The Devil's Footprints

For Margie and Jeanie

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, my deepest gratitude goes to my wonderful editor, Denise Zaza, and everyone at MIRA Books for their encouragement and support, and to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, for her expert guidance.

Many thanks, also, to Breathe for their amazing friendship and inspiration.

Prologue

The legend

On the night of January 10, 1922, a full moon rose over the frozen countryside near Adamant, Arkansas, a tiny community five miles north of the Louisiana state line. The pale light glinted on freshly fallen snow and spotlighted the oil derrick recently constructed in Thomas Duncan’s barren cotton fields.

Despite the gusher that had been discovered on his property a few months after the Busey Number One had come in near El Dorado, Thomas refused to move to more comfortable accommodations in town, preferring instead to remain on the family farm he’d inherited from his father nearly half a century earlier.

Thomas liked being in the country. His nearest neighbor was nearly two miles away and he did sometimes get lonely, but the farm made him feel closer to his wife, Mary, who had passed away five years ago. She’d been laid to rest beneath a stand of cottonwoods on a hillock overlooking the river, and Thomas had tied bells in the branches so she would have music whenever a breeze stirred.

All day long, the chime of the bells had been lost in the icy howl of an Arctic cold front that roared down from the northeast. The gusts had finally abated in the late afternoon, but the weather was still bitter, even for January, and a snowfall—the first Thomas could remember in over a decade—blanketed his yard and fields in a wintry mantel. He watched the swirl of flakes from his front room window until dusk. Inexplicably uneasy, he fixed an early supper and went up to bed.

Something awakened him around midnight. The snow brought a preternatural quiet to the countryside, the silence so profound that Thomas could easily discern the pump out in the field as it siphoned oil from deep within the earth. Early on, the mechanical rhythm had kept him awake until all hours, but he was used to it now and that wasn’t what had disturbed his rest.

Still half-asleep, he thought at first he’d heard a gunshot and he wondered if someone was out tracking a deer. Then he worried there might have been an explosion at the well; he got up to glance out the window where the wooden derrick rose like an inky shadow from the pristine layer of snow.

As he crawled back under the warm covers, he heard the sound again, a loud, steady clank, like something being dropped against the tin roof of his house.

Or like heavy footsteps.

The hair at the back of Thomas’s neck lifted as a terrible dread gripped him. He scrambled out of bed, pulled on his clothes and grabbed a shotgun and coat on his way outside.

Using a side door to avoid the slippery porch, he trudged around to the front of the house where he had a better view of the roof.

The moon was bright on the snow, a luminous glow that turned nighttime into a subdued twilight, and the air was pure and so cold that his nostrils stung when he breathed. He turned, looked up and what he saw chilled him to the bone. Cloven footprints started at the edge of the roof, moved in a straight line up the sloping tin and disappeared over the peak.

Slowly, Thomas turned in a circle, his gaze encompassing the yard, the barn, the cotton fields and finally returning to his house and then up the porch steps right to his front door. He saw now what he had not noticed before. The footprints were everywhere. He’d never seen anything like them. He’d lived in the country all his life and he knew the tracks hadn’t been made by a four-legged animal, but by something that walked upright. And the stride was long and at least twice as wide as the footprints Thomas had left in the snow.

A terrible premonition settled over him. The farmhouse had been his home since he was a boy, and on Sunday mornings when his neighbors headed into town for church services, he had instead walked the fields alone. The peace he found there was deep and profound, the clean silence of the freshly plowed earth more suited to his idea of prayer and reflection. But now, as he stood in his own front yard, Thomas Duncan had the sense that a part of his heritage had been desecrated.

An urgency he couldn’t explain prodded him, and he rushed back to the house, avoiding the prints on the steps and across the frozen porch as he flung open the front door. His heart hammered against his chest as he stepped inside, expecting to see melting tracks on the plank flooring. The only snow, however, was from his own boots.

Quickly he bolted the door and strode down the narrow hallway to the kitchen. As he opened the back door, his gaze dropped. The prints started at the threshold and continued down the steps and across the yard to the open field, as if something had come in the front door, passed through the house without leaving a mark, and let itself out the back way.

More afraid than he’d ever been in his life, Thomas moved back inside and clicked the thumb-lock on the door. He shoved a chair under the knob and sat down at the table, shotgun across his knees, to wait for daylight.

By morning, word of the footprints had spread throughout the town, and with it, speculation as to their source. One of Thomas’s neighbors followed the tracks right up to the edge of the river where they continued in the same straight line on the other side.

For several nights after that, some of the men sat up with Thomas, waiting to see if the strange phenomenon reoccurred. When nothing happened, the community began to breathe a little easier—until a local preacher sermonized that the drillers, in their quest to strike it rich, had somehow punched a hole straight down to hell, unleashing the devil himself to run unbridled across the countryside.

The cloven footprints vanished with the melting snow and were eventually forgotten in the tiny Arkansas community.

Then seven decades later, they reappeared near the mutilated body of sixteen-year-old Rachel DeLaune.

One

She had no idea he was there.

Seated on the porch steps of the old Duncan farmhouse, the girl remained blissfully unaware of his vigil. If she had turned she would have seen him, but she didn’t turn. Instead, she pulled her jacket more tightly around her slight body, as if stricken by a sudden chill.

In the distance, the ancient bells up in the cottonwoods tinkled in the shifting twilight. Ghost music, he thought. A serenade for the dead.

He listened for a moment, eyes closed, anticipation strumming the nerve endings along his spine. Then he crept a few steps closer.

And still she heard nothing.

Not surprising. He’d learned a long time ago the importance of a silent approach. No squeaking shoes. No snapping twigs. Not even an exhaled breath. He moved like a shadow, like a stealthy predator bearing down with eagle-eyed precision on his prey.

Her head suddenly lifted, as if yanked by the invisible bond that connected them, and he froze, heart hammering, until the danger passed.

She settled back to her daydreaming as her dog played nearby in the tall grass. Her back was to him; he longed to call out her name, make her turn so he could glimpse her face, stare deeply into those dark, dark eyes.

A shiver coursed through him. He wanted that contact more than anything in the world, but it couldn’t be today. It would be night soon, and the longer he stayed out, the harder it became to control his natural urges. The demons driving him sometimes made him careless and greedy and all too willing to risk everything he needed to keep hidden.

But for her, it might be worth it.

Outwardly, she looked like a normal girl. Straight dark hair with a fringe of bangs across her forehead. Pale skin. Deep brown eyes. Nothing at all extraordinary about her appearance.

On the inside, though, where it counted the most, Sarah DeLaune was anything but normal.

She was young, only thirteen, so he had to be very careful with her. He was older, wiser and—in some ways—worldlier, although he could shed his dreary veneer as easily as peeling away the Goth persona he’d adopted. Unlike normal-looking Sarah, he had embraced the trappings of darkness, because without the black clothes and heavy makeup, he became someone else.

“Gabriel, you leave that squirrel alone. You hear me?” she scolded her dog. “Don’t make me cut a switch!”

He smiled at the idle threat. Sarah would never harm a hair on that mutt’s head. Until now, Gabriel had been her only companion. Until now.

The dog trotted over to the steps, and Sarah cupped his homely face in her hands, scratched behind his shapeless ears. Gabriel started to flop at her feet worshiping her, but a change of wind brought a new scent, a new excitement, and the dog whirled, his keen eyes searching the shadows at the corner of the house.

He started to step back out of sight, but it was too late. He’d gotten careless and now he’d been spotted.

As Gabriel bounded toward him, he reached into his pocket and snagged one of the treats he kept in a plastic bag. He’d learned early on that Sarah’s dog had a weakness for bacon.

Skidding to a halt, the ugly mutt sniffed his hand, then greedily gobbled the morsel right from his palm. He dug out another, his gaze never leaving Sarah.

She’d risen from the steps and stood looking at him as if she didn’t quite know what to do. Her instincts told her to run, but her curiosity urged her to stay. For a girl like Sarah, there really was no choice.

Slowly, she walked through the dead weeds toward the corner of the house, peering into the shadows.

He drew several quick breaths as he watched her. He’d been in her house on any number of occasions when the family was out. He’d drifted through the silent rooms, touched her things, absorbed her scent. He knew her so well by now. Her habits, her secrets, her innermost fears. Sometimes, it almost seemed as if she were a mirror image of himself. And yet for all that, he’d never before been this close to her.

A quiver of excitement vibrated through him as their eyes met for the first time. In that instant, he could feel her gaze penetrating the darkest recesses of his soul, probing the deepest corners of his mind, the way he’d searched every crevice of her room.

“Hey, you!” she called. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The intensity of her focus disconcerted him and he had to glance away as she approached. “I just wanted to have a look around. I didn’t think anyone would be here this time of day.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” She gave him a scowling appraisal. “Who are you anyway? I’ve never seen you out here before.”

“My name is Ashe Cain,” he said, careful to remain in the shadows where she couldn’t get a good look at him.

“Never heard of you, and I know everyone in town.”

“I’m not from Adamant.”

That caught her interest. “Where you from then?”

“Does it matter? I’m not trespassing, am I?”

“Yeah, but nobody gives a shit about this place.” She cocked her head as she continued to study him, apparently not the least bit afraid. He should have had more faith, he realized.

“Ashe Cain.” She repeated his name slowly, as if testing the feel of the syllables against her lips. “Is that your real name or did you just make it up?”

The question startled him. “No, it’s my real name. Why?”

“Because all the Goth kids at my school give themselves lame-ass names like Twilight and Shadow.” She paused with a mocking smile. “And Ashe.”

He scoffed at her suggestion. “Don’t lump me in with those poseurs. I’m not like that.”

“Why’d you come out here then?” She nodded toward the old farmhouse behind him. “This is their hangout.”

“I came to see the footprints.”

Something darted through her eyes before she gave a derisive laugh. “That’s just a stupid legend. The footprints don’t really exist.”

“Are you sure?”

She scratched the back of her knee. “I’ve been out here lots of times and I’ve never seen them.”

“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not real. Besides, I have seen them.”

“You’ve seen the footprints? Where?”

“I can show you if you want.”

A gust of wind ruffled her dark hair, the same breeze that stirred the bells in the distance. For the first time, he sensed her hesitancy. Not from fear, exactly, but from an instinctive resistance that would have to be slowly and carefully chipped away.

That same thrill of anticipation soared up his spine, and he turned his head so she wouldn’t see his smile.

She thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I have to get home. My old man hates it when I’m late for dinner.”

“I hope you’re not leaving on my account. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you.”

Her head shot up. “Do I look afraid? Please. Besides, you even think about laying a hand on me, my dog will kick your Emo ass.”

He glanced down at the complacent mongrel at her side. “I can see that.”

“He’s a lot meaner than he looks,” she warned.

He knelt and held out his hand, and Gabriel came over to sniff for more bacon. “Nah, he likes me. Don’t you, boy? Good dog,” he crooned, burying his hand in the soft fur. “I used to have a dog just like this. Maybe they came from the same litter.”

The notion seemed to intrigue her. “Gabriel just showed up at my house one day. I always wondered where he came from.” She paused as an unwelcome thought struck her. “You’re not going to claim your dog ran away or something, are you?”

“No, he died. Someone poisoned him.”

“On purpose? Man, that bites.” She dropped to the grass beside Gabriel, dinnertime and her earlier reticence forgotten. “What kind of psycho would do something like that to a poor, helpless animal?”

“Someone evil,” he said. “Someone without a soul.”

Their gazes met and he saw her shiver. “My sister keeps bugging my folks to get rid of Gabriel. She hates him.”

“Are they going to?”

“Probably. My dad takes her side every damn time. They both make me sick.”

Her anger caused his heart to beat even harder. He had to take a couple of breaths to curtail his excitement.

Sarah wrapped her arms around Gabriel and gave him a squeeze. “They’ll be sorry, though, won’t they, boy?”

“What are you going to do?”

She lifted her thin shoulders. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”

“Maybe I can help you.”

Her expression turned suspicious. “Why would you do that?”

“Because that’s what friends do. They help each other out.”

“News flash, retard. We’re not friends. You don’t even know me.”

Oh, but I do, Sarah. Still he had to be careful, not push too hard.

“And anyway, I don’t need your help and I don’t want any friends. Gabriel is all I need.” Her tone was harsh and defiant, but he, and only he, could see the bereft shadow in her eyes.

His chest tightened; he knew that pain so well. They were so much alike, he and Sarah. Dark, sad, lonely. Her solitude drew him like a newborn baby grasping for its mother’s breast.

She scrambled to her feet and dusted off the seat of her jeans. “Hey, I’m sorry I called you a retard.”

He smiled. “That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I hate when people call me that.”

“Who calls you that?”

She answered with a shrug. If she noticed the edge in his voice, she didn’t let on. “Are you coming back out here tomorrow?”

“I will if you want me to.”

“Like I care one way or the other. I was just asking.”

But that was a lie. She did care. Whether she knew it or not, she needed him as much as he needed her. She’d come back tomorrow, because she wouldn’t be able to help herself.

Sitting cross-legged in the grass, he watched her cut across the edge of the field toward the road, Gabriel at her heels. The air chilled as the twilight deepened, and he knew he needed to be on his way, too. The voices inside his head were getting more desperate by the moment. He was out of time. He couldn’t ignore them any longer.

He rose and stood listening to the bells pealing in the distance. Death music. He smiled. A serenade for the doomed.

Two

Fourteen years later

Winter came late as it always did to the Deep South.

It arrived with only a whisper through the magnolia trees—a creeping shadow, an unwelcome presence easily ignored until a bitter cold front swept down from Canada, bringing freezing rain and record-breaking temperatures all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Downed power lines, disrupted city services, massive pileups on the interstates—it was the kind of chaos New Orleans hadn’t known since Katrina.

Even without the inconveniences, Sarah DeLaune hated the cold. Earlier, as she listened to sleet pelt against her windows, she’d been gripped by a strange anxiety, and she found herself wondering how she would cope if summer never came again. If the winter storm raging outside her house was not merely an anomaly, but a permanent shift in the subtropical climate of the Gulf Coast.

As she fantasized about being trapped in a frozen universe, she’d slipped so deeply into the gloom of her own thoughts that even the Valium she’d taken mid-morning couldn’t dig her out.

She’d recognized the early stages of cabin fever, and in spite of the incessant warnings issued by the weather service, she’d gone out, precariously negotiating the icy streets to the French Quarter, where she found the seedy bar that had been her hangout of late warm and inviting.

The party atmosphere, along with a few drinks and half a Xanax, had nudged her toward a mellower outlook, and at midnight she’d gone home to bed, eventually sinking into the kind of bone-melting sleep she hadn’t known in months.

She’d been dreaming about her dead sister when the phone woke her up. She had no idea how long it had been ringing, because even after she opened her eyes, the sleep demons held her firmly in their grasp. Rachel’s disembodied head floated above the bed, and the barest hint of sulphur hung on the chilly air, then another piercing ring sent the nightmare skittering back to the darker realm of Sarah’s subconscious.

Her movements lethargic and dreamlike, she sat up in bed, willing her hand toward the receiver. But the caller had given up. In the ensuing quiet, Sarah could have sworn she heard the ghostly ticking of her alarm clock, even though she’d unplugged it days ago.

Leaning back against the headboard, she wondered how long she’d been asleep. She wanted to know the time, too, but not enough to get up and go find another clock. Nor did she check her phone to see who had been calling at so late an hour. A phone call after midnight was never a good thing.

Her first thought was that her ailing father had taken a turn for the worse. When she’d been there a week ago, the doctor had warned her that the old man had only a few months at best. The doctor had tried to break it to her gently, but he needn’t have worried. Sarah would hardly be grief-stricken when the time came. She and her father had never been close. Sometimes, when he looked at her with the same old contempt, she wondered why she even bothered. She could have drifted along quite happily in their estrangement if Michael—Dr. Garrett—hadn’t persuaded her to try and make amends before it was too late.

He liked to tell her that avoidance wasn’t a solution, but Sarah wasn’t so sure about that. Sweeping her problems under the rug had worked pretty well for her in the past. Might have continued to work, if the insomnia hadn’t forced her back into treatment. And now, thanks to her visits back home, the nightmares had also returned.

Everything is connected, Sarah.

Well, no kidding.

She jumped, realizing that she’d drifted off again. Sitting upright in bed with her eyes wide open. She hadn’t been asleep, but the last few moments—or had it been hours?—had passed without her awareness. Now the phone was ringing again.

Someone really wanted to get in touch with her.

Sarah waited a moment, hoping the caller would give up again. When that didn’t happen, she reached for the phone with a sigh, as she glanced out the window. Just beyond her tiny courtyard, the dead branches of an oak tree windmilled in a frigid gust.

“Hello?”

“Finally.”

She recognized the voice at once, and his exasperated tone was like the prick of a needle against her spine. How like Sean Kelton to think she had nothing better to do, even in the middle of the night, than wait for his call.

“Are you there?” he demanded.

“Yes, I’m here. What do you want?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Her hand tightened on the phone. “What do you mean?”

“It took you forever to answer and now you won’t say anything. It’s like you’re there, but you’re not.”

“For God’s sake, it’s the middle of the night. I was asleep.”

Sean fell silent. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a bit. “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”

“It couldn’t wait until morning?”

“I didn’t know I’d wake you up,” he said defensively. “You never sleep unless…” His voice trailed off with the slightest edge of accusation. “What are you taking these days?”

“That’s none of your business. You gave up the privilege of poking around in my private life when you moved out.”

Hang up, a little voice urged her. Just press the button and make him go away.

His voice was so familiar, the regret it stirred was still so deep that Sarah’s free hand reached out for the pill bottle on her nightstand. Not finding it in the dark, her fingers scrambled across the wood surface.

“It may not be any of my business, but I still care about you, Sarah. I’ve been hearing things lately that worry me.”

“What kind of things?”

“You’ve been hanging out in some pretty rough places.”

“What, are you spying on me now?” The crab-like hand searched through the nightstand drawer and closed, like a claw, around a plastic medicine bottle. She cradled the phone against her shoulder as she twisted off the cap, then dry-swallowed half a Xanax. The bottle was alarmingly empty.

“I’m concerned about you. I know how you get when you drink. Especially if you’re still popping pills.”

“Oh, and how do I get, Sean? Why don’t you tell me?”

Another pause, one that seemed filled with his own regret. “You get reckless.”

“You used to like that about me.”

“There’s a difference between being reckless and self-destructive. Took me a while to figure that out, but I see it pretty clearly now.”