“You don’t want to do this,” Will said as a second torch was lit. “It will only bring the police.”
One of the men on the edge of the circle began rocking and speaking gibberish, his upturned palms gone stiff. Spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth.
“It will bring attention before the Beast can rise! He will be angry with you!” Will continued desperately. The torches had all been lit. Two of the men approached with the rope. Jericho grabbed his shovel, ready to fight.
“Quiet the deceivers!” Jacob Call ordered. The men came for Jericho, who swung the shovel, keeping them at bay.
“Just let us go and we’ll never come back,” Will said. But the men kept coming. Jericho swung again and the boy cocked his rifle, ready to take his shot. They were trapped. Helpless. They’d come all this way for nothing. The bullying world would win, just as it had the day her brother was blown apart, leaving nothing to bury and everything to mourn. They were as good as dead.
“The Lord will brook no weakness in his chosen,” the boy shouted, and something broke inside Evie. Her fear turned to anger. She glared at the smug, triumphant boy who would burn the whole world in order to be right. She spat in his eye.
“Then that son of a bitch will really like me,” she growled. With one quick move, she threw the lantern hard into the grave, where the flame caught on John Hobbes’s old woolen suit, setting his corpse ablaze.
“Run!” she yelled and took off into the woods at a clip.
The action and the startling heat of the blaze stunned the new faithful of Brethren into a few necessary seconds of stasis as they tried to decide which was more important: saving the body of their beloved elder or giving chase. It was enough for a head start.
“This way!” Evie shouted, racing down the hill in a direction she hoped was correct, for it had gotten darker, giving the woods a uniformity of color and appearance that made it hard to know where they were.
“Will! Jericho!” she called.
“Here!” Jericho shouted back, and she saw his shirt off to the right.
They ran together as a pack, Evie still clutching the pendant in her fist. The wind picked up, driving into them, the noise of it like a hundred angry voices. She leaned into it, pushing back. The crack of a rifle sounded on the ridge above them. A warning.
“Where’s… the… car?” Evie huffed out.
“This way!” Jericho dragged her after him. She glimpsed the Ford in the trees and ran to it as if it were a lifeboat.
Will ripped open the driver’s-side door and slid behind the wheel, fingers seeking out the clutch. “Why won’t it start?” he growled.
“The motor’s too cold. You’ll need the hand crank,” Evie said.
“Jericho… crank,” Will gasped out.
“I’m buying you a new car; I swear I am,” Evie vowed.
Jericho raced around to the front of the car and placed one hand on the hood for balance. With the other, he reached for the crank. Another shot rang out.
“Jericho! Keep your thumb beside your fingers in case the crank snaps back!” Evie called. “You don’t want to break your arm!”
Jericho nodded. He pushed the crank forward, once, twice. The motor belched and coughed and then went silent again. Torches winked in the shadowy trees just above them. The fires on the crest of the hill paused, held their flicker to one space momentarily as if lost, unsure whether they should destroy or illuminate in those woods. Jericho gave one more push. As Evie had warned, the metal bar snapped back quickly, and Jericho barely had time to jump back and avoid injury. The engine shuddered to life—ta-thacketa, thacketa, thacketa.
Shouts came from up the hill. The torches, indecisive no longer, zigzagged down the slope, leaving angry tails of flame and smoke. The engine spasmed and threatened to die again.
“No!” Evie shouted, as if her reprimand could get the Tin Lizzie running.
With grim determination, Will worked the clutch, and this time the motor caught, humming into readiness. The torches were close. Evie could make out the full shape of the mob as Jericho came around the side of the old Ford.
The rifle cracked. Jericho recoiled, bumping back into the car in an awful dance.
“Jericho!” Evie shrieked.
Jericho moaned and fell to his knees.
“Will, I think he’s been hit!”
“Keep the motor running!” Will said. He ran to Jericho and Evie slid behind the wheel. Her heart thudded in time with the Ford’s engine and she cried reflexively, as if she could exorcise her fear through tears and shallow breath. The mob was on the move again.