Forgiven

by Gina Detwiler

  I glance at Lucille, seated next to Harry, whose eyes rake me with single-minded purpose.

  “Why are they here?” I point to Shannon and Harry. As I do so, I look around for something within reach I can use as a weapon. I have been given only a plastic spoon.

  “Harry’s a member of the group, of course,” Speer replies. “The Ravels have been generous investors and spiritual guides to me personally. I’m not the religious type, but I do like their brand of religion. It’s self-empowering without getting bogged down in boring theology. It’s what the world needs.”

  I want to laugh.

  “You see Jared, we aren’t the bad guys here,” says Harry Ravel. “We’re the future, sitting right here at this table. The work we do will unite the world to solve our shared problems. We pool our resources, our knowledge, and our faith, in the spirit of mutual cooperation. And you are a part of this. Your gift could save the world.”

  I stare at him in utter disbelief. Save the world? Is he insane?

  “It’s not a gift,” I say. “It’s a curse.”

  “All I know is that a year ago, I was doomed to die a painful and humiliating death and now, I am completely cured,” Speer says. “I’m better than I was before. Even Marta couldn’t believe it. That’s why I wanted her to meet you, to prove you were real. You see, Jared, your genetic ‘mutation’ is actually an un-mutation. Your DNA, for some reason, has not been corrupted by the constant thinning of the gene pool for a millennium. You are how men were supposed to be. How they were in the beginning before entropy set in. Shame on you, for keeping it all to yourself for so long.”

  “You have the power to cure hundreds, even thousands of people,” says Harry. “Not only genetic diseases but cancer, heart disease, and any number of terrible ailments.”

  “And now we have the technology to make it happen,” adds Speer. “Well, I do. As soon as my treatment is approved.”

  “So you are going to…sell my DNA to the world?” I ask.

  “Of course!” Speer waves a forkful of eggs in the air. “You’ll be richly rewarded, I promise you. Look, I can’t simply give it away. This technology is expensive. It requires seed money. The Interlaken Group and the Hyde Foundation have provided the startup costs, but making this procedure available to the world will require a lot of capital.”

  “So you will steal my DNA to make yourself and these people rich.”

  “Jared! My friend! You have it all wrong. I have no intention of stealing your DNA. That would be illegal and immoral. I need your permission to proceed.”

  “My permission?” Have I been propelled to an alternate universe? “I’m sitting here, tied to a chair and drugged, and you expect me to give you permission to use my body for your science experiment?”

  Harry speaks. “Jared, you believe in Jesus Christ, don’t you?”

  “Yes—”

  “What did Jesus do? He helped people. He made the blind see, the deaf hear, the paralyzed walk. He offered his body as a sacrifice for many. Don’t you want to do what He did?”

  The question blindsides me. I see, for an instant, a possible path to redemption. Could this be it?

  I lower my gaze and shake my head. “My condition…comes with a price. A very heavy price. And I’m not talking about money.” I stop to catch my breath. Even talking exhausts me. “There are side effects—”

  “You mean for people who aren’t in our genetic line, right?” Speer doesn’t let me finish. “You’re worried about a compatibility issue. Marta here is working on that hiccup. But we can’t proceed further until we have enough of your DNA to start manufacturing the serum. We need your blood, Jared.”

  “And you are seriously asking me to give it to you?”

  “Of course. Did you think I would take it without asking?”

  I look down at my restraints. “Yes.”

  Speer chuckles. “I admit I could have done that when you were sedated. But I don’t want to do things that way. This is not an illegal operation. We’re not mad scientists here. We’ve prepared a contract. Take a look.” Hyde hands him a sheaf of papers, which he places before me. “Read it before you sign.”

  I look through the papers. The writing is small and it’s hard to focus. The words jumble on the pages.

  “Do humanity this service, Jared,” says Harry. “You are a good man. I know you are, deep down.”

  “And if I don’t sign it?”

  Speer’s pleasant smile disappears. “If that’s your answer, we will let you go—with the knowledge that you could have saved thousands of lives but you chose not to. Because you were too selfish.”

  Am I being selfish? I’ve always looked upon this condition of mine as a curse. But is it, in fact, a blessing? Had Ariel led me here and shown me these things so I would agree? Is it God’s will that I participate in this plan to save the human race?

  Save the human race. What a lie that is, the mother of all lies. I know what signing this paper and agreeing to this scheme will really do to the world. I stare at it as if staring my destiny in the face. Speer won’t let me go, if I refuse. He’ll keep me here until I agree. Or he will just take my blood anyway. But maybe I can control his ambition a little.

  I look at Speer. “Add wording that neither my genetic material nor your treatment will ever be turned over to the government or the military.”

  Speer looks surprised and pleased. “Absolutely.”

  “And that you will never, ever, tell anyone about me.”

  “Of course. One hundred percent confidentiality. You have my word.”

  “Fine, then. Make those changes, and I’ll sign.”

  Speer’s whole face splits into a grin. Everyone else exhales a collective breath.

  “The world will thank you, Jared,” says Harry. “Even if they don’t know your name. God will bless you.”

  A flash blinds me like a thousand camera bulbs going off at once. A familiar voice speaks aloud in the room, although I am the only one who can hear it.

  —What are you doing?

  —I’m giving them what they want.

  —You know where this will lead.

  —Yes.

  —And you don’t care.

  —No. I don’t.

  I have nothing but rage in my bones now, rage against these people and their schemes, their grand plans to make the world as they want it. Rage against the thing that made me what I am, a cursed being, forlorn, forsaken, and unredeemable. Unforgiven.

  —What about Grace?

  That stops me cold. What about Grace? What would happen to her? And Ralph? And Silas? I don’t know. But they are better off without me. Through these past years, I have started to have hope that I might be saved. But now I understand my purpose. It is not to save the world but to assist in its destruction.

  I can rest in knowing that Grace and the others are covered. They are in the Spirit. They will be there at the dawn of the New World, the true New World Order. Not one made by men, but by God.

  The light fades.

  Hyde returns a short time later with a new copy of the contract. He puts it in my hands and I read while the others watch in expectant silence. Having read the contract, I hold out my hand, and someone places an ink pen in my palm. I sign, and Speer scrawls his signature as well.

  ***

  “You might be interested in how this works,” Wilder says as he prepares the blood donation kit. Actually, I’m not, but he doesn’t wait for my reply. “We’ll extract the DNA from your white blood cells. The technology works much like cut-and-paste on a computer. We use RNA to target the defective gene sequence, cut it apart, and replace it with your DNA sequence. We’ve been doing it for years in mice and embryos, but Darwin was the first adult human to receive the treatment. We weren’t really sure if it would work, but as you can see, it worked beautifully.”

  Yes, I can.

  “We’ll take two pints at a time. I’m supposed to wait a week between donations, but since your blood regenerates at a faster rate than an or
dinary person, I’d say every other day will suffice. After the donation, we’ll give you an injected sedative to keep you calm. But no more of the paralytic. You should be able to move about on your own.”

  “Move about?”

  “Of course! You are our partner now, Jared. You can go anywhere you want on the yacht. Enjoy it. It’s a beautiful boat.”

  Is it big enough that I won’t run into Harry or, worse, Shannon? I doubt it, but I am glad for the freedom. As my strength returns, I need to move.

  “How much blood will you need?” I ask Wilder as he straps the tourniquet on my arm.

  “We’ll start with twelve pints. That should be sufficient. Our team is working on a way to synthesize your genome.”

  “You mean you’re going to clone me?”

  “In a way. But don’t worry, there will not be little Jareds jumping out of Petri dishes anytime soon. Our treatment is strictly for therapeutic purposes. Here, hold this.” He puts a ball in my hand. I grasp it as he sticks the needle in my veins. The attached bag starts filling up with blood. “We are all shocked by the speed at which Darwin’s condition reversed. It’s a momentous breakthrough. Think of all the young people stricken with Huntington’s who will be able to lead normal lives. You are doing the world a great service, Jared.”

  I say nothing.

  “No one at the lab can get over it. Your genetic makeup, I mean. They’d never seen anything like it. You are the most unusual human specimen we’ve ever encountered.”

  That’s one way to put it.

  He continues until two bags of blood are filled, then he pulls the needle out and presses a gauze bandage over the hole in my arm.

  “All done. Take it easy, now. Two pints of blood is a lot, even for you.” He puts the bag of my blood in a cooler and tosses the needle in a bin. “How are you feeling? Any nausea?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Rest here for a few minutes.” He snaps off his latex gloves. “I’ll have Owen bring you some food. I noticed you didn’t eat your breakfast.” He pats my shoulder in that fake-fatherly way of his and leaves. Owen appears with a tray of food—some sort of creamy soup and saltines. I ignore him and he goes away without speaking.

  Twelve pints. Twelve days. Then I will be free.

  22: A Demon’s Fate

  Grace

  Days pass with no word from Jared. I press his number on my phone over and over, unable to accept the fact that he doesn’t answer. By the fourth day, even voicemail doesn’t respond anymore.

  Speer’s yacht doesn’t show up on any of the ship-finder sites, despite Ripley’s repeated efforts. I call everyone I can think of, including the U.S. Coast Guard. No one can give me any information. I’m shocked that a private yacht can simply disappear, but they say once a boat is out in the open ocean, there really isn’t any way to locate it unless it sends out a radio signal. And this boat clearly does not want to be found. This boat belongs to Darwin Speer. If he wants to disappear, he will.

  Meanwhile, the news from Norway isn’t nearly as bad as we had thought. The media reported that the weird blue light in the sky was the result of a failed rocket test from Russia, which had, purely by coincidence, occurred at the same time as an unusually ferocious lightning storm.

  “Yeah, it usually takes them a day or two to come up with some plausible explanation for the weird stuff that happens,” Ripley commented. He never believed anything the media or the government said, preferring to get his information from conspiracy websites. But even the conspirators couldn’t seem to agree. Theories went from alien invasion to secret government projects to military testing of new and more horrifying weapons. A few even believed the Abyss had been opened.

  We’ve watched the news incessantly, looking for signs that the Watchers might be on the loose. But no strange sightings have been reported of giants rampaging the earth, other than the usual reports of Bigfoot and Sasquatch. Ralph even calls his friend Enok, the boat captain who had taken us to Seiland, to see if he had heard anything.

  “Not a thing,” Enok tells him, “but you know, people up here see all sorts of things and most everyone ignores them.”

  That was certainly true, as Enok himself had told us about his mortal battle with a giant kraken in which he lost an eye, and I never could tell if he was joking.

  Silas and Penny try to help but neither of them can offer any solution, short of chartering a boat or a plane and physically searching the Atlantic Ocean for Darwin Speer’s yacht. Silas distracts himself by working on the loft. Penny tells me to keep praying. It is the best thing we can do for Jared.

  I try. But my prayers turn into rants against Jared and against God.

  One day, at the bottom of my despair, I take the Mini and drive to Silo City.

  I need to be close to him, to feel his presence near me again. Jared had “lived” in this place for nine months. Knowing now that Silo City was actually owned by William Hyde makes me wonder about the mysterious ways of God.

  I drive down Ohio Street to the entrance. The complex of grain silos has a “No Unauthorized Access” sign on the gate. I rattle the chain link fence, but it’s locked. I can barely see the corner of Jared’s silo at the end of the gravel path. For a moment, I try to conjure his face, imagine him leaping through the silos, racing down the conveyors and monkeying up and down the marine towers. But I can’t get there.

  Instead, I follow the fence down the embankment to the river’s edge. I wade through the tall weeds and sit on a broken chunk of concrete in the shadow of the silos, watching the river flow below me. There is no sound but dragonflies buzzing on the surface of the water. I close my eyes and try to imagine him again—where he is now, what he’s doing. I even ask Ariel, but he doesn’t answer.

  I try praying. I remember that the apostle Paul said that sometimes, we don’t even need words, we simply need groans. So, I groan.

  It occurs to me as I sit there with my knees bent up to my chin, how easy this position is. I never used to be able to sit like this. My legs, which had been crushed in the car accident that killed my adoptive parents when I was six, now bend and straighten easily. When had that changed? I try to remember. Ever since the Abyss…

  The Abyss. Although I still bear the scars on my neck from my encounter with Azazel, my legs have been healed. Was this the result of going to the Abyss and being resuscitated by an angel? Was I different now, like Jared, a being with superhuman strength?

  I stand and walk over to a tree with high limbs. My gaze settles on a limb above me, well out of my reach. I brace myself to jump, to spring into the air and grab hold of it and swing around like a gymnast.

  I spring and miss by a mile. Nope, no super strength, but I still wonder. If I’m not a Nephilim and I’m not a completely normal human, then what am I?

  A noise, a rustle of grass, catches my attention. I whirl, expecting to see a deer or a rabbit. Something dark, definitely not an animal, shifts behind a tree.

  My chest tightens, heart racing. How could I be so dumb to come here all alone? I practically run up the embankment. At the top, I glance back to see the black shape again—definitely a person in a hoodie following me. Torega. He had gone after Penny. Now he was coming after me. Panic takes over my brain and I start to run toward my car.

  “Wait up!”

  The voice doesn’t sound threatening. It sounds—desperate. I freeze as the hooded figure climbs up the embankment after me. His movements are clumsy and slow, as if he’s very tired.

  “Wait. Grace. Please.”

  He knows my name. I shove my hand in my pocket and grab my phone. I wish it was a gun.

  “Stay away from me!” I yell. Now would be a good time to scream. Or sing. I can’t manage either.

  He’s panting. “Don’t run away. I won’t hurt you. Please.”

  He pulls his hood off.

  What?

  I have a flash of memory, like a movie playing out before my eyes—those black eyes staring down at me, full of lust and hatred, giving praise
to Satan while the knife in his hands is poised to rip my heart out.

  “Mace?”

  “I won’t hurt you. I need to talk to you. Please.”

  He says it over and over. His hands are up in surrender. His face is wan and thin. His eyes plead. Not the Mace I remembered.

  “Why aren’t you in jail?” My heart thuds in my ears, but I fight to keep my voice steady. Don’t let him see your fear.

  “I got out.”

  “You escaped?”

  “No. They released me.”

  How had that happened? Why wasn’t I informed? Go, a voice in my head says. Run away. But another voice follows with, Stay. Listen. I don’t know which one to obey.

  “Come any closer and I’ll call nine-one-one.” I dial the numbers on my phone and hover my finger over the send key.

  Mace doesn’t try to approach me. “Please, let me talk to you. I’m clean. I promise.”

  He’s not shaking or wild-eyed and doesn’t appear to be high. The viciousness and the lustful evil I had seen before are gone.

  “I’m listening.”

  He lowers his hands slowly and his shoulders relax. “Man, I could not believe I saw you here. That you would come back. It was like…an answer to prayer.”

  “Prayer?”

  “I’ve been praying. Asking God for a miracle.”

  “God? I thought Satan was your guy.”

  “No more Satan. I’ve been here for days, talking to God. I didn’t think He was listening. And then you showed up.” He smiles and I see he’s missing most of his teeth. He couldn’t be more than nineteen. Only a kid. He was a follower of the Sodality, the Satanic cult that worshipped Satan and the band Blood Moon. The same cult that performed ritual killings for Manuel Torega.

  “That night, during the ritual, I heard the singing. It was your voice, wasn’t it? And I saw…I saw something glowing…covering you. I tried to stab you with the knife, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you because of that glowing thing. It was an angel, wasn’t it?”