Malika looked at her. "Sue, you must come, too..."

"No," Sue said, shaking her head. "My place is here."

She reached down and also brought Perry Holland to his feet. "You, too, Deputy. You, too, will find your legs strong enough."

Perry glanced at her a moment, shaking off whatever last inertia still hung over him. His handcuffs suddenly opened, freeing his hands from behind his back. Then, he gripped onto Malika's arm, and together they made their way out of the burning room.

Flames were jumping across the ceiling now.

Sue looked down at Joyce Davenport, upside down on the cross.

"Yes," she said. "You were right, Joyce. All of this can be so so much fun." much fun."

Joyce screamed.

86.

Upstairs, as smoke billowed up from the cellar and the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance, Ginny made her way among the screaming throng of people toward the front door.

"Not so fast, Dr. Marshall," came a voice. A hand reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

She spun around and came face-to-face with Dean Gregory. His head was bleeding and he was covered with soot.

He gave her a thin smile. "So pleased I could offer you so much material for another best seller," he seethed. "Too bad it will never see print."

He poked a gun into her ribs.

"I should have fired you long ago," he whispered in her ear.

Ginny tensed for the shot.

But instead- A sword suddenly plunged through Gregory from behind. Ginny saw its blade emerge from his chest, and then the blood streamed down the front of his shirt.

His eyes registered surprise, then horror, then nothing.

He crumpled to the floor. Ginny looked around. The sword was gone.

And the Woman who had wielded it was nowhere in sight.

But Ginny knew she would never be far away.

As the flames began popping up through the carpet, Ginny hurried outside into the snowy night.

87.

The fire engines arrived too late. The dean's house was engulfed by flames in just minutes. Most of those who had escaped from the bas.e.m.e.nt tried to flee, but Perry had angled his car across the driveway, preventing them from driving away. The snow continued to pile up, thwarting any attempt to drive over the gra.s.s. Immediately, many people were proclaiming in loud voices that they'd had no idea the ceremony was going to include murder. Perry listened with a stoic face, taking down names. He didn't worry that he'd be undermined by higher-ups who were secretly cult members. Two of the state cops he'd recognized inside had perished in the flames.

Standing in the snow, Ginny watched the house burn, her arm around Bernadette. The fire lit up the dark sky. The falling snow turned to steam as it came close to the flames, producing a weird, otherworldly mist that hung over the entire scene.

Girls emerged from their dorms to stand in awe before the blaze.

"Did the dean and his wife get out?" some of them asked.

"What caused the fire?"

"Why is Dr. Marshall here? I thought she'd left campus."

Ginny just pulled Bernadette tighter to her. She couldn't bear to look at Father Ortiz's twisted form, facedown in the snow.

"So many tragedies," she whispered, tears falling down her cheeks.

It was Sue she cried hardest for. Sue-whose destiny overtook her, through no fault of her own. It was better this way. Better that she perish rather than face what she was.

There would be many questions. Perry was hopeful that the remaining members of the state police could be trusted. The fire wouldn't destroy all the evidence. Gregory's twisted activities in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the dean's house would be exposed.

"I can't see her anymore," Bernadette said, her voice barely discernible over the high-powered whoosh of the hoses fighting the blaze.

"Who?" Ginny asked. "Who can't you see anymore?"

"The Holy Mother." Bernadette looked up at Ginny. "Ever since I first had a vision of her, I could always see her. I could always hear her. But not anymore."

Ginny pulled the girl toward even closer. "She's still there. She's always there. Maybe she feels now we can get by a little better on our own."

They stood there watching until the house was nothing more than a smoldering ruin.

88.

"To think," Marjorie Pequod said as she wiped down the counter at the Yellow Bird, "all of this was going on right under our noses here in Lebanon."

"I never liked that Ted Gregory," Wally said from the kitchen, shaking his head and dropping some frozen french fries down into the deep fryer. "Or his wife either."

Marjorie shuddered. "Perry told me they found the remains of those two missing girls, Joelle Bartlett and Tish Lewis, in the ruins of the dean's house."

"The Gregorys were sick," Wally opined. "Sick and twisted."

Marjorie was nodding emphatically. "Well, it'll all come out in the story Gayle Honeycutt is writing." She folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow to look at Wally. "She claims she was there that night at the dean's house as an undercover reporter. She claims she never really joined the cult-she just told people she did in order to get inside and get a scoop."

Wally laughed. "It's absurd really. In this day and age. People worshipping the devil as if he was real."

Marjorie's eyes moved up to the TV set on the wall, where the Reverend Bobby Vandiver was preaching one of his infamous fire-and-brimstone sermons as below him, a 1-800 number scrolled across the screen for people to call in and donate their money.

Marjorie snapped off the television. "Maybe the devil is more real than you think," she muttered under her breath.

"To think so many good people got sucked in. Cops, teachers..." Wally shuddered.

"Well, at least one good thing came out of it," Marjorie said. "Perry being named acting sheriff. Wasn't it wonderful how everyone was crowing over him, praising him for how he rooted out the cult in our midst? He'll be elected officially this spring, you just watch! And to think people called that boy crazy!"

"For me," Wally was saying, "the creepiest part of all was how that TV commentator Joyce Davenport was found burned to death-hanging upside down on a cross! How twisted is that that?"

Indeed, Joyce's death had ensured that Lebanon was all over the national news. Crews from all the networks had poured into the little town, filming the blackened husk of the dean's house. They reported that Joyce Davenport had been a graduate of the college, but her connection to the cult was unclear.

"I can't imagine Wilbourne surviving all this," Wally said, flipping a hamburger. "I mean-to think there's been a cult of devil worshippers operating at the place for decades!"

"Well, that Dr. Virginia Marshall seems like one smart lady," Marjorie said. "I heard the interview she gave on TV yesterday. The board of trustees-the ones who haven't been arrested, that is-asked her to serve as interim dean of students."

"Has she agreed?" Wally asked.

Marjorie nodded. "She said she would, so long as she didn't have to teach any cla.s.ses. She has a book to finish, she said."

Wally grunted. "I'll bet she does. Everyone connected with this thing will write a book."

He placed hamburgers on each of three plates, then loaded them up with fries as well. "Order up," he told Marjorie.

"I just hope the town's back to normal by next week," Marjorie said, expertly taking hold of all three plates at once. "After all, it's Christmas."

She brought the burgers and fries to the three kids in the booth. Billy Honeycutt and Mike and Bernadette deSalis.

"Thanks, Marjorie," Billy said.

"You bet," she said. "Hey, Mike. You're all better, eh?"

Mike smiled. "Yes, ma'am. Fine as can be."

Billy clapped him on the back. "It's good to have my buddy again."

"And you, too, Bernie?" Marjorie asked. "Feeling fine yourself?"

The girl nodded. "No more visions," she said. But there was a tinge of sadness in her voice as well.

After Marjorie left, Billy took a bite of his burger and fixed his eyes on Bernadette.

"So," he asked, "what do you think happened to Sue?"

Sue. The name had not pa.s.sed his lips since the night of the fire. He'd been wanting to ask Bernie about her, but hadn't dared. Mr. and Mrs. DeSalis had refused to let Billy's mother speak to the girl for the article she was writing, and Billy refused to be put in the position of knowing something his mother would try to pry out of him. Not that Mom could intimidate him quite as easily as she once had. He believed her when she said she hadn't known the cult planned on murder, but he had his doubts over her claim that she'd only gotten involved in order to land a scoop. He knew his mother too well, and she knew he knew her. There was a new balance between Billy and Gayle, and he was glad of that.

But now, after nearly a week, his thoughts had returned to the girl he had loved so briefly. The girl he'd never really had the chance to love-but whose feelings for him, and his for her, might have prevented something even more terrible from happening that night in the dean's bas.e.m.e.nt.

Neither Bernie nor Mike said anything in response to Billy's question. They simply looked down at their plates.

"I know she must have burned to death," Billy said. "Even if they're still unable to identify her body."

"Then why are you asking, dude?" Mike said.

"I mean-well, do you really think she was what they said she was?"

Bernadette lifted her dark eyes to face him. "What does it matter now, Billy?"

"I just want to know-if she died-what happened to her."

Bernadette looked out the window, and seemed momentarily interested in something she saw there. Then she smiled, and returned her eyes to Billy.

"Remember what Dr. Marshall said," she told him. "Sue was as much her mother's daughter as her father's."

Billy just nodded, and began eating his lunch.

"Excuse me a minute, guys," Bernadette said. "I just saw a friend of mine from school. I'll be right back."

She slid out of the booth, struggling into her down parka. Outside, she crossed the street, and hurried after the figure in the blue jacket she'd spotted from the window.

"Wait!" Bernadette called.

The figure, wearing a wool hat and scarf, paused.

"Where are you going?" Bernadette asked.

She looked up at the other girl's face.

"I'm not quite sure," Sue answered.

Bernadette was certain Billy and her brother couldn't see who she was talking to. She smiled at Sue.

"I was positive that you survived," Bernadette said. "But I'm no longer absolutely certain about things. I've kind of lost my second sight."

Sue smiled. "You get to go back to being a normal girl. Lucky you."

"You can be a normal girl, too."

Sue scowled. "After all that's happened? After all I've learned?"

"You're just as much-"