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Sloan leaned back in his chair. “You think
they’re on to us?”
“Come on,” Walker responded. “They’ve been
all over you.”
“They don’t know anything about you. As far
as they know, you have nothing to do with it. They think this is
something
entirely different.”
“You mean you told them it was something different.
Get real, William. You know these people better than I do.
You
should know how smart they are. Even an idiot could see we were
working together.”
“You don’t know Derek,” Sloan disagreed. “He
would never imagine me working with you. Alex and Rachel probably
haven’t clued him in on me yet.”
Walker looked doubtful. “Well,” he said.
“We’ve got quite a surprise planned for them, anyhow.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ll show you,” Walker told him, then led him toward
the basement.
*
Alex threw herself onto the hard mattress.
“This place isn’t too inviting,” she stated.
“And to think Nick and Derek spent a week here.”
Rachel sat on the other bed and removed her shoes. “Are you sure
you want to stay here? We could go to a nicer motel, maybe even
get separate rooms.”
“I never knew you were so bashful.”
Rachel laughed. “I’m not used to sharing anything.
Kat doesn’t ask to sleep with me very much anymore. She’s
growing up so fast.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, she is.” She looked
around the room. “Let’s hope we’re not here for long,” she said,
settling into
bed.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Rachel replied.
*
Nick glared at Philip. “What are you doing
here?” he growled.
“What am I doing here? What about you?
You’re supposed to be in Maine! Where’s Derek?” the priest asked,
pushing
past Nick.
Nick grabbed the priest’s sleeve. “Hold on!
You haven’t answered my question.”
“Neither have you.”
“We got back from Maine last night.”
“Really? And what were you doing there in
the first place?”
Nick gritted his teeth, and exhaled shortly.
“We had to do a little research on this guy. It has nothing to do
with you
anyway.”
The color seeped from Philip’s face. “I’m
helping Alex and Rachel out. I’ve been very concerned about you,
but I can
see now that there was no reason to be. You’re just as stubborn
as ever.” He turned to leave, but was caught from
behind by Nick. He was whirled around by the younger man with
such force that he stumbled and fell heavily against
him.
Nick stumbled back, barely stopping himself from
falling. “Now, listen,” Nick growled. “There’s nothing that
concerns
you here. You made that very clear when you left the Legacy.
So just get on home to your nice, safe house and your
precious little church!”
“I won’t leave without you, Nick,” Philip said quietly.
Nick kept his eyes averted, but seemed to be listening. “This may
be hard for you to believe, but I am still your friend, and I still
care about you. Just because I’m not working with the
Legacy doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you every once in a while.”
Nick laughed. “You take care of me?” he scoffed.
“That’s right Mr. Boyle,” a voice said from the
doorway. “I’d say you could use your priestly friend’s help right
about
now.”
Nick watched stupidly as Walker entered the room,
Sloan close behind him.
“Good to see you again Nick,” Sloan said, and leveled
a gun at his chest. “It’s been too long.”
*
Derek groaned. “Does anybody else feel stupid?”
he asked, looking, with some difficulty, over his shoulder at the
women behind him.
“Oh no, Derek,” Alex replied sarcastically.
“We just got kidnapped by our own boss.”
“And tied ourselves up with our own hands,” Rachel
added, pulling at the ropes around her wrists.
“Just another day in the Legacy.”
All three looked up in astonishment as Philip was
pushed into the dark room. The lights came on suddenly and Sloan
and Walker sauntered in, with Nick between them.
“Well,” Slaon said with a smile, “now that we’re
all here.” He sat in the last empty chair and motioned for Walker
to
stand beside him. “I think you’ve all figured out by now that
I’m not exactly the person you thought I was.” He sighed
dramatically. “Oh well. You win some, you lose some.”
He stood now and walked casually to the door. Walker
followed. “There’s something that needs my attention now, but
I’ll be seeing you later. So, until then—“
Walker turned back to them and smiled. “I
wouldn’t get too comfortable,” he warned. “You’ll be leaving soon.”
He left
the room, and they could hear his laughter as he left even through
the closed door.
*
The room was very dark, but Nick found that after
about an hour, his eyes had pretty well adjusted, and he could barely
make out his friends. "You think we’ll get out of this?” he asked,
hoping to get a response from at least one person in the
room.
There was a long pause, and then Philip spoke up.
“See,” he said quietly. “I told you you’d need my help.”
Nick only sat silently for a moment, then gave in
and burst out laughing. “I guess so,” he admitted. Alex and
Rachel
joined in his laughter, as did Philip, and even Derek seemed to be
grinning.
The door opened with a bang and a shadow appeared
in the doorway. It was Walker. “Alright, everyone up,” he said,
then laughed as only Nick and Philip stood. “That’s right. The
rest of you are sort of tied down, aren’t you?” He laughed at
his own joke. “Hey, I thought it was funny.”
Rachel, Derek, and Alex didn’t move as Walker untied
them. When everybody was unbound, he walked toward the
door again. “Follow me,” he said briskly, then pulled Nick after
him.
With the exception of Nick and Philip, they had
all been blindfolded when brought to the room, so they were in for quite
a shock when they walked out. “Is this what I think it is?” Alex
asked in disbelief.
“That depends on what you’re thinking I guess,”
Nick replied.
“It looks like we’re at a school.”
“That’s because you are,” Walker said over his shoulder.
Isn’t she nice, though? My pride and joy. Wait until you see
the basement.”
Nick started. He had a sinking feeling as
he realized what Walker and Sloan had in store for them. “This isn’t
going to
be pretty,” he whispered in warning to Rachel. Walker glanced
at him over his shoulder, then smiled and continued
walking.
They finally reached the basement door. Walker
stopped and looked over them, then opened the door. He walked in,
and the Legacy members followed closely. “What day is it?” Alex
whispered suddenly.
Philip looked amused. “Friday.”
“Shouldn’t school be in?” she asked tersely.
Rachel nodded. Nick realized what Alex was thinking.
“Where are all the kids?” he asked.
Walker laughed again as he reached the bottom of
the stairs. The lights were on already in the basement, but Nick
could see that it was a different set than the ones he had turned on
before. Everything was cast in a faint ruddy glow.
“Right this way,” Walker said.
They came to a stop behind the first row of pew
facing the stage. The rows of pews seemed to stretch even further
than
Nick remembered. They were filled with children.
The room buzzed with excited conversation.
Nick looked in horror at the stage below, and the atrocities that stood
upon
it. Five sets of chains, a dozen or so sharp hooks and what appeared
to be an operating table in the center of it all.
Walker shook his head then stepped forward. “Quiet!” he shouted.
The children fell silent as all eyes turned toward
the group at the top of the stairs. Walker turned back to the group
and
smiled chillingly. “Welcome to eternity.”
*
Derek said nothing as the chains tightened around
his wrists. “You have to understand, Derek,” Sloan said, clamping
down the chains around Derek’s ankles, “we don’t have any choice now.
You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
Derek scoffed. “You’ve sold your soul for
nothing Sloan.”
“No Derek,” Sloan disagreed with a shake of his
head. “I’m just smarter than you are. Sometimes you have to
play the
game, you know. Sometimes you just have to play the game.”
“What game would that be, Sloan,” Philip asked.
“The devil’s?”
Sloan laughed. “Poor, naïve Philip, how
little you know of the world.”
Walker looked over at them, and stared hard at Sloan.
“Are you almost ready?” he asked.
“Just about,” Sloan answered, walking casually toward
the steps that led down backstage. “There’s just one detail
missing.”
Derek and the others waited in silence during Sloan’s
absence. He returned a moment later, dragging a young
woman behind him. Even with the gag and blindfold on, there was
something familiar about her. Derek, Philip and Alex
gasped as the blindfold and gag were removed.
Nick finally broke the silence. “Oh god no!”
*
Nick couldn’t breathe. He pushed harder against
the restraints, but only succeeded in hurting himself further. He
looked again at the young woman beside Sloan. “No,” he whispered,
then slumped down as the tears streamed down
his face. He tried to regain his composure, but with little success,
so returned his gaze once again to Sloan. “I’ve seen
her die twice,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t bear to watch it again.”
“Well, Nick,” Sloan responded. “That’s just
to bad, isn’t it? Come on,” he called to the woman, pulling her toward
the
operating table.
“Let her go!” Nick hissed through clenched teeth.
He struggled again with his bonds. Walker advanced on him with his
gun pointed directly at his chest. He poked the gun into Nick’s
ribs, then motioned for Sloan to go on. Nick watched
helplessly as the woman was tied to the table.
Derek finally spoke up. “That’s not her,”
he said clearly, looking pointedly at Nick. “It can’t be. She’s
dead.”
Nick could not stop the tears from flowing.
He lowered his head. “I don’t know how, Derek,” he said. “I
don’t know, but
somehow it’s her. I saw her before, at the café back home.
I made myself believe they just looked alike, but god, Derek,
it’s her.”
Derek couldn’t believe his ears. “You mean
you’ve known she was alive? And you said nothing?”
“I saw her other places too,” Nick continued miserably.
“At the motel that day, and she gave me her phone number,
and I didn’t even notice that it had been her number before she moved
in with us. I even called her. I, I—“ Nick
stammered, but couldn’t go on. “It’s her,” he repeated.
Rachel finally realized who the beautiful woman
before them was. “Julia!” she whispered, shocked. She looked
over
at Nick, but his eyes were glued to Sloan and the operating table.
Nick felt his life drained from him. He closed
his eyes, and shut out everything else, sure his life was no longer worth
living. He had been given a second chance with Julia, and he
had ruined it. Now there was nothing left to live for. He did
not open his eyes; he knew he could not stand to see her die another
time.
“This is ridiculous,” Derek hissed at him.
“Don’t you realize it, Nick? It has to be a trick, Julia’s dead,
there’s nothing
even they could do about that.” Nick didn’t respond. Derek
turned his attention back to Sloan and Walker. “Stop this
now,” he said.
“And miss all the fun? Come on Dr. Rayne,
really,” Walker said.
Derek looked out over the crowd of children that
stretched in front and above them. They stared ahead at the stage,
their faces rapt with attention and anticipation. Derek wondered
if they had any idea what they were about to witness.
Sloan made his way toward the front of the stage.
“All right, everybody, listen up!” he called. The children continued
to
watch in silence. “I’d like everybody to focus their attention
on the table over there,” he said, indicating the table Julia was
laid upon. Their eyes followed the movement of his arm.
“Now I want you to watch very carefully.” He nodded at Walker,
who moved closer to Julia.
Nick listened to Sloan as he spoke to the children,
but he still could not force himself to open his eyes and watch the
dreadful scene. Everything seemed to be spinning around him as
he heard Sloan give his next command.
“Kill her.”
His despair worsened even more and he tried desperately
to break the chains around him. “No!” a voice shouted.
Nick’s eyes flew open. He blinked in amazement,
but opened his eyes again quickly. He could not believe what he
was seeing.
Julia sat up on the table, and glared at the two
men near her. Her eyes seemed to be burning as she spoke to them.
“This is not how it is supposed to happen,” she said, but the voice
was not hers. Nick watched in shock as she stood and
faced the children. Her voice was low and booming as she cried,
“It does not happen like this!”
Sloan and Walker backed away from the enraged woman,
looking helplessly around the room for an escape. They
simultaneously turned from her and ran toward the steps leading up
to the rest of the basement.
“Stop pigs!” Julia boomed.
Nick caught himself thinking again of the woman
as Julia, but realized at last that what Derek had said was true.
This
thing on the stage could not possibly be his love.
Walker and Sloan stopped short, but neither could
meet the thing’s glaring stare. “You no longer command me!” the
thing shouted, advancing on the men. “Now it is time for you
to meet your destiny!” The two men were picked up by
some unseen force and thrown against the side of the stage.
Sloan picked himself up and stared with bulging
eyes at the woman. “This can’t be happening!” he yelled, his voice
breaking in terror. “I conjured you! You can’t turn on
me! This can’t be happening!” He wrung his hands in despair.
“Oh, come now, little pig,” the thing purred.
“Everybody knows a demon can’t be trusted. Hasn’t the Legacy taught
you
anything?” Sloan was thrown against the stage wall again, this
time with more force. “I guess I’ll just have to teach you.”
Nick experienced a whirlwind of confusion as the
demon advanced on Sloan. The truth finally hit him with crushing
impact. The school, Julia, his father; all of it had been a trick
to lure the Legacy members to Santa Mira. Walker and
Sloan had planned the perect trap for them, and they fell right into
it. He shut his eyes again as the betrayal and despair
set in.
Derek pulled again on his restraints, then looked over to Philip.
“Can you get rid of it?” he asked as quietly as he could.
“I think so,” Philip answered. He closed his
eyes, and struggled to remember the words that he had spoken so many
times before he left the Legacy. They came back to him suddenly,
and he focused his attention on the demon, crying out
at the top of his voice in Latin. The demon turned toward him,
rage burning in its eyes. Then, to everyone’s horror, it
began to transform.
Julia’s beautiful face seemed almost to melt as
the skin around the bones stretched and contorted. The jawbone
elongated, and the nose spread out and the nostrils flared out, leaving
in the nose’s place a giant snout. The body
punched out of the confinements of the clothes and dirty gray flesh
appeared in its place. The demon now fully faced
them, its eyes burning a bright red.
Philip blocked out the screams and crying of the
children and the enraged demon. He concentrated on finishing the
verses, determined to send the demon back to Hell. He did not
even hesitate the demon approached him.
Nick clenched his fists, and begged his throat silently
to allow sound out. “Philip!” he shouted. “Hurry up!”
Philip spoke even faster. He was almost to
the end of the incantation. A black vortex appeared behind the demon.
As
Philip spit out the last few words, the demon was pulled back with
tremendous force toward the vortex. It shrieked again
in rage, then was swallowed by the vortex and vanished.
Nick and the others stared in shock at the place
where it had been standing. Nick finally managed to avert his eyes
and
glanced over at Walker and Sloan at the side of the stage. What
remained of their bodies was completely motionless. He
turned his head and looked out over the children. “So!” he called.
“Who wants to help us down?”
*
Rachel lightly touched Nick’s shoulder. “Feeling
any better?” she asked.
“A little. Just my luck to catch the flu the week before
Christmas,” he said with a laugh.
Rachel shrugged. “It could be worse.”
“I guess,” Nick agreed, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
“I could—“ his voice broke off as he was hit by another coughing fit.
“Forget it,” Derek said. “Rest.”
Nick didn’t argue, but rolled over a little on the
couch and shut his eyes.
Rachel smiled lightly at the Precept, and the two
left the parlor in silence. “He seems to be handling the situation
pretty
well,” she said confidently.
Derek nodded. “Yes, that’s apparent.
I’m certainly glad. He’s received a lot of nasty shocks thanks to
Walker and
Sloan. And Nick can be a real terror when you throw too many surprises
at him.”
“Hey, I heard that!”
Derek and Rachel laughed. Then Rachel shook
her head. “I still can’t believe Sloan would do this. What
on earth
possessed him to turn against us?”
“I don’t know,” Derek replied, “but I’m sure it
started years ago with my father and Jonathan Boyle.”
“I just wish there was something, anything, to give
us a clue.” She paused. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know.”
Nick appeared in the doorway looking haggard, sick,
and definitely upset. “How am I supposed to get any rest with all
this chatter?” he asked somewhat rudely. Derek and Rachel only
looked at each other, then at the front door as Alex
walked in.
“Hey guys,” she said.
“Alex,” Nick muttered, then coughed again.
“You’ll never guess what happened after I dropped
Philip off,” she said, removing her coat.
“What?” the others asked together.
Alex’s eyes widened, then turned to a burning red.
Her voice changed to match the voice of the demon. “Oh come on,
guess.”