Divine Evil

a person. He could hear her scream, and scream and scream.
    As the graduation procession marched on, he had to force himself not to press his hands to his ears and run from the gym.
    He couldn't afford to bring attention to himself. Beneath his gown his body sweated, the deep acrid sweat of fear. Around him, other graduates were beaming or misty-eyed. Ernie sat stiff and stared straight ahead. He couldn't make a wrong move. They would kill him if he did. If they knew that he had seen. If they suspected that he had panicked for a moment and called the sheriff.
    He wouldn't make that mistake again. Ernie took slow, even breaths to steady himself. The sheriff couldn't do any good. No one could stop them. They were too powerful. Mixed with his fear came a quick jolt of dark excitement. He was one of them. Certainly the power was his as well.
    He had signed his name in blood. He had taken an oath. He belonged.
    That was what he had to remember. He belonged.
    It was too late for Sarah Hewitt. But his time was just beginning.
    “No word on her yet. Sorry, Bud.”
    “It's been more than a week since anybody's seen her.” Bud stood beside his cruiser, looking up and down the street as though his sister might pop out of a doorway, laughing at him. “My mom thinks maybe she lit out for New York, but I … We ought to be able to do more,” he said miserably. “We just ought to be able to do something.”
    “We're doing everything,” Cam told him. “We got an APB out on her and her car. We filed a missing persons report. And the three of us have talked to everyone in town.”
    “She could've been kidnapped.”
    “Bud.” Cam leaned against the hood. “I know how frustrated you must be. But the fact is, there was no sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle. Her clothes and personal items were gone. Sarah's thirty years old and free to come and go as she pleases. If I called the feds and yelled kidnapping, they'd never go along.”
    Bud's mouth set in a stubborn line. “She'd have gotten in touch with me.”
    “I think you're right. That's what my gut tells me. But the facts don't. All we've got are the facts. We're not going to stop looking. Why don't you go down to Martha's, have Alice fix you a decent cup of coffee?”
    He shook his head. “I'd rather work. I saw that reportyou're working on. The stuff on cults that Blair Kimball's looking into for you.”
    “That's just a theory. We don't have anything solid.” And he didn't want Bud, or anyone else, looking over his shoulder while he investigated the possibilities.
    “No, but if we've got something weird going on around here, I could follow up. All that stuff we found out at Biff's shed—and the way Biff was killed. We're saying it's all tied together. Maybe Sarah's being gone is tied in, too.”
    “Don't make yourself crazy.” Cam put a hand on Bud's shoulder.
    Bud's eyes, desperately tired, met Cam's. “You think it could be all tied together.”
    He couldn't hedge. “That's what I think. But thinking and proving's two different things.”
    When Bud nodded, his face no longer looked quite so young. “What do we do now?”
    “We start all over again.”
    “With Biff?”
    “No, with the cemetery.”
    Sometimes men gather together for reasons other than poker or football, or a Saturday night beer. Sometimes they meet to discuss interests other than business or farming or the women they've married.
    Sometimes they gather together in fear.
    The room was dark and smelled of damp—a place where secrets had been shared before. Spiders skittered along the walls and built intricate webs to trap their prey. No one would disturb them there.
    Only three met. They had belonged the longest. Once there had been four, but the other died in flames, among trees and quiet waters. They had seen to that.
    “It can't go on.”
    Though voices were hushed, nerves rang loudly.
    “It will go on.” This was the voice of assurance and of power. The high priest.
    “We've done no more than what was necessary.” This was the soothing tone, the calming one. Beneath it was a quest for power, a thirsty ambition to ascend to the position of high priest. “We have only to keep our heads. There have to be some changes, though.”
    “It's all coming apart around us.” Restless fingers reached for a cigarette and match, despite the disapproval of the others. “Rafferty's digging deep. He's sharper than anyone bargained for.”
    This was true, and the slight miscalculation