"You did not!"

Sheila recognized the voice. The crowd parted again and Laura St. John emerged, her rosy cheeks wet with tears. Standing beside Martin, holding him put, Sinjin found something interesting to look at on the step between his boots.

"Ethel's telling the truth," Laura said, surveying the faces in the crowd. "She wouldn't stop interfering. If she'd just shut up and let them work—"

"Laura, don't do this—please."

"No! You're gonna shut up and listen now! If not for you, my baby would be alive! You—you distracted them! They could have saved her life!"

Before Sheila could argue Darla and her husband grabbed her arms. She stopped struggling. Even if she could fight them both off, the crowd would tear her apart.

There was no way out.

"People, please!" the reverend cried, hands clasped in supplication. "Don't you see what we've become? 'The first to speak in court sounds right, until the cross-examination begins,' Proverbs, 18:17. Justice of the mob is no justice at all. Only the lord can judge these people. We must let them plead their case!"

Ethel swung out with her cane and struck the reverend's clasped hands so hard the crack echoed despite the roar of the fire.

The reverend fell to his knees with a cry of agony, fingers splayed, dripping fresh blood on gray snow.

"Stuff your proverbs, Padre," Mavis said. She nodded toward Sinjin and Darla. Marcus had gotten to his feet, clutching his testicles and looking ill. "Take them to the cenotaph."

Marcus hobbled along beside Sinjin, shoving Martin down the walkway.

They met Sheila and her captors in the street.

"You will all be judged!" the reverend shouted as two men who looked like accountants or lawyers hauled him to his feet again. "God's wrath will spare no one, especially infernal demons like Ruby Savage and her minions!"

The crowd pushed Martin and Sheila forward, herding them toward King Street.

"Martin!"

He looked back over his shoulder. The men held Reverend Atkins in front of his stoop as he struggled. Flame poured out of the front door. Sweat stood out on their foreheads.

"I lied to you before! What Rosalee told me! It wasn't Michael! It was Ruby! It was Ruby!"

The men pushed him into the burning house.

The flames swallowed the reverend whole. His screams carried in the night, rising in ecstatic agony. Then they stopped altogether.

As the people of Barrows Bay thrust Martin and Sheila toward downtown, shouting and laughing, the two of them shared a look of despair, knowing they had finally reached the end.

22

Judgment from Above

THE CROWD DRAGGED them to the monuments of the Ruby victims overlooking downtown. They tied Martin to the emaciated man and Sheila to the woman, both statues taller than them by at least a foot. The bronze child clutching the father's leg appeared to look up at Martin beseechingly.

"Did they hurt you?" Sheila asked. She was out of breath from struggling. They both were.