The old woman stirred in the wreckage of the wagon as Ethan helped Gideon to his feet. She burst through the sidewall of the wagon, rushing across the courtyard toward them. She wailed like a banshee, foaming at the mouth. She charged at the boys like an enraged bull, but could not have weighed more than one hundred pounds.
“Get behind me!” Gideon shouted.
He picked up two of the wooden rungs from the broken ladder. Gideon twirled one through his fingers to get the feel of it, then tagged the woman in the collarbone with the other as she came at him. Bone cracked. She fell back stunned, but did not retreat.
She leaped at Gideon only to meet a flurry of alternating strikes with the wooden dowels. Normally a woman, her age and in her condition, would have been killed very quickly by such an attack, but the demon kept her body empowered with the strength of ten men.
Ethan tried to help with a longer piece of the ladder, but the woman splintered it with her boney hand and grabbed him. Gideon intervened with lightning speed. The frail, old woman threw Ethan ten feet across the yard, turning to take on Gideon again. The sound of a mob filtered through the alley leading to the Seed and Feed.
The old woman fought like a rabid animal. She answered every one of Gideon’s strikes with defiance. No matter how much damage her body took, the demon within would not give her up. Gideon lost sight of Ethan in the fight.
Ethan disappeared from the physical realm after the old woman threw him to the ground. He appeared in the spiritual realm arrayed for battle. The old woman had her back to him as she tried to back Gideon up against the wall of the building. In the spiritual realm, the demon’s form was the more apparent, with the old woman appearing transparent around it.
Ethan drew the sword from his side and charged at her. He was not sure if the demon would be able to see him while inside of the woman or not, but it did not matter. In this realm, Shaddai had made him a mighty warrior. He struck the woman with his blade. It swept right through her physical form, but caught hold of the demon.
That mighty blow knocked the demon out of the woman’s body. It tumbled backward to the ground. The bewildered look on its face told the story.
Released from the energizing power of the demon, the old woman fell to the ground like one of the sacks of feed stacked against the wall. Gideon knelt down cautiously, checking for signs of life, but the demon had pushed her body beyond hope. She was gone.
“There they are!”
A crowd appeared in the entrance to the courtyard. They were armed, carrying torches. A man with a hook for a hand led the way.
Ethan saw the evicted demon run into the crowd. He moved with dizzying speed from one person to another, feeding them thoughts and steering their perception of what they had just found in the courtyard of the Seed and Feed. They saw a helpless old woman lying murdered.
Ethan appeared back in the physical world with Gideon. The men moved in, brandishing their weapons. “What do we do?” Ethan whispered.
“We give up, Ethan, and pray the Lord will have his hand upon us. Nothing can harm us without his allowing it to.”
The demons watched as the crowd fell upon the two young men and bound them. They led them away from the Seed and Feed to the stockade nearly one quarter of a mile away. A guard, who kept the stockade, locked the boys in a cell.
The magistrate would try them in the morning, then sentence them. Everyone knew the only penalty for murder was death by hanging. Even as the night hours crept along into morning, the gallows were already being prepared.
Some time in the morning hours, a commotion erupted in the jailhouse where Ethan and Gideon remained under lock and key. The rancid smell made any possibility of sound sleep remote. Only from sheer exhaustion had he and Gideon been able to nod occasionally as the night progressed. Members of the mob had beaten them before leaving them at the stockade. The mob had called the boys many unsavory things, making their arrival at the jail almost a relief.
Ethan awoke to the sound of voices in the outer office of the jail. It sounded very similar to what he had heard when he and Gideon arrived. Within moments, the keeper of the jail brought in three men dressed as pirates.
There was only one large cell in the jailhouse, so these men were placed inside with Ethan and Gideon. Darkness made it difficult to tell much about the new arrivals. The only light filtered in from a moonlit window outside of the cell on the other side of the room.
Gideon seemed uninterested in the men. He slept, or at least he pretended to. Two of the men found themselves a corner to occupy while the third, more outgoing fellow, stood at the bars, talking to whomever might be paying him any attention.
“What are you lads in for?” he said.
Ethan almost told him, before Gideon grabbed his arm in the dark. “We were framed,” Ethan said instead.
“Framed? Aye, we were framed too, weren’t we lads!” the man laughed.
The other two men dismissed his joviality. Considering the circumstances they found themselves in, they were not in the mood.
“Well, what are you in here for?” asked Ethan.
The man left the bars, walking over to Ethan and Gideon’s side of the cell. He knelt down where Ethan sat against the wall. Gideon waited. “What’s your name, lad?” The man had a goatee and a ring of silver dangling from his left ear. His hair was black and shaggy and he smelled like the sea.
“Ethan.”
“Well, Ethan, we were caught trying to blow up Mordred’s munitions depot.”
Gideon responded. “Mordred has a munitions depot in Tilley?”
“Aye, that woke you up did it, sleepy head?”
Gideon stood up followed by the pirate. They stood toe to toe, face to face, and eye to eye. Ethan hoped a fight would not break out between them.
“Why would he have such a thing way out here?” Gideon asked.
“There’s a war going on, lad, or didn’t you know?” the man said.
“Of course, I knew.”
“Well, lad, Tilley sold her soul three months ago to that devil. Mordred will use this place as a staging ground when he begins stamping out the rebellion in these parts.”
“And who are you, part of the rebellion?” Gideon asked.
“Aye, I don’t guess it matters now, since we’re caught. They’ll be hanging us all anyway for sedition when the magistrate arrives tomorrow. They love a good hangin in Tilley, ya know?” he said with a wild grin on his face. “My name is Ash and me mates here are Anthony and Brass.”
“And where did you come from?” Gideon asked.
Ash just smiled. “I wouldn’t want to give away any surprises,” he said, looking at Anthony and Brass. “How bout you, priest?”
Gideon had forgotten about his priestly robes. No one in the crowd had seemed to notice what his clothing represented.
“What, do you think I don’t know a warrior-priest of Shaddai when I see one?” Ash said, feigning insult. “Give a man of the world a bit more credit than that, lad. And from the color of your robes, I’d say you’ve been out, shall we say, severing liabilities?”
Ethan did not dare say it, but he was beginning to like this man, Ash. No one who could make the vein on Gideon’s temple pulse this way could be all bad. At any rate, they all appeared to be in the same predicament.
Gideon eased off a bit. It was hard to understand how a man in Ash’s position would be making light of their situation, but he did not care to argue the point with him. Ash seemed like the type who forever turned a conversation to his advantage.
“Shaddai will make a way for us,” Gideon said finally.
Ethan and Gideon were both surprised when Ash actually agreed with the statement. “Aye, he will. And maybe, just maybe,” Ash said, looking at his mates, “he already has.”