Carrie balled up her fist and pounded it on the door. “Mr. or Mrs. Pennington?” she called out. “Father Ihan!”
Rein moved her aside and kicked the door, smashing it inward. He raced into the foyer, checking the rooms around him, and stopped at the sight of what he saw in the parlor.
Carrie ran in and cried out in disbelief even as she tried yanking her gun from her holster. She struggled with the unfamiliar plastic, her fine motor skills betrayed by the shock of the horrors sitting in front of her.
Father Ihan was positioned in the center of the room. He was crucified, naked and upside down on a round, wooden table. The table was leaning against the fireplace.
“Help—help me,” Ihan moaned.
Kneeling on the floor in front of them was another naked man with his entire head wrapped in duct tape. His wrists were bound together with tape and held out in front of him in a position of prayer. He’d been eviscerated, cut open lengthwise from esophagus to the top of his pubic hair, and most of the contents of his stomach had emptied onto the floor around him. Incredibly, someone had pulled out a length of his intestines and wrapped them around his hands like rosary beads.
Carrie struggled not to vomit and raised her weapon. “Where is he?”
“Help me, I’m dying,” Ihan whimpered. “Oh God, I can feel it.”
“I’ll get him,” Rein said.
Carrie snatched Rein by the back of the collar and pulled him back. “No. Threat first.”
She moved in front of Rein and blocked him with her body. “Stay behind me. If you see him, call it out.”
“You have to help me!” Ihan pleaded.
“We’ll be back,” Carrie said.
“Do not leave me!”
“We’ll be back!” She activated the gun’s laser and followed the red dot down the hallway toward the dining room. “Put your hand on my shoulder and stay close. You move when I move. Go. Police department!” she shouted.
“We can’t just leave him,” Rein said, shuffling behind Carrie.
“We can’t help him if we’re dead. Job one is handle the threat, then come back for whoever you can save.”
Ihan cried out for them to come back and not to leave him.
“A hundred mass shootings a year changes how you do things. Keep an eye down the hall.” She stuck her head into the dining room and scanned quickly, making sure it was empty. “Clear,” she said.
They kept moving down the hall toward the kitchen. Rein squeezed Carrie’s shoulder to stop her. He pointed at the end of the corridor just as a shadow passed the wide archway ahead of them. Carrie nodded and they advanced toward the shadow. She clicked off her laser and led them along the right side of the hall, staying close to the wall.
Rein pointed at the pantry on the left. It looked like it had been ravaged by a wild animal. Dozens of huge bags were torn open and jars of preserves and chocolates had been swept from the shelves and smashed to pieces on the floor. Everywhere she looked, she saw piles of white powder spilled across the floor. The entire room was filled with a white dusty haze. “What is that?” she whispered.
“Flour and sugar,” Rein said. “Be careful.”
“Of what? Is he going to put me into a cake?”
They could hear Tucker Pennington’s voice to the right. It was shrill and excited. Carrie leaned in enough to see Tucker, naked, shaking bags of flour and sugar in each hand all over the walls and cabinets and floor with white powder. Every surface was covered in it. There was so much piled on the floor, his bare feet swished through it and left trails wherever he walked. It was hard to see anything in the room through the dusty fog.
Tucker tossed the empty bags into a pile of already discarded bags and reached for two more. He ripped them open and poured them over his head. “Together, we shall enter the kingdom,” he cried. “Guided by angels. Hailed by trumpets! The saints will fall at my feet and know me as their master.”
Mrs. Pennington was sitting tied to a wooden chair next to the oven. Her legs and arms were duct taped at the sides, and another strip covered her mouth. She was covered in so much flour that her hair was white and black silk shirt were white. Her eyes widened when she saw Carrie, and Carrie quickly got back into the hallway.
“Who’s there?” Tucker called out. “I hear you. I feel you. Who has come to bear witness to this?”
Carrie inched around the corner with the barrel of her gun. “Hey, Tucker. We making cookies in here? What’s the occasion?”
Tucker spread his arms wide and flexed his hands. They were empty. His chest heaved and clumps of flour and sugar dripped from his body in plops of sweat. Tucker’s eyes were peeled back wide enough that she could see white past his irises all the way around. “Today I ascend to heaven and greet my father,” Tucker said.
Carrie reached for the button on the device under her gun and touched the button. “Sorry, all ascensions are cancelled today, you wacko.”
The strobe activated and hit Tucker directly in the face with its brilliant, flickering light. Intermittent light bounced off trillions of white dust particles in the air between them. Tucker stared straight into the strobe and grinned. “I see the light,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”
Tucker reached for his mother and Carrie moved her finger to the trigger, about to fire, when Rein grabbed her arm. “You’ll ignite the entire room if you shoot,” he said.
Tucker stroked Grace’s hair, making streaks in the white powder. “Woman, behold thy son.”
Rein stepped past Carrie with his hands up, showing that he was unarmed. “Tucker, it’s me. Do you remember me?”
Tucker looked up at Rein and his jaw slackened. His hands tightened into fists and he began to seethe. “You. The apostate.”
“What do you see, Tucker?” Rein said.
“I see your soul, defiler!”
“What else besides me?” Rein asked. He stepped into the kitchen, careful not to slip on the flour and sugar covering the tile floor. “That’s the one thing I never asked you, all those years ago. I should have and I’m sorry. It’s been on my mind all these years. Something talks to you, doesn’t it?”
“Be gone!”
“It tells you what it wants and what to do.”
“Go away!”
“You’ve kept it hidden from everyone for all this time, but it’s not hiding anymore, is it?”
Tucker’s head swung to the right with his ear cocked like he was listening to someone speak. Rein crept forward. If the ground hadn’t been so slippery, he would have made the lunge already. Just a few more feet and he’d be close enough to grab Tucker and get him pinned to the ground.
Tucker glanced back at him and said, “You’re trying to trick me.”
“I’m not trying to trick you, I’m trying to understand,” Rein said. He realized, too late, that while Tucker was talking, he’d reached back to grab the gas burner controls on the oven. Tucker flipped them both all the way to the left. The burners made a clicking sound. Click-click-click. A spark.
The kitchen exploded.
* * *
Carrie blinked several times, trying to open her eyes. Something loud was beeping incessantly. Everything was spinning. She closed them again. She was lying on the floor. Something was burning. It smelled like some kind of meat pie. A sweet-smelling pastry stuffed with beef or lamb that had been left in the oven too long. The beeping would not stop.
The back of her head throbbed. She reached around the back of her head to touch it and her fingers came away slick with blood.
She couldn’t move her legs. It was hard to form thoughts. Something was burning. Something was beeping. She tried to open her eyes and sit up and only made it a few inches before the world swayed the wrong way and she wanted to vomit. She fell back too quickly and struck her head on the floor again, right where it was already split open.
The pain was sharp and it cleared her mind. Something heavy was pinning her to the floor. She reached down and felt a man sprawled across her legs. It was Rein,
she realized. He’d been thrown back against her in the hallway when that maniac Pennington blew up the kitchen.
She opened her eyes and saw a glowing hot ember float down through the air from the blackened ceiling. It swayed left and then right, swinging back and forth like a lazy dancer, coming down toward her until it landed on her right cheek with a hiss. Carrie cried out and swatted at her face to get the burning to stop.
The hallway was on fire. Black smoke billowed out of the kitchen and the entire house rang with wailing smoke alarms. The paint on the walls and ceiling around her crackled with flame. “Rein!” Carrie shouted. She slapped him. “Get up!”
Rein didn’t move. The flames were closing in on them both. Carrie kicked herself out from under him, shoving his body off of hers with all of her strength to get herself free. “Come on, Rein! Hurry!”
It was getting harder to breathe. The flames closed in, consuming all of the oxygen in the hallway. Carrie stood up to grab Rein and realized she’d stood too high. It was thick with smoke that burned so hot, she felt the top of her scalp singe. She dropped back to the floor and grabbed Rein by the arm. “Come on, Jacob. You have to help me.”
She pulled with all her might until he slid on the hardwood floor. She heaved again, unable to stand to her full height and get the leverage she needed, but the approaching flames filled her with enough terror to make another pull. Then another. Soon, she had Rein’s body halfway down the hall and out of the black smoke.
Carrie dropped down beside him and pressed her ear to his mouth. She heard nothing. She looked at his chest and it did not rise or fall. She touched the edge of his throat with her fingertips and dug in but was unable to find his pulse. “Jacob!” She shouted and shook him, “Jacob! Come on.”
The flames were coming.
Carrie tilted Rein’s chin and squeezed his nose shut. She lowered herself to his mouth and opened her lips against his, blowing air from her lungs into his own. She blew again, watching to make sure his chest rose and fell with the breath she gave him.
She let go of his face and pressed her hand onto his chest. She interlaced her fingers and lifted herself as high as she could and locked her arms in place before she slammed down on him. She did it once, and again, and on the third time something popped in Rein’s chest and he gasped for air and cried out in pain. He rolled over with his knees curled up. “What the hell did you just do?” he wheezed.
“Get up!” Carrie shouted. She grabbed him by the arm and started to pull.
Rein saw the flames and scrambled to follow her. It hurt to move and he clutched his chest. “I think you broke my ribs.”
“Help me,” Carrie said. She ran into the parlor to where Father Ihan was still mounted to the table, head aimed downward with his feet in the air. His body had turned a sickly pale color, as if all of the life had drained out of him through the wounds in his wrists and legs. Carrie grabbed one of the nails and wrapped her fingers around it, trying to pull, but it was sunk too deep.
Rein limped into the parlor, hunched over, to try and help. Flames had filled the hallway and were licking the entrance of the dining room across from them. He grabbed the other nail through the priest’s left leg and grimaced as he tried to pull it free. “We don’t have time,” Rein said. He clutched his chest, wincing in pain. “He looks dead anyway.”
“I’m not leaving him. I told him I’d be back.”
Smoke billowed across the ceiling. Rein could feel heat scalding his back. He grabbed the underside of the table. “Come on. We’ll roll him out. Help me lift.”
Carrie did her best to keep the table from falling as they raised it from the wall and stood it upright. They turned the table on the carpet and rolled it toward the door. Flames bit at their arms and sides like sharp fangs.
“Turn, turn,” Rein called out, trying to maneuver the table toward the front door.
“It’s not going to fit!” Carrie cried.
“It better fit!”
She pulled the left door open with one hand and balanced the table with the other. In the smoke, it was impossible to tell how much space there was. Rein pushed as Carrie went onto the porch and latched onto the table with both hands, trying to pull it. There wasn’t enough room.
“Tilt it,” Carrie called out. She was finally able to take a deep enough breath to shout, “Come on, tilt, tilt!”
She could no longer see Rein. All she could see was the table and the naked priest’s body and the flames flickering on the ceiling above. “Rein?” Carrie shouted. “Rein!”
She yanked on the table, slamming it against the door frame so hard that one of the nails holding up Ihan’s left wrist loosened and his hand fell away. Carrie grabbed the nail stuck in his right wrist. Its metal was hot enough to singe her hand. Ihan’s head lolled back and he muttered something incoherent. “Hang in there, Father,” Carrie said. She twisted and pulled until it came loose in her hand and the priest dropped.
The weight of his body pulled the nails in his legs free. He collapsed on the porch with their sharp points sticking out an inch through his ankles. Carrie scooped him up in her arms and carried him down to the lawn. She dumped him on the grass next to the walkway and ran back up the steps. Everything was still spinning. All the running made it worse. Black smoke poured out of the front door. She took several deep breaths and filled her lungs as much as she could.
“I’m coming!” she shouted. “Hang on!”
Just as she reached the doors, a pair of hands grabbed the table by the edges and pulled it free.
Jacob Rein emerged from the smoke and staggered toward her. His face and neck and arms were black with soot. Parts of his beard had been singed away. Carrie grabbed him and led him down the steps onto the lawn, lowering him to the ground as he collapsed.
There were sirens coming. She laid down on the grass beside Rein and cradled him. She wiped soot from his face and kissed the top of his head, even as the parade of fire trucks and ambulances and police officer raced down the driveway toward them.
25
Carrie pulled the Band-Aid off and touched the back of her head. There was dried blood on the white part of the bandage but none on her fingers. The doctor had said she bled a little when he took out the stitches and told her to wear the Band-Aid for an hour. She figured it was close enough. She crumpled it up and tossed it on the passenger side floor of her car.
The scar itself didn’t feel too bad. About an inch long and a half inch wide right on the back of her skull. It was going to be a bald spot for the rest of her life, but she wore her hair long enough that it wouldn’t matter. Or, she’d get tired of having long hair and shave it all off, and not give a shit if people saw it anyway.
She stopped at the liquor store and bought two bottles of red wine. It was good just to walk and look at things without her head spinning. She felt naked without her gun. Both of her weapons were locked up in a safe in her bedroom, waiting for her to be cleared by the neurologist. They’d diagnosed her with a Grade 3 concussion. Once the headaches stopped, she’d be allowed to get reexamined and requalify with her weapon and go back to work.
There was no real rush for it. Cases came in, the same way they always had. The cases went out, the same way they always would. A temporary solution to a long-term problem. Child victims grew up too damaged to function and turned into adult predators. Street criminals got arrested and went to jail and came back out with no prospects for a better tomorrow, but still needed money to survive. Deranged lunatics were tossed into treatment and force-fed medication until they stabilized and then they were released. After that, it was anyone’s guess what would happen to them. Usually, the worst.
It was all one sick cycle.
If she stayed with the county, she’d have to work another twenty-two years. Twenty-two years of a constantly-spinning hamster wheel of incidents, victims, witnesses, suspects, and court. The wheel never stopped. You just jumped off when you’d had enough.
If she stayed, she’d be able to retire at fifty
years old with a full pension. Sixty percent of her salary for the rest of her life. And then what? Buy an RV and travel the land? Settle down in a small town and get overly serious about gardening?
She’d spent most of her adult life focused on her work. Lately, that seemed like a terrible thing to focus one’s life on.
When you finally jumped off the wheel, it dumped you back into the pit with everyone else. Just like Bill Waylon. Just like Jacob. Just like Harv Bender would be, when he finally said the wrong thing in public and was driven out kicking and screaming. In the end, it didn’t matter what rank you attained or how many bad guys you caught. When the system was done with you, it was done for good.
Police work is just like any other job. When you retire from a factory after forty years, you get a gold watch and a plaque and are then immediately forgotten. Your place in the machine was taken up by the next person as soon as you walked away.
There were reasons to stay, she knew. For one, she was good at it. Far better than the people around her. Rein had tried to walk away and couldn’t. It was the only thing he was good at, he’d told her. Maybe it was the only thing she was good at too, but also, maybe that was because she hadn’t tried to be good at other things. To live a full life, she knew there had to be more. She wasn’t sure what. She was sure she intended to look.
She parked her car and grabbed the bag with both wine bottles and headed up the sidewalk. She buried her chin into her coat. It was getting cold. The damp mugginess of autumn was giving way to the chill of winter. Soon, there would be snow.
She went up the steps to Penny’s house and turned the doorknob. It was locked. She smiled and rang the doorbell. The door flew open and a child half her size attacked her with a hug, shouting, “Aunt Carrie!”
Carrie bent down and kissed the top of Natalie’s head.
Natalie looked at the bag. “Did you bring me anything?”
“Do you like wine?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good answer. I didn’t bring anything, but I thought after dinner we’d go to the bookstore. Is that okay?”
Blood Angel Page 26