Ancient Eyes Part 13

Silas' breath shifted and became a long, beseeching cry. The shadow thing that outlined him against the dying late afternoon sunlight expanded. Silas blinked out like a burned bulb and that other, huge and silent, bent to place huge dark hands on Elspeth's flesh. She bent double as they released her, and slipped into the pool. Her arms and legs rose into the air and her eyes opened in sudden shock as she spun, turning in quick circles like something caught in a drain, and disappeared.

The snap of release blocked the light of the room and the voice of the chant. Those who had held the girl fell backward into the spiral of men and women behind them. They were caught, held upright and absorbed. The horned shadow threw back its head and roared to the sky as energy rippled down the length of the line of worshipers. They leaned into one another, rolling along like dominos toward the far end, lost in the bowels of the church, until at last the final body came up against the wall. Fibrous, wooden hair shot out from the wall and clamped over the man's body. He cried out and tore away from the obscenity of that touch, and the spiral whipped back the other direction. There was no control in this motion. Bodies tumbled aside as they pa.s.sed the shock to the next in line and fell away.

The water in the pool boiled. From the depths of the shadow creature at the foot of the pool, Silas Greene's arms emerged, gripping the sides of the pool and yanking free. The line of energy snaked into the rear chamber, drove through the final dozen faithful and slammed into Silas' back. He gasped, his eyes blazing, and he plunged his arms into the waters of the pool. He stopped just short of allowing his face to make contact with the surface, and then he drew back. He strained, arched his back, and drew Elspeth from the pool.

At first he didn't have the strength for it. He pulled, and the water that was no longer water held, dragging her back like green quicksand. Then the shadow lent its strength and Silas pulled again. Elspeth came free with a wet, sucking sound, and Silas fell back onto the stone floor, her body falling over his and drenching him.

He shook his head. His hands and arms tingled from the burning sensation. He was soaked from head to foot, but it was only water. Cool, clear water.

Elspeth coughed and spit. Silas stared into her eyes and gasped. In that moment is was not Elspeth Carlson who stared at him. Deep, ancient eyes glared straight through his soul. Hair like wooden rope shot out from the sides of that ancient, weathered face. Then Elspeth coughed again, and the moment pa.s.sed. She trembled and tried to lift herself off of Silas's p.r.o.ne form. He lifted her to the side and extricated himself.

Silas stood and placed a hand gently on the girl's forehead. She glanced up again, her eyes wide, and he saw it. Directly in the center of her forehead was the mark, a dark swirl, like a serpent, or a question mark. He reached down, took her hand and helped her stand.

All around them the others climbed back to their feet. A murmur of voices rose, confused whispers and muttered curses. The floor in the back chamber was wet, but not as wet as it seemed it should be. There were snakes, but only a few, and these were quickly gathered up and placed in their gla.s.s tanks. Silas took it all in and shook his head. The darkness had receded somewhat, and he had full control of his limbs.

The church seemed decayed. What had been bright, newly painted walls were dingy. The long shadows of late afternoon cut across the failing beams of sunlight slipping in the windows. The dark water stains on the floor pooled like bloodstains. He did not turn to the alcove above the door. The sensation of eyes digging into the back of his head and drawing on his energy had diminished, and he didn't want to reawaken it.

The doors remained closed. The others filed out of the back chamber and took seats in the pews. Some of them limped; others needed help to find their seats. The tumbling avalanche of flesh had left them battered and worn. All of the energy had drained from the room.

Tommy staggered out through the curtains and stood a few feet away from Silas. He didn't take a seat with the others. He was thinking about a dance they'd held a few years back. He remembered bright torches, and loud music, too much to drink and dancing. He also remembered the morning after. Everything had faded. The stage had been alive with music and sound, but by morning sunlight it was desolate. It was difficult to picture in his mind how it had been the night before, or why it had seemed so full of magic.

The church felt that way in the aftermath of the "cleansing." The shadows were long and deep, the light from the windows was dimmed. In the light of everyday normalcy, what had happened seemed somehow unreal. It was as if what had happened was a dream he'd awakened from to-this.

He glanced at Elspeth. She watched him in return, wary, but no longer appearing ready to bolt at the first opportunity. Silas still held her hand, but a moment later he dropped it. He stepped closer to Tommy and spoke, keeping his voice low.

"It's time for your brother to bring the other one," he said softly. "It won't be long before they come. We have taken one of their daughters, after all."

Silas turned back and smiled thinly at Elspeth. Her clothing was still damp, and it clung to her slight form like a second skin. There was no trace of the thick, green liquid. She shivered and clutched her arms tightly about herself, though it was stiflingly hot in the church.

Tommy nodded. "I'll bring them," he said. Then he pointed at Elspeth. "I'm taking her with me."

Silas nodded. It would do the girl good to get into the sunlight and dry off, and he didn't have time to babysit her. He had to get through to the others, tap into the energy they had fed the church and ready them once more.

It wasn't the old way. Reverend Kotz would not have held two cleansings on the same day. He would have sent them home, drained and empty, trailing off through the woods to their separate lands and homes. Silas didn't remember a single Sunday when he'd spoken to another child, or seen his parents with another family.

Everything had changed. Silas was not naive. He knew that what had happened to him had happened at a lightning pace. What he'd just witnessed went far beyond anything from his childhood; far beyond anything that Reverend Kotz might have imagined, he suspected. Beneath the dark veneer and evil glare, Kotz had fancied himself a preacher. He had believed that his warped services and s.a.d.i.s.tic practices prepared his flock for a one-way trip to Heaven. Silas had no such illusions.

Unless Jesus had sprouted an impressive rack of antlers and the Holy Mother had grown hag-like and hungry, those he served had little or nothing to do with any Christian faith. Reverend Kotz had come from a solid Christian background. He'd attended Bible College and traveled the country with Evangelical groups to hold revivals. When he came to the mountain and built his church, he believed he would spread the gospel to the unwashed ma.s.ses of the California hills. He didn't bargain on what he'd find once he arrived, but Silas had known all along.

He walked slowly down the aisle toward the podium at the front of the church. There was no Bible open there, and he'd prepared no remarks. He had no idea, in fact, where the words he spoke came from, or what prompted the actions he took, once the chanting began. Before the chanting, when he walked the woods, or stood at the altar, he was in charge of his body and his mind and the other hovered just out of sight, providing support and strength. Once the words began tumbling from his lips, however, everything shifted.

He turned to face them. They averted their eyes. He wondered what they were thinking. At least half of them, he knew, fought inner, losing battles against the power that bound them. He felt their thoughts and emotions. He didn't know how, exactly, but he knew it was a connection between the dark shadow he'd become and the mark on their foreheads. This was not a congregation of like minds, gathered together to serve a common faith. These were slaves, drawn by the darkness into the forest and led like sheep before the gaze of the thing over the door. Silas was a slave, as well, but at the same time he had more power-more control over himself and others-than he'd ever experienced.

He watched Tommy lead Elspeth out the door of the church. Light sliced in through the crack, and then was cut off as the door swung shut. The silence was thick enough to chew on. Silas gathered his strength, raised his eyes and stared straight back over their heads. He stood very still for a moment. Where the alcove had been, ropy vines and branches shot out. The face was clearly visible, no longer veiled in shadows, but drawn forward, attached to the structure of rope-hair roots. It was hard to tell from such a distance, but Silas thought something moved in that nest of leaves and greenery-something sinuous and quick.

Then he felt the swell of darkness within and lowered his gaze. It didn't matter. It was all coming together in a single day and leading to a single moment. He had no idea where it would leave him when it was through, but he had a part to play, and no other options available.

"Dearly beloved," he whispered. The words carried easily without amplification. Slowly, shaking off their lethargy, his congregation responded. They raised their heads and met his gaze, and Silas smiled.

Someone in the back of the church flipped on the light switch and the sconces and overhead lamps flashed to life. In that instant, Silas continued.

"Let us pray."

TWENTY-FOUR.

The climb up the mountain after services was very different from any earlier climb. Abraham felt stronger than he'd ever felt in his life. The support of the others, and their faith, bolstered him and lightened his steps. At the same time, a great weight bore down on his heart and threatened to suffocate him. Their faith was strong, and he could count on them to stand behind it, but as much as that faith was in G.o.d, it was in Abraham, as well. What happened in the next few hours would happen through him, his words, his actions, and his own faith.

The others fell behind and left him to climb in peace. What he did next he would have to do alone. They would seat themselves outside the cottage to wait, and would only enter when he called them. Abraham knew this, and he feared it. There was little margin for human error in what was to come. He knew what was expected of him. He remembered his father's words, and his father's actions, but his father was not present. No one would enter the cottage at his side, and if he failed in the next steps of their endeavor, they might as well all pack up their bags and move off the mountain. Silas Greene would triumph. The dark thing that lived above the door to his church would triumph. The mountain would be lost, and Katrina-he wouldn't think about that. He couldn't afford to dwell on speculation. If they had Katrina, he'd find her soon enough.

The trail was as clear as it had been the first time he'd come to this cottage so many years before. There were none of the encroaching vines that had menaced him only a few days before, and if a hedge had ever blocked the way, there was no sign of it now. The mountain trembled beneath him, but it wasn't the tremor of an earthquake, or of fear. It was acceptance, and it shivered up and through his frame with intensity he hadn't expected. The vibration calmed his thoughts and measured his footfalls. He climbed steadily and with purpose, and with each step closer to the old cottage on the peak, his confidence grew.

When he reached the clearing outside the cottage he hesitated. He glanced over to where he'd buried his mother. An image of her face surfaced, clear and powerful, and she smiled. Abe stood very still and let tears stream down his cheeks to dampen the collar of his shirt. He'd had no time to grieve, and the more the mountain reminded him of where he'd come from, and who his parents had been, the deeper the loss cut. A month earlier he'd thought he wouldn't mind never hearing a word from his past, that he could just march into the future without looking back and be content. Now he wondered that he'd ever had the strength to leave.

The sun had pa.s.sed its zenith hours before. It was late afternoon, and he turned to the cottage with purpose. What he had to do depended partially on timing. He entered the cottage and closed the door carefully behind him. It would take the others time to reach the clearing, but he wanted no distractions.

The air was warm, but not stifling. The walls were shaded on all sides by trees, and except at the height of noon, the sun didn't fall directly on the roof. Abraham closed the shutters one after the other. They sealed tightly and cut off all but a faint trickle of light from outside. When the room was as dark as he could get it, he knelt in the very center of the floor, in the heart of the symbol carved into the floor. The arms of the cross stretched out to either side, in front of him, and behind him. He stared fixedly at the fireplace.

He'd witnessed this ritual only once. Abe's father wanted him to see, and to know, what took place when the elders gathered outside the cottage. All other times Abe had been excluded, just as the others were excluded, but that one time had been enough. He raised his arms to shoulder height on either side, bowed his head, and swept his gaze down the hearth and across the stone floor.

The mountain's vibration had increased, but Abe didn't notice it until the moment he grew still, closed his eyes, and cut himself off from the world. A whisper of sound that might have been voices, and might have been leaves skittering across stone slipped in and out of his thoughts. They didn't confuse him, as they might have, but instead the effort to sort them and understand them focused his mind.

The sun dipped a little lower, and yet Abe sensed an illumination. He knew what he would see when he opened his eyes, but still he hesitated. He steeled himself and stared at the floor. Light shot in all directions, lines crossed and re-crossed the stone in intricate designs. The crystal in the ceiling had caught the last glimmer of the day's light and refracted it into the room. Abe's lips parted in a silent gasp as the pattern beneath him shifted subtly. In this light, there were other lines. A crack outlined a small rectangle on the floor directly before him. The handles that had seemed pointless by day clearly connected with this plate. Abe breathed a prayer and reached for them. His fingers slid easily into place, and he lifted.

The moment was so fleeting that if he hadn't felt the weight of the stone lifting in his hands, he wouldn't have been able to credit what he'd seen. The shadows shifted, and the lines of the pattern blended. Suddenly the rays of light were just that, beautiful and glittering, but doing nothing in particular to the carving on the floor.

Abe set the small slab of stone carefully aside. There was a small opening beneath, and he reached inside. His hands trembled, and he was suddenly clammy with sweat. What if there was nothing there? It had been years since anyone had come to this place. What if Greene knew about it? What if kids had come and camped in the cottage and found it when the light was just right?

He felt the edges of a wooden box, and sighed with relief. He slid his fingers around the edges and lifted it out. He placed the box on the floor beside the small stone slab, then lifted the stone and slid it back into place. It closed with a soft click, and the crack vanished. Abe stared intently at the floor, but all he saw were the intricate lines of the cross that was carved into the floor, and the dance of early evening sunlight through the crystal geode.

He thought about this for a moment. He wondered how they had managed to place the crystal just right. How had they known precisely where to cut the stone, and what had they used to do it? He didn't remember his father having any particular carving skill.

Abe ran his fingers along the design on the floor. It felt ancient and timeless. He had a sudden image of pyramids, and he shivered. No one knew how those great stone monuments had been constructed. No one knew how primitive engineers had managed to make huge stone slabs slide aside at the touch of a hand, or cut stone blocks as large as a mobile home with such precision they fit together as tightly as if they'd been formed as one solid piece.

The whispered voices in his head returned, and he thought he caught part of a name. He couldn't p.r.o.nounce it, but it seemed right and the vibration beneath his knees attached it to the stone and the mountain beneath. The stone knew the answers, it seemed, and though no explanation was forthcoming, Abraham thought he understood why no one else would have found this secret. He glanced at the design on the floor again and frowned. Was it the same? Exactly the same as when his father had shown it to him? Was it even exactly the same as when he'd entered the cottage? He couldn't be certain.

Abe fingered the pendant hanging around his neck for a moment, then picked up the box and carried it to the small table. The last time he'd seen that box removed from its alcove, he'd sat in a far corner. The bright, dancing lights had confused him, and he'd pulled his knees up tightly to his chest. His father had paid no more attention to him than he had to dust floating in the brilliant light, or the wind through the trees outside. He had focused on the box, the moment, and the duty at hand. Abraham felt that now. If he concentrated on the whispers he heard his father's voice joined with others. Images filled his mind and flickered in and out of focus. He saw faces, places, things he'd never seen before, and knew them.

He flipped open the lid of the box and glanced inside.

The contents were as he remembered them, with a single exception. There was a small leather book, a tiny crystal vial filled with liquid, a long tapered wooden sword ran down one side of the case, there was a small leather pouch, and the one thing he had never seen before. This last was a single folded slip of paper. Abe lit a candle to give himself light, and turned back to the box. He lifted the paper out and stared at the bold script across the front.

"To my son, Abraham, who I know will find this. Jonathan Carlson"

Abe's hand shook and he gripped the paper too tightly. It was old, dried and a little brittle, and the corner of it disintegrated between his fingers. He eased up and laid it on the table, then opened it gently and smoothed it so he could read.

"If you are reading this," the note began, "then I am right, and I have failed. You remember the night as well as I do; parts of it you may remember better than I do. If you hold this note in your hands, you have remembered. That is my consolation-if you are here, then maybe the failure is not complete. There is always time. There may be no greater truth in the universe than that. Nothing can change it...

"We left something incomplete. We broke the pool. We cast out the serpents. We were filled with our righteousness. I knew what we were to do, and in my arrogance, I believed I knew better-that I had revelations from G.o.d-that it was my place to forgive.

"It was not men we faced in that church. Reverend Kotz was a vessel. The church itself was a vessel. The powers they held were mine to cleanse from the mountain, and I left them to fester. I fear that with my pa.s.sing, none will be vigilant. If this is so, then you have come home to a battle, Abraham; a battle I should have won long ago.

"She is evil. He is primal. Those are what you face. She does not belong here, but like a cancer she sends her roots into the mountain and drags out the life she needs to continue. He has always been here, but without her to warp the power of his energy, he was like the sky, or the snow on the highest peaks. He was not a danger-he was part of the mountain."

Abraham read slowly, taking in the words and committing them to memory. He knew he would not be likely to get a chance to reread this note until everything was over. The others were waiting outside. They would give him time, but not too much-there wasn't much to give. Abraham turned his gaze back to the note, but the words faded to white. The light seared his eyes, but he didn't close them. Images shifted through his mind like an out-of-control slide show.

He saw the pool. He saw Silas Greene lift something up. Water cascaded around the chamber and Silas fell back. The huge, ponderous rack of horns rose up and behind him and swept through the frames of wall and door as he fell, pulling a soaked, thrashing form after him.

Elspeth stared straight into Abraham's eyes. Her face washed from frantic terror to despair to wicked glee in the flash of-what? A snake's body across her back? A rivulet of water dripping back toward the pool? Her forehead bore the dark mark, bright as fresh ink.

She fell away.

Images shifted again and Abraham stood in that room. He stood behind his father, who held a book in one hand and a vial in the other. He sprinkled from the vial and chanted. His voice was loud, ringing from the walls of the church like peals of thunder. Abraham backed away. Snakes writhed on the floor, wrapping around his father's ankles and up his legs. The floor was alive with them. The pool was alive with them, and it bubbled over. There was no water. Something brilliant green and hissing like acid bubbled over the walls and onto the floor.

Jonathan Carlson did not flinch. He was not bitten. Abraham turned from the pool and the chamber and fled. Others pa.s.sed him-some he recognized-still he heard his father clearly.

Again the shift.

Her eyes were deep wooden pits. They coiled in and in on themselves, rings of age in the wood, gnarled roots like ingrown nails, ropy, endless strands of hair stretching out to all sides. He thought of the ocean. He saw wooden ships with prows slicing the storms and waves. She rode at the very tip of the front ship, lips curled into the storm and wooden hair flowing back to grip the sides of the ship barnacle tight, leeching its soul.

He saw another church, in another place. Above the door, he saw the dark hole and he knew she was there. He didn't see her, but he felt her, and he saw lines staining the wall where she dug in and fed. He saw the shadow of antlers on the wall over her head and felt the other-but different. Older. Not the dark horned presence of Reverend Kotz, or Silas Greene, but a shadow born of l.u.s.t and fueled by virility. The air was alive with the musky scent of him dipped in the deep green grip of her eyes.

He saw Elspeth again, heard her laughing and knew it was not her voice-not any longer. He saw Katrina, lying on a dirt floor. Her back was against a wooden wall, and her wrists and ankles were bound. Dirt streaked her face, and her blouse was torn. She stared up at him-no, through him at some other. She screamed.

Everything shifted again as Abraham cried out in fury. The static sound of his father's voice grew softer and softer, so faint it settled into background with the fleeing hiss of serpents and so-Abraham spoke.

But the second he heard the tones of his voice, he stopped. The images fell away and he was alone in the very small cottage. He was bathed in sweat. Panic rose and he whispered his fear into the empty, quiet room.

"Katrina."

The beams of later afternoon sunlight had shifted angles up the wall and he knew he had waited as long as he dared. He skimmed the rest of the note quickly.

"They told me we should burn the church to the ground. They told me, and I knew that they were right, but I thought we had won. I thought, in the rubble of their precious pool and the flight of Reverend Kotz that we had achieved the cleansing, and so, I told them to forgive. I told them forget. I was wrong.

"When you go to that church, Abraham," the note ended, "watch it burn-and scatter the ash."

There was a soft knock on the door of the cottage, and Abraham rose without a sound. He opened the door and gestured for those outside to enter. They stepped past him, ignoring the table and the candle. They moved to the corners of the cross on the floor-head, sword, light and back.

Abraham slid between them gracefully and knelt in the very center of the cross. He bowed his head, cleared it of thought, gripped the pendant around his neck, and began.

"I am the heart," he said. "I carry the blood of my father, and the blood of your fathers. I carry the blood of the mountain. Who will be my arm?"

It had begun.

Down the mountain, Amos Carlson glanced up. He saw a glow on the peak, and he hesitated. He'd seen that glow before, remembered it from his childhood. He remembered the small stone church and the warmth it held. He remembered the long walk up the mountain's side each week, and the leisurely stroll back down, talking and laughing softly.

The trees that surrounded him had lost their comfortable feel. They no longer fit him like they once had. They didn't call to him, or draw him in. He saw the shadows instead of the trees that cast them. He heard the things that weren't there instead of the things he knew should be. His heart beat too quickly and a little harder than it should, and a cold sweat coated his brow.

He held the shotgun easily at his side, clutched in one hand, loaded and with the safety off. He'd perfected the motion over decades of hunting; a quick flip of wrist and a turn of shoulder and death would lodge in both barrels. Where the woods had lost their comfort, the gun had molded itself to his hand. It moved with his steps and lent an extra limb to his shadow.

He thought of his sister. Elspeth was a beautiful girl. She had taken care of him when he was sick, had lied for him when the two of them were in trouble. Though she was younger, she'd taught him things about himself that might have gone unlearned if he'd been left to his own devices. Hers was the voice of reason. Hers was the creative mind that took in all the details of stories and books and blended them into something new. She had told him stories when he was lonely and packed food for him when he needed to be alone.

Amos loved his mother, and his father, but he would kill for his sister. He knew this. He believed that Abraham would do what he could. Amos knew the stories. He knew what had gone before, but Abraham Carlson was not Jonathan Carlson, and Silas Greene and his brood were not the same challenge as Reverend Kotz had been. Things were darker on the mountain than Amos believed they'd ever been, or ever would be again. They were reaching a crossroad, and he thought maybe it would be a good idea if he approached that alone.

They might succeed. They might fail. The gun felt heavy and comforting in his hand. He would make a difference. One way or the other, he would do what had to be done. If his sister could be saved, he would get her out of there. If there was nothing else he could do, he would make sure both barrels of his shotgun poured their swarms of death into the face of one Silas Greene. If it couldn't be stopped, it could be slowed. Maybe if you cut off the head of the beast it wouldn't grow back too quickly. Maybe no one could step in and take Greene's place-not quickly.

Amos lifted his hat gently and tipped it to the stone chapel on the mountain, and the cottage beyond. He thought, just for a second, that he saw a flickering light moving down the trail in his direction. Then he shouldered the shotgun, turned, and disappeared into the trees, keeping a wary eye on the shadows and the trees themselves. He cut at an angle through the forest, straight toward the white church. The sun was setting over the peaks and the odd twilight drew all the shadows to double length. The clouds above were blood red.

TWENTY-FIVE.

As Silas went through the motions of leading his congregation in prayer he became aware of a change. It wasn't a subtle change, but a powerful, throbbing discordance in the rhythmic beat of what he had set into motion. The church fed on those within. He understood this. It did not feed on Silas because Silas had been consumed that first night in the wood, driven through fire to shadow. Only the framework and the basic instincts of the man that had been Silas Greene stood praying in the white church. What loomed over and above him and draped him in shadow was in charge. He shoveled the others into the maw of a huge furnace, and the heat rose around them each time the stakes were raised. Now something else had joined the mix. Silas didn't recognize it, at first, and then-very suddenly-he did. He remembered as well as any the days of Reverend Jonathan Carlson and the stone chapel on the mountain. He remembered the night it had all come to a head here in the walls of the white church-the night the pool was broken and the serpents cast out. He remembered the night Reverend Kotz fled into the trees never to be seen again. Now it was more than memory. Memories flooded his mind, and not all of them were his own. Some belonged to Kotz-he felt the flat, snake-eyed malice of the man tainting their edges. Others belonged to those gathered before him. He had felt their thoughts brush his own since their marking in the woods, and that connection had grown in strength and clarity as time pa.s.sed, but now they flashed like vivid slides. Each fit into the next like the pieces of some great, cosmic puzzle, and he understood.

The thing that had changed was Abraham Carlson. He felt the boy's mind like a white-hot poker, probing the edges of his control and groping for a hold on the shadow that bolstered him. Where his mind met Abraham's, the darkness shied away. Silas frowned. He sensed that Carlson pulled away, as well. For just an instant he saw the girl, Elspeth, as he pulled her from the water, and like flickering signals down a telephone line the image transferred to Abraham's mind. The connection wavered, and Silas' frown tipped back up to a smile.

There was something else, as well. The boy was not alone. There were other minds clouding his thoughts, or possibly safeguarding them. Silas felt these as well as a brooding, powerful force beyond it all. It loomed, like the shadow over his head, but Silas could put no name to it. He tried to pick apart the boy's mental defenses. He needed to know what he faced. He knew that, just as he was a more powerful, more focused vessel for the power that had fueled Reverend Kotz, Abraham Carlson was tapped into a different force, not weaker, but very different.

"Know thy enemy," Silas whispered.

He'd tried to spook the boy with the odd phone calls. He'd tried to frighten him from the mountain with the serpent. He'd killed the boy's mother and burned her home. Still, Abraham Carlson was coming.

Silas reached out mentally and probed for Tommy Murphy. He flashed on trees, dark shadows, and a trail winding along the side of the mountain. It was impossible to tell how far he'd traveled, or how much longer he might be gone. Silas reached further and found Angel.

The vision was sharp and instantaneous. It burned with a heat of its own and Silas gasped, gripped the sides of the podium, and gritted his teeth. He concentrated. Angel's mind was a tumult of heat, memory, l.u.s.t and indecision. It was like listening to two voices at once-one he could control, and the other that fought him every inch of the way. Something was wrong, but he didn't have time to dwell on it.

He saw the girl. She leaned on the wall of a barn. Her hair was disheveled, and her blouse was torn, but still covered her. She was bound at her wrists and her ankles, and her eyes were wide with terror. All of this he s.n.a.t.c.hed through Angel's eyes. As he saw it, Carlson saw it as well, and the connection wavered.

Silas bore down. He channeled Angel's wild heat. His hips rocked forward and he ground into the back of the wooden podium. His voice never wavered, but the heat shimmered in tones of deep green and rippled through the congregation. Men pressed their arms between their legs and some of the women turned, rose, and straddled pews. Strangers caressed one another. The dark antlers solidified in tones of deeper and deeper black. The scent of trees in spring filled the air and ran like sap through their combined sweat.

Irma Creed pulled her skirt over her hips and slipped onto Ed Murphy's lap. She turned so her head lolled slightly, her gaze locked on Silas. Ed fumbled with his zipper, desperately freed his erection and drove it into Irma, lifting them both from the seat and throwing his head back.

Silas felt Abraham's resolve cracking through their wild, disjointed connection. He felt the insecurity build, and drove talons of hunger and desire into the fissures. Everything shimmered, wavered, and then, with a crack like white lightning, that connection broke. Walls like those of a brilliant white tower, glistening in the sun, rose between minds. Silas staggered back from the podium with a guttural roar. The backlash of energy rippled through and over the congregation like a wave.

Silas regained his feet and threw his head back. The antlers brushed through the walls and the strands of root hair rippled and gripped, holding him tightly. The walls pulsed. Silas stared as they shivered, translucent with the serpentine tendrils she drove relentlessly through wood and down, groping for the stone of the mountain itself.

He saw bright points of energy where men and women rutted in the aisle and writhed in the pews. His erection was thick and knotted. He staggered, felt a surge of strength and rose. The antlers weighed him like anchors. Her hair, her roots, clawed at him, wrapped him and dragged him back and down. He fought it slowly, felt her grip release with an agonizing rip of psychic flesh. He took a step forward and tensed. He threw his shoulders forward and roared, and in that instant, he burst free of the clutches of the wood. He toppled forward and fell to his knees. His head crashed into the podium and brilliant sparks scattered his thoughts. He felt her eyes on him, enraged and crazed.

"Too soon." The words rose from deep within-deeper than Silas himself reached. Kotz? The other? The shadow? Some older servant of one, or the other dark power? He didn't know, but the words were true. He felt this, and shivered at how close it had come.