"We have no wish to harm you, Mrs. Stevens."
"Then let me go!"
"I'm afraid we can't do that. At least not at the moment." He held out his hand to assist her from the car. She noticed that it was bandaged; so was his other hand. He pulled it back as if he had suddenly changed his mind. "Please come with me."
Another man, about ten years older but equally bland-looking, came up beside him and looked down at her. Both his hands were bandaged too. Despite her fear, she was struck by the strangeness of all those bandages.
"Please don't fear us," the second one said. "We're only here to help you."
Both their expressions showed a strange mixture of serenity and implacable purpose. Here was a pair who had found the answer to all things in life. No further questions were necessary.
The effect was chilling.
She looked past them to the porch where four men were still struggling to subdue Jonah. The first followed her gaze.
"We mean him no harm, either. Come."
Carol fought the hysteria straining against the underside of her diaphragm. They seemed sincere about meaning her no harm, yet something within her screamed in fear at the look in their eyes.
But what choice did she have? She was outnumbered and outflanked. They were out of sight of the road, and none of the neighbors were close enough to hear her if she screamed. Her arms and legs felt leaden, too weak to put up a struggle, too heavy to run very far.
And up on the porch they had Jonah on his feet and were leading him inside.
"All right," she said. "I'll come. Just don't touch me."
That seemed to be the farthest thing from their minds. Both men stepped back out of her way, but she noticed that the first kept a firm grip on the door handle.
They followed her to the porch. The one who had called himself Martin was waiting there. He spoke to the men with her.
"Go signal Brother Robert."
The second one trotted off toward the road.
Carol wondered at the significance of that as Martin preceded her into the front hallway. Then she heard Emma's breathless voice coming from the parlor.
"—tried to warn you, Jonah, but they gagged me and pulled me into the back room!"
Carol followed Martin into the parlor where one of the men was tying Jonah into one of the chairs as two others steadied his arms. In the doorway to the dining room stood Emma, flanked by two more of the men.
And they all had bandages on their hands. What did that mean?
"Carol!" she said. "I'm so glad you're all right! I was so worried!"
Carol was suddenly furious at these interlopers. The Hanley mansion didn't really feel like her house, and so she had not reacted as instinctively as she might have had they been in the old family cottage. But with the sight of the smashed leaded window, the shattered glass on the carpet, the axes leaning against the wall, something changed within her. She suddenly felt protective toward this old place. This was her house, and it probably had been these people who'd burned her out of her old home. And now they were making themselves right at home here! And tying up her father-in-law!
She stormed into the parlor.
"Get out! All of you, get out of my house!"
"We'll be leaving soon," Martin said, unperturbed.
"Not soon! Now! I want you all out of here now!" She strode to where they were binding Jonah's wrists to the arms of the chair. "Stop that! Untie him immediately!"
The men glanced up at her, then at Martin, then continued tying their knots.
"All in good time," Martin said. "But there's someone I think you ought to talk to first before you get too upset."
Carol was ready to scream at him when she heard the sound of tires splashing through the puddles on the driveway. She glanced through the front window and saw three cars pulling in. None of them looked familiar. As she watched, the doors opened and a number of women got out—five in all—and a bearded man in monk's robes with the cowl pulled up over his head. As they approached the front porch she recognized the short, portly figure in the lead.
"Aunt Grace!"
"Grace?" Emma shouted from the far side of the room. "Grace Nevins? She's with them? I should have known! She helped them kill my Jimmy!"
Carol barely heard her. Aunt Grace was here! That was good. Emma was just overwrought. There was nothing to fear from Aunt Grace. She had taken her parents' place after they were killed. If she knew these people, she'd straighten everything out.
10
Grace had sensed the evil within the house as she stepped up onto the porch. But when she entered and saw Carol dash across the front hallway, running toward her with outstretched arms, it slammed against her like a mailed fist.
"Aunt Grace! Help us! We're being held prisoner here!"
Grace willed herself not to recoil as Carol clung to her. But holding her trembling niece was like embracing a sack of maggots. There could be no doubt now—the Antichrist was within her. Grace Nevins was suddenly filled with righteous rage at Satan for doing this to her own niece. How dare he!
"You'll be fine, dear," she said, stroking her niece's long, damp hair.
I will free you from your affliction. I will rip the corruption from within you and return you to your old unsullied self.
She hated herself for being so deceitful. For despite her desire to free Carol from Satan, she dreaded the ugly scene to come and wanted to put off the unpleasantness as long as she could, to compress it and concentrate it into the shortest possible length of time, into a tiny, bitter pill that could be downed in a single swallow.
"Aunt Grace, do you know these people?"
"Yes. Yes, I do. I've known them since Ash Wednesday."
"Can you get them out of here?"
"Don't you worry. You know I wouldn't let anything happen to my niece. Just relax. Tomorrow this will all seem like a dream and you'll be fine. In fact, you'll be better than you are right now."
You'll be free of the loathsomeness growing inside you.
She felt Carol relax, but there was still fear in her niece's eyes when she leaned back and looked at her.
"Just get them out of here. Please? You should see what they've done to Jonah!"
"Show me."
She followed Carol into the room to the right. She had never seen a house like this, so ornate, so cluttered. She stopped at the threshold, startled by the sight of Jonah Stevens, trussed in a chair and straining at his bonds.
"You!" Jonah shouted when he saw her. His single eye glared at her from a rage-distorted face. "I might have known you'd be involved in this!"
Might have known? What did he mean by that?
But it was Emma who suddenly dominated the scene. She pulled away from the two Chosen guarding her and lunged across the room at Grace, her fingers curved like talons, screaming at the top of her voice.
"It's you! You killed my Jimmy! Yooouuu!"
Grace shrank back from the attack, and luckily the other Chosen were able to grab and restrain Emma before she reached her. Emma's words became raving gibberish and she screamed and spit and bit and kicked at her captors as they dragged her to the floor. She was like a madwoman, like a wounded wild animal! Finally, whether from exhaustion or the realization that she was helpless, Grace couldn't say, Emma calmed down and lay there on the flowered carpet, panting and grunting.
Wounded. Yes, she had been wounded, hadn't she? Poor Jim wasn't to blame for being born without a soul. He had been used by Satan to impregnate poor Carol and then discarded. Her heart went out to poor Emma for her loss, but that did not make Grace fear her rage any less.