Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  Pain as I realized Priest would be going quite literally crazy knowing I’d been taken, wondering if I’d been killed.

  Pain as I thought about adding more grief to my family when they were already so mired deep in hurt.

  Then the blinding pain in my head that robbed my eyes of sight even when I was finally able to pry my lids open.

  I gazed unseeingly as I remembered the events leading up to my being there. The gunshot in the clearing, Priest trying to get to me, and Officer Moore driving the car, telling me he was taking me to safety, taking me to a haven. The word haven had hit wrong; a discordant note struck in my mind. I’d questioned him about it, leaning forward toward the console. He’d slammed the brakes so hard, I’d swung forward and hit my head with a hard crack against the plastic. A moment later, his hands were coming at me with some kind of syringe in his grip.

  Now, this.

  “Oh, God,” I croaked, just to see if my voice worked.

  It did, though poorly like a door creaking on rusty hinges. The words scraped through my throat.

  No one answered.

  I blinked rapidly, feeling tears flush away the dark and roll down my cheeks. Light broke through, images blurred and condensed into discernable shapes.

  I was in some kind of backwoods church.

  It was a shed, really, a lean-to built from old wood that was cracked and poorly insulated. The wind whistled sharply through the gaps, swirling in the little chapel like a harsh whisper so that the entire space seemed filled with ghostly voices. I turned my head on a wince to see the front of the space, a rough-hewn altar topped by a massive, crudely carved cross the size of a grown man. There were rust-coloured stains on the cross.

  I didn’t know anything that left that kind of residue but blood.

  A shiver rocked through me, black spots dancing in my vision as I gritted against the jarring pain in my head.

  What had my abductor given me?

  I sucked a freezing breath into my lungs, then watched the plume of hot breath billow around me. Deep breathing did nothing to calm me. I was alone in some Godforsaken shack in the middle of nowhere without a phone or any means of communicating with the people I was sure were looking for me.

  I couldn’t just count on them to find me.

  I had to rely on myself to get out of this and get to them.

  My hands were bound behind my back with rough rope that rasped over the thin skin of my wrists every time I shifted. I fell to one hip, hoping to get leverage to stand and try the door at the far end of the space even though I could clearly see chains around the handles.

  A whimper from somewhere among the spare pews held me still.

  “Hello?” I called.

  My echoing voice returned in answer.

  Carefully, I started to shift again onto my knees.

  Another whimper, this one sharper, longer like a keening animal.

  I looked around deliberately this time, trying to see into the shadows poorly lit by two halogen construction lights with exposed bulbs. To the far left, sticking out from behind one of two rows of pews, I saw a foot.

  A foot wearing a high heel.

  Instantly, hope overtook my panic and fear. I rolled forward onto my knees and started to shuffle across the packed earth floor toward that shoe.

  As I drew closer, I saw a long, pale leg encased in nude hosiery and the hem of a black wool dress. It wasn’t until I nearly fell around the corner of the pew, knocking my hip painfully against the corner, that I knew for sure who it was.

  Tabitha Linley.

  She was passed out on the ground with a large gash in her head, dried blood flaking off the skin of her left cheek and neck where it had spilled to pool on the ground beneath her.

  I choked on a gasp. “Oh my gosh, Tabby.”

  She didn’t stir.

  I shuffled forward, desperate to get my hands free so I could check her breathing and perform CPR if need be. One of the lights was burning just behind me, prompting an idea.

  I rocked to my feet awkwardly and backed up to the fixture. A hiss seared through my lips as I held my bound wrists to the exposed bulb and started to work the rope back and forth over the hot wire encasing it. Sweat popped along my brow and rolled into my eyes. The delicate skin of my hands burned and blistered, but I continued.

  Finally, the rope splintered enough that I could snap it open with a jerk of my wrists.

  “Tabby,” I called immediately, rushing back to her prone form. I kneeled at her side, lightly shaking her, then gently slapping at her cheeks to revive her. “Tabitha!”

  She was breathing, which gave me hope, but it took a long minute for her to stir. First, a little groan worked past her chapped lips, then a harsher whimper. Her bruised face contracted in a pained frown as her eyes fluttered open.

  “B-Bea?” she whispered hoarsely as she tried to sit up, but then collapsed back to the ground. “Oh my gosh, what’s going on?”

  “We’re in some kind of ramshackle church,” I told her softly, worried she might have a concussion. I helped her sit up with her back against the pew, then wet the edge of my sweater with spit so I could wipe away some of the blood flaking over her brow. “I’m so sorry. We tried to make a switch for you with the serial killer, but he tricked us. Are you okay? Have you seen him? Has he hurt you?”

  Seeing her bleeding on the floor made my heart clench with guilt. I’d known she was in pain, suffering some kind of horrible fate at the hands of the killer, taken because he wanted me and he knew I loved Tabby.

  Tabby blinked owlishly. “What? I haven’t seen anyone. One minute, I was getting into my car, and the next, I’m here with you. But why would he take us? I thought he only took sinners.”

  “Well, I’ve been dating a man in The Fallen MC. At this point, it’s fairly obvious they’re antithesis to the killer’s beliefs, so he probably thinks it was a sin for me to sleep with him. He’s obsessed with this idea of making me his spiritual wife…. He’s clearly delusional. He took you to get to me.”

  Tabby blinked again. She had wide eyes the colour of soft clay, malleable, I’d always thought, very much like her people-pleasing personality. She ducked her head, tucking a lock of bloody hair behind her ear with a shaky hand. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. I-I was just leaving church when someone jumped on me from the shadows. I was so scared, but then everything went black. I remember thinking Seth would be so worried when I didn’t come home.”

  “I only spoke to him on the phone briefly,” I told her, remembering the quick call I’d made to him while Priest and I drove to the scene of the exchange. “But he’s strong. He’ll pray for you.”

  Tabby sucked in a ragged breath and turned her teary eyes to me. “He’s so much better than I am. I never deserved to be with someone like him.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t know you felt that way about him. To me, you always seemed so perfectly matched.”

  A little grin curled her mouth, but there was a manic light in her eyes that set my teeth on edge. “Oh well, thanks. I definitely try to be good for him. Better for him.”

  “Okay… Well, why don’t we see if we can get the hell out of here?” I suggested as I stood, moving to offer her my hand before I remembered how badly burned it was. “I don’t know how long we’ve been here for, and that lunatic could come back any minute.”

  “Did you say you’ve been sleeping with a man from The Fallen?” Tabby asked as she worked her way slowly to her knees. “They’re all completely uncivilized, Bea. I know your sister made the decision to marry one, but I thought you knew them for what they were. Criminals and animals.”

  I ground my teeth to keep from gnashing at her, trying to remember that the context of Tabby’s life was so much narrower than my own. She judged because she was afraid of the unknown, and The Fallen were impossible to predict.

  “Let’s talk about the finer details of crime and sin when we get out of here, okay?” I recommended, already moving toward the entrance to examine the chains
looped through the cut-out crosses on either side of the double doors. “I think this wood is flimsy enough to break down. If you help me with that light, I think we could use it to…”

  I trailed off as the chains started to rattle, backing away slowly as they slid with an ominous hiss through the carved wood and disappeared into the darkness on the other side.

  Then nothing.

  I waited, breath suspended, heart stuttering in my chest.

  But nothing happened.

  I looked over my shoulder at Tabby who was still on her knees, hands held aloft as if in prayer, terror transforming her face into something grotesque.

  Tentatively, I took a step closer to peer out the black cross-shaped wedge of space in the greying oak door, but only darkness met my gaze. I pressed my shaking right hand to the wood and started to press it open.

  Crack.

  The doors exploded inward, the panel hitting me square in the forehead, sending me careening backward. My ankle twisted as I tried to catch my footing so I went down badly, head crashing into the back of the church bench.

  Black spots riddled my vision as I blinked through the pain and the rush of sudden tears, desperate to see who stood in the open doorway looming over me.

  “Beatrice Lafayette,” a cold voice intoned from above. “You are not going anywhere until you atone for your myriad of sins.”

  Tabby scrambled forward and knelt beside me to help me into a seated position. The scent of her sugary perfume was a comfort as I fought through my disorientation. There was no doubt I had a concussion, my second in three months, and it was hard to focus through the dizzying pain.

  I blinked hard, then looked up at the man who’d caused so much pain. He wore all black with a deep hood pulled up over his head, concealing his features.

  For one dark, terrifying moment, he looked exactly like Priest. Elation and sickness surged through me because I knew it wasn’t my psychopath who came to save me even though he cut the same reassuring figure. It was on purpose, I was sure. This man was a psychopath who enjoyed playing games. He had a different collection of traits from the psychopathy metre than my Priest. They shared the same lack of empathy, desensitization to violence and death, and the shocking ability to fit with the norm when it suited them, but this man was also clearly self-aggrandizing, dramatic, and narcissistic. He thought he was cleverer than everyone else, more powerful, a total authoritarian.

  I needed to remember that when dealing with him if I wanted to get Tabby out of this alive. I wasn’t naïve enough to think the same hope existed for me.

  “Please, let Tabitha go,” I beseeched him, trembling voice and wide, terrified eyes so he would believe I was properly cowed instead of outrageously angry. “She’s a good wife, a pious Christian. Whatever sins she might have committed are nothing in the face of her love for the Lord.”

  Tabby made a little noise beside me, pressing closer in comfort. Her hand stroked over my hair in a gesture that was so familiar it made my heart burn. I wrapped my arms around her, tucking her head beneath my chin to shield her and comfort her in equal measure. She was older than me, but Tabby had always been soft. Age had nothing to do with the fact I was the stronger of the two of us, and it was up to me to protect her.

  The man was silent as he hovered over us, clearly enjoying the headiness of his physical superiority and the power of his silence.

  Finally, he crouched, careful to maintain enough distance so I couldn’t see into the shadowy recess of his hooded face.

  “She is a good wife,” he agreed in a chilling monotone. “Not good enough for the Prophet, but she does try.”

  Tabby whimpered, clutching at me with sharp nails.

  “She was never as good as you,” he continued, cocking his head in a faint mimicry of Priest. “The moment I met you, I knew it was you who was meant to tend to me and our new flock. Not her.”

  Tabby shivered so violently, she moaned.

  A niggle of terror worked its way like a worm into the soil of my mind.

  This wasn’t right.

  This couldn’t be…

  “Isn’t that right, Tabitha?” he asked silkily.

  Beside me, my friend shivered again, then rolled back her shoulders, affecting a change to her entire demeanor. It was as if she’d pulled back the curtains to reveal the operator behind them.

  The glint in her eyes wasn’t fear. Maybe it never had been.

  It was madness.

  I flinched as she leaned forward to press a soft, sweet kiss to my cheek, then rolled easily to her feet as if she hadn’t been badly beaten. I watched with my heart beating hard in my throat, choking me of breath, as she almost skipped over to our abductor’s side.

  “I’m not worthy,” she agreed simply as she leaned like a kitten into his shoulder and nuzzled. Then she looked at me with a soft, almost dreamy expression. “But you could be, if you would just repent.”

  “Tabitha,” I said slowly, almost afraid of voicing my fears as if that would make a difference to the outcome of this nightmarish situation. “What are you doing?”

  “Supporting my husband as a wife should,” she explained with a little furrow in her brow. “Supporting him as you should, Bea.”

  “Oh, my God,” I choked as bile clawed up my throat and my stomach heaved.

  “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain,” the hooded man admonished chillingly, stepping forward to kneel so close to me I could feel the wash of cold air as he descended to my level. When he flipped back his hood with a jerk of his head and regarded me with lovely blue eyes gone to frost with chill, I wasn’t surprised, only deeply, irreconcilably horrified. Seth Linley reached out to grasp my chin in a punishing grip in order to bring my face closer still. His breath, when he spoke nearly against mine, tasted of communion wine. “For the Lord’s name is also my own.”

  Bea

  He explained while he had Tabitha prepare me for my penance. It irritated him that I fought them both, especially when my foot caught Tabitha’s chin and sent her crashing into one of the construction lights. So he produced a startlingly large syringe from inside his dark jacket, flicked it a few times, then stabbed it mechanically into my neck. A painful pressure popped in my veins, then I went lax, every muscle in my body melting to inactivity within minutes

  A muscle relaxation, he told me in that monotone I’d never heard before, a strong one.

  They didn’t bother to tie me up, an oversight that I planned to exploit just as soon as I got sensation back in my limbs.

  For the first time since his reveal, Seth touched me, leaning down to run his soft hands over my crown into my hair. The expression on his classically handsome face was so tender, a study in empathy. He looked so human then that it chilled me to the bone. Because I knew he was utterly inhumane, the worst kind of psychopath, who believed in nothing more than his own conviction.

  And Seth? He was full of purpose.

  He was God’s mouthpiece on earth. The first modern-day messiah. He waxed on and on about the lessening of morality today, how corrupted people were, how much guidance they needed, how Entrance was a cesspool of sinners from The Fallen to Irina Ventura’s pornography and sex trafficking operation.

  “Your grandpa tried,” he allowed with a smile that sliced sharply between his cheeks as he flipped through a worn, black leather Bible. “But his connection to God was lessened by the sins of his house. Your sister turned your family name to one of wickedness.”

  I wanted to speak, to tell him that my sister had done no such thing, that my grandpa was the saintliest man I knew, but my tongue was dry and heavy in my mouth.

  Tabby was undressing me, I realized with a sharp stab of panic, cutting my clothes away until I wore just my underwear. Seth studied me almost clinically, but it was Tabby who spoke. “You and I will both tend to our messiah. I am his physical wife, tied to his bodily needs, and I will produce his heirs. But you will be his spiritual equal, his holy wife. He deserves this. God sent him a vision of it.”

&
nbsp; I was able to whimper, just barely, but Tabby only gave me a little smile warm with comradery. “It will be an adjustment as Seth teaches you our ways, but when you settle in, I know you’ll love being with us.”

  “You’ll recognize many of our flock from First Light Church,” Seth boasted as Tabby pulled an old-fashioned white dress with a ruffled neck over my head, pulling my arms through the long sleeves. “Opal Burns, of course, played Tabby so brilliantly in the clearing today. Her son Owen already sacrificed himself for our cause, so it was only fitting Opal should follow. And Eric…” He clucked his tongue. “Well, I tried with him, I really did. He came to our church so diligently at first, but then I sensed him turning from my light. His sacrifice was necessary.”

  Seeing the panic in my eyes, Seth paused in his pacing and Bible skimming to bend down to me. “They shot him in the clearing, you see, thinking he fired the gun. It was Opal, good sweet Opal so pious for me. The women always are. It takes a little more to swing the men, but that is why I have Tabitha.”

  Tabby laughed warmly, clearly delighted by the praise.

  Eric.

  Oh, my God.

  Sweet, beautiful Eric with his plays at rebellion and his pure heart.

  Tears burned the backs of my eyes and tipped down my cheeks. Seth tutted me as he bent to collect my now robed form in his arms the way grooms carried their brides.

  “Don’t cry for him. He’s not worth your beautiful heart. You’ll learn, only the devout are gifted with God’s light.”

  He was crazy. So crazy. Inside my frozen body, I shivered and railed against his tender hold. I imagined ripping out his throat with my teeth, cursing him to hell, breaking his neck. Instead, I lay limply in his hold as he took me outside into the brightly moonlit night and started around the back of the church. A river babbled through the snow, punctured with shards of gleaming ice.

  “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” he said, inhaling deeply like a child on Christmas morning, filled with excited anticipation. “I will baptise you, cleanse you of your sins, and then you will be mine. My pure God-given wife. I’ll kill the man you sinned with,” he promised like a lover’s pledge. “He doesn’t deserve to live after he’s sullied you.”