Solomon's Grave (29 page)

Vincent blinked rapidly in the flashlight beam, looking more confused than anything, then whispered, “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and he fell sideways until his head tilted onto the dusty floor. He tried to reach out, managed to get his right arm raised, then it, too, fell to the floor. He did not move again.

Elizabeth’s shaking hand aimed the flashlight’s circle across the dark streak on the wall. It dripped a path to where the caretaker lay slumped and unmoving on the floor. The spot on the wall glistened in the light.

Nathan looked away, his throat tight, fighting down a nausea building in his stomach. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Everything was gone. Nothing was real anymore. Nothing.

Someone climbed casually down the ladder. Nathan could not see who it was because Elizabeth kept the flashlight fixed on the far wall.

“You did the right thing, Mister Everson. Remind me to give you a cookie later.” The speaker laughed. The sound was tight and without amusement.

“Reverend Dinneck, I presume,” said the voice—Peter Quinn’s voice. “And his lovely sidekick, whatever your name is.” Another chuckle. “Sorry about all the dramatics. But rest assured, Mister Tarretti will get a fine burial. In one of the nicest spots in the cemetery.” The figure raised its arms to the room. He moved forward, crossing into the beam of Elizabeth’s light, and stood before the concrete altar. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “If either of them try to move toward you or me, Mister Everson, shoot the woman. I need the good preacher.” He never took his eyes from the prize before him.

The prize which was now his own.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Elizabeth couldn’t turn the flashlight away from the blood on the wall.
It’s not blood. No one’s blood
. She was doing it somehow, with the flashlight. An optical illusion.

She needed to aim the light somewhere else. But to do that would be to reveal what she knew in her heart to be true. That there was nothing left besides this one red streak, a starburst of color quickly darkening along the wall. Nothing left of the world, her life, of reality. If she were to move her right hand, even just a little, then this last solid piece of the universe would crumble and fall away.

The logical side of her brain reflexively tried to step in, take control, berate her sudden confusion.
You’re an RN!
it screamed.
Help him; he’s been shot!
…shot by one of her dearest and oldest friends. That was
beyond
logic.

Josh had not just shot a man. He hadn’t just killed Mister Tarretti. He hadn’t. That would not happen in the world she came from. There was no one else involved in this little charade of Tarretti’s. Just him, Nate, and her.

Someone walked past, temporarily obstructing her view of the last vestiges of the world. She gasped, waited for the ceiling and the sky to collapse on top of her.

Josh had not just shot a man. There was not a stranger now staring at the box on the table.

”Elizabeth....” A soft voice; Nate’s voice.

“Elizabeth, are you OK? Look at me, but do it slowly.”

Do it slowly? Why would he want her to do it slowly? What did he want?

Slowly, she turned her head toward his voice.

There he was, still with her, looking scared. Scared because they were in a crypt, underground, and Josh had just shot someone.
No, no, no
. She began to shake. A gasp caught in her throat, became solid, tried to work its way out of her, a moan, a scream. The darkness shifted as she turned, revealing Nate’s features. Now he was fading.
No, nothing is fading, I’m OK. There’s an explanation
.

Nate was holding her shoulders now. She expected him to shake her, tell her to snap out of it, but he did not. Instead he pulled her into a hug, held her close. She heard him say, as if from a distance, “Shoot her and you hit us both.”

Another voice, the stranger’s, “Hold your fire, Mister Everson.”

Everson
, she thought.
Josh Everson. He shot the caretaker. Vincent Tarretti is dead
.

She buried her face into Nate’s chest, feeling the shock of what had happened clear a little, enough to let in the realization of their situation. She had to hang on, keep it together. Nothing was making sense, but Nate was here, holding her. And they were in trouble.

God, what have you done to me now
?

For a long time she kept her eyes closed, face pressed into Nate’s white buttoned shirt. The ladder creaked, and a third voice joined them. Nate gently nudged her. Time to rejoin the real—if completely upside down—world. She looked up.

The light was more intense than she remembered. Josh stood in the same position as before, gun held loosely in his hand but still pointing at her. On the floor beside him sat a plastic camping lantern, bright with twin fluorescent lights. Its glow washed away all remaining shadows. A man she recognized vaguely, perhaps from town, stood at the bottom of the ladder behind him and talked quickly with another guy with white hair. This latter individual was the one who had approached the altar a minute ago.

She tried not to look at the opposite wall again, but instead looked into her friend’s face. “Josh,” she whispered. “Josh, what’s wrong with you? Why did you do that? Who are these people? Why did you shoot him?”

Something changed in his expression. The blank stare widened. He blinked. For a moment Elizabeth thought she had overstepped some boundary and tensed, waiting for him to pull the trigger. She stared at the open muzzle. The gun slowly lowered.

“Please, Miss,” the white-haired man said, moving away from the ladder and walking up to Josh. “Don’t talk to the help. Mister Everson, keep an eye on these two, and when they speak, you will not hear what they say.”

Something turned over in Elizabeth’s stomach. The last time she’d felt such a sudden rush of fear she was walking across the parking lot of the mall in Worcester, alone save for one other dark sedan parked two spaces from her car. As she approached, the front doors of the other car opened and two men stepped out. They simply changed positions—the one from the driver’s seat moved to the passenger, and vice versa—and offered only a subdued nod to her as she approached, perhaps realizing too late the bad timing of their mysterious game of musical chairs. But that could not alleviate the quick and sudden rush of adrenaline that had filled her, realizing it was far too late to stop whatever madness was about to happen. On that occasion, the feeling, though justified by the events, proved unfounded. Now, hearing the man’s voice as he spoke to Josh, feeling the power in its cadence, this same fear screamed its existence in her head. The man with the white moustache was
controlling
Josh with only his voice, even to the point of getting him to kill someone.

No, that made no sense, not in the normal world she once lived in. He must be drugged. But there
was
power in the man’s voice. She had felt
something
. Seeing Josh’s expression fall slack, the gun raised again toward her, she knew there could be no other explanation. That kind of thing just wasn’t possible, was it?

The man turned to her and smiled.

Oh, God, help me, please help me
. Her prayer was without substance. She did not believe in the God she was praying to.

“Tell me your name, Miss.” His words issued from his mouth like a snake’s tongue, reached out and clutched her face. The feeling was not a bad one. It was comforting, to know she could answer him.

“Elizabeth.” She saw Nate look down at her. What was
his
problem?

“Elizabeth, I would like you to come here and stand beside Mister Everson.”

“OK.” She worked herself out of Nate’s confused grip.

“Elizabeth, hold on.” Nate’s voice was powerful of its own accord, and for a moment it was stronger. She walked back to him, waiting to see what he wanted.

The white-haired man took a step in their direction. “Mister Dinneck, the two of you stand on a very narrow ledge. I need your services, your
brawn
if you will, but the woman is valuable to me only as much as I can use her to control you. If you wish to test me on this, I will have our mutual friend send her to your God right now.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

Quinn’s words hit Nathan more powerfully than any blow: the risk of Elizabeth being killed now, in a time of her life where she had denied God completely, let alone forsaken whatever superficial Christian beliefs she might have had. To die without God in one’s heart was to die for eternity. It wasn’t a lesson he often liked to preach. The threat of damnation was both a glue holding many to their faith and a deterrent to so many others. In this moment, he realized that her life, both in this world and beyond, was in his hands. It had always been, and until now, he’d failed miserably.

He let go of Elizabeth. Quinn smiled, the smug expression of a victor. “Thank you, Reverend.” He moved a couple of steps closer. “Miss... Elizabeth was it? Please come over here to stand beside this handsome man.”

She looked at Nathan for a moment, with no sign of worry or fear. During the confrontation at the men’s club, he’d felt the power of this man’s voice. He’d been able to resist it, barely and perhaps only through God’s own power in his life.

But Josh and Elizabeth hadn’t had the same shield. This... man... had been able to make Josh kill someone in cold blood. This thought, the despair it offered, was an ache in his chest. He needed to regain some control in the conversation, buy himself some time. He said to Quinn, “You killed Reverend Hayden, didn’t you?”

“So, there
is
something going on in your head aside from abject terror!” Quinn’s joy at winning was becoming barely contained hysteria. A school boy discovering everything he ever wanted under the Christmas tree.

No one spoke. Manny Paulson had ascended the ladder again, probably acting as lookout. Elizabeth and Josh stood quietly, barely moving. Peter Quinn had one hand to his chin, deep in thought while he looked at the Ark from various angles. At one point, he had stepped over Vincent’s body, giving it no more attention than a piece of trash. He stared, brow furrowed in confusion for a moment, then smoothing out. Satisfied with what he saw, Nathan supposed.

In the glare of the lantern, the Ark looked different. Nathan couldn’t place what it was at first; then, as if a magician’s veil was lifted away, he saw. He looked down, not wanting to let surprise show on his face. He looked back, just in case. He hadn’t imagined it. What had Tarretti said just before he’d been killed? He couldn’t remember. Those last moments were a blur.

At last Quinn looked up, down at the caretaker’s unmoving body, then over to Nathan.

“All right. Here’s what we’ll do, my young Padawan. I am certain that I, being a priest in my own right, could carry this out of here myself. It’s much smaller than I’d expected, but I can feel its power. Do you feel it, too, Reverend?”

Nathan did not answer. He
did
feel it, but now that whatever power of illusion this thing had held over him was no longer at work, he realized that the energy seemed
not
to come from in front of him... but rather from behind.

Quinn was nonplussed at the silence. He continued, “However, just to be safe, and to keep my hands free to kill your girlfriend if you try anything stupid, I’ll let you do the honors.”

He bowed dramatically, waving one arm toward the relic. To Josh he added, “Mister Everson, Miss Elizabeth, I would like you two to climb the ladder and stand by Mister Paulson. He is waiting for you.

“And, Mister Dinneck, please come over here and lift my little treasure chest, hmm? Best we gauge how heavy this thing is.” He smiled wider. “Not to mention how dangerous.”

Nathan reminded himself that there was still hope. Bad things had happened,
were
happening, but there were other layers here that he was now beginning to sense. Quinn was seeing, atop the concrete altar, what they’d all seen. If that was the case, there might be a chance. Not at the moment, but soon. Maybe. All he could think to do was play this psychopath’s game until an opportunity presented itself.

And if he died, well, it would be God’s will. Everything else had been that way up to this point. Though this current wrinkle might not have been in the playbook.

He took a breath, let it out slowly. Quinn watched him with obvious impatience. Nathan took two steps forward and raised his hands to either side of the Ark. This close, he saw its true nature. This was not the Ark of the Covenant, couldn’t be. It wasn’t even a good replica. What had been gold a moment ago was long-faded paint. But he needed to play along. He put his hands against the wooden box’s cool and dusty sides, and lifted.

“Don’t forget to use the knees, young man.” Quinn spoke without humor, too intently waiting for something terrible to happen.

If Quinn saw a gold-laden chest, Nathan needed to struggle. In fact, though the box was a bit heavy, it didn’t weigh nearly as much as it should.

It must be heavy
, he told himself. Slowly, bending his knees, though he was certain he could carry this thing with one arm if it wasn’t so bulky, he laid it back down, giving it a slight push onto the concrete to mimic a sense of weight.

“It’s heavy,” he said, trying to sound out of breath.

Quinn smiled gleefully. “As well it should be. I apologize for not giving you enough notice, time to join a gym or something, but time is of the essence.” He nodded to Vincent’s body. “Wouldn’t do for us to be found in here with a dead man. Time to go topside and give Mister Tarretti that decent burial I promised.”

He walked around the room, always facing Nathan, and stopped at the ladder. “After you, Pastor. I’d offer to help, but I’d prefer you carry it until it can be properly consecrated on my own altar.”

In his relief, Nathan thought of a few retorts, but he held his tongue. He couldn’t show too much confidence. Quinn was smart enough to see through most deceptions. The question was, how long before he saw through this one?