurlbert smiled, but there was no humor or friendliness in the smile. There was only challenge and

gloating. “You wanna say something to me, Cree?”

Syntian felt Lauren’s anger and he knew he would be making a big mistake if he attacked Hurlbert.

Instead, he took a step closer to the Sheriff and stared him in the face. “Lauren is my wife, Hurlbert. I

know how to take care of her. If you think you want to make her your concern, I suggest you don’t.”

“Or else what?”

“I’ll really give you something to be concerned about,” Syntian warned.

Ben sniffed, showing his apparent disdain of any threat Syntian Cree offered. “You talk a good fight,

mister. I got a feeling that one day me and you are gonna tangle again.”

“Count on it.”

Ben Hurlbert chuckled, then sauntered to his patrol car as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “You

sleep good, now, you hear, darling!” Ben called out before he ducked into the cruiser.

Lauren waved as the Sheriff pulled out of the driveway and onto to the winding lane leading to the

highway. She flicked a glance over her husband as he stood there glaring after the patrol car then entered

the house, closing the door behind her.

He heard the door shut and turned to look behind him. Lauren’s action, more than any words she could

have spoken, warned him things had drastically changed between the two of them. Drawing in a long

breath, he held it, then made for the front door, exhaling as he walked in an effort to calm himself. As he

entered the house, he became instantly aware of the charged atmosphere that said they were not alone.

He stopped looking about him, searching for the intruder whose presence he felt.

“Lauren?” he called out. There was no answer. “Lauren?”

He walked out of the hallway and looked in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. He pushed the

door to the laundry room open and still did not find his wife. Nor was she in the library or small sitting

room to the left of the dining alcove.

“Lauren?” he shouted. “Where are you?”

He took the stairs two at a time and looked in first the master bedroom, then the smaller bedroom that

had once been a nursery. Lauren was in neither. He went to the bathroom they had shared and didn’t

find her there, either.

“Lauren!” he yelled, feeling the alien presence even stronger.

Going back into the hall, he turned toward the empty bedroom and threw the door open, not expecting

to find her there.

Lauren gazed calmly back at him as she stood in the center of the room. “Welcome home, my demon,”

she greeted him.

“What are you...?” he began only to stop, his eyes wide with disbelief as his gaze lowered slowly to the

pentagram on the floor. His brows drew together in confusion and he lifted his head to stare at her.

“What have you done?”

She smiled at him. “Where did you think Jaleel came from, Syntian?” She swept her hand around the

room. “I conjured him, just as my ancestors conjured you.”

The presence was powerful in the room and he backed away from the threshold, afraid to enter.

Although he couldn’t see anyone else in the room, he knew Lauren was not alone. The hair on the back

of his neck was standing up and he felt a quiver of warning moving over his spine.

Lauren held out her hand. “Come, Syntian.”

He shook his head. “No.” His heart was hammering in his chest as he backed further away.

She swept her hand over the paraphernalia at her feet. “I have the Book, Syntian. I want you to sign

your pack with me as you have with the women of my family before me.”

Again he shook his head. “There is something in the room with you, Lauren. I won’t be caught again!”

“He won’t lay a hand on you,” Lauren soothed him in a soft voice. “All I want is for you to bind yourself

to me.”

“I am already bound to you, Lauren!” he shouted at her. “I am your husband.” He pointed at the Book

of Shadows. “There’s no need for me to sign a contract between us.”

Lauren’s smile was nasty as she stared at him. “Angeline doesn’t dare try to invoke you, or any other

spirit, considering where she is right now, but she will eventually send something after you. If you have

not indentured yourself to me, I won’t interfere. I’ll let her take you.”

His face showed his shock. “But why? Why, Lauren? I didn’t leave you to go to her because I wanted

to! Don’t you know if I could have, I would have broken free of her?”

“I am aware of that, Syntian.” She sighed.

“Then why do you want to bind me through that bloody book? You’ve already bound me through the

love I have for you!”

Syntian still could not see anything in the room with her, but he knew there was something: powerful,

much more powerful than himself, in there and it was lurking there to catch him once he stepped foot

inside.

“Do you want to leave the light, Syntian?” Lauren pressed, knowing his answer.

He hesitated, searched her eyes and knew he could not deny her. She was, after all, the rightful owner of

the Book and he was hers to command. His shoulders sagged in defeat. “Bring the Book to me,” he told

her. “I’ll sign it here, but I won’t come in that room.”

For a moment, Lauren just looked at him then she bent down to retrieve the Book. She also picked up

the double-edged athamé and walked toward him. “You have nothing to fear from him, Syntian. I

wouldn’t allow him to do you harm,” she said, coming out of the room.

He backed away from her, not trusting the look in her eye. There was no love for him showing in her

pretty face and no warmth in her voice as she turned to a fresh parchment page in the book and held it

out to him.

“Already filled in,” she said as though speaking about an application for insurance. “All you need do is

sign.”

Syntian looked down at the muddy red words on the page, knowing full well they had been written in

Lauren’s own blood. He flinched as she held the athamé out to him.

“Sign, my demon,” she ordered.

He stared down at the sharp point of the ancient knife. All he need do was take the dagger and prick his

finger, apply the blood to the page, and sign his name.

“Sign or go back,” Lauren stated. “It’s up to you.”

Her husband looked up at her. “What did I do that was so terribly wrong?”

“Did you kill Beth Janacek?” she countered, fusing her gaze with his. When he hesitated, she asked him

again, slowly, with each word like heavy stones dropped one by one. “Did you kill Beth Janacek?”

His answer was so soft she barely heard it. “Aye.”

“And the VanLandingham girl?” she pressed.

The answer was softer still. “Aye.”

“And did you let Louvenia Yelverton see you as I saw you this evening?” Her words were cold and as

brittle as ice. “Is that what drove her mad?”

He looked away from her. “I could have killed her,” he whispered.

“Yes, you could have,” Lauren snapped. “And for that I suppose I should be thankful.”

Syntian turned his gaze back to her. “I love you,” he said.

She smiled. “I know you do.” Once more she pressed the knife toward him. “Sign.”

The presence beyond her, in the room with its deadly pentagram, seemed to loom even larger into his

consciousness. He felt it trying to invade his body, trying to smother him with its fetid breath and freeze

him with the ice of its talons.

“What have you conjured, Lauren?’’ he whispered. Overpowering strength of the entity was sapping his

warmth and his stamina. He was growing weaker with every passing minute.

Lauren watched him steadily, gauging his reaction to the alien presence. “Either sign the pact between us,

Syntian, or be taken back with him to the Abyss. It doesn’t matter either way to me.”

Hearing her say what he had begun to realize only served to hurt him the more. He was in pain: a

blinding, throbbing coldness that was drowning him. Every breath he took was an agony of freezing cold

air. The heat was being sucked from his body and his vision was growing dimmer.

“He is coming for you, my demon,” Lauren told him. “If you do not sign, he will drag you back to the

ooze of the Pit.”

He smelled the stench of it. It was rank, so putrid it made his stomach heave. Stumbling back against the

wall, he gasped for clean, unsoiled air, but all around him the smell was seeping into his pores, attacking

him, washing over him with vicious fumes of sickness.

“Sign it!” Lauren spat at him. “Now!”

His hand was trembling as he took the athamé and pierced his index finger, cutting deeply into his flesh.

Black blood flowed from his wound and fell to the page, turning a dark orange as he reached out to

place his mark. The bloody ink flowed onto the parchment and spread out in fibrous tentacles. He signed

his name: Cree.

Lauren looked down as he finished and saw that his name was, indeed, at the bottom of the pact. She

closed the Book and brought it to her breast, holding it close to her as though it were the babe she would

soon be nursing.

“Now,” she said, watching his head come up until he was staring pitifully at her. “Go back to your lair

until I call you.”

He knew.

He had known the moment he had seen her at Angeline’s that this was to be his fate.

Not the insipid cold and gagging stench of the Abyss, thank the diabolical gods, but the loneliness and

despair of that place from which her cry had roused him. Angeline had not forbidden him to leave that

otherworldly place; she had not imprisoned him in that solitude of emptiness, that endless night time to

which Lauren was sending him. At least Angeline had allowed him freedom of a sort.

“You won’t ever call me again, will you?” he asked, his voice breaking.

She turned away from him, the Book clutched to her bosom. Entering the conjuring room from whence

she had called the lurking presence hovering within, she walked to the center of the pentagram and laid

the Book on the floor. She turned to Syntian.

“There are lonely women all over the world, my demon. Women who have known the pain and suffering

and heartache that I once knew. Women who deserve happiness and pleasure in their lives.” Stretching

out her hand to the unseen power surrounding her, she locked her gaze on Syntian. “And there are a

thousand times a thousand more NightWinds beneath the slime of the Pit.”

He understood now.

Her revenge was greater than he could have imagined. He was to be sent back and another would take

his place. One of her choosing, who had not killed and maimed and destroyed. One who would do her

bidding, and her bidding alone. One she could control.

“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded, bloody tears forming in his dark eyes. “Lauren, please.”

“It may not be forever,” she said, dismissing his whisper of pain. She fused her gaze with his. “Then

again, it might. We’ll see.”

“I love you,” he said, his voice breaking with infinite sorrow.

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered.