“And you do?”
“I know they do. They’re always right behind me.” He took her shoes and put them before the fire to dry. “And I can’t let them catch me.”
“How long have you been seeing demons?” She paused. “Does the child see the demons, too?”
“No,” he said sharply. “I’d never let her see the demons.” He whispered. “But sometimes I wonder if they’ve already got her. She won’t leave me alone.”
Move carefully. Don’t disturb the mood that was opening the gates. “Why do you think that is?”
“I’m not sure, but I have an idea now. I have to try it anyway.” He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “You’ve done well. No complaints. No whining.”
“Whining?” She made a face. “Terrible. No wonder you don’t think well of women if you’ve run into that quality.”
“I’ve always wanted to think well of them. I’ve always wanted to think well of everyone.” His face clouded. “But there are so many demons in the world. John’s parents were demons, you know.”
“I know he said they were abusive.”
“They were demons. I just didn’t recognize it at the time. They were family, and I tried to work with them to save him. If I had known, I would have destroyed them.”
“When did you start recognizing demons when you saw them?”
“Syria. One night in Syria.”
“They just appeared to you?”
“You’re trying to make me say I’m seeing things.”
“I’m trying to get you to talk to me. You promised you’d talk to me, Danner.”
“Not now.”
“Why not?”
He gazed at her. “Why not?” he repeated. “You won’t believe me.” His gaze shifted to the blazing fire. “I’d been sent into the mountains of Syria to destroy a munitions stronghold held by the militants. I planted the explosives at the building and climbed up into the rocks above the village to set them off. My captain was waiting there for me in the helicopter. I’d done a good job setting that charge. I always did a good job. I was proud of myself. I gave it another five minutes after I reached the helicopter before I pressed the button. It blew.” He swallowed. “But something was wrong. The munitions should have blown, but they didn’t. There were no explosions. Except the one I’d set off when I pressed the button. The entire building was on fire, but there were no ammo explosions.” His hand slowly clenched. “And then I saw the children. Dozens of children running out of the burning building. They were burning, too. They looked like torches in the darkness.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“It was an orphanage. We’d been fed the wrong information by our informants. They wanted to claim a U.S. atrocity. The children were burning … I could smell their charred flesh. And the ones that weren’t on fire were being picked off by snipers from the edge of the village. I went crazy. I tried to get back down to help them, but it was too late. No one else was coming out of the building. Dead. All dead. And I could see those sons of bitches coming into the village to check to make sure no child had survived.”
“My God.”
“God wasn’t there that night. Only the demons. I could see them outlined by the fire, in their dirty robes. They were dressed like Arabs, but I knew who they were, moving among those small bodies. Demons. I screamed and grabbed my rifle. I jumped out of the helicopter, but I was tackled before I got more than a few yards. My commanding officer said I couldn’t be seen there. I was going to make things worse. They had to do damage control.”
“Damage control?” she whispered. “Children.”
“They were dead, and an international situation was still to be saved. And they saved it. They bribed and coerced and made it go away.” He added, “And they wouldn’t let me go back and destroy the demons. I told them I had to do it, but they said that there were no demons that night. I couldn’t get anyone to believe me. Will you believe me, Eve?”
The story had shocked and sickened her and given her an insight into Danner that had an element of pity. Understanding was acceptable, but she could not feel sympathy. This was a man who might have killed her Bonnie. “You could convince me. Searching for Bonnie, I’ve encountered many individuals who could be demons.” She leaned forward and picked up her shoe. “Including you, Danner.” She was struggling to put on the shoe. “But I’m tired of talking about demons. I want to talk about the child.”
“No.” He pulled out his knife and cut the ropes binding her wrists. “This will make it easier for you to walk. You’re slowing me down.”
“You’re not afraid I’ll manage to escape?”
“I’d catch up with you before you went a quarter mile.” He turned away. “But you’re not going to run away. You’re willing to take any punishment that comes along. You want to go with me.”
“How could you know that?”
“I saw your face at the priest’s study. You were … eager.”
And he was very perceptive. “You could be mistaken.”
He shook his head. “And I saw you earlier in the garden with her.”
She lost her breath. “Her?”
He turned away. “The child. Let’s go.”
“Oh, no.” She took two steps and her hand closed on his arm. “You don’t leave me like that. You saw Bonnie.”
“I told you I saw the child.”
“No, stop that crap. Why won’t you say her name? You saw Bonnie.”
“It hurts me.”
“Then let it hurt you. My daughter is dead, and you saw her. You just told me so. Why would you see a dead child, Danner? This dead child. Did you kill her?”
“Stop talking about her. It hurts me.”
“I won’t stop talking about her. I can see her spirit because she’s my daughter, and she wants me to do it. But why you, Danner?”
He tore his arm away from her grasp. “Why do you think? She wants me to see her, too. She wants to torment me. She doesn’t understand … I have to make her understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That I’m not fighting her, that I’ll give her what she wants. But I had to find out what that was first. Even Father Barnabas couldn’t tell me. I asked him, and he said to pray about it. I had to know.”
“And now you do?”
“She wants you,” he said simply.
“What?”
“In that garden I could see that there was so much love between you. She wants her mother. All little girls want their mothers. That’s what she wants me to do. Not to kill any demons. She wants me to give you to her.”
She stared at him, stunned. Then she realized the words had stunned her but not the basic thought behind them. The hints had been there to be read.
And, he was right, she had been eager to read them.
“It won’t be bad,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you. She wouldn’t like that.”
“Stop that. Say her name. She’s not an anonymous ‘child.’ She’s Bonnie. Say it.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “Bonnie.”
It was hurting him. She could tell. Then she realized why. “It’s because you don’t want to recognize her as a person, you want to keep her at a distance. Well, she is a person, a wonderful, wonderful person. From the moment she was born, she was special. I could tell you stories.”
He shook his head. “Don’t do it.”
“Then don’t ever let me hear you call her anything but her name.”
“Okay. It doesn’t matter. I can stand it. It’s all going to be ending anyway.” He turned away. “It’s time to go.”
Ending. Bonnie had spoken about the ending, and now Danner was doing it, too. But it might not mean the same thing to him. “What do you mean?”
“If I give you to her”—he paused, then said with an effort—“to Bonnie, then it’s over for me. I can stop running from them.”
“Them?”
He turned away. “Enough talk.”
“Not nearly enough. One question. Did you murder my daughter?”
He ignored the question and was heading back toward the path. “Come on, you’ve had enough rest. I’ll let you sleep a couple hours later.”
He wasn’t even looking back at her over his shoulder. He was sure that she would come with him. How could he be that sure she wouldn’t run for her life?
In that garden there was so much love between you.