The voice of the Holy Ghost was deep and masculine. It spoke to her alone. At least no one else acted as if they heard it. It spoke with great urgency, telling her that the boy was in danger, telling her that she had to reach him, fast. It was clear that if she didn’t he’d fall into the hands of their enemies and The Hand’s plans would come to nothing. The Millennium would be denied and Jesus Christ would not take his place as God’s Regent upon the Earth. It was up to her and her alone, unworthy as she was, to rescue him.
She ran almost blindly from the church. The man called Creighton—useless as he’d been throughout this entire affair—stood in her way. She removed him. She had no time to find the door. She went through the wall.
As she ran down the hill the Spirit Tree cheered her on, the bottles tied to its branches clanking musically in the wind. She remembered the store on the county road, about two miles from where she stood. It would take her about seven or eight minutes to get there on foot, maybe less if she ignored the roads and cut cross country.
Too long, she thought. Too, too long. The boy’s kidnappers would be gone by then and the Holy Ghost’s warning would have been wasted.
Then she remembered the van sitting before the ramshackle barn and hope sprang into her breast. If only, she prayed. If only...
She ran to it, flung open the driver’s side door so hard that it rebounded and slammed against her backside as she leaned into the cab. Praise the Lord, she silently prayed. The idiot left his keys in the ignition.
She vaulted into the seat and turned the key, gunning the gas pedal. The engine groaned like a feeble old man with a hangover. Gently, she told herself. Be gentle and patient. For once... take your time...
She eased up on the gas and the engine sputtered to life. She engaged the clutch and winced as it sounded like she ground a few pounds of the transmission into metal filings. The van bucked and humped like an unruly mustang, but slipped into gear. The Angel shot backwards, scattering the chickens who’d been peacefully pecking their day’s ration of feed, ground another month’s worth of life out of the transmission, finally found first and headed on down the road.
It was twisty and not exactly well-banked, so she couldn’t get it much over forty. She skidded through the last turn, suddenly remembering the wooden gate that stood as a barrier between the sect’s private lane and Lower Road. It hadn’t looked too sturdy, she thought hopefully.
It turned out that it wasn’t. She crashed though it like she’d crashed the wall of the church, braking into a power turn and skidding momentarily on the van’s two right tires, her right hand flying off the steering wheel and hitting the eight track’s volume knob, blasting the Canned Heat tape up to full volume.
“Going Up The Country” wailed out her window, which she’d cranked down to reduce the smell of Mushroom Daddy’s peculiar incense which actually wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic as she slewed onto Lower Road, her heart hammering in her chest. She wasted a couple of seconds searching for the right gear as the van lurched crazily up the road, finally found the right sequence, and took it to high as fast as she could. It roared and clattered like a metallic behemoth that should have been extinct long ago, but it responded gamely to her urging and the Angel got it up to over seventy.
The left-hand turn off Lower Road was tricky, but she negotiated the down-shifting with only minor grinding of the gears. The last stretch of road was a long glide up a steep hill, then down again. The grocery store was on the left, at the base. Mere moments had passed since the Holy Ghost had delivered His message, but would she be in time?
The van lurched over the crest of the hill like a prancing mustang, its front tires well off the road. It hit hard and slewed sideways. The Angel bounced up off the driver’s seat, bashed her head on the roof and lost control. Her hands flew off the steering wheel, her feet off the gas pedal. The van spun downhill as the Angel shook her head, trying to clear the stars out of her eyes.
God is with me again, she thought, as she realized that the on-coming lane was clear of traffic. She gamely fought the van for mastery, and through sheer strength managed to haul it back into the right hand lane. But it was facing the wrong direction halfway down the steep hill and in imminent danger of stalling. She clenched her teeth and slammed it into reverse. Gravity did the rest.
The Angel looked at the mirror mounted outside the driver’s side window. Her right foot found the gas pedal again and she stomped it. The van shot backwards down the hill, weaving dangerously as it approached the grocery store’s rutted parking lot. Two cars, were both big black boats of some unfamiliar make and model, were already in the lot. A handful of men stood around watching as two others tried to stuff a wiggling and fighting boy in the back seat of one of the cars.
It was John Fortune. She was, thanks be to God, in time.
She roared into the parking lot backwards, the wheels throwing pebbles like bullets. More through luck than any sort of skill managed to screech into the narrow slot between her enemies’ cars. She stood on the brake with both feet, hitting her head again against the van’s roof and ignoring the pain as the VW slammed to a halt an inch from jumping the curb and crashing into the storefront behind it. She was out of the van before the amazed on-lookers stopped flinching from the shower of pebbles thrown by its squealing tires.
“Release the boy!” she cried in a voice like the ringing of a great iron bell.
There was a moment of silence as everyone, John Fortune included, stood stock still and stared at her, her chest heaving, eyes wild, hair streaming back like a valkryie just come down from Valhalla.
The Angel broke the silence. She growled like a she-wolf, driven to inarticulate fury by their failure to respond to her command, and reached both hands high above her head while saying aloud her short prayer, and called down the fiery sword. She struck one of the cars, hitting the roof dead on center, slicing all the way through to the pavement. The blade threw off coruscating sparks that sent half the on-lookers diving away, screaming and batting at the cinders burning their hands and faces and setting their clothes on fire.
She took a step forward, swinging her sword in a great arc and bringing it down again on the car’s roof with all her strength, cutting through roof and side-panels and neatly bisecting the vehicle. It collapsed in the parking lot with a groan of tortured metal.
“Jesus Christ!” one of the men said.
She turned and back-handed him, sending him flying over the wreckage. “Don’t blaspheme!” she said, and moved around the front of the van which was still chugging in place, pointing her sword at the two men who were still holding John Fortune. “Release the boy,” she repeated, this time in a voice low and hard and full of undefined menace.
They did, but only to reach for guns holstered at shoulder and belt.
The Angel moved faster than seemed humanly possible. She pulled her hands apart and the sword vanished. She slapped one of the men down before he could pull out his gun. The other drew, fired hastily, and his shot spit harmlessly over her shoulder. She closed on him before he could fire again. She grabbed his gun hand, twisted, and heard things break. Some were parts of the gun, some were parts of his hand.
He went down screaming. There were two other men at the front of the car. One had a pistol out, the other was reaching into the car’s front seat for a rifle. The Angel hunched over and scooped John Fortune up with one hand. She reached with the other and snagged the bottom of the car’s driver side rear panel, right by the tire. She grunted with effort and stood, veins pulsing on her neck and forehead, throbbing as if they were going to burst. The muscles in her legs, buttocks, back, and right arm cracking with strain, she heaved.