The Avenger

by Jo Robertson

  God willing. God willing. God willing. Repeated three times representing the Holy Trinity, she realized.

  "Introib ad altare Dei." He uttered what sounded like random words cobbled together as gibberish until she recognized disconnected words from the opening phrase of a Catholic mass.

  I shall go to the altar of God.

  Her head and neck now mobile, Olivia glanced around her to confirm that she indeed lay on an altar, its faux marble hard beneath her hips and shoulders.

  "Magnificat anima meas Dominum," he intoned.

  Her best hope for survival lay in pretending to accommodate Howard's religious fervor. She repeated his last words in English, "My soul does magnify the Lord."

  A look of surprise crossed his face. "Deus vobiscum." God be with you. His lack of proficiency in Latin was clear now. Howard used only common Latin phrases, apparently all that he knew, with only vague understanding of their applications.

  Trance-like, he pulled the white cloth down to her waist and placed the flat of his hand on her chest, nestled between her breasts. As she felt the return of sensation to the rest of her body, she twisted her head. At some point he'd unbuttoned the bottom of the thirty-three fastenings of the cassock. The robe fell open to show his nakedness and the undeniable evidence of his arousal.

  And the unmistakable point of the knife in his other hand. A bulge in the left full pocket that could mean another weapon.

  "Ave Maria," he whispered. "Beata Virgo Maria." Hail, Mary, blessed Virgin Mary. Did he mistake her for another vestal virgin? Or did he think she was Mary, the Mother of God?

  "Mater Dei," she spoke softly, letting the words trail from her tongue in what she hoped imitated religious rapture. Mother of God.

  "Amen," he answered. So be it. He reached both hands toward her, pulling her up from her prone position on the altar. As she sat up, the cloth clung to her loins. Putting modesty aside, running only on the instinct of survival, she stood and allowed Howard to take her left hand and escort her naked down the two steps from the altar podium to the carpeted runner that divided the congregational aisles.

  "From now on, you will be called Mary – Maria – and to this name you will answer for the rest of eternity." He looked slantwise at her, a hard look that brooked no disobedience. "Do you understand this great honor, Maria?"

  She inclined her head in proper servitude. "Fiat voluntas tua." She caught the fleeting look of confusion on Howard's face. As she'd thought, he was incapable of interpreting Latin constructions.

  Hoping he wouldn't notice the cover up, she hurriedly repeated, "Thy will be done."

  "Deus vult," he answered. God wills it.

  As they began the interminable march down the center aisle, Howard continued, "You are with child, Maria. Gloria Deo."

  Olivia jerked back, nearly pulling her hand from his light grip. Why did he suspect that? She'd just gotten her period. There was no way she was pregnant. There was no child.

  She opened her mouth to say as much and clamped it shut again. If Howard thought she was pregnant, she wouldn't disillusion him. She'd play into whatever bizarre religious scenario he was acting out. Modestly she placed her right hand on her belly. Howard smiled in approbation as they continued down the aisle to the imitation statute of Pietà, the Mother of God holding her son's broken body.

  Howard smiled beatifically, while she wondered what dark desires lay beneath the hallowed duplicity. She knew he desired her. No, he wanted to inflict pain on her, and struggled between hurting her and sacrificing her on the altar of his monstrously deluded ego.

  A moment later, if he hadn't been so intently focused on her, he would've seen what Olivia glimpsed from the corner of her eye. Beside the pillared Doric column, the faint shade of something animate.

  A shadow that might mean rescue.

  When Olivia glanced again a few moments later, the shadow was gone, but she knew it was Jack. Suddenly embarrassed by her nakedness, she turned toward Howard.

  "I should be clothed," she commanded, indicating her bare body with a sweep of her hand from head to foot. "Agnus Dei, Mater Dei." The Lamb of God, the Mother of God. She hoped he'd understand her use of the simple Latin phrases.

  A flicker of hope at the possibility of rescue made her knees weak and her hands tremble. Please, God, she thought, give Jack and me another chance.

  *

  The gas station attendant knew the property and its exact location. While Warren shifted impatiently, the pimply-faced kid whose nametag said Wayne, seemed intent on explaining the entire history of the church and its surrounding land.

  "Look," the Judge snapped, "just give us the goddamn directions."

  The attendant pouted for a moment as if he'd lost a big tip and then shrugged and pointed out the road that led to the unused church.

  Arriving at the turnoff a few minutes later and following the rutted asphalt road for a mile, they spotted an SUV with rental plates. It'd been pulled off to the side and leaned dangerously close to the edge of a one-foot ditch embankment.

  "I recognize the vehicle. Jack's been here." Slater pulled the squad car alongside the Blazer, ran a quick check to confirm the Blazer, and jumped out. He looked around and spied another smaller dirt road that wound westward into the trees and brush. "It's his. He's gone that way." He pointed toward the dirt road.

  "Why did he leave the car here?" ADA Torres asked.

  "Because," Warren said grimly, "he didn't want Randolph to hear him approach." Because he's the most brilliant agent I have, he thought silently, and sick as he is, he runs on all cylinders.

  While Torres placed a call for backup and Higgins clutched the medical bag, Slater started in the direction indicated by the teenager. The Sheriff drove fast on the one-lane, rutted road, clearly worried they wouldn't get there in time.

  "If anything happens to Olivia," Slater said, flashing Warren a meaningful look, "I'll look for who's to blame in this mess."

  Warren didn't have the luxury of worrying about the woman. He had to prioritize his objectives. First, get the antidote to Jack. Second, kill the DLK. Then, rescue the doctor.

  In that precise order. And his conscience be damned.

  *

  How dare she challenge him! Randolph opened his mouth to speak, raised his hand to strike the impudent whore whose voice demanded rather than begged. But he looked again at her face, her imperial manner, her majesty.

  Maria, not Olivia. She struck his heart with the stark purity of her gaze. Surely she was the Mother of God. He'd chosen well this time, and of course, she was correct. The clouded veil over his mind lifted.

  Suffer not the woman to behold her nakedness. Had he read that somewhere in the Old Testament? Or had he made it up? No matter, the words were profound, and as God's true, pure messenger, he had inherited the call to compose scripture.

  He picked up a hooded cloak that lay on the cathedra positioned behind the altar, and wrapped it around her shoulders, tying the tassels loosely and slipping the hood over her dark head. The luminous pools of her eyes stared at him briefly before dipping in modesty. Good, she understood her role in the miracle play they'd begun enacting.

  He hadn't yet decided to keep his original intention and sacrifice Maria as the others had been. He glanced sideways at her. After her earlier burst of fury, she appeared submissive. Had she fallen under the strength of his righteousness, under the power of God's will?

  Or was she trying to trick him? Evil abounded everywhere and suspicion ran high in his nature as was the nature of any true Avenger of God.

  Whichever, Maria was magnificent, small, with long dark hair. The Mother of the Lamb of God descended from the Tribe of Judah. To imagine her as blonde was blasphemy. The Mother of God was darkly regal like this woman, his Maria.

  He hesitated briefly. Except for the green eyes. They disturbed him in a way he didn't comprehend. He pushed the thought of those blazing emeralds aside. She might carry the child… then who could deny her nobility proved by immaculate concept
ion?

  He raked his eyes over her again, imagining the naked body beneath the robe, the luscious breasts, the supple arms and legs. Briefly he imagined himself enveloped in that embrace, lying between those legs, thrusting…

  No! Blood pounded in his head and he pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. Was she the mother of God? Or a Jezebel who tempted him to break his own vows?

  Part of him longed for the former while a powerful rage of desire tormented him. He clenched his fists at his sides. If she turned out to be other than who she pretended to be, by all that was holy, he'd extract an awful penance.

  He thought of the package he'd bought at a drug store on the way here. When he required her to perform the test, he'd know for sure. If she didn't now carry a child, if the test was negative and she was barren, her falseness would be proved by the results.

  *

  When they reached the parking lot of the abandoned church at 10098 Winding Ranch Road, Warren pulled a weapon from his shoulder holster and advanced to the front of the building. Slater followed closely.

  "They're in there." Slater had drawn his own weapon and it dangled at his side.

  "Seems so."

  "Olivia's my friend," Slater said. "I'm not waiting for backup."

  "I figure the two of us are enough."

  Slater squinted and looked over at the slight form of Higgins standing some yards way.

  Warren glanced at his assistant. "Let's just say some folks fare better behind a desk."

  "Let's do it then," Slater said without argument.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  With Jack's keen hearing he detected the rattle of wind and whisper of voices, and in the distance the scream of sirens. He judged how far away by the wailing that rang in his sensitized ears. Seventeen minutes, two patrol cars.

  The Judge's bullish scent reached Jack's nostrils strong and clear. So Warren had come and was close by. Not that it mattered. The whole situation would be over before anyone had a chance to enter the church.

  Olivia's higher-pitched but soft voice tinkled through the musty air like chimes in a breeze, and it was followed quickly by the oily sound of Randolph's words. Jack moved stealthily toward the source of the sounds, his knife blade clenched between his teeth. The sweat of the hunt slicked his flesh and he flashed back to the jungles of Africa and his last mission. It might all end here, he thought.

  The aroma of incense and smoking candles wafted through the building as he edged carefully through the dim room. The hollow slap of Olivia's bare footsteps and the much heavier tread of the killer's shoes resounded through the church.

  Jack darted behind a sleek column and peered into the large vault of the church's interior. Randolph held Olivia's left hand. Although her eyes had a heavy look, she appeared unharmed. Her bare feet showed from beneath the hem of a brown robe that covered her body and fell to the floor. In a single moment, she looked up and then quickly away as he jerked behind the column.

  Good. She'd seen him.

  He removed the knife from his teeth and hefted it once, twice. Grasping the knife by the blade, he raised his hand over his head and aimed for the vulnerable eye socket where the tip would pierce the brain and bring instant death. He darted another look around the column. Olivia stood between him and the target, an inadvertent barrier protecting Randolph.

  He hesitated.

  In the moment that he wavered, the quiet creak of a door opening in the foyer alerted him to someone entering the church. The Judge.

  Stupid move. There was a reason Warren avoided field assignments at his age.

  Howard Randolph reacted to the sound immediately, pulling Olivia in front of him and using her as a human shield. He eased backward one pace at a time. Jack stepped from the shadows in full view, his back to the foyer of the church. Olivia strained against the vise of Howard's arm around her waist.

  "Bitch!" Randolph snarled and cuffed her hard on the face with his free hand.

  From the pocket of his robe, he pulled a.32 caliber Baretta and pressed the barrel against her temple, his left arm still secure around her waist. The weapon was so small it looked like a toy, but Jack knew its lethal capacity.

  "Back up, Agent Holt," Randolph ordered.

  Had the threat to Olivia been a knife to her throat, Jack would've thrown his dagger straight for Randolph's exposed eyes. And he would've enjoyed watching the life drain out of the man as the blade penetrated the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. He was that sure of his skill.

  But even as fast as his reflexes were, he couldn't outrace the speed of a bullet. Livvie would be dead while his knife still flung through the air. His heart tripled-hammered in his chest, a fearful staccato wholly unfamiliar to him. He glanced once at her as her fingers dug into the powerful arms clutching her waist while rage flooded through him like the roar of a waterfall.

  The risk was too great.

  Slowly, he lowered the knife, crouched down, and laid it on the marbled floor.

  "That's a good boy," Randolph taunted. "Are you wondering how I know who you are, Agent Holt? Wondering how I knew where you'd hidden her." He indicated Olivia with a jerking of his chin. "While you've followed me, I've followed you." He grinned. "And her, of course."

  "I suppose you must be a very smart man, Randolph." Jack bared his teeth and growled quietly. "A computer search, an informant who knew, or you followed her. What does it matter?"

  "It doesn't. My, look at you, Agent Holt dressed like a cast member of… what? The Lord of the Flies?" His shrill laugh revealed his disintegrating mind.

  "Which character are you, I wonder?" he continued. "Are you Jack, Jack? Or Ralph? I'd have guessed Ralph when I saw you years ago, dressed so tidily in your federal costume of suit and white shirt. So sure that the rules would save everyone."

  The gun wavered in Randolph's hand while Jack considered rushing him. A mere leap and he'd be on him, ripping his throat out with gnashing teeth.

  "But now," Randolph continued, "seeing you in your primordial state, I realize you're not Jack. Not even Ralph. But Roger." He nodded as if answering his own question. "Yes, Roger of the simian brow and the jutting jaw. Man at his most primitive."

  Jack thought of Roger Strong, Olivia's stepfather, and tamped down the fury. "Shut the fuck up." The words came with a calm and coldness he didn't feel. As if he were the one who held all the cards, but the emotion was that of a beast in pain.

  Then the reflection of red and blue lights – from a patrol car, probably – flashed through the stained glass windows.

  "Cops are here, Randolph," Jack snarled. "You'll never get out alive." And if you put down that gun, you'll be dead in less than a second. I'll gut you faster than a hog for slaughtering.

  At Jack's warning, Livvie's expression changed and he imagined he saw revulsion fixed there, not for her captor, but for him, her would-be rescuer. The thought jarred him deeply.

  Randolph's eyes darted to the vestibule. "She dies first," he threatened, digging the pistol harder into Olivia's temple. "Kick the knife this way," he ordered.

  Jack heard the footsteps that crept through the vestibule into the church interior. Two men. He inhaled deeply and caught the familiar scent of his mentor and the steady odor of his old friend. The Judge and Slater.

  Suddenly a white, hot pain jabbed his right eye and he felt the burning sensation in his kidney. He nearly gasped aloud. Oh shit! Now he knew why Warren had showed up. The overdose of lysergic was shutting down Jack's systems.

  Not yet, he begged silently.

  He shook his head and forced himself to focus. He needed a single swipe to topple his enemy, but he couldn't risk that Randolph's involuntary jerking would release the hair trigger of the gun and discharge the weapon. He nudged the knife closer to where the man stood, still shielding himself with Livvie's body.

  Randolph crouched, dragging his captive down with him until they both squatted on the floor. "Get it," he ordered, shoving Olivia forward so that she could grasp the knife where it had
landed mere inches from her feet.

  Instinct shouted that this was the moment. Would Olivia know what to do? Jack caught her eye, gave her a silent message. Without considering the consequences, he leapt forward and caught Randolph under the chin. A sharp blow to the throat with an elbow toppled him.

  Olivia flung herself flat on the floor while the gun discharged, loud as a cannon shot in the vast, vaulted room. The robe slid off her shoulders and fell to the ground. She lay on her stomach, knees curled up beneath her, arms straight out for balance. She stared at Jack over her arm, her face reflecting horror and shock.

  That she witnessed him like this – carnal and primed for the kill – wounded him.

  Jack's forearm pressed against Randolph's throat and he waited to hear the distinct crunch that signaled the crushing of the small bones of the neck. Her eyes wide with shock, Livvie stared as he tightened his strangle-hold on Howard Randolph.

  Easing back, gazing into Olivia's stunned face, Jack wormed his way into her mind, and saw himself through her eyes. A wild brute, fierce, lustful, without reason or rationale. A creature driven by instincts and the basest desires. One which could kill without conscience or qualm.

  The latest model of the Invictus soldier.

  Jack remembered when Olivia had promised to love him no matter what. But how could she love a man like that? His heart thundered, the blood burned in his veins, and his muscles collapsed with fatigue. Loosening his grip on Howard Randolph, Jack rolled over onto his back.

  The last thing he saw before his eyesight narrowed to a small, dark tunnel was the Judge's florid face hovering over him.

  *

  Slater slammed the suspect to the floor and jerked his hands behind him, kneeling hard with his right knee in the center of the man's back. He then tightened the cuffs in a vicious twist. The DLK suspect coughed and sputtered, his throat an angry red blotch.