Piercing the Darkness (80 page)

She cried out. She could feel all the pain again. The thug was about to break her neck. The spirits faded away with the rest of the world. She no longer saw, she no longer heard. She was sinking into a dream, into bottomless darkness. Santinelli yelled something, and the thug let her go. She thought she would float up from the couch. The pain lessened.

In a moment she could see and hear again, and she realized she was almost falling over. Her shoulders were throbbing. Santinelli was saying
something about killing her.

Then Goring said, “The conference day is going to start; people might walk by the windows. We’d better continue this downstairs.”

“Wait!” Sally said, and they all froze. She had their attention. She raised her head, gathered her strength and courage, and feebly muttered, “I do have an additional bargaining chip. You should know that I’ve corresponded on a regular basis with Tom Harris in Bacon’s Corner. I’ve told him everything I know and everything I’ve done. If anything happens to me, somebody will know.”

Goring smiled, and reached into a briefcase beside the sofa. “Oh, you must be referring to these.” By handfuls, three at a time, four at a time, one at a time, Goring pulled the letters from the briefcase and set them in a pile on the coffee table, giving Sally a slow, torturous revelation. When she had turned a satisfying shade of white, he continued, “We’ve put a great amount of preparation into our plan, and fortunately we were able to exert enough influence on the plaintiff in the lawsuit who is also the local postmaster. She’s been forwarding all your letters to us; so needless to say, Tom Harris and his friends never got them. They have no idea of your whereabouts, or what you might know.”

Santinelli added, “And yes, we have been watching them, and it’s obvious that they have little information about you and are shooting in the dark. I would say they’re getting rather desperate. But that doesn’t matter now, does it? We have you, and we will deal with you as we see fit, as we find necessary.”

Goring pointed to the coffee table. “So, we have you, we have all your letters, we have the telltale ring; it’s time we firmly dealt with those stolen rosters. Gentlemen?”

Suddenly she was hanging from her arms. She pushed with her feet to lessen the pain, and stood on her own.

“This way,” said Goring.

The men of Broken Birch forced her along, taking her toward a stairway that led down into the cold, concrete belly of the chalet. Goring led the way, turning on the lights and guiding them down the winding steps.

Steele followed behind, and after him Santinelli. Khull followed at the rear of the procession, reaching into his coat for his knife.

Then Khull hesitated. “I’ll make sure the front door’s locked,” he said.

He went upstairs again, but passed by the coffee table to take a good look at all those letters.
Hmmm. Excellent!

THERE, I MADE
IT!
Bernice checked her watch and found it only took about ten minutes to walk to the Post Office. That wasn’t so bad.

Now to get that mail.

HIGH OVERHEAD, DESTROYER’S
twelve henchmen saw her. They also saw the canopy of angels over that building. They let out a cry and dove to the battle, their wings screaming, their nostrils trailing sulfur.

WHOOSH!
Three of them swept five angelic warriors from the Post Office roof and engaged them, tumbling, rushing, spinning, hacking. They would be busy for a while.

Two henchmen shot through the north wall. Nathan and Armoth ducked as they passed, swatted them soundly, and sent them through the south wall.

OOF!
Four more dropped through the roof and struck the angels down with bared talons. The demons got a faceful of fiery wings and then saw the swinging blades too late.

Red smoke.

THE YOUNG MAIL
clerk carefully emptied the mailbag, sorting out the packages, envelopes, junk mail, magazines.

“Hi, Al!” came a call from the lobby.

“Hi, Bernice! The mail’s a little late.”

“Oh, that’s okay, so am I.”

Ah, here was some mail for the
Clarion.
He slipped it into the
Clarion
’s box, then looked to see if there was more.

FOUR HENCHMEN EXPLODED
through the wall, wings a blur, Krioni and Triskal hot on their heels.

A red sword swept downward.

THE LETTER FLUTTERED
to the floor.

BERNICE GATHERED ALL
the mail out of the
Clarion
’s box and dropped it into a shopping bag. She looked through the opening and called, “Is that it?”

Al looked through the new mail that had come in. “Yeah, I think I got it all.”

“Okay.”

Bernice closed the door of the box and turned to leave.

KRIONI TOOK ONE
spirit by the heel, but the thing was so strong it dragged him through the Post Office wall and he had to let it go.

Triskal took a nasty blow from one monster, slashed away at another one, and kicked a third out over the counter.

BERNICE DIDN’T SEE
the spirit sail right past her as she reached to push the door open.