Dark Rites. Heather Graham

it had been different with Vickie. The way she’d flushed, the way he’d even felt as if something was there...someone else! He’d been joking, of course, and yet...

      He’d never had such a feeling. Naturally, as an academic, he was above such fantasy. And, then again, because he was an academic, he did mull over the concept of memory and self and...

      There was so much about her that was extraordinary. He’d seen that when she’d worked with the FBI during the recent rash of murders in the state. He’d seen her incredible mind.

      Find me, Vickie!

      Maybe, just maybe, she really did talk to the dead, and if that was true, maybe, just maybe, it was possible that she had ESP, too!

      He frowned, realizing there was a lump of something in the corner. He twisted around enough to rise and see what it was.

      Oh, God.

      A body. A human body.

      And the head...

      Was gone.

      And there was movement upon the remains...rats running havoc!

      Terror raced through him, making it feel as if his blood ran hot and cold and then hot again, as if it tore through his muscle, turned even his bones into something more wobbly than gelatin.

      He fell back on the table.

      Then he heard the awful creaking sound of an old door, a sound something like a squeaky scream that cried out into the night.

      Someone...something...was coming in.

       1

      Griffin Pryce leaped over the fence that connected the houses and yards along the Hyde Park neighborhood. He’d been running hard, chasing a man in a red cape. A woman had just been attacked—the fourth victim of the thugs terrorizing the area. This time, the attacker hadn’t gone unseen; a neighbor had called it in right when it had happened.

      Miraculously, Griffin had been about to have dinner with friends and was being dropped off by another friend—Detective Barnes—at a restaurant on Hyde Park Avenue when they had both heard the call for help come over the police radio.

      He’d reached the scene just as the attacker—down on his knees to leave the rhyme about Satan in red marker on his victim’s chest—had seen him.

      And run.

      Griffin had taken thirty seconds to assure himself that the woman was alive; the neighbor’s call to 9-1-1 meant that an ambulance and police cars were on the way. He could already hear the sirens.

      And so he ran after the attacker, who was wearing a red cape.

      Stupid, Griffin thought. You want to wear a cape and attack people? Makes it harder to run and leap fences—and stands out like a...a red light!

      But the young man was fast and agile.

      Griffin leaped fences, tore down alleys, ducked beneath drying sheets and leaped another fence.

      At one point, he could nearly touch the young man. When he turned to glance at Griffin, his face was clearly visible. He couldn’t be more than twenty, twenty-five tops. He was clean-shaven with green eyes and a clear complexion, long nose, good mouth.

      Then he was gone. This time he ran into an alley that led to a seven-foot fence—no Dumpster to use to leap over it...nothing at all.

      The man threw himself against the dead end.

      “Stop!” Griffin demanded, pulling out his Glock and aiming at the young man. “Stop. Put your hands behind your head. Get over here, and get down on your knees.”

      The young man stared back at him.

      “Throw down your weapon.”

      The man did; he tossed the club he’d used—it resembled one of the billy clubs used by British police—and shouted, “I’m not armed.”

      He started to open his cape.

      “Stop—I’ll fire,” Griffin warned.

      “Hey, just showing you... I’m not armed! So shoot me. Come on, shoot me.”

      “I’m not going to shoot you. I am going to arrest you. Do as I say, get down on your knees, hands behind your head.”

      The man ignored Griffin. He reached for something in his cape; Griffin rushed the twenty or so feet that stood between them.

      The man stuck something in his mouth. Griffin shoved him to the ground, reaching into his mouth, trying to find what he’d taken.

      Too late.

      Even as Griffin sought whatever it was, the man began to tremble—and to foam at the mouth.

      Griffin swore, trying to support him as he began to thrash and foam. As he did so, Detective David Barnes—who had been close behind him all the way—came running down the alley.

      “Ambulance, med techs! He took something,” Griffin shouted.

      The man stared up at Griffin with wild eyes—terrified eyes.

      Maybe he’d never really imagined what dying might be like.

      But he was defiant.

      “Long live Satan!” he choked out.

      Then he twitched again, and again—and went still.

      Barnes hunkered down by Griffin and the young man. “He’s gone. What a fool. He must have taken a suicide capsule!”

      “He wanted me to shoot him,” Griffin said, shaking his head. What a waste of life.

      “Anyway, it’s over. People in Boston will be safer,” Barnes said. “You caught the guy, Griffin. Bastard killed himself. Sad as anything, but it’s over at least.”

      “Ah, hell, Barnes, come on!” Griffin said. He liked Barnes, didn’t mind working with the detective, and they had a pretty good rapport. But Barnes was way off base with this one.

      “It’s not over,” Griffin said quietly. “Why do you think he killed himself? They’ve got some kind of a pact. There’s a cult working here.”

      “Well, yeah, obviously, this kid is some kind of Satanist. But, Griffin, you were right on top of this one. And we’re looking at one man. One man who smashed the skull of a young woman—and ran. This has been too hard for us because the attacks have been so random. But it’s got to have been the act of one crazy man. All he had to do was find someone alone on a dark street, strike fast, leave his message and run. It just took one person, Griffin.”

      “Yeah, well, we don’t know if it’s been the same one person. I’m telling you, Barnes, we’ve got a real problem here. The violence isn’t going to stop.”

      “Griffin, you’re concerned because you thought you’d be heading back to Virginia by now. You chose to stay because of the attack on Alex Maple—Vickie’s friend,” Barnes told him.

      It was true; after the Undertaker case, he’d planned on going back to Krewe headquarters in northern Virginia.

      But it wasn’t just that Alex had been involved.

      The writing on the victims had been disturbing. His instincts told him there was more to it.

      “I wish I felt like celebrating, Barnes. I’m sorry. I’m worried. I’m afraid that we have a Charles Manson, David Koresh or Jim Jones–type active here. I believe you’ve got someone out there who has been preaching witchcraft or paganism or—from what we’ve seen—the rise of Satan. If that’s true, you’ve got a group of people running around assaulting random but easy targets—and this won’t be the last attack.”

      * * *

      “He’s never stood me up—I’m worried,”