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of knowing if the cursed woman was aware of the power in her possession, but so far she had been very careful not to stray far enough from the talisman for him to make any substantive move against her. Oh, he could keep sending his zombies where he thought she was going to be. They might get lucky. But that was as likely as hitting a black hawk at midnight with a slingshot! The Dark Man was further restricted by the blood oath he had taken back in his son's hut. He had promised the woman's soul to the dark lords and so the manner of her death had to be very precise. And on top of all this, Halloween was less than a week away! His time was running out like blood from a slashed artery and the foul breath of the dead was hot on the back of his neck. Two nights before, the Dark Man had cut the eye from a stray dog and put it in the middle of a pentagram he had drawn on the floor of the cabin. Then he had taken his astragali, the knucklebones he had collected over the years from his victims, and thrown them into the pentagram. The eye had turned and stared directly at him and then exploded in a puff of black smoke. |
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The night before, he had taken the liver from a cat and buried it under a live oak just as the moon was rising. The moon had turned red. |
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Then tonight, just before entering the trance, he had seen a cloud in the shape of a wolf pass before the moon. |
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All were signs that the walls between the worlds of the living and the dead were crumblingsigns that the dead had not forgotten him. He had to keep this woman off balance, but how? |
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The Dark Man abruptly broke the psychic connection with the spider and slammed back into his body. As he sat up, the goateed man draped the feathered cloak around his master's bony shoulders. |
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''Pack our things," the Dark Man said. "We will be leaving soon." |
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