THIRTY

FIRE AND IRON

By the time Evan reached the museum his muscles were twisted into aching knots of pure adrenaline. He could look back over his shoulder and see the trees burning near the circle, their leaves spinning from black branches, leaving flaming scrawls of red against the sky. Glass shattered in the distance; a huge gout of fire shot toward the stars, followed by what might have been a rise of bats with flame-edged wings. Roofing tiles, Evan realized; one of the buildings across the Circle had caved in. He thought of those beautiful flowers arranged in the Circle's center; now they would be wispy ashes, and around them the fires would be crawling up and down the trees, across the grass, licking at windows and front porches, sitting rooms and kitchens.

Evan turned his head, looked to the right. A hideous red rent in the darkness: the forest was burning, and it wouldn't be very much longer before the firemen from Barnesboro and Spangler came. He looked toward McClain Terrace, could see more trees outlined in livid orange flame. And carried on the waves of smoke and heat coming from the direction of McClain, screams and shouts were audible now; they were trying to fight the fire themselves, and they were most certainly losing. A dark green Buick, tires shrieking, turned onto Cowlington and roared past Evan, almost striking him down; he heard the scream of brakes as the driver skidded before the fire that burned at the other side of Bethany's Sin. Another car swept past, turned off Cowlington, and disappeared into the night.

Followed by another.

Evan wiped his face, breathing through his open mouth rather than his broken nose, and neared the museum's gate. Six cars had been parked along Cowlington before the looming building, and Evan recognized a gleaming black Buick as Mrs. Giles's. As he went through the gate and up onto the lawn, red embers and ashes wafted around him, and he was engulfed by a pall of smoke. In the distance he heard a car screech and crash with a sound of rending metal.

Good. Good. Let them all die.

And then he realized that his vision of charred ruins had not been the fate of any other village, but instead what lay ahead for Bethany's Sin. Even on the first day, when he'd stared at the museum through the trees, he'd felt the raging heat of the conflagration that would consume this place of utter evil. Now it was coming true: fires burning at each side of Bethany's Sin, slowly coming together like advancing armies. The pawn of Hades, he thought suddenly, gripping the gate and looking up at the looming house. I was the pawn of Hades all along.

A figure appeared at a window on the upper floor, stared out for a few seconds, and then disappeared. Perhaps, he thought, that hellish rite was already in progress and, once begun, wouldn't be interrupted until the end; or perhaps they're simply waiting for me.

Another car roared past and vanished into a tunnel of flame and smoke.

Evan went through the gate, his heart  pounding, and reached the door. It was locked from within, and though he slammed against it with his uninjured shoulder, it wouldn't budge. He heard a sudden whooomph! and twisted around, seeing that one of the trees across Cowlington had burst into flames; droplets of fire rained down onto a rooftop, snaked across the tiles. Beside that house shrubbery was flaming, and lawns were blacktopped with ash. Evan stepped back, away from the door, and looked up at the museum, no footholds or handholds on the walls, nothing to help him climb to the top floor, where Kay now lay at their mercy. Could he climb along a gutter? he wondered frantically, feeling the heat at his back now. No, no; it wouldn't hold his weight. Ashes spun into his face and hair. I've got to get up there! the voice screamed within him. I've got to find some way to get in! He ran alongside the house, eyes scanning the walls; his boots crunched on browning grass. And then he stopped, staring up at the huge oak tree that stood directly behind the museum; those branches, scorching now, touched the roof.

A bellowing breath of fire reached for his back; the trees on Cowlington and beyond were traced with orange white flame. A burning branch cracked, split, fell onto a roof, followed by another.

Houses were enveloped in fiery webs, and now Evan could see an occasional figure running through the streets.

We're waiting. Come on to the party. We're waiting just for you, and we have your lovely wife here with us...

Evan turned away from the flames, ran for that oak tree, and pulled himself up through the lowest branches. Climbed, his muscles shrieking; climbed, climbed, climbed toward the roof. Burning ashes stung him, and around him the foliage was smoking, bursting into flame even as he struggled through it. And as he made his way along the uppermost branches, not caring about the pain or the fire anymore, he tore off the last of his scorched shirt and let it drop. He leaped for the roof and landed on it just as the oak, filled with burning debris, burst into a searing ball of fire.

And he found himself staring down through a skylight into the section of the museum that had been closed off by the black door.

It was a wide, hardwood-floored room. At the center was a dark slab of stone, and on it lay Kay, naked, her flesh pale and translucent against the stone. She seemed to be asleep, or drugged, because she wan't moving. Beside the stone altar stood a red-glowing brazier with iron instruments heating within it. Around the room stood fully intact statues, all frozen in positions of combat, gripping sharp-pointed swords or axes or bows; another statue, its back to Evan, stood poised on a pedestal directly at Kay's feet.

And the Amazons, draped in black robes, ringed the naked woman; they were chanting something in that unintelligible language, and as Evan watched they knelt before the poised statue and extended their hands out to it. And it was only then that he saw their hands were dripping with blood. Blood stained their mouths like an obscene lipstick; Evan, his heart hammering, craned his neck.

At Kay's head there was a copper pot brimming with blood and six copper cups. And just above that pot there was a macabre iron post on which had been placed the severed triangular head of a black horse, still dripping blood.

The chanting continued, a drone of voices. Evan could see their flaming, cruel eyes. Ashes and sparks swirled around him, touching the museum's roof. A shard of wood stung his shoulder. The Amazons seemed to have no fear of the conflagration, nor did they seem to care that soon the fire brigades would most certainly be coming; in that instant Evan felt a grudging respect for their courage, however evil and twisted they were, for these women feared nothing, not even Death in its gaudy robe of fire.

The Drago-thing, her black robe dragging the floor, came into his field of vision. Around her the things that had gnawed away the souls of Mrs. Giles, Mrs. Bartlett, Dr. Mabry, and others he'd seen before but didn't know bowed their heads slightly in deference to their queen. Drago stood before the higher statue, spoke a few sentences in a singsong dialect, and then stepped toward the glowing brazier; her right hand, clad in a metal glove, reached out and withdrew one of the iron instruments. A scissors-like pincer pulsated a deep, terrible red. Then she turned again toward Kay.

The other Amazons rose, their eyes gleaming. Dr. Mabry stepped beside Drago to assist her.

The pincer opened, dropped down toward the swell of Kay's right breast. Kay, her eyes still closed, opened her mouth and writhed silently as the glowing pincer came down.

Her breast, Evan realized. They were going to take her breast!

And then he struck out with one boot, smashing through the skylight. Shards of glass rained down; the Amazons looked upward, faces contorting. Evan kicked out again and then leaped through the shattered opening. Landing beside the stone altar, he went to his knees and struggled upward. They closed in, breathing hatred, their hands clawing for him. Evan threw his weight against the brazier, and coals tumbled out as it hit the floor, driving them backward for an instant. The coals began to smolder and spark; Evan turned his head, gazed upon the statue on its pedestal. It was of a woman, arms outstretched, one hand broken away. Around the neck and shoulders were draped row upon row of marbled, taut-nippled female breasts; in the solemn face of the statue blank eyes burned a fiery, unholy blue, that fire leaping now, leaping, leaping...

And Evan realized he gazed upon the terrible visage of Artemis, goddess of the Amazons, bearing her symbolic sacrificial gifts from the women who had devoted their lives and beings to the destruction of men.

Those eyes flamed his skull, made him almost reel back and drop to his knees. No! the voice within him screamed raggedly. And then he threw himself at that statue, upsetting the pedestal; the statue wavered, wavered, crashed to the floor. The head and left arm cracked away, but in that severed head the eyes still flamed.

A hissing sound behind him; the shriek of air parting.

He ducked down, stepped back as the red-hot pincers swung past his face. The Drago-thing, her face a mask of cold and absolute hatred, rushed him, forcing him backward and into the arms of the two Amazons who stood on the other side of him; they gripped him across the chest and throat, arms like steel bands.

Drago held the hissing pincers before his face. "Now your time has come," she whispered, two voices whispering, intertwining, echoing. On the altar Kay stirred slightly. "Hold him while I finish,"

she commanded the women; they tightened their arms around him until he could barely breathe. And then she turned again toward his wife.

"Leave her alone, goddamn you!" Evan shouted. He struggled, found he couldn't move. "Get away from her!" Tears of rage and terror sprang to his eyes.

The pincers, gripped by that metal glove, were lowered toward Kay's white body.

"Stop it! Stop it!" he shrieked, his throat shredding. "If you want a sacrifice, take me!"

Drago blinked, held the pincers just above Kay's breast. She slowly turned her head toward him; her evilly grinning visage froze the marrow in his bones.

"Leave her alone!" Evan said, daring to stare back into her face.

"Take me as your sacrifice, unless you're afraid..."

Drago didn't move.

In the distance a siren began to wail. Then another. Smoke had swirled into the room, and Evan heard the flames gnawing at the museum's roof. The sirens grew louder.

"You and me," Evan taunted. "Alone. Come on, you gutless bitch!"

Drago's lips parted in a snarl, but still she didn't move.

"You haven't got much time," he said. "They're coming soon.

Themiscrya is burning, bitch, and I set the first flame." A hand tightened at his throat. "Come on, damn you! Decide!" Smoke swirled between them; somewhere within the house, glass shattered.

"Take Oliviadre and leave," Drago whispered to the others, her eyes not leaving Evan's face. "All of you leave, and quickly. Make certain the children are gotten out and away from the village." The other women paused. "Go on now!" Drago said, her voice vibrating with power.

The Amazons released Evan, backed away. The Giles thing and another blond woman began to try to rouse Kay; she stirred, mumbled, sat up on the altar. The Giles thing helped her to her feet, and it was then that Evan saw.his wife's face. One eye burned with the terrible, spectral power, and one side of the face was twisted with hatred as she turned her gaze upon him; the other eye was clear and terrified. And he realized that without the rite the transformation wasn't complete; without the blessing of the bitch-goddess Artemis she was still partly Kay after all. But partly Oliviadre as well - caught between two worlds.

"Take her out!" Drago commanded.

"Kay," Evan said.

She stared at him, one eye flaming blue. Her mouth began to work, but no words came out.

"Don't let them have you, Kay," he whispered. "Please, for the sake of all that's holy, don't let them have you. I love you. Please remember I love you..."

Drago stepped toward him with the pincers. "Get her out of here now," she told the Amazons. "Hurry!" The last word was a bark in the Amazon language.

Kay's face contorted, rage fighting love. A tear streamed from the unclouded eye, broke over her cheek. "Ev - an - ?" she whispered hoarsely. "Evan? Ev - ?" And then the women spun her around, one of them giving her a black robe to hide her nakedness; they took her out through the door into the museum, and Dr. Mabry paused for an instant to stare back at the man.

Then the black door closed.

Sealing Evan in with this blood-eyed warrior.

Evan backed away from her; she gripped the pincers and followed, like a lioness stalking her victim, one step at a time, slowly, slowly....

"No man can stop us," she hissed. "No man."

And then she struck, faster than Evan's eye could follow; the pincers whistled down, struck across his chest, drawing a line of bubbling blood. He threw back his head and screamed a scream of piercing pain; Drago lifted the pincers again, stepped in quickly for another blow. But Evan, fever about to blow his brain apart, met her attack. They crashed together with a fury that shook the floor, Evan reaching for and grabbing the wrist that held the weapon; Drago's free hand shot out, the fingers groping for his eyes, finding one of them. She wrenched at his face, tore him in two with pain, and then Evan was screaming with blood-mad rage and backing her toward the altar, one hand gripping that wrist, the other clamped about her throat. She spun him around as if he were a toy, leering into his face, and he was picked up bodily and slammed against the far wall.

He fought for breath. Through his unbloodied eye he saw fire leaking down through cracks in the roof, saw pools of fire gathering on the floor. The rest of the skylight exploded into ruby red slivers, and through the opening he saw the face of the oval moon. Then Drago was upon him again, swinging those pincers for his head; he jerked backward, and the burning iron seared a line across his cheekbone. He struck out at her with his fist, caught her full in the face but didn't stagger her; then he struck again, and again before she could bring that weapon back. Her head finally went to the side, and Evan struck with all his strength at the point of her chin. Her teeth clicked together, and blood drooled from one corner of her mouth; she spat out flesh, and Evan realized she'd bitten her tongue in two.

But still the eyes burned, more fiercely now, and she grinned at him the crazed grin of a warrior who has seen Death and dares it to strike. Evan clamped both hands around her throat and squeezed; they fell to the floor, rolled through fire and glass, the woman's free hand striking at his forehead and temples, her other hand, white-knuckled, gripping the pincers. Above them the roof cracked, and streamers of fire, like party confetti, fell through.

Drago twisted, flung him against one of the combat frozen statues. A stone spear grazed his side. The pincers sang for him, whistled past his head again. This time he reached up and put his hands against the scorching iron, ripping the weapon from her grasp and throwing it aside. She shrieked with rage and struck him with that metal glove, knocking him to his knees. He lay there, pain arcing along his rib cage, head battered and throbbing. Fire chewed at the floor all around, and in its glow he saw the woman's shadow on a wall: a huge, distorted thing that dripped with the venom of nightmarish evil.

The Amazon stood over him, panting for breath, blood streaking a face that seemed as fierce and inhuman as those of the warrior women statues. She wiped thick blood from her mouth, looked down with disdain upon the man, and spat at him, bloodily.

Then she turned, groping for the fallen pincers to sever her enemy's head from his body. She reached down for it, gripped it, started to turn for Evan again.

But he had already leaped from the floor and launched himself at her like a human projectile. Drago grunted as the air was forced from her lungs, and screamed out as he gripped her throat and drove her backward, backward, backward, off balance...

Toward that statue in the far corner. The one with the drawn, sharply tipped sword.

Drago's eyes writhed with blue fire; Evan drove her back with every shredding fiber in his body.

And then Drago's shriek of bloodcurdling fury was intermingled with a cry of pure pain. The stone sword pierced her back and then her stomach; the gleaming point of it emerged from her body, red against black robes, and the woman-thing thrashed against it, still try ing to strike him with the pincers; she got a hand on his shoulder and wrenched him forward, and before he could jerk away, he felt a white hot pain lance his own stomach. And then he realized, with sharp and sudden clarity, that she had driven him onto that part of the sword that protruded from her own body.

Drago gripped him, wouldn't let him free. The flame in her eyes wavered. "Die," she breathed, the word as mangled as her tongue.

Red-flecked spittle clung to her lips. "Die. Die. Die. Die..."

Evan sagged, the pain brighter and hotter than a thousand August suns. But even as he sagged he pushed forward, driving her back father upon the merciless Amazon blade. Her mouth opened, opened, and remained open even as that terrible flame of spectral power flickered, flickered, and died from her eyes. Then he was looking into the black eyes of a corpse, and a red mist of pain and fire swept between him and the dead woman, obscuring his vision.

Replacing it with the soft and silent sheen of a golden field where a dead tree stood, naked branches reaching toward the sky. A body lay in that field, near a branch that had broken and toppled to the earth. A young body, a boy's body, lying motionless. And Evan standing over it, grown-up Evan now, but still the Evan he always was. I'll run get help, he thinks. I'll hurry and get Dad and then he'll say that Eric's okay, he's okay, he's not dead after all. But the grown-up Evan knows now that one cannot run from Death, not really, and that one must fight the Hand of Evil wherever it is, even on its own pestilent ground.

Evan steps forward, puts a hand to the young boy's shoulder.

And Eric looks up, grinning widely. "Fooled you, didn't I?" he says impishly. "Whooey, I took a fall! 'Bout knocked the stuffing out of me!

"You're...all right?" the grown-up Evan asks softly.

"Me? Sure!" Eric stands up, little-boy Eric who has never changed at all, and rubs the dirt from his knees. "But that sure scared me, I'll tell you!"

"That was...dangerous," Evan says, squinting in the warm sunlight. "You shouldn't do that anymore."

"Oh, I won't. Just once is enough, I'll tell you! Whooey!" Eric suddenly looks past his brother, into the distance. "Hear that?"

"No. Hear what?"

Eric grins. "Aw, come on! Mom and Dad! They're calling for us to come home! It's time, y'know."

"Yes," Evan nods. "I guess it is."

"Let's go then!"

But Evan still stands staring, as if he's trying to remember something just beyond the reach of his memory.

"Come on, slowpoke!" Eric shouts, laughing. "They'll be along in a while, you'll see! Come on! I'll race you!"

And grown-up Evan turns toward his still-small brother, and he smiles and says, "I always could beat you in a race," and together they run laughing toward the edge of a golden field that seems to stretch on forever.

From fire-ravaged Cowlington Street Kay saw the museum roof collapse, sending up a geyser of sparks and flame. There was a great, earthshaking rumble as if the museum itself were about to fall into a fast-opening bottomless fissure. She blinked, the flame scorching her face; two women stood on either side of her, pulling; their hands were ice-cold. Like corpse hands. My hus - band, she thought. No no not your husband anymore! another, more terrible voice within her shrieked. Yes. My husband. Evan. No no not your husband!

Evan's...in there. He's inside that place! Let him die let him die let him.... My husband! Oh dear God where's my husband! She tried to jerk free of those women, but she couldn't move her arms, and they were pulling her along, faster and faster, and everywhere there was fire and smoke and a high, wailing noise. Where's Evan I've got to find Evan! The heat puffed her face, and within her that more terrible voice seemed distant now, and fearful: Go with the others hurry go with the others!

She shook her head from side to side, both eyes leaking hot tears. Tried to pull away, was wrenched on. "Evan!" she called out, trying to fight them. "I've got to find him!" Windows in the museum exploded, a hideous cacophony that split her head with pain. The voice within her, dying, dying: Get away! Hurry! Get away!

"Where's my husband?" Kay shouted, struggling from something that lay upon her like the cold, clammy grip of an unseen hand. A voice, fading to nothingness, screaming within her soul. "I want to find my husband!" The voice gone.

And through the wall of smoke and fire that lay across Cowlington emerged a monster with blazing white eyes, its voice an eerie, rising wail. White light froze Kay where she stood, and suddenly the two women who had been beside her - who had they been? - were gone, running in opposite directions through the smoke, vanishing from sight. There was a long, heart-stopping squeal of brakes, and the firemen were leaping from their truck toward the dazed woman who staggered in black robes.

"You okay?" one of them, a burly man with thick black sideburns, yelled above the noise. "What's your name?"

" "Kay," she said, trying to think. "I'm Kay Reid."

"Jesus Holy Christ!" another fireman shouted beside her. "This whole damned village is burnin' to the ground!"Where'd this damned fire start?"

Kay shook her head, tried to focus on the men.

"She's out of it, Jimmy," the black sideburned fireman said to the other. "Come on, ma'am, let's get you to the truck!"

"Jesus Holy Christ!" Jimmy said again; his double-chinned face was streaked with ashes. "Where are all the people? Where are all the damned people?"

They led her quickly to the truck. Behind them a tree crashed flaming across Cowlington.

"My husband," Kay said, fighting to breathe through the smoke.

"I have to find him." She turned, stared back at the house as it began to melt and run. "My husband was in there!"

"It's okay, it's okay," Black Sideburns said soothingly. "We'll find your husband. Right now we've got to get you out of here.

Come on, just lean on us and you'll be - "

"Laurie!" Kay shouted, gripping at the man's shoulders, new panic welling within her. "Where's my little girl? "

"Hold on, now," Jimmy said. "She's probably fine and waiting for you." A roof exploded into a million cinders. He ducked his shoulders slightly, hurried her toward the truck. "The emergency unit found a bunch of little girls over at a house a couple of streets over.

The nursery school."

"Oh, God," Kay sobbed, feeling her legs give way beneath her.

The firemen caught her, guiding her forward. "Oh my God oh my God oh my God..."

"You're gonna be just fine," Jimmy said. "Here you go, get up into there. Holy Christ, how'd this damned fire start?" He blinked a couple of times, glanced over at the other firemen, said in a low voice, "Christ, Steve! This lady doesn't have a stitch on underneath that robe!" He took off his coat, gave it to her as he sat beside her in the truck's cab; she bundled up in it, hardly realizing that it smelled of sweat and acrid smoke.

And then she began to cry. Couldn't stop.

"There, there," Jimmy said. "'There, there."

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***