Piercing the Darkness (82 page)

BERNICE’S HANDS WERE
trembling as she dug every last item out
of the mailbox and stuffed it into her shopping bag. She couldn’t wait to get back to the office.

NATHAN DUCKED UNDER
a violent sword thrust of one remaining beast, then came back hard and fast with his own blade. The thing backed through the wall, and Krioni met it outside.

Red smoke. That was the last of them.

The rest of Ashton was safe as well. The attack, centered on the Post Office, had been met and defeated.

MARSHALL HUNG UP
the phone gently, then leaned back in his chair, threw his head back, and let out a roar that shook the windows. He didn’t know what to say, what to do, how to express how he felt, so he just hollered while Kate, Ben, and Bev tried to get him to talk.

“Marshall!” Kate insisted. “What is it?”

He just hollered again, raising his hands toward Heaven.

The phone rang again. Marshall picked it up in trembling hands. “Yeah?”

The voice on the other end could hardly speak, and the pitch was ceiling-high. “Marshall, this is Bernice! Sit down whatever you do!”

SALLY HAD LIT
the brushfire at last.

Nathan was the first to have his hands free. He shot into the sky over Ashton, cutting a brilliant swath through the ebbing smoke of the battle now ending, and put a golden trumpet to his lips.

The signal carried over the farmlands, over the prairies, from one end of the sky to the other; every angelic warrior could hear it and knew what it meant.

Still they waited. Not yet. First Bacon’s Corner, and then the rest. They listened again. The signal from Bacon’s Corner should come soon enough.

AT THE SUMMIT
Institute, the demons heard the faraway signal, and
it was unnerving, like a deeply buried memory too horrible to face. Too many of them had heard that sound before and now bore the scars that came immediately after hearing it.

The Strongman cocked his head around for a moment. “Wait! Be still!”

Destroyer heard it, but didn’t want to admit it. He immediately thought of his twelve henchmen and the hordes they’d led into Ashton. Wasn’t that the direction the sound was coming from? Oh no.

Out in the herb garden, the psychics were gasping with fear.

“No . . . no!” said the demon atop the woman attorney.

“No . . . no!” echoed the woman.

“What is it?” said the blond singer.

The demon atop the fifth grade teacher concocted an answer he didn’t believe himself. The teacher echoed, “It is fear and ignorance, bigotry and hatred, still rife in the land! The winds of change must blow it aside; we must stand before it and prevail!”

“Yes, yes!” they all replied. The singer strummed his guitar, and they began to sway with the melody of still another song of global peace and perfection.

IN BACON’S CORNER,
Mota and Signa burst from hiding with a shout, swords flashing, wings unfurling like the crashing of waves, white light burning like the sun.

“For the saints of God and for the Lamb!” they shouted as the cornfields, the silos, the store buildings, the barns, the forests, the roads all around Bacon’s Corner exploded with the white light of Heaven’s legions.

Mota shouted, somewhat with glee, “Stand ready! We will begin with Amethyst!”

CHAPTER 42

THE SOUND OF
Nathan’s trumpet was still ringing in the Strongman’s ears. He knew something was going wrong somewhere.
Get on with this! Cut her, burn her, do what you must, but delay no longer!

Khull spoke softly to the dignified, honorable, respectable men who were paying him for his services. “We can make her sing loud and long. Just say the word.”

Santinelli took only a furtive, sideways glance at Sally, now bound and held in a hard wooden chair in the middle of the basement, weak with exhaustion, pain, and fear. She was surrounded by Khull and his four cutthroats, who now brandished their implements of ritualistic torture and were all too eager to begin.

“Sally, to think it would ever come to this!” Santinelli muttered. “You should never have mentioned that Name; you should never have aligned yourself with our enemies!”

Goring reminded him, “We have much at stake here, Carl. I would say the situation forces our hand.”

Santinelli replied in a voice hushed by his own disgust, “So now we have become butchers!”

Khull smiled. He almost laughed. “No, Mr. Santinelli. You pay
me
to do that. I’m not as dignified and respectable as you are. I’m just a plain little rotten Satanist.”

The Strongman gave Destroyer a shove, and Destroyer spoke
quickly to Steele’s mind.

Steele offered, “We’re talking about a commodity here. Sally Roe’s only value is in what use she is to us. Let’s get that information and be rid of her.”

Khull did chuckle a bit this time. “How about it, Mr. Santinelli? It’s your decision: do you want her tortured?”

Santinelli glared at Khull. “Do
I
want her tortured?”

Khull smiled. He loved to see a big man like Santinelli squirm. “Okay, I’ll tell you what: Add two extra grand to my fee and I’ll pretend that it wasn’t you that hired me.” Then he tilted his head the other way, his eyes full of mocking. “Maybe you’re still a little too Christian, huh?”

Do it!
shouted the Strongman.
Just do it!

Sally closed her eyes and prayed.

“I CAN’T COME
to work!” Lucy cried into the phone. “It’s Amber again! She’s beside herself! I’ll call later!”

She slammed down the telephone and went after her berserk little daughter, following a trail of chaos and destruction: in the kitchen, the drawers were yanked open and the contents spilled all over the floor, including the knives Lucy had tried to hide; in the dining room, the tablecloth had been yanked from the table and the azalea centerpiece now lay broken on the floor, the potting soil strewn everywhere.

From the front of the house, the shrieking voice of Amethyst the pony continued to rant and rail against unseen enemies. “No! No! Leave me alone! My master will destroy you! Leave me alone!”

Lucy ran into the living room. The coffee table was upside down, the books and magazines flung everywhere.

Amethyst’s voice came from the front entryway. “She is mine! I have a right to be here! Go away!”

Lucy ran and found her daughter cowering in the corner on the floor, her arms covering her head, screaming in fright.

“Leave me alone, leave me alone!” the pony screamed.

Lucy stopped in her tracks and observed for a moment. Had she ever heard Amethyst frightened before?

MOTA AND SIGNA
stood in the entryway near Lucy, swords drawn, in full glory, their light washing out any darkness around them. In the distance, the dull thundering of angelic wings grew louder and louder, and the light of Heaven’s Host began to stream through the windows.