“Stop it!” Mark yelled. “Stop it!”

He jerked on his own rope and started to get up, but the boot came back, slamming him into the dirt once again.

“Do not, I repeat, do not move again,” his captor said, once more using that flat monotone.

The others were still punching and kicking Alec, but the former soldier refused to give in, struggling to fight back despite his odds.

“Alec,” Mark pleaded. “You need to stop or they’re really going to kill you. What good will you be to us if you’re dead?”

The words finally got through the man’s thick, stubborn skull. He stilled, then slowly curled into a ball, his face set in a fierce grimace of pain.

Almost shaking with rage, Mark turned his attention back to the woman, who was just standing there, watching it all with that maddening lack of emotion.

“Who are you people?” he asked. It was all he could get out, but he tried to inject as much anger as he could into the words.

The woman stared at him for a few seconds before answering. “You are unwelcome intruders. And now you’ll tell me about Deedee. Is the girl with you? At your camp somewhere?”

“Why do you care? You left her behind! What, are you scared she’s going to sneak into your camp and make you all sick? She’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with her!”

“We have our reasons,” the woman replied. “The spirits speak and we follow their orders. Since the rain of demons from the sky, we’ve left our village, seeking holier places. Many of our people broke away, refused to join us. They’re out there somewhere, probably scheming with the demons themselves. Perhaps you are a spy for them.”

Mark couldn’t believe the absurd words coming out of this lady’s mouth. “You’d leave a sweet little girl to die because she might be sick? No wonder the other people from your village didn’t stick with you.”

The woman looked genuinely confused. “Listen, boy. The others are much more dangerous than we are-they attack without warning, kill without conscience. The world is beset with evil in many forms. And we can take no risks, especially since you invoked the name of Deedee. You are prisoners, and you’ll be dealt with. To release you would risk alerting those who wish us harm.”

Mark stared at her, his mind spinning. He had a sudden feeling of foreboding. The more this woman spoke, the more he felt it. “Deedee told us that the darts came from the sky. We saw the dead bodies in your little settlement. The same thing happened to us. All we’re trying to do is find out why.”

“That girl brought the evil upon us. Her evil ways led to it. Why do you think we left her behind? If you’ve rescued her and brought her near to us, then you’ve done something more horrible than you could dream.”

“What is this load of horse crap?” Alec finally choked out. “We’ve got bigger problems than you can dream, lady.”

“You need to let us go,” Mark quickly added before Alec could say anything more. The man might have been the toughest guy in their group, but he was the last choice to be a negotiator. “We’re just trying to find a safe place to live. Please. I promise we’ll just walk away. We won’t tell anyone about you and we won’t bring Deedee anywhere close if you don’t want us to. We can take care of her.”

“It saddens me how little you grasp,” the woman responded. “Truly.”

Mark wanted to scream but forced himself to stay composed. “Look, let’s take turns explaining things to each other, then. Would that be fair? I want to understand. And I really, really need you to understand us. Can you just talk instead of treating us like animals?” When she didn’t respond, he grasped for something to keep the conversation going. “So… how about we start from the beginning? How we got to these mountains.”

She had a wide, vacant look in her eyes now. “I always believed that the demons would try to be nice when they came for us. You tricked us into bringing you down here, tying you up. So you could be nice and trick us again. Demons. All of you.” She gave a stiff nod to one of the men standing near Mark and Alec.

The man drew his foot back and kicked Mark in the ribs. Pain exploded in his side and he cried out, unable to help himself. The man kicked him again, this time in the back, right in the kidney. A deep ache washed through Mark, and tears stung his eyes as he cried out even louder.

Alec protested. “Stop it, you sorry son of a-” His words were cut off when one of his captors reached down and punched him in the face.

“Why are you doing this?” Mark yelled. “We’re not demons! You people have lost your minds!” Another kick pierced him in the ribs, the pain unbearable. He balled up, wrapped his arms around himself. Prepared for the continued onslaught, knowing he had no chance of escape.

“Stop.”

The word rumbled through the air from the other side of the fire, the deep, bellowing voice of a man. The men beating Mark and Alec immediately jumped back from them and knelt down, their faces lowered. The woman also got to her knees and looked at the ground.

Mark, still wincing from the pain, straightened out his legs, trying to see who had spoken the simple but effective command. He caught movement through the flames and followed it as a man stepped into view and approached him. When he was within a few feet, he stopped, and Mark’s eyes traced a path from his booted feet, up his denim-clad legs, his tight plaid shirt, to his face, which was hideously scarred, almost inhuman. It made Mark want to look away, but he didn’t let himself. He matched gazes with the disfigured stranger, staring into those piercing, wounded eyes.

The man had no hair. And he had no ears.

CHAPTER 25

“My name is Jedidiah,” the man said. His lips were yellow and malformed, twisted to one side. He had a strange lisp, and there was a… tonelessness to his voice. “But my followers call me Jed. You will call me Jed, because I can see that you’ve been mistreated and you are now my friends. Is this understood?”

Mark nodded, but all Alec did was grunt something unintelligible. Defiant to the end, the old soldier had sat up when their attackers had ordered the two of them to lie on their backs. But the men who’d been beating them just moments earlier were all kneeling as if in prayer. Mark sat up, too, hoping there would be no consequence. If anything, Jed looked pleased.

“Very good,” the man said. “It looks like we’re finally making some kind of peace.” He walked over and sat down between them and the fire, the flames at his back. Their flickering light made the outline of his head appear wet and glistening, almost as if it were melting all over again. Melting. That was what Mark had concluded had happened to the poor guy.

“Did the sun flares do that to you?” he asked.

Jed chuckled for a few seconds, but there was nothing pleasant or cheerful about the sound. More like disturbing. “It always tickles my funny bone when someone refers to the demon plague that way. When it occurred, yes, I thought it was merely a celestial event that happened to take place in Earth’s path. Coincidence. Misfortune. Bad luck. Those are words that went through my head at the time.”

“And now you think it was big bad demons raining from the sky?” Alec asked, his tone making it clear what a crackpot idea he thought it was. Mark shot him a glance and felt awful. Blood covered the man’s face, and welts and bruises had already appeared from the brutal beating he’d been given.

“It’s happened twice now,” Jed replied, showing no sign that he’d noticed Alec’s sarcasm. “Both times it came from the heavens-once from the sun, once from the ships. We think they may visit annually, to punish us for becoming lax and to remind us of what we need to become.”

“Twice… sun and ships,” Mark repeated. “So the sun flares and then the darts from the Berg?”