Forty-Four Book Twelve (44 series 12)

by Jools Sinclair

  My feet were free now, and I would use them.

  I would make a run for it when I got out of the car. I would grab the Mace and when he opened my door, I would let him have it. I would disappear into the city. I still had a chance of getting out of this.

  Until I saw a uniform walking toward us.

  CHAPTER 70

  He walked up to the truck, adjusted his hat, and tapped on the glass.

  “God damn it,” I mumbled.

  Father Carmichael unrolled the window.

  “Everything all right, sir?” the cop said stiffly. “You’re not supposed to park here.”

  “Just another minute, officer,” Father Carmichael said. “I prom—”

  And then without warning, a baton struck Father Carmichael on the side of his head with such force that he slumped down onto my lap. Two seconds later my door flew open.

  When I saw his face, I screamed.

  “Hello there, Abby,” he said, smiling through a thick Southern accent, his white eyes glowing in the rain. “I’m really looking forward to bashing in your skull and watching the gray matter splatter all over the cement.”

  Then he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out, his terrible laughter echoing in my ears.

  CHAPTER 71

  I called out to Samael.

  I called out to Jesse.

  I called out to God.

  No one came.

  The madman grabbed me by the back of the shirt and dragged me through the rain into a dark parking lot. I kicked him, but he didn’t seem to feel it. He pushed me hard against a wall and raised the club in his hand, swinging at my head like it was a piñata. I ducked at the last second, the air parting by my ear with the speed of a hurricane.

  “Samael!” I screamed. “Samael, help!”

  CHAPTER 72

  On his next swing the baton cracked against my shin and I crumbled to the ground, crying out.

  “Oh, that must have hurt,” he said.

  He then grabbed me by the hair and pulled me behind a dumpster. I kept screaming, but no one came. I looked over at the truck and could see that Father Carmichael was sitting up now.

  “Father Carmichael,” I screamed. “Help!”

  But he didn’t move. Then I saw that he wasn’t alone.

  There was a shadow behind him.

  CHAPTER 73

  I closed my eyes and centered my thoughts.

  The ghoul hit me again, this time a hard thud across my midsection. I dropped to my knees into a large puddle.

  “Focus,” I whispered as I gasped for air. “Focus.”

  I stood up and as he came in toward me the next time, I spun and landed a hard elbow on his face. I followed it up with a fast double-fisted blow to his throat. He staggered back, dropping the baton, a look of surprise on his face. But he wasn’t done yet. He punched me in the chest, emptying my lungs of whatever air they still contained. As my head started to spin, I noticed that his eyes were even whiter than before.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ve had our fun. It’s time to die.”

  And then I sprayed those white eyes full of pepper.

  CHAPTER 74

  As the ghoul staggered away screaming, I ran over to the truck. Father Carmichael was holding his head. I pushed him over to the passenger’s seat and slid behind the steering wheel and floored the gas.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror at the shadow, pawed at my bloody, wet face, and sighed loudly.

  “I really could have used some help back there,” I said. “Damn it to hell.”

  CHAPTER 75

  “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” I said. “Why didn’t you help me?”

  “I’m sorry, Abby. I didn’t hear you. I’m kind of dizzy,” Father Carmichael said. “Are you—”

  “Not you, Father Carmichael. I’m not talking to you. We’ll stop in a minute. I want to take a look at your head.”

  I turned a corner too fast, the tires losing their grip. I took a deep breath and forced myself to slow down. My leg was on fire, but my nose had stopped bleeding. And I was breathing. It hurt to breathe but I took another long breath anyway.

  Then I found those blue eyes in the mirror.

  “Did you see that I was just almost killed back there by that thing, that ghoul? Where the hell were you, Samael? Oh, yeah, you were back here. I was under the impression we were helping each other. That’s what you said. Why did you leave me to die out there?”

  “But you didn’t die, Abby,” he said, meeting my fiery gaze with his icy eyes. “You held your own.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. Just great.” I was shaking I was so angry. “So this was a test to see how I’d do?”

  “No. This wasn’t a test. It was real. That was one of them.”

  The memory of those horrible white eyes came back.

  “But you were seeing if I could beat him, weren’t you?”

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I knew you could. You’re the one who needed to see it.”

  I let out another long sigh. After a few more miles, I pulled over to check Father Carmichael. He said he felt better, but he had a nasty-looking bump on his head that he kept rubbing. He cut the plastic ties from my wrists. I could barely feel my hands.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” I said.

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay. What about you?” he said, real concern in his eyes.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Let me drive.”

  “I got it,” I said. “You just sit there and point me in the right direction.”

  He looked at me strangely and I realized that he didn’t know that Samael was sitting there behind us. He must have thought I had really lost it, screaming like I had.

  “No, really,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “I don’t understand why that police officer was trying to kill you,” he said. “I’m sorry Elizabe… Abby. I’m sorry I didn’t help you with him.”

  “You were hurt.”

  We were quiet for a while. Farther up the road I stopped again, this time at a crawfish stand and got Father Carmichael some ice for his head.

  “Hey, where them crawdads?” he said.

  “Next time. Right now, there’s a big bowl of steaming gruel with your name on it just up a ways.”

  “Just what I was afraid of.”

  “You know,” he said after a while. “Maybe I’m not thinking clearly right now, but my gut tells me you’re telling the truth. That you’re not a murderer.”

  “You’re right.” I smiled. “I’m not.”

  I drove us back through the never-ending Louisiana rain toward our sanctuary.

  CHAPTER 76

  After that, things went back to normal.

  It had been two days since my run in with Father Carmichael’s fist and the ghoul outside the police station. It was hard to focus on one particular spot because I hurt all over. There was a golf ball-sized bump on my shin and it still hurt to breathe from the blow I had taken to my chest. I had two black eyes, but at least my nose wasn’t broken. Sister Charlotte was the closest thing the abbey had to a nurse and that was her assessment anyway.

  But as bad as I looked and felt physically, I was happy on the inside. I had won. I hadn’t beaten Nathaniel in my mind, but I had defeated one of his ghouls in real life. That had to count for something. I finally had one of those legs under my tabletop.

  I sat down out on the porch, checked my phone, and saw that Kate had left a message.

  “Call me,” she said. “It’s important.”

  I wondered what it could be. I replayed it a few times, trying to read between the lines, trying to gage if there was some distress in her voice. But it was almost the opposite. She sounded excited.

  I was about to call her back when I saw Sister Ruth walking up the path that led to my bungalow. She began to smile but then winced.

  “That was a mean fall you took,” she said, staring at my face. “How are you feeling?”

  “It looks worse tha
n it is.”

  “I hope so because it looks quite painful. Do you mind if I sit down for a minute?”

  “Yeah, no, please.”

  I pulled out a chair for her. She looked out at the early afternoon sky. We didn’t say anything for a minute.

  “I was surprised to hear that you were leaving tomorrow,” she said. “I was sure you’d stay a few more days.”

  “It’s time to get going,” I said.

  She glanced back over at me.

  “And you’re sure all this was the result of a fall?” she said.

  I knew what she was thinking. I probably would have sustained less damage if I had jumped from a plane without a parachute.

  “Because if you don’t mind me saying so, it looks like someone hit you,” she said. “I’ve seen it before. Too many times. And I’ve heard all the excuses and cover ups. ‘I fell down’ is probably the most popular one.”

  I didn’t like lying about it but I wasn’t going to tell her the truth.

  “I know it looks bad, Sister, but that’s really what happened. I just missed that first step on those stairs and fell the rest of the way.”

  “Okay.” She nodded slowly and then patted my leg before standing up. “I will pray for you, Elizabeth.”

  CHAPTER 77

  I called Kate and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Abby! Abby, I’ve been waiting for you to call. Are you sitting down?”

  She sounded happier than she had in almost a year.

  “Yes, I’m sitting. What is it?”

  “We’ve found something, Abby. We’ve found something that will help prove your innocence.”

  I couldn’t think of what it could be.

  “What?”

  “A diary.” Kate was breathless. “Ben kept a diary and it was hidden in the floorboards underneath his desk. One of the investigators found it. Abby, it explains everything. Everything.”

  “I don’t understand. What does it explain?”

  “That he was losing his mind. That he was going to commit suicide. Don’t you see? You can come home now. It proves your innocence.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s all there. Voices in his head. Multiple personalities. He documented it, wrote it all down. How afraid he was that he was losing control. How he was certain that something inside him was going to kill him. How he had decided to end it all before that happened. It’s with a handwriting expert right now. But it’s his, I saw it myself. I know. Plus, we have a witness.”

  “What witness?”

  “There’s a nurse who says she walked in on him one day and he was staring in the mirror, talking to himself, trying to convince his reflection to take a scalpel and slash his wrists. It will rip the DA’s case against you to shreds. You can come home now, Abby. You can come home.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I just can’t believe it.”

  And I couldn’t. It was the last thing I had expected to hear.

  “Does Ty know?” I said.

  Kate was quiet for a moment.

  “No, I thought you might want to tell him yourself. Ty’s not…”

  “I know. David told me he went back to Montana.”

  “Look, you’ll come here and you’ll fix everything with him,” she said. “Come home, Abby. Now. Go to the airport and get back here.”

  I took a deep, deep breath.

  It was good news.

  But it didn’t change anything. Not now. I had a date with destiny and I had to stay completely focused. Even if it was true, that my name would be cleared, I couldn’t afford to think about anything beyond Nathaniel.

  “I can’t come home, Kate,” I said. “Not yet. There’s something I’ve got to do first.”

  “What? What could you possibly have to do?” The happiness had left her voice. “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” I said. “I’m sending you a letter. I love you, Kate. I love you so much.”

  CHAPTER 78

  I finished the letters.

  One was to Kate, where I told her how lucky I was to have her as my sister and how much I loved her. I told her everything. It seemed like the right thing to do. She should know what Nathaniel had done, that he had been the one who killed Ben. I wanted her to know that Ben was a murder victim, that whatever he had been thinking about and written in his journal, he had not killed himself. He just had no idea how powerful his dead brother had become.

  I told her I was going after Nathaniel. And I told her about Samael.

  I also wrote to David and told him he was the best friend I ever had. That I loved him. That hanging out with him was always the best. And that someday I hoped we would get to go on that TCM Classic Cruise with Robert Osborne like he always talked about.

  And then I finally wrote to Ty.

  I tried to explain why I had left and what I was doing and why I couldn’t come back yet. I tried to make him understand how much I loved him and that I would always love him.

  I kissed each letter before dropping it into my backpack. I would mail them from the road.

  CHAPTER 79

  I knocked on his door.

  “I hope I’m not too early,” I said.

  “Just in time,” Father Carmichael said, handing me a bottle. “You can open the wine.”

  “Wow, where’d you get this?”

  “Brother Jerome owed me a favor. Or two.”

  I followed him inside. The small kitchen was a mess but the table was neatly set, one lit candle in the center.

  “It smells amazing in here,” I said. “F’sho we’re not in the dining hall anymore.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that. I’m a little intimidated, cooking for a culinary student. I want you to be honest.”

  I smiled and poured the wine, handing him a glass.

  Dinner was as good as it smelled. Father Carmichael had made a jambalaya with smoked sausage, crawfish, rice, and vegetables from the garden. Not surprisingly, it had quite a kick.

  “I think you’ve got the job,” I said after I finished my second bowl.

  We took the rest of the wine outside and listened to the frogs.

  “Listen, I feel terrible about hitting you, Abby,” he said. “I can’t tell you how truly sorry I am.”

  “I told you to forget it. I would have done the same thing to you. Or worse. We were both wrong in the end, but I’m glad we were. My only regret is that you didn’t cook for us sooner.”

  He nodded but I could tell he still felt guilty about it.

  “How’s your head doing?” I said.

  “It’s fine. The swelling’s gone down and I barely feel it. I got off easy compared to you.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “You know where you’re headed?” he said.

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea. How ’bout you? You’re still sure about leaving the Church?”

  He looked at me with those serious eyes and then nodded again.

  “I can’t be a priest any longer,” he said. “I have to try to figure out a new way to fit into the world.”

  I met his eyes.

  “You’re going after him, aren’t you?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  As we sat listening to the croaking, I thought about how strange and similar our journeys were, how we were both now on the trail of a killer.

  “I knew a cop once,” I said. “His name’s Ellis Frazier. He’s a private eye in Baltimore now. I’m sure he’s in the book. You should talk to him. He’ll understand. And he’s good at finding people, too. He can help you. Mention my name.”

  “Ellis Frazier,” he repeated. “Baltimore.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I still can’t quite believe everything, Abby. These ghosts and how you knew about Hannah.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes I can’t quite believe it either.”

  I thought about the ghosts of the women and how they were so angry. But it wasn’t so hard to figure out. Not really. I understood now. They weren’t
mad at Father Carmichael or me. They just wanted justice. And maybe they were still holding onto the rage they felt about their lives. And their deaths.

  “I have a question for you,” Father Carmichael said. “I heard you talking to someone in the truck. I didn’t see anyone, but I felt a presence there with us. You said his name a few times. Samael. That’s a very unusual name.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m helping him with something,” I said.

  “Be careful, Abby. If he’s the one I’m thinking of… I don’t know. It gives me pause. If he is the angel Samael, there are stories, both good and bad.”

  He scratched his chin.

  “Let me see if I can remember,” he said. “It’s from Jude I believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.”

  It was the first time I had ever heard him quote something from the Bible.

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  We stood up and I shook his hand and then gave him a hug.

  “Good luck, Abby,” he said. “Go with God.”

  “You, too, Father Carmichael.”

  CHAPTER 80

  I pulled into the station and cut the engine, setting the kickstand. As I finished filling the gas tank, I noticed Samael standing by the carwash. I made my way over to him.

  “Samael,” I said, staring at his blue eyes bright in the sun.

  “Hello, Abby. Any trouble starting up the bike after all this time?”

  “No, I had one of the monks look after it,” I said. “I can’t prove it, but I suspect he might have taken his job a little too seriously, taking it out for a spin late at night sometimes when he thought no one was watching.”

  I stood there stretching out my back.

  “Have you seen any of them?” he said.

  “No. You?”