The Prophet Box-Set: Books 1-4

by David Beers

  “We give thanks,” he said.

  “We give thanks,” Raylyn whispered back, more of a reaction than any conscious effort.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  Raylyn could see half of Lynda’s face; she wasn’t able to hide her pain or anger.

  “She’s resigning.”

  “Why?” he asked, walking further into the room, the door shutting behind him.

  “Because of yesterday,” Lynda said, rage in her voice. “Because I won’t be a part of that.”

  The Disciple looked down at the floor. “Billmore is still in his cell?”

  “Yes,” Raylyn said.

  He nodded. “The laws that govern others don’t govern me, Sister.” His salutation held none of the vitriol that it had with the man yesterday. This was the person they had first met—calm, accepting, unshakeable. “It’s always been that way, and Corinth said it should be so.”

  “Yeah? Corinth said that you can take a person’s nano and rip it from their body?”

  “If in the defense of Him and His faith, yes.”

  Lynda turned back to Raylyn. Her hands were shaking and her eyes held tears but there was anger in them, too. “I don’t care. Deactivate me.”

  “No,” the Disciple said.

  Lynda’s head whipped in his direction. “You can’t stop me. You don’t have that power.”

  “I do. Neither of you are quitting this assignment. That’s a directive from the First Council.”

  “That’s not true,” Raylyn said, doubting her words even as they left her mouth.

  “Would you like to connect with the First Priest?” the man said. It sounded like an actual question; there was no accusation or attempt to one-up Raylyn. He was genuinely asking, as if a talk with the First Priest might put her more at ease.

  Raylyn said nothing and after a second, the Disciple spoke again. “Neither of you can leave your command until this is finished. After, you can do what you want. We don’t have the time to train someone else, nor get them up to speed on the situation. I am not a detective and my purpose here isn’t to figure out how to find these people. My purpose is to remove obstacles in Corinth’s path, and Billmore is one. He was a traitor to Corinth and a criminal. Had he continued to lie, we would be no further along. Instead, we have an active member of their organization under our control.”

  The Disciple looked to Lynda.

  “I swear on my oath to Corinth, I only use the powers granted to me in His service. He made it so and the First Council will give you evidence of that, if you need it. I understand why you’re upset, and it lets me know that I am working with the faithful. I respect you for it.”

  Lynda shook her head and turned to Raylyn. She looked down at the desk. A tear fell from her face and hit the top of table. She stared down for a few more seconds, the ClearView hovering around her wrist still, waiting on a command that wasn’t coming. Finally she turned and left the room.

  “I told you both that you might want to leave,” the Disciple said. “What I do is necessary, but that doesn’t make it easy for those who have to witness it.”

  “You’ll do it again?”

  The Disciple nodded. “And worse, if necessary.”

  “The First Council knows all of this, right? Knows about this conversation and that Lynda just threatened to quit? I don’t mean that they’re going to know. I mean they do, right now.”

  “I can’t say for sure, of course, but if you’re asking whether your actions are constantly monitored, they are.”

  Raylyn looked down at the single tear drop on her desk.

  Lynda’s tear.

  “There’s work to be done,” the Disciple said. “Lynda will come back when she’s ready. She’s a good person and she’s not going to stay away long. She knows how important this is. You need to decide what is next, though, and you need to decide it now. Tomorrow is past and we’re not going to spend any more time there. We’ve already wasted too much.”

  Raylyn heard his voice, and although firm, it still soothed her. No matter the words coming from his mouth, the underlying current said that everything was fine. Everything had always been fine, and would always be fine, because nothing could hurt him or anyone around him.

  He was right, though. They were wasting time, and Raylyn wasn’t going to connect with the First Council to question this man. He grew up in a world that Raylyn didn’t know, nor understand. If everything was being monitored by the Priesthood, then who was she to challenge their methods?

  No, they had to go on.

  She closed her eyes and forced herself to push Lynda from her mind. They had Billmore. That was what mattered if the past was truly in the past.

  “Okay,” she said, opening her eyes and looking at the Disciple. “Two things. We need to get Billmore talking, and we need to connect with the informant.”

  Rogan nodded. No questions. Simple acceptance.

  Raylyn continued, whether for herself or him, she didn’t know. “We tell the informant we’re going to find out where they are regardless whether they talk or not. We try to get them to tell us the location, that way we know for sure if Billmore is telling the truth, or we know that someone is lying.”

  The Disciple nodded again. “Who first?”

  “Billmore.”

  Sixteen

  The Old World Ministry

  The man in the back of the car hadn’t spoken. They’d been driving for five hours, heading north, and he only stared forward as if in a trance.

  Nicki had watched as Daniel tied him up inside the car. His hands were bound behind his back, his ankles tied tight. Nicki thought his arms and legs were probably hurting, but he gave no indication of it.

  The sun was starting to set, the first part of it touching the horizon and showing the world just how beautiful things could be.

  Nicki was dozing, lazily moving in and out of sleep depending on how the car took a bump in the road.

  “Stop looking at her.”

  She opened her eyes and sat up, not fully awake but quickly getting there. Her father had spoken and she didn’t like the tone of his voice. She looked over at him, but his eyes were on the rearview mirror.

  “I like looking at her,” the man in the back said. “I probably would have liked looking at you, too, a long time ago.”

  Nicki turned around and her eyes met the man’s.

  He’s insane.

  The thought flooded her consciousness as if a dam had broken. The man’s brown eyes were calm, none of the rage she’d seen in her dream or her room, but the insanity rested just beyond that shallow water of peace. Because he did want to look at her, perhaps more than anyone had ever wanted anything.

  He’s getting off on this, she thought. Maybe not sexually. No, it’s deeper than that. His dick isn’t hard, but something inside of him is just about to orgasm.

  “I said stop.”

  “Dad,” she said. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt me by looking at me.”

  She turned back around in her seat, not liking his stare one bit, but knowing that her father would pull the car over and beat the hell out of him if she didn’t calm him some. Daniel also had the man’s gun, and she was growing more convinced that he was going to use it.

  “Where are we going?” the man asked.

  “Now you want to talk?” Daniel said.

  “Yes. I’m curious where you’re taking me.”

  They’d spoken about that, Nicki and her father, and the truth was they didn’t know. They were trying to put space between them and whoever was coming next. They had family up north, and Nicki guessed they were going there, even if unstated. She didn’t know what they’d do once they arrived, and Daniel didn’t either.

  “Do you have any idea?” the man in the back asked.

  “How many people are coming and how are they going to track us?” Daniel said, ignoring the man’s question. He’d asked this before, but gotten no response.

  “I’ll tell you if you let me touch her hair,” the man
said. “Just a touch.”

  Nicki shivered.

  “Shut the hell up,” her father said.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes when Nicki turned back around to face the insane man. “I’ll let you touch my hair if you answer the question.”

  Some of the calm in his eyes faded, the energy underneath almost rippling outward. “Will you?” he asked, not sounding insane, but still calm. He could sound like whatever he wanted, but Nicki saw the truth. This man might be a part of the Church, but he wasn’t holy. Maybe he had been once, but if so, hunting those with the sight had changed him.

  “Yes. I’ll let you touch it if you tell us what we can expect.” She felt her father’s eyes on her, but he remained quiet.

  “Okay. I’ll make that deal,” the man said. He didn’t look away as he spoke. “They’re going to send more, but they won’t be like me. I actually don’t even believe the Pope knows I exist, or what I do. No, now that they can’t get in touch with me, they’ll send … other types of professionals.”

  “Priests?” Daniel asked.

  The man chuckled. “No. Perhaps a Priest will be at the helm, but the Church will most likely mobilize its military to get to you. They probably already have.”

  “How will they go about finding us?” Nicki asked.

  Nicki saw that the man was struggling with the question. He licked his lips, but was quiet for a second. She didn’t think he wanted to answer, but his desire to touch some piece of her was overwhelming. He had loyalty to the Church. He believed. But … the insanity inside of him wanted more.

  He licked his lips again, his pink tongue flicking out like a lizard’s. “How would you look for you? They’ll do the same. Now, let me touch your hair.”

  “Get fucked,” Daniel said from the front. Nicki’s eyes widened, not used to hearing such language from her father. “Tell us what we need to know.”

  The man sighed and finally looked away from Nicki, into the rearview mirror. He smiled. “It’s my weakness. It’s why they wouldn’t ever let me become a Priest. I suppose I won’t start trying to deny myself now, when I haven’t the rest of my life. I’m going to kill you both anyway.” He smiled as he said the last sentence, his thin face looking almost like a skeleton with those white teeth staring out. “How many hours have we been gone?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you want to know what they’re doing. I need to know how much time has passed.”

  “Say it’s been six hours since we left.”

  The man nodded and leaned back in the seat, tilting his head on the headrest and looking up at the roof. “A group of people will be arriving soon, if they haven’t already. There are drones circling the town and anyone you’re close with is being watched. They’re systematically checking your house, and a fire will erupt in it when they finish. The official word will be that you both died inside.” He was quiet for a second, licking his lips one more time. “You have family. I saw that in your file. Drones have already been dispatched and are probably there. They live closer to the Vatican than you do. All of local law enforcement will have your picture by tomorrow morning, though most already do. Your economic transactions will be tracked if you use anything electronically, but I’m sure you knew that.”

  He tilted his head up and looked in the rearview, catching Daniel’s eyes. “Quite simply, everyone you know and everyone who might know you are being watched. Law enforcement already considers you dangerous, and is looking for you. There’s nowhere to go, Mr. Sesam … but you knew that, didn’t you?”

  Daniel held his eyes for a few seconds and then looked back to the road.

  “Your hair,” the man said.

  Nicki’s hair was short and she knew she’d have to move close for him to feel it. She wasn’t putting it next to his hands, though, so she turned around and placed her knees on the seat.

  “Lean forward,” she said.

  He did and she looked at him for a second.

  “Do anything, and you’re dead,” her father said from beside her.

  Nicki could turn back around and not do this, but then if they needed something else from him, she’d have nothing to bargain with.

  She leaned forward, putting her head down some, and kept going until she felt her head brush his cheek.

  She pulled back quickly and looked at him.

  His eyes were closed and a smile had crossed his face. “You’re all so beautiful. You, in particular, are just so beautiful.”

  He fell back into his seat without opening his eyes, the smile not fading.

  Nicki sat forward and didn’t look over at her father. She felt like she’d done something dirty—though she knew that was silly. Still, she didn’t want to look at him.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Keep driving for now. We’ll stay at a motel somewhere tonight.”

  “How much cash do we have?” she asked.

  “Not a lot.”

  Her father was quiet. He wasn’t saying it, but she knew he was scared. There wasn’t anywhere for them to go, that’s what the man had told them. Everything and everyone was cut off from them.

  So they kept driving and they did it in silence, the stranger in the back reverting to his former state of staring forward without speaking.

  Another hour passed before Nicki spoke again.

  “Stop the car.”

  “Huh?” her father asked, sounding as if he might have been about to doze himself.

  “Stop.”

  Nicki was staring out the car window. She didn’t know if what she saw was real or not, only that it looked real.

  “Nicki, are you—”

  “STOP!”

  “Is it happening?” the man asked from the back. “Is she having a vision?”

  Nicki felt the car slowing and watched as it rolled to the shoulder, finally stopping. She opened her door and got out. Her father did the same on his side, though she didn’t turn around. Didn’t even hear his door close.

  The dark man stood in the field. No fire this time, no one dying or screaming. Just him, all of him black except for his eyes which burned gray.

  “What is it?” her father asked.

  “You don’t see him?”

  There was a pause and then her father said, “No. I don’t see anything.”

  The dark man wasn’t moving, but stood maybe a hundred yards off.

  “This is real,” she said. “This isn’t a vision. He’s looking at me.”

  Daniel walked around to her side of the car.

  Nicki kept staring forward and looking at the man’s eyes—they burned bright. Power lived there. Harm for her, too. Nicki knew that the same as she knew pain currently resided in the back of their car.

  “What do you want?” she screamed at the open field.

  The dark man didn’t move, didn’t blink. He spoke no words.

  Another 30 seconds passed, then Nicki said, “Let’s go.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I … I don’t know. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “Is it still there, whatever you’re seeing?”

  “Yes,” Nicki said, staring right at the dark man.

  Daniel opened her car door, closing it once she was inside. He walked around to the other side and got in. He started the car and pulled onto the road, the engine revving high.

  “Did you have a vision?” the man in the back asked. “Is that what just happened?”

  “Shut up,” Daniel said.

  “It was. I know it. Oh, goodness, that was great.”

  Nicki heard him lean back in his seat, sounding as though he’d just had an orgasm.

  Nicki shook her head, a refutation of the psycho without communicating with him. “I don’t think so, Dad. That wasn’t the sight, at least not like before. He was finding me.”

  A second passed. “Were his eyes gray?”

  Nicki nodded, her own eyes welling with tears. “He’s going to come for me.”

  “No, honey. N
o. That doesn’t make any sense, especially if it is what you say it is.”

  “He is, though. Everyone is coming for me.”

  Seventeen

  The Prophet

  Rhett looked at David and thought about his conversation with Christine.

  They’d both returned last night, and David had spoken to no one.

  “Where were you two?” Rebecca had asked.

  “He took us down to the construction.”

  “Yeah? You guys dance on the fire?”

  “He did,” Christine said.

  Rhett was trying to see past his anger at both of them. David was back and Christine the only person who knew what had happened.

  “I don’t know,” she said when he’d asked about where they went.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? You were with him?”

  “Do you always know what is going through his mind when you’re with him, Rhett?” she asked.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t have any answers for you,” Christine said. “You’ll have to ask him all this. I know as much as you and Rebecca.”

  Now he and David stood outside the compound on the 20th story. A large, circular enclosure wrapped around the floor. It stretched out 200 yards in all directions, allowing for gardens, playgrounds, and other things for the compound. The two of them were alone, the night air dark.

  “I saw her,” David said.

  “Who?” Rhett asked.

  “The woman. The one who’s like me.”

  “How?”

  “The Unformed. I’m seeing more clearly now, even if I’m not back to where I was.”

  Rhett didn’t know what to say. The atmosphere inside the compound had grown worse, and Rhett wasn’t sure David even knew. He was so disconnected from everything happening around him; Rhett couldn’t tell what David discerned anymore.

  “David,” he started, thinking carefully about his words, “There are things happening here that we need to talk about.”

  David was only five feet away, but it felt like he was on another planet. He wasn’t looking at Rhett, but beyond the large railing at the end of the field. He said nothing, so Rhett continued.