by David Beers
Raylyn heard his voice, and although firm, it still soothed her. No matter the words coming from his mouth, the underlying current said that everything was fine. Everything had always been fine, and would always be fine, because nothing could hurt him or anyone around him.
He was right, though. They were wasting time, and Raylyn wasn’t going to connect with the First Council to question this man. He grew up in a world that Raylyn didn’t know, nor understand. If everything was being monitored by the Priesthood, then who was she to challenge their methods?
No, they had to go on.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to push Lynda from her mind. They had Billmore. That was what mattered if the past was truly in the past.
“Okay,” she said, opening her eyes and looking at the Disciple. “Two things. We need to get Billmore talking, and we need to connect with the informant.”
Rogan nodded. No questions. Simple acceptance.
Raylyn continued, whether for herself or him, she didn’t know. “We tell the informant we’re going to find out where they are regardless whether they talk or not. We try to get them to tell us the location, that way we know for sure if Billmore is telling the truth, or we know that someone is lying.”
The Disciple nodded again. “Who first?”
“Billmore.”
Sixteen
The Old World Ministry
The man in the back of the car hadn’t spoken. They’d been driving for five hours, heading north, and he only stared forward as if in a trance.
Nicki had watched as Daniel tied him up inside the car. His hands were bound behind his back, his ankles tied tight. Nicki thought his arms and legs were probably hurting, but he gave no indication of it.
The sun was starting to set, the first part of it touching the horizon and showing the world just how beautiful things could be.
Nicki was dozing, lazily moving in and out of sleep depending on how the car took a bump in the road.
“Stop looking at her.”
She opened her eyes and sat up, not fully awake but quickly getting there. Her father had spoken and she didn’t like the tone of his voice. She looked over at him, but his eyes were on the rearview mirror.
“I like looking at her,” the man in the back said. “I probably would have liked looking at you, too, a long time ago.”
Nicki turned around and her eyes met the man’s.
He’s insane.
The thought flooded her consciousness as if a dam had broken. The man’s brown eyes were calm, none of the rage she’d seen in her dream or her room, but the insanity rested just beyond that shallow water of peace. Because he did want to look at her, perhaps more than anyone had ever wanted anything.
He’s getting off on this, she thought. Maybe not sexually. No, it’s deeper than that. His dick isn’t hard, but something inside of him is just about to orgasm.
“I said stop.”
“Dad,” she said. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt me by looking at me.”
She turned back around in her seat, not liking his stare one bit, but knowing that her father would pull the car over and beat the hell out of him if she didn’t calm him some. Daniel also had the man’s gun, and she was growing more convinced that he was going to use it.
“Where are we going?” the man asked.
“Now you want to talk?” Daniel said.
“Yes. I’m curious where you’re taking me.”
They’d spoken about that, Nicki and her father, and the truth was they didn’t know. They were trying to put space between them and whoever was coming next. They had family up north, and Nicki guessed they were going there, even if unstated. She didn’t know what they’d do once they arrived, and Daniel didn’t either.
“Do you have any idea?” the man in the back asked.
“How many people are coming and how are they going to track us?” Daniel said, ignoring the man’s question. He’d asked this before, but gotten no response.
“I’ll tell you if you let me touch her hair,” the man said. “Just a touch.”
Nicki shivered.
“Shut the hell up,” her father said.
They drove in silence for a few minutes when Nicki turned back around to face the insane man. “I’ll let you touch my hair if you answer the question.”
Some of the calm in his eyes faded, the energy underneath almost rippling outward. “Will you?” he asked, not sounding insane, but still calm. He could sound like whatever he wanted, but Nicki saw the truth. This man might be a part of the Church, but he wasn’t holy. Maybe he had been once, but if so, hunting those with the sight had changed him.
“Yes. I’ll let you touch it if you tell us what we can expect.” She felt her father’s eyes on her, but he remained quiet.
“Okay. I’ll make that deal,” the man said. He didn’t look away as he spoke. “They’re going to send more, but they won’t be like me. I actually don’t even believe the Pope knows I exist, or what I do. No, now that they can’t get in touch with me, they’ll send … other types of professionals.”
“Priests?” Daniel asked.
The man chuckled. “No. Perhaps a Priest will be at the helm, but the Church will most likely mobilize its military to get to you. They probably already have.”
“How will they go about finding us?” Nicki asked.
Nicki saw that the man was struggling with the question. He licked his lips, but was quiet for a second. She didn’t think he wanted to answer, but his desire to touch some piece of her was overwhelming. He had loyalty to the Church. He believed. But … the insanity inside of him wanted more.
He licked his lips again, his pink tongue flicking out like a lizard’s. “How would you look for you? They’ll do the same. Now, let me touch your hair.”
“Get fucked,” Daniel said from the front. Nicki’s eyes widened, not used to hearing such language from her father. “Tell us what we need to know.”
The man sighed and finally looked away from Nicki, into the rearview mirror. He smiled. “It’s my weakness. It’s why they wouldn’t ever let me become a Priest. I suppose I won’t start trying to deny myself now, when I haven’t the rest of my life. I’m going to kill you both anyway.” He smiled as he said the last sentence, his thin face looking almost like a skeleton with those white teeth staring out. “How many hours have we been gone?”
“Why?”
“Because you want to know what they’re doing. I need to know how much time has passed.”
“Say it’s been six hours since we left.”
The man nodded and leaned back in the seat, tilting his head on the headrest and looking up at the roof. “A group of people will be arriving soon, if they haven’t already. There are drones circling the town and anyone you’re close with is being watched. They’re systematically checking your house, and a fire will erupt in it when they finish. The official word will be that you both died inside.” He was quiet for a second, licking his lips one more time. “You have family. I saw that in your file. Drones have already been dispatched and are probably there. They live closer to the Vatican than you do. All of local law enforcement will have your picture by tomorrow morning, though most already do. Your economic transactions will be tracked if you use anything electronically, but I’m sure you knew that.”
He tilted his head up and looked in the rearview, catching Daniel’s eyes. “Quite simply, everyone you know and everyone who might know you are being watched. Law enforcement already considers you dangerous, and is looking for you. There’s nowhere to go, Mr. Sesam … but you knew that, didn’t you?”
Daniel held his eyes for a few seconds and then looked back to the road.
“Your hair,” the man said.
Nicki’s hair was short and she knew she’d have to move close for him to feel it. She wasn’t putting it next to his hands, though, so she turned around and placed her knees on the seat.
“Lean forward,” she said.
He did and she looked at him for a second.
/> “Do anything, and you’re dead,” her father said from beside her.
Nicki could turn back around and not do this, but then if they needed something else from him, she’d have nothing to bargain with.
She leaned forward, putting her head down some, and kept going until she felt her head brush his cheek.
She pulled back quickly and looked at him.
His eyes were closed and a smile had crossed his face. “You’re all so beautiful. You, in particular, are just so beautiful.”
He fell back into his seat without opening his eyes, the smile not fading.
Nicki sat forward and didn’t look over at her father. She felt like she’d done something dirty—though she knew that was silly. Still, she didn’t want to look at him.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“Keep driving for now. We’ll stay at a motel somewhere tonight.”
“How much cash do we have?” she asked.
“Not a lot.”
Her father was quiet. He wasn’t saying it, but she knew he was scared. There wasn’t anywhere for them to go, that’s what the man had told them. Everything and everyone was cut off from them.
So they kept driving and they did it in silence, the stranger in the back reverting to his former state of staring forward without speaking.
Another hour passed before Nicki spoke again.
“Stop the car.”
“Huh?” her father asked, sounding as if he might have been about to doze himself.
“Stop.”
Nicki was staring out the car window. She didn’t know if what she saw was real or not, only that it looked real.
“Nicki, are you—”
“STOP!”
“Is it happening?” the man asked from the back. “Is she having a vision?”
Nicki felt the car slowing and watched as it rolled to the shoulder, finally stopping. She opened her door and got out. Her father did the same on his side, though she didn’t turn around. Didn’t even hear his door close.
The dark man stood in the field. No fire this time, no one dying or screaming. Just him, all of him black except for his eyes which burned gray.
“What is it?” her father asked.
“You don’t see him?”
There was a pause and then her father said, “No. I don’t see anything.”
The dark man wasn’t moving, but stood maybe a hundred yards off.
“This is real,” she said. “This isn’t a vision. He’s looking at me.”
Daniel walked around to her side of the car.
Nicki kept staring forward and looking at the man’s eyes—they burned bright. Power lived there. Harm for her, too. Nicki knew that the same as she knew pain currently resided in the back of their car.
“What do you want?” she screamed at the open field.
The dark man didn’t move, didn’t blink. He spoke no words.
Another 30 seconds passed, then Nicki said, “Let’s go.”
“Are you okay?”
“I … I don’t know. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Is it still there, whatever you’re seeing?”
“Yes,” Nicki said, staring right at the dark man.
Daniel opened her car door, closing it once she was inside. He walked around to the other side and got in. He started the car and pulled onto the road, the engine revving high.
“Did you have a vision?” the man in the back asked. “Is that what just happened?”
“Shut up,” Daniel said.
“It was. I know it. Oh, goodness, that was great.”
Nicki heard him lean back in his seat, sounding as though he’d just had an orgasm.
Nicki shook her head, a refutation of the psycho without communicating with him. “I don’t think so, Dad. That wasn’t the sight, at least not like before. He was finding me.”
A second passed. “Were his eyes gray?”
Nicki nodded, her own eyes welling with tears. “He’s going to come for me.”
“No, honey. No. That doesn’t make any sense, especially if it is what you say it is.”
“He is, though. Everyone is coming for me.”
Seventeen
The Prophet
Rhett looked at David and thought about his conversation with Christine.
They’d both returned last night, and David had spoken to no one.
“Where were you two?” Rebecca had asked.
“He took us down to the construction.”
“Yeah? You guys dance on the fire?”
“He did,” Christine said.
Rhett was trying to see past his anger at both of them. David was back and Christine the only person who knew what had happened.
“I don’t know,” she said when he’d asked about where they went.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You were with him?”
“Do you always know what is going through his mind when you’re with him, Rhett?” she asked.
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t have any answers for you,” Christine said. “You’ll have to ask him all this. I know as much as you and Rebecca.”
Now he and David stood outside the compound on the 20th story. A large, circular enclosure wrapped around the floor. It stretched out 200 yards in all directions, allowing for gardens, playgrounds, and other things for the compound. The two of them were alone, the night air dark.
“I saw her,” David said.
“Who?” Rhett asked.
“The woman. The one who’s like me.”
“How?”
“The Unformed. I’m seeing more clearly now, even if I’m not back to where I was.”
Rhett didn’t know what to say. The atmosphere inside the compound had grown worse, and Rhett wasn’t sure David even knew. He was so disconnected from everything happening around him; Rhett couldn’t tell what David discerned anymore.
“David,” he started, thinking carefully about his words, “There are things happening here that we need to talk about.”
David was only five feet away, but it felt like he was on another planet. He wasn’t looking at Rhett, but beyond the large railing at the end of the field. He said nothing, so Rhett continued.
“People are scared, and their fear is increasing. It’s spreading. It’s amplifying.”
David nodded but still remained quiet.
“Our interviews, people are talking about them. Someone is going to get hurt if we don’t do something. We have to find the traitor, and we have to stop all of this. People need to go back to normalcy. We couldn’t fight the True Faith if they showed up right now. There’s no confidence in the movement, David, and I’ve never felt that before in my life.”
“She doesn’t know what she is,” David said as if Rhett hadn’t spoken at all. “I think what’s happening to her is new. She hasn’t experienced it before, and so she doesn’t know what to expect. She did know I was there, though. She stared back at me.”
Rhett shook his head and looked at the ground. “David … do you hear what I’m telling you? You’re losing control of this.”
He turned around. “Then the Unformed would be losing control, and I don’t believe that.” Shadows hung around him, but Rhett saw no sparks in his eyes.
“What do you want me to do?” Rhett asked. “Tell me, David, because I’m at a loss.”
He came forward, closing the short distance between them. He put his hand on Rhett’s shoulder. “You’re going to go get her, Rhett. You’re going to bring her back to me.”
“What?”
Rhett couldn’t possibly hide his feelings. He knew his face showed every single thing he was thinking, which mostly coalesced into disbelief.
“You’re going to the Old World, and you’re going to bring that woman back here.”
“David? That doesn’t make any sense. If she’s anything like you, what chance am I going to have?”
“You have faith in the Unformed, don’t you?” he asked.
“Ye
s, of course, but this has nothing to do with It—”
“Rhett, do you think I’m making this up on my own? Sending you to get her without any forethought?” David interrupted. He removed his hand from Rhett’s shoulder.
“I … David ….” Rhett knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the words … or at least, he didn’t know how to get David to pay attention. He looked down at his feet and decided to try one more time. “There are problems here, and they’re growing. It’s going to keep getting worse, too, unless we find whoever went to the Prevention Division.” He looked up. “David, you’re the one who told us there was a traitor. It was you who said someone betrayed us. If we don’t find them, we’re going to lose everything.”
That was the best he could do.
We’re going to lose everything.
David nodded. “I will handle the traitor. You bring this woman to me, and then we’ll both meet the Unformed together. You’ll be at my right hand, okay?”
Rhett stared for a few more seconds, hearing the promise and hating himself for loving it. He had an obligation to David here, and he felt he hadn’t fulfilled it.
It’s not your job to lead. It’s your job to inform David. You’ve done that. Now you follow his orders.
“Okay,” he said. “How do you want me to get her?”
“Let’s take a stroll and talk about it, alright?”
Eighteen
The True Faith Ministry
Raylyn didn’t want to be in the room with these two men, but felt she had no choice. Someone had to bear witness.
The First Council is already watching, she thought as she walked into the room. It wasn’t the first time she had thought it, her mind trying to keep her from going into Billmore’s cell—finding any possible excuse to keep her out.