The Necromancer (22 page)

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It lurched toward her. She stepped back, no longer holding her nose even though the stench was great, but bringing her hand down to her mouth to mask her horror.

It continued its advance, its limbs creaking like twisted leather.

She backed into the wall by the window.

It came closer, reaching for her.

A shaft of haunting moonlight fell on its face, revealing its loose, brown teeth showcased in a perpetually ghoulish smile. A slender strip of shriveled skin and muscle dangled from its chin. Inside one of its orbits writhed one budding, glistening maggot.

Susanna slid along the wall, away from the animated skeleton, but her progress was impeded by the adjoining wall. Cornered, she made a desperate attempt to bolt past the skeleton man, but it was fast and seized her by the wrist with a tough, icy grip. She looked down at her wrist, raising it to her face, attempting to yank it free from the hard, ivory hand, but could not. She tried to scream for help, but all that would come was an utterance of stifl ed terror.

In her panic, she swung at its head with her free hand and hit it hard, making it jerk to the side. Some of its sparse, rotten fl esh came off its face, clogging her nails and fi ngers with carrion. It recovered quickly and grabbed her other hand as she stared into her palm and all its grizzly contents.

She became unhinged, and this time she screamed.

“Help! Father...Someone...Please help me!”

She struggled and fought, but Eames wouldn’t release her. Instead, he dragged her past the bed and toward the door.

She lost her footing and fell on her back, her legs kicking 198

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behind her. It let go of one of her wrists but still continued to haul her out of the room by the other.

“Help! Please...Let...me...go!”

Eames dragged her into the hallway. Edward bolted out of his room at the far end of the hallway. He was half-dressed, still buttoning his breeches under his nightshirt, hair disheveled, eyes bleary behind his spectacles as he ran after them.

“Susanna!” he yelled.

She looked at him helplessly as the corpse pulled her along, ignoring their pursuer. He caught up with them and leaped. Eames’s grip broke as he and Edward crashed to the fl oor sounding like a man who had been carrying an armful of wooden canes and fell on the deck of a ship.

Eames rose quickly, faster than Edward. Edward was still on his hands and knees, shaking his head, dazed and blind without his glasses, which had fl own off in the fall. He looked up at the skeleton man in astonishment, then a white blur of naked digits and cartilage swiped past his face and turned everything black.

“Edward!” Susanna cried, seeing him slump back to the fl oor with a fresh fl owing gash on his temple.

She crawled toward him, but Eames reached her

before she reached Edward, and she was once again in his grip.

Susanna managed to stand up. She tried to pull free, squatting down low, but the skeleton man was too strong, his grip too tight.

They started down the stairs, Susanna pulling in a tug-of-war she couldn’t win as Eames towed her down one step at a time.

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Roger stood at the bottom landing in his nightshirt, staring blankly with open mouth and widened eyes, his arms down impotently at his sides.

Susanna grunted and strained, tears rolling freely down her cheeks now.

“Father! Help me! Please! IT WILL NOT LET GO!”

Hearing his daughter’s panic-stricken voice shook him out of his stupor, and he looked around frantically for a weapon.

He looked at the fi replace and spotted a poker

propped up against the hearth. He ran over, picked it up, and cocked it over his shoulder.

“Release my daughter!” he yelled, running back to the foot of the stairs.

They still descended, the skeleton man not heeding Roger’s words. When they reached the bottom, Roger swung the poker at its head with fury and indignation, releasing a growling scream. The poker came down in a wide arc and smashed through Eames’s skull, creating a large crater in the side of his cranium.

Eames, who had so far remained silent, let out an ungodly and agonizing howl from what was left of his vocal cords as the barb of the poker caught inside his head and hooked his brainpan. Roger tugged at it, wrenching Eames’s head sideways.

“Let her go, I said!” Roger demanded, but Eames

would not release her.

Roger yanked the poker again with all his weight. A piece of the skull chipped off and Roger went sprawling to the fl oor, banging his head against the wall.

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Eames opened the door and picked Susanna up. She fought and screamed and struggled against him, but couldn’t get free.

“Father!” she cried. But Roger was dazed and in no condition to do anything.

“Father! Father!! Fa...!!!”

Eames carried her outside into the blackness of the early morning.

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202

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Vision

On the twenty-second of September, eight more

people were sent to their deaths on Gallows Hill, Susanna was gone, and Roger and Edward were

still recovering from the injuries they sustained during her abduction two days before.

Roger had what amounted to a slight concussion,

but Edward was in worse condition. He had lost a good deal of blood and hadn’t yet awakened since the incident. If Thea hadn’t hastened her old, brittle body when she heard the commotion in the hall, Edward would have surely bled to death. But he was fortunate. Thea had found him and knew what to do.

Roger was distraught. He had wanted to go after

Eames that same night, but his body had other plans. He couldn’t seem to gain balance enough to stand up.

Eventually, Thea had come downstairs after bandaging Edward’s head and helped Roger to his feet, but by that time Roger knew it was too late to do anything that night. He resigned himself to bed and stayed there for almost a week 203

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under Thea’s orders. She could be a mean old crone when she had to be, and she knew how to stand up to stubborn, bedridden men who insisted on getting up and going about their business. Roger proved to be a particularly hard case, however, which was perfectly understandable, considering the circumstances. Thea almost felt guilty keeping him confi ned to his bed for so long, but there was nothing he could do now anyway. His condition warranted rest. What good would it serve Susanna if he became worse?

Edward had awakened briefl y on the twenty-third.

He was getting better, but it would take time, and time was something Roger felt there was little of, but he waited nevertheless. Edward was the only one who might know where the skeleton man had taken Susanna, and Roger had to wait until Edward regained consciousness and wit enough to tell him.

Roger waited anxiously for more than a month for Edward to recover fully enough to tell him where Susanna could be, and now it was late October. Roger was out back, kneeling on one knee amongst the fallen brown and orange leaves before Martha’s grave, praying silently to her spirit for guidance, as he did everyday now. It was a gloomy morning, but there were some golden clouds in the distance just beyond the dark gray ones. Maybe the day would turn out to be nicer than it looked.

He felt a hand fall on his shoulder and looked up. His mouth fell open slightly and the skin between his eyebrows bunched together. It was Edward. The gash on his temple was healed, but scarred. He still looked pale and weak.

“Should you be out of bed?” Roger asked.

“I’m well,” Edward said, raising a hand to his scar and running his fi ngers across its ridge.

“You seem weak.”

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“I am...somewhat. But I’m well enough. Now, let us get you your daughter back.”

*****

“Susanna told me during her convalescence where she had stayed when she was with Blayne,” Edward said to Roger and Thea as they sat at the kitchen table, discussing the matter over tea and rye cakes which Thea had made. “I know not the exact location, but I have a fair idea of where it is. I estimate it should not take long to fi nd it.”

“Well, let us be off then,” Roger said, standing up.

Edward grabbed his arm.

“Not so hasty, my friend,” Edward said, shaking his head. “This is a warlock we are planning to do battle with, and we have seen evidence of his abilities at fi rst hand. Do you really think it wise to storm in on him unaided?”

“What, then, do you suggest we do?” Roger asked.

“I have no desire to seek assistance from Judge Hathorne or Sheriff Corwin. Susanna is still a fugitive wanted for witchcraft.

I should not like to see her jailed again. A score of innocent people have already been executed for that damnable crime!”

“But if we could prove that this Blayne is the cause of all this witchery,” Thea reasoned, “would they not be amenable to admitting their error?”

Roger laughed sarcastically.

“I could never be so sure of that.”

“But we must try,” Edward said. “If we confront Blayne by ourselves, we will most surely die. He near killed us before. And you can be certain we have seen but a fraction of his powers.”

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Roger saw the logic behind what Edward was saying and was forced to concede. They would have to present their case to the authorities in order to better their odds in successfully defeating Blayne, but they would do so on Roger’s terms. He wasn’t going to take any more unnecessary chances with Susanna’s life.

He was a very good personal friend of Sheriff

Corwin’s, and while Corwin couldn’t get Susanna out of jail because everyone knew about their friendship and would be watching him closely, he still might help them in light of this new information.

*****

“They will be coming soon,” Ambrose said,

unknotting his legs from his lotus position. “How is Susanna?”

Jessica had just entered the room. She had done so quietly and didn’t think he would be able to hear her, but apparently he did.

“She is sleeping.”

“You used the unguent?”

“Yes.”

“Good. She should sleep for some time.”

He rose to his feet and walked over to her, stopping uncomfortably close. Jessica could feel his hot breath on her face. She sensed that he was going to lean in and kiss her, as he had done so many times before. She felt the urge to throw her arms around his neck, but resisted. If she presumed anything, it could prove to be fatal. After all, the wench was sleeping naked on rugs and pillows and beneath quilts in the next room, her skin shiny with slimy unguent. And Jessica knew all too well how he felt about her.

Ambrose leaned in.

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He is going to kiss me.

She tilted her head up toward his and started to close her eyes, and Ambrose said in a low, indignant voice:

“Get back in there and watch her, like I instructed you.” Jessica’s eyes popped wide open. “And do not make me have to tell you again.”

A dull ache swelled up in her chest and radiated to her throat as she turned away from him and did as he demanded.

By the time she sat down to watch Susanna she was weeping terribly, but quietly.

*****

A posse of ten men including Roger, Edward, Sheriff Corwin, and Reverend Parris rode out of Salem on the morning of October 30th, fully armed with swords, daggers, and fl intlock rifl es and pistols.

Sheriff Corwin needed little argument to convince him that what Roger and Edward told him was the truth. He had known Susanna since she was a little girl and knew she wasn’t capable of the diabolism which had taken place during the year. After his encounter with Blayne’s demon, not to mention Tituba’s damning testimony, there could be no doubt that he was the warlock they sought. Certainly, there could be others, but Blayne’s case was the most concrete. There was more than the mere “spectral evidence” that the trials depended on for their convictions. Corwin, himself, had witnessed the results of the supernatural powers which Blayne had harnessed. They had the body of that thing, which attacked them, buried in a deep grave in the fi eld behind the prison with a marker that read simply:

BEWARE:

WITCH’S FAMILIAR

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Below that was inscribed a hexmark whose sole

purpose was to keep the evil from getting out. That was all the evidence Corwin needed to assure him it was just and good to hunt Blayne down, and see him hanged on the Old Locust Tree on Gallows Hill.

Early that morning, he had summoned Reverend

Parris, and asked the Reverend to accompany him and his men on the journey. Parris, too, needed little convincing and readily agreed.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
All Hallow’s Eve

It was All Hallow’s Eve. Ambrose stood at the window, looking at the vista of the sunset streaking shades of red, yellow, and violet through the clouds and across the sky. The trees below the horizon were barren, sharp, and gray, all their leaves having dried up and fallen into a rust-colored carpet for the earth. Cool breezes played with them and whisked them up into the air, reminding Ambrose of the fl ight of the witches and demons during the Walpurgisnacht celebration.

They’re coming, he thought. They haven’t yet found the house, but they will. They will come...and they are close.

He didn’t need the shew stone to know that. He could feel it.

The thought made him feel slightly nauseated. He had hoped he would have more time, a day at least. It was as if they sensed what he intended to do, like worms sense dead bodies rotting in the ground. They were determined to stop him, and no amount of time spent with the shew stone would yield an answer as to the result of the coming confrontation. Ambrose was never very good with that wretched stone, but usually he could see something, even if it was the merest glimmer of 209