It was the ultimate in deception, but that was who he was. He had been deceiving man since the beginning of time.
Shaughn nodded at Quentin's orders. He smiled at the thought of the power that would one day be his.
As Evelyn watched Shaughn's eyes cleared. He returned his attention to her. Evelyn hyperventilated. She gasped out, “No!”
Shaughn arrogantly stepped forward in a smooth stroke reminiscent of Micah.
Evelyn, recognizing the move, clutched her chest. The pain was so sharp she thought she was going to have a heart attack. Yes, a heart attack would be good, preferable even.
She couldn't live through this hell anymore. Suddenly she was repulsed by the fact that Shaughn could take on Micah's qualities.
Her skin crawled as the realization of the murders, the atrocities he must have committed, and the terror he must have inflicted on others, as well as the beast that he must've become, fell like tiny bits of micro-information in her mind.
She was horrified at the senseless evil.
Shaughn reached into her mind and probed her thoughts. He felt her repulsion. She shook her head and he smiled. “Evelyn Braswell Jordan-Wells. Yes, I can be Micah when I want to. Does that bother you? Do you think he's too pure to get his hands dirty as I have?”
Evelyn tried to back up but there was nowhere to go.
“You're a tiebreaker,” Shaughn told her. “So many dead women. There were six in all. How many times do I have to kill you?”
Shaughn's breathing escalated. “Why didn't you just stay dead?!”
Evelyn's eyes widened.
“Silky was a puppet,” Shaughn said, relishing the facts of his story, “I was the one who sculpted and took the time to set up your portrait. You are a portrait you know, nothing more, all pretty on the outside and nothing inside.”
Shaughn laughed as he remembered. “Silky wouldn't know art if it slapped him in the face. That was one body I was glad to get out of. The man was a simpering, whining fool. All that drama, still pining for his mama.”
Evelyn's hands flew to her mouth. Shaughn continued to look at her intently. “You're also a whore, you know.” Evelyn gasped, as Shaughn crawled down into the gutter of the English language. “How could I come from the womb of a whore? You're just like them. Only you're worse because you slept with the enemy.”
“Stop it!” Evelyn screamed at him. “Stop it!”
Vaughn was unable to bear Evelyn's cries of anguish. When Shaughn let his mind drift for a moment, Vaughn scurried for the front position. He stumbled out and fell at Evelyn's feet.
“Hold me, Mommy!” Vaughn reached up to her as she backed away, inching her way toward the door, but Shaughn shoved Vaughn out of the way and climbed to his feet.
The air in the room was possessed with a dark presence. It rippled with force. Contaminated rage streaked across Shaughn's face. He reached out a hand. He touched her hair. He smoothed his hand across her dark thick locks peppered with gray.
Evelyn cringed. He went on stroking. Shaughn's voice turned to a soft whisper, “Hold me, Mommy.”
Evelyn's arms were frozen in place. Shaughn's voice took on a dreamy quality. “You are such a perfect beauty. Just like a mother should be. I'm your son. I'm your first born by two minutes. You didn't know I knew that, did you? Hold me.”
Evelyn stared up at him. Stark fear sprayed from her eyes. It carved itself across her features. Her face turned into a hideous mask.
Shaughn tightened his hand on her hair. He yanked her head so hard, Evelyn's neck snapped from the sheer force of it. A bolt of pain shot through her. He screamed in her face, his rage boiling to the surface, “I said hold me! Pretend I'm your precious Micah! Put your arms around me and say you love me! Do it!”
Evelyn's arms flew around his neck. Shaughn leaned in her face and yelled, “Say it!”
Evelyn could feel his hot breath in her face. His eyes were void. There was nothing there. A deep dark pit of nothingness beheld her.
She forced the bile back down into her belly, which rose in her throat. She croaked out, “I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . love you.”
“You're a liar! You're also a walking dead woman!”
Vaughn was weeping. He tried to get air. He found a surge of strength. The most he had ever had and, for a second in time, he shoved Shaughn into the deep dark place and yelled out, “No! Don't kill her! No, Shaughn! I don't want her to die!”
He had just found his mother. She couldn't die. Shaughn couldn't kill her. He wouldn't let him. What was wrong with him? Vaughn struggled to keep Shaughn in the dark place so he could have control of the body, “No, Shaughn!” he shouted.
Evelyn watched. Her heart reached out to Vaughn, but he was no match for Shaughn. If she could figure out a way to keep Vaughn out, she might have a chance, but Shaughn's hatred of her was so powerful that Vaughn didn't stand a chance and she knew it.
Before Evelyn could think of a thing to do or say, Shaughn was back. He now shoved Vaughn down into the third level of darkness. Vaughn was really scared. He had never been down this deep. He was crying.
“Shut up!” Shaughn told him. “I'm sick of your whining.”
Shaughn was straight bugging out now. In front of Evelyn's startled eyes, Shaughn and Vaughn flipped back and forth. Vaughn didn't want to be at this level. It was too dark. He was lonely, afraid.
With another powerful surge of strength he didn't know he possessed, Vaughn floated to the surface. Shaughn was flipping back and forth between his alter and himself.
Getting sick of the game of tug of war he and Vaughn were engaged in, Shaughn glanced in the mirror. With a withering glance at Vaughn he was back in control. This time when he pushed Vaughn into the third level, he told him, “I don't need you anymore. Be gone.”
An electric pop shook the body. It killed the electricity in the room; such was the power of it.
Vaughn found himself falling, falling into the deep dark space, one level and then two levels. The levels kept coming and coming until he didn't know how many he had passed. He struggled, but all of his might had somehow been sapped from him. The abyss was just up ahead. He could see it waiting to catch him.
Vaughn reached the circle of darkness. He was sucked in by a whirlwind. His voice was extinguished and finally silenced on the way down into the whirling pool of black. Vaughn's last words were. “I love you, Mommy. I love you.”
And then he was gone.
The lights dimmed and then came back on. Shaughn was back in control, full control. His alter had been silenced forever. He would never hear Vaughn's whining voice again. He didn't need him nor did he want him anymore.
Having witnessed Vaughn's death, Evelyn crumbled. She knew the only chance Shaughn might have had for redemption was now dead and goneâand buried with him was her only hope for survival.
Evelyn shook so hard her teeth rattled. Shaughn was not moved. “Like I said, you are a walking dead woman. The payment is due, Evelyn. I want you to die. You didn't want me and now I don't want you.”
Shaughn paced the solarium. His spirit was restless. He needed to kill her. He would once he'd had his say.
“How does it feel?” He paused in his pacing, rethinking his plan. “You know what, Evelyn. I've decided that first your precious baby goes. You know him. Micah Jordan-Wells. After you stare into his eyes dulled by death, then and only then will it be your turn to die. First you suffer. Then you die.”
Evelyn screamed. She reached for Shaughn's throat, choking him. She wanted to choke the blackness right out of him. He pushed her viciously away. Then backhanded her with the force of ten men.
Evelyn struck her head on the edge of the fountain. She blacked out. Blood trickled from her forehead and the side of her mouth. Shaughn laughed. He spat on her. She was a selfish witch if he'd ever seen one. “You're garbage!” he told the figure on the floor.
Shaughn headed into the kitchen for a bowl of soup. He sniffed the air, the aroma smelled delicious. After he ate, he would get ready to come face to face with Micah.
“Micah Jordan-Wells. Yeah,” he said, “it's been a long time coming, Micah. Now it's time for the prophecy to be fulfilled. I'll tell you what. You can call me Criss Cross.”
Shaughn was jubilant with power.
He loved the way the name Criss Cross rolled off his tongue. More than that, he loved what it meant. It was the highest pinnacle of power. He was the inheritor of Quentin Curry, the man who never slept. The man, who simply put, was power.
Yeah. It was time to get it on. It was time for him to take his place in history.
After all he
was
Criss Cross . . .
Chapter 40
M
icah recklessly screeched to a halt in front of Evelyn's house. A quiet rain fell washing the city of Newark in its wetness. Micah leaped from the car. He ran up to the house, inserting his key in the lock.
He stepped inside the foyer and came face to face with Shaughn. Shaughn watched him sardonically. He sized him up. The two locked eyes. The battle was already raging in their souls.
Micah was stunned at the identical resemblance. Here was the brother he never knew. Once again Shaughn had altered his appearance. The one he would have to take down. He was a celebrated detective, risking his life to right the wrongs of society.
His brother was a sadistic serial killer of demonic proportions. Ironically, he had been born of the same woman as Micah. And she had been forced to abandon one of her children, most notably because he was demon spawn. The irony of this was not lost on him.
Quentin Curry had taken her life away. Micah Jordan-Wells would destroy him for that single act. He had forced darkness into her womb. Now its manifestation stood looking at him.
Quentin Curry had taken away her weapons through fear, intimidation. He had dominated her. But ultimately he had beaten her down by ripping the very foundation from underneath her feet. He had taken away her most powerful weapon. That had been her faith in God.
A dark veil fell over Micah's face. He witnessed death, the death of one life and the resurrection of another. Now it would be a different story. He had the power to rewrite the ending, and rewrite it he would.
First, he would dispense of Quentin's seed. Then he would dispense with Quentin.
Micah stared into the mirror image before him. The eyes were empty. They reflected darkness. The recesses were nothing more than a pit. Fury laid its hand on him. Shaughn had killed numerous women and kids for what he considered sport.
Micah was the first to speak. When he did, his voice was laced with a tone that even he didn't recognize. “So it's you,” he said.
“In the flesh. Sorry Silky couldn't be here. Whoosh! Up in flames. He's gone. It really was him, you know. I left after I killed the women. Dearly departed.”
Micah's eyes turned to slits. “Really. I thought that was you jumping up on the counsel table saying you were wrath.”
Shaughn laughed. “I put in the occasional appearance. I told you I'd be back to eat your young. I'm back.”
A glow peeked out from the depths of Shaughn's eyes. He stared at the door. It slammed shut.
Micah didn't flinch or make the slightest move.
“What is the tie that binds, Micah?”
“A mother, Shaughn. Isn't that the answer you were searching for all along? The tie that you never had.”
“Very good, Micah Jordan-Wells,” Shaughn drew Micah's name out, nastily, every single syllable tinged with the icicles of his hatred for Micah. “You go to the head of the class.”
“Where's my mother, Shaughn?”
Micah didn't like the eerie silence of the house. He knew he would kill Shaughn without hesitation if anything had happened to Evelyn. It wasn't even a question of if. More like how soon. Shaughn was a reptile. He made Micah's skin crawl.
Instead of answering Micah's question, Shaughn said to him, “You're a rude boy, Micah.”
A loud crash sounded behind Micah. Micah turned instinctively at the sound. Shaughn stepped up behind him. He hit Micah in the base of his skull with an antique paperweight that was sitting on a bookshelf, knocking him out cold.
Chapter 41
W
olfgang paced his office. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He looked at the telephone for the hundredth time and still it didn't ring.
He walked over to look out the window. A heavy rain drenched Newark. He could hear the drops as they pelted against the windows. He pressed his face against the pane of glass. He watched the rain as it fell in sheets across the city.
Pure madness had gripped his department. What an arcane idea. The twinning of a cop and a serial killer, in the spirit, to gain power over some supposed war on earth. He had now heard it all.
Regardless of what he felt the killer was very real. His victims were real. He had to be stopped. The mind games of this maniac had cost them a great deal. He knew they had never been up against a killer of this particular magnitude. It could not be dismissed. It was what it was. What it was, like it or not, was real.
Even through the documented annals of crime, where evil had shown its face in many different ways this killer was of a distinctive rank. To underestimate him would be fatal.
Wolfgang walked over to his chair. He didn't know where Micah was. He had more access to Micah's life than any other human being on the earth. But he didn't know where he was.
Micah's life was in serious danger. The killer had set him up as a murder suspect, had lived his life, slept with his woman, and had put everything Micah trusted in jeopardy. In the process he had nearly destroyed his soul. It was a clever setup to say the least.
“If anyone can take him head-on, Micah can,” Wolfgang spoke the words out loud. They sounded more reassuring as he listened to the sound of his own voice.
Someone knocked. Before he could say “come in,” the door opened. Nugent rushed into the office. “I can't locate Micah anywhere. Where the hell is he?” Wolfgang said.
“I think I might know. I just came from having a talk with Reverend Erwin Jackson at the New Jersey Institute of Living where Silky was raised.”
“And?”
Nugent pulled out a file. He laid it on the desk. Wolfgang reached for it. Nugent placed his hand on top of it.
“Before you open this I want you to know that this file belongs to one of the sons of Evelyn Braswell Jordan-Wells. The one she gave away when he was six years old.”
Wolfgang stared at the file as though it had suddenly come alive. Nugent opened the file. He removed two headshots. The face of Micah Jordan-Wells was in each picture.
Nugent picked up the picture on his right. Each one was marked on the back. “This picture came from our police files. Micah Jordan-Wells.”
Nugent picked up the other picture. “This picture came from the New Jersey Institute of Living. Shaughn Braswell.”
Wolfgang shook his head. “What in the hell?”
“Shaughn Braswell is Micah Jordan-Wells's brother. They're identical twins. You're looking at Criss Cross.”
“Incredible,” Wolfgang mumbled.
“Justin was right, Wolfgang. Twinning. Shaughn believes Micah is holding the other half of the power he needs. He plans to take the power by twinning with him. The common thread is that they're brothers.”
“Spiritual theft. It's a merger of the spirits just like Justin said. The reverend believes tonight is the night of the final twinning. It's a prophecy that's been planned for some time. Micah is the other half of that prophecy. Criss Cross must have Micah's half to gain the ultimate power.”
Wolfgang was still looking at the pictures. “I'll be damned. You can't tell one from the other.”
“That's how he was able to impersonate Micah. If he walked in here right now, neither of us would know the difference. According to the reverend his speech pattern and mannerisms are the same as Micah's.”
Nugent looked out the window at the falling sheets of rain pounding the city of Newark.
“As crazy as it sounds it looks as though Shaughn was somehow in possession of Silky's body. He took complete control of him. He committed the murders of the women in Silky's body. Silky was no more than a puppet. Shaughn killed the boys on his own. He's acting out because Evelyn gave him away. Hell, he killed her six times that we know of.
“He wants to extinguish Micah. Silky told Micah in court that he didn't even know who he was. It was true. He was warning Micah. Micah is part of some weird inheritance. And he's in Criss Cross's way. For all points and purposes, it is a deadly place to be.”
Nugent turned his attention from the window. “Shaughn needs the power he perceives to be Micah's. In order to gain it, he has to kill him. Tonight is the final chapter. We'd better go.”
“Where?”
“Where else? We're going where it all started. Evelyn Braswell Jordan-Wells's manor. I'll explain on the way. That's where Micah is. Let's go.”