Chapter Thirty-Eight

 

 

 

Mildred lay on her side, wrists bound behind her, a bruise swelling beneath her right eye, where the Apostle Simon had savagely punched her to demonstrate to his doubting followers that be wasn't scared of her.

 

Jak, bound hand and foot next to Mildred, had also been beaten to the dirt by the skinny leader of the Slaves of Sin, using his staff with the tortured Christ at its head.

 

She knew that the albino teenager was awake and fully conscious, because he and Mildred had taken the chance for several snatches of whispered conversation, stolen moments of talk that gave neither of them very much cheer.

 

"Seen they sent four out toward spread," Jak said. "One got your blaster."

 

"Yeah. Saw them go. I make it nine left here with us. Haven't heard any shooting from the house."

 

"Sound might not carry. Been gone good time. Wonder when fladgies start getting worried."

 

"How long before Krysty, Doc and the boy come out after us, Jak?"

 

The young man hadn't answered her, his silence telling her everything she needed to know.

 

A little later, while the Slaves of Sin sat around their largest fire, chanting an interminable dirge about salvation through suffering, Jak had whispered to Mildred again.

 

"Face facts," he said. "Could be Krysty, Doc and kid chilled. We get chanceany chancemust take it. Or torture and chill us. No other hope."

 

 

 

NEARLY AN HOUR had passed, and the flagellants were becoming increasingly restive.

 

"Apostle Simon, shouldn't we send out searchers to find what's happened?"

 

But their leader was steadfast. "The Lord will show us the way when He is ready, brothers. He would not allow any of his chosen lambs to stray from the fold and fall among wolves. All we need is patience."

 

"Why not make Him a sacrifice of these two demon spawn?"

 

"Or let us scourge ourselves, mightily, that our delicious blood shall freshen the desert as token of our grace and our humble love for Him?"

 

The Apostle Simon rapped the butt of his staff on the earth. "The moon that was hidden will soon come from behind the clouds. Its light will show us the way."

 

It had been pitchy dark for three parts of the hour, but everyone could see the bright circle of the moon, about to be revealed from behind the shifting rack of cloud.

 

 

 

"Got one hand nearly free," Jak breathed. "Bit more time is all need."

 

"Might not get that if they go ahead and murder us because Jesus Christ!"

 

It seemed that everyone saw the apparition at the same moment, as the moon broke through, flooding the wilderness with its bright silver sheen. It was a young child, a boy, naked except for a white breech-cloth around his louts. His hands were spread, showing the blackness of blood in the center of his palms, a similar mark on both his bare feet. There was a crown of leaves around his forehead, and his face was smeared with ashes. He had appeared from the arrayo that ran toward the distant house, walking slowly toward the paralyzed fladgies, less than sixty yards away from them.

 

"The Lord Himself," someone gasped.

 

"Truly the Son of God," a second man whispered in a voice filled with awe.

 

"It might be a a trick," their leader stammered, his face in the moonlight as pale as whey.

 

"No trick, Slaves of Sin," said a booming voice from the blackness, somewhere behind the advancing child. "I have sent my dearly beloved among you as a token of how worthy you are of my approval."

 

Mildred glanced at Jak disbelievingly, her eyes wide. "It's" she began, hushing herself as the albino shook his head at her.

 

The boy was now a scant twenty yards from the nearest of the religious crazies, his piercing blue eyes gleaming from the shadows of his face.

 

"We worship You," one of the fladgies shrieked, his nerve breaking, dropping to his knees, hands out in supplication. "Oh, scourge us with your fiery whip, Lord!"

 

"All of you abase yourselves and make ready to receive my divine punishment," the voice thundered. "For verily I shall seek out the worthy from the impure. By the Three Ken By the three spears of the divinity, I shall."

 

Mildred had wriggled around, lifting herself painfully up onto one elbow, staring at the truly bizarre spectacle. Her eyes were caught by a slight movement in the darkness of the sagebrush behind the staring flagellants, the daggers of the moon touching on what looked like living flame.

 

"Krysty," she breathed.

 

Now eight of the nine men were on their knees, three of them lying sprawled facedown in the dirt, the light of their fires throwing shadows across them. Only the Apostle Simon was still standing, but he was leaning on his staff as though it were a lifeline between himself and eternity.

 

"Take me, Blessed One," one of the transfixed men screamed, lifting his scarred, bearded face, a thread of white saliva bubbling from his cracked lips.

 

The child stopped and lowered his hands, reaching inside the band of white cloth wrapped around his middle. The ringing voice from the blackness behind had risen an octave, showing the sudden edge of tension. "Now we shall reveal the nature of our gifts to reward you all."

 

"Here comes," Jak said, starting to struggle more openly with the rawhide around his wrists.

 

"Show us, Messiah!" The eldritch screech came from the Apostle Simon himself.

 

Dean pulled the massive Browning Hi-Power from its hiding place, already cocked, and opened fire on the helpless fladgies.

 

Doc ran from the dry gulch, slightly to the right of the boy, his Le Mat spitting out its .36-caliber rounds.

 

And from behind the paralyzed acolytes of the Apostle Simon, Krysty rose from the ground like a flame-haired avenging angel, firing her Smith amp; Wesson 640, aiming and firing carefully, picking her targets for the big .38s.

 

There wasn't a single shot fired in retaliation from the murderous crazies.

 

Three of them died instantly at Dean's hands, creating mayhem with his powerful blaster, even though he had to shoot it two-handed to achieve any real accuracy.

 

Two more died on their knees, hands raised, their horrified faces rictuses of terror.

 

Four managed to get to their feet, including their demented leader.

 

Mildred watched as one went down, rocked by two bullets from Doc's Civil War pistol. A second dropped dead, half of his face blown away by Krysty.

 

"Shoot no more! We surrender to your mercy!" the Apostle Simon cried, holding both arms spread wide, like a man awaiting crucifixion.

 

His last companion finally lost his nerve and turned to flee into tbe moonlit wilderness, tumbling over and over like a shot rabbit, legs kicking in tbe dirt, hit between the shoulders by the last of Dean's thirteen rounds.

 

The desert was still, the only sound the death rattle of one of the fladgies, overlaid by the relentless sighing of the ceaseless wind.

 

"I will leave this place of blood and never return to it," the leader of the Slaves of Sin stated.

 

"For fuck's sake cut us free," Jak called, finally breaking one hand loose. Dean bolstered his blaster and hurried to kneel by Jak, slicing the ropes off his other wrist and off his ankles. He turned immediately to liberate Mildred.

 

Krysty stood watching Simon, Doc covering him from the other side of the campsite. Already the stench of death hung heavy in the firelight.

 

Jak stood, reaching a slender hand to assist Mildred to her feet. She rubbed her wrists, chafing life back into them, looking around her at the litter of corpses.

 

"Thanks for turning up, friends," she said. "Beginning to think that the sand was running out of the glass for us. Nice trick, Dean. Nice voice, Doc."

 

The old man dropped a low bow to her. "Praise from you, ma'am, is praise redoubled. But tbe bulk of your thanks should lie with Mistress Wroth, who was the dramaturge and inspiration for our little playlet."

 

"What happened to four men sent in?" Jak asked, looking around and retrieving his Colt Python from the dead fingers of one of the flagellants.

 

"Krysty chilled one and Doc wasted the other three," Dean told them.

 

Mildred's mouth dropped. "Doc chilled You mean Three of them? What'd he do, breathe on them after a meal of garlic and wild onions?"

 

"Delighted to see that you are returned to your former misanthropic and waspish self, Dr. Wyeth." Doc favored her with another bow.

 

"I should've known," the Apostle Simon said. "When my men didn't return, I should've known."

 

"You didn't," Doc stated, "because you got shit for brains."

 

"The day will come, child of Shaitan, when you will writhe on the white-hot grill and your skin will blister and sear and your eyes boil and your hair smoke from your skull. Then you will feel sorry for what you have done here this night."

 

"Fuck you, stupe!" The boy drew his blaster and squeezed the trigger. The only result being the dry dick of the hammer on an empty chamber.

 

The Apostle Simon threw back his long, narrow head and laughed out loud, waving his staff in triumph. "There! See how my Lord of pain defeats your feeble demon's power. Nothing can harm me, nothing."

 

"Wrong," Jak said very quietly, shooting the leader of the flagellants through the lower stomach with the Python. The .357 full-metal-jacket round left a small, black entrance hole, less than an inch from Simon's navel, hitting the spine and angling off sideways, tearing into the liver and exiting through the small of the back, taking out a chunk of flesh the size of a dinner plate.

 

The staff flew into the air, clattering down toward the heart of the fire with a great starburst of crimson and orange sparks that rose high into the still air.

 

Simon staggered but didn't fall immediately, his head turning to see the blazing destruction of his symbol of power.

 

"Missed me," he said.

 

"You wish." Jak bolstered his blaster and turned away, starting to walk back toward his home, knowing with total certainty that the man was doomed.

 

Simon sank to his knees, his system still holding off the rending agony that his wound deserved. "I will sit down," he announced with a peculiar dignity.

 

Dean had reloaded his Browning with bullets that he'd hidden in his breechcloth, and he leveled the gun at the kneeling figure. Jak was twenty yards away and be didn't even look back, calling to the boy over his shoulder.

 

"No. Done."

 

Dean hesitated a moment, glancing at the other three. Doc shook his head, as did Mildred. Krysty smiled at him. "Jak's right," she said. "Let's go and have some food and catch up on our sleep. You never know. Ryan and the others might come back tomorrow."

 

 

 

THE APOSTLE SIMON lay down and watched the five figures walk away from him, throwing long stark shadows in the bright moonlight.

 

He felt the first spasm of pain and he moaned, sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "Like my Dad used to say Be back here some lucky day."

 

Then the blood stopped flowing and he died.