in years.
“It’s not our car,” Emery volunteered, her eye twitching. The demon nerves had never stopped. “It’s not our car.”
“It’s okay.” The woman caressed her arm. “It’s okay.” The second time was for assurance, but it brought anything but. “Now, get inside and get warm. This storm’s coming fast. It’s gonna be somethin’ fierce.”
Emery held the pistol so tightly she nearly lost circulation in her hand. A flood of terrible memories rushed her. Bruce, the sick truck driver, flashed behind her eyes. How he’d found some kind of filthy satisfaction when he groped her leg. “I want to stay back here with him.”
Kind eyes agreed to the request.
Emery hopped into the rear section of the Suburban. She prayed this was the right move. Prayed she wasn’t being tricked. And then she started breathing again, realizing there really wasn’t much of a choice.
“Relax, sweetheart. Somebody’s lookin’ out for you. My name’s Ruth,” the woman offered with a smile.
After slight reluctance: “Emery.”
“Pretty name. Keep your head down during the drive, okay?”
“Can we just go now?”
“Sure we can. I’ll drive careful, promise.”
Emery squeezed Adam’s hand like it was life itself, and hoped that wherever Ruth was headed was safe.
Chapter Seven
K rane ended the call with stillness in his voice. Hoven’s order to return to Salvation immediately didn’t sit well with him. He never should have uttered the truth of what had transpired. His inability to bring the Source back had infuriated Hoven, and with good reason. Still, he could not abandon his objective.
Dropping the cell phone into his pocket, he rested against the front fender of the onyx Mercedes and took in the landscape—soulless properties, the superfluous fences bordering no life at all, and now, the empty human bodies lying motionless on the front lawn of Adam’s former home. Snow descended like clockwork upon pieces that had proven their purpose. The tranquil hum of recent violence stirred the winter air, a brief but welcome chill.
The doctor brushed his hair away from apathetic eyes, mind still adjusting to the events of the last several hours. He couldn’t help thinking Lamont looked so completely feeble scrambling like an infant to his feet; so desperate the mongrel was as he tried to fight fate with every weak movement. Krane truly pitied him, finding a sense of dim amusement in the panic and the fear, no doubt a memory he might return to in time.
But he had to be honest with himself. The situation had become complicated. The pieces left in this war were now spread wildly out of place on a chaotic board in which there appeared to be no divine orchestrator. But perhaps he could become the absent deity. Perhaps he always was the one who had explored the makings of a scattered, divided race of man.
Brother against brother, mother against daughter, son against father. Adam’s warning echoed inside him. But there was no stopping it. The new order was coming fast. And that reality gave his mouth a motive to wear a twisted, ready smile.
Adam—the savior Saul Hoven referred to as 217—the boy who was indeed a man, had more than exceeded Krane’s expectations in a moment of intense struggle. The display of power and control and blind fury—what dark beauty it was. And how he’d healed the Phoenix—well, modern medicine paled in comparison. With a snicker, satisfaction and resolve washed over him. Krane knew this massacre was flawless arithmetic in every way. Adam was anything but gone, which left the reason for his blood’s ill performance a bittersweet mystery. The Source regained his abilities, snatched the Phoenix, and gave Lamont a new hole to breathe out of.
Maybe up until now, he’d allowed himself to be fooled into believing that he was here, at the beginning of an end, to fulfill the wishes of an already obsolete puppet master. But he was beginning to see it clearly. He knew his development—his
“It’s not our car,” Emery volunteered, her eye twitching. The demon nerves had never stopped. “It’s not our car.”
“It’s okay.” The woman caressed her arm. “It’s okay.” The second time was for assurance, but it brought anything but. “Now, get inside and get warm. This storm’s coming fast. It’s gonna be somethin’ fierce.”
Emery held the pistol so tightly she nearly lost circulation in her hand. A flood of terrible memories rushed her. Bruce, the sick truck driver, flashed behind her eyes. How he’d found some kind of filthy satisfaction when he groped her leg. “I want to stay back here with him.”
Kind eyes agreed to the request.
Emery hopped into the rear section of the Suburban. She prayed this was the right move. Prayed she wasn’t being tricked. And then she started breathing again, realizing there really wasn’t much of a choice.
“Relax, sweetheart. Somebody’s lookin’ out for you. My name’s Ruth,” the woman offered with a smile.
After slight reluctance: “Emery.”
“Pretty name. Keep your head down during the drive, okay?”
“Can we just go now?”
“Sure we can. I’ll drive careful, promise.”
Emery squeezed Adam’s hand like it was life itself, and hoped that wherever Ruth was headed was safe.
Chapter Seven
K rane ended the call with stillness in his voice. Hoven’s order to return to Salvation immediately didn’t sit well with him. He never should have uttered the truth of what had transpired. His inability to bring the Source back had infuriated Hoven, and with good reason. Still, he could not abandon his objective.
Dropping the cell phone into his pocket, he rested against the front fender of the onyx Mercedes and took in the landscape—soulless properties, the superfluous fences bordering no life at all, and now, the empty human bodies lying motionless on the front lawn of Adam’s former home. Snow descended like clockwork upon pieces that had proven their purpose. The tranquil hum of recent violence stirred the winter air, a brief but welcome chill.
The doctor brushed his hair away from apathetic eyes, mind still adjusting to the events of the last several hours. He couldn’t help thinking Lamont looked so completely feeble scrambling like an infant to his feet; so desperate the mongrel was as he tried to fight fate with every weak movement. Krane truly pitied him, finding a sense of dim amusement in the panic and the fear, no doubt a memory he might return to in time.
But he had to be honest with himself. The situation had become complicated. The pieces left in this war were now spread wildly out of place on a chaotic board in which there appeared to be no divine orchestrator. But perhaps he could become the absent deity. Perhaps he always was the one who had explored the makings of a scattered, divided race of man.
Brother against brother, mother against daughter, son against father. Adam’s warning echoed inside him. But there was no stopping it. The new order was coming fast. And that reality gave his mouth a motive to wear a twisted, ready smile.
Adam—the savior Saul Hoven referred to as 217—the boy who was indeed a man, had more than exceeded Krane’s expectations in a moment of intense struggle. The display of power and control and blind fury—what dark beauty it was. And how he’d healed the Phoenix—well, modern medicine paled in comparison. With a snicker, satisfaction and resolve washed over him. Krane knew this massacre was flawless arithmetic in every way. Adam was anything but gone, which left the reason for his blood’s ill performance a bittersweet mystery. The Source regained his abilities, snatched the Phoenix, and gave Lamont a new hole to breathe out of.
Maybe up until now, he’d allowed himself to be fooled into believing that he was here, at the beginning of an end, to fulfill the wishes of an already obsolete puppet master. But he was beginning to see it clearly. He knew his development—his
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