Dance with the Devil

above. “Perhaps that's true,” he said. “Especially considering the public outcry that goes up every time someone uncovers a trace of these Satanic goings on in Roxburgh.”
        “You mean that people around here find this sort of thing regularly?” she asked, her attention finally diverted from the road altogether, for the first time.
        “Not every day, mind you.”
        “But often.”
        “Yes. Every month or so for the last year, year and a half. Sometimes the ceremonies are done in dilapidated buildings, sometimes in open forest clearings. I imagine more are performed and go unnoticed than those we find clue to.”
        “It's hard to believe,” Katherine said.
        Terrifying her by the gesture and drawing her attention back to the danger of the storm and the road, he raised a hand from the wheel and waved it to indicate the craggy mountains, the great forests, the thickly grown and yet somehow barren landscape. “Considering this place, this land, it wouldn't seem so strange to me.”
        “Please use both hands to drive,” she said.
        He laughed. “We're nearly three-fourths of the way up now, and you've not come close to death yet.”
        “Close enough,” Katherine said.
        The windshield wipers thumped faster as he turned them up, hollow and heavy like the rapid beat of a panicked animal's heart as it escapes the hunter's line of sight Ice had formed in the corners of the windshield shortly after they left the cafe and now began to send tentative crystal fingers toward the center. He also turned up the blast from the heater, melting the hazy barrier that had started to form on the glass.
        To get her mind off the road again, and because she was curious, she asked, “Hasn't anything been done to find out who these-these devil worshipers are?”
        “Oh, in a town as small as Roxburgh, there has been a lot of spying on each other, neighbor watching neighbor.”
        “Nothing more?”
        “What would you do?” he asked.
        “The police-”
        “Have no jurisdiction. Aside from the fact that they kill someone's pet now and again-usually a cat- they don't break any laws. Christianity is the preferred religion in the area, but not codified by law.”
        “Well, then,” she said, “even with neighbor spying on neighbor, someone ought to have aroused suspicion.”
        “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Besides, it's equally likely that the Satanists are from another town. Within a thirty mile radius, there are a dozen villages ranging anywhere from five hundred to a thousand in population. It could be someone from one of those, leaving their hometown to perform the rituals and thus keep the heat off their own neck of the woods.”
        “I see.”
        “Are you frightened by the notion of devil worshipers?” Harrison asked, a touch of humor in his voice.
        “Not really,” she said.
        “You should be.”
        “Oh?”
        The Rover shuddered as it bumped over some obstruction in the road that was hidden by snow, sidled toward the ravine, came under his control again and ground relentlessly toward the final curve before they crested the top of the road.
        “You don't believe in black magic and the power of evil, do you?” she asked, teasing him.
        “Of course not,” he said. “But you've got to be wary of people who do believe in things like that, because they aren't exactly right in the head.”
        “I suppose so.”
        He frowned, his mind clearly on more than his driving. After a moment, he said, “Everyone in Roxburgh is afraid of them; everyone is waiting for something to break because of them, something bad. Only the Boland family poohpoohs the notion that they're dangerous.”
        “They do?”
        “Yes. The subject has been brought up at the town meeting a number of times. Lydia always attends- and Alex, her son, usually does. They always make light of the subject, joke about it. The other townspeople respect them so much that the subject is usually dropped.”
        “Maybe they've got the right idea-treat it lightly and let it evaporate eventually.”
        “Maybe. But I have the feeling that it is the same as finding yourself in a pit with a tiger and turning away from it hoping it will disappear.”
        “Aren't you being melodramatic?” Katherine asked.
        “Perhaps I am. But I can't help but wonder if these Satanists will ever reach the