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

woman looked to be in her fifties.
    Karadzic slashed the air with his pistol. “Silence! Perhaps I should kill all of you! I am killing here, not playing a game. You want me to kill you all?” Janjic had known the man long enough to recognize his faltering. But there was something else there as well. A glimmer of excitement that flashed through his gray eyes. Like a dog in heat.
    â€œBut it really should be me,” a voice said. Janjic looked to the steps where another girl stood facing them with her heels together. “Nadia was my best friend,” she said. “I should join her. Is there really music there, Father?”
    The priest could not answer. He was weeping uncontrollably. Torn to shreds by this display of love.
    The gun boomed and Janjic flinched.
    Karadzic held the weapon above his head. He’d fired into the air. “Stop! Stop!” He shoved the boy sprawling to his seat. His thick lips glistened with spittle. The gun shook in his thick fingers, and above it all his eyes sparkled with rising excitement.
    He stepped back and turned the pistol on Nadia’s mother. She simply closed her eyes. Janjic understood her motivation to some degree: The woman’s only child lay at her feet. She was stepping up to the bullet with a grief-ravaged mind.
    He held his breath in anticipation of a shot.
    Karadzic licked his wet lips and jerked the weapon to the younger woman who’d stepped forward. She too closed her eyes. But Karadzic did not shoot. He swiveled it to the older woman. Looking at them all now, Janjic thought that any one of the women might give their lives for the boy. It was a moment that could not be understood in the context of normal human experience. A great spiritual love had settled on them all. Karadzic was more than capable of killing; he was in fact eager for it. And yet the women stood square-shouldered now, daring him to pull the trigger.
    Janjic swayed on weak legs, overcome by the display of self-sacrifice. The ravens cawed overhead and he glanced skyward, as much for a reprieve as in response to the bird’s call. At first he thought the ravens had flown off; that a black cloud had drifted over the valley in their place. But then he saw the cloud ebb and flow and he knew it was a singular ring of birds—a hundred or more, gliding overhead making their odd call. What was happening here? He lowered his eyes to the courtyard and blinked against the buzz that had overtaken the pounding in his skull.
    For a long, silent minute Karadzic weighed his decision, his muscles strung to the snapping point, sweating profusely, breathing heavily.
    The villagers did not move; they drilled him with steady stares. The priest seemed to float in and out of consciousness, swaying on his feet, opening and closing his eyes periodically. His face drifted through a range of expressions—one moment his eyes open and his mouth sagged with grief, the next his eyes closed and his mouth opened in wonder. Janjic studied him, and his heart broke for the man. He wanted to take the gentle priest to a bed and dress his wounds. Bathe him in hot water and soothe his battered shoulder. His face would never be the same; the damage looked far too severe. He would probably be blind in his right eye, and eating would prove difficult for some time. Poor priest. My poor, poor priest. I swear that I will care for you, my priest. I will come and serve . . .
    What was this? What was he thinking? Janjic stopped himself. But it was true. He knew it then as much as he had known anything. He loved this man. He cherished this man. His heart felt sick over this man.
    I will come and serve you, my priest. A knot rose to Janjic’s throat, suffocating him. In you I have seen love, Priest. In you and your children and your women I have seen God. I will . . .
    A chuckle interrupted his thoughts. The commander was chuckling. Looking around and chuckling. The sound engendered terror. The man was completely