It was empty. Expensive vases and mirrors were smashed, and tables were overturned. But there was no sign of Douglas, Ryan, or David.

“Beatrice?” Carolyn whispered.

She crossed the foyer and noticed a trail of blood leading toward the dining room. The doors were open. Blood was everywhere. On the table, she saw the remains of a man, much of the flesh sliced off his body. His face was nearly gone, having been hacked down to expose the skull. Carolyn gasped in horror and revulsion.

Douglas? Was it Douglas?

But then, beyond the table, she saw another man lying on the floor.

She recognized Douglas’s shoes.

Was he dead too? She began hurrying toward him. But before she could get there, she felt a hand on the back of her neck. She spun around.

It was David.

All of her old terrors returned, coupled now with new ones. This man she had once loved now glared at her with dull gray eyes. The scar on his face was no longer the most hideous thing about him. Part of his head was torn away. His neck was ripped open, exposing dry gray veins. His body was riddled with bloodless bullet holes.

“Hello, Carolyn,” the zombie spoke in a throaty, gravelly voice that bore no resemblance to the one Carolyn remembered. David had been a singer, and a good one; it had been hard to believe, listening to him sing of love, that he was a cold-blooded murderer at heart. Maybe, then, this had been David’s real voice all along.

“You’re a monster,” Carolyn told him, still shaken by what she had seen on the dining room table. “Malcolm may be using you, but only an inherently evil nature could do such a thing.”

She managed to pull away from him. David’s lifeless eyes studied her as if she were a strange creature he had never seen before.

“I’ve been looking for you,” David said, a grin slowly spreading across his broken face.

She backed away, hoping that Beatrice would show herself and intervene, or at least find a way to keep David from hurting her.

“You can’t hurt me, David,” Carolyn told him. “I spent many years being afraid of you, but no longer. Your power ends now.”

David just continued to smile, taking small steps toward Carolyn. She backed up now, nearly tripping over Douglas’s body on the floor.

Beatrice. Where was Beatrice?

Had Carolyn been wrong? Was Beatrice not going to protect her?

David’s smile grew wider. Then he lunged at her, gripping her throat with his cold, clammy hands.

Chapter Forty-two

What brought Douglas back to consciousness were Carolyn’s screams.

Blood was in his throat, so thick he could taste it. He was almost choking on it. At the same time, his shoulder pained him. It felt dislocated. His ears were ringing, and his head throbbed.

But still he knew Carolyn was in danger.

He forced himself to his feet, trying to keep his balance, trying to force his eyes to focus on the scene in front of him.

Carolyn was just outside the door. David Cooke was strangling her to death. Her screams had been replaced by an intense gagging.

Douglas leapt.

He had no idea if he had the strength. He had no idea if he’d even make contact with the brute. But all he needed to do was to dislodge him a bit, make him loosen the grip he had around Carolyn’s neck.

Douglas bounced off Cooke and fell back against the wall of the corridor. But it seemed his effort had done the trick. He could hear Carolyn now gulping in air. But still the zombie had her in his grip. Douglas tried to stand again, but this time the pain in his shoulder flared up so fiercely that it knocked him back to his feet.

In that moment came a huge bang. Douglas had no idea what it was until he saw David Cooke drop Carolyn onto the floor. Then came another bang.

Someone was shooting at Cooke.

Douglas managed to look over his shoulder. It was Uncle Howie, with the second rifle.

David Cooke roared in fury. There were now so many holes in his left shoulder that he could not seem to lift that arm. That’s when Douglas realized that if they couldn’t kill the creature, they could immobilize it.

Cooke was lumbering across the room toward Uncle Howie. The old man shot again, shrewdly aiming once again for the weakened shoulder. The left arm now hung limply at the creature’s side.

But with his right arm he still managed to haul off and backhand Uncle Howie across the face, sending the old man flying backward. The rifle clattered across the marble floor. Douglas knew he had a microsecond to act, or else Cooke would reach the gun first and then snap it in two like a matchstick, just as he had done with the other one.

Disregarding every muscle that screamed out in pain, Douglas threw himself across the floor, landing on the rifle. He could hear the pounding of Cooke’s footsteps behind him. Even without looking around, he knew the zombie was standing over him, reaching down to grab him, to twist in his body in half.

“I don’t think so,” Douglas cried, flipping over and in nearly a simultaneous move, pointing the rifle up at Cooke and firing directly at the beast’s wounded shoulder. The left arm blew completely off the body.

Cooke let out a long wail. With his right arm he made a grab for Douglas, but he was off balance now, and toppled to the ground. Douglas stood over him and fired twice more into the hole in his neck. The second shot severed the spine. No matter how much his body ached, Douglas managed one swift kick of the zombie’s head, snapping it free of the body and sending it rolling across the floor. All the while the creature’s mouth still moved in anger.

The body, too, wasn’t ready to quit. It tried to get back onto its feet by using its right arm. But Douglas kept shooting into the creature’s back, smashing the spinal cord to bits. Finally the zombie could do nothing but writhe on the floor. They had nothing more to fear from David Cooke.

But then Malcolm began to scream.

Chapter Forty-three

“Mr. Young!” Carolyn called, her voice raspy, her throat painful. “Talk to him! Talk to your son!”

The baby’s shrieks threatened to make them all deaf. The sound was like nothing they’d ever heard before. Sharp, shrill, piercing. It seemed to come from every brick, every beam of the house. Now deprived even of his toy-a zombie named David Cooke-Malcolm’s tantrum had gone over the edge.

“What am I supposed to say?” the old man asked as Carolyn helped him up off the ground.

“Tell him you will bring him to his mother,” Carolyn said.

The pitiful man just looked at her with his watery, bloodshot eyes. “How am I going to do that?”

“Ask her for forgiveness, and Beatrice will meet you halfway,” Carolyn told him.

How she knew that, she had no idea. All she could do right now was trust her gut. All the good psychic investigators she had worked with-Kip, Diana, many others-had told her that there were times when all you had left was your gut. And when that happened, your gut instinct would never steer you wrong.

“How can I dare ask for forgiveness for what I did?” Howard Young lamented. “I was a cowardly, ruthless young man motivated by greed. I coldly took three lives that night and in the process ruined dozens more lives over the course of the next eight decades. How could I possibly stand here and ask for forgiveness? I do not deserve forgiveness. I deserve damnation.”

Malcolm’s cries had dissolved into stuttering hiccups of fear and frustration.

“Your son is crying for you,” Carolyn told Howard.

The old man looked around the room.

“My son,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Carolyn said. “Your son.”

Mr. Young walked unsteadily into the center of the room, looking up at the high vaulted ceiling.

“Malcolm,” he said.

The crying flared up louder at the mention of the name.