attention on the j road.
'We need to go faster,' Brother Elias said, 'or we will be too | late.
The adversary knows now that we are here. He knows we are f coming for him and he will be prepared.'
'I have to use low gears here,' Jim explained. 'We'll be able to go a lot faster once we get to the top.'
Brother Elias said nothing, staring silently out the front windshield.
Gordon turned to look at Father Andrews, leaning against the door. The priest was forced into an uncomfortably tight position, but his eyes were closed and he was sleeping. He was exhausted.
The pickup finally reached the top of the Rim, and Jim shifted the truck into third, flooring the gas pedal. The vehicle shot forward.
The road wound through the forest, following the lay of the land. The two-lane blacktop skirted especially thick stands of tall trees and wound through gullies, finding the easiest route through the rough terrain.
Ahead, Jim saw the small brown Forest Service sign that marked the turnoff to Aspen Lake and he slowed down. He rolled up the truck's window and turned onto the dirt road. Once again, he sped up, and soon the pickup was flying over the innumerable bumps in the road, sailing past the close-growing trees.
Fifteen minutes later, the pines began to be replaced by aspens, and he could see the blue of the lake through the trees. 'We're almost there,' he announced.
He slowed down as they reached the lake, searching for the old dirt path that led to Milk Ranch Point.
'There it is,' Brother Elias said, pointing.
Jim followed the preacher's finger. Several newly cut aspens were piled across the path, barring the truck access.
'Something doesn't want us back there,' Gordon said.
Brother Elias nodded. 'We'll have to walk.'
The truck braked to a stop, and Father Andrews blinked open his eyes.
'Are we there?' he asked.
'Yeah,' Jim said. He opened the door and got out, stretching his tired muscles. Above, the sky was darkening, gray rain clouds from the north intermingling with the heavy black smoke still streaming up from the landfill below the Rim. A warm wind had sprung up from somewhere, and it brought to his nostrils the odor of burning flesh.
Brother Elias stepped out of the cab, carrying the box with the last two jars of blood. He moved to the back of the truck and put the box down on the ground at his feet. He drew from the rear of the pickup a small canvas bag containing the four crosses he had requested, and he dropped the bag into the box.
He pulled out one of the rifles and a box of ammunition.
'Does everyone know how to use one of these?' the preacher asked.
Gordon looked at Father Andrews, and both men shook their heads.
'You won't need one,' Brother Elias said to the priest. He looked at Gordon. 'You will.' He handed Gordon the rifle and threw another one to the sheriff. 'Show him how to use it,' he said.
Father Andrews watched as Gordon and Jim walked to the front of the truck, grasping their rifles. He turned his attention to Brother Elias, who was staring at him with that black unflinching gaze. 'Come,' the preacher said. He put a strong arm around Father Andrews' shoulders and led him to the makeshift barrier that was blocking the trail to Milk Ranch Point. This close, the priest could see that the felled aspens had not been chopped down. They had been gnawed on. By tiny teeth. He felt suddenly cold.
'How strong are your ties to your church?' Brother Elias asked.
The priest stared at him. 'Why?'
'What I will ask you to do goes against everything you have ever been taught. It runs contrary to the very tenets of your faith.' Father Andrews smiled slightly. 'So what else is new?'
'This you will not be able to rationalize. What I will ask you to do is specifically prohibited in the Bible. It is considered blasphemous before the eyes of God.' He paused for a moment, his gaze focusing upward on the gray clouds and black smoke creeping across the sky above them. The air was hot, humid, uncomfortable. 'Good and evil are not abstract concepts,' he said finally. 'They exist and they have always existed.'
The priest frowned. 'I have always thought so.'
'They exist outside and independent of any religion. Religions, all religions, are merely crude attempts to explain their existence.
Religions are created to label and categorize powers they do not understand.'
Father Andrews looked at the preacher. He could feel the evil of this place. It suffused the trees, the bushes, the very ground they stood upon. Corruption thickened the air they breathed, and he felt almost overwhelmed by nausea as the evil pressed in upon his senses. He felt his arm, now healed, and that too seemed wrong somehow. His eyes met those of Brother Elias, and he looked away, frightened.
The preacher pointed up the trail before them. 'This is an evil spot,' he said. 'It has always been an evil spot. The power that is here has always been here and always will be here.' He paused, and his voice lowered as if he were afraid of being overheard. 'In the countless centuries before man, animals brought their young here to die. Deer that were born crippled were dragged here and left by their mothers.
Bears that were undersized and would obviously not survive their first winter were brought here and abandoned. The evil was fed, and its power grew.'
Father Andrews paled. He knew where the conversation was headed.
'The first men also left their unfit young here instinctively. But as cultures evolved, reasons were needed for continuing these practices.
Elaborate rationalizations were concocted by men. Sacrifices were incorporated into emerging religions. This was considered the home of the dark gods, and sacrifices of infants, healthy or unhealthy, were supposed to appease the deities and keep their anger at bay.' He looked at the priest. 'Always, the evil of this place was recognized.'
Father Andrews licked his lips, which were suddenly dry. 'So what happened?'
'The evil fed on the bodies, on the blank innocent energy of the infants. But rather than appease the evil, the sacrifices added to its power until it began to expand, until it had grown far beyond its traditional confines.' He smiled, but there was no joy in it. 'This is the lake of fire.'
Father Andrews nodded dumbly.
'Religions, as they changed, abandoned the sacrifices and no longer condoned them, but the sacrifices were still practiced surreptitiously by the people of this area. Stillborn infants were brought here and abandoned. Unhealthy babies were dropped off to die. The people forgot the reasons why they brought the infants here, but the reasons had not mattered to begin with. They were only rationalizations.' He looked again at the darkening sky, then down at Father Andrews.
'Infants are still brought here to die,' he said.
'It's not possible. Not in this day and age.'
'Aborted fetuses are brought here by doctors. Dead babies are stolen from their rightful graves and deposited here. The people often do not know what they do or why, but the evil is strong and it demands to be fed. It stretches outward as it grows, exerting more influence as its power increases.' There was the sound of one gunshot, then another, as behind them Jim and Gordon practiced shooting. The sound echoed like thunder in the wilderness. 'There is nothing we can do to stop any of this. The evil exists and it will always exist. We can only keep it contained, diffuse it when its power begins to grow. This is why we perform the ritual.'
'Why are you telling this only to me?' Father Andrews asked. 'Why aren't you telling the others too?'
The preacher once again put a firm hand around the priest's shoulder.
'Because you need to know. They do not. We all have our roles to play.'
'And what exactly is my role?'
'You must communicate with it. You must allow it to speak through you and to hear with your ears while I recite the words of the ritual.'
A wave of terror passed through Father Andrews as the import of the preacher's words struck him. Panic flared within him, and he pulled away from Brother Elias. 'You want me to let it possess me? I'm supposed to willingly let myself be possessed by some ...' He could not find the word to finish his sentence.
'It's not dangerous,' Brother Elias said. 'If we do everything right, there will be no danger to you whatsoever.'
Father Andrews felt the lie of the preacher's words. 'I don't believe you!' he shouted. He glared at Brother
