Reap & Repent (9 page)

She scurried off to the dairy for milk before the T-bone lady released him from her barrage of demands. Since he didn’t seem to be following her, Ruth
hoofed it up and down the aisles, tossing things into her basket in haste, forgetting to consult her list. Her heart wasn’t in it anymore.

By the time she got to the checkout, she thought her heart might beat out of her chest. She was pretty sure it had to sound like “The Tell-Tale Heart” to everyone in her immediate proximity. Other than the sweat breaking out across her back and forehead and the shaky hand that swiped her ATM card through the scanner, she tried not to draw too much attention to herself.

She declined the grocery boy’s help and hustled her purchases to the car by herself. Shaken, she threw everything into the trunk and slammed it down. She debated the merits of heading home versus finishing her errands as she locked herself into her car. She wanted so badly to forget all of this…to just go home and get under the covers until Deacon came back. But no, this was her new reality, and she needed to be brave. Steeling herself, she started the engine and headed over to the phone company to see about getting her DSL hooked up.

Rummaging with one hand as she drove, she dug the silver knife out of her backpack and moved it to her jacket pocket. It was too warm for a jacket, but the monstrous butcher had shaken her sunny-day confidence. If she couldn’t trust her butcher to be human, whom could she trust? She was definitely asking Deacon what the heck that thing was when she saw him next.

ComTel was five minutes across town, but it was almost noon, and she knew they would shut down for lunch. Her own stomach growled loudly. Deacon hadn’t been kidding about the food thing. Her appetite was on hyperdrive. So not appropriate under the circumstances.

After pulling in under the little awning at a nearby drive-up burger, she called in her order: two extra-long chili cheese dogs with double-cheese-covered tots. Comfort food was what she needed. She finished it all off in a matter of minutes, licking the cheese from the wrapper while contemplating busting into the groceries in the trunk.

That was when she remembered that in her haste to leave the grocery store, it had totally slipped her mind to buy ice for her cooler. That was one rule about living in the country that she had almost forgotten: always carry a cooler for cold groceries.

She gathered up her trash and left it on the little tray by the intercom before pulling across the street to Stop & Go to buy a bag of ice. Sliding her key into the trunk latch, she raised the lid and set the ice inside the trunk bed. She scrambled through her random packed groceries. The bagger boy had flung her purchases into the paper bags without any organization. She sorted out the cold items, stuffing them into the cooler. As she emptied the ice from the bag over them, a chill ran up her spine that had nothing to do with her task. She whipped around to find Kylen standing behind her in the parking lot.

She dropped the ice bag and slammed the cooler lid shut. Taking a quick look around the busy lot to see if anyone might be able to come to her rescue, she debated between fight or flight once again as she backed up against the Lincoln. She slid one hand into her shorts pocket, fisting her car keys in the other.

“Busy day?” Kylen asked, grinning. “Where’s your keeper?”

“What are you?” she asked, trying to keep the stutter of her heart from her voice. She didn’t see any point in beating around the bush.

“Well that’s a little rude, isn’t it?” he asked, closing the gap between them. “A customer, of course. Ask anyone here …”

He looked human, but his eyes gave him away…and there was something more, something intangible. But maybe she was the only one who could see that?

That was the question. Since no one was screaming or running in terror, he probably looked nondescript to everyone else, like another customer in the lot. She eased around to the driver’s side, pushing the trunk closed on her way.

“What’s your hurry? We just got started.”

“I don’t want any trouble, Kylen.” Nervous, she scanned the parking lot again for a possible ally. “I have cold stuff in the trunk and errands to run. If you want Deacon, I’m sure you know how to find him.”

“You know my name? How sweet. Then I guess Deacon’s told you about me?” He eased up closer and cocked his head at an odd angle that made his eyes look even creepier…if that were even possible.

“I heard him call you by your name when we were in…down…below,” she said, unable to call it what it was: Purgatory.

He was right in her face now. Uncomfortable and scared, she palmed the knife in her jacket pocket, wondering when and whether she should show it or use it. Kylen slid a dry hand down the side of her cheek and around the back of her neck, pulling her closer to his face. She stiffened and vacillated between stabbing him through her jacket pocket and screaming.

He was so close. She could hurt him at least. Screaming might also be effective, but either of those options would lead to lots of questions, possibly a confrontation with the police, and the rest of the day would be toast. Besides, she had no explanation that would not land her under “observation” for several hours, if not longer.

She released the knife. Instead, she slid her hand into her pants pocket and extracted a handful of salt, hurling it directly into his eyes. He cursed and bellowed like a wounded animal, clawing at his face. She pushed him hard, and he stumbled far enough backward that she was able to get the Lincoln’s big-ass door open and scramble inside. Slamming the door shut, she popped the electric locks. She turned the motor over, slammed the car into Reverse and peeled out of the parking lot and onto Main Street.

ComTel was going to have to wait. She was done. Heading home, she wondered if Kylen had a car or if he could travel like Deacon. One thing was comforting. He probably didn’t know where she lived, or he would already have come by. She hoped his eyes wouldn’t work too well for a while. That much salt in a normal person’s eyes wouldn’t feel all that great, and he was so not normal. In fact, he had seemed particularly averse to it.

Her hands trembled as she gripped the steering wheel and tried to keep from pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor. She’d had enough fun for one day. She had food, snacks, coffee, the Meridian and Huntsbury papers, and an entertainment magazine…not that she read that trash.

Chapter Ten

It was after 1:30 p.m. when she got home. The front page of the Huntsbury paper indicated that sunset would be at 8:02 p.m. It was going to be a long afternoon. She didn’t know if Deacon had meant that he’d be back after dark or at sunset. Either way, she seriously wished for a giant intimidating pet dog to escort her in and out of the house while she unloaded her groceries. Nervous, she worked quickly. Her errands in town were far from complete, but the encounters with the butcher and Kylen had snuffed out her fragile tolerance for public contact of any kind, human or otherwise.

Unloading her grocery bags into yet another pile on her kitchen table, she locked the doors, then set about the task of salting the house even before she put away her cold stuff. She didn’t feel up to walking down the stairs and into the dark, dirt-floored cellar, so she opted to salt the doorway at the top of the stairs. If anything tried to get in through the tiny window down there, it would hopefully stop at the top of the stairs.

Ruth wished for the umpteenth time that the DSL was hooked up. That should have been her first stop instead of her third. Oh, how she would have loved to look “salt barriers” up on Google for a second opinion. Even
one
more source would have made her feel better about its effectiveness. Of course, it had incapacitated Kylen for long enough for her to get away, but she wasn’t so confident that it would stop him from walking into her house. Some real-world evidence of its success would have made her more of a believer. There were
plenty of people on the internet message boards who would have been more than happy to share their stories, good and bad.

When she finished salting the last window, she mumbled a sloppy prayer, hoping it wasn’t too little, too late. She hadn’t prayed since before her father died.

She knew her father had wanted her to grow up in the church. She remembered enjoying it when she was small, and they were a real family. But after her father’s death, her mother had refused to bring her back to church. God had never again been mentioned in their house. It was as if her mother had thought they were cursed because of Ruth’s abilities. After what she’d seen over the past couple of days, it seemed a lot more likely that if
those
things existed, God probably did, too.

She did a quick final walk through the house to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. The house had what could have been a cozy front living area with a fireplace and two front windows that looked out on a good-sized covered porch. The three bedrooms were off to the right side of the living area. The master bedroom and bath had of course been her mother’s. The second bedroom was hers, and it was also connected to a small bathroom. The third and smallest bedroom had become the junk room. She hadn’t even had time to change the sheets, let alone go through any of her mother’s personal effects. Later, she would box up the clothes and take them to the Goodwill in Meridian.

The living area opened into an eat-in kitchen where a small half wall somewhat divided the room. The dining area sat to the left and the kitchen to the right. Both sides had small windows, one behind the tiny kitchen table and the
other over the kitchen sink. The kitchen led into the back mudroom area, where the washer and dryer were kept, and out to the back door.

Another door in the laundry room led down to the basement and root cellar. She was pretty sure she would take her chances with a tornado before she would ever take refuge down there. Unfortunately, the fuse box was in the cellar… She hoped those fuses lasted forever.

The house itself sat three quarters of a mile from the main gravel road at the back of the wooded property. The driveway was long and overgrown enough that very few people wandered down it by accident.

It was secluded, which had seemed like a much nicer benefit before her world had been flipped upside down.

Gathering the cooler’s contents, she placed them into the fridge and freezer. She systematically put away the remaining groceries, which left her in a quandary about what to do next. There was still a long time until dark. She debated between tackling the pile of stuff she had brought back from school and making a decent dinner. Her stomach growled at the thought.

Hungry again? Already?

It grumbled even louder in answer.

Decision made, she opted for food and went about putting together a killer lasagna thanks to one of her few on-campus classes, Culinary 104. It wouldn’t be ready for an hour or two, so she and Deacon could have dinner together. Besides, it was always better after it sat for a while and was reheated. She snacked on cheese while she worked. Nothing said comfort food like pasta, meat and cheese.
She even had garlic bread, which, under the circumstances, she was going to consider a potential weapon, as well.

The occult had never been a topic of interest to her—she’d had her hands full of enough weirdness given her ability—so she only had the most rudimentary ideas about all things paranormal. What she did know, or
thought
she knew, came from bits and pieces she’d read in the numerous literary classes she had taken over the years. She’d kept every textbook she had ever used, including all of her Norton Anthologies. There were stories and poems about the occult sprinkled through every time period the anthologies covered. Unfortunately, the short stories or poems were the only works offered in their entirety. All of the other entries were selected snapshots of much larger works. Most students, including her, had not read very many of those works in their entirety.

She scanned through her mental card catalog, trying to remember anything that might be relevant, as she finished assembling the lasagna. Distracted by the pull of the anthologies in a pile on the floor, the stories began to feel less and less like fiction. One in particular nagged at her, Dante’s
The Divine Comedy.
The angel Rashnu had mentioned Dante… Had he planted that seed on purpose? She had read small bits of all three sections—
Inferno, Purgatorio,
and
Paradiso
—in the past, and she had the feeling that Dante would have much more to offer on the subject than Wordsworth or Whitman.

If only my DSL worked …

Ruth set the timer on the oven and walked into the living room, surveying the mess. Deciding to tackle the “pile” of her belongings and then her mother’s
room, she got to work. Her mother’s bed was much better than the one in her room, and once she got settled into the master bedroom, she knew she’d feel better. In fact, she
already
felt better. As her fear subsided, she could almost pretend that the events of the morning had all been in her imagination…almost.

She spent the rest of the afternoon working on her two giant projects, getting so involved in them that she forgot to worry. The buzzer rang, indicating her lasagna was finished, and she took it out to cool before stuffing it into her now overflowing fridge. It was nice to have food in the house, and she looked forward to digging into the lasagna when Deacon made it back.

Making good progress on the house, she fitted clean sheets onto her mother’s bed.

My bed.

Tonight, she would sleep there and move forward.

Exhausted and disgusted by the idea of cleaning one more thing, she slumped down on the couch around 6:00 p.m. and decided to try to rest a little before Deacon got back. Reaching for a book from the pile, she tried to read, but felt her eyelids grow heavy three pages in.

Chapter Eleven

Deacon flashed into Purgatory, exhausted and starving. He’d been ferrying souls in since early in the morning, and this place was a freakin’ zoo now. As he purged his twenty-first soul, he breathed a well-earned sigh of relief. Somehow, he had managed to catch up, but the day hadn’t been without its challenges. Two souls had been missing. Poached.