The Blessed and the Damned (Righteous Series #4)

by Michael Wallace

  Kimball ducked behind the van again, but then he froze. Jacob Christianson. Alive. Elder Kimball squinted his eyes shut and ignored the gunfire.

  Today I die.

  “Oh Lord, I throw myself on thy mercy. Forgive my weaknesses. Let me—”

  A familiar, stentorian voice cut through the morning air. “Taylor Kimball! In the name of Jesus Christ, I command thee to cease thy wicked behavior!”

  It was Abraham Christianson. And then he knew that Taylor Junior’s plan had failed. His enemies had all lived. They had either seen his trap or been warned by the Holy Ghost.

  Kimball continued his prayer. “Thou hast prepared a table for me in the presence of mine enemies and anointed my head with oil. If I die, let my death atone for my sins.”

  “Kimball!” Abraham roared.

  “Don’t shoot! I’m coming out.” Kimball walked stiffly around the edge of the van. His vision swam.

  They were screaming at him to drop his gun and lie down where he was, but he didn’t trust them. If they were going to murder him in cold blood, let it be out front, where the women and children could see. He walked into the open, the gun held high overhead.

  There was the female FBI agent, weapon in hand. Jacob and Sister Miriam, the latter with her own gun. David Christianson, also armed. And one final woman.

  “Charity?”

  “Put down the gun!” the agent shouted.

  “What are you doing here?” His wife looked to the ground and Kimball stared, only gradually understanding. “Did you help them? Is this it? Is this why you waited for me all those years? Don’t you need to kiss me first, so you can receive your thirty pieces of silver?”

  “I said put it down!”

  He hadn’t seen Abraham yet, but now the man stepped out from behind his son. He placed his hands on his hips and turned his arrogant gaze toward Elder Kimball. Abraham had worn that look for fifty years, the look first of a boy, and then a man who knows he is the anointed one. Chosen to lead, to reign, and to rule. And yet through some trick of fate, his wife Charity had been given to Taylor Kimball, not to Abraham Christianson. How that must have eaten at her over the years as she saw her husband put in his place and knowing that she’d been meant for a better man.

  Kimball said, “You want him, don’t you? This is the only way you could get out from your covenants. If I were to die. Then you could throw yourself on him, beg him to take you.”

  “No, Taylor, no.”

  Years ago, she’d been a lively woman, engaging and witty. Beautiful and young. Now she was old and worn, like an ax that has been used for too many years without sharpening, its blade chipped from striking rocks and nails. Charity’s hair was gray and stringy. She walked with a slump. Her eyes were dull.

  Abraham handed his gun to Jacob and then walked toward Kimball. He held out his hands, palms up. He didn’t look frightened or alarmed. He didn’t even look angry.

  The FBI agent said, “Stand back, Mr. Christianson. Do not—”

  “Dad, what are you doing?” Jacob said. “Get out of the way.”

  “I knew you’d fallen,” Abraham said. “I knew you had surrendered your blessings. But this? Killing women and children? What kind of monster are you?”

  “If I am, it’s your fault,” Kimball said. “I tried to come back, I tried. I repented, I would have done anything you asked. I would have licked your boots clean if you’d told me, washed in the river with lepers. You kicked me out. You shook the dust off your feet and condemned me. What choice did I have?”

  “Only one thing can save you now,” Abraham said. He approached until he stood a few inches from Elder Kimball. The others were still screaming at the two men, telling Abraham to step away and Kimball to put down the gun and lie on the ground, but the voices had become noise, a distraction, like trying to talk over a thunderstorm.

  “What is that?” Kimball asked.

  “Your blood atonement.”

  “And you’re going to kill me, is that it? What will it be? Disembowel me in the temple?”

  “Like you did to my son Enoch, you mean?”

  “I didn’t do that,” Elder Kimball said. “But my son did, so yes, that would be fair. Is that what you want?”

  “What is your choice? The FBI will arrest you, and then you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. And that will be a mercy, because when you die, you will suffer in Outer Darkness with Lucifer and his angels for time and all eternity. The only thing to save you now is a blood atonement.” He paused. “And there is one sure way to bring about your death.”

  Kimball glanced over his shoulder at the ring of enemies surrounding him. His arms ached, and he’d shortly have to either drop the gun or use it.

  You prayed for this. You prayed to let your death atone for your sins.

  He looked back at his enemy, the man who could save him with a plea to the Lord, but instead required his death. “Do I have thy word that my death will atone?”

  “Thou hast the Lord’s word, not mine, but I shall pray for thy soul. That much I can promise.”

  “And has the Lord chosen thee above all other men, Abraham Christianson?”

  “Thou knowest that He has, Taylor Kimball.”

  “Then let Him prove it to all men by protecting thee from death.”

  Abraham frowned, and then a look of comprehension spread across his face. Too late he tried to duck out of the way, but Kimball had already lowered the gun. He didn’t aim at the prophet of the Church of the Anointing, or at his son, but at the lead FBI agent. He used Abraham as a shield and fired.

  The enemy fired back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The streets of Blister Creek were deserted. Eliza looked out the windshield, bewildered that there wasn’t a single car or truck on the road.

  “Where the hell is everybody?” Krantz growled. His oversized hands gripped the steering wheel of Charity’s truck as if he intended to rip it off.

  “Maybe you should swing back around. I’ll go through the big house, see if I can—”

  “Wait,” Stephen Paul interrupted. “What day is it?”

  “Sunday,” Eliza said. “Of course. They’re at church.” She pointed to a side street that cut east, toward the temple and the chapel. “Turn there.”

  Eliza led Krantz through the streets. She sat in the middle, practically on top of the stick. She slammed alternately into Stephen Paul to her right and Krantz to her left as the FBI agent took the turns with increasing ferocity.

  They took the final turn and pushed the complaining pickup down the last few blocks, past the gas station and the farm store and the ruins of an abandoned farm house. Eliza saw the chapel, its lot filled with vans, trucks, and station wagons. Nobody in sight—inside they’d be singing the sacrament hymn, waiting for the deacons to pass the bread and water.

  The truck shuddered and there was a loud bang. They’d pushed the old pickup too fast and too hard for too long, and the engine had thrown a rod. Or so Eliza thought. But Krantz was still accelerating down the road.

  The roof seemed to lift off the chapel and a column of smoke—first white, then yellow—rose from the center of the building. One of Taylor Junior’s chemical warheads.

  “Sweet heaven,” Stephen Paul said in a low voice. Krantz let out his breath with a hiss.

  They had arrived too late.

  * * *

  A deadly calm settled in Fernie’s stomach as Aaron Young pointed the gun at her chest. She heard everything: the screams from the hallway, her pulse pounding in her ears, the drip of liquid from her IV bag, the feet racing down the hall. She felt the tiny, warm life against her breast. The baby let out a whimper as it came loose from her nipple.

  And then her attention focused on the snout of the gun. It was black and smooth, held in the man’s hand as casually as he might hold a child’s toy. And yet. It would end in an instant. A squeeze. A flash from the muzzle. He would do it, too. There was no pity or remorse in his eyes, only the hard look of a killer. He shifted hi
s aim away from her chest and toward her head and tightened his grip.

  “Did Taylor Junior tell you to kill babies?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  A slight hesitation. “No. The men and older boys. And women who resist.”

  “I’m not resisting, but if I have to die, I will go meekly. But let my baby live. He is innocent. You may raise him how you like.”

  For a moment, she thought he would shoot her anyway, and then what? Carry out his grisly threat to crush her baby the way some men killed unwanted kittens? But then he nodded, holding out his left hand while keeping the gun trained on her with the right. “Hand him over.”

  “I can’t. My spine is broken. I’m paralyzed on the right side, and my left only moves a little. I can’t lift him, not even a little. Please take him. Please.”

  Aaron lowered the gun and came for the baby. He reached down and grabbed for it.

  Meanwhile, Fernie’s left hand—not paralyzed at all—reached out and seized the metal IV pole where she’d left it next to the bed after adjusting her pain medication. Her grip tightened, and she jerked with all her strength. The pole slammed into Aaron’s temple. He fell back with a cry, hands going instinctively to his head. The gun fell to the ground.

  Fernie wrenched herself in the opposite direction, lifted her baby, and let him fall to the carpet on the far side of the bed, opposite Aaron Young. The receiving blanket cushioned his fall. The baby hit the ground and wailed.

  Aaron was on her in an instant, his hands at her throat. She whipped her head to the side and sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand. He tried to pull free, but she bit and tore. Her left hand grabbed for the wrist of his other hand, and her right hand groped for his face. She hooked his ear with her fingers and dug her thumb at his eyeball. He screamed.

  He jerked back, wrestled his wrist free, and then smashed her across the jaw. She let go with her teeth and thumb. He stood back a step, panting, clutching at his eye with one hand. The other gushed blood from a jagged wound where she’d torn open the webbing between his thumb and index finger.

  His good eye glared at her, and he said, “It could have been easy—it could have been a bullet. Now you’re going to learn what it means to die in an ugly way.”

  She stared back, almost drowning in her fury. “Go to hell.” That kind of language had never crossed her lips before, but it felt delicious and poisonous, and not just figuratively, but literally true. For the first time in her life, she wished she were a man, so she could lift her arm to the square and condemn him with all the power of the priesthood.

  Aaron came at her.

  * * *

  Jacob didn’t have a chance to lift the gun before it was over. Elder Kimball fired twice, and Fayer fired three times in response and Sister Miriam twice. He wanted to shout, “No, get down, let Miriam do it—she’s got the better angle.” He wanted to run forward and yank his father out of there, wanted to shoot Kimball in the head himself. He wanted to do a lot of things. He didn’t have time.

  The two older men twisted as they slumped to the ground, and ended up on the pavement in a tangle of limbs. Jacob ran over while Fayer and Miriam moved in with greater caution, guns still drawn.

  He dropped his gun to pull his father free, then fell back with the sick shock of recognition as he took in his father’s wounds. Abraham Christianson had taken a single gunshot—an entry wound over the left breast and an exit wound out the back. Just one, but in the wrong place.

  He shoved his hands over the wound and blood oozed between his fingers. “I need a trauma cart! Someone—” he started, then glanced at the hospital and the people still coming out, the women and children screaming. Blood on faces, shocked expressions.

  His father coughed and Jacob looked down. “They said I’d see the Second Coming,” Father said, his expression afraid.

  “Hold on, Dad. You’ll be okay.”

  “Jacob, I have the taste of death in my mouth.”

  Jacob had spent too many shifts in the ER as a resident, dealing with trauma—gunshot wounds, car accidents, drownings, falls. He knew the look of a man about to die. Arterial pressure dropping to zero, blood draining from the brain. Loss of consciousness in seconds, death moments after that.

  All the hardness had left his father’s face, all the responsibilities and concern. Father was a man who held himself to the same exacting standards that he demanded of everyone else, but all that was gone now. Father opened his mouth to say something else, and Jacob thought it would be one final admonition to find his testimony, or maybe some word about Eliza. Maybe even an order for what Jacob should do about all the wives and children. But instead a smile passed over his face and he whispered, “Grandma Cowley. That’s who.”

  “What?”

  And then Father was gone. Moments earlier he’d been alive, striding through life, confident as only God’s prophet can be. The next, eyes glazed and lifeless. It was the look—as they said in the church—of a man whose spirit has left his body. Medically, Jacob should keep fighting, get that trauma team here, get him to the ER to patch the gaping wound in his heart, to get blood in his veins, to do all the required, useless things necessary before declaring the inevitable. But it was over.

  Jacob let out an anguished cry and rose to his feet. His father’s blood covered his hands. His face was wet, too, but when he wiped it with his sleeve he realized there were tears flowing down his cheeks.

  Women and children from Blister Creek gathered around their fallen prophet. One of these was Eliza and Fernie’s mother, who threw herself onto her husband’s chest, weeping.

  “Help me,” a voice said. “Jacob, you’re a doctor—tell them.”

  It was Elder Kimball. Somehow, medical training be damned, Jacob had overlooked the second patient. Fayer turned him onto his stomach—none too gently, either—and Miriam wrenched his arms behind his back. Kimball had three gunshot wounds to his rival’s one. But those wounds were in the thigh, the shoulder, and one in the chest that might have matched Abraham Christianson’s except it was on the other side of the body, the side without the heart, and higher, toward the shoulder. With medical attention, Elder Kimball would live. Jacob looked away in disgust.

  Someone pulled on his arm. He turned, ready to tell Miriam or Agent Fayer that they could find someone else to save Kimball’s worthless life. But it was his brother, his face drawn, drained of blood.

  “The women,” David said in a faltering voice, “they’re saying Aaron Young is still inside, killing people. And Fernie is in there, too.”

  Jacob grabbed his father’s gun and sprinted toward the hospital. David ran after him.

  But the brothers drew short at the front entrance. The explosion had shattered the doors, and he smelled a hint of the floral scent that had permeated the cliff dwelling in the Dark Canyon wilderness. “No good,” Jacob said. “Contaminated. Over here.”

  They ran around the side of the building where they found a door into the administration wing hanging open. Jacob couldn’t remember the specific layout of Garfield Memorial, but all these rural hospitals were organized the same way. He stepped inside and glanced up and down the empty hallway. “This way.”

  They found Fernie’s room by the screaming baby. They burst through the doors.

  Aaron Young stood over the bed, his hands closed around Fernie’s throat. Jacob couldn’t see the baby, but its wail was the only sound in the room except for Aaron’s grunts as he choked Jacob’s wife to death. Fernie’s hands lay limply by her side, and her face was blue, her eyes open and motionless. She hadn’t gone down quietly. Aaron’s hands and face bled from scratches and cuts. A sharp metal trocar—a device attached to an IV line to thread it into the vein—stuck out of his shoulder, vibrating with Aaron’s pulse. Fernie must have pulled it from her arm and stabbed Aaron with it. He didn’t seem to notice.

  David got there first. He slammed his shoulder into Aaron and knocked him to the ground. Aaron swung his arm around and grabbed David’s shirt as he fell. For
a moment the two men tangled on the floor, and then David, trying to scramble out of the way, mule-kicked Aaron in the face and got free. Aaron grabbed for something. A gun. Jacob fired.

  The gunshot hit Aaron in the head. A burst of blood and brains exploded out the back of his skull. Aaron slumped to the ground without a sound or twitch.

  Jacob turned to Fernie, who wasn’t moving. The glazed look on her face matched the one his father had worn minutes earlier.

  But there was a difference between a man bleeding out from a gunshot wound, arterial blood pressure dropping to zero, and a woman with all her systems intact and a recent loss of blood pressure to the brain. He found the baby. It looked uninjured, and he scooped it up and passed it to his brother, who tucked the baby into the cart.

  Jacob turned to Fernie. She wasn’t breathing, but she had a weak, fluttering carotid pulse. He yanked aside the pillows and blankets, tilted her head back, pinched her nostrils shut, and put his mouth over hers. Fernie’s lips were still warm. He filled her lungs with his breath and followed them with chest compressions.

  “Is there something I can do?” David asked when Jacob came up for air the second time.

  “I need a trauma cart. Go into—”

  Suddenly Fernie coughed and took in a deep, ragged breath. Jacob stepped back, flooded with relief. The cold medical professional fell away like a suit of clothes. He grabbed the railing on the bed to keep from falling and almost burst out sobbing in relief. It took a moment to recover his balance.

  David picked up his baby and handed it to him. Instinctively, Jacob rocked the child, while he watched Fernie breathing heavily, her eyes opening, a grimace spreading across her face. She reached for her neck and winced, and Jacob knew, without further examination, that she was okay.

  He looked at his baby, its face red from crying. Nausea washed over him as he thought about leaving his wife and baby in the hands of Aaron Young.