Covenant

by Brandon Massey

  But being on the run, constantly looking over their shoulders, would make it difficult to go back to the comfortable world of live, work, and play, make it hard to immerse herself in the minutiae of mundane affairs, and make it impossible to believe that life was as simple and orderly as she had once thought. She finally understood how delicate the fabric of their world really was, how one unexpected event could rip out a patch that forever altered your existence.

  Most of all, she finally understood, at a heart-deep level, how Anthony had become the man that he was. This descent into strangeness and terror might result in them actually becoming closer than ever.

  Gun at her side, she hit the button to open the garage door. The door clambered up, and the thunderstorm charged in.

  She moved to the edge of the doorway and looked toward Mike’s rental again. What she saw robbed the breath from her lungs.

  The troll-like crazy man, wearing a rain slicker, was going inside the house.

  Anthony’s in there. I can feel it. The nut is going in after him.

  She hustled behind the wheel, fired up the engine, and reversed out of the garage. Rain crashed onto the truck so violently she felt as if she were inside a steel drum being pelted by gunfire.

  She hadn’t intended to close the garage door—she wanted Anthony to know that she had gone—but when she saw a metallic object in the grass that looked suspiciously like one of his revolvers, she halted in the driveway and hopped out of the truck.

  Instantly, she was drenched. She raced across the lawn, almost lost her balance on the slick grass, plucked the handgun off the ground, and scrambled back to the dry comfort of the jeep. She placed the revolver on the seat beside her.

  He had armed himself with two firearms before leaving, but he wouldn’t have dropped the revolver in the grass and left it there unless he’d had no choice, unless he’d been on the run.

  She glanced at the rental house.

  Now what? How could she help Anthony if he were in a tight spot? What if he didn’t make it out of the house alive?

  No, he will make it. Don’t you dare to think otherwise.

  An idea came to her. She whispered a prayer, and pulled out of the driveway.

  40

  Running down the hall, the fanatics at his heels, Anthony dashed into the first bedroom, on the left. He slammed the door, found the lock and twisted it, for all the little good that would do.

  The bedroom was furnished with functional pieces: double bed, dresser, desk, lamp. It looked like a standard-issue hotel room, which was probably the point in a pre-furnished home.

  The dresser was near the doorway. Quickly, he gripped the edges of it and hauled it across the door.

  The door erupted open, but smashed against the obstructing dresser. Cutty roared in rage. He charged the door again, and the wood buckled and the dresser rocked.

  Backing away, Anthony drew the .38 he had taken from Valdez out of his waistband. He swung out the cylinder.

  “Shit.”

  The gun had no ammo. Not one round. Unfortunately, the spare .45 ammo that he’d stored in his pouch wouldn’t fit the weapon, either.

  He had no choice but to run.

  There was a curtained window on the other side of the room, lightning flickering outside the glass. He slapped the locks open, lifted the window, and kicked out the screen. It winged away like a kite into the rainy night.

  Across the room, Cutty hit the door again, hard as a juggernaut, and finally tipped over the dresser. It crashed to the carpet with a thunderous boom.

  Anthony squirmed out of the window and, as he dropped to the grass below, heard Cutty’s semi-automatic chopping the air above him, and the man’s infuriated cursing.

  Anthony landed on the ground, the impact rattling his shins and knees. He stumbled against the house.

  He wasn’t in shape for this kind of stuff any more. His lungs ached, his throat felt packed with glass shards, his wrist felt as if it had been gnawed on by a rabid dog, his entire torso hummed with pain from the savage kicks the deadly woman had delivered, and his face was swelling from the punches he’d endured.

  But he kept moving.

  Sliding against the back wall placed him out of Cutty’s range, but Valdez might be coming to head him off outside. He sure as hell didn’t want to tangle with her again.

  As he rounded the corner, a bullet zinged past his shoulder and struck a plastic trash bin that stood against the home next door. Anthony ducked, kept running. Without needing to look, he knew Cutty was leaning out the bedroom window taking a desperate shot.

  In the front now. No sign of Valdez. Maybe he’d lost her, maybe she’d gone to retrieve their vehicle to run him down. No matter. He had to scramble.

  He sprinted across the front lawns of the next two homes, zigzagged around the third, raced through the backyard, cut left at the perimeter to go between that house and another, and finally saw the home where he had left Lisa, directly ahead on the other side of the road.

  The garage door was open. But the jeep was gone.

  What the hell was going on? He’d asked her to wait inside. Had she gotten spooked and taken off?

  Using what felt like his final reserves of strength, he ran to the right. At the four-way intersection, he looked both ways, squinting against the slanting rain.

  About twenty yards down the road on the right, the jeep idled at the curb, taillights glowing.

  He realized, then, what Lisa was doing: she was saving his ass.

  He rushed to the truck, hammered his fist against the passenger side window. She unlocked the door, and he climbed inside, dripping water onto the leather upholstery.

  “Go,” he said in a garbled voice.

  Without a word, she punched the gas.

  41

  The windshield wipers swept across the glass at a frenetic rate, and angel wings of water flapped from the tires as the SUV soared down the dark street.

  Checking over his shoulder to confirm no one followed—yet—Anthony drew deep breaths, and finally slowed his racing pulse. He picked up the .45 off the seat, and examined the weapon; it was in usable condition, with only a nick on the barrel from the rifle round.

  “I found it in the front yard,” Lisa said. “I thought you might want it.”

  Rain had plastered her hair against her face and soaked through her velour suit, giving her the appearance of a survivor from a shipwreck. But she had never looked more beautiful to him.

  “All I have to say is, I married well,” he said.

  She gave a brief smile. “I felt nervous waiting in the house. Not long after you left, I loaded the jeep with our stuff.”

  He glanced in the backseat, saw their belongings. “When did you leave?”

  “After I packed up, I kept an eye on Mike’s rental. I saw that nut go inside, the guy, and I had a feeling that you were in there. I thought we might need to get away from them again when you came out, so I decided to take some initiative and park around the corner, where he couldn’t take aim at us again with his sniper rifle.”

  “For a second there, you lost me.”

  “But you figured it out fast. Married folks’ telepathy.”

  “I heard that.”

  They were on a residential road flanked with rain-battered elms and maples. Several blocks ahead, he spotted a traffic light, and vehicles traveling back and forth. The prospect of entering a populated area promised no security, however—the fanatics clearly cared nothing for laws and public safety.

  “Is that blood on your wrist?” she asked.

  “I was bitten.”

  “Bitten? By a dog?”

  “Sure felt like it.” He reached behind him and grabbed the strap of his duffel bag. “The woman who mistook me for a steak—her name is Maria Valdez, by the way. Her partner’s name is Noah Cutty.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “She was in the house. I stole up on her and put a gun to her head. That tends to make people talk—and bite back.”
<
br />   “Jesus.”

  “It was necessary. I needed answers.”

  “How did she end up biting you?”

  “She was one tough bitch,” he said. He massaged his battered face. “I’m lucky she didn’t kill me.”

  “We’ll have to get the wound disinfected. The human mouth carries a lot of bacteria.”

  “We’ll get to that later.” He dragged the duffel onto his lap, dug through it. “Where’s the cell phone?”

  She handed him her purse. He unzipped it and found the phone buried beneath the gun and the Bible. He powered it on, and the display brightened.

  “Finally, we’ve got service,” he said.

  “Are you going to call Mike and make sure he’s okay?” Lines of worry threaded her face.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He punched in the number for Mike’s cell phone.

  On the first ring, Mike answered. He sounded wide awake.

  “Yo, man, where the hell are you?” Mike asked. “I’ve been going nuts here!”

  Anthony nodded at Lisa to let her know Mike was fine, and then said, “We’re on the move again. The goons found your rental house, and some way, knew we’d holed up in that new crib a few doors down that you’d put a contract on.”

  “You went there? Smart.”

  “I thought so, too, until the loony rifleman almost sniped me when I came around the corner,” Anthony said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home, man. They came here—I watched ‘em from next door. They tossed the place a bit, but took the keys to all my properties.”

  “And the key to the Roswell house was the only one missing, wasn’t it?”

  “Sure was. Why?”

  “They must’ve pulled up a listing of the houses you own. That’s how they tracked us—part of it, anyway.”

  “This is freakin’ crazy,” Mike said. “You know who these goons are working for yet?”

  “New Kingdom Church, in Austell,” Anthony said. “I’m about ninety-nine percent certain of it.”

  “That’s the church with the big time pastor? Prince or something?”

  “Bishop Prince. You’ve heard of him?”

  “He’s on TV all the time. I see him when I’m channel surfin’ late at night.”

  “I guess I need to watch more TV,” Anthony said.

  “You get a good look at the lady goon? She looked like a dime piece.”

  “I got more than a good look at her—I almost got an ass-kicking from her. She’d chew you up and spit you out, Mike, seriously.”

  “No shit?” He sounded awestruck.

  “Hey, she’s playing for the wrong team, remember?”

  “Right.” Mike cleared his throat. “Anyway, I sent you an e-mail on Jarhead. About Kelley Marrow. You need to check it out.”

  “It might be a while before I can get online. Anything earth-shattering?”

  “It’s an obituary,” Mike said. “From about a month ago. She was a teenager, looks like. Pretty sad.”

  “How’d she die?”

  “No idea. It didn’t say.”

  “Thanks for doing the legwork. As soon as we get somewhere I can log on, I’ll check it out.”

  “Where you headed to next?” Mike asked.

  “Not sure yet. They’re tracking us and I can’t figure out how. Do you have GPS on this bucket? Or a Lo-jack, or any other kind of satellite hook-up?”

  “All I got on there is satellite radio.”

  Anthony glanced at the radio console, which was currently turned off.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’ve gotta shake these assholes. I’ll call you later—you need anything in the meantime, this is our new cell phone number.”

  “Got it. Be safe.”

  Anthony ended the call. Lisa had steered onto a brightly lit, four-lane thoroughfare, the road lined with shuttered restaurants, gas stations, and strip malls that seemed to be dissolving in the rainfall, like images of a dream.

  “We’ve gotta ditch this ride,” he said.

  “How can they be tracking us in this? It doesn’t have GPS, does it?”

  “No, but they knew which house we were in.” He tapped the radio interface. “I think it has something to do with this.”

  “The satellite radio? Can they do that?”

  “I’ve never heard of it, but why not? The receiver in here gets signals from a satellite and decodes them into music or whatever. I remember when we got your Beemer with satellite radio, and in order for them to bill us for the monthly subscription, they had to use some kind of ID code in the receiver.”

  “I remember.” She was shaking her head. “Does it ever end?”

  “Maybe they’ve gotta sync up the signals with other GPS satellites to make it happen. I don’t know. But they knew exactly where we’d gone, Lisa, and I’m sure that so long as we’re driving this ride, they’re gonna keep following us.”

  “So why not just remove the radio? Why do we have to find another car?”

  “They already know what we’re driving. Ripping out the radio would buy us only a little time. We need something clean.”

  She braked for a red light. White signs pointing toward entrance ramps for Georgia Highway 400 North and South were posted ahead.

  He looked in the side mirror. There was one pair of headlights behind them, and they belonged to a compact-size vehicle, not a Suburban.

  Not yet.

  “Where to, then?” she asked.

  “South,” he said.

  “South to where?”

  “Somewhere we can get another car.”

  42

  Cutty stood alone in the garage in which, only a short while ago, Thorne had parked the jeep. Beyond the open door, the storm punished the night, as if God were venting his displeasure at Cutty’s repeated failures to eliminate the man.

  He’d come so close to nailing Thorne that it could only be Satan keeping him out of harm’s way. Overhearing on his radio that Thorne was in the house with Valdez after Thorne had miraculously evaded him outdoors, Cutty had rushed inside and gotten a crack at him—and Thorne had given him the slip again.

  A perfunctory search of the residence in which they had taken refuge had turned up no clues as to their ultimate destination, other accomplices, or strategy. Thorne and his Jezebel had left behind no trace of themselves, as if they were not physical beings at all, but only visiting spirits. They’d proven so elusive that the notion that they were phantoms seemed almost plausible.

  This had become more than an opportunity for him to curry favor with the Prophet, more than a chance to win Valdez’s hand, more than a shot to earn a promotion in the division.

  This had become a trial of faith.

  At such times, weaker men crumbled into a state of despair and cursed God’s name, while the strong called on the Lord for support and offered praise.

  He lowered himself to his knees on the concrete floor, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and submitted a prayer requesting the deliverance of his enemy into his hands. He praised God’s goodness and mercy. He thanked God for the Prophet, the divine mouthpiece, and this opportunity to serve them both.

  As he prayed, he removed the silver crucifix from around his neck and clasped it in his palm, gripping it so tightly that the metal edge punctured his skin and drew blood.

  He continued to pray, oblivious to the pain, lost in communion with the spirit.

  When he emerged from his prayer trance and looked up, Valdez had parked the Suburban in front of the driveway. He straightened, ran outdoors, and climbed in on the passenger side, stowing his rifle in a steel rack on the dashboard.

  Valdez had pulled away her rain-jacket hood. Drops of water glistened like jewels in her lush hair.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “One thing before we get going,” he said. He paused, carefully choosing his next words. “I wanted to ask you: are you okay?”

  She nodded.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “I am okay. Si.” A sligh
t frown crinkled the edges of her features.

  “I was only concerned because of your encounter with Thorne. Did he uh . . . touch you?”

  Her frown deepened. “Touch me?”

  “On the radio, I overheard your scuffle. Did he touch you in any uh . . . inappropriate areas?”

  Crimson flushed her cheeks. She shook her head angrily.

  “I handle myself, senor Cutty.”

  Once again, he had violated one of those invisible boundaries that separated men from women.

  “Of course,” he said. “You’re a servant in our division. You’re highly capable and trained. I was only . . . never mind.”

  Jaw rigid, she turned away, clenching the steering wheel. “Where to go now?”

  He was grateful for the change in subject. Besides, it was time to get moving.

  “Gen’s tracking their vehicle,” he said. “Let’s see where they’re headed.”

  He opened the map on the MDT display. Currently, Thorne was traveling south on Georgia 400, a highway that extended from the northern reaches of metro Atlanta all the way south to Buckhead, where it merged with Interstate 85.

  He estimated that Thorne had a ten-minute lead on them.

  “Get to 400 south,” he said. Unfamiliar with the neighborhood, he inputted the highway into the navigation system.

  She roared away from the curb, windshield wipers flinging away the persistent downpour.

  He studied the dot inching down the map. Where was Thorne going? Had he learned how they had pinpointed his precise location at the house? If Thorne was wise to them—and at this late stage, Cutty couldn’t risk underestimating the man any more—he would have figured out that satellite tracking had betrayed him, and would be planning to ditch the vehicle and find alternate transportation.

  In metro Atlanta, the most popular alternate transportation was MARTA, the metro rail and bus system. At that early morning hour, taxis could be hailed only within downtown Atlanta, or at the airport. Or, Thorne could be plotting to steal a car.