The Messenger (2011 reformat) (15 page)

"The
arrival of the Messenger is at hand."

She broke from
her paralysis, shrieked in a breath, and ran out of the post office.

"Miss?
Miss?" The perfectly normal clerk trotted after her. "Are you sure
you're all right? Want me to call a doctor?"

The Mercedes
whipped out of the lot and squealed away.

The clerk
shook his head. "There's sure as hell a lot of screwy people in this
town," he muttered and went back inside.

I

"It's
nothing serious," Jane heard a voice saying. The voice seemed to be
directed at someone else, though, not her. Tall dark shapes surrounded her. She
felt like the time she'd had an impacted tooth removed, that imperceptible
moment right before the general anesthetic had put her out, only this time it
was in reverse. Her consciousness was slowly trickling back, her eyes
fluttering open as her vision went from dark to grainy to sharp.

"Hello,
Jane."

The kind face
smiled down on her from beneath spectacles and short blond hair. It was Dr. Mitchell,
the family physician. Behind him stood Steve, Kevin, and Jennifer, all looking
hopefully down at her. She was lying on the couch in the living room.

"It's
nothing serious, Jane," the doctor said again.

"You
fainted and fell down. You smacked your head on the way, I'm afraid, but
there's no sign of concussion. You'll be fine."

Her thoughts
ticked backward as she remembered in blocks. The mass slayings at the Seaton
School, Carlton committing suicide. It had been too much for her to handle all
at once. She winced when she recalled the state of all those bodies, all those
poor girls.

Nevertheless,
she felt foolish, especially in front of her children. I have to be strong for
my kids, but look at me. "Thank you, Dr. Mitchell. I'm sorry you had to go
to this trouble."

"No
trouble, it's my job."

Steve stepped
up next to him. "We're just glad you're okay. You gave us a little
scare."

When Jane
leaned up, she winced again.

"You'll
probably have a devil of a headache for a few hours," the doctor said,
"but aspirin will take care of that. By morning you'll be as good as new
and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to go to work. Just call
me if there are any complications."

The doctor
closed up his bag and left. Kevin and Jennifer rushed over to Jane's side and
knelt beside her. Kevin was holding his fat horned toad, Mel, in his hands.

"Okay,
kids, you heard the doctor," Steve said. "Your mom's going to be fine."

"I
actually don't feel that bad now," she said, not altogether honestly. "Just
a little headachy."

"You sure
you're okay, Mom?" Jennifer asked.

"Yeah,
Mom. You don't look okay," Kevin added.

I probably
look like death warmed over, she feared. Her eyes felt puffy, her hair astray.
"Really, I'm perfectly fine, just like Dr. Mitchell said." She
stifled another wince when she sat up on the couch and put her arms around
Kevin and Jennifer. "What time is it?"

"A little
after eight," Steve said.

At first she
wondered through the fading dizziness if he meant eight at night or eight in
the morning, but then she looked to the bay window and saw the yard darkening.
"That late? You kids haven't eaten yet. Let me get up and fix you
something."

"Chief
Steve got us blue-cheese and bacon burgers at the Food Island," Jennifer
said.

"Yeah,
Chief Steve's cool," Kevin said.

The name
confused her at first but then she thought, Chief Higgins. That's right, he
said his first name was Steve. She looked at him. "Thanks, Chief Higgins.
That was very thoughtful. I hope they weren't too wild for you."

"It was
my pleasure, and they were no trouble at all" he said. "We got you
one to go for when you're feeling hungry."

"Thank
you." She turned to the kids. "Why don't you go watch TV now, okay?
Chief Higgins and I need to talk for a few minutes."

"Great!"
Kevin said. "Croc Hunter's on!"

Jane kissed
her children and watched them scurry off, Kevin cradling the pet toad.

Steve looked
down at Jane. "Are you really feeling better or are you just saying
that?"

"I'm sort
of just saying that," she admitted. "But I really appreciate your
taking care of my kids while I was out. You've much more important things to be
worrying about right now."

"Forget
it." He took off his jacket and sat down on the couch. At first the sight
of his gun and shoulder holster alarmed her-she'd never really seen a firearm
up close like that-but she shrugged it off. He's the chief of police, for God's
sake. It's his job to be armed. "I was worried. You really did take a
spill."

She brought a
hand to the back of her head. "Was I bleeding?"

"No, just
a good conk."

Jane spared a
smile. "It's a good thing I didn't land on my face. I can see the looks on
customers' faces when they see the branch station manager with a broken
nose." But the smile broke, when she thought again about what had
happened.

"What's
wrong?"

She paused.
"I just... I can't get those images out of my head-you know-about Carlton.
You were right about him, but I still can't believe it."

"If we'd
only gotten there a little sooner," Steve muttered.

"How
could he do that to those poor girls, and that nun? And then to do that to
himself. How could anybody do that?"

"He went
out of his mind," Steve said simply. "He was crazy."

"And a
few days ago? Marlene Troy went out of her mind too. That's too much of a
coincidence."

"It's
abnormal psychology, Ms. Ryan. Shared delusions, multiple hysterics-"

"I don't
buy any of that," Jane insisted. "It's just too much of a coincidence."

"Not
really. We've touched on this before, haven't we? Carlton and Marlene knew each
other well."

"Of
course they did!" she replied, louder. "They worked together for
years."

"What I
mean is, they knew each other very closely, and very discreetly, in some ways
that no one else would've guessed. I already told you-we've known beyond a
doubt that they had sexual contact the morning that Marlene murdered her family
and then shot all those people at the main branch."

Jane closed
her eyes in frustration. She found the sex part impossible to believe, too, but
how could she deny it? The autopsy tests and DNA profiles didn't lie. But she
still couldn't see the connection that Steve was implying. "All right, so
they had sex. They were having an affair. What does that have to do with the
rest of it? What, they had sex and that's why they both went crazy at the same
time?"

"No."

"They
were secret lovers and they made some insane murder-suicide pact?"

"Not that
either, we don't think. Things like that do happen, but there aren't any
characteristics for that scenario here."

"So
what's the connection?"

"That
design. That bell-shaped symbol that keeps popping up."

Jane nodded,
still not buying that one, either. She remembered his earlier insinuations.
"Oh, yes-that business. You believe that Carlton and Marlene were in some
sort of satanic cult."

"Or if
not a cult, they were involved in some ritual thing together."

Some ritual
thing together. Murder rituals. Sacrifice. Jane shook her head. "Have you
talked to anyone- anyone-any witness at all, any family member or relative, who
believes that either of them were capable of that? Have you talked to anyone
who said that they were anything but upstanding, level headed, and perfectly
sane individuals?"

"No. All
I know is what I see," Steve answered. "And all I know is this: They
both were involved in discreet sexual activity and-"

"Yeah?
And what?"

"And they
both committed mass murder in the same vicinity. I don't know anyone who'd call
mass murder the act of perfectly sane people."

Jane had no
response to that one. What could she say? There's no way to deny that.

"And they
both left the same design at their crime scenes," Steve continued.
"I'm sorry MS. Ryan, but you can't deny it. That bell-shaped symbol with
the star at the bottom looks pretty creepy, doesn't it?"

"Well,
yes," she admitted, all too easily remembering its outline in blood at the
Seaton school.

"It looks
like something with occult significance."

"All
right, I agree. I can't argue with anything you've said," she gave him.
"I'm just having trouble with all of it."

"That's
understandable, because you knew both of them very well. Denial isn't uncommon
in situations like this. I'd want to deny it, too, if they'd been friends of
mine. But from my point of view, I can only look at the subject based on the
evidence and the facts.  Discreet relationship. Occult symbols. Mass murder.
That's what I have to base my investigation on. That, and nothing more."

Again, Jane
couldn't argue. He's right. I guess I am in denial. "It's time for me to
start seeing the light here. So...okay...say they were in a cult. I don't know
the exact definition but I assume that a cult is made up of more than two
people."

"Right,
and that's my biggest fear right now," Steve let on. "Who else out
there is in the cult too?"

The question
made Jane feel as though a shroud had been pulled over her. There could be
other people, out there right now, she realized. Ready to do the same thing.

II

The
campanulation.

The bell. With
a single star as its striker.

The Morning
Star.

Cymbellum
Eosphorus, he thought.

Even through
the polycarbonate sheets, each a quarter-inch thick, he thought he could smell
the paper that the plate had been printed on: something like wood long gone to
rot but something organic as well.

Something just
traceably awful.

Dhevic knew
that the observation was impossible, at least technically. It was simply one
page of a very old book. God knew how many hundreds of years ago it had been
printed. The page was an intaglio print, and it had been sealed against time
and air and human fingers in the polycarb sheets that had been expertly melted
along all four edges. Along the bottom, in English and in Italian, were the
words property of the ARCHIVES OF THE HOLY OFFICE.

A monk
defrocked from the St. Gall monastery in Maijvo, Hungary, had sold the plate to
Dhevic decades ago, insisting that it had been pilfered from the Sixtus V Wing
of Vatican Apostolic Library when the current structure was being built in
1590. From there, Dhevic was told, the plate had been preserved by private
collectors handed down through the following decades and finally inherited by
the Maijvo monk for successfully exorcising the last owner's son of a multiple
demonic possession. The monk was eventually excommunicated for, he said, "unholy
indiscretions," which Dhevic suspected were sexual in nature. It didn't
matter. Dhevic couldn't absolutely verify the print's certification.

He simply knew
it was authentic.

Dhevic knew a
lot of things.

The engraving
was said to have been torn from a nine-hundred-year-old book entitled Das
Grimoire de Praelata, said to be written by prelates-or antipriests-who were
known as satanic visionaries. They'd put themselves into trances to achieve
psychic contact with the hierarchs of hell and then transcribed their epistles
for worshipers on Earth. The engraving itself was supposedly crafted by an
artist with the same interworldly talent.

Dhevic laughed
in the lamplight. The single print could probably be sold to a private
collector for a million dollars, yet here he was, in a $40-per-night St.
Petersburg motel, eating Dollar Store baked beans cold out of a can.

He knew he'd
need more money; his benefactors always came through, if a little late
sometimes. This fleabag was all he could afford. He could hear bickering
through the door from time to time. Periodic muscle cars and rudely loud
motorcycles tearing down the main drag made the night seem like it was
exploding. In the next room, a bed frame could be heard thumping against the
wall, an impatient female voice complaining, "Hurry up, man! Your half
hour's up!"

Yes, in times
like these Dhevic could only laugh to himself at this strange plight he'd
inherited. When he looked through the room's bent blinds, he saw a Denny's
across the street, and a sign in the lit window: BREAKFAST SERVED ALL NIGHT!

God, I wish I
could have an omelet, he thought and laughed again. The beans weren't bad,
actually, but after so many days?