Darkfall

gloves. On her right hand was a fresh, bleeding bite mark, but no flesh was torn away; it was just four small puncture wounds. The gloves, like her jeans, had provided at least some protection. Her left hand bore two bite marks; one was bleeding and seemed no more serious than the wound on her right hand, painful but not mortal, while the other was the old bite she’d received in front of Faye’s apartment building.
    Father Walotsky said, “What’s all that blood on your neck?” He put a hand to her face, gently pressed her hand back, so he could see the scratches under her chin.
    “Those’re minor,” she said. “They sting, but they’re not serious.”
    “I think we’d better get you some medical attention,” he said. “Come on.”
    She pulled down the leg of her jeans.
    He helped her to her feet. “I think it would be all right if I took you to the rectory.”
    “No,” she said.
    “It’s not far.”
    “We’re staying here,” she said.
    “But those look like animal bites. You’ve got to have them attended to. Infection, rabies… Look, it’s not far to the rectory. We don’t have to go out in the storm, either. There’s an underground passage between the cathedral and- ”
    “No,” Rebecca said firmly. “We’re staying here, in the cathedral, where we’re protected.”
    She motioned for Penny and Davey to come close to her, and they did, eagerly, one on each side of her.
    The priest looked at each of them, studied their faces, met their eyes, and his face darkened. “What are you afraid of?”
    “Didn’t the kids tell you some of it?” Rebecca asked.
    “They were babbling about goblins, but-”
    “It wasn’t just babble,” Rebecca said, finding it odd to be the one professing and defending a belief in the supernatural, she who had always been anything but excessively open-minded on the subject. She hesitated. Then, as succinctly as possible, she told him about Lavelle, the slaughter of the Carramazzas, and the voodoo devils that were now after Jack Dawson’s children.
    When she finished, the priest said nothing and couldn’t meet her eyes. He stared at the floor for long seconds.
    She said, “Of course, you don’t believe me.”
    He looked up and appeared to be embarrassed. “Oh, I don’t think you’re lying to me… exactly. I’m sure you believe everything you’ve told me. But, to me, voodoo is a sham, a set of primitive superstitions. I’m a priest of the Holy Roman Church, and I believe in only one Truth, the Truth that Our Savior-”
    “You believe in Heaven, don’t you? And Hell?”
    “Of course. That’s part of Catholic-”
    “These things have come straight up from Hell, Father. If I’d told you that it was a Satanist who had summoned these demons, if I’d never mentioned the word voodoo, then maybe you still wouldn’t have believed me, but you wouldn’t have dismissed the possibility so fast, either, because your religion encompasses Satan and Satanists.”
    “I think you should-”
    Davey screamed.
    Penny said, “They’re here!”
    Rebecca turned, breath caught in her throat, heart hanging in mid- beat.
    Beyond the archway through which the center aisle of the nave entered the vestibule, there were shadows, and in those shadows were silver-white eyes glowing brightly. Eyes of fire. Lots of them.
    VI
    Jack drove the snow-packed streets, and as he approached each intersection, he somehow sensed when a right turn was required, when he should go left instead, and when he should just speed straight through. He didn’t know how he sensed those things; each time, a feeling came over him, a feeling he couldn’t put into words, and he gave himself to it, followed the guidance that was being given to him. It was certainly unorthodox procedure for a cop accustomed to employing less exotic techniques in the search for a suspect. It was also creepy, and he didn’t like it. But he wasn’t about to complain, for he desperately wanted to find Lavelle.
    Thirty-five minutes after they had collected the two small jars of holy water, Jack made a left turn into a street of pseudo-Victorian houses. He stopped in front of the fifth one. It was a three-story brick house with lots of gingerbread trim. It was in need of repairs and painting, as were all the houses in the block, a fact that even the snow and darkness couldn’t hide. There were no lights in the house; not one. The windows were perfectly black.
    “We’re here,” Jack told Carver.
    He cut the engine,