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  Then Andur turned off the road entirely—

  And Al was sitting astride a matte-black stallion, who picked his way across the overgrown fields like a cat crossing ice. The hot, humid air hit him with a shock after the cool of the wind and Andur's air-conditioner.

  Al realized that his white track-suit was not the best choice of outfits for a scouting mission. With a moment's thought, he changed the Nomex to a light garment of matte black silk; then blackened his face and hands as well with a silken mask and gloves. His feet he shod in boots of lightweight black leather, easy to climb in. In this guise they approached the first of the three fences surrounding the complex.

  This far from the road, there was only the patrolling guard to worry about—and the trip-wires and fences.

  He felt Andur gather himself and hung on while the elvensteed launched into an uncannily silent gallop, the only sounds muffled thuds when his hooves hit the ground. Then he felt Andur's muscles bunch—

  He tightened his legs and leaned forward, as Andur leapt.

  No human would ever have believed his eyes, for the elvensteed began his jump a good fifteen feet from the fence, cleared the top of it with seven feet to spare, and landed fifteen feet from the fence on the other side.

  Without a stirring of power-flows. The magic of good design, sweet Andur.

  They passed the second fence the same way, but halted at the third, innermost fence; the one that surrounded the compound itself. This was as far as Al wanted to go right now. There was no way he was going to go nosing about an enemy camp without scouting it first.

  Andur concealed himself in a patch of shadow, and Al climbed a tall enough tree that he was able to see the compound quite clearly. Whatever the sheriff might have imagined at his most pessimistic, the situation was worse.

  The guards prowled within the fence like professional soldiers. There were a lot of them, and the number of life-essences Al detected below ground indicated that this "Brother Joseph" must be fielding an army.

  There was Cold Iron everywhere, low quality iron which disrupted his senses; it was difficult to concentrate when using his Sight, and even more difficult to find ways around the barriers. And deep inside the complex was that evil cancer he had sensed before. It was not a spell or item, but it was magical. It wasn't elven in origin, nor was it human . . . no, something old and experienced had created the magical "taste" he'd sensed. There was something alive and not-alive shifting its enchanted form inside the compound.

  It was quiescent when he first approached it, but as he studied it, the thing began to rouse. He drew back, thinking that he had caused it to awaken and stir—but then his questing thoughts brushed the thoughts of humans—many humans—in the same area, and he realized that they were the ones waking it.

  He withdrew a little further, heart racing despite his wished-for cool, and "watched" from what he hoped was a safe distance.

  The humans were gathered in one of the underground areas for a spectacle of some kind.

  Could this be one of the "Praise Meetings" that Cindy described?

  Something—someone—moved into his sensing area. Another human—but where the life-fires of the others burned with a smoky, sullen flame, more heat than light, this person's burned with the black flame of the devourer, who feeds on lives. Even more than lives, this human thrived on the hate of those around him. Al knew him without ever seeing his face. This must be Brother Joseph.

  With him was a tiny, fitful life-spark, so close to extinction that Al nearly manifested in the full armor of an elven warrior-noble and carved his way to the child's side. For it was a child, who had been so starved, so abused, that his hold on life and his body was very tenuous indeed.

  Jamie. It had to be Jamie.

  And as Al held himself back, with anger burning in his heart, the evil thing at the heart of the gathering woke.

  And reached for the child.

  CHAPTER SIX

  By the time the Praise Meeting started, Jamie was having a hard time keeping himself from throwing up even though there was nothing in his stomach but water. And he couldn't stand up for very long; he shivered and his skin was clammy, and he had to lie down on the floor because sitting in the chair made him dizzy.

  He knew the Praise Meeting had started, because he heard the organ; it vibrated the walls all the way back here, in the very rear of the building. The vibrations disoriented him; he had his eyes closed when the door to the little room finally opened, and the two big guards came in to get him.

  Brother Joseph always sent two huge men with AK-47s to get him. It was just one of the hundreds of things Brother Joseph said and did that didn't make any sense. But maybe it was a good thing they'd been sent this time; when one of them ordered Jamie to stand, he got as far as his knees before that soft darkness came down on him again, and he found himself looking up at their faces from the ground.

  He was afraid for a minute that they'd hit him—but they just looked at one another, then at him, then without a single word, picked him up by the elbows, and hauled him to his feet. His toes didn't even touch the floor; that didn't matter. The guards carried him that way down the long, chilly corridor to the door that led to the back of the Meeting Hall.

  They came out on the stage, at the rear. The four spotlights were focused on Brother Joseph, who was making a speech into a microphone, spitting and yelling. Jamie couldn't make any sense of what he was saying; the words kept getting mixed up with the echo from the other end of the room, and it all jumbled together into gibberish.

  The two men didn't pay any attention, either; they just took him to an oversized rough-wood chair in front of the black and red flag that Brother Joseph had everyone pledge to and dropped him into it, strapping down his arms and legs with clamps built into the chair itself.

  Jamie let them. He'd learned the first time that it did no good to resist them. No one out there would help him, and later his father would backhand him for struggling against Brother Joseph's orders.

  Brother Joseph continued, so bright in the spotlights that Jamie had to close his eyes. It seemed as if the only light in the room was on the leader; as if he sucked it all up and wouldn't share it with anyone else.

  Brother Joseph's voice, unintelligible as it was, hammered at Jamie's ears, numbing him further. He was so hungry—and so dizzy—he just couldn't bring himself to think or care about anything else.

  Finally the voice stopped, although it was a few moments before the silence penetrated the fog of indifference that had come over Jamie's mind. He opened his eyes as a spotlight fell on him—light that stabbed through his eyes into his brain, making hot needles of pain in his head. But it was only for a moment; then a shadow eclipsed the spotlight, a tall shadow, with the light streaming around the edges of it.

  It was Brother Joseph, and Jamie stifled a protest as Brother Joseph's hand stretched out into the light, a thin chain with a sparkling crystal on the end of it dangling from his fingers. Jamie knew what was coming next, and for a moment he struggled against his bonds.

  But dizziness grayed his sight, and he couldn't look away from the twirling, glittering, sparkling crystal. Brother Joseph's voice, a few moments ago as loud as a trumpet, now droned at Jamie, barely audible, words he tried to make out but couldn't quite catch.

  The world receded, leaving only the crystal, and Brother Joseph's voice.

  Then, suddenly, something different happened—

  This was the part where the Black Thing tried to touch him, only it didn't this time. This time he was somehow standing next to himself; he was standing on the stage, and there was someone between him and the boy strapped to the chair.

  Sarah. And she stood as if she was ready to fight something off, in a pose that reminded him of the way his mother had stood between him and his daddy the first time he'd come home after Brother Joseph had—

  :After Brother Joseph used you, like he used me,: said a familiar voice in his head. :For that—:

  The girl pointed, and he
saw the Black Thing slipping through a smoky door in the air, sliding towards the boy in the chair.

  Only now he could see it clearly, and it wasn't really a shapeless blot. It was—like black fire, swirling and bubbling, licking against the edge of the door. Like a negative of flames.

  It was bad, he felt that instinctively, and he recoiled from it. But he found he couldn't go far, not even to the edge of the stage. When he tried, he felt a kind of tugging, like he was tied to the boy in the chair with a tight rope around his gut.

  :Don't worry, Jamie,: said Sarah. :I'll keep it away from you. It won't mess with me now.:

  The Black Thing moved warily past her—then melted into the Jamie-in-the-chair.

  Jamie jerked, as pain enveloped him.

  Sarah stepped forward and grabbed something invisible—and then it wasn't invisible, it was a silver rope running between him and Jamie-in-the-chair. And the minute she touched the rope, the pain stopped.

  "Speak, O Sacred Fire," Brother Joseph cried out, as the boy in the chair jerked and quivered. Brother Joseph's voice sounded far away, and tinny, like it was coming from a bad speaker. "Speak, O Holy Flame! Tell us your words, fill us with the Spirit!"

  Jamie-in-the-chair's mouth opened—but the voice that came out wasn't Jamie's. It was a strange, hollow voice, booming, like a grownup's—like James Earl Jones'. Gasps of fear peppered the audience when he began speaking, outbursts which the people quickly stifled. The audience reaction turned to awe as the echoing voice carried into the crowd. It said all kinds of things; more of the same kind of stuff that Brother Joseph and Miss Agatha were always saying. All about how Armageddon was coming, and the Chosen Ones were the only people who would be saved from the purifying flames. About the Jews and the blacks and the Sodomites—how they ran everything, but after the flames came, the Chosen Ones would run everything.

  But then the voice said something Jamie had never heard Brother Joseph say—

  "—and you, Brother Joseph," boomed the voice. "You are the Instrument of the Prophecy. You will be the Bringer of Flame. You will be the Ignitor of the Holocaust. In your hand will be the torch that begins the Great Conflagration—"

  Brother Joseph began to frown, and his frown deepened as the voice went on with more of the same. This must be new—Jamie thought.

  :It is new,: said Sarah, relaxing her vigilance a little, and turning to look over her shoulder at him. Even though he knew she was a ghost now, he was somehow no longer afraid of her. In fact, in his present state, he felt closer to her, like they were the same kind of people now. And it helped to be able to see her. He moved a little closer to her, and she took his hand and smiled.

  :This stuff is all new,: she said without moving her lips, cocking her head to one side. :And Brother Joseph doesn't like it. Look at him.:

  Indeed, Brother Joseph's face was not that of a happy man, and Jamie could see why—for out in the assembled audience there were stirrings and murmurs of uneasiness.

  But when the voice stopped, Brother Joseph whirled and raised his hands in the air, his face all smiles. "Halleluia!" he cried. "Praise God, he has chosen me to lead you, though I am not worthy! He has called me to witness for you and lead you, as John the Baptist witnessed before the coming of the Lord Jesus and led the Hebrews to the new Savior! You've heard it from the mouth of this child, through the instrument of His Holy Fire—I am the forerunner, and it is my coming that has been the signal and paved the way for the end—and our beginning!"

  Cries of "Praise the Lord!" and "Halleluia!" answered him, and there were no more murmurs of dissent. Brother Joseph had them all back again.

  :Now comes the part they've really been waiting for,: Sarah said, an expression of cynicism on her face that was at odds with her years. :The miracles.:

  "Half Hi to win, Saturn Boy to place, and Beauregard to show in the second," boomed the voice. "Righteous to win, Starbase to place, and Kingsman to show in the third. Grassland to win, Lena's Lover to place, and Whatchacall to show in the fifth—"

  :Miracles?: Jamie said, puzzled.

  :Those are all the horses that are going to win at Fair Meadows tomorrow,: she replied. :They're going to make a lot of money by betting on them.:

  "Fifth table, fourth seat, Tom Justin," said the voice. "Tom should get in line behind the fat woman in a red print dress and take two blue cards, two red, two yellow and two gray. Sixth table, twelfth seat, Karen Amberdahl. Karen should get in line behind an old man with a cigar, a turquoise belt buckle and a string tie with a bearclaw slide, and take one of each color."

  :And those are the people that should go to bingo tomorrow night, where they should sit, and what cards they should take. If they do that, they'll have winning cards.: Sarah's lip curled. :But it won't be a lot of money. They're just making the seed money for the real stuff. The horse races, and what comes later.:

  Finally the voice stopped; Jamie felt dizzy, and when he looked down at himself, he was kind of—transparent. He could see the floor through his arm. Had he been able to do that when he first found himself here? He didn't think so.

  :You're fading,: Sarah said, looking worried. :I don't know why. I think the Black Thing is using you up, somehow—:

  She didn't get a chance to elaborate on that; the guards were escorting everyone except for a chosen few out—those few filed up to the front and waited in a line just below the stage. Jamie noticed, as they arranged themselves and waited for the guards to get everyone else out, that he was getting solid again. So—the Black Thing used him up when it spoke. And if it wasn't talking, he got a chance to recover.

  "All right," Brother Joseph said, in a brisk, matter-of-fact voice that was nothing like what he used when preaching, "We got the El Paso crack shipment tonight on the airstrip. Bill, you're new; hold your questions until the Holy Fire is done speaking."

  What came out of Jamie-in-the-chair's mouth then, was not anything like what he had expected.

  "Apartment 1014B over in the Oaktree Apartment Complex is a new dealer, he'll pay top prices to you because he's been having visions. His line dried up. Sell him a quarter of the shipment. You've got enough regulars for another quarter. For the rest, take a quarter to Tulsa, peddle it Friday on Denver, on Saturday over by the PAC, Sunday on the downtown mall. The narcs will be elsewhere. Don't talk to anyone in a blue Ford Mustang, license plate ZZ611; they're cops. Get off the street on Friday by two in the morning, there's going to be a bust. Take the other quarter to Oklahoma City and—"

  :Is he talking about drugs?: Jamie asked Sarah, bewildered. :Like dope? Like they said to say no to in school?:

  She nodded grimly. :That's where the real money is coming from,: she replied. :Brother Joseph is a dealer, and the Black Thing knows where all the cops are, and where the best place to sell is.:

  The man Bill, who had been designated as "new," looked unhappy, and as if he was trying not to squirm. As the voice finished—and another wave of dizziness and transparency passed over Jamie—he saw that Brother Joseph was watching this man very closely. And before the man could say anything, Brother Joseph spoke, in still another kind of voice. Friendly, kind, like Daddy used to be before all the joy juice, back in Atlanta.

  "Now, Bill," Brother Joseph said, "I know what you must be thinking. You're wondering how we, the Chosen of the Lord, could stoop to selling crack and ice, this poison in the veins of America. How we could break God's law as well as man's."

  Bill nodded, slowly.

  "Bill, Bill," Brother Joseph said, shaking his head. "This is part of our mission. The Holy Fire instructed us to do this! We aren't selling this to innocent children—it's going to Satanists and Sodomites, uppity Jews and niggers, Commies and hippies and whores—all people who'd poison themselves with the stuff anyway, whether we sold it to them or not. They're killing themselves; we're no more to blame than the man that sells a suicide a gun. And what's more, we're drying up the trade of the regular dealers, godless nigger gang members. The ones who do sell this poison in schoolya
rds."

  Sarah snorted. :No they aren't,: she said angrily. :That's a lie! They're supplying the guys who sell dope to kids. White and black.:

  Jamie nodded, remembering the stuff about "the dealer whose supply line dried up."

  Bill looked unconvinced and replied, hesitantly, "But—what about the bingo games, the horse races—"

  "Peanuts," one of the guards scoffed, in an insulting tone. "Grocery money."

  "Now Tom, that's not fair," Brother Joseph told him, in the tones of a parent mildly chiding a child. Then he turned back to Bill. "He is right that it's really just the cash for our day-to-day expenses," the preacher said. "Bill, you know what an AK-47 costs these days, I know you do."

  Bill nodded, reluctantly.

  "And we have hundreds—thousands. And that's just one of the guns we have stockpiled. Then there's the anti-tank weapons, the grenade launchers, the SAMs—that's just weapons. We bought those tractors and bulldozers, outright—"

  "I was a farmer," Bill said slowly. "The gear you—we—have is about a quarter mil per tractor, and I dunno how much them earth-movers run. But—we never win big at the track or the bingo games, and I know there's big pots—"

  "And there's IRS agents waiting right there at the track and the parlor, waiting for the big winner," Brother Joseph interrupted. "We can't let the gov'ment know what's going on here, and if a lot of our people start winning big, not even our fancy lawyer is gonna be able to keep them off our backs. Hell, Bill, that's how the gov'ment got Al Capone, didn't you know? Tax evasion!"

  "Dope money's big, it's underground, and can't be traced," said one of the other men, complacently. "And nobody in this state would put dope and a church together."

  Bill thought for a moment, then nodded again, but this time with a lot less reluctance. "I guess you're right—"