by JL Terra
“We learn from his failures,” the Teacher said. “And we will prevail.”
“By killing anyone who opposes you?” Taya sighed. “You know this is why society thinks all religions just turn their followers into crazy people with a death wish, right?” She had for years walked the tightrope between faith and the opposition of those who hated what she believed. Many countries she’d been in were hostile to the gospel. Hostile to her just because she was a woman.
Taya had been forced to hide what she believed. To such an extent she tended to default to that now, out of self-preservation. Maybe that wasn’t the courageous, strong-in-her-faith way to live, but it meant she hadn’t been imprisoned. She’d been able to do her job. But what about her life as a Christian?
It was a question she had yet to find a good answer for. She’d been waiting for retirement for the freedom to work that out.
If the Teacher got his way, there would be no world left for her to retire in. Only destruction. All she knew was that if God wanted an army of golems, He would have made one for Himself long ago. But He hadn’t. He had given His Son and then let Christians sort the rest out by themselves—with the aid of the Bible and the Holy Spirit. So many were doing a poor job of it, and some would count her as one of those. But what could she do, except her best? Love the people around her. Try to live what she believed—even if quietly—instead of being a hypocrite.
It might not be noteworthy. But it was honest.
Would God ask more of her than that?
The Teacher scoffed. “I hardly care what people think.”
“Is that why all your followers are ones whose lives have been impacted by the golem? Because you don’t care?”
“Followers?”
“Eric Tiller died so you could abduct Ben the first time.” He’d gotten away the second time as well. The Teacher’s skills evidently weren’t in retaining those he had captured. Which boded well for her ability to escape him. “What about his brother, Tim? And Elaine.” Ben had told her what she’d done. “Is she here now? I’d like a word with her.”
The Teacher’s eyes gleamed. “I’m sure you would.”
“People are a resource to you. Expendable for the sake of your cause.”
He studied her. “You seem comfortable with all this talk of the golem. It doesn’t scare you that there is a creature walking around with man’s face.”
“Ben Mason was my best friend.” He still was. At least, in her heart. “And your golem killed my father. I thought it was Ben for the longest time. I’ve met Roger Stilson, and I now know the truth.”
“Ah, Roger. Or, Karl, I should say.”
“He’s dead.”
The Teacher nodded. “I had heard as much.”
“I’m glad he’s gone,” Taya said. “Roger Stilson kidnapped Ben and put that golem inside him. He destroyed my family. Years later he kidnapped my daughter and tried to do the same to her.”
“The golem is but an instrument.”
“I don’t hate it now. I hate the one who would use it for their own gain.” She lifted her chin. “I hate that innocents are killed every day and I can’t do a thing about it. Only entreat God and listen for Him to send me to save them. He gave me one. My daughter. She’s all I have, and your men probably killed her.”
She wanted to believe Ben had saved Mei.
She wanted to forgive this man for the wrong he’d done her. To leave the vengeance to God and live free of the poison of bitterness.
Taya swiped a letter opener from the desk and slammed it into the Teacher’s chest. He turned at the last second, the angle all wrong for his heart. He cried out, and she shoved him to the floor, the letter opener in her hand. Blood dropped from the tip.
Taya turned and ran.
Found a hallway. Stairs. They’d expect her to head outside, so she went down.
The room where the Teacher had hooked up Ben all over again had been cleaned out. There was no one down here. She cleared the next two rooms. Décor was the same—heavy toward human experimentation.
The end of the hall was shadowed. The fluorescent light on the ceiling flickered. Hummed. Taya strode to the door and reached for the handle. Hesitated. Every horror movie she’d ever seen ran through her mind.
She twisted the handle anyway.
Inside were shelves. Rows and rows of them. Boxes, big and small. Someone had written on them in permanent marker. Toward the back, the boxes were considerably older. Marburg. Spitz. Sonnenfeld. Gelbkopf. Meisl. Kantorova. Steinhauer. Zentner. Meisl. Taya walked the rows and back, to a computer tucked behind the door on a tiny card table.
She wiggled the mouse.
When the display flickered to life, a program filled the screen. An upload was in progress. She watched the bar slide to the right. Scan complete. DNA match.
Grant.
Someone in the house had run his blood through their computer and come up with a match. But every name in this room shared a heritage, one the Mason brothers didn’t possess? Unless they didn’t know their heritage.
The person elsewhere in the house running this program would see, but she clicked anyway. Pulled up the history of this DNA. It listed the previous generation.
Ron Mason: no match.
Brenda Mason: match.
She had to go before someone found her.
Taya clicked a link. The screen navigated to a photo she had seen before. But now she saw not just the half kept, but the whole of it.
Two brothers. Karl and Hans.
One German. One Jewish on his mother’s side.
They were brothers.
A gun barrel pressed into her back. It didn’t matter. She knew what she needed to know now. Hans was Roger’s illegitimate half-brother. Shunned, pursued. Yet the brothers had come through war, and the following decades, to continue their reign of terror.
Was Hans the teacher?
She lifted both hands and spun. Two men held guns on her. The third pulled her arms behind her back and secured them with plastic ties. He bound them so tight she hissed. Then he yanked her from the room. Taya felt the smile spread across her face.
They walked her up the stairs where a stout woman in a skirt suit rounded the corner at the end of the hall. Face flushed, she trotted along on her pumps, a handful of bandages and gauze in her arms. Elaine? Taya wanted to trip her just because. Military guy walked her to the end of the hall and out a set of French doors.
“I’ve always liked the night.”
He shoved her along the patio, down four stone steps.
She looked up at the sky as she walked. “It’s so peaceful. Especially out where you can see the stars.”
“Drink it in.” He led her onto wet grass. “It’ll be the last thing you see before I put a bullet in your brain.”
“I’ve done everything I set out to do. I guess I can’t complain if this is the end.”
“Your luck’s in then.”
“I don’t believe in luck.”
“You think I care?” He shoved her forward.
Taya turned. The house was lit up behind him. His shadowed face revealed only the taut line of his jaw as he worked it side to side. Lifted his M4. Aimed it at her. Not a bad way to die, considering her life so far had been as pleasant as having her brain matter splattered all over the grass. Would the sprinklers wash it away in the morning?
It hadn’t all been bad. That didn’t mean every day she hadn’t moved one step farther away from what she wanted.
Mei knew she loved her at least.
She hoped Ben knew.
Taya closed her eyes. “I’m ready.”
She wouldn’t get to see them one last time. Hadn’t known the last time she saw them that it was the last time she would ever see them. Never got to say goodbye. To offer a final kiss. Take care of them, Lord. They need You.
“Say goodbye.”
Taya opened her eyes. She would go to her death with full awareness of what was happening.
She felt him then, behind her. Bu
t Ben wasn’t really here. The warmth was a figment of her imagination. A manifestation of the desire for him to know at last how she felt. How she’d always felt.
I love you.
She couldn’t speak the words out loud. She wanted to turn her face to him. To feel the warmth one last time. “No!” A man’s voice. Ben. He yelled from across the lawn. Her gaze found him by the house. “Taya!”
Military guy fired.
Arms banded around her. His heat scorched her back. Spun her around. The bullet struck his back.
They both jerked.
The bullet exited through her sternum.
Taya and the golem fell to the wet grass.
Chapter 42
North of Charleston, WV. Monday, 20:23hrs EDT
From across the lawn, Ben saw the second her chest exploded with the force of the bullet. He stumbled. Went down on one knee as his own chest seared in pain. The golem, or his own feelings? There wasn’t time to figure out which it was.
Men surrounded him. Half a dozen, at least. He didn’t take his eyes off Taya, so still on the grass. Dead? Please, God… Could he even ask that she be saved?
The barrel of an M4 poked his rib cage. “Get up.”
Ben didn’t take his gaze from Taya. The mark on his chest burned. Heat traveled to his fingertips. Toes. The top of his head. He pushed out a breath and sucked in cool night air as sweat rolled down the side of his face.
“I said up.” Another poke of the barrel. “Nice and slow. Nothing funny.”
His fingers twitched. No, he couldn’t rub his chest. That would give away a weakness. Ben braced and lifted himself to his feet. “Let me go over there. I can heal her.”
He didn’t know if he could bring back a dead person with his blood. Or someone close to death. He could try though. They had to let him try.
“Hands up.”
Ben swung around, grasped the gun. It went off even while his hand was wrapped around the barrel. He ignored the searing pain—just another to add to the list—and punched. Left hand into the man’s side, right hand on the gun. Air expelled from the man’s lips, and he squeezed the trigger again. Now Ben had the weapon aimed at one of the guy’s buddies.
That guy dropped.
Ben swung for the next man. A shot went off from another gun. Fire ran through his calf. He punched the owner of the weapon he held. His grip loosened. Ben swung the M4 up and depressed the trigger once. Twice.
Taser prongs touched his ankle. Ben’s leg gave out. He fired twice more. Pain shot through his shoulder.
The Taser moved to his arm.
Then his chest.
None of it compared to the burn in his chest.
The weapon fell to the grass. The same grass where she bled out, to far away for him to reach her. His hands were pulled behind his back. One boot pressed into the wound on his leg, another on his shoulder. Black suffused his vision for a two count. Three. Light came back. Ben’s face was pressed against the ground. With one eye he could see a flashlight. The silhouette of a man stood in front of the house. Pain ricocheted around his head. It was like looking straight at the sun. Ben winced, shut his eyes against the blinding light.
“Alvarez?” The voice was male, one of the gunmen. Also, hopeful.
Another answered, “Gone.” No hope.
A boot kicked at Ben’s ribs. He groaned. Steel-toed.
They hauled him to his feet. Ben’s right leg gave out. They didn’t let him fall. “Walk.” He put weight on the leg again and bit down on his molars. It should have healed already. Was the golem destroyed?
He couldn’t lift his head to glance back. Taya. Was she alive?
The men forced him to trudge to the house while blood ran down his calf. Soaked the leg of his jeans, his sock, and boot.
Those boots found stone, then a rug. He cracked open his eyes. The skin around his right eye was swollen. Every breath felt like fire. Cracked ribs—or broken. The light in the house started a migraine.
Down the hall, he left a blood trail all the way to an office where they tossed him on the floor. The Teacher had a face that was fifty percent rodent, fifty percent Armin Shimerman—but without the Ferengi ears. Currently he was ruining the pristine fabric on an antique couch with the blood that ran from his chest.
This was the man who had orchestrated a mission. Involved the Tiller brothers. Destroyed lives. He didn’t look powerful. Just sadistic. Evil didn’t live on a person’s face, it lived in the heart. Ben of all people knew that. It wasn’t something that could be changed, covered over, or healed. Evil permeated everything until it sucked dry all that was good and twisted it for its own gain.
The Teacher’s chest was covered with a blood-soaked bandage. “You have to bring him closer.” His voice was weak, and he motioned equally as weakly at Ben. “Closer.”
Beside him stood Elaine. Ben’s eyes narrowed. She took a step back, wrung her fingers. Latex gloves on her hands. Her face, pale.
The men he hadn’t managed to kill hauled him up by his armpits. Hired gunmen, or more acolytes? They dumped him closer to the couch.
His head bounced off the floor, and pain shot through him. Ben hissed out another breath and mustered what strength he had left. Sweat dampened his shirt. “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
The Teacher ignored his question. He reached down with one hand, fingers trembling. Ben lifted his head from the hardwood and shifted so he could see the man, not just his fingers.
His face was kind of green around the edges. The wound in his chest was probably nasty. “Bad day?”
The Teacher snorted. Winced.
“Who did this?”
“One of your friends.”
Ben managed a small smile. “I don’t think we’ve been officially introduced.”
“The time for the pleasantries will be later. When I’m not bleeding.” His clammy fingers touched Ben’s neck, just above his shirt. Ben couldn’t move to stop him when the bindings on his hands pulled his shoulders to the point they screamed. Any more and they’d dislocate altogether. He wanted to fight. To wiggle himself across the floor, out of reach.
One of the gunmen kicked him closer to the couch.
Purely to distract himself, Ben said, “So you’ve called an ambulance? Taya needs a hospital.” That was the default. Call 9-1-1, get help.
He could save her, if they let him. “Or I can heal her with my blood. I can heal you, too, probably. I’ll do it for you. If you bring her in here.”
The Teacher said nothing.
“I can. I’ll heal you.”
“There will be no bargain between us.” His lips moved, and he muttered low, foreign words. Hebrew. The same language he’d heard Roger Stilson speak.
“Don’t do that.” Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t going to end well.
Back then it had been merely a recitation, like kids repeating words they’d heard but didn’t understand. The Teacher meant every syllable. Passion infused his words. Or perhaps just the desire to live and not die.
His lips curled up and he continued. An incantation. A spell. No, a prayer. Full of faith. The Teacher believed everything he was saying.
A tug began in his chest. Ben looked down. “What…”
The mark above his heart seared like he’d been stuck with a hot poker. He cried out. His toes went cold. His fingertips.
Heat was pulled from the ends of his body, toward the mark. A rush of energy. His life force. The tug increased to a steady wrenching. Strength and energy moved from his body…into the Teacher. Color returned to his rat-like face. Pain lines around his eyes smoothed, and the Teacher blew out a slow breath. “I feel it. Is it working?”
Elaine came closer. She tugged at the bandages and revealed a jagged wound. “It’s closing.”
Before his eyes, the edges knit back together. Like Mei’s wound. Taya. He had to get to her. The Teacher could tell him how to save her. Or bring her back. Whichever it was. In return, Ben would do whatever the Teacher asked.
; He opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. Strength drained from him like an arterial bleed.
His head sank back onto the hardwood. He couldn’t lift even one finger. “Taya.” Her name was a whisper on his lips.
“God has healed me. It was His will that this creature came into being, and its strength has given me life.” The couch creaked as he sat up.
“Taya.” Ben managed a groan.
“She thought to end my life, but I have prevailed.” The Teacher said, “Where is she?”
One of the men said, “Probably bled out on the grass by now. I wouldn’t worry about her.”
“Go. Check.”
“Yes, sir.” His footsteps retreated from the room.
The Teacher had pulled the golem’s energy—his life force—from Ben. He’d healed himself. They could do the same for Taya. He could have healed Mei so much faster if he’d known that.
A tear rolled from the corner of his eye down to the hair above his ear.
Instead, all Roger’s knowledge had been lost in Ben’s mind. Gone, until Elaine had drugged him and the flashbacks started. He was never going to thank her. Their actions had destroyed his ordered life, his job, and family and turned everything upside down. All for their own gain, for the Teacher’s end. This had nothing to do with God’s will. Contrary to what the Teacher had said, healing himself using the golem was the Teacher’s will. Ben didn’t think any of this had much to do with God.
Perhaps He should intervene. But this was their mess, so why did He need to? Ben didn’t really know how all that worked. What he did know was that he couldn’t do anything. There was no strength in his muscles, so he lay there on the floor while his brain ran a mile a minute trying to reason everything out.
Where had being cautious, thinking things through ever gotten him? It had lost him Taya. Cost him Mei. The only good thing in his life was that day, back in first grade, when he’d come home and told his mom he would marry Taya when they grew up.
Ben shivered. The only warmth in him, the mark, widened to envelop his sternum. The same spot where Taya’s chest had opened from the force of the bullet. There was no way she could have survived. Not after an injury like that. Except for that one spot, he felt like a human Popsicle. His whole body jerked with the next shiver. Like the energy was still being sucked from him. Was he keeping the Teacher healthy still, even though the man had finished the prayer thing he’d done?