by David Beers
“If she won’t believe, then God ain’t never gonna talk to us,” the man says. He’s not looking at his daughter, but staring out across the front yard.
The girl falls down, just collapsing right on the porch. The tears still flee her eyes and she begins to whine, a sound that threatens to make Christian’s ears bleed.
The father finally breaks his concentration and looks at his daughter. “Stop it.”
The girl doesn’t, though. The whine continues until finally the man reaches down and picks her up, slinging her over his shoulder. Christian can’t imagine the pain that must accost the man’s back with the added weight, but the father only gives a slight grimace. He walks into the house and Christian follows. He doesn’t look at the area around him, but tries to keep up because the man is walking quickly.
They move straight through the house and into the back yard. There’s a shed in the back and Christian has no doubt that’s where the man is heading.
The three of them cross the yard. Christian does look around now, and sees there are no other houses anywhere. They are alone, with only tall grass fields and the insects they hold for company.
The man reaches the shed and opens it. No lock. No need for security in a place this remote.
Christian follows the two inside and a dingy light bulb is on overhead. It’s the only light in this place and casts a yellow glow across everything, making the room look diseased. A woman lies on the ground, and that’s exactly what it is—just dirt ground. Her arms and legs are tied with tight knots. She is the same woman from the funeral. Her face is already beat to shit, her eyes so swollen that there’s no way she can see.
She breathes into the dirt and particles fly up around her face, landing and sticking to her bloodied skin. She says nothing.
Is it because she knows it won’t matter?
The man drops the girl on the ground, and she’s still making that awful noise. Her thumb is in her mouth and her legs curled up to her chest, as if she’s regressed to an infant.
“Sit up,” the father says.
The girl doesn’t move.
“SIT UP!”
His voice slaps through the room like a whip, and the girl does move then. She sits up and quickly pushes herself all the way to the wall, leaning her back against it and staring at her mother.
“I tried to make her believe. You’ve got to understand that. If you don’t understand anything else, understand I tried.” The man’s southern drawl is thick, almost a caricature.
The woman only breathes onto the dirt floor.
“She never has believed, though, and God ain’t going to send us what we’re waiting on if someone like this is in our midst. The Bible says not to suffer a witch, and a whore is pretty similar to a witch in my eyes. In God’s, too. Your mother is a whore, and if it ain’t with other men, then it’s with other ideas from this sick planet. I won’t suffer her in my house any longer.”
The girl says nothing, only sucks her thumb and continues crying. The horrible whine has stopped. She’s completely silent.
The man kneels down next to his wife and rubs his hand through her hair like a caring lover.
“You should have believed,” he says. Christian sees no tears in his eyes though his voice carries the concern of a man doing a duty, but not one he finds joy in.
He turns the woman on her back and straddles her stomach. Christian can finally see the woman’s full face, the yellow light from above putting everything in a jaundiced tint. Her eyes are wide and full of fear, different from her daughter’s which appear almost dead. They don’t contain tears, though.
Husband and wife look at each other dry eyed.
And then the man’s hands wrap around the woman’s throat.
Christian sees the strong cords of muscle bulge from beneath his skin and his face turns into a wicked snarl. The woman begins gurgling, her feet kicking up and down behind her husband, doing everything in their power to grant her lungs air. Her arms can’t move because the man is sitting on them.
Her head starts twisting left and right, clods of dirt grabbing onto her hair. She can’t escape, though. Spit flies from her mouth, landing on her lips—bright white, revealing the woman’s dehydration. Her skin is turning blue.
With Bradley Brown, Christian had wanted to turn away, but now he doesn’t. He wants to watch this man kill.
“Yes,” a voice says to him. Christian doesn’t turn to his left, where the voice comes from, though he can see a shadow standing in his peripheral vision. “Watch her die. Brutality is necessary in this life, Christian. Necessary, and even right sometimes.”
Veins bulge across the woman’s forehead, and the strangling continues for five minutes or so. Christian doesn’t turn away. He wasn’t aware it took so long to strangle someone.
Finally, the life inside the woman is gone, and the man falls over to the side. He lies on his back, his chest heaving up and down.
Minutes pass in silence. The girl sits against the wall, not moving. She stares straight forward as if nothing happened.
Finally, her father speaks, though it’s difficult for him to catch his breath. “Father Martin … he says the church will take care of it. All of this is okayed by everyone. It was the only thing we could do.”
“It’s not a pretty life, is it?” the voice said. “The father quoting scripture discussing why the mother must die. I wonder, will the daughter quote scripture when Luke dies? Did she quote it for Goleen?”
There was more here and Christian knew it, but he didn’t want to stay any longer.
The voice that spoke from the vent … was starting to sound sweeter. Not something that he wanted to run from, but maybe something he’d like to hear more of.
“Go on, then, Christian. I’ll be here when you’re ready to learn about our girl.”
Chapter 20
Christian was watching Lucy Speckle’s history, as Lucy watched Veronica Lopez in reality. Or, rather, watched the world around Veronica Lopez.
The night was late and the road dark. Street lights were spaced every thirty feet or so, but Lucy had no problem remaining in the shadows.
She looked at the car sitting across the street from Lopez’s house. Two heads were sticking up just above the seats. Lucy had been staring at the car for the past hour, at a distance of fifty feet. Her body did its dance and twitch as usual, and as usual, Lucy didn’t notice.
Lucy’s thoughts were on the two cops.
The Lord had spoken to her, just as Daddy said He would. The Lord told her what her Daddy had about Momma.
Don’t suffer a witch, and a whore is pretty much the same thing.
This woman here was a whore, and while the demon may have first suggested Lucy take her, the Lord was the one who gave the final direction. The demon didn’t know it, but he was playing right in to God’s plan—which made sense to Lucy. Everything served God.
A pistol sat lodged in between her stomach and her pants. She’d taken it from Luke Titan’s house. She had shot guns when she was younger, with her daddy, so she wasn’t concerned about using it. After throwing Titan in the trunk, she had found a silencer in Titan’s house and had attached it, taking care of the noise factor. Daddy and the church showed her a lot about guns, so while the designs had changed over the years, the basics remained the same.
Really, the demon had supplied her with everything she needed to do this job—including the getaway car.
Lucy moved around the back of the house she was hiding at. She crept across the unfenced yard, moving diagonally so that she walked to the very edge of the property. She crossed two yards like that, scaling a fence on the second—but that was easy.
Now she stood about a hundred feet in front of the cop car, though behind a house. The night was silent. No dogs sensing her presence, no movement from any of the houses.
Lucy pulled her hoodie off her head and started walking. She moved across the lawn, and entered the street in front of the two police officers. She wanted to be seen. Her
hoodie covered the gun’s bulge.
The two police officers simultaneously opened their doors, breaking the night’s silence. The cop in the driver’s seat shined a flashlight, blinding Lucy a bit. That was okay, though. She knew where they stood.
“Ma’am, please stop right there.”
Lucy did.
For all the twitches and shakes her body gave, her father had trained her well with a gun. She whipped it from her pants and fired two bullets into the cop on the passenger side, while the other dropped the flashlight and scrambled for his own weapon.
She shot him as he raised it. He collapsed to the ground.
Lucy stood in the silence, the flashlight still shining across the ground. It showed the cop’s leg twitching and that made Lucy smile. She didn’t know why.
Lucy walked forward and turned the flashlight off, leaving the two bodies in darkness. She didn’t bother picking them up. She didn’t plan on being inside the house long. She did close the doors on each side before walking off, though; she didn’t want the interior lights shining. Lucy felt confident as she walked across the street; she knew God was with her, and while He may have abandoned her for a bit to teach a lesson, she was on the right path once more.
Veronica froze. Completely. She couldn’t even breathe, her lungs seizing up on her like an engine without oil. The lights inside her bedroom were off, and she lay in darkness with the covers pulled to her neck.
Her ears strained to hear, and though she had been asleep moments before, the night’s sluggishness had been cast off like a groom’s pants on his wedding night.
That was glass. That was glass breaking, her mind said, oddly calm despite her inability to move or breathe.
The kitchen door swung open.
Veronica wanted to say something, to ask who was there—maybe it was the police, or maybe … maybe it was Christian. That’s what her mind tried telling her, anyway, though deep down where Veronica’s dark thoughts lived, she knew the truth. She shouldn’t have made it out of Bradley Brown’s alive, and every moment since had been time stolen from death—and now death had come to collect what was owed.
The alarm. The alarm is going off.
That was true, regardless of anything else happening right now. She had set the alarm before going to bed, and the cops were being alerted. Someone would come.
“Get up.”
The voice spoke from the bedroom door. It wasn’t a man, though. No way. That was a woman.
“I said get up!”
Veronica jumped, moving for the first time since waking. She scooted back against her bed’s headboard, keeping the covers pulled up to her neck. Her eyes could make out a bit in the darkness; the intruder looked thin. Skinny even.
“Okay. Have it your way,” the woman said.
Veronica watched her move, frozen once more, and a single thought went through her head: she’s so fast.
Pain erupted on the side of Veronica’s face, a dark explosion with rings of light outlining it. The rings spread the pain across her head, and darkness followed, until it owned everything.
Luke watched the woman waking. He’d been staring at her for the past two hours, having decided that when he left this building, he’d paint a picture of Mrs. Windsor lying bound on the floor. He memorized each detail, from the way the light above cast tiny shadows across the thousands of ridges on the concrete floor, to how her hair hung behind her ear as she slept.
Luke closed his eyes and let his head slump down to his chest just before the woman opened her own eyes.
He heard her move some, and then pretended to slowly wake, blinking and looking around the room as if he hadn’t seen it for hours.
Luke’s eyes found Mrs. Windsor’s. She was pulling herself up and trying to push her body back against the wall so she could sit.
“Have you been awake long?” he said. “I don’t know when I dozed off.”
“No. I just woke up. She hasn’t been back, I take it?” Mrs. Windsor said.
“I don’t think so.”
The woman sighed and Luke turned his gaze to the metal door.
“No sense in screaming, is there?” she said.
“I don’t think so. I tried earlier, but I don’t think a lot of sound escapes.”
A pause followed, and then Mrs. Windsor asked, “Do you know why she’s doing this?”
“The obvious answer is she’s insane, but I don’t think that’s what you’re wanting,” Luke said.
“Yeah, I’d like a little more substance.”
Luke looked back to her, his face showing a warmth that had been absent the past two hours—a look that portrayed one message: they were in this together.
“I’m not totally sure, but I believe she thinks your son is either Christ, or a harbinger of him, and through sacrificing people, Christian will realize this—ooof,” Luke stopped, grimacing. It was of course, faked, but he needed to humanize himself for this woman. “Sorry. She really did a number on my head … She believes that by sacrificing people, Christian will realize his fate. She honestly believes she’s saving the world.”
“So she’s going to sacrifice us?”
“No. She’s going to kill me, and probably the next person she brings here. I think you’re just going to be made to watch us die.”
“Oh, that sounds pleasant,” Mrs. Windsor said, laughing without humor and shaking her head. “Do you have any kind of plan to get out of this?”
Luke blinked and looked forward at the door. “No,” he said, not lying to the woman. “I’ve got no idea how to free us.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got no plans either.”
Luke liked her humor. “At least you can laugh in a situation like this.”
“It’s either that or cry.” Mrs. Windsor paused. “Do you think Christian will find us? Or your other partner, Tommy?”
“I know that they’re both doing everything they can. I think if we could convince her to bring Christian here, that would easily solve this.”
“Bring him here? Into this? He won’t be able to handle it. And, I mean, I know how awful this will sound, but she could kill him too.”
Luke nodded. “I think he can handle it. He’s a remarkable person, Mrs. Windsor, and if he comes here, I’m betting Tommy and a host of other agents do too.”
A few minutes passed in silence, and then Mrs. Windsor said, “I appreciate you saving my son. It feels weird to say that, but I do.”
Luke smiled. “Let’s hope he returns the favor.”
A car door shut outside, hard. He hated that the bitch was driving his Tesla around. Out of everything she’d done, perhaps that was the most unforgivable. Luke had, indeed, provoked his brief beating—but for her to be driving his vehicle around with bodies in the trunk. It nearly made him vomit.
“She’s here,” Mrs. Windsor said, pulling her knees to her chest, though she couldn’t wrap her arms around them due to her constraints.
“It’s okay. Just stay calm … Listen to me, now,” Luke said, still looking at the door. “It’s important you pretend to buy into what she believes. You know your son is what she says, and you’ve just been basically babysitting for the past three decades. Whatever I say during this time is in hopes of getting us out of here, so you’ll need to go along. Okay?”
The woman said nothing.
“Okay?”
“Yes, yes. Sure.”
“Stay calm,” Luke repeated.
The padlock was removed and then Luke watched as the hanging door slid up.
The Priestess tossed Veronica in as if she weighed no more than a bag of lettuce. Luke was curious what the Priestess looked like underneath her clothing—not in any sexual manner, but he imagined her body must resemble a Greek sculpture, with dazzling muscle, to have such strength.
“The whore and the devil.” She turned around and shut the door, the metal clanging against the concrete and echoing against the walls. She looked at Luke. “Now, we can begin.”
“I’m curious how you plan on g
etting your message out to Christian?” Luke said. “I’m just not sure how well thought out all of this is. Did you come up with the idea, or was it God?”
“It’s nuh-nuh-none of your concern what my plan is, demon.” She moved to the back wall and started carrying the cross and tools so that Luke could watch her work. “If you talk anymore, I’m guh-guh-going to use your gun to knock your teeth down your throat.”
That’s a lot of ‘your’ in one sentence, Luke thought, but kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to leave this place and need dental work. A scar or two he could deal with, but to have his teeth replaced was akin to this woman driving his car.
The Priestess got to work and Luke sat in silence, watching. Waiting for what he knew would begin soon. Veronica was still knocked out and Luke had to hope that her brains weren’t scrambled from this imbecile’s brute strength. For the second time, he’d managed to have a psychopath capture her; she might have thought they moved past her little endeavor in uncovering his past deeds, but the truth was, Luke would see her dead.
“It’s an honor to meet you, M-M-M-M.” The Priestess stopped talking, as well as stopped nailing the wood together. “Meh-meh-Mrs. Windsor. M-my name is L-l-luh-lucy.”
Oh, Zeus help us all, Luke thought. She was going to keep stuttering. Luke didn’t need more reasons to hate God, but this was something he couldn’t overlook. Out of all the people to put in Luke’s path, God picked one with an extremely annoying tic.
“Hi, Lucy,” Mrs. Windsor said. “It’s an honor to be properly introduced to you.”
Oh, this was good.
“Wuh-why?” Lucy didn’t glance up, averting her gaze from Christian’s mother.
“Because no one else sees what you do.”
The young woman looked up, the light from above illuminating her face and showing hope across it. How long had it been since this creature felt such a thing—not the false hope of the false god she prayed to—but actual hope from a human being?
