The Sinner Page 19

  It was an argument I’d made many times and Annalee sounded sincere. But I still couldn’t get past the suspicion that she might somehow be playing me. That she might have an ulterior motive for wanting to keep me in Ascension.

  “I should go.” She stood and then sank back down as if her knees had collapsed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She put a hand to her forehead. “I feel...there’s a strange buzzing in my ears.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t answer, nor did she seem to hear me. Her gaze moved to the road, but I didn’t think she was searching for Malloy. A muscle at the corner of her eye began to twitch and her fingers tapped a frantic staccato against her knees. She seemed to be having another episode and I didn’t know if it was wise to try and rouse her.

  I lifted a hand to motion to Malloy, but then my arm fell back to my side. My ears were also buzzing, and behind my eyes images started to flash as though I were clicking through shots on a camera.

  I’d once told Dr. Shaw that I had no control over when and how I entered other people’s memories. The instances had mostly occurred with Devlin, presumably because of our deep emotional connection. I had no such bond with Annalee or anyone else in this town, but a strange nexus was at work here. Reality seemed fluid. I did know one thing with certainty, though. Those strobing images were not from my past. Annalee seemed to be searching back through her memory banks, sorting through a gallery of mental photographs until she finally came upon the time and place that she sought.

  Suddenly, I was inside the church ruins, peering into the darkest corners. Torches burned outside in the graveyard, casting long shadows across the crumbling walls and into the woods beyond. I felt anxious and frightened, but I was in no danger. Whatever had happened inside that dank place had nothing to do with me. I was a reluctant voyeur to something that had occurred twenty years ago.

  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could pick out human forms and human faces. At the very back of the ruins, two young girls had been chained to the brick. With their free hands, they clutched each other tightly, sobbing in terror while a ten-year-old Annalee sat on the stone floor watching them. Her knees were drawn up, her arms wrapped around her legs as she rocked back and forth.

  It was a strange and unnerving sensation because I was fully aware of the adult Annalee sitting on the porch steps above me. I observed that Annalee for a moment, taking in the twitching muscles and tapping fingers before allowing myself to sink back into her past.

  The child Annalee made no effort to help the captives. She remained unfazed by their cries. I thought she must have fallen into a trance both in the present and in the past, but something outside the ruins caught her attention and she turned to peer through the arches. I followed her gaze to where robed and hooded figures chanted in a circle by firelight.

  From deep within the cemetery, I could see other forms moving among the headstones. I could hear nearby whispers and faraway laughter and the guttural moans of people having sex on top of the graves. My stomach churned at the scene and I turned back to Annalee, wanting to shield her young eyes from the perversion. Wanting even more to spare those poor chained girls from the agony and horror that awaited them. But I could do nothing to help them because the past couldn’t be changed.

  Laughter rumbled from the shadows and I realized that Pope was there, too, watching from the dark as he transformed. I caught a glimpse of his savage features as he moved toward Annalee.

  A barefoot woman I knew instinctively as Mary Willoughby appeared at his side. She wore a cotton dress that fell open at the neck and hemline, revealing her bare breasts and thighs. A tangle of curls cascaded across her shoulders and swayed down her back. She looked wanton and feral, her eyes gleaming unnaturally as she went to Annalee, smoothing her hair and crooning to her as she drew her down to the floor. Annalee tried to rise, but her mother held her fast and the girl began to whimper. “No, Mama, no.”

  Pope knelt beside Annalee and lowered his mouth to hers. But he didn’t kiss her. He didn’t touch her at all. Her body stiffened and her muscles began to jerk as he blew a dark mist deep into her lungs.

  The images flashed again, sorting and sorting until we were back on the front porch. It was daylight and the child Annalee now wore a nightgown covered in blood. Even her bare feet were stained crimson, her hair matted with gore.

  Her fingers tapped fiercely on top of her knees as she rocked back and forth, a strange keening sound emanating from the back of her throat. I made no move toward her because we were still in her past and I remained nothing more than an observer. But when she turned her head, peering down the road to track a distant siren, I could have sworn that our gazes locked. Her eyes were a very clear blue and a smile played at the corners of her mouth.

  “Momento mori,” she whispered.

  Remember to die.

  Twenty-Three

  Had I really been able to access Annalee’s memories or had she somehow orchestrated the whole thing, allowing me to see only what she wanted me to see?

  I thought about those disturbing visuals for a long time after Officer Malloy had driven her home. The scene in the graveyard was so much like the illustration in Dr. Shaw’s book about black magic and witchcraft that I wondered if Annalee had somehow accessed my memories.

  I didn’t like all these head games. I didn’t like being manipulated and toyed with until I no longer trusted my own thoughts and experiences.

  Why had Annalee really come back to this town? And why had she gone to so much trouble to seek out my website all those months ago? If she had spent years trying to get Seven Gates Cemetery cleaned up, then why had nothing been done until my arrival? I didn’t always advocate amateur restorations, but at the very least, trash could have been hauled off and the worst of the vines and brush chopped down.

  Had superstition really kept the townspeople away or were they afraid of their silent complicity in what had taken place in the cemetery and inside those ruins?

  They must have had an inkling of the ceremonies and rituals being conducted there. They must have been aware of the disappearances and yet no one had tried to stop Atticus Pope and his disciples until Darius Goodwine had brought in the Congé. By then it was too late. Pope’s soul had already migrated into another.

  Ascension was no longer the haven I’d once thought it and I couldn’t wait for this job to be over. I’d accepted the restoration because I’d wanted desperately to escape Charleston and so many painful memories. Now I couldn’t wait to get back to the city, even if it meant running into Devlin and a beautiful blonde named Claire.

  Climbing into bed later that night, I clung to Rose’s key as I slipped Essie’s charm beneath my pillow. Their protection might be slight, but at the very least they offered a placebo comfort. That was enough at the moment. My muscles were so fatigued and I was so mentally exhausted that I dozed off almost immediately, only to be awakened sometime later by a cold nuzzle against my cheek.

  A gasp rose to my throat and I was already reaching for the pepper spray on the nightstand when I recognized Angus’s shape in the dark. He stood at the side of the bed using his snout to fully nudge me awake. Still in a panic, I flung off the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed as my gaze darted about the shadowy bedroom.

  “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” I was certain something dire must be afoot. A ghost...a prowler...

  Angus whimpered and trotted over to the bedroom door, then came back.

  Relief swept over me as I wiped sleep from my eyes. “You need to go out again?”

  A more urgent whine brought me to my feet at once. “When you have to go, you have to go,” I muttered as I shuffled across the room to the door, groping for the light switch so I wouldn’t stub a toe in the dark.

  I turned on the hallway light to guide us through the silent ho
use. It was a hot night and I didn’t bother with shoes or a robe. The white cotton of my nightgown floated ghostlike about my legs as I padded out the kitchen door and onto the porch. I took a moment to scan the darkness before unlatching the screen.

  A breeze had risen during the night. I could smell rain in the air, but the moon was still up, casting a misty glow over the orange grove. Through the scattered cloud coverage a few stars twinkled out.

  I pushed open the door for Angus. “Make it quick, okay?”

  He bounded down the steps without a sound, rooting in the damp grass around the porch before modesty led him to the deeper shadows at the back of the yard. I latched the screen door while I waited for him to finish. When he didn’t come back after a few moments, I called out to him.

  “Angus!”

  He didn’t respond, but I could see his darker silhouette against the shadows. When I called to him again, he shot a glance in my direction before spinning back to the orchard. He stood motionless, his attention riveted by something I couldn’t yet hear or see.

  “Angus, come!” I unfastened the door and hurried down the steps, pausing just at the edge of the light. “Angus!”

  He didn’t so much as glance at me this time. He remained transfixed by something far more compelling than my command. He didn’t appear alarmed so I dismissed the idea of an intruder or even a ghost. He had undoubtedly caught the scent of some night creature. A raccoon or opossum, more than likely.

  I huddled at the bottom of the steps and trained my senses on the night, trying to pick up any suspicious sound or scent. The breeze tangled my hair and I tucked the unruly strands behind my ears as I closed my eyes in concentration. I heard nothing more than the ripple of wind in the trees and the distant bang of a loose shutter. I made an effort to tune out those ordinary noises so that, like Angus, I could focus on the orchard. On what lay hidden in the shadows. Squeezing my eyes closed, I let my senses guide me into the trees.

  My concentration was so rapt that I had what almost seemed an out of body experience as I imagined myself floating across the yard. Angus pressed up against me, perhaps to ground me. I put a hand on his back, smoothing his ruffled fur as I drifted deeper into the night. Nocturnal sounds assailed me. A rustle in the underbrush. The drone of a mosquito. The squeak of a bat.

  The banging grew louder and now I could tell the sound came from beyond the orchard, from the shed where George Willoughby had killed himself. But the building didn’t have shutters and the door was padlocked. So what could be banging in the wind?

  Not banging, I realized.

  Hammering.

  Someone was inside the building hammering in the middle of the night.

  My first thought was of Kendrick, which made no sense at all except that he had expressed a keen curiosity about the shed. He’d wondered aloud what might still be found there. But if he really had a desire to search the premises, all he needed to do was ask Annalee to let him inside. I doubted she’d refuse a police detective’s request.

  So, no, Detective Kendrick wasn’t a likely culprit. Who, then? Annalee herself?

  My mind flashed back to her hunkering form at the edge of the orchard. And then to her trance on the front porch and that whispered missive: memento mori.

  Had that message been intended for me?

  Focus!

  I tucked away all thoughts of Annalee Nash and Lucien Kendrick, guiding my senses out of the trees and along the dirt path that would lead me to the shed. The hammering seemed loud to me now, but in reality, the sound was little more than a muffled thumping as though whoever had gained entrance took great care not to give himself away.

  Over the muted thud came another noise. The softest of cries. Like the mewling of a hungry kitten or the keening of a frightened child.

  I’d heard a similar sound in the front bedroom a few nights ago. That indefinable hollowness once again lifted the hair at the back of my neck and sent a shock wave down my spine.

  First he took their blood and then their hands, their eyes, their tongues.

  My knees almost gave way as Darius Goodwine’s disturbing words pounded in my head.

  Don’t think about that now! Don’t think about what lies in wait in the darkness. Just focus on the sound!

  Closing my eyes, I visualized the white facade of the shed in the moonlight. In my mind, the door hung open so that I could peer inside. The hammering was louder than ever now, a steady thump, thump, thump as though boards were being pounded into place.

  Drifting up to the door, I hovered on the threshold as I searched the darkness, detecting nothing more threatening than the vague shapes of furniture and garden equipment that I’d noted on my real-life visits.

  Across the crowded storage space, I could see a flickering light and, against the far wall, the looming silhouette of someone bent to his work.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  I ignored the muted din of the hammer as I zeroed in on the mewling. Where were those cries coming from? Not from the silhouette across the room, I felt certain. From who, then? From what?

  I kept my eyes closed and poured all my concentration into those hushed howls as I pictured myself stepping inside that cluttered room and floating like a ghost toward the flickering light. The thumping stopped and I heard a voice, strange and yet somehow eerily familiar. “Save your breath. No one knows you’re here. No one is even looking for you. You’ve already been forgotten so you may as well accept your fate.”

  I retreated then as the shadow rose and I heard a soft exhalation of breath. A moment later, a door closed and a chain jangled as the padlock clicked shut.

  A low growl from Angus drew my focus away from the outbuilding, back through the orchard and across the yard to where we both stood at the bottom of the steps. I stroked his back, trying to convince myself I had imagined the hammering, the looming shadow and those soft, piteous cries. But Angus’s behavior told me otherwise. He stood rigid, his earless head lowered, and when I took a step toward the orchard, he pushed up against me as if warning me to remain still.

  I stood frozen for the longest time listening to the night. The clouds had thinned and the moon was so bright now I could see a few feet into the orange grove. I no longer heard the banging, but my normal senses picked up the sound of thudding footsteps on hard ground. Someone was coming toward us, moving fast through the trees.

  A part of me wanted to wait and see who emerged from the darkness, but the wiser part of my brain told me to hide. I raced up the porch steps, turning only once to glance over my shoulder. I could see a shadow moving through the trees as he rapidly approached the house.

  Slipping inside the screen door, I beckoned to Angus and then sank to the floor, concealing myself behind the half wall before the intruder could spot me. I reached up to latch the screen as I stroked along the dog’s back to keep him calm. His eyes gleamed as he turned his head, listening to the footfalls that were now thudding across the backyard.

  “Stay,” I whispered into his ear nub. “Good dog.”

  A shadow fell across the back porch as the latch rattled. The hair on Angus’s back bristled and I could feel the tension in his muscles as he crouched in the dark, prepared to fight for our lives if need be.

  It would have taken very little effort for the intruder to snap the latch or to kick in the screen, but he hovered at the top of the steps as if vexed by the simple lock.

  My gaze shifted to his shadow as I conjured an inhuman face in the moonlight. I imagined the scent of ozone from his magic and the sulfuric smell of his presence. Atticus Pope was out there in whatever guise he now used. I could sense him with every fiber of my being. All I had to do was rise up and peer at him through the screen to know him in his present form.

  I hunched even lower as I tried to quiet my breath. I heard him go down the steps and I thought for a moment he’d given up.
Odd that a screen door latch would thwart him so easily, but perhaps it was something in this house, a spell or Essie’s charm, that repelled him.

  I could no longer hear him, but Angus’s head turned as he tracked an indistinguishable scent or sound. His teeth bared and he leaped forward to push me out of danger a split second before the blade of a machete slashed through the screen only inches from where my head had been.

  Scrambling across the porch and into the kitchen, I called breathlessly to Angus. He reluctantly came and I slammed the wooden door and turned the lock. Then I ran for my phone and the pepper spray on the bedside table. As I waited for the police to arrive, I made sure the premises were secure even though I felt certain no lock could keep Pope out.

  Somewhere down the road, a car door slammed and an engine gunned. Such an ordinary means of transportation for a man of witchcraft and black magic, but then I reminded myself that even Atticus Pope had frailties. So long as he resided in a human body, he could be stopped.

  Unless the heart of a Goodwine made him invincible.

  Twenty-Four

  “You’re sure you didn’t get a look at him?” Kendrick asked as he examined the sliced screen. “Not even a glimpse?”

  “I only saw a shadow.”

  He flicked the light in my direction, stopping short of catching me in the face. “Why did you hide on the porch? If you thought you were in danger, why not hurry inside and lock all the doors?”

  “Because I didn’t have time to get inside without him seeing me. And I didn’t want him to know that I’d seen him.” I tugged at the tail of my T-shirt, feeling unkempt and half-dressed even though I basically had on the same clothing that I wore to work every day.