by Ted Dekker
Darcy had to calm herself.
“So, what can I do for you?” Johnny asked.
“That’s a low blow,” Billy said softly.
“No, it’s simply the truth. We’ve turned Paradise into the valley of truth and light, or hadn’t you heard?”
“And we’ll bury this valley!” Billy yelled.
“The truth isn’t easily buried,” Johnny said.
Billy’s anger surprised even Darcy. This wasn’t the right approach.
“Please, can we put the testosterone back in the bottle? Why don’t we take a seat and discuss this reasonably.We’re not children any longer.”
Kelly eased into a chair, but neither Johnny nor Billy moved.
“Okay, then we can stand,” Darcy said.
“I don’t mean to be antagonistic,” Johnny said. “But I’ve decided that I can’t deny the truth we all know.”He crossed to his chair, sat, and folded one leg over the other. “Until I saw Darcy on the Net, I was alone with this . . . gift. Finding you was like finding a long-lost brother and sister.”
“And it was to us as well, Johnny,” Darcy said, setting her apple down and sitting opposite him.
“I couldn’t put my finger on what bothered me then—Kelly tells me that my ability to help others see makes me blind in more ways than I realize. But when I learned that you’ve been behind—”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Darcy interrupted. “You could join us. Imagine the good we three could do for this world. We’d be using our gifts to help millions!”
She looked back at Billy. “Come, Billy.”
“This isn’t going to work,”Billy said, sitting.“Can’t you see that, Darcy? He’s here to reject any proposal before we even put it on the table.”
“You’re reading minds through glasses now? There are only three people in the world who have the gifts we have; surely we can see our way past fighting each other with them!”
“But you’re wrong, Darcy,” Johnny said. “We aren’t the only three.”
“No? Some of the other children also—”
“Black,” Billy said. “You’ll never let me live it down, will you?”
“It’s not my intention to blame you for anything, Billy,” Johnny said. “Only to help you remember the consequences of following the other path.”
Darcy was having difficulty controlling her frustration.
“And just where has your path led you?” she asked as calmly as she could.
“To the same place yours has led you,” he said. “Back to Paradise.”
“But you see, that’s where you’re wrong! This is no paradise! The whole idea of a heaven was never based on reality, and it never will be.”
“Not in this life, no.”
She could feel the heat rise in her face. “If you think the message or manipulations of a man in a white collar can in any way lead to a paradise in this life or the next, then maybe your lover is right. Maybe you are as blind as a worm.”
Then she thought twice about her haste to show her frustration.
“Speaking loosely, that is. So that you understand how I’ve been able to cope since being set free from the monastery.”
“Your problem is that you’ve always blamed the monastery, Darcy. The monks weren’t to blame. They gave you everything you needed and more. The only thing they forbade were the dungeons. They knew of the danger there. They tried to protect you from harm.”
“They could have sealed it!” she snapped.
“But you couldn’t stay away, could you? You went down into the dungeons, opened the ancient books, and brought the evil upon yourself. The priests weren’t the sinners, you were the sinners. The books gave us three these gifts to be sure it never happens again, and all you want to do is crucify monks.”
Billy stood, trembling. “Would you have done any different? Would you have stayed away?”
“I don’t know.Maybe I’d have done the same as you. But I hope I would accept blame for what I’d done and learn from it.”
It was too much for Darcy. “How dare you?” she screamed.
Birds took flight from the nearby scrub oaks.
“How dare you turn the pain we’ve suffered because of those monks against us, as if it’s all our fault, as if we chose to be experiments, as if they aren’t culpable, as if the dungeons had no blame! No child deserves to be put through that.”
Johnny sat quietly for a moment.
“What have you come to say to me?” he finally said.
Billy was right, Darcy realized. Johnny had no intention of even considering any proposal from them. But they had to turn him away from his plan.
“We’ve come to say that what you’re doing will end badly,” she said.
“Sit down, Billy.”
Instead he turned to his left and headed toward the trees.
Darcy let him go.
She turned back to Johnny. “You really don’t see the damage you’re doing here, do you?”
He just looked at her from behind those glasses. She wondered what would happen if they both removed their lenses and spoke frankly.
Kelly stood. “Excuse me.” So Johnny’s trophy hadn’t forgotten how to speak. She walked after Billy, but if she thought she could calm him down, she was even more foolish than Johnny.
“Maybe we could start over,” Johnny said. “I think we know where we stand, but maybe there’s a way we can understand each other better. I doubt you came all this way just to threaten me.”
Now it was just the two of them.
Darcy took a deep breath. “No. No, that’s not why we came. Tell me how we can work this out.”
“The light came into the world, but the world did not understand it. Perhaps I could help you understand.”
“You forget, I grew up having my head stuffed with all of that understanding.”
“Then maybe I can help you remember.”
“I’ve spent a lifetime trying to forget. Please, Johnny, you know as well as I do that this has nothing to do with understanding. I realize that you believe differently about the nature of things than I do. That doesn’t give us the right to even attempt to change each other.Why can’t we leave the world to believe what it wants to believe in peace without degradation or accusation? That’s all this law does. It stops the finger-pointing. You have a problem with that?”
“Did you read my blog?”
“Half the world has probably read your blog by now.”
“Did it call the Muslims fools?”
“Yes! Not in so many words, but by publicly claiming that your way is the only way, you’re calling their way wrong. And in matters of race and religion, calling someone wrong is as inflammatory as calling them fools, or even worse. Can you imagine me walking around spouting off that all blacks are immoral or unequal because they are black? We’d have riots again!”
“You’re making one mistake in equating the two.”
Darcy held up a hand.“Stop. I know. Blacks aren’t wrong because they’re black any more than Hitler was wrong because he was white.Where you split hairs is that you believe that Muslims are wrong about some things, right? But that’s your belief, Johnny! You have no right to force your morals down their throats.”
“When did speaking your beliefs become synonymous with forcing them upon others?”
“When they involve explosive issues, like deciding who’s going to hell!”
“Perhaps you’re still misunderstanding. I’m condemning no one. I’m only saying that I will follow Jesus.”
“But Jesus condemned all who refused to follow him!” Darcy cried. “His was a narrow, bigoted, exclusive faith that has no place in the world today.”
“I’ll let his words stand on their own,” Johnny said.“He died for what he said two thousand years ago, and nothing in this world has changed since then.” He paused, then took a new approach. “Are you also deny-ing the supernatural?”
“Of course not. I’m a living example of the extraordinary. Call it mystical, paranormal,
whatever; that doesn’t mean the church understands it any better than the rest of us.”
“I’m not speaking for any particular church. Only for the kingdom of light that has reversed my understanding of reality.”
“And you have to throw the Jesus element in there? He’s the problem, Johnny, not the light.”
Johnny unfolded his legs and stood. He walked to the edge of the canopy and stared out at the trees into which Billy had disappeared.
Darcy approached him from behind, struck by the broadness of his shoulders. No telling what kind of hell he’d been through to make him the man he was today. An intelligent man who understood the wisdom of her words, with or without glasses.
She drew next to him and followed his gaze. No sign of Billy or Kelly.
“We can change the world, Johnny. I know we can. We could probably ban war, stop global conflict, even eradicate poverty or disease—if we put our minds to it.”
“The scope of our power is an amazing thing,” he said softly. “I would love to see the Senate stare into my eyes.”
She chuckled. “A sight to behold.”
“We really do have the power to overcome evil, wherever it shows its ugly head.”
“To rid the world of poverty.”
“And disease.” He looked down at her, and she could smell his spicy cologne. “You would use your gift to save the world at any cost, wouldn’t you?”
“I must!”
He turned and walked back into the tent.“And so must I. Which is why I have to lift up the Light of the World by which all men can be saved. Doing anything less would be like walking away from a dying leper.”
He’d set her up.
Darcy decided then, as rage washed through her, that she would not let this man manipulate her again. Not ever.
He bit deeply into an apple and sat back down.
“You’re assuming that the world has a disease, Johnny,” she said, fuming. “You’re also assuming you have the cure. And that, my friend, is the deadliest sickness to face humanity. Arrogance.”
“You’re forgetting again, Darcy,” he said without a hint of reconsideration, “I have seen that disease with my own eyes, before I went blind. I’ve battled that disease. I’ve watched how this disease ravages life. And I’ve seen the cure to this disease. I would be a coward not to warn the world of the disease or to withhold the cure from the afflicted.”
“So then that’s that. You’re flat refusing to listen to sense.”
“I’m doing the only thing that makes any real sense.”
“By defying this nation’s laws? And make no mistake, the law will be held up and what you’re doing will be judged by the courts as strictly illegal. Is that what your precious faith has taught you?”
“I’m simply refusing to dim the light that showed us both the way.”
“Whatever happened to tolerance?”
“Tolerance of evil is evil. That’s Black’s new game.”He faced her. “And I do believe that you, Darcy, have your tongue down his throat.”
Her fingers shook.
He took another bite.
“This is going to end very, very badly, Johnny Drake.”
UNTIL JOHNNY spoke, Billy wasn’t sure why the idea of returning to Paradise had struck such a deep chord of horror in his mind or why the chorus rising out of that chord had refused to be silenced.
He long ago assumed he’d pretty much put his childhood to rest. Darcy was the one who still struggled. Sure, he had his bouts with nightmares, his flashbacks, his days of regret, his flogging sessions, but who didn’t? Had he ever met a man or woman who did not have mistakes they wished they could take back?
How did it go? To err is to be human, be it a bite out of an apple, or a spilled cup of coffee. Error was a quintessentially human quality. Right?
He’d told himself that his fears were only of the unknown, and that once he returned to Paradise, he would put them to rest. The whole experience could be healing to them both. Put a lid on the past once and for all.
Seeing Paradise from the air had only made the fears perfectly real.
But not until Johnny recounted exactly what had happened in the monastery did Billy realize what that fear actually was.
Himself. He feared himself, because Johnny was right; he had been the one to first take a bite out of that apple. He’d been the one to drag Darcy down into the dungeons to join him.
He was the first sinner.
And he still was, wasn’t he? He was afraid he would return to the vomit, like a hungry dog. That he, having once tasted, would want to taste again.
He wouldn’t, of course, he’d learned his lesson. But the fear that he might, just maybe might, crushed him with more weight than he’d borne in many years.
The meeting with Johnny was a bust, he knew that already. All their efforts were coming down around them. They would have to enforce the law here in Paradise. Johnny had come here to make his stand, because he knew that more than poetic justice awaited them all here. A confrontation in Paradise would end it all for good.
But Johnny didn’t realize that it was he who was going down this time.
Billy walked into a small clearing among the aspens, trying to clear his head. He’d walked away because he didn’t trust himself to contain the rage that had welled up in him as Johnny reminded them all who had written Marsuvees Black into existence.
Which only confirmed how much Billy despised Black. He’d never doubted that.
Wanna trip, baby?
Billy shuddered.
“Billy?”
He spun, surprised to see that Kelly had followed him into the trees.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She glanced back the way she’d come. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” But it was just one of those meaningless rote statements. They both knew he wasn’t within a radar’s distance of fine.
“Billy . . .” She turned back to him and studied his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”
It was an awkward moment, he thought. Standing in a clearing with a friend of Johnny’s while Johnny spoke to Darcy in dead-end negotiations.
“I think you should go back,” he said.
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
But she didn’t leave. She stood there staring into his eyes with her blue ones. They misted and he realized that she was fighting back tears.
He hadn’t considered what those surrounding Johnny must feel like, caught up in his predicament. Kelly realized that things couldn’t turn out well here in Paradise, and she’d come to plead on Johnny’s behalf. He hardly blamed her.
“Johnny’s the one you should talk to,” Billy said. “You realize that our hands are tied. We’re here out of respect for an old friendship. But if we can’t talk Johnny down, the authorities will step in. Laws that aren’t enforced are worse than no laws at all.”
A tear slipped from her right eye and broke down her cheek. At first glance he’d assumed Kelly was a confident woman, the way her blonde hair framed strong cheekbones. There was a firmness to her eyes suggesting anything but weakness.
But seeing her cry, he wondered if he’d misjudged her. Maybe she was fragile, vulnerable.
She looked away and wiped her cheek dry.
Billy didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, really. This just isn’t—”
“I love him so dearly, you know,” she said.
“I’m sure you do. Unfortunately, there really is nothing I can do.”
Kelly looked at him again. A slight grin crossed her face. She stepped closer. “You know that’s not true, Billy.” The grin flattened. “If there’s anyone who can do something here, it’s you.”
“I’m not sure you understand.”
“I understand better than you.” Kelly lifted her hand and touched his face with a gentle finger, tracing his chin. “I understand him. We’ve been through hell together, Johnny and I. Do you know how many tears I’ve wept on his account?”
&n
bsp; She walked slowly around him, brushing Billy’s shoulder with her fingers.
“I know Johnny better than he knows himself, because in so many ways, I helped him become the man he is today. And I know how far he will go.”
“Ma’am, I’m sure—”
“Call me Kelly.” She looked into his face again. Tears rose to the rims of her eyes. “Johnny won’t stop. I’ve seen him suffer through torture that would have even you screaming like a baby—he suffers without so much as flinching a muscle.He’s a very, very powerful man, Billy. Did you know he was once known as the world’s most dangerous assassin? They called him Saint.”
He hadn’t known, but then he knew very little about Johnny. An assassin named Saint. Go figure.
“What would that make me, Sinner?”
“My Johnny was put on this planet for a very special purpose.”
Tears spilled from both eyes now. For a brief moment her resolve to keep from breaking down waned and her lips quivered. But then she drew air through her nostrils and regained what composure she could control.
“You can’t stand in his way, Billy.”
He wasn’t sure what she was asking of him, but the conviction in her voice cut to his heart.
“And I mean that literally,” she said. “You can’t, because you, too, were put on this planet for a very special purpose.”
“Forgive me for not—”
“Shh, shh.” She placed a finger on his lips. Traced his mouth. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t try to say you don’t believe in the power that swims all around us. Do you think your gift came from monkeys?”
What was he supposed to say to that?
“You’re very special, Billy. Very, very special. Even more special than Johnny.”
He was now at a complete loss. She knew something he did not, and it appealed to him like water to a fish.
Kelly leaned forward and kissed him lightly on his lips. “Promise me you’ll remember that, Billy. For his sake, remember that.”
Then Kelly turned and left him alone in the clearing.
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
* * *
THE TOWN’S inner circle gathered inside of Smither’s Barbeque for their first ad hoc meeting as dusk grayed the western sky, twenty-two men and women by Kat’s count, including Joseph Houde, who wasn’t really an insider. But then neither was she.
