Vengeance of the Son (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 3)

by Raine, Charlotte

  “I’m telling the truth. Just please, please let me go. Jesus wouldn’t want this. You know that,” she pleads, her whole body sagging on the cross. Blood trickles out of her wrists and flows down her arm. The weight of the blood must not be enough for gravity to take it straight to the ground or maybe God wants her to feel her life slowly leaving her body because—except for the blood from her feet—it all clings to her skin. “He said to love everybody. I know He said that.”

  “Then you should know this is an act of love,” I say.

  Mary stands a step beside me, but I can see in my periphery that she’s rolling a rock around in her hand. Nikki already has so many bruises from the stoning that her body has become like a sky of dark blue with the occasional cloud of white skin. I can feel Mary’s urgency—her need to continue to break down Nikki until all of her defenses are gone and Jesus can find His way into her heart, but I feel like we’re already dangerously close to killing her and she can’t die until she accepts Him as her savior.

  “I know what Jesus did for me. I understand now,” Nikki sobs, though she ran out of actual tears an hour ago. “I have been so, so selfish. I didn’t…I didn’t think about all of the pain He had to endure. I’m so, so sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry. God created me, I turned my back on Him, but He still loved me, and His only Son went through all of this torture and death for me…and I took it all for granted. I’m sorry. I can’t express that enough. I’m a terrible, horrible person, and there’s nothing I can do about that except accept Jesus as my savior and love God with all of my heart. I do. I do. I do all of that. Please…just please. Stop. End my life if that’s what you intend to do. I’m not afraid anymore. I know…I know what’s going to happen after I die.”

  I can sense a light inside her more than I can see it, but there’s a glow to her skin that hadn’t been there before. She’s telling the truth.

  I know I should let the crucifixion finish, but I can’t watch her suffer anymore. I wrap my hands around her throat—there’s a flicker of fear in her eyes for a second, but then there’s something that borders on acceptance. Her neck is small enough that my fingers easily overlap. I tighten my grip, pressing my thumbs into her throat. Her body tries to struggle, but it can barely move while she’s nailed down.

  I close my eyes. After a minute, I feel her body go still, but I keep the pressure on until my fingers feel like they’ve been stripped of muscle and all that is left is flesh and bone. When I pull my hand away, her chin falls down onto her chest. If it weren’t for her hair and clothes, she could almost resemble paintings of Jesus—the thin body, the lowered head, the bloody death.

  “You know you did the right thing,” Mary says. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed. I don’t. I can feel Him inside me. He’s proud. Can’t you feel it?”

  As she says those words, I feel warmth in my chest, and strength returns to my hands.

  “I do,” I admit. “I just need to shake off these mortal feelings.”

  “We may be mortal, but we’re doing God’s will,” she says. “God gives us strength.”

  I nod, but I can’t stop staring Nikki.

  “What are we going to do with her?” Mary asks. “We can’t leave the body out here in the open. I’m sure the Devil knows we’re taking souls that would normally join him in Hell and helping them join God in Heaven, so he’ll try to thwart everything we do. We can’t make it easy for him by leaving her body here. Even this deep in the woods, somebody will find her.”

  “There’s a small cave about a mile north,” I say. “It’s near Lake Erie, but I think it makes sense to put here there. Jesus was buried in a cave tomb and this will be the next closest thing. I don’t think we’ll find a huge rock to cover the entrance, but we can pile up enough smaller rocks to cover it. If she died like Jesus, she can get a similar treatment after her death.”

  “You don’t think that’s blasphemous?” she asks.

  “I think that this is one of His precious children and to give her a burial like Jesus’ isn’t too much to ask,” I snap. I expect her to be angry at me after I lash out at her, but she just smiles, gazing at me like I’m a natural wonder of the world.

  “Of course,” she says. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “I know,” I say. I cup her face. “But it’s not what I want. It’s what God wants.”

  I let my hand drop. I pick up my hammer and begin to yank the nails out of Nikki’s body. Mary walks up to me and helps me to lower Nikki’s body to the ground. I’ll have to burn this wooden cross, which will work out because if I burn them here, it will get rid of the blood in the dirt as well.

  “Thank you, God, for leading me to Your misguided daughter,” I murmur, touching two of my fingertips to Nikki’s pale lips. “I know You’ll protect her for now and all of eternity. I know she rejoices with You now. Please, please, continue to guide me to do Your good work.”

  I pick Nikki up and begin my journey to the cave. Mary strides behind me, humming “Amazing Grace.” I close my eyes, the words flooding my thoughts until I can’t help but hum the song with her:

  Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me!

  I once was lost, but now am found;

  Was blind, but now I see.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Son (1 month and two weeks ago)

  It’s gotten more difficult for Mary to disappear without the paparazzi noticing, which doesn’t help God’s plan, but we knew it wouldn’t be easy. We just finished sending our third sinner to Heaven—a loud-mouthed man who had called into a radio station that Mary had been guest-hosting, spewing hate with a “goddamn” every few words—and I’ve been feeling better than ever. Still, it’s hard for her to get away. When the weight of being without my partner started to drag me down, God sent me a lifesaver in the form of Christopher Lush.

  Mary was the one who originally met him at the New Hearts adoption agency after she volunteered there. She later told me that she thought he could help us because he had previously spoken out about how he would be like Abraham and sacrifice his child if it was what God wanted. I have my doubts about her certainty of him, but I can feel the certainty in myself as well, which makes me believe that God brought him to Mary and me.

  “So, you wanted to talk about our program?” Christopher asks. “What newspaper did you say you worked for?”

  “I actually wanted to talk to you about your son,” I say.

  He raises an eyebrow. “If you’re another liberal Christian that wants to complain about how I would obey God’s commands, then I’d highly advise that you don’t waste your breath,” he says. “You cannot pretend to worship God and not be willing to sacrifice the things you love the most. You can’t put anybody above God. That is what true worship is like.”

  “I agree,” I say, leaning back in the chair in front of his desk. He sits up straighter in his own chair.

  “Then why do you want to talk about my son?” he asks.

  “Your son’s soul is always at stake,” I say. “The older he gets, the higher the chance that he’ll wander away from your teachings and begin to question God. Younger people today are significantly less likely to believe in God than the older generations and they all have a bigger influence on each other than we do.”

  “That’s true,” he says. “But what could I possibly do about that? If I try to force the Bible on him more, he could be pushed into rebellion.”

  “What about serving God as much as possible because you want to appease God?” I ask. “Your children will learn by your example. You said you would be willing to give up what you love for God. What else are you willing to give up? Your freedom? Your socially constructed morals?”

  “Absolutely,” he says. I pull Brache’s Bible out of my bag. I flip to that familiar page with Acts 17:3 and all of Brache’s notes. I push it over to Christopher. He skims the text, picking the book up to read Brache’s writing. After a minute, he sets it back down. “It’s an interesting premise. And I c
an’t disagree with what the Bible says. You’ve made connections I’ve never seen anyone make before. I always knew God and man were connected through the Holy Spirit, but it didn’t occur to me that this meant Jesus was always part of us…but, of course, the Bible points that out all of the time. But Jesus’ sacrifice washed away our sins because he was a sinless man—”

  “And that sinless man lives within all of us.”

  He nods. “That’s true.”

  “At least tell me you’ll think about what this means,” I say. I grab one of his business cards and scribble my number on it. “If you’re interested in doing God’s work, call me.”

  “Can I hold onto this Bible?” he asks.

  I nod. “I’ve memorized it.”

  As I walk out of his office, joy and nervousness fight inside my chest. It will be good to have another partner—and surely, just like Mary is a voice like the Holy Spirit, I’m an abandoned Son, and Christopher is a Father—but something about Christopher feels a bit off. He may be faithful, but he might be mentally ill as well. Maybe it’s just that this adoption agency reminds me of my childhood memories in the convent. I can’t think of it now—I may have been abandoned by my parents, but now I have a whole new family, and God, who can never forsake me. I have done everything in His name and I will reap the rewards. It’s a good day to see with the eyes of God.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Son (1 month ago)

  “What do you think?” Mary asks, stepping out of my bathroom with a black wig on.

  “I think you still have blond eyebrows,” I respond.

  She bounces toward me, the skirt of her white dress fluttering with every one her movements. The dress has spaghetti straps that show off her pale shoulders. It had crossed my mind a dozen times to tell her that she isn’t preserving her body for her husband when every other man can see so much of it, but it doesn’t seem like an important message to send when we’re knee-deep in worse sins than a woman flaunting her body. My problem with keeping my lustful thoughts at bay are mine alone and I know with God I can control them.

  “I mean, do you think I still look like the false Christian who focuses more on rhetoric than saving actual souls?” She rests her hand on my shoulder.

  I know I should shrug it off, but I’ve spent my whole life with minimal contact from other people and I can’t help but indulge in her touch.

  “You know you saved me in more ways than you could know,” she says. “My life was without purpose, and you gave me purpose. I was just repeating everything the Bible said without acknowledging what it could mean, without hearing what God truly wanted to say.”

  “I didn’t save you,” I tell her. “God saved you. Don’t ever make me into an actual savior because there’s only one savior. He’s only using me to do His works.”

  “Have you checked the news yet?” she asks, removing her hand.

  I watch her walk back into the bathroom, readjusting her wig. “Yes,” I say. “Everyone is desperately trying to find you. Your fans are mourning you. It seems like half the world thinks you’re dead and the other half is desperately hoping you’re alive. Quite a few people are blaming your ex-boyfriend, the Satanist.”

  “Jackson?” she asks, looking over at me. The way her eyes soften as she says his name makes me feel like there’s a knife in my chest. “That’s too bad. I haven’t gotten along with him recently, but he would never kidnap or kill anyone.”

  “He knows about me,” I state.

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure I mentioned you after we met at the summer camp,” she says. “But he wouldn’t remember something like that.”

  “You told me that you had mentioned me while you were breaking up with him,” I say. “He’s not going to forget about it. The question is if he’ll mention it to the police.”

  “He’s become one of those people who hate authority,” she says. “He won’t say anything.”

  “You want to risk everything on the chance your ex-boyfriend won’t mention me?”

  “I thought you had everything handled.” She walks back over to me. “You said you had a relative on the police force that was part of the investigation.”

  “Yeah, she’s the lead detective, but if I suddenly insert myself back into her life, you don’t think she’ll be suspicious?”

  “She thinks you’re blind,” Mary says. “And you said yourself, she doesn’t think that much about you.”

  I shake my head. “I’ll deal with everything. Just stay hidden.”

  “You don’t need to deal with Jackson. Everyone just thinks he’s a conspiracy nut.”

  I stand up. “And they think you’re just a gospel singer and I’m just a blind man. Sometimes people aren’t who they seem to be.”

  She pulls her wig off and drops it on the table. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Let’s talk about the fact that you’re the one who thought it was a great idea to put Gavin Lively in a public place where you had just been performing. We’ve desperately tried to keep the bodies hidden for this whole time and you decide to do this, then come running back to me.”

  “And the police keep finding them,” she says. “What’s the point in hiding them? God obviously doesn’t want us to keep them hidden anymore. He wants the world to know that sin is punished. He—”

  “This isn’t about punishment,” I snap, slamming my fist against the table. She flinches. “This is about saving souls. You need to stop thinking in terms of good and evil. These are sheep that have wandered from God’s flock. We are simply bringing them back in the way God commands.”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, cradling her arms in front of her stomach. “I know. I know. I misspoke. You’re right.”

  “I’m sorry too,” I say. “I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just…there’s so much that God wants and I’m not sure I can do it all by myself.”

  “You don’t have to,” she says, stepping forward. I wrap my arms around her, the warmth of her body feeling like it spreads under my skin. I kiss the crown of her head. It is said that God will grant his followers the crown of life and that’s all I want to do. I will make as many people as I can princes and princesses. Suffering is temporary, but Heaven is eternal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Son (3 weeks ago)

  I was raised in a convent. The nuns were kind enough—not quite like the stereotypical nuns with their rulers rapping against younger children’s fingers—but with my blindness, I often felt overlooked, so I began doing destructive acts for attention. I’d convince the other children to steal food for me from the kitchen, told the younger children scary stories, so they would wake-up screaming about monsters, and after listening to an audiotape of the Bible that Sister Lewis gave me, I parroted the sections with sexual content to my siblings, my favorite part being Ezekiel 23:20: “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.”

  Needless to say, I wore down the nuns and they decided that I was a punishment from God for my mother having an extramarital affair. That was the first time it truly occurred to me that I had a biological family and I could choose to go find them.

  So, when I was eighteen, I dropped out of high school and began my search for my family. I had my mother’s name: Deidre Miller. I discovered she had died in a car crash fifteen years ago with her husband, though she had a daughter who was still alive. I tried to find my father, but there was no record of him, so I tracked Lauren Williams, the daughter of my mother. She’d legally changed her name for reasons I couldn’t fathom, and I found that she lived in Ann Arbor.

  I was so nervous about meeting her—I was blind and a product of her mother’s infidelity to her father. I couldn’t imagine how it could go well.

  But it did.

  She was kind—far more than I could ever have imagined, but she was a busy woman and she didn’t seem overly interested in having a sibling relationship with me, so I let her go. I moved to
the small town of Livingston and began working as a carpenter—like Jesus. We saw each other occasionally during holidays, and I got to meet my grandmother, who is the only person in my life that I consider truly part of my family. It’s a better life than I could wish for, and I am grateful to God every day for it.

  I never told them about the surgery and I continued to pretend that I was blind. While Lauren and my grandmother are Christians, I don’t think they would accept the idea that I had encountered God during my surgery and that God had given me a special mission—especially when Lauren works with the police. And I could not reveal one without revealing the other because if there is one thing that Lauren is good at reading, it’s people’s eyes. I can’t let her see mine. She would see the fervent need in them to complete my mission and she would see the mixture of despair and joy these deaths have caused me. I would get committed to a psych unit within a day and that’s without even telling her about the crucifixions. I keep the sunglasses on and I maintain the façade that I’m just a poor blind man worthy of pity.

  After taking my grandma to Thiessan Memorial Hospital, calling Lauren, and Lauren getting here in record time, I’m standing in the hallway right outside my grandma’s room with Lauren’s boyfriend, Tobias. I can see why Lauren would be attracted to him—the dark hair and those vibrant, green eyes—but I’ve mostly never understood romantic love unless the couple was meant to travel down the same road that God paved for them. From Tobias’s lack of warmth during our greeting, I can’t imagine what they have in common.