Piercing the Darkness (33 page)

Joel Galvin ducked, his arms over his head, and Mrs. Denning shrieked as the entire row of drinking glasses shattered from one end to the other.

Mr. Steele ducked too, pulling Sally down with him.

Cree was out the other end of the cafe, pulling up into the sky just as Si shot like a bullet through the front of the cafe and right through Steele.

“Ahhh!!” Mr. Steele’s hand went to his eyes.

“Mr. Steele!” shouted Galvin.

Sally was free. She ran for the door.

Si’s sword had been there. The four men didn’t see her, and neither did the spirits attached to them. The spirits were fluttering about, looking for their attacker; the four men stood there squinting, shading their eyes, trying to figure out which direction the sun was coming from.

The Prince of Omega and his hordes descended on the campus, flushing out a blizzard of brilliant warriors who scattered in all directions, fleeing like frightened birds. The demons shrieked and gave chase. This was the kind of sport they were hoping for. Barquit kept looking for the leader of this marauding host, but did not see him.

Retreat! Retreat! The angels fled, leading the demonic hordes further into the sky, further from the campus, further from the trouble below.

“Good!” said Cree, following Sally.

Sally ran down the gravel road, passing more cars arriving with more people.

“Hey,” somebody called, “which way to registration?”

“Just keep going,” she replied. “You’ll find it.”

They kept going. So did she.

The Prince of Omega and his demons cheered and wailed as they chased countless angelic warriors across the sky. They had the power and they had the numbers. They would purge their territory of these brilliant troublemakers, and that would be that.

Cree and Si just kept close to Sally, trying to force her under trees and out of sight. She seemed to know what to do, where to run, how to hide. They flew headlong just above her, swords drawn, rolling steadily to look skyward, earthward, skyward . . .

They didn’t know how many they’d lost in this battle. But they still
had Sally Roe . . . for now.

Good. Run, girl, just run.

CHAPTER 19

MR. STEELE STOOD,
but his hands were still covering his eyes. Mr. Galvin and Mrs. Denning hurried to his aid.

“Hey, easy now! Get glass in your eye?” Galvin asked.

“Must be, must be.”

The four men hurried inside, still seeing spots in front of their eyes. One stayed by the door. Another checked the back door.

The third took hold of Mrs. Denning’s arm. She protested, “Ouch! I beg your pardon!”

“That’s Mrs. Denning!” Mr. Steele snapped.

The man let go of her. “What happened?”

The fourth man helped Mr. Steele to his feet. “Man, look at the mess!”

“Mr. Steele, you all right?” Galvin asked.

His eyes cleared. Galvin looked at them closely.

“I don’t see anything, Mr. Steele. You feel anything?”

Mr. Steele was concerned about something else. “Did you see her?”

The fourth man answered, “Not clearly, just through the window.”

“Did you see her
leave
?” he demanded.

“No.”

“We didn’t see a thing,” said the third man. “The sun was right in our eyes.”

Mr. Steele sat in anger and disgust. “The sun . . . !”

Galvin was curious. “Who was that woman, Mr. Steele?”

Mr. Steele suddenly smiled as if she were a pleasant subject. “An old friend, Joel. I hadn’t seen her in years.”

Mrs. Denning’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You
know
Bethany Farrell?”

He looked at Mrs. Denning quite flustered and didn’t answer.

“How are your eyes?” she asked.

“They’re fine, thank you.”

Mr. Galvin got a broom to sweep up the broken glass. Steele got up and motioned his four men outside.

As soon as they stepped onto the porch, Steele cautioned his men, “Nobody hears about this.”

“Right,” they answered, “you got it.”

He spoke rapidly and quietly. “She’s got a dye job now, her hair’s black, and she’s wearing tinted glasses. She has the ring, all right.”

“She can’t get very far,” said the first man.

Steele whispered to the fourth man, “I’ll give you some work right away if you wish.”

The fourth man understood. He whispered some quick orders to the other three. “Check up and down the road right away, and then check around Fairwood.”

Mr. Steele suggested, “They might check at the Schrader Motor Inn in Fairwood. She used to stay there.”

The fourth man nodded and gave one final order. “If you find her, take care of her cleanly and quietly.”

The three other men snapped into action.

Mr. Steele looked back toward the cafe. “Mrs. Denning will have to be interviewed. Goring will be coming from Summit on Monday, and Santinelli said he’d be here by Monday evening. We’ll talk to Mrs. Denning as soon as Goring gets here. I think you should be at the interview as well.”

The fourth man nodded. He was dark and lean, dressed all in black, with a sharp nose, deep brown eyes, and strange, pointy eyebrows.

“Looks like your energies hit a critical mass in there,” he said. “That was quite a disturbance.”

“Maybe.” Mr. Steele was unwilling to admit it. “Roe might be into some new kind of power . . . She
might
be.” Then his voice took on a
strange, sinister tone. “But she’s dealing with
us
now, so she won’t last forever. The real power is ours, and it’s going to stay that way!”

“NO,” SAID TED
Walroth, starting to raise his voice. “June and I have talked about it, we’ve prayed about it, and we just can’t go on with this. Listen, Mark, we’ve gone astray from the will of the Lord having this school. I’ve always thought that, and now we’re just finding it out the hard way. The Lord just isn’t blessing this thing!”

Mark and Ted were in the little school office; Mark had gathered all the records for the two Walroth children, Mary and Jonathan, and had them ready to hand over to Ted, but he was still hoping against hope that he could talk Ted into keeping his children in the school.

“But, Ted . . . if you’ll be honest with yourself, with June, with Mary and Jonathan, you’ll have to admit that the school’s done them a world of good. Their scores are up, they’re close to the Lord, their self-esteem is great, they’re happy . . .”

“Oh, are they?” Ted challenged. “For how long? How long is it going to be, Mark, before something happens to them too?”

Mark had heard that kind of talk too many times before, and he was getting tired of it. “Ted, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but there are a lot of outright lies going around, and I hope—”

“I don’t care about the lies or the gossip, I know about all that nonsense. But I believe that behind all the talk and the fear there is a definite element of risk—”

“There is no element of risk!”

Now Ted was openly angry. He pointed his finger at Mark and looked down that finger with cold blue eyes. “Now that right there is a problem in itself! You’ve lost your objectivity in this thing, Mark, totally and completely! If there was a problem, even a serious problem, I don’t think you’d admit it! You’ve taken Tom’s side in this thing, and I think that’s unacceptable for the pastor! You don’t know what kind of person Tom is when you’re not around! None of us do! And if you’re going to be his advocate in these matters, then I don’t think we can trust you either, and I don’t think we can remain under your pastorship!”

Mark took a moment to be quiet and break the momentum of this
building confrontation. He spoke softly. “Ted . . . Satan is busily at work among us, trying to split us up, trying to cause division . . .”

Ted agreed. “I’ll say! You can’t see the Lord’s will anymore, Mark, even when it’s as plain as day, right in front of you! This school is a colossal mistake, a wrong step we never should have taken, and now we’re paying for it, and you’re just refusing to see that.”

Mark tried to clarify what he meant. “I meant . . .”

“I know what you meant! And I’m saying you’re wrong, dead wrong. You’ve been stubborn, you’ve been blind, you’ve come to the defense of a man that we simply can’t trust, and now we’re all under a lawsuit and push has come to shove. June and I want no part of it, and we certainly don’t want our kids dragged through it.” He grabbed the knob and opened the door. “I’ve got to go.”

Mark handed him the records.

“Thanks.”

Ted walked hurriedly, angrily, to the main door.

“See you Sunday?” Mark asked.

“No,” Ted replied, not turning around. “Don’t expect that. I don’t think the Lord is happy with this church right now.”

And with that, he was gone.

TAL, NATHAN, AND
Armoth stood just outside, watching him go.

“It’s spreading,” said Nathan. “First in the school, and now in the church. They’re at each other’s throats.”

Tal fell back and leaned against the school building. “Destroyer! With no change in direction, the saints here won’t have a school left to defend.”

“And we won’t have the prayer backup to succeed in . . . in
anything!
”

“But what about the spirits responsible?” demanded Armoth. “Surely we can root them out!”

“No,” said Tal, and he was quite angry and frustrated. “They have a right to be there. They were invited. The saints have given themselves over to this fight, and until their hearts break, until they repent, this cancer will never slow its spread.”

“So what now?” asked Nathan.

“Mota and Signa are working to find a breach in the enemy’s ranks, some weak spot in Destroyer’s plan that we can expose for the saints to find. In the meantime, all we can do is keep the core group praying, fighting. The Lord will move according to his purposes. He’ll—”

They drew their swords.

No, it was no demonic army, not even a formidable spirit, only a small, ugly messenger, brazen enough to fly right over their heads, waving its empty hands to show it was not an aggressor.

“Ha haaaa!!!” it called. “Are you Captain Tal?”

“I am,” said Tal.

“Destroyer has a message for you!” The little imp hovered high above them, calling out its message with a high, grating voice. “He says, ‘I have cut you down, great captain! Omega is mine, and ever shall be, and your army is routed and scattered! Send some more! My warriors are hungry!’”

The imp darted away like a little fly.

Tal did not smile as he said, “Sally Roe is safe. Had they destroyed her, that would have been Destroyer’s message.” He sheathed his sword. “We’ll find Cree and Si, and make sure of their welfare. I’ve sent Guilo ahead to aid Chimon and Scion at Bentmore. We three will take charge of Sally’s next stop. We must keep her alive.”

“We are weakened, captain,” said Nathan.

Tal nodded. “Gather all the forces you can spare, Nathan. We’ll do our best.”

SALLY REMEMBERED
a side road when she came to it, but couldn’t remember exactly where it went. She took it anyway, just to get off the main highway. There was a red farmhouse not too far down on the right, with a gully in front and a classic-looking red barn. That registered. She’d seen it before, perhaps while bicycling. This road should eventually lead her back to Fairwood.