“What I need is to go home,” Shannow told him.
“Let’s talk,” said Sam, avoiding Shannow’s gaze. The Jerusalem Man climbed down from the fence and followed the black man into the house. It was cool inside, and the face of Lucas shone from the computer screen. Amaziga was nowhere in sight. “Sit down, Mr. Shannow. Amaziga will be with us shortly.”
Unbuckling his guns, Shannow let the belt fall to the floor. He was mortally tired, his mind weary beyond words. “Perhaps you should clean up first,” suggested Sam, “and refresh yourself.”
Shannow nodded. Leaving Sam, he walked through the corridor to his own room and removed his clothes. Turning on the faucets, he stepped under the shower, turning his face up to the cascading water. After some minutes he stepped out and moved to the bed, where he sat down, intending to gather his thoughts, but he fell asleep almost instantly.
When Sam woke him, it was dark, the moon glinting through the clouds. Shannow sat up. “I didn’t realize how tired I was,” he said.
Sam sat down alongside him. “I have spoken to Ziga. She is distraught, Shannow, but even so she knows that Gareth’s death could not be laid at your door. She is a wonderful woman, you know, but headstrong. She always was incapable of being wrong. I think you know that from past experience. But she is not malicious.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Sam shrugged. “I just wanted you to know.”
“There is something else, Sam.”
“That’s for her to tell you. I brought some clean clothes. Amaziga will be in the lounge when you are ready.” Sam stood and left the room.
Rested and refreshed, Shannow rose and walked to the chair where Sam had laid the fresh clothes: a blue plaid shirt, a pair of heavy cotton trousers, and a pair of black socks. The chest of the shirt was overlarge and the sleeves too short, but the trousers fitted him well. Pulling on his boots, he walked out into the main room, where Amaziga was sitting at the computer, speaking to Lucas. Sam was nowhere in sight.
“He went for a walk,” said Amaziga, rising. Slowly she approached him. “I am very sorry,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. Instinctively he opened his arms, and she stepped into his embrace. “I sacrificed Gareth for Sam,” she said. “It was my fault.”
“He was a brave lad” was all Shannow could think to say.
Amaziga nodded and drew away from him, brushing her sleeve across her eyes. “Yes, he was brave. He was everything I could have wished for. Are you hungry?”
“A little.”
“I’ll prepare you some food.”
“If it is all the same to you, lady, I would like to go home.”
“Food first,” she said. “I’ll leave you with Lucas for a moment.”
When she had left the room, Shannow sat down before the machine. “What is happening?” he asked. “Sam out for a walk, Amaziga playing hostess. Something is wrong.”
“You came through the window earlier than anticipated,” said Lucas. “It drained her stone.”
“She has others, surely.”
“No. Not at the moment.”
“Then how will she send me back?”
“She can’t, Mr. Shannow. I have the capacity to hack into … to enter the memory banks of other computers. I have done so, and in the next few days papers will begin to arrive giving you a new identity in this world. I will also instruct you in the habits and laws of the United States. They are many and varied.”
“I cannot stay here.”
“Will it be so bad, Mr. Shannow? Through my … contacts, if you like … I have amassed a large fortune for Amaziga. You will have access to those funds. And what is there left behind you? You have no family and few friends. You could be happy in America.”
“Happy?” Shannow’s eyes narrowed. “Everything I love is lost to me, and you speak of happiness? Damn you, Lucas!”
“I fear I am already damned,” said the machine. “Perhaps we all are for what we have done.”
“And what is that?” asked Shannow, his voice hardening. “What is there that is still unsaid?”
Amaziga returned at that moment, carrying two cups of coffee. “I have some food in the oven. It will not take long,” she said. “Has Lucas spoken to you?”
“He has. Now you tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“No games, lady. Just the truth.”
“I don’t know what you mean. The power is gone. Until I find more Sipstrassi, we are trapped in this version of the old world.”
“Tell him,” said Sam from the doorway. “You owe him that.”
“I owe him nothing!” stormed Amaziga. “Don’t you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand, but I know how you feel, Ziga. Tell him.”
Amaziga moved to an armchair and sat, not looking at Shannow or Sam but staring down at the floor. “The Bloodstone found a gateway through to your world, Shannow. That’s where he is now. It wasn’t our fault. Truly it wasn’t. Someone else opened a gateway—Lucas will vouch for that.”
“Indeed I will,” said the machine. “Amaziga transferred the files from the portable. I know everything that happened back in Babylon. Sarento passed through the gateway while we were in the hills, camping at that deserted town. All I can tell you is that the Bloodstone is in the time of the Deacon. Your time.”
Shannow slumped down in a chair. “And I can’t get back there, back to Beth?”
“Not yet,” said Lucas.
The Jerusalem Man looked up at Amaziga. “What will I do here in the meantime, lady, in this world of machines? How will I live?”
Amaziga sighed. “We have thought of that, Shannow. Lucas has arranged papers for you under a new name. And you will stay here while we teach you the ways of this world. There are many wonders for you to see. There is Jerusalem, for this world is still twenty-one years from the Fall.”
“Twenty years, four months, and eleven days,” said Lucas.
“We have that amount of time to try to prevent it from happening,” said Amaziga. “Sam and I will search for Sipstrassi. You will do what you did in Pilgrim’s Valley—become a preacher. There is a church in Florida, a small church. I have friends there who will make you welcome.”
Shannow’s eyes widened. “A church in Florida? Is that not where the Deacon is from?”
Amaziga nodded.
“And my new name?” he said, his voice harsh.
“John Deacon,” she told him, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Dear God!” said Shannow, pushing himself from the chair.
“We did not know, Shannow,” said Amaziga, “and it won’t be the same. Sam and I will find Sipstrassi, and then you will be able to return.”
“And if you don’t?”
Amaziga was silent for a moment, then looked up into his angry eyes. “Then you must take your disciples and be on that plane on the day the earth falls.”
The Deacon stood outside the farm building and watched as Beth McAdam and Tobe Harris led the horses from the paddock into the barn. You are still beautiful, Beth, he thought. And you did not know me. That hurt him. But then, why should she? he asked himself. Only weeks before she had seen a relatively young man giving sermons. Now a long-haired ancient stood in her home, his features obscured by a thick white beard. Understanding did nothing to help the pain.
Shannow felt alone in that moment and terribly weak.
Amaziga and Sam had kept in touch with him, keeping him up to date on their journeys and their search for the stones. Sometimes they had believed themselves to be close, only to face terrible disappointment. With eleven days left before the Fall, they had telephoned Shannow.
“Have you arranged the tickets?” asked Sam.
“Yes. Why don’t you come also?”
“Ziga has found evidence of a circle in Brazil. The architecture of the surrounding ruin is different from other Aztec finds. We will journey there and see what is to be found.”
“May God go with you, Samuel.”
<
br /> “And with you, Deacon.”
Shannow remembered the day the plane had emerged from time’s dungeon and soared above the ruined tower of Pendarric. He had looked down, trying to make out the tiny figures below, hoping to see himself and Beth and Clem Steiner, but the plane was too high and flew on, making a landing near Pilgrim’s Valley.
The temptation had been great in those early years to seek out Beth. But the shadow of the Bloodstone remained with him, and he gathered to himself clairvoyants and seers in a bid to pierce the veils of time.
Shannow had grown used to leadership during his days in Kissimmee, but the demands of forming rules and laws for a world took their toll. Every decision seemed to lead to discord and disharmony. Nothing was simple. Banning the carrying of weapons in Unity led to protests and violent disagreements. Every community had evolved its own laws, and unifying the people proved a long and bloody affair. The Unifier Wars had begun when three communities in the west had refused to pay the new taxes. Worse, they had killed the tax collectors. The Deacon had sent a force of Crusaders to arrest the offenders. Other communities joined the rebels, and the war spread, growing more bloody with each passing month. Then, after two savage years, with the war almost over, the Hellborn had invaded. Shannow remembered his reaction with deep regret. He and Padlock Wheeler had routed the enemy in three pitched battles, then had entered the lands of the Hellborn, burning settlements and slaughtering civilians. Babylon was razed to the ground. No surrender was accepted. The enemy was butchered to a man—not just to a man, Shannow remembered.
The Deacon had won. In doing so he had become a mass murderer.
Estimates of the dead in the two wars reached more than eighty thousand. Shannow sighed. What was it Amaziga called you once, “the Armageddon Man”?
After the wars the Deacon’s laws grew more harsh, Shannow’s rule being governed more by fear than by love. He felt increasingly alone. All but one of the men who had traveled with him through time were dead. He alone knew of the terrible evil waiting to be unleashed on the world; it was an awful burden, dominating his mind and blinding him to the beginnings of Saul’s betrayal. It would have been so different if Alan had survived.
Alan had been the best of his disciples, calm, steady, his faith a rock. He had died on Fairfax Hill in one of the bloodiest battles of the Unity War. Saul had been with him. They never recovered Alan’s stone. One by one they died, three from disease and radiation sickness left over from the Fall and the others cut down in battles or skirmishes.
Until only Saul was left. All those years of wondering where the Bloodstone would strike, and had he but known it, the answer lay with Saul.
Who else in this area had the use of Sipstrassi? Who else could have opened the gateway?
“You were a fool, Shannow,” he told himself.
Something moved beyond the fence! The Deacon’s rifle came up, and he found himself aiming at a hare that had emerged from a hole in the ground. Slowly he scanned the valley and the distant hillsides. The moon was bright, but there was no sign of movement.
They will come, though, he told himself. Tobe Harris moved alongside him. “All the animals is locked away, Deacon. Save for my horse, like you ordered. What now?”
“I want you to ride to Purity,” Shannow told him. “Padlock Wheeler is the man to see. Tell him the Deacon needs him and every man with a rifle he can bring. Miners, farmers, Crusaders—as many as can be gathered. Tell him not to ride into the town but to meet us here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go now, Tobe.”
Beth McAdam, her rifle cradled in her arms, came alongside in time to hear the order. “We’ve seen nothing yet,” she said. “What makes you so sure they are coming?”
“I’ve seen them, lady. Not here, I’ll grant you. But I’ve seen them.”
The Deacon had been leaning on the fence rail. Now he straightened and staggered, weariness flowing over him. As he almost fell, Beth caught his arm. “You’re all in,” she said. “Go and get some rest. I’ll stand watch.”
“No time for rest,” he said. Tobe galloped away into the night. The Deacon drew a deep breath, then climbed to the fence and sat, resting his rifle on a post.
“Someone coming,” said Beth. The Deacon followed her pointing finger, but his old eyes could see nothing.
“Is it silver-gray?” he asked.
“No, it’s a young man leading a woman. She’s carrying a baby.”
They waited together as the two approached. As they neared, Beth said, “It’s Wallace Nash and Ezra Feard’s daughter. What the hell are they doing walking out here at this time of night?”
The Deacon did not answer. Instead he said, “Look beyond them. Is anything following?”
“No … Yes. Christ! It’s a monster! Run, Wallace!” she screamed.
Shannow felt helpless, but he watched as Beth’s long rifle came up. She sighted and fired. “Did you hit it?” he asked.
Beth sighted again, and the rifle boomed. “Son of a bitch,” whispered Beth. “Got it twice, but it’s still coming!”
Jumping from the fence, the Deacon stumbled toward the fleeing couple, straining to see the creature beyond them. His chest was tight, and pain flared in his left arm as, heart pounding, he ran on. He saw the young man release his hold on the woman’s arm and swing around to face whatever was chasing them. Shannow saw it at the same time Wallace Nash did. It was huge, over seven feet tall, with blood flowing from two wounds in its chest. Nash fired his shotgun. The creature fell back. A second lunged out of the darkness, and Shannow fired three times, smashing it from its feet.
“Get back!” yelled Beth. “There are more of them!”
Shannow’s legs felt like lead, and all energy seemed to vanish. Wallace grabbed his arm. “Come on, old man! You can make it!”
With the young man’s help he backed away to the fence as Beth’s rifle thundered. “Into the house,” he wheezed. “The house!”
Something hard struck him in the side. His body hit the fence rail, snapping the wood. Hitting the ground hard, he lost hold of his rifle but instinctively drew a pistol and rolled. A huge form bore down on him, and he could feel hot, fetid breath on his face. Thrusting up with all his strength, he pushed the gun barrel into the creature’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The head snapped back as the bullet passed through the skull. Beth took hold of his arm, dragging him clear of the dead beast.
All was quiet now.
The Deacon gathered up his fallen rifle, and together they backed to the house.
The woman with the baby was sitting slumped in an armchair. Shannow pushed shut the door, dropping a thick bar into place to lock it. “Check the windows upstairs,” he told the redheaded youngster. “Make sure the shutters are in place.”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy. Shannow glanced around.
“Where are the people from the wagon?”
“Oh, my God, I forgot them,” said Beth.
Jeremiah’s wagon was some two hundred yards from the farm buildings when the shots sounded. The old man ducked, thinking at first that the shots were aimed at them. Meredith stood up on the driver’s seat. “I think they must be shooting rabbits,” he said. “I can see a blond woman with a rifle and an old man … damn, I think it’s that reprobate Jake.”
“I like the old boy,” said Jeremiah. “Lively company.”
Meredith said nothing. The four oxen were tired and moving slowly, heads low. The ground beneath the wheels was soft from the heavy overnight rain, and they were making little headway. Isis was still clinging to life, but she could not last much longer now, he knew, and he dreaded the moment when she would be gone forever.
He saw Jake jump from the fence and run off, but his view was masked by the stone-built farm building. More shots followed. The wagon entered the yard, then one wheel sank into a deep mud hole. Jeremiah swore. “I guess we’re close enough,” he said.
A young woman came into sight, carrying a baby. She ducked behind the fence rails a
nd ran on toward the house. A redheaded youngster came next, supporting Jake. Meredith would never forget the next sight. A huge beast reared up alongside Jake, an enormous arm clubbing the old man against the fence, which shattered under his weight. As he fell, Jake drew a pistol, but the creature leapt on him. In the fading light Meredith heard the muffled shot and saw blood spray up like a crimson mushroom from the creature’s head. The woman pulled Jake clear of the corpse, and they made it to the house. The door slammed shut.
Several more of the creatures came into sight.
Only in that moment did Meredith realize the seriousness of their plight. It had been like watching a tableau, a piece of theater.
“Get back inside,” hissed Jeremiah, twisting in his seat and opening the front hatch to the inner cabin. The old man scrambled back, Meredith followed him. The hatch lock was a small brass hook.
“It won’t hold them,” Meredith whispered.
“Stay silent,” urged Jeremiah.
A terrible scream rose from the oxen, and the wagon rocked from side to side, the air filled with the sounds of howling and snarling. Meredith risked a glance through the narrow slit in the hatch—and wished that he had not. The still-struggling oxen were engulfed in a writhing mass of blood-spattered silver-gray fur.
The rocking of the wagon continued for several minutes, then the two men sat quietly, listening to the beasts feed. Meredith began to tremble, jerking with every snap of bone. Jeremiah put his hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Be calm now,” he whispered.
Moonlight shone through the cabin’s wide windows. Meredith and Jeremiah crouched on the floor beneath the left window, listening to the sounds of their own breath. Meredith glanced up. Moonlight was shining directly onto the still, pale face of Isis as she lay on the bed, one arm outside the coverlet.
A grotesque face appeared at the window above her. Steam clouded the glass, but Meredith could see the long fangs and the oval eyes and what appeared to be a red stone on the creature’s brow. The snout pressed against the window, and both men heard the snuffling as it sought the smell of flesh.
The wagon rocked again as a second beast came up on the right, pushing at the wood.