The sight of Zeffer's execution had momentarily distracted Katya from any further mischief. She was simply staring at the door as though she could see through it to the horror on the other side.
Tammy didn't give her a chance to snap out of the trance. She started up the stairs, pulling Todd after her.
"Christ . . ." Todd muttered to himself. "Christ oh Christ oh Christ . . ."
Five stairs up, Tammy chanced a backward glance, but Katya was still standing in front of the door.
What was she thinking? Tammy wondered. What have I done? Did a woman like that ever think what have I done? With Zeffer gone, she would be alone in Coldheart Canyon. Alone with the dead. Not a pretty prospect.
Perhaps she was regretting. Just a little.
And while she regretted (if regretting was what she was doing), Tammy continued to haul Todd after her up the stairs.
Six steps now; seven, eight, nine.
Now the escapees were on the half-landing. Through the window off to their left Tammy could see the sight that had held Zeffer's attention just minutes before: the occupants of Coldheart Canyon pressing against the glass.
Why didn't they simply break in? she wondered. They weren't, after all, insubstantial. They had weight, they had force. If they wanted to get in so badly, why didn't they simply break the glass or splinter the doors?
The question went from her head the next instant, driven out by a wail of demand from below.
"Todd?"
It was Katya, of course. She had finally stirred from her fugue state and was coming up the stairs after them. Speaking in her sweetest voice. Her come-hither voice.
"Todd, where are you going?"
Tammy felt nauseated. Katya could still do them harm. She still had power over Todd and she knew it. That was why she put on that little-girl questioning voice.
"Todd?" Katya said again. "Wait, darling."
If she let go of him, Tammy guessed, he would obey Katya's request. And then they'd be lost. Katya would never let him go. She'd kill him rather than let him escape her a second time.
There wasn't much advice Tammy could give to Todd except: "Don't look back."
He glanced at her, his expression plaintive. It made her feel as though she were leading a child rather than a grown man.
"We can't just leave her here," he said.
"After what she just did!"
"Don't listen to her," Katya said, her voice suddenly a siren-song, the little-girl lightness erased in favor of something more velvety. "She just wants you for herself."
Todd frowned.
"You can't leave me, Todd."
And then more softly stilclass="underline" "I won't let you leave me."
"Just remember what she did down there," Tammy said to Todd.
"Zeffer was a nuisance," Katya said. She was getting closer, Tammy knew; her voice had dropped to a sultry murmur. "I never loved him, Todd. You know that. He hung around causing trouble. Listen to me. You don't want to go with this woman. Look at her, then look at me. See what a choice you're making."
Tammy half-expected Todd to obey Katya's instruction. But Todd simply studied the stairs as they climbed, which under the circumstances was a minor triumph. Perhaps he still had the will-power in him to resist Katya, Tammy thought. He wasn't her object yet.
Even so, the murdering bitch wasn't ready to give up.
"Todd?" Katya said, now casual, as though none of this were of any great significance. "Will you turn round for a moment? Just for a moment? Please. I want to see your face before you go. That's not asking much, now is it? Just one more time. I can't bear it. Please. Todd ... I. . . can't. .. bear it."
Oh Lord, Tammy thought, she's turning on the tears. She knew how potent a well-timed flood of tears could be. Her sister had always been very quick to turn on the waterworks when she wanted something; and it had usually done the trick.
"Please, my love . . ."
It was almost believable; the words catching in her throat, the soft sob.
". . . don't go. I won't be able to live without you."
They were still a few strides from the front door. Then, once they were out, they had to get along the pathway and onto the street. Somehow she doubted Katya's power extended far beyond the limits of the house. The Canyon might have been hers once upon a time, but she'd lost control of it in the decades since her heyday. Now it belonged to the ghosts and the animals, and the bestial offspring of both.
Still coaxing Todd after her, Tammy made her way across the hallway to the front door.
Behind them, Katya kept up her tearful appeals: declarations of love, interspersed with sobs. Then more appeals for him to turn around and look at her.
"You don't want to go," she called to Todd, "you know you don't. Especially with her. Lord, Todd, look at her. You really want that?"
Finally, Tammy snapped. "How the hell do you know what he wants, bitch?" she said, turning to look round at the woman on their heels.
"Because we're soul-mates," Katya said.
Her eyes were swollen and red, Tammy noted with some satisfaction, and there were tears pouring down her face. Her mascara was running down her pale cheeks in two black rivulets. "He knows it's true," Katya went on. "We've suffered the same way. Haven't we, Todd? Remember how you said it was like I was reading your mind? And I said it was because we were the same, deep down? Remember that?"
"Ignore her," Tammy said. They were no more than three strides from the front door.
But Katya—realizing she was close to losing—had one last trick up her sleeve. One final power-play. "If you step out of this house," she said to Todd, "then it's over between us. Do you understand me? If you stay—oh, if you stay, my darling—then I'm yours. I'm yours body and soul—I mean it: body and soul. But if you go it'll be as though you never existed."
Finally, something she said carried enough weight to stop Todd in his tracks.
"Ignore her," Tammy said. "Please."
"You know I can do that," Katya went on.
Todd turned, and looked back at her, which was exactly what Tammy was praying he wouldn't do. Katya was standing in the darkness close to the top of the stairs but the shadows did not conceal the fierce brilliance of her stare. Her eyes seemed to flicker in the murk, as though there were flames behind them.
Now she had succeeded in making him look at her again, she softened her tone. She certainly had quite a repertoire, Tammy thought. First demands; then pleas and siren-songs; then tears and threats. Now what?
"I know what you're thinking . . ." she said.
Ah, mind reading.
". . . you're thinking that you've got a life out there. And it's calling you back."
Tammy was puzzled. This sounded like a self-defeating argument.
"You're thinking you want to be back in the spotlight, where you belong . . ."
While Katya talked, Tammy made a momentous decision. She let go of Todd's hand. She'd done all that she could. If after all this Todd decided that he wanted to turn back and give himself to the wretched woman, then there was nothing more Tammy could do about it. He was a lost cause.
She crossed swiftly to the front door, and opened it. The first tug was a little difficult. Then the door swung open easily, majestically. There were no ghosts on the threshold, only the refreshing night air, sweetened by the scent of night-blooming jasmine.
Behind her, in the house, Katya was finishing her argument. "The fact is," she said, "there's nothing out there for you now. Do you understand me, Todd? There's nothing."