One
Burn, witch, burn….
The voice was a dark, ghostly whisper in her head. Raine Tallentyre stopped at the top of the basement stairs. Gingerly she touched the banister with her fingertips. That was all the contact she needed. The voice, thick with bloodlust and an unholy excitement, murmured again.
…Only one way to kill a witch. Punish her. Make her suffer. Burn, witch, burn….
It was the same voice she had heard when she brushed against the counter in the kitchen a few minutes before. It whispered of darkness, fear and fire. The psychic traces were very fresh. A deeply disturbed individual had come through this house in the recent past. She could only pray that the freak was the type who limited himself to twisted fantasies played out in his head. But she’d had enough experience to know that probably wasn’t the case. This bastard was the real thing, a human monster.
She shuddered, snatched her hand off the banister and wiped her palm against her raincoat. The gesture was pure instinct, a reflex. The coat, long and black, was wet because it was pouring outside but no amount of water could wash away the memory of the foul energy she had just sensed.
She looked back at Doug Spicer and heard another voice, her aunt’s this time. The warning came straight out of her teenage memories. Never tell them about the whispers in your head, Raine. They’ll say you’re crazy, like me.
“I just want to take a quick look around the basement,” she said, dreading what lay ahead.
Doug peered uneasily down into the darkness at the foot of the stairs. “Do you really think that’s necessary, Miss Tallentyre? There will probably be mice or maybe even rats or snakes. Don’t worry, I can take the listing without a thorough examination of the basement.”
Doug was the proprietor of Spicer Properties, one of three real estate companies in the small town of Shelbyville, Washington. She had contacted him when she arrived that morning because he was the only agent who had bothered to get in touch with her after learning of Vella Tallentyre’s death. He had inquired delicately about taking the listing. She was more than happy to give it to him. It was not as if she had been besieged by enthusiastic agents. For his part, Doug was relatively new in town and struggling to establish his business. They needed each other.
Dressed in a crisply tailored dark gray suit and a pale blue tie, a handsome brown leather briefcase in one hand, Doug looked every inch the professional real estate agent. Sleek, designer glasses framed his pale eyes. His car, parked in the drive, was a Jaguar.
She guessed him to be in his late thirties. His hairline was starting to recede and he had the solid, well-fed look of a man who, while not yet overweight, had definitely started to put on extra pounds. He had warned her that the gloom-filled house with its aging plumbing and wiring would not be an easy sale.
“I’ll be right back,” she assured him.
She couldn’t tell him that she really had no choice now that she had picked up the psychic whispers of a man who fantasized about killing witches. She had to know the truth before she could leave the house.
“I did a little research and called Phil Brooks after I spoke with you,” Doug said. “He told me that your aunt cut off his pest control service shortly before she, uh, left town.”
Shortly before I took her away, Raine thought. She curled the hand that had just touched the railing very tightly around the strap of her purse. Shortly before I had to put her into a very private, very expensive sanitarium.
A month before, Vella Tallentyre had died in her small room at St. Damian’s Psychiatric Hospital back in Oriana on the shores of Lake Washington. The cause of death was a heart attack, according to the authorities. She was fifty-nine years old.
It dawned on her that Doug probably didn’t want to get his pristine suit and polished shoes dirty. She didn’t blame him.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “I’ll just go to the foot of the stairs.”
Please be a gentleman and insist on coming with me.
“Well, if you’re sure,” Doug said, stepping back. “I don’t see a light switch up here.”
“It’s at the foot of the stairs.”
So much for the gentlemen’s code. What had she expected? This wasn’t the nineteenth century. The code, if it ever existed, no longer applied. After what she had just been through with Bradley, she should know that better than anyone.
The thought of Detective Bradley Mitchell proved bracing. The ensuing rush of feminine outrage unleashed a useful dose of adrenaline that was strong enough to propel her down the stairs.
Doug hovered at the top of the steps, filling the doorway. “If the light isn’t working, I’ve got a flashlight in my car.”
The ever helpful real estate agent.
She ignored him and descended cautiously into the darkness. Maybe she wouldn’t give him the listing, after all. The problem was, neither of the other two agents in town was eager for it. It wasn’t just that the house was in such a neglected state. The truth was that it was unlikely any of the locals would be interested in purchasing it.
For the past couple of decades this house had been the property of a woman who was certifiably crazy, a woman who heard voices in her head. That kind of history tended to dampen the enthusiasm of prospective clients. As Doug had explained, they would have to lure an out-of-town prospect, someone interested in a real fixer-upper.
The old wooden steps creaked and groaned. She tried to avoid touching the railing on the way down, and she was careful to stay close to the edge of each tread so that she would be less likely to step in his footsteps. She had learned the hard way that human psychic energy was most easily transmitted onto a surface by direct skin contact but bloodlust this strong sometimes penetrated through the soles of shoes.
As careful as she tried to be, she couldn’t avoid all of it.
Make her suffer. Punish her the way Mother punished me.
The scent of damp and mildew intensified as she went down. The darkness at the foot of the steps yawned like a bottomless well.
She paused on the final step, groped for and found the switch. When she touched it she got a jolt that had nothing to do with electricity. Burn, witch, burn.
Mercifully, the naked bulb in the overhead fixture still worked, illuminating the windowless, low-ceilinged space in a weak, yellow glare.
The basement was crammed with the detritus of Vella Tallentyre’s unhappy life. Several pieces of discarded furniture, including a massive, mirrored armoire, a chrome dining table laminated with red plastic and four matching red vinyl chairs, were crowded together. Most of the rest of the space was filled with several large cardboard boxes and crates. They contained many of the innumerable paintings Vella had produced over the years. The pictures had one unifying theme: they were all dark, disturbing images of masks.