DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

yanked harshly around to face a leering, drunken Mother Margeaux.

He was not as prepared as he’d thought he was, nowhere near as strong and brave as he’d led himself to believe, and he screamed as the women dragged him back out of the trees toward the square altar on top of the mound. He heard Penelope screaming off to his left, but he could not turn his eyes to see her, and whether she was screaming in pain or fear—or both—he could not tell.

A flagon was shoved between his lips and cool wine forced out. Most of it dribbled down his chin, but some of it ran down his throat, and it felt good, strangely calming.

The he was lifted into the air and slammed down onto the concrete slab.

The breath was knocked out of him, and pain flared in his back and his head, but then more wine was being forced down his throat and the pain disappeared. His strength returned in one odd, cold shiver, and he sat up, or was allowed to sit up, and he saw that Mother Margaret and Mother Sheila were the ones holding his arms. Mother Sheila or Mother Felice? He could not remember which was which.

At the foot of the mound below him, he saw the other mothers laughing hysterically as Mother Margeaux shoved a pine cone-tipped spear into the now exposed belly of the older policeman. Blood pooled outward, not spurting but overflowing from the rent skin, cascading onto the grass.

Penelope was not being held but had been thrown on the grass to the left of her mothers and was attempting to sit up. She saw her mothers whooping and cackling as the younger policeman was stripped and gutted, Mother Margeaux ripping into the entrails with her fingers after the spears had opened the flesh.

“What are you doing?” Penelope screamed. “What’s happening?”

What was happening? Dion wondered. But though he wanted to scream too, though he wanted to cry, he didn’t.

Instead, for no reason whatsoever, as he watched the mothers laughing and gleefully playing in the blood, he started to smile.

40

He is here.

The knowledge burst upon Dennis McComber fully formed. The officer rolled down the window of his patrol car and dumped out the coffee he’d been drinking. He reached for the bottle of wine on the seat next to him, popped the half-stopped cork, and allowed himself a long, luscious drink.

He is here.

He thought of the chief’s daughter and wondered if that little minx was going to be there as well. She probably would. Hell, of course she would. She’d known about it even before he had.

He thought of the way her head had been bobbing up and down in her boyfriend’s lap. Had she taken him all the way into her mouth? Had she deep-throated him? McComber was pretty sure that she had. Even if she hadn’t, what the fuck difference did it make? She’d deep throat him.

She’d suck him all the way down to the root. He’d make her. He’d fuck that little slut’s face so hard she’d be coughing up sperm for a month.

He is here.

Yes. He was here, and it was time to meet Him. It was time to get shitfaced and fuck his brains out for the glory of his new god.

Amen.

McComber took another swig from the bottle and started the car.

Someone unplugged the jukebox, and Frank Douglas was all set to scream at the little pissant, whoever he was, and kick him out on his troublemaking ear, when he saw that everyone in the bar had stopped dancing, moving, stopped talking, and were all staring at him.

“He is here,” someone said, whispered, and the voice was like a shout in the silent bar.

Frank felt suddenly cold.

He glanced toward the door, saw that Ted the bouncer was standing with two of the patrons, a half-finished bottle of Daneam red dangling from his hand.

What the hell was going on?

He is here.

He knew what was going on. Well, he didn’t know, not exactly, but he knew that the past few weeks had been building up to this, and he was not surprised that it was occurring now. He looked over the counter at the assembled patrons, jostling one another to the left and the right, shuffling unthinkingly into a line as they continued to stare unblinkingly at him. He reached under the bar for his shotgun, felt comfort in its familiar heft as he removed it from its perch. He did not look down at the gun, did not look away from the crowd, unwilling to give them any edge.

Most of these bastards were loaded, crocked, three sheets to the fucking wind. They might be all tanked up and full of courage, right now, but when it came down to it, when he started blasting, they’d scatter and run like scared jackrabbits.

When he started blasting?

He glanced over at Ted, saw the gleeful belligerence in the bouncer’s face.

Yes. When.

For it was going to happen. He had been in fights before, been in more bar brawls than he cared to remember, and there was always a point past which the violence was inevitable. No matter what was said or done, no matter how much talking went on, it was going to happen.

They’d passed that point when the jukebox was unplugged.

The shotgun was loaded, in preparation for an emergency, and in one smooth motion—a motion he had practiced in front of the mirror and in back of the bar until he could do it the way he’d seen it done in a movie—he swung the weapon up, barrel pointing straight into the center of the crowd.

“Back off!” he ordered. “Back off and get the fuck out of here! Bar’s closed!”

A red-haired woman laughed. Frank noticed with shock that her skirt was off—she was wearing only a blouse and panties. As his gaze moved from one person to another, he saw that many of the men and women had clothing that was ripped or missing.

“He is here!” someone yelled.

“Wine!” a