Vengeance (A Samantha Tyler Thriller Book 1)

by Rachael Rawlings

  “These are artifacts from the twelfth century,” she answered, holding up two pages where sketches of what appeared to be amulets were discernible on the paper. They were obviously copies of someone else’s work, but the detail was excellent.

  “What kind of artifacts? How do you know?”

  She peered at me and then looked back at the papers. “These match some amulets we have at the abbey. There is no doubt in my mind. They date back from the first crusades.”

  I studied her curiously. “That makes no sense. Why would they need anything like that? Pictures of antiques?”

  “I’m wondering if these are more than simple pictures. I think they might be part of an inventory for a compilation of artifacts.” She flipped through a few more sheets, pulling out yet another sketch, this one of what appeared to be Egyptian coins.

  I heard a discreet chime from Sister Eva’s phone, and she drew it from beneath the voluminous folds of her habit.

  “We have already gotten a translation,” she stated with a satisfied expression on her face. “It is a shipping label, originating in Tel Aviv with the destination here in the United States. Atlanta, it says.” She presented the print.

  “What were they shipping?” I asked, picturing drugs or weapons cleverly concealed

  “It doesn’t say specifically. It just notes two packages.”

  I grimaced. It didn’t make much sense to me they wouldn’t report the contents of the shipment at least to some extent, but I didn’t know what other papers might have accompanied this one.

  “They probably have it all printed out somewhere else. I expect most of the reports were transferred out by the time we got to the warehouse. We managed to interrupt the final clean up. One of the men I shot was holding a boat-load of folders like the one I gave you.”

  “Then this is merely part of the catalog,” Sister Eva confirmed.

  “I guess we can assume so.” I studied the fragments of trash and the sheets filled with notes and sketches. “I wish we had managed to snag one of their computers. It might have told us a lot.”

  “Then that is what we must do,” Sister Eva said decisively. “We must find where they took the rest of the information.”

  I suppressed a sigh. I was after one thing at this point, vengeance. Finding old stuff from a long-ago battle was not high on my list of ambitions. I supposed if one thing went with the other, I could try to track down the leader in the church by following the clues we already found. And that was taking us toward the missing artifacts.

  Chapter Eight

  By noon the next day, I was traveling back into Louisville, Kentucky, with Sister Evangeline’s blessing. She was staying with the patient until Alex was discharged from the hospital. At Alex’s insistence, they would go down south to pick up the two dobies before heading toward Louisville. I was glad they were bringing the dogs. We needed all the security we could get at this point and, to be honest, I missed them. We all arranged to meet up in my apartment.

  While working with my father, I rented out a very nice apartment in Old Louisville and furnished it to my liking. I lived there only a short time before Satan hired two different groups of bounty hunters to track me down, one of them being Victor and I never remained there long enough for it to become home, so it didn’t break my heart when I never went back to it.

  After recovering from the shooting and leaving the abbey I considered moving to a different city all together, to get as far away from the bad things in my life. From Victor. Yet in the end I realized most of the things I needed to deal with were taking place in and around the Hand of God and it would be there I’d make my stand.

  I found a little house in Middletown, a bedroom community on the outskirts of town, close to the interstate but not in the center of any activity. I bought all the furnishings from Pottery Barn and they delivered them to the house. I then called upon a locksmith to install extra security to the traditional doors and windows. With its fenced back yard and concerned neighbors, it was as close to safe as I was going to get. I paid cash for everything, and Brother Joshua presented me with some false papers allowing me to establish the residence under someone else’s name. If and when the Church of the Light Reclaimed tracked me down, I would give up the place without a backward glance. Thanks to my emptying of their coffers, replacing the house and its contents was easy. Ironic the Church was financing their own worst enemy, but it worked for me, and for Vic.

  I stopped off at the rental company to drop off the car. During my two-week buying spree when I came back from the abbey, I purchased a car as well. Using yet another alias, I acquired a brand-new Hyundai Sonata with the full package, leather and technology. Too bad there was no anti-demon upgrade.

  The reasons for choosing the car were simple. There were hundreds of them like it on the roads. I chose a grey toned paint to further blend in. My one nod to the unordinary, I requested the sports package for the extra power I would need in case I was to ever run into one of my former Church associates. It was a nice vehicle, yet like the house, I was willing to ditch it and never look back. I parked it at the rental place for the trip down south, and I took a few minutes to transfer my things from the rental into my car.

  I realized as I cruised down Shelbyville Road, I was hungry. I went thru a drive through Wendy’s and headed home to enjoy a welcome home meal of a cheeseburger and fries. Yay me.

  While on my extended trip, one of my concerned neighbors cut the grass for me, so the house looked as neat and respectable as when I left. I pulled into the driveway and parked. I sat still for a moment, letting the tick of the motor be the only background noise. There were only a few days before Alex and Sister Eva would be joining me, and I needed to get my prospects in order. Trivialities like grocery shopping couldn’t be overlooked either. It was a peculiar in between existence to be buying toilet paper and breakfast cereal and contemplating fighting the ominous nature of the devil in the same day.

  I swung the door open and retrieved my katana first, holding it close in its sheath. I worried about the neighbors seeing me with my sword; but if I strolled into an ambush in the snug little house, it would be my own stupidity if I went in unarmed. I let myself in and carefully checked each room. I allowed myself to relax when I found the place was uninhabited and my tells untouched. I returned to my car and unloaded the rest of my belongings, taking them into the front room, dumping them on a low wooden coffee table placed in front of the slipcovered couch.

  There were binders of information about the church spread out on the table already, and I pulled out the papers from the warehouse to add to this collection. I kept copies of everything electronically, and I tuck away the flash drive in an old-fashioned safe deposit box with instructions about its whereabouts outlined in a message I delivered to Brother Joshua. If anything happened to me, or to this house, all of it could be retrieved and restored. And I knew Victor McCain. If anything happened to me, he would stop at nothing to get retribution for me. There was a small part of me, tucked very deep, that knew Vic would avenge me, and it gave me an unnerving amount of satisfaction knowing he would burn them all to Hell.

  I did laundry and ate a Wendy’s as I flipped through the papers on the table. I took a moment to snap some pictures of the new items, the sketches, shipping information, and receipts. When I finished, I paused for a moment, thinking hard. Kurt was a whiz kid extraordinaire, and I trusted him in all things. If I sent all this information to him, there was a chance he could obtain some additional information about the papers the nuns at the abbey couldn’t find since they were much newer to the electronics age.

  I chased down my sandwich with a Diet Coke and dialed Kurt. “Whoah, Samantha, this is insane. I was just talking about you with Brother J.”

  “You were?” I felt a churning in my stomach. “What about?”

  “I found out the bad guys were having this dinner at the Seelbach downtown. It’s in remembrance of several of the politicos who have furthered the cause. Your father’s name was
on the list of those they chose to commemorate.”

  “I don’t understand the point of that.”

  “Brother J said it would give them a reason to get together, to sell hundred dollar seats to raise cash for their projects, and to remind every one of the sacrifices some of the political leaders have made for their convictions. And an underhanded means to make some cash for the Church of the Light Reclaimed. You did leave them a bit cash strapped.”

  I rolled the idea around in my mind. Any reason for a fundraiser, I supposed. The church was short on cash, thanks to me, so I knew they would need to refill the coffers in short order. It was hard to bring about hell on earth on a tight budget.

  “When is the dinner?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow night. Most of your father’s old friends are on the guest list. You can bet they will show up. It’s going to be a jerk fest.”

  “I’d love to be there,” I said. Then I paused. The dinner was to commemorate my father. I should have been invited, if for nothing else than to listen to all their sappy recollections of what a remarkable guy my dad was. “Maybe I will be there,” I added slowly.

  “Oh, yeah, that would really piss them off.” Kurt agreed, enthusiasm threading his voice. “Can you imagine their faces when you walk in? You’d have to pick their jaws up off the ground and clean out their underwear.”

  “I think I should shake some people up,” I replied, still thinking fast. “It might cause them to trip up a little.”

  Kurt was mute for a moment. “Um, maybe we ought to think this through, Dudette,” he answered hurriedly. “They get a load of you, and they might decide they need to shut you up. It’s not like you’re one of their favorite people anyway. Could put you in a bad spot.”

  “I’ve been in bad spots before,” I said. “I can handle myself.”

  “Sure, sure,” he responded. “But this is with a whole passel of armed guards. These guys will have guns and who knows what else. You should at least have backup.”

  “Are you volunteering to be my date?” I teased, imagining his face reddening with the question. When I first met him, he could barely string two words together in my presence. Now we were having actual conversations.

  “Well, yeah,” he answered. “I’d go with you, Samantha.” And I knew he would. He put himself in harm’s way before to help Vic; I knew he’d do the same for me. But I wasn’t sure how reliable he’d be in a knock-down-drag-out fight, and I didn’t need someone else to worry about.

  “I’m joking, Kurt,” I said. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “Look, Samantha,” he began, but I cut him off.

  “Kurt, I need your help to go over some information I’ve collected. I need your research expertise.”

  “Can you email me the stuff?”

  “Sure.” I zipped the folder and then emailed him copies of all the documents. After a few minutes, I listened to him click his way through the group of images.

  “Wow, yeah, I’ll get going on these.” His speech was already abstracted.

  “Thanks, Kurt,” I replied, preparing to end the conversation.

  He caught my tone. “Samantha, listen, I think you need to be cautious about this dinner thing. I know I said it was a good idea, but I don’t want you to go out with a bang either. These are bad dudes. They wouldn’t want you walking out of there. You should call the Big Guy and see if he can help.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not ready for a Vic meet and greet,” I answered, keeping my tone even. “Okay, tell you what.” I hesitated, chewing my lip. “I’ll call Brother J. See if he can find someone well trained in combat to go with me. That way I can get the information I need without going in blindly.”

  I heard Kurt draw in a breath and could picture him running his tanned fingers through his tawny hair. “Yeah, okay,” he declared at last. “Please make sure he’s in the loop.”

  “I will,” I answered, my heart warmed by his concern. “You have my word.”

  The ensemble was a new acquisition. It was tough on a girl to find a dress to both cover her knife sheath and hold her bosom in place. I ended up with a black gown, short enough to allow me movement to run if needed, but long enough to hide the dagger at my thigh. I chose a discreet purse with a loose liner, slit to allow my pretty little .22 to hide without notice. There was no way to take the katana into the dinner so I left it in the trunk of my car.

  I also gathered a few less conventional weapons including a long sharp stickpin speared through the glossy bun at the nape of my neck. It would be handy in hand to hand combat. My heels were also classic stilettos and could double as self-defense weapons if needed. I added some slim but tough shoe liners which fit like socks but couldn’t be seen when worn with the shoes. These would allow me to sprint without the shoes, and maneuver fast, if I needed to.

  I deliberately arranged my purse and had begun applying a sleek red to my lips which almost exactly matched the red of my hair which had finally washed out to its original fiery hue, when a knock sounded at my door.

  Ah, my date. Joy. When I called Brother Joshua to fill him in on my proposal, he immediately assigned someone to escort me to the party. No surprise there. I didn’t know where the old man found all his willing team members, but so far, they proved to be a reliable bunch. I tried to argue against bringing anyone, but like Kurt, he insisted I needed someone to watch my back. The fact he didn’t try to talk me out of going was revealing. There was something going on tonight he needed to know about, even if he didn’t fill me in with the details. I shrugged. I attended enough of these events with my father to recognize how they progressed. There would be speeches, met with polite applause, and then more of the same, followed by a dinner of pre-selected choices. At least I knew the dinner would be fabulous since I had eaten at the Seelbach before. After dinner they would finish with a rousing call to action.

  The wine and drinks would be plentiful, and many a florid man in an expensive suit would drink too much and say something mildly inappropriate to me behind his wife’s back. I might even get a pinch on my backside if I didn’t move fast enough. As soon as I made it home, I would need to take a particularly long and extremely hot shower to rid myself of the stench of expensive cologne and lies.

  I stepped to the door and squinted through the peep hole. The elongated shape of my date showed inside the light from the ornamental porch lamp. He was tall, dressed in the requisite tuxedo, his dark hair combed back from a high forehead. He wore glasses with black frames, Clark Kent style. I grimaced. He looked like a professor heading to a university meeting with the long narrow nose and clean shaven cheeks, rather than a bodyguard. Brother J had emailed me his picture, forwarded to me on my cell phone and so I knew this was indeed my date for the night.

  I opened the door and stepped back, feeling all nerves and business.

  “Abraham?” I asked, holding my hand out.

  “Yes, very nice to meet you.” His voice was rich but with no discernible accent. His handshake was firm with long fingers that easily circled my hand. In passing, he smelled of soap and spice. I knew for a fact there was nothing brimstone about this guy, yet there was still something underlying the veneer which made my inner sense twitch.

  “I’m not sure what kind of reception we are going to get,” I began.

  “I expect we will make quite a stir,” he replied.

  “I agree. Let me grab my purse.” I left him at the door, not actually concerned I wasn’t following correct dating protocol. This wasn’t an actual date. This was a mission, and I could only hope I got through it without anyone being hurt. Anyone innocent, I corrected myself.

  With my purse tucked under my arm, I followed Abraham onto the little front porch and locked the door after me. The porch light was shining, and there were lights left on inside even though no one was home. I expected this to change in a few days. Sister Eva and Alex would be moving in with me for an undetermined amount of time while I continued to follow my leads. I wouldn’t feel comforta
ble having Alex return to her old life until Roberts existed only as a pile of ashes before I felt comfortable to have Alex return to her old life.

  Abraham drove a late model Mercedes, a light silver with dark interior. This was not a common trait among Brother J’s usual staff. The holy man’s headquarters were in the Derby City Mission house. For most of his life he worked to feed the impoverished and destitute, while also divvying out assignments to the Hand of God, currently Victor, in his off time. To have this guy show up in a Mercedes was not Brother J’s style, but it was my father’s. Past tense.

  Had my father not been executed, he would have continued his high-priced lifestyle, with expensive cars, tailored suits, and pricy friends. If I still worked for the Church of the Light Reclaimed, I too would be enjoying endless funds to satisfy my every whim. Of course, I would be damned to Hell for all eternity, but my father lived for the moment, not looking at what he was doing to his everlasting soul. The thought caused me to shiver.

  Abraham opened the door for me and stood silently as I slid in. After I buckled my seatbelt, he closed the door gingerly behind me and went to the driver’s door. This was not treatment I was accustomed to and I forced my impatience to get the night over with and done. We were performing an act, Abraham and I. The success of it would depend on both of us.

  As he put the car into gear, I swung toward him. “You know what our plans are for tonight?”

  He gave a single nod. “I do.”

  “They won’t be expecting me, but I expect to create enough of an entrance they will receive me with open arms. From there, I want to circulate as much as I can. It’s important for us to figure out the main players while we have them all in one place. This will be the perfect opportunity to see how my father stood with some of the current regime in the Church.”

  “I agree.”

  I studied his profile, sharp in the slowly fading light. His eyes were a pale brown, almost golden. He glanced in my direction, and I thought I caught a gleam of amusement.