The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (39 page)

The big shocker came next. He’d written down some of her last words to me. “You’re a good boy, son. Don’t ever forget it.”

“How did you know this?” I blurted out, horrified and furious.

“I told you before. All your answers are in this room. Take your time.”

He walked out and sealed the wall behind him. I guess I should have been afraid, being left alone in a place like that. Instead, I felt oddly comfortable. I looked at the walls and all the photos and carvings. I looked at the votive candles, with pieces of paper tucked between the red glass cups and the silver holders. I thought about Mother’s death.

I had only talked to her on the phone once or twice the year before she died. She never mentioned the cancer. I still remember how my knees shook when I got “the call.”

It’s funny. You wait all your life, knowing that one day you’re going to get the call. Even so, when it finally comes, you’re never ready. I was luckier than most. At least she was making it. “I’m dying. I need to see you.”

I flew in, rented a motel room and went to the hospital every day. It was good to see her. It was bad to see how far gone she was. She told me not to be sad. She was ready to die. In the days that followed, we talked about the weather, the news, anything that didn’t matter. She always seemed on the verge of saying something important. She would begin with some cryptic phrase, then stop herself, looking around like someone was listening.

On the last day, she was barely coherent. I sat in the corner, knowing she was fading. Suddenly, she lifted her hand to beckon me. “Do you need the nurse?” I asked hopefully. When she shook her head sadly, my knees buckled even more than when I got the call. There was something she wanted to say. Her last words, I thought. I expected them to be about how much we loved each other or how much she would miss me. What she said wasn’t anything like that. “You have to find Martin,” she whispered. “Use your gift. Be careful.”

“Who is Martin?” I asked angrily. My overwhelming thought at the moment was a selfish one. How could she waste her last moments with this crazy talk?

“You’re a good boy,” she said, trying to calm me. “Don’t ever forget it.”

Suddenly the sound of whistling came from behind the curtain dividing her room. The woman in the bed next to her was in a coma. The nurse said she’d broken her neck in a diving accident. She moved in the same week Mother died, but never had any visitors until today, a big man whistling Broadway show tunes. Mother was out of it from the morphine when he arrived. I don’t remember if he spoke to me. I just remember the sound of his whistling. Mother’s eyes grew wide when she heard it. She pulled me to her whispering lips. “Save Martin…and you’ll save yourself.”

“What do you mean? Help me, Mother. I don’t know what to do!”

A sound came from her mouth, but it wasn’t an answer. It was an awful hollow rattle, like a gourd filled with stones. When it stopped, her eyes were empty. I let out a terrible scream. I didn’t remember it until today, but Mother’s death rattle wasn’t the very last sound I heard before I screamed. It was the sound of Paul, still whistling.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked me that day with The Striker.

A surge of anger shook me from my recollection. With it came a moment of inspiration. I looked at the other books in the cabinet. They were all the same thickness as the one about me. I pulled the books out one at a time until I found the one I knew would be there.
The Book of Martin
. When I saw the words, I shuddered. I set the Book on the altar and placed
The Book of William
next to it. I started reading them…fast.

When I read about what happened to Martin when he was a little boy, I scanned the opening sections of the other books to see if any of them mentioned the boy’s father.

Of course not. The sin of omission. I was such an idiot.

When Paul returned to the chapel, he asked, “Now do you understand?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling like I was about to puke, “you’re my father.”

I paused and waved my hand across all the volumes at my feet. “You’re…
our
father.”

“Who art in heaven. So nice to have you back where you belong, son.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I couldn’t cope with the emotions I was feeling in any way whatsoever, so I did what I usually do in any intimate circumstance: I went straight to the intellect. “I thought these were going to be about Clan Kelly and the Hermetic lineage.”

“Oh! The Hermetic
lineage!
Is that what you’re looking for? The noble bloodline of Clan O’Ceallaigh? We, the proud guardians of the Secret Secretorium!”

He was goading me. But I didn’t know what he was goading me toward. I decided to push back. “Maybe it’s better if I talk to Martin. I noticed he lives nearby.”

“Yer sweet dead mum would love for that to happen. That is not an option for you.”

“Why not? Has Martin seen this?”

“He’s been in this place. Not much of a reader, that Martin.”

“Does he know you’re his father?”

“Hard to say. He’s always known me to be High King of the Clans, his Lord, mentor and benefactor. In his heart, I’ve always been his dear swee’ Da, but until he set foot in this room, I’d always encouraged him to think I was his adoptive, rather than his biological sire. To be honest, I don’t believe he cares a fig whether I actually planted the seed or not, any more than he cares for the knowledge you’re so desperate to possess. At any rate, the poor lad has no recollection of our time here together. It seems he’s blocked it out, like a great deal of our fun adventures. I believe it’s called post-traumatic stress disorder these days. I still prefer shell shock. Yet, even with his lack of ambition and Swiss-cheese memory, of all my boys, he’s the cream of my cream, the guardian of our collective heritage.”

“How can he guard something he doesn’t give a shit about? Why did you bring me here? Am I supposed to be jealous of him?

“Like your forgetful brother, you’re still hiding from yourself, even more effectively than he. But I haven’t given up on you yet, Billy. Far from it. You have talent, son, and a glorious gift. Still, you haven’t tasted blood…and there’s no salvation without baptism.”

I felt myself responding. Or part of me. It must have been my pride. No one had ever praised me before, except Mother.

“Why are you telling me all this instead of Martin?”

“I didn’t tell you anything. I showed you things, but you arrived at the proper understanding on your own. Or at least a small part of it. If you can embrace the entirety of your past, your prize will be even more glorious than Martin’s. If he can do the same, it will be the sign I’ve been waiting for since he first stood with me upon this bloody altar of our ancestors. But if you attempt to contact him directly and reveal the secrets he has hidden from himself, it would be better if you had never been born. Though you probably think that’s already true, aye?”

I nodded in honest agreement. I was about to elaborate on that admission when a hazy memory took me by surprise. I closed my eyes and a startlingly clear image appeared…a truck coming up a long dirt road. Two people watching, a woman and a little boy. I’d seen it many times before, in my dreams and in waking. I didn’t want to make that final connection. I wanted to keep that last patch of solid ground under my feet. Paul took it all away with a single question: “What was your mother’s name?”

“April,” I said, my eyes snapping open as I saw Paul get out of the truck. As I watched him go inside with her. As he pulled out the knife.

“That wasn’t her name. That’s when she changed it! Stop running from yourself. You can
see
it, boy…I know it!”

“No! You’re lying! You’re doing this to me!”

“You know I’m not! She changed her name and took you as far away from me as she could. Now, she’s eight years gone and you’re finally ready to receive your legacy.”

“You raped my mother!” I shouted, my blood boiling with hate.

“Oh, I didn’t just rape her. I cut off her tits. Did a sloppy job of it too, wanted to make sure she didn’t do any more breeding in this lifetime. You two were quite enough.”

I don’t know where I found the balls, but I charged him like a bull. He looked shocked for an instant, then pleased. He pushed me aside like a kid in a playground. When I got to my feet, ready to take another run at him, his last utterance finally registered in my brain.

“
Two
?” I asked, wondering what fresh new horror he would disclose.

“Yes, you and big brother. The heir apparent.”

“Martin? How could he be her son?”

“What you just
saw
wasn’t her first rape, dear boy. She didn’t recognize me on that long ago day, but I don’t blame her. On our previous encounter, it was quite dark and we didn’t chat all that much. Another reason why rape is my preferred mode of female discourse. There’s something about non-compliance that cuts right through the small talk. Once I escorted her from Martin’s hopeful eyes, put the knife to her throat and mounted her, it all came flooding back—our previous tête-à-tête in San Francisco—such a romantic city, such narrow dark alleys.

“I knew I’d planted some prime seed in her—and from the way she screamed at the end, I think she knew it too. She must have, since she carried to term, not that I would have let her abort the child. I’d sooner chain her in a dungeon and deliver the baby meself. Sadly, that wasn’t necessary.

“When she gave birth to the blessed child, stealing him was the easy part. After Martin was born, we substituted another babe that was horribly mutilated, not a pleasant thing to see, or do, for that matter. Since I’m so fond of ironic twists, I gave baby Martin to your wicked Auntie Mabel, who by some exquisitely timed coincidence had gotten herself knocked up on the very same day I raped yer mommy—by my brother Angus!

“So picture this, and hold on to your ribs, cause it’s a real corker— I snuck my wet nurse and Martin into the cellar, then gave the wicked witch of the west some Pitocin to induce labor. She birthed at home about an hour later, her farmhouse being so far from any medical services. After she delivered and took a little nap, I gave her child to the nurse, and sent them on their way back to Angus. Prince Martin was substituted for her bitty baby and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Whew! What a horror that cunt Mabel was! I can’t even describe the suffering poor Martin endured until I rode in on my big black horse to rescue him. The tortures of the damned, son. The tortures of the damned!”

I just stared at him in shock. Paul grinned back at me. “What? You’re not laughing? Well, there’s no accounting for one’s taste in humor.”

I slumped to the floor and closed my eyes, mourning my mother’s death and her life all over again. I looked at the
Book of Martin
and saw how much courage she had, how much she had given of herself, to both of us. Everything she told me on her deathbed made perfect sense now. But nothing in what Paul said made any sense at all.

“Why did you do all this?” I asked, unable to conceive what advantage he could possibly gain from concocting such a sadistically elaborate deceit.

“Excellent question,” he said like he actually meant it. “When we spoke last night, what did I say was the most important aspect of our collective responsibility?”

I just sat there, fighting back the tears.

“The line of succession,” he answered for me. “Your mother was a very special woman, a hybrid of two bloodlines, both endowed with the gift. I knew she’d yield
An Té atá Tofa
, as she surely did. I was so pleased with her gene pool that I took another dip when the opportunity presented itself, and with our second hate-making session I got another gem from the same mine. You’re every bit the treasure Martin is to me, and one day soon you’ll fully grasp the truth of that.”

He was sucking me in again. I tried to shake him by repeating my question.“Why all the subterfuge? Why kill a little baby?”

“All I will say for now is that unlike many of my cruel urges, there was a very specific reason for every action that was taken. Should you apply yourself to your studies, you will understand. You’re not going to beat my blackmail game and you certainly can’t kill me, so stop your whining, put a plug in the pity jug and get busy with these books.”

I looked at him. At my father. He was right. I’d spent my life wishing I’d never been born, but I’m grateful to be alive now. Not so I can fulfill his twisted dream of my destiny, but to keep the promise I made all those years ago—to my mother, Norine.

As much as he wanted to, Martin couldn’t keep avoiding the subject. “Where did you get that necklace?” he finally asked, pointing to the key dangling from Rose’s neck like a hypnotist’s pocket watch.

“My father gave it to me. It used to be my mom’s,” Rose said brightly. Wow. He was asking a question. They were having a conversation. No, even better: a normal conversation!

“What are your parents’ names?” he asked haltingly.

She wanted to avoid answering him—her father’s name was more recognizable than David Berkowitz’s. “John and Kathy Turner,” she said with a weary sigh.