by Heath, Jack
His mind seized because his first thought was that it had to be Sarah and he nearly let out a blood-curdling scream. He leaned against the wall and sucked down several shuddering gulps of air and after a second he managed to get a modicum of self-control. After another second the small corner of his brain that was still capable of rational thought told him that this dead person could not possibly have been Sarah because it was a man.
What came next was a feeling of almost insane relief. John felt a sense of hilarity he recognized as both pathetic and dangerous, but he couldn't help wanting to dance a jig to celebrate that someone else had died and not his daughter. He shook his head to try and dislodge those thoughts. As he crept forward, he tried to get a better look at the dead body in the chair.
At first he noticed the skin, which was paste white with a greenish tinge. He assumed it meant the person in front of him had probably been dead for at least several days. Whoever they were, they had died a horrible death because he could see that the person's fingers had each been snipped off at the second knuckle. Had it been done to prevent fingerprint identification, he wondered, or just to maximize pain? A moment later he realized it must have been pain because he looked down and saw that the man's toes had been cut in a similar manner. Also, from the bruises and deep contusions, it looked like the bones of the feet had been broken with a hammer.
The dead man's head sagged forward at an angle that made it impossible to see his face, but when John squatted down to see if he recognized the features, he nearly screamed all over again. The man's nose had been cut out, his eyes gouged and his lips cut away while he had presumably still been alive.
However, worst of all was that in spite of the massive damage, John recognized the face and a chill rocketed down his back. The dead man in the chair was the person he had known as Captain Andrew Card.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JOHN REELED BACK SEVERAL STEPS, HIS MIND empty of everything but shock until he felt his heel go over the edge and he nearly fell down the steep staircase. He quickly reached out and grabbed the doorframe to steady himself. Then he bent over and tried to slow his pounding heart before he took several unwilling steps back into the room and the body.
When he looked at Andrew Card a second time he saw the ropes that held his legs to the chair and the way his arms had been cruelly tied at the elbows so they were pulled behind his back. John realized that whoever had done this had not wanted Card to die quickly, and the gruesome sight took him back to the night in the underground chamber when he'd found the two young people savagely eviscerated, their entrails spilling down across their legs.
John shuddered again, telling himself that Cabby Corwin was dead. He was absolutely and totally dead, John knew, because he was the one who'd killed him. So if it hadn't been Cabby, who had done this? And why?
John had been so certain Andrew Card had been part of the Coven, especially when it turned out that he'd lied about being on the police force. Had the Coven turned on one of its own? If this was the case, what had Card done to incur their wrath?
And even more, why had they left him here? This was clearly a room used by the Coven for some terrible purpose, but the House of the Seven Gables was a major tourist attraction. Wouldn't someone notice the stench of a rotting body? But if that was true, why hadn't they noticed already? John could feel the wind coming up the staircase from the cellar, rising like smoke in a chimney, and he thought maybe a natural draft took the air outside through some kind of vent.
He thought for a moment about going through Card's pockets to see what he might find, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Card's skin was already a horrible shade of green, and it looked like it was starting to slough off his body. Besides, John guessed that whoever had committed such a savage murder must have taken care to empty Card's pockets.
After another moment of indecision, he backed out of the room, pushed the door closed, turned his cell phone flashlight app back on, and made his way quickly down to the cellar where he closed the hidden door in the bricks. Making his way back across the cellar, he climbed the steps to the kitchen and then paused to listen for sounds that would indicate that a second tour group was someplace nearby.
Satisfied he was alone, he stepped out the door, pulled it closed, ducked beneath the velvet rope, and hurried out through the kitchen and the rest of the house. He came out the front door of the house just a few steps ahead of the second tour group of the day. The person leading the tour recognized him from the first tour and looked at him in shock.
Trying to gather his wits and pretend he hadn't just seen something that scared him half to death, John did his best to look embarrassed and gave a half-hearted wave. "Sorry," he said, struggling to come up with an excuse. "I just got so caught up in the atmosphere I had to go up that secret staircase a second time. I didn't realize everyone else had left already."
The tour guide scowled like a teacher who knew the student's dog hadn't really eaten the homework, but he had a group of people eager to see the house, so he just nodded. John hurried past the tour group and started back toward the street, walking across the gravel parking lot.
The school bus and the tour bus from earlier had already left, and the lot was deserted except for where a man and woman were climbing out of a car. They appeared to be tourists and they hurried toward him as they headed to the visitors' building to buy tickets. John paid them no attention because his brain was still reeling with shock. As the couple came abreast, the man seemed to step closer to John than necessary given all the space in the parking lot, but still John paid no attention until kidney punch sent a staggering shot of pain rocketing through his body.
In the next instant an arm came around his throat and began to squeeze. It had all happened so fast John could barely understand what was happening. He fought to get a breath but the arm around his throat was strong and squeezing off his airway. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the woman reach into her purse for something, and when her hand came free, John saw a hypodermic syringe. She stepped forward and brought the tip of the needle toward his neck.
John arched his back and tried to break out of the man's hold, but his attacker was too strong. He hooked his foot behind one of the man's legs and tried to trip him, but the man backed into a car and bent John backward, nearly lifting him off his feet.
John kicked at the woman, catching her full in the chest and knocking her back a step or two. Her face tightened in a grimace of pain, but she circled him again, this time from the side, jabbing the needle like the tip of a bayonet toward his exposed throat. John tried to kick again, but the man behind him swung him around so he was facing the hood of a car. There was absolutely nothing John could do.
He braced for the bite of the needle, but it never came. Instead he heard two quick spitting sounds from someplace behind him, and then a half second later two more. The arm around his neck relaxed suddenly, and John nearly toppled backwards as the man's suddenly limp weight dragged against him and the man fell to the ground.
John held his throat and sucked air into his lungs as his brain tried to grasp what had just happened. Already hocked and totally disoriented, nothing prepared him for what he saw when he straightened up and turned around.
The man walking toward him as he unscrewed a long silencer from the tip of his pistol wore a broad-brimmed black fedora and was dressed in a dark suit and black shirt that was topped with a Roman collar.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JOHN BLINKED AT THE STRANGER, HALF IN FEAR and half in astonishment. "Who the hell are you?" he stammered. "And what the hell is going on?"
The man tucked his pistol into a small shoulder holster. "Questions later," he said in an impossibly calm voice with a heavy European accent. "Help now."
The priest or whatever he was grasped the dead man under his armpits and nodded toward his ankles. After a beat, John understood, and he bent over, grabbed the man's ankles, and helped carry the body back to the car the man and woman had just climbed out
of. It was Ford Taurus and was unlocked, as if the man and woman had intended to get back inside the car and drive away quickly. The priest opened the driver's side door and popped the trunk.
They put the body inside the trunk and went back for the woman. As they did, another car pulled into the lot and started past them. The priest stepped in front of the woman's body and squatted down, blocking her from view. The car went past, parked, and the people climbed out and went toward the visitor's building. As they disappeared from sight, the priest stood, picked the woman up, and nodded for John to take her ankles.
Moving quickly, they carried her across to the Taurus and put her body into the trunk with the other one. John could see the two small holes in her temple and thin line of blood running from each one. There were two similar holes in the side of the man's head. He was still way too keyed up to think clearly, but the details told him the priest must have used a very small caliber weapon because the bullets hadn't gone all the way through the skull and there was so little blood. The tight grouping of the shots on both bodies told him this man had to be a professional assassin, not a priest.
"Touch nothing," the priest said as he ran his hands up and down the two dead bodies, pulling car keys and a wallet from the pocket of the dead man and a pistol from a small holster in the man's belt and taking the woman's purse. He handed John the pistol without turning to look at him, and as he did John noted that the priest was wearing a pair of thin, black leather gloves, as if he had come prepared for violence, totally prepared not to leave fingerprints.
"You're not a priest, are you?" John demanded.
"Questions later."
The priest finished searching the bodies, then closed the trunk. He fished into his own pocket and pulled out a second set of car keys. "You drive this one," he said, hitting a button that caused the taillights in a nearby Honda Civic to flash. "Follow."
The priest handed John the keys then climbed behind the wheel of the Taurus and started the engine. John hesitated a second then walked to the Honda, backed out, and followed the Taurus, not knowing what the hell else he should do.
His head whirled with the craziness of what he had experienced in the past fifteen minutes. The fact that nobody appeared to have seen what had just happened, either to John or to his two attackers had to be a miracle, he thought, but then he remembered how the priest had acted when the car drove into the parking lot. The priest had been so cool headed, so totally calm as he squatted down and blocked the body from view.
They drove for slightly over thirty minutes, taking Route 107 South down toward Boston but then following the signs for Logan Airport. As they got close to the airport, they followed the signs toward long-term parking. John began to understand what the priest was doing. Then his mind began to race all over again as he wondered what the priest was going to want him to do after they had left the Taurus in long-term parking. Where had he come from? What had he been doing in the parking lot at the same time his attackers showed up? How could a priest carry a freaking gun and shoot two people? Was the man sane? Was he going to shoot John once he got done hiding the other two bodies?
Somehow in spite of all the questions that occurred, he just kept following the Taurus, reasoning that since the priest had just saved his life, he probably needed to assume the man didn't intend to do him any harm. After all, hadn't he just handed John the dead man's gun? John knew he had to assume the man was there to help him, but as to the man's reasons or identity, he had nothing but questions.
Ahead of him the Taurus turned into long-term parking and the priest stopped and got a ticket. John did the same, following the priest to the far back end of the lot. The priest found a parking spot he apparently liked, backed the Taurus in, and climbed out. He checked the car carefully for anything he might have missed, then kept his head turned down so that it hid both his face and his collar from any security cameras in the area as he walked over and climbed into the passenger side of the Honda.
"Drive, please, and exit, then drive back to Salem."
"We're just leaving the bodies here? We're not calling the police?"
"If you called them, what would you tell them, exactly?" The man threw John a sideways glance. "What did you tell them the last time?"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JOHN'S THROAT WAS DRY. "WHAT LAST TIME?" he croaked, but he knew what the man was talking about.
"When you killed the Coven leaders. What would you have told the police?"
"I told Captain Card . . . who wasn't—"
"No, he wasn't a policeman, but he kept you from sounding like a madman or perhaps a psychopath."
"But the bodies weren't even there when I took him down the—how the hell do you know about that?"
The man ignored the question and pointed to the turn-off for Route 107 North toward Salem. John got onto 107 and waited until they were at cruising speed, safely tucked into the right lane, then he turned his head. "Okay, enough bullshit. Who are you?"
The priest looked at him, his bright blue eyes calm and guileless. "Father Rupert Faust."
Turning his eyes back to the road, John shook his head. "No way. Priests don't kill people."
"Not usually," Father Faust agreed, "but are people usually attacked in the parking lot of the House of the Seven Gables?"
"Of course not," John said, realizing the priest had just answered a question with another question. "Did you also know about the dead body on the third floor of the house?"
Father Faust was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Yes," in a hard voice.
"Did you kill him?"
"Of course not."
John nodded. "Why was he killed?" he asked. "Do you know?"
"Two reasons," Faust said.
John waited for the priest to say more, and after a long second he let out a sigh. "What were they?"
"First, because the people who did it hated the man and what he stood for."
"What was that?"
"He fought the Coven."
John gripped the wheel hard, unable to hide his surprise. "You're saying Andrew Card was a good guy?"
Out of the corner of his eye, John saw the priest nod. "A very good guy," Faust said quietly.
John looked at the road, trying to decide whether Faust could possibly be telling the truth. He had been so convinced that Andrew Card had been one of the Coven himself, but what if he had been wrong? "You said there was a second reason."
Faust stared straight ahead at the road. "They left the body there because they believed it would bring you."
John swerved out of his lane causing the car passing on the left to lay on his horn. John recovered and got back to the right. The other driver flipped him the bird and rocketed past.
"At first I thought it might have been my daughter," John said, giving voice to the fear that had nearly torn him in half as he walked into the attic room and first saw the body.
"Yes."
John felt his pulse spike. "You know about my daughter?"
"We suspected it, but we didn't know for sure."
"What do you know?" John asked, turning toward Faust. "Is Sarah still alive? Who took her?"
Faust nodded toward the road, indicating where John should keep his eyes. "I'm sure she is alive. Dead she has no value to the Coven. Alive she is worth a great deal, because through her, they may be able to control you."
"Who took her?"
"Jessica Lodge."
"Do you know where she is?"
"We suspect she's been taken out of the country."
"Where?"
"England."
"Oh, my God," John said, speaking to himself. "I knew it." Turning to the priest again, he said, "I've got to go get her."
"You need to get her, but you need to be very careful and very strategic because the people who oppose you are highly intelligent and very dangerous. But you also need to know you're not alone. You need to let us plan your daughter's rescue with you."
"Us?"
"I'll explain the details s
hortly."
John shot him an angry glare. "Why not now?"
"Please, I am prepared to give you that information, but only as part of a larger conversation."
John wanted to argue, but he sensed it would do no good. "What did you mean when you said they thought the body would bring me?"
"You have the blood."
"What blood are you talking about?"
"You are John Andrews, descended from Rebecca Nurse on one side and Ann Putnam on the other. I know who you are. I know everything about you."
John stared straight ahead, not liking what he was hearing. "What's that supposed to mean, that you know everything about me?"
"We have studied you."
John felt his temper beginning to fray, but also a cold fear spreading in his stomach. "Who the hell is we?"
"All in good time." Faust paused but only for a second. "You sensed him there, didn't you?"
"Who, Andrew Card? I sensed something, but I don't know if it was Card I sensed," John said. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Faust's head was turned toward him. The priest was studying him the way a scientist might observe a lab rat.
"It's not a sin that you sensed the body. That part of your blood talks to you as much as the other side."
Unable to concentrate on the road, John swerved again. Another driver honked. He pulled back into his lane and desperately tried to make his mind focus on driving but his brain was riveted on the fact that the DNA from the Putman side of his family meant that at least in some degree the Coven was alive and well and functioning inside him.
"You have freewill, John," the priest went on. "Nothing about your ancestry can force you to side with evil. The fact that you have not done so and yet at the same time that you have a sensitivity to the workings of the Coven makes you a powerful foe. They fear you. They fear you even more because they know what you did to the leaders of the Salem Coven."
John gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead. "So who are you and why were you waiting there in the parking lot?"
