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.She was here earlier as well.She heard the voice, too."Father Gregory considered that."Would you be willing to attend some counseling sessions, Tomas?"Frustrated, Tomas stepped closer to the closet and, tentatively, reached a hand out.Nothing.Wary, hereached for a pair of heels sitting on the chest of drawers.Nothing kept him from taking them.He turned back to the priest."I'm sorry to have wasted your time, Father.Could you at least wouldyou please bless the closet? Just in case?"Father Gregory nodded."I see no reason not to.If you would make room& "Tomas stepped out of the closet so that Father Gregory could stand just inside the doorway.The prieststraightened his shoulders, raised his chin and made the sign of the cross in the air."In the name of theFather, the Son "No! The protest in Tomas's head did not sound worried.It didn't sound like anything, technically.But itechoed with fury all the same."Um& Father?"" and the Holy Spirit.May this& closet& be sanctified by God's grace.May this place be illuminatedby the grace of God."There was a strange popping sound.Tomas reached for the priest."Father!""May this place " Father Gregory stumbled to silence as Tomas forcibly yanked him backward."Really!"Tomas looked quickly around them.A salamander sat on one of Marcy's bedposts.Something blackfluttered across the ceiling.And from the seemingly normal closet, he could now scent a hint ofbrimstone."Do you see anything unusual, Father? Like, about the bed? Anything at all?"The priest glanced right past the salamander and the bat, finishing with a quick, "Amen." Then he said,"About that counseling, Tomas."Something from the closet chuckled darkly, and from the priest's expression he hadn't heard it.That,Tomas realized, put Father Gregory in even more danger than he and Marcy had faced."Let's talk about it in the hall," he said quickly.Marcy stared at the computer screen in disbelief.What the so-called wizard had written about curses onthe Sacrifices and Sorcery Web site rang horribly, twistedly true.But it couldn't be& could it?Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlCould somebody have cursed her that way?Why ?She suddenly felt a lot more vulnerable here, alone in Tomas's apartment, than she liked.She needed togo upstairs and get him.Maybe he'd have an opinion on her theory.Though how he knew so much, she still wasn't quite sure.Nor was she sure she wanted to know."Stay here, pooky," she said to Snowball, who was currently sitting on top of Tomas's refrigerator whereit was warm and she had a good view."I won't even go inside the apartment I'll just knock on thedoor.That should be safe enough, shouldn't it?"Snowball stared, unblinking, from her regal height.Marcy left Tomas's place.Head filled with the disassociation of a long time online, and the arcaneinformation she'd found there, she automatically stepped into the open elevator.Just as she did everyday.Only as the grilled doors slid shut did she remember that Tomas had turned the elevator off.On the thirdfloor.She lunged for the doorsAnd everything around her turned to flame.Part 3«^»The flame surrounded her.Bright and alive, it wrapped her in its writhing, sizzling embrace.Marcy shuther eyes to scream.Surprise that she wasn't hurt silenced her.Shefelt the fire, definitely.Her whole body felt hot.Heat scraped across her skin like claws.But shewasn't actually on fire.She squinted her eyes open and found herself staring into a shifting pattern of flame and smoke thatformed some kind of sharp, planed face.The edges flickered and flared, so that sometimes it had sharpears, sometimes horns, sometimes spiky hair, but the face stayed recognizable.It really was somebody.Something.The fire was its own being.Sooty eyes with an underglow of red, like cinders, held her gaze.Sharp sparks of teeth, almost toobright to bear, twisted into something resembling a leering smile.Its heat writhed up her legs, down herarms, sharp as a blade.But some kind of intelligence was holding back, not burning her.Not yet.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlShe wasn't in Hell, she realized.Not exactly.Shewas still in the elevator.But she was in the elevator in the towering, all-encompassing embrace of some kind of demon!You aren't afraid of me? Its semblance of a mouth moved with its challenge, but that was for show.Likea poor dubbing, the undulations of the living flame didn't match its words.Instead of hearing with herears her miraculously uninjured ears Marcy was hearing its hiss in her head."Of course I'm afraid," she said, and almost gagged from the heat of its presence drying her mouth.Shetried to pull back, but it held her, powerless."What do you want?"What else would I want?"My soul?"Its black-cinder eyes flared with more red heat.Amusement? Or&Eventually, it sizzled.Now itwas starting to burn her& sort of.Heat shuddered deeper into her breasts, her stomach, herabdomen.Tongues of flame licked at her bare legs, her bare arms, her neck.She tried to shift position,tried to readjust to its intensity, but it held her fast, closer, hotter.Tongues of flame singed into her ear and the creature's sordid meaning sank in."No!" She wasn't just beginning to panic she passed panic and was making headway on hysteria."Ohno no no.And no means no.Absolutely not!"She shut her eyes to its leering, shifting face and its heat-mottled gaze, but it glowed red through hereyelids.She tried again to struggle free [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]