“He had all kinds of books on the occult and witches and things, and he was all fired up about showing them to me. I tried to talk to him, tried to tell him that what we were dealing with here was a very sick young woman. Compulsive, obsessive, self-destructive, and homicidal, true, but sick nevertheless. There was no supernatural here. It was just Angelina. Just Angelina. A misdirected, sad, psychopathic case.

“But he would have none of it. He just looked at me with eyes that had somehow seen beyond my experience, and he patiently told me again about stakes through the heart and rituals that were ghastly to say the least.

“I heard the television go off, and his parents called a soft good night to us, then their bedroom door closed.

“Will got very quiet, and so did I, and we just sat there on the lower bunk, with only one lamp on, and we listened to the sounds of the house around us.

“The time seemed to pass without our awareness. I looked at the clock at ten-forty-five and a minute later it was eleven-thirty. Neither of us had spoken or moved for forty-five minutes. We were listening, I believe, to the evil in the walls.

“I noticed that going into the cellar was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Fear was collecting in my bowels, and I knew if I stood up to take one step toward her, it would squeeze out, along with everything else. My hands had lost their strength; I couldn’t even make a tight fist. Fear had reduced my nerves to jelly, and with a glance at Will, I knew the same had happened to him.

“With wide eyes and sweat-slicked forehead, he whispered to me, ‘Just before dawn. We’ll release her just before dawn. It’ll be safer then.’

“That would have given us a good five hours to sit there, steeped in our acids.

“But at midnight, we heard his sister’s bedroom door open.”

39

39

I sat on a dusty box of books, waiting, my mind twisting around itself. The taste of Diana’s blood upon my lips was feeding my obsession, endangering my life. I felt myself growing weak and cold in the wake of too much anticipation and too little nourishment. I had wasted too much energy during my imprisonment, and then I had to wait for Boyd and the boy, and as I waited, I grew fainter.

I would rather hunt. And feed. And be warmed.

Diana. I tasted her still, I ached for more. Yet I had to wait.

They came home; I heard their footsteps loud on the boards above my head. I listened to the murmur of their voices, and I knew they fancied themselves superior, believing I lay locked and helpless beneath them.