by Conlan Brown
The man in the corner lifted his head, looking her squarely in the eyes, as if to remove all doubt about his intentions. “Good morning, Hannah Rice,” he said with a certain gentleness.
Hannah opened her mouth to speak, then suddenly didn’t.
“You don’t know me,” the man said, eyes intense despite his otherwise casual demeanor.
She felt the past:
The burning house. Smashing out of the window. Rolling off the outcropping of roof. Consciousness flitting in and out—the man who found her in the rain, lifting her from the ground.
—him.
She squinted through her still-blurred vision. “Who are you?”
“My name is Angelo.”
She touched a throbbing temple. “Do you know me?”
“You are Hannah Marie Rice,” he said without leaning forward. “When you were a small girl, you found a dead bee. You dumped a tiny box of matches and put its body inside. You buried the bee under the porch.”
Hannah shook her head, confused. She had completely forgotten about that.
“Later that year you were stung by dozens of them in a nest you discovered at your birthday party. You wondered sometimes if the bee you buried was one of them and if they stung you because they blamed you.”
Hannah opened her mouth—she remembered the bees and the fleeting thoughts of a little girl, trying to make sense of it all. Thoughts she had never shared. Could he see…?
The man named Angelo continued. “Yes,” he replied, “I can see your past. I can see where you’ve been.”
She shook her head. “I just thought that?”
He nodded. “And you’re going to ask me about the girls.”
Hannah frowned—what was he talking about? “Do you mean the girls that I was looking for?”
He didn’t shift at all, remaining perfectly still. “You were right about your fear—they are being sold. They are going to be taken to an auction and sold to foreign buyers. Once they are gone, you will never find them again. They will be gone forever.”
Hannah was suddenly awake. “What do you know about the girls?”
Something that could have been a smile appeared on Angelo’s face. “I told you you were going to ask about the girls.”
She stared. “You’re one of the Firstborn?”
His eyes dipped then lifted. A subtle gesture that for any other person would have had no meaning at all—yet from this person, it had all the subtlety of a blast furnace—a look that said yes, he was indeed one of the Firstborn.
She sifted quickly through the conversation they had just had—the past, the present, the future—he seemed to see them all. “Do you belong to one of the orders?”
He shook his head.
She bit her lip for a moment, then spoke. “You have all three gifts, don’t you?”
His eyes lowered again, then lifted—yes.
Hannah peered into the dark recesses of the corner. “Who are you?”
“I’m here,” he said quietly, “to bring you a warning.”
She shook her head. “What warning?”
“That it has begun.”
“What?” she asked, mind churning in the confusion. “What has begun?”
“The Firstborn—those gifted at the time of Christ’s death with the eyes to see the past, present, and future—have begun to come together. After years of division, you have been instrumental in their attempts to unify. It has begun.”
“I don’t understand,” she said again. “What has begun?”
“A unified Firstborn is a threat to machinations of evil—the Thresher will be unleashed to destroy the Firstborn.”
Hannah thought for a brief moment. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because,” Angelo said softly, “the downfall of the Firstborn is the deficit between the power to see and the wisdom it demands.”
She studied what she could see of his face, trying to see past the trancelike expression that he spoke through.
“As the Firstborn draw together, the Thresher will be unleashed. The same spiritual realm that your sight allows you to tap into has dark reaches that are turning on you and the Firstborn. The Thresher will not stand for a unified Firstborn— and the Thresher will destroy the Firstborn.”
Hannah shook her head again. “Why me?”
Angelo stood. “I was only given the sight to see you, not the wisdom to know why. You only need to know that the struggles have begun.” He turned toward the door, starting to walk away.
“What about the girls?”
Angelo stopped, looking back at her. His shoddy clothes seemed to swish, his long, curly hair moving from his face. “Their names are Tori, Nikki, and Kimberly. All three girls are under the age of eighteen. They snuck out at night. They fell in with the wrong people. They were kidnapped, and they are being taken across state lines. They will be beaten, drugged, and sold into slavery—their bodies to be used to fulfill the appetites of paying clients. You can still help them—but you must hurry or they will disappear forever.”
Hannah nearly leapt from the bed as he moved closer to the door. “How do I find them?”
He shook his head. “I left a note by your bed; it’s the address for Kimberly’s home. You’ll find her parents there. It may be a place to start. Beyond that I don’t have the power to see. But be careful. The Thresher is coming.”
Then he left.
John Temple passed through the parting glass doors, moving toward the hospital’s front desk.
Burns. Smoke inhalation. Dehydration. Lacerations. That was what he’d been told on the phone—that Hannah Rice was hurt but being taken care of at Jersey City Medical Center. He never did get the man’s name. The conversation had been brief. But Hannah was one of the Firstborn—one of his flock, as he sometimes thought of them—and she was a friend.
He stepped up to the desk, leaning against it with a sense of urgency. “I need the room for a Miss Hannah Rice.”
The woman behind the desk tapped the name into the computer and gave the room number. “It looks like she’s going to be released later today.”
John let his mind skim through the situation, trying to think of everything a good leader would take care of. “Medical bills,” he said suddenly. “When will we get her medical bills?”
The woman continued typing. “Let me see.”
Perhaps the Firstborn were having financial troubles, but certainly they would be able to afford the medical bills of a friend who had been hurt fulfilling her purpose.
“Actually,” the woman said, putting a fingertip to the screen to follow her reading, “it looks like her bills have already been taken care of. Someone already paid.”
John frowned. “Who?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you that information, but I can assure you that the costs of her care have already been paid in full.”
John stepped away from the front desk. “Thank you,” he said as an afterthought, then moved to the bank of elevators.
A few minutes later he was at the door of her room. Hannah stood, leaning against the hospital bed, fully clothed. Her face was yellowed with bruises—yet rosy and burned. White bandages covered obvious cuts on her face and neck. She trembled as she tried to pull her jean jacket on.
“Hannah,” John said, stepping forward to help her with the jacket, “are you OK?”
“I’m fine.” She buttoned up her jacket. “A little sore, and my nose keeps bleeding, but I’m OK.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head as if it were nothing. “I was in a house that burned down.”
John took a step back. “A house that burned down? What were you doing there?”
“I was led there,” she said with a sniffle, running a finger under her nose to check if it was bleeding again. “On a mission.”
John frowned. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want you chasing off into dark alleys on your own? You could have been killed.”
“They were kidnapped. Li
ke I was, John. Three girls kidnapped—teenagers.” She turned her face to him. “They’re going to be sold, John.”
He blinked. “What? Sold to who? For what?”
She shook her head. “Human trafficking. I have to find them before they’re gone forever.”
John looked thoughtful. “It’s a worthy mission, but I don’t want you operating on your own. I’ll get someone to back you up, and funding too. Vince won’t like it, but I’ll just tell him that we saved money on the hospital bills.”
“What?” Hannah asked.
John shrugged. “All your medical bills were taken care of. Any idea how that happened?”
She looked up, considered for a moment, then gave a knowing nod. “It must have been Angelo.”
“Who?”
“Angelo.” She shook her head out of confusion. “I have no idea who he is, but he appears to be a special kind of Firstborn. One that can see past, present, and future.”
John frowned. “He can see everything?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s what he says.”
“Like D’Angelo himself?”
She nodded again.
His frown stayed, a sense of anxiety filling him. “That’s unusual. And a little concerning.”
“He’s the one who found me and brought me to the hospital.” She looked at the floor for a moment. “He saved my life.”
“He did more than that,” John said in agreement—then stopped a moment to think. “Was he rich?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. He was dressed kind of like a bum—with stringy dark hair.”
“You talked to him?” John asked, intensely interested.
“Yes,” she replied. “He told me that I could save the girls—if I acted quickly enough. He also told me that the Thresher had been unleashed.”
John’s heart stopped for a beat, his hands flashing with cold.
Hannah pondered for a moment. “What do you suppose he meant by that?”
John stared at her for a moment, having trouble summoning the words. “Vince told me about Thresher when I first got started with the Ora. One of the last prophecies made by Alessandro D’Angelo foretold how any time the orders became too successful, Thresher—a force of evil—would be let loose to divide the Firstborn before hunting them down and destroying them.”
A small gasp left Hannah’s lips. “So, what does that mean for us?”
“It means things are about to get very, very bad.”
Chapter 4
HE’D SLUGGED THE man in the face and stripped him of the handgun before the man had a chance to fire.
Swift. Accurate. Correct. Approach the problem with the solution in mind—the only way to solve a problem in Devin Bathurst’s opinion. He dropped the man off at the correct institution and got back in the car. Mission accomplished. Back to the office in time for lunch.
Over the last year he’d grown to resent the missions and errands John Temple sent him on. At least this last one was in Central Park, as opposed to the others he had been sent to deal with all over the country—and even one in the Cayman Islands. But he’d made John Overseer—a decision he felt more mixed about every day.
He sat in the stop-and-go lunchtime traffic of Manhattan. The midday light crisscrossed in yellow stripes through spaces between the buildings.
The construction worker three hundred yards ahead waved the last motorist through then turned his sign back to the “Stop” side. The lumbering herd of automobiles returned to its standard, docile halt. A car horn announced someone’s malcontent with angry fanfare. Something inside of Devin wanted to lay on his own horn. Honk back. Roll down the window to make rude remarks and gestures. He declined the impulse and maintained his composure as a courteous motorist. Back straight. Hands on the wheel—ten o’clock and two o’clock positions. He let his eyes close for a moment.
The Lord’s Prayer—just the way his grandmother had taught him so many years ago.
“Our Father, who art in heaven…” The words rolled from his lips—perfectly rehearsed, flawlessly articulated. He glanced at traffic to see if it had moved, then closed his eyes again. “…hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done—on Earth as it is in heaven—”
His car. The street. The seething city filled with noise and anger. All of it seemed to melt into the distance as he let his words take shape. “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
The Manhattan skyline no longer existed outside the window. The city folded into itself and was gone.
“And lead us not into temptation”—the words surrounded him like a blanket—“but deliver us from evil…”
A rush of images. Incomprehensible.
Devin’s eyes snapped open, staring forward.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
He waited another moment, then let his eyes resume their closed position. “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory…” He let the words settle around him for a moment. “Forever.”
He opened his eyes and unclasped his hands. “Amen.”
Devin thought for a moment, considering whatever it was that had washed over him just a few moments before. What was its purpose? Why had it happened, and how did it inform his actions? He let his mind dissect the sensations for several moments more, executing a thorough sweep of all the possibilities he could conceive.
Nothing.
He shook his head and began to stand—
Images. In an onslaught. The future—
Ski masks. Automatic rifles. Shotguns.
Bullets breaking glass.
Screaming and fleeing.
Dozens wounded.
A well-known politician dead—
—assassination.
Devin reached into his jacket for his phone—his mission was clear.
John stepped off the elevator onto his floor, cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Hello?” the other end answered.
John moved down the hall. “Vince, it’s John. We need to talk.”
“What happened with Hannah Rice?”
John shifted the phone as he approached the door to his office, reading the plaque: John Temple: Overseer. He hated the sign. It seemed pretentious, but it seemed like the only way he could remember which office door was his. “Hannah was in a house fire.”
“A house fire?”
“She was tracking some girls who are going to be trafficked. Something went wrong. One of the people she was following spotted her or something.”
John opened the door to his office and stared.
Devin Bathurst—striking dark skin in a crisp suit—turned from his place at the window and looked at John.
Vince continued on the other end of the line. “Is she OK?”
“She’s fine. Some guy named Angelo—” He paused. “Hey,” John interrupted himself, eyes focused on Devin, “it looks like Devin needs to talk to me. Can I call you back later?”
“If you need to, John,” Vince said firmly. “But keep me updated on Hannah.”
John nodded. “I understand.” He said good-bye and closed his phone.
“You didn’t need to get off the phone for me,” Devin said in his typical commanding tone, eyes unblinking as ever.
John waved a dismissing hand as he moved to the other side of his desk and took a seat. “Boring conversation anyway. So, how did things go with the suicide?”
Devin took a seat across from John. He cleared his throat before speaking with very deliberate words. “I dealt with it.”
Concern tugged John to inquire, “What do you mean by you ‘dealt with it’?”
“The man didn’t complete his suicide attempt, and he’s now at an institution where he can recover and rehabilitate.”
John nodded. “So, how did you talk him down?”
“I told him that I was there to help and that life was worth living.”
“And?” John motioned for Devin to continu
e.
“He denied it at first until I told him I knew about the gun and that he planned to take his own life right there in Central Park.”
“And he just gave you the gun?” John asked.
“No. He said that his wife had left him after he lost everything in the crash. He said that he just couldn’t take the loneliness anymore and that he was helping the world as a whole. The man told me that he’d come to that place three other times before but had never had the courage to do it until that day.”
“Wow,” John said with genuine interest. “What did you say to him?”
Devin coughed awkwardly into his fist. “I told him that he was trolling for sympathy and that if he really wanted to die that he would have done it already.”
“What?” John exclaimed.
“I told him to suck it up. That loneliness was part of life. That we’re all born alone and that we all die alone and that he’d better get used to it.”
“Devin,” John stammered in disbelief. “That’s exactly the wrong way to talk to someone threatening suicide!”
“He was trolling for sympathy,” Devin repeated. “He’d meant to do it three times before. Three times. He wasn’t serious about doing it.”
“You can’t say that,” John groaned, rubbing his palm into his forehead. “Just because a person makes a series of false suicide threats doesn’t mean that this time they aren’t serious. A person only has to mean it once—and the vision said that this time was going to be it!”
“Whose vision was it anyway?” Devin grumbled.
“Gina Holst.”
“From accounting?” Devin shook his head. “I told you not to send me on this one.”
“It was important,” John argued, still trying to come to terms with what he was hearing. “I needed someone who I knew I could trust to get it done.”
“And I dealt with it,” Devin retorted calmly.
“But…” John scanned his desktop with big eyes, trying to think of what to say. “How? How did you talk that guy down after that?”