Chapter Seventeen

I

Jane felt sick to death driving out of the west branch lot. Dhevic, Dhevic, Dhevic, the name kept pounding in her mind. And those things he'd said? Those things he'd shown her?

She didn't know what to think now, or what to believe.

All she knew was this: I have to tell Steve.

The nausea began to abate once she got out on the main road, opened the car windows, and let the air blow on her face. Yes, she needed to talk to Steve, but what would she say? And what would he say in response? I can't go in there and tell him that Dhevic is an augur, for God's sake! A bell from hell? A fallen angel named Aldezhor? I can't tell him that! I can't tell him Dhevic showed me visions of heaven and hell! He'll think I'm nuts!

But what had she seen, really? She rolled over every conceivable explanation. Hypnosis, the power of suggestion under stress, simple gullibility in the face of a very good liar and actor. But why? Why would Dhevic go to all that trouble? He'd known that she was involved with Steve, and he'd known her dead husband's name, but that could all be explained logically. He could've seen her and Steve together. He could've read her husband's obituary a long time ago. Not too difficult. But again it made no sense. What purpose could Dhevic have in wanting her to believe this?

Unless it's true, was the only answer she could come up with.

She cleared her mind of the whole mess, took deep breaths, and drove straight to the Danelleton police station. I'll figure out what I'm going to say when I say it, she decided. She parked in the visitor's lot and was taking long strides into the clean red-brick building. Cops milled about at the booking desk, several nodded or said hello. Then a sergeant was politely directing her to the proper hallway. A wave of relief swept her when she saw the sign on the door: Chief Steven Higgins. The door was ajar. She raised her hand to knock but paused. Movement caught her eye, and something else.

A scent.

Perfume? she thought.

She put her eye to the gap in the door and looked in.

Steve was standing behind his desk, his jacket off, his shoulder holster and gun draped over the chair. There was someone standing next to him, and at first Jane was too shocked for the image to register. Every excuse flowed through her mind: Don't freak out, don't jump to conclusions. It's a civilian employee, a clerk, a secretary or someone. Maybe it's a police officer in plainclothes. Maybe it's someone from the town council or the mayor's office.

It was someone, all right.

A woman. A statuesque blonde in a beige pinstripe business woman's suit, long toned legs, high heels, a short skirt.

They seemed to be whispering. Then Steve put his arms around the woman. She returned the gesture and they embraced. It was a long, even intimate embrace. Jane thought she was feeling sick earlier, when she'd seen Dhevic. Now, in an instant, she felt ten times more nauseated.

The last thing she saw was Steve kissing the woman.

Jane's heart felt wrenched out of her chest. Part of her wanted to storm into the office and start yelling but.

No. That's not me. She would've loved to put him on the spot, ruin everything for him with this other woman, wreck his day just as he'd wrecked hers. Throw a tirade right there in his office, a real Jerry Springer-type fracas. But then she thought a minute more and realized how useless that would be.

I've been had, that's all, she thought. It happens all the time. Men do this to women every day-I should've seen it coming. Instead I set myself up. Just turn around and walk away.

Jane looked back inside. Steve and the blonde were still embracing.

She turned around and walked away.

"Sometimes you make me feel like I'm just some big muscular moron," Dan said.

Sarah smirked. "Dan, I hate to tell you this, but you are a big muscular moron." She stood aside, arms crossed, watching his biceps bulge as he lifted one box of letters after another off the collator rack and slid them into the take-away shelves.

Thanks, thanks a lot," he said.

"Dan, there's nothing wrong with being a big muscular moron." Now she actually had to chuckle.

"Yeah, and look at you. I guess your beach bunny days are over, now that you're the big boss around here."

"I'm not the boss, Jane is. I'm just the new DPS manager. True, I'm your boss. I'm the boss of everyone who works in the DPS station. But that's not really the point, is it?"

Dan was big, a weight lifter. Blond hair, dark tan, rugged-the perfect Florida mold. He wiped sweat off his brow with a brawny arm, then laughed, a laugh of defeat. "Yeah, there she is, little Miss DPS Manager, arms crossed, tapping her foot, watching the big dumb moron load letter boxes. Supervising, right? Making sure the job gets done right. Making sure the big muscular moron doesn't screw up. Well, let me tell you something. I do my job. I don't screw up. And if you don't want to date me anymore, that's fine." His pecs and biceps flexed again when he lifted the next box. It was a little overdramatic; he didn't have to flex them so tightly, but he just wanted her to see. He knew the kind of  guy she went for, and he was it. "Plenty of girls in this town who'd be happy to date a guy like me."

"Dan, Dan, what is this date business all of a sudden? We never dated! We can't date-it's against postoffice policy for employees of the same office to be romantically involved."

He shook his head in more frustration. "Look, all I know is I walk in here and ask you what time we're getting together tonight, and you pull this stuff. We've been going out for almost a year. To me, that's dating."

"No, Dan, that's two friends fooling around. We were the same pay level and had the same time in grade. All that's changed now."

"Yeah, since your big promotion. All of a sudden Sarah the Party Animal becomes Sarah the Responsible Manager. Gimme a break. You're such a hypocrite, it's almost funny. Christ, I can't believe how much you've changed in the last two days."

"Oh, poor little Danny Boy getting a little insecure. Big tough Danny Boy doesn't like the idea that a woman two years younger than him is now his supervisor."

"That's got nothing to do with it. Some people are for real, some people aren't. You aren't."

"Poor little Danny Boy's masculinity is being shattered. The big strong muscleman can't hack being a subordinate to a hundred-and-twenty-pound woman-"

"Shut up. You're being stupid."

Dan loaded more boxes, in silence. Sarah just smiled. Yes, she had changed a lot in the last two days. She'd been blessed. The Messenger had shown her just how "for real" she truly was. He'd given her strength when before there'd only been weakness and vulnerability. Thank you, she thought dreamily.

She could feel him behind her-the Messenger- right up close next to her, his ethereal hands roving her body, stimulating her for what was to come. His desires merged with hers, a perfect state of sharing. She could never be this close to anyone else.

"Yeah, yeah, that's just fuckin' grand," Dan complained out of his silence. "You can't date me anymore since you got your big, high-falutin' promotion. Jesus Christ, Sarah, you spent the night with me last night. We made love..."

Sarah couldn't resist. "You call that making love? Don't make me laugh, Dan. I hate to tell you this, but I get more action from a cucumber."

Dan grit his teeth, bit away the anger. "What the hell are you talking about? You came like Halley's comet."

Again, Sarah couldn't resist. "Yeah, it took you seventy-five years to get me off." She stood back and watched, watched his anger boil up, watched his face redden. Dan was the kind of guy who had nothing beyond his macho image. His identity existed in his physical body, and in the cliche that women desired him because of it.

Sarah always hated that cliche; it offended her. But before her indoctrination by the Messenger, she'd been victimized by it herself, for her entire adult life. Now she had changed. Now she was different. Now she was strong.

Dan made her sick. His muscles, his tan, his good looks. It challenged her. He thought he was superior to women.

It was time for her to-

Do something about that, the Messenger whispered into her mind.

"I will," she said.

Dan looked up from another box. "You will, what?"

"Nothing, Danny Boy. Just keep flexing those muscles. Just keep thinking that you're God's gift to women. You gotta have something to keep that pea brain going."

He faced her, standing upright. "You really are trying me, aren't you?"

"What are you gonna do, Dan? Hmm?"

"I'm gonna do my job-I'm gonna do it well, like I always do-then I'm gonna go home and chalk this one up to experience. I don't know what your mind game is, Sarah, and I don't want to know. You're just a high-horse bitch who thinks she's better than everyone because she just got a pissant one-level raise. So why don't you go powder your fuckin' nose or something? I've got work to do."

The Messenger caressed her; Sarah sighed. Now her master was walking her forward toward Dan, outstretching her arms.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dan said, but he had no time to say anything more because Sarah hopped up on the table, wrapped her legs around him, and yanked his face to hers. She kissed him as if famished. Bewildered, he kept trying to pull away but her arms just kept getting tighter, and soon he was lost in her again. He just gave up and kissed her back.

Sarah and the Messenger loved to play with people.

"I don't get it," he said between kisses. "You're nuts. First you're giving me a ton of shit, and then...this..."

Sarah's hand slid up and down over his groin, feeling him through his post office shorts. When she felt him aroused she said, "What did you just say? You've got work to do?"

"Yeah," he replied, sucking her neck.

"Well, why don't you do it, instead of slacking?"

Dan pulled back, glaring at her.

"Instead of coming on to me, you should be sorting the letter mail."

"Coming on to you!" he almost shouted. "You came on to me!"

"Come on, Dan. I ought to write you up for this. Sexually harassing your supervisor-"

Enraged, he tried to push away again, but her legs wouldn't unwrap. When he grabbed her knees and tried to pull her legs apart, they didn't budge. Dan was a very strong man, so this puzzled him.

"You're just trying to set me up, you bitch," he breathed. "You're crazy. I'm gonna file a complaint about you."

Sarah chuckled. "Don't bother; it won't be taken seriously. I was going to fire you anyway-"

"For what?"

"Dan, you know what your job is. Everyday when you're done sorting the letter mail, you're supposed to maintain the central collation machine, and I know for a fact you haven't done that all week."

"Bullshit!"

"We've gotten a lot of complaints this week about letters getting torn by the machine. That means it's not calibrated right, doesn't it?"

Anger was bulging the veins in his forehead. "Yeah, that's what it means, but that hasn't happened. I clean the collator every day!"

Finally her legs unlocked, and she released him. She could feel the Messenger behind her, reveling in every moment of this. Turning the big muscular moron on and off, on and off.

When he pulled away, he stalked over to the collator, a long bulky machine nearly the size of a sedan. He flicked on the power switch-

"Come here!" he yelled at her. At the stack tray at the end of the machine, letters were filing out, untorn, perfectly stacked.

"There's nothing wrong with this!" he said. "You're just trying to make up crap about me, phony negligence charges. This machine's in perfect working order! I know it is, because I maintain it!"

The dreamy smile never left Sarah's face. She sauntered over and lifted the service hatch on the collator's midsection. When she did this, the racket from the machine trebled. Inside, gears hitched and revolved. Sharp-edged ratchets, with tines like rakes, snapped back and forth.

"Tell me those ratchets are aligned," she said.

Temper cresting, Dan looked inside, then glared back at her. "There's nothing wrong with them! What's your problem?"

"The lead ratchet. Look. It's out of line. Anyone can see that-at least anyone who knows their job."

Dan looked back in.

Sarah was not a strong woman, but the Messenger loaned her some great strength. One hand latched to the back of Dan's head by the hair, the other clamped his neck. Then she shoved him down.

The resistance he offered would have been considerable in any other circumstance. In this circumstance, however, Dan's strength against hers was akin to that of a palsied old man. He didn't make a sound when she shoved his face into the ratchet's teeth.

The machine made a sound, though, the sound of the ratchets suddenly working against Dan's face. Sarah's arms held him down as firmly as steel rods. His body shuddered. His massive legs kicked futily, and blood flew out of the machine like spaghetti sauce kicked out of a blender. When he fell still, Sarah pulled him out and let him turn over on the floor.

"Poor big muscular moron Danny Boy," she whispered down to her now-faceless subordinate. The rest of the DPS shift was gone now. She dragged him by the boots to the door in the corner.

The door to the basement.