Ten Plagues

by Mary Nealy

  “I wasn’t making a suggestion. I was giving an order. Tell him to be casual about it, but I want everyone who is gathered around here on tape. Everyone! If he sees someone ducking behind someone else, or walking away, get them. Understand?”

  “Yes ma’am.” The young man dropped the body bag and turned away.

  “Casual, Norm,” Dr. Schaefer demanded.

  Norm did as he was told.

  “Whoa, you’d make a great mom.” Keren thought Norm’s acting was a little stiff, but, after all, he’d studied pathology, not theater.

  Dr. Schaefer turned back to the body. “You’re going to tell me what this is about sometime, right, Keren?”

  Keren still felt the evil. She knew Pravus was within her reach. “You’re a trained investigator, Dee. Figure it out yourself.”

  “I will,” Dr. Schaefer said.

  Norm was back in a couple of minutes. With some help, Dr. Schaefer wrapped Wilma in the body bag then said to Norm, “Back the meat wagon in here.”

  Paul flinched.

  “Pansy,” Dr. Schaefer said dryly.

  Very carefully, Keren eased away from Wilma’s body. While the forensic team worked, she slowly moved toward the crowd. When she got close enough to the mob, the press attacked, which eliminated any chance she had of moving around incognito. She pushed through the press and the onlookers. The crowd kept stirring, coming and going. There were gang members, homeless people, businessmen, people of every description.

  There was nothing about any she got near that told her this was the one. Knowing that lifted a weight off her shoulders about the shooting she’d done at the car. She really had followed faint running footsteps. She really had pulled the trigger because of more than just this feeling of evil. She walked through the crowd several times, praying God would open her eyes.

  Looking particularly for homeless people, she made a point of touching them when she could, but most of them slinked away when the press identified her as a police detective.

  Anyway, not all the people who worked at the mission were homeless. She hunted for those five men who’d been in that car out in front of the mission, photographed by Higgins, but she couldn’t pick them out of this mob.

  Wilma was loaded and the coroner’s wagon drove slowly across the expanse of green.

  Higgins stepped toward the reporters. “I’ll make a statement now.”

  The press abandoned Keren without a backward glance.

  Pulling Keren aside, Paul asked, “If you can feel the demon, why can’t you cast it out?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Well, what is it like?”

  “It’s not something I can do. My gift is to discern spirits. I can’t cast them out like some exorcist.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The person with the demon has to do it. Like with Roger, I can help them believe such a thing is possible, but the choice to be free has to come from the one who’s possessed. That’s the only way I know.”

  Keren watched the video camera being swept across the crowd. Keren turned to Paul but only for a second. She couldn’t stop moving through the crowd, searching, praying. “You’re done here.”

  He nodded. “I think I’ll walk back to the mission now.”

  “I’m not letting you go alone.” As casually as possible, she pressed on shoulders, eased past people, making sure to brush against them. Paul kept pace. “We both know that one of these times this”—she turned to hiss at him—”this maniac is going to turn his attention on you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Paul said. “He’s after women. He may be blaming me for this, but his hatred is for women.”

  “Maybe so, but you seem to be his real target. Maybe he only plans to torment you, but I wouldn’t count it as an established fact that it’s some mommy dearest situation.” Keren felt the demonic presence ease and wanted to scream. Who was it? There were people walking away in all directions. She checked her watch. The video would be time stamped. She’d see who walked away at just this time.

  “The profiler is researching his background since we know his name now.” Keren kept studying the crowd, trying to fine-tune her sense of evil. “He’s hoping, if we look into his past, it’ll help us predict the future.”

  “You don’t have to escort me home. I see Roger over there.” Paul pointed at Roger, standing alone.

  “Okay. But don’t go alone with him.”

  “You don’t trust Roger?” Paul looked alarmed.

  “Yes. No. Look, it’s not him, but just … just make sure there are several of you.” Keren studied the people near Roger, but none of them were the killer. The killer was gone. But maybe she could eliminate a few suspects. “Are any of the men still here that were riding with Murray that morning?”

  “I don’t see them.” Paul studied the crowd.

  Frustrated, Keren dragged her cell phone out of her pocket. “Let us know if anyone calls so we can start a trace.” She pushed a couple of buttons. “That’s how you record. Don’t forget it, even if he calls in the middle of the night.”

  “I don’t like you going without a cell.” Paul accepted the phone only when she jammed it into his hand. “He may have his eye on you, too.”

  “I can get another one from the station. And I’ll ride back with O’Shea. I’m not going anywhere alone either, Rev.”

  They stood and watched Higgins finish his little press conference then approach them across the killing field of the park.

  As soon as he left the press, his expression turned grim. His perfect hair even seemed a little flat. “We have another woman missing.”

  The top of Keren’s head almost blew off. “And you told the press before you told me?”

  “No.” Higgins’s eyes glittered gold and icy.

  “So you lied to the press?” “bure.”

  “We really try not to tell blatant lies to the press here. They don’t forget.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me. I’m going back to DC when this is over.” Higgins shrugged, not the tiniest speck of concern for Chicago cops and their relationship with a skeptical press. “She’s homeless, but someone saw her being taken, and when they went up to the spot she’d been dragged away from, they found a sign that said this.” He held up a scrap of paper that said, “Pestis ex ulcus.”

  “I can’t take any more of this.” Paul ran one hand into his hair.

  Keren grabbed his arm. “Tell us what it means first, Paul. I’ve got them all written down back in the car and at the office, but I can’t remember them.”

  Paul said, “I can barely remember my name.”

  “Morris,” Higgins said sharply.

  Paul reached for the paper but pulled his hand back at the last minute as if touching it would bring the plague on himself. “Plague of boils.”

  “Boils?” Higgins grimaced. “What does that mean?”

  Paul said, “This one might be the worst yet. He could go a lot of different ways with boils. He could infect someone with anthrax or smallpox.”

  “If he had access to such a thing,” Higgins said doubtfully.

  “Boils are nasty blisters. A plague of them, they’d cover your body.” Paul stared at the paper in Higgins’s hand, then he said under his breath, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Go,” Keren said. “We’ve got nothing left, except to get the dead animals tagged and bagged.” She wanted Paul away from there. She wished she could order him out of the city.

  “We’ll handle it,” she said.

  Paul watched the coroner’s team start picking up dead animals, sacrificed to a madman along with poor, harmless Wilma. Then he jerked his head as if he had to force himself to look away and stalked off toward his friend from the mission.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Higgins asked.

  Keren watched Paul walk away, then she turned to Higgins. “He’s just trying to remember who he is.”

  “That’s something I never waste time doing.” Higgins turned his tawny eyes
on her. She wondered if he’d ever tried to hypnotize the truth out of perps.

  “Why not?” Keren asked.

  “Because I’m afraid if I figure it out, I won’t like what I find.”

  Keren frowned. “I think, right now, Paul’s afraid of exactly the same thing.”

  She went back to work gathering evidence. They found hundreds of poisoned pellets still scattered around.

  Keren stayed alongside city crews, working into the night, so the plague of beasts could come to an end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

  “Festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land.”

  Pravus raised the red-hot andiron out of the fireplace and turned to the woman. Her eyes widened in terror as he approached. She struggled against her bonds.

  This was an experiment. He didn’t know quite how to raise satisfactory boils on a body. It wasn’t an art form he’d worked with before. But a true creator had to try new things. Finally, when he felt that his work was worthy to be one of his people, he turned his attention to the gown. This he understood. But it was almost impossible to paint. He felt like his blood raced faster. He felt like maybe he’d finally found his true calling. Torture as art.

  The boils painted on the gown were hard to recognize.

  Laughing, Pravus thought of how angry his father would be. How frightened his mother would be while she begged him to behave and make Father happy.

  But neither one of them was here to stifle his power. The ability to create only possessed by a god.

  He’d silenced those ugly, critical voices years ago. Shortly after the first glimpse of the beast had come and helped him, saved him.

  Now, to do a poor, fast job of the gown suited Pravus and suited the beast. He was a genius. He wouldn’t be confined by anyone else’s vision of art. It didn’t matter if anyone else could see. The vision was his.

  He got lonely for the sound of screaming again, but he didn’t have to live without it.

  Smiling, he found another object and heated it, not quite so red hot this time.

  Coming back to the mission was an act of cowardice.

  Paul needed to stay on the job. He needed to keep tracking down leads, however slim. He thought of Wilma, poor, muddled Wilma, who never hurt anyone except herself. He thought of the slaughter of animals, so senseless. A madman’s idea of a joke. Right now he couldn’t stay with the police. Not even Keren. Especially not Keren, not after the way he’d treated her this morning.

  Paul got back in time to serve supper. He worked with his flock, talking to them, loving them, but he didn’t find what he was looking for.

  The mission always had empty beds in the summer. The homeless people preferred to sleep outside, but they came in to eat. Paul scooped up creamed corn alongside Murray and Roger. They’d taken up the slack in the kitchen.

  He should call Keren. Get her down here to see if Murray was their killer.

  Roger had proved to be invaluable with Rosita gone so much to be with her “sick friend.” After the food was dished up, Murray, who had rediscovered a love for music since he’d found God and sobriety, returned with his guitar and played quietly in the spot where Paul delivered his sermons.

  Paul couldn’t stand the thought that Murray was the killer.

  But who? Was it really one of these men here tonight?

  When everyone, even the cooks and servers, were eating, Paul had a moment to himself behind the counter. He studied the room and tried to find the peace God had given him so abundantly since he had turned in his badge and gun and picked up a Bible.

  It wasn’t there.

  He despaired of the turmoil in his soul. “I’ve lost it, Lord. I’ve lost the tranquillity that has sustained me through good times and bad here at the mission.” He looked from face to face.

  O’Shea’s words echoed in his head. “Caldwell is someone you know. “

  Keren had said, “It may be someone staying at the mission. “

  Buddy came wandering in and grabbed a tray and served himself.

  Paul hated that he was looking for suspects among the men he was supposed to help, but he kept looking. He’d studied the pictures of Caldwell. No one here resembled him; but Francis Caldwell had been a meticulously neat man, well dressed, obviously well-to-do. That polished man could very easily disappear under ragged clothes, a beard, and a layer of dirt.

  Paul didn’t know if the thought came from God or himself, but he looked closer. He had been a cop. Describing people was, at one time, his vocation. He knew Francis had a rather prominent Roman nose and a weak chin, but he had enough money to have plastic surgery if he wanted to disguise himself more thoroughly.

  Louie came in just then with McGwire and Casey-Ray. All five were here. He reached for his phone again just as Roger got up. Roger had turned into someone Paul couldn’t recognize. With the demon thrown out, he was a new man. Roger went to talk with Buddy and the two of them left.

  Paul used the analytical side of himself, the cop side, to note that Roger was about the same height as Francis Caldwell. For that matter, Murray and Buddy were, too. An inch or so taller, but that could be explained with thick soles on their shoes. And Roger had definitely had a demon.

  Paul suddenly wondered if Keren could have sensed the demon in Roger, even cast it out, but, like Legion, there had been more. Maybe Satan even manipulated Keren. Yes, she’d felt the devil leave Roger, and Paul had seen the change in him, but later Keren had again sensed the demon.

  Keren had felt Pravus at the kill site today and Roger had been there. Paul clenched his jaw. Kill site! That was something a cop would think, not a pastor. “Forgive me, Lord.”

  Paul tried to reclaim the joy in Roger’s transformation, but—as they had since he’d come back to the mission—peace, joy, and love all evaded him.

  Paul could just be reacting to all the tragedy he’d lived through in the last few days. He wished Keren were there to help him. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to call her, then he shoved it back in. No! Not tonight! I’m not going to let the world come and drag me out of here tonight!

  Instead, he listened while Murray sang of faithfulness and redemption. Buddy came back inside and offered to help Paul wash dishes. Paul was ashamed of himself for suspecting any of them.

  Paul looked at this quiet man. Rosita had doubts about Buddy’s faith. And Paul didn’t have assurance that Buddy had truly given his heart over to the Lord. Buddy, a painfully thin man, with a perpetual baseball cap to cover his balding head and a full beard salted with gray, asked Paul what was happening with the police about Juanita’s and LaToya’s deaths.

  Paul heard the sorrow in Buddy’s voice and was tempted to tell him that LaToya was still alive, but he caught himself. “We could spend some time in prayer later, if it would help you come to terms with the loss of our friends.”

  As he expected, Buddy made sounds of interest, but, in the end, found an excuse not to pray.

  When Buddy left the mission for the night, Paul phoned the hospital and got put through to Rosita. He told her he’d be over to sit with LaToya in a few minutes.

  “Pastor P, just let me stay here, hokay? If you’re back at the mission for the night, then stay there and get some rest. I’m half asleep here already, and I’d rather just sack out on the waiting room couch than come all the way back there.”

  “I don’t want you staying there alone. Is Manny with you?”

  Rosita laughed. “You’re the man who says to live is Christ and to die is gain. How’s come you’re so afraid for my safety?”

  Paul was unable to come up with a logical response. Finally he said, “I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight if I think you’re in danger. You don’t want to be responsible for me lying awake, do you?”

  Rosita laughed out loud. “Good one, Pastor P. I’ll use that the next time I’m telling you not to go jogging in the neighborhood.” In an artificially nervous voice she said, “But Pastor P, I’m losing sleep with worry over you
.”

  “Rosie,” Paul growled in warning.

  “I won’t budge from the hospital,” she promised. “I’m probably safer here, away from the mission.”

  “You may be right.” Paul sighed. “Promise me you’ll keep the necklace on I gave you. And don’t head over here alone in the morning. We’ll manage breakfast. I really do want you to be safe, Rosie.”

  “I promise.” Then she added, “Speaking of safe, it sounds like you survived the angry lady cop this morning. I knew you could talk your way out of it. Or did she put the bruises somewhere no one can see?”

  “Good night, Rosita!”

  He was listening to her infectious giggle when he hung up on her.

  Paul spent awhile going from table to table pouring coffee. He spoke to everyone, called them by name, asked about their lives. He was particularly careful to speak to the women, reminding them of Wilma’s death and the danger they faced on the streets. He urged them all to sleep in the mission that night. They ignored his warnings.

  O’Shea had said another woman was taken. Paul couldn’t pinpoint anyone who was missing—or rather, he noticed several regulars gone and guessed that most of them had just found food elsewhere and slept in their alleys. As he talked to these people who dwelled in so lowly a place in this world, he was more aware than ever of the way they looked and smelled and the terrible waste of their potential.

  He had loved trying to reach them, and now he didn’t know why he bothered. His apathy frightened him. If he lost his zeal for the Lighthouse and couldn’t reconcile his Christianity with life as a cop, where did that leave him? Paul didn’t know who he was or what he was supposed to do with his life. He kept talking and serving and wondering how to restore his love for his calling.

  After everyone had cleared out for the night, Paul went upstairs. He stood in front of his door, dreading the thought of re-entering his apartment for the first time since they’d found Melody Fredericks. The police had given him the green light to use the place again. After a long struggle, he forced himself to go in. He was met by a much-reduced swarm of gnats.

  Moving quickly, he showered then found a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. He looked around his shabby little apartment. The Chicago summer had made the un-air-conditioned space stifling. The smell of death lingered. “How have I been able to stand living here for the last five years?”