Linda shuddered and for some unexplained reason moaned softly.
"… I'm still bleeding from what they did to me. What's wrong with you: are you one of them?"
"How dare you!" Linda drew back her hand to slap the child. Sam's quick hand stopped the blow. Janet darted behind him, peeking around his waist. She stuck out her tongue at the older woman and made a horrible face at her.
Nydia laughed at the girl's antics.
"None of that, Linda," Sam warned her. "I won't have it."
Linda spun around and stalked away, back to her bedroll. Sam turned, putting his arm around the child. "I think I can understand how you feel about Nydia, honey, but you're wrong about her. Flat out wrong." Then he told her what Roma had done to him, and what Falcon had done to Nydia. The girl could only shake her head in horror.
"Where did those other girls come from?" Sam asked.
"One from Montreal, the other from New York. They grabbed me in Montpelier. I was on my way to school." She looked at Linda, sitting with her face averted, a pout to her lips. "I'd like to slap her. She doesn't know what it was like … back there. And I hope to God I'll be able to someday forget it." She looked up at Sam, tall and strong.
"We'll get out," he assured her. "Go on to Nydia, now."
The child smiled, the first time since joining the group. "Can't I wait just a little bit longer before I do? I mean, Roma is her mother, and Roma watched some while that Karl was … doing it to me. I mean … she even came to us once and … and held his … thing. She did something to make him … ready. Then she laughed while he … put it in me. I just can't go to your friend now. Please understand."
Sam could sense the child was very close to tears. "Okay." he said gently. "Sure. Want to stay with me for a time?"
She hesitantly put her slender arms around his waist. She looked very much like a ragamuffin, for she had been half naked when she slipped away from the circle of worshipers. She was not a large child, and Nydia's shirt was far too large, as were the jeans from Nydia. The jacket sleeves were rolled and pinned back, the hip-length coat hanging past the child's knees. "Yes," she looked at him through soft eyes, "I think I'd like that."
"My time is growing short, darling," Jane Ann spoke her thoughts aloud.
"I will be with you all I am allowed to be," Balon projected his reply.
"Even … there?" She tilted her head, indicating the outside.
"Especially there. But I am not permitted to be with you constantly."
She did not ask why that was. "It will not be easy for you, will it, Sam? Watching me, I mean."
"Not easy."
"I … will try to be brave."
"They will want you to scream, to beg for mercy, to weep."
"I will not give them the satisfaction."
There was no response from Balon.
"Sam?"
"I'm here."
"Should I?"
"Should you what?"
"Scream, beg, cry?"
"I cannot answer that. That is your decision alone."
"Was my sin so great thai I must endure this?" "Perhaps, Jane Ann, sin has nothing to do with it. Have you thought of that?"
"I don't understand."
"Millions of people, for thousands of years, have died for God. Do you think all of them were hopeless sinners? Beyond saving?"
"But didn't most of them die because of their belief in God?"
"Not necessarily. Many of them died because of their strength."
"Sam! You're speaking in riddles."
"No, I'm not."
Jane Ann was thoughtful for a moment. "Strength? Are you saying that . . . because I'm the youngest of the … survivors I am better able to endure the pain and humiliation of what lies just ahead of me? If so, I still do not understand why it has to be."
The mist that was Balon was steady, with no thrusting reply.
"All right. But tell me this, if you can: part of … this does have something to do with sin—right or wrong?"
"In part."
"Whose sins?"
"Yours, mine … others."
Her last question was asked softly, and it was filled with love. "Why do I get this feeling I am dying partly for you, Sam?"
The mist could not lie. It stirred, then projected: "Because you are."
Jane Ann smiled. "Then my dying will be so much easier."
"Let me tell you something, Janey. This does not have to be. You, Wade, Miles, Anita, Doris … all are assured a place in Heaven."
"I know that, Sam Balon."
"Then … ?"
"I love you."
WEDNESDAY NOON
"Sam?" Nydia spoke from the rear of the short column, "How far are we from the main house?" "Five or six miles, I'd guess."
"You said we would encounter boundaries. Where are they?"
"Honey," there was an edge to his voice. "I don't know. We'll know them when we see them."
"I'm tired," Janet said. "And I'm hurting real bad." Linda looked at her, a strange light in her eyes. Then unexpected, she walked to the child's side and put her arms around her. Janet smiled up at her.
"We're all tired and edgy," Nydia said. "Let's take a short break, Sam."
But the rest was to be a very short one. Sam had just eased out of the straps of his heavy pack when he heard a sound to his left, slightly behind him. He tensed, thumbing the Thompson off safety. He spun, throwing himself to one side, coming up on one knee, the SMG leveled, on full auto.
What he saw numbed him momentarily.
A demon griffin, a winged horror that, until now, had been only a part of mythology. Its ugly head lowered, the creature charged Sam, howling as it came.
Sam pulled the trigger, a one second burst of heavy, .45 caliber slugs. The griffin screamed, humanlike, and fell to its knees, blood gushing out of the holes in its chest and throat. It kicked on the cold forest floor for a few seconds, then, with a terrible shrieking, it beat its wings and died.
"What in the name of God is that thing?" Sam asked.
Only one among them knew the answer to that, but she had no intention of explaining.
Nydia screamed, Sam whirling around. Rats had encircled the young girl, and Nydia was beating at them with a stick. Linda stood with her back to a tree, her face pale with terror. The rats, much larger and bolder than their earthbound cousins, seemingly had no fear of humans, and no interest in attacking anyone other than Janet. The child was kicking at them with her tennis shoes. One of the rodents leaped at her, yellow teeth snapping.
Sam slapped it to the ground and stomped on it with a heavy jump boot, smashing the guts from the devilish rodent. He looked up, and only then did he see the white slash on the bark of a tree about fifty yards from their rest stop.
Fifty yards behind them.
"Run!" Sam yelled, grabbing up his pack. "Get the weapons and the packs and run. Toward that big oak," he pointed. "Get past it."
Nydia grabbed Linda and shoved her into action literally forcing her to stop and pick up her pack and the shotgun she was carrying.
The rats pursued them to the slash-marked tree, but would not attack them once they had passed the line. The rodents raced back into the forest.
Janet looked at the slash on the tree. Whatever, or whomever had marked the tree had done so with a mighty sword or knife, wielded with awesome power. "Those boundaries you people were talking about? I think we found them."
Sam lay on the ground sheet, his head resting on his pack. His thoughts were many. It was late afternoon, and turning colder. Already a few flakes of snow had fallen, and it felt as if it might start snowing in earnest at any moment. If that happened, he would have to build a fire and a lean-to. The lean-to didn't worry him, but a fire might bring some unwelcome visitors.
Why are they waiting? he mused. We are few and they are many, and with their powers, they must know where we are. Surely they can't be that afraid of me?
"Do not flatter yourself so, young warrior," the voice boomed into Sam's head. "It is I they fear."
"I wondered where you had gotten off to," Sam spoke, oblivious to the others looking at him, listening to the one-sided conversation.
"I have been busy. Now hear me, young one: you must be on guard, but you need not fear the evil forces as much as you believe. I will take care of those spawns of hell. They will harass you, worry you, but they won't harm you—if you remain careful and maintain your faith."
"You mean, I can kill them, but they can't kill me, or us?"
"I didn't say that."
Sam sighed, an exasperating expulsion of breath, "Riddles again, huh?"
"Only if you believe they are riddles."
"Study your words, huh?"
"That is correct."
"Is it against the policy of … Him for you to come right out and say things in an understandable fashion?"