Chain of Souls (Salem VI)

by Heath, Jack

  The other things about the walks that struck her as unusual were twofold. First, Jessica Lodge was, according to Sarah's best guess, somewhere in her mid-eighties, but she seemed to move like a well-conditioned woman in her late fifties or early sixties. Her walking pace was brisk, she never stopped to catch her breath, and her flexibility and strength seemed to be that of a much younger person. There had been no day so far when Sarah hadn't been certain that Jessica could have walked her into the ground.

  The second unusual thing about the walks wasn't just the fact that Jessica spoke almost nonstop from the time they left the house to the time they returned; it was the way Sarah seemed to hear two conversations at once. She heard the words Jessica spoke, but then underneath those words, almost like a television playing softly in the next room, she heard the undertone of a different conversation running on a parallel track so that when Jessica stopped talking the other conversation stopped as well. Sarah had ascribed it to one more effect from the drugs, but in a small part of her brain she wondered if it could be something else.

  The maid interrupted Sarah's thoughts as she came back into the room with a pot of fresh tea and glass of juice. She poured tea into Sarah's cup and put down the juice. When she went over to pour more tea into Jessica's cup, Sarah stole a glance at the newspaper, trying to see the day's date along the top of the page.

  She had only made it as far as seeing the word November before Jessica moved the paper so that Sarah could no longer see it. For half a second Sarah felt a twinge of alarm. Had Jessica done that on purpose? Why didn't she want Sarah to see the paper? How long had she been here? Had it been October or November when she arrived?

  "Jessica, could I see the paper?" she asked.

  Jessica looked at her, and Sarah felt something coldly appraising in her glance before Jessica broke into another of her trademark smiles. "My dear, it was rude of me to be reading at the table. We are both here in this lovely place so we can rest up and regain our strength. A newspaper only pulls us back into the problems of the larger world and works against our recovery.

  "What am I recovering from? I don't remember. I don't remember much of anything, in fact."

  "Things were very traumatic back in Salem before you left. And then you were abducted, do you remember that?"

  Sarah paused, trying to reassemble the memories. She had been getting out of her car when someone had grabbed her, she recalled that much. There had been a strange smell and then darkness, and then she'd awakened to find herself here. Finally, she shook her head. "No."

  "Well, suffice it to say, you were abducted, but then we rescued you, and you've been recovering here ever since."

  Sarah closed her eyes. Was that a different explanation than Jessica had previously given her? She wasn't sure, but she thought it might be. The problem was her brain was still so fuzzy she couldn't be certain of anything.

  A moment later the maid brought her breakfast, and the smell of freshly scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and sausage hit her nose and made her stomach rumble with hunger pangs. She forgot about her questions and whatever it was that had alarmed her and took a bite.

  For the next several moments she gave herself up to eating and enjoying the wonderful flavors of the food. For some reason, sensual pleasures like food, the feel of a hot bath on her skin when she lay in the tub every afternoon, or the warmth of crisp sheets when she lay under the comforter at night, all of these things suddenly seemed more important to her than they ever had before. Even the pleasure of walking through the pastures and up the meandering country roads with Jessica, the smell of salt-laden air in her nostrils, and the tingle of clean wind on her cheeks had deeper meanings she had never been aware of before.

  She had discovered the importance of feeling good, of pleasing her senses, and she couldn't believe she had over emphasized her job for so many years and ignored her physical needs. In addition to the purely personal, she was starting to realize there was one other thing she wanted that she had largely ignored for just as long: a relationship.

  Her good looks, inherited from her mother, had meant she'd always had plenty of opportunities for male companionship, but she had kept men at arm's length, believing that in any relationship the woman always ended up making more compromises than the man. Not wanting to be the one who had to make the inevitable career compromises, she had simply avoided entanglements in the first place. Now, however, along with wanting her skin soft and warm from a bath and her stomach full of good food and her muscles feeling toned and fresh from a good walk, she found herself missing another body beside her in bed, someone to speak to across the dinner table, someone in whom she could confide her innermost secrets.

  "What are you thinking about, my dear?" Jessica asked, sounding friendly and interested, always concerned for Sarah's best interests.

  Sarah paused, smiling before she answered. "I was thinking about having a man in my life," she said, thinking Jessica asked such penetrating questions but never seemed to be prying.

  Jessica dabbed her lips with her napkin and stood up from the table. "Are you ready for your walk, my dear? You'll have to tell me all about this new interest of yours."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  JOHN SAT IN THE FRONT SEAT OF THE OLD PEUGEOT looking out the window as suburbs gave way to small farms and the countryside became hillier. Leaving Krakow, they climbed away from the valley around the Wisla River and drove through miles of farmland, the road sometimes winding back down into the valley to cut through a small town before heading back into the hills again. Finally, the road settled back into the valley and they continued on through an endless topography of farms until they came to an intersection of several roads and John saw the first sign for Osweicim.

  "Is that where we're going?" he asked.

  Czarnecki nodded. They drove into the city of Osweicim and out the other side, and they hadn't gone another mile before John felt his throat start to tighten up. He suddenly felt feverish, and his muscles began to tighten, his hands clenching and unclenching involuntarily.

  He had seen people have allergic reactions to peanuts, and even though he wasn't allergic, he felt his airway begging to close off, and then a sound that started off as a soft wailing became stronger and stronger. John could see Czarnecki turning his head slightly and giving him a sideways glance. Czarnecki realized that whatever was happening to him was quite terrible, but he seemed to have expected it to happen because the rabbi did not slow the car.

  John's first panicked thought was that the rabbi must be another Coven member who had figured out a way to poison him somehow. He tried to turn his head to see if Amy was having the same problem, but by this time he could barely move. The wailing sound had grown louder and louder and was now drowning out every other sound.

  He tried to say something, tell Amy he needed help, but all he could manage was choking grunts. There was a touch on his shoulders and neck, a soothing, gentle touch, Amy's hands trying to tell him everything would be okay.

  At some point the car came to a halt. Up ahead he saw a building, austere and ugly and made of reddish-brown brick. The road seemed to dead end at the building, and to John life itself also seemed to end at the building. He felt so much pain, unimaginable pain, and by now the wailing had grown so loud he thought his ears must have been bleeding.

  Things were going from bad to worse, his eyes tearing so badly he could barely see, his nose running, a mixture of snot and tears pouring down over his lips, his muscles cramping uncontrollably. He thought he was going to suffocate, that his mind was going to snap from the torture of the wails, and then, just when he thought he couldn't take it a second longer, it started to change.

  He didn't know if the car was moving, but the wailing began to recede, and gradually his muscles loosened and breath came back into his lungs, just a fraction at first and then a bit more. He was aware of the car door opening and felt something soft on his face, and he realized Amy was cleaning him up and then pulling him to his feet.

 
Walking like a very old man, he shuffled between Amy and Czarnecki, who held his arms as they walked toward the red brick building. They passed signs that he was unable to read, but he had the impression they were in a public place. The wailing continued to drop in volume and his muscles unclenched a bit more. When his breath had become more normal and he thought he could trust his voice, he asked, "Can you hear that?"

  Amy looked at him, "Only when I touch you. If I let go, I can't hear it. Is it terrible?"

  "Not as bad now as before."

  "I still can't see very well. Where are we?"

  "Just keep walking," Czarnecki said. "I think it will all become clear in a moment."

  Czarnecki led them up to the very front of the building, and as they stepped close John suddenly saw and felt, and it was almost enough to take him to his knees. On both side of him there were suddenly huge numbers of people standing in a line. There were men and women, old and young; there were children and teenagers and infants in their mother's arms.

  It wasn't just the people; it was what he felt, as if he was experiencing the totality of all of their emotions all at the same time. He experienced rage and fear and terror and helplessness and unspeakable sorrow, each emotion totally outsized and all encompassing, something larger and more profound than a human being was meant to feel. As if the emotions were knives, John felt being cut to pieces and reassembled. As if they were stretching machines, he felt himself being pulled and wrenched as they were shoved inside of him with a pain that was so intense it crossed from being mental to being physical as well.

  He felt his heart pounding, his blood pressure rising like an engine revving past the red line, and his nerve endings seeming to fragment under the load. When he looked down he saw he was holding the hands of the nearest people on both sides, but he didn't know when he'd grasped them or how long he'd been holding them. The two on either side of him were old men, wearing black coats and black fedoras like Rabbi Charnecki's. Both men were silent and expectant, and they were looking at John with quiet intensity. The two men held out their other hands and people took them, as one by one all the people began to clasp hands until they were joined together in a chain that seemed to extend out a long, long way in either direction.

  As John watched the line continued to grow, and he realized those people who had not yet become part of the hand-holding chain were wailing, but each time one of them joined their hand to the last person in line, they would fall silent and turn their silent gaze down the line toward John.

  No one had told him what this place was called or who these people were, but he now understood at a level beyond the reach of words. He looked from side to side at the wide, expectant eyes and felt an anger begin to build inside him. Unlike the night in the catacombs beneath Salem, this anger was neither white hot or uncontrollable. Nonetheless it was consuming, but more like the molten core of a star that might burn for eons rather than the quick, hot flash from a can of gasoline. John looked to either side, took in what had grown to be thousands of people standing hand in hand, a link of bodies that stretched to the horizon. He understood why he was here and what together they were supposed to accomplish, and he nodded once in each direction.

  Then he let go of the hands and turned to Czarnecki. "We can go now," he said, hearing only the sound of the cold wind blowing across the lonely ground.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  AS THEY DROVE AWAY JOHN TURNED IN HIS SEAT and looked back at the austere building set in the middle of nowhere with bucolic farm fields on either side and the ruins of what must have been the dormitories of the prisoners before they were put to death behind. He turned back around and shuddered, his eyes not focused on anything in particular. He felt like a man who had just had the crap pounded out of him in a bar fight so totally and completely that he was stunned into silence and submission. He felt Amy's hands on his shoulders, seeming to ground him into his existence.

  The past few minutes were still a total blur. He had only stood there, probably not longer than five minutes, but looking back, it seemed like an eternity.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked after several moments, feeling the anger and resentment build.

  "Tell you what?" Czarnecki asked.

  "Where we were headed. What was going to happen when we got there."

  "Would you have come if we had?" Czarnecki asked.

  John thought about the horror he had experienced. "I don't know."

  He fell silent for a time, feeling Amy's fingers as they tried to massage the tightness from his muscles. "What am I supposed to do with it?" he asked after another long silence.

  Czarnecki turned his head to look at him. "Doesn't it give you power of some kind?"

  "I've no idea." John shook his head. "It's not something I can just call up, like a magic trick." He felt a hollowness inside, as if rather than filling him up, the spirits he had seen and experienced had exposed his glaring weakness and inadequacy.

  "So what do we do next, fly to London?" he asked, thinking about Sarah and wondering whether what he'd just experienced would make even the slightest difference in helping to get her back safely.

  "I need to call Lisa Giles and several others," Czarnecki said. "We need to share the information about what just happened. We hope you will agree to consult with us."

  John looked straight ahead. "I didn't think Jews believed in witchcraft. Why are you following the dictates of a self-styled witch?"

  Czarnecki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not following anyone's dictates, Mr. Andrews. I'm a man of God. I believe several things more than anything else. First, I believe humans are profoundly imperfect and have the ability to convince themselves they have far more understanding than they really do. Second, I believe what I choose to call God is responsible for creation. What I see as Yahweh, the Wiccans see as several gods. Buddhists see the divine spirit as discoverable from profound internal contemplation. The Hindus see a pantheon of gods. Does that mean any of us are totally right? Of course not.

  "I don't believe God is petty or mean-spirited. God doesn't care if I eat shellfish or pork, whether a Muslim gets on his knees to pray five times each day, or whether a Christian takes Jesus as his or her savior. Men created these differences in their attempts to dominate others through the ritualized practice of one particular form of worship. I believe only in the fact that God represents creation and therefore the freedom of the human spirit to grow, learn, evolve, and explore, and the Devil represents the opposite—destruction, enslavement, and desecration. The struggle between the two is profound and eternal, but it is at a higher pitch today than at most other times in history."

  John turned to look at the rabbi, surprised by what he had just heard. "Why now?" he asked.

  "The rise of fundamentalism that makes people turn their back on science, deny evolution, and makes them observe blind rituals and seek the destruction of those who worship differently. Does that sound like the worship of creation or the unknowing worship of destruction?"

  "You're saying that fundamentalism of all stripes is actually the product of the worshippers of the Devil?"

  Czarnecki nodded. "Therefore, to answer your first question, yes, I willingly cooperate with a witch because I am confident that while she worships differently, she worships the same spirit of creation that I do."

  John sat back and looked out the window and tried to reconcile what he was feeling inside with what the rabbi had just told him. He knew without being told that to Czarnecki and Giles and their other allies he represented some sort of defense against the powers of entropy and destruction. "I think the bad guys have the upper hand," he said.

  "Sometimes they do, but they didn't this morning."

  "You think we actually accomplished something?"

  "When the wailing stopped, I think it was a sign."

  "A sign of what?"

  "Of purpose." Czarnecki was still looking in the rearview mirror every few seconds. "I think one other thing, as well. I think the Cove
n knows what you just did."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  THAT MORNING SARAH AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF a door slamming somewhere in the downstairs of the house. She could tell from the heaviness of the sound that it had to have been the thick front door with the big brass knocker in the shape of a demon's head. Next came the sound of several sets of footsteps clomping across the bare wooden floor, followed by the sound of voices speaking in hushed tones.

  Even though she could barely hear them through the door of her bedroom, something about the cadence of the voices and their hurried, whispered intensity made her sit up, curious to know what had disturbed the tranquil normalcy of the morning household. Sliding her legs from beneath the covers, she stood and went to the door where she listened carefully for the sound of footsteps in the upstairs.

  Her body felt light, less heavy, her mind clearer, just as it had every day so far, as if she was emerging from a long convalescence. She could not remember when anyone had ever forbidden her to do anything she wished in this house, but for some reason her intuition told her that whatever was being whispered about downstairs concerned her but was something she was not supposed to hear.

  Hearing no sounds nearby, Sarah opened her bedroom door, glanced up and down the hallway, and, finding it clear, she tiptoed across to the bedroom directly opposite hers. There she crossed to the window that looked down on the driveway on the front side of the house, seeing two black, chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces in the gravel circle, their engines idling and their drivers behind the wheels.

  Her reporter's curiosity prickling to know the identities of the people downstairs, Sarah slipped back into the hallway and crept down toward the landing to see if she could pick out the words and possibly glimpse the faces of the visitors. At first all she could hear was a continuation of the intense whispering, but she picked up enough inflection to understand that two of the whisperers were men, and she heard a third set of whispers that she knew belonged to Jessica Lodge.