“Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you?” Authority filled her voice. He didn’t respond, and Amanda wondered if he was having the same difficulty hearing as she had. “Can you hear me?” she screamed, although she was not really sure why she screamed the words. Dream or not, she was in the realm of thought where screaming only communicated emotion.
Apparently, he had heard something. He took a step back out of surprise, then suddenly screamed and lunged at her. Mittens, now the size of a bear, exploded from his crouch. Amanda was struck by the thought that the Dark Man hadn’t seen Mittens the Bear. She sidestepped their collision as the two tumbled into the sand. Mittens was up first, and he bit deep into the Dark Man’s right shoulder. At that instant, an explosion of blue light blinded Amanda.
She awoke in agony, her face and chest burning from the flash. Her skin was searing, almost as if she had been splashed with a powerful acid. Blindly, she rolled out of bed and stumbled over to the sink; but before she reached it, the pain was gone. She stood over the sink, her chest heaving, and her heart hammering against her ribs. She blinked several times, but all she could see were blue dots. Slowly, her vision returned to normal. She studied her reflection in the mirror, but her skin appeared to be unharmed. She rubbed her face and chest, and they both felt normal. She looked back at the bed, and instead of finding a pile of smoking, charred linen, there were only rumpled sheets. She had managed to knock over the bedside clock, and its upside-down numbers told her that she had been asleep for less than sixteen minutes.
Chapter 10
It hadn’t gone as planned, but it had turned out better than he could have hoped. He had met the old man briefly two months earlier when he had first started following Rucker, but he had long forgotten George Van Der; he just didn’t seem relevant at the time. Reisch had originally intended another of Phil’s neighbors, the pretty little mother who lived across the street, as his mark. She had caught his eye on several occasions, and each time he had found himself aroused, which made her unusual, and therefore interesting. He had grown beyond desires of the flesh — the very thought of sex nauseated him. Rutting was something animals did. Still, she was capable of eliciting a physical reaction from him, which at some level was disturbing and enticing. On several dark nights he pondered this weakness, finally concluding that he was changing, but not yet changed. His evolution was a process and not an event, and parts of him had taken a step backwards in anticipation of a leap forward. This theory also nicely explained the presence of the madness, and the irrational need for violence. At some point his ordered mind and ordered life would return. Ex chaos ordo.
Until then, he had to deal with the reality of the situation, and presently, that required a sacrifice on her part. Years ago, when the madness first began, a blood sacrifice had been sufficient; but as time went on, more was required. A simple violent death would no longer appease the demon; it demanded body, mind, and soul.
On the drive to her house, he could barely contain his excitement. It had been over a year since he last had taken a mother, and that had been one of the most satisfying experiences of his life. It had lasted nearly six hours; and she struggled exquisitely all the way until the end, when she willingly offered her very being to him. He had hopes that this woman would prove to be even better; she was younger, so were her children, and she had much more to live for. He would touch her, stroke her, have her, and when the moment was right, when the horror had reached unimaginable heights, when every coherent thought and shred of will had dissolved away, he would destroy her.
But she wasn’t home. Her house was dark, and her carport was empty.
The madness within him raged, and only an act of extreme violence and bloodshed would appease it. He imagined driving his car through the front of her house, crashing through her picture window, and destroying everything she owned. He would search for a pet — a dog or a cat — and he saw himself tearing it apart with his teeth, its hot blood smeared over his face, the thick coppery taste filling his mouth. But even this wouldn’t be enough, not by a long stretch. She would now have to pay for denying him, and it would cost much more than the life of a pet. Two children lived in the house — a toddler and a preschooler. That something might happen to them was her ultimate fear, far greater than any fear of being physically violated. But he would have to wait until they returned before he could act. Only, he couldn’t wait. Soon, the madness would overwhelm caution and experience.
The sound of a motor disturbed his tortured thoughts, and Reisch looked up to find George Van Der attacking a snowdrift with his blower. Plumes of snow shot high into the air, and Reisch accepted Fate’s decision.
Killing the old man hadn’t been nearly as gratifying as killing the young mother would have been, but it had been better than he had expected. The old man’s mind had been stronger than his failing body. At first, he resisted Reisch mightily, which only made the inevitable collapse more satisfying. He died slowly, horrific images filling his mind, while Reisch watched. He fed off the old man’s terror as a vampire feeds off its victim’s blood.
The bonus, which made up for his missed opportunity with the pretty mother, was having Rucker discover him. It was almost as if everything had come full circle. Phil had become somewhat of a problem of late. His mind had become more difficult to access, and Reisch didn’t have a satisfactory explanation as to why. No one had ever been able to resist him as well; of course, Reisch had never given so much attention to one individual before. It was possible that the frequent forays into Phil’s mind had led to a type of resistance. It made sense, but Reisch was still somewhat uneasy.
It doesn’t matter how he’s doing it, Reisch thought. The whole episode would wear more on Phil’s mind than his, and it wouldn’t take too much more for Phillip Rucker to be consumed by his own mental chaos.
After killing Van Der, Reisch had slowly driven back to the hotel, basking in the ecstasy of another life absorbed into his being. The only thing left of George Van Der was now a part of him. He had quieted the madness, and anytime he wanted, he could reach back into his memory and feel George struggling for life. It had been a good morning, and he had turned his mind back to Amanda. As he stripped off his jacket, he imagined that he could almost reach out and touch her. The certainty that today was the day he would find her filled his racing heart. He had restored the balance that had always guided him, and now it directed him to the Flynns. They knew where their daughter-in-law was hiding, and before the day was out they would tell him. He had enough of circumspection; the direct approach had always served him well, and he knew that it would not fail him this day. He stood to retrieve his jacket, and a wave of fatigue rolled over him. It wasn’t uncommon after a kill, and despite the fact that he had already slept nearly four hours, he reasoned that a nap was probably in order. He crawled beneath the covers and fell deeply asleep, feeling like a lion that had eaten its full.
Every dream he had ever had as an adult started out in exactly the same way. A six-year-old Klaus sat at a small kitchen table watching his mother make breakfast on a rainy Saturday morning. She was droning on about something that was completely mindless, and Klaus finally stopped pretending to listen. He wondered how he could have sprung from this utterly inconsequential person. This wasn’t a new thought; he had wondered about it most of his life, so why his mind kept coming back to this point in his childhood he couldn’t explain. It had no particular importance as far as he knew, but it always had to play out before the good stuff started.