This Present Darkness (39 page)

“Well, we’ll just see what we can do about that!” said John Coleman.

Ron picked it up again. “It’s all heavy duty, man. I mean, I saw some pretty weird things when I was into that stuff: I’ve seen things just float around by themselves, I’ve read people’s minds, I even left my body once and floated around town. You’d just better all be good and prayed up!”

Jean Corsi began to cry. “Bobby’s possessed … I just know it!”

Hank could see it was time to take control. “Okay, people, now I have a real burden to pray for this town, and I know you do too, so I think that’s where the answer lies. That’s the first thing we need to do.”

They were all ready. Many felt awkward praying out loud for the first time; some knew how to pray loudly and confidently; some prayed in phrases they’d learned from certain liturgies; all meant every word, however they managed to express it. The fervency slowly began to rise; the prayers became more and more earnest. Someone started a simple song of worship and those who knew it sang, while those who didn’t know it learned it.

In the rafters the angels sang along, their voices smooth and flowing like cellos and basses in a symphony. Triskal looked at Krioni, smiled broadly, and flexed his arms. Krioni smiled and flexed back. Chimon took his sword and made it dance from the pivot of his wrist, tracing streaks and curls of shimmering light in the air as the blade sang with a beautiful resonance. Mota just looked toward heaven, his silken wings spreading, his arms upraised, caught up in the rapture of the song.

KATE QUIETLY SET
her kitchen table with one plate, one cup, and a saucer. That evening she ate by herself, hardly able to get anything down because of the emotions tightening her throat and twisting her stomach. Oh well, it was leftovers anyway—leftovers from those many other meals Marshall never showed up for. It was happening again. Maybe the place had nothing to do with how busy a newsman could be. Perhaps, even though Marshall had moved to a small, supposedly dull town, he still had that cursed nose for news that led him on his wild hunts into all hours of the night, making a story where one didn’t even exist before. Perhaps this was, after all, his first love, more than his
wife, more than his daughter.

Sandy. Where was she tonight? Hadn’t they made this move for her sake? Now she was further away from them than ever, even though she still lived in the same house. Shawn had grown into her life like a cancer, not a friend, and Kate and Marshall never did talk about it like he had promised. His mind had been totally preoccupied. He was married to that newspaper, maybe enamored by that young, attractive reporter.

Kate shoved her plate away and tried to keep from crying. She couldn’t start fussing and shedding tears now, not when she had to think clearly. Undoubtedly there would be decisions to make, and she would have to make them alone.

ON THE OUTSKIRTS
of Ashton, next to the railroad yard, Tal conferred with his warriors inside an old, unused water tower.

Nathan was pacing back and forth, his voice echoing off the walls of the huge tank. “I could feel it coming, captain! The enemy is luring Hogan into a trap. There has been a dangerous shift in affection toward Krueger. His family is in grave danger.”

Tal nodded his head and remained deep in thought. “Exactly as one might expect. Rafar knows no frontal attack will work; he’s trying his evil hand at subtlety, at moral compromise.”

“And succeeding, I say!”

“Yes, I agree.”

“But what can we do? If Hogan loses his family, he’ll be destroyed!”

“No. Not destroyed. Knocked down, perhaps. Decimated, perhaps. But it’s all because of the dross in his own soul, which the Spirit of God has yet to convict him of. We can do nothing but wait and let all things take their course.”

Nathan could only shake his head in frustration. Guilo stood nearby, pondering Tal’s words. Of course what Tal said was true. Men will sin if men will.

“Captain,” Guilo said, “what if Hogan falls?”

Tal leaned back against the dank metal wall and said, “We can’t be concerned with the question of ‘if.’ The question we must deal with is ‘when.’ Both Hogan and Busche are now laying the foundation we
need for this battle. Once that’s done, Hogan as well as Busche
must
fall. Only their clear defeat will coax the Strongman out of hiding.”

Guilo and Nathan both looked at Tal with consternation.

“You—you would
sacrifice
these men?” Nathan asked.

“Only for a season,” Tal answered.

MARSHALL BROUGHT OUT
Ernie Johnson’s large packet of pirated records from the Whitmore College accounting office and handed them across the
Clarion
’s reception counter to Harvey Cole. Cole was a CPA Marshall knew well enough to trust.

“I don’t know what you’ll be able to make of all this,” said Marshall, “but see if you can find whatever Johnson found, and see if it looks crooked.”

“Wow!” said Harvey. “This is going to cost you!”

“I’ll swap you some free advertising. How about that?”

Harvey smiled. “Sounds fine. Okay, I’ll get to it and get back to you.”

“A.S.A.P.”

Harvey went out the door and Marshall returned to his office, rejoining Bernice in their evening, after-hours project.

They were working amid a flurry of notes, papers, phone books, and any other public records they could get their hands on. In the middle of it all, a consolidated list of names, addresses, jobs, and tax records was forming piece by piece.

Marshall looked over his notes from his interview with Harmel. “Okay, what about that judge, what’s-his-name, Jefferson?”

“Anthony C.,” Bernice replied, flipping through last year’s phone book. “Yeah, Anthony C. Jefferson, 221 Alder Street.” She immediately went to her scrawled notes from the Top of the Town Realty. “221 Alder …” Her eyes scanned one sheet in her notebook, then another, until finally, “Bingo!”

“Another one!”

“So check me out on this: Jefferson was bumped by the Network and Omni came in and bought his house?”

Marshall scribbled some reminder notes to himself on a yellow legal pad. “I’d like to know why Jefferson moved and how much he
sold that house for. I’d also like to know who’s living there now.”

Bernice shrugged. “We’ll just have to go down the list and check all these Network people’s addresses. I’ll lay you odds it’s one of them.”

“What about Baker, the judge who replaced Jefferson?”

Bernice looked at another list. “No, Baker’s over in the house that used to belong to the high school principal, uh, Waller, George Waller.”

“Oh yeah, he’s the one who lost his house in the sheriff sale.”

“Oh, there are a lot of those, and I’ll bet we might find more if we knew where to look.”

“We’ll have to snoop around the County Finance Office. Somehow, some way, those people’s property taxes never got to where they were supposed to go. I can’t believe this many people would be delinquent on their taxes.”

“Someone diverted the money so the taxes were never paid. It’s dirty, Hogan, just plain dirty.”

“It wasn’t Lew Gregory, the old comptroller. Look at this. He had to resign because of some conflict of interest rap. Now Irving Pierce is in, and he’s Omni-owned, right?”

“You got it.”

“And what was that you had on Mayor Steen?”

Bernice consulted her notes, but shook her head. “He just recently bought his house; the deal looks legitimate except for the previous owner being the former police chief who left town for no apparent reason. It might mean something, it might not. It’s what happened to all those other people that has me wondering.”

“Yeah, and why none of them ever squawked or made a fuss about it. Hey, I wouldn’t let the county just come in and auction off my house right out from under me, not without asking at least a few questions. There’s something else about this that we don’t know.”

“Well, think about the Carluccis. Did you know their house sold to Omni for $5,000? That’s ridiculous!”

“And the Carluccis went poof! Gone, just like that!”

“So I wonder who’s living in their house now?”

“Maybe the new high school principal, or the new fire marshal, or a new city councilman, or a
new
this or a
new
that!”

“Or one of the
new
college regents.”

Marshall scrambled for some more papers. “Boy, what a mess!” He
finally found the list he was looking for. “Let’s go through those regents and see what we come up with.”

Bernice flipped through a few pages in her notebook. “I know for sure that Pinckston’s place is owned by Omni. Some kind of trust arrangement.”

“What about Eugene Baylor?”

“Don’t you have that somewhere?”

“One of us does, but now I can’t remember who.”

They both fumbled through their notes, papers, lists. Marshall finally found it among his scattered leaves.

“Here it is. Eugene Baylor, 1024 SW 147th.”

“Oh, I think I saw that here somewhere.” Bernice perused her notes. “Yes, Omni owns that too.”

“Sheesh! Deeding everything over to Omni Corporation must be a requirement for membership.”

“Well, that makes Young and Brummel card-carrying members. It makes sense, though. If they all want to meld into one Universal Mind, they have to do away with individuality, and that means no private ownership.”

One by one, Marshall read off the names of the college regents, and Bernice researched their addresses. Of the twelve regents, eight were living in homes owned by Omni Corporation. The others rented apartments; one of the apartment buildings was owned by Omni. Bernice had no information on the other apartment buildings.

“I think we’ve ruled out coincidence,” said Marshall.

“And now I can’t wait to hear what your friend Lemley has to say.”

“Sure, that Kaseph and Omni Corporation are linked. That’s obvious.” Marshall took just a moment to ponder. “But you know what really scares me? So far, everything we see here is legal. I’m sure they’ve been crooked somewhere to get where they are, but you can see they’re working within the system, or at least doing a very good job of looking like it.”

“But come on, Marshall! He’s taking over a whole town, for crying out loud!”

“
And
he’s doing it legally. Don’t forget that.”

“But he must leave some tracks somewhere. We’ve been able to sniff him out at least this far.”

Marshall took a deep breath and then sighed it out. “Well, we can try to track down every person who sold out and left town, try to find out why it happened. We can check into what positions they held before they left and who holds that position now. Whoever holds the position now can be asked what connection he or she has with Omni Corporation or with this Universal Consciousness mind-tripping group. We can ask each and every one of them what they might know about the elusive Mr. Kaseph. We can do some more research on the Omni Corporation itself, find out where it’s based, what it deals in, what else it owns. We have our work cut out for us. And then I guess it’ll be time to go directly to our friends with what we know and get a response from them.”