Reborn

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.

Jim used, Carol used. And Carol, no doubt destined to be discarded like Jim after she'd served her purpose and delivered the Antichrist. It was all so dirty, so treacherous. Well, Grace would put an end to all of that here today.

She watched with relief as they lifted Emma from the floor and prepared to tie her into a chair like her husband. She wailed piteously.

"She killed my Jimmy! She killed my Jimmy and she's got to pay for it!"

"Emma, please!" Carol was saying. "Grace had nothing to do with that!" She turned pleading eyes on her. "Did you, Aunt Grace?"

Grace shook her head.

In a way, she told herself, her denial was true. She had been against that first trip to Monroe, hadn't wanted to come along, and had stayed in the car throughout the whole tragic confrontation.

"She lies!" Jonah cried. "She was there! I saw her in one of the cars!"

Carol stared at her. "That's not true, is it?"

Grace could not bring herself to lie to her niece. "You have to understand, Carol. I—"

"She was there to kill Jim!" Jonah cried. "And now she's here to kill Jim's baby!"

Grace would have given her life then to stop the growing horror she saw in Carol's face.

Carol's voice was a whisper. "No!"

"Carol, dear, you've got to know that the child you're carrying is not really Jim's. It's—"

Carol's hands were over her ears as her voice rose to a scream.

"No!"