Ancient Eyes Part 15

Katrina nodded, closed the Lumina's door, and turned. When she did, she saw the man more clearly. He bore a slight resemblance to the man who'd kidnapped her, but that wasn't what caught her eye. On his forehead, just like on the girl's, a black swirl poked out from beneath his greasy hair.

The two of them took her by the arms and headed for the front doors of the church at a slow walk. Just for a second she heard voices, and something kicked in her heart. She didn't know why, but she turned to the woods and pulled against them. Then they were on the steps of the white church, and the chanting from within drowned out any other sound. The odd, greenish light shone through the two small, square front windows and stained the gra.s.s.

The man opened the door, pushed her through, and it closed behind them, cutting off the night.

Amos slipped in behind the white church silently. He held the shotgun at the ready, as he would if he were hunting. He scanned the shadows, and started at every sound. The old building was painted and polished. The last time he'd been out this way it had seemed ready to fall down, and now you couldn't tell it was old. Green, sickly light glowed in all the windows.

Amos avoided the front of the building. He didn't want to be seen, and he knew that the thing he sought was not in the front of the church. It was fine for his Pa, and Abraham Carlson, and the others if they wanted to waltz up unannounced. Amos had plans, and they didn't include being spotted or captured.

The sound of an engine startled him. Not too many folks drove on the mountain. It wasn't easy to get gas, the roads were bad, and there wasn't anywhere you couldn't get to by walking, if you really needed to go. There were already more trucks here than he'd expected. They helped to explain how the building could be in such amazing repair. A lot had been going on without most of the folks on the mountain even noticing. He hoped it hadn't gone too far.

Amos eased up to the back corner of the church and peered around at the parking area. A car had pulled up, and someone jumped out of the back seat. His heart sped. It was Elspeth. He knew her, even at that distance, and he nearly stepped away from the building to call out to her. If he could get to her before she was inside, he might be able to get away quicker than he'd thought.

Then he saw a second figure pushed from the driver's seat, and a third emerging from the pa.s.senger's side. He knew this one, as well. What the h.e.l.l was Tommy Murphy doing with his sister? Why wasn't she running?

A moment later Elspeth and Tommy led the third person, a woman Amos didn't know, away from the car and up to the front steps. Amos hesitated. He could move now. He could take Tommy a with single blast of the shotgun, save one barrel for escape, grab Elspeth and be out of there. But what if they saw him? What if they already had a strong enough hold on his sister that she wouldn't just leave with him? There were too many maybes.

Amos hesitated, and the moment pa.s.sed. The three were up the stairs and gone, and he faded back around the corner and backed into the trees to wait. If what he'd been told of this place was the truth, they'd come to the rear area soon enough, and when they did, he'd move. One way or the other, he was getting Elspeth out of there.

As he pulled into the trees, he heard it. Voices raised in song that rang through the trees. He turned, and in the distance he saw a glow above the tops of the trees, moving steadily down the main path toward the church. The song was familiar. His mother had hummed it under her breath while cooking, and he'd heard his father sing it softly while fis.h.i.+ng. He wanted to sing along. He didn't really know the words, but somehow, he did. He actually took a step toward the sound, and then pulled back again. If they distracted those in the church long enough, he could be in and out before anyone was the wiser. He had to stay strong.

As Amos pulled back into the woods, Barbara Carlson reached the end of the path, stepped into the clearing and stopped. Abraham stood behind her, and the other elders held the form of the cross. All around them, slipping from shadows and stepping out from behind trees, the others appeared. One by one they lined up to either side, more and more. Amos would not have believed their numbers, had he not seen. On the mountain, even kin kept to themselves most times. It was their way. It was the mountain's way.

The churchyard filled quickly, and they all stood still, waiting, with Abe at the front and center of it all. He held the leather book up before him, gripped tightly between his hands.

Inside the white church, Silas glanced up from the podium. He stared at the back wall, but his senses slipped through wood and s.h.i.+ngles to the white-hot glow beyond. He s.h.i.+vered, and he felt the church tremble. The darkness that owned him swelled about him, and he gasped at its strength.

Then it relaxed, and he stood, staring out over the gathered congregation with an incredulous smile on his face.

"Hot d.a.m.n," he whispered. "Showtime."

TWENTY-SEVEN.

Deep in the woods a shadow flitted from one tree to the next. The figure was emaciated, thin as a sapling with straggles of hair sprouting at odd angles from his scalp. He didn't glance up at the moon. He didn't watch his back, or search the trees to either side. He heard the voice. He felt her eyes calling to him. He remembered.

240 He was so old that the concept of measurement in years had escaped him. His skin was the leather of old tree bark, and his eyes, though rheumy and pale, stared fiercely over a large, hawk-like nose. His clothing hung in tatters from skeletal limbs, and he moved like a giant insect in jerky steps that tottered him between shadows with deceptive quickness. His clumsiness was born of too many years of inactivity, but his mind burned with hunger and images that cut through to his heart and spurred him on. The glow from the church seeped through the trees. The moon was so bright that the man-made luminescence didn't s.h.i.+ne as brightly as it might have, but he could have followed the vibration of their voices. He didn't need to see them to know they were there, or what was happening. He stopped and leaned on a tree. His ancient frame was wracked with a fit of coughing that rattled about in his bony chest with disturbing vigor. He was coming apart from the inside and would not have been surprised to cough up large chunks of his organs. Unless his breath stopped altogether, it didn't matter. He knew where he had to be; that was all the health he needed. After this night it wouldn't matter. It would all be over, and he would rest.

He righted himself, spit out the remnant of mucous from the coughing fit, and stumbled on. Ahead, myriad voices rose in song and all but blotted out the vibration of the chant from the church. He staggered once, then shook his head, spit again, and hurried forward. There was little time.

Tommy and Elspeth marched Katrina through the church, one on each of her arms. She had taken only a couple of steps inside before the horror of what she'd stumbled into flashed to life in her mind. She screamed, but her voice was lost in the low chant, caught and buffeted about like a badminton birdie.

Snakes slid around her feet, and she danced over them, fighting not to let them touch her. She saw them ripple up and around Tommy's leg, and then Elspeth's, but they avoided her. Once or twice she saw one draw up and back, as if it would strike at her, but each time her captors brushed the serpent aside at the last second. They moved steadily through the center of the congregation.

About halfway down the aisle she quit struggling and concentrated on getting through and past this room. All around her people swayed and sang. Their bodies were draped with serpents. Their faces were pale, and in the sickly green light that glowed from the very walls of the church, she saw that each and every one of them had the identical dark mark on their forehead. With so many snakes in view, it became apparent what the squiggle represented.

She glanced up toward the front of the church, and screamed again. Any hope that the two holding her by the arms were trying to get her to Abraham faded in that instant. She recognized the man standing, arms raised to the ceiling, chanting into the crowed. It was Silas Greene, the same man who'd stepped from the general store with a wide smile on his face and a hand outstretched in greeting just before she was yanked inside, bound and carted off. At the same time, it was not that man at all.

There was another figure slightly offset and standing directly behind Silas Greene. That figure was human from the floor to a point about three feet above Silas' head. Beyond that, broad shadow-shoulders stretched up toward the rafters. The head mounted between those shoulders reminded her of a huge deer, or an elk, and above it all, stretching into and beyond the confines of the lofty, raftered ceiling, were thick black antlers. Shadows dripped from the thing, and every time Silas moved his arm, or his head, that shadow mirrored the motion.

That huge, ponderous head turned to her, and eyes blazed in its depths. From the tops of the antlers, green stringy lichen dangled, sprouting from the wood of the church walls and dripping down from above. Silas saw her, as well, and he smiled. He winked, but she was beyond thought, screaming over and over, lending her voice to the cacophonic sound of the congregation's voices.

At the rear of the church, her captors stopped, just for a moment, and turned her slowly. She tried to fight their hold, but it was relentless. The man reached over and put his hand under her chin. He lifted her face so she fell directly into the crazed, hollow eyes of the thing above the door in the front. Katrina saw eyes as dark and bottomless as chasms drilled back into the wood. She saw the thick ropes of hair carved from unknown wood in an undetermined time, stretching into the walls and shaking the building on its foundation. She felt the hungry draw, the devouring power of the thing. Then she felt nothing. She dropped into darkness, falling to her knees and kept from the floor only by Tommy and Elspeth's grip on her arms. They dragged her quietly into the rear chamber. The curtains dropped back into place as they pa.s.sed, and Silas stepped down from where he stood behind the wooden podium.

He had everything he needed, and there was no purpose to drawing things out. He stared into ent.i.ty eyes and started forward with slow, even steps. He studied the eyes of his followers, reached out to touch a few as he pa.s.sed. The serpents were everywhere, more than could possibly have come from the tanks in back. Energy surged all around him. As he stalked the final steps down the center aisle of the church to the front doors, everything inside followed. It wasn't a group of individuals moving in unison, but a single, fluid ent.i.ty. The congregation stood, spun, and filled in behind and around him like the wake behind a boat. Some still wore serpents twined about their arms or throats, and other snakes slid sinuously between their feet, up and around their ankles, all in a constant blur of motion that blended one form to the next. The effect was of a giant bat flexing its wings.

The bodies stretched down the pews to the walls on both sides, and tendrils of sickly, greenish light, like an intricate network of roots or veins, flickered in the air between those closest to the wood and the wall itself. Life and power flowed from them into the planks and up through the ropy hair to where glaring, hungry eyes watched over it all.

The church surrounded Silas, and he felt the strength of it-the power that drained in both directions, into the walls and floor of the church on one end, and into himself at the other-into the darkness beyond himself that reared back and screamed a silent challenge through the doors and across the gra.s.s to the trees. Until he reached the door he wouldn't see what lay beyond, but he felt it. The darkness inside him felt it, and knew it. The sensation wasn't one of fear, exactly, but there was wariness in it that set Silas's thoughts spinning. It was the first time he'd sensed hesitation since the night in the woods and a stark reminder that, while the darkness rooted inside him might be immortal, he was not.

He relished the challenge. Confrontation was something he'd avoided all his life, a thing he'd feared. Those who bought supplies from him had bullied him. Those who sold him his supplies had cheated him. Everyone he had come into contact with over recent years had talked behind his back, laughed at and ignored him. No more. This was his night, his moment, and despite the fact that it was only the sh.e.l.l of what he'd become that started life as Silas Greene, it was that sh.e.l.l that would play front man to the band.

He swung the doors of the church wide. At that moment, he felt the darkness above him contact the doorframe again and press into the wood. There was a jolt of current, as if he'd completed an electric circuit and used himself as the fuse. He stood very still, arched his back, and screamed. The scream caught itself on the chant and rose. It swelled to enormous volume and became a war cry. He raised his arms and felt those gathered behind him ripple. He moved through a wave of energy and darkness to stand on the front steps of the church and glare out across the lawn.

Across the way, Abraham stood, surrounded on all sides by faces that watched from the trees and others that crowded in behind. There was a clear demarcation between the five elders, and those who followed them. The five formed an equal armed cross and the light spilling from the lantern in Jacob Carlson's hand s.h.i.+mmered around them like some kind of wild, spiritual Christmas lights, chasing one another in a fluid motion.

Silas blinked. There was something more. Beyond them all, something larger loomed, but the light was too bright for him to make out details. The light flickered, and each time it did, he felt a small pulse up through the soles of his feet. He stepped back closer to the church and put his arms out wide. He wanted as much connection with the structure as possible. She rested just over his head, and the great horned darkness coursed through his veins.

"You are not welcome," Silas boomed. "Unless you have come to lay down your toys and wors.h.i.+p, you are not welcome. Your fathers were not welcome, and you see where their lives have left you. You feel what I've become, and what I can become."

He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. The thoughts of those who stood across the churchyard were veiled, not open books like those of his followers, but he was able to pluck at them randomly. He found images, desires, hungers and fears and he magnified them. He found a man who dreamed of one of the women beside him and he conjured an image of that woman, naked before a fire, writhing. He felt the man waver and sent a slap of fear into the woman's face. She turned, caught her companion's expression, and backed away in sudden terror.

Silas' thoughts slipped into their minds and wrapped around whatever he found, twisting and warping, stroking and stinging. His eyes glittered, and even as his mind worked its insidious way through their ranks, he spoke.

"What has taken root here is too old for you. She is too strong. Your father should have burned her when he had the chance, but instead he let her into his mind. She corrupted him, bent him to her will, and now she is strong. Stronger than you, stronger than your childish symbols."

Abraham didn't listen. He felt Silas reach for his mind, and stood firm. Images of Katrina flashed through his thoughts; Katrina bound on the bare floor of the barn he'd seen before; Katrina being dragged down the center aisle of the church through an ocean of serpents. Katrina staring into the eyes of the wooden hag above the door and above Silas' head where he stood.

Abraham mouthed the words and they rose from somewhere beyond him. The voice that crackled with strength and energy was not his alone. It belonged to Harry George, and Jacob Carlson, to Barbara Carlson and Cyrus Bates. It belonged to each and every one of those behind and surrounding him and it belonged to the mountain. What could not be plucked by force could be spit out. What would not let go could be crushed and ground and consumed.

They took a step forward. The song marked each motion, and none of them moved without the others. Their human cross slid across the gra.s.s between the trees and the church, and the glow behind them strengthened. Those who fell within its illumination shook their heads, blinked, and cast off the distractions Silas sent over them in dark waves. They pulled into a single line behind Abraham and Cyrus, behind the cross and the book, the sword and the light, and they marched forward.

Their song became a march, then, powerful and rhythmic, and when their feet struck the gra.s.s and the stone beneath there were tremors. If dinosaurs walked the earth, the sound and power of their pa.s.sing would be the same. Abraham didn't fear Silas Greene, or those beyond him. He didn't fear the serpents, or the hag above the door. He called out the great horned spirit with words and rhythms old as the mountain, reminding it of its roots, of its purpose.

Silas stood his ground and redoubled his efforts. His followers spilled out the doors and spread along the front wall of the church, not losing contact with the wood for even a second. It became an eerie standoff, pale, weakening figures slipping like the serpents they bore from the church, pressing to the wood walls, sliding their hands over one another hungrily, their collective gaze turned on Abraham and the elders. They fanned out and curled at the end, the wings of the great bat forming once again with the church at their back.

Abraham advanced slowly, and he felt the exhilaration-the certainty-of his actions. He felt his father's hand steadying him and the voices of generations of men and women of the mountain flowing through his mind and ordering his thoughts. His movements were not his own, but belonged to a greater force, and nothing could stand before them.

Then another figure slipped from the church. Smaller than Silas, slender with long dark hair, she came forward and knelt at Silas' side. She wrapped her arms around his legs, pressed her small, curved form into his legs and laid her head on his thigh. She turned to face Abraham and smiled wickedly. The dark symbol pulsed on her forehead, and her eyes glowed green and serpentine.

It crumbled as swiftly as it had built. The power of the light, the force of the song, shattered and fell to splinters of broken sound. Barbara Carlson' s voice dropped away from the song and rose in a long, heart-rending wail. The girl kneeling at Silas' feet was Elspeth, and she turned, locked her gaze onto her father's stolid face, and softly licked at Silas' leg through the pants. She rubbed herself against him shamelessly, then threw back her head and laughed out loud.

Barbara Carlson fell to her knees in the dirt, and Abraham barely stopped his forward progress in time to keep from tripping over her. Jacob Carlson stood his ground, but the man shook, his entire body caught in the tremor. The light in his hand wavered, guttered, and threatened to go out entirely. Harry George could take no more. Without looking back, the man charged.

Harry held the long wooden sword before him like a stake and surged up the stairs of the church toward Silas. Harry screamed his challenge and drove the blade forward, but Silas sidestepped nimbly. He brought his arm down on Harry's, and the blade fell from the older man's numbed grip. Harry stumbled past, and hands reached up from either side of the stairs. They drew him into the doorway of the church, and down. Serpents rose and Abraham saw at least three strike before Harry hit the ground.

Barbara tried to rise. Abraham never ceased chanting. He reached down with one hand and gripped Barbara by her shoulder. He lifted her and she staggered, but kept her feet. Jacob didn't move, but he sang. The song had wavered, lost and confused in the pounding rhythm of Greene's chant, but now its voice returned. Someone stepped from the shadows and stood at Abraham's side, where Harry had stood moments before. Abraham didn't know the man, but he carried a wooden stave, and he held it as Harry had held the blade. They wavered, just for a moment, then the song regained its strength, and Abraham took another step forward.

Silas grinned at him, stepped aside, and Abe saw straight down the center of the church. The light inside was a brilliant green now, and the walls were strung with sticky green fibers that dangled and danced in a non-extant wind. Abe stopped again, and the others barely caught the change in time. At the far end of the church, just in front of the curtains leading to the baptismal in back-and the pool-Katrina stood. She was held, her arms at her sides, and her legs spread. Greene's followers were all over and around her, their hands brus.h.i.+ng her flesh. She was visible for just a second, saw Abe, and screamed. Then she was dragged through the curtains, and all h.e.l.l broke loose.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

Amos didn't know what to do. He heard the singing in front of the church, and he knew something was happening there. From where he stood in the rear, he saw the light inside the church flow to the far end, and it sent a s.h.i.+ver through him he couldn't explain. The light should stay put. It should just s.h.i.+ne out of the sconces on the wall and the bulbs dangling from the ceiling and...well...light. Instead, it flowed past the windows and rippled along the walls like waves on a lake when something big is dropped into the water. That the wave was moving away from him was good, but where was Elspeth? Then he saw a shadowy stick figure emerge from the trees. Amos grew very still. Was this one of Greene's followers, or was someone else trying to use the back way in? Amos frowned. It was an old man. He could see the newcomer clearly in the moonlight. His arms and legs were so thin that what was left of his clothes draped over them like a shroud. His hair clung in matted clumps to his skull, and he walked like he was drunk, or sick. The man stopped, bent almost double, and coughed so hard and long that Amos thought he'd keel over and die, right on the spot, but a minute later the old guy was up and moving again. Amos saw him reach the rear door of the church, on the side by the baptismal pool, and decided he'd seen enough. Maybe he could slip in behind the old guy without being noticed. Maybe not. He couldn't do any good for anyone standing alone in the trees. The stick-man pulled the door to the church open and stepped inside. Amos followed about ten yards behind. He glanced to either side, saw nothing, and gripped the door. He pulled it open cautiously, glanced into the back room, and stepped inside.

It was a mistake. The second he was in the door, two figures dragged a third through the curtains from the front of the church. He recognized Elspeth at once, and called out to her. They both turned, spotted him, and at that same time he saw the dark marks on their foreheads and the green, glowing emptiness of their eyes. They dropped whoever it was they carried and turned to face Amos, who brought the shotgun up from his hip and aimed it dead at Tommy Murphy's chest.

Then he saw it. To his right, the pool bubbled like some sort of hot tub gone mad. The lights were on inside, and they made the water green, but it was more than that. The surface of the pool bowed up and lurched blindly for the side. It slapped once, slipped back, rose and came over the edge. Tommy started to laugh-his voice high pitched and crazed-and Elspeth advanced on Amos, her hand outstretched, licking her lips lasciviously, but he paid her little mind.

It was the thing in the pool that had his attention. It was crawling out. There was no head, but it had the body of a serpent-or a root? As it flowed up and out of that water, it grew more narrow and focused, writhing from side to side in hunger and searching for food.

Amos glanced once over his shoulder at his sister, who was almost close enough to touch him, and he staggered back. He spun in a single fluid motion, aimed the shotgun directly at the side of the pool. He pulled the trigger, and the blast was deafening in the small room. Then he pulled it again, releasing the second barrel into the already cracked side of the pool, shattering it and spraying water across the floor.

Without a glance back, he spun, grabbed Elspeth by the arm, and dragged her to the door. He flung it open and they were out, and he dropped the gun without a thought. Tossing his sister's suddenly weak and trembling body over his shoulder, Amos Carlson took off for the trees at a run and didn't look back.

Under the cover of the commotion Amos had caused, the old man slipped through the curtains and into the church. All backs were turned to him for the moment, and he made his way forward as quickly as he could. He used the pews to his right like crutches, leaning first on one, then the next until he reached the back of the crowd wavering and swaying just inside the door, threatening to burst out over Abraham and his followers in a green glowing wave.

Their skin was unnaturally pale, and in the green light it took on the sickly pallor of slime. Serpents slithered about his feet, but he knew them well, and they paid him no heed. A final fit of coughing shook him and he staggered. Something had loosened deep inside, and he knew it was not phlegm. The pain was white hot and burning and he used it, feeding it carefully into his arms and legs.

He brushed through the gathered congregation, pressed them aside and slipped sideways through the gaps. He reached the steps, and he saw the darkness hovering over Silas Greene. With a croaking cry he shot forward, put all his slight weight behind the blow and slammed into Silas from behind.

At the same moment Amos let the first blast of his shotgun fly into the baptismal pool, and that shock ran through the church, rippled through the walls and shot up through the floor. The congregation scattered, some thrown free of the front wall, and others tumbling over pews and into the aisles. Serpents wound and twisted their way under pews and into corners, and Silas tumbled forward.

Abraham watched from below as something small and dark darted out of the church and slammed into Silas Greene's back. He heard the report of the shotgun and the thunderous crack that followed. Silas fell straight at Barbara Carlson, who stood transfixed, and the second shot rang out through the sudden deafening silence. The shadows behind Silas wavered, but did not fade. The antlers plunged straight through Barbara, who flung her arms in the air and screamed. She backed into Abraham, who backed away and nearly tripped over those coming up behind him.

They stood, and they stared as Silas found his hands and knees, shook his head and swung the huge shadow rack of horns. They stepped back, beyond that sweep, and waited. The other form, the smaller form that had toppled Silas from the steps, lay on the ground just behind Greene. He shook his head slowly from side to side and did not seem to be able to lift it from the ground.

Silas growled, a guttural sound rising from deep inside. It rose through the earth and stretched to the trees. He pressed suddenly up off the ground and turned. Ignoring Abe and his followers, Greene turned on the man who had pushed him, stalking the p.r.o.ne form like a big cat. He kicked the man in the side and flipped him to his back. Greene's strength had not dissipated, and though the green glow had dimmed in the church, it had not faded entirely. With each step Silas took in that direction, it strengthened perceptibly.

Then Silas stopped. He stared at the old man on the ground and his jaw dropped. He shook his head from side to side and the great shadow mimicked the motion.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," Silas said. "Reverend Kotz. Now, this is a surprise."

The old man glared up at him. The fire in his eyes had not faded, and the set of his lips was grim. He saw the shadow hovering over and around Silas and he whispered a single word.

"Mine."

Silas shook his head and laughed. He circled Kotz once, then again, and each time his steps were quicker and the laughter louder. Then he turned, ignoring Kotz completely, and faced Abraham.

"This will end now, boy," he said. He closed his eyes and raised his hands. The glow in the church rose like a green flame. Those who remained behind and beside him rose as well, shook themselves, and formed around him like a wedge.

Abraham stood, numb with terror. The words had fled, and though the light at his back felt as strong as ever, he had no idea how to tap into that strength, or what good it would do him. He started to speak, to say something, anything to delay the moment that loomed before him.

Then it happened. With a sharp screech, Reverend Kotz rolled up off the ground. He had the long, tapered blade that Harry George had dropped clutched in both hands, and he drove it into Silas Greene's side. The blade bit, slid in easily between ribs and muscles, and drove straight through the little man's heart.

Silas stood still. His face took on a confused expression, and his hand came up to grip the wooden blade protruding from his side. He turned, stared down at Kotz, and his mind swam. He took a step forward, tried a second, and dropped to one knee.

The world swirled before him. He met Kotz's dark glare. The man whispered that single word again, "Mine," and Silas no longer saw the man. He no longer saw the church, or the clearing, and the strength of the darkness that had possessed and moved him slipped away. He saw a pit, dug into the dirt floor of a barn. He saw the glaring, hungry eyes of the wounded c.o.c.k, the blood of a stronger, younger bird dripping from the spur attached to his leg. He felt the hands, dragging him back and away, but this time they slipped, and he fell. He tumbled headlong into that pit, and he heard Reverend Kotz's laughter follow him down.

As Silas collapsed, Jacob Carlson drew back and hurled the small lantern in his hand through the door of the church. It bounced once, shattered against a pew, and the oil inside washed out and over the floor. Flames licked for just a second at the center of that spill, then burst to life and roared upward.

Abraham, suddenly remembering Katrina, cried out and dove forward. He cleared Silas' p.r.o.ne form in a single leap, battered two stupefied members of Greene's congregation aside, and with his hands over his face to s.h.i.+eld him, leaped through the flames and into the church beyond.

The interior was dark. The lights had gone out, and the heat from the flames seared his skin as he pa.s.sed. The smoke was already thick, but he ignored it. He kept low, felt something slither past his leg, bit back a scream and drove on. The snakes were frantically slithering away from the flames, flowing like a serpentine river in the same direction he ran. He pa.s.sed through the pews, around the altar, and ahead he saw something on the floor. He ran faster, and as he drew near he saw it was a body.

The fire rolled down the walls and flickered across the beams of the ceiling. It was hotter and moved faster than any fire should, and Abraham knew he had only a few moments, maybe seconds, before it would consume him as well. The cleansing had begun.

He reached Katrina's p.r.o.ne form and scooped her up. Something slashed at his leg, missed, then slashed again and bit deep. One of the snakes. He couldn't worry about it. He turned, just for a second, and nearly dropped Katrina in shock.

At the far end of the church, the flames centered on the small alcove above the door. Something crawled from that pit as he watched, dragging itself on serpentine, ropy tendrils like some great, ugly crab. It broke free of the shadow, just for a second, and glared at him. The force of that glare drove through him and he staggered back. He nearly lost his footing in the spilled water from the pool, then turned and stumbled toward the door. Others were there ahead of him and it was open.

Abraham tumbled out the door, kept his feet long enough to reach the trees beyond the clearing, and stopped. He was nauseous, and his leg burned like fire. He knew it had probably been a rattlesnake, and the worst thing he could do was to get the blood pumping faster through his system, but he had to get Kat away from the flames.

Then strong arms grabbed his shoulders. He struggled, but he was too weak. Kat was taken from his arms, and he felt himself lifted. He glanced up then and saw the roof of the white church collapse in on itself. A huge, horrid face lifted from the blaze, eyes turned to the sky. The scream reverberated down the mountain. It wasn't pain, but fury. Then the walls fell in over the roof, and Abe's eyes crossed. He dropped into darkness and knew no more.

TWENTY-NINE.

Abraham woke to bright sunlight. It streamed in through an unfamiliar window, striped by half-closed blinds, and warmed his face. He shook his head and tried to sit up, but a hand dropped gently onto his shoulder, and he turned. Katrina sat beside him. Her face was pale, and her eyes were lined from lack of sleep, but she smiled shyly at him.

"Where are we?" he asked, avoiding all of the things he knew they were going to have to say. "What happened?"

"Either of those questions could take days to answer," she said. "Is there a short version?" At that moment there was a light knock on the door, and Barbara Carlson entered. She carried a tray with a steaming bowl on it and a ceramic cup. Abe scooted back and managed to lean on the headboard, with Kat's help propping the pillow behind him. As he came more fully awake, his ankle throbbed, and he groaned.

"Take it easy," Barbara said with a smile. "That bite isn't healed. You're lucky we got to you in time." Bits and pieces of memory dropped into place like parts of a jagged puzzle. Abe closed his eyes. "Did we...?" He couldn't finish the sentence. "The church burned," Barbara replied. "Harry and Jacob have been over there sifting through the ashes. Some of the others started digging a pit off to one side. We're going to shovel the ashes into the hole and build a mound on top."

Abe nodded. He'd planned something similar before they started down the mountain.

Barbara sat the tray on his lap and the scents of chicken soup and hot tea made his mouth water. He realized very suddenly that he was hungrier than he could ever remember being. As he reached for the spoon, he turned to Kat.

"How long have I been out?" he asked.

"Two days," she replied. "I've been right here..."