Sinner

by Ted Dekker

  She stood next to him beneath the pulsating air, long hair flying every which direction, calf-length black dress buffeted about, arms limp by her sides. She scanned the eyes that watched her from the perimeter.

  “Take your glasses off and tell me what they’re thinking,” she instructed.

  He did so, but must have gotten nothing, because he stepped closer to a group loitering by Smither’s Barbeque. Used to be Smither’s Saloon, if she remembered right.

  Darcy followed by his side. “Anything?”

  “They’re wondering who we are. Some fear. Mostly curiosity.”

  “Who has the fear?”

  “The one in the white shirt.”

  Darcy strode toward a woman in her forties, dressed in jeans and a white, sleeveless blouse and tennis shoes. No sunglasses, that was good. Hardly any of them wore sunglasses.

  She plucked her own from her face. “You there in the white blouse, what’s your name?”

  The woman blinked, already aware of some subtle change in her own disposition. Darcy bore into her with her eyes and clearly annunciated each word.

  “What is your name?”

  “Holly.”

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you, Holly?”

  Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes, but she didn’t respond.

  “Fact is, you’re all afraid,” Darcy said, running her eyes over the group. “You’re so afraid, that I think you’ll demand to be taken out of here, to safety.”

  The woman in the white blouse had frozen, though confusion batted at her eyes.

  Darcy had done this enough to know that her power was at its great-est when she exerted the full force of her own passion into each word. And at the moment, her passion was fueled by the frustration of Johnny having compelled her halfway across the United States not once, but twice now because he wanted men in clerical collars to be able to point their fingers at the world.

  She ground her molars and looked into each of their eyes. “The National Guard is preparing to invade this valley. People will die. Innocent lives will be lost. But you’ve forced their hand, and so now you may die.”

  “No.”

  “Oh yes, Holly. Yes, yes.” She’d exaggerated for effect, and Holly responded.

  The woman was trembling head to foot, as were five others, hands to their mouths, shaking without being able to fully comprehend where the extreme emotion was coming from. Without realizing it, they were facing more than the simple fear of the National Guard.

  “They’re coming for you,” Darcy said. “You’re all terrified for good reason, and you’re going to demand that Johnny take you out of here.” She offered them a gentle smile and stopped ten feet from them. “Aren’t you?”

  “Leave?” one of them asked. A thin brunette.

  “Yes, leave this valley.”

  “No,” said Holly. She was crying earnestly now.“No, you don’t understand, we can’t leave.”

  Darcy blinked. “Oh? But you will leave!”

  “No.”

  “Yes, yes, you will leave.”

  A moment of silent stalemate.

  “No!” the woman screamed. “No, you can’t make me leave. I will not be silenced! I will not deny the love of my Christ! Take my head, take my home, take my husband, but you will not take my heart!”

  Darcy was too stunned to reply. The woman was resisting her? Her mind scrambled for better reasoning. Surely she could find and act on the morsel of doubt in this woman’s mind. That sliver of fear. That spot that resented God, even.

  “You’ve betrayed Christ before,” she said.

  “Yes!” The woman’s hands flew to her face and she wept into them bitterly. “Yes! And I can’t betray him again. Never!”

  She was being defied? For the first time since Darcy had understood her gift, she feared that it might fail her. But she couldn’t let that happen.

  “You’ll all leave!” she screamed at the women. “You’re all whores who have no understanding of how dangerous your own betrayal really is, and you’re terrified to stand here one more moment.”

  Holly began to wail through her hands, and the moment her volume rose, the rest of them began to weep with her.

  “Run. Out! Get out of this valley. Don’t be stupid, you hear me? Don’t you dare be fools for the sake of a Christ you can’t even see!”

  She might have pulled the plug from their resolve. But instead of running from the town, screaming about their own foolishness, they fell to the ground, writhing in sobs, praying—praying!—begging to be forgiven.

  “Have mercy on us sinners, Son of David! Have mercy on us sinners, Jesus Christ!”

  She realized too late that she’d pushed them toward their beliefs, not away. Watching these women, she wasn’t sure she could push them from their faith.

  Darcy became aware of a murmur mixed with soft cries behind her. She spun, half expecting to see Johnny standing there. But it wasn’t Johnny. Another five hundred at least had gathered and were watching the women on the ground, crying with them, some kneeling, some with their faces in their hands, some just staring with wet eyes.

  The sight sliced through her chest like a white-hot blade. She didn’t dare speak. Billy was beside her, eyes wide, truly afraid.

  “Call the chopper,” she managed. “Get us out of here.”

  “Darcy!”

  There was no mistaking the sound of Johnny’s voice. She turned back to Smither’s Barbeque, where Holly and the others were now sobbing softly, and saw Johnny standing to the right of the building.

  “I have something to show you.”

  “No,” Billy shouted, but his voice sounded like a hoarse whisper.

  “Take one look, Billy,” Johnny challenged. “If you don’t like what you see, then leave.”

  Billy thrust out his right arm and pointed at Johnny.“You have twenty-four hours from sunset today to surrender yourself before we use force.” His fiery eyes scanned the crowd.“All of you, twenty-four hours, and then this game of yours comes to an end. You’ve been warned!”

  “Then we have some time, Billy,” Johnny said calmly. “Or would you prefer the camera told the world”—he indicated a newsman who was filming them—“that Billy and Darcy have forgotten how to negotiate?”

  Darcy felt heat sting her face.

  “We have to go with him,” she said softly to Billy. “We’re on. Live.”

  “He’s . . . he’s . . .” Billy voice was laced with panic. “He’s manipulating—”

  “We have to give negotiation its due course.” She turned and looked into his eyes. “I love you, Billy. I will be with you all the way.We’re stronger than Johnny. You can do this. You can set aside your fear of Black and the memories that haunt you, because I am with you.”

  His face melted like snow under the heat of each word.

  Darcy took his hand, at the risk of appearing juvenile in the camera’s eye, and strode toward Johnny.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  * * *

  THE SUN had sunk below the surrounding cliffs by the time Johnny’s chopper settled into the old canyon above Paradise. Billy and Darcy had dutifully climbed aboard the helicopter behind the old theater. The flight to the upper canyon that had once housed the hidden monastery took seven wordless minutes.

  It occurred to her that they had Johnny in their grasp. They could force the pilot to fly them to the staging plateau, where several hundred armed National Guardsmen awaited a command from the Special Forces within their indirect command.

  But a single glance told her that Johnny was ahead of her. The pilot wore a helmet with a dark visor that shielded his eyes from the sun and, more importantly, from her. The helmet had been fixed to a strap that ran under his arms. There was no way they could get it off without brute force.

  The chopper settled on the sand long enough for them to step out before being snatched back into the sky by blades that bit hard into the air.

  “Follow me,” Johnny said, heading up the canyon.


  Darcy let her eyes follow the sheer rock walls on either side as silence replaced the chopper’s whine. The white sand was littered with chunks of granite that had tumbled from the cliffs. The center of the canyon reminded her of a huge bowling lane strewn with broken balls. Larger boulders, taller than she, stood along the canyon walls.

  “I don’t like this,”Billy said.“We shouldn’t have gone down to the town in the first place, and we shouldn’t have come up here.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns,” she said.

  He walked forward, face set. They followed Johnny up the canyon ten paces behind.

  Around the bend.

  The cliff on their left had been brought down in a landside and now covered the whole section of canyon that had once housed the monastery. A small cabin sat at the base of the slide.

  Darcy was staring at her childhood, and the memories she’d worked so hard to bury now exploded to the surface.

  Monks hurrying up and down the halls, gathering the children for dinner.

  Classes with the others in an expansive library, learning of virtue, always virtue.

  The dungeons that Billy had led her into. The worms. The Books of History from which all three had gotten their powers. All there, beneath the pile of boulders that had obliterated it.

  “Doesn’t look so bad,” Billy said, stepping closer.

  Johnny turned around and faced them, dark glasses in place. “Not so bad, Billy.”He spread his arms wide. “The birthplace of unique evil never looked so innocuous.”

  “What evil? I see rocks and sand and a cabin. Your finger pointing won’t change the fact that you have three thousand people trapped in a valley, facing their deaths.” He flipped open his phone.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Johnny said, easing toward a boulder half his height.

  “You don’t think they know exactly where we are?”

  Johnny suddenly had a pistol in his hand. “Problem is, so do I.” He spun the weapon and caught it neatly in his palm. “I suggest you tell them to give us some space.We need to talk.”

  Billy hesitated. Judging by the way Johnny handled the gun, the rumors about him were true. Darcy had no doubt that he could kill them both before they had the time to notice.

  “I could shoot the phone out of your hand, but you might lose a finger—it’s been awhile. Please, Billy, tell Kinnard you’re fine. We’re just trying to understand some things.”

  Billy frowned and spoke into the phone. “Yes, we’re fine. No, leave us here in the canyon.”

  “Pull back any observation posts,” Johnny said.

  “Pull back the spotter on the north face. I’ll call for a chopper when we’re ready.” He snapped the phone closed.

  Johnny tossed the gun into the sand and held up his hands in a sign of good faith. “Thank you.”

  Darcy clasped her hands behind her back and walked to her right, gazing at the piles of rock, trying to imagine the old entry to the monastery. “You really think dragging us back here will help you? I hate to disappoint you, Johnny, but we’re here about our future. Clearly, our past is buried.”

  “On the contrary, this is all about the past,” he said. “It’s about what happened two thousand years ago. What happened twelve years ago. What happened last week. The truth doesn’t change over time.”

  “Is that what lies under that pile of rocks? The truth? I think we were fed lies.”

  “Then why don’t we put it to a test?”

  She knew immediately what he had in mind.

  “You want us to remove our glasses and see what happens, is that it?”

  “I want you to use your gifts. They were given to you for good, not evil. Billy, search my mind, show me where my doubts hide. Darcy, persuade me of the errors in my way of thinking. I’ll remove my glasses and let you speak to me clearly.”

  The notion put Darcy on guard. Why would he subject himself to such a baring of his soul?

  Then she remembered Holly down in Paradise.

  “If you don’t see the sense of our way,” she said, “you only prove that your deception runs all the way into your bones.”

  “Who cares about that?” Billy said. “He intends to make us look into his eyes.” To Johnny: “Do we look like morons to you?”

  “You do. But looks can be deceiving. My eyes are harmless. They will expose only truth, unless I decide to show you more.”

  “More?”

  He hesitated. “Nothing that will hurt you. But I want you to see your souls, the way they really are, and that sometimes can be painful. You’re not afraid of yourselves, are you?”

  Darcy found the idea of staring into her own soul a bit esoteric but nonetheless unnerving.

  “No,” Billy said. “No, Darcy, I’m telling you this is a bad idea.”

  She looked at Johnny. “You heard him. It’s a bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  She faced Billy again. “Why, Billy?”

  “Because he’s not telling us something. He knows that his eyes can do something . . .” The tightness in his voice betrayed his fear.

  “My eyes can show the truth. And only then if you are open to it.”

  Johnny lifted his hands and removed his glasses.His eyes were as blue as the sky. Nothing that looked threatening.

  “You’re not seeing my real eyes,” he said. “I have the power to do a few tricks, like turn my eyes blue. Basic illusions. But that’s not what we’re interested in here, are we?”

  “It doesn’t matter what we see, then,” Billy said. “How would you expect us to think that anything you show us isn’t just an illusion? A hundred false faith healers have turned the world into cynics. So what are you, the ultimate miracle worker for the entire world to see? You’re a fake!”

  “Then you’ll be fine, Billy. You’ll know if what you see is just an illusion. Skeptics aren’t easily won over.”

  Darcy stared at his blue eyes. Here it was then, three grown children with special powers facing off in the very canyon where they had been granted those powers. The world gathered on the Net for one of the largest global ideological battles it had yet faced, but this was the epicenter.

  In the end there was Billy, Johnny, and Darcy.

  Johnny took a step toward her, eyeing her with deep pools of impossible blue. “You’ve rejected the faith, but surely you remember your lessons. The account of the leader who swore to kill every follower of the Way, these so-called Christians, after they’d crucified Jesus. He rounded them up wherever they could be found, do you remember?”

  “A story,” she said.

  “Verified by numerous historical documents. An accurate account.”

  “So what?”

  “He took a journey to Damascus to bring followers of the Way to justice, just like you and Billy are doing here. But that journey changed his life dramatically. Instead of stomping out the Way, he vowed to spend his life speaking the truth about Jesus. What happened to bring about such a radical transformation from hatred to devotion, Darcy? Do you remember?”

  “Of course she remembers,”Billy snapped.“What are you now, an angel of light?”

  Johnny kept his eyes on Darcy.“That’s right, Billy, the apostle Paul saw a light on the road. A blinding shaft of truth that bared his soul and threw him to his knees.”

  Darcy reached up and snatched her glasses from her eyes. “Fine, Johnny. Show me your light. Do your tricks. The world’s waiting.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then looked at Billy.

  “And you?”

  Billy’s voice was laced with bitterness. “You think dragging us through the mud, shoving our pitiful failures in our faces, spitting on us when we’re down will do anything more than prove what Darcy convinced me of a week ago?”

  He meant that freedom from hate speech was grounded in hate, not love. But at the moment, Billy seemed to have cornered hate speech. He’d lost a bit of perspective, Darcy thought.

  “Just because the tru
th disturbs someone doesn’t make speaking that truth hate speech,” Johnny said.

  “It’s nothing more than your version of the truth.”

  “Then take off your glasses, Billy, and see if it should be your version as well . . . or not.”

  Billy ripped his glasses off, and Johnny’s thoughts flowed into his mind like a torrent. They locked eyes for a few long seconds that stretched into ten.

  Darcy guessed by the deepening scowl on Billy’s face that he was learning what they already knew: Johnny was indeed deceived by his own rhetoric. To the marrow of his bones he believed that he was speaking not only the truth but the only truth.

  “Look at me, Johnny,” Darcy said.

  He blinked and turned his eyes to her.

  She started to slowly walk toward him, light on the sand. “You will not use your eyes on me, Johnny. You respect me too much to force me against my will, and really, I don’t want to hear any more of what you have to offer.”

  He took a step back, undoubtedly unprepared for the power in her voice. She pressed.

  “Even if your version of truth has merit, you have to respect those who dislike it. Speaking of it in any arena where it is uninvited, such as in this country, is wrong.”

  Johnny’s blue eyes did not blink. She wondered what it was like to see the way he saw, in lights and shapes rather than in color or texture.

  “I do not want you to be rude to me, Johnny.”

  “Was Jesus rude to the money changers he drove from the temple?” Johnny asked.

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, he was. And I don’t want you to treat me that way. This is America, not ancient Palestine. We’ve grown up since then, don’t you think?”

  “The world has fallen into a dark pit. Is it rude or hateful to point the way to the light?”

  She reached him and lifted her hand to his face. Rubbed her thumb on his cheek. His flesh was hot to her touch, closely shaven, smooth.

  “I think the world likes this dark pit. So please shut up and let us all grope around in the dark if that’s what we want to do.”

  He was feeling the full brunt of her words; she could see it in the sweat on his forehead. But she hadn’t tested him yet, not really.