The Devil's Footprints. Amanda Stevens

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.

      Two

      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 mid-morning 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.”