After he had spoken with Erik and Mark, Johnny Dovecrest had gone deep into the woods, to a small cave on the western edge of the reservation. He’d taken his guns, plenty of ammunition, and a week’s supply of canned food. If he had to, he could live off the land.
He knew the law wouldn’t understand what happened. They would assume that he was behind the killings. The demon would have no problem setting it up to look like he’d killed the girl. And the bullet from his gun would be linked to the cult member he had killed.
Besides, he would be the easy suspect. He was the Indian, the outsider. He knew how it worked. When in doubt, blame the outsider. He’d seen the same pattern over and over again for more than three centuries.
In some ways, it would be easy to let them catch him. He’d be put in a clean jail cell, given three meals a day and cable TV. What more could he ask for?
But for him a life sentence would be eternity. Besides, he couldn’t do anything to stop the madness from a jail cell.
He knew what had to be done. He had lacked the courage to do it the first time around, and had been content to merely imprison the demon. He thought the spells would hold it down forever, or at least until he could find someone to replace him as the guardian. But he had been wrong. The spells were temporary. And while they might have held for centuries, it took only a small disturbance to bring the demon back. And this time it had learned from its past mistakes. It would be much more difficult to defeat this time.
Furthermore, he didn’t have the support of the tribe, or of the colonists. They had believed back then. They had been able to see the truth and to band together to take action. The world had moved on now, though, and people no longer saw the truth. They were blinded by modern science and technology, and could no longer see the primitive struggle between good and evil.
Dovecrest found the old spells in their hiding place in the cave. He knew what he had to do. But he couldn’t act alone. He would need help, and he didn’t have much to go on.
Erik and the preacher seemed to believe his story, but even they were not sure. They would probably go searching for the altar themselves, hoping to find proof. That was the tune that the modern man sang. Show me. Give me proof. Nothing could be taken on faith alone. Everything had to have evidence and proof. And that was the demon’s strength. Dovecrest shook his head. If they only knew.
Of course, they wouldn’t find the altar-unless it wanted to be found. It had remained a secret for all of these centuries, and had ways of keeping people from finding it. No, they would look for it and come up empty, then they would discredit him entirely. Unless he could bring them to it and show them….
He moved to the back of the cave, sat down and began to meditate. He needed to gather his thoughts and formulate a plan.