Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,67

left hand. His right hand continued to cradle something in his lap. "No one works nights all the time."

"I do." This was ridiculous. She strode forward. "Now go back where you came from before I call ..." The hands grabbing her shoulders took her completely by surprise.

"Call who?" Bill asked, jerking her up against his body.

Suddenly frightened, she twisted frantically trying to free herself.

"Us three," Roger's voice seemed to come from a distance, "are just going to stay out here till the sun comes up. Then we'll see."

They were crazy. They were both crazy. Panic gave her the strength she needed, and she yanked herself out of Bill's grip. She stumbled on the porch stairs. This couldn't be happening. She had to get to the house. In the house she'd be safe.

She saw Roger stand. She could get by him. Push him out of the way.

Then she saw the baseball bat in his hand.

The force of the blow knocked her back onto the lawn.

She couldn't suck enough air through the ruin of her mouth and nose to scream.

Her face streaming blood, she scrambled up onto her elbows and knees and tried to crawl back toward the house. If I can get to the house, I'll be safe.

"Sun's coming up. She's trying to get inside."

"That's good enough for me."

The hockey stick had been sharpened on one end and with the strength of both men leaning on it, it went through jacket and uniform and bone and flesh and out into toe ground.

As the first beam of sunlight came up over the garage, Anicka Hendle kicked once more and was still.

"Now we'll see," Roger panted, retrieving his beer.

The sunlight moved across the yard, touched a white shoe, and gently spread out over the body. The blood against the frozen dirt burned with crimson light.

"Nothing's happening." Bill turned to his brother, eyes wide in a parchment pale face. "She's supposed to turn to dust, Roger!"

Roger took two steps back and was noisily sick.
Chapter Ten
"All stand for the word of the Lord. We read today from The Gospel According to St. Mathew, Chapter twenty-eight, Verses one to seven."

"Praised be the word of the Lord."

"In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. Thus endeth the lesson."

The Gloria almost raised the roof off the church and just for that moment the faith in life everlasting as promised by the Christian God was enough to raise a shining wall between the world and the forces of darkness.

Too bad it wouldn't last.

"Back up, please. Move aside."

Hands cuffed behind them, the brothers were brought out through the police barricade and into the alley. Curious neighbors surged forward, then back, like a living sea breaking against a wall of blue uniforms. Neither man noticed the onlookers. Roger, smelling of vomit, dry retched constantly and William cried silent tears, his eyes almost closed. They were shoved, none too gently, into one of the patrol cars, shutters clicking closed in a half dozen media cameras.

Ignoring the reporters' shouted questions, two of the constables climbed into the car and, siren hiccuping, maneuvered the crowded length of the back lane. The other two added their bulk to the living wall that blocked the view of the yard. "No one speaks to the media," the investigator in charge of the case had told them, his tone leaving no room for dissension.

The body came out next, the bouncing of the gurney moving it in a macabre parody of life within the body bag. A dozen pairs of lungs exhaled, the shutters closed again, and over it all a television reporter droned in on-the-spot coverage. The faint antiseptic