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  He thumped the tray on his seat, and the young couple beside him looked around in disbelief.

  He mumbled a quick apology, then whispered an even quicker prayer.

  Now he was sorry he hadn’t phoned Lynn three days ago. Now he was sure he had dug himself into a hole he wouldn’t be able to climb out from.

  He picked his car up at the airport and flung the glove compartment open. He was almost certain Lynn had left a pair of gloves in there, but now it was empty.

  No, please God, no! Dan thought.

  Now Dan was like a man lost. His thoughts wavered as he sped home.

  Dan drove slowly into the Avenue, one block from his home. An old rusty chain still hung from the railway bridge at the junction where it had been hanging for the past three years, after a train had come off the rail. No one had thought to clean it up. So far things are still the same around here, he thought. And now he was starting to feel better.

  When he turned into his street, he could see his house in the distance, but now his anxiety rapidly returned.

  A strange car, an old Camerro, he thought, sat in the driveway, and a large silhouetted figure of a man stood in his doorway, his back toward him. A grey barrel with bright flowers that he was sure he had never seen before, took pride of place in the middle of his garden. Dan had never taken an interest in his garden before though, he admitted, so the damn thing could have sat there for twenty years for all he would have known about it.

  * * * * *

  He stopped the car some fifty metres from his house and got out. A trickle of sweat ran down his brow.

  The large figure of a man was talking to someone in the hallway, when suddenly he gave a wave and walked away.

  The front door shut behind the man and for a split second Dan had thought he could just make out a female shape walk back inside.

  The large man reversed his car from the drive and lightly spun the wheels as he turned away. Before he drew level with Dan he noticeably slowed the car to a crawl, just before their eyes met, and Dan stared intently at this man he had never seen before as he drove slowly past.

  His heart thumped in his chest as he recalled Mr Cliff’s voice again.

  ‘Your wife’s dead, and your kids are gone.’

  Fifteen metres on and the large Camerro came to a halt, and then quickly came reversing back toward him.

  The man fiddled clumsily with his inside coat pocket, before pulling out a photograph.

  He slid the window down as he stared at Dan, back to the photo, and then back to Dan again.

  “You Dan Winters, fella?” He asked.

  Dan coughed and felt uneasy.

  “Um-y-yeah, I am,” he answered nervously.

  The large cop jumped very quickly from the car and Dan stepped back.

  He didn’t know this aggressive looking man. Maybe he had written an article about him once though. An article that the man or someone in his family didn’t like. This was one of the drawbacks of being a reporter.

  It’s a reporter’s job to report the truth, Dan had been taught, even though sometimes the truth gets a little bent and stretched in the process. Dramatization they call it.

  * * * * *

  He remembered how as a young junior reporter, he had been led into the office, along with the rest of the staff to be briefed about an incident that had happened to one of their colleagues that very morning.

  Bill Johnston had been nominated for a Pulitzer award, just six weeks previous, and he was on a roll. Everyone envied Bill Johnston, and his ability to get great stories. But sometimes Bill would go to any lengths, and step on any toes, to get his way.

  The paper had written up a grovelling apology, after Bill had put out a story about the rape of a senator’s daughter. According to Bill, sources had led him to a guy named Alexander Devarough.

  Convinced through his normally reliable sources in the police department, that Devarough was the culprit, he had printed a story of Devarough going on the run.

  The Devarough family had vehemently denied that Alexander had any involvement in the crime, and that the girl was lying. After some questioning, the girl had finally come clean, claiming she had made the whole thing up. She had secretly dated Devarough, but the young man had dismayed of her forward and tainted attitude, and had broken it off with her. But the story had been printed and Alexander had run off in a blind panic. Later, they found the young man’s body hanging from a tree in the forest.

  The story didn’t end there though.

  As Johnston, now under suspension from the paper, left his home to do some shopping, Alexander’s father, accompanied by two of his brothers, stopped him.

  Bill Johnston didn’t die from the beating that ensued. But most people believed that it would have been better if he had.

  He would never walk again. Not with the back injuries meted out to him. Nor would he ever type or even write again. His hands had been stomped on and mashed to a bloody pulp.

  They say his mind had also been affected that day, but no one could ever be sure of this, because now Bill Johnston was a recluse. Bill Johnston was a prisoner in his own home, accepting no calls or no visitors.

  It was of no consolation to anyone that the Devarough family member’s involved were given long sentence’s either, because everyone at the time felt Johnston deserved it.

  All because of some lousy words on a piece of paper, Dan thought.

  Dan snapped out of it as the man cleared his throat and spoke.

  “I’m detective Dabilos. Why half the damn police force have been trying to track you down Winters. Your wife reported you missing. What’s the story with you on this? You’ve led us on a damn Goose chase fella.”

  Dan felt embarrassed, and almost sick. Now Lynn would be furious with him, and she would require an explanation. She would probably insist he take a freekin lie detector test.

  The cop was staring at him now for some sort of explanation.

  “Well, I’m waiting?”

  “I um, I’ve been in rehab officer,” Dan lied. “I couldn’t tell my wife, you know.”

  “Well Winters, I don’t understand how you couldn’t tell your wife. She’s a great gal. And you’ve got a great family there. Great kids too. They are so worried about your ass.

  Dan grovelled out an apology and promised he would make it up to them.

  “Go see them Winters, go, I can get a statement later.”

  ‘Kids,’ the cop had said, ‘kids.’ Why Beatrice couldn’t have kids.

  “It’s Tom and Grace, um, my children’s names, right?” Dan whispered to the puzzled cop, who was now starting to believe the rehab story, and the guy’s state of mind.

  “Yes,” the large detective said, “That’s their names all right, Tom and Grace. You mean to say you’ve forgotten your own children’s names? What medication did they give you in rehab anyhow Winters?”

  “Um, I’ve had some uh, a truck load of problems,” Dan lied.

  The man smiled at Dan. A warm and friendly smile, as though he had been through all this himself once before.

  “Go, go and see them,” the cop ordered, and he patted Dan a friendly tap on his upper arm.

  “Yes, I will, thank you.”

  Suddenly though, the detective’s look changed, and as he stared at him for a moment, Dan realised the cop was looking at him kinda funny.

  He doesn’t believe I was in rehab, Dan thought. He probably thinks I was shacked up with some dame somewhere, and that I have been cheating on my loving family.

  Dan shook his hand vigorously though, thanked him, and ran toward the house, leaving the car unattended with the keys still in the ignition.

  The cop mumbled something, and as he shook his head and returned to his car, he laughed.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” he laughed, as he slouched into the seat, and drove slowly off.

  Dan burst through the door, his heart pounding fiercely with the excitement of seeing them all again.

  “I’m back honey,” he shouted. Tears
filled his eyes, but they were tears of joy. He had tangled with demonic forces, but had come through unscathed. Now everything would be perfect, he knew.

  He could hear the voices coming from upstairs, and as he waited he glanced around at the furniture, carpets and paintwork. Lynn has had a complete make over done, he thought, as he stared at the unfamiliar surroundings. A gold vase filled with yellow flowers sat on an unfamiliar coffee table.

  Something’s not right here, Dan thought. There was also something else. Something about the large detective that seemed familiar. Something he had heard before. It was the name. ‘Dabilos,’ he had called himself, and Dan was sure he had heard the name somewhere before.

  “Dabilos, Dabilos,” Dan repeated.

  Dan thought back to those years before, back to Ireland, when the old minister, Rev McCleay had gone to bless Lamont’s mine. A younger minister, Rev Collins, who had accompanied him, had been killed when they found out he was really a demon in disguise. The old minister later told them about it. Rev Collins had been possessed by a disciple of the devil, and his name was ‘Diabolis, the slanderer,’ he had said.

  Dabilos-Diabolis, he thought.

  He stood upright and rigid, as though frozen in space and time.

  “Oh, God no,” Dan moaned, as he realised Dabilos and Diabolis were one and the same.

  A large tsunami of fear rushed from his head to his toes.

  He could hear the muffled excited voices of his wife and children upstairs as they raced down to greet him.

  “Dad, Dad, the children shouted.

  The young man and girl stood before him, smiling, but concerned at his puzzling posture.

  “Where the hell have you been dad?”

  “Yeah,” the girl said. “Mom’s awfully worried.”

  Dan stumbled back, into the corner, almost falling over a chair.

  “Who a-are y-you people?” Dan stammered. “I don’t know you.”

  “What’s wrong dad?” The girl asked.

  They could hear their mother coming hurriedly down the stairs, and as she appeared, they looked sadly at her.

  She held her arms out to Dan in a caring manner.

  He moved further back, knocking over the small coffee table, smashing the golden vase, scattering water and yellow flowers across the floor.

  “I told you, you needed help Dan. Didn’t I tell him children?” Beatrice spat, as Dan stared at the two children he didn’t know, or even wanted to know.

  “Nooo,” Dan yelled.

  He stumbled to the door, almost trance like, and ran from the house to the car, as Beatrice and the children ran behind her. Fear had claimed him totally now, and he threw himself into the car in almost a daze. The real fear that his wife Lynn, and his children were now gone, enveloped his every thought.

  He was panicking now, as Beatrice and the two strangers who claimed to be his son and daughter clawed at the car windows.

  “Come back to the house dad,” they screamed. “Come back.”

  Dan just wanted to get away from there, anywhere, but he wasted a few precious seconds as he searched his pockets for the keys. Then, and just as Beatrice pounded on the window, he saw the key ring chain dangle from the steering column.

  He started the engine and pressed the gas as she thumped hard at the glass, cursing, her face twisted, and he watched the rev counter hit the red as he wheel spun the vehicle away.

  Beatrice yelled after him, but in blind panic he raced on, as Beatrice fell to her knees, sobbing, and her children watched him disappear into the distance.

  Beatrice stood up almost immediately though and held the children’s hands, the sobbing stopped, and as they walked back toward the house, she laughed loudly, as the children, their eyes black as night, laughed with her.

  * * * * *

  Dan almost collided with another car, as he sped across the junction. His eyes filled with tears as he drove on, away from this place.

  He could see Mr Cliff in the rear view mirror, smirking at him.

  ‘You shouldn’t have interfered,’ Mr Cliff said.

  “Fuck you, you little piece of shit,” he yelled.

  The bears head gave an unpleasant, evil laugh, and as Dan glanced away and then back to the mirror, it disappeared.

  Out in front he could clearly see the detective’s car. Smoke poured from its tail pipe and almost covered the road in a blanket of grey waste.

  He raced after it, through the smoke, out onto the freeway, and gunned the pedal.

  “You bastard, where’s Lynn?” Dan shouted as he pushed hard on the gas. “Where’s Lynn?”

  The cop sped on, faster; sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, he went.

  Dan chased after him, faster and faster, as he zoomed along, passing and swerving the other motorists.

  Drivers pulled to the side, their blank terrified faces staring out at him as he raced passed, almost side swiping them.

  He was doing around one hundred and ten, when the car in front seemed to somehow skid sideways without tumbling over, and come to an abrupt stop.

  Just before he collided in a fireball, Dan could see the small figure in the back seat with the hood and the scythe, wave at him from the rear side passenger window.

  Only blackness.

  * * * * *

  A heavy rainfall beat heavily on the bedroom window panes, like a thousand little drummer boys marching into battle.

  A familiar but blurred light fixture slowly came into view, and Dan could hear singing coming from downstairs. He recognised the wallpaper straight off, because, he had picked it himself that day at the store, when Lynn couldn’t make up her mind. He pulled back the cover and looked down at himself. He sighed deeply. He was intact, but what about the accident?

  The headache he was feeling was as bad as he’d ever experienced before.

  He slowly walked downstairs unaware of just what he was going to find. His stomach was knotted, his throat parched.

  “Hello Dad,” Grace said.

  “Yeah, hi dad,” Tom added.

  He tried to speak to them as the tears rolled down his face, but he felt weak.

  He hugged them tightly with all the strength he could muster, and kissed them both on the cheek.

  “What’s gotten into you dad?” Grace laughed, while Tom looked embarrassed and pretended to watch the ball game.

  Lynn turned from the stove and approached Dan.

  “Not another of those headaches Dan?”

  “Um, no!”

  He tried to hug her, tell her everything was going to be all right, but she stepped back, angry, her face hiding nothing.

  “Listen Dan, please don’t you lie to me, you promised you would go see Doctor Brooks,” Lynn barked.

  The room was spinning now, as Lynn’s voice drifted in and out, only to come back each time louder than before.

  Dan fell into the chair, and sobbed into his hands.

  “Do you promise?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I promise,” he mumbled. “I promise.”

  His mind was disorientated, but he remembered everything, and now somehow he was back to his loving family again.

  CHAPTER 22

  Three weeks had passed, but Francis still felt uneasy. It was a clear dry day, as she and Tully walked around the village market, and she reached out and gripped his hand firmly.

  “Are you sure everything will be all right Tully? The other one, um Charles, is still in the forest somewhere.”

  Tully gently pulled her close.

  “Charles means us no harm,” he whispered. “Why I’d be long gone by now if he had.”

  “So you think it’s really over then?”

  “Yes, it’s really over. I’m sure of it.”

  Tully looked to the sky and took a deep breath. He had already returned to the forest, but only in his role as gamekeeper, and not at night. Tully though, wasn’t sure if it was really over.

  He had witnessed the forces of evil twice now, so he wouldn’t take anything for granted anymore. He wouldn’
t mention this to Francis though. She had been through enough, he felt.

  “I have something to tell you Tully,” Francis said with a childish innocent smile, and he cocked his head, puzzled.

  Suddenly a voice rang out before she could speak.

  “Hello you two,” Jeremiah Fagan shouted.

  Jeremiah was accompanied by his wife Jo, who was fully swelled with pregnancy, and they were approaching them fast.

  “How are you, Jo, Jeremiah? Tully asked. “I hope you are taking good care of this fine lady,” Tully stated, as he pointed at her swollen stomach.

  “Oh yes, Jo had the scan, and it’s going to be twins. We don’t know what sex they are yet, but we’re not bothered about that.”

  “Well, I wish you all the best with them,” Francis said. “Oh and you must come visit with us,” she added. “Our door is always open to you.”

  “Thank you, we will,” Jo answered.

  Jeremiah had been suspended from the force after they found out he had lied to them. Father O’Neill though, had written on his behalf, accepting full responsibility for everything, and he had heard through the grapevine that Jeremiah was only going to get his knuckles rapped. Amazingly though, the young priest was assured that his position within the church was secure, even though he had broken almost every rule in the book.

  Tully believed this was mainly down to his popularity with the people and the fact that his church had the best attendance for a hundred miles in any given direction.

  Francis wasn’t so sure though. She believed he was kept on because of the embarrassment he could have caused them, should he be defrocked.

  Father O’Neill had decided to move on in any event. He had applied for, and had been offered a position up in Monaghan, and it was made clear to him that it would be a great challenge for him. He had decided to accept, but he would not be allowed to take Scraps. However, he knew Tully and Francis would give him a great home, and Tully had already made it clear that Scraps could accompany him on his job as gamekeeper. This would be better for Scraps than keeping him locked up all day while he performed his daily visits around the congregation. He had settled any business, packed his meagre belongings, and now he was ready to go.