Read Online Green: The Beginning and the End by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online Page A

also aware of them.
    Billy blinked at her. “What are you hiding from me?”
    “Nothing. How can I?”
    “You can’t. So why are you so desperate to know what I know?”
    “I . . .” What could she say if she herself didn’t know? “I don’t know. What would you do if you learned that your mother had a vial of blood that could take you to another world?”
    Her pulse was now a steady hammer in her ears.
    “You’d think it was preposterous,” she answered for him. “But then what?”
    “Then you’d want to possess it,” he said.
    “Assuming it exists.”
    “It does.”
    She looked away and tried to still her irrational eagerness to stand here while he reeled her in like a helpless fish.
    “Until today I was convinced that I was the only person on this planet who was qualified to find and use that blood,” Billy said. “But now I think you may be another.”
    “Because you need me?”
    “Because there’s something inside you that I’ve never seen. And I’ve probed the minds of a lot of people.”
    “What’s that? Evil?” She walked away from him. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of any of this before today. She hid it from me all this time?”
    “It’s not exactly the kind of thing you want anyone to know.”
    She spun back. “I’m her daughter!”
    “Even more reason to protect you.”
    He really did believe all of this, and the idea was becoming only slightly familiar to her. Familiar, not reasonable, not in the least, because what Billy was suggesting made no sense at all. Who’d ever heard of such a thing?
    But it did have a ring of familiarity to it.
    “Give me a few hours and I’ll tell you a few things that will remove any doubt from your mind,” Billy said. “The books exist. There’s a journal that talks about them, written by a Saint Thomas hundreds of years ago. They called him the beast hunter. Never saw the book, but I’ve interviewed two people in Europe who have. I’m telling you there’re connections between our worlds that would make your head spin.”
    “Beast hunter,” she repeated.
    “Saint Thomas the Beast Hunter,” he said. “But it’s the blank books that interest me more. Like the ones I wrote in during my life in the monastery. I believe they still exist, probably in the safe keeping of Thomas Hunter. His blood is a sure way to get to him. I want you to help me find the blood.”
    The notion overtook her with such savagery that she felt compelled to turn her face away. Such raw desire was unbecoming.
    “Will you?”
    I will, Billy. I will use you to feed my own needs .
    The thought surprised her. At least it had been guarded. She cleared her mind and faced him again.
    “Maybe.”
    Janae walked up to him and allowed a smile to caress her face. She placed her hand on his chest and ran it up over his head, through his unkempt hair.
    “Might be fun.”
    “I don’t care if you do use me,” he said, cutting to the heart of the matter. “I have to do this, with or without you.”
    Interesting. Her deception didn’t bother him. This alone increased her admiration of him.
    Janae stood on her toes, leaned forward and touched her lips to his. Then she turned and glided back to the chair.
    “Tell me more, Billy. Tell me everything.”

6
    The Future
    QURONG MARCHED the path along the muddy lake in his nightclothes, a white and purple robe woven from silk that swished around his knees with each reach of his leg. The moon was absent from the black sky. Qurongi City, named after himself five years earlier, slept except for the stray dog, the priests in the Thrall, and him.
    Well, yes, he had awakened Patricia and Cassak. No king should have to visit the high priest in the dead of night without his wife and general at hand. Ba’al had sent his servant an hour ago, demanding that Qurong rush to the Thrall for a most critical audience.
    “Slow down,” Patricia snapped, close at his heels.
    He planted his foot and swung back. “The first sensible thing