The Witch of Stonecliff (26 page)

Dylis cupped her cheek with one soft, chubby hand. “I know.”

She shoved Eleri hard against the chest and sent her tumbling back into the cellar.

Chapter Twenty

“Look at the mess you’ve got us in!” Dylis shrieked.

Eleri dragged herself closer to the door of Stephen’s room of horrors and peered out at the couple through gaps in the wood. He sat on an old box, shifting gingerly as if he still felt the impact of her kick. Furious satisfaction welled inside her only to vanish when she remembered the man’s face while he bound her hands.

After Dylis had pushed her down the stairs, Eleri had been too stunned and hurt to move. She could hardly breathe. The air had flown from her lungs the moment her back hit the floor. Stephen had grabbed up her hands and wrapped rope around her wrists, all without speaking a word. Fury had burned in his light eyes.

“There’s no mess,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “I’ll take her to Howard. Keep her there.”

Howard? As in Dr. Howard? She ran through a mental list of men in the village. He was the only Howard she knew. Could he be involved? She’d never liked the man, but she wouldn’t have believed he was a killer.

“You can’t keep them together.” Dylis sounded horrified by the prospect.

Did she mean Kyle? Did Howard have Kyle? If he did, where could he be keeping him? A round room, the ghost had told Reece. Could he have a secret room at his practice in the village? Not isolated enough. Nor was his home. People often dropped in on him while his practice was closed. So what did that leave? He had an old barn, well more of a shed really, but it wasn’t round. A dovecote. There was an old dovecote back on the hill that overlooked his cottage. To the best of her knowledge it hadn’t been used in years. And it was round.

She had to get word to Reece and Brynn. With everything going on she’d forgotten Reece’s mobile.

“Why not? In a few days he’ll have served his purpose, and keeping them together in the meantime has some merits.” Paskin’s voice had gained strength. He sounded almost normal again.

“Your obsession with her is sick,” Dylis snapped.

Eleri looked up at agonized faces staring down at her.
Lady, that’s just the tip of his sickness iceberg
.

“You need to be upstairs seeing to the punters. I’ll deal with Eleri.”

As quietly as she could, Eleri pushed back away from the door and managed to dig the phone from her pants’ pocket.

“I have Michael minding the bar just now so I can help you clean up your mess.”

A hard, flat slap cracked in the air. Eleri jolted and nearly dropped the phone.

“Don’t you be telling me my business. Remember your place.”

He’d hit her. He’d murdered countless people including his own son. She should hardly be surprised he knocked his wife about, too.

“Haven’t you thought what it means that she was down here? She suspects. What if she’s told someone?

Her tied hands made typing awkward, but she managed.

dont reply
The last thing she needed was the phone going off and giving away that she had it.

kyle in dovecote on dr howard land

“Who cares if she did?” Paskin laughed. “I could untie her, let her run upstairs and shout what she found. Not a soul would believe her.”

A thin surge of anger burrowed inside her. Maybe not, but a little photographic evidence would go a long way. She leaned back and snapped a few pictures of the walls then texted them to Reece with the caption,
paskins cellr
.

Whatever happened to her, Paskin would finally be stopped.

“Now back to the bar, while I see to her.” Footsteps thudded her way.

She tried to shove the mobile back in her pocket, but her tied hands made her fumble, the smooth plastic slipping from her sweaty fingers. The latch lifted. Eleri slid the phone to the back corner. Hopefully the shadows would keep Paskin from noticing.

The door swung open and the man smiled down at her. “Time to take you to lover boy.”

* * *

Hot licks of pain shot up Kyle’s arms. Blood dribbled from his wrists, but the added slickness did nothing to ease the tension in the rope. If anything, all his struggling had only tightened the knots.

Howard hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he’d been more careful tying him this time. What if he never got free? If he stayed tied to this cot until the day they took him to The Devil’s Eye, what then?

The door opened and brilliant light from Howard’s lantern cut through the black, making Kyle squint.

“I’ve brought you something to eat,” Howard said, setting his lamp on the table again. His gaze fell on Kyle and a deep frown furrowed his brow. “What have you done to yourself?”

His wrists must look worse than he realized. Howard set down the tray he’d been holding on the stool and scowled at him. “I told you not to fight the ropes.”

“Untie me and I won’t.”

Howard chuckled and shook his head. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“You have my sister’s life in your hands. I won’t do anything while you’re holding my mobile.” Surely, he’d proved that point when Howard had held the phone to his ear and had him speak to his sister from a prepared script.

He’d heard the uneasiness in Sophie’s voice, but hopefully he’d reassured her enough that she wouldn’t come looking for him on her own.

Howard seemed to consider his words, so Kyle pushed on. “I need to piss, and would really rather not do it all over myself.”

“I’ll bring you a bed pan.”

“Forget it.”

“I’m a doctor, son. You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about.”

He’d rather not have the man handling his prick while he was tied down, doctor or not. He tried a new tack. “Can you at least let me move my arms? I’m starting to lose feeling in my fingers. You can’t keep me trussed up like this for days on end.”

Howard sighed, loudly. “Fine. But if you think of doing anything foolish remember how easy it would be for me to bring your sister into this.”

The larger man leaned over Kyle, pulling his arms back farther. The ache in his shoulders intensified, and then he was free. He sat up and brought his arms down. Sharp pain stabbed his shoulders and blood flooded back into his hands with a rush of pins and needles.

While his hands were still bound together in front of him, a long stretch of rope that had kept him tied to an iron hook in the wall dangled from his bindings. This reprieve would be short-lived unless he made the best of it.

“Can I step out to…?” He gestured to his fly.

“I’ll bring you a bed pan.” The man pushed a plate of beef stew at him. “I suppose I won’t have to feed you now that I’ve loosened the rope. Eat ,you want to keep your strength up.”

Kyle awkwardly accepted the plate and fork with his tied hands and set them on his lap. “Wouldn’t want me weak when you kill me.”

“No we wouldn’t,” the doctor said, flatly.

“Why is that?” Kyle asked.

“Sacrificed strength is what brings prosperity to the village.”

“And if I die willingly?”

“Back in ancient times it was an honor to be chosen, to die for the good of the people. For you to give yourself willingly would bring so much power to your sacrifice.”

“I’ll do what you want. I won’t complain about how you tie me up, where you make me piss, I’ll clear my plate when you bring me food, and when you take me to The Devil’s Eye, I’ll die with a smile on my face. I just want two things.”

Howard’s thick brows lifted and he leaned back on his stool. “And what’s that?”

“You stay the hell away from my sister.”

The other man shrugged. “That’s a given.”

“And you do whatever you have to do to get Eleri out of this mess. Lie, give her an alibi, help her leave Cragera Bay.”

“You’re quite smitten with her, aren’t you?” His nose wrinkled. “I don’t see the appeal myself.”

“Do we have a deal?”

Howard chuckled softly. “Eleri James will not see the inside of a prison cell. I swear it on my life.”

Dark amusement in the doctor’s tone turned Kyle’s insides cold. Howard was bullshitting him. Eleri wasn’t safe, and neither was his sister.

He gripped the fork upright in his hand and nodded down at it. “I can’t feed myself tied like this.”

“Right, I’ll help you, then.” Howard leaned over and Kyle brought both hands up in a fast, hard arch. The fork lodged in the fleshy skin under the man’s chin, blood spurted from between his lips. His head snapped back so fast Kyle barely glimpsed the shock in Howard’s round eyes before he stumbled over the stool and fell back onto the floor.

Kyle jumped on him, pounding his face with his bound hands until Howard’s nose crunched into a bloody pulp and his limbs stopped flailing.

Had he killed him? Some dark part of him hoped he had. But Howard’s chest rose and fell, each breath choked and labored.

On shaking legs, Kyle stood, crossed to the door and stepped out into the cold night. An open padlock hung from a hook on the door. He snapped it closed.

From where he stood on a low hill, he could see lights burning in a small cottage. He started toward it. Wind gusting off the field behind him chilled his sweaty skin and his wrists throbbed. He picked up his pace. He needed help and a phone before Paskin turned up again. If that cottage belonged to Howard, maybe he’d find his mobile.

He started across a wide dirt drive, the house barely fifty feet away, when the brilliant glare of headlamps struck him full in the face, the loud rev of a car engine filling his ears. A white van barrelled toward him.

Paskin.

Kyle ducked into the shadows cast by the cottage, nearly tripping over smooth river stones edging the garden. He grasped the window ledge, regained his balance and backed toward the front door, pressing tight to the wall.

The van jerked to a stop and the door swung open. Grunting and cussing, Paskin climbed out dragging something with him. A soft gasp reached Kyle’s ears and his blood turned to ice.

No, no, no
.

“I saw you, you little shit. Come out before I snap her neck.”

Kyle’s stomach sank to his shoes and he stepped away from the house. Under the white glow cast by the van’s lights, he could see Paskin clear as day right down to the feral smile stretched wide across his face. He had Eleri directly in front of him with one hand tangled in her hair jerking her head back and the other wrapped around her throat.

“Let her go,” Kyle growled. Fury pumped through his veins, pounded behind his eyes.

“What the bloody hell? Are you Houdini reincarnated? Where’s Howard?”

“Dead,” he lied.

Paskin snorted. “I told him not to underestimate you. You’re a slick little bastard, aren’t you?”

“Let her go,” he said again.

Eleri leveled her dark stare with Kyle’s. “Run. He’ll kill us both, anyway, and,” her voice hitched, “it will go better for me if it’s quick.”

Kyle shook his head. He wouldn’t leave her.

“Let her go, and I’ll do what you want. A willing harvest.”

“I could give a rat’s ass about a willing harvest. That’s for that lot to worry about.” He nodded at the round building Kyle had left. “My job is to gather the harvest, and for that I get my prize.”

The huge hand at Eleri’s neck eased down her chest and into her shirt. Kyle’s vision blurred at the edges. He bent his head and charged.

Paskin shoved Eleri out of the way. She hit the ground with an airy oomph just as Kyle slammed into Paskin, knocking him backward. Kyle tried to lift his hands and swing them down onto the man’s face like he had with Howard, but he’d had the element of surprise with the doctor. Paskin expected his charge. He was bigger, stronger and had already pummelled Kyle once tonight.

Paskin hit him in the ribs knocking him sideways, and the larger man overpowered him quickly, shoving Kyle onto his back and straddling his hips. Huge hands wrapped around his throat and squeezed. Kyle tried to push the man off, but his own hands, still tied together, were trapped under the weight of Paskin’s barrel chest.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Paskin whispered, though the hands cutting off his airway suggested otherwise. “I’ll keep you alive. Let you watch what I do to her.”

Kyle shoved up with both hands, but the larger man didn’t budge, he only squeezed his throat tighter. Kyle gasped, choked and fought to drag in air. His lungs burned and his vision grayed. Tiny white lights danced before his eyes.

From some distant place, he heard a primal yell followed by a thud. Weight collapsed onto his chest, but the pressure around his throat eased. Kyle dragged in deep gasping draughts of air, as much as the weight squeezing his lungs would allow. Not just a weight; Paskin’s unmoving body on top of him.

Kyle pushed up with his forearms, managed to roll the larger man off and sat up. He looked down at his attacker. Paskin’s blank eyes stared empty. Kyle turned to Eleri, who stood over him, one of the stones from Howard’s garden in her hand.

“I…I didn’t… He was killing you.” She dropped the rock to the drive with a hard thud.

Kyle swallowed. His throat hurt. He reached up with his bound hands, took Eleri’s and pulled her to him. She dropped onto his lap and he managed to lift his arms over her, holding her as tight as his ropes would allow. With a choked sob she pressed against his chest.

“I was so afraid he’d kill you.”

Kyle brushed his lips over the top of her head and whispered, “It’s over now.”

The distant wail of sirens rose up from the night.

Epilogue

Eleri lifted a stick from the wet grass and threw it as far as she could. A big black dog of no particular breed bounded after it, only to have it snatched away by a three-legged beagle at the last moment. Lola, a bulldog, didn’t even bother chasing after them; she just plodded along beside Eleri.

The back door to Kyle’s parents’ farmhouse opened, and Kyle stepped out onto the patio. Her heart swelled in her chest. She nipped her lip. Her feelings for him were so mixed-up.

Actually, that wasn’t true. She knew exactly how she felt about him. She had fallen in love, and the prospect of leaving hollowed out her insides.

Three weeks had passed since that terrible night at Dr. Howard’s. Rather than the memories turning soft and fuzzy with time, they remained as vivid as ever. She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to close her eyes and not see Stephen Paskin choking the life out of Kyle right in front of her.