The Skull Ring (33 page)

"
You're not going to walk away from me, whore
." He threw himself at her, knocking her to the ground. They struggled on the frosty leaves.

"She walks wherever she damn well pleases," Walter said. He emerged from behind a stand of white pines. "She makes up her own mind. And you or nobody else is going to stop her."

Julia's eyes met Walter’s, and she wasn’t sure whether it was fire or madness in them. Mitchell let her go and stood up, brushing the leaves from his clothes.

"So you're the Creep," Mitchell said. He was a couple of inches taller than Walter, but Walter approached him steadily, fists clenched.

"Hey, I'm not the one beating up a woman."

"And I'm not a lunatic wife-killer."

"Don't believe everything you hear. She came with me because she wanted to. Ain't that right, Julia?"

Julia looked from one to the other, searching for the devil in each.

"You might as well give up," Mitchell said. "The police will be here soon."

Walter glanced at Julia. She couldn't meet his intense gaze. He took a step toward Mitchell.

"Stay back," Mitchell said, fumbling inside his jacket. He brought out a pistol, and the sun gleamed off its menacing barrel.

Walter's mouth fell open as he stared at the pistol. He froze but didn't raise his hands. Julia didn't know much about guns, only what she'd seen in cop movies. This pistol looked like an automatic because it didn't have a revolver chamber. But she knew that a gun fired bullets, and Mitchell was crazy or possessed, and that made a bad combination.

"Come here, Julia," Mitchell said. "If you'd have let me buy you a gun like I wanted, this loser might not have kidnapped you in the first place."

Julia glanced at Walter, and then took a step toward Mitchell.

"It wasn't me, Julia," Walter said. "You've got to believe me."

"What's he talking about?" Mitchell asked, holding the gun steady as if he were accustomed to using it.

Julia shook her head. She couldn’t fight anymore. She would go back with Mitchell, he would take care of her until the police came, Walter would be arrested, and everybody would live happily ever after.

"He didn't kidnap me," she said.

Mitchell’s gun hand quavered. "Julia, you're confused," Mitchell said. "Your . . .
problems
are probably aggravated by the trauma. You can't trust what you think right now."

"I don't know what I think," she said.

"I do care about you."

"No," she said. "You just don't want to lose me. No matter what, Mitchell Austin can't stand to lose."

Mitchell's jaw muscles clenched and he squeezed the grip of the pistol so tightly his hand shook. Walter kept his eyes fixed on Mitchell's face.

"Don't be stupid, Julia," Mitchell said, as if she were a disobedient dog or a wayward child. "Look at all I can do for you. You know I can. Money talks, and when we get back to Memphis and away from Snead and his sickos, we're going to be babbling like idiots. You don't know the half of it. If you're in trouble, we can buy your way out of it."

"I'm scared," the four-year-old inside her said. But she couldn’t rescue that lost little girl. She was a woman now, new and improved and ready to battle for her soul.

Mitchell's eyes darkened. He raised the gun to chest level, still pointing it at Walter. "You want to stay out here with this redneck?"

This is it, decision time. The safe and insane world of the past, Mitchell's world, where she could stay in her dark shell forever? Or an unknown and perhaps equally mad freedom with Walter and his bloody past? The devil you know or the devil you don’t?

Walter stood his ground, eyes fixed on the gun.

Mitchell spoke to Walter now. "So, you're trying to steal her from me, huh? And the money. I ought to put a few holes in your ugly face. Hell, they wouldn't convict. I know a good lawyer."

He laughed, a cruel, maniacal sound that was out of place in the still forest. The panic swarmed up the base of Julia's spine, wriggling like a bucket of black worms. Walter was going to die, and she might be next. No telling what Mitchell was capable of. His face twisted into a sinister mask, eyes bright with a secret madness.

"I'm not one of them," Walter said to Julia.

"I don't believe you," Julia said to Walter. She kept the lie locked on her face, hoping her eyes didn't betray her. She must have succeeded, judging from Walter's look of hurt shock.

She moved close to Mitchell, rested her hand on his arm. "You can take care of me," she said. "You can save me."

Mitchell's lips curled into a sneer of triumph. She felt him relax, and then chopped down on his wrist with all her strength, fueled by the memory of his assault in Memphis. Three loud reports ripped through the forest, and she heard Walter's shout over the roar in her ears as gunpowder smoke burnt her nostrils. Her rage burst forth like the waters behind a storm-swollen dam, and she chopped again. The pistol spun from Mitchell's hand and landed on the carpet of leaves.

"Bitch," Mitchell grunted, backhanding her across the face. He stooped for the gun, but Julia dug her fingers into his sleeve. Walter dove to the ground, clawed among the leaves, and came up with the pistol. Mitchell flung Julia away and stared at Walter.

"You going to shoot, redneck?" Mitchell smiled, all white teeth and wickedness. "I don't think you have the balls for it."

Julia rubbed her stinging cheek. "You sent me to Elkwood, didn't you?"

Mitchell frowned at her, the slightest hesitation flashing across his eyes. "You're crazy."

"Not as crazy as you wanted me to be," she said. "You and Dr. Danner set me up with Dr. Forrest. You wanted me to move here. You wanted her to make me so helpless that I'd fall into your arms and stay there forever."

Mitchell looked at Walter. "Can't you see how loopy she is?"

"But there was one thing you didn't count on," she continued, glad that she wasn't the one holding the pistol. She might have shot him. "Dr. Danner had his own agenda. He was doing his part to be a good little member of the Brotherhood."

"Brotherhood?" Mitchell looked confused. But all lawyers were actors on some level.

"Satan worshippers," Julia said, pleased to see Mitchell's face go pale.

He looked at Walter and shook his head. "She's crazy. Now she's babbling about Satan. She really fell for her doctor’s shrink job."

Walter held the pistol and said nothing.

"You know Snead, don't you?" Julia said. "You knew him in Memphis. I wouldn't be surprised if you helped him get a job here so that he could keep an eye on me."

Mitchell took a step toward the pistol, but Walter said, "I wouldn't if I were you. Semiautomatic .45 with three shots gone still leaves four in the clip."

"Did you know Snead was in Satan's little circle, Mitch?" Julia smiled as Mitchell squirmed from the sarcastic nickname. “Maybe you’re just playing Satanist. The truth is that I can't see you bowing down to anybody or anything. You'd never worship anything besides yourself."

"I'm in it for the money, just like them,” Mitchell said. “Why else would anybody want to marry you?"

"Money? I don't have any."

"What do we do with him?" Walter asked Julia.

"I just want him out of my sight," she answered wearily. "Out of my life."

Walter motioned with the gun down the forest slope. "You heard her. Get out of here. And I wouldn't plan on coming back, or this here redneck might pull a 'Deliverance' on you." He gave a leering wink that would have made Julia laugh under other circumstances.

Mitchell's eyes widened, unable to tell if Walter were joking or not. He backed away a few steps, turned, and started down the slope. His leather shoes kicked at the leaves, his shoulders slumped. When he was nearly out of sight, near a gathering of scrub hemlocks, he looked back.

"You know that guy that lives next to you?" he called through cupped hands. "I paid him to play with your mind."

Mitchell took a few more steps, turned, and shouted again. "He mailed me a pair of your panties. Think about that the next time you're laid out on some shrink's couch. Or taking it on the devil’s altar."

He ducked behind the hemlocks and the sound of his running footfalls soon faded.

"Your panties?" Walter said.

"He's a Creep," she said, crossing her arms and hugging herself. "To think that I ever let him touch me."

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't be. I'm just glad to be rid of him."

"What did he mean by 'I'm in it for the money’? I thought he was rich."

Julia frowned. "Who knows, with Mitchell?"

"You reckon he's in on this Snead deal?"

She shook her head. "He just wanted me as his little toy. Snead wants me for Satan, and I don't believe Satan likes to share."

"They probably heard the shots. They'll be coming soon." Walter flipped on the gun's safety and looked back up the hill in the direction of the cabin.

Julia just wanted to sag down to the forest floor, to join the rotted loam beneath the leaves, to decay in peace. She was tired of being owned. She had been owned by therapists, owned by Mitchell, owned by the memories of something that may or may not have happened when she was four years old.

And now Satan wanted her, or at least his misguided minions did. But she'd be damned if she was going to surrender now, not when she was on the verge of freedom. And she was no longer alone. She wasn't locked inside the house of her head anymore. She could
trust
.

She glanced at the sky but the clouds were still silent. But maybe that was the definition of faith, believing even when there was no evidence.

"Let it come, God," she said. "I'm not afraid anymore."

As they climbed the slope, Julia wished she could tap Walter’s strength of faith. With Walter's help, she could fight Snead, Hartley, and Dr. Forrest. But she didn't have any weapons against a creature built from the flesh of bad faith, or the darkness that crept from the depths of her soul and was expanding to fill all she knew and believed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"The Jeep won't do us any good," Walter said when they returned to the cabin. "They could block off the road easy."

"Maybe we should stay here," Julia said. "You've got the gun."

Walter shook his head. "I told you I'm no Clint Eastwood. I'd be just as likely to shoot myself as to shoot one of them. And they got us outnumbered."

The sun was high overhead, with all the night's rain burned away. Julia studied the woods around them. The Creeps could already be here, surrounding their hideaway. She shuddered at the thought of holing up in the cabin, waiting for the Creeps to call up their stupid dark master or whatever it was they did. She pictured a mad scene of torchlight and shadows, low sinister chants, the air filled with bitter smoke from strange herbs. She shuddered the image from her mind.

"Which direction do we go?" she asked.

Walter nodded toward the north. "If we head over the backside of the mountain, we can follow the creek down to the Amadahee. If we keep at it, we ought to be out of the county in a couple of days."

"A couple of
days
?"

"I don't think we ought to risk trying to get any help around here. There's no way of telling who's on their side. On the
devil’s
side."

Julia shook her head, staring at the ground. "I don't want to believe in Satanic conspiracies."

"Me neither, but they still keep on coming. You go in and pack up the stuff and I'll go down to the spring to gather some water. If we figure on two days of hiking, we'll have to travel light."

The smoke had thinned from the chimney, the fire nearly dead. The forest was reflected in the cold black windows of the cabin. The peace of this place had been shattered. Now the cabin looked forlorn, soulless, only wood and stone.

She went inside, the room steeped in the glow of the dying fire. She gathered the clothes and the remaining food, stuffed them into the backpack, and threw the pack over her shoulder. Walter's can opener was on the hearth. She unzipped one of the pockets of the backpack and slid the can opener in, but decided the sharp edges might make a tear. She should wrap it in something. She reached into the pocket and her fingers touched a warm, round shape.

It felt familiar, and a shiver raced up her arm. Her heart skipped a beat as she pulled out the object, feeling its strange pulse even before she saw the twin rubies.

The skull ring.

The silver face leered up at her, the rubies gleaming in the firelight.

Something stirred in the loft. A voice came, muffled by the quilts.

"
Hello, Jooolia
."

She recognized the voice from her childhood. An icicle speared her chest.

The quilts rose in the darkness. Julia looked away from the shadowy loft before the nightmare could come fully into view. She flung the ring into the fire and ran for the door.

As she fled the cabin, dark laughter chased her, crawling from both the fireplace and the loft. Walter was out of sight. She was going to call him, but was afraid
they
would hear. The thing in the cabin called her name again.