Chapter 6
“TAPER!” Tara shouts so loud, the weapon fire actually stops.
Taper screams as the god’s hand grabs him, and I can’t tell if it’s terror or if the flames are burning him. Either way, it’s just the worst sound you never wanted to hear.
We hear another scream behind us. “Taper!” Margery Wingard, finally looking up from her slaughter. “Taper!” she screams again and runs past us.
“Holy God in heaven,” we hear Burly say. The Noise of the Land is racing like I’ve never seen it. They’re fleeing even while they talk. I want to flee with them or even with the humans who are yelling and running away, but I can’t help but look to see what’s happening to Taper.
The god lifts him, and we can’t see him through the tarp covering the market square, just hear him screaming. Out of the stupidest human curiosity that ever was, I find myself racing to the side exit to see more, as does Tara. Margery Wingard is in front of us, already on the road.
When I get outside, the god has raised Taper up to its face, looking him right in the eye. Taper’s still yelling, but the god makes that horrible screaming sound back to him, a sound ready to take the skin off your own bones.
I flinch at the sound of gunfire. Margery Wingard is firing at the god. “Let him go!” she screams. “LET HIM GO!”
Tara knocks the rifle end down. “You’re going to hit Taper!”
Margery Wingard makes a face at her daughter I don’t think I’ll ever forget, and then she takes off running for the god.
“Mom, no!” Tara shouts.
But she’s already gone. I don’t know what she’ll do when she gets there. The god will kill her easily. But she’s running. She’s running after her son, because that’s what a mom does, even one as screwed up as Margery Wingard–
The god moves before she gets there, but there’s no sense at all it’s running from Mrs. Wingard. Just that it’s got what it wants and is now leaving with it.
“Oh, my God,” Tara says. “It’s going to the river.”
Of course it is. It’s going to disappear with Taper into the water. Just like it did with Arrow’s sister. Just like it might have done with me and Tara . . .
I shake off the thought because we’re already running after it, after Tara’s mom. And I know, I feel it, too, how crazy it is going after the god we spent all our energy running from, but sometimes your body just acts for you, doing its own thing, regardless of your brain.
It’s not far to the river. It never is in this city. We’re actually still running down the hill when the god reaches the riverbank. We’re still running when we can hear Margery Wingard cry out in a shout of terror and grief that’s almost as bad as the god’s own screaming.
We’re still running when both the god and Taper vanish under the water.