Chapter 37

l caught the stick. Yanked it from his grasp and heard a teeny crack, like a skinny breadstick being snapped in half. Putnam yelped like a pup, and I realize I'd snatched it so hard and so quickly I'd broken one of his fingers.

Awww.

I snapped the stick in half with my hands alone (no breaking over the knee for this vampire chick). Tossed the pieces over my left shoulder, where they hit the floorboards with a clatter that probably sounded louder than it actually was.

Then I seized Putnam by his lapels and yanked him forward.

There it was. I could smell it now. The thing I had been looking for. The thing I needed from Putnam before I could walk away.

Fear.

"Here's the thing, Billy-boy." We were eyeball to eyeball and again, I have to hand it to the Neanderthals ... I could smell more of cotton and linen and wood than anything else. I'd assumed everything prior to, say, 1930 or so would smell like mud and shit. "None of the people you killed were witches. And none of the ones you had arrested are witches. And the young lady here-"

"Caroline Hutchinson," the would-be witch offered.

"Yeah, her. Also not a witch. See, Putnam, you couldn't tell a witch if she offered to strip and sit on your face."

"Gross!" Laura said.

"Hard times call for hard talk," I said, which was total bullshit; I just wanted to rattle Putnam's cage. He was like a big fat worm I wanted to poke and poke. And then set on fire.

"You know how I know these things, Buttmunch?" I'd started shaking him like a maraca. "Because I'm a vampire. And the pretty blonde in the back? She's the daughter of the devil."

"You have a lovely church," the Antichrist called.

"And the thing is? Even though I'm a vampire? Check it." I let go of him with one hand to snatch away his Bible and held it up over my head. "Please note that I'm standing in a church and the only reason I feel sick is because you're stupid. Please note how the Bible isn't giving me a sunburn. That's because I believe in God and I love him. Although sometimes we go awhile without speaking because the good Lord will insist on always getting his way. My sister back there? She believes, too. And she wouldn't burn an innocent woman to death if you stuck a gun in her ear."

"That's so nice, Beverly!" The Antichrist was beaming.

"So what does that tell you, Putnam? Huh? For those of us not keeping up, I'll lay it out: it tells you that you're gonna have lots and lots to answer for when you die. Which will hopefully be in the next half hour."

"Do your worst, pit spawn!"

"Don't be stupid. I promised the Antichrist I wouldn't kill you. Heck, who knows how long you could stick around?" Wikipedia, maybe, if he'd been a big shot. There were probably entire lists of all the parties involved in the whole let's-pretend-our-neighbors-are-witches campaign.

"I'm glad you remembered your promise," Laura said.

"You could hang on for a couple of decades. But sooner or later, there's gonna be a reckoning. You, and these sheep-" I jerked him toward the pews, then yanked him back until we were face-to-face again. "See, I'm not threatening, I'm warning. Nobody lives forever. So you guys might all want to get your stories straight."

Then I dropped him. He hit the floor ass first and stared up at me like a man who'd gotten the shock of his life. Which I guess he had.

I handed him his Bible, and he held it up as if to ward me off. Or hide behind.

"Cut the shit," I suggested. "Let the others go. Stop lying to increase your land ownings. Trust me: you don't want us to come back. Ever."

"It's true," the Antichrist said. "Beverly Feldman will probably be even less polite next time." She added in a mutter, "If that's possible."

"I heard that," I snapped. "So, to sum up, everyone, behave or, you know, face our wrath and stuff." I grabbed Caroline's arm. "Come outside with us for a second."

I took a last look around at the good people of Salem, shook my head in disgust, and followed Laura out the door and down the steps, hauling Caroline along for the ride.

Chapter 38

Okay, listen." The three of us were back on the quiet, deserted street. I could hear excited and urgent murmurings inside, but nobody had gotten up to follow us. "We have to go now, Cathy-"

"Caroline."

"Yeah. But the thing is, I can't let this ruin your life."

Caroline blinked big, pretty eyes at me. "You have saved my life. I do believe you are witches. Though my thought is that there can be good witches in a world as strange as ours."

Honey, you don't know from strange. Still, I admired her guts. I could only assume most people in her shoes would be drooling like drunk chimps by now.

"Right, strange world, yep, good witches, okay. I just wanted to tell you that the deck won't always be stacked like this."

"Deck? As on a ship?"

I glanced at Laura, who shrugged. I took an unnecessary breath. "Okay, this is going to take a really long time and it can't. All I'm saying is, women aren't always going to be on the bottom of the dung heap of life. So you can't let a day like this make you think there's no point in following the rules if all it's going to get you is burned alive.

"There'll be a time when you can vote. You can be doctors, you can be mayors and governors and you can run for president. I mean, you won't see it, and your kids won't, but trust me when I say, better times are on the way.

"You don't have to get married and have kids if you don't want. You can decide for yourself if you want to join the army or stay home and make babies or run off and join the circus. You just-you just kinda gotta hang in there, you know?"

Caroline nodded once, cautiously. "Is it your wish to tell me there is no call to despair?"

"Yeah! Exactly. No call for it. At all. So just-you know. Keep being brave and gorgeous and things will work out."

"You are kind to lie, but a lie told in friendship is still untrue: I am not brave."

I laughed, but nicely. And Laura smiled at her. "Uh, sure, hon. You were so not brave, in fact, you called the richest guy in town a thief to his face and dared him to kill you. If that's not brave in your book, I can't wait to see what is."

"That was my woman's vanity, my pride," Caroline practically mumbled, clearly embarrassed or ashamed. "I did not speak for being fearless; I was angry."

"I know. Most people in your shoes would have been pissing themselves. Caroline Henderson, you're one in a million."

"Hutchinson," she said. "And I thank you, good lady, for your efforts on my behalf and your great kindness."

"Well, if we ever meet up again, you can buy me a Frappuccino and we'll call it even."

I took her tentatively proffered hand and shook it gently, and let go. The teeny portrait around her wrist banged against my hand, so she put both her hands behind her back, as if afraid I'd been offended.

"Maybe you should leave town, Caroline," Laura suggested. "We aren't saying you were wrong, but they might take it in their heads to punish you for what we did."

We, that was classy. Since it wasn't we at all; it was me.

"I had already given your wise advice to myself," she said wryly. "And i'truth I would not stay here if they all fell to their knees and swore upon their souls to be kind. I have money saved away. I shall go west."

"Really?"

"My heart has been there long and long," she said, but didn't elaborate. And why should she? Her business was her business.

"Okay. Well. Good luck with the west and all."

"Good luck with the Lord's work."

"Uh. What?"

"Is that not what you are doing, you and your kin? You are saving the wrongly condemned; you are doing his work."

"Not exactly," I replied, even as Laura was fighting a grin. "But we appreciate the sentiment. Don't we, little sister?"

"Yes indeed, Beverly." Laura also shook Caroline's hand. "Go well with God, Miss Hutchinson."

"And you," she replied, and spread her skirts and dropped a perfect curtsy, so pretty it was like a dance.

That was Salem, Massachusetts.

Chapter 39

l can't believe this worked out so great."

"It's something, all right."

"And the blue ribbon goes to the Antichrist," I said, making no secret of my relief and admiration. "Time and space travel accomplished simply by the force of your will, in about seventy seconds."

"It was no big deal."

"I agree! The movies have lied to us, Laura. Time travel's a piece of cake, and you just proved it. I'm not denying it: I am im-pressed. And also a tiny bit scared."

"Betsy .. Laura began with a rebuke.

"But that's normal, right? When big sisters find out their little sisters can twist the rules of space and time like a wad of damp paper towels? It would be weird if I wasn't freaked out. In a supportive way," I added, holding my hands up in a calming gesture. "Freaked out in a loving and respectful way. Gently freaked out, I guess, is a better way to put it. Softly freaked out. Sweetly freaked out ... ?"

Laura's expression relaxed into a wry smile. "Okay. I'll admit, this whole, um ... how can I put this in a way that isn't-"

"This whole time-traveling-from-hell-and-then-back-to-hell thing. There's no way to pretty it up, Laura. There's no way to say any of that in a way that isn't startling and weird."

"It went better than I thought."

"Way better."

"In a way, you could describe the last thirty-five minutes as-"

"Awe inspiring."

"Anticlimactic."

"No!" we both cried at the same time. I shouted down Satan's stepchild with, "Awe inspiring in the sense that all our adventures should be like this. We should aspire for more days where there's lots of fretting but no real damage of any kind. We should feel awe that we haven't realized before now that these weird things that keep happening do not have to have a body count!"

"Don't misunderstand; I'm glad no one was hurt. I don't want people to get hurt. Most people," she added in a mutter I found a tad terrifying. "But this seems wrong, somehow. Like we forgot to do something. If this was an action movie, we'd only be into the second hour."

"But it's not. So we aren't. And what, are we standing here all day or what now? C'mon. Let's go find your mom and tell her we accidentally left Salem a smoking crater. Then, while she's still screaming, we tell her she can't plan on retiring for at least eight thousand more years. Oooh, the look on her face! Let's make it ten thousand."

"What do you mean?"

"Eight thousand just doesn't sound bitchy enough."

Laura shook her head. "Not that. What did you mean about standing here all day?"

I stared at my sister. We'd been having this entire conversation, patting each other on the back the whole time, in hell's waiting room. Did she need a puppet show? Signs?

Once we'd gotten out of sight, once the church was beyond the hill and Catherine or Carol or whoever couldn't see, Laura had hauled out her Hellfire sword-bink!-sliced a big half circle through the air, we clasped hands, she stepped, I stepped, we both stepped through, and here we were in the waiting area.

Ta-da!

"I've been standing here talking to you because I assumed you had something to say, eventually, and when you were finished, finally, we could then walk out the door and into hell proper."

"Okay, well, we're gonna talk about that snotty little eventually-finally thing you just did there, but we'll do that later. What are you saying?"

"There is no door."

"What? There's tons."

"Yes, those. But there's no exit anymore. Look around."

There was no denying the sinking feeling ... which was interesting, given that my blood barely moved and my heart barely beat, but stress and adrenaline still felt like sinking, swooping dismay.

But yeah. Laura was right.

There was no door.