The Burning Time (29 page)

“I brought better medicines with me.” He pointed to a jar of healing salve. “Use that. The cuts will be healed by morning.”

As Danni applied the salve, she made low tsk-tsk noises, and John understood it was her way of expressing her relief.

“My escape was more luck than skill,” he admitted. It was the truth. The first dogs had attacked, and he’d managed to keep them away from his throat. Using his fists, feet, and radio, he’d broken free from the pack and started running. If he hadn’t stumbled across the old wood and wire fence dividing two fields, he’d have never made it. Instead, he’d endured the pain of the thorned wire and left the dogs howling their fury on the other side.

“Next time, stick to the roads.” Danni gave him a mock scowl. “One thing I’ve learned from watching movies with Mitch, bad things always happen in corn fields.”

“What do you mean?”

“A Children of the Corn reference.” At John’s confused look, Danni shook her head. “Forget it. All that matters is we’re all safe.”

“Ohmygosh! I forgot!” Mitch jumped up. “Wait ‘til you see what I got.” He ran to the entryway, where he’d left his back pack.

John looked at Danni, who shook her head.

“Check it out!” Mitch raced back in, holding something in his hands. John’s heart froze when he saw it.

It couldn’t be...

Danni reached out for it. “A book? I thought you were supposed to get something personal, not—”

“Don’t touch that!” John grabbed Danni’s hands and pulled them away, leading Mitch standing there with his arms outstretched and a confused look on his face.

“You said to get something that belonged to Christian. This was in his desk. Did I do something wrong?”

“Put the book down, Mitch, and step away from it.” John was already digging through the boxes of supplies from his house, which they’d stacked in the kitchen.
Please don’t let me be too late.

“John, what’s—”

“No time to explain,” John said, interrupting Danni’s question. She looked as puzzled as her brother. John ignored them both until he found what he was looking for. “Mitch, hold out your hands,” he said, opening the jar of clear liquid. “This is going to sting, but only for a moment.”

A lump formed in John’s throat at the sight of Mitch’s total trust in him. The boy’s face was pale and his hands shaking as he held them out, but he never hesitated, never asked why.

I hope that trust doesn’t get him killed.

Mitch grimaced as John poured the liquid over his hands and then rubbed it in. A faint odor of sulfur accompanied John’s actions.

“It burns a little,” Mitch said, but he didn’t pull away.

“John, is this necessary?” Danni asked, not enjoying the sight of her brother’s discomfort.

“It is if you want Mitch to live through the night.” John pushed Mitch’s hands away and poured the rest of the liquid onto the book.

As the three of them watched, the fluid sizzled and spat as it neared the book, boiling away an inch before it touched the cover. Only when some of the liquid actually touched the surface of the book did John stop pouring. By then the stink of sulfur had their eyes watering.

John sat down and motioned the others to join him. “It’s safe now, I believe.” He picked up the book, his hands recoiling slightly at the feel of the human leather binding.

“You believe?”

John glanced at Danni. “There’s no way to be sure if a grimoire is ever safe.”

“Grimoire?” Mitch asked. “You mean like, a book of spells?”

“Yes, but it’s much more than that. I would have warned you about it, but I had no idea he’d keep it somewhere so easily discovered. What you’ve done, Mitch, is both excellent and very dangerous. You’ve taken away much of his power. In effect, you’ve done to him what he did to me when he stole my bag.”

“That’s good for us, right?”

“Yes and no. It won’t change what he’s got planned for the town. He doesn’t need this”—John tapped the book—“for that. But it will prevent him from casting any spells he hasn’t memorized. Of course, we don’t know which ones those are, so we’ll have to prepare as if nothing’s changed. On top of that...”

“What?” Danni asked, when John’s paused dragged on.

He bit his lip. This was the part he’d dreaded telling them. “Very soon he’s going to discover the grimoire is missing. When he does, he’ll be furious, and he’ll go looking for the person who has it.”

“But how will he...oh, because Billy Ray saw Mitch.”

“It wouldn’t matter even if he hadn’t. The book is tied to Christian, or rather, the thing inside him. He’ll be able to sense anyone who’s come in contact with it, and follow that trail right to the person, the way a bloodhound can follow a scent for miles and miles. What I’ve done is akin to washing the scent away from Mitch’s hands, and masked the book itself, at least for a while.”

“Then we’re safe?”

John shrugged. “Unless he already knows.”

“So he could already be coming after us.”

“I’m afraid so. We need to prepare ourselves for that possibility.”

“Prepare, how?”

“That’s what I’ve got to figure out.”

And fast, he added to himself. The Ancient One won’t waste time.

*   *   *

Billy Ray felt as if his heart might stop when Christian’s voice called out from the top of the church stairs.

“Billy, come up to my office. We have things to discuss.”

“Okay, as soon as I...”

“Now.”

The reverend stepped back inside and closed the door, leaving Billy Ray standing on the sidewalk, his mouth open but empty of words.

Shit. Shit-shit-shit! Did he know?
The temptation to race down to the basement, grab the money, and then head for the river was so strong he actually took two steps toward the basement door before stopping himself.
He couldn’t know.
If he did, he’d be throwing a fit.

“Shit.” Sometimes you had to trust your instincts. He took a deep breath and headed up the stairs. To his right, the setting sun was a flaming globe at the end of State Street, looking for all the world like an atomic explosion. That imagery did nothing to quell Billy Ray’s nerves as he entered the church and found Christian standing by the doors, his arms crossed and an impatient look on his face.

“Let’s move it, Billy. I haven’t got all day.”

Billy Ray followed Christian to his office. Instead of sitting, the reverend stood by the window, looking out into the fiery red afternoon. Just as Billy Ray thought the man might have forgotten he was there, Christian turned to him, his eyes aflame as they reflected the setting sun.

“Something’s not right.”

A black hole opened in Billy Ray’s gut. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve felt it all day, a nagging sensation at the back of my head, like someone’s watching me.”

Sudden inspiration hit Billy Ray.
He doesn’t know!
Here was a perfect chance for him to come clean and look like a hero at the same time.

“Funny you should say that. I caught that Anderson kid snooping in the basement today and I chased him out.”

“What?” Christian moved toward Billy Ray, who found himself taking a step back to keep the distance between them.

His eyes! How are they still red even with his back to the window?

In the space of that thought, Christian grabbed Billy Ray by the shirt and shook him. “Answer me! What was he doing here?”

“I...I don’t know! I found him in the basement. I came back to...to change my shirt, and he was coming down the stairs. Said he was there to get his Bible. I told him to scram and not come back if he knew what was good for him.”

“A Bible?”

“Yeah. He said it was in the basement. He found it, too, and took it with him.”

“A Bible?” This time the question wasn’t for Billy Ray. His brow furrowed as he considered Billy Ray’s story. “Did he take anything else?”

“Nothing that I saw. I followed him up the stairs, and watched him leave.” He hadn’t done any such thing, but he’d gone up not long after scaring the kid away, and the church had been empty.

“Why would the boy come here?” Again, Christian spoke to himself, but Billy Ray answered anyway.

“Maybe he came to spy on you.”

Christian’s eyes went wide and he let go of Billy Ray’s shirt. Faster than Billy Ray’d ever seen a person move, he went around his desk and opened one of the drawers, his expression changing to one of fury.

“Damn his soul to Hell!”

In the space of an instant, the temperature in the room rose ten degrees, as if Christian’s words had opened a door to the very place he spoke of. Billy Ray raised his arms, afraid Christian might leap over the desk and attack him. Instead, the reverend grabbed the desk with both hands and flipped it over, a non-stop string of curses flowing from him.

“Sonofabitchbastardcocksuckingwhorespawn!”

He kicked his chair across the room. By the time it hit the far wall, he was already throwing his wastepaper basket at a file cabinet.

“Hillybillygoatfuckinginbredasslickingfaggot!”

Billy Ray stood frozen, the communications between brain and body short-circuited, like a rabbit staring at an oncoming car. Even when Christian turned and came at him, his legs refused to move.

“He stole it, you brainless wonder! He came into my office and stole it, while you sat in the basement pulling your dick!”

Billy Ray tried to speak but nothing came out.

“Answer me!” Christian raised a fist.

“I didn’t know he was there ‘til he came downstairs! I swear! As soon as I saw him, I chased him away. How was I supposed to know he’d have the guts to break into your office?”

Christian’s arm stayed raised. Billy Ray closed his eyes, anticipating the first blow. When nothing happened, he slowly opened them again.

Christian was back by the window, fists still clenched but hanging at his sides. Some of the furious rage had dimmed from his face, his eyes no longer bulging and his nostrils no longer flaring.

“You’re right, Billy. How could you have known? Even I didn’t expect something so...brazen from our friend John Root. A well-played counter-move.”

“Root? You think he put the kid up to it?” Billy Ray almost asked what the boy had stolen, then decided he was better off not knowing.

“Oh, I’m sure of it.” Christian took a deep breath. “Well, what’s done is done. In the end, it won’t matter. Let Root have his small victory, for it shall be his last. He thinks I’ll come running to get back what’s mine, and no doubt set a trap for me in the process. Instead, I think I’ll let him waste his energy while I conserve my own. This is nothing but a minor hindrance. Inconvenient, yes, but it will not hold me back.”

There was a pause, and when Christian spoke again, his tone sent a chill up Billy Ray’s spine. “Get back to work, Billy. There’s much to be done, and very little time. Very little time for anyone in this town.”

“That’s it? That’s your big plan?” The look on Danni’s face clearly showed her lack of faith.

“I don’t know what you expected.” John leaned back in his bed and regarded Danni, who sat on a chair across from him. Mitch had gone to his room earlier, barely able to keep his eyes open long enough to brush his teeth and wash his face.

He’d assumed that Danni, with no real background in the magical arts, would take it on faith he knew what he was doing. Now she was looking at him with a bewildered expression, as if he’d let her down somehow.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I expected something more...dramatic. I mean, if I’m understanding you right, then what it amounts to is you trapping Christian in some kind of magic circle, and then doing another spell that sends him off to wherever. If it was that simple, why didn’t you just do it before?”

John almost laughed. Simple? If only she knew... “It sounds simple, but it’s not. It takes a great deal of concentration and energy to perform these spells correctly, and it’s not like I’ve ever done them before.”

As John spoke, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall, savoring the slightly cooler temperature against his skin. After casting the additional wards around the house, he found himself more tired than ever.

He sensed Danni’s presence seconds before the mattress shifted under her weight as she joined him on the bed, laying down next to him and placing her head on his chest. Of its own accord, his arm moved up and over, encircling her shoulders and holding her against him.

This is wrong. I should tell her to leave.
Try as he might, his mouth refused to voice the objections his brain sent to it.

Danni sighed, her breath lost in the still, humid air surrounding them. “I didn’t expect to feel this way.”

John bit his lip. Don’t let her know the truth. Tell her you don’t feel the same things she does. “Neither did I.”

Her fingers stroked ever-so-lightly across his chest, caressing him through his T-shirt. “At first I thought, maybe it’s just the situation, you know? With everything going on, the danger, spending so much time together. It wasn’t until you left that I realized...”

“You don’t have to say it.” He hoped she wouldn’t.

“It’s been a long time since I loved someone, John. I haven’t let myself get close to anyone because of Mitch. I had to take care of him first, me second. But he’s older now...”

“He’s a good boy. You’ve done well with him. He’s...he’s the kind of son anyone would be proud of.” The moment the words left his lips, John regretted them.
You’re doing a fine job,
he berated himself.
Build up her hopes before you break her heart.

She must have noticed something in his voice, because she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “You’re thinking about your son, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Clara and I...we both loved children. All I ever wanted was a family.”
But he took that away.

“You could have one. If...if you want.” Danni looked away as she said it.

It was the moment John had been dreading. “Danni...we can’t be together. Not you and I, not as a family. What I do is too dangerous. I know what it’s like to lose people you care about, people you love. I couldn’t put you through that.”