That was when the real horror began.
Because of something that Hana had never imagined, something she was sure even the shamans had never heard of.
The stranger was a creature that wouldn't die.
Arno was the first to jab with his spear. The whitish-gray flint spearhead went into the stranger's side, drawing blood. Hana saw it; she had run out of the cave, still trying to find a way to stop this.
She also saw the blood stop flowing as the wound in the boy's side closed.
There were gasps from all around her. Arno, looking as if he couldn't believe his eyes, jabbed again.
And watched, mouth falling open, as the second wound bled and then closed. He kept trying. Only the wounds where a spear was driven into the wooden shaft stayed open.
One of the women whispered, "He is a demon."
Everyone was frightened. But nobody moved away from "the stranger. He was too dangerous to let go.
And there were lots of them, and only one of him.
Hana saw something happening in the faces of her clan. Something new and horrible. Fear of the unknown was changing them, making them cruel. They were turning from basically good people, people who would never torture an animal by prolonging its death, into people who would torture a man.
"He may be a demon, but he still bleeds," one of the hunters said breathlessly, after a jab. "He feels pain.", "Get a torch," somebody else said. "See if he burns!"
And then it was terrible. Hana felt as if she were in the middle of a storm, able to see things but buffeted this way and that, unable to do anything about it. People were running. People were getting torches, stone axes, different kinds of flint knives. The dam had turned into a huge entity feeding off its own violence. It was mindless and unstoppable.
Hana cast a desperate look toward the cave, where Old Mother lay confined to her pallet. There was no help from that direction.
People were screaming, burning the stranger, throwing stones at him. The stranger was falling, bloody, smoke rising from his burns. He was lying on the ground, unable to fight back. But still, he didn't die. He kept trying to crawl away.
Hana was screaming herself, screaming and crying, beating at the shoulders of a hunter who pulled her back. And it went on and on. Even the young boys were brave enough now to run forward and throw stones at the stranger.
And he still wouldn't die.
Hana was in a nightmare. Her throat was raw from screaming. Her vision was going gray. She couldn't stand to watch this anymore; she couldn't stand the smell of blood and burning flesh or the sound of blows. But there was nowhere to go. There was no way to get out. This was her life. She had to stay here and go insane....
Chapter 8
Hannah sat up in bed, gasping.
For several moments she didn't know where she was. Through a gap in her curtains she could see the gray light of dawn-just like Hana's gray dawn-and she thought she still might be in the nightmare. But then, slowly, objects in the room became clear. Her bookshelves, crammed with books and crowned with one near-perfect trilobite fossil on a stand. Her dresser, its top piled with things that belonged in other places. Her posters of Velociraptor and T. Rex.
I'm me. I remember me.
She had never been so happy to be herself, or to be awake.
But that dream she'd just had-that had happened to her. A long time ago, sure, but nothing like so long ago as, say, when the T. Rex had been alive. Not to mention the trilobite. A few thousand years was yesterday to Mother Earth.
And it was all real, she knew that now. She accepted it. She had fallen asleep and her subconscious had pulled back the veil of the past and allowed her to see more of Hana's story.
Thierry, she thought. The people of Hana's clan tortured him. God knows for how long-I'm just glad I didn't have to watch more.
But it puts sort of a different twist on things, doesn't it?
She still didn't know how the story ended. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. But it was hard to blame him for whatever had happened afterward.
An awful feeling was settling in Hannah's stomach. All those things I said to him-terrible things, she thought. Why did I say all that? I was so angry-I lost control completely. I hated him and all I cared about was hurting him. I really thought he must be evil, pure evil.
I told him to go away forever. How could I have done that? He's my soulmate. There was a strange emptiness inside her, as if she'd been hollowed out like a tree struck by lightning.
Inside the emptiness, a voice like a cool dark wind whispered, But you told Paul that he kept killing you
over and over. Is that justifiable? He's a vampire, a predator, and that makes him evil by nature. Maybe he can't help being what he is, but there's no reason for you to be destroyed again because of it. Are you
going to let him kill you in this life, too?
She was torn between pity for him and the deep instinct that he was dangerous. The cool wind voice seemed to be the voice of reason.
Go ahead and feel sorry for him, it said. Just keep him far away from you.
She felt better having come to a decision, even if it was a decision that left her heart numb. She glanced around the room, focused on the clock by her bedside, and blinked.
Oh, my God-school.
It was quarter to seven and it was a Friday. Sacaja-wea High seemed light-years away, like someplace she'd visited in a past life.
But it's not. It's your life, now, the only one that counts. You have to forget all that other stuff about reincarnation and vampires and the Night World. You have to forget about him.
You sent him away and he's gone. So let's get on with living in the normal world.
Just thinking this way made her feel braced and icy, as if she'd had a cold shower. She took a real shower, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, and she had breakfast with her mother, who cast her several thoughtful glances but didn't ask any questions until they were almost finished.