On Broken Wings (5 page)

"I owe you big time, and I know it. Just tell me what you want so I can get it over with."

It was the little girl's voice, the one that combined equal parts defiance and pain. He cringed inside at the sound of it. It was some moments before he could proceed with what he had planned to say.

"I have an errand to run this morning, but I should be back before noon. After that, I want you to meet a friend, a very good friend. He's a smart man, and I think you should talk to him. A little grocery shopping, and we'll be set for the day. While I'm out, you might want to take a shower, try to relax a bit. After that we can talk about whatever's on your mind."

She stared at him, not comprehending.

"I told you yesterday, you're safe here. No one's going to do anything to you. And you're welcome to stay as long as you need to. If you were expecting to have to make some kind of payment, you can relax. We'll talk about putting you on your own two feet when you've had a while to rest and recover. I don't see that we have to rush it."

He was doing his best to be reassuring, but from her expression, he might have been babbling in tongues.

"I'll have to find out how much you know and what you'll need to learn before you go off by yourself. I don't want you to leave here unprepared. The world isn't a very forgiving place. So we'll spend a few hours each day on that. And I do have affairs of my own to attend to, so I won't be with you all the time. But I promise you, Chris, you will not have to face those creatures, or anything like them, helpless and alone ever again. I swear it. You might not believe it yet, but you will."

She continued to stare at him, eyes wide and mouth working, but no sound came out. For a moment he thought she might begin to cry again. Instead she drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and returned her attention to the coffee mug, from which she still had not drunk.

"What's the errand?"

Oh, nothing much. I'm just going to ramble on over to the hospital and pay your bill without letting them know where you've gone. Then I get to lie still for an hour and let them pump me full of toxic chemicals on the off chance that they'll extend my life another week or two, because all of a sudden I'm afraid to die.

He forced a smile. "Nothing to concern yourself over."

He went to her side, covered her hands with his own and, against some slight resistance, brought the mug to her lips. She took a sip and swallowed. Fear-filled brown eyes rose once more to meet his.

"It's good coffee, isn't it?"

"Yes, thanks." She attempted a smile of her own, and failed. It was painful to see.

He nodded and looked away.

***

"That all of them?"

Hans nodded.

Tiny rose from the couch and went to the front of the barracks, where its sole eye-level windows were located. There was nothing to see but a few cars dribbling by on Lumberjack Road. The weather was improving, the temperature rising, but there was nothing to do with it. Onteora, despite the Butchers' frequent stops there, was not a fruitful place for an extended stay. They needed richer pickings.

He was frustrated, but he took pains not to show it. The nurse-receptionist at Onteora General had been so terrified, he'd been certain he'd struck pay dirt. But Christine had not been there, and the receptionist had sworn up and down that no female accident victim had been brought to the hospital for more than a week. It was unthinkable that any woman's resolve not to talk could resist the kind of fear he could engender. He knew where his strengths lay.

"Don't sweat it, Hans." He did his best to suppress his irritation. "It was a good idea. No one else had any. The slut's gone, and that's that. Probably dead in a ditch somewhere. We'll find another one. When were we supposed to meet the Vikings?"

"Three days ago, boss. You thinking of heading out?"

Tiny nodded, looking out at the thin stream of traffic that ran past the barracks. "We've been here long enough." He turned back toward his lieutenant and grinned. "Don't I always say that after we've been here a few days?"

Hans grinned in response. "When do you want to pull stakes?"

Tiny shrugged. "Tomorrow morning'll be soon enough. I don't want to have to collect the guys today. Let them get pickled one more time. And you and me, let's go out and find a fresh piece of ass. Hell, maybe one each for a change."

"You got it, boss."

====

Chapter
5

Louis could judge the state of his own expression from the way Father Schliemann's face went white as he opened the rectory door. The old priest slipped an arm around his shoulders and guided him to the rectory's sitting room without a word.

It had been many years since Louis had last been unable to control a bodily reaction. The chemotherapy-induced nausea and dizziness were testing that control. The heavy brown leather armchair in which Schliemann had sat him rose and fell like a small boat on a choppy sea. The added pressure from the pain in his abdomen made it all but impossible for him not to clench his muscles in what Malcolm called the "panic stop."

He could still command his breathing. It would have to be enough. He concentrated on making it slow, deep, and regular, until the rhythm gained dominance over the rest of his sensorium. An unknown interval had passed when he realized that Father Schliemann was kneeling before him. Lips moving in silent prayer, the old priest was gripping Louis's arms while staring up into his face.

"I'm all right, Father."

"You're not much of a liar, Louis."

Louis's involuntary chuckle triggered another spike of abdominal pain. His breath control failed as his reflexes tried once more to double him over. "You don't miss much, do you?"

"No one could miss that. What on Earth brings you here in such a state?"

"Well, you might say I have a customer for you. Hang on while I finish riding this out, okay?"

The priest waited. Louis struggled to lock in his breathing rhythm before he spoke again.

"I seem to have picked up a stray with a guilt problem. Young woman, severely abused. Held prisoner by a motorcycle gang for several years. Gang raped and tortured nightly. You know, six o'clock news kind of stuff."

"Are you serious?"

Louis managed to nod.

"And
she
has the guilt problem? What about the monsters who did this to her?"

"I haven't reached the punch line yet, Father. She managed to escape from them only a few days ago. Bravest thing I ever heard, and I don't doubt one word of it. She had to cause a motorcycle accident to do it. Killed one of them in the process and damn near killed herself. As it is, she's going to look like one of Frankenstein's trial runs for the rest of her life."

"How did you enter the picture?" The priest's face had gone expressionless.

"She almost fell into their hands a second time. They were going to lift her right out of the hospital the cops had brought her to. I managed to sneak her past them."

Schliemann rocked back on his heels. He steadied himself, then rose to a standing position. "How many of them were there?"

Louis shrugged. "I didn't count them. Looked like about twenty."

The priest shook his head in disbelief. "You snatched a prize away from a pack of twenty bikers. And brought her to your home, no doubt, where she is right now, unsupervised, while these men continue to look for her. Do you think you're some kind of superhero? Or have your gonads gone mad?"

Despite everything, Louis chuckled. "No third choice?"

Schliemann acted as if he hadn't heard. "A priest hears a lot of strange stories, and over time he learns which ones to ignore. But dear God, I have never heard anything like this in my fifty years with the collar. Did it occur to you what kind of danger you were embracing? Did you take no thought for your own problems and how you're going to meet them?"

For a moment, Louis was silenced by surprise. Anger bloomed in the younger man, overwhelming the pain and nausea. He chose not to restrain it.

"Who was it that taught me to act with love toward whoever God put in my path, Father? Who was it that reminded me of my assets, and what I could still do with them? Would you rather I had walked away from this girl and left her to face that pack of savages alone?"

"What about the authorities, Louis? Did they even occur to you?"

"What about them, Father?" Louis snarled. "I was there, they weren't. And these 'authorities' haven't really done so well in lots of easier cases we both know about, have they? Wasn't Lois DuBreuill one of your parishioners?"

The priest reeled as if struck. Lois DuBreuill had been beaten to death by her husband. After taking her complaint about the beating he had inflicted on her just that evening, the Onteora police had driven her back to her trailer against her will. She had not survived the night.

"And this young woman – she has a name, I suppose?"

"Christine D'Alessandro."

"Miss D'Alessandro has admitted to taking a life herself, hasn't she?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

"But just that one, of course. She's never victimized anyone herself, or invited any of the treatment she's complained about to you. Of course not. She's a pure victim, no stains on her own soul. And you, the hero of the moment, so anxious to do good, so desperate to earn your way back into God's grace, believe every word she says, don't you?"

"Yes, I do!"

The priest's face went rigid with shock. Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, he slumped into a chair at the other end of the room.

Louis waited, his temper on a gossamer leash, all discomfort banished from his consciousness.

"Louis, you do have a way about you." Schliemann had not ceased to shake his head in wonderment.

"Will you see her or not?"

"See her? Of course. How could I not? Will you bring her here, or would you prefer a house call?"

Louis's eyebrows went up at that. "When could you come by?"

The priest went to the coat tree in the hall and fetched a dark blue cardigan sweater. He shrugged into it as if nothing untoward had occurred.

"What's wrong with right now?"

***

With Father Schliemann standing behind him, Louis unlocked the front door of his house and eased it open. He did not want to take any chance on startling Christine, who could be anywhere.

The two men stepped into Louis's living room. It was otherwise unoccupied, as was the kitchen. Louis deliberately made enough noise walking about that his presence would be known throughout the house. He gestured to the priest to sit, and mounted the stairs to the second floor.

The doors of all three bedrooms were shut. He went first to the guest room and tapped on its door with one knuckle. There was no response.

He turned and swung open the door of his own room. It was as he had left it. Christine was not there.

He went to the door of the third room, which he used as an office and a professional library, and opened it. At the far end, his personal computer, which he had left powered up since the previous day, was running its screen saver. It was a trivial little program he had written a long time ago, which spun electrons in orbits around a rotating Bohr atom. Before it, staring raptly into the screen, sat Christine. She gave no indication that she had heard him enter.

He slid up behind her and touched her shoulder. She started and turned toward him. Astonishment was written across her scarred features.

"What is this?"

"It's a computer, Chris. Never seen one before?"

She had returned her attention to the rotating display. "How does it do that?"

He moved to her side, dropped to a squat and looked up into her face. "A program draws those patterns on the screen when the machine isn't busy with something else."

"Where did it come from?" She could not tear her eyes away.

"Well, I made it."

That got her attention. "You did this?"

Her eyes had locked on to his own. The awe in them had changed to something like worship. Throat tight, he nodded once.

"What else can you make it do?"

He shrugged. "Damn near anything I want."

"Could you teach me?"

The plaintiveness of the plea wrung his heart.

Chris, if we had the time, I'd teach you everything I know, from how to poach an egg to how to build a cannon from a stove pipe and some dirty rags. But first I have to make you fit to survive, and we might not even have the time for that.

He smiled. "We can talk about it later. Come meet my friend."

He rose and held out his hand. She hesitated, then took it and allowed him to lead her down the stairs.

***

Father Schliemann rose from his chair at the far end of the living room as Louis and Christine descended the stairs. The priest stood still and allowed them to approach him, rather than going to them. Louis pulled Christine gently across the room.