Invasive Procedures (38 page)

The Healer with the scanner stopped and looked to Stone, unsure how to proceed.

“We must be certain, sir,” said Stone. “Perhaps this one has changed also.”

“Do you disobey him who gave you Life Greater? I order you to take this impostor and return him to his holding place.”

“I am no impostor,” said Nick.

“Silence! Stone, you will order your man to stand down.”

The Healer with the scanner waited.

“There can be only one prophet,” said Hal. “One. Nick is nothing but an insolent child.”

“I am no child,” said Nick, standing erect, his voice booming.

“You will not speak!” Hal shouted. “Stone, your man will stand down.”

Stone nodded for the Healer with the scanner to obey.

“No,” said Lichen, and he grabbed the scanner.

“You will stand down as well, Lichen,” said Stone.

“And turn my back on what we’ve built? No. If there is a charlatan among us, it is this one.” He pointed at Hal. There were gasps from the others.

“How dare you?” said Hal, seething.

“He gives us orders contrary to those given by the prophet. What greater evidence do we need?”

“I am blood of his blood,” said Hal. “Flesh of his flesh.”

Nick grabbed the scanner and pressed it against his arm. It popped and beeped, and then he held it high for all to see. “As am I.”

Lichen read the display. “It’s true. Look.”

“It’s a trick,” said Hal. “Stone, restrain them both.”

Nick smiled and spoke pleasantly. “Don’t bother, Stone. I think we can all clearly see who’s acting here and who’s not.”

“I am George Galen!” said Hal.

“No,” said Nick. “You are Galen and Hal. Which means you’re stained. The memories of the one have influenced the memories of the other. You’re nothing more than a sad imitation of me.”

“And you are nothing but a boy,” said Hal, “weak and foolish, just like Jonathan.”

“You will not speak his name!” said Nick, suddenly fierce. “Jonathan was more a man and friend than you’ll ever be.”

Hal smiled. “Really? I don’t recall ever thinking that. It seems as if you’re the one who’s stained, not me.”

Nick reached down and picked up a heavy stick, whose end burned in the fire, and raised it like a torch. “You’re so smug, Hal. Everybody’s wrong but you. The only person worth listening to is yourself. Funny way to think, for a slobbering drunk.”

“You shut your mouth.”

“Of course, what really tickles me is that if you do have all my memories, then you must remember how pathetic you looked when I found you in the playground. Reeking of vomit and cheap liquor. Lying in the sand, red-eyed and drooling. I could have whizzed in your ear and you wouldn’t have even batted an eye.”

Hal went rigid and clenched his fists.

“And despite all that, despite being quite possibly the saddest excuse for a human being I’ve ever seen, you still have the gall to bully people, to treat them like they’re below
you
.” He laughed. “That takes balls, Hal. Real
cojones
. Either that, or you’re even more of a—what’s the word you like to use—dipstick than I thought.”

Hal charged, but Nick was waiting for it. He stepped aside and swung the stick like a bat, striking Hal in the back as he ran past and leaving scorch marks on his wet white shirt. Hal fell to the dirt in a heap.

Stone ran to intervene, but Hal held up a hand. “Stay back. This is between crybaby and me.”

He got up and Nick came at him with the stick. Hal ducked, and the stick struck a support beam instead. Hot ash and embers burst from its tip, falling among the rotting hay and, in a flash, igniting it.

With Nick now off balance, Hal kicked high and hard. There was a loud crack as ribs broke, and Nick flew backward, breaking through the wall of one stall and landing in another. The torch flew from his hand and fell against the wall. Even with moisture in the air, the timbers took to the flame. Fire shot up the barn’s interior like it’d been sprayed with kerosene.

Nick got to his feet, cracked his neck, and smiled. “All my best moves, but none of my good sense. I have to give you some credit, though, Hal.
You were right about one thing. There can be only one prophet. But it certainly isn’t you.”

He ran at Hal, then launched himself in the air, feet first and together. He hit him with such force that Hal buckled and broke through the wall and fell flat on his back outside in the rain. Before he had even stopped sliding through the mud, Hal was struggling to get to his feet again. He ran back inside, his jaw set. Pine came in behind him, looking shocked.

“All my best moves indeed,” said Hal, grabbing another stick from the fire. He swung it repeatedly at Nick, who ducked and dodged every blow, then hit the stick away. It spun through the air and fell in the dirt, still burning.

“What do we do?” asked Lichen.

Stone stood frozen.

Frank crouched at the stall entrance and motioned the others to follow. “Come on.” He ran along the wall, keeping low, Wyatt on his back. They could make it out the back if they hurried.

Flames were spreading everywhere fast. Black smoke billowed up into the rafters.

“They’re getting away,” said Hal.

“Don’t let them get away,” said Nick simultaneously, pointing to Frank and the others as they scurried toward the back exit.

Several Healers, Lichen among them, took the order and ran ahead of Frank, blocking the exit. Frank stopped, Monica beside him.

Lichen swung down to grab them, but Frank pivoted and pushed Monica away so that Lichen grabbed nothing but air.

Wyatt’s arms tightened around Frank’s neck as he hung on for dear life.

“Go back,” Frank called over his shoulder. “Out the front.”

Byron and Dolores turned and ran in the opposite direction, toward the open barn doors.

Frank took Monica’s hand and tried retreating as well, but two Healers stepped behind them and blocked their path. They were surrounded.

Dolores saw them trapped and stopped.

Frank waved her on. “Go.”

Byron grabbed Dolores’s arm. “Come on!” He pulled her out the doors and into the rain.

Four Healers closed in on Frank, Wyatt, and Monica. The burning stick was at Frank’s feet. “Lock your feet around my waist,” he said to Wyatt.

Wyatt obeyed, and Frank was able to let go of Wyatt’s legs long enough to reach down and pick up the stick. He waved it threateningly at those around him.

“Fire does not hurt us,” said a Healer.

“Yeah, but it leaves nasty scars,” said Frank. “You may not feel it, but I’ll make you ugly.”

Behind him, Monica said, “Can you heal faster than fire burns?”

“We do not want to you harm you, vessel,” said Lichen. He stepped forward, but then quickly retreated when Frank waved the flame. Monica’s question was having its effect.

For the moment Frank had them at bay. But he knew it wouldn’t last. Eventually one of them would get close enough. And then it would all be over.

Hal hit Nick with a blow that knocked him against one of the support beams. It cracked under Nick’s weight, and Nick cried out, bloody and broken.

Hal, sporting as many cuts and bruises, grabbed Nick by the collar before the younger prophet could counter and shoved him back into the beam a second time. The wood cracked again. Another shove. And another crack. The whole structure shivered from the blows.

Up in the burning rafters timbers crackled and snapped, weakening the roof supports and sending clouds of smoke up through the holes in the ceiling.

Desperate to get free, Nick reached out and took Hal by the throat. Then he lifted his knee and found Hal’s groin. Hal immediately stopped shoving, and his legs gave out beneath him. He hung limply in Nick’s hands as Nick squeezed his windpipe.

Hal’s face turned red, then purple. He waved frantically to Stone, “Help me,” he gasped.

Stone ran to him, grabbed Nick’s hands and tried prying them away. Nick didn’t budge. His face was set and determined. He wasn’t letting go. Hal would die.

Frank swung the flaming stick wide again, driving the Healers back. Monica stood behind him, her back to his and Wyatt’s, rotating with him so they moved as one.

Another Healer charged, and this was the one Frank was waiting for, the one with the dry cape, the one who hadn’t been out in the rain. Instead of swinging aimlessly, Frank lunged, stabbing the man in the side.

The Healer stumbled backward in a panic as his cape caught fire. He dropped to the ground and rolled frantically, trying to smother the fire. But all he accomplished was to spread the fire to the structure immediately around him.

The other Healers watched in horror and backed off Frank even more. Frank took advantage. He waved the stick in wide arcs and backed out of the center of the circle, clinging with one hand to Wyatt and keeping Monica protectively behind him.

“Help me,” said Stone, as he struggled to pry Nick’s hands from Hal’s neck.

Lichen ran to assist him, and the other Healers trying to seize Frank, Monica, and Wyatt followed after him.

Unimpeded, Frank, Wyatt, and Monica bolted out the back of the barn and into the rain. Byron and Dolores were out there waiting for them.

“This way,” said Frank, leading them toward the path he had taken up from the river.

“What about Nick?” asked Dolores.

“Nick isn’t Nick,” said Frank.

She stopped. “So we’re leaving him?”

In answer, Frank took her hand and pulled her until she was running again—with Monica right beside him and Byron close behind.

“Pull his hands away,” ordered Stone.

The Healer nearest him took Nick’s hands and with Stone’s help pried them free from Hal’s throat. Hal fell to the ground, gasping and coughing.

“Hold him back,” said Stone.

Nick pushed the Healers away. “Don’t touch me.”

Hal was up in an instant, knocking Stone to the side and tackling
Nick. The Healers scrambled to separate them, but the two rolled away from them and disappeared into a cloud of black smoke.

“Find them,” said Stone, coughing and covering his mouth with his cloak.

The Healers dispersed into the blackness, coughing and waving the smoke and cinders from their faces.

And then Hal appeared, soaring backward in the air and striking the support beam with such force that Stone wasn’t sure if the cracking sound had come from the wood or Hal’s spine.

A second later the beam snapped, and the burning roof collapsed, thick flaming timbers that crashed down into a massive raging heap.

Stone felt his body jerk to one side as a Healer pushed him clear of the falling debris.

Then, as if taking a cue from the roof, the rest of the structure crumbled, adding more timbers to the growing pile and throwing up a thick cloud of burning embers.

Stone rolled over and pushed aside the wood that covered him. “Galen!”

There was no answer, just the sizzle of the rain on the burning pile. He got up, wiped the soot from his eyes, and began making his way back to where Nick and Hal lay covered.

One by one other Healers came and helped him, but by the time they got the top third of the rubble away, Stone knew it would be too late.

When they finally reached them, the wood was all black and soaked from the rain. Hal and Nick were burned beyond recognition, lying beside each other, one still choking the other.

“The others have taken to the forest,” Lichen said. “Should we divide the men?”

Stone wiped the rain off his face, smearing some of the soot onto his checks. “No. We bury our dead.”

“But unless we move—”

“We show our master the respect he deserves,” Stone said. “Then we retrieve Byron and Dolores.”

“And Frank Hartman?” asked Lichen.

“He is not worthy of the office,” said Stone. “He has proved a threatening obstacle. He must be removed to prevent any further losses.”

“Then we should hurry,” said Lichen. “We may still be able to track them.

“There’s no need to track them,” said Stone, opening his cell phone. “We now know where he’s taking them.”

Runoff from the mountain had transformed the already fast-moving river into a violent torrent of rushing water. Frank staved a sate distance from the bank but always kept the water in sight. There was no trail here, and he couldn’t risk getting lost by venturing too far from the waterline.

They passed the spot where the felled tree had traversed the river, but the tree itself was gone, no doubt flushed downstream by the elevated current.

Wyatt clung to Frank’s neck, bouncing up and down as Frank carried him through the brush. Monica and Byron kept up, but Dolores lagged considerably. They had already stopped three times to wait for her.

“Don’t wait for me,” she had told them. “Keep moving. I’ll get there eventually.”

But they always waited. And during their last wait the rain stopped.

“Hey,” said Byron, looking up at the night sky. “It stopped.”

“What difference does it make?” said Monica. “We can’t get any wetter.”

It was true. Their clothes were soaked through, their hair wet and limp. Frank was just as wet now as he had been in the river.

“Look at the stars,” said Wyatt.