The Faithful

by S. M. Freedman

  Josh tried anyway, squeezing the trigger with practiced ease. Nothing happened. He pulled out the gun Sheriff Lagrudo had given him, but it wouldn’t fire, either. “Well, that sucks.”

  “Shall we get down to business?”

  “I’d rather not,” I managed.

  “I’m afraid it’s unavoidable, dear,” he said. “Although why you decided to throw away your life to save this boy, I just can’t fathom. What’s so special about him?” He moved in on me solicitously. Although he had asked quite casually, I sensed the depth of his interest and alarm bells started going off in my head.

  “You don’t know?” I asked with as much confidence as I could muster. If by some miracle he had a blind spot when it came to Jack, I didn’t want to tip him off. “Guess whoever’s in charge of doing the research on these kids missed a few things.”

  I must have blinked at the wrong moment and missed his approach. One moment Father Barnabas was by the dresser, and the next he had me by the throat. His icy claw was choking off my windpipe and my feet were dangling.

  “Don’t play smart with me, girl. I’m in no mood!”

  “Let her go!” Josh bellowed, throwing himself at us. Father Barnabas raised a casual hand in his direction, and Josh went flying backward. He crashed into the night table and knocked the lamp over with a clang of metal.

  “Why is this boy so important?” His eyes were red and his breath smelled of rot. I opened my mouth, but nothing would come out. Black roses bloomed in front of my eyes.

  Just as quickly as he had grabbed me, he let me go. I stumbled away from him, wheezing and grabbing at my throat. The skin he had touched felt frozen. He pinned me against the wall. His eyes were black.

  “Why?”

  “He’s . . . Josh’s . . . nephew,” I managed, desperately hoping he wouldn’t see through the lie. Well, hell, he was going to kill us no matter what, so how much worse could it get?

  He examined me for so long I was ready to scream and tear at my skin, if it would allow me to escape my body and get away from those eyes.

  Josh was trying to get up, but without lifting a finger, Father Barnabas had him pinned against the night table. “He’s my sister’s son. She passed away last year, and I’ve been keeping a close eye on him ever since.”

  “How . . . ironic.” With those beady black eyes he reminded me of a vulture examining his prey just before pecking out the juicy heart. “You can see why I can’t allow any of you to live, hmm?” He leaned in like a lover and traced one sharp fingernail down my cheek and along my collarbone, searing an icy path across my skin. I couldn’t help the whimper that escaped my lips.

  “It’s a shame you won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but that was the choice you made.” His lips were mere inches from mine. I could taste the black decay of his breath, and my stomach churned violently. “I’ll give you another choice,” he whispered. “Who dies first?”

  “No . . .” I pleaded.

  He nuzzled my neck, and my skin blistered where his lips and tongue grazed me. His teeth were daggers tracing their way up my neck. “Will you choose to go first, so you don’t see them suffer?” he murmured, breath hot on my skin. “Or will you watch them die for your betrayal?”

  “No . . .” I pulled away from him, stumbling, and he shoved me to the floor. A moment later he was on top of me. He smothered my mouth with his own, and his thick, maggoty tongue jabbed into my throat. I gagged, stomach heaving against his attack.

  “Leave her alone!” Josh bellowed. I could see him struggling to get to us, but he was pinned.

  “Mmm. Delicious.” He pulled back and murmured against my lips. “I’ve always had a thing for redheads. They’re so . . . fiery.”

  Father Barnabas tugged at my jeans, and I could feel his hardness pressing against my leg. I wailed in protest, struggling to get away. But my fear clearly aroused him, and he groaned with pleasure and redoubled his effort.

  Pushing up my shirt, he tore at the Kevlar vest. My bra was ripped aside, his hands scorching my bare skin. He kneaded my breast and pinched my nipples, sending shock waves of pain through me. I screamed, which made him moan. His hips thrust forward convulsively.

  “I said leave her alone!” Josh roared.

  “Should we let him watch, my dear?” His voice was ragged with arousal.

  “Please, don’t,” I sobbed.

  My pants came free, and the cold air lapped at my exposed skin. He pushed my legs apart and rubbed an icy finger over my tender skin, pinching and hurting. I bellowed.

  “Don’t you dare!” Josh raged. The veins in his neck were popping and his skin was an apoplectic purple. But it did no good; he was as effectively trapped as a bug in a glass.

  Father Barnabas smirked at him. He pulled his robe aside and moved over me, pressing me down with a satisfied grunt. I closed my eyes and prepared for the assault, wishing Josh would turn aside.

  “Shedim!”

  He froze above me.

  The boy was standing on the bed, his hands splayed in front of him. His eyes were rolled back in his head, revealing only the whites, but they were focused directly on the Priest.

  Father Barnabas howled, pulling back from me. I scuttled away and pressed against the wall, yanking at my clothes.

  “Shedim!” Jack said again, and his voice was as pure and clean as the ringing of a bell.

  “They mingled with the nations and learned their deeds. They shed innocent blood and the land became polluted. And they became unclean through their deeds and went astray!”

  “Who . . . are you?” Father Barnabas gasped.

  “I am Jack, son of Emma. I am a mere boy.” He climbed down from the bed and moved toward us. Father Barnabas shrank back against the dresser.

  “I am of the Sabaoth. A warrior for the White. You! Watcher, Daemon, Vile Being! You shall be cast aside, forever to wander the underworld in torment!”

  Father Barnabas laughed. It started out as a chuckle, and then it turned into a cackle which morphed into a screech that hammered at my brain. I covered my ears, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Josh doing the same.

  The boy seemed unfazed. He moved in on the Priest, reaching out for him with his bruised hands. Father Barnabas tried to move away, but he had nowhere to go.

  Jack Barbetti’s hands cupped the Priest’s cheeks, as gently as a parent would touch their child, and the Priest stopped screeching. The silence that descended was so abrupt I wondered if my eardrums had burst.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Perhaps that Father Barnabas would disappear in a puff of smoke. Or maybe that he would melt to the ground like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, leaving his crimson robe in a steaming pile on the floor. Neither happened.

  A trickle of blood escaped his right nostril and his eyes rolled back in his head. Jack set him down carefully, cradling his head and laying it gently against the floor.

  He turned toward me. I have to admit, I flinched; those white eyes were creepy. He climbed into my lap and wrapped his arms around my neck, burying his face against my shoulder. After a moment my arms found their way around him. I could feel each of his ribs and the small, hard nubs of his spine.

  “I want my mommy,” he said. And then he wept.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  “Do you have him?” Ryanne wheezed.

  “Yup. Got him, go ahead,” Josh said. Ryanne took a deep breath and started to climb again.

  The way out was much more challenging than the way in, and Josh was sweating profusely. It was a long, slow climb out of the bowels of the earth, made all the more difficult by the unconscious boy they were carrying.

  Jack Barbetti had wept in Ryanne’s trembling arms for several minutes, and then, without warning or wind-down of any kind, had simply returned to his comatose state.

  That was when Josh decided it was time to hightail it
out of there. They left Father Barnabas lying on the ground, blood pooling under his cheek. Although he hadn’t bothered to check his vitals, Josh doubted he was dead. He kept expecting to feel one of those bony claws clamp down on his ankle. Would that wild, screechy cackle be the last thing he ever heard?

  Stop it, he told himself. Stay focused on the task at hand. Still, he couldn’t help it. He kept peeking back over his shoulder into the darkness. Josh had never been a fan of horror movies. He hadn’t slept for three nights after watching The Exorcist at Kevin Greenwood’s thirteenth birthday party. Now he was living through his own version of one, minus the creepy music, and he didn’t much like it.

  “How much farther?” he asked, pausing to redistribute the boy’s weight to the other side.

  Ryanne stopped ahead of him, breathing hard. “Another fifty feet or so.”

  “Good.”

  “Until the fork, I mean. We turn left, and then it’s another hundred yards. Or so.”

  He stifled a groan. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Do you want me to take him?” she asked.

  While he appreciated the offer, he doubted she could manage more than ten feet carrying the boy up the steep incline. “I’m fine. Lead the way.”

  “If it helps, Sumner’s waiting for us near the top.”

  “No kidding?” That did lighten his spirits. “And Ora? Any idea if she’s all right?”

  “She’s fine. She’s with him.”

  “That’s . . . really . . . great.” Tears stung his eyes. Josh had long ago used up any extra stores of adrenaline, and he was on the brink of physical and mental exhaustion. His whole body was trembling with it.

  Not too much farther, he thought. Get going.

  He focused on the physical task of moving forward, one step at a time. They made it around the curve and he switched Jack back to the left side. Halfway up the final climb, there was a faint lightening around them. The pitch dark gave way an inch at a time until he could just make out Ryanne’s outline in front of him. Ahead of her was a ghostly, silver light.

  He switched Jack back to the right side and pushed his quivering muscles through the last few yards, eyes focused on the growing moonlight ahead of them. Ryanne disappeared into the glow, then reached down to help pull Jack up and over the ledge.

  Josh pulled himself up beside her and lay with his eyes closed, panting against the cool earth. He had never been so grateful to feel open air around him.

  “Is Jack okay?” Ryanne asked.

  “I think so,” Josh wheezed. “He’s breathing.”

  “He’s so thin.”

  “You’re kidding, right? He weighs a ton.” He opened his eyes, and his stomach did a slow roll. “Where the hell are we?”

  “The cliff,” she answered.

  Very carefully, Josh sat up. They were on an eight-foot ledge, and below, the world dropped away. At the bottom, he could make out the checkerboard formation of farmland, gone fallow for the winter.

  “It’s ironic, really,” she panted. “I guess this is where Jack landed when he fell over the edge.”

  Josh looked up. The rock face behind him climbed straight up some thirty feet. “Um, I don’t see how we’re going to get up there. Or get Jack up there, for that matter.”

  “Haven’t you ever done any rock climbing?” Sumner’s head poked out above him. He was grinning. “Howdy, folks! Fancy meeting you here.”

  Josh beamed up at him. “At Quantico. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Well, sounds like it’s time for a refresher course.”

  “I also used a rope,” Josh added.

  Sumner’s grin only widened. “Ask and you shall receive, my friend.” He disappeared.

  “There are climbing ropes stashed in a Rubbermaid up there,” Ryanne explained. “This entrance gets used quite a bit. By the younger Priests.”

  Phoenix’s head appeared over the edge, his pale skin and white-blond hair glowing silver in the moonlight.

  “We’re attaching the rope to the bottom of a tree. Who wants to climb up first?”

  “I think you’d better,” Josh said to Ryanne. “I’ll carry Jack up after you.”

  “That does it. Tomorrow I’m going to start eating better,” she panted. “And getting more exercise.”

  He refrained from commenting.

  Sumner lowered a rope, and Josh followed Phoenix’s directions to tie a Swiss seat harness around Ryanne. When he was done, she looked at him nervously.

  “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Just take it one step at a time,” he offered lamely. “And don’t look down.”

  Ryanne moved slowly, testing out each hand- and toehold and pausing frequently with her face pressed against the rock. About three quarters of the way up, she slipped. Josh slapped his hands over his eyes.

  “Don’t worry! We’ve got you,” Phoenix called.

  Josh watched through his fingers as they hauled her the rest of the way. She disappeared over the ledge.

  “Are you all right?” he called up to her.

  “That harness hurts like a son of a bitch!” she yelled back down. “You’ll see!”

  Once again the rope was lowered, and Josh followed Phoenix’s instructions for tying the boy securely against his torso. He started up. There were plenty of little ledges to grip and he moved carefully from one hold to the next. Hauling Jack’s extra sixty pounds had his arms trembling from fatigue by the time he was halfway up. His feet slipped a couple of times, but he managed to regain his hold.

  After what felt like hours, hands grabbed his wrists. Josh was hauled over the lip of rock and onto solid ground. He lay there panting while Sumner and Phoenix undid the ropes and lifted Jack off him.

  Ryanne knelt down beside him and gave him a watery smile. She was grimy with sweat and dirt, and she’d never looked so beautiful. She stroked the damp hair off his forehead. “Are we having fun yet?”

  “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  Her tears landed silently on his cheeks, a secret between them. “He didn’t . . . Jack was just in time.”

  He pulled her in, tucking her face against his chest and stroking her tangled hair. His eyes burned with unshed tears.

  “Come on, kids,” Sumner said. “The girls are waiting for us. Let’s haul ass.”

  She pulled away, wiping her eyes, and Sumner helped her and then Josh to their feet.

  “We’re parked over that way.” He pointed into the trees, and they followed him. Twenty feet ahead, they could just make out Phoenix, who was carrying Jack over one shoulder.

  “Do you think Jack’s all right?” Sumner asked.

  Ryanne shrugged. “He was drugged. I’m hoping once it wears off, he’ll wake up. Is everybody okay on your end?”

  “We’re all in one piece. And man, do I have some stories for you!” Sumner said, slowing his pace to match Josh’s and Ryanne’s exhausted hobble. “But I’m betting your night has been just as hairy.”

  “You could say that. And we’re not out of the woods yet,” Josh warned, and Sumner laughed.

  “Good one!” he said, although Josh hadn’t meant it as a joke.

  They reached the clearing where the Suburban was parked. Phoenix was standing with his back against the open passenger door, arguing with a newcomer in a white robe.

  “Oh hell,” Sumner said.

  Josh could see Jack’s feet sticking out the door, and Phoenix was standing protectively in front of them. It quickly became apparent the Priest didn’t want Jack, however.

  “You’re not taking her,” he said to Phoenix. “I forbid her to leave The Ranch.”

  “Father Narda said—”

  “I don’t care what Father Narda said. She’s my daughter, and I want her here, where it’s safe!”

  “She wants to come with us.” Ora poked her head
out of the open car door.

  “She’s twelve years old. She doesn’t get a say!”

  “Shit,” Sumner said, and moved toward them. “Father Gabriel, I promise we’ll keep her safe. I’ve already promised Father Narda—”

  The Priest turned to Sumner and the moonlight danced across his face. He was in his late fifties, with thinning gold and gray hair and a bushy beard. He was fairly tall, but slender and narrow through the shoulders.

  “I said no, Sumner!” He turned back to the Suburban. “Ashlyn, you come out here right this instant!”

  “No!” the girl in question yelled from inside the vehicle. Josh could just make out her outline in the shadowy depths as she moved away from the open door.

  “I’m not kidding, young lady!” the Priest said sternly.

  “This is ridiculous.” Josh shook his head. The last thing he had expected to impede their progress was a custody battle over some preteen. He was so busy watching the argument unfold, he didn’t notice what Ryanne was doing until it was too late.

  “Gabriel,” she hissed, aiming the gun at his head. He turned toward her and froze. Even from a distance, Josh could see the blood drain from his face.

  “Rowan . . .” he choked out.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your brains out right now, you bastard.”

  “No!” the girl yelled from inside the Suburban.

  “Rowan . . .” he stuttered again, raising his hands in front of him.

  “My name is Ryanne,” she corrected, and her finger tightened on the trigger.

  “No!” the girl screamed as she flew out of the Suburban. She tripped over Jack’s legs and fell flat on her face in the dirt.

  “Please don’t hurt him!” she yelled, scrambling to her feet.

  Ryanne’s gaze fell on the girl, and time stopped.

  Josh reeled in shock, and if it hadn’t been for a handy tree, he would have fallen. She had red hair, pale skin, and a heart-shaped face. Josh would have bet she had green eyes, too.

  Ryanne’s hands were trembling, but to her credit she kept the gun trained on Father Gabriel’s head.