Judgement and Wrath

by Matt Hilton

  Then a crushing force as it slammed into the water.

  Next came pain.

  Hopelessness.

  Bubbles frothing, red flashes across his vision.

  Weightlessness again as he sank.

  And blackness.

  The blackness was complete.

  Then there were bubbles again and the taste of salt on his tongue. Not salt from the sea but salt from his blood. Sanguinary and bitter, like sucking on a copper spoon.

  He tried to move. But the weight of the world was on his shoulders, like Atlas of the fables. No, not the world, just the roof of the Lincoln. But it felt as heavy as the planet.

  He blinked, trying to make sense of his thoughts. Now there was salt water and it made his weak eyes smart. He rubbed at them, realised that he was fully submerged, and gave up. Instead he groped for something tangible to hold on to. He found a circular bar, his confused mind eventually recognising it as the steering wheel of the car he was trapped within. The steering wheel was below him, almost at his knees. It took him a moment to realise that the car was standing up on end, nose down. Bubbles raced by through the gloom, and the surroundings were getting darker by the second. The car had not yet come to rest, it was still sinking. The smashed windscreen, the open windows, had allowed the sea to rush in.

  Good and bad.

  Good because it meant that he wouldn’t have to fight the pressure of the sea to open the door. When a car is submerged, fighting at the doors is a losing battle. Only when the pressure inside equals the pressure outside can the doors be opened. Advice under those circumstances is to sit tight. Allow the water to flood in while breathing deeply from the air trapped inside the body of the car. Lungs full and the pressure equalised, it is a simple task to open the door and strike out for the surface.

  Bad because the water had rushed in on impact. The car was on a steep angle as it dove deeper and the bubbles were the oxygen escaping through the smashed windows and bullet holes. There was no air pocket.

  Add to that the fact he was doubled over, ass lifted by the buoyancy of air trapped inside his clothing, head down staring through the smashed windscreen so that the rushing water battered his features, and he could be forgiven for panicking.

  But Dantalion didn’t panic. He was a professional. He was calm and practised.

  That was the theory, at least.

  Like many caught in a life and death predicament, he opened his mouth to shout. And all that did was empty his lungs of what precious oxygen was left to him. Then he was thrashing and pulling, and he was half out of the open driver’s window. The car continued to drag him down, his legs caught behind the knees by the window frame.

  He kicked and kicked and then he was free. But his lungs were screaming and there was a foggy blackness at the edges of his vision, even deeper than the darkness around him. He was tumbling in space, arms and legs pulling and pushing, but not moving him towards the surface. He didn’t even know which way the surface was.

  He had a moment of epiphany.

  The single remaining headlight of the Lincoln pointed into the depths below him. The last few bubbles escaping his lips streaked upwards over his head. Follow the bubbles, he told himself.

  He set off after the bubbles. It was a race he couldn’t win, but he wasn’t going to give in. He struck out after them, clawing handfuls of water.

  He had no recollection after that.

  His next conscious thought occurred when he was lifted from the water by strong hands and laid out on a pitching deck that even in his confused state he recognised as the bowed bottom of a small boat.

  His vision swam.

  The star-filled heavens were above him. And a pale grey blob that swam in and out of focus. Something like leather smacked against his face.

  ‘You still with me, buddy?’ a voice asked. ‘Hey! Hey! Are you with me?’

  Dantalion lifted a hand and grabbed the wrist of the man slapping his face.

  ‘Hey, you’re alive! You’re all right?’

  ‘I will be when you stop slapping my damn face!’

  ‘Oh, sorry, buddy. I thought I was too late getting to you. I thought you were dead.’

  Dantalion let go of the wrist. He dropped his hand to his waist, patting for the bulge. Found his book. He finally exhaled. Then he started coughing, and in reflex he rolled on to his side, vomiting sea water over the planks.

  A hand patted him between the shoulder blades, then moved to his shoulders, supporting him through his final spluttering coughs.

  ‘Easy now, buddy, easy,’ said the Good Samaritan. ‘You’ll be fine in a minute or two.’

  Through spittle Dantalion said, ‘I’m fine now. You can lay off with the helping hand, goddamnit.’

  But the man wouldn’t listen; he helped Dantalion to his feet, letting him rock backwards on to a bench seat.

  ‘I can’t believe you survived that.’ The man was standing with his legs braced, hands on hips as he peered upwards. Above him – way, way above him – was the dark underbelly of the bridge. Mangled wreckage marked where Dantalion’s Lincoln had been rammed through the barrier. A drop of more than a hundred feet. Bubbles still fizzed and popped ten yards out where his submerged vehicle continued to give up its final hold on the oxygen caught in its sub-frame.

  Dantalion didn’t have the strength to look any longer. He dropped his head between his knees, spitting out a long string of salty saliva.

  ‘I saw it all, buddy. I’m your witness. I saw that lunatic hit your car and push you over the edge. He didn’t even stop. Just took off like nothing was the matter.’ The man turned to look down at his patient. ‘What kind of madman does that?’

  ‘Beats me,’ Dantalion muttered. He regarded his benefactor.

  The guy was about seventy but in good shape for his years, short and stocky, face bronzed by the sun but a deep blue in the dark. His hair was as white as Dantalion’s but it was thick and wavy. He was of sturdy build, with thick forearms and bowed legs, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Leather gloves. There was a fishing pole on the bow of the boat, forgotten now.

  ‘What are you doing out here in the dark?’ Dantalion asked.

  ‘Night fishing,’ the man answered, indicating the pole. ‘Best time, if you ask me.’

  Dantalion raised his brows. He wasn’t the only one who preferred hunting in the dark. ‘No argument from me.’

  ‘Good job I was here,’ the man added. ‘Otherwise no one would have seen you hit the water. They wouldn’t have pulled you out in time.’

  Dantalion noted that the man’s clothes were as wet as his own.

  ‘You jumped in and pulled me out?’ Dantalion stood up and extended his hand. ‘You saved my life?’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said the man, accepting the hand.

  ‘I thank you for that,’ Dantalion said. ‘I really do. And it pains me to have to kill you now.’

  Mid-handshake the man jerked.

  ‘Uh?’

  Dantalion snatched the hand towards him, dropping his forehead so that it struck the man flush in the face. The sound was like a hammer smacking a watermelon. The man dropped on to his backside, hands going to his smashed nose. Dantalion’s head swam. Not from the force of the blow but from the lack of oxygen. He had to suck in a couple of lungfuls of air before he felt strong enough to reach down and grab the man’s arms.

  ‘Now, in gratitude for your selfless help, I’m going to give you a choice.’

  The man was heavy, his sturdy body a dead weight, not helped by the fact he was swimming in and out of consciousness.

  ‘I’m going to give you a choice on how you die,’ Dantalion explained. ‘Fast or slow?’

  ‘Go to hell,’ the man slurred. He tried to pull away from Dantalion. His hands were slick with blood and his knees weak. Dantalion let go of him. He fell to his knees, bumping along the bottom of the boat. Dantalion grabbed at the nape of the man’s neck.

  ‘So it’s slow, then?’ Dantalion asked. ‘OK … buddy.’

 
He swung the man round on his knees, pushing his head over the side of the boat. The man tried to resist and Dantalion punched his free hand into the man’s kidneys. He bent him over again, pushing now with both hands at the back of the man’s head. Forcing his face under water. The man yelled in terror. Bubbles frothed. But not for long.

  When he was still, Dantalion pushed him overboard. Held him submerged beneath the water with both hands. Counted to one hundred. Numbers, always numbers.

  Then he gently prodded the man away from him, watched as he slowly sank head first, aimed at the place the car went down. Maybe the police would think that he was the driver of the crashed Lincoln and their search wouldn’t be so exhaustive, giving Dantalion the opportunity to sort himself out. With that breathing space, he would soon be ready to complete his mission.

  But already, above him on the bridge, other motorists had stopped. They were peering over the balustrade, looking down at him. He didn’t think they could have seen what had just occurred between him and his would-be saviour, but it wasn’t a chance he was about to take.

  The boat was equipped with an outboard motor. He quickly set to it, pulling the starter cord. When the engine coughed to life, he sat down, aiming the prow towards the shoreline of Neptune Island.

  He could hear distant voices. It didn’t sound like shouts of accusation, more like concerned witnesses calling out for survivors. Dantalion didn’t answer. He just angled the boat along the shoreline, heading further away, looking for where he’d left the truck.

  He was angry.

  Angry that Bradley Jorgenson had escaped.

  Angry that Marianne Dean had escaped.

  But more than that, he was angry that Hunter and Rink had got the better of him.

  Worst was the seeping wetness at his waistline. His book was sodden. He dreaded what he might find. The book was precious to him, even more so the numbers written inside.

  They were the sum of his life’s work.

  30

  Rink came back within the hour, looking more morose than ever. He had dark mud on his boots and spattered up the backs of his jeans. There were even droplets of mud sticking to his black T-shirt and on his face and forearms.

  ‘Almost ended up in the swamp with the goddamn car,’ he announced. And then he smiled, and it was good to see. It was the first ray of light through the cloud that had been hanging over his head since the news about his mother’s illness.

  He was holding his mobile phone cupped in his left hand.

  ‘You’ve heard something?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rink glanced round the room, taking in Harvey and Marianne, noting that they too wore expectant faces. ‘Doctors have stabilised my mom and she’s feeling much better. Must be; she’s been giving my father a hard time for trying to pull me away from my work.’

  I went over and held my friend.

  ‘Thanks, Joe,’ he said. It’s not often he uses my given name; only in moments of tenderness like this. It means a lot.

  Harvey came over too. He hugged Rink and they said their bit to each other.

  Marianne didn’t know what to do. She just sat down on the bed and put her elbows on her knees and smiled up at Rink. My friend, not the shy and retiring type around young women, went over and sat down next to her. Patted her on the knee and said, ‘OK, Marianne. Now we can get on and sort out your problems.’

  Marianne bobbed her head. Smiled sadly. Then she asked, ‘Is your mom ill?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rink didn’t expound, but he didn’t have to. The gravity of the situation must have been clear in our reaction to the good news.

  ‘And she’s all the way across the country?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Tears welled in Marianne’s eyes with the confirmation that there was still good in the world. Here were three men ready to put their own lives at risk for her, to push aside their own needs and desires to see to her safety. ‘Thanks, Rink,’ she whispered. Then lifting her head, she looked at me and Harvey. ‘Thanks to you all.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rink spoke for all of us. He patted her on the knee again, then stood up smoothly and nodded at the door to the bathroom. Steam still pervaded the space beyond the open door. He indicated his muddy arms. ‘Unless you’ve used all the goddamn hot water?’ he said in mock anger.

  Marianne smiled again, this time not so sadly.

  ‘Marianne’s safe for now.’ Looking across at Harvey and receiving a nod of confirmation, I continued, ‘Harvey can take her to the safe house. It’s time you got on that plane, buddy.’

  Rink shook his head.

  ‘You aren’t going to miss anything, Rink. Catch the red-eye out of Miami. You can be there and back again in a few hours. Go on. Go see your mother and father.’

  ‘You sure?’ he asked. All three of us made shooing motions, which got us a smile. ‘Best get that shower then, huh?’

  Meanwhile Harvey had been industrious with the computer.

  ‘Hunter. Come take a look at this.’

  He had the CNN news site on the screen.

  It showed a story about the mysterious slaying of a young family. Nathaniel and Caitlin Moore, and their eight-year-old daughter, Cassandra, had been murdered in their home in the suburbs of Miami.

  Yes, it was sad. A terrible reality in today’s world where a family can be wiped off the face of the earth to appease one man’s sick fantasy. It was exactly this kind of story that made me do the things I did.

  ‘What’re you getting at, Harvey?’

  ‘You said the shooter used a Beretta 90-two,’ Harvey said.

  I remembered looking down the barrel and thinking how there was no way to avoid the 9 mm bullet headed my way. In that moment of epiphany I’d identified the gun. ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘This murderer used a Beretta, as well? Popular gun.’

  ‘Taken singly, it wouldn’t mean anything.’ He tapped the screen. ‘But a witness also saw a tall man with long white hair leaving the house in the early hours. Sounds like your shooter, doesn’t it?’

  More interested now, I leaned down, placing my hands flat on the bed to get a clearer look at the screen.

  ‘Then there’s this.’ Harvey highlighted a block of text in the story so I could better read it.

  ‘ ‘‘The thunders of judgement and wrath are numbered,” ’ I read out loud. ‘Written in Cassandra’s blood on the living room wall. Jesus!’

  ‘Sounds like your usual whacked-out religious freak,’ Harvey agreed. ‘Until I did a search on those words.’

  He brought up another site he’d been holding in a bank along the bottom of the screen. A History of Enochian Ritual was emblazoned across the page.

  ‘Black magic?’

  ‘Goetic magic,’ Harvey corrected. ‘Something taken from a grimoire written hundreds of years ago by an Elizabethan astrologer named Dr John Dee.’

  I’d heard of John Dee. He was the court astrologer to the first Queen Elizabeth. Purportedly he was also her top spymaster, and something of a legend among the security community. He went by the code number of 007; maybe there was no coincidence when Ian Fleming was developing his fictional James Bond character.

  ‘I think I know where this is going now,’ I said to Harvey.

  He pressed a few more keys. A page came on the screen and there were the same words the murderer of the Moore family had scrawled on a wall in an eight-year-old child’s blood:

  The thunders of judgement and wrath are numbered.

  ‘It’s a quote from the Book of Enoch,’ Harvey pointed out. ‘A line from the Bornless Ritual. Something referred to as a “Calling of the Aethyr”. All mumbo-jumbo bullshit, I agree. But translated it refers to the summoning of a dark angel.’

  ‘Dantalion,’ I said.

  Harvey’s fingers tapped keys yet again, bringing up another link. A table full of weird symbols next to names and descriptions. Dantalion was eighth down.

  ‘Shit,’ I hissed.

  ‘Shit about sums it up,’ Harvey said. ‘This guy’s one crazy motherfuc
ker.’

  ‘But why kill a family? What have the Moores got to do with this?’

  Throughout our discourse, Marianne had kept her thoughts to herself. But at the mention of the family name, I heard her croak. She stood up slowly and came to stand at my shoulder as she stared at the screen.

  ‘Did you say Moore?’

  I nodded to Harvey and he brought us back to the CNN screen.

  Marianne’s hands went to her mouth. ‘Oh, dear God! Caitlin Moore was my teacher at Collinwood High School. It was Caitlin who introduced me to Bradley.’

  Harvey turned off the CNN screen as Marianne dropped to the bed. Her hands worked down from her mouth and plucked at an imaginary crucifix at her throat.

  ‘Back in 2002,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper, ‘my brother Stephen was among the first Marines to be deployed to Iraq. There was a fear that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction hidden away and Stephen was one of those sent in to try to locate them.’

  Uh-oh, I thought, having a feeling where this was going. Richard Dean had never mentioned having had a son. Neither had Marianne mentioned a brother before, nor that he was a soldier. Even when Rink had done a background check on Dean it hadn’t come up.

  ‘He was given inoculations to protect him from ABC warfare?’ I offered, thinking back to how many times I had stood in a line baring my shoulder for a nurse or doctor with a huge syringe. Never questioning, just taking the injections as protection from the atomic, bacterial and chemical weapons that could be coming our way.

  ‘Yes.’ Marianne sucked in a ragged breath. Her next words were a little stronger. ‘And it was pointless. As you know, these weapons were never found. Stephen came back from his tour sick. No one would accept that his sickness was as a result of the medication he’d been given. They still won’t.

  ‘They said it was psychosomatic. He was imagining his problems. Fatigue, a loss of feeling in his extremities, blinding headaches. It drove him to throw himself off a ten-storey building during an anti-war rally.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered feeling awkward. ‘It’s a terrible thing to lose someone. Especially under those circumstances.’