Imminent Thunder Read online

  “This one afternoon, I came around the rear of the Gilhooley house and saw old man Gilhooley flat on his back. He’d evidently been on a ladder, and the ladder fell over. I looked up and saw Mrs. Gilhooley standing in the open attic window, looking down. He was dead. I knew that right off. And I knew she had pushed the ladder over.”

  Honor shivered, seeing the scene so clearly in her mind’s eye. “How did you know that? How could you know that?”

  He ignored the question. “Being only six, I didn’t have the sense to keep my mouth shut. I told my parents. I told the policemen who came to investigate. Nobody listened.”

  He reached for his coffee mug. “Except Mrs. Gilhooley. She listened. It wasn’t long after that when she claimed I was possessed.”

  “But why would anyone listen to her? Why would anyone believe such a thing?”

  Thunder rumbled, a deep, low sound. A gust of wind rattled the house.

  “Given the beliefs of the church to which both my parents and the Gilhooleys belonged, it wasn’t unheard-of. Or even difficult to accept.”

  “Did your parents believe it?” The ache she felt for him was growing stronger, as she considered how bewildering and frightening all this must have been for a six-year-old boy.

  “Of course.”

  “So they performed an exorcism.”

  He nodded once, slowly, never taking his eyes from her.

  “Didn’t that put an end to it?”

  “No. I told you, that kind of thing sticks like the odor of skunk. Nobody ever really trusted me after that. I shut up about the old woman killing her husband, but that didn’t make her feel any more secure, I guess. She kept muttering about me being unnatural. Demon spawn, she called me.” Now he did look away, as if he didn’t want her to glimpse the pain in his eyes.

  Demon spawn. She had heard that before, Honor thought, as a chill crept down her neck.

  “Finally,” he said, “her muttering got me shunned by the church members. My parents kept dragging me anyway, probably hoping some kind of sanctity would rub off on me. I don’t know. They’d drag me, and then I’d have to sit in a special chair. No one would talk to me or look at me or even come near me. Made it kind of hard to forget what they thought of me.”

  “How awful,” she murmured. She wanted to reach out to him, but she stopped herself. Nothing she could do now would ease the pain of what had happened to him so long ago. “How could your parents do that to you? How could they let you be treated that way? Why didn’t they look for another church?”

  Slowly he turned his head to look straight at her. “Because they believed it, too.”

  “My God.” She breathed the words, hardly able to conceive of such a thing. “They believed you were—were demon spawn? A devil? Evil?”

  He gave a slight nod.

  Indignation swept through her, so hot and furious in its strength that she could no longer sit still. Leaping to her feet, she paced the lamplit living room. “That’s awful. That’s terrible! I can’t imagine any parent feeling that way about a child. Oh, I know some parents are terrible, but—I can’t believe it!”

  “You were locked in a closet,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but—” She broke off, realizing that his parents had probably justified themselves in exactly the same way her father had. “They did it for my own good.”

  “Exactly.” Ian shook his head. “It didn’t do me any good.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a faint, wry smile. “About the time I was ten, I quit going to church at all. Nobody could make me. My dad whipped me half to death for it, but I refused to go anymore. I used to slip out of the house before everybody woke up and hide. And I was getting too big for him to force me. Finally he gave up and left me alone. And Mrs. Gilhooley married again and left me alone. For a while.”

  There was more. She knew there was more, because they still hadn’t covered the events the electrician had referred to. So far he had said nothing to explain why he had been accused of witchcraft.

  She stopped pacing near the window and looked out at the stormy night. It was so dark outside that she couldn’t make out her house, or the trees and moss around it. They might have been alone in the universe, floating endlessly through empty space.

  Then she caught sight of a glimmer, high up in the direction of her house, as if a distant light had been reflected on glass. Probably a headlight from the highway, she thought, that had somehow pierced the gloom and rain. As she watched, it flickered and was gone.

  Then it appeared again, in the same place. And this time it looked…orange. More like…

  Fire.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fire.

  Almost as soon as she spoke the word, Ian was at her side, looking out the window. He saw it, too, and swore. “Looks like it might be in the back bedroom.” But with nothing visible in the darkness except the orange glow, it was impossible to be sure. “I’ll check it out.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No.”

  She turned and grabbed his arm. “Ian—”

  He shook free, glaring at her. “One, if I don’t come out of there in ten minutes, I want you to call for help. If you’re in there with me, you might get into the same trouble, and then we’d both be done for. Two, this might well be an attempt to get you back there.”

  Get her back there? “Why? Why would—?”

  But he was already heading for the kitchen, so she followed him, trying to reframe her question. She stood back as he bent to the cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out a large fire extinguisher.

  “Look,” he said as he straightened, his strange eyes as opaque as jade. “Maybe it wants to hurt you. Maybe it just wants to scare you so bad you’ll never come back. Maybe it wants to influence you somehow. Damn it, Honor, how would I know what it’s up to? Just stay clear so it can’t succeed!”

  Once again she reached out and grabbed his arm, acutely aware of the strength of the muscles beneath her clutching fingers, well aware that he could fling her away with no more difficulty than if she were some troublesome gnat. But he held still beneath her touch, accepting the restraint…for a moment.

  “I could say the same for you,” she told him. “What if it wants to hurt you?”

  He stared down at her, not a muscle in his face flickering, not the slightest movement of his eyes betraying his thoughts. “Then it’s going to get its chance right now.”

  Then he was gone, leaving her in the silence of the kitchen. Through the open screen door, she heard the steady hammer of the rain, the low rumble of the thunder, saw the flicker of sheet lightning. The cicadas were quiet for once, and only a few hardy tree frogs kept up their nightly chorus.

  Wasn’t it only a few nights ago that she had stood in this same kitchen in the dead of night, scared out of her mind, while he went next door to check things out?

  Ten minutes, he had said. Ten minutes. Lord, she didn’t know if she would be able to stand it that long. Ten minutes was an awful lot of time. Long enough for that fire to get out of control. Long enough for terrible things to happen.

  What if it wants to get you over there?

  She shuddered and pushed open the screen door to stand on his back porch. Her ears strained for every sound, listening for any warning that Ian was in trouble. Through the rain and the heavy Spanish moss, she could still see the faint orange glow, but not clearly enough to tell if it had spread to any other window. By now Ian must be inside and climbing those stairs.

  Ten minutes was too long, surely, for him simply to discover what was wrong. Of course, he meant to put it out if it was a small fire…but how long could that take?

  She waited, holding herself so tightly that she was sure she would have bruises on her upper arms from her own fingers. Why would that thing want her back, if it was really trying to drive her away?

  What if it was trying to get Ian over there? Not to hurt him, but to influence him. To make him help get rid of her?

  The thought twisted into her mind a
s sinuously and smoothly as the serpent must have undulated into Eden. He had said he had gone into her house last night. Had kept a key without telling her—an action that hardly inspired trust, no matter how he explained it. He claimed he had been shot by someone who was influenced by that thing in the house, but how could he know that? He could have been shot by anyone, for any reason.

  She glanced again at the luminous dial of her watch and shivered. Six minutes. Four left. She wondered if she could stand it.

  What if—? She hated to let her thoughts stray in that direction, but she had been raised to ask tough questions and face unpleasant ideas. What if that thing in the house—she could no longer deny its reality, not after what she had felt yesterday—what if that thing were to use Ian against her?

  She had wondered before at the way he seemed to be bent on scaring her even more. Now this idea of someone shooting at him because of that thing…well, it could have been anyone, for any reason, couldn’t it? Maybe it had only been an accident, someone like Orville out hunting birds or squirrels….

  Oh, God, wasn’t he ever going to come out of there? She glanced at her watch again and was appalled to realize that only one more minute had passed.

  Maybe all this tension was getting to her, affecting her objectivity and ability to judge things. She didn’t want to believe such horrible things about Ian. And on the face of it, he had only looked after her, hadn’t he? Offered her a place to sleep when she was scared to stay in her own bed, kept her company… Hell, he’d taken her in. How could she even suspect such awful things?

  It’s foolish to trust unquestioningly.

  Well, of course, she thought, as the back of her neck prickled from a cold touch. She wasn’t trusting him unquestioningly. She just didn’t want to leap to wild conclusions.

  Abomination.

  She shivered again and glanced at her watch. Eight minutes. A gust of wind blew rain under the porch roof, and she felt the cold spray against her cheek and bare leg. Damn it, where was he?

  His own family had thought him unnatural. He had admitted as much. Maybe they’d had a reason. A good reason. And maybe she ought to be a lot more cautious of him.

  Suddenly, over the hammering rain and rumble of thunder, she heard rapid footsteps. Moments later Ian trotted up onto the porch. He was soaked to the skin, and his T-shirt and jeans were plastered to him. To every muscular inch of him. Something in Honor responded to all that masculinity, even as she warned herself to be more cautious of him.

  “Did you find it?”

  He shook his head.

  Instinctively she turned toward her house again and tried to pick out the orange glow. It was no longer there. “Then what was it?”

  “I don’t have any idea.” He shook his head sharply and sent water flying. “I went in there expecting just about anything, to tell you the truth. There was nothing. No fire, no spook, nothing.”

  She faced him. “I didn’t imagine it.”

  “Hell, no. I saw it, too.” He reached for the screen door and pulled it open. The springs protested crankily. “Come on. I could use some more coffee. There’s sure no point standing out here getting soaked.”

  But she stayed where she was. She heard the cupboard door slap shut as he put the fire extinguisher away. Then a clink as he set the coffee carafe back on the warming plate.

  He was really going to go in, dry off and settle down with a cup of coffee as if nothing had happened!

  Making an irritated sound, she turned sharply and stared toward her house again. Something had happened over there, and she couldn’t stand not knowing what it was, couldn’t stand the feeling that things were happening that were beyond her control. Couldn’t stand now knowing how to deal with this threat, whatever it was.

  Couldn’t stand the idea that something had taken over her house. That some evil had moved in and forced her out.

  Why had that light flickered up there? If it was some kind of ghostly manifestation, what had caused it, and why? She definitely had the feeling that it had wanted to draw attention. Hers? Or Ian’s?

  What had happened while Ian was over there? He’d seemed awfully quick to deny having found anything, especially when he had been there for nearly ten minutes. It was hard to believe the ghost had manifested some kind of light and he had felt nothing. Not when he claimed to be sensitive to it.

  The screen door squeaked, and she swung around, startled. Ian poked his head out. His hair had been toweled, and he had changed into dry jeans and a black T-shirt.

  “Why don’t you come in?” he asked. “If that thing wants to get our attention again, I’m sure it’ll manage.”

  “You’re probaby right about that.” After glancing over her shoulder one last time, she moved toward the door.

  And wondered if she was stepping inside with the very thing she was trying to evade.

  Her malaise lingered all through the evening. Sitting in the living room with Ian, she found herself unable to concentrate on the book in her lap, gruesome and frightening though it was. Her gaze kept straying his way as questions taunted her.

  He hadn’t told her the entire story of how he had come to be accused of witchcraft. Why not? He knew she wanted to know, and since she was aware of the charge, shouldn’t he want to put the record straight? What if there was no way to put it straight? The thought sent another shiver coursing along her spine.

  Then there was this business of how he could know that his assailant had been influenced by the entity in her house. How could he claim that, then say he had no idea what the thing might be up to, as he had earlier? It didn’t add up.

  Nothing added up. Nervous, she rose from her chair and paced to the window again, looking out at the stormy night. From behind her came the sound of a page being turned. One thing she envied him was his evident ability to ignore all unanswered questions and concentrate on finding an answer to the real problem—how to get rid of a ghost. At least, she thought he was concentrating on it.

  Maybe he was just sitting there pretending to read?

  He spoke unexpectedly, causing her to jump and turn swiftly around. “I don’t know how much help these books are going to be. So far, I’ve found ghosts who don’t know they’re dead, and ghosts who’ve left something undone and are hanging around worrying about it. Neither one seems right for your specter.”

  “Hey, it’s not my ghost!”

  He surprised her with a real smile, small though it was. “It’s your house, and the ghost seems to be attached to it. That gives you proprietary rights.”

  “No thanks.” Again that icy river ran down her spine. She didn’t want to own a ghost, and she didn’t want to make jokes about what she had sensed over there. She doubted any man could understand her sense of violation at finding her bathroom door open yesterday. At knowing some unseen watcher had invaded her privacy like that.

  And then the feeling in her mind of something trying to get inside, of…what? There had been alien touches, of that she was sure. Those words that seemed to pop up out of nowhere sometimes felt as if they had come from outside. And sometimes she could almost have sworn someone else was inside her head, experiencing her thoughts.

  She shuddered and kept quiet. Paranoia. Saying things like that out loud was enough to get you committed. But then she thought, no, it wouldn’t get her committed. Not here. Not in the company of a man who had already announced that he thought that the thing was able to influence people.

  “It keeps trying to get into my head,” she said.

  “I know. You told me yesterday, at the beach.” His expression never changed as he stared at her and waited.

  After a moment she decided to plunge ahead and watch his reaction. Certainly something ought to startle him. “Sometimes it feels as if it puts thoughts in my head. Oh, man, does that sound weird!” She was hugging herself again, feeling cold when she really wasn’t. And feeling so, so alone. “Other times it feels like somebody’s in there just listening. Just…reading my mind.”

  H
e looked away, and she figured he was embarrassed by her confession. She gave a little laugh. “Classic schizophrenic delusion.”

  That brought Ian instantly out of his chair. Before Honor even guessed what he was about to do, he had taken her into his arms and was holding her with surprising gentleness against his hard, broad chest. “No,” he said quietly. “Don’t even think it. These things that are happening are so far from normal that they seem crazy. But they aren’t. I feel it, too.”

  “You feel like someone’s trying to get into your head?”

  He hesitated. Too long, she thought, but just as her distrust of him began to revive, he bent his head and kissed her, driving everything else out of her mind.

  For a moment, just a brief instant, she resented him for being able to do that to her. Then she gave herself up to the reckless heat he stirred so easily in her, gave herself up to the escape he offered. She’d lived long enough to know that it was highly unlikely she would ever meet another man who could do this to her. Wary as she was of him, she needed his heat. Needed the feelings he stirred in her. Needed to taste the passion she had never before felt.

  This time it wasn’t quite so explosive, wasn’t quite so fast. He held her with such care, as if he were afraid she might shatter. His tongue slipped past her guard easily, but without force, promising soft seduction rather than fury. It was as if he were saying, For this little while, forget. For this little while, don’t be afraid.

  She let her head sag backward under his gentle assault and let go of every worry, every concern. His tongue stroked hers as if he were thirsty for her, as thirsty for her as she was for him, she admitted. He had cast some kind of spell over her, because despite all her doubts and all her fears, she wanted him past reason. Past caution. Past thought.

  His hand slipped slowly upward, finding its way beneath her blouse. At the first touch of his warm fingertips on her soft skin, she shivered in pure pleasure. And arched like a cat being stroked. Ribbons of fire plunged downward to her aching core, and instinctively she pressed closer. Wanting more. Needing more. Forgetting every painful lesson she had ever learned.