Sacrifice

by J. S. Bailey

  “It’s an experimental device that acts like a joystick,” Thane said. “It helps me move my chair, among other things. I used to have to blow into a straw to get around, but when I heard about this technology, I volunteered myself to be part of the study to test it.

  “I have no sensation below my neck,” Thane went on, eyes blazing. “I can’t even cough or sweat. Do you know how humiliating it is to live like this? I’m like an infant. My own family sent me to live here so they couldn’t be bothered by my disability. I was their star child, and when I couldn’t be that person anymore, they doted on my siblings instead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Carly said as she came up beside Phil, who had his arms crossed. “Doesn’t anyone ever visit you?”

  “Graham did. He was such a kind old man.” Thane smiled.

  Carly’s mind raced. Her father wanted them all to leave right now, but she couldn’t keep thinking about that because Thane would see into her thoughts and know they were going to come up with a way to stop him.

  Her stomach let out a whine. I want to leave because I’m hungry, she thought. I’m so, so hungry and I have to leave now so I can get something to eat.

  Hopefully her thoughts of hunger would drown out all others. “Phil?” she said quietly. “I’m hungry.”

  Phil tilted his head her way. His face was ashen. “Do you want to leave?”

  She nodded. “There’s nothing else we can do. Our work here is done.”

  Lupe whipped her head around and gaped at her. “Have you lost your mind? He hasn’t told us where Randy and Bobby have gone!”

  “And he’s not going to,” Carly said. “So let’s just go.”

  “I’ve been waiting for someone to say that since we got here,” Kevin said, looking relieved.

  They made to leave when Thane said, “They’re not going to survive, you know. Their bones will rot in the middle of nowhere until kingdom come.”

  “Whose kingdom, Thane?” Phil said in a cold voice. “God’s, or yours?”

  Thane just scowled at them.

  Phil slammed the door without looking back.

  “Let’s go over to my place,” Carly said as they walked back to Bobby’s car, trying to focus on food and only food. “We can eat supper there.”

  “How can you think of food at a time like this?” Lupe asked, sending her a bewildered look.

  “Because I’m hungry and need to go clear my head.”

  “I think I know why she’s thinking of food,” Kevin said with a frown.

  “Me too,” said Phil.

  FRANKIE’S CHEST flooded with relief when a silver Nissan pulled into his driveway and spilled out its passengers. Carly took the lead and held the front door open while the others filed into the Jovingos’ house.

  “I’ve called Roger and my grandfather,” Frankie explained to them once all were gathered in the front room. “They’re not coming, but said they would be praying for Bobby and Randy.” And all of us, too.

  Janet stood in the archway to the kitchen with her arms folded tightly across her chest. “What are we going to do about this man?”

  Nobody said a word. Carly and Lupe exchanged glances, then shrugged; Phil scratched at his temple; and Kevin stared hard at the floor.

  The lack of a response seemed to deepen Janet’s desperation. “We have to do something!” she said, giving Frankie a pleading look. “How do we know he isn’t listening in right now?”

  “We don’t,” Phil said.

  Kevin lifted his head. “I have an idea.”

  “Yes?” Frankie said, praying that the healer would at least have something useful to say.

  Kevin’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Let’s kill him.”

  Frankie thought this would be met with immediate objection from all present in the room but to his surprise, nobody batted an eye. “Explain,” he said.

  “His sole purpose is to destroy us. I think I know why he didn’t just kill Randy by fiddling around inside his brain. He wants to poison us from the inside out and ruin everything we’ve worked for. Phil told me Graham thought he killed more people than he really did. Thane must have done that so you’d all think Graham’s heart had been in the wrong place the entire time. Then you’d start doubting each other, wondering if one of you was going to turn back on the things you’d believed in.”

  “But Graham really did start killing people,” Phil said. “Do you think Thane forced him to do it?”

  Kevin gave his head a slow shake. “I don’t think so. The Graham I remember was kind. Helpful. Inquisitive. Thane must have seen Graham’s weaknesses and used them against him. Graham’s gift was Ministry, right? He wanted to help people. So due to Thane’s influence, Graham decided to find sick people and end their suffering, not realizing that he was actually murdering them.”

  Phil’s eyebrows knit together. “I suppose that makes sense in part. But Graham tortured Randy in that barn last week. Carved a bloody cross into his chest. You’re saying Thane made Graham do those things?”

  “Not necessarily. Thane must have pointed Graham in a certain direction and gave him a big push to keep him going that way. And the question is, how do we know that Thane hasn’t done the same to us?”

  Phil gave a wan smile. “Kevin, I wish you hadn’t gone away all those years ago. We could have used a thinker like you.”

  Spots of scarlet formed on Kevin’s cheeks. “Thanks.”

  Frankie cleared his throat. “You mentioned killing Thane.”

  “Right!” Kevin snapped back to attention. “I don’t see any other way to deal with him. He isn’t going to leave us alone now that we know about him.”

  Frankie pondered this. It was a sin to murder others. Would ending Thane’s life be considered murder, or would it be considered self-defense since the man’s death would protect the Servants from harm?

  He didn’t like the conclusion this line of thinking presented to him. “We cannot kill him,” Frankie said, “unless we know specifically that he is going to kill someone else.”

  The room erupted with arguing voices.

  “—but Randy—”

  “How can you even—”

  “There isn’t any other way to stop him!”

  Frankie held up a hand. “We are not a group of vigilantes. Killing Thane would make us no different than him.”

  “This stinks,” Carly mused.

  Lupe let out a strangled sniffle and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes, shaking her head as if to dispel thoughts too terrible to utter. “What are we going to do?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” said a new voice that filled Frankie with dread. Thane’s apparition, dressed in black slacks and a black button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, leaned calmly against the wall next to the fireplace. “It’s been cute listening to you plot my demise.”

  Frankie drilled him with a stare. “What do you want?”

  Thane’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “I just thought I’d let you know that your Servant and his buddy are trapped in a lodge up in the mountains west of town. It’s a place where little girls and boys are tortured for fun, which makes me wonder what they’ll do to your men. If they ever get out of there—which I doubt—you probably won’t even recognize them.”

  Before anyone could reply, Thane vanished.

  RANDY AND Vincent emerged from the stairwell first. “You’ll want to turn left again,” Vincent said softly. “The hallway ends in the reception area.”

  Randy nodded to Bobby and Adrian and set off toward the front of the building, Bobby heading off in the opposite direction.

  This had better work.

  The hallway carpet—a swirling pattern of brown and forest green, unlike the gray and black of the floors below—muffled the sound of their footsteps. They passed a series of numbered doors that probably led to more suites. Daylight from up ahead spilled down the hallway toward them, providing Randy with a sense of hope. Move toward the light, Randy. Just keep moving toward the l
ight.

  Right before the hallway opened out into the reception area, one of the suite doors swung open and a gray-haired man in swim trunks and a t-shirt stepped into Randy’s path. At first he gave Randy a blank stare but then his eyes widened. Without thinking, Randy swung the gun away from Vincent’s head and pointed it at the other man. “Don’t you even think about raising an alarm,” Randy said in a cold voice.

  The man slowly put his hands up, and a wry grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Is this a new act they didn’t tell me about?”

  Of course. If this was a place where people were injured for sport, the sight of someone with a gun wasn’t going to raise many eyebrows.

  Maybe getting out of here would be easier than Vincent claimed. Odd that the man didn’t act concerned about Vincent, though. Perhaps Vincent stayed mostly behind the scenes so the guests wouldn’t recognize him.

  Randy lowered the gun and grinned. “I’m Randy. Adrian and I are new here, and this guy is showing us around. Isn’t that right?”

  “Uh-huh,” Adrian squeaked from behind him as Vincent gave a wordless nod. With luck, the man wouldn’t notice Vincent’s bound wrists.

  The man’s grin broadened and he stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Randy. I’m Tom. What’s your deal?”

  Randy tried to keep his composure. Tom wanted to know what sort of things Randy did to the victims trapped within the walls of this anti-sanctuary.

  Jack’s gloating face flitted through his mind. “I like to beat them until they’re unconscious,” he said.

  Tom gave a nod of understanding. “You’re one of the tamer ones, then.” He glanced furtively up and down the hallway before lowering his voice. “There’s one fella here who likes to drink their blood. He’s almost bled a few of them dry. Kinda creepy if you ask me, but who am I to judge?” He laughed. “I’m off to the pool. See you around, I suppose.”

  “See you around.”

  When Tom passed them by, the three of them let out a collective sigh of relief.

  “Nice guy, huh?” Randy whispered to his companions before continuing down the hallway. He prayed they’d run into no further delays. It was best they keep moving.

  FEAR KEPT creeping back into Bobby’s heart after he split off from the others according to plan, and he knew it was from the entities that dwelled within the healer and those who influenced Jack. They smothered his courage like a wet blanket over a fire.

  It would take a lot more than simple fear to make him give up, though. The only thing that could stop him now was death.

  As he darted down the corridor, he kept repeating one thought: Please keep me calm. Please keep me calm.

  He froze in his tracks when he heard a man talking to Randy further down the corridor and held his breath to hear better, but the bend in the hallway as well as the hum of the air conditioning system made it hard to make out the words.

  At least Bobby wasn’t in a position where he could be seen.

  The Spirit prodded at his thoughts. Keep moving.

  He kept an eye out for the set of doors Vincent had described to him, then smiled when he saw the wooden double doors off to his right. Vincent said they led straight out the back of the building and that Bobby would have to take cover in the woods as quickly as possible before he was seen by any guests who might be lounging outside in the late afternoon sunshine.

  He doubted he looked tough enough to pass for a member of their crowd. Not that he wanted to.

  After checking behind him to make sure nobody was coming around the corner, Bobby shoved open the doors and stepped into a small vestibule where a set of metal doors with windows provided entry into the outside world. He pressed his face against the glass to get an eye for his surroundings. Part of a tennis court was visible way off to the left. Directly in front of him was a stone patio with a built-in wooden pavilion giving shelter to a table large enough to seat twelve or more guests.

  It didn’t seat anyone at the moment.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”

  The metal doors squeaked when he shoved through them. For several seconds he stood motionless on the patio, trying to get a sense of where exactly he was. Birds chirped in the evergreens surrounding the property but no man-made noises like traffic or low-flying aircraft met his ears.

  Just where in the world was he?

  Voices off to the left nearly made his heart go into orbit. Without thinking, Bobby dashed off the patio into the trees and took refuge behind the largest trunk he could find. Then he peered back the way he’d come to see what was going on.

  A man and woman came from the direction of the tennis courts at the same moment a gray-haired man in swim trunks emerged from the building. A grayish aura poured off of the woman but not the men.

  “—tonight’s show—”

  “Oh, I completely understand.”

  Their voices cut off when they entered through the doors Bobby had just exited. The man in trunks paid no attention to them and rounded the corner of the building, disappearing from view.

  Bobby’s timing couldn’t have been better.

  He studied the sky for a sense of direction. The sun hung low at one end of the sky, so if that was west, it must have been about five or six o’clock. But was it the same day he and Randy had gone to search for Adrian in the house behind St. Paul’s, or had a much longer span of time passed?

  The answer to that could wait.

  Narrowing his gaze, he assessed the best route out of here. Vincent said the lane leading off the property was “long,” but the healer didn’t know how far it extended since he wasn’t permitted to leave and hadn’t seen it for himself. Bobby’s plan was to stay far enough inside the trees while following the path of the gravel lane so that nobody driving on it would immediately catch sight of him.

  Keeping beneath the trees, Bobby passed around the side of the Domus, which looked like a giant lodge made of cut logs. Someone flying over the Domus in a plane would probably assume it was some kind of mountain resort.

  A hundred steps further and the front parking lot came into full view. A Trautmann Electric Company van sat in a spot near the door.

  Leave, the Spirit urged.

  But the sight of the van sparked something in his mind. If a key had been left inside, he might be able to drive it out of here with Randy, Adrian, and Vincent.

  Leave!

  “In a minute,” Bobby whispered as he strode boldly toward the van. Maybe if he didn’t act so furtive, nobody would suspect him of doing something wrong.

  Bobby put a hand on the driver side door handle and pulled it open.

  Angel, the Trautmann employee he had so recently interrogated, was slumped to the side behind the wheel.

  Dead.

  And he wasn’t alone. An equally lifeless woman with curly black hair sat in the passenger seat. Both she and Angel appeared to have been shot execution-style in the temple.

  He thought of Jack shooting the man in the suite. Looked like Graham’s beloved grandson was trying to clean things up as he took over.

  Recoiling from the scene, Bobby made to dash back to the trees when a window in the front of the Domus exploded into a thousand glimmering shards.

  Leave, leave, leave!

  Okay, okay. I’m out of here.

  Gunfire had erupted inside the building. Bobby hunched over and scuttled back under the cover of the evergreens, then took up a post to see what would happen.

  A woman inside was screaming, men were shouting, things were breaking, and Bobby was trembling so badly he thought he would break, too. He couldn’t just let Randy and the others stay there to be killed. It was against everything he’d ever stood for.

  You need to let them go. Get out while you still have a chance.

  “But they’ll die.”

  Caleb’s words of warning returned to him then. Caleb said that he must preserve his own life.

  You have to think of the bigger picture.

  Images of a world at war filled his mind.
If Bobby died saving his friends, the world would be without a Servant, causing another disruption like the one that happened more than a century ago.

  You need to leave NOW.

  Even though he didn’t want to, Bobby tore his gaze away from the great log structure and stumbled off through the woods in search of civilization.

  IT FELT like he’d been walking for hours, though he knew a much shorter length of time had passed. Every so often Bobby mustered up his reserves of strength and jogged for a few hundred feet before his strength ebbed. His body wanted to pass out every time he exerted himself and he had to force himself to keep going even when his vision threatened to go gray.

  He understood more than ever why Phil wanted him to get into shape. If he made it out of the woods here—literally—he would start up a regular exercise regimen. He would have to start out small, of course, and slowly work up his stamina.

  Too many people’s lives would depend on Bobby’s strength.

  At last, when long fingers of shadow stretched across the forest floor, the sound of an engine carried through the trees. He jerked his head up and caught a glimpse of movement traveling from right to left up ahead.

  A car!

  He broke into a run.

  Sixty seconds later, the trees ended at the edge of a curving road and continued on the other side, where the ground stretched upward into a low mountain.

  Twelve or so yards to his right, the gravel lane leading back to the Domus was blocked off by a nondescript white gate.

  He returned his attention to the road. Right led uphill, and left led downward. The road made a gentle curve to the right half a mile downhill.

  No vehicles were coming from either direction; the car he’d glimpsed a minute before now long gone.

  I can’t give up hope.

  He would have to sit and wait for someone to pass by—hopefully someone completely unassociated with the Domus.

  So he stood there. Waiting.

  And waiting.

  After ten or so minutes, it occurred to him that if the police were going to follow up with the 911 calls he had placed, they would have been here already. But he’d walked parallel to the lane as he made toward the road. No emergency vehicles had entered the premises.