You could brush your teeth three times a day and floss. You could help old ladies across the street. You could refrain from vice and other excesses.
And yet God could still take it all away.
Or worse: let it happen.
This was not a three-year-old’s God. This was the real God, his mask torn away to reveal supernatural indifference.
That was the catch.
Still, Dark reached out to him.
He chose a spot in the middle of the sea of pews, fell to his knees, and began the Our Father, trying to concentrate on the words. Because a mumbling recitation of something you’ve memorized isn’t prayer; if so, a robot would be capable of worship. But the more Dark tried to focus on the words, the more he thought of Sibby. Thy will be done. Was that thy will? Her broken body lying in the middle of the steaming Los Angeles asphalt? Give us this day our daily bread.
Lead us not into temptation…
But deliver us from evil.
Dark prayed the best he could, then let his mind go blank. Maybe God would finally talk to him now. Maybe there had been enough indifference, and God would realize what had happened, and he’d say, Oh, you. I haven’t thought about you since you were three years old….
But nothing. Still deathly quiet in the church. Dark could hear the sound of his joints softly popping as he shifted his weight on the wooden kneeler.
God wasn’t paying attention today.
Dark stood up and watched the six priests continue their vigil. Maybe they’d found the direct line. Maybe that was how you did it.
He moved to the back of the church and stared at the row of candles the Last True Believer had lit. They illuminated a nearby statue of Jesus Christ dying on the cross. It was at least fifteen feet tall and hand carved.
Was that how it worked? Did you have to suffer like no man had suffered before just to receive a nod from the Father?
Maybe, Dark thought, he could put a good word in with the son.
All at once, without conscious thought, he found himself falling to his knees and breaking down. Not in tears, and not in prayer, but in plain words.
“Please don’t take her from me,” he said softly. “Please don’t hurt the baby. They’re innocent. If you want to take anyone, take me. Don’t have mercy on my soul. Have mercy on theirs….”
The words tumbled out of his mouth. After a few moments, they stopped.
Dark made the sign of the cross, then left the church.
chapter 42
A few minutes later, Jesus’s feet were on fire.
All it took was one match, placed to his divine left toe. Paint over wood. No miracle in that. Easiest thing ever.
And then the flames traveled down the accelerant-soaked line that led to the row of offertory candles, feeding the flames at the base of the cross.
The fire started just after Dark departed the premises. This was planned, of course. If Dark smelled smoke, he’d only stay until he could find a way to stop what had to happen. And that wasn’t the point—to have Dark fight a fire.
No, he wanted Dark to turn around and see a trail of fiery hell in his wake.
Sqweegel dropped the match into the metal offering box, then crept up the marble stairs to the choir loft, which would give him a God’s-eye view. He was still wearing the overcoat, so he stripped it off now. He wanted the Maker to see him as He made him:
Glorious.
The priest on the far left in the row of six noticed it first—the crackling sound. He looked to his right, then up to the ceiling for some reason, then finally…Ah, there you go, Father. So courageous of you. The funny sound is coming from the back of the church, near all of the rows of votive candles. We are the light of the world, they proclaim.
But they were also fantastic accelerants.
By the time the priest had risen to his feet and tapped the shoulder of his nearest companion, the hand-carved statue of Jesus was completely engulfed in flames.
Here’s your sign, Sqweegel thought.
The view from the choir loft was perfect for the ballet of panic that followed. Three priests running around one set of pews, two around the other. All drawing closer to behold the miracle. Only one of them was thinking practically. And he ran into the sacristy for the nearest available fire extinguisher.
Meanwhile, the five other servants of God drew closer to the fire, as if they could stop the flames with a few drizzles of holy water.
The sixth priest ran down the center aisle with a fire extinguisher in each hand. This guy was really thinking. He yelled to his colleagues, handed one of the extinguishers over.
Now faith and mystery and holy terror gave way to cold logic: They had to put this thing out before the whole church—which featured many tons of wood—caught fire.
The sixth priest was the first. He pulled the safety pin, aimed the rubber hose at Jesus’s feet, and squeezed the trigger. But it wasn’t sodium bicarbonate that sprayed out of the hose. It was gasoline.
A thin line of fire traveled back up the line of gasoline and into the extinguisher—
FA-FOOM.
The metal canister exploded in the sixth priest’s hands, and the resulting fireball engulfed the two priests standing closest to him.
But the other priest with the extinguisher hadn’t put it together yet. He saw the awful explosion, saw his brothers’ bodies consumed by white-hot fury. But in that split second, he assumed it was a gas leak. Or a bomb.
No reason at all to suspect the extinguisher in his hands, which the priest knew was the only thing that could save the lives of his colleagues. He pulled the pin, screaming, then rushed over to the first burning body he could and squeezed the trigger, trying to recite an entire prayer in the same moment.
He got as far as “Oh, Heavenly Father” before he was blown apart, head and shoulders heading toward heaven while his torso flew backward into the nave.
Sqweegel watched from twenty feet above. He felt the heat wash over his face, cleansing it. The sweet scent of burning flesh soaked into his pores.
Oh, this was better than he’d imagined.
Now he watched the remaining two priests—the ones whose flesh wasn’t fusing to their bones—try to find their way out. Oh, this was amazing, the logic crumbling under pressure. The frenzy setting in.
They immediately ran for the front entrance. Which made the most sense, of course. Why run the long way back through the church, then duck through the sacristy, then down a flight of stairs, then finally through the rectory lobby and out the side door? Why not take the exit that was mere yards away?
Because the front doors were locked with industrial-strength chains; that’s why.
Sqweegel had put them there, just after Dark left.
But see, here’s where logic broke down. One tug, and you should be able to understand that these doors weren’t opening. You hear the rattle of the chains, the dull thud of the links against the wooden door, and you realize: Okay, the doors are chained. Let’s find another way out.
Not these priests, though. They were too panicked to make this simple leap. They pulled at the doors and howled as the thick chains banged against the wood. As if their shrieking cries would be interpreted by God as prayer and a request for divine intervention. One touch from the heavens and the chains would disappear.
God, though, didn’t hear them. Or maybe refused their request. Because the chains remained looped around the ornate brass door handles, as secure as ever.
And by the time the two remaining priests realized their folly and ran back into the church proper, it was too late.
Sqweegel drove away from the church, muttering to himself:
“Hell hath enlarged itself.
“And its fires were ravenous.”
chapter 43
Socha Medical Hospital
11:31 P.M.
As promised, Riggins was sitting in the painfully bright waiting room, keeping careful vigil. Dark took the seat next to him, and then pressed his forehead against the tips o
f his fingers.
“Anything yet?” he asked.
“No. She’s still in surgery. Doc popped his head in for a second, but he wouldn’t talk to me. Let me page him again.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and Wycoff called. Asking why we hadn’t caught Sqweegel yet, now that you were on board. I swear to God, give me a few minutes alone in a room with that officious little prick…”
“Ignore him,” Dark said. “We just need to focus on the mission.”
“Well, you can ignore him. I have to deal with him calling every hour.”
Dark sat down. Nothing in the waiting room had changed. The same faces. The same stack of unread celebrity magazines. The same cocktail of sweat and burned coffee and desperation. The same TV, tuned to the same channel…which was now playing the local eleven o’clock news.
The white block text at the bottom of the screen hit Dark first:
HOLLYWOOD UNITED METHODIST
Then the words of the chief of police of North Hollywood, speaking into a KCAL9 mike:
“…know six people have died inside. The fire department said the doors were locked. Now, there’s been a lot of theft in the area, but instead of keeping the bad guys out, they kept the good people trapped inside.”
Dark didn’t understand. He had just been there. What did the drive take, from there to Socha? Twenty minutes, this time of night? Half hour, tops?
“Reporting live from North Hollywood, this is…”
Dark’s BlackBerry chirped. He took it out of his pocket, scrolled down. One new message. He clicked the button and his blood ran cold.
To receive a text from Sqweegel, log into LEVEL26.com and enter the code: crossout
chapter 44
Socha Medical Hospital / Intensive Care Unit
Thursday / 12:09 A.M.
Dark watched the machines beep and throb and monitor and inject and calculate and display. They did their job efficiently, dispassionately, mindlessly. Their job was keeping his love alive.
Sometimes Dark wished he could be just a machine. Consider it: Your day could be little more than carrying out basic functions, with no messy emotions clouding the daily routines. Do your job; feed and exercise your body until it eventually broke down. But that was okay, too, because new machines were being born every day. The machine that was you wasn’t vital. Not in the grand schematic of things.
Then he would think about Sibby and remember that only with her could he let himself go, let himself feel again. And how good it felt to feel. How life was more than a series of basic functions carried out by anonymous cogs in a machine too big to see. Without her…Well, without her Dark knew he would revert to being little more than a machine.
The head surgeon, a barrel-chested man with strangely slender hands, interrupted with a quick knock on the door.
“Mr. Dark?”
“Yeah,” Dark said. He looked down and realized he had been clinging to Sibby’s fingers. That was all he could cling to, thanks to the IV butterfly needles taped to the backs of both of her beautiful hands.
An hour before, in the waiting room, the same surgeon had told him that the surgery had been a “success.” Somehow, the word sounded wrong in the context. The surgeon explained that all of Sibby’s internal bleeding had been stopped and the baby was stable…for the time being. But there was another problem they were monitoring—a toxic buildup in her blood. They’d know more after a few tests. Until then, Dark was told, wait and pray.
Like those priests in the church? Had they died because Dark had just so happened to choose that church for a few minutes of peace?
Had Sqweegel been watching from inside the church, just like he did in Rome, waiting for Dark to leave? Or was he tucked away somewhere else, triggering the fire by remote, then crossing the item off his sick little poem:
Six a day will fry.
Now the surgeon was back, startling Dark, who’d been lost in his own head.
“We just received the blood work from the lab,” the surgeon told him. “Sibby’s liver is failing.”
“What?”
“We believe it was damaged in the accident.”
Dark looked down at Sibby, eyes closed, surrounded by tubes and tape and machines.
“Ordinarily,” the surgeon continued, “we’d want to get the baby out of there right away—it’s far enough along and would have excellent chances of survival outside the womb. But a cesarean is out of the question right now. When your liver fails, your body can’t deal with the stress of surgery. There’s an extremely high risk of Sibby bleeding to death.”
“What are the options?” Dark asked.
“Not many good ones, I’m afraid,” the surgeon said. “The clock is ticking. We could do the cesarean followed by the liver transplant—if we’re lucky enough to find a donor in time. But let me stress that this is a very complicated procedure, and not performed very often.”
“And when it is performed?”
The surgeon lowered his head. “It’s rarely a success.”
Dark looked at Sibby’s unconscious face. He knew what she’d say: Get the baby out of her; forget about her; the baby was all that mattered.
But he wasn’t going to make that call. Especially if there was a chance she could fight back on her own. Not that the surgeon had indicated this was a possibility. But the surgeon didn’t know Sibby and the fighter she was.
“Should I place her on the urgent transplant list?” the surgeon asked. “If we’re even thinking about trying it, we have to get on that list immediately.”
“How long does she have?” Dark asked.
“We have a window of about seventy-two hours. Unless she goes into labor first.”
“Put her on the list,” Dark said, and with that, the surgeon nodded and made his way out of the ICU.
Dark went back to watching the machines watching Sibby. Machines never had to make decisions like these. For machines, it was all ones and zeros, simple computations that carried no moral or emotional weight. A machine never has to choose between the love of its life and an unborn child.
Forget the machines. He had to know what Sibby wanted. Dark took her fingers again and rubbed them gently. Her skin was smooth and frighteningly cold.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “It’s me. I only have a few minutes, so…I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for making me the happiest man in the world. None of this is your fault. We built a beautiful life together. We’re going to have the most amazing baby. We’re going to get through this. And I’m going to do everything I can to make this up to you.”
Dark paused a moment and gathered his thoughts.
“I love you. You’re the only thing worth dying for. And I know that because you’re the only thing I’m living for.”
Sibby was in there, and she could hear Steve. It was frustrating because she couldn’t move. She didn’t exactly know where she was. She couldn’t even find her own arm to try to move it.
…I only have a few minutes, so…
She listened to him struggle to find the words, and she could imagine his face. Mouth opening, then closing. Eyes darting away. So afraid of saying the wrong thing. He was still so very cautious around her, and she never understood why. She wanted to cry out: Steve, you could never say the wrong thing. Just talk to me.
But she had something she was desperate to tell Steve, too.
Help me wake up.
I so badly want to tell you about the texts from Jesus and everything else I didn’t want to bother you with…only now I understand; now I realize I shouldn’t have kept it from you.
You’re probably out there worrying, wondering what happened on the highway, and, God, does that kill me. Because I know what this is about. Someone’s after me, and I was too stubborn to tell you.
And now he got to me, and our child, too….
chapter 45
Hancock Park, Los Angeles
Sqweegel idled in the convenience-store parking lot, rubbing his fingers on the steering wheel. Th
e latex covering his fingers adhered to the plastic for the briefest of moments before pulling away. The previous owner of his vehicle—for it was his now—probably gorged himself with take-out hamburgers, licking his fingers and driving the car and applying meat grease all over the wheel. When Sqweegel burned this car later in an abandoned lot, he would be freeing the vehicle from such filth.
Just as he was about to free the children.
The four of them had been beer pimping for a half hour now, but no dice. Too many uptight asshats, going inside the 7-Eleven for their smokes or water or milk or their own beer, totally avoiding eye contact. Nobody stayed parked for long, except for one battered Pinto parked in the last spot on the left. Maybe the idiot pulled up and fell asleep. Maybe he’d already had his beer and passed out on the way to buy more. Fucker.
Rob bounced once on his skateboard, then let it roll to the edge of the pavement. This was getting old. If they wanted to sit around and do nothing, they could do that back home.
Finally Rick said he’d had enough, this was lame, he was out of here. Bumped fists with all three, left on his skateboard, rolling his way home.
The others called him a pussy, but it would only be a matter of time before they packed it in, too. Who were they kidding?
Rob bounced again on his skateboard. Epic fail.
But then the door to the Pinto finally opened and a slender figure stepped out. A real Michael Jackson–looking motherfucker, hoodie up, face all covered. Could be Jackson, for all they knew. Maybe he cruised Hancock Park for new friends. Maybe he’d invite them all back to Neverland to play with Bubbles and drink chocolate sodas. And they’d tell MJ, fuck the soda pop yo; let’s get some beers up in this shit.
It wasn’t Michael Jackson, of course.
But maybe he was worth a try anyway. It was always worth a try with the freaks, the tweakers, the stoners. They were kindred spirits. They were the people the world wanted to ignore until they grew up or straightened out or sobered up or whatever.
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