“Too late,” the creature holding the snake croaked, its voice having the raspy timbre of an ancient crone. “She’s gone.”

“No!”

“She only got what she deserved,” the demon-monster said. “And you know it.”

“No! Cammie! Come back!” Val was searching everywhere, her heart pounding wildly, Camille’s doom reverberating through her soul. “Don’t leave me.” She was crying now, sobbing. “Please, Cammie, come back. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to send you away . . . Cammie!” Hot tears flowed from her eyes.

“Too late. Sssshee’s gone! Dead!” This time it was the snake who spoke again, vile, horrid reptile.

Val tried to scream, and the creature holding the snake threw back its head and laughed, a shrill, shrieking sound like claws on a blackboard.

Val’s skin crawled, and when she looked down, she saw it, too, had become shiny, her flesh turning to gunmetal-gray scales.

Again the hideous laughter and the looming beast showed its tiny teeth, no larger than those of a rat, in black gums that dripped poison.

“You’re on the lisssst!”

With glittering, hungry eyes, the snake struck.

Val screamed, bracing for the sting of the bite.

“Valerie! Valerie!” Slade’s voice sounded far off and echoed, as if he were on the far side of a long tunnel and was yelling at the top of his lungs. “Val! For God’s sake, wake up!”

She blinked.

The darkness was gone, and in its stead was the soft glow of the bedside lamp. Slade was leaning over the bed, his strong hands on her shoulders as he shook her, forcing her to the surface of consciousness, pushing the horrifying nightmare back to the shadows of her mind. “Oh . . . God.”

“You’re okay. It was only a dream,” he whispered.

“No . . . it was too real.” But even as the words passed her lips, she knew she was lying. Already, in her tiny bedroom where rational thought wrestled with implausible fears and won, she was beginning to calm, her tense muscles relaxing, the fragments of her dream scurrying away.

“Shhh.” Slade’s arms enfolded her then, and he slid onto the bed beside her, on top of the covers while she lay beneath. “It’s okay,” he said into her hair, and kissed the top of her head.

Her face was damp with the tears still streaming from her eyes.

Thankful for his strength, for his calm while her emotions were a tempest, she clung to him and cried. For the sister she’d lost years before; for the woman Camille had become, the nun with her tainted vows; for the niece or nephew she would never meet, never know; and for the marriage she was hell-bent on destroying.