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 snatched 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.
Silas rose and stepped back to the podium. He stared out over the heads of his congregation toward the back wall. He met her gaze and somehow found the strength to hold—not to back away, but to speak.
"It is not time," he said. None heard him, but the eyes in the wall glared in unblinking malice. "It is not your time."
He searched for and found the rhythm. It was there, in the movements of their bodies, the creak of the pews and the hot whisper of breath. It shivered over their naked flesh to echo from the walls. Silas took up his chanting prayer where it had been interrupted. He sent a silent command to Tommy, still making his way through the brush, to get the girl and get back at all cost.
Then Silas Greene was swallowed in a nightmare of his own design as the sun began its final descent toward night.
Angel rocked back on his heels. The throbbing on his forehead pounded like a hammer between his temples. He gritted his teeth and held on, still stroking himself, kneeling just out of reach of the girl. Then, as suddenly as the pain had come it released him, and he gasped, nearly shooting into his hand.
He sat back and stared at the girl. It took a long moment to focus. She was pressed into the wall of the barn so hard that she actually lifted an inch or so off
he
dirt floor. This caused her to arch invitingly, pressing her breasts into the soft cotton of her blouse and stretching it down to reveal soft flesh at her throat, where the top button had come unfastened.
Angel shook his head. The connection he'd felt had not been entirely Silas. The other hovered just beyond, brooding and dark. Every time that shadow brushed Angel he felt pumped full of energy—of heat and desire.
The air changed and the sweat on his arms dripped more slowly, sticky and smelling like he'd been rolling in a field, or rubbing leaves on his skin.
It was too much. Angel stood, leaned down, and grabbed the girl by her bound ankles. She screamed. She fought like a crazed animal, but he held her easily by the rope joining her legs, and the squirming, grinding motion of her struggles fed his hunger.
He pulled her to the center of the floor and knelt beside her. She tried to sit up. She snapped her teeth at him and tried to bite, but he avoided her easily.
He unfastened her shirt first. She tried to pull away.
Once, she dragged the button from his fingers before he could unfasten it, and he growled. With a quick swipe of his hand he gripped one side and tore the light material to the waist, then laid his hands flat on her ribs. Her bra was bright white, lacy at the edges. Her breasts were small, but well-formed.
Angel turned his attentions to her jeans. She struggled again, but more weakly.
She was tiring. Tears streaked her cheeks and ran through smudges of dirt and dust. He managed to loosen her belt, and to unfasten the top couple of buttons, but she kept rolling to her side. He caught his thumb between one button and its buttonhole just as she jerked to the side, and he bellowed in pain and anger.
Without thought he slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand. Angel stood and looked around the barn. There should be something in the barn sharp enough to get through denim. He left her lying in the dirt and headed for the workbench in the corner.
Katrina watched him move off into the shadows, and she spat softly.
She tasted blood, but she wasn't hurt bad.
The blow had stung more than anything. She tried the bonds on her wrists again. Nothing. Her ankles were just as tight. She had to get him to cut her loose, somehow, or he was going to do whatever he wanted and she might never see Abe again.
When she'd leaned against the wall, she'd seen the back bumper of her car.
She knew it wasn't far outside the door of the barn. She knew if she could get to it, she might have a chance. If she stayed here, there was nothing.
Her vision blurred again as she thought of Abe.
Did he know she'd come? Was he out there on the side of the mountain some
where looking for her, or, worse yet, had he called, found her not answering the phone, and gone back to find her?
The light was fading. There wasn't much time left before it would be too dark for her to find her way back down the mountain, even with the car.
She didn't know what happened to the other man, Silas, but she didn't believe that her captor lived on this farm alone. If she waited until he wasn't alone, she'd never get away.
The thought stopped her cold. Never get away.
God. She'd spoken those words to herself a million times. How many plans had she made and discarded during her marriage? How many times had she been on the verge of some action that would cut her loose? It had taken years, but the lessons she'd learned were hard ones, and etched deeply into her psyche. If you got the chance, you acted. If you sat back and waited and hoped that something good would come along and save you, or fix what you were too frightened or weak or stupid to fix for yourself, you could wait a lifetime and still be trapped.
She saw the man coming back across the barn. He held a wicked, curved blade in his hand—some sort of sickle, she thought. His eyes glinted in the failing sunlight. When he came close enough to hear her, and before he could lift her by the waist of her jeans and start hacking them off of her, she spoke.
"You don't need that," she mumbled.
Her mouth was dry, and her lip hurt. It was hard to articulate the words. She stared up at him, her best doe-eyed innocent stare.
"I don't want to be hurt," she said.
This time her voice was clearer. He shook his head, as if something was distracting him and he might not be hearing her.
"You don't need that.
If you loosen my ankles you can take my pants. Just don't hurt me?"
He glared down at her.
She saw emotions warring across his features and she fought the expression of disgust back from her face. She lowered her gaze from his a little.
"I don't mind," she said.
She didn't meet his gaze again after that.
Not at first. She didn't want it to appear as if she were watching his reactions.
He might be rough at the edges, but that didn't make him stupid.
If he got the idea she was trying to trick him, he would hit her again, probably a lot harder, and he'd cut her pants off in a second.
She waited.
A moment later he dropped to his knees beside her.
She still didn't meet his eyes, but when he stroked her breast through her bra, she bit back the bile and pressed into his touch. He pulled back as she moved, then he saw what she was doing. Another long hesitation, and his hand dropped to her hip. He slid it down until his thumb caught in the waistband of her jeans. Then she felt it. The cold metal of the wicked, curved blade stroked her belly and caught near her zipper.
She didn't move.
Then he spoke. It was hard to tell if he was directing the words at her, at himself, or at some other entity she wasn't aware of.
He pulled the blade back from her skin and she heard it hit the dirt with a soft whump.
"Don't you move," he said.
"I'm going to untie your ankles. You so much as twitch, and I'll
bend
them back and tie them to your wrists, like you were a deer."
Katrina nodded. She bit her lip and almost cried out. She'd forgotten, just for a second, the swollen bloody bump where he hit her.
He worked the knots out of the cord quickly. She felt his strength again, and shivered. If she got a shot, she was going to have to make it a good one. This was no soft, city rapist grabbing unsuspecting drunk girls as they left the club on Saturday night. This man had lived his life on a mountain, growing and hunting his food. He was strong, and he was fast, and at the moment he was very focused. That was her one chance.
He freed her ankles and tossed the rope aside. With a grunt he reached for her waist. "Wait," she cried. He glanced at her. He didn't speak, and he didn't take his hands off her jeans.
"My hands," she said. "My arms. They hurt. Can't you let me get them in front? I don't want to be laying on them when…" she trailed away.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he growled.
"Get me to untie your arms."
"I don't need them untied," she replied quickly. "I can pull them up over my legs. I…I like them tied." He stared at her again. Katrina dropped her gaze again. She had been in plenty of situations like this with her ex-husband. She had also counseled countless women who'd faced violence of all kinds. If she showed defiance it would be like staring directly into the eyes of an attack dog. It would provoke him, and she would get hurt.
"I want it to feel good," she whispered.
He didn't speak, but he pulled back. Slightly.
Katrina didn't hesitate or wait for him to give his permission. She bent at the waist, drew her knees up to her chest and worked her wrists down over her feet. She had trouble at the last. Her arms were numb, and she'd been in that position for too long. He grabbed the cord binding her wrists and tugged them free of her feet. With a whimper of relief she bent her arms and brought them up to her chest.
She'd won all the time he was allowing. He rolled her to her back and clapped his hand up between her thighs. He ground his palm into her, dragged his nails over the denim of her jeans, then gripped the buttons and finished what he'd begun before. When he moved to peel them back Katrina arched her back, lifting herself to make it easier for him. Her heart raced, and panic rose quickly, threatening to drag her into the darkness.
You have to do something,
she told herself fiercely.
Don't wait. Don't wait for someone to help.
He's going to rape you, and he's never going to let you go.
She repeated the words to herself, over and over.
Her lips moved, but he must have thought it was a tremble of fear, or something else. He paid no attention at all, intent on getting her naked. She heard him whispering, but she couldn't make out the words. He wasn't talking to her—she was certain of that, but it sounded as if he were arguing.
Then, as his hands slid over her hips he grew taut, gripped her skin tightly enough to pinch and make her cry out, and shook his head. He paid no attention to her, and in a few seconds, he released his grip.