Free Walk the Sky by Robert Swartwood, David B. Silva

 
    “Sir?” Roy said, his voice hesitant. “That ... we think that’s one of the demons.”  
    Willard tilted his head slightly, squinted down at the thing in the dirt. Now that he was looking closely, he could see features that may have been legs and arms, even a head. But the flesh on the creature was not at all what he had expected. It was hard and weathered and ... green?  
    “It looks like some kind of overlarge plant,” he said.  
    “Yes, sir. We thought so too. But that’s not all we have to show you.”  
    “There’s more?”  
    Roy nodded. He motioned at the man with his hands in his pockets. The man, standing on the other side of the dead creature, lowered his gaze to the ground. Willard did the same, but he couldn’t see anything except the creature.  
    “What am I looking at?”  
    “Here,” the man said, taking a hand out of his pocket to point at the ground.  
    Willard carefully stepped around the creature, expecting it to move at any moment. He let his gaze follow the man’s finger to the ground. A knife lay in the dirt.  
    “We think he used that to cut his bindings,” Roy said. “We think he must have also used it to stab this ... this thing. He must have dropped it when he was escaping.”  
    Willard stared down at the knife for several seconds before blinking and looking up at the jailhouse.  
    “Did he try to free the other one?”  
    “He may have tried, but the man is still locked up.”  
    “Have you talked to him yet?”  
    “No, sir. We wanted to wait to see what you thought.”  
    “Haven’t you at least searched the town in case he’s hiding?”  
    “We did that already. We searched every building inside and out and even under. Unless he’s in your home, he’s gone.”  
    Willard, mindful of the dead creature only inches away, bent and picked up the knife and shook off the loose dirt. He stared down at the design on the handle, at the little scratches on the blade.  
    “Reverend?”  
    Willard said, “Get a group together, larger than normal. Use every man that’s available. He couldn’t have gone far. The demons won’t let him.”  
    “Yes, Reverend,” Roy said, and immediately began directing the other men to get the horses and round up a few more hands.  
    In the back of his mind Willard thought he had underestimated Roy. That when the time came the man would make a fine right-hand. For now, though, he had other worries that needed dealing with. It was bad enough that a man had escaped the sacrifice last night—and how the demons hadn’t attempted to take more lives was beyond him—but the simple fact remained that the man had had help.  
    And Willard knew exactly who it was that had helped him.  
    He recognized the knife, after all.  
    It had once been his father’s.

 
     
     
     
     
    part three
                                       

    THOSE THAT WALK THE NIGHT

 
     
     
     
    15.

    Clay’s reaction to the hand on his arm was the reaction of a man who had literally just run a mile to save his life from creatures that shouldn’t exist.  
    He was breathless, his heart pounding, sweat falling down his face, all his focus on the few demons coming his way, and when the hand touched him in the dark he cried out, spun around, raised his fist to strike whatever was there ... but his feet twisted and he fell back down onto the ground.  
    “Are you okay?”  
    The voice—it was quiet, soft, feminine—made Clay pause. He had been expecting ... something else. Certainly not a voice that spoke words in his own language.  
    “Please”—that quiet voice again—“stand up. We cannot stay here.”  
    At first all he saw was a dark figure, a silhouette in the night. Then she moved closer, her features becoming a little more pronounced by the moonlight, a small dark face and long black hair.  
    “Please,” she said again, “we must hurry.”  
    Before he knew it she was bending down and grabbing