Dance with the Devil

had come, thereby surprising and trapping the stalker in the open where she could learn his identity. The only thing that held her back was the certain knowledge that she would not like what happened after she had pulled off this little coup…
        Turning again, she walked toward the steps more quickly than before, went down them two at a time with the inescapable feeling that someone was only inches behind her.
        Near the bottom of the steps, she reluctantly blew out her candle so that none of the household would see her leaving.
        Moving cautiously along the main hall, aware that she faced danger in front as well as behind now, she passed the library where the two women waited. She felt certain that the stalker was still behind her, watching and waiting for the proper moment to make his move. She passed the dining room where she could hear Mason Keene speaking to someone else. She assumed he must be talking to Alex and that surprised her. She had assumed that it was Alex behind her, waiting to trip her up.
        Of course, Alex did not have to be the only one of the cultists in Owlsden, did he? He might easily have stationed one of his friends upstairs in the event that she tried to slip away from them.
        She stepped into the kitchen, turned and shut the door. She stepped quickly to the table in the center of the room, fumbled around until she found a wooden chair, turned and placed the chair against the door so that the back of it was braced under the knob.
        She waited.
        Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and fully used the shallow snowlight that came through the big windows.
        Had she been imagining the stalker? Had there really been someone behind her, or had she-
        Someone tried the door, not boldly, not normally- but stealthily, as if he half expected it to be locked.
        Katherine turned and went quickly across the kitchen.
        Behind her, someone was cautiously putting a shoulder to the door, trying to pop the brace loose with a minimum of noise.
        You'll be with Michael in a few minutes, she told herself. Everything will be fine then. He'll take care of you; he'll joke with you; he'll make everything bright and fine.
        She opened the kitchen door, stepped into the wind and snow, closed the door behind her, and was instantly relieved that she had taken the first major step in her flight from this strange house.

CHAPTER 15
        
        When she had gone only twenty steps from the kitchen door, her eyes watering from the fierce assault of the wind, her face numb with cold, Katherine began to wonder if the loss of power had, after all, been due to the storm. Inside Owlsden, she had become accustomed to the continuous growl of the elements without really understanding how furious they really were. The first snow had been a spring shower compared to this thunderstorm of a buzzard. She could not see more than another step in front of her, and she guided herself as much by instinct as by anything she came across in the way of landmarks. The snow was well over her knees except where the wind had scoured it away to drift it elsewhere, and she was required to expand an enormous amount of energy to make any headway at all. Why hadn't Michael told her how rough it would be? The heavy insulation of her ski-suit did not keep her as toasty warm as usual; chills ran up her spine as the most severe blasts seemed somehow to cut right through the quilted fabric and dry the thin sheen of perspiration on her body.
        Twice, she turned and looked back toward the house to see if anyone were following her, but the first time she knew she wouldn't have seen him even if he was-and the second time, she could not make out the lines of Owlsden, though it must have been fairly close still.
        She doubted even Michael's driving ability to force the Rover up the mountain in this-and then she stopped thinking along those lines. She could not afford to doubt Michael. He might be her only chance.
        She had been counting her steps in the event she had to attempt to retrace her path, and for this reason she knew that it was the fifty-seventh step on which she floundered and went down in the cold, soft snow. Her foot slipped on something beneath the snow and twisted under her just as the wind shifted slightly and pounded down on her in a brutal gust. She threw her arms out in a vain effort to break her fall, and she sprawled