Fury

by Bill Bright

  Our purpose at Howard Books is to:

  *Increase faithin the hearts of growing Christians

  *Inspire holinessin the lives of believers

  *Instill hopein the hearts of struggling people everywhere

  Because He’s coming again!

  Published by Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Fury© 2006 by Bright Media Foundation and Jack Cavanaugh

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Howard Books, 3117 North 7th Street, West Monroe, LA 71291-2227.

  www.howardpublishing.com

  www.thegreatawakenings.org

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-4266-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4266-7

  HOWARD is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Edited by Ramona Cramer Tucker

  Scripture quotations are taken from theHoly Bible , Authorized King James Version.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  Dedication

  To Reverend Charles Finney and all preachers of revival,

  past and present. May God bless your efforts as you work

  tirelessly to bring revival to this troubled world.

  Foreword

  Wide awake at 5:00 a.m., I finally finished devouring the manuscript for this novel. I did it without even the faintest aroma of coffee. In everyday life, the only thing more potent than a pot of coffee is a captivating story likeFury .

  My dad wrote more than a hundred books and booklets during the course of his lifetime. He always told stories to illustrate his points, but in 2001, at the age of eighty, he published his first novel.

  At the age of eighty-one he slipped the bonds of this earthly life, but during his final stretch on this planet, he coauthored seven novels. For the final four he teamed up with Jack Cavanaugh to create the Great Awakenings Series. This is the last of that series—and the last novel that will ever bear my dad’s name.

  He came to understand that a great storyteller is the most powerful person in any culture. Stories change the way we think. Stories inform who we are. Jesus knew this 2000 years ago. Hollywood knows this today.

  During the final three years of his life, we spoke often of the need for Christians to once again discover who God really is. For years I repeatedly heard him say, “The most important thing we can teach another believer is who God is.” At one point he even said, “We can trace all of our human problems to our view of God.” He understood that it is all about God—which brings us to the need for revival.

  My dad yearned for revival. Up until the day he passed on he ardently believed God would send revival. In fact, he believed God had told him He would send it.

  This novel, along with it’s three predecessors, was part of my dad’s encouragement to those of us who remain behind to continue to ask God to send another revival to this land we call America. It’s happened before. It can happen again.

  On behalf of my dad and Jack Cavanaugh, I invite you to pull up a comfy chair and turn back the hands of time almost two hundred years as they transport you into the world of a young man named Daniel Cooper.

  By the way, coffee is optional.

  Brad Bright

  National Director

  DISCOVER GOD

  Acknowledgments

  Jack’s heartfelt thanks go to—

  David and Ginger Darval, who on December 5, 1975, presented him with a multivolume set of books featured great preachers in history and their sermons. For thirty-one years it has been a source of personal inspiration, an instruction guide for sermon preparation, and now research for this novel. David—who knew that when our kindergarten teacher introduced us on the playground, fifty years later you would still be a constant friend? May God bless you and your family.

  Freelance editor Ramona Cramer Tucker, cheerleader and editor; managing editor Philis Boultinghouse, and the staff of Howard Books, the Best Christian Place to Work in America for the fourth consecutive year. I’m glad someone else has recognized what authors have known for a long time.

  And Steve Laube, agent and confidant.

  Chapter 1

  Once again his best friend had betrayed him.

  Sixteen-year-old Daniel Cooper sat sulking, hunched against the winter night, atop a wooden barrel behind Gregg’s casket shop. A shaft of moonlight sliced the blind alley into two halves. Daniel sat in the dark half, in a dark mood.

  He wanted only two things in life: to play his music, and to be left alone. Was that asking too much? Yet every time he played, someone showed up, drawn to the music like flies to honey.

  “Why can’t they just leave me alone?”

  He stared at Judas, his black recorder. He used to call the wood-wind Faithful Friend because it understood him. It never judged. And it always reflected his mood. Lately, however, he’d renamed it Judas for obvious reasons.

  Even so, it was a sweet betrayal. If a soul could sing, Daniel’s soul would be mistaken for a recorder—a lone, haunting voice that did not belong to this world. Most people he knew preferred a lively fiddle or a foot-stomping banjo. Not Daniel. When he played the recorder, his very being vibrated with matching pitch.

  Clutched in his hand, the instrument was silent now. So was the street, which wasn’t surprising at this late hour.

  “Dare we try again, old friend?”

  He lifted the mouthpiece to his lips.

  Closed his eyes.

  And played.

  The alley came alive with music. A mournful tune that wafted from wall to wall to wall, surrounding him, penetrating him. Daniel’s soul sighed with pleasure.

  He’d played less than a minute when a discordant animal noise slashed the melody. Frowning, Daniel lowered the recorder and listened.

  The night lay under silent stars.

  Daniel was certain he’d heard something. Possibly a complaining cat. He cocked an ear in the direction of the street. Whatever it was, it was gone.

  Once again the recorder touched his lower lip, but before it uttered a note, the noise repeated itself.

  A painful moan. A wounded cry.

  There was a scuffle on the cobblestones, then another moan.

  Daniel’s heart seized. This time it didn’t sound like an animal.

  Just then a man stumbled into the mouth of the alley and collapsed. He whimpered. Tried to get up. Collapsed again.

  Startled, Daniel’s first impulse was to flee. But brick walls on three sides blocked his escape.

  The man in the alley lay facedown, his breathing ragged and labored. He obviously needed help, though Daniel was at a loss as to what to do.

  Setting the recorder aside, he slid off the barrel.

  Two cautious steps and he pulled back, stopped short by an unseen, high-pitched voice. Like a child playing a game. Only it wasn’t a child. And if this was a game, Daniel didn’t want to play.

  “Come out, come out! Where are you?”

  The man on the ground heard the voice. It stirred him to life. Whimpering, the man’s hands clutched at the icy cobblestones. He dragged himself deeper into the alley.

  “Come out, come out!” sang the voice.

  Daniel reversed his direction and dove behind a stack of barrels. Then, scrambling to the balls of his feet, he crouched, ready to explode out of the alley like a ball shot from a cannon.

  It was at that moment that Daniel realized he’d left his recorder sitting in plain sight atop the barrel. He rose up to reach it, then stopped.

  At the mouth of the alley, the voice had taken shape. A silhouette stood against the streaking moonlight.

  Broad-rimmed hat.

  Shoulder-length hair.

/>   Knee-length travel coat.

  And in the man’s right hand—a knife large enough to gut a bear.

  “Asa, he’s gone.”

  Camilla Rush stood, one hand worrying the other, in the doorway of the study.

  “Did you look in the—”

  “I think I scared him off.” Her voice quivered as she spoke. Her eyes, normally a portrait of compassion, revealed a tender soul that was as attractive to Asa Rush now as it had been two decades ago, when he first fell in love with her.

  “When I went to slop the hogs,” she continued, “I thought I heard somebody behind the barn. I stopped and listened. Then I heard music. Oh Asa, he has such talent.”

  Asa slammed shut his book. Chair legs scraped against the floor. He reached for his coat and hat and cane. “A man can’t support a family playing a pipe. Where did you see him last?”

  “Running into the forest. When he finished his song, I clapped. Then, when I went to tell him how beautiful it was, all I saw was his back disappearing into the woods.” She stepped aside.

  Asa’s cane struck the floor with force as he strode past her. “Don’t wait up.”

  “Go easy on him, Asa. It’s been hard on him.”

  “It’s been almost a year. Long enough for him to know we have rules in this house. Long enough to know I expect him to obey them.”

  “There you are!”

  The silhouette at the mouth of the alley held his arms wide. The voice was playful, but the blade in his hand deadly serious.

  From his hiding place in the back of the alley, Daniel could hear the hunted man but not see him.

  “No…no…please, no,” the man pleaded. “I haven’t told anyone, I swear.”

  The hunter threw the man’s words back at him in a singsong voice. “I won’t tell…I won’t tell…Please don’t hurt me!” Then the hunter’s tone changed. Hard. Menacing. “You know, I believe you. Honestly, I do. But do you know why? I’ll tell you. I believe you because it’s hard for a man to tell anyone anything when he has no tongue. Harder still when he has no heartbeat.”

  The hunted man’s whimpers turned to grunts. From the scratching and the way the barrels shook, Daniel feared the man was trying to claw his way up them. The stack shuddered and threatened to topple. Daniel braced them from his side.

  There was a scuffle. Then a scream bounced off the same walls that, moments earlier, had provided sweet acoustics for his recorder.

  The stack of barrels gave an earthquake rattle. Daniel looked up just as one of the barrels tipped over the edge toward him. He ducked. It hit him on the back with force, flattening him. He winced and bit back a yelp of pain as his head slammed against the cobblestones, the side of his face resting in a slushy patch of melting snow.

  When he opened his eyes, to his horror, his head stuck out from behind the last barrel. He could see the length of the alley…and be seen…if he didn’t scoot back.

  At that instant, a mirror image of his fall occurred on the other side of the barrel. The hunted man’s head hit the ground, his face toward Daniel. He was dirty, bloodied, eyes scrunched in pain. Then he opened them.

  Both men’s faces lit with recognition.

  “Braxton!” Daniel mouthed.

  He knew it was a mistake the moment he formed the name, because his bloodied mirror image began to say his name in reply. “Da—”

  Braxton never got a chance to finish. A hand grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head. A flash of silver crossed his neck.

  Braxton’s head hit the ground a second time. This time, however, nothing reflected in his eyes. The light in them had gone out.

  Daniel began to shiver with fear. He bit back a whimper. If the killer heard him…or if Daniel moved, so would the barrel on top of him. And, for all he knew, he could set off an avalanche of barrels.

  All he could do was lie still.

  Not breathe.

  And stare into the lifeless eyes of Emil Braxton.

  Daniel’s heart jumped at the sound of whistling. But whistling was good, wasn’t it? If the killer had spotted him, he wouldn’t be whistling, would he? He’d be killing. Whistling was good.

  Then it stopped.

  Braxton’s head moved away from Daniel. Was dragged away.

  The back of the killer came into view. He pulled Braxton by one arm, then dropped it. Braxton’s lifeless arm hit the ground with a fleshythud .

  The killer straddled the body. He searched Braxton’s pockets. Then, when he grabbed Braxton’s shirt to roll him over, the killer’s head crossed into the moonlight. His hair fell to one side, revealing a tattoo of a coiled snake on the back of his neck.

  From the street came the clatter of an approaching carriage. The killer crouched. His knife, looking eager for more blood, poised for action.

  The carriage stopped at the end of the alley.

  “There you are,” said a voice that was familiar to Daniel.

  The killer relaxed.

  A portly man in a carriage climbed down and entered the alley on foot. “Did you find—” A cry of revulsion cut short his sentence. “Why didn’t you warn me? You know I can’t stand the sight of—”

  Retching echoed in the alley.

  Daniel watched as the man slipped on an icy patch, catching himself on the side of his carriage. Steadying himself with a hand on the wheel, he took several minutes to recover.

  Meanwhile, the killer finished his business with Braxton. Heaving the dead man onto his shoulder, he strolled toward the carriage as casually as a sailor carrying a bag aboard ship.

  “The deed is done, payment is due,” said the killer.

  Averting his eyes and steadying himself all the way around the carriage, the man climbed into the seat. “Just get rid of that thing. Come to the store tomorrow. I’ll have your money.”

  With his free hand, the killer touched his hat to signal farewell.

  The man in the carriage took several deep breaths.

  Then Cyrus Gregg—Daniel’s employer and his uncle Asa’s best friend—grabbed the reins and drove away in the carriage.

  Chapter 2

  Daniel Cooper had no memory of how he made it home. He balanced on shaky legs on a frozen tree limb outside his bedroom. His hands shivered, but only partially from the cold.

  Something rustled nearby. Daniel’s head snapped in that direction. He expected to see a dark figure emerge from the night with a broad-rimmed hat that concealed murderous eyes, hear theswish of a long coat, and feel the cold steel of a blood-stained blade against his neck.

  To his relief he saw nothing but shadows and heard nothing except night sounds and the pounding of his heart in his ears. His throat had constricted needlessly. This time. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a next time.

  After watching the killer haul Braxton’s dead body out of the alley, Daniel managed to crawl from beneath the barrel that had pinned him to the ground. He exited the alley but not before retrieving his recorder.

  Had the killer seen it? Daniel had left it in plain sight atop a barrel. He’d found it lying on the ground. If the killer had seen it, would he know it belonged to Daniel? Cyrus Gregg, the man in the buggy, would recognize it as Daniel’s. Almost daily Gregg’s voice cut through recorder music to call Daniel back to work. All the killer had to do was mention to Gregg he’d seen a recorder in the alley.

  They would come for him. They had no choice but to come for him. He could lie and tell them he’d left the recorder in the alley. That he went back for it later and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  Tightening his grip on the tree limb, Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his nerves. The breath came in irregular stutters.

  Feeling no calmer for the effort, he opened his eyes and fixed them on the immediate problem. His bedroom window was closed. He remembered leaving it open. At least he thought he remembered leaving it open. At the moment he couldn’t be certain of anything. Watching someone you know get murdered has a way of shaking up a man’s memory.


  It was the suddenness of death that unsettled Daniel the most. It just seemed wrong that a human life could be extinguished as quickly as one would snuff out a candle.

  Daniel forced his mind back to the window. With his recorder tucked in his waistband, he straddled the three-foot span between the tree and the second-story window sill. Now came the tricky part. He let go of the steadying branch and stretched past his right foot, attempting to worm his fingers beneath the sash.

  The window held fast. It was locked. Daniel grimaced. Not so much from the effort, but because a locked window meant his Uncle Asa knew he had sneaked out of the house and was probably sitting in the front room lying in wait for him.

  With a groan, Daniel pushed off from the window sill and shinnied down the tree. He brushed off his clothes and stared at the front-room window, lit by a cozy, warm orange glow but camouflaging the white-hot fury that awaited him on the other side. The last time his uncle caught him sneaking out of the house, Daniel had to listen to an hourlong lecture on how youthful disrespect for authority will lead to the downfall of civilization. He dreaded the lecture’s sequel.

  For ten minutes Daniel paced outside, delaying the inevitable. Uncle Asa’s wrath was only part of the problem. There was the matter of the murder. He had to tell someone, and his uncle was the logical choice. The appearance of Cyrus Gregg in the alley complicated things. Not only was Gregg his uncle’s best friend, he was one of the most respected men in town. Even now Daniel had a hard time believing Gregg had anything to do with it. But he had seen Gregg there!

  Daniel needed time to think. Maybe he could tell his aunt first, get her reaction, which would certainly be less volatile than his uncle’s. That’s what Daniel liked most about her. She listened to him and didn’t judge him. Unlike Uncle Asa, who was always too busy yelling to listen.

  He couldn’t put it off forever.

  Daniel took a step toward the front door. He stopped, turned away, and paced another five minutes despite the fact that the killer might be looking for him…even now hiding in the shadows watching him.