“Justice!” Maddie cried again, her face ashen, her eyes round with terror, the gun wobbling in her hands.

“You’ll get justice, I swear, but now we need to get you to a hospital. Drop the gun,” Becca said, terror striking deep in her heart. She thought of Hudson, of their unborn child, and she knew she couldn’t die. Heart jack-hammering, she stepped out of the gun’s sights, and miraculously, the old woman didn’t train the muzzle on Becca’s moving form, just kept the barrel pointed at the doorway. “It’s all right,” Becca lied, a wary eye on the weapon and the heavy-knuckled fingers curled possessively over it. “It’s all right,” she said softly, again.

She moved closer to one side and eased the pistol away from Maddie’s nerveless fingers. Quickly, she retrieved her phone with the other and dialed Mac again. Maddie’s eyes closed. She was bleeding profusely from a wound in her abdomen. Self-inflicted? Or…what…? She set the gun down, put the phone on speaker, and tried to stanch the flow of dark blood with some of the old woman’s clothing. “Don’t move,” she said, “I’ll get help.” But there was so much blood, so damned much blood. “Hang in there.”

This time, the call went straight to voicemail, and snagging up the cell, she sputtered off where she was and that she needed an ambulance and that she was going to call 911-when he stepped from the shadows, from the hallway.

Becca froze, eyes wide. For the first time she got a good, hard look at this psycho who had been chasing her down, for that’s who he was. She nearly crumpled when she recognized his features, so like Jessie’s, so like her own. He was an older, stronger, male version of Jezebel Brentwood. And he was related to Becca in some way, as well.

“Sister,” he snarled, smiling and showing strong white teeth as he realized she recognized him for the monster he was, a murderer who was blood kin. He lifted a hand. In his fingers was a long-bladed knife. Blood dripped from its cruel razor edge.

“Why?” she whispered, gesturing vaguely toward Maddie’s crumpled form.

“Her time came.”

She saw the deadly intent in his hazel eyes as the wind raged around the cliffs, rattling the eaves, screaming over the thunder of the tides. “Why? Why are you doing all of this?”

“You are Satan’s spawn, witch.” His nostrils flared. “And you carry a new evil.”

“Bastard!” she screamed.

His heartless leer chilled her to the bottom of her soul. “If you only knew.”

The gun was only a few feet away. If she jumped to the left…

“At last, your blood will spill,” he taunted. “Your time has come, too.”

“Justice,” Maddie whispered, glaring up at him, tears streaking down her wrinkled cheeks. “Run, girl.”

Justice. His name was Justice. He’d attacked Maddie with the knife and hidden upon hearing Becca arrive. The gun was her defense, and Becca had taken it from her.

And now he was back to finish the job.

Take not only Madeline’s life, but hers as well.

No way!

Becca lunged for the gun but he was quick, anticipating. His knife whizzed through the air, sliced into her arm. She cried out but her fingers found the handle of the gun. She grabbed it, flung her arm around, aiming the barrel his way, finger on the trigger.

He yelled at the same moment she screamed.

BAM!

The pistol kicked, but he’d expected the shot as he threw himself sideways, rolling out of harm’s way. Becca scrambled to fire a second shot.

BAM!

The bullet slammed into the side of the wall, kicking up sheet rock and bits of wood. He ducked sideways, then quickly out of the way, around the corner.

Becca’s pulse deafened her. “Leave before I blow you away!” she yelled, but heard nothing save her own ragged breathing, the shriek of the wind, and Maddie’s slow moans. Becca’s hands were shaking, but she forced them steady, training her aim on the doorway. If the son of a bitch stepped one foot into the open area, she’d pull the trigger again. Her arm hurt and she saw blood soak her sleeve. The useless cell phone was still within reach, but surely the shabby motel had a landline…She glanced around the room, searching for a receiver. A shadow streaked across the window.

He was outside!

She turned toward the sagging window where the panes rattled and cold air hissed into the room. But she was mistaken. The moving umbra she’d seen wasn’t this monster of a man, but merely a branch being tossed in the wind. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the hallway.

What?

She whirled as he flew through the door, his knife raised. She shot again, the bullet zinging into his shoulder. Again! Her fingers tightened over the trigger, but he was on her, the weight of his body, toppling her to the floor. She screamed and they fell on the near-dead woman and she groaned painfully.

The demon-man’s breath was hot against her, his body all muscle and sinew as they struggled. Becca slapped at him, tried to claw his face, attempted to shoot the damned gun again, but as she did, he wrestled her arm behind her back.

Pain shot through her shoulder and she dropped the gun, heard it hit the floor. No! Oh, God, no!

“Finally, sister,” he growled. “Finally.”

“No way in hell,” she threw back at him and he cinched her arm up a little higher. She screamed in pain and he, lying atop her, pinned her to the floor, said, “Scream all you want, Rebecca. No one will hear you out here.”

He was right. Even on a day when the wind was still and the surf quiet, this old ruin was so isolated, a scream would never carry to another human’s ears.

“By the light of the moon,” Maddie whispered. “When the demons of the earth arise, then will you be taken, son, to the world from where you came. I curse you this day and the day of your birth. You, Justice, are the true spawn of Lucifer.”

Becca felt the man atop her tense. This monster was Mad Maddie’s son?

“You curse me?” he demanded, looking up and glaring at his dying mother. “You curse me? When I’m God’s messenger? Sent here to right all the wrongs of Siren Song?”

Becca didn’t move, didn’t want to distract him. He was on his knees now, all of his attention focused on the woman who had borne him.

“I’m the only reason there are not more of them. I’m the only one who can cleanse the earth of their evil.” He was moving now, closer to his mother, no longer straddling Becca.

It took all of Becca’s willpower not to move, to feign unconsciousness, to draw no attention to herself.

“You are as bad as the rest, old hag.”

Maddie gurgled and rasped, “Go to hell.”

Becca’s eyes darted around the room. The window.

She didn’t wait. In one motion, she scrambled to her feet, hurtled herself through the rotting pane, tucking and rolling as glass shattered and crackled around her. She hit the sandy ground outside, sprang to her feet, and took off screaming at a dead run.

“Whore!” I bellow, jumping toward the window.

Behind me the old woman makes a sound of glee. I whirl back on her.

“You cannot kill them all,” she says.

“I can. I will.”

“God will save them…”

It’s all I can do to keep from strangling her right there. But it’s what she wants. To deter me from my goal. To hold me with her. To protect them!

“I’m coming back for you,” I whisper. “Wait for me.”

Terror fills those old eyes and I grin as I leap through the window after the evil one. She is just ahead of me. I have wounded her. Her blood will spill and I will have her very, very soon.

Mac was hauling ass to Siren Song. At the local Safeway store he’d picked up Hudson Walker who’d tersely told him the way. Walker had been hell-bent to storm the gates of the cult, but Mac had been able to calm him down, insist that they leave the sports car and drive together.

“…but when we get there, you stay in the car. We have to wait for a search warrant anyway, but the sheriff’s department thinks they can get one.”