Jay bounded up to walk beside him, adjusting her stride to match his. She gave him a sideways smile, then returned her gaze to the front, perfectly content.
Horst felt his own tensions seeping away. Having her so close was like the time right after that dreadful night. She had screamed and fought him as he pulled her away from Ruth and Jackson Gael. He had forced her through the village towards the jungle, only once looking back. He saw it all then, in the light of the fire which pillaged their sturdy tranquil village, snuffing out their ambitions of a fair future as swiftly as rain dissolved the mud castles the children built on the riverbank. Satans army was upon them. More figures were marching out of the dark shadows into the orange light of the flames, creatures that even Dante in his most lucid fever-dreams had never conceived, and the screams of the ensnared villagers rose in a crescendo.
Horst had never let Jay look back, not even after they reached the trees. He knew then that waiting for the hunting party to return was utter folly. Laser rifles could not harm the demon legions Lucifer in his wrath had loosed upon the land.
They had carried on far into the jungle, until a numbed, petrified Jay had finally collapsed. Dawn found them huddled together in the roots of a qualtook tree, soaked and shivering from a downpour in the night. When they eased their way cautiously back towards Aberdale and hid themselves in the vines ringing the clearing they saw a village living a dream.
Several buildings were razed to the ground. People walked by without paying them a glance. People Horst knew, his flock, who should have been overwrought by the damage. That was when he knew Satan had won, his demons had possessed the villagers. What he had seen at the Ivet ceremony had been repeated here, again and again.
Wheres Mummy? Jay asked miserably.
I have no idea, he said truthfully. There were fewer people than there should have been, maybe seventy or eighty out of the population of five hundred. They acted as though devoid of purpose, walking slowly, looking round in befogged surprise, saying nothing.
The children were the exception. They ran around between the somnolent, shuffling adults, crying and shouting. But they were ignored, or sometimes cuffed for their trouble. Horst could hear their distraught voices from his sanctuary, deepening his own torment. He watched as a girl, Shona, trailed after her mother pleading for her to say something. She tugged insistently at the trousers, trying to get her to stop. For a moment it looked like she had succeeded. Her mother turned round. Mummy, Shona squealed. But the woman raised a hand, and a blast of white fire streamed from her fingers to smite the girl full in the face.
Horst cringed, crossing himself instinctively as she dropped like a stone, not even uttering a cry. Then anger poured through him at his own cravenness. He stood up and strode purposefully out of the trees.
Father, Jay squeaked behind him. Father, dont.
He paid her no heed. In a world gone mad, one more insanity would make no difference. He had sworn himself to follow Christ, a long time ago, but it meant more to him now than it ever had. And a child lay suffering before him. Father Horst Elwes was through with evasions and hiding.
Several of the adults stopped to watch as he marched into the village, Jay scuttling along behind him. Horst pitied them for the husks they were. The human state of grace had been drained from their bodies. He could tell, accepting the gift of knowledge as his right. Six or seven villagers formed a loose group standing between him and Shona, their faces known but not their souls.
One of the women, Brigitte Hearn, never a regular churchgoer, laughed at him, her arm rising. A ball of white fire emerged from her open fingers and raced towards him. Jay screamed, but Horst stood perfectly still, face resolute. The fireball started to break apart a couple of metres away from him, dimming and expanding. It burst with a wet crackle as it touched him, tiny strands of static burrowing through his filthy sweatshirt. They stung like hornets across his belly, but he refused to reveal his pain to the semicircle of watchers.
Do you know what this is? Horst thundered. He lifted the stained and muddied silver crucifix that hung round his neck, brandishing it at Brigitte Hearn as though it was a weapon. I am the Lords servant, as you are the Devils. And I have His work to do. Now stand aside.
A spasm of fright crossed Brigitte Hearns face as the silver cross was shaken in front of her. Im not, she said faintly. Im not the Devils servant. None of us are.
Then stand aside. That girl is badly hurt.
Brigitte Hearn glanced behind her, and took a couple of steps to one side. The other people in the group hurriedly parted, their faces apprehensive, one or two walked away. Horst gestured briefly at Jay to follow him, and went over to the fallen girl. He grimaced at the singed and blackened skin of her face. Her pulse was beating wildly. She had probably gone into shock, he decided. He scooped her up in his arms, and started for the church.
I had to come back, Brigitte Hearn said as Horst walked away. Her body was all hunched up, eyes brimming with tears. You dont know what its like. I had to.
It? Horst asked impatiently. What is it?
Death.
Horst shuddered, almost breaking his stride. Jay looked round fearfully at the woman.
Four hundred years, Brigitte Hearn called out falteringly. I died four hundred years ago. Four hundred years of nothing.
Horst barged into the small infirmary at the back of the church, and laid Shona down on the wooden table which doubled as an examination bed. He snatched the medical processor block from its shelf and applied a sensor pad to the nape of her neck. The metabolic display appeared as he described her injuries to the processor. Horst read the results and gave the girl a sedative, then started spraying a combination analgesic and cleansing fluid over the burns.
Jay, he said quietly. I want you to go into my room and fetch my rucksack from the cupboard. Put in all the packets of preprocessed food you can find, then the tent I used when we first arrived, and anything else you think will be useful to camp out in the junglethe little fission blade, my portable heater, that kind of stuff. But leave some space for my medical supplies. Oh, and Ill need my spare boots too.
Are we leaving?
Yes.
Are we going to Durringham?
I dont know. Not straight away.
Can I go and fetch Drusilla?
I dont think its a good idea. Shell be better off here than tramping through the jungle with us.
All right. I understand.
He heard her moving about in his room as he worked on Shona. The younger girls nose was burnt almost down to the bone, and the metabolic display said only one retina was functional. Not for the first time he despaired the lack of nanonic medical packages; a decent supply would hardly have bankrupted the Church.
He had flushed the dead skin from Shonas burns as best he could, coating them in a thin layer of corticosteroid foam to ease the inflammation, and was binding her head with a quantity of his dwindling stock of epithelium membrane when Jay came back in carrying his rucksack, It was packed professionally, and she had even rolled up his sleeping-bag.
I got some stuff for myself, she said, and held up a bulging shoulder-bag.
Good girl. You didnt make the bag too heavy, did you? You might have to carry it a long way.
No, Father.
Someone knocked timidly on the door post. Jay shrank into the corner of the infirmary.
Father Horst? Brigitte Hearn poked her head in. Father, they dont want you here. They say theyll kill you, that you cant defend yourself against all of them.