Cursed Presence (Trilogy of the Chosen Book 2)

by J. M. LeDuc

  Fitz stopped the car, looked at Charlotte and Jefferson who was texting Q.

  Q opened the steps of the jet and walked out to meet them. He, too, wore a black ski mask, same as theirs, no eyeholes. He looked more alien than human.

  He nodded hello, but said nothing. He moved swiftly to the rear of the SUV to open the rear door. At that point, all other doors opened and the three Phantom Squad members stepped from the car. Carefully, Fitz and Jefferson carried Seven into the jet, while Q and Charlotte stayed by the vehicle to watch their equipment and to keep Mary Ann Farrell’s body out of the officers’ view. They feared that they would get spooked and open fire if they saw her bagged and tagged.

  Jefferson brought a sheet with him when he and Fitz returned to the SUV and used it to cover Miss Farrell. They repeated the same process to bring her on board the aircraft. Charlotte and Q followed, carrying the rest of their gear.

  Minutes later, the jet engines roared to life. Q slowly taxied to the far side of the field, then turned it around. “Belt yourselves in. This will be a very fast and steep lift off. Oh, and while you’re at it, pray we make that tree line. It’s a long walk back to Palm Cove from here.”

  The passengers gripped their arm rests as tightly as possible while the G-forces pushed them back into their seats. All of them silently prayed for a safe takeoff.

  It seemed their lift-off resembled a rocket’s because of its vertical position to the ground.

  When Q yelled, “Here we go!” they knew they were airborne.

  “What the heck was that?” Jefferson yelled, when he heard the sound of scraping noises on the underside of the fuselage.

  “That, my friends, was the sound of treetops scraping the length of the jet as we barely cleared the field,” Q said. “Sit back and relax. The next place you’ll see is Home Sweet Home.”

  “Thank God,” Charlotte said.

  “Amen.”

  An hour into the flight, Jefferson noticed Seven coming out of his stupor. “You two stay here,” he said. “I’ll check on our brother and fill him in on what just went down.”

  Charlotte moved to the seat next to Fitz. “Do you think he’ll be mad that I shot him? Do you think he’ll understand what happened?” She was nervous what Seven’s reaction might be.

  “He’s gonna be mad, all right, but not at you. He’ll be mad that he let his guard down. That the demon-child fooled him the way she did.”

  “There’s no way he could have seen that coming. Why would he be mad?”

  “Because he broke one of his own rules. One of the most important things he taught us was to expect the unexpected.”

  Charlotte inconspicuously turned around to see what was going on. She watched Jefferson pantomime the shooting of a bow, then the blowing up of a car. Seven reached into his back pocket to pull out his dip can. Pinching off a sizable amount, he placed it between his lower lip and gums, spit into an empty cup and smiled a tobacco smile.

  A few minutes later, he joined them.

  “Can ya excuse us for a few minutes, Fitz?”

  “No problem.”

  He took the seat next to Charlotte and spit into his cup. She watched the dark tobacco-colored spittle run down the side of the cup. “Sorry about that. It’s a bad habit. I’ll get rid of it.”

  “No, you don’t have to. I was kind of wondering what it tastes like. Can I try it?”

  Seven smiled and handed her the tin. “Take a small pinch and put it behind your lower lip. Then just kinda suck on it. It might make you dizzy or nauseous. If it does, spit it out. I’ve seen a little tobacco take down some big boys,” he said, nodding in Jefferson’s direction. She followed Seven’s directions, then spit into her empty water cup.

  “Malcolm told me what happened back there. I wanted to thank you personally for what you did. Satan would have had his way if you hadn’t reacted as fast as you did.”

  “I guess we’re even.”

  “Charlotte,” Seven said, squeezing her forearm, “if you try to keep score of who saved who in this squad, you’ll need an awful lot of paper, so don’t even try.”

  “No, I just meant…” She stopped mid-thought before she added, “You’re welcome.”

  “Jefferson also told me about how you handled that bow of yours. Good work. When this mission is over, I’d like to have you give the rest of us some lessons. Oh, that reminds me. I figured out a new name for you.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Scarlett.”

  “Scarlett?”

  “Yeah, as in Will Scarlett, Robin Hood’s sidekick.” He smiled.

  “I like it.”

  As she smiled, a little tobacco spittle dripped from the corner of her mouth. She put her hand up to catch it, but it was too late, it landed on her blouse. She turned red. “It would be my honor to give you lessons.”

  Seven nodded. “That’s why I always wear black. It hides the stains.” He handed her a napkin. “Would you like to spit it out?”

  “Actually, I sort of like it. It calms my nerves.”

  “We’re gonna get along just fine, you and me.” He got up to check in with Q.

  CHAPTER 52

  As the sun began its assent, Brent, Father Jessup and Chloe stood in a remote part of the tunnel.

  “Sunrise is at 7:21,” Chloe said. “Just to our left, we’ll see a light shine through the coral wall. It’ll be in view for less than a minute.”

  “I’m not clear whether we need to mark where the light comes in or where it shines, so we’ll need to watch both,” Father Jessup said. There was an excitement in his voice that Brent hadn’t heard before now.“Are you going to be all right, Stephen? You seem pretty jittery.”

  He took a deep breath to relax. “I’m fine. I just get a little excited when I witness the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.”

  Brent laughed. “Sarcasm…I like that.” He looked at Chloe and added, “It’s something I’m used to.”

  Patting her rear end, she said, “Right here, Colonel, right here.”

  “So hostile, wouldn’t you say, Father? When this is all over, I think my wife could use some counseling. What do you think?”

  Father Jessup shook his head. “Now I know, without any doubt, that God chooses the perfect mate for everyone. That would be the only explanation for you two.”

  “Wait until you’ve spent time around Seven and Maddie.”

  Chloe laughed at his remark, but a quick time check stifled a longer laugh. “It’s seven-twenty-four. Watch the wall to your right and be ready to mark the spot.”

  From a remote switch, Brent shut off the tunnel lights and the three switched off their flashlights. They stood quietly, as if talking might change the miracle of nature, the sunrise.

  A minute later, a faint beam of light appeared through the coral wall on the east side of the tunnel, so faint, in fact, that it hadn’t quite reached the west wall. Seconds later, the beam grew stronger and brighter, shining what looked like a stage light on the opposite wall.

  Brent placed masking tape around the lighted area and Chloe marked the exact spot where it originated. In a little under five minutes, the light was gone. They stood in complete darkness once again.

  Brent switched on the tunnel lights and they turned their flashlights back on. Father Jessup walked to the spot Chloe had marked and shined his light.

  “It’s a miracle,” he exclaimed putting his face as close to the wall as possible.

  “There is not a crack or a pinhole in the wall. There’s no way for the light to have come through that wall, except, by the will of God.”

  Chloe removed a brush from her pack and delicately wiped off the wall inside the taped area. Etched markings appeared, becoming clearer the more cleaned away the debris. “It says, ‘2 Corinthians 4:6.’”

  Brent was flipping pages in the Bible they’d brought alo
ng when Father Jessup quoted, “‘For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ made no light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.’”

  “You memorized that?” Brent asked.

  Father shrugged. “It’s a gift. I can pretty much recite any passage if I’m given the book, chapter and verse.”

  “And you think the light shining through the coral is a miracle?”

  Brent re-read the verse. “Besides the obvious, what does it mean? Where does it lead us?”

  “The obvious,” Chloe said, “is that, like in the verse, God has made light out of darkness here in the tunnel. I know I’m taking the verse way out of context, but that’s what’s obvious to me.”

  “What if we read it within the context of the Bible?” Stephen suggested.

  “We can’t do that. Remember that Joseph’s letter said we cannot add or take away from what is written or we will surely die. The answer to where we go next is in these words.”

  Father Jessup and Chloe leaned against the wall and, to themselves, repeated the words over and over. Brent squatted. He sifted the sand on the tunnel floor from one hand into the other and drifted into a deep meditative state. Eyes closed, he stayed in that position for about ten minutes.

  When his eyes opened, he said, “The face of Christ. Chloe, where is the etching of the face of Jesus, the one of Him wearing the crown of thorns?”

  “Brent, you’re right. The face of Christ. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. I was reading too much into…”

  “Chloe.”

  “Ha.”

  “Where…is the face of Christ?”

  “Oh, right. It’s down in the part of the tunnel that leads to the bank.”

  “The opposite end. That figures. Let’s move out.”

  Forty-five minutes later, the trio stood in front of a large etching of the face of Christ Jesus. Father Jessup shined his light on the artwork. “My God,” he said, prayerfully. “It’s as if we’re witnessing the Crucifixion. I can’t believe the depth of emotion caught in His expression.”

  He walked up to the wall for a closer look and ran his hand over the face of Christ. As he did so, Christ’s emotions surged through him. His knees buckled and he dropped to the ground in agony. His hands covering his face, he wept.

  Minutes passed before he was able to speak. Wiping his face with his shirt sleeve, he said, “For the first time, I fully know what it means that He took our sins with Him to the cross, that our sins died with Him on that cross. When I touched the mural, I felt the sin of mankind, and the glory of God, all at the same time.”

  Still on his knees, Father Jessup touched his hands to his face and prayed. “Jesus, I will never be able to describe to anyone what I just experienced, but I promise I will never stop trying. Thank You for giving this broken man a glimpse of Your love and the sacrifice You endured so that I can once again walk with the Father in the Garden. Amen.”

  Brent helped him up and squeezed his shoulder in comfort. Father Jessup went to thank him, but when looked at him, he gasped. He felt as if he was looking into the eyes of King David.

  “Are you okay?” Brent asked.

  His throat dry from all the dust, he took a swig of water and nodded. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Something in the etching of the face of Christ should lead us to our next clue,” Brent answered.

  The men stood back to give Chloe the space she needed to do her magic with her excavation tools and brushes. Twenty minutes later, the beauty, and the horror, of the face of Christ shined before them. Beauty because the rendering was so magnificent; horror because they didn’t just see Christ, they felt Him. Even more than that, they felt what He had felt, including thorns penetrating and burying themselves in their scalps.

  The longer they looked at the rendering, the more their flesh burned in agony from the Centurion’s lashes. Sin, not just their own but all men’s weighed them down until they had to look away or collapse under the immense weight of guilt.

  “Did you feel that?” Chloe asked.

  “That was incredible,” Brent said. He touched Father Jessup’s shoulder. “I can imagine what you must have felt when you touched it.”

  “It was as if, for that brief moment in time, we were one; one mind, one heart, one soul,” Stephen said.

  “I’m no theologian, but that’s probably what Our Lord had in mind,” Brent said.

  Looking again at the face, he added, “If it’s possible, we need to look upon it not as Christians but as treasure hunters looking for the next clue, as though it’s a piece of a puzzle.”

  “Maybe there’s something hidden within the hair or crown,” Chloe conjectured.

  “You know, like those pictures we looked at as children. We could try to find the hidden pictures inside the bigger picture.”

  “I remember those,” Stephen said. “They were always in magazines in doctors’ offices when we were kids.”

  He and Chloe stepped close to the wall to dissect the etching, looking for a hidden clue. The closer they got to the wall, the further Brent stepped back. He reflected on Chloe’s words, which held a different meaning for him. His mind flashed back to his survival training before he became a member of the Phantom Squad.

  “When following a suspect, each clue will be multi-faceted. If you dissect it, you’ll miss what it is you’re supposed to see.” Brent could see Seven pacing the airplane hangar. “Unless you step back, disengage from the minute, you’ll read what’s not there and be following ghosts.” Seven’s voice rose as he emphasized, “Your eyes will always be drawn to the details, but you must look at the complete picture first. Don’t miss the forest because you’re too busy looking at the trees.”

  Brent closed his eyes, attempting to wipe the slate clean. He emptied his mind of everything he’d seen so far. He opened his eyes long enough to ask the others to step away from the wall. Father and Chloe saw the look in Brent’s eyes and didn’t question him. Brent briefly closed his eyes, reopening them to see it with new eyes.

  View it as a whole, he thought as he panned the portrait of Christ’s face. As he did so, he heard Seven say,

  “Look for what doesn’t fit the scene. Don’t get caught up in what’s there, look for what isn’t there.”

  “Come on, Brent,” he chided himself, “search for the obvious. What doesn’t fit? What isn’t right?”

  Just then, Father Jessup cried out, “It’s His eyes!”

  “What about His eyes, Stephen? What are you seeing?”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. It’s so obvious.”

  “What?” Brent and Chloe said at the same time.

  “In every depiction of Christ in this pose, His eyes are always looking down, as they would be for one who was in agony and exhausted. In this depiction, however, He is looking up and to the left. That’s what doesn’t fit.”

  Brent slapped him on the back. “Good job, padre.”

  Father Jessup walked over to the wall, put his face up against the face of Christ, so he could see what the eyes of Jesus saw.

  “About twenty feet down the tunnel, on the opposite wall,” he directed his friends. He stayed in that position while Brent walked to that spot.

  “Yes, right there. Now look up. There is something carved at the very top of the wall. That’s where Christ is looking.”

  Brent looked up but couldn’t make out anything. Chloe shined her light, but that didn’t help, either. “You know what this means, don’t ya?” he asked.

  “Oh no, you know I hate heights. One of you get up there. Besides, we don’t have a ladder.”

  “Hey,” Brent said, “you’re the one who insisted on coming with us. Besides, do you really want one of us to clean the markings?”

  “Ooo, I swear,” she said, pointing and waving a finger
at Brent.

  “In front of a priest. That’s not very Christian of you, dear.”

  “Shut up and boost me up before I use these tools on you.”

  Brent laughed while he squatted to let her climb onto his shoulders.

  Chloe had placed the strap of the tool bag over her head and shoulder, giving her use of both hands to steady herself as she climbed onto Brent. When she seemed to be balanced, Brent slowly lifted himself from his squatting position to stand erect.

  Father Jessup chuckled. “I swear, you two crack me up. If all married couples were like you, there’d be a lot more laughter in this world.”

  “You can cool it, too, Father, or you’re the next one I’m going to carve up,” Chloe said as she rose higher off the ground.

  Brent winked at him. “I think she’s serious. And she’s got weapons in that tool bag.” They both laughed, causing Brent’s shoulder to move up and down.

  Chloe screamed, “STOP,” and hugged the wall for support.

  “All right, I’m sorry,” Brent said, trying not to laugh. “I’ll stay very still while you work. You know I’d never let you fall.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Father Jessup said, though still laughing.

  “Quiet! Even your talking makes me move up here. Please don’t say a word. Don’t even breathe unless it’s absolutely necessary.” At last, she felt safe enough to reach inside her bag to retrieve the tools she need.

  Chloe concentrated so hard that she hadn’t realized she was moving lower to the ground the longer she worked.

  “Is everything all right down there?” she asked.

  “Don’t take offense at this, but you’re starting to get a little heavy. Are you almost finished?”

  Blowing the dust from the wall, she put her brush back in the bag. “Take me down—slowly!”

  Once she was back on terra firma, she broke into hysterical laughter. All the dust and crud she had carefully scraped from the wall was either on top of Brent’s head or on his face. “God is good,” she said through her laughter. “God is good.”