Wicked Angel by Taylor Caldwell

Angelo. The rage seized her again and shook her. She felt she was smothering.
    She walked very slowly to the porch, over the hot grass, past the blowing flower beds. She reached the steps of the porch. Angelo looked up brightly, and showed all his white teeth in a pleasant smile.
    “Did you have a nice walk, Aunt Alicia?” he asked in that loathsome, winning tone.
    Alice stood on the lower step and gazed at him, and her dark blue eyes were full of fire and knowledge. Angelo regarded her coolly. Girl and boy stood and sat without moving, and understanding leaped between them like an electric charge. Angelo smiled again. And then, suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed gaily. And then, as abruptly, he was no longer laughing or smiling.
    “Mum,” he said, in a distressed and beguiling voice, “says you’re too old for shorts, Aunt Allie. She says they’re just for young girls. Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you. They’re awfully pretty, and I like them.”
    Alice stood there and looked at him, and the blue fire of her eyes filled her face with a kind of blaze.
    I must go away, she thought, or I’ll take hold of him and beat him almost to death. I’ll slam his face and head against the wall! I’ll twist his throat. I’ll pound him into the earth, as he did Petti. Her hands clenched at her sides. Her body became rigid. And Angelo watched her, his hazel eyes welling and alert, his hands palm down on his book.
    “Why don’t you go away, and never come back?” whispered Angelo, and the whisper was sibilant in the intense quiet. “What are you doing here? Mum and I don’t want you. Daddy does, but that doesn’t matter, does it? Daddy’s very stupid.”
    The full impact of what he had said did not reach Alice for several dreadful moments. She looked into eyes fathomless with evil age, with ancient understanding of terror, with mockery. And she retreated backwards, several steps, and put her hands to her cheeks.
    Then she fled. She ran to the bluff, and arrived there, panting, covered with sweat. That was not a child there. That was a monster! And more and more of these monsters were being born! Had evil finally broken through from hell and was it now afflicting the earth? She put her hands on the log fence and shook her head dazedly. What would the Kennies of this world do with them, the Kennies who were all kindness and compassion and decency, convinced of the innate goodness of mankind, convinced of the ever-loving presence of God? There was only one thing to do with them, and the Kennies were incapable of it, in their pity and gentleness. Yet, at last, and finally, good and evil must inexorably face each other and fight it out to the death. The final hour had arrived in the world, this most portentous world, when the battle must take place.
    Weak and undone, Alice sat sideways on the fence, her breath hard and fast, the sweat rolling down her cheeks, mingled with her tears. She twisted her body sideways and looked at the distant hills. And, she thought, Mark must be snared this knowledge. Mark must never know. This would kill Mark.
    Alice was silently but intensely religious. She looked at the sky and prayed for the Kennies and the Marks, the multitudes of the good who would not understand, even when the battle was joined, the true nature of their foe. If they defeated that foe, they would in mercy try to explain away the evil they had encountered and conquered. They would chatter of environment; they would speak of “no opportunities to be better”; they would talk of “bad leaders who betrayed their people.” To the Kennies and the Marks, it was impossible to admit that there was true evil in the world, and that it often came clothed in brightness. For the first time in her life, Alice, often skeptical and very rational, entertained the idea of a personal Satan, just as there was a personal God. There could be no other explanation of those who came like the serpent, fascinating, full of charm,