Skidding to a halt, the ugly mutt sniffed his hand, then greedily gobbled the morsel right from his palm. He dug out another, his gaze never leaving Sarah.
She’d risen from the steps and stood looking at him as if she didn’t quite know what to do. Her instincts told her to run, but her curiosity urged her to stay. For a girl like Sarah, there really was no choice.
Slowly, she walked through the dead weeds toward the corner of the house, peering into the shadows.
He drew several quick breaths as he watched her. He’d been in her house on any number of occasions when the family was out. He’d drifted through the silent rooms, touched her things, absorbed her scent. He knew her so well by now. Her habits, her secrets, her innermost fears. Sometimes, it almost seemed as if she were a mirror image of himself. And yet for all that, he’d never before been this close to her.
A quiver of excitement vibrated through him as their eyes met for the first time. In that instant, he could feel her gaze penetrating the darkest recesses of his soul, probing the deepest corners of his mind, the way he’d searched every crevice of her room.
“Hey, you!” she called. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The intensity of her focus disconcerted him and he had to glance away as she approached. “I just wanted to have a look around. I didn’t think anyone would be here this time of day.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” She gave him a scowling appraisal. “Who are you anyway? I’ve never seen you out here before.”
“My name is Ashe Cain,” he said, careful to remain in the shadows where she couldn’t get a good look at him.
“Never heard of you, and I know everyone in town.”
“I’m not from Adamant.”
That caught her interest. “Where you from, then?”
“Does it matter? I’m not trespassing, am I?”
“Yeah, but nobody gives a shit about this place.” She cocked her head as she continued to study him, apparently not the least bit afraid. He should have had more faith, he realized.
“Ashe Cain.” She repeated his name slowly, as if testing the feel of the syllables against her lips. “Is that your real name or did you just make it up?”
The question startled him. “No, it’s my real name. Why?”
“Because all the Goth kids at my school give themselves lame-ass names like Twilight and Shadow.” She paused with a mocking smile. “And Ashe.”
He scoffed at her suggestion. “Don’t lump me in with those poseurs. I’m not like that.”
“Why’d you come out here, then?” She nodded toward the old farmhouse behind him. “This is their hangout.”
“I came to see the footprints.”
Something darted through her eyes before she gave a derisive laugh. “That’s just a stupid legend. The footprints don’t really exist.”
“Are you sure?”
She scratched the back of her knee. “I’ve been out here lots of times and I’ve never seen them.”
“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not real. Besides, I have seen them.”
“You’ve seen the footprints? Where?”
“I can show you if you want.”
A gust of wind ruffled her dark hair, the same breeze that stirred the bells in the distance. For the first time, he sensed her hesitancy. Not from fear, exactly, but from an instinctive resistance that would have to be slowly and carefully chipped away.
That same thrill of anticipation soared up his spine, and he turned his head so she wouldn’t see his smile.
She thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I have to get home. My old man hates it when I’m late for dinner.”
“I hope you’re not leaving on my account. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you.”
Her head shot up. “Do I look afraid? Please. Besides, you even think about laying a hand on me, my dog will kick your Emo ass.”
He glanced down at the complacent mongrel at her side. “I can see that.”
“He’s a lot meaner than he looks,” she warned.
He knelt and held out his hand, and Gabriel came over to sniff for more bacon. “Nah, he likes me. Don’t you, boy? Good dog,” he crooned, burying his hand in the soft fur. “I used to have a dog just like this. Maybe they came from the same litter.”
The notion seemed to intrigue her. “Gabriel just showed up at my house one day. I always wondered where he came from.” She paused as an unwelcome thought struck her. “You’re not going to claim your dog ran away or something, are you?”
“No, he died. Someone poisoned him.”
“On purpose? Man, that bites.” She dropped to the grass beside Gabriel, dinnertime and her earlier reticence forgotten. “What kind of psycho would do something like that to a poor, helpless animal?”
“Someone evil,” he said. “Someone without a soul.”
Their gazes met and he saw her shiver. “My sister keeps bugging my folks to get rid of Gabriel. She hates him.”
“Are they going to?”
“Probably. My dad takes her side every damn time. They both make me sick.”
Her anger caused his heart to beat even harder. He had to take a couple of breaths to curtail his excitement.
Sarah wrapped her arms around Gabriel and gave him a squeeze. “They’ll be sorry, though, won’t they, boy?”
“What are you going to do?”
She lifted her thin shoulders. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”
“Maybe I can help you.”
Her expression turned suspicious. “Why would you do that?”
“Because that’s what friends do. They help each other out.”
“News flash, retard. We’re not friends. You don’t even know me.”
Oh, but I do, Sarah. Still he had to be careful, not push too hard.
“And anyway, I don’t need your help and I don’t want any friends. Gabriel is all I need.” Her tone was harsh and defiant, but he, and only he, could see the bereft shadow in her eyes.
His chest tightened; he knew that pain so well. They were so much alike, he and Sarah. Dark, sad, lonely. Her solitude drew him like a newborn baby grasping for its mother’s breast.
She scrambled to her feet and dusted off the seat of her jeans. “Hey, I’m sorry I called you a retard.”
He smiled. “That’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I hate when people call me that.”
“Who calls you that?”
She answered with a shrug. If she noticed the edge in his voice, she didn’t let on. “Are you coming back out here tomorrow?”
“I will if you want me to.”
“Like I care one way or the other. I was just asking.”
But that was a lie. She did care. Whether she knew it or not, she needed him as much as he needed her. She’d come back tomorrow, because she wouldn’t be able to help herself.
Sitting cross-legged in the grass, he watched her cut across the edge of the field toward the road, Gabriel at her heels. The air chilled as the twilight deepened, and he knew he needed to be on his way, too. The voices inside his head were getting more desperate by the moment. He was out of time. He couldn’t ignore them any longer.
He rose and stood listening to the bells pealing in the distance. Death music. He smiled. A serenade for the doomed.
Chapter 2
Fourteen years later
Winter came late as it always did to the Deep South.
It arrived with only a whisper through the magnolia trees—a creeping shadow, an unwelcome presence easily ignored until a bitter cold front swept down from Canada, bringing freezing rain and record-breaking temperatures all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Downed power lines, disrupted city services, massive pileups on the interstates—it was the kind of chaos New Orleans hadn’t known since Katrina.
Even without the inconveniences, Sarah DeLaune hated the cold. Earlier, as she listened to sleet pelt against her windows, she’d been gripped by a strange anxiety, and she found herself wondering how she would cope if summer never came again. If the winter storm raging outside her house was not merely an anomaly, but a permanent shift in the subtropical climate of the Gulf Coast.
As she fantasized about being trapped in a frozen universe, she’d slipped so deeply into the gloom of her own thoughts that even the Valium she’d taken midmorning couldn’t dig her out.
She’d recognized the early stages of cabin fever, and in spite of the incessant warnings issued by the weather service, she’d gone out, precariously negotiating the icy streets to the French Quarter, where she found the seedy bar that had been her hangout of late warm and inviting.
The party atmosphere, along with a few drinks and half a Xanax, had nudged her toward a mellower outlook, and at midnight she’d gone home to bed, eventually sinking into the kind of bone-melting sleep she hadn’t known in months.
She’d been dreaming about her dead sister when the phone woke her up. She had no idea how long it had been ringing, because even after she opened her eyes, the sleep demons held her firmly in their grasp. Rachel’s disembodied head floated above the bed, and the barest hint of sulphur hung on the chilly air, then another piercing ring sent the nightmare skittering back to the darker realm of Sarah’s subconscious.
Her movements lethargic and dreamlike, she sat up in bed, willing her hand toward the receiver. But the caller had given up. In the ensuing quiet, Sarah could have sworn she heard the ghostly ticking of her alarm clock, even though she’d unplugged it days ago.
Leaning back against the headboard, she wondered how long she’d been asleep. She wanted to know the time, too, but not enough to get up and go find another clock. Nor did she check her phone to see who had been calling at so late an hour. A phone call after midnight was never a good thing.
Her first thought was that her ailing father had taken a turn for the worse. When she’d been there a week ago, the doctor had warned her that the old man had only a few months at best. The doctor had tried to break it to her gently, but he needn’t have worried. Sarah would hardly be grief-stricken when the time came. She and her father had never been close. Sometimes, when he looked at her with the same old contempt, she wondered why she even bothered. She could have drifted along quite happily in their estrangement if Michael—Dr. Garrett—hadn’t persuaded her to try and make amends before it was too late.
He liked to tell her that avoidance wasn’t a solution, but Sarah wasn’t so sure about that. Sweeping her problems under the rug had worked pretty well for her in the past. Might have continued to work, if the insomnia hadn’t forced her back into treatment. And now, thanks to her visits back home, the nightmares had also returned.
Everything is connected, Sarah.
Well, no kidding.
She jumped, realizing that she’d drifted off again. Sitting upright in bed with her eyes wide-open. She hadn’t been asleep, but the last few moments—or had it been hours?—had passed without her awareness. Now the phone was ringing again.
Someone really wanted to get in touch with her.
Sarah waited a moment, hoping the caller would give up again. When that didn’t happen, she reached for the phone with a sigh, as she glanced out the window. Just beyond her tiny courtyard, the dead branches of an oak tree windmilled in a frigid gust.
“Hello?”
“Finally.”
She recognized the voice at once, and his exasperated tone was like the prick of a needle against her spine. How like Sean Kelton to think she had nothing better to do, even in the middle of the night, than wait for his call.
“Are you there?” he demanded.
“Yes, I’m here. What do you want?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Her hand tightened on the phone. “What do you mean?”
“It took you forever to answer and now you won’t say anything. It’s like you’re there, but you’re not.”
“For God’s sake, it’s the middle of the night. I was asleep.”
Sean fell silent. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a bit. “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”
“It couldn’t wait until morning?”
“I didn’t know I’d wake you up,” he said defensively. “You never sleep unless...” His voice trailed off with the slightest edge of accusation. “What are you taking these days?”
“That’s none of your business. You gave up the privilege of poking around in my private life when you moved out.”
Hang up, a little voice urged her. Just press the button and make him go away.
