Helms Rejects Baptist Charges
Capitol Hill—Charlotte Observer
Senior North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms denied Thursday that his amendments to the omnibus farm bill especially benefited North Carolina's demon farmers. The North Carolina Baptist Convention had made the charges last Friday, supported by state Agriculture Department figures showing that Unchained farmers grow tobacco almost exclusively, and have largely displaced human farmers.
"I have always supported the North Carolina farmer," Helms said in a morning news conference. "I have a great respect for the Baptist Convention, and I'm a churchgoing man, but the needs of my constituents have to come first."
The senator also denied making the statement "Well, at least they're not black" at a breakfast on Monday. "I would never say such a thing in public," he replied in response to press queries.
It had been a long two weeks, Rhea thought. An incredible time. She rolled herself deeper into Jack's embrace and sighed as his sleeping arms tightened around her. The sigh tickled his nose. "Ummm," he murmured without waking. It was a friendly sound, non-threatening.
She had almost forgotten what it was like to not probe every word for concealed threats, every course of action for hidden motives.
This quiet passion had sneaked up on her—she hadn't been looking for it at all. When the Unchaining came, she had seen her chance to flee and in the melee, she had taken it. Hell was wearing her down; she would have ended up in the Pit in a couple more centuries, at most, and she didn't think she would ever have the force of character to bring herself back to the status of fallen angel, no matter how long eternity stretched. So she was determined to go out in a blaze of glory: Prometheus gifting the savages with fire and giving a big poke in the eye to both Lucifer and The Other One.
But her grand gesture had become something much more . . . well . . . real. Starting a company was expedient and practical, but it also brought together people who shared a dream and depended on her to make it happen. She had found after a while that their dream, and their joy in dreaming, had more power than her fantasies of revenge and oblivion had ever had. Especially now, when the greatest of the dreamers was the man who held her in his arms.
Jack had made her laugh from the first day she hired him, with his abstracted mannerisms and love of music. She still delighted in the astounding pockets of naiveté that she found in him from time to time, but she'd come to realize that in anything that mattered to him, he had a steel core. He would do the right thing whether it came easily or not; whether it paid off for him personally or not; whether it felt good or not. Integrity, she thought. You just didn't find a lot of integrity in Hell. How could she offer less?
It was funny, really. Centuries of Hell had worn her down to the point that she thought she had nothing left to lose and no choice but oblivion. Then a few short years of passing for human had returned to her things she'd forgotten losing and a few she'd never had: Trust replaced fear; shared pleasures replaced solitary ravaging; the thrill of accomplishment replaced the electric blood-lust charge of desecration. She buried her face in Jack's shoulder. Perhaps, she thought, it's even brought me love.
And all of these good things would bring about her destruction just as surely as if she had remained unchanged and had followed her intended path to the letter.