Silence followed for a moment. Megan, no longer wanting to witness the gruesome scene during the exchange between the two enemies, had remained seated with her back to the altar, her arms wrapped around herself as she shivered from both cold and fright. Despite the condition of her damaged ear, she could hear one set of footsteps upon the stone floor echoing within the chamber, as if their owner was wandering about. For a moment they stopped, and curiosity pushed her to peek around the corner of the altar. The man was standing over the lifeless body of Father Paul, with his back to her, and he was using a cloth of some sort to clean the blade of his sword.
When he had finished his task, he momentarily exited the room through the no longer threatening doorway. Shortly thereafter, he returned again, holding several items that Megan did not take time to focus on what they were, for he was approaching in her direction, and though she knew she had no reason to hide, she pulled her head out of his view. Reason convinced her that he was not here to harm her, but under the ongoing circumstances of the past several days, her trust in reason, in humanity, even her own instincts, was more than shaken.
Megan took a moment to try to still her quiet yet rapid breathing. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” she whispered repeatedly in a high-speed mantra.
Then, in mid-sentence of her fourth repetition, she paused, and dared to look up toward her right, where she saw the man standing quietly before her; tall, stoic, and erect. “Megan Panco,” he said with a gentleness that was in much contrast to his tone with the others who had occupied the room, “there is no longer any evil for you to fear.”
Chapter XIX
She stared at him like a confused child who couldn’t find any words to speak. Presently, he was holding out her jeans to her, as well as one of the dark robes worn by the cultists. “You’ll need these,” he instructed. “I couldn’t find your shirt though, so you’ll have to wear this.” She immediately took her pants, but hesitated when reaching for the robe. “It was an extra one I found. None of them wore it during the ritual.” Slowly, she began to reach for the clothing, but remained too apprehensive to commit to taking it.
The man offered a harmless smile. “If you prefer to go topless, I sure wouldn’t have any complaints, especially since it’s a bit chilly outside, except you’d turn quite a few heads once we get back to town.”
Megan froze her movements at this comment, again the confused look fell upon her face. “Sorry,” the man said with a lowered voice. “There really is no way to make light of this situation. To be honest, I don’t really know the right thing to say. The best I’ve got is that I’m here to save you, Megan. I’ve come to get you out of here and take you somewhere safe. And I promise not to let any harm come to you while I’m with you.”
There was an awkward silence between the two; they both became statues for a moment when a few seconds was all that was needed to make time stand still. Finally, Megan spoke, revealing her fear of him with a quivering voice; “You… you’re… Cliff?”
“Yes and no,” he answered. “Just a disguise.”
She looked him up and down, partially petrified by the cruelty of the violent nature he had displayed, though her mind was slowly starting to accept the necessity of it, and partially surprised by the contrasting gentleness of him now. “You don’t look a thing like Cliff,” she said, still with shakiness.
“It was a really good disguise,” he shrugged.
She couldn’t pull her eyes away from him, because of both awe and mistrust. “You don’t sound like him either.”
“I can also disguise my voice to sound like anyone,” he explained, suddenly sounding like the man who had ridden in her car two weeks ago in the rain.
“Unbelievable,” she gasped at the sudden change in his voice.
“Do you believe me now?” he asked, his voice now imitating hers perfectly. Although she continued to stare at him in shock, the man once again held out the clothing to her. She hesitated, but finally took the offering, trying to force herself from the distress that had overcome her.
The man turned his back to her to give her privacy while donning the clothing. “If you can manage it,” he said, “try to remain seated while you put them on. I don’t know how badly they punctured your ear, but it’s possible your balance is ruptured. Best to be safe until I can have a look at you.”
Megan hadn’t considered this. The pain in her ear throbbed terribly, but she didn’t feel like she would lose her balance if she were to try and stand up. On the other hand, she hadn’t been on her feet since before she had been forced to lie on the altar. She decided not to take any risks and began dressing from a seated position. Though, if she had sustained serious damage, she was curious as to how she would be able to manage her way out of this place.
First, she slipped the robe over her, then found the strength to lift her hips in order to slide her jeans up her legs, tucking the lengthy robe inside. Meanwhile, the man was taking a few trips to the back room, each time returning with two large containers in his hands, which she recognized immediately as there was one just like them in her parents’ garage. Her father had used it to fill his lawn mower with gas. When he had made his last trip from the room, there were six cans lined up along the back wall. “I suppose they keep this supply in case they ever have to get rid of any evidence of their activities in this place,” the man commented in response to Megan’s curious stare. “Not that they would ever have to use it, not unless things went really sour. The priest wasn’t lying; their influence runs deep. At any rate, we’ll put these to good use.”
“You’re… going to… burn this place?” she asked, still with a shakiness in her voice that she paid no mind to. She was surprised, after the ordeal she had just survived, that she could even formulate a complete sentence.
“As much as I can anyway,” he replied plainly as he approached and seated himself beside her. “This room is mostly stone, but the adjacent one and the structure beyond are built with wood. Should cause a cave-in to bury anything that isn’t consumed by fire.”
“I don’t get it,” Megan said, the wheels of her mind started turning again, and she started to block the trauma of her ordeal as someone uninvolved with the situation, as if looking at the situation from a safe, outside plane of existence, as if she were reading a book and somehow able to talk with its characters. “Why not expose what’s been going on here?”
The man, with his back against the side of the altar as hers was, let out a sigh. “Protection,” he answered. “Besides, exposure won’t happen. They’ve placed their associates in every aspect of society. They control the law, the media, even the government. But most people within those systems are generally good, innocent and unknowing citizens. If anyone not associated with them were to discover anything related to their secret activity, they would take great measure to silence those people. They have the resources to do so. We can’t let anyone not involved to know about this place. Otherwise, they and everyone they love would be in danger.”
Megan felt a chill run up her spine. It was hard to believe, even after all that she had seen, that the ones who abducted her were such a force, that they apparently infested the very core of all the working systems of the community; possibly even the nation.
“Not just the nation,” the man said. “Most of the world powers as well.”
Megan blinked astonishingly. Was he reading her mind?
“Sorry,” he added quickly. “We seem to have established a bit of a connection. It’s not very strong, but enough to…”
“How?” was all she could muster from her lips.
The man turned to her. “I believe this belongs to you, kiddo.” He pulled from the pocket of his leather jacket a small artifact that she recognized at once. With no delay, he placed her mother’s necklace in her hand. “I used it to find you. It’s hard to explain, but using it in that way sometimes also causes a slight mental link. I don’t think that will continue, now that I won’t have
it in my possession anymore.”
Megan quickly closed her hand into a fist and drew the necklace close to her heart. Up until now she had blocked out the terror and trauma that had been inflicted upon her. She was too distracted by the awe she felt for the man beside her. But, like the first breath someone takes after dodging a near-death event, her emotions swelled up and burst through a dam, and she began weeping uncontrollably. The idea of being an outside entity having now vanished from her mind, her mental wall crumbling.
The man hesitated, but eventually brought a gentle hand to rest on her shoulder. “I know…” he began, “…this is hard. You’ve been through hell, Megan.”
“I don’t… even know… what I’ve been through,” she cried. “Nothing… makes sense! It’s like… everything turned… upside down… in an instant… and I don’t know… how to get back… to normal… because I… don’t even know… where all of this has… left me.”
The man remained silent while she sobbed, waiting patiently for her emotions to quell. “I understand,” he finally answered. “Megan, I promise to help in any way I can…”
“How can I trust you?” she demanded accusingly. “You… you robbed me! You pointed a gun at my face!”
The man took his eyes from hers as if ashamed. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “My gun actually wasn’t loaded then… if that means anything.”
She shot him a look that indicated a desire to punch him in the jaw, if only she had had the strength. Even through the tears of her emotional breakdown, her expression was easily interpreted. “I needed your necklace,” he explained further. “I knew you were their next target Megan, and the only way I would be able to find you is if I had something of yours that you feel close to. I know that probably doesn’t make any sense, but I promise to explain everything to you. Once we’re safe. It’s a good thing that you’re letting it all out now. It shows you’re coming out of shock, and it’s the first step for healing. But for now, I need you to hold it together for just a while longer. You’re much stronger than you know. We’re getting out of here, but you’ll have to find whatever you’ve got in your reserve tank and use it now. Do you think you can do that? Just breathe slowly and it’ll come.”
Megan did as he said, and started slowly taking control of her hyperventilating. What the man said about using her necklace didn’t make much sense at all, but she didn’t doubt its veracity; stranger things have happened this night. Disguised as Cliff, he had told her that if she didn’t give him her necklace that she would die. As crazy as it sounded, she understood what he had meant now. She wiped at her nose with her sleeve and felt a fresh wave of pain from her injury, so she carefully moved her hand to her cheeks and did her best to dry her tears.
When she appeared calm, the man let go of her shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s take care of those wounds.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, but the man had a small backpack slung over his right shoulder which he now set down in front of himself in his seated position and removed a compact cooking pot made of stainless steel. The handles were wrapped around the pot, which he pulled outward until they were straight in their proper gripping position. He removed the lid, then took a plastic bottle of water from his bag, quickly opening it and pouring the contents into the pot. Next, he removed a small, leather pouch from the bag, as well as a spork made of the same material as the pot. Carefully, he scooped two sporkfuls of some mysterious, greenish powder from the pouch and added them into the pot of water. He followed with what appeared to be a few dry leaves and other herbal looking plants.
“What’s that?” Megan asked.
The man began to stir the contents. “A mixture of good stuff. You won’t find the contents in any published medical literature, but it’s a powerful remedy.”
“How do you know about it then?”
“Secret knowledge passed down,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“Like your werewolf story…” Megan commented, remembering the conversation she had with him in her car, when he appeared quite differently than he did now.
“Something like that.” When the man finished mixing the contents, the liquid inside had become thick like a paste. He held the pot to her. “Take just a little bit. Smear it on your wounds, or as close to them as you can.” He studied her right hand for a moment. “Your finger is swollen pretty badly.”
“I think it’s broken,” Megan said, recalling the sadistic acts wrought upon her earlier by Dr. Palmer.
“Use the paste on it, and it’ll heal,” he told her. “Try to ignore the pain. The cuts under your fingernails are just surface wounds, so that shouldn’t be too bad, but you might have some trouble with your nose and ear.” Megan did as he said. Though the stinging sensation in her ear and nostril was more than uncomfortable, she managed to rub the paste against the open wounds. Fresh blood now covered the index finger she used to complete the task.
As she had been working the paste into her wounds, the man took another water bottle and poured it into the pot, stirring again until the paste had thinned out again. Immediately he pulled from the bag a small can the size and shape of a hockey puck. “Tuna fish?” she asked perplexed, as the can resembled the types she would buy from the local supermarket.
The man smirked. “It’s a homemade portable stove. Filled with denatured alcohol. It’s actually made from the bottom portions of two soda cans. I just cut those pieces off and slid them into each other.” He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit it near a hole in the center of the can’s top. Megan immediately heard a mild “poof” as the liquid inside reacted. Quickly, he placed a quarter on top of the center opening, which forced tiny flames to shoot out from much smaller holes that surrounded the edge of the can. To her amazement, it suddenly resembled a miniature gas stove, like the one her grandmother had in her kitchen. The man then held the pot a few inches above the flames. “I’ve been meaning to make something to rest the pot on over the stove, so I don’t have to hold it,” he said as if conversing with an old friend. “I just need to fit some bicycle spokes into brass tubing and bend them at the top. It’ll fold nicely, but when unfolded it wraps around the can and keeps the pot just above it.”
“Is that secret knowledge passed down too?”
“Nah,” the man shrugged. “YouTube. Some avid hiker made a video about it. Pretty cool stuff, if you’re into ultra-light backpacking.”
Under normal circumstances, Megan would’ve made a quirky remark about his level of dorkiness the way someone would tease a friend or little brother. Instead she stared at the makeshift stove with a look of one who was thoroughly impressed. Circumstances had been far from normal since the night she first met him, and though the nightmare seemed to have passed, she still wondered if all of this wasn’t just a dream. Her mind was slowly allowing her to register all the mysterious phenomena that she had witnessed. The hypnotic state, or mind control she had been forced into. The visual replay of Ryleigh’s horrid murder. The unspeakable presence that haunted her during the demonic ritual. The man’s dramatic entrance and uncanny fighting skills. His apparent supernatural ability to locate her using her mother’s necklace, not to mention the mindreading. Bullets passing right through the priest as if he were a shadow. All of it slowly filling her thoughts. None of it making any sense. She had a million questions she wanted answered. She would demand them answered. But she would wait.
Once we’re safe, he had told her.
The water began to boil. The man handed Megan the spork and placed the pot in front of her. “Sip it slowly,” he told her, “but try to drink it all while it’s hot. It might thicken again when it cools.”
“How’s it taste?” she asked when the pungent odor reached her nostrils, making her wince.
“Like shit,” he admitted, “but it’ll speed up the healing process, especially where you can’t reach in your ear. Your wounds will itch like hell though… for a little while anyway.”
“This stuff isn’t going to sedate me, or drug me in
any way that’ll make me do whatever you tell me to, will it?”
“No.”
“People that I’ve trusted, even loved, turned out to be using me. All of them not what they seemed… even my boyfriend was part of it.”
The man nodded. “You wonder how you can trust me. Or anyone for that matter. If you can’t trust people you’ve known and cared for, how can you trust someone who’s practically a stranger. I get it.”
She looked at him with an unspoken affirmative in her eyes, waiting… hoping for an explanation that would convince her that she was truly safe with him.
“But to be frank,” he continued, “I don’t see you having too many other options right now. The police can’t help you. You’ve seen for yourself that their own chief was part of this. Most of them are good men and women, but they’re looking for you.”
“They are?”
Now it was he who shot her a look, one that was easily interpreted as Duh. “You’ve been missing for almost two weeks, Megan. It’s all over the news. But once you’re found, those who are part of this cult will come for you. You no longer have to worry about being a sacrifice. That window’s been closed. But they’ll want to know what happened. They’ll get to you, which will lead them to me and my loved ones.”
“I thought you wanted that,” Megan countered. “You said it’ll save you the trouble…”
“That was just bravado,” the man interrupted. “Strategically, it would be stupid for me to give them the power to decide where, when, and how to strike at me. I’d like to keep the ball in my court as much as possible. But more importantly Megan, once they have all the information they can get from you, they’ll kill you.”
Megan looked down at the pot in front of her. The last of the bubbling had ceased, but a thick pillar of steam still emerged from the surface of the liquid inside. “So, you’re saying I have no choice but to go with you.”
The Paladin's Message Page 33
