Angel's Breath (Fallen Angels - Book 2) (17 page)

“God, Rich,” Chuck said. “I’m so sorry. They got me last night; tracked me to Eugene’s house. I had no choice. They said they’d let the rest of us go if I helped them.” At the last sentence, he glanced across to the other side of the room, looking both hopeful and hopeless at the same time.

Sitting in a high-backed manager’s chair beside a bank of computers, David Matheson took a deep breath and gave Al a complimentary smile.

My stomach twisted.

Al gestured for us to sit in two of the empty chairs at the gaming table opposite Stacy and Chuck.

“What did I tell you, Mr. Matheson?” Al said. “Dumb as stumps, all of them.”

“Thank you, Al.” He cast a casual glance over the four of us. “Please tell the father to come out so we can begin.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

There was one
thing all five of us had in common. We were all orphans to some degree; some of us more recently than others. My mother was dead. My father had disowned me, so the chances of him being here were beyond calculation. Darcy had said her parents had died in a house fire ten years ago, and Chuck and Stacy’s parents had died in a car accident when they were kids.

Terence Matheson had died in front of me yesterday morning, and his wife had passed away more than twenty years ago.

We were all orphans.

So, when David said ‘father’, all of us looked around with puzzled faces, wondering who he was talking about.

Our silent question was answered when Al stepped back out to the front half of the store. From where I was standing in the archway, I turned and watched as the mercenary headed to the washroom and opened the door a crack.

“We’re ready for you now,” Al said, and held the door open.

I was more than a little startled to see an older man come out of the washroom. He was balding on top and the hair on the sides and back of his head was dark silver. Though thin of frame, he looked healthy and spry. He wore a black suit with a white collar at his throat.

The priest held two sets of rosaries with gold cross pendants in one hand and a decorative crystal vial in the other. I recalled that Terence had had a rosary around his neck when he died.

The priest saw me looking at him, and immediately touched the tips of his fingers to his forehead, heart, and both shoulders. Then he lifted the cross pendants to his lips and kissed them one after another, all the while muttering a prayer under his breath.

Al lifted his gun in my direction and motioned for me to move out of the way and let the priest pass.

I shot an alarmed glance at Darcy, and she shook her head.

“What’s this all about?” I asked, trying to keep the nervousness from my voice.

David approached the priest and stood beside him. With a nod to the holy man, he ordered, “I need both of you to kneel down. Put your hands together as if you are praying.”

Starting to grow angry, I spoke with some heat in my voice. “I don’t think so.”

David, controlling his temper a lot better than I was, said, “Let me explain how this is going to go down. You and Darcy—” He glanced at her. “—yes, we did some research on you. You’ve left quite a bloody trail behind you, young lady.”

He took a breath and addressed me again. “You and Darcy will follow my instructions exactly. Don’t worry.” Placing a hand on the priest’s shoulder, he said, “Father Putnam is not here to exorcise the demon.”

The priest raised a finger. “Fallen.”

“Right,” David said. He nodded. “We merely wish to bind the fallen for our—and your—safety. Once that is accomplished, your friends may go.”

Al made a growling noise in his throat at the suggestion, and David gave him a nod of confidence. “You said it yourself, Al. They’re too dumb to pose a threat to us, and what else are they going to do? Go to the police? Besides, if we ever need to find them, I’m sure it won’t be too difficult. No, I think we’ll find Richard will be more cooperative if he knows his friends’ continued health depends on it.”

“You’re crazy,” I said in a gasp.

“Hardly.” David smirked. “Do we have a deal, Richard? Do as I say from here on out, and your friends may leave unharmed.”

My first reaction was to summon the power inside me and use it against David. The hatred I felt for him was so raw that I could taste it. The animal part of me wanted to lash out with everything I had.

“Rich, don’t,” Stacy said. “They’ll kill you.”

I didn’t care about my life at that moment, but what I did care about was that David would kill Stacy if I resisted. I hated the feeling of helplessness that came over me as I lowered myself to my knees.

I thought, for a moment, that Darcy would resist; after all she didn’t really know us, and had only sought me out to help her understand the power we had. When she followed me to her knees a moment later, I muttered a quiet ‘thank you’ to her.

“Not at all,” she said back. “They’ve got us right where we want to be.”

I looked at her in question, and she gave me a wink. My mind raced to understand. It was obvious that David knew significantly more about what was in Darcy and me than we did. It was also apparent to me that he wanted what we had. As long as that possibility was available for him, we had the opportunity to find out what he knew.

I nodded at Darcy. I would go along with it, but I would not give up hope.

Al and Nick stepped behind us and pulled a leather harness over our heads. It looked custom-built. The collar had a strap, which they pulled tightly around our necks. They tied a long strip of leather around our torsos and outside our arms, binding our elbows to our sides. Raising our hands, held together in prayer fashion, they secured our wrists with another length of cord, which they fastened to our collars. I tried to wiggle around. It would have been easier to get out of a straitjacket.

Satisfied that we were tied securely, David and Father Putnam walked up in front of us.

I asked.,“What are you going to do with us?”

David smiled. “You may have heard about exorcisms. I want the opposite of that. What we’re going to do is make sure the entities in you remain where they are, for the time being, and are kept dormant. After all, we can’t have you lighting us on fire or hitting us with a cyclone. Father Putnam will perform the Ritual of Binding. As we have physically restrained you—the hosts—we will now put a spiritual restraint on the demons inside you.”

Father Putnam looked as if he were going to correct David again, then changed his mind and closed his mouth.

What was it? Fallen angel, or demon? Was it the same thing? What was more difficult to accept was that, whatever it was, it was real, and Darcy and I were possessed by it.

I looked at Darcy. She remained calm, but I could see a flicker of concern in her expression. Maybe we didn’t have them where we wanted them.

David took a step back. “Now, if there are no more questions, please let the Father do his work.”

I felt a rush of nervousness as the priest stepped up to me.

I said, “You’re a priest.” My mouth was dry, and my words felt like sandpaper in my throat. “How can you be a part of this? You have to know he wants the power for himself.”

Father Putnam said, “Sometimes the only way to fight evil is with evil.” He glanced at David unapologetically. “And better the devil you know.”

With that, he pulled the stopper out of the vial. My first thought was that it was holy water, and he was going to sprinkle us with it. Instead, he held it to my lips and said, “Drink.”

I didn’t want to, and closed my lips as tightly as I could, but I realized that was a knee-jerk reaction. Resisting the procedure might endanger Stacy and the others.

Unclenching my teeth, I opened my mouth. He tilted the vial and let half the contents pour onto my tongue.

I expected to taste plain water, but it was thick, like olive oil, and there was a bitter taste to it.

“Now you,” he said and brought the vial to Darcy’s mouth.

With a hasty look in my direction to see if I was suffering any effects, she opened up and let him pour the remaining liquid in her mouth.

“Swallow it,” he told us.

I did as commanded, and whatever it was, it was thick. I had trouble getting it down. “What was that?”

“Chrism,” the priest said. “Consecrated oil. You have taken the Holy Spirit into you. If you feel pain, it means you are, indeed, possessed. It will also help to suppress the fallen while I perform the ritual.”

With that, he began to recite something in Latin. I had no idea what he said. The chrism I had swallowed had tasted odd when I swallowed it, but it hadn’t done me any physical harm until the priest began speaking. A sudden blast of power shot through every fiber of my being, and it felt if the blood in my veins were boiling.

One of the triggers that brought the entities inside us out was when our lives were in danger. Until that moment, I didn’t truly believe there was a possibility of my death. David wanted me alive, and he had gone to enormous expense to make sure of it.

But it was the thing inside me who was in danger, now. It tried to fight the binding. It reacted as if it was under attack and fighting for its life, and my body was the field of battle.

I screamed. My innards burned as if I had drunk battery acid. I heard someone screaming my name, but I was in far too much agony to identify whom.

Falling over, I writhed about on the floor as the pain flashed through me like a thousand bolts of lightning.

The priest continued his ritual. The pain only receded when he had come to its conclusion. From somewhere he withdrew a small needle-sharp knife. With two quick cuts on my forehead, one vertical, one horizontal in the sign of the cross, he pushed the pendant from the rosary into the blood dripping from the wound.

Finally, he placed the rosary over my head and slipped it down around my neck.

It burned as if it were a live wire, and I thought I was going to pass out. The pain gradually receded to where I could just bear it without screaming—not that my raw throat would allow any sound out if I wanted.

While I lay on the floor in agony, he turned to Darcy, preparing to begin the ritual once more to bind her fallen.

Nick held her still by pressing the barrel of his gun against the back of her head. All through my ordeal, she hadn’t taken her eyes off me.

As the priest began to recite the Latin phrases, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she let out a primal scream. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away, either.

Once the ritual was complete, Darcy lay still on the floor, her long hair matted and draped over her face. The only sign that she was alive was her deep heaving breaths.

Father Putnam turned to David. “And I will give unto thee the keys to the kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” He made the sign of the cross and then gestured to us. “The fallen are now bound to their mortal vessels.”

David smiled and clapped the priest on the back. “Once again, good work, Father. Thank you for driving all the way down here.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said. “It’s my purpose.”

David said, “Now, if you’ll go with Nick, he’ll see you to your car. I will let you know when we’re ready for the last phase. Oh, I almost forgot my donation.” He withdrew a check from an inner pocket, already made out, and gave it to the priest. “I’m sure this will help your campaign. The diocese will be better served with you as bishop.”

“Thank you,” Father Putnam said, looking at the amount. “Most generous.” He quickly followed Nick out of the hobby store.

Once the doors were closed again, David made a motion with his hand to Al, who grabbed me roughly and brought me back to a kneeling position.

“Al, I need to be sure,” he said.

Nodding, Al turned to Tom. “Do it.”

“No!” I yelled as Tom swung his gun around toward Chuck. With the silencer on, I only heard a gentle whisper as he fired a single round into the back of Chuck’s head.

Stacy screamed and grabbed her brother, who had slumped over without a sound. A pool of blood widened under his head and expanded across the surface of the table.

I howled for the thing inside me to come out and unleash its power, but no matter how much I wanted to rip the entire building down and bring unholy vengeance to David, the only thing I felt was despair.

“You bastard,” Darcy spat. “You said you would let them go. You didn’t have to kill him.”

David gave a little shrug of his shoulders. “No fire, no tornado. No angels or demons. I guess it worked.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I said through gritted teeth, but David wasn’t paying any attention to me.

Stacy had buried her head against Chuck’s motionless back, and was wailing in shock and grief.

“Can you do something about that noise?” David asked Al.

“Don’t you touch her!” I yelled.

Al gave me a sideways glance. “Not to worry.” He pulled a syringe out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “Just a little pinprick, and then she’ll sleep like a baby.”

“All right, enough chitchat,” David said. “Let’s get this place cleaned up, and get them ready for transport.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Both Darcy and
I were as helpless as lambs, and Stacy was unconscious from whatever Al had given her. David, nevertheless, watched over us as Al and Nick—who had been waiting outside—maneuvered Chuck into a thick plastic body bag. Once they’d zipped it up, they carried it out the back door, where one of two black SUVs waited in the loading area. The back hatch was already opened and waiting to receive the body.

Al and Tom returned for Stacy, but they carried her to the second SUV. They piled Darcy and me in beside Stacy, as if we were cords of wood.

I struggled to raise myself up to see out the window.

David said to Nick, “Get rid of the body. Hunt down that chubby geek and take care of him, too. When you’re done, drive back to the farm.”

Nick nodded with a grunt. He got into the first SUV and drove off with Chuck’s body.

“All right, Al,” David said, standing at the passenger door of the vehicle. He pointed to the strip mall. “No traces.”