Then the feeders swarmed over her, and everything disappeared in a bright red haze.
George Paulsen ran from the Sinnissippi Townhomes and the screams of Enid Scott, his hands covering his face. He burst through the screen door of the Scott apartment with such force that he ripped it from its hinges and tore the skin from his hands. There waS blood on him everywhere, and the stink of it was in his nostrils. But it was not from the screams or the blood or even the ragged, broken form he had left crumpled on the living-room floor that he fled.
It was from Evelyn Freemark.
She was right in front of him, a shimmering image come out of the ether, dark and spectral. No matter which way he turned, there she was. She whispered at him, repeating the words she had spoken earlier that day in the park, her dark warning of what would happen if he laid a hand on Enid Scott or her children. He screamed against the persistent sound of it, tearing at the air and at his own face. He ran mindlessly across the barren dirt yard into the roadway, desperate to escape.
The dark things bounded after him, the creatures that had appeared as he beat aside Jared Scott’s futile defenses. They had encouraged him to hurt the boy; they had wanted the boy to suffer.
But now they were coming after him as well.
He could feel their hunger in the ragged sound of their breathing.
Oh, God! Oh, God! He screamed the words over and over into the silence and the dark.
Staggering blindly up the roadway, he crested the rise that led out to Lincoln Highway, and a car came out of the lights of the buildings ahead. George Paulsen lurched aside as the car raced past, its horn blaring angrily. The dark things caught him then, bore him back against the cemetery fence, and began to rip him apart. His insides were being shredded beneath their claws and teeth; he could hear himself shriek. With the dark things clinging to him, he turned toward the cemetery fence and scrambled up the chain links. He reached the top, lost his footing, and slid back heavily. He grabbed for something to slow his fall, hooked his fingers into the mesh, and caught his neck on the exposed edges of a gap near the fence top.
Jagged steel sliced through soft flesh and exposed arteries, and George Paulsen’s blood gushed forth. He sagged weakly, pain flooding through him. The dark things slowed their attack, closing on him more deliberately, taking their time. He wouldn’t escape them now, he knew. He closed his eyes against his fear and desperation. They were touching him, their fingers dipping experimentally in his blood. Oh, God!
A moment later, the life went out of him.
Chicago is afire. Everywhere the Knight of the Word looks the flames rise up against the darkening skyline, bleeding their red glare into the smoky twilight. It is an exceptionally hot, dry summer, and the parched grasses that fill the empty parks and push through the cracks in the concrete bum readily. The homes closest to the hollowed-out steel-and-glass monoliths of the abandoned downtown wait their turn, helpless victims of the destruction that approaches. Down along the piers and shipyards, old storage tanks and fuel wells blaze brightly, the residue of their contents exploding like cannon shots.
John Ross jogs quickly along the walkway bordering the Chicago River, moving south from the breach in the fortress walls. He carries his staff before him, but he has temporarily lost the use of its magic, the”consequence of another of those times in the past when he was forced to call upon it-before the Armageddon, before the fall. Thus he must flee and hide as common men. Already, his enemies look for him. They have tracked him here, as they track him everywhere, and they know that somewhere in the conflagration he will be found. A Knight of the Word is a great prize, and those who find him will be well rewarded. But they know, too, that he will not be taken easily, and their caution gives him an edge.