Chapter Twenty-three

I

Landslides of nightmares shocked her awake. She was in a police car, being raced somewhere in the night, red-and-blue lights pulsing above her. The cop driving was a sergeant named Stanton, whom she'd seen around.

Jane's mind felt wiped clean.

"What happened?" she murmured, but then another landslide spilled into her mind and she remembered.

"Steve was shot?"

"Yeah," Stanton said. "I still can't believe it. I guess he was part of this cult thing all along. It's crazy."

Aldezhor, the name creaked in her ears.

The Messenger.

"How did the police know what he was doing?"

"Anonymous tip. We traced the call. Guess where it came from?"

Jane shook her head, having no idea.

"The BellSouth payphone nearest the west branch post office."

Jane felt too fractured to try to make sense of it.

"So we sent every cop on the shift to his house. Through the window one of our guys saw him coming at you with the knife, so that was all she wrote."

She shuddered, recalling the impact and concussion of the shot.

"Where are we going now?" she asked.

"The hospital. The doctor wants to look at you, make sure you're all right. You could be in shock, plus you fell pretty hard."

"No!" she blurted. "I'm fine. I need you to take me to my house! I have to make sure my kids are all right!"

"No can do," Stanton said. "I have my orders. First the hospital, then you gotta come in to make a statement."

"To hell with that!" she shouted, head throbbing. "Take me to my kids," and that's when she noticed that Stanton turned left at the next corner. The sign read hospital, next right, and then two hands behind her grabbed her hair and dragged her into the backseat. Jane screamed like screeching brakes.

"Christ, that's annoying" a voice said. "Shut her up, will ya?"

Martin Parkins placed one rotting palm across her lips, pressed down hard, then squeezed her throat till her eyes bulged. More weight arranged itself over her; her blouse was pulled open, her breasts mauled.

"Sarah and Marlene at her house?" the voice asked.

"Yeah, they're tying up the kids, getting them ready."

Jane's heart felt like a grenade whose pin had just been pulled.

"Good. I'm gonna start cutting her now, been itching to put the Messenger's mark on these tits. We won't rape her till we get back to her house-I want the kids to see that too."

"I get a piece, don't I?"

A laugh. "Martin, your dick rotted off days ago."

"What about me?" Stanton asked over his shoulder.

"After me, partner."

Jane felt certain she was dying; she wished she would die. An insane glance forward showed her the shadow-shape machinating Stanton's hands on the steering wheel, then another glance directly upward showed her Steve, with a bullet hole in his head, grinning down, and that's when he brought the knife tip to her bare chest and began to carve in the campanulation-

"-Ms. Ryan? Ms. Ryan."

Jane arched her back in the front seat of the police car, gasping for air as though she'd just been saved from drowning.

"Jesus, what's wrong?"

It was Stanton, next to her, looking very concerned. "Sounded like you were having a whopper of a nightmare."

Her eyes darted, frantic. "Where are we?"

"Your house. That's where you said you wanted to go."

Jane rushed out the car, ran up her drive, and swung open the front door.

"Hi, Mom!"

"Hi, Mom!"

Jane nearly fainted again, from relief. Kevin and Jennifer sat contentedly on the couch, watching poodles jump rope on Animal Planet.

Both rushed up to her, hugging her. "The police lady said she wasn't sure when you'd be home," Jennifer told her, and then Jane saw the female officer sitting in a chair next to the couch.

"They were good as gold, Ms. Ryan," the officer said. "Everything's fine. I was about to get them off to bed."

"Not yet, Mom!" Kevin pleaded.

"Yeah, Mom, can we at least stay up and watch the rest of Animal Planet?"

Her arms trembled around their shoulders. She wanted to cry and laugh and shriek with joy at the same time.

"Call us if you need anything, Ms. Ryan," the female officer said. "I'll get a ride back with Stanton."

"Thuh-thank you," Jane stammered.

"Good night."

The officer left, after which Jennifer and Kevin practically dragged her to the couch. They don't know about anything that happened tonight, she realized, with even more gratitude.

"Mom, can we make popcorn?" Kevin asked.

"Sure."

"I'm gonna make it," Jennifer insisted. "Kevin always does the butter wrong in the microwave-"

"I do not!"

"Both of you make it," Jane suggested.

"Good idea!" and then the kids were off to the kitchen.

Just when the comforting silence settled over her, the phone blared. Jane gasped again, clutching her chest. Jesus! If I don't have a heart attack today, I never will...

She looked at the phone. Steve, came the most macabre thought. The undertow of her nightmare in the patrol car was seeping back. But, no, it couldn't be Steve. He was dead.

She let it ring several more times before summoning the courage to answer it.

"Hello?"

"I'm glad you're safe ..."

Jane recognized the accent at once. "Professor Dhevic..."

"I called the police when I was finished at the post office-"

"How did you know what was happening?" she asked, astonished.

When he didn't reply, she felt foolish. He simply knew, she realized at once. "Sorry. Dumb question. But thank you. You saved my life."

"It was never actually in jeopardy." Did he chuckle? "Trust me."

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you," she said next. "I thought you were one of them."

"That's understandable, considering what Chief Higgins planted in my motel. But none of that matters now. It's over. And you and your children are safe."

Yes, she finally realized. They were. "What about you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Where do you go now? More TV documentaries?"

Dhevic groaned over the line. "Only when my benefactors pay me late."

She paused. "Who exactly are your benefactors, Professor?"

"It doesn't matter," he said. "They'll be very pleased when they next hear from me. But I'll be leaving town now, to go somewhere else."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes."

Another pause. She didn't know what to say to this man who'd just saved her life.

"So I'm off now, I'm off for the next one. I just wanted to say good-bye."

She couldn't fully understand what he meant. "Good-bye, Professor."

"I'm not a very proficient 'holy roller,' Ms. Ryan, but please take this quote from The Book of Mark to heart. 'Your faith has made you well.' Think about that."

Jane kept the phone to her ear even after the dial tone came on. Has it? she wondered. Has my faith really made me well?

She supposed she'd find out in time.

But one thing puzzled her. I wonder what he meant when he said, I'm off for the next one?

The next what?

Jane hung up the phone.

Dhevic hung up the phone.

II

The new motel was little better than the first, but he wasn't complaining. His quest was over for now. His mind felt blissfully quiet-no inklings, not a single presage. He let out a great sigh in his chair behind the little desk topped by a Gideon's Bible. In the briefcase by his feet rested the striker, inert now, harmless against his aura and his faith. Tomorrow his benefactors would meet him at the Tampa airport, and would take the striker to the Security Depository of the Swiss Guards, at the Vatican, and place it in the locked vault for such relics.

He winced when he sipped his carryout coffee from the motel lobby. Behind him, the television babbled innocuously; Dhevic wasn't much for TV but he liked to have the set on for the welcome distraction. But then he heard:

"Welcome to another edition of Satanism and Witchcraft, America's premier presentation on the occult. Tonight's guests are master psychic Jeremy Hoty; the lucid-dreaming priest, Father Jason Judd; and the world renown clairvoyant, Professor Alexander Dhevic-"

Dhevic yanked the television cord out of the wall.

Oh, the things we do for money, he thought.

It had been a relatively short quest this time, yet he felt worn out. Nothing surprised him anymore. He knew, though, that he'd sleep better than he had in a long while. He'd sleep without dreams and without visions.

The prospect enthused him.

His folder lay on the desk, the anonymous engraving of the Cymbellum Eosphorus. He looked down at it with a touch of vertigo, and a cringe in the belly. All done for tonight, he concluded and got ready for bed. Five down and one to go...

Another polycarbonate plate lay under the first, supposedly from the same book; below the frame, its title could be seen: Metallurgous de Aldezhor, or The Metalworks of Aldezhor. Before a fiery furnace, demonic iron smiths forged and hammered star-ended bell strikers on mammoth anvils. There were exactly six such strikers being forged.