by J. S. Bailey
Randy stood and eyed the motionless form on the floor. “You have to wonder what made him this way.”
“Who cares?” Bobby moved toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before heading out, Randy passed the gun to Adrian and took a knife for himself.
Bobby grabbed hold of the knob and pulled the door open as his heart tried to beat a hole through his chest. Please warn me if someone’s coming.
He stepped out into the vacant hallway and was greeted by a writhing black aura that flooded his mind.
The face of Rory Wells started to appear in his thoughts, but with Bobby’s sheer willpower he forced it away.
At the distant bend of the hallway, a rather dazed Vincent staggered around the corner holding his hand to his head. He caught sight of them and froze.
Help him, the Spirit said.
Help him how? Bobby thought wildly. He wasn’t ready to drive out the demon that afflicted the healer. He was ready to find a way out of this awful place and book it back to Autumn Ridge. Or are we in Autumn Ridge?
Adrian lifted the gun and pointed it toward Vincent.
“No,” Bobby said. “He’s a victim, too. Just like the kids.” Someone—the late Troy, perhaps—had found Vincent and took the opportunity to use his ability to start this abhorrent enterprise.
Maybe Vincent’s gift resulted from his possession. If Vincent was freed from demon kind’s grip on his soul, he might lose the ability to heal wounds.
Bobby set off toward Vincent at a fast clip. “Hey!” he said. “Vincent?”
Vincent halted and blinked; his eyes appearing out of focus. He probably had a concussion after his altercation with the wine bottle. “Yes?”
“I want you to help us, but first I want to help you.”
A look of suspicion entered Vincent’s eyes. “What is it you need?”
“First let’s go back to Lily’s room. Okay?”
Vincent nodded, then grimaced.
They followed him back to the suite.
The body of the man named Troy still lay on the floor in the suite’s living area. Bobby skirted the still form without looking at it. No wonder Vincent acted like he didn’t want to come back here.
Vincent led Bobby and Randy into a small study close to the back of the suite. Adrian left them to sit with Lily.
“Why do they have these suites?” Randy asked.
Vincent’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “Some guests stay long term and conduct their business from here when they’re not…you know.”
“How much do they pay to be here?”
“I don’t know. Troy doesn’t—didn’t—tell me that kind of thing. I’m sure it’s a lot. Not that I ever see any of the money.”
Bobby wanted to hurry, but at the moment his priority was to learn more about Vincent’s past. “How did you end up here in the first place?”
“I—I worked with a man in Salem. He had a shop. People came to him for readings and advice. If they were sick or hurt, I’d heal them. Troy must have heard about me from someone I healed. Offered me a huge salary if I’d come with him. It’s been years now, though. I haven’t left this place since then. I couldn’t even tell you how long it’s been because I lost track of the time.”
“You don’t want to be here, then,” Bobby said.
“I hate it here! I—” Vincent shuddered, and his voice was harder when he next spoke. “This is where he’s meant to be. He has no other life but this.”
Bobby knew that what was speaking now wasn’t Vincent at all. “He used to have another life, though. He needs to have it back.”
Randy closed his eyes and silently moved his lips in prayer.
A black tendril entered Bobby’s thoughts. You’re not going to save him or any of the others. They’re going to stay here and rot for all of eternity, forever and ever and ev—
“No!” Bobby shouted, fighting off the negative thoughts. Remembering what the former Servants had coached him to say, he said, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, identify yourself.”
Technically the first step was to get the entity to reveal its presence, but this one had done that on its own.
Vincent made no response. His eyes took on a faraway look as he gazed at a painting of fruit hanging on the study wall.
“Do it again,” Randy whispered.
“Spirit!” Bobby shouted, feeling somewhat silly even though nothing about this situation should have been considered such. “In the n-name of the Father, and of the S-son, and of the Holy Spirit, I c-command you to state your name.”
Vincent sat down in a chair and gave a nervous twitch. Then his face broke into a smile. “What’s the matter with everyone?” he said with genuine surprise. “You act like there’s something wrong with me.”
Bobby’s first instinct was to reply, but the advice of Roger Stilgoe, who had helped coach him in what to say in this very situation, flitted through his mind. They will do everything in their power to distract you from your task, Roger had said in between sips of coffee as the group sat out in Phil Mason’s solarium the previous Sunday. Sometimes they try to engage in meaningless banter. Don’t give them the pleasure of responding. As the Servant, you’ll need to focus intensely on what you’re doing. And it’s never wrong to ask the Spirit for help.
Bobby could certainly use some of that help now. Tell me what to say.
The unnerving smile pasted on Vincent’s face warped into something far more malicious. “I’m fine,” he said before Bobby could continue. “So can we leave now? I need to go see if Lily’s okay.”
“You will not distract me,” Bobby said in a low voice as energy grew within him. “In the name of the Holy Spirit who gives me strength, I command you to state your name.”
All at once a memory so old he’d forgotten it existed entered his thoughts. He had been a boy of three playing in the sand pit behind his house with one of the neighbor boys while Charlotte and the other boy’s mother sat in the shade at the picnic table. Bobby could remember how the sand felt in his hands as he scooped fistfuls of it into a yellow pail. Life had been simple then. He knew no struggles. He knew no grief. He had no conscious inkling that a woman who’d carried him for nine months ran away.
With a pang of sorrow, Bobby realized that that boy and his simple world of sand castles were gone forever.
Tears dampened his cheeks. “You will identify yourself to me,” he said, fighting against the darkness in his mind. “In the name of God, state your name.”
Vincent’s jaw clenched, and his eyes rolled back into his head. “We are Sarcio.”
Relief at this apparent success made Bobby want to let out a cry of victory, but it would take days to completely drive out a demon so he couldn’t count this as a success just yet.
Bobby nodded. “Sarcio—in the name of God the Father, let Vincent speak.”
Tremors racked Vincent’s body. “No, no, no, no, no—”
“Vincent?” Bobby said, ignoring the plaintive note in the man’s voice. “Can you hear me?”
A slight nod. Vincent brought his hands to his face. “Get them out of me!”
“I will. I promise.” And he meant it.
“They’re trying to hurt me.”
Bobby hoped this was only a psychological hurt and not a physical one. “Start praying for them to leave you alone,” he said. “Because right now we need you to help us get out of this place.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“If you get us out, I’ll make sure nobody uses you for their own gain ever again.”
Vincent gazed longingly toward the door but seemed to weigh Bobby’s words. “I tried to get out but they wouldn’t let me leave the property. They want me to be trapped here forever.”
“Nobody’s going to be trapped here anymore. You just have to trust us and help us find a way out.”
“Bobby really can help you,” Randy said, his prayers evidently concluded for the time being. “So what’
s it going to be?”
Vincent bit his lip. “I can get you out. But it’s going to be hard.”
FRANKIE DID his best not to explode when he returned home. They were fools, the whole lot of them. To summon an evil entity for help? How could Bobby ever become a successful Servant if those on whom he relied went to such measures to save him?
Father, keep your child Bobby safe from harm. Randy, too. Though it wouldn’t be as big a tragedy if Randy died saving Bobby. Sad, yes, because Frankie had grown fond of the most recent Servant, but Randy’s death would no longer be a disaster.
Frankie still couldn’t understand where Kevin came into play. The angel Caleb wanted Kevin with them instead of in Idaho. Could it be that Randy had needed Kevin to heal him so Randy would be there to give his life for Bobby? Or was Frankie’s vision of Caleb nothing more than an ultra-realistic dream?
Frankie went into his and Janet’s bedroom and found her sitting on the edge of the bed in tears.
What was going on? Had someone called her to say that Bobby and Randy were gone?
“What is it?” he asked, sitting down beside her.
“Oh, I’m just being silly,” she said with a sniffle. “Don’t mind me.”
“Janet, tell me.”
Janet cleared her throat. “I was thinking about how nice it would have been to have Kevin around the day that Jackie…you know.”
Frankie nodded. His throat tightened. “I know.”
“But he’d have had to be there when it happened. Because Phil could have done it, too.” She shook her head. “See? I told you I was being silly. I need to just stop thinking and get on with things.”
That was the kind of advice Frankie himself would have given, but Janet’s words had taken root inside his head. (He didn’t want to think about the fact that his own parenting methods had influenced Jackie’s decision to take a bullet for a stranger.) If Kevin or Phil had been there to heal Jackie as the life faded from her body, everything would be different today. Carly might not have wanted to help the Servants. She might have gone to college in another state and never learned the Servants existed.
When Frankie left the bedroom, he went to his private study where he often meditated upon returning home from the financial planning firm where he worked, and shut himself inside. He stared at the two dozen Bibles placed on the shelves with care and then at the family photo taken when the girls were nine.
What kind of father was he to have left Carly when she was about to summon Thane? Had his own stubbornness left his only living daughter vulnerable and in harm’s way?
Was his judgment finally slipping away from him?
Frankie made an abrupt turn and strode out of the study. He would go back to Phil’s house and stop whatever was happening there, even if he was met with staunch objection from everyone else. He could not let his daughter be harmed.
FRANKIE RAPPED on Phil’s door for a full minute before deciding nobody was there, even though Phil’s car and van occupied the driveway. Where could everyone have gone? Were they all out back and couldn’t hear him knocking?
As he went around to the back of the house to peer in the solarium windows, his cell phone rang.
He answered it so quickly he almost dropped it. “Hello?”
“Dad?” Carly said in a whisper. “Can you hear me?”
Relief almost brought tears to his eyes. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the ladies’ room at Arbor Villa Nursing Home. Dad, Thane is a man, and he lives here at the nursing home. Lupe connected the dots. Phil and Kevin are here with us.”
Frankie blinked. Carly might as well have been speaking Japanese for all the sense her words made to him. “I don’t understand.”
“Thane told us he was paralyzed in a car accident twenty years ago, which is why he lives here. He says he has something called the gift of Thought. He can read people’s minds and make them think they see him when he isn’t really there.”
A chill crept into Frankie’s heart. “What else?”
“He says he won’t tell us where Bobby and Randy are unless Kevin heals him. We thought you might have some advice.”
For once Frankie was at a loss for words. If what Carly said was true, they were facing a human adversary far more powerful than any that the living Servants had ever encountered. “Do you know if he has any weaknesses?”
“The fact that he’s paralyzed from the neck down might be considered something like that. He said he’s the one who caused Graham’s aneurysm. He could kill any of us at any time if he wants to.”
“Why is he doing this?”
“He said he read Graham’s mind when he first came to the nursing home to keep the residents company. That’s how he learned about the Servants. Thane said that his ‘father’ will let him walk again if he destroys the Servants.”
Frankie started to tremble. “If he could cause Graham to have an aneurysm, why didn’t he just kill Randy the same way?” Caleb, he thought then. The angel Caleb, or one of his kin, must have been with Randy to protect him.
A long silence. “I don’t know, Dad. But I don’t know what to do. Thane could even be listening to us right now.”
“And we still don’t know where our Servant has gone.”
“Right.”
Frankie’s mind raced to come up with a solution. Bobby and Randy had vanished from a house behind St. Paul’s Church when Carly and Lupe sat across the street watching. They’d called the cops when they heard vicious barking, but the officer who came to the scene left without calling in any backup.
The truth came to him then. “That officer who showed up,” Frankie said. “He came to that house, found Bobby and Randy, and must have put them in the back of his cruiser to take them away.”
“But he was the only one in it,” Carly said.
“They could have been on the floor behind the seats.”
“They wouldn’t just let some dirty cop tie them up. They would have been two against one.”
“You heard dogs barking and found blood in the grass. They attacked our men, Carly. Bobby and Randy wouldn’t have been able to put up much resistance if they were injured.” Frankie’s heart sank. Such a cop would not have taken Frankie’s young successors to a hospital.
“You think they’re dead,” Carly said in a flat voice.
“Not necessarily.” Father, don’t let it be so.
“What are we going to do?”
“First you’re going to get out of that nursing home.”
“But Thane said he can hurt us from any—”
“I don’t care what he said. Come home as soon as you can. Bring the rest of them with you.”
“THERE’S A stairwell that the cleaning staff uses,” Vincent explained as they left the study, the entity that tormented him temporarily kept at bay. “We might be able to get to the ground floor that way without anyone seeing us.”
“Are there security cameras anywhere other than in the suites?” Bobby asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s not my job to know that kind of thing.”
“Okay. Once we get out of the stairwell, what will we see?”
“A long hallway. We can either take it to the reception area up front or out the back.”
“And what will we find if we go either way?”
Vincent’s sweaty forehead creased. “Giselle is in the front behind the reception counter. We might see some guests coming and going. Out back is a patio area. Deliveries come in that way.”
Bobby was about to say that leaving through the rear of the building was a no-brainer, but Randy spoke first. “The man Jack shot—he was in charge here?”
Vincent nodded. “His name is Troy Hunkler. Was.”
“Did he report to anyone?”
“No. The Domus was all his idea.” He shook his head. “I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Is there anyone else in a higher-up position?”
“Farley is head of security.”
“Farley’s dead now, too,” Bobby said,
his stomach squirming. Once again the thought that he’d made a terrible error in killing the man flitted through his mind.
Quit that, he told himself. You know he would have killed you if you hadn’t stopped him.
Another nagging voice jumped in to drown out the other: You can’t know that. You could have clubbed him in the head like Randy did with Jack.
Hope flickered through Vincent’s eyes at Bobby’s announcement. “And Jack?”
“He’s alive but unconscious,” Randy said. “Who else do we have to worry about?”
“Assorted staff, but not many. A couple of the higher-ups went out of town and haven’t come back yet. And then there’s the guests.”
“I’m going out the front,” Randy said.
Bobby goggled at him. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I have a plan. But first I have to get that nasty gun back from your mother.”
RANDY HATED guns.
Back in the olden days he didn’t have much of an opinion of them one way or the other, but getting shot tended to change one’s perspective.
He tried not to recoil as he pointed the gun at Vincent’s head. The possessed healer had allowed them to tie his hands together behind his back using strips they tore off the sheet in the suite’s bedroom. Then Randy discovered how to remove the bullets from the weapon so he wouldn’t accidentally kill the young man who so desperately needed Bobby’s help.
“Turn left,” Vincent whispered as they walked down the long, gray corridor.
Randy did, and they came to a metal door with a push bar.
“This is it.”
Randy turned back toward Bobby and Adrian, the latter of whom wore a pasty-white look of fear. Bobby, however, seemed to have mustered some determination. He gripped a knife so tightly that the knuckles on his bony hand were turning white like his mother’s face. “You ready?” Randy asked.
Bobby started to shake his head but then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
CARLY SLIPPED back into Thane’s room.
“Why the pierced tongue?” Phil was asking as she closed the door behind her.