The Devil's Heart (37 page)

They glanced at him, Doris saying, "You mean … we are … ?"

"Yes," Balon's voice came to them. "You are free of this earth. Walk toward the crosses."

They walked across the digging site, littered with the broken bodies of those who chose to live with the Dark One. No one seemed to notice them. Miles stopped by one Coven member who was paralyzed with fear, unable to move or tear his eyes from the sight of the golem in its fury. Miles tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, you shnorrer
(Chiseler)
, you still owe me for that living-room furniture you bought ten years ago."

But the man paid him no attention.

"You hear me, you crook?"

The man ran screaming into the night. He ran right through Miles and Doris, Wade and Anita.

Through them.

"So send the money to the JDL, you goniff!"
(thief)
Miles called after the fleeing, frightened man. Miles turned, once more facing the starkly outlined crosses behind the circle of stones. "Oh my," he said, his eyes finding the tortured form of Jane Ann. "Oh no." He began prayers in Hebrew, his wife joining him.

"Hideous," Anita said. "How could a human do that to another human?"

"Easily," Wade told her. "Ever looked at pictures of Nazi concentration camps?"

The four of them walked through the scene of blood and pain, past the golem who was occupied solely in tearing both arms from a shrieking Devil-worshiper. They paid no attention to him, for the Clay Man was still earthbound, still a part of a world to which they could no longer relate. They walked to a petite figure standing beside the tallest cross, under the ravaged pale naked body of Jane Ann. Beside the figure dressed in a white robe, her hair shining in the glow of the torches, her complexion unmarred by bruises, beautiful and radiant, was the tall rugged form of Sam Balon. The four of them ran the last distance, Wade holding out his hand in greeting.

"No, don't touch," Sam Balon cautioned them gently. "Not just yet. It takes a little time."

"You're speaking … normally," Miles said.

"Yes. Come, old friends. It's over."

But no one wanted to move. Anita smiled at Jane Ann. "I've never seen you looking lovelier, Janey."

Jane Ann returned the smile. "I'm fine, Anita. At last."

"Come," Sam Balon said, motioning them forward.

"This is the part I ain't real thrilled with." Miles looked nervously around him.

Sam Balon laughed at his old friend, a hearty, booming laugh. "You'll never change, Miles."

Miles put his hand on his left forearm, the hand going ihrough the arm as if moving through vapor. "This is not a change?" He looked at Sam Balon.

Balon smiled at him. "Come, we must go. Time is growing short."

Far down a strange-appearing road that angled softly, gently upward, they could see a line of people walking. They were happy, laughing and talking.

"The ones who stood beside me at the end," Jane Ann explained.

Miles took his wife's hand. Together, hand in hand, they walked up the road, Sam and Jane Ann in the lead, Wade and Anita following.

The six of them walked the strangely lighted road, a road with no ruts, no holes, no obstacles; a smooth nonsurface. All around them a misty blue light illuminated their way.

"Don't look back," Balon cautioned them. "Look straight ahead for a time."

"Toward home," Wade said, his words almost a sigh of relief.

"Yes," Reverend Sam Balon said, his big hand seeking and finding the soft hand of Jane Ann.

And the two were together, forever, at last.

When the golem's work was done, he began his lumbering walk to the river, miles from the scene of defilement. At the river, the Clay Man stepped down the bank and stood on the clay that was him. He slowly melted into the earth and became once more that which he was: all things of this earth, a creation of God, with the Almighty once more reclaiming him.

The fireball seared the land, leaving nothing but smoke and fire and desolation. The land would one day grow again, bits of grass popping forth, flowers springing upward, seeking the warmth of the sun. But it would be a long time. Years. And when the first flower would appear, pushing out of the earth toward God's sun … it would be a blood-red rose.

The doctor in the small French settlement finally came out of his small operating room, a smile on his lips. "He's going to be all right," he told the young woman standing beside the young girl.

"Thank God," Nydia said, tears streaming down her face.

"He'll need lots of rest and care," the doctor told Nydia and Janet. "But," his smile was gentle, "I think he'll be in good hands."

In a small French settlement in Eastern Canada, a woman died giving birth. No doctor was in attendance. The baby did not birth normally. It literally exploded from the womb in a gush of blood and mangled flesh. Roma screamed for the last time as the gaping wound in her belly tore the life from her. She saw only a glimpse of the infant before she finally died, but that one quick look was enough. She died with a smile on her lips, knowing she had served her master well.

The child fought the hands that cleaned it and bathed it and held it. It had enormous strength. It howled and snarled and snapped. And then, as if spoken to by an invisible force from some far-off world beyond human comprehension, the child became docile, losing its monsterlike features.

The child allowed an old woman to hold it for a time. The old woman's daughter, who had just birthed a child, was brought in to nurse the infant. The nursing mother, like her mother, and all the others in attendance, wore a strange-looking medallion around her neck.

The child, after nursing, played with the medallion.

In the caves behind the charred remains of the once great mansion called Falcon House, the Beasts settled in for a long sleep. They had kept a very low profile during the battles between the evil forces and the old warrior. They knew when to fight and when not to fight. Now they slept. With only a single sentry on guard. They would be called again. They always were.

And on the sixth day of the sixth month, at precisely the sixth minute of her pregnancy, Nydia gave birth to a tiny premature baby. The doctors were astonished at the baby's condition, for the boy was in perfect health. A beautiful child.

"Amazing," the doctors said.

Mother and father could but look at each other in silence … and wonder.

"I'll help you take good care of the baby," Janet told Nydia. "I promise I will."

Janet's parents were fond of Sam and Nydia, and delighted their daughter had been returned to them unharmed.

"I know you will," Nydia said, patting the child's hand.

The bite marks on Nydia's neck had healed and vanished without scarring months ago.

"Janet just loves babies," her father said, smiling.

"I don't know what we would have done without you," Sam said.

Janet walked to a window in the hospital room, away from Nydia and Sam and her parents. She stood for a few seconds, looking at her reflection in the glass. She smiled, the parting of young lips exposing teeth suddenly fanged, the points glistening sharply, blood-red. Her eyes were wild, that of a person possessed.

The wild look vanished, the teeth were again normal. The young girl turned around, facing the adults. "I don't know what I would have done without you and Nydia," she said, looking at Sam. "I owe you both my life. And I promise you both I'll look after the baby. Forever and ever."

Janet smiled. Very sweetly.

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