Read Online Dance with the Devil by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online

left the room, closed the door behind her, went to the stairs and descended to the second floor. In a few moments, she was in her room again, tucked beneath the covers.
        The owls hooted, as if sending her a special message of their friendship.
        As sleep crept up on Katherine once more, she speculated that this small event was representative of the larger conflict of two main approaches to life-her optimism for which she had now and then been chided by other students in college, and Yuri's pessimism which easily made possible the silly superstitions he said he believed. There was nothing in Owlsden to harm anyone. Yes, there were Satanists in Roxburgh or somewhere in the outlying districts, holding their rituals of blood and hate, but one only had to think of them and deal with them as one would with spoiled, nasty children, and there would be nothing whatsoever to worry about.
        She was not going to worry about demons, devils, and ceremonial dances of evil.
        The owls hooted.
        She realized, as she drifted into sleep, that she had already become accustomed to them and that she found the sound of their nocturnal cries somewhat comforting…

CHAPTER 5
        
        In the morning, the storm was gone, leaving more than twenty inches of fresh, blindingly white snow dumped on Roxburgh and the surrounding countryside. The trees were hung with it, the pines bent under their hoary load, a few of the birches even snapped in two under the tremendous weight. The drifts on the west side of the house were swept up over most of the first floor windows, while the lawn behind was nearly scraped barren of its share of whiteness. The sky was bright and blue, cut through here and there by gray remnants of the storm, or by cloudy premonitions of another snow.
        Katherine took breakfast in her own room, some fruit juice and a sweet roll. She had never been one for eating heavily in the morning, preferring to skimp even through lunch so that, at dinner, she could indulge herself and still not overeat. Though slim, she knew she had a tendancy to add weight quickly if she didn't watch herself.
        When she got downstairs, she found Lydia Boland in the library which also served as her “office.” The room was lined with bookshelves that ran clear to the ceiling, all packed tightly with an unbelievable number of paperback and hardbound volumes. There was even a stool for reaching the titles on the middle shelf and a rolling ladder whose wheels fit into a tiny track in the ceiling, making it possible to move the ladder wherever one wanted it and then to climb up and easily obtain any volume in the room.
        “Good morning!” Lydia said.
        She was sitting at a large, pine desk with a massive slab top at least three inches thick, with legs as sturdy as bedposts. It was so huge and masculine that it dwarfed her and made her seem much smaller than she was, smaller than Katherine. This did not, however, make her look more aged, but rather younger, almost like a little girl in her bright yellow dress.
        “Good morning,” Katherine said. “Did you sleep well?”
        “Fine, thank you. And how was your first night in Owlsden?”
        “I found out how it got it's name,” she said.
        “Oh?”
        “Yes.” She told Lydia about her middle-of-the-night adventure.
        “How wonderful!” Lydia said. “I forgot to mention them to you. Most girls would have locked their door and pulled up the sheets and forgotten about the noise.”
        “Maybe my curiosity will kill me some day,” Katherine said.
        “Don't believe it. Only those people with curiosity ever amount to anything in this life.”
        There was more pleasant conversation, and then the dictation of a few letters which Katherine took in shorthand and typed on rich, embossed vellum stationery, using the IBM electric that was the only modern thing in the library.
        As she was finishing the last