The Right Hand of Evil

CHAPTER 39

Father MacNeill's prayers died on his lips as the front door of the house flew open. When Kim burst out onto the porch, no more than ten minutes after she'd gone into the house, he was certain she'd failed. Either she hadn't found the second cross, or, more likely, she had lost her nerve.

He didn't want even to think about the worst possibility, that somehow she had lost the cross that had been hanging around her neck.

When Janet Conway appeared with Molly in her arms, however, he released the breath he'd unconsciously been holding and took a step toward the house. But as he moved off the sidewalk and onto the Conway property itself, the chill of evil fell over him, and he knew that the terrible confrontation inside had not yet ended.

Kim, exhausted by what she'd been through, collapsed into his supporting arms. He held her for a moment, feeling her heart pounding, her body trembling. "It's all right," he told her. "You're going to be all right." Eventually, the throbbing of her heart began to slow, her trembling to ease. "Where is your brother?" he asked, then more urgently: "Where is he?"

Kim raised her face-streaked with tears she could no longer keep under control-and looked beseechingly into the priest's eyes. "He stayed," she whispered. "He told me to leave, but he stayed."

"And your father?" the priest went on.

Kim's voice wavered as she struggled against the sob that threatened to choke her. "He-He's dead," she stammered. "Jared-"

Father MacNeill pressed the forefinger of his right hand against her lips to silence her before she could finish. "Not Jared," he said quietly. "Jared did nothing." His eyes fixed on Kim's. "Do you understand that? It was never your brother. Never."

Janet, her strength ebbing away, sank onto the narrow strip of lawn between the sidewalk and the street. Hugging Molly close-as much for her own comfort as for her child's-she tried to grasp what had just happened. But she couldn't. Nothing-not one single thing since she woke up that morning-made any sense. And yet as she listened to Father MacNeill talking to Kim, it sounded as though both of them not only knew about the nightmare she'd just been through, but somehow understood it. Her eyes drifted to the house, but all she could see was the terrible image of her son, a knife-glistening with blood-gripped tightly in his hand as he stood above his father.

Above Ted-

No, not Ted.

Someone-something-else. But not Ted.

Not Jared-

No, it had to have been some kind of nightmare-it had to have been…

Certain her sanity was collapsing, she summoned the last reserves of her strength. "Tell me," she pleaded, her voice breaking. "Someone, please-tell me what's happening to me…"

Father MacNeill knelt beside her and placed a comforting arm around her shoulder. "Hell," he said softly. "You've just been to Hell, Janet. But you're back. It's over."

But still he felt the cold of evil spreading out from the house. Still, he knew it was not over.

Not yet.