Ancient Eyes (31 page)

He knew that services had begun below.
 
The church was lit brightly, and the girl, Elspeth, would soon taste the pool, and the cleansing. Angel remembered that pool. He remembered Reverend Kotz, as well. He wasn't as old as Silas, but he was old enough to remember that time before. He'd seen the dark, horned shadow and felt the touch of those deep, ancient eyes when he was a boy.
 
He had made the forced march down the center aisle of the church so long ago that it played like a dream in his mind. His father didn't know. Tommy suspected, but even his little brother didn't know all the truth.

Angel kept his secrets to himself. He shared some things, like Janis Joplin and Bobby McGee, but the important things—the things that mattered to him and stuck with him, he told no one. Not even Silas Greene knew all of it, though Angel suspected that the man—or whatever he now was—had extracted a good deal more from his mind than it was possible to measure. Greene knew things he should not know, and he knew how to get Angel to do things he didn't necessarily want to do.
 
These were facts Angel had come to terms with, and he made no protest. He didn't want to push it, because he didn't think Silas knew that he still had a choice, and he didn't want that choice removed.

Tommy was led around like a bull with a ring in his nose.
 
Silas snapped his fingers, or waved his shadow horns through the air and Tommy snapped to.
 
Might as well have been a marine, or an altar boy taking orders. Angel did what he was told and bided his time. He had been told to watch this girl, and he had been told to keep her safe. He could do that, and he probably
would
do that, but it was important to him to know that he did not
have
to do it. There would be hell to pay the first time he acted on his own, but it was nice to have the hole card up his sleeve, all the same.

The girl stirred again. She wasn't as frightened as he'd first thought, or if she was, she hid it well. Angel watched as she scooted along the wall toward the light, and the door.
 
She was tied carefully, and he knew she wouldn't get free of the binding, but he was interested to see how far she would get—and what she thought she could accomplish wasting her energy scooting along the floor.

She moved like an inchworm. First she kicked her legs forward, gained an inch or two, then dug in her heels and dragged herself along the wall. She used her hands behind her back as well as she could, but they were bound at the wrist and tight up against the small of her back. She'd nearly escaped in the back of Silas' store, and when Angel brought her to the barn he'd tightened the ropes almost cruelly.

She slipped fully into the light, and he caught his breath. The sun caught her full in the face, and she blinked. Her skin was streaked with sweat and dirt. Her hair was matted to her face, and to the side of her neck, but her eyes flashed with anger, and with the effort of each sliding shuffle toward the light.
 
The top button of her blouse was gone, and he saw tanned flesh beneath.

Angel pressed one arm between his legs and with his other hand he braced against the ground. He needed to stand up. He needed to walk away before the heat washed up and over him and he lost control. Silas Greene's dark eyes flashed through his mind, as if searching for him, and he flinched, but he didn't remove the arm from between his legs. He rocked up and back, closed his eyes, and tried to blank his mind.

He didn't quite make it.
 
Darkness filled his thoughts, deep and black, but instead of bringing him peace, another scene shimmered into focus. It was the white church as it had been. It was dark, but light streamed from every window of the place. Low voices rumbled in a rhythmic chant that fell short of music, but resonated through the ground and up through his bones.

He was late. He knew what might happen if he came to the church late. He knew that Reverend Kotz would single him out and draw him to the pool. He'd been to the pool before, and he did not want to go again, but the power of their voices itched at his senses, and the lights blazing from the windows showed him the silhouetted shadows of those dancing within. He thought of the serpents. He thought of the others, dancing so close to one another their flesh shared sweat and their breath heated the body of whoever was closest. He took a step forward, then another—and then he stopped.

Other voices floated through the night. Angel melted back into the trees and slipped through the shadows toward the sound. Everyone who should be in the church was already there. They were all as aware as he was of the consequences of arriving late. There might be others, hiding as he was and wishing they'd been faster, but they would not be singing in the trees.

As he neared the voices he heard footsteps, and he saw wavering lights bobbing along the trail. Angel's thoughts
whirled
, but he held his silence, and he moved as silently as his slight frame would carry him. He reached a vantage point from which he could see the trail where it approached the church, but not be seen by those walking it, and he waited.

Moments later, the lights came into sharper focus.
 
A small pool of illumination washed over the trees and path and he saw them clearly. It was the reverend from the stone church on the mountain, Reverend Carlson. He held a vial of some sort in his hand, crystal and glittering in the flickering light of torches and candles. Directly before him a woman walked. She held a small brazier carefully in small, slender fingers, and smoke curled up from it to be lost in the shadowed branches above. To Reverend Carlson's left, his brother Jacob walked. Angel caught his breath. On the right side, keeping perfect step with the others, walked his father. Ed Murphy's eyes blazed with light of their own, and his steps were steady.

Another man walked behind Reverend Carlson, but Angel couldn't make out who it was.
 
There was a small group trailing along behind, matching the steps and rhythm of the five who led the way. Angel saw at least one child among them, hanging back near the rear, and recognized Abraham Carlson.
 
He knew Abe vaguely; they'd met a few times, though Abe was several years Angel's junior, and not worth much attention.

He knew almost all of them. Their voices rose in a bright song that echoed from the peaks above and filled the air around them with energy.
 
Angel stepped back a bit further into the shadows, as if that energy might reach out, grab him by his shirt and drag him onto the trail behind them. They were headed straight for the front doors of the white church, and when Angel shifted his gaze back to that familiar structure, he saw that things had changed inside. The chanting was no less frenzied, and it hummed just as powerfully through the stone underfoot, but Reverend Kotz was moving down the aisle toward the main door, cutting a swath through the others, who fell away like children before him.

Angel caught his breath. He felt the power surging in opposite directions. The grounds between the line of trees and the doors to the church were a battleground. He didn't know how he knew this, but he did. If the ground had raised and rippled toward the group on the path like a giant mole, or a snake chewed it up, Angel would not have been surprised.

Instead, they stopped and stared at the church, and at that moment Reverend Kotz reached the doors and slammed them open, letting the sickly greenish light from within the church leak out around him. He glowed in that backlight and his eyes blazed. Above his head, the antlers rose, tall and dark, and swept through the doorframe and up toward the ceiling inside and the roof beyond.

The voices of the group on the trail didn't falter.
 
They continued their song, and behind Reverend Kotz, the chant droned on as well, louder with the doors open. Bodies swayed and whirled. Serpents lifted their heads toward the rafters and slithered over arms and about the necks of the faithful.

Angel stifled a cry as the mark on his forehead throbbed with sudden pain. He took half a step toward the church, but managed to stop himself. He grabbed the trunk of a tree tightly, closed his eyes and pressed his forehead into the rough bark, moaning at the pain.

A splinter of old wood buried itself in his skin, and Angel pressed off hard.
 
He tumbled away from the barn's wall and rolled in the dirt, both hands clamped to his forehead. A moment later he sat up, spit dirt and old straw off his lips, and stared around himself in confusion. The sun had dropped another foot, but the sunlight still illumined the girl's figure.
 
She leaned against the wall and stared at him. Her expression was startled, and he knew that until he'd made the sound she hadn't known he was there.

He glanced down and saw that he still had his arm pressed tightly between his legs, and he pulled it away slowly.
 
He shook his head and turned to stare at the wall. He had no idea how he'd spun around, or how long he might have been lost in that shadow world of memory.
 
His head rang with the chanting voices, and those of the others. He still saw a strobed image of Reverend Kotz, silhouetted in the doorway of the old white church. Each time his pulse pounded in his head, the image shifted and he saw the girl again.

His head throbbed painfully, and he grimaced.
 
The mark had faded over the years, and he'd almost forgotten that it had once been there. His father had never forgiven him his association with Reverend Kotz, but time heals the darkest wounds, and the two had come to almost civil terms over time. Now they had something new in common. All of them had been in the woods the night Silas left his mark, and all of them bore it in their own way.
 
Angel had no idea what part his father now played in Silas Greene's plans, but he knew the man could no more walk away from it than he could, or Tommy.

Angel rose and walked over to where the girl sat. She cringed and pressed back into the wall, but there was still a spark of defiance in her eyes. She didn't speak, and he was pleased.
 
He'd told her to be quiet, and not to speak unless spoken to. It was good to see that, even if she wasn't as frightened as she might be, she was at least frightened enough to listen.

Angel stared off across the field toward the trees and squinted. He didn't see anyone on the path.
 
The afternoon was almost gone to evening. The tops of the trees glistened with yellow light from the setting sun and the shadows ran longer every minute where they stretched out of the trees. The longer he stood and stared at the trees, the more aware he became of the woman, and the more aware he became of the woman, the more he wished that Tommy, or someone, would walk down that path and tell him the time had come to bring her to the church. "What are you going to do with me?" She had been so quiet that he'd forgotten she wasn't gagged.

Damn her.

Angel didn't reply.
 
He stepped out the door of the barn and took a few steps toward the trees and the path leading off toward the church. If he walked another ten yards he'd have a clear view down the first quarter mile or so of trail to where it took its first winding turn. He debated with himself as her voice echoed in his mind.

She spoke again. He heard the fear in her voice, but there was more. She had courage. Angel tried not to think about her long legs. He hummed Bobby McGee softly to himself, but that did no good. He started imagining driving off with her, her shirt open to the waist and her hands tied behind her neck to the headrest. The windshield wipers would keep time as he stroked her and explored her flesh. He had dreamed of it. In his back pocket, the bandanna still hung limply out behind him.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked. "Where's Abe?"

Angel sighed. His forehead throbbed, but he ignored the pain. When it grew more intense, he gritted his teeth into the grim semblance of a smile. He walked to her without a word and dropped to his knees in the dirt. He stared at her, and as he did, his hand moved to his crotch of its own volition. He wanted to lick his lips, but he had to clench his teeth against the pain. It was too much to ask, he thought to himself. Too much for him to bear. He would take her, here and now, and then he would lead her to the church, whether they were ready or not. Silas Greene might have great shadow antlers and powers he could call on when he was weak, but Angel did not. All the powers called on him instead, and they called through his throbbing erection for release.

Angel yanked his gaze from her prone form and crossed the barn in four quick steps. There was a workbench at the back where he and Tommy sat most days, drinking, smoking, and talking about things they would never do and people they would never know.
 
At the back of the bench sat a battered tape deck.

Angel slapped the rewind button, waited for the solid, satisfying click that signified the end of the tape, and pressed play.

Moments later the rough guitar intro rippled through the barn followed by the throaty, cigarettes and whiskey voice of Janis Joplin. As she sang of Baton Rouge and truck drivers, Angel returned to the girl's side.

She stared up at him in horror.
 
Her lips parted, as if she intended to ask another question. Angel massaged himself and stared down at her.
 
As he dropped to his knees in the dirt beside her, she screamed.

The curtains fell closed behind Silas with a whisper.
 
He and Tommy stood alone in the rear chamber, just for a moment.
 
Their eyes locked. Elspeth, still under the influence of the drink that Tommy had poured down her throat, struggled weakly.
 
Tommy held her easily by his grip in her hair.
 
He hardly seemed to notice. His gaze was expectant and hungry.