by Frank Lauria
“People of faith are trying to kill her,” Jericho reminded him. “How can you hide her?”
It was the priest’s turn to scoff. “Just don’t tell him. He’s not all-knowing. He’s not God…”
“I don’t know what’s going on here. I just know we have real problems,” Jericho said, looking at Christine. “This isn’t solving them.”
Christine looked from Jericho to Father Novak, then back. “This all feels true to me,” she told Jericho.
He shook his head helplessly. “You’ll be safer with me. At least I can fight this guy with something real.”
The priest smiled at Christine. “You know what to do. You feel it.”
She nodded and edged to Father Novak’s side.
Jericho regarded her sadly. Her choice, he told himself. I’m out of here. As he turned and walked to the stairs, Christine lifted her hand uncertainly.
“Let him go,” Father Novak murmured, taking her arm. “The true protector is a man of virtue, willing to sacrifice everything to keep you here.”
* * *
Everyone at the Vatican knew something momentous was happening. Very few had any idea what it was.
The pope had been in virtual seclusion for a week. He knew the only people he could trust were the monks of the knighthood. They were the keepers of the flame, and his best defense against the Dark Angel’s wiles.
He knew he had enemies among the cardinals and one, or more, might have defected to the lavish temptations of Satan. The pope knew that Cardinal Gubbio was an outspoken critic of his decision and had dispatched assassins. Treachery was everywhere.
For that reason the pope received his closest advisor in the sanctity and privacy of an obscure confessional, carved from a thick stone wall centuries before. No sound escaped from its heavy wood doors.
“The girl is found in New York City,” his advisor reported.
Although the Holy Father remained cloaked in semidarkness, his advisor was taken aback by the pontiff’s frail appearance. His Holiness had aged twenty years in the past few weeks.
The pope received the news with dread. “And the protector?”
“The protector has not come.”
Huddled in the darkness of the ancient confessional, the pope slumped against the cold stone wall. There was no way he could accept Cardinal Gubbio’s pitiless solution. It is not the way of God, he reflected. And it’s certainly not a solution. Merely an affirmation we have lost faith.
And yet, the consequences of inaction were unthinkable.
“Then we must become her eternal protector,” the pope declared wearily. “Send your most trusted knights.”
But he knew full well that if they failed, Christine York’s sacrificial blood would be on his soul.
CHAPTER TEN
When Jericho entered his apartment, the disorder was uncomfortably reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas’s dungeon. Still, after what he’d been through, the mess was a familiar harbor in a very heavy storm.
The holiday music coming from a nearby apartment reminded him that people were leading normal, decent lives: raising kids, trying to keep it together, trying to do unto others …
He dropped his packages and checked his phone machine. No one ever called him except Chicago. Rage and anguish twisted through his belly. Chicago’s loss was profound. He felt completely alone in the world.
Should be used to it by now, he told himself, moving to the kitchen counter. He pulled a bottle from the paper bag and poured a tall glass of Jack Daniel’s. His hands shook as he quickly tossed it down. Too long between drinks, he thought ruefully, closing his eyes.
“It gets easier when you accept who you are…” a voice said.
Jericho dropped the glass, drew his Glock and spun around in one smooth motion.
The man was there, leaning on the windowsill. He regarded Jericho with a sly smile. “… A fallen soul.”
Jericho’s eyes darted from side to side as he kept his weapon rock steady on his visitor. He scanned the doors and windows, checking every quadrant.
“Door locked … no broken windows…” the man mocked. “Hmmmm, how did I get in?” He casually moved away from the window. “By the way, you’ve done wonders with the place.”
Jericho advanced on him like an armed bear. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I think you know. You just don’t want to believe it.”
Jericho paused and studied the man’s face. He looked like a dissipated executive, a lawyer perhaps. Or a banker.
“I know you,” Jericho said finally. “I protected you.”
The man seemed disappointed by his answer. His pale green eyes swept the litter on the kitchen counter. Jericho followed his gaze and saw it all: the empty boxes of painkillers, the Percocet, the Advil, the Valium … empty vodka and bourbon bottles … all evidence of an empty life.
“You didn’t protect me,” the man corrected in a bored tone. “You protected this body.” He flicked his hand at the counter. “I’m beginning to get a pattern here. Lots of pain, huh?”
The man idly picked up a box and read the label. “Should not be taken with alcohol. Remember that.”
Still wary, Jericho fingered his weapon as the man moved to a faded photograph of his wife and daughter.
“To lose your wife and child.” The man sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”
Jericho went from wary to angry. His cobalt eyes fixed on the man’s face, and he extended his weapon. “What do you want?”
The man lifted his eyebrows as if it had always been clear. “To make you happy again.”
In the momentary silence Jericho heard a splashing sound. It was coming from the bathroom. He glanced aside and the ground seemed to wobble.
His daughter was playing in her bubble bath.
“Amy?” Jericho mumbled, wanting it to be true, knowing it couldn’t.
“Don’t stay in too long or you’ll turn into a prune.” The familiar voice tinkled like wind chimes. It was his wife.
“Emily?”
Jericho’s emotions churned like laundry in a washer as he watched his wife Emily walk out of the bedroom to the bathroom. Suddenly the apartment was fresh and clean. There was art on the walls, and presents beneath a lit Christmas tree. New furniture, glowing lamps, and flaming logs in the fireplace.
Just the way it looked ten years ago, Jericho thought, fighting to regain control. But it can’t be. The past is gone. No matter how much I want it back.
“He’ll be home soon,” Emily assured her daughter. “You’ll see. He promised, didn’t he?”
The man edged closer to Jericho. “Tell you what,” he said, his voice cool and reasonable. “I’ll trade you. Your wife and daughter for you-know-who. C’mon…” the man urged, voice warm and paternal. “She’s nobody to you. You are in the middle of something you don’t understand. You think you’re saving Christine from me?”
The man cocked his head as if awaiting an answer. “She wants to be with me,” he confided. “And you know that. You think I would harm her? She’ll be treated like a queen.”
Jericho continued to stare at his wife and daughter, at the love he’d lost.
“You still want them?” the man whispered. “Here’s your chance.”
It was an agonizing choice, but Jericho had to let it go. Let Emily and Amy go … forever. He’s conning me, Jericho told himself. He’s far from all-powerful or he wouldn’t be here.
“Yeah, you’re pretty good,” Jericho admitted. “You can do all this.” He turned and met the man’s gaze with a steely smile. “But you can’t read my mind, can you, you son of a bitch?”
The man shrugged. “I can’t see through walls either. I’m not a lounge act.” He clasped his hands briskly. “So—we’ve established that I need you. Terrific. You need me, too.” His voice lowered. “You once said you’d give anything to have them back.”
You haven’t been listening. I said it at least a thousand times, Jericho thought, staring at his daught
er.
“Here they are,” the man whispered. “Your family … back.”
Jericho couldn’t take his eyes off Amy. “They’re not real.”
“Does it matter?”
He dangled the question like the keys to paradise.
Jericho turned. “Yes.”
“Maybe you need to be reminded how painful reality is,” the man said with a flicker of annoyance.
Without warning the front door crashed open.
Jericho opened fire as men rushed inside. The bullets had no effect on the intruders, but a lamp shattered behind them. Jericho hurled himself at the attackers, but his feet seemed to be mired in molasses.
The intruders rushed past him with accelerated speed. Jericho felt as if he were underwater, watching them from the inside of a bowl. He flailed helplessly as the attackers grabbed Emily and Amy and dragged them screaming into the bedroom.
Suddenly Jericho broke through. The room was filled with the cries of his wife and child. Every cry punctured his heart like a sword.
Moving swiftly now, he lunged across the room and kicked open the bedroom door. It was horrible. The ballerina music box lay broken on the floor, sticky with blood. His wife … his baby girl … mutilated …
Again, it broke him. Jericho felt his soul drain away like sand in an hourglass. He was empty, worthless.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the man said soothingly.
“I wasn’t there.”
“No … you were just doing your job.”
“I wasn’t fucking there!” Jericho rasped angrily. “I should have been there!”
The man shook his head. “Look at you, so torn apart by guilt.” He smiled and pointed at the ceiling. “He invented guilt. You were just out there doing your job. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Jericho turned away from the bloody carnage in the bedroom. The man’s voice followed him: calm, logical, and deeply sympathetic. “You were an honest cop. You didn’t take money. You were doing what you thought was right … and you got fucked.”
Jericho paused in front of a mirror and studied his reflection. The hollow shadows around his deep-set eyes gave his sculpted features a skull-like cast.
“Where was God?” the man demanded indignantly. “He could have stopped it. No—He fucked you. And then…” He lowered his voice.… He made you feel guilty.”
Jericho closed his eyes. When he opened them again he could see the gathering fury in his knotted jaw, in the bulging veins in his temples. It kept building as the man kept talking.
“Me? I don’t do guilt,” the man said amiably. “I embrace everybody. I didn’t cause what happened here. He did. You think about that … and tell me who’s really your friend.”
My Glock is my only friend, Jericho raged. Suddenly all his pent-up frustration, loss, hunger, confusion, and righteous fury thundered to the surface. He lashed out at his own frenzied image.
His fist smashed the mirror and came away bloody.
At the same moment the image in the broken glass shifted. Abruptly the dingy clutter of his present existence snapped back like a psychotic sitcom. He was back in his littered apartment, alone and unloved.
Jericho felt a hot slash of pain and saw the bloody bits of glass in his knuckles. As he picked at them, the man clucked sympathetically.
“I can make it so it never happened,” he reminded. “All for the price of a stranger’s address.”
Jericho intently cleared the sharp glass from his bloody hand.
“No!”
“You see, now you are going to get me upset,” the man warned, his voice barbed with menace. He stared at Jericho like a green-eyed cobra. “I don’t think you want to see me upset.”
Now you are pissing me off, Jericho thought, flexing his bloody fist. His cobalt eyes burned like blue lasers. “You want to fuck with me? You think you know bad? You’re a fucking choirboy compared to me.”
“You’re in touch with your anger,” the man congratulated. “I like that. I don’t know about you … I could use a drink.”
The man turned his back and strolled to the kitchen counter. He rummaged through the clutter and found the bourbon bottle. “Actually we’re a lot alike,” he reflected, wiping a glass.
“We’re nothing alike,” Jericho said slowly.
“Are you kidding?” The man poured himself a drink. “Look at this … look at who you are now. You’ve walked away from the light … just like me.” He held out a glass. “You want one?”
Jericho’s features seemed cut from stone. “You need to go now,” he growled, eyes burning with fury.
The man ignored him. “Oh come on,” he urged genially. “You know what’s in your heart. We’re on the same side.”
“I’m not on your side.”
The man seemed shocked. “You’re not? You’re on His side?” He rolled his eyes skyward. “He’s the one who took your family away. He’s the greatest underachiever of them all,” the man confided, jabbing his finger at the ceiling. “He just has a great publicist.”
The man began to pace. “Every good thing that happens … it’s his will. “Every bad thing that happens … well, He works in mysterious ways,” the man ranted. “It’s His cosmic excuse for fucking the common man. You take that overblown press kit they call the Bible and look for the answers,” he challenged, moving closer to Jericho. “And basically it tells you … shit happens.”
The man put his hands to his forehead as if exhausted. “He treated you like garbage. And you turned your back on Him. I’m not the bad guy here.”
Then his patience snapped. With incredible strength he grabbed Jericho’s neck and forced his head around so he was looking through the window.
“See those insignificant little dots on the street?” the man hissed. “That’s all you are to me. Now give me the girl.”
Jericho felt a sense of release as he turned around. “Not today,” he spat.
Enraged, the man smashed him against the window. Jericho felt the glass crack behind him and grabbed the man’s shoulders. But the man had superhuman strength. Again he slammed Jericho against the glass, breaking it. A chill breeze whipped Jericho’s face and he saw the street twenty stories below. He bounced off the cracked window and charged, but the man lifted him off the floor.
With a final surge of power, the man hurled Jericho through the window, shattering it completely.
The sickening drop pulled the blood from his groin. His hands clawed wildly and one palm smacked the window frame. His fingers hooked and held, despite the broken glass gouging his palms and the sudden wrench of his weight.
As Jericho strained to pull himself up, a boot crushed his bloody hand.
The man leaned out the window. “Look down,” he said calmly.
Eyes squeezed tight with pain, Jericho glanced down at the dizzying drop. He was dangling by a thread and it was about to snap.
“Now look into your heart,” the man said.
Jericho’s tortured muscles screamed with agony as he struggled to pull himself up.
Slowly the man reached down through the window. “Take my hand—and I’ll give you everything He took away.”
Jaw knotted with effort, Jericho slowly lifted his hand for help. “Here,” he groaned.
The man extended his hand, but Jericho couldn’t quite reach it, bloody fingers desperately raking the air. The man leaned out the window and reached further.
Roaring with pain, Jericho heaved himself up with one hand, grabbed the man’s extended arm—and yanked him out the window.
The man’s green eyes bulged in disbelief before he plummeted, howling crazily as he hurtled faster and faster and slammed into a parked car at a hundred miles an hour. The impact collapsed the steel roof, forming a twisted crib for the man’s crumpled form.
Jericho wasn’t watching. He clung to the windowsill with one torn, bloody hand and grabbed with the other. The broken glass cut like razor wire as he heaved his battered, weary body over the sill, slashing his chest, leg, and
forearm, as well as his hands.
For a moment he slumped on the floor, exhausted. Then he pushed himself to his knees and looked down.
The man lay in the hollow of the demolished roof, his legs splayed. A crowd had started to gather around the car. One or two people were pointing up at Jericho’s building.
“Nice of you to drop by,” Jericho muttered.
He slowly got to his feet, staggered into the kitchen, and washed the blood and glass from his hands. He splashed cold water on his face, then wrapped his wounded fists with dish towels.
He avoided his reflection in the mirror, knowing it wouldn’t be good.
A loud pounding broke through his numbed senses. Somebody was knocking at his door.
Reflexively, Jericho went into battle alert. He retrieved his Glock and edged to the door. Weapon ready, he checked the peephole.
Raw shock swatted his bruised brain.
It was Chicago.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Torn between disbelief and paranoia, Jericho unlocked the door and opened it a crack. His old friend stood there, dirty, disheveled, and weaving slightly as if recovering from a hangover.
Chicago tried to push past him, but the chain was on. “Open the door, man,” he said impatiently.
Jericho lifted his gun. “I thought you were dead.”
“Another second and I would’ve been. All I remember is diving out of the car and waking up in the gutter.”
Jericho’s mind raced back to the illusions the man had conjured. This could easily be another con job, he thought, keeping the gun steady.
“What are you doing here? What do you want?”
Chicago gave him an exasperated look. “Come on, man, I’ve been trying to find you all night. What the fuck happened to you?”
Shit, Jericho thought, shutting the door. He unzipped the chain, reopened the door, and pulled Chicago inside, pressing the gun to his head.
“I can’t trust you,” he said regretfully.
“What are you gonna do? Kill me?”
He gave Jericho an idea. Shoving Chicago back, Jericho aimed his gun. “I just need to know.”
For the first time Chicago seemed alarmed. “Need to know what?”