"It wasn't quite like that." He gulped down the last of his beer, marshalling his thoughts. "The police said I was distracted, that I wasn't paying attention." He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous response that he hated. "I'd just come from a meeting with my editor, and I was going over some of the things we'd discussed, so I guess I was preoccupied. But that's not why I stepped out into traffic." He hoped she would stop him, but instead she waited for him to continue. Suddenly it was like he was right back there, seeing himself lying on the ground, a swarm of people around him, one of them performing CPR on him. His heart began racing. "I saw something," he finally said. "A tunnel, or something like that."

"You mean like a near-death experience thing? Seeing a tunnel and light?"

"Sort of. But it was more like a black form. I can't even describe it. And the weird thing is I saw it before I was. .h.i.t by the car."

"Before?" she repeated.

"Yes. I'd been thinking about an article I was working on, and I thought I heard someone call my name. I looked up and there was that dark form, not spinning like a tornado, but just," he paused, searching for the right words, "sitting there, this mist, hovering right in the middle of the street, but n.o.body seemed to see it but me. I was so fascinated that I kept watching it and it seemed to look back at me, like it was alive. Like it was speaking to me."

"What did it say?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. The whole thing happened really fast. It was probably just for a second or two, but it felt like hours. Then I heard a scream, a car horn blaring, and then my heart seemed to explode." He felt the same intense pressure in his chest now and he forced a couple of deep, uncomfortable breaths.

"That sounds like the cloud that guided the Israelites in the desert, the Lord addressing Moses. Are you familiar with Old Testament stories?"

"I went to Sunday school for years. But this didn't seem like G.o.d talking to me."

"What do you think it was?"

"I don't know," he whispered. "I can't explain it at all. And it sounds crazy when I tell it."

"You must hear about stuff like that all the time."

"Yeah, but it never happened to me." He tapped on the table for emphasis. "I've spent my whole career looking into these kinds of things, into the mystics, the psychics, the faith healers, and it's generally a load of c.r.a.p. They're scam artists, most of them. There's almost always a logical explanation."

"But not for this?"

He shook his head. "It's what brought me to Colorado. Those people that disappeared a hundred years ago reported a similar kind of thing at the Crossing."

"The rumors," Anna said, her lips forming a thin line.

"Tell me about them."

"You know it's silly." When he didn't answer, she shrugged her shoulders and went on. "Brewster's grandfather is the one who started the whole thing, but I've told you that. What Brewster always said is that it was the Nephilim that came and destroyed the town. You know who the Nephilim were?"

"I know they were mentioned in the Bible, but that's not the kind of paranormal stuff I debunk."

"They were a race created by the sons of G.o.d coming down to earth and having s.e.x with women. They're mentioned in Genesis, Numbers, and some of the Apocryphal books."

"The Apocryphal books. They're the ones not included in the Protestant Bible."

She nodded. "Yes, but I can't remember what the books are offhand. I don't know much about the Nephilim either, just rumors that they came back to the town and took the people."

"But what would they want with Taylor Crossing?"

She shrugged again. "That's why it doesn't make any sense. Do you really think some ancient spirits mentioned in the Old Testament are still around?"

"It does sound pretty farfetched." Then he said forcefully, "but I've got to find out what that thing was that spoke to me in New York. It was real, and it was sinister."

"Do you believe in G.o.d?" she asked.

"No. Well, I did. But I haven't done anything with that in years. Not since I was a kid."

"So maybe it's G.o.d giving you a wakeup call." She took a sip of her water. "Maybe you did experience something that was real, but it's strange to think about it in those terms."

"I don't know that the tunnel or whatever it was, was good. Besides, I don't believe in that G.o.d stuff anymore."

"Why not?" she asked quietly.

He stared into her perceptive eyes and he wanted to tell her, needed to tell her. And suddenly it was pouring from him. His religiously fanatical mother, how she prayed to a G.o.d that didn't stop her husband from beating her, didn't stop him from finally leaving her. How she got crazier with her religion after his father abandoned them, blaming her son for his father leaving, saying that he was a wicked boy, that the sins of the father had come home to roost with the son. How she kept him from seeing his grandmother, his dad's mother, after that, and that he hated his mother for taking away the one good person in his childhood. And how he couldn't believe a loving G.o.d would do that to a scared little boy.

He was staring at his hands when he finished. He looked up, expecting her to be looking at him like he was a fool. He wasn't quite sure what her expression said. Sadness, mixed with something else. Anger, maybe.

"Not all Christians are like that," she finally broke the silence.

"Uh huh."

"Maybe you're running from something you can't escape."

"What's that supposed to mean? That G.o.d would let me get hit by a car to get my attention?"

She blanched. "No, uh, that's not what I meant."

"That's not what happened," he said.

"Then why is this making you angry?"

He sat up, fighting his emotions. "Because I can try to rationalize an explanation, say it was a near-death experience or something, but I don't believe it. What happened to me doesn't match up with what happens to most people who have had those kinds of experiences. And I'm supposed to be the guy who figures all this out. What about the things I can't explain? And why did it feel so evil?"

"Maybe it was evil," she said. "But did you ever consider that if it's real, and if it's evil, that maybe there's a converse good side at work, supernatural forces, or dare I say it, G.o.d? And you just don't want to see it."

"Yeah, right." He wiped his clammy hands on his pants. He was annoyed: at himself, for ever entering into this discussion, and at his fears about it. "Look, I appreciate your viewpoint, but you don't understand."

"I guess not," she said sharply, her tone rising to meet his intensity.

"Anna, I didn't mean to insult you. You can believe whatever you want. Just don't ask me to."

"No, that's fine. I shouldn't have brought this up." She slid from the booth.

And the date ended. Just like that. He paid the bill and they left the restaurant, their conversation dribbled to nothing. They walked in awkward silence back to the Jeep.

CHAPTER 20.

Mick stared out at the scene in front of him, sheer horror ripping through him. He wasn't high anymore. The buzzing in his head had disappeared as he watched the scene in the clearing unfold. Crouched beside him, Nicholas had a hand clasped over his mouth, and he was edging away in a backwards crawl.

"Hey," Mick hissed. He reached around and tried to grab Nicholas. "Stay here!"

Nicholas shook his head back and forth, terrified. But he kept moving backward into the shrubs.

"d.a.m.n!" Mick whispered. What he had just witnessed was indescribable. He saw the black whirlwind as it came out of the sky and a.s.saulted Samuel. He saw it, yet he didn't. "How do you see evil?" his mind frantically asked him. For that's what it was. But he hadn't seen it. He had sensed it, like it had spoken evil to him.

And now the old drunk fisherman was staring in their direction.

Mick locked eyes with Ed. And the boy felt his blood slow to a crawl. The hair on his arms rose straight up. He drew in a gasp of air. He was now stone cold sober. He backed up. "Let's go," he said in a low voice. "Now."

But it was too late.

Ed crossed the clearing with an urgency born out of discovery. He came at them, the menace in his gaze paralyzing the boy. Mick tried to get his legs to move, but fear held them rooted to the ground. He had a fleeting thought that Nicholas had disappeared into the bushes, and he wished he were so lucky. But before he could think further, Ed's right hand had him by the throat.

Ed cried out, a hideous, perverted sound, and dragged Mick back into the clearing. Mick struggled to breathe, trying to get away, his hands frantically tearing at Ed's wrist. He didn't think he could feel any more frightened.

He was wrong.

Ed stopped in the clearing and held the boy in front of him. Mick stared into Ed's eyes, the white part b.l.o.o.d.y red, the pupils like a pinpoint that was endlessly hollow. They burned with pure evil. Mick's terror reached a new level.

"Please," he whispered. He thought of Harvard, his parents, and his sister Ellie. He wanted to do more, see more. His eyes watered and he felt a tear run down his cheek. "Please," he repeated.

The cavernous eyes turned into slits. Mick felt his will capitulating under the evil stare.

"Are you him?" Ed asked.

"Who?" Mick asked, terrified.

"The one with fire?"

"Yes." And with that, Mick wasn't Mick anymore. As the words left his mouth, he fulfilled a role, his destiny set long ago. Ed put him down.

"Come," Ed said. Mick followed, taking the spot that Samuel had occupied a few moments before. He knelt down unbidden.

Ed performed the ceremony just as he had with Samuel. The powerful forces of darkness descended on them, and a spirit entered Mick's body. And just like Samuel, Mick screamed in agony, his young body jerked up and back by the force entering him. Then he stood, ready to do the bidding of his leader.

Ed stared at Samuel and the boy. The spirit within was satisfied at the turn of events. Now they had the one with water and the one with fire, two of the earth roles necessary for them to gain enlightenment. They needed the other earth elements and a few other necessary ones and they could begin the releasing ceremony. Ed contemplated the two before him as the last vestiges of sunlight filtered down on them. Samuel and Mick stared out at nothing, waiting. Inside them all, evil communicated with evil.

But the spirit in Ed knew the scent of Mick's blood, and likened it to a smell from centuries gone past. It breathed in the metallic odor, fed on it as if it were fresh morning dew. The evil inside Ed festered powerfully.

And the spirits inside Samuel and Mick fed, too, for evil feeds evil.

The spirit in Ed knew that the one with water and the one with fire were becoming aware of their purpose. They could sense the evil. They were two vortexes that began to wrap themselves in their darkness, creating one powerful force with Ed's spirit. And they would grow stronger still.

The sun sank further, leaving the forest in shadows. The Matchless Mine stood like a weathered ghost off in the distance.

Ed looked at the crescent of yellow on the edge of the horizon. The spirit inside communicated. The time for action would have to wait until tomorrow. When the sun was high again, and the heat intensified, the spirits would be at their most powerful.

And they would call the others to join them.

CHAPTER 21.

The dinner hour was busy at the Silver Dollar Cafe. Joan Friedman seated a family of five at the last available table in the cafe's small front room. She kept glancing toward the kitchen, hoping to see Samuel.

"Looks like we lucked out," the heavyset man, father of three little children, said to Joan as he took a menu from her. He spoke loudly over the sounds of his children's excited giggling and horsing around with one another.

"It's busy," Joan agreed, hiding her irritation under wan politeness.

She handed a menu to the frazzled-looking mother before hurrying back into the kitchen to check on dinner preparations. Manuel, a young Mexican immigrant who lived in Nederland, was cooking the food and frantically slopping it on plates.

"Eet very busy," he said, wiping his hands on a food-stained ap.r.o.n. Rock music blaring from the kitchen radio drowned out the buzz of conversation from the dining room. "Where eez Samuel?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Joan muttered, helping Manuel put the finishing touches on a hamburger plate. Manuel worked the dinner shift, and other times when the Friedmans occasionally needed an extra pair of hands. With Samuel around, it worked out fine. But with just two people, serving the dinner crowd was chaos.

She grabbed the hamburger plate and a salad bowl and rushed out into the dining room. She could feel a headache coming on, and it wasn't from how busy she was. It was from Samuel.

Joan had been willing to dismiss Samuel's afternoon fishing trip she knew that's where he'd gone because the tackle box and pole were missing but for him not to return to help finish out the evening was more than she was willing to excuse.

"Ma'am? Some ketchup." The diner, Travis Velario, pointed to his burger.

"Sure." She grabbed a bottle from a sideboard and handed it to him, too distracted to notice how formally he'd addressed her.

"Where's Samuel?" Travis asked.

"Out," she said abruptly and walked off. She didn't want to try and explain anything to Travis. She took care of a bill at the front counter and quickly cleared the vacated table in the corner before seating another couple there. Then it was back to the kitchen to help Manuel.

"He can't go fishing, no?"

Joan stared at Manuel. "Sure, in the afternoon when things are slow. But he knows better than to leave us to serve dinner alone."

Manuel nodded in sympathy as he threw baked potatoes onto plates.

"Thank goodness people understand this is a Mom and Pop kind of place," she said, putting shredded carrots on salads.

"What?" He looked confused.

"We can be slow and people'll understand," Joan explained.