Dance with the Devil. Sandy Curtis
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the cyclone, and the thump of wind-borne projectiles as they smashed into the house. She touched the fingers that lay still on her shoulder, offering the little comfort she could.
In a gloomy hut, a large man picked up a boning knife and ran his finger along its well-honed edge.
The work-roughened hands trembled, and the woman watching shook with fear. She knew what the trembling meant, knew the rage, the frustration it betrayed. She had lived with it for many years, but had seen it unleashed only as many times as the fingers on her hands, and she lived in terror of the day it would be directed at her. Now she knew that day had come.
'He was dead.' Her voice shook in tempo with her body. 'The lightning had hit him and knocked you unconscious. I knew we had to get rid of the body - I pushed it into the river. If it's found, they'll think he died in the cyclone.' The lies tumbled out, saliva spitting like mist. The lies sounded less convincing now than when she'd rehearsed them as she'd driven back from the doctor's property.
She looked up at her husband, at the black eyes reflecting the glow of the single naked bulb illuminating the shed. She'd taken an incredible risk knocking him unconscious and setting the Defender free, but she couldn't let him carry out the crucifixion. She understood his motivation - didn't her own heart ache with inconsolable loss? - but killing was against God's law, and she couldn't allow him to risk his immortal soul.
For all their married life, they had lived according to the very letter of the Holy Bible, and her fear of God's retribution was greater than her fear of her husband's anger.
The man looked down at the woman cowering against the shed wall. Blood pounded through his veins, pulsing behind his eyes, and he gritted his teeth with the effort of controlling it. He forced himself to breathe in deeply, breathe out slowly.
Gradually the roaring sound like ocean waves eased from his mind, and he realised his right hand was raised above his head, a gleaming blade jutting from his fist. He turned away, his left hand rubbing his face and knuckling across his forehead.
He shouldn't have brought the Defender here, but he hadn't been sure what God wanted him to do. It had been easy with the Offender, the Bible had spoken to him - If your eye offends God, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. He had held the Offender's soft flesh in his hand, felt it shrink as terror widened the fear-dilated eyes, then pain convulse the body as the knife sliced…
His wife's hand touched his arm.
'Please, Hadley. Let's go into the house before the winds get worse.'
Hadley looked down at the woman, at the blonde hair silvered with grey, her soft eyes pleading in the lined face. She had been distressed when he'd brought the Defender here. She didn't understand that he had to do God's bidding and make reparation. But he loved her. She was a good woman, and she had suffered enough.
He wouldn't bring the others here.
He wouldn't have to.
He knew now how they must die.
CHAPTER TWO
Blackness. So intense it was suffocating.
Drew fought to quell the panic rising in his gut, and waited for the footsteps that heralded another duel with the devil. A verbal duel, very one-sided, because he only had questions and the devil knew the answers but refused to talk in anything but riddles. Or parables.
But something was different. There was softness beneath his fingertips. Warmth and softness that made him ache to feel more. And scent. A woman's scent. Not perfume, but a fresh fragrance of clean skin, feminine skin; soft skin that enticed him with the promise of pleasure. He felt his reaction to it, the ache that pulsed through his body, the yearning for something good and sweet and loving to take him from his hellhole.
The blackness grew thicker, more solid. The devil was back, taunting him, cursing him. The devil swung the mallet and pain sliced through his foot and he heard his groan echo in the darkness.
'It's all right. You're safe. No-one's going to hurt you. I knocked your foot. I'm sorry.'
The voice was mellow and smooth as melted butter. The woman - her voice. Her hand moved over his chest, and his heart thumped rapidly against her cool palm. Memory returned in a rush.
'It's okay.' He hesitated, felt his sweat slick under her fingers. He took a deep, slow breath. 'I was just…dreaming.'
She must have pushed the mattress back because cooler air rushed over him. The intensity of the wind had eased, but now the rain poured down in torrential persistence. He tried to make out details of the woman's shape, but pushing the mattress off the bath had done little to lessen the solid feel of the blackness.
'I'm just going to get the candles and matches I stored in here.' Her hand moved away and her voice became disembodied. 'Don't move until I get some light going.'
Drew heard her climb out and grope in the darkness. Soon a pale yellow light flickered shadows across the walls. The flame reflected in amber eyes that gazed assessingly down at him. Eyes that seemed too big in a pale face with delicate high cheekbones and framed by hair in wild disarray, like toffee spun from a madman's spoon.
'Stay here.'
It was an order, and his reaction was instantaneous. 'Why?'
'I'm going to the kitchen to get some hot tea. I think we could both use it.'
Before Drew could speak, she walked out the door, a flickering shadow disappearing off the wall. He realised then that she'd left another lighted candle on the handbasin.
Who the hell was she? She'd said she was a doctor, and his bandaging looked professional. Was that why he'd been dumped here? So she could look after him? Or was she another step in the psychological torture he had endured for the past week? Perhaps the cyclone had disrupted whatever plans the devil had for finishing him off. Perhaps even now the woman who called herself a doctor was phoning the devil and telling where to find him. The doubts tumbled around in his mind, making his head throb.
Whatever the answer, he couldn't just lie there and wait to see what would happen. Cautiously he managed to haul himself out of the bathtub and stand up. The pain in his feet swirled a grey mist across his eyes but he clenched his teeth and waited until it cleared.
Damn! He wouldn't have a chance of escaping if the devil arrived now. He'd better pray this woman was what she seemed.
Holding the candle, he walked gingerly down the hallway towards the light he could see at the far end. With his free hand, he steadied himself against the wall, the tongue-and-groove timber smooth beneath his fingers.
The hallway ended in a large, old-fashioned kitchen, dominated at one end by a sturdy wooden table and six chairs, and at the other by an old wood stove with a kookaburra emblazoned on the green oven door. A kerosene lamp on the bench cast warm light over the room.
The woman wasn't there. For a moment, he panic surged through his chest. Where the hell had she gone? To get the man he had called 'the devil'?
A movement beyond the doorway of the opposite room caught his attention. He looked around for something to arm himself with, but before he could act the woman walked back into the kitchen.
'I told you to stay in the bathroom!' Exasperation showed on her expressive face. 'You shouldn't be moving around too much. You'll start your feet bleeding again.'
She skirted the table and pulled out a chair. 'Sit down.'
Her tone indicated she was used to being obeyed, and he instinctively rebelled against doing so, but the pain in his feet left him no choice. He shuffled to the chair and sat.
'Where did you go?' He hadn't meant the question to be so abrupt, but with what he'd been through it was hard to maintain his equilibrium.
Opening a cupboard door, she bent down and picked up a gas camping stove. She placed it on the bench, turning her head slightly to talk to him.
'The electricity went off when the cyclone first hit, but we have this