He had to staunch the bleeding.
There was no time to look for a first-aid kit. Luckily, he was in a garage, and that meant duct tape and plenty of it. He grabbed a roll from a nearby cart and proceeded to wrap the tape tightly around his midsection. It was ugly and messy work, but it might do the job long enough to get him home.
He retrieved his cell phone from where it had fallen. But when he tried to call Lisa, he couldn’t get a signal. The damn thing was broken, useless. He threw it down in frustration.
Then he limped back to his car. It was in no shape to drive home, but at least he could do what he should have done at the start of this fiasco: open the trunk and remove his pistol. He checked the clip, then slid the automatic into the pocket of his bloody jacket. He hobbled over to the tow truck, every step a deeper initiation into the mysteries of pain. The keys were in the ignition. Wincing, he opened the door and maneuvered his body behind the wheel. The truck started right up. He pulled out of the garage and drove toward home. It was all he could do not to press the pedal to the floor. But it wouldn’t do to be stopped by the police now. Nothing mattered but getting home. As he left the body of the man who had tried to kill him behind, Gordon’s mind was focused entirely on that goal. The question of what he might find there was relegated to a distant future.
But when he saw the pizza-delivery car parked in the driveway, that distant future telescoped into a horrible here and now. His heart sank and he groaned aloud, afraid that his worst fears had been realized.
Yet he knew he couldn’t go blundering into the house, gun blazing like some Bruce Willis–style hero in a Hollywood shoot-’em-up. That would only get him killed. No, he had to be smart now. And pray that he was not too late.
He parked a block away. He could barely get out of the truck, his legs had stiffened up so badly during the drive. But at last he managed it. The blood from his wounds had soaked his pants. He could feel it in his shoes. But the duct tape had done its job. It had held enough of his blood in to keep him alive. The rest was up to him.
With a prodigious effort, he began walking, or lurching, rather, circling around to the back of the house. By now it was late evening, and the shadows concealed his injuries; even so, he felt sure he must look like Frankenstein’s monster. But when some neighbors waved at him from their porch, he waved back jauntily, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, even though the stab of pain that accompanied the gesture made his vision flare red for a heartbeat.
Then he was at the back door of his house. He opened it and slipped inside.
He was in the laundry room. He froze, listening, but there were no sounds. The house was as silent as a tomb.
Cautiously, he crept to the door. On the other side was the kitchen. He put his ear to the door and listened. Again, he heard nothing. Finally, he turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open. Without noticing it, he had drawn his gun.
The first thing he saw was Lisa’s body slumped on the kitchen floor. It took all his strength not to cry out and run to her side. But he forced himself to survey the kitchen first. It was empty. Only then did he creep up to her, still holding the gun ready.
Oh God, was that blood? Was she . . . ?
No. It was pizza topping. All in her hair and on the side of her face.
But she was still breathing, thank God.
She was unconscious, trussed up like an animal ready for slaughter.
Gordon moved to the utensil drawer, slid it open, and took out a steak knife. This he used to cut Lisa’s bonds. But although free now, she would be no help. She was out like a light. Drugged, no doubt.
He was on his own.
Did he dare take the time to call Conversatio? He moved to the wall phone and lifted the receiver; as he’d more than half expected, there was no dial tone. The Congregation agent had cut the lines. The man at the garage had been overconfident, and it was that overconfidence, more than anything Gordon had done, that had proved his undoing. But Gordon had a feeling that the man (Congregation agents were always men, because they were always priests, and only men could be priests) who had done this to Lisa, the man who was presumably still somewhere in the house (unless of course he’d abducted Ethan, taken him in another car and left the delivery car behind, which Gordon couldn’t completely discount yet, even though his instincts told him the man was close by), that man was not the kind to trip himself up through hubris.
Then Gordon heard the sound of splashing water from upstairs. Followed by the creak of a footstep.
His heart surged, and for a terrible instant he felt himself grow dizzy, as if he might black out. But as he had before, he forced the shadows back.
He took a deep, slow breath. He was on his last reserves of strength. Actually, he was operating on sheer desperation and adrenaline now. Whatever he did, he would have to do it quickly, before his body betrayed him.
He couldn’t face the man directly. He wouldn’t have a prayer.
He needed a distraction.
Please God, let me save Ethan. Let me save my son!
When Ethan opened his eyes again, it took him a moment to realize where he was. There were candles burning, the only source of light, and the tiny flames were reflecting off water in weird ways, making everything look dreamlike and spooky. But as the seconds passed, the strangeness fell away. What replaced it was no improvement.
He was in his bathroom, in the tub, which was filled with cold water.
He tried to get up, but he couldn’t move; his arms and legs were tightly bound together. He tried to speak, to call for help, but his mouth was gagged. He was shivering from the cold and from fear.
He remembered his mother falling . . .
Was she okay?
What was happening?
He heard a voice mumbling outside the bathroom. Whoever had done this was out there. In his room.
He couldn’t make out the words, but they didn’t sound like English.
He tried again to free himself, succeeding only in splashing water out of the tub and onto the tiles of the floor.
The voice from the other room vanished.
Then a man stepped into the doorway.
It was the pizza-delivery man.
Only he wasn’t wearing a Domino’s uniform anymore.
He was wearing the garb of a priest.
And holding a knife in one hand.
The other hand was holding a vial of some sort.
As Ethan watched, petrified with terror, the man flicked the vial toward him, and he felt drops of liquid rain over his face.
“Does it burn?” the man asked.
Ethan shook his head stiffly.
“It’s holy water,” the man said, as if that should mean something.
Ethan just blinked.
The man entered the room and shut the door behind him . . . not completely, though; he left it open a crack. “In case we have any uninvited visitors,” he said and gave Ethan the same wink he’d given him outside the front door.
Then he dropped to his knees beside the tub, laid his knife and vial carefully on the tub’s edge, brought his hands together, bowed his head, and intoned what sounded like “Domino’s do business.”
It was so absurd, so insane, that Ethan couldn’t help laughing behind his gag. But his laughter was full of desperation and fear. It might as well have been a scream.
The man glanced up at him. “I’ll make it fast,” he said. “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing. I don’t torture people, even people like you. If you’re worried about your mother, don’t be. For one thing, she’s not really your mother. For another, I’m not going to kill her. That was just gas in the pizza box. Knocked her right out. So much for that tenth-degree black belt!”
He chuckled.
Ethan had no idea what the man was talking about. He was obviously out of his mind.
“My partner’s taking care of your dad,” he continued, “so don’t be expecting any help from that quarter. Not that he’s really your father, either. No mor
e than the woman tied up downstairs is your mother. They’re both servants of the Evil One.”
Ethan was whimpering now. Tears were streaming from his eyes.
The man dressed as a priest raised one hand and made the sign of the cross over him. He said more words in that strange-sounding language.
Ethan knew absolutely that he was going to die in the next few minutes unless he could somehow get away. But tied up as he was, that didn’t seem too likely. And even if he could somehow slip free of his bonds, the crazy man was bigger and stronger than he was.
But maybe there was a way . . .
Yesterday, when he’d realized that Peter was going to hurt Maggie, he’d reached out with a power he’d never suspected he possessed and changed Peter, transformed him from a bully into a boy who’d been ashamed of what he’d been about to do. A boy who had let them go.
Could he do the same now? To this man?
He stared at him, trying to force his vision beyond the physical, into the very soul of the man.
“Stop staring at me like that or I’ll blindfold you,” said the man. “In fact, I think I’d better anyway.”
He reached into his robe, or whatever you called the bright red garment he was wearing, and pulled out a blindfold, which he slipped over Ethan’s eyes with practiced ease.
Darkness descended.
The man began to speak again in whatever language it was, Latin maybe. Was he praying?
Ethan began to pray too, silently.
Please, God, don’t let him kill me. Don’t let him hurt my mom and dad . . .
As terrifying as it had been to watch what was happening, being unable to see was infinitely worse. Each sound seemed to take on a malefic aspect, and each cessation of sound, however brief, seemed to presage the touch of the knife he’d seen, its sharp blade drawn across his throat or plunged into his chest.
He couldn’t concentrate on praying. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except the hypnotic ebb and flow of words and other sounds, the gentle splashing of water, even the trembling of the candle flames, which made a fluttering noise, like wings.
And then he heard another noise.
“Ethan! Are you okay? Lisa?”
It was his dad.
The crazy man tsked in annoyance. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Don’t go anywhere; I’ll be right back.”
Then came the most awful and unbearable silence of all. It stretched and stretched. And finally, suddenly, broke.
There was a gunshot. Then two more in quick succession. And then two more.
Then footsteps slowly climbing the stairs.
“Ethan! Are you okay? Lisa?”
Gordon tried to keep the weakness and pain from his voice. Tried to make himself sound like any anguished father might. He had opened the front door before calling out. His hope was that the Congregation agent would come down the stairs, see the open door, and assume that he had gone down the hall that led from the door, past the stairs, and into the kitchen. When he made to follow, and his back was to Gordon, Gordon would take the shot. Maybe it wasn’t the most honorable of methods, to shoot a man in the back, but his son’s life was at stake.
And not just his son’s life, but the life of the second Son.
Almost immediately, Gordon heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. They came down slowly, cautiously, at a measured pace. He didn’t need to see past the door to visualize the man descending with his gun out and swinging with a measured cadence from side to side, as though tracking for movement like the sweep of radar.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped.
Seconds dragged by. Gordon held his breath, not daring to breathe.
And then he heard a low chuckle.
“Very clever. But I see you’ve been wounded, Mr. Brown. Your own blood has betrayed you. I know you’re behind the door.”
These words were punctuated by the firing of a gun. Gordon flinched, half expecting to feel the bullets tearing into his flesh.
But he felt nothing.
The footsteps resumed. Stopped.
The man would be in front of the open door now.
Gordon threw open the closet door. Sure enough, the man had his back to him, facing the door behind which he’d guessed that Gordon was hiding.
Right idea.
Wrong door.
He was already turning, his gun coming up fast and deadly.
Gordon was faster. He fired. He was aiming for the man’s torso, but his hand was trembling with weakness, and his aim was off. The bullet slammed into the man’s leg. He grunted as it crumpled under him.
But he didn’t drop his gun. He aimed and fired. And his hand didn’t tremble.
Gordon felt as if a giant had smashed a fist into his chest, then another. The impact hurled him back into the closet, into the coats hanging there; they cushioned him, caught him, swayed back, and swung him out again, into another one-two punch.
He was dead before he hit the floor.
Ethan listened to the footsteps coming up the stairs. The tread was slow and uneven. Whoever it was, was wounded. But who was it? His father or the crazy man?
All at once, the blindfold seemed to burn away beneath the intensity of his sight. Walls seemed to disintegrate. He saw his father sprawled in a pool of blood at the foot of the stairs. Motionless.
And climbing the stairs, blood dripping from between the fingers of the hand pressed to his thigh, was the crazy man.
As instinctively and inexplicably as had occurred the day before, Ethan was suddenly seeing into the man. Into the heart of him, the core of who he was. Peter’s soul had been like a shining thing marred by a thin black flaw; all he had done was erase that flaw, smooth it away so that Peter’s light could shine everywhere unimpeded. But this man had no light. Or if he did, it was a light that shone in blackness, not an absence of light but rather a presence of darkness. It was evil.
But then he saw, with a shock, that it wasn’t the man’s soul that he was seeing. Rather, it was something that had polluted the man’s soul. Shrouded it. Possessed it. For want of a better word, he called that thing a demon.
A parasitic creature of darkness and evil.
The creature saw him.
And was afraid.
Ethan thought, Begone.
And the blackness receded. It drew back, out of the man’s soul, out of his flesh, along a web of dark lines that seemed to stretch out infinitely in all directions.
Ethan followed.
There were dark nodes in the web, like black diamonds, that were the souls of others similarly possessed, and in them Ethan saw knowledge of his existence and implacable hatred for him. Wherever he saw that knowledge, he expunged it. Wiped it out as if it had never been. But there was no time to free the people from the demons that were afflicting them. He had to leave them behind. The dark web stretched on. The demon thing retreated before him.
Ethan followed it. It came to an end at last in a cold and inhuman place, a place where there was no emotion, no love, not even hate, but only logic. There the demon cowered. But it was not alone. There was another consciousness present there. One that recognized him.
And unlike the demons, it did not fear him.
I see you, came the thing’s chilly voice in his mind.
But though it was different than the demons, different than the people the demons had possessed, it was in a strange way less alive than they. More powerful in some ways, yet also much less than even the weakest of them.
It was, Ethan realized with shock, a machine.
I see—
As quickly as that, he switched it off. Expunged the knowledge of his existence from what passed for its brain. When it was turned on again, that information would be gone. It would not see him any longer.
None of them would.
For now.
But he could do no more. Frightened, exhausted, he fell back toward his body, retracing the route he had followed along the black web, and each time he passed throug
h one of the dark diamond nodes, as though passing through a door, he locked that door behind him.
Nothing would follow.
Nothing would find him again.
At last, in the blink of an eye or the beat of a heart, he was back in his home. Hovering somehow above the body of his father.
He was dead. No spark of life remained in him. Ethan would have seen it.
But there was something.
His soul.
It was falling away inside him like a star, dwindling with distance as it journeyed to its final reward, which was, in some sense Ethan grasped instinctively, without understanding, also its source.
If he followed it, could he catch it? Bring it back?
Return his father to life?
Weak as he was, he tried.
He plunged into the vacuum left by the dead man’s departing soul.
And saw a barrier of light appear before him. Blocking him. So bright he could not bear to look at it directly, even with what senses he had in this inner space of mind or soul. He remembered how Peter had said that he, too, had been unable to look at Ethan because he was shining so brightly. What did it mean? He didn’t know.
He pushed against the barrier, but it held firm. He struck at it, and it rang like a sheet of metal, only instead of a senseless tone, like the idiot pealing of a bell, what issued forth was a voice. A word.
“NO.”
Ethan knew then that there was no getting past the barrier. No getting past the word. Not today.
Filled with anguish and anger at his own impotence, at the unfairness of this voice that had forbidden him to save his father, he fell back into his shivering, bound body, into the blindfold that veiled his useless eyes, the gag that stopped his useless words. He felt as if he were floating in the womb of a monster, and whether he drowned there or was born into a new and unimaginable existence was immaterial. Either way, nothing would ever be the same again. How could it?
Godsent Page 16