Speak the Dead (15 page)

43

F
ather Black ascended from a hole in the floor and studied his audience gathered in the round.

Spread out in a horseshoe around him, faces were beaming as excitement buzzed like a swarm of caffeinated bees.

These were his children, his followers, his family. And they were hungry for the Word.

Father Black stared at the burning wood fire contained within a massive cast-iron bowl in front of him. He grinned wide; the cat with the newborn bunny, milk-fed and blind.

They had been waiting twenty-five years for this moment. Twenty-five years of fumbling in the dark, praying for the guiding light.

It was time to tell his congregation that the long wait was over.

A LOUD ROAR
of whistles, cheers, and thunderous applause filtered through the floorboards, making Sally look up in confusion. She had never heard such excited noise in a church before. The feel of cold steel against her ankle, however, made her quickly look down again.

“What are you doing?”

Helen rose from her knees where she had fastened a steel cuff around Sally's ankle. The cuff was anchored to an iron ring embedded in the wooden platform.

“It's for your own safety,” said Helen.

“Bullshit!” Sally gave her ankle a shake. “I don't know what you expect from me, but I damn well don't plan to cooperate.”

“That would be unfortunate. Father has waited a long time for your return.” Helen paused, and her violet eyes sparkled crimson in the basement light. “I, on the other hand, rather wish you'd never been found.”

Sally froze, the woman's about-turn making her mind reel. “W-what do you mean by that?” she stammered.

But Helen just smiled innocently, her birthmark a dark stain upon her face, as Sally's platform shuddered and began to rise.

Above, voices sang out in welcoming jubilation.

44

K
ameelah parked the Jaguar outside Harborview Medical Center. The car's smooth lines and shimmering green skin glistened in the sunlight, causing even the sick and injured hobbling toward Emergency to turn and stare.

Kameelah didn't seem to notice, but Jersey felt a pang of embarrassment over the unsolicited attention as he climbed out of the butter-soft leather seat. He had never known spendable wealth, and although he often imagined it, he wondered that if he was ever suddenly blessed with riches, he could get over the guilt. With a little more thought, he decided he wouldn't mind finding out.

The trip to the Mission of the Immaculate Heart had uncovered nothing beyond conjecture to point to Sister Fleur's attacker or her connection with Sally. Feeling frustrated, Jersey had suggested they revisit their only solid lead.

Kameelah and Jersey rode the elevator to the recovery ward on the fifth floor where Sister Fleur had been moved to a semi-private room.

Inside the room, the same young nurse from their first visit was tucking the sheets around her unconscious patient. The Sister's hair had been combed and appeared much softer, but the bruising in her face had turned murky, and her swollen eyes were only slightly less bulbous. She still wore oxygen tubes taped beneath her nose, and two I.V. bottles dripped clear fluids into her veins.

The nurse smiled at the two detectives as they entered.

“She's just had her bath,” said the nurse. “That always makes one feel better, doesn't it?”

“Has she said anything?” asked Jersey.

“Nothing, I'm afraid.”

“But she's been awake?” asked Kameelah.

“No,” said the nurse. “I gave her the bath by sponge, but we think it's just a matter of time now. We've got her on Dilantin to prevent seizures from the head trauma and anticoagulants to make sure unexpected clots don't form from the other injuries, but it's up to her now. She'll open her eyes when she's ready.”

An elderly woman in the next bed sat up. “How come the cops are here? Is she a felon?”

“No, no, Mrs. Potter,” said the nurse as she moved around the bed. “Sister Fleur was the one who was attacked.”

“Well what if he comes back to finish the job?” screeched the woman. “I don't want to be here if…”

Jersey tuned the woman out and turned to Kameelah. “I'm going to make a few phone calls. You okay here for a while?”

“Sure.” Kameelah pulled up a chair beside the Sister's bed and stroked her hand. “But bring back coffee. Black, no sugar.”

Jersey grinned. “I could have guessed.”

In the hallway,
Jersey found an uncomfortable chair in an out-of-the-way corner and discreetly slipped out his cellphone.

Hospitals didn't like visitors using cellphones because the possibility existed they could interfere with monitoring equipment, but Jersey believed the real reason was when the darn things rang, it scared the patients half to death. And some of them were nearly there, already.

His first call was to his partner. Amarela picked up on the third ring.

“About time you called,” she said without preamble. “The lieutenant has been flipping, and I've run out of excuses. By now you've had the shits so long you should only weigh twenty pounds.”

“Tell him I'm taking some personal time.”

“You're not coming back?”

“I'm still looking for Sally.”

“Hmmm.”

Jersey knew Amarela had mixed feelings about his attachment to a woman he had only just met, but he still wished she wouldn't make it so obvious.

“She's in trouble,” he said. “I need to find her.”

“Okay,” Amarela sighed, “I get it. How's Kameelah?”

“Black, no sugar.”

Amarela laughed. “Ain't she just.”

“Anything new on Peter Higgins or his dead parents?”

“Nada. I've got the lab running a tox screen on the dad, but the lieutenant has reminded me twice today that, unless I get a positive result pronto, the case is closed.”

“He's probably right.”

“What?” Amarela's voice was practically a shriek.

“I don't think this has anything to do with the Higgins' family anymore. It all points to Sally. She was the target.”

“So we harassed the son for nothing?”

“No, we harassed the son because he was an ass and because the evidence pointed his way. Now it points in a different direction.”

“Oh.” Sarcasm dripped from her tongue. “That's alright, then.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Another one?”

Jersey chewed his lip and waited, not wanting to get into a debate about who owed whom and where the current tally stood.

Finally, Amarela broke the silence. “Okay, what?”

“I left Sally's apartment keys in my desk drawer. Can you check on her cat. Give it food and—”

“Seriously!” Amarela protested. “A cat?”

“You love cats.”

“I never said that. There's a big difference between cats and pus—”

“Gotta go,” Jersey interrupted. “Give my love to Clarissa.”

“We broke up again.”

Jersey bit his tongue, but his partner still heard his lack of surprise in the pause.

“Don't be a bastard,” she said.

“Wha—”

Amarela hung up.

Jersey rolled his eyes. Women had long been a mystery to him, but lesbians took it to a whole other level. He dialed information and asked for the news desk of the
Idaho
Statesman
.

When the phone was answered in Boise, Jersey asked to speak to reporter John Underwood. The voice that came on the line a few seconds later sounded all of twenty.

“John here. Wha's up?”

“You wrote the stories about the dead women missing their eyes.”

“Yeah, that's right.” His voice broke in pitch, excited, but trying not to sound it. “Who's this?”

“An interested party. Can we talk off the record?”

“Sure. Are you the killer?”

Jersey chuckled. The kid had seen too many movies.

“No, I'm a cop.”

“Based where?”

“Portland.”

“No shit.”

“You sound like my partner.”

“Huh?”

“Inside joke.”

“Oh… What can I do for you?”

“Have you heard of any other cases that match your two victims?”

The reporter laughed. “Is this a joke? Who put you up to this?”

“I'm being serious, John.”

“You really a cop?”

“Yes,” Jersey snapped. “Portland Homicide. Detective Jersey Castle. You want my badge number?”

“No, no, tha's cool. It's just some people think I have an obsession, you know? Nobody else believes these cases are linked, but I saw the second vic at the morgue, and I can't see two different people doing something this sick, you know?”

“So what about it, you heard of any others?”

“You got one in Portland?”

“No.”

“Oh… why the interest then?”

“Answer my question first.”

The reporter sighed. “The paper didn't let me run with it, but eighteen months ago there was a woman found in Calgary. That's about seven hundred miles north of here in Canada. Her body was found by the Bow River, and she was missing her eyes. The case is still unsolved.”

“And what's the link? Apart from the eyes.”

“All of the victims were in their early thirties with a similar body shape: slim, athletic build, and none of them were known sex workers.”

“Any connection between them?”

“None that I've found. One worked in a bank. Another ran a small gym. And the third, the one in Calgary, was a television reporter. Two were blondes, one was brunette. I haven't found anything that indicated they ever knew one another.”

“What about witnesses?” Jersey asked.

“Nothing the cops will share with me, but I doubt it. I would've heard.”

“Any theories?”

Jersey could almost hear the shrug over the phone.

“Sick bastard on the prowl,” John said with a heavy sigh. “Someone who travels on business, maybe. What's your interest?”

“Just fishing right now, but if I come up with anything I'll let you know.”

“You think they're connected?”

Jersey hesitated, then, “I do.”

“Serious?” John practically squeaked with delight.

“Deadly.”

Jersey hung up and shambled back to the Sister's room with a cloud over his head. Kameelah looked up at him as he crossed the threshold.

She frowned. Those wrinkles again.

“Where's the coffee?”

Jersey slapped his forehead and turned to fetch it.

When Jersey returned
with two lukewarm coffees and two sadly deflated doughnuts on a grease-stained paper plate, Kameelah stood up and unexpectedly wrapped him in a hug.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“You looked like you needed it.”

“I always look like this.”

Kameelah laughed. “Okay, maybe I needed it, too.”

They both looked over at Sister Fleur lying unconscious in her bed.

“Yeah,” said Jersey softly, “I guess we did.”

Kameelah accepted her coffee and took a sip. She managed not to shudder.

“How did your calls go?”

“Amarela sends her love.” This brought a smile to Kameelah's lips. “And our reporter found a third woman with missing eyes. Same age range as the other two.”

Kameelah's brow furrowed. “Any leads?”

“Nothing.”

“So where does that leave us?”

Jersey stared down at the hospital bed. With pain in his voice, he said, “Unless our only eye witness wakes up, we've just hit a fucking dead end.”

45

S
ally's platform ascended to the church sanctuary from directly beneath the massive wood-burning fire that dominated its center. As her platform rose, the circular cast-iron hearth was automatically pulled skyward on four coiled strands of tensile steel.

The bottom of the thick pan glowed red from the heat to cast a warm velvety glow while the flickering shadows of the flames above grew in intensity to prance across the conical ceiling like frenzied ghosts.

The effect was mesmerizing, but Sally noticed that few people were looking up. All of their attention was on her.

Eager faces were glued to her ascension from the cellar. Men, women, and children looked upon her with such delight, it was as though she was a Las Vegas magician rather than a kidnapped beautician. And despite her adamant refusal to show weakness, her body shook with such a cocktail of fear that her virginal white dress quivered in the light of the rising flames.

When her platform finally locked into place, the fire loomed high above. The smoke that blanketed the ceiling and crawled down the walls in whispery fingers was sweet and soothing to the mind, but as the wooden ceiling began to warm, the temperature inside the building climbed toward stifling.

“Behold the Seer,” bellowed Father Black from his raised podium several feet behind Sally. “Let us pray.”

Sweat beaded on Sally's brow as she looked helplessly across a curved sea of bowed heads and muttering lips. She wondered if this was what it was like to go insane. You were still you, thinking you were sane and holding onto logic, but the world had somehow shifted and left you the odd one out.

Sally wanted to scream and run for the doors, but the weight of the priest's eyes on her back kept her silent and the chain around her ankle kept her still.

“Bring out the Travelers.” Father Black clapped his hands together with a thunderclap of flesh.

All heads swiveled in their pews as two elderly people were ushered forth from the rear of the church.

The first, a man in a wheelchair and wearing a red, oversized shirt, was in his late eighties with white hair and a sunken, toothless mouth. His skin was the blotchy color of over-ripe banana and his throat was a mass of scar tissue. He sported a breathing tube in his trachea that had also robbed him of voice, but his sky blue eyes burned with intelligence.

He was clearly afraid.

The second was an elderly woman being led down the aisle by a younger congregant who looked enough like her to be her daughter. The older woman didn't seem to know where she was. Her eyes drifted around the room and her mouth moved in rhythm to a conversation only she could hear. She was dressed similar to Sally, but in red rather than white, and her thin hair had been freshly washed and curled.

Both of them were brought to a large altar that stood less than two feet from Sally's podium. The altar was nearly five feet long and thirty inches wide. Made of intricately carved wood and polished stone, its top was hollowed into a basin and lined with smooth granite.

The elderly woman was made to kneel before the altar and her arms placed on top so that she could rest her head on her forearms. The man in the wheelchair was moved beside her. He placed his arms in the same position without any aid.

As Sally looked upon them, too afraid to breathe, never mind speak, the elderly woman looked up and smiled with all the wonder of a child.

“We're going on holidays,” she said, her voice lilting in a singsong cadence. “To the seaside. Oh, I do love the seaside, don't you?”

Father Black's voice boomed again. “Let us sign Hymn number seven, while the children are led outside. The ritual of the Journey is not for those too young to comprehend.”

While the congregation sang a familiar church hymn, Sally watched the children being gathered in the aisle and herded toward the front door. A cool finger of breeze entered from the doorway, but it was quickly snapped off by the heat from the overhead fire. Once the church doors closed again, the youngest member of the congregation was a rake-thin boy of around seventeen who was so excited to be included that he could barely sit still.

The hymn ended, and Father Black clapped his hands together once more.

“Bring out the Deliverer.”

A door opened at the rear of the hall, and Sally gasped as a tall man dressed from head to toe in black robes stepped out. His face was hidden beneath a silk hangman's hood with a white cross stitched down its center. Dark eyes burned behind slits in the crossbar.

The audience began to murmur another prayer, the noise level rising as the members found a common beat.

Sally pivoted on the spot to catch the priest's hot gaze behind her. His eyes were practically glowing with anticipation.

“What are you doing?” she yelled to be heard above the prayer. “This is madness.”

The priest didn't hear. His attention was riveted on the hooded man whose steps fell into rhythm with the chant as he approached the stone alter.

The congregation's prayers built in intensity, the voices becoming a buzzing drone. Sally spun to face them. All eyes were raised to the smoke-covered rafters in reverence.

“Stop this,” Sally yelled. “Please.”

No one seemed to hear her plea.

The Deliverer stopped beside Sally and inclined his head at the two people kneeling by the altar. The woman's eyes became less glassy in the presence of the black-clad hangman. She suddenly began to look from side to side in panic as though awakening from a dream and not knowing where she was.

The congregation's chant continued to build, the noise almost deafening.

Father Black called out. “Why have these two souls been chosen for the Journey?”

The younger woman who had walked her mother down the aisle stepped forward and raised her hands to the ceiling. The chanting diminished as her voice increased in volume to be heard.

“My mother's mind is lost. She doesn't know her children or her grandchild. She soils herself and weeps for no reason. Her spirit is trapped in a maze of confusion. It needs to be free.”

The congregation rewarded her with a rousing
Hallelujah
.

A man in a two-piece suit and dark tie stepped forward to stand behind the elderly man's wheelchair.

“My uncle is a proud man,” he announced in a loud, clear voice. “But his body is broken and cannot be mended. Although his mind is clear, his dignity has been soiled and his soul yearns for the Journey.”

Another eruption of Hallelujahs was followed by the stomping of feet and a return to the loud chanting of prayer.

A voice whispered in Sally's ear, “You'll want to watch this.”

Sally spun to face the Deliverer, his frightening hood inflating and contracting in time to heavy breathing. She recognized his voice, although the words were no longer slurred.

“Aedan? This is insane. I can't—”

Sally gasped as Aedan pulled a long knife from a leather sheaf on his hip. The blade was nearly eight inches long, its hilt guard a glistening gold.

“What are you—”

Sally halted in mid-sentence as the prayers ended and the church became as silent as a tomb. She turned to the audience, but all eyes were on—

Aedan strode behind the two kneeling parishioners and raised the knife above his head. The sharp steel reflected the blood-red glow of the crackling fire overhead.

Father Black raised his hands to the ceiling in capitulation as Aedan grabbed the toothless old man by what was left of his hair, yanked back his head and gamely slit his throat.

Sally screamed so loud her lungs threatened to burst as a fountain of blood splashed over the altar and across her white dress.

Members of the congregation leapt to their feet in celebration, their communal prayer erupting into an even louder chant than before.

Aedan grabbed the arm of the terrified elderly woman before she could run. Foaming saliva spilled from the woman's mouth as she stared up at the monster in black.

“We're going on holidays,” she sobbed.

As Aedan repeated his gruesome task, a chorus of “Hallelujah” and “Praise God” erupted from the congregation.

Sally vomited her breakfast across the floor as she struggled to get away from the flow of blood, but her ankle was cuffed tight to the floor and the chain only stretched a short way.

After laying the bodies across the altar, Aedan whipped off his hangman's mask and returned to Sally. He grabbed her by the arms.

“It's your turn.”

Sally squirmed and cried and—

She looked at Aedan's face; his deformity was gone. Somehow, he had been miraculously cured and, yet, he looked more horrifying than ever.

Sally pleaded, “Let me go.”

Ignoring her pleas, Aedan forced Sally down to her knees in front of the altar. The floor was awash in blood, the victims' slit throats having filled the basin to overflowing.

“Follow the souls,” Aedan said. “Tell us what you find.”

Sally screamed again as Aedan plunged her hands into the trough of warm, fresh blood.