Read Online When Heaven Weeps by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online Page A

but the black Luger whipped around and met him with a jarring blow to his cheek.
    Pain shot over his skull. It felt like he’d run into a swinging bat. His head jerked back and his legs flew forward, throwing him from his feet. Janjic landed heavily on his back and rolled over, moaning. What was he doing? Stopping Karadzic—that’s what he was doing.
    Janjic dragged himself from the commander, urged by a boot kick to his thigh. His mind swam. The world seemed to slow. Five feet away on the ground lay a girl who’d just given her life for her priest. For her God. For Christ’s love. And Janjic had seen in her eyes a look of absolute certainty. He had seen her smile at the priest. He had seen the wink. A wink , for goodness sake! Something had changed with that wink. He was not sure what it meant, except that something had changed.
    Dear God, she had hummed! She had winked!
    â€œPuzup, get him to his feet,” Karadzic ordered above the din.
    Puzup stormed past Janjic and yanked the priest to his feet. Paul gaped at the scene, his expression impossible to interpret. Janjic pushed himself to his knees, ignoring the pain that throbbed through his skull. Blood dripped to the concrete from a wound behind his ear. He turned back to the commander and stood shakily. Ten feet separated them now.
    The priest wavered on his feet, facing Karadzic. If the father had passed out from his fall, they had awakened him. The little boy the commander had hauled from the steps stood shaking and bawling. Karadzic pressed his pistol against the boy’s ear.
    â€œWhat do you say, Priest? What’s this love of yours worth? Should I put another one of your children out of their misery?” Karadzic’s eyes were rocks behind bushy brows, dull gray tombstones. He was grinning. “Or will you renounce your stupid faith?”
    â€œKill me,” Father Michael’s voice quavered.
    Janjic stopped trying to understand the madness that had gripped this priest and his flock of sheep. It was beyond the reaches of his mind. Yet it reached out to him with long fingers of desire.
    â€œTake my life, sir. Please leave the boy.”
    The smile vanished from commander’s face. “Then renounce your faith, you blithering idiot! They are words! Just words! Say them. Say them!”
    â€œThey are words of Christ. He is my redeemer. He is my Savior. He is my Creator. How can I deny my own Creator? Please, sir—”
    â€œHe is your redeemer? He is her redeemer too?” He motioned to the girl on the ground. “She is dead, you fool.”
    The priest stood trembling for a few moments before responding. “She sees you now. She is laughing.”
    Karadzic stared at Father Michael.
    The women had stopped their cries and the children sat still, faces buried in their mothers’ skirts.
    â€œIf you must have another death, let it be mine,” the priest said.
    And then the rules of the game changed once more.
    The girl’s mother, Ivena, who had grown eerily calm, suddenly wrested herself free from Molosov but did not rush the commander again. Molosov grabbed one arm but let her stand on her own. “No,” she said softly, “let it be mine. Kill me in the boy’s place.” She stood unflinching, like a stone statue.
    Karadzic now stood with the pistol to the whimpering boy’s ear, between a man and a woman each asking for death in the boy’s place. He shifted on his feet, unsure how much power he truly held over this scene.
    Another woman stepped forward, her face twisted in pity. “No. No, kill me instead. I will die for the boy. The priest has already suffered too much. And Ivena has lost her only child. I am childless. Take my life. I will join Nadia.”
    â€œNo, I will,” another said, taking two steps forward. “You are young, Kota. I am old. Please, this world holds no appeal to me. It would be good for me to pass on to be with our Lord.” The