by Sawyer Black
“I’ve been busy,” he said, impressing Henry with unwavering patience.
“Can you go to the cops? Tell them you saw a tattoo? Give them some clue to the real killers.”
“But I didn’t. They were in and out so fast I couldn't see much beyond the masks under their hoodies. And I refuse to lie, even if I do believe you.”
Henry sighed.
“You must let it go, Henry. Allow God to do His work, so you can find the justice that you, and the many families victimized at Burg Spires last night are seeking.”
“Last I heard, God wasn’t in the justice business.”
Pastor Owen ignored him. “Lay low, Henry. Don’t go to Samantha. She can’t handle anything else right now. And don’t come here. At least not for a while. The police will probably be coming and going, asking follow-up questions of me and my staff.”
“I can stick to the shadows. I’ll be fine.”
The pastor smiled, but Henry could see it was only there so they didn’t argue.
“One of the poor souls taken in cold blood was named Shane McGuinness. Shane was born to Ryan and Molly McGuinness after nine years of trying. Yes, Henry, nine years, with only a few flickers of wavering faith. They were as committed a couple as I’ve ever seen, hopelessly devoted to finding their best possible life together. I had the privilege of helping them through their early years of marriage and many unsuccessful attempts at conception. At four years old, Shane was the youngest of our boys here at Burg Spires. Now he’s dead.”
Henry wanted the pastor to shut the fuck up. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Henry, when we give into darkness, that darkness feeds and grows, destroying everything in its wake. Your actions are not happening in a vacuum. If this was retaliation, then you’ve set something into motion which you cannot hope to stop. I suggest you surrender before they kill again, or Heaven forbid, hurt Samantha.”
“You sound like Randall. He told me to turn back now, while the gates of Heaven were still open to me. So what am I supposed to do? Walk away from everything? No.” Henry shook his head. “This won’t end unless I end it.”
“It only ends when you walk away. Trust in God. It seems as if Randall has offered you a way back. Take it. Go. Be with your daughter.”
“What about Sam? If they did this and they’re still going after her, then she’s in big-time danger. These monsters don’t know how to stop and seem willing to do anything.”
“God has spared her twice. Do you think that’s an accident? For whatever reason, He has allowed your wife to escape two terrible tragedies. Two! You must have faith that He will continue to keep her safe.”
“Well there’s the problem. I’m fresh out of faith.”
“Then what about mercy, Henry? Remember, blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
Henry turned to leave.
“What are you going to do, Henry?” Pastor Owen asked.
“Pray for mercy.”
CHAPTER 29
Henry returned to his former home, trying to keep his mind from cycling through worst-case scenarios like it always did. One of the things he hated most about himself was the near-crippling insecurity that came from simply being him. Ugly and fat and no good in school, awkward and bloated with a stuttering confidence that stumbled and fell and rarely stood up for itself. Worse than a monster, Henry had been a loser. At least monsters had power over the fearful. Losers had power over no one and nothing.
Unless they were funny, which Henry didn’t learn until he was older and taking the stage in smoky clubs.
If you were a loser who told the truth while making people laugh, you could do it while standing at least a foot higher than the rest of the room. Then being a loser might be money in the bank. Girls who wouldn’t have fucked Henry for money a decade back would’ve fallen to their knees and taken it on the face before the ink was dry on his deal, just for the privilege of being backstage with His Royal Chuckles for fifteen minutes.
But Henry had never said yes. Not once. Not even when high.
He had Samantha. As hard as it was to love her sometimes, and as much of a mess as she’d been during their early years, Henry had never wanted anyone else since the day she sat in one of his acts, yelling for him to speak louder because she wanted to hear what he had to say. Then, sitting at an outside table of a restaurant a few blocks from the club, Henry had told one story after the other for forty minutes. Not one had passed without her laughing.
She loved him because he made her laugh, and for Sam, that was as good as salvation from the rough life she’d had.
Henry approached his house, wondering if Ezra had been pulled from duty.
“Hello, Master Henry,” the goll said a second before he saw him, as if to answer the unspoken question. Ezra dropped from the roof, quick and alert, like he’d been snorting Pixy Stix all night.
“Hey Ezra.” Something about his subservience made Henry want to kick him. Something he’d never felt before, at least not for someone who wasn’t an arrogant asshole. “See anything tonight?”
“Not tonight, Master Henry.”
Henry hoped Ezra would say something else, anything, so he wouldn’t have to. But the goll stayed silent.
“Aren’t you gonna tell me I’m not supposed to be here?”
“No, Master Henry. Master Boothe said you might come and to let you do whatever you wanted.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Master Henry.” Ezra looked at the house rather than him.
Henry felt bad, wondering if he’d somehow offended the goll. “Thank you,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “For protecting Sam.”
“It is my privilege to serve you and your beautiful wife.”
“Hey, Ezra, mind if I ask you a question?”
“Of course not, Master Henry.”
“Did Boothe say anything about me not helping him or you no longer coming here?”
“No, Master Boothe has said nothing. Only that you were having doubts.”
Henry snorted. “Doubts. That what he’s calling it?”
“What do you doubt, Master?”
“It’s complicated. I don’t want to do the wrong thing.”
“I understand, Master Henry.”
“Tell me, Ezra, do you trust Boothe? Has he ever lied to you?”
“No, Master Boothe has never lied. He is the most honest man I know.”
Henry stared into the moon’s bright light, wondering if golls were like humans. More loyal than honest.
“He’s a good man. He’s only trying to get her back.”
“Who?” Henry asked.
“His love. Maria.”
Henry couldn’t hide his surprise. “What do you mean, get her back?”
The goll turned his eyes to the grass. “Ezra said too much. Please, Master Henry, ask Ezra no more.”
A crimson fear of disappointing Boothe dilated Ezra’s eyes, along with something else. Henry thought the goll wasn’t afraid of punishment, so much as scared of letting Boothe down, as though he genuinely cared what the man thought of him. Fear born from respect. Or love.
Boothe? Who the fuck is this guy, really?
It didn’t matter. Henry had decided, and there was nothing Ezra or Boothe could say to change it.
“So, Master Boothe said I could do whatever I wanted?”
“Yes, Master Henry.”
“Then I’m going inside.”
“Good luck, Master Henry.” Ezra bowed.
“Anything I should know? Anything changed? The code to cut the alarm still the same?”
“No, Master Henry. Nothing has changed. You should have no difficulties if you stick to the shadows.”
Henry nodded his thanks, then shadowed his body to the porch. He unlocked the door and slipped inside the house. He silenced the alarm like a blade to the throat, crept up the stairs, then slunk through the hallway until he found Sam sleeping on the gym floor, her hand resting on the treadmill beside an empty
bottle of her favorite wine.
Samantha’s mouth hung open wide enough to drive through as she snored. Henry longed to touch her again. He reached out, caressing her raven hair, staring at her for what would likely be the final time.
“Henry?” She stirred in her sleep, mumbling.
He fell back into the shadows, his heart pounding as she went back to snoring.
He pressed himself to the wall and sank to the floor, breathing in harmony with Samantha, in and out, until he was strong enough to stand.
Henry was too hungry for sorrow to stay. Her sadness was horrible, practically saturating the air even as she slept. And he felt like a vampire feeding from her sadness.
Everything inside him, outside of his instincts, begged him to scoop Sam into his arms and carry her across the hall to their bedroom where he could lay her down on their bed. Instead, Henry wiped his eyes, flew to a shadow in the hallway, then went down the stairs and out the front door.
He felt naked, knowing Ezra could see him slipping from the house to the carport, smelling the city, begging him to greet it. The city’s pain wanted him to kill.
He felt weak and murder meant survival.
I can’t allow Boothe to win.
Henry climbed inside his Lexus then pulled out and into the street.
Time to end it all.
Henry once had a friend, Janine Novak. Funny. As. Shit. Even though he could tell she was dying inside since the day they met. There was something inside her, blacker than a missing moon. Pure anger, for what, he never knew. Over a shared bowl of some of the best weed Henry had ever smoked, Janine said that most days she fell asleep hoping she’d never open her eyes and woke up pissed as shit she was still breathing without any easy way out.
He asked Janine if she ever thought of ending it all. Henry thought suicide was crazy, even for a crazy person, since no matter how bad shit was, it was better than being dead with no shit at all. She’d said, “Yeah, all the time,” then proved she could drive thought to action by jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge after a show in LA just one month later.
Four years passed before Henry finally understood. He was ready to die. Right now. A true death, whatever that meant.
Whatever it took not to dance like a monkey for Boothe, so fucking be it. Maybe he would meet Amélie on his way to wherever he went and, hopefully, God and his merry band of fucking angels would find a way to protect Sam in his absence. If not, maybe she was good enough to wind up in Heaven with her daughter. And maybe, if it wasn’t too late, with him, too.
First, he had to get away from Boothe. That meant going someplace where the demon couldn’t. Henry remembered him saying the only place he couldn’t blink to was a place he’d never been.
Henry hoped like Hell Boothe had never been in the Burg City lockup.
He entered the police station in shadow, trying to summon the courage to leave it, and stared at the woman behind the desk, studying her movements while inhaling her sorrow. Divorced twice, one son from each marriage, each too much like his father in all the wrong ways. The first asshole cheated on her seven times, with nine different women. The second never cheated at all, unless you counted the trannies, and she did. The light wrinkles under her eyes might as well have added a hundred pounds to her figure, the way they hung, warning the other sex to stay the hell away. Most mornings she woke up thinking she would be better off dead.
He marveled that his powers, or abilities, or whatever they were, now allowed him to see so much deeper inside the most miserable souls. He wished he’d had the same abilities when growing up. He could’ve verbally torn his life’s assholes to ribbons by slicing right into their deepest insecurities.
Henry stepped from the shadows, appearing in front of the woman, his palms splayed flat on the desktop. He smiled from behind his hoodie as she shrieked, dropping her pen onto the desk. It fell to the floor as she cleared her throat.
“Can I help you?” she asked, trying to stitch her cracking voice together.
Henry lowered his hood and leaned across the desk.
“I’m the man you’re all looking for.”
CHAPTER 30
Henry waited in a box for fate to seal itself around him. It had been ten minutes since he had been led to the interrogation room.
He sat at a table, gray concrete walls on either side, a heavy and presumably locked door in the wall to his right. The only way out of the room. Mirrors bookended him in front and behind. Henry avoided the mirror, not just because of the monstrous man reflecting back, but more for the people behind the mirrors. He felt the cops, watching and judging every twitch as he shifted in his seat.
Their thoughts flooded his brain, as if he were plugged into their minds.
Guilty.
Killer.
What sort of horrible monster does this?
One of the cops thought of Mike Stone, the officer who lost his son in the massacre.
Wait until Mike sees this fucker. This freak just signed his death warrant.
He wished someone would hurry up and come question him. Get on with the process of arresting him. The sooner he was in a cell, unable to get out, the less likely he was to change his mind and flee.
But Henry still wasn’t cuffed, though he had no idea why not. Seemed to him the police would have wanted to beat him bloody if they thought he had anything to do with the church massacre. And because he matched the description of hooded shooters and ran from the scene of the crime, he had to be a suspect.
So why am I just sitting here in a room? What the hell are they waiting for?
Then he considered that perhaps he wasn’t a suspect in the church shootings. Only a ‘person of interest’, as he’d heard on the news. Someone the cops only wanted to speak with. But they were after the Hooded Angel for his string of vigilante murders, and he was turning himself in, ready to confess to what he’d done. That should get him locked up for a good long time.
He formed a circle with his arms on the table and lay his head in the center. Shrouded under the hood, he was reminded of his blankie from when he was four years old, the one he’d wrap himself inside while hiding from monsters. Between the mirrors and people staring from the other side, Henry had never felt more like a carnival freak.
Hear ye, hear ye, come one and all! Get a glimpse of the Hooded Angel! Just one dollar! Arrive curious, leave in terror. This abhorrent freak of nature will chill and thrill you!
The door begged him to use it.
Get out before it’s too late!
Even if it was locked, Henry was reasonably sure he still had enough power to break out. For now.
Because the longer he waited, the weaker he grew. His body drained, as if in concert with his plan. To deplete himself fully, and ensure his imprisonment.
Still, the door begged.
Leave now before it’s too late.
Before they lock you up and throw away the key.
Think you’re a freak now? Wait until they get you in a cell, Henry Boy. You are fucked!
Henry closed his eyes, squeezing the reflection from his sight so his mind could focus on the streaming thoughts from staring men. He sensed five officers, all men. Then a sixth man joined.
Oh, hell yeah. Now Mike’s here! Get a look, Mikey, there he is!
Henry felt a sudden and overwhelming surge of hatred with Mike’s arrival. A raw, repellent stew worse than anything Henry had ever felt on stage, all directed at him from the other side of the mirror.
He’s right to hate me.
I’m a fucking monster.
I killed those kids! I killed his son!
It was my fault.
The mourning cop’s radiating hate revealed the flaws in Henry’s strategy. He wanted to get locked up, somewhere where the demon couldn’t reach him. Boothe said he was limited to only blinking into places where he’d previously been. Henry figured the police station was a safe bet, especially given its recent construction. Henry could fade from life in peace, assuming he could die. He
never intended to force a grieving father into further agony by making him look upon the man he thought responsible for his son’s senseless murder.
For a man like that, forgiveness was only a word.
It meant letting go of a fucker’s throat, even after your fingers were sunk into his flesh. Like the grieving officer, Henry would happily murder whoever hurt, or even tried to hurt, his baby girl.
Though time fuzzed for Henry, he figured he spent another twenty minutes alone in the room before the door finally opened to Halle Berry. At least the officer looked like Halle Berry, if she had ever been cast as a woman waging war in a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a year of exhaustion clinging to her face. She carried a stack of paperwork and a video camera on a tripod.
She approached Henry’s table, removed her glasses, and wiped the back of her hand across her tired eyes. She replaced the frames on the bridge of her nose and turned to Henry. “Hello. I’m Detective Rivera. And you are?”
“John,” he lied. “John Hicks.”
Henry used the same name that had helped him anonymously check into a hundred hotels. The dead-legend blend of John Belushi and Bill Hicks.
“Well, Mr. Hicks,” Rivera said, sitting in the chair on the table’s opposite end. “Thank you for coming in.”
Rivera avoided direct eye contact, instead looking down at the stack of bulging manila folders. Henry wondered if they’d really compiled a ream of paper in such a short time, on what must be minimal sightings, or if the folders were props, used to make him squirm under the weight of what they might know about him.
Rivera’s eyes held the table as she stacked folders in a neat corner to her left, then looked up at Henry as if she’d suddenly remembered something important. “Can I get you a drink? Something to eat?”
Her hospitality seemed almost genuine. Henry wondered how much of his freaky face she could see beneath the hoodie. He had been focusing on the shadows, drawing them toward his face. Being around an attractive woman made him want to crank the shadows even higher.