Dust to Dust by Heather Graham Page B

he looked around, he saw them.
    Human beings, being herded along in single file between the rows of crosses that bordered the road. The crosses rose to the sky all along the path, and each one held a burden of dying flesh. Men and women dying in agony, and nearby, his fellow soldiers sweated in the sun as they nailed another man to a cross.
    â€œStop!” he roared. But no one heard him, or maybe they just ignored him. He saw the face of the man being nailed to the cross, and it was the face of the old man who had died in the alley.
    â€œBe strong, Capricorn, be strong,” he said, his voice hoarse with agony.
    â€œStop!” Scott raged again, grabbing one of the soldiers, tearing him away. The others, stunned, looked around, seeking to fight an enemy they couldn’t see.
    â€œI am gone now. It is up to you to find the Oracle,” the old man said. “Tread the ancient road, and go to where the battle must be won.”
    The face changed and became a woman’s. She was old, older than time itself, it seemed. But she had brilliant blue eyes, and she smiled toward heaven even as a nail was being driven into her wrist by one of the soldiers as the others stabbed at the wind.
    â€œYou can see me now, and you can see the way. Come to me,” she said.
    Her face shifted, and then the old man was thereagain. But he was dead now; he’d been too old, too weak to endure the torture of the nails, the loss of blood.
    Scott howled in rage and frustration, then threw out his arms, and the soldiers fell away.
    The back of his hand began to throb and he woke in an instant. He was sitting up in bed, and he had just slammed his arms against the wall.
    He looked around in the shadows and the darkness. A groan escaped him. “I guess I am Capricorn. I will find the Oracle. I will find the way,” he said, then realized he was speaking aloud. What the hell. It was bad enough that his whole life had changed and his days were a torment of hoping that he would discover a reason why, but his nights were worse.
    He was beginning to hate going to sleep.
    He sat awake, wondering what the dream had meant, or if it had meant anything at all, other than that he was still spooked by that night in the alley. Maybe he was just going mad. Getting really philosophical, was there a point to life at all? Or was he, along with everyone else, just organic matter that had developed until it had to believe in more for the sake of sanity?
    He smashed his pillow—better than the wall, at least—and lay down again.
    It was hours before he slept.
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    â€œI know I need to start all over again. Calming my darling down and letting her know how much I love her. She’s just a pile of quivering, quaking nerves,” Judy Bobalink declared, cradling Miss Tiffany to her chest.
    Miss Tiffany was a “designer dog,” a peek-a-poo,bred from a Pekingese and a miniature poodle. Mel knew that Judy had spent a great deal of money on the dog, which was, in Melanie’s mind, a cute little mutt. Judy Bobalink reminded Melanie of a designer creation herself. Once upon a time she had been a beautiful young starlet. Fortune had not fallen her way, though, and now she was a character actress—actually, a very good one. But she was sixty, with bleached-blond hair that fell to her waist, pretty blue eyes and massive fake lashes. On the screen, it worked. In person, she was a bit like a photo out of focus. She had given up on the possibility of family for her career, and Miss Tiffany was everything to her.
    Miss Tiffany was quivering in her owner’s arms—but Melanie had seldom seen the dog do anything but.
    â€œSo, can you work with her this afternoon?”
    â€œI’m sorry, Judy, but I really can’t. I have friends coming in to help me fix some damage, but I can…talk to Miss Tiffany. Honestly, it isn’t me she needs now. She doesn’t have any behaviors that need to be modified, she’s