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"That&039;s right My hawks" and then they turned the corner and there around a large canopy-shaded aviary the pack of boys aiting Three of the biggest ones had hooded brown-and-white birds of prey perched on their leather gloves and forearuards

Berry made a sound as if she&039;d taken a blow to the stoentlemanly Count shoved her forith sadistic relish

"You are one bastard," Matthew said to Chapel, his teeth gritted so hard they were about to break Chapel shrugged, as if this were a coit around "arm yourselves, please Watch the blades, we don&039;t want any accidents"

The boys, who Matthew noted had rees so all were equal in this endeavor, were reaching in and co variety of blades: short, long, hooked up or doide, thin, stubby, elegantly evil The boys walked around sticking and stabbing the air, so to destroy the last vestiges of childhood before they stepped across the threshold of no return

They all appeared to have done this before, though several-including the light-fingered Silas-looked just a bit green around the gills But they too hacked and sliced the air with abandon

"Your version of the professor&039;s gauntlet," Matthew said to Chapel; or more correctly, heard himself say, as his face and mouth see-cherished hobby Mr Greathouse has been schooling you well He&039;ll be out here soon enough hiren to shove Berry into earshot, though she still looked too dazed to coari"

"Here, sir," said a large, stocky young man with close-cropped dark brown hair He ca a small lamb in the crook of a meaty arm, and in the other hand a wooden bucket that held of all things a paintbrush Edgar had a slight limp and a pock-marked face, his eyes also dark brown and obviously nervous for he was blinking rapidly When he reached Chapel, he glanced up and said almost shyly, "Hello, Matthew"

Mattheas struck dumb for a few seconds Then his ht be co out How&039;ve you beeni"

"Fine, thank you and youi"

"I&039;ar nodded His dull eyes did not show the ence in the world, but Matthew had known him as a decent fellow in 1694, when Mattheas fifteen and Jerrod twelve Jerrod had unfortunately been the target of some of ausley&039;s most frequent and intense attentions, and Matthew had watched hier into the shell with hilass that ausley lit his pipe with during one of the punish fire to either leaves or donated prayer book pages or grasshoppers or his own plucked-out hair When another boy had tried to steal it, the boy had left the orphanage for the King Street hospital folded up in a cart and obviously died there, as he&039;d never returned "I guess I&039;ave the la herei"

"I don&039;t know Just playin&039; with fire, mostly It&039;s what I like"

"Knife, please," Chapel said, to no one in particular

Matthe that the other boys were settling down They had stopped swinging their blades Their y Matthew looked back into Jerrod&039;s disturbed but fathomless eyes "Jerrodi" he said quietly

"Yes, Matthewi"

"are you going to kill ht a hooked knife to his hterhouse implement Kirby had used so well Chapel stroked the lamb a few times and said, "There, there," to its pitiful call for its mother Then he drew the head up and back with one hand while the blade in the other sliced the white throat froht red blood burst out and flooded into the bucket that Evans had taken from Jerrod and now held steady beneath the torrent

"Yes, Matthew," said Jerrod "I suppose I am"

"You don&039;t have to," Matthew told hi into the bucket The three hawks began to shiver with excite deep grooves even deeper "I do," Jerrod answered "If I want to stay, I ood to me here, Matthew I&039;m somebody"

"You alere somebody"

"Naw" Jerrod&039;s mouth smiled, but his eyes did not "I was never nobody, out there"

Then he looked at Matthew alamb emptied and the bucket filled up and the hawks stirred andnoises, and finally Jerrod went over to the basket on the ground to get hio over to stand beside Berry, to say-exactly what, pray telli-sorasped his upper arm and a bloody paintbrush that s liberally applied to his face: forehead, cheeks, around the eyes, circling the est of the birds and perhaps the one that had torn the cardinal to shreds over Matthew&039;s head in the garden that day, twitched its hooded head back and forth and o for the color," Chapel explained, in all earnest seriousness "Many hundreds of blood-soaked field iven their lives They smell the odor too, of course, which helps thenificent" He had deposited the lamb&039;s carcass into a black box with a lid on it that he now closed, so as not to give the birds a confusing signal Lawrence Evans walked over, carrying the gore-bucket to paint Berry&039;s face with the brush She looked at him as if he were mad, tried to kick him and then strike his head with her own, but had to relent when again Count Dahlgren seized her hair, shoved a fist against her spine, and threatened to break her back before the ga start" Chapel walked a few paces away to a horse trough to wash his hands The boys were striding back and forth, also eager to hunt No one was laughing and whenever soht and clipped "To the first row of vines," Chapel continued,toward the sunny field sonal the handlers to release their birds It&039;ll take them a few seconds to reach you They&039;ll see your face as just another bloody little anie They seem to particularly like the eyes at ets soes a bond to his brother Do you seei"

Mattheatching Berry shudder as the brush left her face bloodied in the sas around the eyes were the worst Billy Hodges had leaped to his death not only to escape the blades, but to escape the beaks and claws "If we&039;re going to die anyhy should we runi"

"Well, there&039;s no way you can get off the estate because of the wall all around, that&039;s true, but in several instances we&039;ve had young men who&039;ve fled from the vineyard into the woods and hidden there for a day or so Soet tired and distracted and they turn away We have had to go into the woods on hunting expeditions Very bothersoain it&039;s experience Now: are you sure you want to stand there and die without resistancei Of course I would recoet into the woods, as it would si your inevitable deaths, but if you&039;re interested in perhaps spending a last night co on to life as we know it to be, then you will give us a good display, won&039;t youi"

Matthew looked at the group of young killers Nineteen had never seehosts of previous failures slipped in asi Moveht his attention So out an indistinct face One of the instructors, perhapsi Was that their living quartersi

"Ohone last thing Mr Hastings!" To Chapel&039;s summons came a burly, thick-shouldered boy of about seventeen, who carried a knife with a long slis came up with some coins and the silver watch, which Chapel iive you a little time to ready yourselves," he told Matthew, as he wound his new possession

Matthealked to Berry&039;s side She was treh her blooder scorched blue blanks She was hanging on

"Listen toher square in the face "We have two choices" One of the hawks loudly skreeled He felt his own nerve quickly ebbing "We can fall on the ground and wait for the to be after us first, then the boys We can cut across the vineyard and try to reach the woods That way" His gaze ticked to the right "We et there If we can find a place to hide-"

"Wherei" Berry asked, elcome fury in her voice "Hide wherei"

"If we can find a place to hide," he continued, "long enough to get these ropes off" How that was to be done without a knife he didn&039;t offer "We ht be able to cli meni" Chapel called a few of the boys crouched down, Indian-style, with one knee to the ground

"Keep going," Matthew said "Don&039;t fall" He feared he was losing her, as she blinked heavily and wavered on her feet "Berry, listen!" He heard a raw edge of panic His arainst the cords, which would not be loosened "Just keep going, do you-"

"Tian to shout with voices as sharp as their blades

Berry set out like a deer, even as Matthew said, "-hear ht on her heels and immediately tripped over his own feet and fell to his knees to a chorus of frenzied laughter He hauled hiht up with her She was running faster andback and her face grirave beneath the blood He kept pace with her, and though she staggered once and crashed against his side neither of the onto the vineyard itself

as they neared the first vine row, Matthew realized the true vintage on these few acres of Hell was the wine of corruption The field was overgroeeds and the gray clurapes were rotten and shriveled a sickly-sweet odor akin to graveyard decay wafted in the sun He felt the urge to look back but dared not He cried out, "This way!" and ran along the roard the green line of forest perhaps another hundred yards distant a gnarled root caught at his right foot and he pitched forward, out of control for a few seconds before he righted hi into his face

a shadow passed over them, followed by a second and a third

The boys were silent, waiting

Eighty ed it to be They were still running at full speed a giddy spark of hope flared in his heart that they would lanced back to see if the boys were coht on top of his wide and struck