Perhaps, I thought, because I had Nephilim blood running through my veins, I was better adapted to the Watcher, whereas Lawrence, who was not of the bloodline, had reacted as if the entity in him were an attacking virus. Already a violent criminal prone to violence, the seeming invincibility he’d inherited only spurned him to become even more monstrous.
I was a healer; my father was a healer. Maybe that inherent calling was enough to combat the influence of the unholy spirit. I didn’t know.
A jolt, like an electric shock, jarred me and sent me off balance. Barely able to keep my footing, I took a deep breath and put a hand against the sewer wall to keep steady. I didn’t know if it was the adrenaline in my system causing me that effect, or if the entity inside had tried to assert control.
I waited a few moments, and when the feeling didn’t return, I continued down the tunnel.
After twenty minutes, I decided to take a chance and head above ground.
Smelling like refuse and soaked from the journey, I came out of the sewer system near an overpass dividing the industrial area and a residential neighborhood. It only took me a few minutes to get my bearings.
Another tingle of electricity went through me, and I turned around.
Two Watchers stood before me and held their hands out, gathering their power.
Chapter Twenty-Four
My instincts took over, and I felt myself connecting with the ground beneath my feet. The earth itself was a living thing at my command, and all I needed to do was will it to shake, crack open, and consume the two assailants in front of me.
“Stop, Mr. Chase,” the redheaded woman, Darcy Anderson, said. “We don’t want to hurt you.” Giving me a worried look, she nevertheless had a fireball forming between her open hands.
Feeling heady from the knowledge that I could heal myself if they attacked, and knowing that Lawrence—who had only attained a small amount of control over the power of the Watcher—had easily defeated them, I laughed.
“Get out of my way, or I’ll hurt you,” I said.
“Listen to yourself, Kyle,” the young man, Richard, said. “You’re letting it get inside your head. You’re not yourself.”
“Of course I am.” I put my hand to my chest. “I am me, only better.”
“You’re drunk with power. It happens when you’re first possessed.” Darcy turned her palms down, and the fireball dissipated. “We really don’t want to fight.”
My first thought was that it was obvious they didn’t want to engage in combat with me, since they were clearly outmatched.
A split-second later, I realized that, before I’d been possessed, I wouldn’t have thought in those terms.
Had the Watcher, indeed, begun to influence me?
As if sensing we’d reached a turning point, Richard relaxed his stance. “Once you realize it’s there, it’s easier to overcome.”
“But it will build,” Darcy said. “Over time, the power swells and needs to be let out, like a steam vent. You have to surrender to the power to control it; but whatever you do, you cannot let the thing inside you take over.”
“It’s evil,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if it was a statement, or a question.
Darcy said, “Yes, but that doesn’t make us evil. We are still in control of our actions. It’s difficult, but possible.”
I pointed at her. “You killed your parents.” Then I pointed at Richard. “Both of you did.” Was it the influence of the Watchers inside them that had made them commit such atrocities?
“It’s more complicated than that,” Darcy said, the pain evident in her expression.
Richard held out his hand in invitation. “Come with us. We’ll tell you everything.”
Darcy nodded. “We just want to talk.”
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. Perhaps Father Putnam had guessed wrong, and Darcy and Richard were part of Enoch Enterprises. “It’s a trick. Semjaza sent you.”
She looked baffled. “Who?”
“Your leader.”
Darcy said, “We have no leader.”
The young man glanced at her. “He must mean one of the other two.” He turned to me. “We sensed three fallen angels about half an hour ago and headed this way.”
“We thought there was only the one here in Chicago—the big guy from the university,” Darcy said. “He must be dead, if you now have the affliction.”
“He is,” I said. “His name was Lawrence.” A moment later, I added, “He killed my father.”
“Was he related to you?” Richard asked.
The more they talked, the less they seemed to know, and the less likely they were involved with Sam Lancaster. These two had been caught up in this much as I had, by an unfortunate twist of fate.
“It was a plot,” I said. “Lawrence was a plant, sent to kill my father and to get possessed. It was an experiment, but it didn’t work completely.”
The two of them shared a look of deep concern. Darcy said, “There’s so much we need to talk about. Please, will you trust us?”
In the back of my mind, I was aware that Father Webber would have his priests scouring the area for any sign of me; the tactical team would join the hunt. Somewhere, two other Watchers, Semjaza and Danel hosted in Sam Lancaster and his receptionist Danee, were on the loose. Who knew how many others were out there? The thing they all had in common was that they wanted me, each for their own reasons.
Though I didn’t fully trust Darcy and Richard, they were obviously willing to start a dialog with me. Also, neither of them seemed as fundamentalist as Father Webber.
In the end, my need for answers won over my suspicion.
“I could use a change of clothes,” I said, “but I’m sure they have my apartment and my house under surveillance.”
“We can help you with that,” Richard said. “You’re about my height.”
* * *
Though I was brimming with questions, when I got into the back of the beat-up coupe they’d parked one street over, I felt exhaustion creep in. As Richard drove away from the industrial sector, I sank back against the seat, and before I knew it, Darcy was shaking my arm.
I’d fallen asleep.
“We’re here,” she said.
I sat up and looked out the window. We were just west of one of Chicago’s suburban communities, at an inexpensive motel a few miles off the highway.
“It’s a bit out of the way,” I said.
Darcy nodded. “It’s cheap. We’re on a budget.”
We went into the room, and Richard pointed to the washroom. “Get cleaned up.” He pulled a pair of jeans and a shirt out of a duffel bag. “Here’s a spare change of clothes for you.”
As I headed toward the shower, Darcy said, “I’m going to get some lunch from the vending machine. Sandwiches all right for everyone?”
My stomach rumbled at the mention of food. “Thanks,” I said.
Richard nodded, flopping down on one of the beds and pointing a remote at the television.
I took my time in the shower, and turned the heat up as high as I could stand it. By the time I finished, dressed in Richard’s clothes—which were a bit tight for me—the other two were already halfway through their lunch.
Darcy pointed to a sandwich and a soda she’d set on the end table for me. Ravenous, I barely managed to peel off the plastic wrap before sinking my teeth into the soft bread.
“Mmm,” I said after swallowing the first bite. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“So,” I asked, “how did you track me down? Lawrence, too, for that matter?”
“We followed a priest here from Seattle,” Richard said. “After listening to the news about the accident at the university lab, we had a friend dig for more facts. Your father’s death was all over the news. That led us to you. We followed you to the university that day, and that’s when we felt the pull.”
“The pull?”
Darcy answered, “I’m not sure exactly what to call it, but there’s some kind of link bet
ween all the fallen angels. When we come within proximity to one another, there’s a little jolt that goes through us.”
I nodded. “I think I felt it when I was in the sewer.”
She nodded. “It’s a bit like a radar blip. Normally, we can only sense a few hundred feet away, but if we’re concentrating together, the signal is stronger, up to half a mile or so.”
Richard grimaced. “When we felt the fallen angel’s presence in the university building last night, we went in to talk. We didn’t expect him to be so out of his mind, or so powerful.”
Darcy said, “Since then, we’ve been following him at a safe distance. He came here early this morning. It was only about an hour before we found you that we felt the three fallen angels make an appearance. There must have been some kind of damper on the building to hide their presence from other fallen angels.” She shared a look with Richard. “When Lawrence doubled back, we decided to follow him. I have no idea where the other two went.”
I asked, “You said you followed a priest here from Seattle?”
Richard growled. “Yeah. He’s a bit of a religious kook, if you ask me.”
“Was his name Father Putnam?”
“You know him?”
“He seems to be the second-in-command of a cadre of exorcists led by Father Miles Webber.”
Richard’s expression darkened. “I have a score to settle with Putnam.” He took a deep breath. “He’s one of the men responsible for the death of my father, and my girlfriend’s brother.”
“Webber and Putnam told me a different story,” I said, not wanting to come right out and make an accusation.
Richard stood up and went to the window. I could see him vibrating in anger.
Darcy, glancing at her friend, said, “We have nothing to hide, as long as you want to hear the truth. Whatever you’ve heard from the priests or what they’ve said on the news, the facts were distorted or ignored completely.” She folded her hands in her lap.
“My parents’ deaths were accidental,” she said, and launched into her tale.
There were tears in her eyes as she concluded, “Holding Neil in my arms, I lost control of myself and unleashed the power. Yes, I killed my ex-husband and the sheriff. I will regret that for the rest of my life, and I will never let the power get the better of me again.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I was both horrified and enticed by the story.
“That’s when I decided to find others like me and figure out why we had this affliction. Maybe help them before they did something terrible with the power. It was chance that I heard about a tornado in Seattle and headed there. That’s when I met up with Richard.”
By then, the younger man had calmed down. Turning around, he told me his story. I felt his pain, finding out who his real father was only after he’d been murdered by his own brother.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said. It was an automatic response from years in the medical field. “But it does explain some of the things Father Webber said to Putnam.”
“Oh?”
I told them about how the senior priest rebuked Putnam, that there was no controlling the Watchers; incarceration was the only solution to the problem.
“Incarceration?”
“Father Webber has built a containment facility to hold the hosts possessed by the Watchers. He has a number of them imprisoned already. Maybe I should start from the beginning,” I said, and when they nodded, I launched into my story.
They listened to the entire tale, but reacted only when I told them the suspected names of the Watchers in them.
“Shamsiel and Ezeqeel,” Darcy said in a hissing voice. She turned to Richard. “We need to get Eugene on this. If there’s any information on those two fallen, he can dig it up.”
Nodding, his face grim, Richard pulled out a tablet computer from a backpack and flicked it on. “I’ll send him an email outlining everything we know. Maybe he can help us find out about Father Webber and the other fallen angels as well.”
While he typed, Darcy leaned back and whistled. “This is so much bigger than I expected.”
“Oh?”
“Well,” she said, “it looks like there’s this Semjaza character—Sam Lancaster—on one side, and Father Webber and the exorcists on the other.” She waved her arm to encompass all of them. “And then there are the three of us in the middle of it.”
“We know what Father Webber’s agenda is,” I said. “But what about Enoch Enterprises? What do the Watchers want?”
“I don’t know.” Darcy gave me a steady look. “But whatever it is, I don’t think it’s good.”
“You don’t have any thoughts about joining up with them?” I asked.
“From what you’ve said, I think the hosts, Sam and Danee, have probably completely succumbed to the influence of their fallen angels. If they were ever good, they’re completely corrupted now.”
“I agree. They deliberately set my father up to die.” I choked on the last word, and it took me a moment to steady myself. “So you think Father Webber’s right?”
Richard looked up at my question, and I could see him biting his lip.
Darcy shook her head. “I don’t think containment is a long-term solution. Besides, his methods are contemptible. He might be the lesser of two evils,” she said with a wry smile, “but there’s always another option. I just don’t know what that option is at the moment.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here doing nothing,” I said, though I was at as much of a loss for ideas as Darcy.
I froze when I heard a knock at the door. Both Richard and Darcy shot to their feet.
“Kyle?” Andrea called through the door, and I felt every fiber in my body react. “Are you in there? Please answer me.”
My mind was sluggish. How had she found me?
Richard pulled the edge of the curtain away from the window a crack and peeked out. I could see him tense up.
Andrea’s voice cracked as she said, “Father Webber said he’ll let me go if you surrender.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
A cold chill ran down my spine, and I lunged toward the door. All thoughts of our marital problems evaporated, and my only concern was for Andrea’s safety.
If the old priest hurt a single hair on her head…!
Darcy put a hand on my arm to stop me.
“Wait,” she said.
Richard stepped back from the window. “There are at least a dozen priests out there, maybe more. One of them has a gun to a woman’s head.”
“That’s my wife,” I said. “Andrea.” The impulse to rush outside and rescue her only increased, but I realized that holding her hostage was a part of the trap Father Webber had set for me.
I had a sudden flashback to yesterday morning. I recalled that the two priests had ensured their weapons were pressed up against our temples. If I’d been possessed then, the regenerative abilities gifted by my Watcher would not have been enough to heal me from that kind of brain trauma. Hollingsworth had killed Lawrence that way.
Drawing from Richard and Darcy’s stories, I guessed that if there was enough distance between the gun and a host, he or she would have a good chance to raise an elemental defense. The priests were aware of our personal vulnerabilities, and obviously knew how to leverage our loved ones against us.
Darcy was right; their methods were deplorable. Up until now, I’d been ready to give Father Webber the benefit of the doubt, considering his intentions were for the protection of humankind. Using my wife as a human shield and holding a gun to her head for the second time, however, erased any good will I had toward him.
Darcy gasped. “How did they find us?”
“I don’t know,” Richard said through gritted teeth. “But I’m getting tired of being put in this position.”
Turning to me, her eyes drawn in concern, Darcy said, “We can’t surrender to them.”
I growled low in my throat. “I’m not going to sacrifice my wife.”
Richard put his hand on th
e wall and closed his eyes in concentration. In a miserable voice, he said, “They’ve put up another spirit trap. With it being built by so many of the priests, we won’t be able to break through it like last time, and we can’t wait them out.”
At Enoch Enterprises, Lawrence had burrowed under the building, but he would have done that before the spirit trap was completed. I couldn’t think of a way to escape. Even if they didn’t have my wife as a hostage, the priests had us at a disadvantage.
“We can’t surrender,” Darcy said again, and there was an edge of panic in her voice. “I won’t be locked up for the rest of my life.”
I could see both fury and desperation in her eyes. I’d only spent a month in jail, and it had been one of the worst experiences of my life. Richard had spent a couple of years locked up, and Darcy had been in prison for a decade. I didn’t know if I could spend that much time behind bars, but at least, for them at the time, there had been the possibility of being released. If we surrendered to Father Webber, it was likely we would never again see the light of day. I could only imagine what kind of facility he’d created.
Still, in the back of my mind, I held out the faint hope that Father Webber wouldn’t murder an innocent woman to achieve his ends.
I took a step toward the door.
Darcy’s grip on my arm tightened. “What are you doing?”
“Let me talk to them. Maybe we can work something out.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. They’re not like regular priests. These guys are fanatics. They believe they have the right to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and then they’ll sleep like babies tonight.”
Richard added, “They’re working outside of the Catholic Church. I’m sure if their superiors had any idea what they were doing, they would condemn them.”
My mind raced to figure a way out. I could only think of one possibility. “They must think I’m here alone.”
“What?” Richard asked.
“Maybe they were only following me.”
“How?”
“They couldn’t know we’re together,” I said. “If they’d spotted us on the street in Chicago, they wouldn’t have held back to see what we were going to do; they would have come straight at us.”
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 56