All Things Undying by Marcia Talley Page B

chapter and verse, but I’m not familiar with that one,’ I confessed. ‘Hold on.’ I whipped out my iPhone, touched the Google icon and began tapping letters. After a few moments, I had the results. ‘Jeesh.’
    â€˜What’s it say?’
    I showed Alison the screen: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
    I’d rarely seen rage bubble up so quickly. It started in Alison’s shoulders, stiffened the tendons in her neck, reddened her cheeks and the tips of her ears then exploded from her lips. ‘What’s the matter with you people?’ she shouted at the Stepford Wife who was holding the offending sign. ‘Don’t have the balls to say it out loud? That is a threat ! Someone ought to report you to the police!’
    Bailey grabbed his daughter’s arm and pulled. ‘Come on, girl.’
    I lagged behind, staring at the object of Alison’s anger, the woman with the headband, who stared back with about as much emotion as a mannequin in a shop window. ‘I honestly can’t see your objection,’ I told her. ‘As a Christian, don’t you believe in life after death?’
    The woman didn’t say anything at first, and I wondered if the guy standing on the milk crate had trained his minions to keep their mouths shut, no matter what the provocation, like the guards at Buckingham Palace. ‘Alf!’ she shouted, to my utter astonishment. ‘You got any brochures left in the boot?’
    â€˜Who is worthy to open the book and loose the seals thereof,’ Alf proclaimed breathlessly from atop the milk crate. ‘Two boxes of ’em, girl . . . and no one in the heaven, or on the earth . . .’
    â€˜Come with me,’ the young woman said. She propped the offending sign against the wall and led me around the corner to a car park and a dark blue vehicle so covered with window decals and bumper stickers that I would have been hard pressed to come up with its make and model.
    TGIF – THANK GOD I’M FORGIVEN
    ABORTION: 1 DEAD, 1 WOUNDED
    I SAID, THOU SHALT NOT KILL. GO VEGETARIAN.
    THE ROAD TO HEAVEN IS A ONE-WAY STREET
    TEN COMMANDMANTS, NOT SUGGESTIONS
    â€˜This your car?’ I asked.
    â€˜Nah. It’s Alf’s.’ She balled her hand into a fist and gave the lid of the boot a solid thwack. It popped open obediently, revealing a jumble of boxes, oily rags, jumper cables and empty one-liter beverage containers. She stripped the packing tape off one of the boxes, pried up the lid, and peered into its depths. ‘Keep it,’ she said, and handed me a glossy brochure entitled WTL Guardians. The group was represented by a logo that superimposed images of a cross and a book over the rising (or it could have been setting) sun.
    â€˜What are you guardians of?’ I asked, tucking the brochure into my handbag to read later.
    â€˜Way, Truth and Life,’ she replied. ‘WTL. Get it?’
    I got it. ‘What’s WTL’s problem with Susan Parker, then?’ I asked.
    â€˜S’plains in the brochure,’ she said, slamming the lid of the trunk closed. ‘My name’s Olivia Sandman, by the way. What’s yours?’
    â€˜I’m Hannah.’
    â€˜You from Canada?’
    â€˜Vancouver,’ I lied. ‘Well, thanks for the brochure,’ I said, patting the side pocket of my handbag. ‘I’ll give it all the attention it deserves. Right now, though, I’d better hurry to catch up with my friends.’
    I hustled back up the hill, passed Olivia’s colleagues, keeping my eyes down, and joined Alison and her father in the queue of early arrivals, snaking up the handicapped ramp toward the entrance doors. Eventually we were allowed into the lobby where we joined still another line waiting to be let into the theater proper.
    To our right, groups of theater-goers clustered around long, cloth-covered tables selling Dead Reckoning: Season One DVDs, copies