The priest took off his collar and sat back down beside her. “Trust me, Jacqueline, that’s something I’ve asked myself a lot over the years.”
“You have?”
“Of course. I’m human. All religious people are human. We speak what we believe to be the word of God, but that doesn’t mean we don’t doubt. We do. All the time.” He chuckled. “It’s the nature of the beast.”
“Why?”
The man ran a hand through his gray hair. “Just because, Jacqueline. We put our heads down and fight our way through life, often with little guidance that truly means anything. We fight the cruelty of the world, ignoring the fact that each of us is cruel in his or her own way. We search for answers, for purpose, but rarely do we find either. So we take solace in what we can; a holy book, a meaningful gesture, the kindness of strangers, a basketball game.” He smiled sadly. “Mostly, that’s all we need to go on.”
This man didn’t speak like any priest Jacqueline had ever met before. “So do you?” she asked.
“Do I what?”
“Do you believe?”
Father Gallagher nodded. “I do.”
“In all of it?”
“All of it? No.”
She stared at him sidelong, pursed her lips.
“Confused, I see,” Father Gallagher said. “Let me put it to you this way: I believe that there’s something larger than us out there, something vast and unknowable. And I also believe that there’s power in the words within the Bible. The gospels are filled with life lessons everyone should learn, whether they came from the mouth of God or not. The hard part is separating what’s good from what isn’t.”
Jacqueline wiped the tears away from her eyes. “You’re strange, Father Gallagher.”
“I’d rather think I’m truthful, both to myself and the world at large. I know the Bible was written by men, and I know that men twist the lessons to fit their own needs. I know there are many drawbacks to the Church, no matter its incarnation. But I believe that magic exists in the world, and I believe love is the greatest magic of all, the strength of people binding together in a common goal, in mutual kindness. That is what will eventually defeat those terrible things you spoke of earlier. Love. I know it’s not quite as simple as that, but it’s still something we need to strive for.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
Jacqueline folded her hands, bringing her gaze up to the statue of Jesus once more. She decided right then and there that she liked this Father Gallagher. She could trust him.
“You mind if I ask you something?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Are people born bad?”
The priest cupped his chin in his hand. “People are born with equal penchant for good and evil, I think. Most go through their whole lives straddling a line between the two.”
“So we’re not bound by destiny?”
The priest unlatched his hands and laughed. “No, Jacqueline. Fate is the great lie of every religion. There is life, and how you choose to live it. That’s what I believe, anyway.”
Jacqueline smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“It’s my pleasure, Jacqueline. Truly.”
She checked the time, saw it was going on two o’clock. “I better get going,” she said, wrapping Father Gallagher in a sudden hug. He patted her back, and Jacqueline smiled against his shoulder, feeling a semblance of peace. “Thank you.”
“I’m always here,” Father Gallagher said. “Anytime you need to talk, I’ll listen.”
She kissed his cheek and left the church. The air that greeted her when she walked outside didn’t seem as cold as before. She reached into her coat pocket, felt the compact’s warm surface.
I’m not evil, she thought. I’m anything I choose to be.
And she chose to be with Mal, forever and ever, Amen.
CHAPTER 46
Jordan stared out the windshield, the world an eerie blue beneath the night’s full moon. In the driver’s seat beside him, Andrea shivered. They’d decided to take her Mazda on their little spying mission instead of Jordan’s Buick.
Jordan took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, fidgeted in his seat, and then turned his attention back to the road. It was past nine o’clock and they were in the parking lot of the small strip mall opposite the entrance to Highland Park. There were only two other cars in the lot.
“How long are we gonna sit here?” Andrea asked.
“Don’t know. Give it ’til midnight.”
“We’ve been here for two hours already.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“Fine.” Andrea took a sip of her own cup and grimaced. “Ick. I hate cold coffee.”
“Me too.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “You owe me. You can’t expect to put me through this kind of boredom for free.”
“It’s not so bad,” Jordan said. “I like the quiet.”
“I don’t.”
“Just a little longer, promise,” he told her, patting her knee.
He hoped that was true. They’d started following Drew’s black Lexus all around town when school ended, but all Drew had done was pay a short visit to Phoebe Wolfe, then pick up Yoel and Kurt and drive to the hardware store in the center of town. After that they’d stopped at Allegro’s, an upscale Italian restaurant, and sat at a corner table for three hours, barely touching the food they ordered.
After the restaurant, Andrea and Jordan trailed them back to Highland. That’s where they’d been ever since. Jordan had to swallow his doubts and ignore Andrea’s complaints. It was entirely possible he was being paranoid, but that paranoia made him vigilant.
Finally, a pair of headlights appeared on Highland’s hill. Jordan and Andrea dipped lower in their seats as the car took a sharp left, heading southeast on Grove Street. It was definitely Drew’s Lexus.
“Let’s go,” Jordan said.
Andrea waited until she could barely see taillights before firing up her Mazda. There was little traffic, what with it being Monday night, and there weren’t any cops around. Jordan worried that Drew would notice them even though Andrea kept a good distance away, but the Lexus just kept lazily driving along all the way to the southern edge of town. It was then that the Lexus veered off to the right and headed south, toward the Mercy Hills farming district. Vast white fields replaced the wooded cluster of suburbia.
“Keep going?” asked Andrea.
“Yeah,” Jordan replied uncertainly. This was weird. Drew never went to this part of town. Not even for one of the summer bonfires.
Andrea pulled onto the farm road, and slowed down. The landscape was so flat and monochrome that it’d be the easiest thing in the world to spot a tailing car, no matter how much distance was between them.
The Lexus’s taillights disappeared as it passed a set of ramshackle tobacco drying barns. The taillights never reappeared. Jordan squinted, sat forward, his heart pounding, a headache spiking behind his eyes. There’s nothing he could do to Jackie way out here, he told himself.
“You know, I got a term paper due on Wednesday,” Andrea complained. “There’s nothing out here but freaking snow and more snow. I think we lost them. Can we turn around now?”
Jordan sighed. “Not yet,” he said. “Just give it—”
Faint headlights reappeared to their left. Andrea slowed the car to a stop, and they both watched as the headlights zipped into the distance, vanishing behind yet another barn.
“Is he driving through the snow?” Andrea asked.
“Can’t be. There’s a good foot on the ground. Gotta be a horse road or something.”
Andrea nodded and hit the gas without complaint, seemingly interested now. Sure enough, a quarter mile up the road they came across a slender, freshly-plowed path. Andrea turned onto it, her Mazda’s suspension bucking. “Turn off the headlights,” Jordan said. “If they stopped up ahead, we don’t want them to see us coming.” She did, and with the snow radiating the light of the full moon, it was almost easi
er to see than it’d been with headlights.
A barn loomed a hundred feet ahead, a pair of automobiles parked in front. One was Drew’s Lexus; the second car was domed with a foot of snow.
Andrea brought the car to a halt fifty feet away. “Okay, you know where he is now. Can we turn around and go home?”
He thought it over a moment. “Not yet. I wanna check it out.”
“You’re killing me here. Not to mention my gas tank.”
“I know. Sorry.”
He slipped out of the car before Andrea could protest further and sneaked along the frozen dirt road, slipping every other step on the ice. His breath misted in front of his face.
Jordan stepped between the two cars, noticed that the snow-covered one was a Nissan sedan, and felt a jolt of déjà vu. He shuddered and tiptoed up to the barn doors, which were propped open slightly. He peered through the narrow opening, and his breath caught in his throat.
The space inside the barn was illuminated by four standing lights, the power supplied by a small generator. In the corner, one of the sideline heaters the football team used vomited hot air. Drew, Yoel, and Kurt stood around in nothing but jeans and tee shirts, Drew with a metal pipe in his hand. In front of them were two people tied to chairs, their mouths gagged. One was some hooligan with a patchy beard and an old leather duster hanging off his shoulders.
The other, her eyes seething as they stared out over her gag, was Jacqueline’s aunt.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Drew said. Jordan’s fingers shook as he pressed closer to the narrow opening. What the hell?
Kurt yanked off the bound man’s gag, and he hacked and spat a wad of blood, struggling against the ropes binding him. The guy looked absolutely terrified. “I didn’t do nothing!” he shouted.
Drew shook his head. “Stolas, father allowed you here of his own charity, as repayment for prior deeds. You overstepped your bounds.”
“I didn’t do nothing!” the bound man repeated.
“You threatened the life of the vessel. Twice.”
The man’s eyes widened.
“Did you think father wouldn’t find out?” said Drew, wagging his finger. “He has eyes and ears everywhere. There is nothing that happens without his knowledge. We see now that it was a mistake to allow you to roam free.”
“But I didn’t hurt her!” the man said. “I ran away!”
Kurt knelt down, forcibly grabbing the guy’s grubby face and yanking it around. “You touched the vessel,” he said, spit flying. “The vessel is to be pure, not tainted by a vile thing such as you.”
“More will come!” exclaimed the bound man. “There’s use for me!”
Jordan’s mind blanked. He had no clue what was going on, and it was terrifying.
“You have broken the Covenant, Stolas,” said Drew, raising the steel pipe to his shoulder. “That cannot go unpunished.”
“No, you don’t underst—”
Drew swung the pipe sideways, connecting with a loud clink before the man could finish. His head snapped to the side, his jaw crunching into an unnatural shape. A flap of skin opened up, exposing his upper gums. Jordan gagged, but shock stopped him from throwing up. He watched Yoel knock the chair over, sending its occupant crashing to the ground. Drew then continued his assault, the pipe clanging off the man’s skull, his back, his shoulders, his legs. Yoel and Kurt joined in, mercilessly kicking at the prone man. His struggles died down, until the only time his body moved was when it was hammered by his assailants. A dark pool expanded across the barn’s dirt floor.
Jordan flitted his eyes to the side, numb. Miss Sarin was struggling against the ropes, her chair bouncing. She screamed through her gag.
Drew wheeled on her. “Silence,” he said, his tone low and threatening. “Your time to suffer will come, once we discern your role.”
Yoel put a finger to his lips and leered. “She is a lying whore.”
“Yes,” Drew replied. “And there are ways to hasten the tongue of a liar. I want her singing when father comes to question her.”
When Yoel and Kurt smiled, their upturned lips dripped with menace.
Jordan staggered away from the doors, his mind a flurry of thoughts he couldn’t control. He’d just watched people he once called friends kill a man in cold blood; there was no telling what they’d do to Jacqueline’s aunt. He whirled, spotted the outline of Andrea’s car in the distance, a black square against a palate of cobalt and white. He almost made a run for it.
He squatted down, rubbed his temples. No. Calm down. Think.
His heartbeat gradually slowed, and he stood back up. There was a stack of discarded two-by-fours propped against the side of the barn, and he carefully lifted the top one. It was damp and warped, but solid.
As if guided by a voice from afar, Jordan dashed toward Drew’s Lexus, placed both hands on the hood, and shoved. The car rocked. He shoved again, harder this time, and finally a blaring alarm sounded. He rushed back to the barn doors and braced himself behind them.
“What is that?” he heard Yoel say.
“Car alarm,” Kurt answered. “Something must have tripped it.”
“So silence it,” said Drew.
“You have the keys.”
Drew sighed. Footsteps approached the doors.
Jordan breathed in and out through his nose deliberately. The barn door creaked outward. He held the two-by-four out wide. Drew’s head appeared, hair blown back by a cold breeze. Jordan’s former friend paused, staring first at his own car, then toward Andrea’s.
Jordan swung without warning, the two-by-four connecting with the Drew’s head, snapping it to the side. Drew Cottard fell like a sack of rocks, an ugly gash yawning on his temple.
For Jordan, it was like being possessed. He saw nothing but a haze of red as he wheeled into the barn like a Viking berserker. Kurt and Yoel gaped, barely a chance to react before he was on them, swinging away, connecting with flesh left and right. He was a being of righteous anger, attacking his former teammates with all the strength he could.
First Kurt fell when Jordan slammed him upside his chin with the two-by-four. Then came Yoel, Jordan first elbowing him in the gut and then bringing his blunt weapon down on the back of his head. Yoel collapsed flat on his face with a sickening crunch. Jordan hovered over him, ready to bring his bludgeon down again and again, just as Drew had done to that poor man.
Then Jordan caught sight of the dead man’s ever-expanding pool of blood, and he ceased mid-swing. He tossed the two-by-four aside and swiveled around to see Miss Sarin gawking at him.
He rushed up to her, hastily untying the ropes around her wrists and ankles. When her hands were free, Miss Sarin spat out her gag, lurched up from her chair, and held him by the shoulders. An ugly purple splotch marred the left side of her face, her lips were swollen.
“Jordan!” she said. “What day is it?”
“Monday.”
“Oh, God. Where’s Jackie?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan replied, his body suddenly jittery all over.
Miss Sarin ran for the corner, where her large purse had been discarded. She pulled out her cell phone, pressed a few buttons, and held the phone to her ear, pacing. Yoel moaned, splayed out on the dirt floor, and Miss Sarin gave him a swift kick to the side of the head with her winter boots, stilling him.
The woman removed the phone from her ear. “Forty-three messages. Shoot.”
“What’s happening?”
“Hold on.”
The woman punched more numbers and held the phone to her ear again. “Come on.” Her expression soured. “It’s not ringing. Shit.”
Miss Sarin made a beeline for the barn doors, Jordan following behind. He watched as she knelt beside Drew’s unconscious body and rifled through his pockets. When she yanked her hand back out, she held a ring full of keys.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said to Jordan. “Find something sharp. Before they wake up would be nice.”
He searched the
wrecked farm equipment without question while Mitzy swept the snow off her car. He found a thick length of jagged metal and presented it to a panting Miss Sarin, who used it to poke holes in Drew’s tires. The automobile slowly sank lower as the tires deflated, its alarm still bleating.
“Miss Sarin, what’s going on?”
Mitzy brushed hair from her face. “It’s starting.”
“What’s starting?”
“No time to explain.” She jumped inside her cleaned-off sedan. Jordan hurried to the side of the door, panting and baffled, looking to her for answers.
Mitzy took a deep breath, seemed to gather herself. “Jordan, I need you to find Jacqueline. Protect her. It’s important. I’ll meet you there when I can.”
“Protect her? From what?”
“Someone’s coming for her. Someone that could ruin everything.”
“Should I call the police?”
“No!” she said, vehemently shaking her head. “No cops, not in this town. We just need to go.”
“But where?”
She paused a moment. “My house. Try there first. Hurry.”
Miss Sarin ripped the door closed. Her tires kicked up snow and muck as she careened backward, then spun around and shot down the dirt road, riding up on a snow bank to avoid smashing Andrea’s Mazda.
Jordan sprinted to the car and jumped inside as quickly as he could. Andrea’s dark skin was pale, her eyes wide with fright, her mouth hung open.
“What the hell?” she whispered, lips quivering.
“Just drive. Get to Chestnut Street, as fast as you can. And don’t ask me to explain, ’cause I know as much as you do right now.”
CHAPTER 47
There was ice on the walls of the Coppington mansion basement, but as Jacqueline stood facing the mirror, a wave of warmth circulated through her veins. Her friends, gathered in a semicircle behind her, shivered.
“Happy birthday to me,” she whispered.
All of Olivia’s ingredients—sandalwood, campher, orange, and patchouli for the blessing oil, along with a muslin bag filled with shilajit and lavender—were aligned on the floor in front of them. The framed pictures of Joe and Dhanya Talbot from Jacqueline’s wall were propped up on either side of the mirror, a blue candle flickering between their images. The spell wasn’t truly the reason she was here, but Jacqueline felt expectant anyway. What if it worked? What if her parents actually showed? What if the image she’d seen the first time was real?
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