Chain of Souls (Salem VI) (24 page)

"So what do we do next, fly to London?" he asked, thinking about Sarah and wondering whether what he'd just experienced would make even the slightest difference in helping to get her back safely.

"I need to call Lisa Giles and several others," Czarnecki said. "We need to share the information about what just happened. We hope you will agree to consult with us."

John looked straight ahead. "I didn't think Jews believed in witchcraft. Why are you following the dictates of a self-styled witch?"

Czarnecki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not following anyone's dictates, Mr. Andrews. I'm a man of God. I believe several things more than anything else. First, I believe humans are profoundly imperfect and have the ability to convince themselves they have far more understanding than they really do. Second, I believe what I choose to call God is responsible for creation. What I see as Yahweh, the Wiccans see as several gods. Buddhists see the divine spirit as discoverable from profound internal contemplation. The Hindus see a pantheon of gods. Does that mean any of us are totally right? Of course not.

"I don't believe God is petty or mean-spirited. God doesn't care if I eat shellfish or pork, whether a Muslim gets on his knees to pray five times each day, or whether a Christian takes Jesus as his or her savior. Men created these differences in their attempts to dominate others through the ritualized practice of one particular form of worship. I believe only in the fact that God represents creation and therefore the freedom of the human spirit to grow, learn, evolve, and explore, and the Devil represents the opposite—destruction, enslavement, and desecration. The struggle between the two is profound and eternal, but it is at a higher pitch today than at most other times in history."

John turned to look at the rabbi, surprised by what he had just heard. "Why now?" he asked.

"The rise of fundamentalism that makes people turn their back on science, deny evolution, and makes them observe blind rituals and seek the destruction of those who worship differently. Does that sound like the worship of creation or the unknowing worship of destruction?"

"You're saying that fundamentalism of all stripes is actually the product of the worshippers of the Devil?"

Czarnecki nodded. "Therefore, to answer your first question, yes, I willingly cooperate with a witch because I am confident that while she worships differently, she worships the same spirit of creation that I do."

John sat back and looked out the window and tried to reconcile what he was feeling inside with what the rabbi had just told him. He knew without being told that to Czarnecki and Giles and their other allies he represented some sort of defense against the powers of entropy and destruction. "I think the bad guys have the upper hand," he said.

"Sometimes they do, but they didn't this morning."

"You think we actually accomplished something?"

"When the wailing stopped, I think it was a sign."

"A sign of what?"

"Of purpose." Czarnecki was still looking in the rearview mirror every few seconds. "I think one other thing, as well. I think the Coven knows what you just did."

THAT MORNING SARAH AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF
a door slamming somewhere in the downstairs of the house. She could tell from the heaviness of the sound that it had to have been the thick front door with the big brass knocker in the shape of a demon's head. Next came the sound of several sets of footsteps clomping across the bare wooden floor, followed by the sound of voices speaking in hushed tones.

Even though she could barely hear them through the door of her bedroom, something about the cadence of the voices and their hurried, whispered intensity made her sit up, curious to know what had disturbed the tranquil normalcy of the morning household. Sliding her legs from beneath the covers, she stood and went to the door where she listened carefully for the sound of footsteps in the upstairs.

Her body felt light, less heavy, her mind clearer, just as it had every day so far, as if she was emerging from a long convalescence. She could not remember when anyone had ever forbidden her to do anything she wished in this house, but for some reason her intuition told her that whatever was being whispered about downstairs concerned her but was something she was not supposed to hear.

Hearing no sounds nearby, Sarah opened her bedroom door, glanced up and down the hallway, and, finding it clear, she tiptoed across to the bedroom directly opposite hers. There she crossed to the window that looked down on the driveway on the front side of the house, seeing two black, chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces in the gravel circle, their engines idling and their drivers behind the wheels.

Her reporter's curiosity prickling to know the identities of the people downstairs, Sarah slipped back into the hallway and crept down toward the landing to see if she could pick out the words and possibly glimpse the faces of the visitors. At first all she could hear was a continuation of the intense whispering, but she picked up enough inflection to understand that two of the whisperers were men, and she heard a third set of whispers that she knew belonged to Jessica Lodge.

Whatever the discussion was about, too few of the words made it up the stairs for Sarah to know any more than that they were talking about some type of process and the need to hurry it along and also that something else was happening that was adding to the risk of this process. Finally, Jessica Lodge seemed to have heard enough because her voice suddenly rose from a whisper to a tone loud enough for Sarah to hear very clearly as the words came out imperious and final. "I understand your feelings, but the answer is absolutely not. I cannot allow anything to disrupt our plans when I am so close!"

Next came an angry rumbling from the other voices, but Jessica seemed to hold fast. A moment later, Sarah heard the front door open again and then close, and assuming the people were leaving, she hurried back to the front bedroom and watched two of the men she had met at dinner in the basement dining room walk back to their respective cars. A second later she tiptoed into her own bedroom and slipped into bed again, pretending to be asleep until Jessica Lodge walked in a few moments later.

"Still asleep?" Jessica said.

Sarah opened her eyes as if she was just waking up. "Did I oversleep?" she asked in a husky voice.

"No," Jessica said in a light voice, but when Sarah rolled over and looked at her she could see the red blush in the older woman's cheeks that hinted at anger or some other emotion Jessica was trying keep below the surface. "Come down and join me for breakfast, and then we can take our walk."

Without appearing to, Sarah studied Jessica and tried to figure out what was different about her. Whatever it was, it wasn't anger, she decided, at least not anger alone. She sensed intensity, focus, a heightened energy, and determination that belied the idea they were just going to enjoy a simple country breakfast and then take a walk. There was a goal here, a purpose, and it had lain below the surface of things the whole time, but it was very important.

As soon as Jessica left, Sarah hurried to get ready and then joined the older woman downstairs in the breakfast room about fifteen minutes later. For the first time in—how many days had it been?—her reporter's instincts were firing on all cylinders. Jessica poured tea and passed the toast cart and the butter to Sarah. The maid brought in scrambled eggs, sausage, and bowl of fresh fruit. If Sarah hadn't been observing Jessica so closely over the past many days, nothing would have appeared amiss, but because she had, she noted the sharper gleam in Jessica's eyes, saw the slightly quicker movements, detected the slight edge to her voice.

That was why, when it happened, her senses were on full alert. She could not describe the sensation, only that within seven or eight minutes of the time she had sat down at the table something
invisible,
like maybe a shock wave or an energy pulse, rolled through the room. For Sarah it was perceptible, but for Jessica it seemed to be profound.

The older woman had been in the process of raising her teacup to her lips when the wave hit. Jessica froze, eyes widening in shock and her skin going pale in a flash. Her teacup fell from her frozen hand, clattered onto her saucer, and shattered, spilling tea all over the table. Jessica let out a faint cry, then closed her eyes as if she was in great pain, and for a second Sarah was sure the old woman was having a heart attack.

A moment later, as if an earthquake had tremored then passed, the house seemed to return to normal. Sarah reached across the table and took Jessica by the wrist where her fingers were gripping the tablecloth like talons. "Jessica," she said, the words tumbling out, "are you okay? Do you need a doctor?"

Jessica opened her eyes and blinked, her gaze appearing suddenly rheumy and unfocused. She ignored Sarah's question and turned her head in the direction from which the wave had come, which Sarah knew from watching the sun rise and set each day was toward the east.

Sarah watched Jessica closely, seeing her throat contract as she swallowed. Jessica's head remained frozen, staring unseeing into the east until the maid came bustling into the room with a towel and began to mop up the spilled tea, which had run off the table and was dripping into Jessica's lap.

The maid's frantic dabbing seemed to snap Jessica into alertness once again, and she gave her head a little shake. "Are you okay?" Sarah asked again. "Should we call someone?"

Jessica finally managed to turn toward her. Her eyes slowly came into focus. "No," she said, quite sharply. She looked down at where Sarah's hand grasped her wrist and for the first time seemed to notice she was gripping the bunched tablecloth like a lifeline. With what looked like a grimace of will, she made herself let it go.

"What was that?" Sarah asked. "Was it an earthquake?"

"You felt it?"

"Yes," Sarah said, knowing even as she spoke it couldn't have been an earthquake because nothing in the house had shaken. Just behind Jessica's chair stood an antique open cupboard with fragile plates on small wooden stands. Not one of them had so much as tottered.

"It was . . ." Jessica seemed to search for the right word. "A shift in power."

"What?"

Jessica shook her head. "I can't really explain it."

Sarah looked at the old woman carefully, wondering if what had just happened connected in some way to the visit by the two men that morning. She realized at the same instant that Jessica Lodge knew damn well exactly what had just happened, but that she wasn't going to offer another word of explanation.

CZARNECKI WAITED UNTIL THEY WERE ON THE
other side of Oswiecim before he took out his cell phone and placed a call to Lisa Giles. He gave a quick report on what had occurred at the scene of the old Auschwitz concentration camp, describing what he had witnessed happening to John and what he had experienced himself when he had touched John and heard the almost indescribable wailing sound that had slowly fallen to silence.

Afterwards he gave a series of yes and no answers, seeming to respond to several questions Lisa Giles asked, and then he handed the phone to John.

As John took the phone he felt a flurry of anger well up. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded. "Why the hell didn't you or Rabbi Czarnecki tell me what was going to happen?"

"I apologize. We didn't tell you because we weren't sure that anything was going to happen. Please believe me when I say there is so much we don't know. In any event, what happened to you this morning was extraordinarily important."

"Why is that?"

"Because if I understand properly, you were invested by an incalculable number of spirits."

John said nothing, just closed his eyes and shuddered as the almost unbearable intensity of the combined emotions rolled through him again.

"It also confirmed a theory we had," Lisa Giles went on. "I sent you an email that will explain what I mean."

John shook his head, still feeling as if he had cobwebs in his brain and trying to understand what she was talking about. "What theory?"