Spivey reversed her grip on the knife, held the handle toward the ugly giant." It's time, Kyle. The boy's appearance is deceptive. He looks small and weak, but he'll be strong, he'll resist, and although I am Chosen, I'm not physically strong, not any more. It's up to you."
An odd expression took possession of Kyle's face. Christine expected a look of triumph, eagerness, maniacal hatred, but instead he appeared. not worried, not confused, but a little of both. and hesitant.
Spivey said, "Kyle, it's time for you to be the hammer of God."
Christine shuddered. She scrambled across the floor toward the giant, so frightened that she could ignore the pain in her leg.
She grabbed for the hem of his parka, hoping to unbalance him, topple him, and get the gun away from him, a hopeless plan considering his size and strength, but she didn't even have a chance to try it because he swung the butt of his rifle at her, just as he'd swung it at the dog. It slammed into her shoulder, knocking her back, onto her side, and all the air was driven from her lungs. She gasped for breath and put one hand to her damaged shoulder and began to cry.
With tremendous effort, nearly blacking out from the pain, Charlie sat up because he thought he might see the situation differently from a new position and might, finally, spot a solution they had overlooked.
However, he still could not think of anything that would save them.
Kyle took the knife from Grace and gave her the rifle.
The old woman stepped out of the giant's way.
Kyle turned the knife over and over in his hand, staring at it with a slightly baffled expression. The blade glinted in the goblin light of the fire.
Charlie tried to pull himself up the five-foot-high face of the ledge that formed the hearth, with the notion of grabbing a buming log and throwing it. From the corner of her eye, Spivey saw him struggling with the dead weight of his own shattered body, and she pointed the rifle at him. She might as well have saved herself the trouble; he didn't have sufficient strength to reach the fire, anyway.
Kyle Barlowe looked at the knife in his hand, then at the boy, and he wasn't sure which scared him more.
He had used knives before. He'd cut people before, even killed them. It had been easy, and he had vented some of the rage that periodically built in him like a head of steam in a boiler. But he was not the same man that he had been then. He could control his emotions now. He understood himself at last. The old Kyle had hated everyone he met, whether he knew them or not, because inevitably they rejected him. But the new Kyle realized that his hatred did more harm to him than to anyone else. In fact, he now knew that he had not always been rejected because of his ugliness, but often because of his surliness and anger.
Grace had given him purpose and acceptance, and in time he had discovered affection, and after affection had come the first indications of an ability to love and be loved. And now, if he used the knife, if he killed the boy, he might be launching himself on an inevitable slide back down to the depths from which he'd climbed. He feared the knife.
But he was afraid of the boy, too. He knew Grace had psychic power, for he had seen her do things that no ordinary person could have done. Therefore, she must be right when she said the boy was the Antichrist. If he failed to kill the demonic child, he would be failing God, Grace, and all mankind.
But wasn't he being asked to throw away his soul in order to gain salvation? Kill in order to be blessed? Did that make sense?
"Please don't hurt my little boy. Please," Christine Scavello said.
Kyle looked down at her, and his quandary deepened. She didn't look like the dark Madonna, with the power of Satan behind her. She was hurt, scared, begging for mercy. He had hurt her, and he felt a pang of guilt at the injury he'd caused.
Sensing that something was wrong, Mother Grace said, "Kyle?"
lbrning to the boy, Kyle drew his knife hand back, so he would have all the power of his muscles behind the first blow.
If he took the last few steps in a crouch, swung the knife in low, rammed the blade into the boy's guts, it would all be over in a few seconds.
The child was still crying, and his bright blue eyes were transfixed by the point of the knife in Kyle's hand. His face was twisted into a wretched mask of terror, and sweat had broken out all over his pasty skin. His small body was slightly bent as if in anticipation of the pain to come.
" Strike him!" Mother Grace urged.
Questions raced through Kyles mind. How can God be merciful and still make me bear the burden of my monstrous face?
What kind of god would let me be saved from a meaningless life of violence and pain and hatred-just to force me to kill again?
If God rules the world, why does He allow so much suffering and pain and misery? And how could it be any worse if Satan ruled?
"The devil is putting doubt in your mind!" Grace said.
"That's where it's coming from, Kyle. Not from within you!
From the devil!"
"No," he told her." You taught me to always think about doing the right thing, to care about doing the right thing, and now I'm going to take a minute here, just a minute to think!"
"Don't think, just do!" she said." Or get out of my way and let me use this gun. How can you fail me now? After all I've done, how can you fail?"
She was right. He owed her everything. He would still be peddling dope, living in the gutter, consumed by hatred, if not for her. If he failed her now, where was his honor, his gratitude?
In failing her, wouldn't he be sliding back into his old life almost as surely as if he used the knife as she demanded?
"Please," Christine Scavello said." Oh, God, please don't hurt my baby."
"Send him back to Hell forever!" Grace shouted.
Kyle felt as if he were being torn apart. He had been making moral judgments and value decisions for only a few years, not long enough for it to be an unconscious habit, not long enough to deal easily with a dilemma like this. He realized that tears were spilling down his cheeks.
The boy's gaze rose from the point of the blade.
Kyle met the child's eyes and was jolted by them.
"Kill him!" Grace said.
Kyle was shaking violently.
The boy was shaking, too.
Their gazes had not merely locked but. fused. so it seemed to Kyle that he could see not only through his own eyes but through the eyes of the boy, as well. It was an almost magical empathy, as if he were both himself and the child, both assailant and victim. He felt large and dangerous. yet small and helpless at the same time. He was suddenly dizzy and increasingly confused. His vision swam out of focus for a moment.
Then he saw-or imagined that he saw-himself looming over the child, literally saw himself from the boy's point of view, as if he were Joey Scavello. It was a stunning moment of insight, strange and disorienting, almost a clairvoyant experience. Looking up at himself from the boy's eyes, he was shocked by his appearance, by the savagery in his own face, by the madness of this attack. A chill swept up his spine, and he could not get his breath. This unflattering vision of himself was the psychic equivalent of a blow to the head with a ball-peen hammer, psychologically concussive. He blinked, and the moment of insight passed, and he was just himself again, though with a terrible headache and a lingering dizziness. Finally, he knew what he must do.
To Christine's surprise, the giant turned away from Joey and threw the knife into the flames beyond Charlie. Sparks and embers flew up like a swarm of fireflies.
"No!" Grace Spivey shouted.
"I'm through killing," the big man said, tears pouring copiously down his cheeks, softening the hard and dangerous look of him much as rain on a windowpane blurs and softens the view beyond.
"No," Spivey repeated.