'No,' the suffering, ravaged woman said.
'You know what we're going to do, don't you, cunt?'
'Yes.'
Jean stood up, looked at Jane Ann for a moment, then savagely kicked her in the face with a booted foot. 'Get the cross,' she said to Jake. 'And the hammers and spikes. Do it. Now.'
* * *
'Is it almost over, Sam?' Miles asked. 'Please God, let it be.'
'A few more hours.'
'Then you'll stop the suffering?'
'It will be stopped.'
'I still don't understand why it had to be,' Anita said. 'Not entirely.'
'It will be explained. I promise.'
'You left us several times last night,' Miles said. 'I felt your presence leave.'
'I went to the scene of ugliness several times. Once I let the spirit of a child depart her body.'
Doris asked, 'You could do that for her and not for Jane Ann?'
'Yes.'
'There is so much I do not understand.'
'It will be explained. Behind the curtain of life and death.'
Wade sighed. 'I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm ready to go.'
'He said it, Sam,' Miles pointed to Wade. 'Not me.'
Soon, the mist that was Balon told them. 'Only a few more hours.'
'Ohh,' Miles moaned.
She had screamed when they drove the spikes into her hands, her feet, her sides, losing consciousness only momentarily. Then, awake, she found the strength to cope. They had jammed a crown of thorns on her head, the blood dripped down her face,.streaking her bruised beauty. She hung naked from her wooden tower.
'Tell me your God is shit!' Tony yelled up to her.
Her eyes found him. 'My God is love,' Jane Ann whispered.
'Say it,' a man urged. 'Tell us you renounce your faith in your stupid God and we'll get you down, tend to your wounds.'
But Jane Ann managed a smile, shaking her head no.
Some in the crowd, a few, grew restless, worried, for this was not going as planned. They had beaten and raped and tortured this woman nailed to a cross and still she could smile and keep her faith. Some began to openly question what they had done. Others began questioning their minds: could they, under the same circumstances, retain their faith for the Hooved One? Many doubted it.
'I want out,' a woman sobbed. 'Oh, God—help me get away from here.'
A few others joined her. 'Take Janey down!' a man called out. 'She's suffered enough. Set her free and tend to her wounds.'
Those few were seized and killed. One was spread-eagled on the ground, a stake driven through his stomach. He lay screaming for hours. Another man was given to the Beasts; they ate him alive. Two of the women were raped, then given to the Beasts for breeding purposes. The woman who first cried out to leave was given to Jake. She screamed out her humiliation as he took her in various ways. Then she was stoned to death.
'Anyone else want out?' Jean demanded, shouting at the huge crowd. 'If so, just step forward.'
No one did, but the thoughts of some were confused and troubled.
Jane Ann watched them, sensing the mood of many shifting. She wanted to tell them that if they confessed their sins and accepted God as the only True God, they could be saved. But the words would not form on her tongue. And she wondered why?
'Don't concern yourself with them!' Balon's words cut through the horrible pain in her body. 'They are filth— rabble, body and soul belonging to the Dark One.'
'You are a warrior, Sam Balon,' she whispered, her voice not carrying three feet from her lonely tower. 'And you will always be so.' The crowd gathered ten feet below saw her lips move, but could not hear her words. They assumed she was praying. 'Those are human beings,' Jane Ann told the invisible spirit of Balon. 'Some of hem used to be my friends. And obviously, some of them still have good in their hearts. They were tempted, Sam, and you know how delicious Satan can make sin.'
Balon was firm. He projected: 'They are sinners of the most evil sort. Knowingly, willingly, lovingly violating all of God's Commandments.'
'I want to help them if I can.' Jane Ann was just as stubborn as Sam Balon.
And the mist that was Balon, invisible as it circled around the scene of pain and degradation, projected: 'You are certain? Even after all they have done to you? All the pain, the humiliation—you wish to help them?'
'Yes.'
