Nooo! Stop! Come back!
Justin's eyes flew open and he sat up, panting.
No, dammit, not again!
Only a nightmare, he told himself, as he flung off his sheet and launched himself out of bed. At least I'm not screaming out loud. And it means nothing, nothing!
He paced the floor in his bare feet, trying to control his trembling. What was that, the tenth time? Whenever I close my eyes...
Forget it! Put it out of my mind, think about something else. Think about all that's going well!
Police and the press had been receptive to his blaming the New Canaan massacre on the "Antichrist." As he'd hoped, newspaper and radio reports suggested his hilltop home had been spared because of his "saintliness."
Iris would tell no one otherwise. If she hadn't been deranged before Stroud had his way with her, she was now.
Rev. Balthus was a known member of his household who had to be accounted for; so he'd let the police find the victims of his scythe rampage. All those bodies were near what had been the carnival site (the departing carnies had laid them out reverently and covered them with sheets!). Radio newscasts reported a rumor that the cops had arrested a fleeing carny. Heh. They'll probably charge the sword swallower!
It was unlikely anyone would be charged with causing the thousands of medically unexplainable deaths. What would the charge be? Witchcraft? Justin still hadn't heard whether Benjamin St. John had come forward. But it hardly mattered, from the point of view of legal consequences. The truth, if anyone told it, would seem even more outrageous than Justin's lies.
As for the conflict of the Avatars, young Ben might still be alive, but he'd been thwarted in his best chance to take out his opponent. No, his only chance.
I have nothing to fear. Nothing!
Relax with a glass of warm milk, then go back to sleep.
x
x
x
He took his own advice.
And fifteen minutes later he was hurtling out of bed again, stifling a scream.
Damn!
After another round of frenetic pacing, he collapsed in a chair and buried his face in his hands.
It's not just the nightmare. There, admit it. The real problem is that by now, I don't know - if I ever did - whether what I see in that nightmare was real.
Up to a point, yes, of course, it all really happened. Sofie and me, what she said, what I said. But how did our encounter end?
What did I see in those last moments?
How can I possibly not be sure?
He went over it all again in his mind. What she said, what he said...
xxx
"I can only be killed by a Prophet," he told her, gloating. "Even he must use a certain kind of weapon, a blade that's killed another Avatar. And Ben - if he's alive - no longer has one."
He went on to make the sadistic point that Ben could only obtain another suitable weapon by killing yet another Avatar.
Sofie turned and fled. He saw that she was headed for Stroud's car.
What had been Stroud's car.
"Do you understand?" he shouted after her. His voice rose to a howl. "If Ben is still out there and wants to kill me, he first has to kill another Avatar! And the only one remaining is you!"
xxx
She reached the car...and stopped to look back at him.
And then...and then...
He closed his eyes and saw it clearly. But had he ever really seen it? He didn't know!
He only knew that in his nightmare, Sofie transformed once again into a black-eyed, grotesquely grinning demon. She held up a shining object, a trophy so small he hadn't seen her retrieve it from where it must have lain in the field.
He screamed, "Nooo! Stop! Come back!"
But Sofie leapt in the car and sped away, taking with her the still-lethal blade of Ben's dagger.
x
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x
The End