I frowned, a twinge of anger running through me as I remembered the feeling of helplessness when the two priests had held a gun to my and Andrea’s heads. I understood the reasoning behind it, but it didn’t mean I was happy about it.
While we were talking, the other priests went back to their vehicles to retrieve their accouterments. I saw several rosaries, vials of what I assumed was holy water, and some leather harnesses that looked medieval.
The priest said, “We have some measure of protection from their power; enough, I hope, to complete the binding ritual. I recommend both of you wait outside until we secure the building. Here…”
He handed a necklace with a silver cross pendant on the end of it to Hollingsworth, and gave one to me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s blessed. Should an agent of evil attack you directly, the effects will be significantly diminished. It could save your life. We all wear one.” Father Webber reached beneath his collar and pulled out a length of chain to show us.
I slipped the necklace over my head and tucked the cross inside my shirt.
Father Webber said, “Once we have them in constraints, we will put them in our van and bring them to the facility for permanent storage.”
It all sounded simple, and though I sensed we were at the final stretch of this road of madness, I felt a distinct lack of closure.
“I’d like a few minutes with Lawrence,” I said, and Hollingsworth narrowed his eyes at me.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not looking for revenge. I just want some answers. I need to know everything.”
Father Webber regarded me for a moment, and then gave a quick nod. “I’m sure something can be arranged, Mr. Chase.”
With that, the priest returned to his colleagues and they set about their final preparations.
When they were ready, the priests approached the main entrance. After a last check, Father Webber opened the door and the holy men hurried inside, some holding crosses out in front of them, others wielding the vials.
As the last one went in, I felt my heart rate increase, and I took an involuntary step forward, as if to follow behind, though I was uncertain whether it was to help the priests, or help the hosts.
Hollingsworth put a hand on my shoulder. “Trust me, you don’t want to see what happens. The screams…”
I gritted my teeth. “You mean torture?”
“They’re evil,” he said. “Whatever those things inside the hosts are. It’s the only way to stop the Watchers.”
“But what about the hosts?” I asked, aware that my father had once had one of the unholy spirits in him. He was innocent, but that didn’t matter; he would have felt every ounce of pain inflicted on the Watchers.
“If it’s any consolation,” Hollingsworth said, “once the ritual is completed, the Watcher’s influence is completely cut off from the host. The pain ends.”
Trusting that he was speaking the truth, I relaxed a little and took a deep breath.
I sucked it back in sharply when I saw the front door open. Father Putnam poked his balding head out and, once he spotted us, waved for us to come over.
Sharing a look with Hollingsworth, I started walking toward him.
“Would it be over this quickly?” I asked.
The detective’s only answer was a frown and quick shake of his head.
“What’s going on?” he asked the priest when we got within earshot.
“Nothing,” Father Putnam said, his lips pressing together in displeasure.
“What do you mean?”
The priest opened the door wider to let us in. “There’s no one here.”
I said, “I thought Father Webber said the trap closed?”
“It did, but the building is deserted.”
Once I stepped inside, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Several of the priests held flashlights, though their beams were hardly powerful enough to provide full illumination.
I noticed none of the computers or office equipment were on, either.
I asked, “They shut down the electricity?”
“In a way,” said Father Webber, who approached when he saw we were there. “It looks as if one of them sent an electrical surge through the entire building.”
That would not only short out the electrical system, but… “The computers?”
“Fried,” Father Putnam said, standing near the receptionist’s desk. “You can smell the burning plastic if you get close. Whatever information they had on their hard drives is probably irretrievable now.”
I walked over to the filing cabinet behind the desk and opened it. The drawer glided forward revealing dozens of files full of papers. I pulled one out and was surprised to discover they were all blank.
“It was all a front,” I said, confirming our earlier suspicions. “Hiding in plain sight.” I turned to Hollingsworth. “There must have been some printed records. They brought us the file on my father’s proposal.”
Father Webber said, “We looked in the basement. No one’s there, but there are a lot of storage boxes. There could be records in them.”
Beckoning Father Putnam to join us, Father Webber picked up a flashlight and led us to the stairwell.
As we went down, I asked, “Do you have any idea why the trap didn’t work?”
Father Webber said, “I don’t know. It’s possible they were here when we began the ritual. That’s why they created the surge to destroy the computers. Somehow, they must have gotten out in the moments before the ritual was completed.”
Father Putnam spoke with a miserable tone. “Perhaps they got out through the roof.” I gave him a questioning look, and he said, “It’s always the weakest point in a spirit trap; the first part to degrade.” He looked over at Father Webber, and then dropped his gaze to the stairs.
The older priest said, “We have someone up there looking to see if they got out that way.”
“They were operating in secret,” I said. “If they’re so powerful, why haven’t they come out to do whatever it is they’re planning?”
Father Webber said, “I’m sure if they were in a position to reveal their presence to the world, they would have done it by now. I believe they are far from organized; they have, perhaps, only a few Watchers recruited so far.”
“But organized for what?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Father Webber shared a look with Father Putnam. “We’ve tried to interrogate those we captured, but our efforts have borne no fruit.”
In the basement, we followed a corridor to a large area with metal racks along the walls and lined up down the middle of the room. There were hundreds of boxes stacked on the shelves, and the four of us immediately picked one at random and looked inside.
“Looks like typical business expenses,” I said. “Utility bills, telephone, office supplies.” I put the lid back on and went to the next box. It was filled with more of the same.
“Invoices,” Hollingsworth said, pushing his first box away. “Orders for genetic testing equipment and maintenance fees.”
Father Webber’s box contained employee files. “We’ll take this with us,” he said to Father Putnam. “We should interview anyone who worked here.” Instead of pushing the box back, he pulled it off the shelf and put it down near the door.
I walked across the room to the other set of shelves, Hollingsworth following behind.
There was a great roaring sound and the floor buckled underneath me. It opened in a gaping chasm.
Both Hollingsworth and I fell in.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I landed hard, and the pain in my knee that had slowly been receding came back with a vengeance. Unable to help myself, I let out a howl. I felt dizzy and nauseated. I thought I was going to pass out.
“Are you all right?” a voice said, and when I looked up, I saw Hollingsworth crouching beside me. He held one hand to his elbow.
Soon, the worst of the pain receded, and I nodded my head. “I think so.”
> Rubble from the broken concrete floor cascaded down, and I coughed as the dust got in my throat.
When I glanced up, I saw the beams of two flashlights playing around us as the priests leaned over the opening.
“Are you hurt?” Father Webber called down.
“Just my knee,” I said through gritted teeth. “I think I’m going to need to go to a hospital.”
“Can you stand?” Hollingsworth asked.
I tried to extend my leg, but another wave of agony coursed through me, and I bit down on my tongue.
“I don’t think so.”
Standing up, Hollingsworth surveyed our situation. “We’re in a tunnel,” he said.
“Sewer?” Father Webber asked, aiming the flashlight around the walls of the cave-in.
“No.” Hollingsworth took a step closer to one side and grabbed the edge of a large slab of concrete. Grunting, he pulled back on it until it fell away, revealing a narrow hole extending under the floor. The walls of the tunnel were jagged and uneven. Clumps of hard-packed earth fell from the top of the passageway.
“Lawrence did this,” Hollingsworth said.
Father Webber snapped his fingers. “Of course. They must have anticipated that we would try to seal them in with a spirit trap. So long as they were beneath the structure when the ritual ended, they wouldn’t be caught.” He turned as Father Putnam called out from the opposite leg of the tunnel from where Hollingsworth was.
“There’s a hole over here big enough to fit a person.”
Hollingsworth said, “Toss me a flashlight, Father.”
The priest did so, and the detective pointed the beam down the tunnel. “I’ll bet this connects with the sewer system somewhere down there.”
“They could be anywhere by now,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even through the pain.
“Wait a minute.” Hollingsworth leaned into the tunnel. A moment later, he said, “I think I see something down there. Looks like a piece of paper. It might be important; it could give us an idea what they’re up to or where they’re going.”
“Be careful,” I said as he got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the opening. He paused and looked back at me.
“Always,” he said.
Above me, Father Webber said, “Here, take this.” He’d grabbed Father Putnam’s flashlight and tossed it to me. I missed catching it, and it rolled a few feet away. I couldn’t reach it lying on my side, so I flipped over to my stomach. My knee still throbbed, but at least I could retrieve the flashlight.
With great care, I crawled on my stomach to get a closer look at the opening. I shined the light behind Hollingsworth. His bulk filled the entire circumference of the tunnel, and I could only follow his progress by his flashlight.
When he got about twenty feet down the tunnel, he stopped.
“Did you get it?” I asked.
Muffled, his voice came back. “It’s just out of reach, but I’m stuck. My coat is caught on a rock or something. I can’t back up.”
“Just wait,” I said, “I’ll be right there.”
Trying to ignore the pain that came every time I put any pressure on my bad knee, I crawled into the tunnel behind Hollingsworth.
My progress was much slower than the detective’s, but in a few minutes I got close enough to see that his coat had torn on a rock and was caught on the hem. The tunnel had narrowed enough at that point that he’d tried to squeeze through by twisting himself to one side. Now, he couldn’t back out or move forward.
“I’m here,” I said. “You all right?”
“Just feeling a little like a sardine.”
I reached out to unhook the coat from the rock, but the way Hollingsworth was positioned, the cloth was just out of my grasp.
“I’m going to have to lean on your leg,” I warned him, and just as I inched forward, he hissed at me.
“Shh.”
“What?”
“I heard something up ahead.”
“A rat?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, his words coming slowly. I could sense him try to shift his bulk, and he jerked one foot, which caught me on the shoulder.
“Ouch,” I said, but then Hollingsworth began to shout. At first, I thought perhaps he’d seen a rodent, as I’d guessed, but then I made out what he was saying.
“Get out, get back,” he shouted, and I realized he was directing the order at me. “It’s Lawrence.”
My stomach tightened at that. I hesitated only a moment before I started heaving on Hollingsworth’s leg, trying in vain to pull him back through the narrow part of the tunnel.
“Hollingsworth!” I shouted. “Frank! Get out of there!” I continued pulling on his leg, but he wasn’t budging.
His entire body began to wiggle, and I saw that he was moving his arm back to his hip. Somehow, he managed to pull his gun out of its holster and bring it up in front of him.
As he flattened himself to bring the weapon forward, a gap opened between him and the ceiling of the tunnel. I saw Lawrence coming closer, a maniacal grin on his face. He wasn’t looking at Hollingsworth, but at me.
“There you are,” he said, eyes wide. “The chase is finally over.” He laughed at what he must have thought was a clever twist on my name. Though he was larger than Hollingsworth, Lawrence was not hindered by the narrowness of the tunnel. Like a worm, he seemed to slide forward. He closed the distance quickly.
The detective kept fumbling with his gun. The breadth of his shoulders and arms prevented him from being able to take aim.
Lawrence reached him before he could bring his gun to bear, and Hollingsworth jerked up, blocking my view.
He began to scream.
I couldn’t see, but I could imagine what was happening.
Behind me, I heard shouts as the two priests called out, demanding to know what was going on.
Desperately hoping they might be able to help, I shouted down the tunnel.
“It’s him; it’s Lawrence. He’s killing Hollin—”
The last part of the word was cut off by the surprisingly loud report of a gunshot.
For a split second, I thought Hollingsworth must have discharged his weapon before he had a chance to aim. The bullet must have ricocheted backwards, because I felt a sharp blinding pain split through my body.
I’d been shot!
Shock set in, and though my entire body lit up in a blossom of agony, I had wherewithal enough to look for the point of entry. If the bullet had hit a major artery, I would probably bleed out before I could crawl back down the tunnel and get help, but if the wound was non-vital, I could stop the bleeding by applying pressure.
After several panicked moments of searching, I couldn’t find the bullet hole.
A wave of nausea hit me, and I lost my bearings. On the verge of passing out, I fought to remain conscious.
“Hollingsworth,” I tried to say, reaching out to grab him. When my fingers touched his leg, an incredible thing happened.
As if his entire body had been run through a CT Scan, the detective’s complete physiology was suddenly apparent to me. I could sense the positioning of all his major organs, his skeletal frame, including his fractured skull, and a roadmap of his nervous system.
He wasn’t dead, but he would be in moments. The damage to his brain would kill him. I sensed Lawrence had not yet begun to absorb Hollingsworth’s cells; the detective was still physiologically whole.
On pure instinct, I willed the shattered bone of his skull to mend, the fluid in his brain to resume normal flow, and his nervous system to reactivate.
He was still in critical condition, perhaps even in a coma, but he would live.
I concentrated on myself. With a thought, the ligaments in my knee healed. The pain in my leg, and everywhere else I’d sustained bumps and bruises the past two days, vanished.
I fully realized what had happened at the same moment as Father Webber shouted.
“It’s transferred to Mr. Chase.”
The prie
sts figured out I was possessed by Araqiel. Since I was able to heal myself and Hollingsworth, it had to be true. The only way that would happen was if Lawrence was dead. Hollingsworth must have shot him point-blank in the head. That kind of brain trauma would be too quick and too severe for Lawrence to be able to heal himself.
Unlike Lawrence, who needed healthy cells from others, I could heal myself with the power of my own will.
The older priest spoke with urgency. “Quickly, Father Putnam, we must bind him before the beast gains control.”
More than the shock of what was happening to me, the words cut through my thoughts. They were going to bind me with their holy ritual and drag me off to their facility.
Panic at the thought of being trapped for the rest of my life set in.
Lawrence had been able to create this tunnel to allow his Watcher comrades to escape the building. If the power had transferred to me, then I should be able to do the same.
Careful not to cause any additional injury to Hollingsworth—who was unconscious but alive—I put my hands on the side of the tunnel and willed vibrations to emanate outward. It only took a few seconds for me to understand the nature of the power. I was able to create an opening by pushing the earth out in a circular fashion. Like a worm, I burrowed through the adjacent tunnel I’d created and slowly arced back to the one Lawrence had made.
With Hollingsworth and the corpse of Lawrence Bukowski between the priests and me, I quickly made my way down the tunnel.
Within a few dozen yards, the tunnel came out in the city’s sewer system. Assuming that Father Webber would have his cadre of priests fan out looking for me to come out of one of the grates, I followed the sewers, taking random turns left and right.
It seemed surreal. After two days of hunting for Lawrence, and being hunted by him, it was over. I had a hard time believing it.
Now, the Watcher, Araqiel, possessed me. Aside from being in tune with the power, and being able to perform these miraculous actions, I didn’t feel any different. A foreign consciousness had not taken me over. I didn’t suddenly feel the need to go on a murderous rampage, as Lawrence had. Essentially, I still felt like me. It was a difficult fact to reconcile, especially after Father Webber’s diatribe that the Watcher would corrupt its host absolutely.
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 55
