Rescue

face of a boy perhaps two years older than Eddie. “Behold, the Mark of Cain.“
    This boy damped his eyes shut, making the strawberry mark on his forehead seem to curl down one cheek. The beam of the light was wide enough that I could see bruising or scarring on the boy’s arms, probably how Lonnie Severn had learned what he’d done to me with the knife in the hunting camp.
    Quietly, I said, “Eddie?“
    “I’m here. Over here!“
    He was in the bottom bunk of a pair with no boy on top. Wyeth shined the light toward him. Thinner, bruised, scared.
    Eddie said, “You kept your promise.“
    I found myself hoping that’d be worth something to him. “Stay strong, Eddie. It’s not as bad as it looks.“
    Severn butt-ended me in the stomach this time, and I dou bled over.
    Axel said, “That’s right, E d-die. It’s worse than it looks.“
    Lutrice said, “Royel, honey, don’t you think we could take that one tonight?“
    Wyeth shook his head. “No.“ He swung the light back to the older boy. “The ceremony proceeds as determined.“
    “But Royel—“
    “I will brook no argument on this point, Lutrice. I have not yet learn-e d all I can from the younger one, and it is the older one’s time, as each will have his time come.“ Wyeth turned to me. “As will yours.“

    Back in the interrogation room, I was sitting in the bolted chair, strapped to its arms and legs at wrists and ankles. Cody watched me from one of the straight-backs, the M-16 lying across his lap. When I’d asked him a question, he didn’t answer, so I’d stopped asking. Then someone in the corridor knocked, not so politely.
    Cody shifted the weapon to port arms, walked to the door and opened it. Lutrice Wyeth came in.
    To Cody, she said, “Leave us alone.“
    “You sure you—“
    “Leave us a -lone.“
    He looked at me, then came over to tug on each strap, Taking the rifle, Cody closed the door behind him.
    Lutrice crossed her arms under her breasts, making them fill and rise under the gingham dress. “Well, now. What are we going to do with you?“
    I said, “How can you let this go on?“
    “Honey, right now you’re just the fly in the ointment, but—“
    “I don’t mean me. I mean your husband’s obsession, the... inquisition. Those are innocent kids.“
    She canted her head sideways, as though she were trying to remember something. “He didn’t always have the obsession.“
    “Well, he has it now, and he’s nuts. But you’re not. Why don’t you stop it, get him some help?“
    “Twenty million reasons, honey.“
    “With dollar signs in front of them?“
    “You just have no idea what a money machine that Royel is. And the amazing part, the absolutely miraculous part to me is, he means it. The man is not one percent bogus. With a lot of the competition, you can see the strings move when they talk, like a bad puppet show? Well, not with Royel. Nossir, in person or on the air, he is absolutely the real thing, and the flock can feel it, and they just about want to smother him with money.“ Sister Lutrice looked at me coyly. “Why, I bet even you can feel it.“
    “I can see his power. What I can’t see is why you let it take this insane twist.“
    “I didn’t let it do anything. Royel is a very forceful man.“ The coy look again as she sashayed across my line of vision. “But only in some ways.“
    Thinking back to what Zoe had told me, I wasn’t about to raise it after what Axel Severn and Cody had done to Dawna. “You’d have to keep it close to the vest.“
    “Huh?“
    “This part of the operation, the Sinstitute.“
    “You’d better not let Royel hear you say that. He hates—“
    “Probably only Tidyman, Severn, Cody, Clark from the Lodge, your husband, and you. Pretty tough to keep a lid on it if word got spread any wider.“
    “Why, that’s very clever of you. Maybe you do have a little of the... devil in you?“
    “Which means the people out in the Compound, the real flock, don’t know the truth about this Mark of Cain bullshit. They may hear that madman preaching on it, but for the most part they’re good people, thinking they’ve found kind of a spiritual Disneyland, when really they’re just your buffer against the outside world stumbling on this part of the operation.“
    “Disney World.“
    “What?“
    “Disney World. Disneyland’s out in California. This is Florida.“
    I just stared at her.
    Lutrice said, “You know, you’re wasting our time together.“
    I didn’t