Piercing the Darkness (86 page)

SALLY SCREAMED, PUSHING
the sound against Khull’s hand with all the diaphragm she could muster. The scream came through Khull’s thick hand a pitiful, muffled moan. No one heard it.

Khull had his excuse. He dug in with the knife.

“AWWW!”

“Khull!” said Santinelli. “What is it?”

Khull just moaned something unintelligible.

“Get the lights!”

“Where are they?”

Cursings, fumblings in the dark, tripping, stumbling, Khull growling, cursing, bumping into things, the wooden chair toppling.

“WHAT WAS THAT?”
said the man upstairs.

“Out!” said Goring. “Get out of this house!”

STEELE FOUND THE
lights.

“Khull!” said one of Khull’s men.

Khull was holding his chest; his shirt was slashed, red with blood. He’d carved a wound across his own ribcage.

“Where’s the woman?” he cried, his eyes wild with rage.

THE STRONGMAN AND
Destroyer were blinded for an instant. Something had struck them. They blinked and squinted, trying to recover.

“Where’s the woman?” the Strongman howled.

Destroyer stared in horror at the spirits of Broken Birch—they were strewn about the room as if by a bomb blast, dazed, disoriented. The Strongman’s aides looked this way and that, but saw nothing.

“There!” a spirit shouted.

THE LIGHT OF
day hurt Sally’s eyes. She was out in the morning air. She could see the herb garden and people gathered there.

A huge man held her, his face like bronze, his hair like gold. He set her down and pointed toward the mountains.

“Run, Sally! RUN!”

New strength coursed through her legs, and she ran.

THE DEMONS HURLED
themselves at Tal with suicidal abandon, their eyes crazed with bloodthirst. He darted, dodged, feinted, meeting their swords with his own, kicking whom he could, swirling, dashing,
jabbing, keeping them back.

“YAHAAA!” came Guilo’s voice behind him. Now Tal had some help. Struck demons began to fly across his vision, limp and dissolving.

He could see Sally Roe, still in the clear, still running.
Run, girl! RUN!

CHAPTER 43

SALLY RAN LIKE
a frightened gazelle, her thoughts set on that front gate, her stride never breaking. She bounded into the herb garden and whisked right past the blond singer and his little group.

“Hey, who’s that?” someone asked.

Then came Sybil Denning’s voice. “Well . . . ! Sally! Sally Roe! Sally, is that you?”

Sally didn’t look back, she didn’t slow down; she just kept running, her long hair blowing in the wind behind her, her arms pumping, her legs grabbing up distance. She dashed out of the herb garden, across a lawn, down a pebbled path, and into the main parking lot. She could see the main gate.

GORING WAS JUST
herding the two psychics out the front door against their protests when someone else ran up full of questions.

“Hey, who was that we saw running? What’s going on around here?”

Goring asked directly, “Was it a woman?”

“Yeah. Man, she looked scared—”

“Which way did she go?”

“We’re
all
scared! What’s happening?”

“Which way did she go?”

“Well, toward the front gate. She was splitting the place!”

“I’ll look into it.”

Goring closed the door right in their faces and called to Khull’s men. “She’s outside, heading for the front gate!”

Khull’s four hooligans were just bringing Khull upstairs.

Goring was indignant. “Don’t bring him up here! You’ll drip blood on my carpet!”

“Get the woman!” said the Strongman.

Destroyer shoved and swatted the Broken Birch spirits into action. “You heard him! Get the woman!”

KHULL ORDERED HIS
men, “Get her! Bring me the pieces!”

They bolted for the back door.

AMETHYST WAS ONLY
one of a mob of hysterical demons who converged on the Bacon’s Corner Elementary School, but there was no rescue here either. The Host of Heaven had already struck the place, and demons were scattering from the roof, from the playfield, from all around the school, like hornets from a burning hive.

Ango, the boastful lord of the school, was fluttering about the sky with half a wing gone, wailing, cursing, spitting his hatred and screaming for help; but all his hordes had forsaken him and fled. Out of control, he careened crazily into a cluster of brilliant warriors, met their swords, and exploded in several directions, vanishing in trails of red smoke.

IN THE SCHOOL
office, Miss Brewer was having a face-to-face confrontation with Mr. Woodard, the school principal.

“No way!” she said in a voice just below a scream. “I’m not responsible for selecting that curriculum, no matter what anybody says! You told me to teach it! You and that LifeCircle bunch were behind this whole thing, and I’ll tell that to anyone who wants to know! I’m not going to take the rap for this, not for anyone!
You’re
the principal!
You’re
the one responsible! You can fire me if you want, but I won’t be
your patsy. Is that clear?”