Flesh Read Free Page A

antlers did not seem to hear them or to understand them—part of which might be explained by the fact that his speech, though American, was a variant of theirs. The other part was explained by the thing that possessed him. It made him deaf to anything but the roar of blood in him.
    Though the paraders made an attempt to pace slowly toward their destination, six blocks away, they could not help increasing speed as they came closer. Perhaps the insults and threats of the young girls to tear them apart if they didn’t hurry had something to do with it. The whips and arrows drew more blood. The girls nevertheless pressed in, and once a girl made a fantastically high jump into the air and knocked over a priestess. She scrambled up and leaped again onto the shoulders of an Elk, but she lost her footing and fell headlong into the group. There she was treated savagely; the men ripped off her clothes, pinched and gripped her everywhere until they drew blood. One man intended to anticipate the Sunhero, but this blasphemy was prevented by others. They knocked him over the head, and then kicked the girl back into line.
    “Wait your turn, honey!” they shouted. They laughed, and one yelled, “If the Great Stag isn’t enough, the little stags will accommodate you later, baby!”
    By the time this incident had passed, the procession was halted at the foot of the steps to the Capitol Building. Here there was some momentary confusion, as the Guards and priestesses tried to shove the girls back. The Elks pulled the Sunhero off the stag and began to lead him up the steps.
    “Hold on just a minute, Great Stag!” they said. “Hold on until you get to the top of the steps. And we will let you go!”
    Raving, the Sunhero glared at them, but he allowed them to hang on to him. He looked at the statue of the Great White Mother on the top of the steps by the entrance to the building. Carved marble, it was fifty feet high with enormous breasts. She was suckling her baby Son. One of her feet was crushing the life out of a bearded dragon.
    The crowd broke into a mighty roar, “Virginia! Virginia!”
    The high priestess of Washington had appeared from the shadows of the columns of the immense porch that ran around the Capitol.
    The light from the torches gleamed whitely on her long skirt and bare shoulders and breasts. It turned dark her honey-colored hair, which fell to her calves. It turned dark the mouth which in the daylight was red as a wound. It turned dark the eyes which in the sun were a deep blue.
    The Sunhero bellowed like a stag who scents a female during rutting season. He shouted, “Virginia! You’ll not put me off any longer! Nothing can stop me now!”
    The dark mouth opened, and the teeth flashed white in the torchlight. A long slim white arm beckoned to him. He tore loose from the many hands holding him and ran up the steps. He was only faintly aware that the drums and bugles and pipes behind him had risen to a crescendo and that the screaming was the high-pitched lust of a mob of young girls. He was only dimly aware of these... and not at all aware that his bodyguard was fighting for its life, trying to keep from being trampled underfoot or torn apart by the long sharp nails of the virgins. Nor did he see that mingled with the fallen bodies of the men were the white skirts and blouses of the girls, cast aside.
    Only one thing made him pause for even a second. That was the sudden appearance of a girl in an iron cage, set at the base of the statue of the Great Mother. She was a young woman, too, but clad differently than the others. She wore a long-billed cap like a baseball player’s, a loose shirt with some indistinguishable marking on it, loose calf-length pants, thick stockings, and thick-soled shoes.
    Above the cage was a large sign with thick-limbed letters in Deecee spelling:
    MAESST
    GAKAETI REA KESILAE
    Translated:
    MASCOT
    CAPTURED IN A RAID ON CASEYLAND
    The girl gave him one horrified look, then covered her eyes and