fully loaded. He had broken his cardinal rule and kept sixth rounds in each of the cylinders but would remove them before moving on. Daylight had come after the fireless night.
The woman talked in her sleep, but neither was she intelligible to him nor was the language the language from the tapes he had made of the radio broadcast. Michael had wanted to awaken her.
Had she come with the pilot?
Where was the pilot from?
Who were these people who craved human flesh?
Were there more of them?
He could not ask her because she did not awaken. She had raced through the trees, Michael grabbing her, dragging her in the right direction, toward the spot where he had secured the pack and the rifle, past the hanging parachute—mute testimony to what, he wondered. He had covered her body with his coat and his shirt, the snow freezing his bare skin.
They had reached the bracken of pines and the brush beyond and he had wrapped her in the blanket, found a fresh shirt for himself, taken back his jacket, wrapped her in the sleeping bag.
He had kept her warm while he sat on guard, unsleeping, freezing as the snow piled high around them.
Once there had been sounds. There were no animal forms on the earth that he had seen— except his family, except this woman, except the cannibals, whoever they were. But the sound had been the wind, he had reasoned, because it had returned several times in exactly the same way and there had been no attack. But he had stayed ready throughout the night.
And then the woman spoke to him. “You are the archangel.” He looked at her, saw the smile etched across her face—one of peace. But her eyes were already closed again and she was asleep. She no longer moaned and mumbled in her sleep and Michael Rourke watched her for a long time. There was nothing else to do and under the dirt smudges on her face, she seemed pretty to him. It was how one perceived another human being—he had long ago thought that through. And he perceived her as pretty, as terrified. And he perceived her as safe from those people who would have done their foul things to her—for as long as he had breath.
The cold helped him stay awake because it made his body tremble.
Chapter Twenty
“I’m not some archangel—I just have the same name.” “But you are not one of Them, and you are not from the Place. The other one—he was an angel, that is why he fell from the sky. And you came to save him—and you saved me, too. I am sorry. Was he your friend?” “The pilot?”
“The other angel, his name was Pilate—like Pontius Pilate. I would think an angel would have a name that was less like that weak man’s name— Pilate. I am sorry for your friend, Archangel Michael.”
Michael Rourke closed his eyes. “This is a fighting knife,” and he showed her the Gerber. “It isn’t some heavenly sword.”
She smiled. Her eyes were still very pretty. “We were taught to call your mighty blade a sword. But I shall call it a fighting knife if you wish that, Archangel Michael.”
“I’m not an archangel. I’m not even a regular angel—I’m just a man.” “You are not Them, and you are not from the Place. The angel Pilate came down from the sky and you came to rescue him—you are obviously the archangel Michael. You told me that you were Michael.”
“I am Michael,” and she smiled as he said it. “But—“ “When must you return to heaven?”
“I, ahh—“
“Please, I know that I’m not worthy of heaven— but don’t leave me here. Slay me with your avenging sword, perhaps—anyplace but to be here with Them and alone.” “Them?”
“The ones who consume the flesh. Them. They fight those from the Place.”
“I can take you back to the place.”
The girl—he didn’t yet know her name—fell to her knees and folded her hands and touched her forehead to her hands. “Archangel Michael, do not return me to the Place. I beg this by all that is holy. They will give me back to Them. Do not return me to the Place—do not for they will give me to Them, slay me. I pray.” Michael Rourke looked at her—she prayed to him. She called him an archangel. She was from the Place. She was afraid of Them. But who was she? he thought.
‘Til go with you. You’ll be safe.”
She looked up, settling back on her behind—the blanket was all that was around her.
“Archangel Michael is good.”
Michael Rourke watched her eyes a moment. “Sure.”
Chapter Twenty-One
John Rourke stepped out of the Retreat and into the cold sunlight. There was snow on the air—he could smell it. Sarah had told him one thing and only one… “Bring Michael home to me.” The bikes were already outside, Annie and Paul talking, apparently, down the road a bit from the Retreat doors. Beside Rourke stood Natalia Tiemerovna. He didn’t look at her as she spoke. “I had to go with you. Sarah and Annie—they need time to know each other. And I couldn’t stay here now.”
He looked at her. “Are you angry at me, too?”
“You are a good man—your heart is good. But you don’t understand the human heart. I’m sure you could perform bypass surgery on the heart if you had to, but you don’t understand it. What you did may have been right objectively, but to Sarah it will always be wrong. Do you really want me to become Michael’s wife?” “That’s part of why I did what I did, allowed the children to age while we slept.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” He had looked away again, and he felt her hands on his arms now and he turned around to face her—her eyes. “Do you want me to be some other man’s wife?
Even if the other man is your son? Do you?” He didn’t answer her. “I was always certain of one thing since I first met you, I think. That I love you and that you love me. Do you want to think about your son loving me? Do you want to come to hate us both, or to hate yourself?” “From what Sarah said, I should hate myself already, shouldn’t I?”
“Do you want me as someone else’s wife? Do you?”
It was very cold in the fresh air after so long. “No.” “I looked to you like a god,” she whispered, barely audible as the wind rose from the north-west. “My uncle, he told me that you were not a god, that you would never consider yourself a god.”
Rourke looked away. “All I tried to do—“ he began. “I think the reason I felt what I felt, what my uncle spoke about—I have never met a human being so perfect.”
He looked at her. “I’m not—“
“But you are—and the perfection is your flaw, John.”
“You sound like you’re analyzing a tragedy.”
“Perhaps I am, John. You were always able to subordinate your humanity to your logic. And you did it one time too often. You wanted to love me— physically. But you would never allow yourself to. But because of your humanity, your perfect logic hurt you. In trying to do what you logically deduced was the impartial, the correct thing, you made the most subjective decision any man has ever made.”
Rourke laughed—a short laugh. “I kinda
Ql
screwed up, huh?”
“I love you with all of my heart. I’ll always love you that way. And I’ll do your will if that is what you choose.”
“Michael.” Rourke smiled. “He’s, ahh—“
“Not you. He couldn’t be. No matter how like you he is—no matter what he looks like, Annie said he looks just like you. No matter what is in his heart or his mind—he’s not you.”
He raised his eyes—he’d been studyjng the toes of his combat boots in detail, the added coats of polish he’d given them before the last sleep had preserved them perfectly. Some of the spare pairs of combat boots in storage—he should look to them, he reminded himself.
“I never planned for falling in love with you,” he told her simply. “It changed so—it—“ “Sarah will be so happy when she sees Michael, when she gets to know Annie.
She’ll—“
He closed his eyes. “No, she won’t. He’s a man now—I took her little boy. I took her little girl.”
