Free Sacrifice by Wrath James White Page B

children barely seemed to notice.
    The man’s screams were horrible as he tried to battle his way through a storm of raging children.
    “What should we do? We can’t shoot them. They’re kids! And what do we do about these fuckin’ birds?” Rafik asked, looking both frightened and confused as he swatted away a dive-bombing pigeon.
    “There’s nothing we can do about the birds right now, and the kids are the more immediate threat.”
    “They’re just kids,” Rafik repeated in an awed whisper.
    When they reached the children they began yanking them off the man and tossing them back into the grass, only to have them come rushing back to dive onto him again with renewed savagery. The birds were now attacking more persistently as well, pecking at his face and eyes and clawing through his tattered clothing. The detectives swatted them away as they struggled to control the children. They were making no progress at all and the man was dying.
    Breathing heavily, Detective Rafik stood up and turned to one of the teachers who had come out to help. She had welts and bite marks all over her arms and was batting at herself and shrieking. There were bees and ants all over her. Rafik stared at her and the rest of the teachers, who also seemed to be battling with insects, and pointed back down at the children. Their faces were awash with the man’s blood, and some seemed to be chewing on pieces of his flesh. Many had suffered torn knuckles from the punches they had landed on him, and those who were not biting and kicking were stomping his head into the dirt. There were bees and ants and worms all over him.
    “What the hell is wrong with them? They look like they’ve gone mad!”
    “What do we do?”
    They continued pulling off the raging children, and this time the kids stayed off, though it was apparently not due to any effort on the part of the detectives. They just suddenly broke off their attack. Malloy and Rafik looked up as the dense flock of birds dissipated.
    Rafik stopped and looked at the children who had finally ceased their assault on the man and were now standing around his corpse, staring at him with eyes filled with sorrow and confusion. One by one they began to cry and turn away. Some ran back into the building. Others ran to the teachers, hugging them and sobbing.
    “Call an ambulance,” Malloy said as he knelt beside the body. A cloud of bees and flies rose from the corpse and flew over their heads. Rafik knelt beside his partner, and they watched the earthworms and ants crawl out of the man’s hollowed eye-sockets, mouth, nose, and from the holes on the side of his head where his ears had been.
    Rafik knelt closer to inspect the avulsions in the victim’s throat and was nearly stung by still more bees, which were now evacuating the ghastly wounds around his throat. Just as before, maggots were already writhing on the victim’s body.
    “Is this like what happened with the dog guy?”
    “Exactly what happened.”
    “Fuck.”

Chapter 10
    April ran her fingernails over Delilah’s thick thighs, tracing the striations in her quadriceps and marveling at the smoothness of her skin. She still could not believe she’d slept with her. Delilah was the only woman she’d ever slept with, and she’d only known the woman for a few minutes when she’d allowed herself to be seduced by her.
    No. That’s not how it happened, April corrected herself. Delilah hadn’t seduced her. She had only touched her and April had gone wild, consumed with desire so sudden and powerful that it had overwhelmed her. When she’d first walked into the voodoo priestess’s bedroom she’d been petrified of her and sickened by the knowledge that her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend had both slept with the woman. Then Delilah touched her. One touch and an inferno of lust ignited inside her stronger than anything she’d ever felt before. April had practically attacked the woman.
    Delilah’s lovemaking had been every bit