Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

though his voice cracked from sleep.
    "Hi. Storm's over."
    "I don't know if that's a good thing." Walter rattled around in a corner cabinet and pulled out a dented tin coffee pot. "Makes it easier for them to find us. If they're even bothering to look."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I'll tell you when I get back."
    Julia stacked some logs on the fire and went outside to gather another armload from the woodpile. Walter came back from the woods with the coffee pot. He hoisted it, and some water sloshed out. "There's a spring around back. The purest water you've ever tasted."
    "And we're going to mess it up by turning it into coffee?"
    Walter smiled, the sun on his face and his tousled hair making him look young. "Sounds like an improvement to me."
    A soft rhythmic sound filled the air, rapidly becoming louder, beating at the air between the mountains. Walter dropped the coffee pot and raced to the Jeep. The engine started and he backed the Jeep under a canopy of spruce. Julia finally recognized the sound, and went inside the cabin as the whir grew louder.
    From the window she watched the helicopter cross to the west. The Creeps couldn't have that much influence, could they? What did they want from her so badly that they were dragging out all their resources? And if she tried to dismiss her paranoia, right there was Walter, ducking under the trees and staring up at the sky.
    When the whir of the blades subsided, they looked at each other.
    "Do you think it was them?" Julia asked.
    He pointed at the chimney. "They would have seen the smoke. If it was them, they'd already be back."
    He gathered the coffee pot and returned to the spring. Julia went inside, gathered her dry clothes from the hearth, and changed quickly before Walter returned. He didn't remark on her change of clothes, nor on having slept with her. Julia realized it was the first time she'd ever slept with a man without having sex. But then again, Mitchell was the only other man to ever share her bed.
    Quit comparing him to Mitchell. They’re not even on the same playing field.
    He poured some coffee grounds into a metal sieve and placed the sieve in the pot. Then he hung the pot over the fire from a metal hook. "What's so funny?"
    "Just figuring out which way I'm going crazy this time."
    "I told you, you're not crazy. You're miles from civilization, with all the time in the world, with a nice guy who makes a mean cup of coffee. What's the downside?"
    "Uh, you forgot the part where Satan worshippers want to claim my immortal soul."
    "Oh, yeah. I figured this was too good to be true."
    Walter brought some chipped ceramic mugs from the cupboard as the smell of coffee slowly filled the cabin. Julia sat by the fire and watched Walter.
    "What are we going to do now?" she asked.
    "Wait, I reckon."
    "For them to find us?"
    "We ought to just let things die down a little."
    "I wonder what's happening back at my house."
    "Depends on what they were after. Maybe all they want is you."
    "I still can't understand why."
    "Maybe they don't like to lose. Maybe they feel like they have to finish the job or their Big Bad Boogeyman will get upset." Walter sat beside her and placed the mugs on the hearth. He drew a couple of granola bars from the backpack and passed one to Julia.
    "This doesn't fit the image of the rough-and-ready mountain man's breakfast," Julia said.
    "Well, I hate to say it, but I ain't much of a mountain man. I don't even like hunting. My dad used to take me up here and make me stumble through the woods after him with a gun, but I never could stand to shoot anything."
    "How long do we stay here?" Julia asked.
    Walter shrugged. "A day or two. I don't know."
    She leaned forward and touched his knee. "Do you think Hartley had anything to do with your wife's disappearance?"
    He stared into the fire with a wounded expression. "Sometimes I'm scared that she was one of them. Then I think I'm crazy to even think that. But then you hear people talking about Satan worshippers and what they do to fetuses and babies and kids . . . and she changed after she became pregnant. She became faraway, panicky, suspicious of everybody."
    Julia scooted next to him and wrapped her arms around him, feeling the hard muscles underneath his shirt. She squeezed as tightly as she could and his head leaned against her shoulder.
    "Shh," she whispered. "Just let it go. Don't let them win. Don't let him win."
    "Him?"
    "Satan." Walter tensed under her embrace, but she continued. "A lot of Christians