“Amen,” some in the audience called, and there were scattered echoes as others took up the cry.
“I’ve seen people prophecy in tongues no longer spoken in this world of woe.”
The response came louder as the parishioners gathered about their preacher.
“I’ve seen people DRINK POISON and TAKE UP SERPENTS with no harm come to them.”
The cries of the audience reverberated in the tiny church, and Jerry found himself inching backwards, slowly and carefully, as he realized that this might be his best opportunity to escape.
“But NEVER. NEVER in all my days have I EVER seen someone so possessed, so consumed, so TAKEN UP by the Holy Spirit that WALLS could not hold them, TONGUES could not tell of them, PRAYER could not contain the energy that DROVE them to their worship, AMEN.”
Someone rattled a tambourine and the band started playing loudly and raggedly. The service, so unexpectedly interrupted, was suddenly whole again.
The dancing and praying and testifying was back up to full speed as Jerry slipped through the hole that Angel had smashed through the wall in her inexplicable frenzy to escape. Outside, the afternoon was turning toward dusk. He had to report to Ackroyd, then they had to go after Angel and the kid and rescue them both from whatever had possessed her so unexpectedly.
Something was wrong, though. It took Jerry a moment to realize that it was the music coming from the church. There was no electric guitar. He stopped, and Mushroom Daddy, following behind, almost walked right into him.
“Hey,” Daddy said, “you’re not splitting, are you man?”
Jerry started walking again. He didn’t have time to waste on hippie burn-outs no matter how nice they seemed to be. “Can’t talk now, uh, Daddy. Got to get after Angel.”
“Groovy. That’s all cool, man,” Daddy said, falling in beside Jerry now that he’d been noticed. “We got to go after Angel. And my van, man. I got to get it back.”
“Sure, Daddy,” Jerry assured him. “We’ll get it back for you. She probably had a good reason to take it. I’m sure she had. Fastest way might be to call it in to the Troopers. You got the license plate and tag number somewhere?”
Jerry hoped that wouldn’t be too much to ask, but by the look on Daddy’s face maybe it was. “Uh, man, I don’t know about that. It’d be a bummer to call the pigs in. I don’t know how they could help us.”
“They can find the van through the plate number,” Jerry said patiently.
“Well, probably not, man, because I made ‘em myself.”
Jerry stopped and looked at him. “You what?”
“Yeah, made ‘em myself, man. In my garage. I’ve always been pretty good with my hands. Saves me over thirty bucks a year, that doesn’t have to go to, like, the state and the military industrial complex.”
Jerry frowned at him. “Even the yearly renewal tag?”
Daddy looked proud. “That’s the easiest part, man. Color Xerox and rubber cement.”
“I don’t suppose you remember the numbers you put on the plate, or wrote them down or something?”
“Why would I, man? They’re just numbers. They don’t mean anything.”
Jerry sighed. “No, I guess they don’t,” he said. We can still call in the Troopers, Jerry thought. There can’t be too many thirty-year-old VW vans on the road. And she couldn’t have gotten far.
They’d reached the dirt parking lot in front of the snake handler’s tumble-down barn. Then he froze as he realized there were far too many cars.
“Hello, boys,” a voice said from inside one of them. “What are you two doing wandering around here?”
I know that voice, Jerry thought. I’ve heard it before. He shaded his eyes, trying to look through the glare of the sun shining off the car’s windshield.
“This chick friend of his stole my van, man,” Daddy chimed in helpfully. “We’re looking for it.”
“That’s funny,” the voice said. “So are we.”
Jerry’s hand dropped to his side. He thought for a moment of going for the gun Ackroyd had given him, which he was carrying snugged in a holster against the small of his back. But he knew that would be suicide. He’d recognized the speaker’s voice, he saw the others emerging from their vehicles.
It was Witness and more armed thugs.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New Hampton: The woods
Kitty Cat raced into the clearing as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.
“Trouble!” he called out. “There’s trouble at the snake handlers’!”
“What is it?” Yeoman asked.
“Cauliflower called my cell. He’d gone to check out the commune because he heard a lot of noise over there. Got there too late to see all of what had happened, but saw your partner—” he nodded at Ackroyd—“and Mushroom Daddy get taken by a bunch of armed thugs.”
“Mushroom Daddy?” Ackroyd asked.
Yeoman gestured. “A local character. Harmless. He lives on Onion Avenue. He has some kind of weird ace—he grows the best produce in the area.” He turned back to Kitty Cat. “What’s happening now?”
“Cauliflower says they’re beating them up. Daddy and that Creighton guy. Beating them up and asking them questions about the boy, but they can’t answer ‘em.”
Ray looked at Brennan. “How far’s the compound from here?”
“Cross country, a couple of miles.”
“All right,” Ray said. “Let’s move.”
They paused, looked at Ackroyd. “Go ahead,” the private investigator said, “I’ll follow as best I can.”
Yeoman nodded decisively. “Kitty Cat—show him the way.”
“All right,” the tiny joker said.
“Follow me,” Yeoman said, and he and Ray took off through the woods.
They left Ackroyd behind in moments. Yeoman moved fast, Ray thought, but not super-humanly fast. He set a good pace, but Ray held himself back, necessarily following the archer down the thickly-forested hillside. Minutes passed, perhaps four or five, then they burst out of the woods onto the verge of a familiar road that ran along the hillside like an asphalt ribbon.
Yeoman leaned over, breathing heavily. Ray had broken a sweat, but his breath was still normal. “Stick to the road,” Yeoman told him. “You’ll move faster on it than cross country. This is Lower Road—”
“I know,” Ray said. “The compound?”
“Left. Uphill all the way. You’ll see a gated dirt road with a sign. You can’t miss it. I’ll follow as quickly as I can.”
“Do that,” Ray said.
He started down the road at an easy lope. Yeoman kept pace for the first ten or fifteen yards, then Ray started to pull away. He ran like an animal, just for the sheer physical enjoyment of feeling his muscles work like parts of a well-designed machine, without thought of what he would find when he came to the end of his run. Like always when fighting or exercising or screwing, Ray lived in the moment, concentrating on the play of muscle and tendon, of flesh and bone fighting against gravity, of mind and will battling the inevitable depletion of the energy that ran the machine of his body.
The road went uphill at a steady grade. Within moments he was breathing hard, gasping for oxygen that he needed to fuel his system, but Yeoman was a hundred yards back, moving okay for a nat, but beaten badly, Ray thought, just the same. Beaten badly. He looked at the slope looming before him and sucked in a long shuddering breath between clenched teeth. This hill wouldn’t beat him, either.
He leaned into it, pumping his arms harder as he lengthened his stride. The captives might be undergoing unspeakable tortures now at the hands of the kidnapper gang, but that was only part of what drove Ray. Not even the major part of it.
It was the hill under his feet that pushed him on, harder and harder, his breath whistling now like a dying bird as it escaped his throat. The damned hill was trying to slow him down. Trying to beat him. Trying to clip the wings off of his feet. But he wouldn’t let it.