Mamie’s eyelids fluttered briefly and her heart monitor beeped loudly several times in succession as her heart raced. Rush murmured something under his breath and then removed his hands from Mamie’s head. There was no noticeable change in the woman. But there was no noticeable decline either.
“That’s it?” John Bradford said, a little annoyed that Benjamin had gotten his hopes up for nothing. “This is your way of helping Mamie, by letting some kid come in here and pretend to be a faith healer?”
“I apologize,” Benjamin said. “I was hoping something might change.”
“Don’t apologize,” Rush said. “She’ll be better in the morning. I promise.”
“Get out,” John Bradford said in a voice so calm it was almost frightening. “Get out of here right now. My wife is going to die and there’s nothing anyone can do to help her.”
Benjamin nodded calmly and turned to walk out, realizing that God had chosen not to answer his prayers this time. The ride back to St. Michael’s was silent and lonely despite the fact that Rush was there with him the entire time.
After sending Rush off to his room, Benjamin put a pot of coffee on to brew. The heady aroma of the Brazilian coffee tickled his nostrils and provided a comforting blanketing warmth as he took the first sip. He stared out the kitchen window, half expecting to see a bloody angel staggering up the walk toward the front door. That sight had been as common lately as blue skies and sunshine. Whatever kind of war these angels were involved in, it was bloody and vicious. It was also nearby. That’s why the seraphim had taken to using this as a halfway house.
The fact that Rush was staying here could have been a reassurance in that regard. But Benjamin wasn’t comforted. Despite his healing powers, Rush was like a magnet, drawing the wounded in. Who was to say what the commanders in this war might do if they found out about him? Maybe they already knew.
If there were rebelling angels who were trying to turn the tide in heaven, it would make sense that they would want to eliminate any source of advantage that the faithful held. That advantage was Rush. An assassination attempt on Rush’s life was not only possible but probable. Benjamin didn’t know how he was going to defend the boy against war seraphim.
Trying to push the inevitable out of his mind, Benjamin drained the last vestiges of his coffee and headed over to the sink to wash out his mug. He had just turned on the faucet when the phone rang.
Benjamin had been a priest long enough to have an instinctive feeling about the nature of phone calls. No matter what time the phone rang, be it morning, noon, or night, he could normally pinpoint which calls were bearers of bad news and which ones were weren’t. It was a sixth sense that most priests learned to develop, and Benjamin knew from the knotting up of his stomach that this call didn’t feel right at all. In fact, it felt downright wrong.
He looked at the phone and considered just letting it ring. But he knew that someone might need him. Mamie Bradford might have passed away.
His fears were all but confirmed when he picked up the phone and heard John Bradford’s voice on the other end. Yet, it wasn’t grief that he detected in the man’s voice but glee.
“You’ll never believe it father,” John said, not waiting for Benjamin to speak. “Mamie’s condition has improved 100%. The doctors have never seen anything like it. Her kidneys had already shut down when you came to visit, but they started working on their own not long after you left. Her other organs have followed suit.”
Benjamin didn’t know what to say. He suddenly felt guilty for the way he had doubted God.
“That boy of yours did something to my Mamie, and she’s on her way back from the grave. It’s a miracle, I tell you. A miracle.”
“That’s wonderful, John,” Benjamin finally managed.
“Oh, there’s more to tell, Father. Much more.”
“More?” Benjamin asked, not sure what else there could be.
“The entire ward is recovering. Every single person in the cancer ward is improving. Not all of them were on the brink of death, mind you. But not one single person has taken a turn for the worse. In fact, everyone is getting more and more healthy. The doctors are baffled by it all, but pleased nonetheless. I didn’t tell them about that boy of yours, but I know he’s the reason.”
“God’s the reason, John,” Benjamin reminded him. “If Rush was, in fact, responsible for this miracle, then he was but an instrument of God. Alone, he has no power.”
“Then praise God,” John said, his voice cracking with joy. “I don’t care who to give credit to. All I care about is that Mamie will be with us a while longer. I don’t know how I would have dealt with her death.”
“She’s not out of the woods yet,” Benjamin reminded him. “Just keep the faith and pray to the Lord that he’ll continue to lay His hand on Mamie.”
“Thank you, Father.”
When Benjamin hung up on the phone, he didn’t know exactly how to react. He knew that he should have been overcome with joy. This was proof of God’s power on a wide-scale. He should have been imagining how many families would come to God as a result of this miracle. But no matter how happy he tried to be about the whole thing, he couldn’t force himself. Something felt wrong about this. Yes, he knew that God was completely capable of healing Mamie Bradford, but it usually didn’t happen instantaneously like this. To hear John Bradford tell it, watching Mamie’s recovery was like rewinding a video of her decline. Her organs were starting back up. Her color was returning. Her mind was forming coherent thoughts again. But what made this so inherently strange is that thirty other people had been healed right along with her.
Benjamin thought about praying for guidance and asking God to reveal to truth. But he was tired and prayer seemed like more of a chore than a privilege at this point. After checking to make sure that Rush was asleep, Benjamin did what he said he wasn’t going to do. He got himself a clean tumbler, a couple of cubes of ice, and a bottle of Wild Turkey. He had some thinking to do.
Chapter 20
Since the angels started showing up with more and more regularity, Benjamin hadn’t been able to sleep well. He had spent most of his free time in his study, reading up on seraphim and cherubim, trying to learn more about what was going on around him. He had yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. To complicated matters, a seraph was spying on Rush. He had noticed him on and off, always lurking, always watching. The only question was why.
Most of the books in his study were of little use on the subject of angelic war. Aside from those few sparse passages in the Bible about Lucifer’s battle in heaven, there wasn’t a lot of information to be had. Many of the books had brief biographies about angels from the Bible and Jewish lore. Some of them listed the cabalistic symbols that were unique to each member of the heavenly hosts. Some texts had an arrangement of the angelic hierarchy. And a few had artwork supplied by Gustave Dore. Benjamin thought he could have learned as much about the situation by simply reading Paradise Lost.
On nights like these, Benjamin usually kept to himself for a few hours while Rush communed with the injured angels. Since that first seraph appeared on the doorstep, there had been an endless rush of feathers and blood. Apparently, St. Michael’s had turned into a kind of halfway house for the wounded. Benjamin was a little uncomfortable being so close to the action, but there was nothing he could do about it. The angels were going to continue visiting with or without his consent.
Rubbing his eyes to wipe away the onset of sleep, Benjamin closed the book he had been reading and walked over to the window, stretching as he went. He stopped as he saw a dark figure roaming among the gravestones.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang. The shrill tone sounded like a gong resonating in the night, and for a moment, he was sure the prowler must have heard it although the shadowy figure gave no indication of that. Benjamin took another careful look out the window, making sure to keep his eye on his nighttime visitor and then noticed the name on the readout screen of his phone: Jo
hn Bradford.
Trying not to make too much noise, Benjamin tiptoed over to the window and flipped his phone open.
“Hello, John,” he whispered.
“Oh my God, Benjamin. It’s horrible.”
Benjamin’s blood ran cold at the sound of the man’s weeping. Such an outward expression of grief could only mean one thing.
“They’re all dead,” John said. “Not just Mamie, but all of them. Every single one that boy healed in that cancer ward. They’ve all died within the hour.”
“Slow down, John,” Benjamin said.
“Pray for me, Father,” John wailed. “And the families of all those who died tonight. Even the doctors and nurses on the ward have gone on too.”
“Gone on?” Benjamin asked.
“They died of cancer too,” John explained. “Everyone here is baffled. But I know it’s that boy. He wasn’t holy like you said. He wasn’t holy at all.”
“I’m so sorry,” Benjamin explained as he kept a careful eye on the dark figure roaming out in the yard. “I’ll pray for you, but I’ve really got to go now.”
He didn’t wait for John to reply before hanging up. The intruder was moving again.
Judging by the size and shape, it was definitely an angel. But unlike the normal throng of wounded, it moved without the first sign of an injury. It crouched in shadows and darted from headstone to headstone in quick stealthy strides. Benjamin gasped as moonlight glinted off of the sharp steel spike it held. He didn’t need any book on angels to tell him that this was an assassin. The only question in his mind was whether or not it was the same angel who had been keeping a steady vigil near the church, watching and waiting.
He quickly realized it wasn’t when the angel moved through a patch of moonlight, revealing a thick coat of plumage that glowed an eerie radioactive blue.
Panicking, Benjamin rushed into the sanctuary just in time to see Rush holding a needle against the puckered skin of an angel that had nearly been disemboweled. It was all the seraph could do to hold the kinked segments of viscera in. Still, he seemed more concerned with the needle than with his spilled organs.
“We’ve got to go,” Benjamin shouted.
“But I’m not done with this one yet,” Rush said.
“Move,” Benjamin hissed, grabbing the boy by his arm.
A loud splintering sound announced the coming of the assassin as the doors were thrown off of their hinges. As Benjamin had noticed before, the angel’s feathers had a certain blue tint to them, like the residue that rubs off of a carbon copy. Dressed in black leather pants, a black silk shirt, and a black leather overcoat, the angel looked like he could have been a member at any S&M club in town. What was more, he had a steel spike in each eyebrow and a coat full of dozens upon dozens of knives.
They ran for their lives but the angel was quicker, catching up with them in the alleyway outside. Because the alleyway was filled with shadows and darkness, no one could see the seraph ram his fist into the old priest’s mouth. Benjamin fell back onto a pile of trash, the blood coursing over his split lips in warm, salty currents. But he didn’t stay down, much to the assassin’s surprise.
“I can prolong your misery or I can end this quickly,” the angel said.
“Run,” Benjamin said weakly as he threw himself at the angel. “Run.”
One moment, the angel’s coat was closed. The next it was open and the air was full of knives. Almost every one of the blades found a home in some part of Father Benjamin.
“Go,” Benjamin gasped as he bled copiously from innumerable wounds. “Now.”
This time Rush did as Father Benjamin told him while the angel finished emptying his coat of cutlery. It only took two blocks for the screaming to stop.
Chapter 21
Dade found Mrs. Hartwell sitting on what was left of Richard Edgemore’s crypt. Her hands were trembling and her eyes had that blank, faraway look that some children get after watching too much TV.
“Mrs. Hartwell?” Dade said hesitantly. “What is really going on here?”
Louise Hartwell sighed. “I’m not in love with Richard Edgemore,” she admitted. “He’s got information that I need, and the only way I can force him to talk is by having possession of his remains.”
“And do you think I would be correct in assuming that there are others who want this same secret?”
“The secret is the key to everything. The angels are at war. The drug is at the bottom of it all.”
“The drug?” Dade said.
“Rusty Nails. It’s a drug that chases away guilt. The rebelling angels are taking it to erase their remorse. The only problem is that supply is very limited and getting even more so by the minute. The angels would kill for a hit of this stuff. It’s what lies at the root of their war.”
“And you think you could make a heap of money if you knew where to get more of this stuff. Am I right?”
Louise Hartwell nodded. “Richard was my main source of competition when he was alive. We were in the same line of work.”
“Where does the boy fit into all of this?”
The look of confusion on Hartwell’s face was so instantaneous that Dade knew it was genuine. “You don’t know about the boy,” Dade said.
“No. I don’t know anything about a boy.”
“The man that looked like my father. He gave me a picture of a twelve-year-old boy and told me to murder him. Any idea why? Everything seems to be connected here, so I would have to assume that this boy is involved somehow.”
“No, not unless....”
“What?” Dade said.
“They’re just stories I’ve heard about a boy that’s healing angels somewhere down town. I haven’t had time to investigate it properly to see if it’s really true.”
“Healing them?”
“The ones that get wounded in the war. They go to him and come back like new again. The only catch is that they come back addicted to the guilt-drug.”
Dade chewed on this for a moment. “So somebody obviously thinks the boy is a key to this whole thing.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Sounds to me like he’s forcing angels to become rebels by addicting them to Rusty Nails. If they are slaves to the drug, then whoever has the supply has their allegiance.”
“That is a very distinct possibility,” Louise admitted.
“I don’t think there are any answers in the crypt,” Dade said. “If there was anything, it’s gone now. I’m going to find this boy instead. He sounds like a major piece in this puzzle.”
Louise Hartwell sighed. “I’ll check with some of my contacts to see if they know anything about the boy.”
“That would be helpful,” Dade said.
Louise cracked a small grin. “It kind of feels like we’re partners, doesn’t it?”
Dade’s face remained blank. “I’ve never had a partner threaten me or my family, and I’m not about to start now.”
“Oh, I’m not threatening,” Louise said, this time with a little more anger in her voice. “I’m just making sure I’ve got a little insurance. Understand?”
Dade knew exactly what she meant, and that’s what scared him the most.
Chapter 22
“Dade’s going to kill me when he finds out I came here by myself,” Liz sighed.
“He might, but only if someone doesn’t beat him to it first,” Pyriel said.
Liz sighed and thought about crying. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She rubbed her wrists and ankles and tested her weight before she stood up. She staggered at first but eventually found her feet.
“Why are they holding us here?” she asked.
“Leverage,” Pyriel said. “If your boyfriend knows they’ve got you, he will probably do whatever they want. They will have the upper hand.”
“Who is they?”
Pyriel shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure who is behind all of this. I only know that we’re caught in the middle of a civil war.”
“Ok, so you’ve answered
the question of why they’re holding me. Why you?”
“Why else? To recruit me. Once I’m fully addicted to the guilt drug, I’ll be a slave to them and forced to do whatever they want me to do.”
“Where does the drug come from?”
Pyriel paced the small room, spreading his wings, thinking. “The angels are engaged in civil war, and someone has instigated the whole thing. Oz behind his curtain if you will. The source of Rusty Nails is still a mystery. No one’s sure where it came from or who manufactures it. But you can bet that whoever is behind it is responsible for the war. It’s the key to all of this.”
Although she still wasn’t completely comfortable with Pyriel, she took a step toward him as the heavy thud of electronic drumbeats from the club wormed its way through the cinderblock walls. “So how did you know to come here?”
“I followed the addicted. All roads seem to lead back to The Zodiac Club. I came here looking for answers. I came here thinking that I might find the man behind the madness.”
“Surely you don’t think a man is behind all of this. If the answer was that simple, you’d be scoping out meth labs and dark alleys. But you’re not. You’re here.”
Pyriel rubbed his feathered brow. “I guess it’s not likely that any human is behind this. But who would have something to gain from pitting angel against angel?”
“That’s way out of my league,” Liz replied. “I’m ignorant about angel politics.”
“I just wish I knew more about what’s going on.”
“I take it, then, that you haven’t found out anything either.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Pyriel responded. “I did learn that Richard Edgemore is the owner of this club.”
“Richard Edgemore?” Liz said, more than a little surprised. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Why is that?”
“Louise Hartwell hired us to find his bones. Any idea what her motivations might be?”
“Well, first off, nobody calls her Louise Hartwell. To all the angels around here, she’s Mama, a tough-talking drug pusher who supplies them with Rusty Nails.”
Rusty Nails (The Dade Gibson Case Files) Page 8
