Criss Cross

by Evie Rhodes

  The agonizing “X” flamed between them. Quentin smiled in relief. It was back. Micah had made a mistake. The “X” was what made him eternal. It was his source of power.

  Micah didn’t blink an eye. He stared at the “X.” It loomed up larger, brighter, burned more intensely.

  Quentin stared at the power he had created. It was his mark. He willed it closer to Micah. It would scorch him just like in his dreams. Only this time it would burn him to ash. The tables were turned. He had the edge. Micah was too smart for his own good.

  “Move,” Quentin said.

  The “X” didn’t move. Quentin frowned.

  Micah didn’t flinch. He was no longer afraid. He had discovered the underlying foundation. Now he would rip it right out from under Quentin’s feet.

  Quentin issued an order. “Be doused.” It didn’t happen.

  Glowing red coals seeped from the depths of his eyes, connecting with the “X.” There was no scorching, no searing, no imprinting, no nothing.

  “That is MY mark!” Quentin yelled at him. “I created it! Look at it! Everyone will know I was here!”

  Micah smiled engagingly at Quentin. He showed him what was to come. Quentin trembled. Micah had found the source. Never before had anyone come close. Micah Jordan-Wells had tapped the well. In it was life. Real life.

  Slowly, snail’s pace slowly, Micah turned the “X.” With each turn, a sharp stab of pain shot through Quentin’s body. Piece by little piece he was being ripped apart.

  Micah twisted the “X” a bit more, a flaming arrow pierced Quentin’s side. He twisted it a little bit more. The next flaming arrow stabbed Quentin in the neck.

  Quentin was burning, limb by limb. Miniature flames were eating up his body. He was nothing more than flesh warring against flesh. Micah gave the “X” a final turn. It righted. It righted into the shape of the cross.

  It stood before Quentin, regal in all its humbleness. The cross was holy with all its power, majestic in all its pain, righteous and powerful in its origins. The cross simply impeded evil. It obstructed evil.

  Quentin crouched. And he burned.

  The “X” had inverted. Quentin’s deception was played out. With this one revelation, Micah had stripped him to his core. Micah gave Quentin a last knowing look.

  A light so bright streamed from his eyes that Quentin couldn’t look at him. His face shimmered from the inside out.

  Quentin covered his face. He winced from the light. Finally, he peeked out from his cover. What he saw made him bow his head.

  Someone emerged from behind Micah. He was that light. Powerful was the presence of He. His countenance was radiant, like the brilliant incandescence of the sun. It shined from the top of His head to the bottom of His burning feet.

  Quentin knelt down. He bowed paying homage to a power that was greater than his. He couldn’t believe it. Another one. Another one connected to The King. Only this one was destined for great battles. He was marked. Grace was upon him. He would see him, again. It was written.

  “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, Quentin,” Micah said. Quentin’s body burst into flames. He disintegrated into the night.

  Chapter 44

  Quentin was gone. It was time to do battle with the last of Quentin’s bad seed.

  Micah struggled against the wires. Shaughn, who had been watching the battle between Quentin and Micah with heightened interest, laughed. He had a reason to laugh. With Quentin gone, the power was his. He had been assured of it.

  Micah’s little display of power was a two-edged sword. The Prophecy would be fulfilled, just as it had been declared.

  “I guess that leaves you and me, little brother.”

  “I don’t think so,” Micah told him.

  Micah’s eyes turned into two black glowing coals shooting flames of fire. He focused on the wires binding his wrists. The wires snapped like broken toothpicks.

  “Let the games begin,” Shaughn said.

  When the wires snapped, Shaughn shored up the walls around Micah turning them into mirrors. All around Micah was glass. All he could see was his own reflection. He couldn’t tell where he began or where Shaughn ended.

  Shaughn yelled out his name, “Micah!”

  Micah raced toward the mirror image and the sound of Shaughn’s voice. He touched nothing but glass. He heard Shaughn laughing.

  Micah hit the glass in a fit of frustration shattering it. The sound of Shaughn’s laughter continued to taunt him, seeping from the glass.

  He ran from image to image, trying to connect with Shaughn. He hit the glass again, shattering his own image. Still he didn’t come into contact with Shaughn. Then he heard Shaughn’s voice behind him.

  Micah turned. He came flesh to flesh with Shaughn. Micah and Shaughn grappled, inflicting bodily harm in brute force on each other.

  Shaughn threw Micah to the floor. He straddled him and punched him in his face. He rained down blows like a madman, one after the other in fast succession, trying to destroy Micah’s features.

  Micah punched him back hard in the face. He returned blow for blow. His fist connecting hard and fast with a flesh that he hated. He tried to toss Shaughn off of him, but Shaughn was rooted in his position. Micah couldn’t toss him.

  Micah feigned trying to shield himself from the blows, not fighting back while inching his way to the fireplace with Shaughn on top of him. Shaughn was so engrossed with inflicting punishment on Micah he never noticed their bodies moving closer to the fireplace.

  Micah’s fingers strained and reached for the fireplace poker. Repeated, malicious blows continued to hammer away at his face. He reached the poker. He grabbed it. With a mighty thrust, he jammed the poker in Shaughn’s Adam’s apple knocking the wind out of him. Shaughn gagged.

  In that edge of a second, he shoved Shaughn backward so hard that when he hit the cement floor air hissed from his body. Micah jumped to his feet. Enraged, he landed repeated blows with the poker to Shaughn’s face and head. He rained down metallic blows with a force he hadn’t known he was capable of.

  Shaughn struggled to get up, then went for the low, grabbing for Micah’s legs. He managed to grab one of them, but with his other leg Micah kicked Shaughn, knocking the wind out of him once again. Shaughn fell. He struggled to his feet and then, in a whirl as fast as a blur, he dropkicked Micah in the forehead. Micah fell and dropped the fireplace poker.

  He scrambled across the concrete floor to retrieve it. Shaughn grabbed him. He held his legs trying to prevent Micah from reaching the poker.

  They both reached for the weapon at the same time. With a burst of extraordinary strength, Shaughn tossed Micah to the side. He gained control of the poker. He swung it with fierce force. Micah dodged it.

  Micah twirled around. He was lithe and full of grace, like a dancer in control of an extreme athletic grace. He threw his arms wide open in the air. The sound of thunder crashed through the room. The temperature dropped. Pieces of ice that looked like crystal formed in the air like frozen dewdrops.

  Micah glared at Shaughn. He twirled again. He raised the temperature in the room to an unbearable degree. The heat was so intense it melted the furniture that had been stored in the basement.

  Shaughn sweated profusely. Micah stared at the poker in Shaughn’s hand. He willed it toward him. Shaughn tried to maintain his grip. He couldn’t. He was nowhere near Micah’s level of power. The poker floated out of his hand into Micah’s.

  Shaughn put his head down. He blindly rushed Micah. He fumed like a bull let loose in a corral. Micah dropped low. He hit Shaughn hard in the stomach. Shaughn screeched in pain.

  Micah pulled Shaughn’s head low. He kneed him in his nose. Bones cracked. He hit him with a deathblow in the neck. Bubbling vomit chortled in Shaughn’s throat. Micah clapped his hands, hard over Shaughn’s ears, causing phenomenal pain. Bursts of light exploded in Shaughn’s head.

  Shaughn was bruised. He was in extreme distress. He taunted Micah. “Raven is a good lay. She’s a tasty little morsel. I en
joyed every inch of her and then some.”

  Micah kicked Shaughn in the mouth. He heard the sound of his teeth cracking. He kicked him in the mouth, again and again and again, oblivious to anything except his foot connecting with Shaughn’s mouth.

  Blood spewed forth from Shaughn’s mouth like water from a fountain. He swallowed some of his teeth.

  Shaughn stumbled. He licked his lips. His face contorted grotesquely as blood streamed from his mouth. He glared his hatred at Micah. He reached for Micah. But now he was hurting, as well as powerless.

  As Quentin had done before him he tried to resurrect the “X.” He summoned the source of his power. Criss Cross.

  “The power is mine! It’s mine!” he raged at Micah.

  “Who’s in denial now, Shaughn? The power is gone. It is no more.”

  Shaughn ignored him. He summoned the “X.” The “X” didn’t even rise. Shaughn had been disconnected from his power due to Quentin’s defeat.

  Micah knew it was time for the end. He would take Shaughn out of his misery. He swiftly turned the poker in the opposite direction. He stabbed Shaughn with all his might straight through the heart.

  Shaughn’s eyes opened wide in surprise and disbelief. More blood trickled from his mouth. He looked down as blood spilled out from the poker in his heart. He dropped to his knees. He keeled over. His body twitched in a strange death rattle, the mortality of a man’s body dying swept over him.

  Then he was gone.

  Micah stared at the ashes of Quentin on the floor. He swept them into the burning fireplace. Flames shot up. They engulfed the ashes.

  The thunder in the room ceased to roll. Micah looked up to see the brilliant light receding. It gave a final twinkle in his direction.

  Evelyn was just awakening in the solarium when she saw the spirit of Shaughn reaching out his hands to her in a loving gesture. His alter was in place.

  Vaughn said, “Why? Why did you give me away? Didn’t you love me?”

  A lone teardrop escaped from Evelyn’s eye. It washed over the fatal “X” on the back of Shaughn’s right hand. As the spirit of him floated away, she heard screeching like the sounds of many banshees.

  He cried, “Mommy! Mommy!” one final time before he was sucked away.

  In the basement Micah lifted Shaughn’s right hand. He studied the “X” embedded in it.

  Wearily he rubbed the back of his own head. His fingers never realized the barely perceptible number six embedded at the base of his neck. It was just below the hairline.

  Both men were marked. Both men had inhabited the same womb. Both men had grown to be opponents in an ultimate war of the spirit, side by side.

  The seed of the chosen one had already been implanted. The seed had grown. One had been born of darkness; the other had been born to light. Micah hadn’t received the chosen mark through a ritual. He had simply been born with it. The power of good had superceded evil from as far back as the womb.

  Quentin’s desire had been to eliminate any obstacles to his controlling earth when the time came. He wanted to thumb his nose at God and eventually take his throne.

  His killing had been for naught. He sought to destroy the seed of the ones marked, so they couldn’t produce a warrior. He had missed one very important element—he had not known the time of birth of the chosen one, nor the time of his conception. Nor had he expected it to be so close to home.

  As he sought to destroy his coming, seeking to win by elimination the one whom had been chosen was already there in the form of Micah Jordan-Wells.

  Quentin had lost the war the instant he started it. It had been lost to him in Evelyn’s womb. Defeat had already been upon him.

  He had also been wrong all along about the number six.

  It had been turned against him. Just as his own power in the form of the “X” had been turned against him and converted into the sign of the cross.

  All things belong to the Lord God! This has been in evidence since the miracle of creation at the beginning of time in the day of the Old Testament when He blew the breath of life from His nostrils. The number six was no different.

  The mark of the beast is 666. Quentin felt power in that number. It was ultimately his mark. But, his own deceit had been turned against him and one six of the three, a single number had been chosen to represent good, and so it had.

  It turned out to be an identifier of how good could overcome evil. Micah rubbed the base of his neck once again and then he sighed.

  Long ago Evelyn had babbled out, “Jesus Lord! Jesus Lord! Jesus Lord!” in her fear of Quentin. That plea hadn’t fallen on deaf ears.

  The reverend had told her, “God has a way of working things out, child, in His time and in His way.”

  And so he had!

  Chapter 45

  Micah found Evelyn in the solarium. She was crying, softly. She rocked back and forth. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

  He touched her tenderly on the cheek. “I know everything. It’s over, Ma. Shaughn is dead. So is his father.”

  Micah hesitated. “There’s no trace of Quentin’s death. Thanks for telling Reverend Jackson to tell me. But you should have told me much earlier. I could have protected you. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  Evelyn swallowed through her tears. She looked at Micah. “I was afraid. There are no records of him. No one would have believed me. There was nowhere to turn. I only ever stood up to him once, when I gave Shaughn away. I think Shaughn’s not being here suited his plans anyway. If I had left or taken you away, he would have killed you. I couldn’t bear that. Me, yes. But not you . . .” Evelyn’s voice trailed off.

  “You are the only good thing that came out of it,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to lose the one good thing in my life.”

  “I know about Grandma.”

  Evelyn flinched. It seemed Quentin had had his hands on her life for a long time. The depiction in the mural had been cruel. She had blacked out. When she had awakened she had told herself it was a bad dream. Micah’s words told her it wasn’t so.

  “Quentin Curry isn’t your father. He lay down with the spirit of Jezebel. He never touched Grandma. Grandma believed, Ma. Quentin couldn’t destroy her faith. Her face and body were merely a mirage that Jezebel used. Quentin was a pawn in his own deception.”

  “How do you know that, Micah?” Evelyn searched the reins of his heart, as well as his eyes.

  Micah thought of the brilliant light and all he had seen. “I know, Ma. Just trust me. I know.”

  Evelyn saw the truth of his words reflected in his eyes. She said nothing more.

  Weeping Willow appeared behind Evelyn. She leaned over Evelyn’s shoulder. She was finally free to go to her rest. She kissed her grandson on the forehead.

  “You’re a good boy, Micah. Keep the faith.” She smiled. No more tears. Then she was gone.

  Evelyn took Micah’s face in her hands. She held him away from her. She traced the bruises on his face. She kissed his blackened, blue swollen eye.

  “Micah, since Quentin’s death can’t be traced anyway, maybe we can keep it between us. People won’t understand.”

  Micah locked eyes with Evelyn. He considered her words. He came to a decision. Finally, he nodded.

  Evelyn wept. Dry sobs racked her body. She hugged Micah tightly to her chest. Micah cradled Evelyn in his arms. He rocked her like a baby, trying to comfort her.

  Chapter 46

  In her parlor, Evelyn poured herself a hefty shot of Chivas Regal. Micah, Wolfgang, and Nugent talked quietly among themselves. The police carried Shaughn’s body out.

  “This has been one hell of a case,” Wolfgang said.

  “Yeah. You can say that again,” Micah replied.

  Evelyn walked over to them. She offered a glass of scotch. Nugent took it. He gulped the liquid down in one swallow. Then handed the glass back to Evelyn.

  He glanced at Micah and smiled. Micah smiled back. No words were needed. Their bond was solidified. A silent unders
tanding floated between them.

  Micah knew Nugent had demonstrated a loyalty to him that he couldn’t have paid for. For that he was truly grateful. Nugent was just relieved to finally have the truth out. He was glad it was behind them.

  Wolfgang looked at Evelyn. “Ms. Jordan-Wells,” he addressed her with all due respect, “I’m afraid there is no way I can keep your name out of the press. This was one of the most twisted serial killer cases to ever go on the books.

  “Micah is going to have to tell the truth. When he does, the press will be all over him. As I’m sure you know, there will be extreme focus on you as well. I am sorry, but I feel you need to be prepared for this.”

  Evelyn clasped both of Wolfgang’s huge hands between her own. She gave him a direct look. “No. I am the one who should be sorry.”

  “Ma’am, you couldn’t have had the power to stop this.”

  “One wonders sometimes, Wolfgang. I’m discovering that you can’t run and you can’t hide. I lost my faith. When you lose that you lose it all.”

  A look passed between Evelyn and Micah.

  “And the truth is often stranger than fiction. Most people don’t handle the truth very well,” she said.

  When Micah Jordan-Wells stepped out on the porch, flashbulbs exploded in his bruised and swollen face. He was just ahead of Wolfgang and Nugent.

  Micah wore his bruises like a true soldier. The very pain of them was a reminder to him that there was something more in life.

  The street was crowded with the police. The press was out in full force. Yellow rain slickers identified their ranks.

  The Victorian house was being photographed from all available angles. Micah stood regal and proud on the porch. He watched the rain as it fell from the sky. He knew his life would never be the same.

  He was the only one that heard the sigh of the Victorian, taking its final breath.

  The Victorian house stood quietly. It would retain its own history. It would shield its secrets. Some of which would never be released.

  Chapter 47

  The reverend and Evelyn sipped coffee in Evelyn’s parlor. The setting was befitting of a conversation they had long ago. Only a few things had changed.