Saint (36 page)

Forty miles till showdown.

Englishman was happy.

39

S
amuel awoke to the sound of screaming.

He jerked up and listened. Silence. The door to the bedroom flew open and Kelly stumbled out. “What was that?”

Then it came again, a fuller sound now. “Elieeeee!”

“Johnny!”

Samuel rolled from the mat and dropped out of the loft, bothering to touch only one rung as he did. Johnny must have awakened early and gone out by himself. Samuel yanked the door open and was through before thinking to let Kelly out first. Never mind, she was on his heels.

Dawn had broken. The small canyon was empty, no sign of Johnny.

His scream came again, echoing through the outer canyon, a furious howl that screeched with such intensity that Samuel felt momentarily frozen by fear for Johnny's life.

He ran barefoot over the sand, ignoring the rocks that dug into the soles of his feet.

Kelly kept up. “Samuel? What's—”

“I don't know.”

Again the piercing scream. He still couldn't make it out.

He tore around the huge boulder on the west side of the canyon's mouth and pulled up sharply. Kelly clipped his shoulder and slid to a stop.

There, not thirty meters away, knelt Johnny, tearstained face raised to the sky, eyes clenched, arms spread wide, hands squeezed into fists, screaming.

“I belieeeeeeve!”

Samuel gasped. The canyon was a hundred yards wide here, like a dry riverbed littered with hundreds of rocks that ran its length to the edge of the mountain.

But the boulders were not on the sand.

They were floating twenty meters above Johnny's head.

A thousand boulders, at least, all at the exact same height, moving very slowly toward the canyon mouth, as if defying gravity were a regular morning exercise.

Johnny screamed his belief.

Samuel's heart crashed.

Kelly grabbed Samuel's arm.

Johnny had found his power. Did he even know? And if not, would the canyon rain boulders if he became distracted?

The floating rocks above them looked like an asteroid belt that floated lazily, undirected except by a general force that came from Johnny.

Samuel wanted to shout out with glee. He wanted to jump up and down and pump his fist into the air, crying victory.

“Say nothing,” he whispered.

He said it between Johnny's screams. But the sound of his whisper had been too loud. Johnny lowered his head and opened his eyes.

The boulders did not fall.

Samuel exchanged a long stare with his friend. He still didn't know?

“You've found your power?” Samuel asked.

Johnny slowly lowered his arms. “No. I don't care about the power. I just want to be Johnny again.”

Samuel took a step toward him. “Then do you at least understand love now?”

“Yes, I think I do.” Johnny's eyes darted to Kelly. When he spoke again, his voice was choked with emotion. “I really think I do. Forgive me for not truly loving you before. Forgive me, please.”

Kelly was still speechless. Her eyes lifted to the sky above him, but Johnny did not notice.

“I feel . . . myself.” Johnny staggered to his feet. “Real again.” A grin tugged at his mouth.

“Johnny,” Samuel said. Without raising his arm, he lifted one finger toward the sky. “What's that?”

Johnny looked up. Saw the floating boulders, a particularly large one directly above him. He shrieked and dove to safety, tumbling in the sand.

The rocks still did not fall.

“Whoa! What?” Johnny slowly stood and craned his neck to take in the belt of rocks above him. “What's happening?”

“I don't know,” Samuel said. “You're making them float.”

“Me? Are you sure?”

“It's not me.”

“Englishman?” Kelly asked.

Samuel scanned the cliffs. He didn't think it was Englishman.

They watched the rocks, soaking in the abnormality of it all.

One of the rocks above Johnny jerked. He looked at Samuel, eyes wide.

“Try again.”

Johnny looked up at the same rock. It hung still for a moment. Without warning it flew into the canyon with blinding speed, like a UFO accelerating from zero to sixty in a single, undefined moment. The rock streaked for the end wall, a projectile fired from Johnny's mind. It slammed into the cliff and shattered, bringing a shower of smaller boulders tumbling down.

Johnny and Samuel spoke at the same time. “Wow!”

“Wow,” Kelly said.

Johnny raised both hands and moved them toward the canyon mouth. The flotilla moved with his suggestion.

“Wow.”

He moved his arms back the other way, like a conductor instructing a symphony.

The boulders stopped on a dime and reversed their direction, flying toward the end of the canyon now.

Johnny whooped with enthusiasm and swept his arms toward the sky beyond the canyon, above Paradise, as if he were sending a fighter jet off an aircraft carrier.
Go get 'em, boys!

The boulders streamed east, increased their speed, and then disappeared into the horizon.

Johnny stared after them, stunned. “When will they stop?”

It was Kelly who asked the question on all of their minds. “What if they fall? On Paradise?”

Johnny frantically flung his arms to the sky and motioned the rocks back, like the ground crew might wave a jetliner into the gate, only with twice the animation.

The tiny specks reappeared in the dawn sky. “They're coming back,” Johnny cried, motioning with even more vigor.

The small spots became larger spots, and from Samuel's angle the boulders looked as if they were headed directly for Johnny at an unstoppable speed. He instinctively crouched.

Johnny stopped motioning and threw himself to the ground as the flood of rocks zoomed silently into the canyon. A thousand boulders blasted twenty yards over their heads. The flyby took less than a second, followed by a huge wake of air that nearly blew Samuel over.

The squadron of rocks slammed into the far wall with enough force to shake the ground. Half the cliff caved with a thunderous roar. Dust boiled to the sky.

They stared at the destruction in awe. This time all three spoke at once.

“Wow!”

This is it, then,
Samuel thought.
This is why I chose Johnny and
why Johnny agreed to enter the X Group.
And yet he knew that it would take more than this to overpower Englishman.

“That's it,” Samuel said. “Time to go.”

“Did I really do that?” Johnny asked, staring at the rising dust. “Go where?”

“The president is at his ranch in Arizona, an hour by helicopter.” “You have a helicopter?”

“How do you think I got here? Top of the cliffs. The crew are running around like rats at the moment, trying to figure out what caused the ground to shake, but their orders are explicit.”

“Don't . . . Don't you think I should practice or something?”

“Englishman has a full day on us,” Kelly said. “The president's probably already dead.”

“He's with my father, safe for the moment. But we have to leave now,” Samuel said. “You can practice on the way. Find some barns to float or something. You have the skills and the training to use weapons—just think of this as a new weapon.”

“You can't be serious!” Kelly said. “You can't just throw him to the wolves without proper planning!”

“We'll plan on the way.”

Samuel turned and strode toward the cabin with resolution.

“Hold on.”

He glanced back, saw that Johnny wasn't following him, and turned around. “We're not going to make it if we don't go now, Johnny.”

“You said I couldn't defeat Englishman with a few boulders anyway. Do I have any other powers?”

The question caught Samuel off guard, but he didn't have time to explain his suspicions yet again. There was always a price. Even Samson's power had come with a condition.

“I don't know. You'll have to figure that out as you go.”

Johnny measured him for a long moment, then turned his head to face a two-story boulder that rested at the base of the cliff.

“Do you believe, Samuel?”

Before Samuel could respond, the boulder rose soundlessly from the ground. It slowly floated toward Samuel and came to a rest two feet over his head.

Do you believe, Samuel?
Truth be told, he was unnerved. Perhaps terrified. It wasn't every day his faith was tested by a boulder weighing several hundred thousand tons.

He reached up and felt the reddish sandstone surface with both hands. A vibration hummed through his palms, down his arms, and along his spine and shot to his heels. There was enough power here to level a city. Amazing.

“I do,” he finally said.

Johnny smiled and winked. “Just checking to make sure I still have the power,” he said. “I think Samson would be a bit jealous.”

The boulder floated to the other side of the canyon and settled quietly on the ground.

“Let's rock,” Johnny said, striding forward. “No pun intended.”

It was then that Samuel first noticed his eyes. They seemed gray instead of brown. Or was it the light? If Samuel hadn't been expecting some kind of change, he probably wouldn't have noticed. Apparently Kelly hadn't. She would soon enough.

Samuel turned and led them toward the cabin. “The truth will set you free, Johnny,” he said, staring forward. “Show them the truth.”

40

T
he guards waited for him at the gate. He could see their tiny figures moving in the dawn light. Naturally, they'd been alerted to the sedan that had exited the freeway and made its way toward them. They would need to turn the lost tourist around.

Englishman could execute this bit of fun in an unlimited number of ways. He'd considered the possibilities on the long night-drive from Phoenix. But almost all of those ways failed to interest him.

The only way to execute this mission without boring himself to tears was to go right up their throat with a few fireworks to announce his arrival.

He would have to save Dale Crompton's body from all of the heavy metal they would hurl at him. He couldn't dodge bullets, but he had other skills.

“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” he whispered. And then aloud but with a low voice, “Hallelujah, amen, you are dismissed. Every last hell-bound one of you.”

Englishman stopped the car a hundred yards from the gate. With the high walls running both ways to the cliffs on each side, he would have to go straight through the entrance. Four armed men now stood before the gate, patiently waiting their turn to die. He would reward their patience by letting them go first.

He pried his eyes skyward, wondering if the drones were armed. A projectile in the back from a low-flying Predator would be most unwelcome. He'd have to keep moving and watch the skies. This could be slightly more challenging than he'd anticipated.

Now
that
was interesting.

One of the guards was waving at him. Stupid fool was motioning him forward.
Do you want me to come? Is that what you want, Jack
Black?

A Bradley fighting vehicle was parked on the right, and a tank was parked on the left. He saw now that their guns were manned and aimed at him. According to the docket that he'd breezed through on the flight from New York, the real threat would come from the second line of defense a mile up the road where the troops were dug in.

Englishman gunned the motor, but he kept it in neutral. Sweat tickled both temples. His heart was pounding like tumbling boulders. Now that he was here, staring down so many guns, he wondered if he'd been a little overzealous in choosing this particular approach.

A tremor ran through his fingers.

The sensation was so foreign to him that he found it impossible not to remove his eyes from the gate to look at his hand. Trembling with eager, joyous anticipation. And with fear.

Opposites. Love and hate. Good and evil. It was a good day for a showdown.

Englishman took a deep breath, blinked the sweat from his eyes, dropped the gearshift into drive, put both hands on the steering wheel, and slammed the accelerator to the floor.

The tires spun on the gravel road, caught some traction, and propelled the black Honda Accord forward.

JOHNNY PUT both feet on the helicopter's skid and readied himself to jump as soon as the pilot gave him the signal. They approached a guard post on a hill behind the main ranch buildings, the largest of six similarly equipped hills.

Something was wrong with his eyes, but he wasn't sure what. Even now, looking down at the passing ground, he thought his vision was somewhat impaired. The stones and bending weeds were slightly out of focus.

Kelly had been a wreck since their departure, breaking into tears for no reason, it seemed. Yes, he might be headed into danger, but his training was superior.

It was his eyes, she finally told him. She wouldn't elaborate, but his eyes seemed to scare her.

Riding the side of the helicopter twenty feet in the air, Johnny was struck by the change in himself. He wasn't the same person he'd been even three days ago. The thought of jumping from this height wouldn't have bothered him in the least, but now even looking down put but-terflies in his gut.

He was being whisked into a battle that he was suddenly terrified of. The good news, supposedly, was that no attempt had yet been made on the ranch. All Johnny could think about was the bad news, namely, that this frail man named Johnny was their hope.

If Englishman had the same power as he did, how could Johnny be their hope?

The helicopter swept in low and flared to a hover a few feet above the rocky earth.

“Go!”

Kelly placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and saw that she was crying again. She gazed at his face, then quickly averted her eyes.

Something was wrong with his eyes. He should find out what, but the prospect of throwing himself into battle with Englishman dominated his concern.