Being possessed didn’t make the hosts evil. I wasn’t evil, though I was aware the Watcher inside me was.
I could control it, though it had been hard to do. For a moment, I’d allowed my anger free rein, and the spirit within me had taken advantage of my weakness. I’d lashed out at Father Putnam.
But I’d stopped short of killing him, and repaired the damage. Now, I would keep a tight rein on my emotions, as had Darcy and Richard. They were the ones who used the power of the Watchers, not the other way around—and then only when absolutely necessary.
There had to be another way other than rounding up all the hosts and dumping them into a freezer.
Father Webber was beyond reasoning with, however. I knew that. He was a true believer, had complete faith in what he was doing, and there was nothing I was going to say to change his mind. There was no compromising.
His organization had drawn the likes of Father Putnam, who seemed to be more interested in harnessing the elemental power of the Watchers than restraining it. Who knew what other corruptions I would find if I looked harder?
I had to make a choice, and when it came down to it, I had to follow my nature. As a healer, I had vowed to do no harm. I could not allow the hosts who’d been sealed in the cryonic chambers to die, and even if I wanted to, I did not have the resources to take Father Webber’s place.
I said to him, “You may not believe this, but being possessed does not make us evil. I don’t condone what you’re doing. As cliché as it is, you should know the ends do not justify the means. What you’ve done to these people is wrong.”
“There is no other way,” he said, lifting his head in declaration as he said it.
Ignoring the searing pain of the spirit trap surrounding the hold, I took a step closer to the doorway.
“I won’t take revenge on you for Andrea,” I said, pointing at him, “but I will find a way to bring you to justice.”
The look he gave me was more of puzzlement than defiance, but before I could say anything more, the entire ship rocked, as if hit by a torpedo.
The momentum of it knocked the ship to one side, and I fell hard against the wall.
“Trickster!” Father Webber, who’d fallen to his knees, said. “You’re trying to distract us with your serpent’s tongue. You and the other Watchers cannot breach these defenses.”
Were Darcy and Richard renewing their attack?
Another explosion rumbled through the ship. This time, with my hand making contact with the bulkhead, it was as if I could sense the elements contained within the metal of the ship.
The blasts weren’t coming from the outer hull; they were coming from below decks; in the engine room. It wasn’t Darcy or Richard attacking the ship; someone was overloading the boilers until they exploded.
If enough of them blew, it would punch a hole in the ship too large for any of the crew to make repairs.
Someone was trying to sink us.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dismissing Father Webber and his priests from my mind, I turned on my heel and raced back down the corridor. When I got to the stairs and went into the well, I realized they wouldn’t take me down to the lowest level.
Popping back out into the corridor, I searched for a map of the ship. After darting into a cross hall, I found one, and studied it. I had to go two levels up and make my way to the aft section to access the level containing the engines.
Racing back to the stairwell, I ascended in a mad rush. If it weren’t for a familiar tingle that coursed through me, I wouldn’t have realized that Darcy and Richard were on board. With the priests no longer sustaining it, the spirit trap must have finally disintegrated. The two were in the midpoint of the ship, one level up.
I went up to that level and headed toward them.
Before I could reach them, I saw a silhouette of a figure race down a side corridor.
I recognized Father Putnam, who shot me a look of hatred as he bolted away.
He was the saboteur!
Was he mad? He was going to undo all the work his organization had done. Releasing the captured Watchers back into the world would only create more chaos. Furthermore, his actions would most likely mean the death of Father Webber and the other priests.
Unlike his superior, Father Putnam wanted to use the power of the Watchers; he’d said it was his way of fighting fire with fire. I suspected the balding priest had no interest in removing the threat of the Watchers from the world.
I realized this was what he’d wanted all along. He wanted the Watchers freed so that he could control them. Father Putnam wanted their power for himself. It was the only explanation.
My first impulse was to chase him down, but the imminent danger was still the boilers.
Darcy and Richard appeared beside me.
“Was that Father Putnam?” Richard said in a gasp.
“Never mind him,” I said. “We need to figure out how to stop the boilers from overloading and exploding.”
Though I could tell Richard wanted nothing more than to go after Father Putnam, he nodded to me.
“What’s going on?” Darcy asked.
“Father Webber and his priests are in the hold guarding a number of cryonic chambers. They’ve frozen twenty or so hosts, effectively imprisoning their Watchers as well. This is the facility.”
Her face hardening at the news, Darcy said, “I mean the explosions. Why is Father Putnam trying to overload the boilers?”
“He’s trying to sink the ship,” I said.
“Good.” Richard ground his teeth.
“Not good. If the ship sinks, the cryonic chambers will cease to function. The hosts will die, releasing the Watchers.”
For a moment, he looked confused, as if wondering at the source of my objection, then he brightened. “If they possess a weak-willed host, we’ll have a bunch of Casanova Killers and others like that running around again.”
Darcy said, “Lead on.”
“The engine room is that way,” I said, pointing toward the ship’s aft section.
“Let’s go.” She gestured for me to take the lead, and I headed down the corridor at a jog.
“How did you find me?” I asked. “I told you Father Webber’s compound was south of Chicago.”
“We went there, but it was deserted,” Darcy said. “So we looked up a friend of yours.”
Without breaking stride, I glanced sideways at her.
She said, “Hollingsworth is very grateful you saved his life. He’s still recovering. We convinced him not all of the possessed are bad. He agreed to help. After all, you saved his life.”
Considering everything the detective had been through, I was sure it hadn’t been an easy decision. He’d lost not one but two partners to the Watchers. Understandably, it had clouded his judgment; that was why he’d turned a blind eye to Father Webber’s despicable tactics. I was glad he hadn’t gone so far down the path of zealotry that he couldn’t be reasonable.
“Andrea’s dead,” I said, my voice flat. We reached the stairwell to the engine room.
“Oh, no.” Darcy stopped and gave me an intense questioning look. I could see the sympathy in her eyes, but I turned away before I succumbed to grief.
“Father Webber.” I choked on the words. “He couldn’t afford the risk that she’d tell the authorities.”
Clenching his fists, Richard growled. “Bastards.”
Both of them had lost loved ones recently. If anyone could understand what I was going through, it was Darcy and Richard. I wanted to tell them how I’d reacted, lashing out against Father Putnam, but that I’d taken control of myself at the last moment. The confession would be a way to assure them that I was more like them than the other Watcher hosts, who had completely surrendered to the influence of the evil spirits inside them.
Before I could say anything, another blast shook the ship, and we pitched to one side.
“Quickly,” Darcy said, recovering her balance and heading down the stairs.
Before we reac
hed the engine room, I saw smoke wafting up through the stairwell. At the doors, the roaring of the engines still in operation, combined with the three boilers that were on fire, drowned out anything we could say to each other.
The engine room wasn’t nearly as big as the hold, but it was crowded because of the boilers, pistons, turbines, generators and several banks of electrical control panels. The high level of noise in the room was only compounded by the boilers that were being overloaded.
The explosion from the first three boilers had not been enough to puncture the bulkhead, but I didn’t think that was Father Putnam’s plan. Near the boilers, there were several huge tanks clearly labeled flammable. The next blast could rupture those tanks, causing a secondary explosion that would most likely be powerful enough to breach the hull.
There were three boilers still intact, and I looked at the gauge showing the internal temperature. The needle was rising toward the section marked off in red.
The problem was, I had no idea how to stop them from exploding. I stared at the valves. I didn’t want to choose one at random; I might only make the situation worse.
Quelling the panic growing in me, I looked closer at the valves, hoping they were labeled.
Richard turned toward one of the other boilers. Darcy stepped over to the last.
We quickly surveyed the big machines, and Richard called out.
“Here.”
He pointed to a large valve beside a long metal tube that extended up to the ceiling. “It’s the pressure release.”
He put his hand on the valve, but immediately pulled it back and cried out.
I hurried over.
His hand was blistering. Immediately, I put my hand over his and healed the damage.
“Thanks,” Richard said, looking at the new pink skin on the palm of his hand.
Nodding to him, I turned to the valve that had burned him and put my hand near it. The heat was so intense it would melt skin and cook flesh in seconds.
Darcy said, “Richard, can you cool it down?”
The young man turned to the valve and his face took on a look of concentration.
I felt wind rising inside the engine room. My hair whipped around and my ears hurt from the sharp whistling noise as Richard directed the airflow at the valve.
Soon, he relaxed, and the wind he’d generated dissipated. Gingerly, he reached out for the valve, but his reaction proved the metal was still too hot to touch.
“It’s no use,” Richard said, gritting his teeth.
The needle showing the internal temperature kept moving toward the red. Judging from the gauge, we had less than a minute before the next boiler exploded.
“You two go,” I said. “Save as many of the crew as you can.”
“What are you going to do?” Darcy asked.
I regarded the pressure valve. “I can do this.”
She gave me a doubtful look, and I smiled at her encouragingly.
Finally, she nodded and gestured for Richard to follow her.
Before the two left, she said, “If it doesn’t work, you get out as fast as you can.”
“You know I will,” I said and promptly dismissed the two of them from my mind.
Estimating which of the three boilers would blow first, I went to it and took a deep breath to prepare myself.
Though I’d only had the use of Araqiel’s powers for a short time, I had a lifetime’s worth of knowledge of human anatomy. Once I put my hands on the valve, and my flesh burned, the pain signals going to my brain would cause me to pull away out of instinct. I had to fight that instinct and push through the impulse.
As I reached out to grab the valve, I began to heal myself before my skin even touched the super-heated metal.
Grasping the device, I tried to ignore the steam rising from my cooking skin.
I continued to heal the damage in my hands even as every cell I repaired was destroyed an instant later.
It took everything in me to remember to turn the valve.
At first, it wouldn’t budge, and I wondered if the heat had somehow welded the valve shut.
Then I heard a high-pitched whine as the metal scraped against metal, and the valve turned a few degrees.
I got a better grip on the pressure release and turned again. My entire body was shaking from the effort of healing myself.
The sound of screaming grew in intensity, and I realized it was coming from me. Still, I pushed on. After another turn, the valve opened faster, and I could hear the steam rushing out of the venting tube over my own cries.
The blistering agony in my arms was overwhelming, but I continued turning the valve until it opened completely.
Sweating, exhausted, and struggling to keep from falling to my knees, I looked at the temperature gauge. The needle was dropping back to normal.
It worked!
My exultation was short-lived, however. There were two other boilers, and I estimated one of them would be in the red in less than thirty seconds.
Pushing myself through sheer willpower, I went to the boiler and stood in front of the valve. With a primal scream, I grabbed the valve and put as much pressure on it as I could.
Within seconds, it began to move.
I was starting to grow exhausted from using the power.
Unable to stop myself from crying out at the pain, I gave the valve one more hefty turn, and it opened all the way. The second boiler started cooling down.
One boiler to go. Though I willed myself to go over to it, my feet wouldn’t move. It was too hard, and my mind was too numb from the pain.
I called on the power of the Watcher inside me, but there was only so much a mortal could endure.
Somehow, I staggered the few steps over to the last valve.
The gauge was already in the red.
Raising my hands up, I tried to flex my fingers but couldn’t. My skin was blackened, charred.
I remembered something Darcy had said.
In order to control the power, sometimes you had to surrender to it.
I rebelled against the idea. Lawrence had surrendered to it, and it had overwhelmed him. He had succumbed to the influence, and had gone on a murderous rampage.
I had let the power get the better of me and almost killed Father Putnam. Whether he deserved to be killed or not, it was not and never would be in my nature to murder someone.
If I surrendered to the power, I would risk letting Araqiel overcome me.
However, if I vented it, as I was trying to vent the pressure from the boiler, and directed it, I could save my life and retain control of my psyche.
I would have to find a way to surrender to the power, accept it as a part of me, while at the same time rejecting the influence of the Watcher, who was possessing me.
With a thought, I opened myself up to the power and let its full essence fill my consciousness.
Like a tiger pouncing on its prey, Araqiel surged up from within me. In moments, the seared flesh on my hands healed, the skin turning from black to pink before my eyes.
Aware that I had to push the Watcher back down into my subconscious the moment I’d achieved my goal, I threw both my hands on the valve and turned it with all the strength I could muster.
The valve moved half a turn, but I was too late—
—the boiler exploded.
I was thrown across the engine room, and my head hit something sharp.
An electrical panel ignited, sparks shooting out in all directions. The flames reached the bank of fuel tanks.
The last thing I saw was a tidal wave of fire rushing toward me … and I felt the enormous pressure of it crushing me.
Epilogue
Detective Hollingsworth drove up the suburban street, leaning over the steering wheel while trying to read the numbers on the houses. Finally, seeing the one he was looking for, he pulled his vehicle up alongside the curb and shut off the engine.
He didn’t get out right away. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and then let it out.
&n
bsp; “This is the worst part of my job,” he muttered, and sucking in one more breath to fortify himself, he opened the door and stepped out.
As he strode up the walkway to the front door, he pulled his overcoat tighter around his shoulders.
Hesitating for only a moment when he reached the top step, he pressed the doorbell, and then stood back while he waited for the residents to answer.
A few seconds later, the front door opened and a narrow-shouldered man with salt-and-pepper hair appeared in the doorway. He frowned as Hollingsworth held up his badge.
“Mr. McMillan?”
“Yes…?”
“I’m Detective Frank Hollingsworth, Chicago PD.”
A petite woman wearing a kitchen apron came up beside her husband. “What’s this about?”
“Mrs. McMillan,” Hollingsworth said, “I was hoping to speak to your daughter.”
“Hasn’t she been through enough?” Mrs. McMillan asked, her eyes hardening.
“Please,” the detective said, “It’s important.”
“Very well.” Mrs. McMillan vanished from the doorway while her husband folded his arms across his chest and glared at Hollingsworth wordlessly.
Half a minute later, another woman, who was in her early thirties, put a hand on the man’s shoulder to draw him back out of the way.
“It’s all right, Dad,” Andrea Chase said. “I know him.”
With a terse nod, Mr. McMillan stepped back.
Facing the detective, looking both questioning and concerned at the same time, Andrea said, “I’ve been preparing myself for this moment. He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Bowing his head, Hollingsworth slid his badge back inside his coat pocket. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Chase. No one survived the accident.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she pressed her lips together tighter, trying to brave the news.
Hollingsworth said, “He was a good man. He—” His voice caught in his throat. “He saved my life. I wish there had been something I could have done.”
Looking off to the side, Andrea held herself steady. Then she put a hand to her mouth. Finally, she said, “Thank you for coming personally, Detective Hollingsworth. I appreciate it.”
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 59
