Forty-Four Book Thirteen (44 13) Page 3

  He had been entrusted with fanning the spark and spreading the light, but because mankind had been given the gift of free will, Samael was not allowed to intervene when men strayed from the path to salvation. He was there to bless the righteous and to inspire the weak. Nothing more.

  He stood there in the empty cathedral, admiring its beauty.

  It was a work of art, the most magnificent monument Samael had ever seen and it touched him and filled him with pride knowing he had played a part in its construction. Grand columns and arches supported the ceilings with marble statues of Jesus and the apostles set high above the altar in the stone walls.

  It was truly a sanctuary worthy of the Father.

  But as beautiful as the church was structurally, the weak and sinful nature of the people who came here weighed heavily upon him. Sometimes it was more than Samael could stomach.

  Even with his guidance, Rome was still the dark side of the moon, a place far from ideal, still a million miles from God’s light. Armies of dark souls populated the city and evidence of the Fallen One’s influence could be found everywhere. Greed and lust and the thirst for power ran as free as the water from the fountains, and many, far too many, drank from it.

  The enormous basilica drew more and more worshipers and attendance was on the rise at churches throughout the Empire. But Samael took little comfort in mathematics. Arithmetic alone would not change the fate of mankind and it could only cloak the truth for so long. It did not alter the small and dark hearts of men.

  It wasn’t easy to stand back and let it all play out, especially when the tainted came to church pretending to embrace scripture and posing as sheep, all the while concealing their sharp teeth and claws.

  Of all humanity’s shortcomings, hypocrisy was the hardest one for Samael to abide.

  Sometimes he would have liked nothing better than to show himself to them. He knew full well that most mortals would not survive his energy if they were suddenly exposed to it. Still, there would be some justice in it, to watch them fall to the ground, watch their arrogance bleed away to be replaced with terror at the realization that they would have to face God and His judgment.

  But this was not his place. This had not been asked of him.

  In the end all Samael could do was walk around the church unseen, giving his blessings to the prayers of the pious, while trying not to drown in an ocean of posturing, false virtue, and duplicity.

  It reached the point where Samael could only find peace when the church was empty. When it was empty it held potential, when it was empty it held beauty, it held God’s word in its purest form.

  When his own heart grew troubled and impatient, he took refuge in the gardens.

  Nature had always moved him. In his secret heart, Samael came to believe that it, not man, was God’s ultimate triumph, His masterpiece and best creation.

  And so he took long walks in the gardens of Rome, among the rows of basil and thyme, breathing in the peace and replenishing his weary spirit.

  Samael found himself spending more and more time among the fountains and the ponds and the statues, communing with the birds and the insects and the air. He would sometimes sit on a bench under a bald cypress and remind himself to be patient. But lately, patience seemed to be covered in olive oil, always slipping through his fingers.

  The only place he seemed to find a trace of it was in the gardens.

  People came to escape the chaos of the city and their daily lives. The souls he encountered here were, on the whole, much more genuine and worthy of God’s love. There seemed to be something in nature that drew these purer spirits the way a church could not.

  It reminded him of what the Son had once said.

  “Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there.”

  It was on one of these walks that he first saw her.

  And from that moment on, his world would never be the same.

  CHAPTER 8

  Back on the road the next day, the ghoul fight haunted me.

  I wasn’t ready.

  My time at the abbey had prepared me on an emotional and spiritual level for what was ahead, but my self-defense skills were a joke. All the running and pushups and crunches that I did religiously as part of my old-school training program had left my body toned and aerobically fit, but I wasn’t going to be able to defeat these things on the strength of my abs alone. At the same time I couldn’t continue to rely on a small canister of pepper spray and a tiny knife as my only means of defense.

  And there was no reason to believe that I had seen the last of these evil creatures. Just the opposite. Everything suggested that the closer I got to Nathaniel, the more ghouls he would send my way.

  When we reached Leesburg, Samael had me turn off onto the highway that led to Tampa.

  “You sure I shouldn’t go toward Orlando?” I said. “I think it’s faster.”

  “There’s somewhere we need to go.”

  “Of course.” I let out a sigh. “But please, Samael, not another church.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I want you to know I appreciate my time at the monastery,” I said. “In a lot of ways I’m stronger because of it. But all my training and studies haven’t prepared me for this, for battling these monsters. I mean, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to defend myself or how to put them down.”

  Again he was quiet.

  “Samael? Are you listening?”

  “That’s why we’re headed this way,” he finally said.

  An hour later I was in an industrial, rundown section of the city. Every business was either a bar or an auto repair shop along with an unhealthy sprinkling of boarded up buildings. The place gave new meaning to the term drinking and driving and it reminded me a little of when I first got into El Paso.

  “You sure we’re headed the right way?” I said.

  “Park in front of that garage coming up there on the right.”

  A sign had once read “Tyrone’s Transmission” but both Ts had been turned to Fs with the help of some spray paint. I did as Samael said and a moment later he got off the bike and walked up to the door.

  “Stay here.”

  He was gone for almost ten minutes and when he returned he waved me over.

  “And the bike will be okay out here?” I said.

  “I’ll keep an eye on it. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “Fyrone?”

  We stepped inside the garage where a small, gray-haired man was wiping his hands on a rag. He was wearing mechanic’s overalls and appeared to be close to eighty and I wondered what Samael had in mind.

  “Abby, this is Derek.”

  I held out my hand and we shook. I could feel his frail fingers quaking in my palm.

  “I understand you need some pointers,” he said. “And that you don’t have much time.”

  I nodded, noticing that Samael had left.

  “Best we get started then.”

  For the next two hours the old man proceeded to kick my ass. He punched me. He kicked me. He head-butted me. He flipped me and threw me through the air like I was made of feathers and cornhusks.

  And then he taught me how to do the same to him.

  “Where did you learn to fight like this?” I asked when the session was over.

  “The big house.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re gonna be all right, little girl,” Derek said. “Just remember to hit ’em where it hurts: nose, eyes, and throat. And whatever you do, don’t forget the balls.”

  “Right,” I said. “The balls.”

  CHAPTER 9

  I looked out at the sparkling ocean, kicking off my running shoes and dropping my shirt in the sand. It was a beautiful clear day, stacks of cauliflower clouds banked up over the water, not a hint of a breeze in sight. But with the humidity up in the ninety percent range, it was hard work just breathing, let alone running. Still, I stayed true to my workout each morning, no matter the weather
, doing pushups and crunches and the prison fighting moves I had learned before putting in my miles.

  I had been down here for almost two weeks now fishing for his ghost, but hadn’t even had so much as a nibble.

  I had combed this stretch of the Florida Keys and the sandy avenues of Marathon, wandering through neighborhoods, shopping centers, and restaurants. I meandered down docks and piers and parks.

  It didn’t take too long before I was confronted by a thought that had not occurred to me till now. How exactly would I find Nathaniel? Did I expect to just see him playing checkers in the park? He was, after all, a ghost. And while I was good at seeing ghosts, he was good at not being seen. To make things more complicated, he could now also possess the living.

  I tried to put myself in his shoes. If I were the ghost of a mad scientist, where would I go? Who would I inhabit? Where would I hang out?

  I was pretty sure there wasn’t such a thing as a Mad Scientists Society, let alone a local branch, but even if there were, Nathaniel wouldn’t be caught dead at a meeting, thinking himself too superior. That left me with opera and wine, the other things I knew he loved when he was alive.

  A ghost might miss those things. Things that required a human body to appreciate.

  Florida had a lot of old people but it didn’t exactly strike me as the center of classical music, so opera was out except maybe for music stores. I spent several afternoons pretending to scour the used jazz and country music bins while eying the people looking through Pavarotti and María Callas records.

  When that got me nowhere, I hit the wine bars. But all I took away from that endeavor was a dry tongue and a series of headaches.

  It had been a long shot. He wouldn’t be himself, he would be using someone else’s body, which made the whole thing basically impossible. Nathaniel could be standing right in front of me sipping a fine Barolo and I wouldn’t even know it.

  With each passing day my investigation, and mood, dropped deeper and deeper into the doldrums.

  No leads. No ghouls. And no Nathaniel.

  Nothing.

  He was in the wind. I couldn’t feel him anymore. I had faith in my vision and that perhaps he had been here at one time, but that didn’t mean he was still in the area. As my impatience grew, so did the feeling that he had moved on. Maybe I needed to do the same.

  I stood there looking at the sand and water, keeping an eye out for loggerhead turtles coming up on shore to nest. Then I took a deep breath and dove in.

  The water felt good and cleansing, washing away all the sweat that had threatened to drown me during my run. I swam slow and easy over to my usual spot, past the empty volleyball area at the edge of the beach, where I could see the small fishing pier. A solitary old man with white hair was trying his luck and it made me think of high school and Hemingway.

  We were reading The Old Man and the Sea when I had my accident. I never did finish it. Maybe when this was all over.

  I swam and swam until my lungs burned and my arms ached. I didn’t count laps or know how long I went for, but it felt like each day I was doing a little more. At night I’d fall into a deep slumber, sleeping like the dead, the best sleep I had had since leaving Bend.

  After a few more trips down the beach I scanned the shore. Everything seemed normal. I glanced over at the houses beyond the sand, the area where I had just run, a neighborhood of large, expensive-looking houses.

  Some of the properties extended out to the water and were palatial, with gated pools and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sea. A little too close to the public, but otherwise they suited his tastes. Was he back there somewhere, listening to opera and working on his evil? Was Nathaniel Mortimer in one of those houses watching me now?

  He had to be here somewhere. I had seen the sign in my vision clear as day: Marathon, Population 8708. I was sure of what I had seen, but where was he? For that matter, where were any of them?

  The last time I had encountered one of his ghouls was more than a week ago. I had stopped at a gas station and a woman came out of a gym across the street and started walking over to me when I noticed her white eyes. She whispered my name. I lured her into an alleyway, away from onlookers, and took her down pretty easily. When the evil left her, she looked up at me stunned and scared, just like the man in the barn. Her eyes returned to normal and she got up without saying a word, ran off to a car, and drove away.

  None of this was what I had been expecting when I arrived in the Keys. I was sure I would be fighting an army of ghouls, sure that Nathaniel would be here waiting for me. But the opposite had happened.

  The place was a ghost town, in all the wrong ways.

  A rush of salt water shot up my nose. I turned around and checked the shore again. A few tourists were stretched out on the sand, catching rays. I thought about my conversation with Samael the night before.

  “You must be patient, Abby.”

  “Patience isn’t a virtue in this case, Samael. He hasn’t suddenly gone dormant. With each passing day he is collecting more and more dark souls and getting stronger. Time is of the essence. I’m wondering if we should backtrack, maybe go to the place where I saw him last.”

  But even as I said the words, I didn’t quite believe it. He wasn’t back in Bend.

  “You must have faith in your vision,” Samael said. “It will guide you.”

  I sighed, wondering if that other vision I had had of Samael was trying to guide me too.

  “But what if what I saw was wrong? Or what if Nathaniel himself was in control of the vision, allowing me to see what he wanted me to see, and leading me on this wild goose chase? Maybe he was never even here.”

  “You need to quiet those doubts, Abby. Trust yourself.”

  I now tried to do as he suggested and drown the negative thoughts in the salty water beneath me as I swam the last few laps. When I finished, I flipped over on my back and floated, staring up at the sky.

  It was bright and big and I wished I could see how it really was, not gray like everything else. It had been a long time since I’d seen a blue sky.

  I remembered that I had once done a report on Hawaii in school, wearing down all my blue and green pencils while trying to capture the vibrant colors. That faraway ocean didn’t look anything like I had ever seen before, didn’t even look real. It was so different from the steely dark waters of Oregon. I wondered if I was swimming in those bright tropical colors now.

  It was time for lunch. Everything on shore was the same, nothing out of the ordinary.

  Except for one thing.

  In front of the small motel where I was staying, something was moving.

  A long skinny arm waving back and forth in the air like a weed blowing in a ghost wind.

  CHAPTER 10

  I picked up my shoes and grabbed my shirt, sliding it over my shoulders, before walking over toward Jesse. He was swinging in a hammock between the palm trees, his hat in his lap.

  “Whoa, Craigers, take it easy. No need to cover up so fast. Flash me a little more of that tan.”

  I smiled.

  I hadn’t seen Jesse since the monastery. He grabbed me and pulled me down into the hammock with him. I struggled to get out, but not really.

  “Come on,” he said. “Rock with me for a little while.”

  His gray eyes danced in the sun. I was about to say something, but gave in instead and slumped down next to him, closing my eyes and listening to seabirds squawk above us.

  “You gotta get one of these things when we get back home,” he said after a time. “You can hook it up to those two big pines in your backyard. Then we can hang there all summer, just like this.”

  “That would be nice.”

  My insides started tingling and it felt like the sun was shining on my soul. I rested my head on his chest and soaked in the moment.

  “It’s really good to see you,” I said. “I was wondering where you’ve been. I was worried that maybe you had signed on at the abbey.”

  “Fat chance of that.
And it’s good to see you too, Craigers. Might I also add that all that bodywork you’ve been doing has made you the hottest babe out here.”

  I could feel my face flush slightly and turned to look out at the ocean so he wouldn’t see.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, even if I’m the only female around.”

  “Not true,” he said. “You just missed a group of bikini women.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “Of course not. I always pay attention to my surroundings.”

  I jabbed him softly with my elbow.

  “Hey, not to change the subject,” he said, “but haven’t you seen those Sharknado movies? Aren’t you afraid of those killers out there? It seems like you don’t even think about them the way you’re swimming back and forth like that. I’d be looking over my shoulder the whole time, and under it.”

  “Sharks are way down on my list of concerns these days.”

  “So how is it going here in paradise? Any progress?”

  “No, and it’s super frustrating. I’m ready, but I can’t find him. He’s vanished, just disappeared. He’s even taken his collection of ghouls with him.” I shook my head. “For some reason, it was the last thing I expected.”

  “Well, at least it’s given you some time to rest up for the next battle,” he said. “You really gave barn owl back there the what for.”

  “So you were watching, huh?”

  “Are you kidding? You’re better than pay-per-view, Craigers. But I want you to know that I was ready to lend a hand. But you didn’t need it. You had it so under control. Seriously. You didn’t need nothing from nobodies. Which is a good thing since that fool angel you hang around with seems to be totally useless.”

  I agreed with Jesse’s assessment of Samael, but strangely enough here I found myself defending him.

  “He has other qualities.”

  “I suppose,” Jesse said after a long moment.