“Don’t,” ordered Angelo.
Dana whipped a heavy glass tip jar off the counter and flung it at Angelo, catching him on the cheek. The glass exploded and he reeled away, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes. Corinda cringed back against the wall. Dana was caught in a moment of terrible indecision, and it rooted her to the spot.
Angelo was here, which meant he’d broken out of jail.
Karen was dead.
Angelo was covered in blood, and he had a knife.
Dana felt like the world’s greatest fool, but instead of crippling her with self-hate, her fury welled up and focused like a laser on the monster who had destroyed her entire life.
She knew that she could not possibly hope to beat him.
It was stupid.
That thought flashed through her mind as she charged Angelo. He was still off balance, and she slammed into him with both hands outstretched, sending him crashing into a table of crystals. He hit the table and went over it, falling hard with a dozen wickedly sharp pieces of rutilated quartz crunching down on him. The silver knife went spinning off toward the back of the store. Dana jumped over the table and tried to land on his stomach with both feet, hoping to knock the wind out of Angelo, but he twisted away. Her feet thumped onto the floor beside him and one of her heels crunched down on Angelo’s left hand. He cried out in pain and lashed out with his shin, sweeping her legs from under her, and she went down hard on her butt. Pain shot from her tailbone all the way up through her head, and she pitched sideways. Angelo climbed clumsily to his feet, bleeding from a score of cuts on his face and body.
“Stop it,” he yelled, but then he staggered as Corinda stepped out of nowhere and hit him across the lower back with a big Australian didgeridoo that was longer and heavier than a baseball bat. She swung it awkwardly but with great force, and Angelo went flying into another table and fell with copies of astrology books scattering around him.
Dana reached for something to throw, but the table closest to her was full of little knickknacks and tribal fertility statues, most of them weighing less than half a pound. Even so, she began hurling them as fast as she could as once more Angelo fought his way back to his feet.
Despite being bashed and cut, he came up quickly and began slapping the figurines out of the air with one hand.
“Will. You. Stop. It,” he said, punctuating each word with a hard slap.
“I got him,” yelled Corinda, and she swung the didgeridoo again, but this time Angelo was ready. He stepped into the swing, caught the instrument with the same hand he had been using to deflect the figurines, and tore it from Corinda’s grip. Angelo snarled and flung the thing halfway across the store, where it crashed through a mass of wind chimes.
Dana dived for one of the bigger chunks of quartz, but Angelo beat her to it and kicked it out of the way as deftly as a soccer goalie thwarting a shot.
“STOP!” he roared, with such force that it froze them all. He stood there, panting, shaking his head. “This isn’t what you think.”
“You killed them all,” said Dana. “You’re a monster.”
He stared at her with a look that was nothing like what she expected. Instead of triumph or hate or contempt, Angelo’s face crumpled into a mask of pain. Of grief. Tears glittered in the corners of his eyes.
“No,” he said. “I never killed anyone.”
“You killed Karen Allenby,” said Dana.
He looked startled. “Karen’s dead?”
“Don’t play innocent. You killed her. That’s her blood all over you. You broke out of jail and killed her.”
“You’re loco, chica. I broke out of jail to kill someone, but not Karen. No way. She was one of the nice ones. I’d never hurt her. I busted out of jail because no one believes me, and if I couldn’t set things straight, they’d put me in the electric chair.”
“You’re a liar and a psychopath,” said Corinda.
“You call me a liar? Eso es gracioso,” he said. “That’s really funny coming from you.”
“Really?” sneered Dana. “You’re a psycho, Angelo. You would have killed me last night if I hadn’t outrun you.”
“Outrun me? You really are loco,” laughed Angelo. “After you freaked out at the school, I followed you to try to explain. I lost you for a moment, and then I saw you lying on the grass outside that house. I watched from across the street until you got up. I followed you every step of the way to make sure no one hurt you. You think I wanted to hurt you? If that’s what you think, then you’re nuts.”
“Don’t even try,” warned Dana, hefting a sharp piece of quartz. “I found out that was Karen’s house. Is that why you picked her, because you saw me in her yard?”
“That was Karen’s house?” he said, seeming to be surprised. “I … didn’t know that.”
“Don’t lie. You had that knife and you’re covered with her blood.”
“Her blood?” Angelo looked at his clothes and then at his right shoulder. He tried to raise that hand, but it only twitched, and Dana realized that during the entire fight, Angelo had only used his left hand. He licked his lips. “I…”
Then his legs suddenly buckled and he fell hard on his kneecaps.
Corinda took that moment to grab another didgeridoo, and she raised it to swing at his head, but Dana yelled, “No!”
Angelo sagged down and lay on his back. Dana crept toward him.
“Don’t,” warned Corinda. “It’s a trick.”
But Dana inched forward. There was just enough light coming through the window for her to see the hole torn in the shoulder of Angelo’s orange jail jumpsuit. Blood, black as oil in that light, pumped weakly from the skin beneath. She bent close and saw what it was. She understood what it was.
Angelo had been shot.
She looked at him and he nodded. “Didn’t get away … clean. Guards … Didn’t get an artery … I think. But … it hurts.” He tried to smile. “You two crazy ladies didn’t help.”
Dana knelt beside him, but she kept the chunk of quartz ready in case she had to smash him. “You said you broke out to set things straight.… What did you mean?”
“I mean this … wasn’t me.…,” he said, his voice weaker than it had been a moment ago. “The newspeople … they interviewed a cop … and he said that they were looking to … connect the murders to … that drug.”
“What drug?” asked Dana. “You mean Eclipse?”
He nodded weakly. “Eclipse was … never supposed to be out on the streets,” he said. He was starting to breathe strangely, and blood was pooling under him. If the bullet wound had been bad before, then the fight had made it worse. “It was only for … helping people. That’s why … it’s given only … to people like … us…”
“What? What do you mean? What people?”
Angelo’s eyes were becoming glassy, but he looked at her, and into her. “People … like you … and me. Personas con cualidades, chica.” He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. “You just … sit with it and … let it in. Ride the … smoke … so easy. That’s what he … promised. No … addiction … no bad high … nothing illegal … you just let the visions … come…”
And that was when it all made sense to Dana. She stared at him as the pieces of the puzzle lifted from the wrong shape and fell back into place with perfect, cruel clarity. Then she turned slowly toward Corinda. The tall woman lowered the didgeridoo.
“The incense…?” murmured Dana.
Corinda chewed her lip for a moment, looking worried, looking like she wanted to run. “It’s supposed to help bring out psychic qualities,” she said.
“Oh my God,” breathed Dana. “It’s not the tea. I’ve been breathing it ever since I started coming here for yoga, haven’t I? For weeks. You’ve been getting me high for weeks. Why would you do this?”
“She didn’t,” said a voice. “The incense was only for special students.”
Dana whipped around as a man walked slowly toward them from the back of the store. He wore loose black pants and
a blue velour shirt embroidered with spinning suns and planets. He bent and picked up Angelo’s knife.
“A good blade.” He tossed it aside and drew another from under the hem of his shirt. “But I prefer my own,” said Sunlight.
CHAPTER 82
Beyond Beyond
9:36 P.M.
And the world, which had been hanging on its last, twisted hinge, broke off and fell.
Dana stared in horror.
Corinda covered her mouth with a hand, as if trying to hold back the kind of scream that would tear her apart. On the floor, Angelo tried to rise, his body twitching and shuddering, but then he collapsed back and lay still, arms and legs spread wide.
Standing at the edge of the shadows, Sunlight looked from one to the other and then back at Dana. “And now, my girl, do you understand?”
Dana said nothing.
“Are you ready, Dana, to help me wash this world clean of sin and weakness and impurity?”
Her lips moved, and Dana heard herself echo the words. “Wash it clean? How?”
“With blood, of course,” said Sunlight, taking a few small steps forward. “That is always the way. Blood is the life. No, let me be more precise: blood is the pathway to life. We are all born in blood, are we not? Born in blood and pain, screaming our way into this world. This is no different. The Red Age is upon us, and we sacred few will usher it in. We will be the midwives for the birth of a better world to come.”
“You’re—you’re—”
“The word you’re fumbling for is ‘prophet,’” he said. “And every prophet must be mad by the standards of the ordinary world, for they see a different world that is beyond the vision of the sheep. For thousands of years, people like us—yes, us—have been hunted and stoned and crucified and burned because we see a larger world than the rest of the human herd can ever see. And in each age of the world, when a prophet comes to preach of a better world to come, he is killed. His own blood is spilled as a sacrifice to stupidity and fear and closed-mindedness. The Christ of your faith was beaten and whipped and nailed to a tree for speaking of a better world to come. There have been many others. That ends here, with me, with us, tonight.”
“No,” said Dana, but she was almost hypnotized by his words. Sunlight spoke gently, quietly, without hysteria or force. He spoke reasonably, as if they both shared this place and this destiny. Dana felt herself hanging on his words.
“Don’t listen to him, Dana,” warned Corinda, but her voice sounded like it was a million miles away. Faint and meaningless.
“I told you about people with qualities, Dana,” continued Sunlight, stepping closer still. “I had my flock, my apostles. You’ve seen them here, coming and going from my psychic enrichment sessions. They were among the strongest of those like you. Like us. Each had special gifts. Each was in the process of becoming something else, of breaking free of the shell of was and emerging into the state of will be. Do you understand?”
Dana felt herself nod.
“I selected each and guided them, cultivated them like the rare flowers they were. And when they were strong enough, I introduced them to the secrets of the Red Age. But”—and here Sunlight looked genuinely sad—“not everyone is suited to higher concepts. Not everyone has the courage, the depth of compassion, or the vision to do what is necessary to save the world from itself.”
“And you killed them?”
“Of course I did. I released them from their weakness and sent them flying into the ether toward a next and hopefully better incarnation, where more of their nephilim heritage will shine forth. Their deaths fueled the doorway that will open us to the Red Age.”
“Oh my God…,” whimpered Corinda. The didgeridoo dropped from her hand and clattered to the floor. No one even noticed.
“The Eclipse was wasted on them,” said Sunlight. “It’s so rare, so difficult to obtain, to refine. The chemistry is boggling, but the effects are sublime. For the ordinary ones, the sheep, it’s a cheap high that lasts a few hours and goes away without side effects. No addiction, no tissue deterioration. Ah, but for those with qualities, there is a completely different chemical reaction. It sinks deep and lives in the blood. It sings in the blood. And it turns on all the lights until the mind blazes like the rays of the sun shining out from the occluding moon. A light that cannot be hidden. How lovely, how beautiful.”
He took another step and now stood a few feet from Dana.
“You’ve felt it, haven’t you, my girl? Your mind had been closed and now it’s open. Gloriously, wonderfully open. Burn one stick a day, every day, and soon your qualities will blossom at an exponential rate. Dana, you could become as powerful as me. You could share the power with me. You could help me save the world, transform it, rule it.”
“Yes,” she murmured, and now it was she who took a step toward him. The small crucifix that hung beneath her blouse seemed to suddenly grow hot against her skin.
Sunlight smiled at her, and there was so much love in his eyes. Like a father’s love was supposed to be. Like any love should be. Completely accepting, completely open. Allowing her to be who she was. Encouraging her to become whatever she wanted to be.
“You are my angel,” he said as he brushed a strand of red hair from her cheek. “And together we will give birth to the age of angels and giants. Together we will bathe this world in blood.”
“Yes,” said Dana. “Blood.”
And then she hit him with the fist-sized chunk of quartz as hard as she could.
The chunk of crystal smashed into his cheek, ripping the skin, cracking the bone, sending Sunlight reeling, the smile disintegrating from his screaming mouth.
Dana chased him, swinging the stone with savage force as one long, inarticulate scream tore itself from deep in her chest. Sunlight staggered and went down to one knee, throwing an arm up to fend off her attack. She struck his arm, battering it aside, and hit him again and again, striking shoulder, head, chin, chest. He twisted around and stabbed at her, and Dana felt a line, hot as lava, open up across her ribs. She screamed even louder and tried to smash at the knife hand.
Sunlight was hurt, but he was fast.
Very fast.
He ducked under her next swing and punched Dana in the stomach with his left hand and then tried to drive the knife into her chest. But Dana flung herself backward and down, trying to back-roll like she had been taught in jujutsu, flubbed it, rolled like a flat tire, and crashed into a table filled with charms and jewelry, which rained down on her. Sunlight staggered to his feet and started toward her, but then jerked to a stop. He looked down in surprise to see Angelo, more than half-dead, clutching his ankle with one bloody hand.
Sunlight gave him a contemptuous sneer. “You could have been one of us, too, boy. Such power. Such potential. Such a waste.” He raised his other foot and stamped down on the bullet-torn shoulder. Angelo began to howl but then abruptly collapsed back. Unconscious or dead, Dana could not tell.
So she threw the chunk of quartz at Sunlight and hit him squarely between the shoulders. It sent the man catapulting forward, crashing into another pair of display tables, where he collapsed with books and more crystals hammering him into the floor.
But again he rose, sweeping the debris away with a furious backhand swipe.
“Enough!” he roared. His face was a mass of blood, and one eye was beginning to puff shut. He rose into a crouch, the knife in his hand, the edge gleaming with silver fire. “I gave you a great gift, girl, and I took a terrible risk to do it. I should hand you over to the men who run this little science project of a town. You think I’m a monster? They’re so much worse.” He grinned with bloody teeth. “You have no idea what’s in store for you. Or … what would have been in store for you. You’ll never find out. I will send you screaming into the darkness.”
He slashed at her with the knife, and Dana felt the tip draw a burning line—hot as flame—across her stomach. She stumbled backward several steps. The pain was incredibly intense, and for a moment she stared dow
n through torn cloth at the blood that welled from a long cut.
“God…,” she murmured. Half a statement of shock, half a prayer.
Sunlight laughed and raised the knife and advanced on her, slashing at her throat.
“No!” screamed Corinda, and she snatched up a small table and flung it at Sunlight, craft jewelry and all. The table caught Sunlight on the side of the head and knocked him down. Then she grabbed Dana’s wrist.
“Let’s go,” she yelled, and pulled her toward the door. Dana resisted at first, wanting to finish this, but Sunlight was already getting up. Could nothing stop the man? What was he?
He bared his teeth like a wolf and began moving toward them.
Dana and Corinda ran, leaping over fallen tables as they fought to reach the door. Dana had no idea how seriously she was hurt, but she could still move. She was still alive.
Despite everything, Corinda pushed Dana out first and turned to block Sunlight’s way. The knife flashed, and she went down with a cry as sharp and high as a seagull’s. But even as she fell, she wrapped her arms around Sunlight’s waist to try to slow him down.
“Run…,” she wheezed. “Dana … run.”
Dana ran.
Her heart was broken, but she ran.
She wanted to stand and fight, to beat this man, to crush him. To kill him. But she did not think he could be beaten.
And so she ran. She felt blood running down under her clothes.
She heard him running behind her.
Fast. Despite everything, so fast.
Catching up before she was even halfway across the street. In the windows of the darkened store on the other side, she could see the reflection of her own body running and the man behind her, so close, reaching out with one hand to grab, holding a bloody knife with the other.
Suddenly, headlights dazzled her and there was a car. Right there. Horn blaring. The engine roaring but no sound of squealing brakes. The car was accelerating toward her.
She heard the awful crunch.
But it was not her body that was lifted and flung through the air. Dana staggered, tumbled, fell. She sprawled in the street, inches from the far curb, and turned, her whole body a mass of pain, and saw Sunlight strike the parked cars on the far side. Saw the car that hit him finally brake, skid and crash into one of the parked cars.