Soul Thief (Blue Light Series)

by Mark Edward Hall

  She smiled and took him by the hand and said, If you follow your heart everything will become clear.

  Doug came awake in a sweat, breathing in ragged and desperate gasps. “Ariel?” he called out before he could stop the expulsion. “Where are you? Who are you?” The words echoed inside his head, inside the room. He glanced over at Annie, afraid that his outburst had startled her awake. It hadn’t. She lay on her side, curled like a sleeping child. He placed his hand gently on her abdomen and imagined he felt the child’s heartbeat within.

  Doug lay back down in restless thought. Outside the wind had come up, howling around the eves of the house, thunder roamed the heavens, and lightning lashed the sky. The flight of birds had evidently moved on, for their noise could no longer be heard. And as Doug fell back into a dreamless slumber, rain cried the tears of a lost child on the windowpane.

  PART TWO

  THE ARTIFACT

  Chapter 28

  The temple sat on a hilltop so that God could see everything that went on inside. This was the hope at least. That the maker, in all His beneficence, would see what man had sacrificed in His name, that He would peer in the windows and come to know and respect the name of man as man had His.

  The temple had stood for more than two centuries. It was built of earth and wood and stone and glass, of blood and flesh and souls.

  How many souls? Father Paul Redington wondered, as he gazed up into the vaulted ceiling high above his head. How many saved and how many forsaken? And how many more would be forsaken if he did not act soon? Time was short. The prophecy would not wait. An enemy of the church, an enemy of everything that was good and pure and right, had made its intentions quite clear. It wanted something Redington had and it was willing to do most anything to acquire it.

  Father Paul Redington’s black cassock billowed as he moved down the aisle toward the altar at the back of the temple. He felt a maelstrom of emotions like nothing before in his experience. He had just finished preparations for the dreaded meeting that was to come. Since receiving the message this very morning that the chosen ones were on the run things had happened fast. He had first notified the members. All were in transit and would arrive by nightfall. Preparations had been made to receive them; food, drink, comfortable accommodations.

  He knew that it would be difficult to convince them of his intentions, but in the final analysis it would not matter. He had already made his decision, and he would carry out his plan with or without their consent. Everything else was purely academic. The consequences of non-action would far outweigh the life of one old priest. He’d lived a reasonably good life and he knew it was time to pass the burden. He had understood from the very beginning that the object was not his to keep; it was never meant for him. He was merely its custodian—one in a long line of custodians that went far back into the dim recesses of Christianity—until its rightful owner came forward to claim it. He must prove once and for all that the time of judgment was near and that man had better stand up to the challenges ahead or be forever lost. And if mankind’s only hope was the young man and the child then Redington must find him before they did, because the father was the child’s only hope of survival.

  He reached the altar, picking the artifact out of his pocket, staring at it. After all these years he had never lost the sense of awe the object instilled in him. It began vibrating almost immediately upon contact with his flesh. He’d stopped wearing it around his neck three months before when it had begun causing him pain. He knew what the pain meant, of course; it was telling him that he must let it go, that it was time for it to be passed. He knelt at the altar, the vibrating artifact clutched tightly in his fist. As he began the prayer his blood began to flow, and the pain somehow felt right.

  Chapter 29

  It had been a long road from where he’d begun all those years ago to this very moment in time. From almost the day he was old enough to think and reason, his calling had been the priesthood. Being a Jesuit priest specifically, had come later.

  The epiphany had come at the age of seventeen. He and two friends, both fellow seminary students, and both named Joe—Joe Staley and Joe McMillan—had been clowning around on the shore of Coffin’s Pond, a medium size spring-fed, gravel-bottomed aquifer on the outskirts of Milford, the town where the small seminary they all attended was located. The early May morning had been bright but chilly and on that morning they were the only souls present at the small gravel beach.

  On a whim, Joe Staley had decided to swim across the pond, despite the fact that the day was cold, not to mention that he was not a strong swimmer. He was convinced that he could not fail because if he faltered God would surely intervene. This was not something new for Joe Staley. He lived his life in a perpetual state of God-testing. Redington thought him naïve. Ah, but hadn’t they all been back then.

  As Paul and Joe McMillan watched and cautioned, Joe Staley stripped off his clothes, dove into the chilly water and began swimming with strong overhand strokes. He easily made it to the far side of the pond giving a loud whoop of triumph as he reached the shore. However, on his return trip he began to experience problems halfway across the deep pond, and began yelling and flailing his arms.

  Paul Redington had suffered a mild case of polio as a child and most of the time he wore leg braces to help him walk. He was able to paddle around in the shallows but he had never been a strong swimmer and knew that he could not save his drowning friend. Joe McMillan dove in without hesitation and swam toward his flailing friend. In that instant, as if on a bolt of lightning, a vision appeared before Paul Redington, hovering just above the water. But it wasn’t the vision of an angel or anything quite so immaculate. Instead, it was the vision of a dark and terrible demon with a single red eye wearing a black and fleshy hide that sent dread lancing into the young man’s heart. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the vision. It had been plaguing him since early childhood, and the appearances always accompanied some terrible and prophetic news. On that morning the vision only lasted an instant, but it was enough to inform the young Redington that something terrible was about to happen.

  “Be careful!” he shouted in panic and began to wade clumsily into the chilly water. He got to his waist and realized that if he went any further his leg braces would drag him under.

  As Redington watched, Joe McMillan reached his flailing friend without effort, but the drowning Joe’s panic, coupled with the frigid water quickly drained the energy out of both young men, and then they were gone.

  Paul stood in freezing waist-high water, his weak legs trembling beneath him as tears of grief and frustration ran from his unbelieving eyes. It seemed his two best friends had just drowned before his eyes and he’d been powerless to save them. Paul limped his way out of the water and to the nearest house. The police were summoned and the authorities spent most of the afternoon dragging the pond for the bodies. By the time they were located it was too late, of course, the two young men were locked together in an eternal embrace. Both their deep blue faces wore expressions of shock, and of betrayal. Paul could only imagine how they must have felt as they’d drowned, abandoned by both friend and God. And he never stopped wondering if they too had seen the vision of the demon hovering above them as they’d gone under for the final time.

  Paul grieved for weeks. His guilt would not allow him to sleep or eat. His faith was shaken to its very foundations. All he had believed in seemed to have come apart on that fateful May morning. How could a benevolent God allow such a thing to happen? And worse, why was he being allowed to see a creature that caused such terrible tragedies? Was he not a man of God? Was he cursed? His studies suffered as he fell further into depression and away from the truths he’d been seeking since childhood.

  As fate would have it he was befriended by a much older and very wise Jesuit priest by the name of Father Lawrence Starbird. Starbird was a visiting speaker at the seminary, a missionary of sorts, handsome and charismatic, a wanderer, a visionary and a writer, filled with stories of wonder an
d adventure. To the staff and students, Starbird’s life of travel and escapade was a much needed diversion from the recent tragedy and the otherwise humdrum existence of seminary life and learning.

  To Redington he was a savior.

  Starbird listened to the young man’s story of woe and was very sympathetic at his grief over the loss of his friends. He stayed on beyond his appointed time and began counseling the young student in the true ways of faith and the Lord. He taught Paul about the beginnings of the Jesuits—The Society of Jesus—how it was founded in 1540 by St. Ignatius Loyola, a Basque nobleman and soldier who found God in all things, not just in the things that were convenient. Starbird showed the young student that tragedy and death were as much a part of God’s plan as were miracles, that there was reason to everything, however skewed those reasons sometimes seemed.

  So it was befitting that Redington would share with Starbird something he’d never shared with another living soul, for fear of ridicule or worse, perhaps recrimination or even excommunication.

  Almost from the time Redington could remember, he’d seen a vision of a terrible demon that did terrible things. He told the older man how he’d seen tragedy after tragedy in his life, all things that had come true, and that the ultimate spectacle had been when the creature had appeared before him like some evil deity on the morning his two friends had drowned. “It was as if he wanted to show me his power,” Redington said, “like he was flaunting his murderous ways before me. That demon killed my two friends. I know it just as surly as I know I’m a mortal being.”

  “But what makes you so certain?” Starbird asked.

  “Excuse me?” Redington said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What makes you so certain that this demon killed your friends?”

  “Well, I saw him.”

  “You saw him kill them?”

  Redington was silent for a long moment. “Well, no, but . . .”

  “The coroner’s report showed that your two friends drowned,” Starbird said.

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “He was there.”

  “Yes, he was there, but his presence alone is not enough to convict him of the crime.”

  “Why do you say this?” Paul asked. “How do you even know of the demon?”

  “Because,” Starbird explained, “since childhood, I too have been cursed by the creature’s presence.”

  Stunned, Redington hesitated a long moment before replying. “But how do you know that it’s the same creature?”

  “Trust me, Paul, it is the same one.”

  “Who is he? What is he?” Paul asked.

  “Some things take time, young Paul,” Starbird replied cryptically. “Be patient. In time you will understand what the demon represents and why you are able to see it when others cannot.”

  The knowledge that he was not alone in his ability to see the demon was a revelation to the young seminary student, another in a long procession of them since making Starbird’s acquaintance. So, with the guiding hand of his mentor, Paul Redington’s faith slowly began to reignite. Following graduation he was invited to travel with the older man. He accepted without hesitation. His studies with Father Starbird took him in directions the Orthodox Church would never dare go, and soon Paul began to understand that politics played a huge role in the church and realized that not all faith was created equal.

  Starbird took him away from the heart of the church and its politics to far away lands to study and assist; the Middle East, Africa and South America. The world’s cultural divides astounded Redington. The variety of faiths and superstitions humbled him. He came to accept that all religions—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, or any of the other five thousand faiths on planet earth—were just as deserving of respect as was Christianity.

  In his travels, Redington was witness to hunger and suffering the likes of which he could never have imagined. Through Starbird’s tutelage he began to learn other languages and the true ways of humanity. In every way he felt that he was the wandering rebel, different somehow from all of the other young priests who accepted the words of their elders without question, who blindly and joyously acknowledged the Vatican doctrine as law. And as he was learning and getting closer to God, joy began to return to his life. Eventually, he began to believe that there was some unspoken purpose to Starbird’s tutelage, a tantalizing secret that eclipsed the bond they had forged. Although it had never been voiced, Redington saw it in Starbird’s sparkling eyes, and he heard it in his kind voice and his brilliant laughter. It was in everything about the man. So, one day the inevitable question arose.

  “Paul,” Father Starbird said. “If you were to learn that there was a mysterious but dangerous cabal on this planet that threatened the very existence of humanity as we know it, how would you react?”

  They were at Starbird’s home on Cape Cod when the question was posed. They always returned there after one of their stints abroad. It was a fine home—a property that Starbird had inherited from his family—and Redington felt comfortable there. He’d never had a real home himself. His mother had abandoned him at the age of nine months and he’d never known her, nor did he ever find out who his father was. He’d grown up in a Catholic orphanage in Boston and had gone directly from there to the seminary.

  He and the older man had just finished eating a light supper and were sitting on Starbird’s porch sipping wine and watching sea birds swooping low over the dunes. Their calls were comforting to Redington, like the echoes of long lost dreams. Redington did not remember much from his youth. It seemed somehow all black and white to him now, with extremes that went from violent cruelty to bland stretches of mediocrity. He sometimes remembered the dreams, mostly they spoke to him of faraway places and wonders that Redington understood on some elemental level were fated to be his calling.

  He stared at Starbird, knowing instinctively that what was about to be said would be the most important lessen of his life, the catalyst that would kindle his purpose in the grand scheme of things. He realized suddenly that the past three years had been some sort of apprenticeship, that meeting Starbird had not been an accident, Starbird had chosen him. He wondered why, of all the boys in the seminary had Starbird chosen a partially crippled young man?

  “Because you were special,” Starbird said, answering Paul’s unspoken question.

  Paul stared at his mentor. “You knew what I was thinking,” he said.

  Starbird nodded. “I’ve always known what you were thinking, Paul. Haven’t you known that from the beginning?”

  Paul nodded hesitantly, his face reddening slightly. “I suppose I have,” he said. “Lord, some of my thoughts must have scorched your brain.”

  “But knowing hasn’t made you self-conscious.”

  “No,” Paul said, “and I don’t know why.”

  “Because your thoughts are pure.”

  Paul stared at the old priest in amazement. “All of them?”

  Starbird laughed heartily. “No,” he admitted, “but thankfully they’re all forgivable. I know you’ve had doubts, wondering why I chose you, wondering where your life with me would lead. Well, that’s the reason. You’re pure of thought.” Starbird smiled.

  It was true, not the pure of thought part, but the part about him having doubts and wondering why he had been chosen. It had been a major question in his mind since the beginning, of course, but his gratitude had never allowed him to ask. It was enough just to be the chosen one, asking why would have seemed ungrateful. But now he sensed the time had come.

  “You have something to tell me, Father?”

  Starbird nodded and reached toward his collar, unbuttoning it. There was a small conspiratorial smile on his lips. From around his neck he unfastened a golden chain. Attached to it was an object that was no stranger to Paul. It had been around the older man’s neck for as long as Paul had known him. Paul stared at it and there was an awkward silence between the two men. Finally Paul said, “What?” He felt like he
was somehow being hoodwinked, like there was a joke in all of this that he could not quite grasp.

  “Just watch,” said Starbird. The old priest held the chain out before him, like a magician about to perform some miraculous sleight of hand. The object dangled in space. Paul stared at it. It resembled an arrowhead, the top portion jagged, as if it was a fragment that had been broken off a larger object. It seemed very old, encrusted with verdigris. The stem that held the chain seemed like it had been attached at a later date. It was lashed onto the object with golden threads. Paul imagined that the object had once been the point of some sort of weapon, but of course he had never inquired as to its origin. Why should he have? The old man was entitled to his own personal memento or talisman. “It is from the Bronze age,” Starbird said. “It once belonged to a Roman soldier.”

  Something stirred in Paul’s memory and he began to feel slightly uncomfortable. Then, as Paul stared, something miraculous happened. The object began to change shape and color. It elongated to about six inches and began to broaden, like the head of a spear. Then it changed color, going from an aged patina to a lustrous golden hue. Paul blinked his eyes. The illusion was disorienting, causing his head to spin and his heart to beat wildly.

  “I’ve been wondering how it would react to you,” Starbird said in a quiet voice.

  Paul looked numbly at Starbird who was still holding the dangling object before his eyes. “How it would react to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean? Objects cannot react to people.”

  “Ah, but sometimes they can, if they are very special objects,” Starbird said. “This one reacts differently to different people.” And as Paul stared, the object seemed to vibrate, as if it was attempting to alter its shape again. It began to glow like it was bathed in golden fire. “It has accepted you,” Starbird said.