Dragging his left leg behind him, Cockren staggered to a red, antique-looking chair in the corner by the fireplace and sat down. The fire was hot, crackling. Sitting there by the fire, Cockren resembled a grandfather ready to tell a story on Christmas Eve. “I would offer you some flesh of our father, but I’m all out of crackers.”
Brandon laughed.
Sam realized it was another attempt at bad priest humor. She smiled, even though it wasn’t funny to her at all.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Stiltson kept the speedometer just above a hundred miles per hour. It was a straight shot on the back roads. It was just after ten, and he was certain he didn’t have much farther to go. He was thankful for that, since David had sat up an hour ago and hadn’t stopped staring at him. At least there was a gate separating them. The wire-mesh guard would slow him down if he tried to attack him from behind.
Stiltson shuddered at the sight of David, his features distorted by the shadows. He grabbed the final cigarette out of the pack sitting on the passenger seat. When driving, Stiltson usually placed the open pack on the seat next to him. It was less of a hassle, and he could focus on the road while firing one up.
He caught the cigarette between his lips and pushed the car lighter inward. It would be a moment or two before it was ready.
“Why are you doing this to us?” asked David, breaking the dreary silence in the car.
Stiltson was startled by his sudden, groggy voice. It sounded as if he had a brick of phlegm stuck in his throat.
“What did you say?”
“Why are you doing this to us?”
The lighter popped out. Stiltson snatched it out of the compartment and raised it to his mouth. Lowering his head, he pressed the end of the cigarette to the hot, orange circle. The tobacco popped and sizzled. He returned the lighter to its holding place and said, “You make it sound like what we’re doing is wrong.”
“It is.”
“Oh really? How do you figure?”
“You’re trying to keep us apart. That’s how.”
Stiltson laughed. “Are you serious?” He took a drag off his cigarette, cracked the window, and continued driving.
“Very serious.”
“Do you have the slightest idea how deep you are into shit? Your sister has been murdered, your mother, and not to mention your boss, and a dear friend of mine.”
David tilted his head, confused. “They were not murdered. I simply sent them on their way. I had to. They were a danger.”
“Is that a confession?”
“I am confessing nothing that He does not already know. I will be punished for this in the hereafter dearly, but my time on earth will be spent blissfully. I love David, he loves me, and there is nothing that will come between us. I give you a fair warning right now, Mr. John Stiltson, pull this car over and let us out. If you oblige, I will let you go about your life as you have intended. But if not, I will make sure your death is painful.”
What the hell is he talking about? Referring to himself in the third person? He’s crazier than I ever thought.
David sat quietly for a few seconds that felt like minutes to Stiltson. He stared through the windshield and eyed the wooden sign on the right-hand side of the road. It read: Welcome to Middleton, Population: 448.
Finally, he spoke again. His voice was just as raspy, but now there was a panic to it. “Don’t do this. You are not involved and you don’t have to be. Let us go, now.”
“No.” He didn’t know what was going on, but something in Stiltson was beginning to believe this was bigger than just simple murder. This was up on a higher plane. There was real evil at work here, the kind you read about in horror books.
“Do this now. Middleton is not where we want to be. Help us and we will help you.”
“Fuck yourself.”
The shadows parted and Stiltson could see David’s face clearly. It was misshapen. His forehead bulged. His eyes were solid brown with hints of white floating about like larvae. His cheekbones had risen and arched. He looked inhuman.
He looks possessed.
For the first time in his career, Stiltson was truly frightened. He’d pulled his gun on many bad guys throughout the years and hadn’t given it a second thought. Seeing this unholy face so close to his scared him more than being shot at point blank.
“I can’t hurt you, not right now,” David said, spitting foam through the mesh. It spattered the back of Stiltson’s neck. The froth was warm and thick. “Once I can explore again, you will be the first one to fall. I will punish you, John Stiltson, punish you worse than your father ever did.”
Stiltson trembled at a quick flash of memory. He was eleven. His father had been drinking. He was always drinking. Stiltson couldn’t remember a time when he was sober. Stiltson had been locked in the chicken coop. Slept in chicken shit, hearing the clucking and screeches the hens made when they were mating. He’d been left out there for three days. Finally, his mother couldn’t stand it any longer and had let him out. When his father discovered them behind the shed, she was washing him with a hose and sponge. Dear Dad went ballistic and attacked his mother, beating her within an inch of her life. What had stopped him from killing her was Stiltson himself. He used the ax they kept behind the shed. He’d planted the blade so deep in his father’s back it punctured his heart and killed him almost instantly.
“That was murder too, wasn’t it, John Stiltson?”
“No…no…”
It wasn’t murder, was it? No. He would not let this fucker convince him otherwise. It had been to save his mother. Stiltson had killed the man before he’d killed his mother. In fact, it was actually quite heroic. After that night, Stiltson had sworn to grow up and stop others from doing the sadistic things his father had done. He wanted to be a superhero, but knew he could never be one. Instead, he became a cop. It was the next best thing.
And he loved his job. He was damn good at it.
“I don’t know how you know so much about me, Mr. Barker, but I suggest you shut your fucking mouth, before I do pull this car over. But I won’t be letting you go. I’ll be sticking the barrel of my gun up your ass and pulling the trigger until my clip is empty. Now, tell me, am I lying?”
David scowled for a moment, then threw himself back in the seat, disappearing under the canopy of black.
Thank God. I can’t take much more being alone with him.
Stiltson was certain that David’s mind was rotting. He was a sick man. He probably had issues before, but now, he was crazy. Which was all fine and dandy, but that didn’t explain his sudden psychic ability to see into Stiltson’s past.
His turn was approaching, so he slowed the car down and steered right. It felt as if the car hovered for a moment and then struck the road. They bounced when the tires met gravel.
“Shit,” said Stiltson, adjusting himself.
He kept the speed to a minimum as he forged onward.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Get him into the sanctuary,” shouted Cockren the moment Stiltson escorted a handcuffed David Barker into the crumbling church.
He had the angel board tucked under his arm.
Cockren, who had appeared to be frail, sluggish, and moribund, suddenly turned into an energetic and militant point man. Barking orders, demanding, shouting directives, and before Sam realized it, David had been bound by rope to a gargantuan wooden cross. He was dormant again and couldn’t acknowledge what was happening to him.
But Stiltson could. He shouted his condemnation, telling them to let him down, and even drew his gun. Sam explained that she wasn’t fond of the idea, but it was what needed to be done. A crucifixion was all that could save David. Stiltson was reluctant, but he had re-holstered his gun and now stood off in a corner to supervise. Sam worried that they might already be too late. Brandon had checked David’s vital signs, and although he was alive, it was just barely.
The angel board, appearing as if it had been burnt to a
crisp, was at the bottom of the cross on a small, rounded table, neatly displayed. The plan was to force the angel out of David and send her back through by means of the board. A long shot, but it was the only option they had.
Raised upright at the head of the church, David was bound in a Christ-like pose. There were two empty crosses, one on each side of David. Brandon had volunteered to occupy one, and Sam decided she would take the other. Cockren had explained while they waited for Stiltson that two others must willingly give themselves to God to help overawe the angel.
She didn’t like that idea either, but what choice did she really have?
Brandon, with the golden cross strapped to his hip like a pistol, mounted one of the wooden crosses and waited as Cockren bound his hands and feet. Then it was Sam’s turn. She climbed up and didn’t struggle as Cockren did the same to her.
“I don’t understand why they have to be put through this for his sake,” Stiltson said from the darkness. His voice sounded heavily and stern in the gloomy church. “I don’t know if I believe any of this shit you’ve been telling me.”
Cockren answered while finishing the last of the knots at Sam’s ankles. “The angel’s powers are strong, detective, and we need two porters that are untainted by her touch to siphon God’s energy. Without His help, we’re doomed.”
“Then why aren’t you up there?”
“Because I have to conduct the ritual.” He pulled the knot taut. Sam winced. “Too tight?” She shook her head. He looked back at Stiltson. “Unless you’d like to trade places with one of them, but I’m sure they’d much rather have you as their backup if things go awry.”
“Do you think they will?”
“I can almost guarantee it.”
“Great.”
Yeah, great, thought Sam.
David sprung to life again. His wide eyes were mismatched in color, his face contorted into something wicked. He looked around, confused, frightened.
That’s not David. Sam gawked at whatever he’d become and felt a deep sadness that was mightier than her fear. This must have been what Stiltson was talking about.
When Stilston had arrived, he’d told the others about his drive over. How David, speaking in a voice that wasn’t his, threatened him and disclosed personal information that no one other than himself or his dead mother could have possibly known. Cockren said it wasn’t David, but the angel talking through him. He was mostly a shell now and only partially himself. The angel had consumed most of his essence. The way he’d described his face was how David looked now.
Monstrous.
His brow was wrinkled the creases on his face were an inch deep. “This is not the work of God,” screamed David. “This is heresy! Do you hear me? Heresy!”
Sam was terrified. She had planned to be strong, brave, courageous, but instead she found herself acting like a frightened teen prowling around a spookhouse.
This is a spookhouse, she thought. Worse than that, this is reality. At least there’s an exit door if things become too scary at a spookhouse. I’m trapped here, no matter what.
Sam couldn’t believe this angel could do something so hideous to David. If she actually cared for him as much as she believed, how could she put him through such pain and torment just so she could live?
Cockren walked over to the podium and unveiled a unique Bible. Ignoring the cries of sacrilege from David, he flipped through the handwritten pages. Sam imagined him preaching neurotically from behind it. Shouting at the congregation, delivering the warnings of God. He found the page he wanted and held the book open with one hand. His other arm disappeared from her view. When it returned to sight, he was holding a metal bottle, stoppered shut with a cork.
Walking to David, he used his thumb to pop the top. The cork shot into the air and landed somewhere on the ground. “By the grace of God, you will leave this body of blood.” Raising his arm into the air, he splashed a line of the liquid across David’s face and chest. It sizzled, burning him.
David lashed against the cross, his back slamming so hard against it Sam feared it might topple over and kill him. He revolted, kicking and bouncing against the ropes, trying to free himself. “You will not! Killing one of God’s creatures will send you to burn in Hell!”
“You are not one of God’s creatures any longer! You gave up that right for flesh. Sins of the flesh. Sins of the flesh!”
“David, calm down, please, you’re going to hurt yourself” she pleaded.
“That is not David speaking, young one!”
The growls bellowed out of his mouth. His skin began to stretch, expanding against the ropes. It looked as if he were a balloon hooked to an air tank.
Cockren repeated the procedure. He spattered him again, and David bucked, kicking against the ropes. He emptied the bottle, threw it on the floor. It clattered away. “I shall open a passageway for you to vacate the temple of David Barker!”
“No one will keep me from him!”
Cockren shouted, “Detective, I need your help, I cannot perform both procedures alone. She is too powerful. Please help me.”
Stiltson stepped into the sanctuary, disbelief masking his face. He watched David thrashing maniacally on the cross and growling so loudly it rattled the rotted walls.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Cut them.”
Sam jerked her head at Cockren. “Cut who?”
“You need to bleed. I must wet him with untainted blood.”
Brandon struggled against his ropes. “You never said anything about this, Cockren.”
Sam was shocked. “You didn’t know, either?”
“Hell no!”
Cockren raised his voice. “Not stab you, slice you so you will bleed. The passageway is through your body. His blood flows in yours now, remember?”
The flask. The goddamn flask. It made sense now. Not really, but more sense than it had before.
David raged, spewing venom in an ancient tongue. Only Cockren seemed to understand what was being said. Then he bared a dagger from under the podium, eight inches in length, made of gold. The handle was a cross. Unsheathing it, he dropped the case on the floor and walked to the pale, sickened form of Detective Stiltson.
“Slice them across the side, one quick motion, and step away.”
“Are you sure about this?”
Cockren looked him in the eye. “It’s our last chance to do this without killing him.”
Killing him?
“Then do it already,” Sam screamed. “Pull my shirt up and slice me open!”
“Hurry,” said Brandon.
Stiltson sliced them. Sam first and Brandon last and gave the knife back to Cockren. He looked appalled by what he’d just done. The blood streamed out of them, spattering across the floor and the angel board. Cockren walked over to the table, dabbed his fingers in their blood and stood at the center cross.
“Come out of him, free his soul, allow him his own will!” Cockren flicked his fingers, splashing him with their blood. “Give him back to God!”
“God will not take him, or me, we only have each other!”
Cockren repeated the words and the action.
“NOOOOOO!” David’s cries were getting worse. Deadly. “I will not allow you to take me from HIM!” His head snapped back, slamming against the cross. Mouth opening wide, his jaw shifted like a snake eating a mouse. It widened beyond rational means. A blue-white beam blasted out from his mouth.
“She’s coming,” Cockren screamed. “She’s crossing over!”
Brandon struggled against his ropes, trying to free himself. He leaned over so he could see Sam. “Sam? She’s coming out of him to stop us. She’ll be weak, but still stronger than any of us combined.”
Stiltson drew his gun, but didn’t know where to point it.
“What should we do?”
“We have to get down, and fast.”
Sam and Brandon pleaded to be cut down.
Cockren darte
d up the stage as if forgetting he had a bad leg. Sprinting like an all-star, he raced to Sam’s cross. He began cutting her ropes with the golden knife. “You have to get out of here. She’ll come for you, and you must be far away from here.”
“What’s going to happen to David?”
“I hope he was a man familiar with God.”
Sam began to cry. Cockren continued to saw until her arms were free.
“What should I do?” asked Stiltson.
“Get her out of here!”
She looked over at Brandon. He was praying.
“I can finish the rest. Get him down!”
Cockren leaned over, saw Brandon praying for freedom, and nodded. He climbed down the stage and moved over to him.
The glow disgorging from David darkened to a purple shade. He seized up, his head knocking this way and that. Upchucking Natasha’s spirit into the sky.
Sam quickly tugged at the ropes binding her feet. Stiltson came and helped her. Together, they tugged at the ropes until she was freed.
Cockren had loosened one of Brandon’s hands and had moved to his feet while Brandon worked at the other. He looked up, saw Sam was free. “Get her out of here, Detective. The angel is loose. Any moment now she’ll—ugh!” He went taut, his head jerked back, and he began to float.
He was rising, and not of his own will. As his body went higher, it revealed behind him an object of white. Two, pale, bare feet.
“Oh no,” Sam said.
Cockren went higher in the air. Natasha was now holding him above her head with both arms, one hand under the back of his neck, the other on his crotch.
He stopped moving.
Stiltson aimed his gun and fired six rapid shots into the angel’s torso. They went in, but vanished. It was as if her body absorbed the blasts. She tilted her head at them and smiled.
Please, let him go. Please.
She brought Cockren’s body down quickly. Her knee rose. It met his back, snapping his spine and splintering the bone on impact. Cockren grunted. His arms twitched, spinning in circles as if he were trying to swim in the air.
Angel Board Page 23
