An unexpected ally.
"We have an excellent library here," Nydia was telling Lana. "All the latest novels. I"ll show you where it is, and maybe you can find something you"d like to read."
"Oh, I"d love that. Could I ... maybe dine with you two all the time-if it"s okay?"
"Sure," Sam said. That way maybe I can figure out what you"re scheming. "Sure, you can eat with us."
She squeezed his hand. "Thanks, Sam. You"re the nicest guy I know."
She was gone from the table before Sam could reply.
"Umm!" Nydia said, humor creeping into her eyes. "I have some compet.i.tion."
"Nah." Sam brushed it off. He leaned close and whispered: "Besides, I like girls with big t.i.ts."
The silence that hung over Whitfield was heavy and evil. Like a hot, humid day, it clung to people, enveloping them in a stinking shroud.
Those who thought they had fooled the Almighty as easily as they deceived their friends now found themselves caught in the middle of something they could not understand. They prayed to G.o.d, but they had lied in their hearts too many times, and even now, their prayers were insincere. They watched as phone company personnel pulled the plugs to their phones, cutting them off from the outside world. They sensed evil and danger all around them and tried to flee in their cars and trucks. But they could not get out of town. They returned to their homes and waited in fear for the unknown to occur. And they prayed, but the prayers fell on deaf ears.
They called their pastors, but the church pulpits had long ago been filled with those who worship another G.o.d. And the preachers laughed at them, some of them making evil deals with the husbands.
"Save you?" the preachers questioned. "All right. Your life for your wife."
"It"s a deal," many husbands cried, pushing their wives into the arms of the unG.o.dly.
The wives were taken and raped ... among other acts committed against them.
But the husbands found that to bargain with the Devil is a fool"s game. And they would learn that very painfully.
In the Lansky house, the golem stirred as invisible life was breathed into it. Wade watched it slowly shuffle across the floor, its ponderous legs and ma.s.sive arms moving like some primal creature just awakened from a million years of ice-locked sleep. It b.u.mped its head on an archway and stopped, looking almost stupidly around the room, the slits that were its eyes having no expression.
Miles came into the room and took the huge clay man"s hand as one might take the hand of a child. "Is it time?" he asked.
The golem nodded, gaining balance and understanding with each second.
"What do I call you? You gotta have a name."
The golem shrugged its solid shoulders.
"I think I"ll call you Hershel."
The golem lifted its hands in a gesture of acquiescence as Doris and Anita huddled together against a far wall. Wade sat with a faint smile on his lips.
"That thing really understand what you"re saying?" Doris asked.
"I suppose," Miles said. "Sure, it does."
She walked from the corner of the room to look up at the huge clay man. "You can"t walk around with no clothes on. You look ... indecent."
The golem gazed down at the woman.
"So I made you some pants. You wait where you are." She left the room, returning with a large pair of trousers. "Denim," she said, holding out the jeans. "Difficult material to sew. But I did it."
The golem looked at the offered jeans, then looked at Miles.
Miles wore an exasperated look. "Momma, a golem don"t know from pants. What"s he gotta have pants for?"
"Because I said he"s gotta, that"s why. If he"s gonna be our shtarker *(strong man)* *(strong man)* he"s gonna look nice, at least." he"s gonna look nice, at least."
The four of them managed to get the jeans on the golem, and, surprisingly, the jeans fit well.
Miles patted the golem on the arm. "Joe E. Lewis, you ain"t, Hershel, but you got cla.s.s."
The golem lumbered out of the room, b.u.mping his head as he went out the door. He sat down on the porch, waiting.
Wade picked up his shotgun, checking the loads. Miles did the same. The four of them sat in the living room. Waiting. Waiting for the evil to begin. Waiting for the horror they knew was coming.
Waiting for the night.
Waiting and praying they had enough faith to get them through it.
"Did you have anything to do with my friends" decision to remain in Whitfield?" Jane Ann asked Balon.
"Their final decision ... no. That was something they decided upon a long time ago. Unknowingly. Wade made his decision when he shut down the newspaper. Miles when he sold his store."
"Tony?"
"He lost his faith years ago. Young Sam was only a child. Tony is evil."
"The world is a pretty c.r.a.ppy place, isn"t it, Sam?"
"Father Dubois and I discuss that same topic from time to time."
"You make it sound like old home week."
The misty face smiled. "Heaven is not what most mortals envision, I can a.s.sure you of that. But I can tell you no more."
"I wish this was over."
"Yes."
"I want to go home."
"You will."
"Is it lovely ... there?
"It is different."
"Peaceful?"
"Quite."
"Am I going to suffer before I ... go?"
"I cannot lie. Yes."
"Miles and Doris? Wade and Anita? Anita is not very strong."
"They will suffer to a degree."
"But mine will be physical." It was not spoken as a question.
Balon projected no reply. "Your silence tells me I"m right." The mist thrust no mental response.
Jane Ann sighed. "I will endure it."
"Yes," the thought pushed into her brain. "And so must I."
SEVEN.
"They"re leaving," Roma said to Falcon. "Heading into the east woods." She swore, a venomous string of profanities. "It is difficult for me to believe I have birthed a Christian. It"s disgusting! Where did we fail, Falcon?"
He laughed. "We didn"t, Roma. Put such thoughts aside. Balon interfered, that"s all. His seed must have been strong."
"Like a hot river."
"You still remember?"
"I shall never forget it. I mounted him a half dozen times before he lost the battle and I could keep him inside me.
"Tell me, Roma: Did you cheat?"
She seemed astonished he would even ask such a foolish question. "Of course!"
"Then there is the answer to your question, and many more unasked questions. Why Black is deceitful and plotting, for one. Balon"s seeds were many. Pure and strong, with most of them forming Nydia. Black is weak and scheming. Weak in many areas; I"ve known that for years. We must not lean too heavily upon him. You know, of course, he cheated taking his difficult military training?"
She whirled about, her face flushed. "He swore to me he would not."
"But he did. I wanted to tell you ... wanted to see how that deception affected him. I will tell you this, and you know I am a warrior: Black will be no match for young Sam. I ... sensed something else, as well, Roma: the young man has killed, and not just in the heat of open battle. I sense ... he has killed, once, at least, probably several times, on orders from his government."
"Covertly and cold-bloodedly?"
"Yes."
"When you were able to see his thoughts, study his innermost character, how had the killing affected him?"
Falcon paused, lighting his pipe, sending billowing clouds of fragrant smoke swirling about him. The silence only heightened the moment. "Not at all," he finally said. "The young man is a true warrior. And you know how He," Falcon cast his eyes upward, "feels about warriors."
"Young Sam is his father"s son." Roma smiled.
"Entirely."
Her smile grew wicked.
Falcon read her thoughts. "Roma ... ?"
She met his eyes, dark evil gazing into dark evil. "Yes, Falcon?"
"It"s too dangerous. You"re much too old for that nonsense. Birthing the twins almost killed you. Or have you forgotten?"
"No, but I failed with them. And now-if your deductions are correct, and I believe they are-I know why. It would not be that way with young Sam."
"You would not cheat? You, You, my dear?" He chuckled. "Anyway, Roma, it"s out of the question for a number of reasons, paramount among them the fact young Sam is in love with his half sister, and she with him. They"re practically nauseating with it. Besides, I forbid you to take the chance." He turned his head, smiling as he spoke the last, knowing what her reaction would be. He was not disappointed. my dear?" He chuckled. "Anyway, Roma, it"s out of the question for a number of reasons, paramount among them the fact young Sam is in love with his half sister, and she with him. They"re practically nauseating with it. Besides, I forbid you to take the chance." He turned his head, smiling as he spoke the last, knowing what her reaction would be. He was not disappointed.
She gave him a look that would have stopped a runaway truck dead in the road. "You FORBID it!" she screamed at him. "Forbid! You You do not forbid do not forbid me me to do a f.u.c.king thing!" to do a f.u.c.king thing!"
Falcon sighed. "And I worked so hard improving your vocabulary, taking it from the gutter. Now you revert."
"Forbid me! Are you forgetting who is in command here?"
"Not at all, my dear. Calm yourself. I was merely attempting to be practical about this matter. Roma, consider the risk factor. One: even should you seduce the young man without cheating, having a demon child would kill you. That is written. Secondly: the Master would surely void your plan. Oh, Roma ... go f.u.c.k the young man, any way you can, and get it out of-or in your case-into your system. Then forget it. We have matters of much greater urgency here."
She whirled and stalked from the room, cursing under her breath. Falcon watched her leave, slamming the door. He stood and slowly shook his head. A pity, he thought, to be so obsessed by the memory of Balon. She fell in love with a Man of G.o.d.
He shuddered at the thought. How degrading!
"They stopped watching us," Nydia said. "I could feel her eyes when they left me. They"re planning something, Sam."
"Sure they are. Evil. I just wish I knew what I-we-are supposed to do about it. Do I have a free hand? I don"t know. Nydia? I ... we"re stumbling around in the dark with this thing. I don"t know what to do. Yes, all right, my dad appeared and wrote me a letter. I"ve convinced myself we didn"t dream it. A sign of the cross is burned-burned-into my chest. Okay, I"ll accept that I"ve been chosen ... but, d.a.m.n it, honey ... chosen to do what? I have to a.s.sume that I am to follow in my dad"s footsteps; do what he did back in Whitfield in the fifties." He stopped at the edge of the deep timber and sat down on a large rock, Nydia beside him.
"Dad was trying to tell us something about our being related. But what? He said it wasn"t a holy union. Does that make our feelings all right? I"m going to say it does. I can"t help the way I feel about you. We were drawn together from the moment we met. You felt it, I felt it. And we"ll just leave it at that.
"Mother always said I was just like my dad. I guess the service proved it: it ... really doesn"t bother me to kill. I can"t say much about it, although I don"t know what it would matter now, to you, I mean, but sometimes Special Troops have to kill. Cold-bloodedly. A very few get picked to do that. I got picked. I did my job. I came back to base. I did that several times. No guilt feelings. None at all. No remorse. No nothing. I think Dad must have been like that.
"Okay, then. I"ll do whatever in the h.e.l.l-that"s an odd word to pick, isn"t it-I"m supposed to do. I"m hearing voices in my head; words pop out of my mouth that are alien to me; I know things that mortals aren"t supposed to know-and don"t ask me to explain any of it. I can"t. So I"ll just have to wait until someone, or something, gives me the green light with instructions."
She put her arms around him and held him. And as has been the case for thousands of years, woman gave her strength to man through her touch, her gentleness, her understanding ... and the fact that women are the more mercenary of the species.
"We"ll both know when it"s time, Sam," she told him, holding him. "I believe that. And I believe that our feelings for each other are right. And you must believe it."
Holding hands, they walked into the timber, and the silence of G.o.d"s free nature seemed to make them stronger, and draw them closer. The mood was almost religious, the towering trees a nondenominational cathedral silently growing around the young couple. They came to a small, rushing creek and sat on a log by the bubbling waters.