Free Tucker’s Grove by Kevin J. Anderson Page B

afraid.
    “ Your bl ood is going to be swilled by the meanest, darkest Gods on the face of this Earth, Mr. Johnson. Aren ’ t you afraid?”
    She brandished the sickle in his face, but instead of the spasms of terror she expected, he just looked at her sadly. Di s turbed, she drew ba ck the blade to strike. When he simply flashed his foolish smile at her, she sliced hard, laying his throat open to the vertebrae.
    But rather than bright arterial blood, molten yellow fire spat out from the wound. The cut healed itself before her eyes with a line of sparks like flames dancing along a firecracker fuse. E l speth cried out and dropped the sickle, then sucked her burnt, smoking fingers.
    “ You ’ ve damned yourself to the last, Elspeth Sandsbury,” the man said. His voice was husky and wolf-like now. Not even a scar remained from the wound in his throat.
    She gawked at him as the ropes binding him to the crossbar suddenly caught fire and burned to ash without marking his skin or scorching his clothes. The nails in his wrists shot away like lead pellets into the cornfield.
    Andrew Danforth Johnson dropped lightly to the ground, straightening and dusting his black clothes before taking a step toward her. “ Poor Elspeth — if the Dark Ones were as powerful as you imagine, do you really believe that They would h ave allowed Themselves to be forgotten?”
    He didn ’ t look at all frail anymore. The stranger seemed to possess a power that could have felled an oak tree. His black hair had become iridescent in the sunlight.
    “ Did you never think that there might still exist high priests in the world? Priests who carry out the proper rituals in the proper ways — and with the proper sacrifices?” He loomed closer, and Elspeth shrank back. “ Did you think the Dark Ones would take kin d ly to an ignorant usurper like yourself, who knows nothing of Them, nothing of the old ways, yet does not hesitate to shed blood in Their names? If there ’ s one thing the Dark Ones hate, it ’ s amateurs!”
    The stranger started toward her. She couldn ’ t run. She tried to speak to him to offer up an explanation, but her tongue could only manage gibberish.
    He caught her by the front of her dress and lifted her bulk off the ground with one hand. She squirmed, but a cold hand in her gut crushed her resistance, twist ing her innards.
    The dark man slammed Elspeth against the crossbar. He seemed much taller now, for he held her against the wood with his shoulder as he lifted one of her thick arms against the bar. He cupped one hand, and with the other drew a long strand of shiny barbed wire from the recesses of his fist, like a magician ’ s en d less handkerchiefs from his sleeves. He bound her arms to the crossbar with the barbed wire.
    Elspeth whimpered, then gibbered, begged, and wept, until she finally collapsed so deeply inside herself that she could do nothing but watch and listen.
    “ Elspeth, hear me now. The time for violent rituals and bloody sacrifices is over. The Dark Ones have had to adapt to survive to the modern age. They ’ ve had to become more co m patible with manki nd ’ s need, more accommodating to a civilized way of life.” He smiled at her as she hung helpless, bound by shining barbed wire. “ But even so, They do still enjoy an occ a sional, special sacrifice.”
    He bent down and picked up the broken altar stone as if it b e longed to him and easily tucked the heavy fragment under his arm, though it had taken Elspeth ropes and a lever to move it.
    The stranger turned and walked away down the lane without a backward glance.
    From the fenceline the crows set up a loud, squawkin g racket. The big crow, their black leader, joined them at last, but this time, instead of just watching, the birds flew down to feast.
     

THE CIRCUS
    Strange shadows accompanied the sunset, and galloping along with them came the black horse, hooves chewing up the dirt main street of Tucker ’ s Grove, leaving its imprint bold