by Jonas Saul
“I have nothing negative to talk to him about. I miss him. That’s all.” He said it, but wasn’t sure he meant it. The call was set in motion because of an investigation. He didn’t initiate the call on his own. Sarah told him to call. Reconnect. So he did. Did he miss his son? Of course he did. “I miss him,” he repeated. “I want to see him.”
“Okay. I’ll tell him you called. I gotta go.”
“No wait. When’s he due home?”
“After dinner tonight.”
“You said you saw my number on call display. Will you have him call that number?”
“I’ll tell him you called. I’ll give him the number. He’ll decide what to do.”
“That’s fair. Thank you.”
“Nice meeting you,” June said, then hung up.
He held the phone to his ear a moment longer, blew pent-up air out of his mouth, then set the receiver down slowly.
It rang in his hand.
He jumped and jerked the phone back to his ear.
“Yeah?” he said, hoping it was Nick.
“It’s Hallagan. There’s been an incident in Vernon.”
“Vernon?”
“When local officers responded to the site, they called us.”
“Why?”
“They want to talk to Sarah Roberts.”
“She’s leaving as we speak. What would Vernon RCMP want with Sarah?”
“Two murders this morning in a coffee shop. There was a note on the front door. It said the murders were because of Sarah Roberts and what she did in Kelowna yesterday. The unsub wants to talk to Sarah or the body count will rise.”
“Holy shit. I have to get Sarah off that plane.”
Lee slammed the phone down, flipped through a couple of scattered documents on his desk, found the one he was looking for, and scanned it with his finger for a name.
Officer Tom Mason and a select team of three other officers were tasked with making sure Sarah and Parkman got on that plane this morning. Mason’s contact phone number was printed below his name.
Lee dialed the number.
Chapter 12
Thirio set the gun on the table beside him to keep his hands free.
“Get up off the floor,” he ordered.
The customer squirmed at Thirio’s feet, full-on sobbing and mumbling that he didn’t want to die. A small dark puddle had formed on the floor near the man’s abdomen.
“You fucking pissed yourself?” Thirio pulled his right foot back, then followed through with a kick to the customer’s side. The man grunted on impact. “I oughta kill you for that. Now get up.”
The man didn’t move. His mumbling was too loud to hear Thirio’s instructions well enough. Thirio leaned down, grabbed the customer’s shirt collar and pulled upward. The man spun around with something clutched in his hand. The light above bounced off the body of a canister of some kind.
Pepper spray!
Thirio released the customer and jerked his head away. A torrent of spray shot toward him, connecting with the side of his face. Thirio’s eyes were clamped shut with no air moving in his nostrils as the liquid landed on his skin.
He dove several steps away, wiping the spray toward the back of his head with his hands in a frantic gesture to keep it out of his eyes.
A table moved behind him. What sounded like a chair tumbled to the floor.
My gun!
He’d left it on the table with the safety off. Without thought, without fear that the customer now had the weapon in his possession, Thirio spun around and lunged for the table, his one good eye wide open.
The customer got there first.
Thirio used his forward momentum to shove his right shoulder into the man’s stomach and continued running until the wall stopped them abruptly. An exhalation of air shot from the man’s mouth. His hands landed on Thirio. One in his hair and one on his shirt.
A sharp, intense pain shot through Thirio’s head as the man tried to remove a large clump of Thirio’s mane all at once.
His right eye had watered over with the scent of pepper spray so close to it, but now both eyes watered and gushed with the pain. He shouted a furious sounding battle cry. In moments like this, Thirio always prided himself on how clear his thoughts were. He realized as his shoulder held the man against the wall and the man’s hands pulled his hair and tried to rip the shirt off his back, that those same two hands did not have a gun in them.
Thirio shoved his weight into the customer once more, then dropped to the floor and felt around for the weapon, trying desperately to see through drowning eyes.
At the second his fingers bumped the barrel of the weapon, it was kicked away from him.
A fury he hadn’t felt since his fiancée was murdered months ago rose in him, making him forget the gun.
He swiveled his upper body as he rose to his feet until he was face to face with the man. The customer backed away, headed for the opening that led to the back room of the coffee shop.
Thirio lurched forward. He grabbed the man’s neck and clenched his hands closed even as the customer rained down fist after fist on Thirio’s arms and upper chest. In this state, Thirio remained unfazed. After he’d killed himself for the world to see—his family and his enemies—he renamed himself Thirio, which meant beast in Greek. For he was the beast now, spawned by the devil himself. As Lucifer’s pet, the anger and rage bestowed upon Thirio was magnificent and glorious. The inability to feel an ounce of pain while enthralled with a furious rage enabled him to hold onto the customer’s neck until he watched the life dim from the man’s eyes.
The man dropped to his knees. Thirio’s arms followed, his grip tightening still. The customer’s eyes fluttered as they bulged, his face a deep red, turning purple. A moan emitted from the man’s throat. It signaled his fight was diminished until it was nothing but one of will—a will to live in a moment when he knew he would die.
The customer’s arms weakened, then ceased their assault. When the body before Thirio slumped downward and he was simply holding dead weight, he released the man’s throat, took a deep breath and stood to his full height.
“That’ll fucking teach you,” he mumbled, his voice deep with exertion.
His vision better by degrees, Thirio scanned the front window. It was void of onlookers. Not a single person in evidence. No one had happened by to try the door. As far as he could tell, no one had responded to the sound of the gunshots.
He jumped over the body and stopped at a sink behind the counter with a tall faucet. After a two-minute rinse of his face, he hit buttons on the till until the money tray opened. Upon quick examination, he counted a little over two hundred dollars in cash. This didn’t have to look like a robbery, he just needed the money to forward his plan. They had killed his Julia. They had darkened his heart for years, then blackened it with her death. The demands of a blackened heart were insurmountable. The urge, the calling to right wrongs started with the death of his oppressors and death to his enemies. Upon completion of that task, he would go on to serve his one true angel. It didn’t matter to him whether he lived or died. He would serve his angel—the prettiest one of them all—the fallen angel, in life and then in death.
After wiping his face with water from the sink until most of the burn from the spray had dissipated, Thirio found a pad of paper and a marker on a desk in the back room. He wrote a note to Sarah Roberts. Then he signed it Thirio.
When they found the bodies and realized it was Sarah’s fault, she would come after him. Her calm, her ability to reason, would be contaminated by her desire to catch him. She would make mistakes and he would be waiting for her.
He lifted his head in thought, staring off into space a moment. This made perfect sense. Sarah Roberts was something of a good person. Whatever psychic ability she possessed came from the other side. There was Lucifer and his angels, then there was the other side, where Sarah dwelled. By bringing her here, by allowing her to get involved, Thirio’s angelic father had offered him the chance of a lifetime. Ho
w could he not have seen this before? Sarah Roberts was God’s weapon and Thirio was the devil’s weapon. A few random souls were saved yesterday. So what? Thirio could right that wrong within hours and no one could stop him.
Sarah Roberts was here because it was his job—his right—to remove her from existence for his father. He had to stop her meddling in his affairs any further. It made complete sense. This was Thirio’s test. Was he the avenger that his angel wanted? Was he dark enough to manage such a task as removing one of God’s instruments?
He considered his ultimate purpose, what he meant to achieve. Upon that, it was easy to see how Sarah could be his first test, his first initiation into the Kingdom of Hell where he hoped to rule alongside his master one day. The more souls he sent to his king, the larger the kingdom to be placed at his feet. And who better to send to the lake of fire than Sarah Roberts, one of God’s puppets.
A plan formed. As he hunted for a piece of tape, the idea solidified in his mind. He knew exactly what to do with Sarah Roberts. His enemies would play a large role in trapping her, providing she really was psychic and was here to save lives.
Thirio didn’t smile often. Especially not since Julia’s death. But after what had happened yesterday, coupled with the idea of how to execute the meddling psychic, he smiled and thanked Lucifer. Thirio would have never been able to come up with the idea on his own. Never. This was all his father’s doing.
He placed the handwritten note on the inside of the coffee shop door, looked both ways, unlocked the door, then stepped outside. He strode to his nondescript work truck, eyes down, heading to work like anyone else. Once inside the truck, he punched the roof twice and let out a piercing scream. That woman couldn’t be allowed to thwart him again. The bitch had to die and she had to die in the worst way possible. His plan involved dismemberment, just as his father would want.
He started the truck and headed to the first house on his list. He had seven estimates set up for today. He would get to each one. Then maybe cancel tomorrow’s estimates. By the end of the day he would probably have enough money to finish what he had started. He would be scrupulous, watch his back, look for suspicious cars following him.
He had the poison behind his seat, bottled in average-looking spray containers, already made and ready for public consumption. If anyone got close, he would use the poison on them.
There could be no more risk. No potential for that woman to find him. He wouldn’t stop. He would stick to his original mandate. He had come too far to stop now. The only alteration to the plan would be to lure Sarah Roberts into the trap set by the devil himself. Then he would take his time killing her. No one would be able to stop him.
No one at all.
He checked the side of his face in the mirror where the pepper spray had reddened his skin. It wasn’t too bad. Just a little coloring on his right temple. Nothing he couldn’t explain away to a potential client as a carpet burn.
Four blocks from the coffee shop, while sitting at a red light, a police car, lights flashing, raced by his work truck heading back the way he had just come.
Thirio smiled again.
He was getting used to things going his way.
Chapter 13
At the sound of an airline attendant’s announcement to commence boarding, Sarah and Parkman rose from their seats and lined up along with the other passengers.
The time was fast approaching when Lee’s men would return for them. Sarah knew it as Vivian wasn’t blocked at the moment. Several bits of information came through, preparing Sarah for what she had to do when the time came.
“They’re still not here,” Parkman said.
“They’re coming.” Sarah opened her passport to the picture page, then slipped her boarding pass in like a bookmark. “Just do what we’re supposed to do until they arrive.”
Parkman nodded. He wasn’t one to question her.
Passports checked, Sarah led the way down the tunnel access to the plane. They got seated quickly in the twelfth row and waited. Parkman had the aisle seat. He fidgeted with his seatbelt, secured it, and rested his head back, eyes closed.
Vivian’s presence was close. Like she was in the seat behind Sarah, whispering to her. Ever since Sarah had died in Denmark, they had maintained a very close relationship. This thing, whatever blocked Vivian, was new. What stumped Sarah was how Vivian didn’t know what was blocking her. How could she not know? What would be able to block Vivian’s connection without Vivian knowing what it was? Could it be evasive on purpose? If so, to what end?
As a multitude of questions raced through Sarah’s mind, she glanced out the plane’s oval-shaped window to watch the ground crew finish with the last of the luggage. Men wearing fluorescent green vests worked on the plane parked to her right. She counted seven men with green vests and one man standing by himself in a suit jacket.
A suit jacket?
Sarah twisted in her seat to get a better look at the man in the suit standing on the tarmac roughly twenty yards from the plane. He wasn’t wearing protective gear or headphones like the rest of the ground crew. The man simply stood behind the plane to her right, eyes focused on something on the ground. One glance at him and she could tell he was depressed. An image of a depressed stock broker on a street corner came to mind. Or an embezzling businessman who had just discovered an audit was in his future.
He had to be with the airlines in some capacity, otherwise he wouldn’t have clearance to stand out on the tarmac.
The captain announced the doors would soon close as they prepared for takeoff.
Parkman seemed restless.
“What’s caught your attention?” he asked.
“That man.” Sarah leaned back and pointed.
Parkman bent forward to look out the small window. He settled back in his seat, undid his seatbelt, then sat forward again and leaned across Sarah for a better view.
“I see a bunch of guys working with the luggage and one guy waiting with orange sticks. Which man are you referring to?”
Sarah kept her eyes on the man in the suit. He hadn’t moved. The breeze didn’t rustle his hair.
“That guy. In the dark suit.” She pointed directly at him. “He’s standing slightly behind that plane.”
Parkman leaned out further. “I don’t see anyone in a suit.”
“What? Really?” She looked at Parkman’s face, then the direction his eyes were aimed. He had a full view of the rear of the other plane. The only way he couldn’t see the besuited man was if he was invisible.
“Can you see that cargo vehicle coming our way?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s going to pass on the other side of the guy in the suit in three seconds. Two. One. Passing now not two feet from the guy.”
“I’m watching the vehicle, Sarah, but there’s no one standing out there.”
It dawned on her like a tormented epiphany. Her body shuddered at the prospect, at the reality. Goosebumps rose on her arms and legs.
“Sarah?” Parkman said beside her. “Your body just shook. Did you have a spasm?”
She ignored the question as she stared at the man, her eyes boring a hole in him.
Vivian? You there?
No response. Vivian’s presence was no longer detected.
Her sister was gone. Blocked.
The understanding of what was happening and why Vivian couldn’t see it came to Sarah in a flash. If her suspicions were true, then a lot more happened to Sarah when she died in Denmark than Vivian was letting on.
In a blur of movement, the man on the tarmac rose his head. He stared directly at her. There was no question in her mind.
He raised his right hand and motioned in the air like he was trying to tell her something. This was the third time she had seen him, although this time she couldn’t hear any gibberish. He was the man in the B.C. Medical Services building window. He was on the sidewalk outside Officer Lee’s office window, and now he stood on the tarmac where no one but Sarah could see him. He had
come with a message. Whatever he was trying to tell her seemed to be depressing him. Maybe the realization that Sarah wasn’t getting his message meant he had failed her.
“Sarah?” Parkman said, his voice empathetic. “What’s going on?”
She studied the man’s roving hand. She tried to make sense of what he was saying. Slowly, a pattern began to emerge. His hand went up and down, left and right, like he was spelling something out. She detected a pause where his message ended, then he started again. No matter how hard she tried, not a single letter formed in her mind.
