"Thou shall take thyself of thy hand tonight, good Sheriff, and of my body thou wilt muse, just as have you many, many times before," Evanore calmly said.

It was Patten"s good fortune that the shifting light hid his blush. "By decree I am so ordered to say thus: may the Lord thy G.o.d grant mercy on thy soul."

Evanore shrieked laughter as blood drooled off her lips.

"Let"s be about this," the Parson whispered with a grimace. "There be no G.o.dly justice so long as this intercourse-soiled attendant of Lucifer doth live..."

Another directorial nod from Patten, and his deputies dragged Evanore to the side, where a wall of flinty-faced spectators parted- Fanshawe"s heart seemed to hiccup.

-to reveal the barrel with the ten-inch-wide hole in it.

The mob"s commotion rose. Evanore didn"t resist as she was hoisted up and then shoved down into the barrel. A rough hand reached into the hole, s.n.a.t.c.hed her hair, and yanked her head out. When the horseshoe-shaped collar was slipped over her neck, the crowd cheered.

Aw, no, aw, s.h.i.t... Fanshawe knew what came next; impulse urged him to pull the gla.s.s away but when he tried, it was as though it had been glued to his eye. He detected, first, the hush of the crowd, then- The growls of a vicious dog.

The parson exclaimed, "May thy death be as revulsive as thy abominable sins..."

A slavering snarl fluttered through the air; it sounded monstrous. Another flank of spectators parted. Fanshawe half-fainted when he saw the size of the Doberman that was then led through the divide. The stout-armed deputy holding it back on its chain could barely manage to keep on his feet. It"s the size of a small horse, Fanshawe thought in dread. The animal"s eyes looked insane, which was understandable since it had clearly been deprived of food for some time. When the beast spotted the barrel-and the head sticking out-it surged forward by instinct, paws kicking up great scoops of dirt. Just as bad as the antic.i.p.ation were the looks on the faces of the townsfolk as they watched: They looked giddy with excitement.

I can"t watch this, Fanshawe knew but, still, he could not take the looking-gla.s.s away. Enthused squeals rose up when the deputy lost hold on the leash, and- Holy Mother of- The dog was so large its jaws were able to take nearly all of Evanore"s head into its mouth in a single lunge. Ropes of foam poured from its black lips; the sounds were nauseating. Fanshawe managed a blink, after which his vision registered just in time to see the ravenous animal peel most of Evanore"s face and scalp off like pulling off a stocking mask. The animal deftly swallowed the macabre meal in reversed heaves, hair and all. The crowd "Oooooooo"d," paused, then cheered.

Evanore"s head now existed as a skinned skull. It hung limp as the dog devoured what it had torn away but then-impossibly...

The head moved in increments- Holy s.h.i.t!

-and looked up.

The lipless grin and lidless eyes very slowly scanned the crowd.

Evanore"s fleshless mouth moved to laugh as blood squirted out of the s.p.a.ce where her face had been. She laughed for a long time.

On the next strike, the dog"s jaws collapsed the convict"s skull altogether, then the creature began to snuffle for collops of brains, but many of the townsfolk had already rushed off the hill, too unnerved by Evanore"s laugh. One woman shouted ""Tis a curse the witch hath put upon us, a curse!" and then a man fretted, "Where is ye difference betwixt this and Divell"s work?"

Patten, the Parson, and the deputies remained, looking on with grim expressions as the great Doberman returned to pick sc.r.a.ps off what little remained of Evanore"s skull.

Fanshawe wanted to be sick; his vision faded in and out like a dimmer switch. "Eat with heartiness, Pluto," the sheriff said of the dog. "Even as thou slake thy appet.i.te on unholy flesh, G.o.d be finely appeased..."

By then, the deputies had hauled Evanore"s near-headless corpse from the barrel and let the dog eat to its heart"s content. The men wish-boned the corpse"s legs, then pointed to the furred groin, which was promptly ripped out and swallowed by the dog. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s were tugged off, then the arms and legs were attacked.

"When the beast hath reached its glut," the parson directed Sheriff Patten, "I want the carca.s.s of this diabolical b.i.t.c.h buried in double-quick time, Sheriff."

"Granted, my lord, it shall be."

Fanshawe seemed to feel something in the air, something like a bad portent, and at that identical moment, in the circle of the looking-gla.s.s, the Doberman abruptly stopped its rending of Evanore"s now-stick-like remains...and shot its gaze right at Fanshawe.

"Of a sudden, our animal hast grown listless with its meal," Patten observed, "nearly as if..."

"Aye, nearly as if its senses, which be many times more acute than ours, hath detected a peculiarness of a kind," said one of the deputies.

A concern stiffened the pastor"s posture; he looked sharply in the direction of the dog"s stare. ""Tis perhaps a black spirit, as such spirits be in specter-haunts such as this"-his suspicion lowered to an etching whisper. "Of mine own self, and though my eyes perceive nothing at odds, I swear verily that I too hath been made sensible of a most unnatural stir..."

The dog"s keeper-the largest of the men-took on a look of panic. "A black spirit, you say my lord? In our midst as we speak?"

"Aye, an ent.i.ty most evil, son, and lacking all corporality..."

Now the dog"s ears stood up, and so did the short fur on its long, sloped back. Its eyes remained fixed...on Fanshawe.

Oh, my G.o.d, it can"t really- The dog vaulted down the hill, releasing barks like gunfire. Each bound of the Doberman took up fifteen feet, as the men trotted clumsily down after it.

Fanshawe screamed, the gla.s.s still to his eye. Just as the dog"s snapping jaws would hit his throat...

"Behold, how it bounds!" Patten yelled, fat riding as he jogged forward, "as of at the thin air alone!"

""Tis a spirit, yea!" snapped a deputy, "too foul to be observed by G.o.dly men such as we!"

Fanshawe was knocked down like a hinged duck, the looking-gla.s.s flying off. When the back of his head slammed the hard-packed dirt beneath him, everything turned black.

CHAPTER NINE.

(I).

Fanshawe groaned, feeling as though his face sat directly beneath a very bright heat lamp, and he groaned again when he heard a barking dog.

"Stay away, Winkly!" came a woman"s voice annoying as nails on slate. "It"s a dirty b.u.m! He"s probably got lice and diseases that would be bad for a good little doggie like you!"

A slingshot-like reflex shot Fanshawe bolt upright on the path and pried his eyes open. Moving shapes formed in the block of blazing sun. Oh, no...

"Winkly! Stay!"

Fanshawe could"ve been rising from a coffin; the back of his head beat like an overburdened heart. When vision formed, a yapping poodle hopped around at the end of a taut leash. Frowning above it stood the woman in tights he"d seen before, but today the tights were rainbow-striped. Pocks of cellulite showed through the adhesive fabric, and so did rolls of fat around her belly as though tubes had been wrapped about her waist. I have a feeling this ISN"T a nightmare, Fanshawe thought. Over-mascara"d eyes looked down as if he were the lowest form of life on earth.

The poodle-Winkly-yapped and yapped and yapped, stretching its lead.

"Do you need help?" she asked with distaste. "Are you drunk?"

Fanshawe could imagine how he appeared. The annoying voice pounded in his head. "I...fell down last night, and hit my head," he murmured.

"Fell down drunk, you mean. I guess I should call an ambulance-I don"t want to be liable..." She flipped out her cellphone but paused, her irksome expression turning more bitter. "Oh, I remember you, making faces at my poor little Winkly, scaring him out of his wits!"

Fanshawe was more irate than embarra.s.sed. He got up, praying he wouldn"t stumble. Take a look in the mirror, then call the ambulance for yourself, he wanted to say. Suddenly he smelled something unpleasant, then noticed that Winkly, who"d stopped yelping, was now laying lines of stool very close to Fanshawe"s feet. Was the little dog actually grinning at him?

Fanshawe snapped. "Lady, if that dog s.h.i.ts on my Norvegese shoes, I"m going to turn the little motherf.u.c.ker into the world"s first barking kickball."

The woman burst into tears, scooped up the dog, and shuffled off. "Don"t you hurt my dog! Don"t you hurt my dog, you-you hobo!"

"Hobo, huh?" He took out his black American Express Centurion card and waved it at her. "How"s this for hobo? And by the way, you look like two hundreds pounds of cottage cheese in a hundred-pound sack. Get some of that liposuction, why don"t ya?"

The woman clopped away on wedgelike high-heels, crying outright.

Fanshawe recomposed himself when she was gone. Did I really say that? It wasn"t like him to be hateful, even when someone was hateful to him first. To do that was illogical. She"ll get over it. He felt half-cooked in his crumpled clothes, tried to brush himself off, but then noticed a flash like a sliver of light.

The looking-gla.s.s lay in a clump of gra.s.s just off the trail. He picked it up, pocketed it, then took the trail down back toward town.

It occurred to him how calm he was as he walked.

Calm?

How could he be calm, after all he"d seen last night?

Back in town, he righted his hair via his reflection in a shop window, then slipped into the cafe and washed up in the bathroom. The ache in his head receded. His watch told him it was ten in the morning.

He took his coffee to an outside table, and sat down, to think. It only took a few moments for him to realize why he hadn"t freaked out the instant he remembered his visions through the looking-gla.s.s: I was afraid I was hallucinating, I was afraid that I"d gone insane, but now? He let every impossible experience thus far flow across his mind"s eye.

I"m NOT insane.

No, he wasn"t hallucinating, he wasn"t suffering from some organic brain defect or some stress-related aberration or a "fugue-state." It was none of that. Aside from being a voyeur, I"m perfectly normal.

Which could only mean...

The looking-gla.s.s was for real, and so was the witchcraft of its origins.

He took the gla.s.s out of his pocket and looked at it under the table. He stared as much at the implication as the object itself. It works. The d.a.m.n thing WORKS...

The only explanation that made any sense was this: the looking-gla.s.s was an optical device that displayed the past.

And it means that Jacob Wraxall really was a warlock. And his daughter was a genuine witch.

Fanshawe had no more believed in the supernatural than he believed the world was flat. I"ve GOT to believe it now, he thought, with more of his previous calm. Suddenly he felt just like he had when he"d made his first million in the market.

"Why, if it ain"t the good Mr. Sir!" an all too familiar voice greeted him, "and a pleasant mornin" it is I hope you"re a-havin"."

Fanshawe looked up from his coffee. "h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Anstruther. And, yes, I"m having a very pleasant morning."

"A pleasanter one couldn"t be asked for, I dare say," she said, looking up into the sun. She wore a frumpy white dress with black animal prints on it-Fanshawe"s cheek ticked when he spotted a Doberman. But suddenly she took a look at him that seemed concerned. "But, sir, I do hope you"re feeling chipper."

"Chipper? Uh, sure..."

"I only mean-if I may say it-is you don"t appear the fresher for your night"s rest."

Fanshawe laughed. That"s because I slept on Witches Hill. "Tossed and turned all night, couldn"t get a wink-too much coffee, I guess. But since you"re here, can I get you a cup?" he offered.

"How kindly you are, sir, but as I"m just off from me break, I"m afraid I "aven"t the time. Much obliged, sir, much obliged, what of your generous offer. Oh, but since you just "appen to be stayin" in the same lodgings"-her voice lowered-"might you have "eard anymore "bout that poor man got done away with on the trails, done away so "orrible like?"

"No, I haven"t, ma"am," Fanshawe replied, and then the weight of the coincidence hit him. How come that didn"t occur to me before? Eldred Karswell had been found dead with all the flesh stripped off his head. Almost as if he got barreled...

He shrugged away the coincidence for what it was: impossibility. People don"t get *barreled" in this day and age. And Mrs. Anstruther"s question reminded him, I wonder if Artie and the research guys got anymore info on Karswell. I better call him later. "But sometimes I wonder, Mrs. Anstruther. Maybe the horror from one era is no better or worse than the horror of another-it just seems to be."

The elderly woman reflected. "Why, I never me-self thought on it that way before, sir, but I think it could be you"re right. Might be that our natures are inclined to think things is worse for us than they was for those before us."

Fanshawe had to mention. "The wax museum might be a good case in point."

She seemed thrilled. "Oh, so ya finally took yourself a peek in there, did ya?"

"Yes, ma"am, I did, and you were right about it-it gave me a case of the creepers. But, you know, it also showed me-the torture chamber in particular-that humankind has quite a capacity for cruelty."

"That it does, sir, that it does." She raised a bony finger. "And maybe if we"se wise, we can learn by what went on back then to make things a sight better now."

"We can only hope."

Her voice piped up, and a gleam entered her eye. "And isn"t it amusin", sir, to consider how folk"d behave if they was able to learn from the past but also from the future?"

Fanshawe didn"t follow her. "You"d need a time machine for that, Mrs. Anstruther, or a psychic-" but then he got it. Jesus, she"s persistent. "Still trying to get me into the palm reader"s, huh?"

She feigned innocence. "Oh, no, sir. I was just bein"...what"s the word? Suppositional! That"s the word, sir, to a T: suppositional, yes, sir."

"Yes, I suppose it is, ma"am."

The woman shrieked laughter. "Oh, my word, sir, you"re quite the quipster, yes you is!"

"You must get a kick-back for every person you send over."

"On my honors, sir, nothing could be more untrue. But seein" "ow you"s already bucked yourself up for the waxwork, why not give the palmist"s a go?"

Fanshawe looked at the woman. She"s nuttier than a can of Planter"s, but... He stood up. "You know what, Mrs. Anstruther? I think I"m going to take you up on your dare."

"Smashing, sir! "Tis the kind of man G.o.d most admires who don"t dither "bout havin" a look-in on his destiny-"

I doubt that G.o.d admires me very much right now, Fanshawe thought, almost laughing.

"-for G.o.d, too, looks quite high on a bloke with a true heart."

Fanshawe wasn"t comfortable with all the references to *hearts" lately. If thou dost have the heart, Evanore had said, emphasizing the last word. It seemed that her image from last night was daring Fanshawe to confront something, just as the old lady was.

But...confront WHAT? he wondered.

Knowledge, the idea struck him, but that could mean anything.

Or maybe it means nothing. Maybe it"s just a bunch of bulls.h.i.t she"s talking, so she can get her commission from the palm-reader. "Well, I"m on my way, ma"am," he said. "I"ll let you know how it goes."