Divine Evil

could not have created this. If she had not created it, we couldn't display it in our gallery so that other art dealers would pull out their hair in envy and frustration.” He grinned down at the boy. “So you see, we are all in your debt.”
    Ernie only shrugged, sending the pendant around his neck swinging. Jean-Paul glanced down at it. Surprise came first, then amusement. Teenagers, he thought, toying with what they couldn't possibly understand. He glanced back at Ernie, and the smile faded from his lips. A teenager, yes, a boy, but Jean-Paul had the uncomfortable feeling that this boy could understand all too well.
    “Jean-Paul?” Angie stepped forward to lay a hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”
    “Yes.” He eased his wife slightly closer to him. “My mind was wandering. That's an interesting pendant,” he said to Ernie.
    “I like it.”
    “We must be keeping you.” Jean-Paul's voice remained mild, but he kept a protective arm around his wife's shoulders.
    “Yeah.” Ernie's lip curled over his teeth. “I got things to do.” Lightly, deliberately, he touched his fingers to the pentagram, closed his fist, and lifted the index and pinkie in the sign of the goat. “See you around.”
    “Don't use him again,” Jean-Paul said as he watched Ernie walk away.
    Clare's brows shot up. “Excuse me?”
    “To model. Don't use him. He has bad eyes.”
    “Well, really-”
    “Humor me.” Smiling again, he kissed Clare's cheek. “They say my grandmother had the sight.”
    “I say you've had too much sun,” Clare decided. “And need a drink.”
    “I wouldn't turn one down.” He cast a last glance over his shoulder as he followed Angie and Clare into the kitchen. “Do you have cookies?”
    “Always.” She gestured him toward the refrigerator while she headed to the cupboard for a bag of Chips Ahoy. “Christ, listen to those flies. Sounds like a convention.” Curious, she turned toward the screen door and peeked out. The burger she'd consumed with such relish threatened to bolt up. “God. Oh, God.”
    “Clare?” Angie was beside her in one leap. “Honey, what-” Then she saw for herself. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, she turned away. “Jean-Paul.”
    But he was already nudging them aside. On the stoop outside the screen door someone had flung a dead cat, a young black cat. Dark blood had poured and pooled where its head had once been. Black flies drank and buzzed busily.
    He swore ripely in French before turning a pasty face to the women. “Go-in the other room. I'll deal with it.”
    “It's horrible.” Hugging herself, Clare kept her back to the door. “All that blood.” Still terribly fresh, too, she remembered, and swallowed hard. “It must have been a stray dog that killed it and dragged it here.”
    Jean-Paul thought of the pendant around Ernie's neck and wondered. “The boy might have done it.”
    “Boy?” Clare steeled herself to hand Jean-Paul a plastic garbage bag. “Ernie? Don't be ridiculous. It was a dog.”
    “He wore a pentagram. A symbol of Satanism.”
    “Satanism?” Shuddering, Clare turned away again. “Let's not get carried away.”
    “Satanism?” Angie reached in the refrigerator for the wine. She thought they all would need it. “You read about it now and again. Hear about rites going on in Central Park.”
    “Cut it out.” Clare fumbled for a cigarette. “Maybe the kid was wearing some kind of occult symbol-and he probably got a charge out of seeing Jean-Paul notice it. Christ, my father had a peace sign, that didn't make him a Communist.” She dragged in smoke and let it out quickly. “Lots of people dabble in the occult, especially kids. It's a way of questioning authority.”
    “It can be dangerous,” Jean-Paul insisted.
    “That kid didn't behead some stray cat and leave it on my back doorstep. It's awful, I'll grant you, but you've been watching too many movies.”
    “Maybe.” There was no use upsetting her or Angie any further, and he had to steel himself for the grisly task ahead. “But do something for me,
chèrie
, and be careful of him. My grandmother said that one should be wary of those who choose the left-hand path. Take the wine,” he told them after a deep breath. “Go in the other room until I'm done here.”
    The left-hand path, Clare thought, and remembered the book she had found in her father's office at the top of the stairs.

Chapter 15
    W HAT THE HELL was going on? Cam settled back on the deck chair, a