Forty-Four Book Twelve (44 series 12) Read online

  I took out the trash and when I returned I found Jesse stooped over one of the finished coffins, touching the inside.

  “So are you planning on sleeping in there tonight or are you gonna walk me home?”

  He smiled, catching up with me. I flipped off the lights and we headed out.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was easy to joke with Jesse around. But when I found myself alone in the dark, it was a different story. The doubts multiplied and grew wings, liquefying my legs and my resolve until I felt like something from a Salvador Dali painting. How in the world was I going to stop Nathaniel? Seriously.

  I remembered the second vision I had just before arriving at the monastery.

  I was back on that river, on the border between life and death, the old boatman at my side. Nathaniel was once again standing at the edge of that bleak shore as thousands of ghouls surrounded him. He was communicating with the creatures through gestures and head motions and words I could not hear. Soon, a few stepped into the water. Some disappeared and did not resurface but others began to swim in great unnatural fits and spasms.

  They were crossing the water, their hideous silver-white eyes open and bulging and focused on the prize, moving steadily toward the land of the living.

  “The die is cast,” the old man whispered in horror. “The die is cast!”

  I shuddered as I watched. Many drowned, but many more continued onward, coming closer and closer…

  It wouldn’t be long. The ghouls were coming. Nathaniel and what he was able to do using Ben’s body was just the tip of the iceberg. These creatures would all follow in his footsteps, each of them finding suitable hosts inside the bodies of the weak and weary. And there were so many to choose from. So many.

  Ben wasn’t alone. He always had a good heart and a strong sense of purpose, but he had been worn down by years of regret and guilt over having killed his brother. And I knew that while the circumstances had been unique, his feelings were commonplace. How many people suffered from guilt, depression, apathy, uncertainty, or a hundred other negative emotions? They would all be easy prey for these creatures.

  How many souls would be strong enough to resist? I knew I myself wasn’t immune. Like everyone, I had my share of dark nights in the garden, where my eyes could not see the road ahead and my heart felt only fear. In those moments of weakness, would I be strong enough to repel their attack?

  And this was just the beginning. Benjamin Mortimer had merely been ground zero.

  I wondered where Ben was now, if he had taken the journey to judgment or if he was one of the many spirits still roaming the world, not ready to move on. I hadn’t seen his ghost. I hadn’t seen him since he died at my feet, my hands covered in his blood. I wished I could see him one more time and tell him how sorry I was.

  I wished so many things.

  But wishes weren’t going to get it done.

  I woke up before the alarm, grateful that the long, sleepless night was finally over.

  I imagined everything that I would come in contact with during the day flooded in a strong, white light. It was something that Samael had taught me and I did it faithfully each morning. I thought of a white wave of energy rushing over me, then the room, then the grounds and the running trail and the abbey. I saw it roll over the large gardens of flowers and herbs and vegetables, and over all the buildings and offices and people.

  When I was done I slid my bare feet across the wood floor and walked over to the window and felt a warm breeze. At least there was a breeze. It was still dark outside, about half an hour before dawn, the air heavy and moist. I stretched and got the coffee going.

  I washed my face and then sat with my rosary between my fingers and started the prayers.

  It was another part of my morning ritual, inspired by Abuelita, the old woman in New Mexico who had found a way to combine her more traditional beliefs with the ghosts she saw. I had begun reading about praying the rosary and invoking the name of the Virgin Mary for protection. I hadn’t necessarily returned to the faith of my childhood, but I liked the idea of praying to her, a mother figure, and asking for her blessing.

  When I finished, I kissed the cross and then thought of everyone I knew and loved back home, praying for their protection as well. Ty and Kate and David, my friends at Backstreet, at the culinary school, the people at the diner where I worked for a few months last summer, and the workers in the fields. I also said a prayer for my mom, Jesse, and Ben.

  Then I changed into my running clothes, chomped down a few almonds, grabbed my mug of coffee, and stepped out into the sultry air that wrapped around me like a warm wet mop.

  I thought of Nathaniel Mortimer.

  I envisioned him so clearly in my mind that I thought I might pass out. How he looked the last time I had seen him in the latest vision, standing on the shore with those ghastly ghouls all around him. He looked the same, thin with his hair pulled back in that familiar ponytail, those cat eyes glowing through the fog, staring at me with pride so thick it made my skin crawl.

  And then I thought of the flame inside me, growing stronger and steadier every moment, growing more powerful, capable of snuffing out the dark and bringing light to everything it touched.

  And then I whispered into the wind.

  “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle,” I said, repeating St. Francis’s words, before adding my own.

  “And I am that light, Nathaniel. I am that flame that burns hot, that will burn a path through the heart of your darkness, ripping it apart.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “I’m coming for you,” I said, inhaling the wish as if it were air.

  I was going to destroy Nathaniel Mortimer, once and for all.

  “I’m coming for you.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I ran toward the sun coming up in the east, warm and bright and cascading through the branches of the trees as they swayed in the wind. But the weather wouldn’t hold. Black thunderheads were banked along the opposite horizon and had started sending in their wispy scouts. I’d be lucky to make it back before the sky opened up. But for now it was nice, especially with the breeze cutting through the steaminess of the morning like Brando screaming “Stella!”

  My goal was two full loops on the five-mile trail, running as much of it as I could and walking the last stretch. It had been a long road back from my days in the fields, down on my knees from dawn till dusk, but I was finally feeling myself again.

  I crossed the expansive green lawn with the bungalows that dotted the retreat. These cabins were nothing like the rustic housing in the chile fields. They were more like small vacation rentals, with draperies, kitchenettes, comfortable beds, and clean private bathrooms.

  In theory the retreat was supposed to be non-denominational and open to people of all or no faiths, but I suspected that most of the visitors staying here were Catholic.

  I ran by Father Carmichael’s cabin and saw that the lights were on, like always.

  I had gotten to know him because he lived at the edge of the wilderness, right by the path that circled through the woods and around the abbey. I ran by there every single morning and sometimes I would see him and it wasn’t long before we started talking. I learned that he had been staying here since last spring, was from Minnesota, and loved spicy food, which unfortunately was in short supply in the dining hall.

  Although he was a priest, I had never once seen him wear a cassock or clerical collar. Not even a cross for that matter. He had two basic outfits, depending on the activity. Old-school sweats, which he wore most of the time, or a button-down shirt, Levi’s, and work boots.

  I ran over the small bridge that crossed the stream where the monks fished on the weekends, trying not to shatter the silence of the morning. I passed the trailhead sign that marked the beginning of “Sanctuary Loop” and followed the dirt path into the trees.

  Up ahead I saw Buford, one of the other guests, running toward me.

  “Where y’at?” he
said, his hair bouncing with each step.

  I usually saw him at some point on the trail. He didn’t need to, but he had told me that he was a Cajun through and through.

  “All right,” I said. “Thank God for that breeze, huh?”

  “Yeah, you right, dawling,” he said as we passed each other.

  Many of the people staying at the monastery were locals from here in Louisiana or other parts of the South, but not all of them had those tawny, brine-soaked accents that a lot of reality TV shows buttered their bread on. Some of them didn’t have much of an accent at all. But a few did, like Buford, and I enjoyed listening to them immensely. Although it made me feel a long way from home, there was something warm about the way the words danced out of their mouths and floated on the swampy air.

  Sometimes it conjured images in my mind of The Big Easy with Ellen Barkin and that quirky smile of hers and a young Dennis Quaid. But that quickly left me feeling sad. Ty looked a little like a young Dennis Quaid.

  After a couple of miles the trail wound around the large church. Then it fell back into the brush for another half mile or so before emerging near the dorms where the seminary students lived. Finally, it skirted the large garden that flanked the west side of the property before passing an old cemetery filled with mossy stone crosses, graves, and tall statues of contemplative saints.

  There were more than three hundred residents here, but you would never have guessed it. Although not all of them had taken vows of silence, the monks, priests, and nuns, who worked here but lived at a convent down the road, usually walked without saying a word. Even at the dining hall it was fairly quiet, with the visitors the only ones talking and then only in low voices.

  It was that kind of place.

  I ran through a section of gnarled cypress trees covered in Spanish moss. Parts of the trail were a little creepy, especially deep in the woods where it was overgrown and you couldn’t see ten feet ahead. The trail dipped down to a small pond filled with ten thousand and one mosquitos, all happy to greet me. I slapped at them, small explosions of blood splattering across my arms and legs. The air was stagnant near the water, the oxygen depleted, and I could feel new rivers of sweat pouring down the middle of my back.

  But it was a good sweat.

  CHAPTER 4

  When I left New Mexico I had two goals: evade capture and find Nathaniel Mortimer. The vision I had with the help of the old woman had given me a brief glimpse of where he was. But I wasn’t ready to face him yet. I needed time, time to heal, time to grieve for all I had lost.

  Samael never spoke about it but I sensed he understood this and didn’t push me too hard at first, even though I also sensed that he knew that time was running out.

  He dropped off an e-reader for me one day loaded with books he wanted me to read.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I always wanted one of these. But I thought you would have supplied me with the original texts. You know, super dusty volumes with pages that crumble between your fingers.”

  “Technology has its place. You do have to travel light, after all.”

  “That’s true.”

  As I scrolled down the list I saw works by St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Mother Teresa. But I was surprised to see that a lot of it went beyond traditional Bible studies. Way beyond. Most of the works, in fact, weren’t from a Catholic perspective, but included a variety of different viewpoints. There were books on Buddhism, Qigong, transcendental meditation, and mythology. I saw The Prince by Machiavelli and even a book from Anthony Robbins.

  “Jesus, Samael. That Frankenstein-looking guy from the infomercials?”

  “Just read it, Abby. He has some important things to say about how beliefs are formed.”

  “Okay.”

  “There are many paths up the mountain,” Samael said. “You do not need to take a particular trail, as they all converge at the top. It matters not how you get there, just that you arrive.”

  The police had picked up my trail in El Paso and soon after found the chile farm where I had been working. Another tornado of headlines hit the internet about the psychic murderer hiding out in the American Southwest like a modern day Butch Cassidy. I headed north.

  I stayed in the Denver area for a few months, moving up and down Interstate 25. I dyed my hair red, wore lots of makeup, and didn’t look people in the eye. I carried my Mace and knife at all times.

  This part of Colorado reminded me of Central Oregon, only supersized. The mountains to the west, the desert, plains in this case, to the east. But as majestic as the Rockies were, I would still take the Cascades any day of the week. They weren’t as tall, but what they lacked in stature they more than made up for in natural beauty, reaching up toward the sky the way they did. For me there was nothing quite like them and it made me ache for home.

  I decided it would be too risky to get a job, so I lived off the money Kate and David had given me. I didn’t feel right about it and promised myself that I would make it up to them if I ever lived through this. Even with a fake ID, I stayed in the shadows and kept my head down.

  Before the winter snows closed in, I took long bike rides into the mountains and visited Rocky Mountain National Park, Leadville, where Doc Holliday shot his last man, and the Stanley Hotel, which inspired Stephen King to write The Shining. I felt at home on the motorcycle. But it wasn’t always like that.

  When I was first learning to ride it, it had tried to kill me. But countless scrapes and bruises and more than a few near-death experiences later, I began to feel like the bike was almost a part of me.

  As the days passed and the leaves fell from the trees I felt myself growing stronger. Scar tissue was slowly beginning to fill in the space where my heart used to be and my body was also on the mend. I started eating better, got back to running, bought some dumbbells, and began doing an old-school prison routine of pushups and sit-ups.

  Prison. That was almost funny. If I wasn’t careful, that’s where I would end up.

  But even as my body and spirit healed, my mind was never able to rest. Life on the road was relentless, having to constantly look over my shoulder, around every corner. Sometimes I grew impatient and just wanted it all to be over. I was tired of living in the shadows, tired of the waiting. Waiting exactly for what, I didn’t even know.

  “It’s not time yet, Abby,” Samael repeated often. “Your light is getting stronger. But it is only the genesis. You are not ready.”

  So I kept on running and pumping iron and waiting, all through the long, cold winter.

  When I went into the office that last night to pay for another day at the motel in Colorado Springs, I should have noticed the nervousness in the plump blonde’s voice when she asked if I needed more towels. Or the strange tilt of her head as she studied me. I should have put it together how her hand was shaking as she handed me the receipt and felt those large gray eyes slicing through me when I walked away.

  But I didn’t.

  Fortunately, Samael was waiting at my door a moment later.

  “You need to get out of here,” he said. “She’s calling the police.”

  I sprang into action, rabbit feet thumping fast against my chest and bile at the back of my throat. I grabbed my backpack and leather jacket and left the weights behind. Like Samael said, I needed to travel light.

  When I stepped out into the parking lot I could already see the lights of the patrol cars spinning wildly like a weekend carnival, heading straight for me. For a moment I thought about leaving the motorcycle. But only for a moment. It had become more than transportation, it was a friend. I took the risk and blew by the cops as they poured into the motel parking lot.

  I headed out across the plains of eastern Colorado and southern Kansas. I wasn’t sure where I was going. The important thing was that I was on the move again. I saw Samael a few days later.

  And that’s how I got to Louisiana.

  “Here?” I said, walking up to the gates of the monastery, my jaw dropping open as I saw all the priests. “Are you
sure?”

  “Yes, Abby. It’s all been arranged. Push the button and give them the name on your ID.”

  I still couldn’t believe it.

  “For how long?”

  “Until it’s time,” he said. “You’ll be able to strengthen your spirit here. You’ll be able to continue your preparation.”

  I stared through the wrought iron bars at the beautiful lawn and inhaled a quiet that I hadn’t felt in months. I wanted to curl up on the grass, in the shade of one of the big trees, and sleep for a year. I suddenly started crying, the tears dropping onto my boots. But I felt no shame, only relief.

  “Thank you, Samael. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Morning, Elizabeth.”

  “Morning, Father,” I said.

  Father Carmichael was standing barefoot in the grass, an oversized white ceramic mug cradled in his hands, studying the sky like it was a Bible.

  “Looks like you got back just in time.”

  “That’s for sure,” I said, wiping a sweaty eye on the edge of my shirt.

  Black clouds rolled above us like high tide, but the rain hadn’t started yet. Father Carmichael glanced at me and drained the remains of the cup, the sour smell of chicory rising up between us. His dark hair looked tousled and pillow-worn. Stubble covered his face. The black bags under his eyes were extra swollen, making me wonder if he ever slept.

  “So how many did you do out there?”

  “Almost nine.”

  He nodded as a bright flash lit up the sky, followed by a crack of thunder.

  “Wait a minute and I’ll walk with you.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I stretched out my calves as he lumbered up the porch steps.

  Father Carmichael was the only guest in the retreat who had been here longer than me, and although we had become friends, we didn’t exchange too much real information. I think each of us sensed the other had secrets they were hiding and maybe that’s what our friendship was based on. Respecting those secrets. After almost three months I could count on one hand what I knew about him and still have a few fingers left over. He never explained why he was here or why he was staying as a guest in this part of the monastery. And all he knew about me was that I was Elizabeth from Montana, trying to figure things out, and that I had no family.