by Heath, Jack
"As I said before, explaining exactly who I am will take some time. It's a complicated story. As for why I was there, I felt the same pull you felt, and since I assumed you would be drawn there just as I was, I assumed further that there might be an attempt to kidnap or kill you."
"If they wanted to kill me, why didn't they just come to my house and shoot me?"
"There is something powerful that protects your house. They would never attempt to harm you there."
John glanced at Faust. Was he talking about the spirit of Rebecca Nurse? Even though Rebecca had fallen silent and invisible since the night she'd entered his body and together they killed the leaders of the Coven, he wondered if it was possible that some aspect of Rebecca Nurse still protected the house. He wondered moreover how Faust knew so much about all of this. "They could have killed me at my office."
Faust shook his head. "The Coven has operated for over three hundred years without anyone else knowing they exist. There aren't even rumors about them, are there?"
John shook his head. Faust was right. Until he'd encountered the Coven on his own, he'd never had any inkling that such a thing could exist. He had discovered it quite by accident when he started to investigate the reasons the Boston area had so many young people who ran away from home and were never heard from again. The disappearances were a story he and Amy had just started digging into about the time Rebecca Nurse first appeared to him. Initially the sight of Rebecca's spirit made him question his sanity, and at the same time he'd had no clue that blood sacrifices by Satan worshippers could have been the cause of the disappearances.
John shook his head. Little by little the constant awareness that he was marked for death was wearing him down, making him feel like he was getting closer and closer to the end of his rope. "So if they knew I was coming, why didn't they just hide in the cellar at the House of the Seven Gables and kill me there?"
Faust nodded. "They were perhaps supposed to do just that, but the Coven makes mistakes, just like everyone else. I'm assuming those two people were late getting here."
John looked at him. "So I'm still alive only because of a mistake and a murderous priest?"
Faust pointed ahead, indicating that John should keep his eyes on the road. "Something like that," he said.
PART II
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SARAH ANDREWS OPENED HER EYES AND SAW muted sunlight coming through the curtains. She sat up, and as she did, realized the plastic handcuffs had been removed from her wrists. It was the first time they had been free since she had been brought here. Moving tentatively she swung her feet out of bed and found them free of restraints, as well.
She stood, and feeling the chill in the room, reached for the robe that lay on a chair and pulled it on before walking to the window. A recognizable heaviness in her head and limbs told her drugs were still in her system. The feeling was becoming strangely familiar, and she wondered what that meant and what the drugs were and what impact they were having.
She still retained enough self-awareness to know her reactions no longer felt normal. She had been kidnapped, and she was pretty sure she had been taken to a foreign country—England judging from the accents of the people who had brought her food and walked her to the bathroom—but unlike her first days here she no longer felt a sense of fear or panic. Instead she felt a gentle lethargy, a lack of caring much about anything.
She turned and looked at the room. It was large, had high ceilings and billowy curtains over the large windows, and was filled with lovely antiques. The floors were covered with oriental rugs, the chairs and couches upholstered in lovely English chintz. Taken all together, the setting was what she would expect to find in a perfect English country house or perhaps a luxury hotel.
When she pulled aside the gauzy curtains and gazed down from her window, she could see large formal gardens bounded by a stone wall. Along the wall itself, rose bushes sat covered with burlap against the possibility of frost damage, and in the center of the garden the perennial beds had been heavily mulched for winter. Beyond the wall lush green meadows ran to the top of a distant hill.
She could see no other houses, but when she put her head against the glass and looked out to the right she could make out the roof of what looked like a barn with a riding ring and paddock. To the left she could see a swimming pool, also covered for winter, and a cabana, and beyond it a tennis court. Wherever she was, the setting seemed completely idyllic, the kind of spot that under any normal circumstances she would have wanted to be.
She knew she was a prisoner, of course, but that realization brought no sense of fear or anxiety or anger, perhaps because she felt so delightfully unintimidated and unthreatened. Also, there seemed to be no pressure, nothing she needed to do, at least she couldn't think of anything. Her job, for years the most important thing in her life, had retreated into the background. For some reason, just as she felt no anxiety about her safety, she felt no worry about her job or about her extended absence from it. In short, she was aware of the fact that she didn't seem to be able to summon the energy to care about much of anything.
She stood looking out the window for a time, her mind empty of further thoughts. In addition to not thinking about work, she did not think about Boston, or her friends. She didn't wonder whether she'd been declared missing or whether her father and the police were searching for her, or even why people had gone to the trouble to bring her here.
After she had been standing at the window long enough to lose track of time, she heard a noise outside her room, the unmistakable ting as pieces of fine china knocked softly together. Then came a soft knock. "Come in," she said, her voice rough and soft from long disuse.
A second later the door opened and a maid wearing a black uniform with white apron and cuffs pushed in a cart loaded with a teakettle, a basket of rolls and breads, a covered platter of scrambled eggs and bacon, a small pitcher of orange juice, a half grapefruit, and a vase of flowers. She wheeled the cart over to a table with two chairs beside one of the windows.
"Breakfast, madam," she said.
"Thank you," Sarah answered.
The maid gave a formal nod and walked out of the room.
Sarah looked at her breakfast for several moments and finally summoned the energy to walk over and sit down at the table. She was neither hungry nor thirsty but she knew she had to eat something in order to keep up her strength. She picked up a slice of orange with her fingers and put it in her mouth.
A second later she heard another knock at her door. "May I come in?" a woman's voice said.
"Yes."
A second later Jessica Lodge put her head in the door. "Good morning, my dear."
Sarah looked at her. "Good morning." She had known Jessica Lodge for years from events at the paper. She knew Jessica owned the paper, and she knew her father had always been very fond of her. She also knew that in the last phone conversation she'd had with her father, he had hinted that Jessica had done something very wrong, but he hadn't told her what it was. In any case, she no longer cared what it might be.
"How are you feeling this morning?" Jessica asked.
"Okay, I guess."
"Good." Jessica gave her a warm smile that suggested she very much hoped it was true. "I know the past days have been very difficult for you," she went on. "I apologize for taking you the way we did and for keeping you here against your will."
"Why did you do it?" Sarah asked, trying to mobilize her intellect enough to actually give a damn.
"Because there are many things I need to teach you."
"Where are we?"
"Cornwall, England."
Sarah nodded, trying to understand how she had come to be so far from Boston with only the vaguest memory of traveling here. "What do you want to teach me?"
"Things that relate to your ancestors and your abilities, my dear."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I know. Many things have been held back from you, things you will come to understand. Th
ings that will change the way you look at the world."
Sarah shook her head. It was so much work to try and follow the conversation. "How will I look at the world?"
"There is a small group of us who understand the true nature of power in the world. Your heritage makes it possible for you to be one of that group, and we would like you to join us. However I need to educate you slowly and carefully because much of what I have to tell you will be very difficult to take in. It's going to contradict a lot of the things you have always thought of as true." Jessica smiled again.
Sarah tried to understand what Jessica was talking about. "You make it sound like it's pretty unusual. I'm twenty-eight years old," Sarah said, realizing she was having a hard time putting complex sentences together. Just having this simple conversation was a struggle. "I'm no child. What can be so strange you can't just tell me?"
Jessica smiled again. "I'm going to rock your world, as they say, but I'm going to do it bit by bit so I don't blow your mind." She seemed so delighted at her phrases. "Don't I sound hip?" she asked with a laugh.
Jessica pointed to Sarah's breakfast cart. "You must eat up, my dear. Then take a shower and get dressed. I'll come back upstairs to fetch you in an hour or so, and we'll go into the garden and begin your lessons. Does that sound like a good plan?"
Sarah poured some tea into her cup and took a sip. She nodded, thinking that going along with Jessica's suggestions sounded like the most splendid idea in the world.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FATHER FAUST FINISHED HIS LAST BITE OF IRISH stew, took a bit of bread and wiped the last of the gravy from the bowl, and then dabbed his lips with a napkin. "Thank you. That was a fabulous meal. I am in your debt."
Amy smiled at him. "You saved John's life today. I think it's just about the least we can do to express our appreciation."
Faust nodded and smiled, took a sip of wine, and settled back in his chair. John thought he looked incredibly relaxed for someone who a few hours earlier had killed two people and disposed of their bodies in an airport parking lot. If Faust was a priest, as he claimed, John didn't know how an apparent lack of reflection on having taken human lives could go hand in hand with vows. He tried to think back on whether Faust had even said grace at the beginning of the meal, but he couldn't remember.
Earlier in the afternoon, not knowing what else to do, John had brought Faust back to his house and then left him there for a time when he went into the Salem News. When he'd gotten there he'd spoken with Jack Daniels, Lucinda Jenkins, Jackie McKinney, and Tim Monahan, apologizing for his absence from the paper at such a critical time. As soon as he said that, they told him that earlier that morning, two Boston policemen had shown up at the paper to ask him questions relating to the missing persons report filed by Sarah's television station. Evidently the police visit had served as enough of a reminder of John's personal problems that his absence hadn't upset anyone.
After speaking to the staff, John had taken Amy into his office, closed the door, warned her to keep her expression deadpan and not exclaim, and then he'd told her everything that had happened that morning. They had agreed to meet with Faust together over dinner and make him explain who he was, who he worked for, as well as everything he knew about John and Sarah.
Now, John reached across and refilled the priest's glass with more red wine, eager to loosen the priest's tongue and hear everything Faust had to say. Up to this point, the conversation had been polite and inconsequential, and each time John had tried to ask more penetrating questions, the priest had deflected. John was struggling to smother his growing anger and frustration, but he also had the impression the priest had been taking his and Amy's measure, just as John and Amy had been trying to figure out Faust.
Perhaps the priest was trying to figure out what to tell them, whether they could be trusted with the information he had to impart, whether he needed to be blunt or diplomatic. For his part, John needed information, and he was about to get rude, although the thought also occurred to him that getting rude with an armed killer might not be the best approach.
The priest was in his fifties, John guessed, but he had a wiry body that seemed to carry no fat, and he moved with the grace and quickness of a man who was in excellent physical shape. With his short-cropped bristle of gray hair, intense blue eyes, and narrow face, he didn't exactly support the image of a friendly priest. All in all, John thought Faust looked much more like a soldier than a man of religion. In fact, Faust's accent, combined with his nose, which was hooked and aggressive and uneven enough to suggest it had been broken more than once, made John think of a Gestapo officer from an old WWII movie. Several times when John had glanced at Amy during the early part of dinner, he could sense her wariness of the priest.
To the degree that Faust seemed to sense John and Amy's uneasiness and the questions that were churning in their brains, it didn't seem to create any sense of urgency to explain himself. It was only after Faust had eaten every morsel on his plate and started to sip his freshened glass of wine that he nodded to Amy. "My thanks again for a very lovely dinner."
He turned to John. "Now we need to talk of more serious matters. I know you're eager for answers."
John, barely able to contain his impatience, managed a tight smile. "I was wondering when we were going to get to that," he said, burning to hear everything the man knew about Sarah.
"Are you a religious man?" Faust asked.
"Hardly," John said, swallowing his frustration, but realizing Faust wasn't going to be rushed. "I was raised Catholic, but I've been pretty much an agnostic most of my adult life."
Faust nodded. "And you?" he asked Amy.
"Basically the same. I was raised in the Lutheran church, but I don't practice."
"Has anything changed for you in the past month?"
John scowled. "I hope this isn't some sort of attempted reintroduction to Catholicism. I want to talk about my daughter."
Faust gave him a hard look. "It's not a reintroduction to religion at all. Please answer my question."
"Well, of course things have changed, but you knew the answer to that question before you asked it."
"How would you explain what happened to you?"
"I don't have a goddamn clue."
"Sure you do."
"Okay, I was invaded by a spirit."
Faust nodded. "We call it 'invested.' It was the spirit of Rebecca Nurse, correct?"
John tightened his lips, but he nodded. "How do you know all this? And who is we?"
"I'll answer your questions shortly, but let me ask a few more."
John shook his head and drummed his fingers on the table.
"So did you ever encounter this spirit before it invested you?"
John pursed his lips, but answered, "Yes."
"And did she reveal anything to you?"
"Yes."
"May I ask what?"
John looked at Amy, his eyes full of anger and frustration, but she gave him an encouraging nod.
"It was very confusing because I had a concussion, but I think she showed me how to open a secret door that led to the Coven's underground lair. And then she took me on some kind of," he raised his hands to show that he was groping for the right words, "some kind of tour through time."
Faust nodded, encouraging him to go on.
"We went back to the day she was arrested by Edward Putnam and George Corwin, and then we went to a secret meeting between those two and some other people from early Salem when they swore a covenant to worship Satan."
"And then could you please tell me what happened the night you went down into the catacombs to rescue," he tipped his head toward Amy, "you I believe."
Amy nodded, and John went on. "A man who I had believed to be one of my best friends, Rich Harvey, went down with me. I thought he was coming to help me. I had no idea that he was trying to deliver me to the Coven."
"And what happened when you got to wherever you were going?"
"There was a room, like a paneled dinin
g room with mahogany walls and oriental rugs, and the leaders of the Coven were sitting around a table like they were just having a nice dinner, but there was a big door that opened onto this other room." John closed his eyes and shook his head, and he saw Amy's face go pale as she was reminded of the same thing.
"I know this is very difficult," Faust prodded. "But it's also very important. Please go on."
"The walls and floor of this room were white tile, like a shower room. Shackles were set in the walls, and I could see two people—they looked like teenagers. They were naked and dead, and their bodies had been terribly disfigured." John took a deep breath. "The walls and the floor were smeared with so much blood . . . and then I also saw Amy. She too was shackled. Cabby Corwin, a Salem policeman, was starting to torture her."
John bowed his head and closed his eyes, wishing he could permanently erase every vestige of memory from that horrible night.
"What impressions did you have?" Faust asked.
John looked up. "What are you talking about!" he snapped. "What impressions? Are you joking? I wanted to kill those people!"
Faust held up a calming hand, and Amy reached across and took John's wrist and squeezed.
"Did the members of the Coven appear to fear you when you first walked in?"
John tried to remember, and after a second he shook his head. "They seemed pleased, like they were feeling very cocky and thought they had somehow beaten me."
Faust nodded and smiled. "I'm sure they did. But can you tell me what happened next?"
"My friend Rich hit me over the head, and when I came to I was shackled in the tile room."
"And?"
"What I said before. When Corwin started to torture Amy I felt my anger spike like it had never spiked before. I felt, I don't know, different, like I was split into two parts. One part was fear; the other part was pure rage. And then I looked over and saw Rebecca Nurse holding my hand. She told me something she had told me before but I'd never understood."