Elijah offered a slight bow of respect as he stepped through the doorway into the cool, unadorned, stone foyer.
The Sisters of the Blessed Virgin had become much more militant since the events of Fall River.
And even more so since Emma Rose had come to live with them. It had taken him quite some time to find her. She’d been at the Vatican, a series of safe houses scattered across Europe, and finally the U.S.
He recalled the last time he’d seen the child, then a young woman in her early teens. The sisters had allowed him to speak with her about some bizarre ecological findings deep within the jungles of South America. Emma Rose hadn’t been able to give him much information, which had actually put his mind at ease, but a special connection had been established.
A connection that he hoped to reestablish during this visit; a connection he hoped would help ensure the safety of the world.
“Mr. Covington,” said a low, timorous voice from behind him.
Elijah slowly turned to see Mother Superior, an amazingly tall woman, the face peering out from her habit looking as though it were sculpted from incredibly pale stone.
“Ah, Mother,” he acknowledged.
“I apologize. I did not expect you to arrive so soon after your call . . .”
“No worries, Mother,” Elijah said. “Matters have progressed much more quickly than anticipated. The sooner I see her, the better it will be for us all.”
“I see.”
The tone of her reply made Elijah suddenly wary. “Is there a problem?” he asked.
“Oh no, that’s fine,” Mother said quickly, with what Elijah thought might be an attempt at a smile. “She’s still awake and has been quite busy making art.”
“I can only imagine,” he said with a knowing nod. “These are truly interesting times that we find ourselves in.”
She stared at him, then spoke.
“You do realize that the only reason that I’m allowing this is . . .”
“Yes,” he interrupted, his hand automatically going to the scars on his face. “I know why.”
The Mother Superior’s eyes were like laser beams attempting to cut their way into his soul. He wondered what it was she was searching for.
Or did she suspect?
“Right this way, Mr. Covington,” she said, turning and heading farther into the convent.
Silently, he followed her, passing several armed sisters on their way to a grand, wooden staircase.
“I will need to limit your time with Emma Rose,” Mother Superior said, as they climbed the stairs. “She is still young, and because of her unique gifts, she requires a certain amount of rest.”
“I completely understand.”
They reached the top of the stairs and continued down a long corridor until they reached two more sentries, standing outside a door.
“Sisters,” Elijah said with a slight bow. They acknowledged him with nods.
“Mr. Covington will be speaking with our beloved Emma Rose for precisely thirty minutes,” the Mother Superior said, looking directly at Elijah.
Elijah nodded, and the two sentries stepped aside, allowing him access.
“Enjoy your chat,” the Mother Superior said, turning and walking away.
Elijah could feel his heart rate quicken as he raised his hand and rapped on the heavy, wooden door.
“Hello,” he heard a muffled, singsongy voice say from within. “Please do come in!”
He took the doorknob in hand, turned and pushed the door open into the room.
The young woman was sitting at a large, rolltop desk, her back to the door as she worked furiously on something beneath her hands.
“Emma Rose?” he said gently, not wanting to startle her.
She dropped her colored pencil and spun around in her chair.
“Elijah?” she said, an enormous smile spreading across her beautiful features. “Is that you?”
“It is, Emma,” he said, closing the door behind him. “How have you been?”
She sprang up from her chair and bounded across the room to him. He wasn’t prepared for the level of affection she showed as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him with all her might.
“I was wondering when you would come to visit me again,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I you,” he told her, hugging her back and planting a kiss atop her head. “You look wonderful.”
He was amazed at how much older she appeared, a beautiful young flower sprouting up amongst the weeds.
“Do you think so?” she asked, stepping back to spin around before him. She was wearing a pretty yellow sundress, and it billowed out as she turned. He was reminded of a celestial body, spinning in orbit, everything as the Lord God Almighty had placed it.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, smiling at her.
“Awwwwwww,” she said, her smile like a newly born star. “They told me you’d be visiting, but I didn’t think it would be this soon!”
He walked farther into the room. It looked like a typical teenage girl’s domicile, walls covered with posters of kittens and French bulldogs, and handsome boy bands who would be forgotten by year’s end.
“Matters of grave importance have brought me here, I’m afraid,” he told her.
“Sounds, serious,” she said, going back to her desk. He could see that on the corner there was a stack of paper, of drawings she had done. “Is it something I might have seen . . . that I might have drawn?”
“I’m not sure,” Elijah said, moving closer to her.
“I . . . I’ve been seeing a lot lately,” she told him, looking down at the latest piece, which wasn’t quite finished.
He touched the stack of drawings on the corner of the desk. “May I?”
“Sure,” she said as she picked up a pencil and started working on the piece she was doing when he came in.
Elijah started to flip through the stack, not quite sure what he was seeing, but knowing that the images were important. “Things have changed in the world,” he said. “And not for the better, I’m afraid.”
“I can tell,” Emma Rose said. “I was hoping I was wrong, but yeah, it is getting worse.”
Near the bottom of the pile, Elijah found a drawing of what looked to be a school, the faces of demonic children peering out through broken windows, and immediately made a mental note to touch base with his special agents.
“And that’s why I’ve come to see you,” he said, turning to face her.
She was drawing again, random shapes and patches of color not yet taking on any meaning, but give her time.
Give her time.
No one was sure where the gift had come from. Perhaps it had something to do with the moments she’d spent in the infernal realm at Scopa House. But no one doubted that this gift was important.
Important to the world.
“Sounds ominous,” she said, chuckling nervously as she continued to draw.
Elijah glanced at his watch. Not much time before . . .
“This place,” he said, motioning with his hand. “This isn’t any place for you.”
Emma Rose looked up from her drawing, and at that moment, he became instantly aware of her unearthly beauty. Even as a baby, there had been something about her that set her apart from others, as if everything perfect in a human being had been picked out and been used to make her.
“But it’s my home,” she said, surprise in her tone.
“I understand,” he said. “But don’t you get tired of the sterility of these four walls, the harshness of the desert?”
“Sister Lucie took me to Flagstaff, and we went to the movies,” she said, nearly breathless, clearly still excited by the excursion. “And then we went out for hamburgers and visited a mall.”
“That must’ve been quite the day,” Elijah said, knowing that what h
e was about to do wasn’t going to be easy.
But what was these days?
“It was great.” She nodded and laughed, sounding more like a little girl than a young adult with the ability to read the future of the ongoing war between the righteous and the infernal.
“And why would you want to leave something like that,” Elijah said, forcing a smile, even though he knew it appeared as something quite grotesque due to his disfigurement.
She laughed again, going back to her drawing, and he knew that it was time.
“Oh,” he said, and chuckled. “Before I forget.” He reached into his pocket and removed something wrapped in gold, with a scarlet bow. “I have a gift for you.”
Emma Rose squealed, snatching the box from his hand. “I thought you might have forgotten.”
Since she was very little, the child had adored chocolate, and he made it a point to bring her a present of the finest Belgian chocolate every time he paid her a visit. He even had some sent to her on special occasions, like Christmas and her birthday.
Emma immediately unwrapped the box and excitedly tossed it away to pry off the lid, looking into the box.
“They look fantastic,” she said, reaching for one. “Mother Superior will probably be furious that I’m having candy before bed, but . . .”
“To hell with Mother Superior,” he said, smiling slyly at his salacious behavior.
Emma Rose appeared shocked by his words but quickly joined him, picking a chocolate from the box and taking a careful bite.
“Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes in pleasure. “This is Heaven.”
Elijah chuckled as he watched her. “Eat up,” he urged.
“Would you care for one?” she asked, offering him the box.
“No thank you, child,” he said. “Those are for you.”
She happily devoured the remainder of the first candy, moving on to a second, then part of a third when . . .
He watched her begin to sway.
“Oh,” she said.
“Emma?” he asked, moving closer. “What’s wrong?”
“I feel . . .” she began, chewing what remained of the third chocolate.
She lurched to one side, as if her legs had been cut out from beneath her. Elijah caught her before she could fall to the floor.
“Something’s . . . wrong,” she said, her words beginning to slur.
“Far more wrong than you could ever imagine, child,” he said, guiding her across the room to her bed. He moved aside a host of stuffed animals and draped her form across it.
He wished that it could have been different, that she would have gone with him willingly, but he’d known that wouldn’t be the case, and besides, the sisters would never have let her go. He removed his phone from his pocket and made a call.
“Now,” was all he said before cutting the connection.
Silently, he stood in the center of the room.
Waiting.
It wasn’t long before he heard the sounds of gunfire and sighed. How he wished this could have been done peacefully, but deep down he knew that it could never be. He glanced at the young woman upon the bed and felt a sudden surge of anger. I hope you’re worth it, he thought, and immediately regretted it. This wasn’t her fault, and neither was it the fault of the sisters. All were victims of circumstance.
The gunfire and screams continued for several minutes, followed by an eerie silence.
And then a knock on the door.
“Yes,” Elijah answered.
The door came open slowly, and he looked at the man standing there, dressed all in black, a silenced pistol in his hand. Elijah could see the bodies of the two sisters who had been guarding the door lying very still on the floor outside.
“Are we finished?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man with the pistol answered, even as the sounds of single shots echoed ominously throughout the halls of convent.
More men appeared behind the first.
“Take her,” Elijah said with a flip of his hand. He watched as they took Emma from her bed and carried her from her room—from this place of relative safety—before returning to the desk and the stack of drawings. He was sure to add the latest she had been working on as he placed them beneath his arm and strode to the door.
In the hallway were far more bodies than he would have anticipated, all dying to protect the prize that had been entrusted to them. And on the floor in the lobby lay the Mother Superior, her robes stained scarlet, a pistol inches from her outstretched hand.
She still lived, and she managed to turn toward him as he approached. She stared at him with eyes, cold and gray, and he met that gaze with equal intensity, his own anger growing.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” he told her.
There was a fire in the old woman’s eyes as she reached for the gun she had dropped. Elijah was faster, kicking the automatic pistol farther from her grasp.
“But you would never have given her to me willingly.”
“How?” she wheezed. “How could you?”
“Because there is no other way,” he said, suddenly, oddly, wanting her to know that what was done this night was not out of malice but of necessity. “We stand at the precipice.”
The man with the pistol was standing close by, and Elijah turned to him. “Make it quick. There’s been enough suffering tonight.”
He walked to the door, the sound of a single gunshot escorting him out into the cool, desert night. As he reached his car, he turned to look at the silent convent, shades of flickering orange beyond the windows as the fires were set.
And it began to burn.
• • •
The press was waiting for a statement.
Brenna paced within the tent set up as a command center. She wanted to scream. How was she supposed to explain that a bunch of third graders had been demonically possessed and murdered their teachers and a SWAT team? She had put a call out to Elijah, but, of course, there was no response.
The only thing keeping her from having a total mental breakdown was that the children were safe. Every one of them was fine and had no memory of what had transpired within the building. And she hoped that they never would. They were not in any way responsible.
But who . . . what was?
It proved that things were getting worse, that sometime soon there would be no avoiding it. The world would know what kind of threats lurked in the shadows. She wondered if the world could stand it. It was already such a fragile place, the cracks getting larger each and every day. And this was before the threats of demonic possession.
She guessed that it wouldn’t be all that long before she knew the answer.
“Agent Isabel?” said somebody behind her.
She turned to see a man standing just outside the tent. There was an unmarked van parked just behind him. “Can I help you?”
He smiled at her, and her skin crawled. What’s this all about? she wondered.
He reached into his jacket and produced an envelope, handing it to her. “For your press conference,” he said. He then turned and gestured to the van.
“And who are you again?” she asked, starting to read what had been written on the papers.
“Coalition,” he said. “I’m the Custodian, and my team and I . . .”
“Wait,” she said, reading details of what had transpired within the school that were completely fictitious. “Who is this Ralph DiBernardo that I’m supposed to be talking about?”
“He’s the person responsible for what transpired here today,” the man said.
Two people had gotten out of the van and were hauling a body bag from the back.
“What the hell is going on here?” Brenna demanded. “Who the hell are you?”
The man laughed softly. “I’m the Custodian,” he said. “This is what I do . . . what w
e do.” He then turned toward his people moving the body bag from the van. “That is a very bad man . . . on the FBI’s watch list, a loner with a history of psychotic breakdowns.”
“And?” she asked, dreading the answer.
The Custodian didn’t miss a beat.
“And he came to this school today with a murderous purpose.”
She looked at the man in complete disbelief, the meaning of his words slowly breaking through.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “No, he didn’t.”
He smiled again, and it had the same effect as before. Her skin crawled as if something had laid hatching eggs upon it.
“Yes, he did,” the Custodian said firmly. “He came to the school with murderous intent and carried out these heinous acts.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious,” the Custodian told her.
They were taking the body bag into the school now.
“He’s going to take the fall for this,” she said, watching the Coalition workers carry the body through a side door.
“You can think whatever you like, Agent Isabel,” the Custodian said. “But the world at large will know only one thing: that a terrible man named Ralph DiBernardo came to this school to do terrible things until you and your team stopped him.”
“This is insane,” she said.
“It’s all insane,” the Custodian told her. “Which is why it’s being done this way.”
“How . . . ?” she began, trying to make it all work inside her mind.
“That’s not for you to worry about,” he said. “That’s my job as Custodian.”
And then the question hit her. It had been there, creeping around the back of her mind like a serpent waiting to strike.
“How did he really die?” she asked, looking at the entrance to the school where the body had been brought in.
“That’s not your concern,” the Custodian said.
“Yeah, I believe it is,” she said, not at all liking how this was making her feel.
The Custodian did not look pleased. “Ralph DiBernardo died from gunshot wounds . . .”
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