The Colour of Death (44 page)

“I didn’t do it for you,” Kaidan smiled at Sorcha.  “I did it for her.”

“Why?” she asked.  “Why did you change your mind?”

As Kaidan looked up at his half-sister he searched his mind for the answer to her question.  To his surprise, after he had regained consciousness from Fox’s knockout blow, he had felt no anger toward the psychiatrist, only a perverse gratitude.  Despite diligently and dutifully trying to do everything his father had demanded of him, Fox had stopped him.  And in so doing, Fox had saved him from himself.  When Kaidan had heard the faint
whup, whup, whup
of helicopters through the thick tower walls, he had felt no fear, only a surge of relief — almost euphoria.  The authorities were coming.  He could do no more except surrender.  It was out of his hands.  It was over.

As he had got to his feet and brushed himself down, he had seen everything clearly for the first time.  Fox had been right about the murders in Portland.  For the first time in his life he was free to shed the person his father wanted him to be and become himself.  When he had heard the commotion on the stairs he had known exactly what he had to do.  Even now, after his father had stabbed him and his lifeblood was leaking away, his only regret was that he hadn’t acted earlier.

He reached for Sorcha’s hand and tried to answer her question.  “When I knew it was over I wanted to break away from my past and become someone different.  For once — just once — I wanted to be the angel and not the demon.”  He glanced at Fox.  “You were right.  We are more than our past.  We can become whoever we decide to be — however fleetingly — through the choices we make.”  A huge convulsion suddenly seized his body and he coughed up a lungful of blood.  Gasping for air, he discovered he could no longer breathe.  Then his head fell back, his hand slipped from Sorcha’s grasp and he was gone.

Feeling both sadness and anger, Sorcha gently closed Kaidan’s eyes.  Then she stood and continued climbing the steps.  “Let’s finish this.”  Fox followed silently behind until they reached the violet door to the seventh level and found their path blocked.  The last Watcher stood guard, brandishing a knife.  He looked terrified.

Fox groaned.  “You don’t need to do this.  I don’t want to fight you.  The police are coming and they’re armed.  Throw down the knife and step aside.”

Sorcha reached out her hand.  “Give me the knife.  My father’s no longer in charge.  Too many people have died in this tower.  You don’t need to be another one.”

The man hesitated for a second, then threw down the blade, pushed past them and ran down the stairs.  Sorcha reached for the door but it was locked what a conventional lock and key.  Through the door she could hear whispering and frantic activity.  It sounded like the Wives were trying to placate Delaney as he gave them instructions.  With a sickening jolt, Sorcha realized what her father planned to do.  She banged frantically on the heavy wood then turned to Fox.  “We’ve got to stop him.”

“Stop him doing what?”  Realization dawned on Fox’s face.  “But it won’t work.  It can’t work.”

“I don’t care.  I don’t want him to even
think
he might have succeeded.”  Sorcha heard their names being called again.  The voices were closer now.

“Nathan?  Sorcha?  You OK?”

“We’re fine,” Fox shouted back.  “There’s a guy coming down.  He shouldn’t be armed.”

“Nathan, there’s a body down here.  Who is it?”

“That’s your killer,” Fox replied.  “I’ll explain everything later.  Just come up here.”  He glanced at Sorcha then examined the lock.  “And bring a gun.  We need to get into this room fast.”

Chapter 68

“Help me,” said Delaney, frantically.  “There isn’t much time.”  He turned to Deva and Zara.  “You understand what I need you to do?”

They both nodded silently, too close to tears to speak.

“Which one will do it?”

Zara broke down and started crying.

Deva held out her hand and Delaney passed her the knife.  “Timing is everything, Deva.  You know what to look for?  You know the signs?” he said.

“Yes,” Deva whispered.

He turned to Maria, who was lying on her back on the amethyst plinth — where Sorcha had lain a short while ago.  This wasn’t what he had planned or wanted but it was his only remaining hope.  It would at least give him the chance to continue the Great Work.  He took strength from the death echoes in the amethyst floor and comfort from the devotion and pride he saw in Maria’s eyes.  Unlike Sorcha, Maria and the Wives appreciated the greatness of his work and
wanted
to help him achieve success.  “Are you ready?” he said.

Maria nodded, eyes bright.  “I’m ready.”

“Then let us begin.”

*            *            *

When Jordache appeared with the two police officers, all three were panting from the climb.  Immediately the detective saw Fox he gripped his friend’s shoulder, relief etched on his face, then patted Sorcha on the arm.  “Thank God you’re both OK.  Nathan, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when—”

Fox smiled.  “It’s OK.  You’re here now.”  He extended his hand.  “I need a gun.”

Jordache nodded to one of the officers, who passed Fox his Glock.  “Why?  What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain later.  Now stand back.”  Fox removed the safety, fired at the lock then rammed his shoulder against the door.  It took two more bullets and all their weight to break the door open.  Sorcha had witnessed and experienced many bizarre events over the last few days but what she saw when she climbed the last few stairs and entered the top chamber would stay with her forever.  Even the macabre death echoes that infested the space seemed to recede into the background, as if yielding to the real-time life-and-death drama unfolding before her.

Maria lay supine on the amethyst plinth.  Beside her, the Seer lay on top of Zara, gripped in the final throes of passion.  Sorcha could see his pupils rolling back in their sockets, leaving only the whites of his eyes visible.  Deva stood behind him, pulling his head back with one hand and holding a knife to his throat with the other.  The blade was already slicing into his flesh.

Visibly shocked by the tableau before him, Jordache raised his gun.  “Drop the knife and step away.”  Ignoring him, Deva continued to pull the blade across Delaney’s throat until Jordache fired twice into her chest, throwing her backwards.  Her knife, however, had already done its work.  Blood jetted from Delaney’s severed artery in an orgasm of death.  As he fell off Zara and onto the amethyst floor Sorcha saw his lips from a smile of triumph, the curve of his mouth mirroring the curve of the laceration on his throat.

“No!” Sorcha shouted.  She threw herself at her father.  “No!”

*            *            *

Still in the throes of sexual ecstasy, Delaney felt no pain, only a euphoric sense of floating free from his physical self.  He imagined himself looking down on the carnage within the chamber and merging with the countless death echoes emanating from the violet lotus symbol on the floor.  Soon his old body would die and his astral self would transmigrate to its new physical body — that of his own and Maria’s newborn child.  He was entering the final stage of the Great Work.  His journey to immortality had begun.

Suddenly, a searing pain jolted his consciousness and he became acutely aware of his physical self.  Was the process meant to be this painful?  Perhaps he was experiencing the psychic trauma of the crown chakra of his new body?  The pain intensified.  Perhaps he had already transferred to the infant in the womb and was now being physically born?  Was this why we never remembered the moment of our birth, because it was so traumatic?  This agony felt more like dying, though.  His eyes flickered open and the first thing he saw was his daughter, Sorcha.  Her face was pressed close to his and her lips were moving.  “It didn’t work.  You failed,” she hissed with the whispered urgency of a lover.  “Within seconds you’ll be dead.  Forever.  The Great Work, the murders and all the sick things you did in your life were for nothing.”

At first he couldn’t understand what she was saying, then he moved his right hand and felt the amulet.  It was still around his neck.  Raising it to his face, he stared at his bloodstained fingers clasping the ankh, the symbol of eternal life, and realized he was still trapped in his old body. Panic coursed through him.  How could this have happened?  How could the Great Work have failed?  Deva must have made a mistake.  She was supposed to kill him and cut the silver cord while he was still out of his body but she must have mistimed the kill.  He looked down and saw he was lying in a pool of blood.  His old body was bleeding to death. 
He
was bleeding to death.  The Great Work was no more.  His life and everything he had believed in was over, finished.  There would be no immortality.  Only extinction.  He tried to scream but his strangled cries only  quickened the stream of lifeblood pouring from the severed artery in his throat.

When Sorcha had leapt on her father, she had feared he would die during his orgasmic trance, allowing Delaney to convince himself he was transferring to a new host and his Great Work had succeeded.  To her relief, his pupils had returned to normal, signaling the end of his out-of-body experience, while he was still alive.

Just.

Now, as she watched the realization of failure dawn on him, she took some satisfaction from seeing his smile fade and the fear flicker in his eyes.  Seeing his violet aura dim and watching him die, she felt nothing.

Fox checked Delaney’s pulse then Deva’s and shook his head.  Both were dead.  Jordache and the two policemen pulled Zara away from the bodies while Sorcha hurried to help Maria, who lay on the plinth covered in blood, clutching her belly, screaming:  “He’s coming.  He’s coming.”

Zara’s eyes widened with wonder and she strained against the policeman’s grip.  “It’s a miracle.  Let me go to her.”

“Keep her back,” Fox said, moving to Maria’s side.  “Help me, Sorcha.”

As the policeman constrained Zara, letting Fox and Sorcha tend to Maria, Jordache stared down at Delaney’s bloody body.  “What just happened?” he said.  “Why did she kill him?”

“Deva didn’t kill him,” Zara said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”  Jordache pointed at Delaney’s body.  “She cut his goddamned throat.  He’s dead.”

“The Seer’s not dead,” Zara said, pointing defiantly at Maria.  “He’s being reborn.”

As Maria pushed her baby out into the world Sorcha couldn’t take her eyes off it.  In the midst of all the death that surrounded her there was something mesmerizing about watching a new life begin.  When it finally emerged, Fox took the baby in his hands and laid it on a pillow on the plinth.  Its’ beauty and innocence made Sorcha smile.  Then she looked closer and her smile faded and the room began to spin.

“You OK, Sorcha?” she heard Fox ask, moments before she blacked out.

Chapter 69

As dawn approached, Jordache’s men began processing the carnage in the tower while trying to restore order to the rest of the settlement.

After Sorcha had regained consciousness and Fox had settled her in the Great Hall to recover, Jordache took him to one side.  “It’s chaos out there, Nathan.  Everyone’s running around like crazies.  The cult’s imploding and many of the Indigo Family are looking to Sorcha for guidance.  They claim she’s the new Seer.  I know it’s a long shot but once she’s recovered perhaps she could talk to them.  Just to calm things down.”

Fox shook his head.  “No way.  She owes those bastards nothing.  They stood by and let her father get away with murder — literally.  Delaney would have killed me and raped her and they wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.  Hell, they would have applauded.  After all she’s been through she needs to get away from the cult and this toxic settlement as soon as possible.”

“I thought you’d say that, Nathan,” Jordache said.  The detective smiled.  “Christ, if this is what you do for an ex-patient then I know where to come when I get a problem.  Just fill me in on the weird and wonderful things that happened here, then you can both board one of the choppers and get out of it all.”

“You want the official version or what actually happened?”

“What actually happened, of course.”

“Then we’ll only speak to you.  Once.  And you need to keep an open mind.”

Jordache narrowed his eyes.  “It’s that bizarre, huh?”

Over the next two hours, Jordache debriefed Fox and Sorcha on all they knew about Delaney and his cult.  When they had finished, the detective, who had seen most things in his line of work, looked shell-shocked.  “I’m trying to be as open-minded as I can, Nathan.  I really am.  But tell me one thing.  Apart from the death echoes, what other weird parts of the Great Work were genuine?”

Fox shook his head.  “None of them.  Delaney’s cult and the Great Work were based on one flawed core belief:  that his unusual synaesthesia meant he was somehow divine and had supernatural powers.  Everything flowed from there.  He believed in it totally but it was madness.”

“What about the murders in Portland?”

“They weren’t part of the Great Work..  They were an act of rebellion, an expression of Kaidan’s inner conflict between his loyalty to his father — the demon he had to serve — and his love for Sorcha — the angel he wanted to save.  Kaidan saw the men he killed as surrogates for his father and their victims as surrogates for Sorcha.”

Jordache studied his notebook then scratched his head.  “You’ve given me a lot to check out.  And think about.  I’d better get on with it.”

As Fox watched the detective leave the Great Hall, his thoughts turned to Sorcha.  Although her memories were finally returning there was no guarantee she would remember everything from her past, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Few of the memories she had from this place were good.

“How are you feeling, Sorcha?”

She walked to the door of the Great Hall and looked out at the settlement.  “I don’t know how I feel yet.  This place contains all my personal history but there’s nothing here I want.”  She opened her locket to reveal the photograph inside.  “I came back hoping to rediscover who I was but all I’ve discovered about my past life is that it’s rotten and hollow.  I’ve no foundations here I want to build on:  no family or friends.  Nothing.”