If you just ignore them, they'll feel your will. Will is everything. They're weak people who believe in nonsense. They think Hut is a G.o.d.

"Julie," Hut began, but silenced himself.

If you're psychic, guess what I'm thinking. Guess what my plan is. Guess.

She fought to keep her eyes from welling with tears. She moved to the bed, and sat at the edge of it.

"Livy," she whispered softly. "Livy."

"She can't hear you," Eleanor said, nearly as softly. "The auditory nerve is-"

"Shut up, Eleanor," Julie said. "Just shut up."

Julie felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Eleanor. Old friend. Comforter. Therapist. Monster. Old friend. Comforter. Therapist. Monster.

Julie shrugged her away.

"My G.o.d." Julie barely was able to get the words out.

Minutes seemed to pa.s.s, as she turned the words over in her mind.

She's dead. They did it. They killed her.

They tested her.

The way they killed Matty. They used her for their test.

Her own father...

She hadn't really believed it would happen. She hadn't believed in her heart that it wasn't all fantasy. That it wasn't all mumbo-jumbo. PSI. Ability X. Resurrection. Death Cult. Project Daylight. PSI. Ability X. Resurrection. Death Cult. Project Daylight. Then, her voice returned. "My G.o.d. She's dead. She's dead. You already killed her, you really killed..." Julie murmured, covering her face, the tears breaking from within her, a dam burst, and she could not see when she had brought her hands away from her eyes, for the tears had nearly blinded her. "Monsters! Monsters!" Then, her voice returned. "My G.o.d. She's dead. She's dead. You already killed her, you really killed..." Julie murmured, covering her face, the tears breaking from within her, a dam burst, and she could not see when she had brought her hands away from her eyes, for the tears had nearly blinded her. "Monsters! Monsters!"

Hut's voice, "She's not dead. I know she's not. Death is a state of consciousness. It's not what you think."

"You sick perverted b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Julie thought she said, but wasn't sure, because she felt knocked out, wiped clean, somehow destroyed by the knowledge of her daughter's death.

"Three days," her husband said. "You can't believe the lies Diamant told. You can't, Julie. Matty wasn't right. Mandy and I were too much to produce a child that worked. Two Ability X's don't work right in bringing children into the world. Livy will work, because in you, like most people, the gene's recessive. I know it will work."

"I don't listen to dead people," Julie said. "I don't listen to mumbo-jumbo."

She reached out to touch the edge of Livy's hand.

"It's not some religion," Eleanor said. But it was as if she were off in some fog at the edge of the room. "It's not something as silly as faith."

"It's science," the blond man said. "Pure and simple. It's a truth that's been locked away."

"Locked away by c.r.a.p mysticism and Christian hogwash," Eleanor added. "And just plain ignorance. There is no G.o.d. There's no Devil. No heaven. No h.e.l.l. There is nothing but animal life. We are animals. But we have developed the ability to take this beyond our lifetimes, Julie. Our single lifetimes. To wipe away thousands of years of ignorant mysticism, of this ridiculous Christian magical thinking about life and death."

"Can't blame Christianity alone," the blond man said. "You just can't. Other religions, too. They just..."

But their voices receded into the dark background of her mind. They babbled on, she knew, but she leaned forward toward her daughter, her beautiful Livy, and remembered the first moment she had known Livy was in her body, and the first moment Livy had cried out at birth, and how, as a baby, Hut had helped change diapers, and how Julie had somehow believed that her family was wonderful and that she and Hut were a team, and that Livy was going to grow up to be a doctor like her daddy or a nurse like mommy or to be an actress like Livy wanted to, or grow into a teenager who would go to her prom, fall in love, go to college, experience the world, travel, and she, her mother, would have all those years with her, would watch her as she grew and changed and became the wonder that Julie knew she would become.

Julie lay down on the bed, cradling her daughter's lifeless body.

Around her, she saw others draw together in the shadows. She ignored them. All that mattered was Livy.

She is all that remains.

Let them burn away, let the world burn away for all I care, she thought.

She kissed the edge of her daughter's fragrant hair: chrysanthemums and lilacs, musky and sweet mixed together. She didn't want to think about how they'd killed her. About how they needed to create fear before death to make their ritual work right. She didn't want to think about her baby crying out for her Mommy while they did something awful and monstrous to her in her last minutes of life.

Julie closed her eyes, blocked out the others in the room, and held her child tightly.

Perhaps minutes had pa.s.sed, or hours. Perhaps she drank the chai they brought her, and perhaps she nibbled on some cheddar crackers that Eleanor set down on a plate with some cream cheese. Perhaps it was a day that pa.s.sed. She slept, she woke, she clutched the gun, but no one bothered her. No one tried to move her or take her weapon away. She got up once or twice to use the bathroom in the hall, and when she did, she felt them watching her but she refused to look them in the eyes. She had blocked the others out, and only knew her child's body, pressed against her own. She lay on the bed, slept, woke, tried to feel that inside feeling with her daughter that she'd felt with Michael Diamond.

Then, she felt life stirring in Livy's body.

Eleanor's voice, beyond the darkness of Julie's mind, "Look. Look."

It's not real. It's not real.

Julie felt the warmth and the pulsing heartbeat along her daughter's side, and even the smell of life emanated from her.

The slight heat of her daughter's breath against her cheek. Had she imagined it? The warmth? The trickle of air?

Eleanor whispered something that almost sounded like a prayer.

Julie opened her eyes and gazed at her daughter's face.

Remembering what Michael Diamond had told her.

"There's always hope," he said. "That's the last thing to go in life. It's a blessing and a curse. But sometimes, it's all we have. Yet, when faced with this, there is no hope. There can be no hope. Do not let hope cloud your resolve."

"But what hope?" she wanted to ask him now. "What hope?"

And then, his voice was in her head again. Not imagined. Real. Inside her. His connection to her remained, somehow, even among these monsters.

"The human soul is inviolate, Julie. There is always hope because of that. The human soul is inviolate."

She tried not to think of Matt. Of how Diamond had said he'd died. Maybe it wasn't completely true. Maybe there was truth on both sides. I must put those things out of my mind. Only Livy matters. Only Livy. I must put those things out of my mind. Only Livy matters. Only Livy.

The human soul is inviolate.

Her soul was somewhere in her body. It could not die. There was no death except for the flesh. But the soul had its journey. Michael Diamond had moved elsewhere when he was burned at Project Daylight. Opened another door. Pa.s.sed into a pa.s.sageway that had remained unseen. And then, came back. And he wasn't dead, was he? Not even now? Maybe they'd done something to him. Maybe they'd buried him alive. Or subdued him in some way, but if she could somehow get him to help again... But even as she thought this, she felt that she was doing the kind of magical thinking that had never gotten her anywhere.

But Livy did not have to go through that pa.s.sage. Not yet.

She may not even come back bad. She may not be spoiled, the way Diamond had told her. She might be the same. She might even be better. Michael Diamond had been better, after all. Maybe Hut wasn't. Maybe Matt had come back with slight problems. But it didn't mean they all did. She believed it. She believed it with a ferocity of emotion. There was no more reason in her life. She had to cling to belief. She had to remember that the world was not all murky darkness. It had benevolence. It had love. It had stronger elements than this Death Cult imagined.

It had hope.

Even in this murderous circle, there could be good rising from it. A hand could be uplifted. It could be raised in prayer. A hand could be held. They weren't alone. Livy would not be alone. I'll be there for you, Liv. I will. I will not abandon you. I'll help you find your soul. I promise.

The human soul, inviolate.

She clung to this idea, as she felt her daughter's small fingers clutch at her arm and heard the faint growl of a child's voice.

THE END.

Author Biography Douglas Clegg is the award-winning author of several novels and collections, including the bestselling novel, The Priest of Blood The Priest of Blood, as well as Isis Isis, Neverland Neverland, Purity Purity and many others. and many others.

Clegg is currently at work on a novel about murder, madness and family set on the New England coast, where he also happens to live. Look for the fully-ill.u.s.trated trade hardcover of Isis Isis, a tale of the supernatural, in bookstores everywhere September 29, 2009.

Also on Kindle from Douglas Clegg:

The Vampyricon Trilogy: The Priest of Blood The Lady of Serpents The Queen of Wolves _________________.

Purity, a novella

The Words, a novella

Wild Things: Four Tales

And now, for a thrilling excerpt from Douglas Clegg's novella, THE WORDS, also available for the Kindle!

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About THE WORDS:

Never speak them.

Never whisper them.

The Words.

The Words is a novella of otherworldly terror and madness from Douglas Clegg, the award-winning author of The Priest of Blood, Isis, Purity, The Hour Before Dark and many others.

The two teenagers invoke the words -- the names of those who walk beyond the veil, in the dark of the Nowhere...

When Mark befriends outsider Dash, he believes his new friend to be an outcast rebel. But a dark mystery unfolds as Dash leads Mark into dangerous games and rituals involving stories of the occult and a strange drug that allows Dash to see into another world -- a world of absolute darkness and terror.

"Your flesh will remember the words even if your mind forgets."

One summer night, on their way with friends to a party, they make a fateful detour to a place where the words of Dash's secret ceremonies will bring a new terror into the world...and where Mark will face unspeakable horror as it comes to monstrous life.