“Zoe,” the mother cried out, “come away from there.”
“He was a good daddy most of time,” she said sadly, and Remy saw her hand reach out to place something that seemed to appear out of thin air upon her father’s chest.
It was a purple flower that emitted the most wonderful aroma.
They stood there awhile longer, gazing down at Carl’s body, before Zoe broke the silence.
“Can we leave now?” Zoe asked.
And the three walked from the compound into the surrounding woods, finding the path that would eventually lead them home.
Samson emerged from hiding after he was certain they were gone.
He had hated to hide like some loathsome coward, but he knew a blind man would have been useless against the things Remy had faced.
And besides, he had a special purpose to fulfill.
He moved out from behind the section of brick wall that had tumbled, following his nose toward the acrid stink of burned flesh and the supernatural.
Samson knew it was she; even though her flesh had been burned black, practically to ash, it still held the taint of what she was.
Of who she was.
The stink of cooked flesh grew incredibly strong, and he knew he was standing over her.
“Look at you now,” he said, feeling a sudden surge of emotion threaten to overtake him.
He remembered how beautiful she had been and tried to keep that thought, even though by the smell, he knew that beauty had been taken away.
Delilah inhaled a rattling breath at the sound of his voice.
“Still alive,” he said, and shook his head sadly.
Samson dropped to the ground, rock and bits of glass biting into his ancient knees, and felt with his hands until he found her blackened remains. Gently he gathered her up, taking her frail body into his arms.
She could not speak, but he could feel her starting to quiver. He wondered how long it would take her to heal. . how many souls she would need to consume before returning to her old tricks.
But that question wasn’t relevant anymore because he knew this was the end. For millennia he had tracked her, and now he had her exactly where he wanted her.
Delilah was helpless in his grasp.
He brought her head up and laid it upon his shoulder, holding her tenderly.
“I’ve never loved anyone more,” he told her, his emotion causing his words to break.
Delilah tried to speak, but it came out as only a scratchy croak, and he was certain she was telling him she loved him too.
And Samson took her life, as it was his job to do, the strongest man in the world broken by the memory of a love so powerful that it put his legendary might to shame.
A love that he would carry like the deepest of scars to the end of days.
The strange man was waiting for them as they came out of the woods.
He was standing on the opposite side of the desolate road, across from where the multiple SUVs had been parked, squatting on his hindquarters, and wearing far too much clothing for the warm and humid West Virginia weather.
At a glance, Remy suspected he was Vietnamese, and wondered why he was there.
The dark-skinned man stood to his full gangly height as they emerged, staring at them with dark, curious eyes. There were satchels at his feet, traveling gear, as if he were on a long journey.
Remy tensed, moving to stand in front of Deryn and Zoe; after the kind of night they’d had, he wasn’t about to take any chances.
“What is it?” Deryn asked, not yet noticing the stranger.
“Could be nothing,” Remy said, allowing his preternatural senses to test the air for potential danger, but getting nothing.
“Who is that?” Deryn asked, finally noticing the man.
“I haven’t a clue, but he seems to know us.”
There was the sound of movement, and Remy turned to see Zoe pull free from her mother’s hand, then run past them into the road toward the stranger.
“Zoe!” Deryn screamed, making a move to grab the child, but for some reason—something in the man’s stare—told Remy to let her go to him.
Remy held on to Deryn’s arm.
“What are you doing?” she screamed, fighting him.
“Wait,” Remy said, watching with a curious eye.
Zoe turned just as she was about to reach the man.
“I have something that I need to give to him,” she said, before turning away from them again and joining the stranger on the other side of the road.
Deryn still fought to be released, but her struggles grew less pronounced as she watched the little girl and the man communicate. They stared at each other, a silent message passing between them.
Zoe finally nodded, squatting down to watch as the stranger dropped to his haunches as well, and proceeded to go through one of his satchels in search of something.
The last time Remy had seen the metal statue of the infant, its chubby legs crossed in front of it and arms spread open in acceptance, it had been on Delilah’s plane in the possession of Clifton Poole.
“That’s Poole’s,” Deryn said, curiosity in her tone.
The man placed the vessel down in front of the child, and she laughed happily, reaching out to hold one of the object’s metal hands.
The stranger and the little girl smiled at each other then, and each nodded. The man reached out a long-fingered hand, and gently tapped the head of the infant’s visage; the vessel snapped open of its own accord.
Deryn gasped at the sudden movement.
Zoe appeared to be in a kind of trance, as the stranger began to hum a simple yet beautiful song. There were no words, but Remy’s mind was suddenly filled with images of a people who had sworn to safeguard a special gift that had fallen from the sky when the world was young, and who today were still performing their duty, as their ancestors had done.
The wordless song also told of a dark time, when their purpose had been lost to them, and how they had sent brave souls out into the world to find their purpose again.
Remy understood now, and by the expression on Deryn’s face, so did she.
Zoe’s body began to glow; a faint aura of yellow at first, gradually building to a nearly blinding white corona, before dissipating in a flash that left both Remy and the child’s mother blinking away blindness that had temporarily stolen their eyes.
When their vision cleared, they saw that whatever had begun was completed.
They watched as the stranger reached for the child-shaped vessel, no longer open, and carefully—
Zoe was standing now, watching as the man with whom she had just mysteriously communed gathered up his belongings in preparation to be on his way.
The child finally glanced over at Remy and Deryn, as if suddenly remembering they were there, and gave them a wave, before turning her attention back to her new friend.
The stranger bent down to the little girl with his palm extended, allowing her to give him a high five, before doing the same in return. And all this time not a word was spoken between them, because it wasn’t needed.
They knew what had to be done.
The man watched as Zoe crossed the road. He turned away and started on his journey only when he saw that she had reached Remy and Deryn.
“We can go home now,” she said, standing before them.
Remy looked away from the little girl to watch the man’s progress down the road.
And not surprisingly, he saw that the stranger was gone, as if he’d never been there at all.
EPILOGUE
“What are you drawing?” Remy asked the little girl sitting across from him, hunkered over her sketch pad.
Zoe remained silent, busily working on her art.
“
“I know she’s drawing,” Remy said to the animal. “I was just curious as to what.”
The little girl laughed. It sounded like tiny, delicate bells happily jingling.
“That’s funny when you talk to the dog,” she said, dropping one of her crayons on the desktop and choosing another from the box open in front of her. “My mommy says he can’t understand you, you know.”
“Your mommy said that?” Remy asked, leaning back in his office chair, enjoying the recently fixed air-conditioning. The chair squeaked loudly, making the child look up from her drawing to stare at him.
Zoe and Deryn had been staying with him and Marlowe since the business in West Virginia; just long enough to get their bearings so they could return to Florida. Finding out that their house had burned down hadn’t helped matters, but Deryn was planning on staying with a cousin for a little while, until she got stuff straightened out with the insurance company, and then hopefully, she and Zoe would have a home again.
“Why’d you do that?” she asked him with a scowl.
“Do what?” he asked her, making the chair squeak again.
“That,” she said. “Don’t do that.”
