by Graham Brown
“Be careful,” the leader of the four cried out. “Don’t look them in the eye. Remember what you’ve been through. The eye is window to the soul, and they will seek to turn ours back. To drag us back into the darkness.”
“This is wrong,” Leroy said quietly.
“We have to control them,” a calm voice spoke beside him.
That voice came from Terrance Jackson, an old, wizened figure of a man. He was blind, his body sinewy and weathered like a high country tree; twisted by the wind, stripped of its leaves, but stronger than it looked and still holding to the earth with a tenacious grasp.
Terrance had once been a voodoo priest. He’d grappled with Drake and others of the Fallen. He’d seen across the void and back. Now he’d become Leroy’s guide into the dark and twisted world that the unassuming man—the most unlikely of angels—was supposed to change.
“I don’t know about this,” Leroy replied. “If they don’t come willingly, who am I—who are we—to force them?”
“You—and we—are here to save them,” Terrance said without hesitation. “But unless you lost it somewhere, you didn’t come with any instruction book. We have to be careful. This is how the church does it.”
The four men with whips had once been members of the Fallen. They’d heard of a chance to be redeemed and sought Terrance out. Terrance had brought them to Leroy, and in a night of pain and redemption they had come back from the void, back into the light. They were young in the scheme of things, none had been lost for more than eight months.
Now they’d become a combination of disciples and a small army. They went into the dark to spread the word helping to round up others who might be redeemed, willingly or not.
The woman and man in the corner were clearly among the unwilling. But unable to escape the circle, they seemed ready to fight. The woman, pale and skinny, hissed and lunged at one of the disciples. A palladium whip drove her back while two other men stepped forward with crosses held high.
The Fallen experienced pain at the sight of the cross for reasons most of them would never know.
“This isn’t right,” Leroy repeated.
The figures in the corner began to cower.
“So what will you do?” Terrance asked.
Leroy was confused. Several times over the past month, Terrance had asked him this same question. Always at an odd time, always when Leroy was afraid, doubtful and having misgivings as he was now. He always answered the same way. “What do you think I should do?”
Terrance seemed disappointed, but put his hand on Leroy’s forearm and squeezed. “Heal them.”
Leroy knew his guide was looking for something more, but what more could he give? He was an unemployed electrician who knew nothing about religion, having spent his childhood as a Baptist in a family that didn’t go to church except at Easter. What did he know about saving anyone? Let alone the twisted, tortured souls whose existence he wouldn’t have believed in thirty days ago.
Two months ago he’d been in Compton, mourning the death of his son and plotting revenge on the murderer. After putting a gun to the teenage thug’s head, Leroy had relented and stumbled back into a swirl of what seemed like madness and despair. He woke up in a hospital with doctors asking him strange questions. He had no answers.
“Heal them,” Terrance said again. “It’s what you’re meant for.”
Leroy placed Terrance’s hand on a railing and began to move. The hissing and crying and cursing grew louder and the snap of the whips reminded him of horrible dreams, the kind that came and went and made no sense.
“Stop,” he begged the disciples.
They looked at him.
“Please. I can’t stand that sound.”
With the disciples distracted, the male lunged forward, charging to break free. He tackled one of the disciples and plunged a hand with fingernails thick like claws into the man’s stomach.
The whips fired and a sword-like blade was thrust into the attacker’s back. The disciple wailed in pain and the creature of the night released a hideous scream that shook the rafters and shattered windows across the floor of the warehouse. It pulled away from Leroy’s small army and staggered to the side, reaching around desperately trying to get the sword out of its back, but unable to grasp it.
As Leroy watched the demon fell to its knees, began to shudder and then burst into blue-white flame.
In seconds, the sprinklers above sensed the heat and began to blast full force. The fire alarm wailed and strobes began to flash.
In the midst of this, the female screamed and attacked as well. But one of the disciples caught her legs with the whip and tripped her up. He lunged forward and came down upon her, using the hilt of his whip as a bar to keep her teeth at bay. His partners joined him.
“Hurry,” he shouted to Leroy. “We can’t hold her!”
With his heart pounding and his mind filled with revulsion and fear, Leroy forced himself to step forward. He knelt beside the woman and put his hands on her face to stop her from thrashing around.
She went instantly still, as if some type of anesthesia had been pumped into her veins. She looked up at Leroy, her eyes were black, glossy and lifeless.
“I can give you peace,” Leroy said.
The calmness faded. “Lies!” she hissed.
“I can,” Leroy said back. “You must believe me. I can release you.”
She thrashed violently, kicking one of the men so hard that he flew ten feet and hit the wall.
Leroy tried to hold her, tried to calm her, but it was no use. She whipped an arm free, grabbed the second disciple’s throat and tried to rip his flesh open. Before she could, Terrance appeared and cast a handful of dust into her eyes.
She shook for a second and then began to shiver.
“A taste of life for you,” Terrance said to the woman. “He offers you a banquet.”
Leroy had no idea what Terrance had done. The voodoo priest was nothing if not a mystery. And quite frankly, for a guide, he was very poor at explaining things. But he was there in the nick of time, and whatever he’d thrown at the woman, she was breathing differently now. More like a scared kitten than a beast.
“Heal her,” Terrance said once again.
Leroy hesitated. They were soaking in the downpour, but the burning figure was still ablaze ten feet away. The flashing lights and screeching alarm were disorienting.
“Hurry!” Terrance shouted. “Before this place burns to the ground with us inside it!”
“I offer you life,” Leroy said to the woman. “I offer life like you once had. Filled with the tastes, and good smells and cold things to drink. Warmth for your body.”
“Warmth,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said, seizing on the word. “Heat, comfort, love.”
“I’m so cold…” she said, “…so tired of being cold.”
“You don’t have to be.”
Her head shook in shame. “I’ve done so many things,” she said. “Bad things. I’ll burn like my brother.”
“No,” Leroy insisted. “You can be healed and help me to heal others. You can live and be forgiven.”
She looked around, her pale face streaked with water and half covered by stringy wet hair. For a moment, Leroy saw a hint of blue in her formerly lifeless eyes, a hint of color in her pale skin, brought on by whatever Terrance had done. They were pretty eyes, trembling eyes with speckles of green, but the color soon faded and disappeared.
“No!” she shouted throwing all of them off at once.
Leroy fell on his back and for a moment he thought he’d broken it. But the sensation came back quickly. He rolled and stood. The woman was running for the door when the dart of a cross bow pierced her back.
She fell as if she was diving to the floor and the blue flames of the Ignatorum erupted before she hit the ground. With the sprinklers now flooding the warehouse and the fire and police departments on their way, Leroy said the only thing that made any sense to him. “We’d better get out of here.”
Terrance nodded and put his hand on Leroy as the surviving disciples gathered up their fallen comrade and the group made their way to the door.
By the time the fire department arrived they found nothing but a burning warehouse, as Leroy, Terrance, and the disciples were on a small boat motoring away in the darkness.
At the wheel was Terrance’s wife, a sturdy and uncompromising woman of fifty, named Bella. Terrance stood beside her while Leroy sat in the back with the others.
“It’s time for us to leave,” Terrance said.
Bella didn’t flinch. She just kept her hand on the wheel. “He’s too weak for this.”
“He was chosen,” Terrance said. “You of all people know what that means.”
She cut her eyes at him as if this was a low blow, but otherwise did not react. “So you’ll be going too I assume?”
“After this debacle,” Terrance said almost jokingly. “We can’t stay here.”
“Here, you have us,” she said. “Here, you have powers to call on. Disciples. Spirits. Why leave that behind?”
He said nothing.
“I want an answer, Terrance.”
“Because we must,” was all he chose to say.
She stared at her husband the way all wives do when infuriated with their mates. A soft shake of the head showed her disgust and then she looked to the waters ahead.
As she turned, Leroy thought he saw a tear in her eye.
Nothing more was said, but Leroy knew what she was thinking; that his weakness would get them all killed by the Fallen; that helping him was a fool’s errand and a waste of what little time Terrance had left on this Earth. He knew these thoughts were on her mind, because they were on his mind too.
Only Terrance disagreed, but maybe he was blind in more ways than one. He addressed Leroy, with the same calm voice he always used. “Talk to the man with the boat,” he said. “Tell him we leave the day after tomorrow.”
Chapter 4
The Mississippi River flowed with a quiet stillness that spoke volumes to Bella as she strolled along River Road. Terrance was at her side. The fire of the previous night was forgotten, the passion of the morning still in her mind. That, she’d hold onto forever.
Up ahead, an eighty foot trawler named the Mercy III was tied up to the dock. A thin trail of diesel smoke drifted from its stack as last minute supplies were being loaded aboard. On deck Bella saw Leroy talking with the captain. She wondered if that captain had any idea who he was speaking with.
“You’re so quiet,” Terrance said, massaging her hand. “Have you been looking into my future again? I told you not to look at my cards.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Bella snapped back. Though she had been, and they both knew it.
“Mmm hmm,” he said. “You know they’re not always right, especially concerning me.”
She didn’t mince words. “I don’t need the cards to tell me I’ll never see you again.”
The conversation fell silent. A deafening silence, as loud as a freight train running through a small town. The gentle motions of his hand stopped. He ran his tongue across his lips and sucked at his teeth as he always did when deciding what to say.
Finally, he shrugged. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” It was a joke, but like a threadbare sheet, it really covered nothing.
“Terrance, listen to me,” she said, trying to stop the slow walk that felt like a funeral procession.
“No, you listen,” he said. “All this talk is not good. You’re sending this stuff out into the universe. You know better than that. Besides New Orleans is my home, and I’ll be coming back here. I guarantee it. Me and the mud. One and inseparable.”
Bella tried to laugh and managed a fake smile. She also tried to change the tone in her voice. She remembered her mom sending their father to Vietnam with smiles and laughter. You never send your man off to war worrying about you back home, Momma had told her. It’s bad luck for them.
“You and the mud,” she said, licking her thumb and wiping a speck of dirt from his face, where he’d pulled up some weeds in the garden this morning. “I wish I could go with you,” she added. “You know I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll be back,” he insisted. “Look in on Charles for me. I worry about that boy. He likes fun more than studying.”
“Just like his grandfather.”
“No doubt about that,” he said.
They embraced, long and hard. “When should I expect you?”
“By the first moon of summer, I reckon.”
“So in June.”
“Yes,” he said. “Easily by June.”
The Mercy III’s horn blew and Bella saw Leroy waving. She guided Terrance toward the fishing boat and gave him another kiss goodbye.
“You see,” he said. “That’s why I have to get back here, for that good old fashioned southern loving.” He laughed. His laugh was deep, infectious and almost genuine, she thought.
With Leroy’s help, Terrance climbed into the boat and held the rail as the bow and stern lines were cast off.
The trawler began drifting from the dockside and easing out into the channel. Looking at its dilapidated state Bella wondered if the weather-beaten vessel would even survive the journey to wherever they were going.
It turned downriver and shuddered anew, the engine chugging loudly. To Bella, it seemed like an old heart, beating heavily. It had energy and vigor, much like her husband’s—stronger than it should be at his age, but nearing the end of its time.
She watched the boat until it vanished around one of the Mississippi’s innumerable bends. Tears soon filled her eyes. She didn’t quiver or sob, but the drops ran down her cheeks until she had to wipe them from her face.
She heard what Terrance had promised. She knew he planned to come back to her. He might even believe it, but she knew more than Terrance about his future.
“I wish it were different,” she said, whispering in her husband’s direction. “But the cards are never wrong, my dear.”
Chapter 5
Washington D.C.
Kate Pfeiffer sat in a high backed chair in a spacious office deep within the J. Edger Hoover building in Washington, D.C. She sat ramrod straight. Chin up. Eyes forward. Her business suit was sharply tailored to her trim shape and impeccably pressed. She looked every inch the decorated agent her file described her to be, but her mind was a tempest of confusion and fear.
Despite plenty of sleep, her pallor was sickly, her skin pale, and her eyes glossy and vacant. Extra makeup and mascara concealed some of her condition. Colored contacts seemed to add life to her eyes, but Kate remained conscious of it, nervous that someone would notice.
The questions came toward her with dull monotony. Questions she’d already answered a hundred times in her own mind.
“What condition was Agent Massimo in when you shot the woman?”
“He was already dead, or mortally wounded. The woman had ripped out his trachea.”
“Why were you and Agent Massimo operating without backup?”
“We were in pursuit of a suspect believed responsible for multiple homicides. We didn’t want him to get away. Back up and an airborne sniper were on the way.”
Her answers were clear, but the effort it was taking to concentrate was almost unbearable. Her mind was wandering. Her pupils constricted from the light spilling through the far window. When had it ever been so blindingly bright in this room?
She heard some mumbling and looked to the doorway. Someone was speaking on the other side, but the sound was incoherent.
“Agent Pfeiffer?”
She looked back toward the desk. Gene Serrano, the director of internal affairs, was staring at her.
“Did you not hear the question?” Serrano asked.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was distracted by the noise.”
“What noise?” He glanced around at the others on the panel beside him. “You could hear a pin drop in this room.”
What the hell was he talking a
bout? The murmuring was like a truck driving across gravel. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I have a terrible headache.”
Serrano rolled his eyes and sat back, but another voice came to her aid, that of Kim Tan, director of the FBI.
“Cut her some slack, Gene. She’s been thorough hell.”
He was right about that. She’d been through hell and honestly, felt like she was still there. A month earlier, she and her partner, Billy Ray Massimo, had pursued a suspected killer into the backwaters of a swamp in Louisiana only to discover some kind of demented ritual taking place.
After a shootout, they’d lost the suspect but rescued a possible victim, only to have the victim —a woman named Vivian Dasher—turn on them and attack. Despite taking multiple rounds to vital parts of her body, Vivian managed to overpower Kate, take her to the ground and rip open a gash in her neck, lunging for Kate’s throat with her teeth like some kind of wild animal.
Only Billy Ray’s interference saved Kate. But he paid with his life. By the time Kate could get to her feet, Billy Ray’s own jugular vein had been slashed and the woman was perched on top of him. It seemed as if she was gorging herself on his blood.
Kate emptied the rest of her magazine into the psychotic woman. A dozen bullets from point blank range. And still, the woman did not die instantly. She went into convulsions, shaking with muscle spasms until finally she went still.
“You fired twelve shots at the woman,” Serrano said. “Can you explain why?”
Because the bitch wouldn’t die, Kate thought, though she guessed that wouldn’t be an acceptable answer.
“In my weakened condition I couldn’t hold my weapon steady,” she said. “I knew the woman had killed Billy Ray and—if I failed—she would certainly kill me and probably others.”
Kim Tan seemed to like that answer. He should have, he’d coached it out of her days before.
Serrano looked at his notes. “Perhaps that was wise,” he said. “They found eight of the shells you fired in the soil around her. You missed more than you hit.”