Free Krewe of Hunters The Evil Inside 4 by Heather Graham Page A

declared against Rebecca Nurse,” the older boy practically yelled. “Oh, Mother, it grows so frightening.”
    “Father says that evil must be uprooted, and that Goody Nurse is surely evil. If the girls say that she dances with the devil, she must die!” the younger boy said.
    The breeze seemed to grow very chill, though it appeared that a summer sun blazed outside the gray miasma within the house. Once again, someone entered the room.
    He was in breeches and boots and a white cotton shirt. His long, graying hair was parted cleanly in the middle.
    He carried an ax.
    Eli Lexington! Jenna thought.
    He walked into the room, his hands moving on the ax as if he were testing the weight of it.
    “Eli?” his wife said softly.
    “Evil must die!” he roared. “Let those who dance with the devil go to the devil, and let their spawn rest in hell aside them!”
    Jenna felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Eli Lexington walked across the room, and despite his wife’s scream of protest, he brought the ax down on her shoulders, and then, wielding it again, took it viciously down upon her fallen body. The boys stared, frozen in horror. Jenna tried to close her eyes against the vision, but the image just appeared in her mind, and there was no way to hide from the horror that unfolded before her.
    Eli turned on the oldest boy.
    “Run!” the child yelled to his brother.
    The word was cut off as the ax struck his head.
    The little one had no chance to run. “Though shalt pluck out evil— thou shalt not suffer a witch to live! ” Eli roared.
    He continued to vigorously hack at his family. The last scream and moan died away. The gray air seemed to fade, and Jenna was aware that her uncle and Sam Hall were looking at her with grave concern.
    She felt weak, faint, as if she would fall. She couldn’t do that.
    “Excuse me. I need some air,” she murmured. She turned and almost stumbled. Jamie, however, was already at her side, grabbing her arm.
    “Ah, lass, the scent in there is a bit overwhelming. Felt me old knees buckling, too,” he said.
    Reaching the porch, she sank down to sit on the step. Jamie sat beside her. While he clearly wanted to be concerned for her welfare, he was also anxious to hear about what she might have experienced.
    “Jenna…Jenna…did you see? Is he innocent?”
    She looked at her uncle sadly. “Uncle Jamie, I saw—but not the present, I’m afraid. I saw Eli Lexington, and he seemed to be really crazy—he believed that his wife was a witch, and that he had to kill her. And he had to kill his sons, because she had already given them to Satan, because they’d wind up in hell.” She realized that she was shaking, her voice tremulous.
    “Wonderful. That’s really going to help us.”
    The deep, mocking voice came from above and behind her. Sam Hall. He’d slipped out onto the porch as well, concerned or curious.
    Jenna figured it was the latter.
    She stood, suddenly feeling perfectly fine. It was as if her spine had stiffened so tightly that she gained a half an inch.
    “You’re going to tell me that the boy was psychologically shattered by the strict deprivation of anything societal caused by his father’s strange religion, and that caused him to see apparitions in the house?” Sam asked. His eyes were as flat as his words.
    “No,” she said equally flatly. “In my mind, Malachi didn’t do it. Excuse me. If John Alden will allow it, I want to see the rest of the house. And, quite frankly, I think we should do this separately.” Of course, Sam was the one who was friends with John Alden—had gone to school with him—not Jamie. And still, Jenna was convinced that if she acted with authority, she would be allowed her exploration. She’d worked against this kind of man before.
    Sam shrugged. “We’re here. What the hell.”
    Yeah, what the hell. He had written her off as a kook who liked to pretend she was a medium of some kind.
    In a way, of course, it was true….
    But she was