by J. S. Bailey
“Not if he had help,” said Terence, whose eyes had flooded with fear. “What about you, Preston? You got a cell phone?”
Father Preston patted his pockets. “It’s in the car.”
“Great.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Father Preston said, keeping his voice low, “I very much doubt he has a gun.”
“He did act afraid of my gun,” Ellen said. She withdrew the small weapon from her purse and held it at her side. The sight of it clenched the muscles in Father Preston’s stomach. The thought of Bradley being shot was almost too much to bear. The young man had little control over himself. Shooting him, even in self-defense, would amount to the murder of an innocent person.
“This is all my fault,” Father Preston said, dragging a hand over his face.
Terence cast him a look of fear. “What do you mean by that?”
Footsteps thundered up the stairs before Father Preston could answer. The three of them held their breaths, and Father Preston prayed with every fiber of his being that this situation wouldn’t turn violent.
The footsteps stopped outside the door. A bead of sweat trickled down Father Preston’s forehead. Should he say something, or pretend they weren’t in here?
Then Bradley rapped on the door three times. Father Preston, Ellen, and Terence tensed, and Ellen lifted her weapon a little higher.
“Easy does it,” Terence whispered.
“Maybe I should go talk to him,” Father Preston said. “Considering I’m the only one here who knows him.”
“Talk to him from here, then,” Terence said. “Because I’m not opening that door.”
Father Preston couldn’t blame him. He cleared his throat. “Bradley? Can you hear me?”
Bradley said nothing.
“You don’t need to hurt these people,” he went on. “They’ve done nothing to you.”
The floor creaked in the hallway as if Bradley were shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
“You might not be in control of yourself right now, but I know you’re still in there deep down. You were still conscious enough to agree to being helped. So let me help you.”
He let fifteen seconds tick by before speaking again. “Bradley, if I come out there with you, will you leave these people alone? I can take you back to the church, and we can forget any of this ever happened.”
“I doubt that,” Ellen muttered.
Father Preston let out a nervous breath. “I need to do this,” he said to her. “None of us have phones on us so we can’t call for help, and I doubt either of you want to spend the next umpteen hours cornered in here. You two should stay back.”
“You’re really doing this,” Ellen said.
“It seems I have no other choice. Watch out for me.” He cleared his throat and stepped out of the bathtub. “Okay, Bradley. I’m opening the door. You can rest assured I’m unarmed.”
God help me, he prayed as he put a hand on the knob and turned it.
As he’d expected, Bradley stood in the hallway facing the bathroom door, his blond hair disheveled. His clothes were ragged, stubble covered his chin, and a bleeding cut over his left eye gave him an appearance most horrifying. God only knew what all the young man had gotten himself into since Sunday.
“You’re the priest?” Bradley growled.
The sound of his voice lifted the hairs on Father Preston’s arms. “Yes, it’s me; Father Preston. Don’t you remember?”
Bradley laughed, and it dawned on Father Preston that something here wasn’t quite right aside from the obvious. Before he could register just what it was, Bradley pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans, pointed it at Father Preston, and fired it three times.
The bullets bit into his torso one after the other. Father Preston staggered back a step, too stunned to fully comprehend it, and collapsed to the floor gasping.
Ellen and Terence screamed, but it seemed far away, like something on a distant shore.
“Good riddance,” Bradley said before holstering the gun and retreating down the Barkleys’ hallway.
Suddenly Ellen bent over Father Preston, her face a shocking shade of white. “Preston? Preston! Oh, God.”
He tried to speak. Tried to tell her he’d be fine, he was always fine no matter what happened, but then he was gone.
A TRAIL of blood splashed to the ground from his hand as Phil hurried up the blacktopped drive. It had been salted so no snow had accumulated there, though snow from the yard gusted across it in dusty bursts before melting.
He kept glancing behind him and up into the trees as he went, hoping that his avian attacker wouldn’t return. What could have done this to him, anyway? Not a bird, and a bat just seemed unlikely despite its proximity to a cave, which left exactly no explanation. A pterodactyl, maybe? Yes. Because pterodactyls lived in Oregon caves in the twenty-first century. They probably hung out with their T. rex friends on the weekends drinking beer.
Phil shivered as he trudged onward. Would this driveway never end? It had to meet up with the main drive at some point, though he didn’t remember seeing it branch off last night when he’d pulled in, not that he’d been paying attention.
The lane sloped downward a few dozen yards, and through the thinning trees Phil could see the side of the main house in all its imposing glory. In the back he spotted a glassed-in room that must have contained the swimming pool Vance had mentioned the previous evening. He couldn’t see anyone through the glass. Thank goodness.
He turned to the left and halted when Vance’s blacktopped driveway met up with the main cobblestone drive. Last night he’d parked his Taurus right in front of the mansion, but now it was gone.
He clenched his fists, and his bleeding hand stung even more. Coming here had possibly been the worst mistake of his life. This was why rashness didn’t suit him—he didn’t think things through thoroughly, and it all came back to bite him.
Or scratch him.
Panting, Phil’s gaze roamed over to the multi-car garage sitting to his left. His short stature wouldn’t enable him to peer in through the square panes in any of the garage doors, so he hurried around the side and tried the man-sized door, heaving a relieved sigh when the knob turned.
Not surprisingly, his Taurus had been stowed inside—those who lived here probably thought it an eyesore on their otherwise pristine property. He opened the passenger side door and plucked his black tote off the seat, then unzipped it and pulled out a bottle of disinfectant and a cotton ball.
Soap and water would have been more ideal, but he wasn’t about to go back into that house and ask to use their bathroom.
He gritted his teeth and dabbed the alcohol-soaked cotton ball onto the three gashes, sending fire through his hand. These gashes looked deep enough to require stitches, and while he had the supplies and the knowhow, he didn’t have the nerve to sew himself up. Even he had his limits.
“Do you really think that’s going to help you?”
Phil whipped his head to the side. Vance leaned against a workbench along the garage’s back wall with his arms crossed again, looking almost bored.
“How did you get in here?” Phil asked, dropping the bloody cotton ball to the garage floor.
“That’s my little secret. One of them, anyway. I do have a few.”
Phil’s mouth felt too dry. “The cave,” he said.
“Now what cave might that be?” Vance said, feigning innocence.
“I was in there once already. I don’t understand why you lied about it.”
Vance’s lips twisted into a wicked grin. “I suppose that was silly of me. You’re too big a coward to be any real threat. Worry, worry, worry, that’s all you know how to do. I’m surprised you even came out here in the first place. It’s more like you to just mope around with a bottle of beer and a churning gut.”
Phil’s face burned with indignation. “How would you know any of that?”
Vance gave an innocent shrug. “Call me a good guesser. Like right now, for instance, I’m gue
ssing you think I’m one of those poor, possessed schmucks you dedicated your life to saving.”
The thought had started to cross Phil’s mind. It would explain the man’s omniscience, but not how he’d entered the garage ahead of Phil.
“How does that hand feel, by the way?” Vance craned for a better look, but Phil tucked it behind his back.
“What was that out there?” Phil asked.
Vance’s smile broadened. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?”
“How could I have done that when I can barely see five feet in front of my face?”
Vance strode three steps closer to Phil, who remained rooted in place despite his urge to run. “Can you see any better now?”
Phil clenched his jaw. He did not appreciate being mocked.
Vance’s eyes glimmered as he continued. “That little thing you ran into out there, that gave you those cuts?”
“What about it?”
“That was me.”
BOBBY OPTED to sit next to Kaori on the flight west while Carly and Matt sat one row in front of them. Bobby’s throat burned even more fiercely now that they’d left Ohio behind, and his guilt at leaving without saying goodbye to Charlotte and Jonas burned stronger than his guilt at accidentally blowing up Main Street.
He had sent Charlotte a text letting her know he was alive, but maybe Jonas was right. Maybe Bobby was a terrible person for abandoning what little remained of his family. But people needed him. They were counting on him to do the right thing, even if he didn’t necessarily know what that right thing was.
“You seem like you’ve got some heavy thoughts,” Kaori commented after they’d been in the air for an hour.
“You’d be having them too if you’d just caused a car accident.”
Bobby flopped his head back onto the headrest. Part of him wished he’d had the time to see a doctor at the urgent care and get a prescription that would knock out whatever disease was trying to kill him. Couldn’t Kaori have showed up in town after he’d seen a doctor? Her timing wasn’t doing any wonders for his health.
“I’m curious as to why Thane chased you,” Kaori went on in low tones. “If he’d been orchestrating the Servant’s downfall for years, it seems odd that he’d charge after you with a knife in broad daylight.”
“That’s probably because of you, no offense. He didn’t anticipate there being two of us, and he probably freaked and flipped his lid. And how in the world did he get healed? The last time I saw him, he was completely immobile from the neck down.” Bobby thought of Phil and Kevin Lyle, both of whom had once been gifted with the ability to heal with a touch. Thane might have scoped out someone else with such a gift and forced them to make him better.
Bobby had to commend him on that. It certainly wasn’t something he’d expected.
“I have the feeling that’s not even close to our biggest concern right now,” Kaori said. “Paralyzed or not, this Thane isn’t going to handle us getting away very well. The next time we meet, assuming he survived that fireball, he’s going to be at least twice the bastard he was before. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that from experience.”
“You’ve met people like Thane?”
“Yes, but they don’t have superpowers. Like Gerald, this creep who’s been after me for months. I cleansed his fortune-telling daughter earlier this year, and he didn’t take kindly to that, and the other day he finally caught up with us and tried to kill me. Some people just don’t appreciate a good thing.”
“I’ll bet you showed him.”
“I sure did. I called the police on him.” She winked.
Bobby gazed past her to see out the window, where the winter-brown land speckled with ant-sized houses spread out like a diorama five miles below them. From up here it all looked so serene, like nothing could ever be amiss.
“They’re going to be thrilled to meet you,” he said.
Kaori cocked an eyebrow at him. “Who?”
“My friends—the ones who used to be like us. Randy. Phil. Frankie. Even Father Preston. They’ll be glad to know I’m not alone.”
“How are you going to break the news to them?”
Bobby took a moment to imagine himself unveiling Kaori to his friends like some magnificent and rare work of art, then shook his head. His fever really was getting to him. “I’ll just tell them,” he said. “I don’t need to make anything more complicated than that.”
ALLISON MASON cracked open her eyelids and winced at the too-intense light flooding the hospital room. A quick scan of her surroundings revealed that she was alone—the assortment of chairs provided for visitors were, at that moment, all empty.
She called for a nurse, who came in and checked her vitals, then declared she was doing well given her circumstances. Allison couldn’t help but agree. How many people managed to get themselves stabbed in the chest and lived to tell the tale?
“Is my husband still here?” she asked Dominic, the nurse, before he left the room.
“I don’t know, but I can find out,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Knowing Phil, he’s probably been camped out in the waiting room all night.”
Dominic disappeared, and Allison heaved a sigh. Phil and Dominic had worked together once upon a time before each had gotten different nursing jobs. The man was right—Phil wasn’t likely to leave her alone. He’d probably gone down to the hospital cafeteria, solemnly scrounging up a good breakfast.
Dominic popped back into the room about ten minutes later, looking apologetic. “It looks like Phil left with your daughter last night and hasn’t come back this morning. Right now, though, the police want to ask you some questions about yesterday. I can send them away if you’re not feeling up to it.”
Allison managed to heave an even heavier sigh that sent searing pains through her chest. “No, no; just send them in so I can get it over with.” Nothing like an interrogation to start the morning off right.
The nurse slipped away once more, and in walked two uniformed officers—an F. Jergens and a D. Dodgson, based on their name badges.
“Thanks for letting us in,” the stern-faced Officer Jergens said as she took a seat in one of the visitor chairs. “We’re glad to hear you’re doing better.”
“You’re not the only one.” Allison tried to sit up straighter in the bed but gave up when the pain became too sharp. “What do you need to know?”
“Last night we got some basic information from your daughter,” Officer Dodgson said while remaining standing, “but we need to get the details from you. First of all, approximately what time did you get home from work yesterday?”
“About two-thirty, same time as usual. I didn’t know anyone else was in the house with me.”
“There was no indication you weren’t alone? No unexplained noises, no signs of forced entry?”
She shook her head. “If there were, I would have noticed; and we always keep the doors locked. I have no idea how he could have gotten in.”
“The report from the crime scene states that a window was shattered in your solarium.”
Allison grimaced, at the words “crime scene” in particular. That was her house they were talking about! “We keep the door between it and our kitchen shut,” she said, “and I didn’t go out there when I got home. It’s too cold to use during the winter. Not enough insulation.”
Officer Jergens scribbled something on a pad. “Would you describe your actions as best as you can remember?”
Allison closed her eyes to think, but thinking was hard, given her fatigue. A body could only handle so much in twenty-four hours, and it hadn’t been a full day yet since the creep decided to poke holes in her. “I…sat down on the couch to read. I couldn’t really focus on it though because my old friend Frank…” She choked on an unanticipated burst of tears. “He died unexpectedly the other night. It was a shock.”
Officer Jergens nodded in understanding while Officer Dodgson remained stoic.
Allison went on. “I changed clothes and went to get Ashley of
f the bus. When she came in, I went to make her a snack—celery and peanut butter. While I was doing that, she said she wanted to put on her pajamas and have a ‘sleepover’ the whole rest of the day. When she went into her room…” Allison’s voice caught in her throat again as indignation got the better of her. “He was in her closet. What kind of creep does that to a little girl?”
“We don’t know, ma’am. That’s what we’re trying to find out. Now what happened right after Ashley went into her room?”
“She said she heard someone in her closet. I ran in, and he came at me. He cut my arm first, then stabbed me in the chest.” Allison felt ill as she replayed the memory. She’d been so sure she was about to die. “It wasn’t like they say.”
“What wasn’t like they say?” Officer Dodgson asked, tilting his head.
“My life didn’t flash before my eyes. All I thought about was Ashley. I thought, God, please don’t let him hurt my little girl.” Allison’s vision blurred with tears. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Officer Jergens said. “Now what did the assailant look like?”
Allison sniffled, and Officer Jergens offered her a tissue from a box sitting on a small table between two of the chairs. “Thanks,” she said while dabbing at her nose. “He wore Phil’s grim reaper costume—Phil wore it for Halloween a few years ago. I guess he thought it would scare us more being dressed like that.”
Officer Dodgson lifted an eyebrow. “Did it occur to you the assailant may have been trying to conceal his identity?”
“Oh, I don’t think that at all. He pulled back his hood so I got a good look at his face. I’d never seen him before.” She cleared her throat. “He was white; about regular height and weight for a man. He had blond hair…and kind of a narrow face. No beard, but a little bit of stubble, I think.”
“Was there anything unique about his appearance that might help us identify him?” Officer Jergens asked.
“I’m trying to think.” Allison replayed the scene again and again, as uncomfortable as it made her. “He wore gym shoes. Nikes, maybe? I know that doesn’t help you much.”
