Blackwater Lights (21 page)

Tell me about him
.

He’s wearing a raincoat. Bright yellow. With a hood. And yellow boots, too. And he takes the knife out of my hand. He’s wearing latex gloves, blue ones like doctors wear. He and another guy pick up Crystal. Drag her. Into another room, and they shut the door.

What happens next?

Lily comes up to me. God, I hate her. She looks right into my eyes. She’s doing that thing again with her eyes, and I can’t stop it because I can’t move. I can’t blink. She’s saying things into my head—not with her voice. She’s putting her words in my head.

What is she saying, Ray? Tell me what she’s saying to you
.

She’s saying that I’m special. That I’m supposed to be with them—to be part of their family. And that they know they’re being watched by people in town. And that I’m supposed to find whoever is watching them and bring them to her. I have a special role to play—they need me. And I must do what she says. Oh, God, I can’t stand this anymore. I want it to stop. Please. I don’t want to see what happens next.

You’re safe, Ray. Pull yourself back. Watch from a distance. You must tell me what happens next
.

Lily kisses me. On the lips. I want to scream, but I can’t. It’s like a horrible nightmare, like I know I’m dreaming, but I can’t wake up, and I just have to keep watching. She kisses Crawford. He tells them to turn the cameras off. And … Oh, no. Oh, fuck, oh God, no. Oh my God. Oh God.

Relax. It’s not happening to you. It’s not—

Yes it is. Oh, no. Please. Stop it. Stop it!

Take a deep breath, Ray, and—

Oh God. They didn’t. They
couldn’t
.

What did they do? Tell me. It’s important that you tell me
.

They—he—the guy in the raincoat. He’s coming back in the room. I can’t see this anymore. I want it to stop. Please!

Tell me. What do you see
.

He’s covered in blood. Splattered with it. And he has the knife in his hand. He didn’t do it. He didn’t hurt her. It’s a trick. They’re trying to fucking trick me.

What is he doing with the knife?

I don’t want it. Get it away from me.

Ray, you’re moving away from the scene. You’re looking in a window, and you’re safe outside, and nothing can hurt you. What is he doing with the knife?

He’s putting it in my hand. He’s wrapping my hands around it. My hands are covered in blood. Lily’s smiling, Crawford’s laughing, and then Lily says,
Wipe some on his face. Give him a mustache
. And the guy does it. He sticks his finger in my mouth.
Taste what you did
, he says. I want to scream. I want to die. Just make it stop. Make it go away.
Just fucking make it stop!

It’s okay. We’re leaving that scene now. It was a trick. They didn’t hurt that girl—it was just a way to fool you. It’s all over. You’re safe and not afraid anymore. You did nothing wrong. You’re here in the room with me, and everything is fine, and nothing from your past can hurt you. I’m going to bring you out slowly, and when I do, you’ll feel rested, relaxed, and you won’t remember anything you’ve just experienced from that night. Do you understand? Ray? Ray, do you understand?

Ray?

“You look better,” Micah said. He sat on a folding chair at the far end of the church. Behind him were children’s crayon drawings of biblical scenes—Noah’s Ark, Adam and Eve, Jonah and the whale—taped to the wall. He gestured to the empty chair across from him.

Ray sat. “I feel good. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure what you did to me, but I feel … lighter.”

“You were carrying quite the burden,” Micah said. “How’s your leg?”

Ray rubbed his knee. “Hardly hurts. I don’t understand—it’s almost like nothing happened to it.”

Micah nodded. “The tea. Good medicine.”

“What is the medicine? Not something I could pick up in my local pharmacy, I assume.”

Micah smiled silently.

“A secret. Right.”

“A precise combination of plants you’ve never heard of, simmered and concentrated. A gift of the spirits of the jungle. So, yes, essentially. A secret.”

Ray set his coffee on the floor and stood. He walked to one of the church windows. The lower windows were painted over—to keep out prying eyes, probably—but sun streamed through the higher windows onto the rows of pews. Sunlight bathed him, and for a moment he stood still, lost in the warmth.

“Who are you?” Ray asked.

Micah sat back in his chair, crossing his hands in his lap. “I promise I’ll answer your questions as clearly and honestly as possible. But there might not be answers that you can easily understand.”

“Fine.” This was good. He was finally getting somewhere. “What is this church? It’s not a regular church. A Christian church.”

Micah laughed. “What makes you think that?”

Mantu laughed in the other room.

“Well, I’ve never been to a church with magic teas and hypnotists. So what is it? Are you a real church? Some kind of native religion? Or some secret society like the Masons?”

“It could be any one of those things, and more.”

“Micah, you said you’d answer
clearly
.”

Mantu laughed again.

“I’m trying, I am. Mantu, mind your own business.” He drank some coffee and wiped his lips. “We are the carriers of a very ancient tradition. It predates religion, at least historical,
organized religion. And we have been labeled a cult by those who work against us. We are a secret organization, bound by oaths. But anyone can leave at any time they wish.”

“But you’re the leader.”

“Of some, yes. But there are many leaders.”

“Okay. So you and your organization followed Crawford to keep an eye on him. Why? Can’t you just find someone who isn’t compromised? The FBI, or
60 Minutes
, or WikiLeaks … anyone? Just expose everything and get him arrested?”

Micah sighed. “I wish it were that simple, Ray. His allies are embedded in positions of power—politicians, judges, cops, soldiers. Priests and rabbis. Doctors. Entertainers. They have their tentacles in every industry, every part of society, and wherever there is power there is always someone to corrupt. Humans are quite predictable in their weaknesses. And they build plausible deniability into everything they do.”

“What about your organization?”

“We’re smaller and less organized. We operate more as a structure of cells, rather than as a strict hierarchy. We’re decentralized, but we work toward the same goals together. Evolution. Enlightenment.”

“And stopping them.”

“Yes. Stopping them. They are impediments to human evolution, dragging the rest of humanity down. Sometimes we win, sometimes they win. But we have no choice but to fight them. And neither do you, Ray.”

Ray thought that over. “Maybe. But there’s one thing I have to do first. I have to talk to Ellen.”

Micah waved for Mantu to come into the room. “We logged into your email account,” Mantu said. “It wasn’t hard to guess your password.”

Ray cursed.
Raysimon1
—he hadn’t changed it in years.

He read it twice. “Shit!” He turned to Micah. “I need to talk to her. Now.”

“We’ve had a camera monitoring Kevin’s house and driveway for some time, and we have two men keeping an eye on her at all times. We’ll stop her and bring her here if she tries to go to Kevin’s place. Or take her to our safe house. Either way, she’ll be safe. Please don’t worry—I doubt Crawford even knows about her.”

Bullshit
.

After a communal dinner, the inner circle—Micah, Mantu, Alan, and, most surprising to Ray, the bookstore owner and Tarot reader, Sara—sat in the dim basement of the church.

“What do you feel is happening with Crawford?” Micah asked.

Sara closed her eyes. “There’s a change in the energy. He’s disturbed and angry, and I think he’s worried about someone betraying him. And she—I’m picking up on her most of all.” She opened her eyes and looked at Ray. Her irises were clear blue. “She is pissed. And she’s coming for you.”

Everyone stared at him.

“But we’re working protection around him,” Mantu interjected. “So don’t scare the man out of his wits.”

“He needs to understand, Mantu,” Micah said. “Please don’t interrupt again.”

Mantu nodded.

“But we shouldn’t spend too much time on what’s past. There is a quickening—you feel it, too, Sara.”

Sara nodded. Her fingers rubbed a string of turquoise beads. “Yes. Things are going to happen very quickly. Too fast for me to discern.”

Micah turned to Ray. “Sheriff Morton is after you. He hasn’t gone public with the photos—not yet. He’s saving those as his ace in the hole.”

“I need to know Ellen is okay,” Ray said. “I’m not joking. I won’t help you unless you
can assure me she’s okay. And her kid, too. They’re important to me.”

“They’re under a twenty-four-hour watch. If anything changes, we’ll know immediately.”

“I sure hope you do. And she’d better be safe. I’m trusting you.”

Micah’s gaze made its way to each person in the circle. “Their energy is disturbed. I’m not sure what’s going on, but Crawford is afraid of losing control. Something is shaking up his hold on power. Maybe it’s Lily, maybe someone else in his command structure. It’s hard to say. But something’s wrong.”

“We have to move,” Mantu said. He glanced at the others.

Micah nodded. “This is an opportunity we’ve never had before. On the one hand, they’re trying to find Ray, hoping he’ll lead them to us as a bonus. If they find out about us, we’re finished. We can’t risk that. On the other hand, they’re weak. There is an opening for us that has never previously existed. An opportunity to act.”

“What do you suggest, Micah?” Alan asked.

“I need to consult with some of the others,” he said. His brow knotted. “And we may need to call in help before we can act. We were sent here to monitor, not to intervene, and there are too few of us. But we may have to catch them off guard to get a chance to strike. I know only one way to draw them out into the open. That’s to make them think they can have what they want.”

Around the table, eyes nervously shifted to Ray.

“Oh, no,” he said. “No way. Fuck no. I already told you, I’m not going to be the bait in this thing. I’ll help in any way I can. But I don’t want to go near them.” He looked at all of them, and no one returned his gaze.

Micah stood. The skin of his hands hung loosely, and the bags beneath his eyes stretched to his cheekbones. “As I explained to you before, you are not safe and you will never be safe. Not you, not Ellen, not anyone else you love. Ever. You must understand that.”

“Well, I can’t live the rest of my life hiding from them. They can’t find me if I move somewhere far away. I’ll grab Ellen and William and leave the country if I have to.”

“They have the photos, Ray. All they need to do is make the photos public. And they have your DNA, too, to plant wherever they wish. And you think you can get away from them? Homeland Security will have you in cuffs the first time you pass through a toll or use an ATM.”

“I know it’s hard for you,” Sara said.

“
Hard
for me?” Ray slammed his fist on the table. “You’re telling me my entire life is over. My job, my friends—everything. Either that or join your crusade and play the good soldier for some cause I don’t understand or even want to understand. Well, I’m not a soldier. I’m a high school teacher. I just want to get away from all of this. I want to be someplace normal. I want my life back.”

Micah lowered his head. His face sagged. He suddenly looked every year of his age. “We have to kill Crawford,” Mantu said. “And Lily. If we get the opportunity, we have no choice. It would end their operation.”

A cricket chirped from a dark corner of the basement.

Micah raised his head. “We need to talk to the others. We can’t just take that kind of unilateral action.”

“It’s time, Micah. You said it yourself—we may not get this chance again.” Alan shook his head. “Too many would die. And how do you propose we do it? His property is secure. He’s armed to the teeth.”

“We need to draw them out,” Mantu said.

“I can’t risk it,” Micah said. “Not without talking to the others first. Not alone.”

Sara touched Micah’s hand. “I’m afraid we don’t have the time,” she said. “Crawford feels the changes, too. He feels our presence. He knows Ray is alive. And he won’t wait for us to move against him—he’ll strike first.”

“It’s the sheriff I’m worried about,” Mantu said. “Going door-to-door with his cracker storm troopers. And he’s stupid enough to do something rash.”

Micah held up his hands. “Enough. I will meditate on this tonight and talk to the others. Mantu, take Ray to the shelter. Sara, you might as well go home—you’ll be safer there if he finds us here. Alan, post a watch around the perimeter. We must be ready for anything.” For the first time, Ray saw a trace of doubt in the old man’s eyes. Or was it fear?