The Martyr's Song Read online

  He towered, over six foot, dressed in the spotless getup with silver flashing on his boots and around his belt like one of those country-western singers on cable. Cecil tried to imagine the square chin and high cheekbones bared of flesh, stripped dry like a skull in the desert.

  He couldn’t.

  The stranger’s eyes shifted to the boy. “Hello, my friend. Mighty fine town you have here. Can you tell me where I would find the man in charge?”

  Johnny’s Adam’s apple bobbed. But he didn’t answer. The man waited, eyebrows raised like he expected a quick answer. But Johnny wasn’t answering.

  The man turned back to Cecil. “How about you, old man? Can you tell me who’s in charge here? The mayor? Chief of police?”

  “He . . . he can’t speak,” Johnny said.

  “That right? Well you obviously can. You may not be much to look at, but your mouth works. So speak up.”

  Johnny hesitated. “About what?”

  The man casually slipped his right hand into the pocket of his slacks and moved his fingers as if he was playing with coins. “About fixin’ things around here.”

  Move on stranger. You’re no good. Just move on and find some other town.He should tell the stranger that.He should stand right up and point to the edge of town and tell the man where he should take his bones.

  But Cecil didn’t stand up and say anything. Couldn’t. Besides, his throat was still in knots, which made it difficult to breathe much less stand up and play marshal.

  “Yordon?” Johnny said.

  The man in black pulled his hand from his pocket and stared at it. A translucent gel of some kind smothered his fingers, a fact that seemed to distract him for a moment. His eyes shifted to Johnny.

  “Yordon?” The man began to lick the gel from his hand. “And who’s Yordon?” He sucked at his fingers, cleaning them. “Now you’re mute, boy? Speak up.”

  “The father?”

  The man ran his wet fingers under his nose and drew a long breath through his nostrils. “You have to love the sweet smell of truth. Care for a sniff?”

  He lowered his hand and ran it under Johnny’s nose. The boy jerked away, and the man swept his hand in front of Cecil’s face.

  Smelled musty, like dirty socks. Cecil pulled back.

  “What did I tell you?” the man said, grinning. “This stuff will make you see the world in a whole new way, guaranteed.”

  Eyes back on Johnny. “Who else?”

  Johnny stared at him.

  “I said who else? Besides the father.”

  Johnny glanced at the bar, thirty yards to their right. “Maybe Steve?”

  “Steve. That’s the owner of the bar?” The man studied Smither’s Saloon.

  Cecil looked at the establishment’s flaking white frontage. It needed a few coats of paint, but then so did half the buildings in Paradise. A plaque hung at an odd angle behind the swinging screen door. Faded red letters spelled Open. A dead neon Budweiser sign hung in one of the saloon’s three windows.

  “Good,” the stranger said. The man took a step toward the saloon, then stopped. Turned back to the bench.

  What now? Cecil looked up at the man’s face.

  The man’s dark eyes were twisted down, fixed on Cecil. Crooked smile.

  He suddenly lifted his arm up to his shoulder and formed a prong with two fingers, like a cobra poised to strike. Slowly, he brought the hand toward Cecil and then stopped, a foot from his face.

  What on earth was the man doing? What did he think— The stranger moved his hand closer, closer. Cecil’s vision blurred and he instinctively clamped his eyes shut. Hot and cold flashes ripped up and down his spine like passing fright trains. He wanted to scream. He wanted to yell for help. Help me, boy! Can’t you see what he’s doing? Help me, for heaven’s sake!

  But he could do nothing more than open his mouth wide and suck in air, making little gasping sounds—hach, hach—like a plunger working in a toilet.

  A long second crawled by. Then two. Cecil stopped sucking air and jerked his eyes open. Pink filled his vision—the fuzzy pink of two fingers hovering like a wishbone an inch from his eyes.

  THE CIRCLE TRILOGY

  Fleeing assailants through an alleyway in Denver late one night, Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes to the roof of an industrial building. Then a silent bullet from the night clips his head and his world goes black. When he awakes, he finds himself in an entirely different reality—a green forest that seems more real than where he was. Every time he tries to sleep, he wakes up in the other world, and soon he truly no longer knows which reality is real.

  Never before has a trilogy of this magnitude—all in hardcover format—been released in an eight-month window of time. On the heels of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings comes a new trilogy in which dreams and reality collide. In which the fate of two worlds depends on one man: Thomas Hunter.

  Each book in the trilogy is also available in abridged (CD) and unabridged (CD and cassette) editions.

  Discover more at TedDekker.com

  A NOVEL OF GOOD, EVIL,

  AND ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN

  ISBN 0-8499-4512-7

  Imagine answering your cell phone one day to a mysterious voice that gives you three minutes to confess your sin. If you don’t, he’ll blow the car you’re driving to bits and pieces. So begins a nightmare that grows with progressively higher stakes.

  There’s another phone call, another riddle, another three minutes to confess your sin. The cycle will not stop until the world discovers the secret of your sin.

  THR3E is a psychological thriller that starts full tilt and keeps you off balance until the very last suspense-filled page.

  This novel is also available as an abridged CD audio edition.

  Discover more at TedDekker.com

  THE FUTURE CHANGES IN THE

  BLINK OF AN EYE . . . OR DOES IT?

  ISBN 0-8499-4511-9

  Seth Borders isn’t your average graduate student. For starters, he has one of the world’s highest IQs. Now he’s suddenly struck by an incredible power—the ability to see multiple potential futures.

  Still reeling from this inexplicable gift, Seth stumbles upon a beautiful woman named Miriam. Unknown to Seth,Miriam is a Saudi Arabian princess who has fled her veiled existence to escape a forced marriage of unimaginable consequences. Cultures collide as they’re thrown together and forced to run from an unstoppable force determined to kidnap or kill Miriam.

  An intoxicating tale set amid the shifting sands of the Middle East and the back roads of America, Blink engages issues as ancient as the earth itself . . . and as current as today’s headlines.

  Discover more at TedDekker.com

  The Blessed Child Series

  Blessed Child

  by Ted Dekker and Bill Bright

  ISBN 0-8499-4312-4

  The young orphan boy was abandoned and raised in an Ethiopian monastery. When relief expert Jason Marker agrees to take Caleb from the monastery, they begin an incredible journey filled with intrigue and peril. Together with Leiah, a nurse who escapes to America with them, Jason discovers Caleb’s stunning power. Jason and Leiah fight for Caleb’s survival while the world erupts into debate over the source of his power. In the end nothing can prepare any of them for what they will find.

  A Man Called Blessed

  by Ted Dekker and Bill Bright

  ISBN 0-8499-4380-9

  In this explosive sequel to Blessed Child, Rebecca Solomon leads a team deep into the Ethiopian desert to hunt the one man who may know the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.

  But the man in their sights is no ordinary man. His name is Caleb, and he, too, is on a quest—to find again the love he once embraced as a child.

  The fate of millions rests in the hands of these three.

  Discover more at TedDekker.com

  The Martyr’s Song Series

  Heaven’s Wager

  ISBN 0-8499-4515-1

  He lost everything he ever wanted—and
risked his soul to get what he deserved. Take a glimpse into a world more real and vital than most people ever discover here on earth, the unseen world where the real dramas of the universe—and of our daily lives—continually unfold.

  When Heaven Weeps

  ISBN 0-8499-4516-X

  A cruel game of ultimate stakes at the end of World War II leaves Jan Jovic stunned and perplexed. He’s prepared for neither the incredible demonstration of love nor the terrible events that follow. Now, many years later, Jan falls madly in love with the “wrong”woman and learns the true cost of love.

  Thunder of Heaven

  ISBN 0-8499-4517-8

  When armed forces destroy their idyllic existence within the jungles of the Amazon, Tanya embraces God, while Shannon boldly rejects God, choosing the life of an assassin. Despite their vast differences, they find themselves in the crucible of a hideous plot to strike sheer terror into the heart of America.

  Discover more at TedDekker.com