Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

heard outside her window last night, in the menacing voice on the night of her Black Mass.
    Take this whore Judas Stone.
    She felt light, displaced, again outside herself, gasping for air.
    Run to the Jeep. Get out of here.
    Except–
    No matter where you go, you take it all with you. It's part of you. And he OWNS you.
    She tried to relax, to begin the slow countdown from ten. But she couldn't find ten, she couldn't make balloons of her fingers, she couldn't concentrate enough to let her mind stray. Only one person could help her now. She scrambled through her purse for more coins, thumbed down the receiver switch, and fed the phone as she punched up a well-remembered number.
    Dr. Forrest answered before the first ring ended. "Where are you, Julia?"
    "It has me."
    "Relax, Julia. Breathe."
    "I can't." Her heart was going to either explode or collapse upon itself.
    "You trust me, don't you?"
    Julia leaned against the wall of the store. A car whisked by on the highway, but she didn't bother to see if it was the police. "Why was Snead in your office?"
    "You asked him to be there, remember?" Dr. Forrest's tone switched from concerned to chiding. "You called me last night."
    "No, you called me ." Even as she said the words, Julia was no longer sure she believed them.
    "Julia, you need help. You need my help."
    "You lied about the pentagram drawing."
    "Julia, do you want to be healed?" Dangled like a treat before a scolded puppy.
    Julia hammered her fist against the wall of the store. "Healed of what?"
    "Healed of resisting. Let it out, let it possess you. He owns you, but you've been such a very bad girl. So very difficult."
    Julia's inhalation froze in her lungs. Numb tears filled her eyes.
    "Julia, we've all tried to help you. Lance, Lucius, your father, everyone. That's all we've ever wanted, for you to embrace him. For you to become the whore Judas Stone."
    Julia couldn't pull the phone from her ear. In that horrible black moment, she realized that Dr. Forrest owned her just as Lance Danner had. All wanting her to remember that night. All making the monster real.
    "Julia?"
    "Yes." The word hissed from her lips in a slow leak of air and soul.
    "Where are you now?"
    "I don't know."
    "We want to help you. He loves you, Julia."
    "Julia?"
    That last voice hadn't come from the phone. "Walter?"
    He ran to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "Shhh. Just relax. It's okay. They can't get you here."
    He took the phone from her hand and placed it on its hook. A door slammed shut. The man in the coveralls peered at them, twisting his mouth sideways. "You folks okay?"
    "Breathe," Walter whispered. He called to the man, "She's fine. Just had a dizzy spell."
    The man nodded as if he didn't believe them and went back inside.
    "Listen, Julia." Walter's face was so close she could feel his breath, could see the hundreds of flecks of brown and green and gold in his eyes. "You're standing on the clouds, the sun is out, you're laughing and playing. There’s a soft, golden light shimmering in the sky. You don’t have to be troubled. Open your heart and–”
    "That man—he's probably calling the cops. He's in on it. He's one of them."
    "Shhh. Look way off, where the mountains meet the sky. Up there where the clouds are. Be a mountain. Even the devil can't break a mountain."
    Julia looked at the thick folded clouds that hung over the ridge, and the strong and timeless slopes that fell away into a river valley. They can't break a mountain . Silly, maybe, but it worked. Maybe Walter sensed she wasn’t ready for a leap of faith, and maybe his sales pitch for Jesus was waiting in the wings, but for now he was an anchor, as solid as his metaphorical mountain.
    When she could finally breathe again, Walter led her around the corner of the store and helped her into the Jeep before climbing into the driver's seat.
    "He owns me," Julia said.
    "Satan doesn't own you." Walter jammed the Jeep into gear and sped onto the highway, heading for the soft blue mountains ahead. "Not while I'm still alive."
    As they roared away too slowly to lose the past, Julia wondered if, no matter the route they took, Satan was already the master of all her possible futures.

 
     
    CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
     
    The Jeep came to a stop in front of a weathered cabin. The cabin's two small windows were separated by a gray door. A stone chimney leaned precariously from one end of the structure. The cedar shake roof was covered with moss, and the walls