CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN1SALT BRACED HIMSELF, centered his weight, and began to clamber to his feet. Slowly. First one, then the other. He looked toward the treeline as he did, saw the front end of the Chevy Blazer glinting there like silvery, lupine fangs, its chrome-plated steel grille guard catching light. A shudder wrenched through him. Still he rose, forcing himself erect, the war ax in his left hand.The others were drawing closer.Glee snatched at Katie fearfully, nestled her to her side. Croom glared into their faces. He bent, retrieved something near Dr. Mint’s fingers: the hypodermic syringe. He held it before him, flicked the plastic tube like he was testing it. “Gyaa . . . ?” his disfigured mouth emitted, a bad-natured grin forming. He thumbed the needle’s plunger, had placed one foot on the shovel handle. They wavered in uncertainty.Julian had gone quiet, head back, maimed arms and legs dangling as he levitated higher. Eyeballs rolled to white. He appeared to be in a t

EPILOGUETHE COLD HANGS on, and on. Sinks in deeper. Lost within it, forsaken, the duped and the defiled wander the streets of the Val in a haze. Wondering what’s happened.One of them, Syd Cholke, enters her Regan Street apartment and drops onto the sofa. Slumps alone in the dark. Much later she hears the front door open and close, hears footsteps enter sheepishly. Then delicate, auburn-haired Alice Granberg sits down. No words are spoken between them. After a time Sydney goes to her and kneels and places her ear against the small hill of Alice’s belly, feels the baby roll lazily there. Soon both are dozing in this position, an empty birdcage on the end table nearby.Mrs. Wintermute shrieks inside her narrow prison below ground, breath hitching in and out. She begs and she wails . . . screaming, screaming . . . and eventually becomes quiet at long last. Meg Bilobran sits propped in her theater balcony seat, draped in sheet plastic, eyes flung wide and staring, as if waiting for the