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fits and outrageous behavior. Angus wasn’t sure if any of them, the reverend included, had any clue what was about to happen but the thought was too depressing to contemplate so he pushed those negative thoughts aside. Now wasn’t the time for doubts and fears that might cloud his judgment. He needed to stay positive, not to just believe they were doing the right thing but to know it with absolute certainty.
    Angus reached into his pants pocket and took solace when his hand wrapped around the solid piece of metal inside. Needing to reassure himself further, he withdrew the sacred object and stared at it in the moonlight. It was a simple good-luck charm on a chain to the untrained eye, just a pentacle-shaped piece of metal with a second triangular shape fixed to the face of the five-pointed star. Inside the triangle was a carving of an eyeball surrounded by strange-looking geometric symbols. Angus also wore a ring on his left hand that was an exact copy, replicatedon a smaller scale, which had been the last thing his father had given him on his deathbed. Both ring and talisman were much more than the gaudy dime-store trinkets they appeared to be though, and just holding the amulet in his hands made Angus relax and feel considerably better. The pentacle was made of solid silver, a millennium-old symbol of White Magic and spiritual influence. The triangle was of purest gold, its engraved image of the all-seeing mind’s eye once part of a jeweled cross that hung on the hallowed altar in Rosslyn Chapel, the secret sanctuary of the Knights Templar and Scottish Freemasons. It had been in Angus’s family for 400 years, passed from father to son, stonemason to stonemason, believer to believer, Angus never fully knowing where it came from or why his family had been charged by the church with its safekeeping. All he and the Grove elders knew was that it was a powerful talisman whose origins were shrouded in folklore and mystery, a divine weapon against the darkness that could bless the righteous of heart, ward off disease, and bind evil in all its incarnations.
    At least that was what his forefathers had taught him.
    Angus returned the amulet to his pocket, saying a silent prayer they wouldn’t need its protection tonight. Guide us, Lord. Shelter and keep us from harm so that everyone here tonight can testify to your glory. With a weary sigh, Angus took one last look up at the circling crows, then moved off into the field, disappearing within the massive cornstalks without saying a word to the men with him. There was nothing else left to say. The village elders followed behind and soon the corn had swallowed them all. Off in the distance the dimly lit church, and a lunatic who had once been a holy man, waited.

Chapter Seven
    The Miller’s Grove Brethren in Christ Church had been built with patient hands, a truly Herculean effort in the face of the country’s economic collapse when no one in the newly founded community had anything other than their blood, sweat, and tears to donate to the cause. Somehow, it had been enough. Only twelve weeks after Reverend Miller had said a blessing and dug the ceremonial first shovelful of dark soil, the final coat of glossy white paint had been applied to the thick oak slabs cut from the nearby forest and the steeple bell rang out across the fields, summoning the villagers to their first proper church service since moving to Iowa. It was a day of great celebration and fellowship, of immense pride and accomplishment for everyone in the Grove, and none of them could ever have imagined how quickly the tides would turn against them.
    But turn they most definitely would.
    Inside the church, two haggard-looking men and one rake-thin woman sat stone-faced and vacant-eyed on the polished wooden pews that would normally hold another hundred of their former friends and neighbors. They didn’t seem to care—or for that matter, even recognize—they were the only members of the once-faithful