"I don't really know if it's important.""Yeah, so spit it out anyway."

"Okay. You wouldn't happen to know where Porter is originally from would you?"

"Not off the top of my head, why?"

"Because of some of the choices he's made lately," I explained. "Using the page from Hexen und Hexenmeister for one. The nail for another."

"I thought the nail was pretty obvious," he said.

"On the surface, yes, but he could have guaranteed that we could ID the body in a lot of other ways. The nail has symbolism of its own..." I let my voice trail off.

After a moment, Ben spoke up. "Okay, so you wanna enlighten us mortals?"

I was so caught up in pondering the query that I just gave him an offhanded answer. "Witches aren't immortal, Ben."

"Yeah, whatever. You wanna fill me in please? What about the nail?"

"What?"

"The nail, Rowan. You're obsessin' about the nail, and I'm kinda lost."

At some point while I was staring off into space, he had retrieved his notebook from his pocket, and he now appeared poised to record any pearl of wisdom I may utter. I was afraid he was about to be disappointed by a cheap, plastic imitation.

"Oh, that. Nails are a major component of Witch jars and have been long thought by certain cultures to act as a deterrent to magickal forces and WitchCraft. Kind of a protective talisman of sorts."

"Do I wanna know what a Witch jar is?"

I shrugged. "It's just a version of the talisman. I can give you details if you want them."

"Is it important?"

"I don't know."

"You don't seem to know a lot today."

My reply was laced with sarcasm. "Thanks a lot."

"Just an observation." He shrugged then continued. "Okay, so anyway, two plus two equals what? Thirty-seven?"

I furrowed my brow deeper and shook my head. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm tryin' to figure out where you're headed with this. You're just talkin' about nails and the Hex Meister book. What's that got to do with where Porter comes from?"

"Like I said, the whole nail mythology fits in very well with particular cultures, such as the Pennsylvania Dutch. Add in the book which is German..."

The distance-muted jangle of a telephone floated down the corridor and came tous through the doorway.

"So what you're sayin' is that you think Porter might be from Pennsylvania."

"Maybe. Maybe not. It's just a thought."

"And it tells us what?"

"That's what is puzzling me. I don't know."

"I see." He flipped his notebook shut with a frown and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Well that was a waste of time."

"Cut me some slack, will you, Ben," I stated. "You're the one who asked."

He held up his hands. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. It's been a long one for all of us I guess."

I heard R.J. pick up the phone on the fourth ring and answer it with a solemn "Harper residence."

Ben glanced up the hallway from his position leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, then looked back at me, and cocked his head toward the front of the house.

"Looks like they're gettin' ready to bring 'er back this way," he told me. "Guess we'd better make an appearance."

"Yeah," I nodded. "You're right."

"Hey, Rowan." A young man with long dark hair poked his head around the side of the door. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay, R.J.," I told him with a slight smile.

"Good," he nodded quickly. "So, like, the phone's for you."

"For me?" I asked, "Who is it?"

"I didn't catch his name, but he said he was a cop." He shrugged. "He just asked if he could speak to Rowan Gant."

"I'm with Ben already. Why would the police be calling me here?" I puzzled.

"Albright's probably got a copper checkin' up on you," Ben offered. "It'd be just like her."

"Great." I rolled my eyes. "Just what I need. Okay, R.J., I'll be right there."

"'Kay."

The young man disappeared behind the wall, and we heard him moving back up the hallway.

"Be just your luck she'll get on the phone and start chewin' on you again," my friend offered.

"This wouldn't be a good time for that," I returned.

"Hey, at least I warmed her up for you.""Thanks, Ben," I said with something nearing good-natured sarcasm rimming my voice. "Thanks ever so much."

Everyone had moved back into the dining room before I ventured into the corridor and made my way to the front of the house. Ben tagged along behind me, ostensibly to lend some moral support if I was about to be verbally worked over by Albright yet again.

My left shoulder was beginning to ache, and the pain was going out of its way to make itself known. I'd had trouble with the joint ever since Porter had rammed an ice pick into it that night on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, especially when I was faced with a change in the weather like today. Not to mention, bouncing it from the doorframe on Ben's van had only served to aggravate the old injury. I took a moment to rotate it in the socket and felt a grating pop, which just made it worse. I winced and hoped the ibuprofen would be kicking in soon.

"You okay?" Ben asked.

"Shoulder," I told him.

He nodded then leaned his back against the wall opposite me. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Uh-huh," I grunted. "I'll get you back."

"So, don't worry too much," he continued, keeping his voice low. "If they want you to come in, I'll go with ya'."

I nodded acknowledgement back at him as I picked up the handset from the telephone table and pressed it against my ear. "Hello. This is Rowan Gant."

I was greeted with the hollow sound of static that told me the phone was definitely off hook at the other end, but there was nothing else. For a moment, I thought that I might have been placed on hold. However, as I listened, I was certain that I could hear the thready sound of breathing intertwined with the semi-silence issuing from the earpiece.

"Hello?" I spoke again. "Anyone there?"

"You must excuse me," a painfully familiar voice returned. "It is not every day that I speak with the spawn of Satan."

Chapter 11:.

I froze.There wasn't much else I could do.

The voice sounded hollow and distant, but there was no mistaking to whom it belonged.

The pain in my shoulder erupted from a smolder to an intense blaze, just like a fire suddenly fed by a back draft. The sharp ache coursed down my arm, searing every nerve ending in its path, before ricocheting from my fingertips, and driving back upward into my skull. I closed my eyes and sighed heavily as the burning spasm tightened my scalp and opened the gates for the dull throb that had been sequestered in the back of my head.

What I wanted to do at this very moment was to explode with anger. Instead, I forced myself to remain grounded and keep my voice even. I opened my eyes and turned to face Ben as I spoke, "Hello, Eldon."

My friend had been slouched against the wall, and he now came fully to attention, his face masked with a look of incredulity as he stared back at me.

"Porter?" he mouthed the question silently, holding his hand to emulate a telephone as he placed it to the side of his head.

I nodded slowly in response.

"You would have been proud of your disciple, Gant," Porter was telling me. "He maintained his allegiance to you right up to the end."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

"Book of Revelation," I offered. "I already know you can quote the Bible, Eldon.

Why don't you stop hiding behind someone else's words?"

"Hiding? You are the one hiding, Gant. I am walking in the light of God."

"You'll excuse me if I have a little trouble with that, Eldon," I offered. "I seem to recall your God saying 'Thou shalt not kill.'"

"He also states that there is a time to kill. Ecclesiastes..."

"...Three, three. Yeah, I've heard. So why don't you tell me what you really meant?"

Ben had become a flurry of activity, moving with a choreographed swiftness as he stepped forward and checked the caller ID display on the telephone's base unit. He quickly retrieved his notebook, scribbled something, and then motioned to get my attention and mouthed, "Keep him talking."

I felt like I was in the middle of a movie about a kidnapping and that I had been selected to take the call making the ransom demand. I nodded and tried to concentrate on what Porter was saying.

"...remained impenitent.""I'm sorry, Eldon," I returned. "There must be some static on the line, I didn't catch that first part."

"There's no static," he answered calmly. "You were distracted by Detective Storm instructing you to keep me on the line while he gets this call traced."

My first inclination was to assure him that his comment was untrue, but that's what always happens in the movies, and it's always a lie. I decided to go for broke.

"You're right, but can you blame us?"

Ben had taken a few steps down the hall to get out of earshot and was now whispering into his cell phone as he read off something from his notebook. I glanced down at the caller ID display and noticed that it said "PAY PHONE," and gave the number. I couldn't place the exchange other than that it was definitely a Saint Louis number.

"No, I suppose that is the sort of thing you would do," Porter replied, an eerie flatness to his voice. "His loyalty to you is misguided, but he will soon see the truth."

"What truth is that?"

"Your devotion to Satan, of course."

"I think you have me confused with somebody else."

"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices."

"Second Corinthians, chapter two, verse eleven," I told him. "Nice try, but you aren't the first person to take it out of context and throw it in my face."

I knew my comment could very possibly serve to antagonize him, but I didn't care. He'd already done his share to anger me-and he had succeeded in spades.

"Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand," he told me.

"Psalm, one-oh-nine, verse six. Come on, Eldon, you didn't really call here to recite the Holy Bible to me did you?"

Ben was nodding as he continued whispering into his phone. He looked up in my direction and motioned at me to keep Eldon on the line.

"Did you get my note?" the voice asked.

The only other time I had spoken to Porter was when he had pronounced my sentence the night he tried to kill me. Then, as now, his voice was cold and emotionless. This last comment was a sudden and unexpected exception. He sounded almost gleeful.

I felt a wave of heat flush through my face as my blood pressure rose. My free hand clenched into a hard fist, and I fought to maintain my composure.

Unfortunately, my stolid silence gave him exactly what he wanted.