The Devil's Secret (16 page)

“Virgil!” Heather exclaimed. “We thought you’d run off.”

The microphone still in her hand, Karen stood defensively, glowering at Thorn.

“I—” Thorn sputtered. “I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. My wound is too—too—” He let Virgil collapse onto the ground. Thilial shook her head at Thorn’s melodramatic display.

Heather and Brandon rushed to Virgil’s side. “Hey, no, no, no,” Heather said, kneeling. “Stay with us, man. You’ll pull through. We’ve got a guy in Canada calling the Bristol police for us. Just hang in there a little longer and you’ll be okay.”

Thorn set Virgil’s lungs coughing. He weakly said, “Not… gonna make it that long. There’s a—a clinic nearby. There’s a blood supply there. Need… transfusion.”

The newlyweds exchanged an uneasy glance. “I’m studying experimental medicine,” Heather said. “I’m not a medical professional, but I am a grad student. There’s a chance I might be able to help you out.”

Thorn nodded with affected weakness. “Tell Karen… Tell her to have the police meet us at the clinic.” For realism, he added, “With an ambulance.” Of course, they’d be long gone by the time any police arrived.

Thorn glimpsed Karen behind them, still on the radio with the man from Canada. Judging by the look on her face, she’d heard Virgil’s plea loud and clear. “I will do no such thing,” she said.

“What?” Heather said. “Why not? He needs treatment.”

“We shouldn’t trust him. Not after what he did earlier.”

“That was a mistake. He was trying to help us.”

“Oh no he was not.” The radio crackled and the Canadian man said something Thorn couldn’t hear. “Hold on a minute,” Karen said into the microphone. She set it down, then paced toward Thorn and the other humans. “We’re all gonna wait right here until the police show up.”

“Then you’re condemning Virgil to die.” Heather rose to confront Karen. “I’ve driven past the police station. It’ll take them a while to get all the way out here. How will you feel in the morning, knowing we could have saved him but were too cowardly to leave the church?”

“We’re protected in here. And I’m not the one who’s being a coward. I’m not the one hiding behind lies.” Her eyes pierced Thorn as she said the words.

Heather glanced back at the wounded dead man lying on the ground, as if trying to make sense of Karen’s claim. “What do you mean? What do you think he’s lying about?”

Karen looked away and stepped backward.
You can’t admit what you know without them thinking you’re crazy, Karen
, Thorn thought.

But Heather pressed her question. “If you think Virgil’s lying about something, you should tell us.”

“He’s not Virgil,” Karen said, to Thorn’s surprise. Her voice softened and she avoided eye contact, likely aware of how absurd her own words sounded. “He’s a demon. A demon in a man’s body. I don’t know how he did it, but that’s what he is. Virgil, the man we knew, is gone.”

Utter quiet followed. With every second of stunned silence that passed, Thorn grew more confident that he’d won his little battle with Karen. Heather gaped, and even Brandon, who’d withdrawn so far inside himself, broke out of his somberness to shake his head at the frazzled preacher.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” Heather said. “Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking, honey? Look, you yourself know that there are supernatural forces at play here tonight. You spoke up before the violence started, tellin’ us we were all gonna die. Looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

“If you must know, I’ve been getting therapy and taking medication for some hallucinations I’ve had lately. The stress that
you
put me through at the wedding caused my problems to flare up.” Brandon’s brow furrowed.
Perhaps he didn’t know about Heather’s hallucinations?

Thorn wondered at the health of their relationship, and how similar or different it might be from the previous Brandon and Heather’s. His mind was again drawn to the choice that each human was expected to make in a Sanctuary. He hoped that these humans didn’t stumble on theirs and disappear before his eyes.

“And how do you explain what just happened at the pulpit?” Karen said, gesturing to the carnage wrought by Thilial’s sword. “Something spiritual just tried to kill us, and it looks like we were saved only by Christ’s intervention.” She nodded at the large wooden cross presiding over the room.

“I can’t explain it,” Heather said. “But I’m sure the authorities will be able to explain it in the morning.”

“There’s not a rational explanation for everything, you know,” Karen said. “You can look for one in this situation, but it ain’t here. How do you explain my friends Roy Tegio and Bob McKenzie shooting a bunch of their own folks out of the blue? How do you explain the murderers calling Virgil a demon? I’m telling you, from the bottom of my heart, I know that the Devil’s at work here tonight.”

“The Devil isn’t real,” Heather said.

“Hold up,” Brandon said, motioning for Heather to back off. He spoke in a tone more congenial than hers. “Pastor Noyce, even if what you say were true, Virgil’s been helping us. He risked his life fighting Shannon so Heather and I could get to the boardroom.”

“And his actions got Tim killed.”

The mention of Tim silenced Brandon, but Heather took up the slack. “His actions also let the rest of us escape to the golf cart. And if he’s so evil, why did they shoot him? Virgil’s on our side. The evidence is right in front of your eyes if you’d choose to believe it.”

“And I say the same thing to you.”

“We can split up, then. You can stay here, and we’ll help Virgil out.”

“Nuh-uh. I’m not taking my eyes off of him. Whatever his plans are for you two, whenever he chooses to strike, you’ll need a Christian there to ward him off.”

“Whatever. We’ll vote on it. All in favor of having the police meet us at the clinic?” Both Brandon and Heather raised their hands, and Thorn feigned Virgil struggling to raise his.

Heather eyed Karen expectantly. Karen frowned.

Brandon set Virgil down as gently as he could in the back seat of the golf cart, but the man still groaned in pain. He was pale white, and fading fast. Brandon recalled countless mission trips and youth retreats when Virgil had been part of the team. Every Sunday morning for as long as Brandon had lived here, Virgil had sat in the back of the chapel, the loyal A/V guy working the service’s projectors and sound system. He even came along with Tim a couple times when Tim was first teaching Brandon how to fly.

The man had been good friends with Tim, so Brandon wasn’t about to let him die too.
Tonight’s chaos took everything from me, but I still have these three.
Even Karen, who’d all but ostracized him and his wife, felt like family to him now, under these critical conditions.

Heather paced out of the church behind him. “She’s wrapping up with Antoine now. The Canadian guy. She should be out in a minute.”

“Good.”

Brandon’s grief must have been plain to see, because Heather frowned sympathetically, then hugged him: a tight, protective hug. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you too,” he said. He nearly choked on the words after realizing for the first time how fiercely he meant them. This woman was a vital lifeline for him. If she weren’t here now, he wasn’t sure he could have gone on.

“This is the worst night of both our lives, but we’ll make it through,” Heather whispered. “Okay? Tomorrow’s gonna suck, and every day for a long time is gonna suck, but I’ll be here for you. And before you know it you’ll be back studying bio, and I’ll be back at school too, and we’ll have a normal life again. In that life—in our future life—this is all just a memory. A horrible memory that we’re living through right now. But it’ll pass. It’ll pass.”

What a role reversal from earlier on the pier
, Brandon thought.
Now I’m the one breaking down and Heather’s the strong one, just like she wanted to be.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were taking medicine?” he asked her. “I wouldn’t have cared.”

She leaned out of the hug so she could look him in the eyes. “Tim would have cared. Karen and all your other friends from Bristol would have. I didn’t want to look crazy in front of them.”

Brandon forced himself to lighten up and grin at her. “Too late for that.” Heather laughed.

Karen strode out of the church. She chided them with a castigating gaze. “Bless your hearts. I’m glad you two find our predicament funny, but it’s time to go. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it.”

The three live humans drove at the behest of the dead one, through darkness and over bumpy hills. Thilial effortlessly kept pace with the golf cart, beating her powerful wings alongside it.

Thorn tried to devise a way out of his impending execution, and when he couldn’t, he tried not to think about it.
I’ve made a deal with the devil, and she has puffy white robes.
Would Thilial’s presence keep the other devils away… or draw them in for another attack?

To take his mind off it, Thorn decided to make conversation with Brandon, who was seated next to him, his hair rumpled and his bow tie undone, hanging on his neck. “So you’re studying biology?” Thorn asked through Virgil. When he’d learned that Heather and Brandon had met as undergraduate biology majors, he’d felt the comfort of familiarity… and a pang of guilt. Amy had been a bio major.

“Uh, yeah. Well, I was. I’m taking some time off for the wedding. And soul searching and all that.”

Soul searching? This version of Brandon truly was a whole new person compared to the Brandon Thorn had met in the last Sanctuary. That Brandon would rather have partied than soul searched—and rather have overdosed on drugs than enslaved himself in a marriage. Thorn briefly wondered if an alternate version of himself had lived sometime before, and if such a demon would carry a temperament as different from his own as Brandon’s was from his old self’s.
Perhaps in another life, I chose to accept God’s offer of redemption. Perhaps in another life, I’m an angel right now, and Amy is still alive.

“You should be proud to have studied science, and you should continue on with it,” Thorn said. “It’s a noble pursuit, learning how the world around us works. Lately I’ve been learning a bit of the same.”

“Yeah, well, after tonight I think I’m just gonna crawl into a corner for a while. No offense.”

“None taken. I just want you to know that I support you.”
And I need you to trust me enough to follow me into the transit door at the clinic.

“Thanks. Yeah, science is great and all. I just don’t know if it really serves a point. I mean, what’s the ultimate goal of science? To make humanity better? Humanity is a pile of shit, Virgil. You saw that for yourself back at the country club. Senseless killing. Running over the weak on our own rush to safety. We’re a stain on the earth.”

“All the more reason why science is necessary. To make us better.” Saying these words felt strange to Thorn, since demons’ relationship with science had always been confused. On one hand, parts of science seemed to oppose the Enemy and His Holy Book. But on the other hand, science promoted knowledge, technological progress, and humanitarian ethics, and demonkind zealously tried to keep humans away from such prosperity. Most intelligent demons had seen the conundrum and had chosen to simply ignore science. Thorn, as a former Angel of Reason, had always suspected some hidden value in science. But unlike Wanderer, Thorn had usually been too caught up in his own power schemes to learn much about it.

“Stop talking to the humans,” Thilial said, breaking Thorn’s train of thought.

“I’m sorry,” Thorn said in the spirit realm, trying to discern the intent of Thilial’s demand. Did she suspect his plan to enlist the humans’ help in reaching the Judge?

“I’m an okay guy,” Thorn said, hoping his casual tone would ease Thilial’s apprehension. “I’m not the cold-hearted murderer other demons make me out to be. And I’m certainly not the unapologetic sinner that God says I am. I’m good. I’m trying to
become
good, at least.”

“‘Trying to become good’ is not the same as ‘good.’”

God clearly doesn’t demand perfection from His own angels, if you’re any indication
, was what Thorn wanted to say. But provoking Thilial would result in Thorn’s sudden lack of a head, or so he’d been told. So instead he opted for an apology. “For what it’s worth, Thilial, I’m deeply sorry for Ezandris’s death. I know it was only three months ago, but that was a different demon who killed him. Not me.” Thilial’s grim expression persisted. She kept her eyes on the darkness ahead, her blade aimed at Thorn. “At least he’s in a better place now, in whatever paradise God has prepared for him,” Thorn said, hoping he hadn’t broached a topic that would send her into a rage.

But instead of a tantrum, Thilial actually laughed. “Ezandris is not in paradise,” she spat. “Where do you think angels go when we die? Back to Heaven? Or do you think there’s a separate Heaven just for us?”

“I—I, uh…” Thorn had never given thought to the matter.

“When we angels die, we go nowhere. We cease to exist. When you killed Ezandris, you extinguished his light from the world, permanently. There was no happy ending for him in a mystical paradise. He died.”

Absolute death? The idea was unconscionable to Thorn, despite his own fear of the alternative, of Hell. He supposed that absolute death would be better, but still… “How could a perfect, loving God do that to His own servants?”

“We’re happy to serve until we die. It’s what we were created for, and we ask for nothing more.” Very quickly, Thilial said a soft prayer under her breath. Thorn could barely distinguish the words, which were likely meant to be private:

“Lord, I am Yours. Keep me safe and give me Your strength.”

Thorn ignored the random prayer, since Thilial’s view of death had made him curious. “Doesn’t knowing that your death will be permanent make your life meaningless? Knowing that all this toil and suffering leads nowhere? That no matter how unfair your life, you won’t be rewarded in the afterlife?”

“On the contrary,” Thilial said. “Knowing that only nothingness awaits me after death makes me cherish life immeasurably. It’s what impels me to action now, while I’m still here. If my toil and suffering make the world a better place for those who come after me, then my life will have had meaning. My life will have been worth it. Unlike the lives of you demons, who live only for temporary, selfish gain. Knowing I may only have a limited time to do good makes me want to do as much good as I can, now. To make us all better, like you said.”