Dark Rites

And then the world had gone dark, and only images had swum before him, the people in line at the coffee shop, the musicians playing, the pretty singer, the bubbly waitress...

Dark had turned to black.

And he had woken up here, chained to the table.

Why?

Who the hell kidnapped a quiet and unassuming professor of history and brought him out here, far from Boston, to an abandoned mental institute in the wilderness? He wasn’t worth anything; he had no fortune. He sure as hell held no state secrets; he knew nothing about anything important. There was absolutely no reason to kidnap him, bring him here.

Maybe someone who was mentally deranged themselves had done this. And they were just going to leave him chained here—leave him to slowly die without food or water, chained to the gurney, rotting away until something found him—a bobcat, a rare mountain lion or a black bear.

Or even the rodents and insects that abounded...

Stop; stop, he told himself.

He was brilliant, or so they said. He should be able to find a way out.

Screw brilliant. He wished he was a mechanic—or a superhero. Yeah, a superhero with the power to break chains.

He studied the metal around his wrist and the chains.

At least he wasn’t a victim of the Undertakers. He wasn’t buried alive; he had plenty of air to breathe.

He thought of Vickie Preston. They had first met at the coffee shop—she had asked for his help. He knew she’d been instrumental in catching the killers who had so recently terrorized Boston and the city’s surroundings.

Nice person, beautiful woman...she’d quickly become a true friend, visiting him at the hospital, working on the history of the note—she’d even gone to a concert with him. She was supposed to have been...

Meeting him! Yes, with a friend! She would know that he wasn’t in the city—because he’d be standing her up!

He could picture her now, emerald green eyes glazed with concern. She’d worry, twirling a lock of long dark hair as she wondered why he wasn’t there. She might even stand—tall and willowy—and pace.

Surely she wouldn’t just think he’d suddenly become rude? Would she somehow know, and start to search for him, would she have any idea...?

She had been working with the FBI. With the agent she’d brought to see him, the one who had probed the note, who had promised that he wouldn’t stop until his attacker or attackers had been found.

He suddenly realized that he was thinking intently.

Find me, Vickie, find me! Find me, find me, find me...

He decided that his IQ statistics were wrong, and that he was an idiot—really, what kind of genius could he be? Did he really think that the woman had ESP and would hop up and send out the troops?

But she saw the dead!

True or not.

He was a scholar. He believed in science but he also believed she spoke to the dead. He had kiddingly accused her of it one day when he’d come upon her and she’d appeared to be talking to herself.

Of course, everyone looked as if they were talking to themselves these days—because they were wired to their phones!

But it had been different with Vickie. The way she’d flushed, the way he’d even felt as if something was there...someone else! He’d been joking, of course, and yet...

He’d never had such a feeling. Naturally, as an academic, he was above such fantasy. And, then again, because he was an academic, he did mull over the concept of memory and self and...

There was so much about her that was extraordinary. He’d seen that when she’d worked with the FBI during the recent rash of murders in the state. He’d seen her incredible mind.

Find me, Vickie!

Maybe, just maybe, she really did talk to the dead, and if that was true, maybe, just maybe, it was possible that she had ESP, too!

He frowned, realizing there was a lump of something in the corner. He twisted around enough to rise and see what it was.

Oh, God.

A body. A human body.

And the head...

Was gone.

And there was movement upon the remains...rats running havoc!

Terror raced through him, making it feel as if his blood ran hot and cold and then hot again, as if it tore through his muscle, turned even his bones into something more wobbly than gelatin.

He fell back on the table.

Then he heard the awful creaking sound of an old door, a sound something like a squeaky scream that cried out into the night.

Someone...something...was coming in.

1 (#ue5f9d501-84dd-5545-9b48-69a2d53a00d8)

Griffin Pryce leaped over the fence that connected the houses and yards along the Hyde Park neighborhood. He’d been running hard, chasing a man in a red cape. A woman had just been attacked—the fourth victim of the thugs terrorizing the area. This time, the attacker hadn’t gone unseen; a neighbor had called it in right when it had happened.

Miraculously, Griffin had been about to have dinner with friends and was being dropped off by another friend—Detective Barnes—at a restaurant on Hyde Park Avenue when they had both heard the call for help come over the police radio.

He’d reached the scene just as the attacker—down on his knees to leave the rhyme about Satan in red marker on his victim’s chest—had seen him.

And run.

Griffin had taken thirty seconds to assure himself that the woman was alive; the neighbor’s call to 9-1-1 meant that an ambulance and police cars were on the way. He could already hear the sirens.

And so he ran after the attacker, who was wearing a red cape.

Stupid, Griffin thought. You want to wear a cape and attack people? Makes it harder to run and leap fences—and stands out like a...a red light!

But the young man was fast and agile.

Griffin leaped fences, tore down alleys, ducked beneath drying sheets and leaped another fence.