Soul Thief (Blue Light Series)

by Mark Edward Hall

  “What do you think of the state of the world today?” he asked.

  Annie turned to her father, a puzzled frown on her face. “What did you say?”

  “I was talking to Douglas.”

  Doug frowned. De Roché sat looking straight ahead, a well proportioned man in a charcoal-colored Andre Cyr suit. His shoulders were broad, his abdomen still relatively flat. He was decadently handsome with a perfect head of iron-gray hair. His hands were beautifully manicured; they were the hands of a man who had never done a lick of physical work.

  Here was a man who knew what Doug had seen and heard not eight hours before, yet he was brimming with confidence, calmly certain that Doug would not expose him.

  “I don’t really think about it that much,” Doug replied curtly.

  “You don’t care about what happens, then? I mean all the terrorism and instability, the world markets in the tank, everything so volatile.”

  “Oh, I care,” Doug said. “But I have the power of one vote, and lately I’m not even sure that counts for much. What I believe is that men like you orchestrate everything for your own ends.”

  De Roché chuckled. “So that’s what you believe, is it?”

  “Yup.”

  “I see,” De Roché said with a slight tinge of satisfaction in his voice. “How did you feel back when the twin towers came tumbling down?”

  “Sad and angry,” Doug replied. “I lost a good friend in that mess.”

  “Yes, I know,” said De Roché. “Her name was Nadia Zeigler. She and you were childhood sweethearts. Following high school she attended Bowdoin College, graduated magna cum laude, then went on to Harvard where she graduated with a master’s degree in economics. From there she went to work as a financial analyst. On the morning of September 11, 2001 she was at work at her desk on the fifty-second floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower when the first jetliner struck. Her body was never recovered from the wreckage. Not even so much as a tiny strand of her DNA was found.”

  Doug turned and looked past Annie, glaring savagely at De Roché. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I make it my business to know things, Douglas. It is the secret of my success. There is nothing I do not know about you. Nothing! Do you understand?”

  Doug was beginning to understand. The extent of De Roché’s manipulative cunning was astonishing. The old man had just delivered a warning that said: you mention the things you saw last night and I’ll start talking about your past. Doug was suddenly certain that De Roché knew about the Collector and the experiences Doug had endured as a child. These were things he had never confided in Annie and De Roché was betting that he did not want Annie to know about them now. The old man was right, of course. Oh yeah, Annie, I forgot to mention that I have these little trances where I see a demon that steals people’s souls and takes children. And the demon talks to me like I’m some sort of conspirator. And when I wake up from these trances I find that they’re not just dreams but something totally real. Cool, huh? Well, anyway, sorry I never mentioned that before.

  “Besides,” De Roché continued with a knowing little smile, “Nadia Zeigler’s and my paths crossed on numerous occasions. Actually she did some very fine work for me. She was a bright young woman who had a promising future cut short by religious zealots who should not be allowed to exist. A shame she had to die in such a terrible way.”

  Doug was floored, speechless. He never would have guessed that Nadia and De Roché were connected. The thought struck him that too many things in his life had a connection that went back to De Roché.

  “Do you know what I do for a living, Douglas?”

  “Not really. It’s always been kind of vague to me. Annie says you make money with other peoples money. Great gig if you can get it.”

  De Roché ignored Doug’s sarcasm. “When I was a young man I had a mentor,” he said. “He was a very wise man who took an interest in me. He saw that I had talent and he helped me to develop that talent. By the time I was twenty I was predicting financial trends with amazing accuracy. I made friends who liked what I could do for them and so they let me use their money to make more money.”

  “So you’re a stock broker.”

  De Roché laughed heartily. “No,” he said shaking his head. “I am a visionary. I see trends and I capitalize on them. I’ve never set foot in any of the exchanges. Mostly I just give advice. My friends either take that advice or leave it. The ones who take it have become enormously wealthy. But what is important is my vision, my ability to amass huge sums of capital has allowed me to pursue other, much more interesting and important endeavors.”

  “Really,” Doug said blandly.

  “Really, Douglas. Let me ask you a question. Why do you suppose we haven’t been to the moon in nearly forty years?”

  “What?” This new question was a total shift, and Doug suspected what the old man was doing; he was trying to steer the conversation as far away from last night’s events as possible. Doug glanced at Annie. She was looking straight ahead, showing no signs of emotion. He wasn’t sure she was even listening. Considering the circumstances he wondered if she was capable of any sort of emotional response. “I don’t know,” Doug replied. “Money seems the obvious reason?”

  “There’s plenty of money, Douglas. More than enough. We should have been to Mars and beyond by now. We should have been tapping the resources of other worlds, spreading man’s influence throughout the solar system. Instead we wallow around in political quagmire. What we lack is vision. It’s the same reason we can never win a war on terrorism, at least under the present way of thinking, we can’t. We should stomp those who would seek to destroy us, without remorse.”

  “You mean the terrorists? I thought we were doing that?”

  De Roché chuckled. “We’re playing games, trying not to step on toes or hurt feelings. We are far too concerned with diplomacy. Instead of winning we’re worried about political correctness.”

  “So, it’s not about oil?” Doug said.

  “Oh yes, Douglas, it is most definitely about oil.”

  “That settles it, then.”

  “It settles nothing,” De Roché said in irritation. “Oil is the leverage they use against us.”

  “So, what do you think we should do about it?”

  “We should use all the power at our disposal and take what we want, what we need. We should destroy the enemy and those who support them. And we should do it swiftly, before they obtain the power to destroy us. It is only a matter of time, you know. Just as soon as they’re capable, millions will die in a city like New York or Washington. And that will be just the beginning. And we just sit around playing political pussyfoot with them. Bunk!”

  “And how would you destroy them, Ed?”

  “There are ways.”

  “Such as?”

  De Roché emitted a short, wry laugh. “Power, Douglas, the likes of which this world has never imagined. It is a power as old as time and as fundamental as life itself. And it is right here in our midst, yet most are not even aware of it.”

  Doug frowned. De Roché was sounding like a mad man. But that wasn’t really surprising. “I’m not following you,” he said. “Are you talking about nukes, or something similar?”

  De Roché smiled. “No, Douglas. Nothing even close. I am talking about a simple but fundamental kind of power.”

  “Yes, you said that. But what is it?”

  “Of course you understand that I cannot discuss the details of such a power openly with anyone. It is the greatest secret in the history of the world and it must be protected at all costs.”

  “Is this a power that you now possess?” asked Doug.

  “Not at the moment,” replied De Roché, “but I will.”

  “And this power will be wielded by whom?” Doug asked. He was beginning to get agitated.

  “Men of vision, of course.”

  “Men like you?”

  “Of course. Allow me to explain. On this planet there exists a sup
er-power elite. It is an ultra secret cabal, an inter-dimensional society, largely invisible, yet for centuries they have controlled everything: money, governments, churches, minds, even souls.”

  Annie continued to stare straight ahead as if she’d turned into a block of salt. Doug knew that she had checked out. He couldn’t blame her. This was the day of her mother’s funeral. She wanted to grieve, not discuss the hallucinations of a sick and greedy man.

  “In short you’re saying that nothing we do matters,” Doug said. “That everything was worked out eons ago. That we’re all just puppets at the mercy of some ultra secret cabal.”

  “Essentially, yes, Douglas.”

  “Okay, sure, why not,” Doug said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. De Roché was most certainly a mad man.

  “It doesn’t matter that you do not believe, Douglas,” De Roché said. “It is good that you don’t actually. It’s supposed to be that way. Denial and non-belief ensures the cabal’s continued survival.”

  Doug remained silent in thought. Actually he was beginning to enjoy this. He’d heard about secret societies, of course. The internet, as well as the cable television networks, were filled with theorists who predicted government cover-ups as wide-ranging as UFOs to a secret Illuminati society that was plotting to take over the world. He had always taken most of it with a grain of salt. This was the first time, however, that someone he knew was talking like it was real.

  “Who are these people that control everything, Édouard?”

  De Roché frowned. “You want names?”

  Doug nodded. “Yeah, you seem to know everything else, give me some names.”

  Again De Roché frowned. “My dear boy, I can’t give you names.”

  “I thought so,” Doug said.

  “There are no lists,” De Roché said in irritation. “These are the men in the shadows. They run governments and choose world leaders, control minds; they manage the planet’s security forces, organizations such as the CIA, NSA, INTERPOL and Homeland Security to name just a few.”

  “So it wouldn’t be difficult to find out who they are.”

  “Much more difficult than you could ever imagine.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said, Douglas. Truth is, there are groups within groups, many levels of power. The ones you see on TV or at the White House, or in the halls of congress, they’re merely the spokespeople, the puppets, the talking heads. The real power brokers have insulated themselves quite successfully, and quite necessarily. I’m sure you can understand why. The men at the highest levels answer to no one. It’s always been that way. Their long term goal is to see that we as a people, attain a oneness-of-mind, that we, as world citizens are spiritually and politically harmonized to a common frequency. The Masters have commanded them to eliminate the old world, with all of its old ideas, to construct a new generation, a new world order.”

  “Masters?” Doug said with incredulity. “New world order?”

  De Roché flapped an impatient hand. He was becoming agitated. “Never mind,” he said. “Talking to you was a mistake. You have no vision.”

  “No, go on,” Doug said. “I’m enjoying this.” In reality he could not believe his ears. De Roché sounded more like a mad man every minute. Whether this shadow elite actually existed or not wasn’t what was important. The fact that De Roché believed they existed was the scary part.

  De Roché cleared his throat and was silent for a long moment in thought. “In recent years, the Masters have backed off and just watched, wondering where humanity would go if left to its own devices. The result of this is what you see every day on the twenty-four hour news channels: lies, uncertainty, chaos, political quagmire, fundamentalists from every known sect and some unknown, espousing their virtues and damning the rest of us for not towing their line.

  “We live in a world filled with damaging contradictions,” De Roché went on. “Take this nation for instance. On one side you have conservative Christian fundamentalists threatening to tear the heart out of scientific progress, on the other are bleeding heart liberals who would prefer to fund mothers who give birth to huge numbers of crack-babies, or to an establishment that creates the illusion of fighting crime. The result: these internal struggles impede progress; our cities are decaying; our major highways and bridges are crumbling. The drug war is a colossal hoax. The population is degenerating. The whole infrastructure of our country, hell, the world, is collapsing before our eyes as religious fanatics fall to their knees for guidance and rise up with weapons, and the men with true vision are left frustrated and powerless. Well, that is all about to change. We are poised on the brink of a renaissance. The war on terror will end swiftly and decisively. There will be no more bleeding heart liberals and their social programs. Fundamentalism will no longer play a role in scientific decision making. Change is about to come to this planet.”

  De Roché stopped, his face flushed, his breathing labored. Doug saw that a fine rash of sweat had broken out on the man’s brow.

  “How will you correct all of these injustices where others have failed,” Doug asked.

  “The evil doers will be brought to their knees,” De Roché said.

  “By this . . . power you spoke of a moment ago?”

  De Roché gave a pained grin. “Correct, Douglas.”

  “But you can’t tell me what this power is.”

  “I can tell you this. I had it in my hand once, and like a fool I let it go. Since then it has remained elusive, until now. Now it is again within my grasp. And I can promise you, I will possess it.”

  “I understand you’re thinking about running for president,” Doug said.

  “The office is merely a focal point,” De Roché said. “There has never been any real power in the presidency. I intend to change that.”

  “So, if you’re elected, and you do manage to . . . recapture this . . . power you speak of, then I presume you’ll begin a campaign to set all your ideals in motion.”

  “They’re already in motion, Douglas. They have been for a very long time. My job and the job of my administration will be to escalate these principles and bring the dream to fruition.”

  “I see,” Doug said. “Frankly it doesn’t sound like the kind of world I’d want to raise children in.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” De Roché said in a voice that chilled Doug to the marrow.

  Doug grasped Annie’s hand and squeezed it. She did not squeeze back. Her hand fell limply in his. Doug feared that she was lost, that everything they’d worked together to achieve was lost. Her father was a mad man and Annie was under his spell. De Roché did not say another word. Evidently the conversation was over, and that was just fine with Doug. In the past twenty-four hours he’d seen and heard enough madness to last him a lifetime.

  Chapter 36

  Inside the church the atmosphere was heavy with the scent of flowers. An overweight woman in a rose-spattered dress sat at a gigantic pipe organ playing softly. The trio was led by ushers to reserved seats in front, but first they passed by the open coffin.

  Rachael’s eyes were closed, lips slightly parted, touched with color, her face heavily made up. She could have been sleeping.

  Endless rows of people passed by the coffin to pay their final respects, every manner of long lost relative, friend and acquaintance. Annie leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek and Doug saw that she was weeping. Weeping for a mother she missed, Doug wondered, or for a mother she’d never really had?

  The eulogy was delivered by a tall stick-figured pastor. The man was too thin, all bones. He could not fill his clothes; his black trousers hung shapelessly on his knobby hips and his shoulders poked at the fabric of his white shirt as if only bare sharp bones lay beneath it. He vaguely resembled John Carradine, the actor from the 1940’s. He read the twenty-third psalm, which had been Rachael De Roché’s favorite.

  Others got up, friends and relatives—people Doug did not know but some he recogni
zed from television or magazines—and spoke words of affection, hope and salvation for the mortal soul of Rachael Kincaid De Roché.

  As the reading was drawing to a close Doug could not curb the impulse to look over his shoulder. He had a strong sense that someone was watching him. He scanned up one pew and down the other but saw nothing out of the ordinary; just well-dressed mourners wearing solemn expressions. Then Doug’s attention was caught by a white-haired old man standing near the exit door at the back of the church. The man did not wear a suit; just a wrinkled tweed sports jacket over a beige colored shirt and khaki trousers. His head of thick white hair was mussed, as if it had been slept in and uncombed. His expression was harried and his large brilliantly-blue eyes were haunted with some terrible knowledge. They stared out at Doug from eye sockets sunken and rimmed with bruise-colored indentations. Doug shivered, feeling uncomfortable. The man’s eyes seemed to speak to him, and they said, I know something Doug, something you need to know. Doug stared for a long moment, wondering what had drawn his attention to the old man in the first place. The man’s piercing stare never once wavered from his. Doug turned back around with a strong sense of unease.

  It seemed like the service would never end. Impatient and ill-at-ease, Doug escaped through a side entrance. He went outside into the heat of the day and leaned against the cemetery fence.

  People, ill-dressed for a funeral, lolled on gravestones and littered the lawn. Looking around at this heat-flushed congregation Doug felt contempt well up in him. He wanted to turn his back on all of it and slip away.

  Instead, his thoughts wandered back to the old man inside the church. He could not get him out of his mind. His haunting eyes seemed to have burned holes through Doug’s head. Who was he? What did he want? Probably nothing, his mind told him, even as he knew it wasn’t so. He kept his attention focused on the front doors of the building, expecting to see the old man appear, a combined feeling of unease and anticipation building.