Sparks straightened the vehicle and I fired off a pair of shots that missed their mark by a couple of car lengths. I knew there would be people coming to work in the North End of the city at this early hour; there was the risk of someone getting hit by a stray bullet and I didn’t want that hanging over my head. What we needed was to get out of the industrial block and out of any built-up areas.
“Gun the engine and get on the Circumferential Highway!” I ordered. “We need to lure these pricks away from any civilians that might get hit by a stray bullet!”
“Then get back down here and buckle up because this isn’t going to be easy!” Sparks bellowed.
I slid back down into my seat and Sparks put her foot the floor. The SUV snapped into a higher gear as Sparks flew over a median, crossing three lanes of traffic until she was on the Circumferential Highway. In the rearview mirror, I spotted the van burst through a guardrail and bounce over the same median we’d just sailed over. It was about ten car lengths back.
“Get on the floor Charlotte!” Sparks shouted. “I don’t want you getting hit!”
I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed into the back seat. I aimed both Berrettas through the gaping hole where the rear window used to be and waited to return fire when the van got close enough.
“There are about six different grid roads adjacent to fireguards that you can turn onto. Get some more distance between us and that van and then take the first grid road turn off you can find!”
“You have a plan, Reaper?” Sparks asked, her voice was shaking with a mixture of fear and rage. It’s hard to tell with Sparks sometimes. “It better be a good one!”
“All my plans are good plans, Carol!” I shouted as she raced over the curb tossing both Charlotte and me in the air. We landed hard amid a spray of sparks as the undercarriage scraped against the crushed gravel of the grid road adjacent to the fireguard.
I spotted the lights of the van cutting through the trees next to the highway as I opened the right rear door of the SUV. Sparks spun her neck around to gawk at me and she threw me a helpless look. “What the hell are you doing?” she choked.
“Slow down and let me out. I’m going to say hello to our friends in the van. Keep driving up this grid road. I’ll text you when I’m done.”
Sparks flashed me a molten glare. “Reaper, you need backup. You don’t act alone.”
“Yeah, I do sometimes. Keep driving!” It was the last thing I said as I flung my body out of the door and hitting the sharp crushed gravel at about thirty miles an hour. I rolled over and over and over again and cursed loudly as my face scraped against the sharp rocks, coming to a stop next to some deadwood in a gully adjacent to the grid road. I shook my head and then slowly, painfully got up on my knees. A trickle of blood ran down the side of my face and dripped onto the ground as I spotted the van tumbling down the grid road. And what did I do? Something stupid. I always do stupid things when I’m about to be run over by a van filled with bad guys intent on ending me.
What I hadn’t counted on was who the people in the van were.
I hobbled up to the middle of the grid road and aimed both Beretta’s at the windshield of the Ford van that was bearing down on me like a freight train at a level crossing. I aimed for the front tires and proceeded to squeeze off round after round at the speeding vehicle. One of my bullets hit home as the front left tire blew out and the van spun out of control kicking up dirt and rocks high into the air. It fishtailed back and forth as the driver tried to straighten the front wheels when another of my rounds hit the front right tire blowing out the side wall. The van came to a stop about fifty feet from me and the sliding door opened. Out jumped four men carrying machine guns. It shouldn’t have caused me to do a double take but the fact that each was wearing a clerical collar and black robe along with matching crucifixes hanging from silver chains around each man’s neck required at least a good rubbing of the eyes in disbelief.
Each was armed with a Sterling Sub Machine Gun or SMG as the military types call it; a now retired service weapon for Canadian armoured troops based on the old Sten Guns the British used in the Second World War. I tried to take some measure of comfort in the fact that I wasn’t dealing with angels or demons but my mind was bogged down by what I was actually seeing.
Again. It was priests with machine guns. Holy. Suffering. Shit.
Mind you, the SMG wasn’t exactly an accurate weapon by any stretch of the imagination, but still.
“I’m assuming you cloistered types probably use holy ammunition and your submachine guns are blessed by His Holiness in Rome, yeah?” I shouted, my voice shooting up an octave. I still had both guns aimed at them but even with their antiquated submachine guns, they’d still turn me into death-dealer Swiss cheese if all four opened up on me simultaneously.
The driver’s door opened and out stepped a fifth priest. This one was armed with a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. That shouldn’t have surprised me given the other four were carrying. No, it was the fact that the driver was wearing a scarlet cassock along with a matching mini cape and skull cap. Around his neck was a gold chain with a large crucifix that bounced off his chest with every step over the uneven ground.
“A bishop?” I shouted, realizing at the last second that my voice sounded like Michael Palin in an old Monty Python skit.
“We have no quarrel with you, only the abomination that you are travelling with!” he called out. His voice was a rich baritone that echoed through the woods and would have been far more fitting saying mass than trying to run down little old me.
I shouted back, “Padre … them there is what I call fightin’ words!”
The Bishop raised a single index finger and one of the priests stepped forward. Before I had a chance to squeeze off a round, the submachine gun belched out a short burst that kicked up the dirt no more than five feet in front of me. I didn’t flinch, though I wanted to. Just because I’m a death spirit occupying the body of a deceased human being that I’ve managed to resurrect, doesn’t mean that getting shot is a painless experience. As I’ve mentioned before; I’ve been shot blasted, burned and baked alive over the past one hundred years and at no time was it a pain-free experience.
“That was your first and only warning,” the bishop said with an edge to his voice that told me this wasn’t even remotely negotiable.
And I don’t do ultimatums.
I fired off a single shot that slammed into the bishop’s right kneecap and down he went. A millisecond later the four priests opened up with their submachine guns and I ran like hell into a ditch next to the grid road. I quickly emptied the two magazines in my Berettas and then reloaded with a fresh pair when I noticed a bright red smear on my left hand. I dove onto the ground and ran my hand over my torso when I found the hole. A straight up gut shot. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and if I didn’t do something fast, I’d be minus yet another host and I hadn’t even broken in Scott Richter’s body yet.
Bullets snapped and cracked loudly as they flew over my head. I knew the four priests were only a few feet away and if I poked my head up over the embankment, I’d be minus the top of my skull awfully fast. There was only one option and I half-wondered whether there would be some kind of retribution for what I was about to do.
“Bishop!” I bellowed. “Shit is about to get very bad, very fast for your priestly hitmen. Back off now and nobody has to die today.”
Another burst of rounds flew over my head and I wondered for a few mad seconds why the four priests weren’t standing on the edge of the ditch and filling me with lead.
“Give us the abomination!” he called back through a series of short breaths. “We want the girl. Give her to us and no harm will come to you and your friend.”
“And what happens to her if I hand the kid over?” I challenged. “Clearly you don’t intend for her to remain alive.”
“She knows too much!” he shouted. “She knows the truth of God and man and the universe. She possesses enough knowledge that if her message got out, it wou
ld destroy the Holy church!”
“And you know this how? And while you’re at it, how did you know that I had the kid? How the hell did you guys even know about me? I don’t even look the same!”
Another volley of bullets flew over my head and slammed into some trees behind me.
“Because we have seen a sample of her formula,” the Bishop sputtered furiously. “The child has been etching out the secrets of all creation since she was four years old at a church-run daycare in Cape Breton. The nuns thought it was a curious sight to behold and recorded the girl busily revealing all that must not be known. As for you, well; you should know that you can’t keep secrets from Him. We know what you are. We know why you are here.”
“You’ve been trying to kill this kid since she was four?” I seethed as I tried to control the outrage that was threatening to take over. “Since when did the Church take hits out on children … on anyone?”
“ENOUGH!” The bishop’s voice echoed through the woods. “You have five seconds to call your friend back and hand over the child.”
Did I mention already that I hate ultimatums? I do, I really do. I also hate it when I’m fighting with my back against the wall because the damage I can inflict is permanent. I’d destroyed a large swath of Point Pleasant Park by tapping into the living energy of the earth when I managed to destroy the angel Sariel. I wasn’t above creating an ecological dead zone in the fire guard to save Charlotte’s life.
“You know what?” I bellowed back.
“Three seconds.”
“Not even going to listen to me, huh?”
“Two seconds.”
“Fuck it!” I roared as I stood up and emptied both magazines at the priests. They returned fire and the body of Scott Richter danced like a puppet on a string as round after round of nine-millimetre ammunition tore into my host’s flesh. It hurt. It hurt so much. It felt like I’d been set ablaze from within, but I didn’t care. My lips arched into a thin smile as I fell to the ground in a heap. To the priests, I must have looked like a dead man, but that was about to change.
I dug my fingers into the earth as I coughed up a mouthful of blood. My torso was riddled with bullet holes and I could feel my blood seeping onto the ground with every weakening beat of my heart. I had to act fast.
I drew on the ancient power from within. I reached out with every fibre of my being. My fingertips vibrated as the thrum of living energy in the earth tantalized my senses. I could still feel the warmth of the earth in the palms of my hands even though it was late autumn and winter was a stone’s throw away. Thankfully there hadn’t been a frost yet or I would have been royally screwed as frost puts the ground to sleep I grated my teeth together and pushed my essence into the ground; I willed it forward and the death energy rolled across the land like a living shadow. I could sense the end of those creatures in the earth; insects and worms dropped dead by the thousands. Birds that had been sleeping in the thick forest of blue spruce started falling out of the trees; each one still as a stone.
I could feel the bullets inside my body being pushed out as my wounds began to heal. The pain was indescribable but I swept it aside in my mind as I willed my essence further. I raised my head and watched as each one of the four priests fell to the ground like sacks of sand; each man as dead as the bird corpses now carpeting the forest surrounding me. (Ever hear about mass bird deaths in the news? Chances are that was me. I get around, as the Beach Boys said.)
“WHAT IS THIS?” the bishop shrieked. He started firing round after round at me and two or three .44 calibre bullets tore into my flesh only to pop out onto the ground as I pushed the death energy further. I got back to my feet and pointed at the bishop.
“This is what happens when you try to kill eight-year-old little girls on Tim fucking Reaper’s watch, asshole,” I snarled.
“The child cannot live!” he cried out. “If the truth of all things became public knowledge, it could lead to war, pestilence, human-contrived annihilation! There are hundreds of religions in the world and the child’s knowledge will create a conflagration that is not in accordance with His plan!”
I pushed my essence harder and I could feel it lap against the bishop’s toes. He dropped to one knee and clutched his chest with his free hand. He fired another shot at me that missed by a country mile.
“His plan isn’t my plan, Padre,” I said. “But I am in a charitable mood this morning. I will let you live if you call off your hunt. Go back to the Vatican. Tell the good Bishop of Rome that she is under my protection. This child will not fall victim like the hundreds of other victims your kiddie diddling priests abused for decades. Tell him that I am death itself and I can’t be killed. I won’t be killed— but I’ll kill every last one of you sons of bitches in every church in every town and village. I’ll scrub the planet free of your kind because I’ve got nothing but time. I’ve been here since the beginning, Padre. I’ll be here until the end of the Earth and beyond.”
I was shaking with rage. I’d just threatened to wipe out the entire Catholic church.
Holy shit.
He dropped his gun and was on all fours, gasping for breath. “The girl,” he gasped. “The girl must be stopped. Do what you will to me, but there are others coming.”
I walked up to the bishop, my host’s body now fully healed. I placed my hand on his face and channelled my essence straight into his mind. And through me, he caught a glimpse of the world as it was and the world as it is. A slideshow of twinkling vignettes flashed past my eyes and into his mind. The creation of the pyramids. The enslavement of the Israelites and their exodus from Egypt. The parting of the red sea. Then I flashed forward to show him the scene with the little boy in that hospital room; the child who was my punishment for causing the Spanish Flu pandemic after the Great War. He saw my comeuppance. He witnessed me being ejected from my order by my death-dealer brethren. And then he saw my faces. All of the hosts whose bodies I’d taken at their moments of death over the past century. He saw me wipe out the angel Sariel and he saw how I defeated the angel Jael at the cost of Amy’s life.
“I am death, Bishop,” I said as I pushed the rest of the death energy into his body and stopped his heart cold. He fell face-first into the dirt. “And I gave you a chance at life. You’re a fool for not taking it.”
My hand dropped to my side as I grabbed my phone and texted the words CRISIS AVERTED to Sparks. The phone rang about ten seconds later.
“Yeah, Sparks,” I said into the phone.
“What happened, Reaper?” she said with a slight edge of panic in her voice. “Are they gone? I heard so many shots being fired. I was going to come and help you but Charlotte told me that everything would be okay.”
“It’s over,” I panted. “I’ll come up the fireguard. We need to get out of here fast because there are four dead priests, one dead bishop and about three acres of dead ground surrounding me. I tapped it all out.”
“Jesus,” she gasped. “It’s just like at the beach in Lawrencetown.”
“Not quite, Sparks,” I said as I started trudging up the fireguard. “They shot the shit out of me but I live to fight another day.”
There was silence on the phone for a few seconds and then Sparks said, “Two days. We just have to hide out for two days, right? Just like Charlotte said.”
“Yeah, Sparks,” I replied wearily. “Just like the little girl said.”
13
Sparks wasn’t happy that we weren’t calling in the dead priests and bishop. I tried to explain that if cops showed up with the three of us at the scene, blood all over my shirt (which I bought from Walmart and which cost me $24.95 plus tax), cordite all over my body and, you know, four dead priests along with their bishop, well, the cops might not be that interested in what we have to say. An open and shut case, as it were.
I have a ton of respect for Carol Sparks. She’s probably the best cop in the entire province of Nova Scotia and she’s hanging around with a chum bucket of holy war insanity in yours truly. She’s t
he best. She just is.
We headed out onto the highway. The morning sun was just beginning to filter through the thick pine forest adjacent to the road and we hadn’t really said much since we left the fire guard. My mind was still swimming with the gravity of what the little girl meant by a visit from the Man with the Big White Beard. Maybe it was the end of days’ time. Maybe this was just a completely different approach than any of the hellfire and brimstone evangelicals had been preaching on TV for decades. Wouldn’t they be in for a surprise if there was no rapture? Maybe God was just sick of Heaven and wanted a bit of a vacation to check out his holdings here on Earth. If that happened, I’d hope He wouldn’t be so turned off as to want to bring forth a second great flood or to just wipe humanity out and start over.
The Holy Church had hitmen. That was a huge mind fuck. I knew they had a number of super secret sects but I had never considered for a moment they put out contracts within their ranks to murder people deemed to be a threat.
And what a threat Charlotte was.
She could see through the ages in both directions. She understood the nature of creation on a binary level; it must be like that first time Keanu Reeves opened his eyes in The Matrix and saw glowing green code everywhere. On every living and unliving thing. The base elements. The raw ingredients for existence itself.
What would happen if the truth came out? Her truth.
What if a world divided against itself because of religious differences, identity politics and homegrown terrorism learned there is a real guy with a bushy white beard in the sky who created everything? That demons live amongst them. That angels are psychopathic assholes of the highest order? That angels and demons exist at all?
What would happen to science? To our understanding of evolution or the nature of the universe itself? Did it mean Adam and Eve were real? (They were. I was there.) That a dude named Moses really did march the Israelites out of Egypt?
The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 12