The sun had risen high toward noon, and light bathed the pews from the open windows. His mind whirled with so many conflicting emotions and images he couldn't begin to calm them, so he stood and watched dust motes dance in the sunlight and waited. He didn't know how many would come. He didn't know how long they had before they would have to act, or be swallowed by the darkness he felt swelling the walls of the old white church below and pulsing through the mountain. Only his memory kept him from running down the mountain after Katrina. He knew where Greene had taken her, or where he would take her before the day was complete. He tried not to think about that, but visions crashed about him like waves and threatened to drown his thought and courage in shadows. He knew that he should have expected it to be different this time. The power he faced had grown over long years of evil. The thing in the church had not been destroyed, only crippled.
