The Watchers (49 page)
“How's that?”
“You wanna know?”
“Sure. Tell me.”
“It's simple. God says that a broken and contrite heart He won't despise. He won't turn away. Ever. Those are the two conditions. Broken. And contrite. From our side, He also says that whoever doesn't forgive his brother won't be forgiven of his own sins. But that's for another day. Have you ever heard the word
atonement
?”
“Of course. It's a religious term, if I remember rightly.”
“Yeah. Well, it basically means taking action to make things right. Something like that. And today is atonement day for you, Granddaddy.”
He chuckled affectionately at his granddaughter's candor.
“We want you to give us Marcelle.”
“Who?”
“Marcelle, Mom's old nanny. You've got to know something about where she went. We want to know. And we need you to remember.”
MARION, INDIANA
âTHE NEXT DAY
Marcelle Reynolds, age eighty-two, lay in a bed of the Bonneville Care Center's nursing ward, listening to the gradual slowing of her heartbeat on the bedside monitor, and a syncopated, sanitized version of an old Otis Redding song she remembered from her younger days, drifting from the ceiling speaker.
Her body was failing her, failing fast, but thank the Lord her ears hadn't gone yet.
Now they brought her the sound of footsteps. Many of themâ and they weren't the flat claps of the doctors' loafers or the soft padding of the nurses' shoes either.
She focused her bleary old eyes and confirmed it.
Visitors
.
Then her Sight slid into place, and she grinned.
“Is that an old friend from Webster Groves, by any chance? Girl named Susanne?”
Susanne nearly collapsed from sheer surprise. “How did you know it was me?”
“I've been expecting you,” she said, still smiling. “Some friends of mine told me you'd be coming soon.”
“And you want to see me?”
The old woman exploded into a vocal barrage that was part coughing, part explanation, and part warm laughter. “Are you joking with me? My longing to see you is one of the biggest hurts in life I got left!”
Susanne then did something that startled and even frightened everyone but Marcelle. She broke into tears and collapsed, almost threw herself against the old woman's bed. The motion was so sudden and so forceful that Abby, thinking her mother was having some sort of episode, fell to her knees in an attempt to save her.
A nurse passing by, hearing the commotion, entered the room and was stopped by Dylan, who stood rigging up his video and laptop in a corner. “What's going on here?” the nurse barked.
“Oh, it's just some old friends stopping by,” Marcelle called over, “mending some old
stuff
from the look of things! Don't you worry. I'm great.”
The nurse glanced from face to face as though braving a band of criminals. “All right, then. But you all remember that Mrs. Reynolds is very ill. She needs her rest and quiet to recuperate.”
“Miss Marcelle,” Dylan said, “I'm rigging up a video camera and I'm going to try and show this conversation to some other folks around the country. Do you all mind that?”
“I suppose not. Is it okay with you, Susanne?”
They all replied except for Susanne herself, who was still weeping uncontrollably by Marcelle's side.
“Sister, what are you crying for?” Marcelle finally asked.
“Will you forgive me?” she asked between sobs.
“Gladly, but whatever in the world for?”
“I'm the reason you were sent away, Marcelle. Didn't you know that? I'm the one who ratted on you, who told Mommy and Daddy about how you'd prayed with me, and how it had been the start of all my . . . my seeing things. It's because of me you were banished.”
“Oh my dear!” Marcelle exclaimed. “I never thought to blame you or have any unkind thoughts about you ever! You were just a child then. All you were doing is being honest with your folks.”
Susanne looked up, astonished.
But Marcelle was equally amazed.
“Honey, I can't believe you'd spend so much time torturing yourself over things that weren't your fault, when I'm the one who ruined your life!”
“What? How did you ruin my life?”
“Susanne, I had no business layin' hands on you like that, a white girl in a culture that had no clue about giftings the way mine did. I made a terrible mistake, passing on the Sight like that, when you were neither ready nor of the right branch of the family. See, in my world folks had heard of the gifting for years, even if it was just through the grapevine or old legends dating all the way back to slavery days. But the separation of the races had kept it out of y'all's world. White believers are more cool and collected, and more into teaching and thinking everything through. Y'all aren't at home with signs of the Spirit, least ones that powerful. Besides, on Sundays the two races don't rub elbows all that much. It's two different faiths almost. So it was my fault. I was foolish and reckless. I just loved you so much, and I saw how you loved the Lord. . . .”
Susanne held up the withered brown hand and kissed it twice.
“You led me to Christ, and for that I'm eternally grateful.”
“So you forgive me?”
“Of course I do. And I'm so glad that you forgive me too.”
“Nothing to forgive.”
“Ladies,” said Dylan from the back of the room. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted you to know that I'm filming this conversation. And I just got off the phone with someone in Atlanta, who was quite eager to receive the transmission of this video. Someone named Mara McQueen.”
“You mean she's watching us right now?” asked Marcelle.
“Yes, along with probably a third of the world's population,” he answered, laughing at the outrageousness of it all.
Abby turned back to Marcelle. “Miss Marcelle, I don't know if you've been told about me. But I was just in Africa where I fellowshiped with the missing part of your . . . I should say
our
spiritual family. To begin with, did you know that you are my grandmother in the faith?”
“Oh, darling, you come here,” Marcelle said, reaching for her in vain.
As Abby walked over to Marcelle and took her place at the deathbed of her spiritual relative, Dylan glanced outside and saw something that caused him to stiffen and quickly leave the room.
BONNEVILLE CARE CENTER, MAIN CORRIDOR
Four, now five men, their long overcoats hiding automatic weapons . . .
Dylan's old, internal tactical voice counted down in his ear.
They're here for a bloodbath
. And there was no way, no way at all, that Dylan was going to allow that to happen. What was taking place in that nursing-home room was too precious and important not to defend with his life.
Instinctively now, without hesitation, he began to pray. He asked for guidance, for protection, for divine help, but most of all for wisdomâ so he would know the right thing to do and when to do it as he faced the battle ahead. He finished by asking,
God, do I take action?
Should I use violence against these men?
This time the answer came back so clearly, it was almost audible.
Then, striding through the lobby, he heard screaming coming from the nurses nearby. He met up with two of the men as they were marching through the front entrance. In a single motion he launched himself upon them. A couple of kicks swept them both from their feet. Before they could recover, Dylan had thrown his whole weight on both of their chests and was wrenching the weapons out of their hands. One, then two blows with the gunstock to their heads immediately knocked them out.
He jumped up, dodged a woman in a wheelchair, punched through the door into open daylight and glanced around frantically for the best direction to run.
Away
. As far away from this place as he could get. Yes, he had to lead them away from the women.
Gunfire shattered the air just beside him. The others had found him! He turned and took off running.
A line of trees to his right seemed to betray some kind of creek bed. At least that offered some cover, so he headed that way. A bullet zipped by his right shoulder. He veered wildly away again. The red dot of a laser sight now danced about his neck and shoulders. Seeing this, he lurched into a headlong zigzag pattern. Then the dust ahead convulsed beneath the sprays of a dozen sharp concussions.
Machine-gun fire!
Doubt chose this moment to assail him.
Still think God is going to get you out of this one? How badly are you willing to be a chump?
In the midst of his panting, he called out to God and kept running. The machine guns he carried in both hands were now, he realized, a hindrance. He tossed them down into the creek.
There were times for weapons of the Spirit, and he'd suddenly realized that time had come.
He felt his feet move into a renewed frenzy of speed.
God,
he pleaded,
all this time I've waited for a sure sign from you.
Waited while Abby and every woman we met heard your voice, saw your angels, received clear direction from your Spirit. It's my time now, Lord.
Please. The time has come for me to receive something real and miraculous. . . .
A cross street loomed in his vision. He abruptly turned the corner and disappeared.
God, please! The time is now. Not three seconds from now . . .
He looked up. There was a flash of bright lightâa hand, a shoulder, a burst of unspeakable power. Although he would have done so willingly, he fell to his face automatically, almost by reflex.
Three seconds later, his four pursuers rounded the turn as well.
Taking in the new street before them, they almost fell on their own faces in their joint effort to stop the forward momentum and halt their progress.
The man they were pursuing now knelt on the road's center stripe, one knee raised, an elbow resting on it.
The guy looked like he was praying, almost.
The lead gunman regained his balance and raised a Glock handgun. A professional's mark: one to the head, two in the chest.
The kneeling man began to shake. And so did the killer's gun hand.
“What are you waiting for?” asked the second gunman.
“Well, look at him! He wants us to do it. Something's not right. Gotta be some kind of trick. Either he's wired, or he's gonna set something off the second we do him, or maybe signal a sniper nearby.”
“You got a point,” said the other gunman, now too scared to even nudge Dylan with the toe of his boot.
The two men began to back away, guns at the ready.
The weapons fell to the street. The men backed up, desperate to get away but unwilling to turn their backs on the sight before them. Finally, twenty yards back, their terror peaked and they turned around to flee, disappearing into the neighborhood.
Dylan stood and remained still, looking up and down the full length of the mighty warrior angel standing guard just behind where he'd knelt.
“Thank you!” he said out loud.
“Thank you.”
MALIBU, CALIFORNIA
A gleaming stretch limousine pulled up in front of the bone white beach home. A patrician, elegant figure in an expensive European tracksuit ran his hand through well-coiffed gray hair, looked up at the sea gulls massing overhead, and jogged inside.
Lying against the far wall of an empty living room was a man with his arms tied behind his back.
The Head Elder of the Scythian Brotherhood walked over to him and kicked the soles of his feet to wake him up.
“So, it's our old secret friend. The man who, in a way, made all this possible. Hello, Bob Sherman.”
“Yes, and here's the man who lied and went back on every promise he ever made to me,” snarled Abby's father.
The man bent down and shouted in Sherman's face. “What are you talking about? Has your memory failed you, you idiot? Do you remember what you were, this loser at a state college, when we found you? When we offered to make all your dreams come true in exchange for some help with your whacked-out wife? Did we not deliver on that? Did we not make you a millionaire thirty times over?”
“You told me Susanne would get treatment and help for her delusions. Not force me to lock her away for three decades. Not tear my family apart!”
“Well, your daughter has taken revenge for all of you. Our Brotherhood is in tatters. Our leadership is dead, our rank and file decimated. And for me, the only joy I'm going to have before my masters come to claim my soul is that of making your last moments on earth as excruciating as possible.”
He extracted a scythe from its hanging place on a side wall.
“And if I get the least impression that you're trying to talk with that putrid god of your daughter's during this time, I swear I'll make this more painful than anything this world has ever witnessed.”
“You mean, since the death of Christ,” Sherman said through gritted teeth.
“Whatever.”
“Well, don't worry on that account. As it happens, what you're describing has already taken place. I read my daughter's account of heaven before you pigs found me. And I know she's telling the truth. Not only that, but what she described was so much more appealing than anything you and your men could offer, it was no contest. So if your homicidal existence is so pathetic that you can't stop yourself from inflicting pain in your very last moments of safety, then go ahead. Because I'm a follower of Christ now, and I know where I'm going. And whatever suffering you inflict on me will be so richly rewarded in heaven, I might be tempted to come back and ask you to inflict some more.”
“Die, you pathetic kneeler,” he growled, coming closer, his grip tightening on the scythe's handle.