Where Angels Fear to Tread (22 page)

He squeezed Zoe's shoulders. "But that's going to change now," he told her

Zoe moaned a little louder, her tiny, eager hands opening and closing.

"The pastor will see you now," Elijah said suddenly from behind Carl.

Carl gasped.
This is it.

Elijah gestured for them to go down the corridor first, and Carl obliged, dragging the moaning little girl along behind him.

"Is she all right?" the young man asked as he followed.

"She's fine," Carl told him. "Just excited to meet a great man."

"It's the last door," Elijah said. "Go on in. He's expecting you."

Carl pulled his daughter along, stopping at the door long enough to take two deep breaths.

"Are you ready?" he asked his daughter.

She moaned, pulling back a bit as he grabbed hold of the knob, turned it, and pushed open the door.

Eager to be forgiven.

"Pastor Zachariah?" Carl asked, stepping into the darkness.

It was cold in the room, uncomfortably so, the hum of the air conditioner drowning out any other sound. Carl could make out lights from the machines that helped to keep the great man alive, and moved toward them, still holding on to his daughter's hand.

He noticed that the floor was covered, and thought briefly that it was odd, but that did not stop him. His eyes had begun to adjust to the lack of light in the room, and he could make out the shape of the hospital bed, which gradually appeared out of the black like a ship emerging from a fog bank.

"Pastor, I . . ."

"So, the Judas returns," Zachariah's old voice croaked.

Carl stopped in his tracks.

"I—I've returned to beg for your forgiveness," he said, surprised to hear the level of emotion in his voice. "Everything has been wrong in my life for so long that I was blind to the true cause . . . until now."

There was a strange gurgling sound from the bed, and Carl was curious whether the pastor was choking, but then he spoke. "You have no idea the level of damage you caused that day."

"I do," Carl proclaimed. "I do, and I beg you to forgive me. Please, I want to come back."

The bed creaked, and Carl could hear the sound of wet breathing over the hum of the air conditioner.

"What you did goes beyond the forgivable," Zachariah wheezed.

Carl felt his hopes begin to deflate, and he hung his head in sorrow. Without the forgiveness of the church, he would have nothing.

Nothing except his child.

He released her hand and pulled her in front of him. Zoe stumbled, her sneakered foot catching on the plastic covering the floor.

"Look, this is the child," he said desperately. "The one my wife and I promised you."

The bed creaked, and Carl imagined somebody leaning over the side for a better look.

"The child," Pastor Zachariah murmured. "The original host conceived for the glory of Dagon."

"Yes," Carl said. "My selfish actions have caused even her to suffer," he confessed.

Zoe moaned, flapping her hands in front of her face as she rocked back and forth.

"She is afflicted," the pastor observed.

Carl nodded in the darkness, feeling warm tears begin to spill from his eyes. "Yes, and it's all my fault. . . . I was punished. . . . My child was punished. . . ."

Emotion rolled from him unimpeded, and he found himself dropping to his knees, the plastic noisily crackling beneath them.

"And why have you brought this child before me?" the pastor asked from the darkness.

Carl, who had been bent over at the waist, straightened, his squinting eyes searching for a glimpse of the pastor.

"To show you," he said. "To show you how I've been made to suffer for my sins."

Zachariah laughed harshly.

"You do not know the true meaning of suffering," the pastor said.

"But I do," Carl begged. "I really do."

The pastor laughed again, an unnatural sound that made Carl think of somebody choking out their last breath. "I will show you suffering," he said.

Carl didn't like the sound of that, and instinctively reached for one of his daughter's flailing hands.

The blow landed savagely upon the back of his head, and he pitched forward to the plastic-covered floor.

"No," he managed to get out, but he sounded as though seriously drunk. He tried to get up, but a powerful arm closed around his throat from behind, cutting off most of his oxygen.

"Zoe," he gasped.

His attacker turned him toward the child. She was standing less than a foot from him, flapping her arms and moaning. She had begun to spin slowly in a circle, moving steadily away from him and farther into the darkened room.

Carl reached for her, but Elijah only increased his steely grip upon his throat.

"No," he choked desperately, "don't hurt . . ."

"We're going to make you watch," the handsome young man hissed into his ear. "That will be your penance."

"And when it's over, you will be forgiven."

The thing that had been worshipped as Dagon dropped over the side of the hospital bed, the tubes and connections to the various machines that helped to keep his rotting host alive ringing and beeping with a furious insistence.

Dagon landed upon the plastic-sheeted floor, honing in on the child. He could smell her fear, her youth, her purity. And like the great Leviathan smelling the blood of it victims awash upon the sea, he moved toward his prey.

The ancient deity's stomach gurgled impatiently, but he did not want this sacrifice to be over too quickly.

The traitor had to pay for his sins.

For what he had cost the god Dagon.

He would take this offering slowly, keeping the child alive for as long as possible so her father could see, and remember this for every remaining moment of his miserable life.

Dagon was a merciful god, but for what this human had wrought, he would be made to suffer.

He saw the child before him, spinning in the darkness, arms flapping as if to escape in flight. Her strange dance made him chuckle, and he salivated in hungry anticipation.

Elijah held the Judas at bay, forcing him to watch. Dagon saw Saylor's eyes bulge as the god emerged from the darkness, crawling across the floor like some loathsome insect; the years had not been kind to this human shell.

To house the power of a god was to do insurmountable damage to frail, human flesh.

Damage that only the ritual of sacrifice could temporarily reverse.

How many had he consumed over the years? How many ravaged bodies lay beneath the fertile soil of the compound garden?

Saylor struggled against Elijah's grip as Dagon reached a spidery hand toward his twirling prey.

The child didn't seem to realize what was to happen, and that disappointed the god Dagon, for a certain amount of terror always brought a special taste to the sacrament. He grabbed hold of the moaning child's arm, the jagged claws at the ends of his long fingers sinking into the tender flesh.

She stopped in midspin, and, finally looking upon his rotting visage, she began to scream. For a moment, Dagon thought the meat he was about to feast upon might be very tasty indeed.

But that was before searing white light, instead of blood, erupted from the five puncture wounds in the child's arm.

And Dagon was painfully reminded of what it was like to be in the presence of godlike power again as he was repelled across the room.

The former archbishop of Boston had lived in the three-story, Italian Renaissance-style mansion for most of his tenure, before leaving for a special appointment in Rome, after the ninety-million-dollar settlement for victims of the clerical sexual abuse scandal rocked the Commonwealth.

The Archdiocese had planned on selling the mansion and its forty-three adjoining acres. Boston College was rumored to have been interested in purchasing the property, but for now, it remained supposedly empty.

Remy found Samson and what appeared to be a small army, hidden in the shadows of the woods near the building.

"What the hell is this?" he asked in a hushed whisper as he approached.

Multiple guns were suddenly aimed in his direction by multiple young men and women. All bore similar appearances to Samson's children, Carla and Marko, who stepped forward to greet him, and to prevent him from being shot by the obviously enthusiastic gathering.

"He's cool," Marko said, and the guns were lowered as the small army went back to whatever it was they had been doing.

"Let me guess," Remy said, joining them. "Brothers and sisters."

"Half brothers and sisters," Carla corrected.

"It's good that he has a hobby," Remy said as the pair chuckled. "Where is he, by the way?"

Marko hefted a sawed-off shotgun over his shoulder and pointed it in the direction of the mansion in the distance.

Remy walked past the multiple members of the strongman's brood, marveling at their number. There had to be at least thirty of them, all carrying heavy artillery, and Remy had to wonder whether this had been Samson's intention all along, to procreate enough to have an army at his disposal.

The big man was leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette.

"Nice gathering we have here," Remy said.

"About time you showed up," Samson answered, his blind eyes staring off into the shadows. "Made a few calls just in case. The kids are always happy to help their old man out."

Remy looked around again, watching as Samson's spawn prepared for what was to come.

"Is this all of them?" Remy asked.

The big man chuckled. "Around here, yeah."

One of Samson's kids, this one looking a bit younger than the others, ran over to his father from the direction of the mansion.

He was slightly out of breath, bending down, hands upon his knees, as he breathed in and out.

"What've you got, Stretch?" Samson asked.

Stretch straightened, enough to take the cigarette from his father's fingers for a puff.

"No guards posted. They have the windows covered with sheets, but they're definitely in there."

Stretch put the cigarette back in his father's fingers, and walked off to join the others.

Samson finished the smoke, flicking the remains away from him.

"That's it then," he said. "Are you ready?"

"Ready for what?" Remy asked. "Maybe you should fill me in on the plan."

Samson smiled. "Sorry about that, champ," he said. The big man put a tree limb-sized arm around Remy's shoulder and pulled him close. "Here's how it's going to go. We're going up to the house, getting inside, and finding your client."

"You're doing this all for me?" Remy asked, knowing full well this wasn't the case.

"Pretty much," Samson said. "And we'll probably take out Delilah while we're at it. Might as well if we get the chance."

"You do realize that's not much of a plan," Remy told him.

The big man removed his arm from around Remy's shoulder.

"Yeah, but it's not too bad for the spur of the moment," he said.

Samson snapped his fingers, and his children began to gather around him.

"So we all know the drill," he said to them. "We're going up to the mansion, getting inside, killing the traitorous bitch, and finding Remy's client." He hooked a thumb toward him. "What's her name again?" Samson asked.

"Deryn York," Remy said. "She's blond, in her mid-thirties, about five foot six."

The Samson spawn stared with frightfully blank expressions, and he hoped they were listening. He didn't relish the idea of having his client mistaken for one of Delilah's soulless followers, and taken out by one of the strongman's overzealous children.

"Any questions?" Samson asked, his sightless eyes roving over the crowd of his children.

One of Samson's boys tentatively raised his hand.

"Fred has his hand raised," Stretch informed his father.

"Figures," Samson grumbled. "What is it, Fred?"

"Are we sure she's up there?" he asked nervously. "The traitorous bitch, I mean?"

Samson slowly turned in the direction of the mansion, his blind eyes staring.

"Oh yeah," he said, the response uttered with more growl than voice. "I can feel her like a fucking rash."

He'd begun to scratch, and Remy noticed red, raised welts on the back of the big man's hand. It appeared as if Samson really was having some kind of physical reaction.

"All right then," Samson said, just loud enough so they could all hear. "Let's get this done, and remember . . . she's mine."

They moved en masse, quietly, sticking to the shadows, coming to a stop whenever a car would occasionally pass in the semi-isolated location. Remy's biggest fear was the campus security from BC across the way, but so far, so good.

They came up through the wooded area to the back of the house, Samson's children moving like trained special forces agents as they scoped out the lay of the land and made their way to the back of the house. Standing on either side of the door, automatic rifles at the ready, they waited for their father to reach their location.

Remy followed close behind, eyes searching every hidden corner and pocket of shadow for signs that they had been discovered. Seeing nothing, he followed the large man to the back door.