Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

what she had expected, black clouds rolling in, thunder shaking the building, the earth opening up and swallowing Memphis, or merely a puff of sulfurous smoke from which would step a red-faced, goatish creature complete with pointy pitchfork.
    Just as God had failed to appear when summoned, Satan had also missed a chance to shock and awe.
    So much for vanity over the worth of my soul.
    Almost giggling with relief, she lifted the ring and held it close to her face.
    "Hello, ugly," she said to the engraved skull.
    Did talking to a hunk of silver qualify one for the loony bin? People of many religions addressed gods they couldn't see, and seemed better off for it. Julia figured a good rule of thumb to follow was, "You're only crazy if the inanimate object in question talks back."
    Or maybe you weren't crazy, merely one of those privileged few to whom gods deigned to dispense wisdom. Modern prophets were likely misdiagnosed as schizophrenics, and if Jesus really did return to Earth and start spouting messages of eternal rewards and miracles, he’d be strapped to a crash cart, pumped full of Thorazine, and wheeled into a rubber room to wait out the rest of his second coming.
    The ring wasn't evil. It was only a lump of mineral, heated and cast and polished by human hands. Except this ring had been her father's, if she believed the engraved words.
    The ring was the only relic she had left of the man who had helped bring her to life, a man whose face would have faded like an old photograph except for the recovered memories that kept him always on her mind. And though the memories weren't always comforting, she was grateful to Dr. Forrest, and, before her, Dr. Danner. They had linked her with her own past, shown her how the symptoms of the present came from that bewildering period of her childhood, and now Dr. Forrest was finishing the work of teaching Julia to heal.
    Now it was no longer theory. Maybe with this final evidence of the truth, Julia could begin to bury the past.
    As Julia held the ring to the light, the twin scars on her stomach tickled and itched. She almost wished the ring had spoken, because she still had too many unanswered questions.
    Had her father been one of the bad people?
    Was he one of those who had chained her to the stone, who danced around her in robes, who touched her, who drank from that strange silver chalice?
    Was her father really one of the Creeps?
    Recovered memories were one thing, something she knew could be manufactured and then accepted as fact. But the ring was solid, substantial, real. The ring bore the name of Stone. The ring threaded reality into the weavework of an imagined past sewn from dreams, suggestions, and fear.
    Julia knew she would do it. It was almost as if the skull moved itself, guided its silver smirk toward her left hand. Then to the tip of her ring finger, the one that should have worn Mitchell's engagement diamond. And then the metal band eased itself over her fingernail, past her knuckle, and settled on the flesh above the pad of her palm.
    A warm glow expanded out from the ring, radiated up her arm in waves, spread through her body and made her light-headed. The heat turned into electricity and Julia no longer felt weak. She stared into the skull, and it smiled back at her, as if understanding her need to surrender.
    "It's been a long time," the smile seemed to say. "But you're finally ready to become Judas Stone."
    No, no, NO.
    She yanked off the ring and flung it away. She ran to the far corner of the room as if fleeing a feral animal.
    She huddled against the closet, fists over her ears, shrugging off the descending cloak of panic. She forced herself to take deep breaths.
    Only a ring, only a ring, only a ring, INHALE . . .
    The air tasted of crypts and incense.
    Only a ring, only a ring, only a ring, EXHALE . . .
    Her heart twitched in her chest like a sack of rats.
    The panic settled over her, coal black and blood thick.
    Her thoughts spun, wheels without tracks, wire unraveling, stones tumbling in an avalanche. The ring on the hand, the hand that held the knife, that brought the knife down to her belly, that made the incision, a slick hot trail on her abdomen, why was the bad man hurting her, why ?
    And the knife lifting again, blood dripping from the bright blade, the candlelight glinting in its rich redness, the bad people leaning over her, the knife descending again, slicing deftly across the other side of her tummy, and she was aware of the injury, only