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The pain wasimmense

But her hand closed on the branch

She took everything the pain could throw at her She bit down on it, snarled at it, opened her mouth and howled it out of her as she pulled on that branch Broken twigs slashed at her side and legs and arms, but she took that pain too

Pain had never owned Lilah, and it did not own her now

Screae, she whipped her other hand up, pulling noith both arms, with the muscles of her shoulders and chest and back

Suddenly she heard a sharp crack beneath her, and theher hanging The pain, clever and deceitful as it alas, revealed that it had so ive

She screa her tanned arainst her skin Hot wetness ran down from her torn side, and fat drops of blood fell down into the shadows Below her the infected hogs sent up a squeal of hellish hunger

"Darowled as she pulled herself up

The whole tree swayed, tilting outward as if trying to shake her off

Lilah pulled

The pigs were in a frenzy, sainst the trunk

Lilah pulled

Pinecones rained down on her Blood roared in her ears

Lilah pulled

She forced her knees up, forced her feet out to explore, forced the solid

And there it was The stump of the branch that had just broken Twenty inches of solid wood Lilah stretched one foot out and shifted her weight onto it The branch held

With the last of her strength, she swung her body above the branch and settled her other foot on it

Safe

Gasping, bleeding, sweating, dizzy, and sick But safe

When she dared open her eyes, she looked down at the boars below her Six of the eyes stared back up at her They wanted her flesh They had the patience of eternity to wait her out Even with her pistol and spear she could never hope to defeat two of them, let alone a half dozen

Nevertheless Lilah bent over so they could see her face

And she smiled at them

36

SAINT JOHN OF THE KNIFE RAN LIKE A GHOST, MAKING ONLY THOSE sounds he chose to ht--were clever, and they had some woodcraft, but they were not a tenth as silent as the man who followed them

Behind and around Saint John there were other sounds The distant roar of the quads as his reapers scoured the woods to hunt down the last of Carter’s heretics And, closer to hand, the artless footfalls of the following dead, coaxed in this direction by occasional blasts of his dog whistle

Twice Saint John encountered reapers and twice he sent the thehtfall the last of that party should be accounted for, their bodies opened by sanctified blades so the darkness could enter It had been a long chase fro A thousand wooden houses built ahorn National Forest

He sht Wooden houses in wooden trees Lovely to the eye, but so foolish, and ultimately no protection from torches and blades No protection froration enchanted his reen titans into the endless star field of the night sky The e and red as the trees caught fire The screaod who could not answer, for he did not exist Saint John wished that he could be inside their minds at the moment when the darkness took them Hoonderful it must be to suddenly see and know the infinite truths

Ithe had h the ashes, and his tears fell onto blackened bodies that no the glory of the eternal darkness

Saint John had fallen to his knees, his arms red to the elboith blood, his mouth smeared with it, his cheeks streaked with tears There he had led the faithful in a prayer Mercy for those ere too blind to see the truth Grace for those who had embraced the darkness as the flames and the blades sanctified theed to step into that darkness, but whose sacred duty kept thely, mortal flesh, attached to this world of hurt and od was accoruff voice yelling from the woods "There’s one of them!"

Saint John slowed froed fro and muscular, each of them armed with a vicious farehammer that he held as if it were a tack hammer, and the third carried a pair of sickles

Carter’s people Heretics Their clothes were filthy and streaked with mud and blood They were unshaven, and there was a desperate wildness in their eyes

"Welcorowled the hed the s of Thanatos," said Saint John, "praise be to the darkness"

The man with the pitchfork pointed the wicked tines at hi "You bastards killed Andy Harper’s family, and the Millers and the Cohens and half the town"

"More than half, I assure you," ehaaped at him "And you stand there and make jokes?"

Saint John shook his head "No jokes, brother"

"My sister’s husband is nothing but ashes because of you," said the sledgehammer man, "and her kids don’t have their father How is that anything but the devil’s work?"

"If children grieve, then there is a path to release from all hurts and harms," replied Saint John "We offered it to you That offer still stands"

"Offer?" sneered the man with the pitchfork "What kind of crap is that? You and your bunch are nothing but killers You’re no different fro dead"

"Oh, they’re different," countered the man with the sickles "The dead can’t think They’re just mindless corpses, there ain’t no evil in the and that psychotic witch Rose--they’re pure evil" He glared at Saint John "Evil to the core, and may you burn in hellfire forever for what you’ve done"

"There is no hellfire," murmured Saint John "There is only the red doorway and the darkness"

"Red doorway?" deehammer man "What the heck’s that?"

Saint John drew his two knives, and in the shadows under the junipers, he showed them

The screams of the three men chased all the birds from the trees

37

SO MANY THINGS WENT WRONG ALL AT THE SAME TIME

Chong heard the twang of the bowstring

He heard Sarah’s inarticulate cry of grief and hatred