The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (68 page)

“Don’t listen to him!” Loren shouted at Rose, his other hand almost free. “Shoot him while you still can!”

Rose stared at Martin. His head wasn’t moving, but he was nodding. She could see it. Feel it. Hear it. “Do it,” he was saying. “Kill him. Let me go.”

“She can’t. She loves you far too much, dear boy. We’re running a little behind schedule now, so here’s what you’ll do, Queeny, and do quickly: I want you to take that Beretta and point it at Loren’s head. Then I want you to pull the trigger. Now I reckon you’re a bit shy about ending his long, cursed life, considering that he’s toting around such precious cargo. But if you don’t do exactly what I’ve said by the time I count to three, you can watch me gouge out this lovely new eyeball that I worked so hard to make, not for him, mind you, but for me…and then you can retch in horror as I push a little deeper and blow out your boyfriend’s brains with the CO2 cartridge he so cleverly concealed in this ice pick.”

Rose and Martin stared helplessly at each other.

The Striker desperately tugged at his nailed, bleeding hand.

Rose looked at The Striker and saw her mother’s face.

Time seemed to freeze all over again as Paul began to count: “One…”

Rose stared at Paul, her hands shaking so much she almost dropped the pistol.

Paul grinned back at her, winking his blood-burst eye, pressing the ice pick down against Martin’s eyeball, his thumb poised over the button at the base of the handle.

“Last chance m’lady…” he said softly. “Two…”

Rose turned her gun on The Striker, then whipped the barrel back to Paul so quickly all I saw was blur.

Paul could see it perfectly. And with a final, fatal shrug, he whispered, “three…”

“
LEAVE MARTIN ALONE!”
I yelled so loudly the windows almost shattered.

Paul paused. To laugh.
BANG!
Rose shot him in the face, right below his broken cheekbone. It scraped along the bottom of his skull, blowing a chunk of flesh and hair from the back of his head. Martin kicked against his chest with both feet, sending him halfway across the room.
Bang!
Bang!
Rose followed with two more shots. The first one missed, slamming into the bookshelf behind him. The second one got him in the gut.

Paul gripped his stomach with a wince. Rose took aim again, more carefully this time, right at Paul’s forehead. Martin leapt from the altar and knocked the pistol out of her hand.
Whap!
Rose almost slapped him back, but Martin had already scooped up the Beretta and was heading my way.

“Give me the key!” he shouted, holding out his hand.

“Protection?” I asked, clenching it tighter, negotiating my terms of surrender.

“Protection,” he replied.

With those three grunted syllables I relinquished the prize I’d schemed so hard to acquire. Martin took it from me at the same time Paul was struggling to his feet. He ran to Rose, her lip quivering with rage as he placed the chain around her neck.

“
NO!”
Paul shouted, staggering toward them.

I looked at Paul and shrugged. Martin put his arm around Rose. Paul looked at both of us, shaking his head. For once he had nothing to say.

I stared at him in awe. Sometimes it’s really hard to kill someone. Especially Paul Kelly. Hard, but not impossible. He was semi-human, after all. And he was a fucking mess. One ruined eye. Bullet holes in his face and gut. Knife wound in his chest. Six busted ribs and a fractured collarbone, courtesy of Loren.

“You’re really showing your age, King Cole,” Loren sneered, wholly delighted at the sight of Paul’s teetering legs. His other hand was free now. He pulled against the nails still binding his feet. When they wouldn’t budge, he tried reaching for the sickle he had hurled into the wood of the altar. Not too smart, that move. He stretched his spindly arms as far as he could—his long, bony fingers only inches away. But he couldn’t reach it.

Paul shook his head again, smiling now, but silent. Broken, but still unbowed. On his last legs, but still standing. Unfortunately, those legs were dragging themselves over to the lectern. To the Book. When he touched it, I knew what would happen.

“
NO!”
I shouted, looking at Martin, expecting him to race over and stop him. He didn’t move. That fucking vow again. I gulped. Aimed at Paul’s chest. Felt the hate in him. The hate in me.
POW!
Martin shot the pistol out of my hand like Clint Eastwood.

Loren saw what happened and his grin disappeared. Paul was only a few feet away from the Book. Loren actually ripped both his feet off the nails with a sickening sucking sound. He limped madly on his shredded feet, reaching for the pistol. He grabbed it and…

Martin shot him in the back with his trusty Beretta, barely glancing away from Paul while he pulled the trigger. It was a nice shot. Nothing went wrong. No jamming. No backfire. No collapsing floor. Just one clean bullet hole right in the spinal cord. Loren was paralyzed. This time, it wouldn’t wear off.

“No!” Rose shouted, assuming he was dead.

Martin knew better. “He’ll live,” he said tersely, his eyes locked on Paul. Paul grinned and kept walking. Martin nudged Rose in the ribs. He couldn’t give her a weapon, couldn’t tell her what to do, but somehow she knew. She ran to the Book and grabbed it at the same instant Paul was reaching out for it. She hugged it like a lover. Paul yanked it from her arms. Held it to his chest. But nothing happened. Blood still oozed from his face, chest and belly.

“
YOU BITCH!”
he screamed, dropping the Book.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

Rose looked confused. So was I. Had all the things I’d seen and felt, the Book healing Michael’s hands and feet, the wound of my own severed throat closing without a scar…had it all been another hallucination? A never-ending dream?

Paul howled with rage, charging at Martin with one last surge of strength, punching him so hard in the jaw that his legs collapsed and his head smacked the floor. Paul picked up Rose and thumped her on the altar. He climbed on top of her and picked up the mallet and one of the spikes. She screamed louder than any person I’d ever heard.

Paul placed the spike against her breastbone and raised the mallet high over his head. “You know, I’ve always been curious about that amulet,” he coughed, spraying her face with a mist of blood and spittle. “Just like I’ve always wondered what would happen if I broke my sacred vow.”

He was about to find out. Paul saw the blue flash of steel from the corner of his working eye. The sickle was swinging toward his neck with blinding speed. No time to move. No time to yell, or laugh. No time for any more speeches. The blade struck his throat like a scythe in a wheat field, cutting through veins and muscles and bone as easily as those swaying stalks of golden grain behind the house where he buried Momma’s body.

SWISSSSSSSSSH…THUCK!

And it was over. All the pain. All the pain. All the pain.

Paul’s working eye was blinking when his head tumbled into Rose’s lap. He could clearly see his assailant. I could tell the sight came as quite a shock.

Martin. The Guardian. He had slain the Great King despite his blood vow. But the world kept turning. And the Book was just a quiet leather slab on the floor.

Martin dropped the blade. He ran to Rose, his heart pounding with unspeakable love. And in that instant I knew how he succeeded. Some bonds are even stronger than blood.

Rose screamed like a banshee, her arms flailing like someone dropped a bucket of centipedes on her naked chest. Or a severed head. She dropped it on the altar with a wet
thump.
Martin ran over and scooped her up in his big, manly arms. Oh, well. To the victor go the spoils. Soon I’d have my trophy. Too bad it wouldn’t fit in my suitcase.

I rushed to the altar right on Martin’s heels, leaping on top of the undulating blood-spattered markings like I had springs in my legs. I kicked the headless body to the floor, grabbed Paul’s head by the hair and held it in front of my face.

His head was still alive, as I had hoped it would be. Time for one last question. “How does it feel?” I hissed. “How does it feel to
die?”

His lips bubbled with blood, curling into a smile. His mouth opened. I didn’t expect to hear anything. For any sounds to come out. I wasn’t prepared for that and the shock was so jarring I almost let go of his hair, dropping his head to the floor. Too bad I didn’t.

“It feels wonderful,” he gasped through the red bubbles. “It gets better every time.”

I stared at his gaping mouth in horror. It closed into a smile. I turned my head away, but then I felt a compulsion I couldn’t resist, pulling my face back for one last look.

I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to savor my victory, to watch that final flicker of life fade away as I claimed Mother’s vengeance. I looked into the eye Martin spared in his pummeling. The lids were swollen and purple with bruises, but the pupil was clear and deep and black. “Good-bye, Father.”

He tried to croak out a reply, but his facial muscles sagged and his smile disappeared. I looked into his eye with more sadness than I’d felt since Mother died. My sadness turned to rage, then longing as I looked deeper and deeper. I looked. Then I went inside.

I was falling. Falling. Falling. The blackness behind his eye pulling me into the abyss. I gasped for air, my lungs on fire, my blood boiling.

There it was. Spinning like a galaxy, the vortex consuming all light and darkness. The Maelstrom, the Host of Angels,
Ain Soph Aur.
It was here, only an arm’s length away, just as he always said it would be.

We arrived all at once. No curtain, no crack, no altar, no chanting, no Book. He didn’t need any of that. We didn’t need any of that. Not the two of us. The one of us.

I could hear Martin and Rose talking about the strange sight of me holding his head by the hair, my mouth hanging open, no sound coming out. No movement. They seemed so near. So here. So far away.

I fought against him with all my strength, pushing back his mind like I had so many times before. I heard Martin’s voice. Mother’s. I saw the angel’s perfect smile.

Push, push…
pussssshhsh!
Almost there…almost back…almost free.

The winds of the Maelstrom blasted my flesh apart and I…we…were flying at an unimaginable speed, going faster and faster and faster, spinning, swirling, down, down, down.

Or was it up? In? Out? No. No words. I felt another surge of his blinding hatred as the Wheel turned and the Axis yawned open.

I would have taken one last breath if I still had lungs, closed my eyes if I had lids. But there was nothing left of me in this or any universe to filter my gaze from the wondrous spectacle of God’s waiting mouth, from the furnace of creation.