Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 44

LL AFTERNOON JANE BAKER HAD BEEN TRYING TO make sense of what her husband was saying, but after more than three hours, she still didn’t understand. Still, she knew better than to try to argue with Blake when he was angry, and when he’d come home this afternoon, he was angrier than she’d ever seen him and telling her things that just sounded crazy.

Like Seth attacking Zack Fletcher last night. Seth was terrified of Zack, and always had been. But if he’d finally decided to fight back, wasn’t it about time?

And witchcraft? Where had that come from? Of course, she’d heard the stories about what had happened in Roundtree centuries ago — who hadn’t? But surely Blake didn’t believe them! And what was he doing talking to Father Mulroney anyway?

But Blake had been too upset and too angry for her to reason with him, so she’d just listened and tried to understand, and waited for his rage to pass before it focused on her. And for a little while — the last half hour, anyway — she thought it was going to be all right.

But a few minutes ago they heard Seth going up the back stairs, and then Blake’s fury came flooding back, and suddenly she wished she could take back the words she’d just spoken: “What are you going to do to him?”

“I’m going to get the truth out of him,” Blake rasped, his eyes as hard as his voice. “I’m going to find out where he’s been and what he’s been doing.”

As he turned on his heel and started toward the stairs, Jane stood up and reached toward her husband, as if to stop him. But she said nothing as he mounted the stairs, and let her hand drop to her side, certain that anything she said or did would only make matters worse. Besides, she told herself, he won’t hurt Seth. Sinking back onto the sofa, Jane picked up a magazine and began leafing through it, believing that if she could concentrate on something else, she wouldn’t dwell on whatever might be happening in Seth’s room.

And it was better not to know, really, since there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway.

Seth heard his father rap once on his door. Then, as always, he opened it without waiting for Seth to respond. But this evening, for the first time in his memory, Seth didn’t feel frightened.

“What the hell have you been doing?” Blake Baker demanded, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

With a strange feeling of detachment, Seth turned around to face his father. He could see that his father was furious with him, but somehow his father’s rage wasn’t tying his own stomach into knots, or making his knees tremble, or bringing him to the brink of crying.

In fact, his father’s anger wasn’t making him feel anything at all.

“You answer me, boy,” Blake said, his voice dropping dangerously. “What have you been doing?”

Seth cocked his head, and his brow furrowed as he tried to decide what to tell his father. Not that it would make much difference — his father wouldn’t believe the truth, and had already made up his mind what he was going to do. He was already unbuckling his belt.

“You’re not going to do that anymore,” Seth said quietly.

His father froze, the belt half out of its loops. “What did you say?” he asked, his eyes boring into Seth with the coldness that always made Seth cower.

This time, Seth didn’t move.

“I don’t want you to hit me anymore,” he said.

“Since when do you decide what I do and what I don’t do?” Blake grated. “You do what I tell you. And since you didn’t answer either of the questions I asked you, you know what happens next.” He pulled the belt free from the rest of the loops and wrapped the tag end around his hand a few times so the buckle was dangling from two feet of leather. “Drop your pants, Seth — I’m going to teach you some respect.”

Seth shook his head.

A vein in Blake Baker’s forehead began to pulse as he slapped the belt buckle against the palm of his free hand. “You don’t want to do this, Seth,” he said. “You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

Seth shook his head again.

Blake’s right fist tightened on the belt, and his arm rose in the air.

And Seth focused his mind.

Blake Baker’s arm began its downward arc, but instead of lashing out at Seth, the buckle whipped around and struck his own face. As the metal tore into the flesh of his cheek, Blake Baker roared in pain, lurched backward, then lashed out at Seth once more.

Again the belt buckle swung all the way around and ripped into Blake, this time catching him in the right eye.

Another howl of agony erupted from his throat, and he hurled himself at Seth, still trying to lash out with the belt.

As if seized by some invisible power, Blake crashed face first against the wall, grunted, and sank to his knees as blood began to gush from his nose. For a moment it seemed he might slide to the floor, but then he gathered his strength and heaved himself back to his feet just as the door flew open.

Jane Baker, her face ashen and clutching a fireplace poker in one hand, gazed at her bleeding husband. “Seth!” she screamed. “What are you—”

Seth whirled around. “Go away!” he yelled. “Just leave us alone!”

But it was too late. Blake lurched toward Seth once more, the belt raised high again. But at the last moment he veered off toward his wife. Instinctively, Jane Baker raised her arms to fend off her husband’s careening body, but it was too late. His full weight crashed against her, and she uttered a muffled grunt as the spur of the poker plunged deep into her own neck. A second later blood began to ooze from the wound. With a look of something akin to surprise in her eyes, she reached out to brace herself against the wall, and the poker fell from her neck, clattering to the floor.

Blake, stunned at the sight of the wound in his wife’s throat, let the belt fall to his side and took a step toward her.

The color already fading from her face, Jane Baker slowly sank to the floor, blood now spurting from the deep puncture in her throat. As the reality of what was happening to her slowly sank in, she gazed up at her husband. Her mouth worked, but instead of sound only blood bubbled from her lips.

Paralyzed by what he was seeing, Blake stared down at Jane, his own face going pale as the geyser of blood from his wife’s punctured aorta began to slow and the last of the color drained from her face. As the gush slowed to a trickle, her body slumped to one side, her head lolling back so the wound the poker had opened gaped lewdly.

As the realization of what he’d done sank in, Blake came back to life. Straightening, he tightened his grip on the belt once more, and wheeled around to face Seth. Blood was still streaming from his nose and his wounded eye, but now his rage overwhelmed the agony of his own wounds. “You killed her!” he bellowed. “God damn you, you—” The belt raised high, he charged at Seth.

And at the last instant, as the belt buckle slashed toward him, Seth stepped aside.

His father lumbered past him, staggered through the open door of Seth’s room, and lurched against the banister over the stairwell. Losing his balance, he pitched forward. For a second or two he seemed almost to hover in midair, his free hand flailing wildly in search of something to hang onto. Then he tilted forward and, just before he fell, his fingers found the banister. But it was too late. Slippery with his own blood, his fingers lost their grasp and he pitched headfirst to the floor below. His single brief howl of shock and terror was cut off as his head struck the limestone floor of the foyer.

As the silence that fell over the house stretched from seconds into minutes, Seth Baker gazed at his mother. Finally, he went over to kneel beside her. Reaching out, he gently touched her cheek. “You never stopped him,” he whispered. “You just let him do it.”

Then he stood, left his room, and gazed down at the floor below. His father’s body lay facedown on the blood-smeared limestone, and Seth could tell by the angle of his father’s head — and the stillness of his body — that he was dead too.

At last he turned away, went down the same stairs he’d come up only a short while ago, left the house by the back door, and walked away into the darkness of the night.