"Did the stab wounds kill Marley?" Tanner asked.
"It's my guess he drowned."
Tanner thanked the policeman and headed back to his car. If Ahern found Marley's killer he'd be hard pressed to put him on trial. Unless he assembled some sort of tribunal of priests, Tanner thought.
He walked toward the water’s edge, past the sheet-covered body to a spot where the water lapped at cattails and licked his shoes. A narrow, almost unnoticeable path had been made through the reeds. They had been pushed apart, evidently to allow passage.
He wanted Danube back. Things were getting out of hand, and despite his reservations, the red-bearded man seemed to represent the best chance of finding an answer to all of this.
And ending it.
~*~
Gab sat with Katrina at the kitchen table, sipping her third cup of coffee. She had not slept well, and the caffeine gave her a temporary boost to keep going. She had not cried, but remorse had seized her when word had come of the minister's death.
"It's not your fault," Katrina said, reading her thoughts. "You couldn't have prevented it."
"He was trying to help me, Kat. That wouldn't have happened to him if it weren't for me."
"You don't know that anything happened besides his
runnin
' off the road. That does happen. Doesn't mean ghost demons got him."
"Tanner went to check it out, but last night, after Reverend Marley had gone, Heaven woke up and was upset. She said he shouldn't have left here."
"Are you saying she had a premonition?"
"I think those things talk to her and she's afraid to tell me about it. You remember how upset she was at your house?"
"She was scared of seeing them on TV, but then she got over it for a while."
"She endured them when I was around because she didn't want to upset me. They must have told her something was going to happen to people trying to help me."
"Gab, you're tired. All of this bullshit is starting to get to you. This guy in the monkey suit has convinced you all this is real, and you're believing it."
"Tanner and Althea are convinced, and if you'd seen what's gone on, you'd believe it too."
"Right, right. Look, you need to get out of this house. You can come stay with me for a while, get your mind off this and regroup and get Heaven some help. You don't need to see this Danube character again if he comes back."
"He may be the only one that can help. You've got to understand, this is not something normal that's happening."
"Gab, you're not
bein
' rational. This is crazy."
"I've got to think of Heaven. Whatever it takes. If I have to bring a priest in to perform an exorcism, I'll do it."
"Listen to yourself. You've got to pull yourself together. There are no
Gnelfs
."
"Don't be so sure," Tanner said from the doorway.
Gab was out of her chair and moving toward him before Katrina could protest. "What happened?" Gab demanded.
Tanner embraced her. "They found stab wounds on his body. It looks like somebody sat beside him and poked at him until he ran off the road."
"Oh, God." Gabrielle buried her face against his shoulder.
"She didn't need to hear that," Katrina said, giving Tanner a hard, cold look.
"It happened," he said.
"Is everybody going crazy?" Katrina asked.
"It's my fault," Gab said.
"No. It's the fault of whoever is causing this," Tanner said.
"Dave? Or whoever."
"Maybe Danube will know something."
"You're trusting this guy?" Katrina shrugged. "He's a nut. He just wanders in with some explanation about nuns in the Balkans and you guys buy it?"
"Katrina, we've seen unbelievable things happen," Gabrielle said. "We have to trust him. He's the only one with any answers."
"So he's snowed all of you. He must be some kind of cult leader. Don't drink any of his Flavor Aid. You think Dave is out in California summoning hobgoblins to aggravate Heaven and kill preachers?"
"Somebody's doing something," Gab said calmly.
"I think it's getting worse," Tanner said. "Up until last night they were all pranks, even the assaults on Heaven weren't deadly. Now they're getting brutal, and they actually were able to do things to Marley physically. Before they were able to assault Heaven, but when they went after Althea they manipulated the things around her. Think about it. It was the same here with the table. They didn't directly assault us."
"They didn't kill Marley directly if they caused him to run off the road," Gab said.
"No, but they were able to affect his actions. It's like they're gaining ground. Any one of us can serve as their channel—or whatever Danube was talking about. All of us have the gate symbols in our brains, and the more tangible the
Gnelfs
seem to us, the more they're able to do. I think they're using our thoughts to take physical form."
"You're all going crazy," Katrina said. "Gab, you shouldn't be hanging around with this guy. I might have known a writer would be weird."
Tanner grinned in spite of their grim situation.
"What I'm saying is that these forces are gaining power over us. It's like they're using our thoughts, our images to make themselves real, tangible in the here and now."
"You’re saying the more we conceptualize them—"
"The more that concept becomes real," Tanner finished.
"That's crazy," Katrina said. "
Y'all's
imaginations are coming to life?"
"No, our imaginations are being used by spirits without form to create forms for themselves. We're open to being used because we've seen the symbols of the gates in the children's books."
"Did you get all this from that rabbi?" Katrina asked.
"No. I'm a writer. I'm thinking it up as I go along."
"It doesn't make sense to me," Katrina admitted.
" Heaven was susceptible first because she has the imagination of a child and no skepticism," Gab said.
"That's why she was cut directly," Tanner said. "Marley had reached that point in his car."
"And they could strike any of us now," Gab said.
~*~
Althea returned to Gab's place in mid-afternoon, tired and ready to collapse. She had not cried for Marley, but she'd felt tears as she'd spoken with his wife. She knew holding her own grief back was not emotionally healthy, but she could not indulge personal pain. She had to be on hand for Gabrielle and Heaven. Marley had died for his calling, and she would not relinquish the commitment to help people. It had cost her a marriage, and it had cost her in other ways, but she couldn't run away from that responsibility now. She had made a vow.
True, her involvement had been with catalogued theories, but confronted with a reality totally alien, she would face this evil in whatever form it chose.
She had suffered as a child, trapped in the world of her mother and her mother's lovers. She remembered Theodore, the one who had moved in, the one who had wanted to be her "uncle" the one who’d left scars that had not been erased even by therapy.
People could find so many ways to hurt each other and use each other.
Some entirely different method was being used to attack Heaven, but was it that different? It all wound up being the same thing—assault, violation that tore at the very soul. Someone out there had feelings perceived as needs, and whatever had to be done, whoever had to suffer, to fulfill those needs did not matter. Marley was dead, others were hurt and frightened.
She would do everything in her power to keep Heaven from suffering the trauma and the horrible nights she herself had known, and if possible she would help Gabrielle fight back.
"You look pretty tired too," Gab said.
For the first time Althea noticed how deep and black the circles under Gab's eyes were. "None of this is your fault," she said.
" I must have done something, something that's brought the wrath of hell down."
Althea shook her head, remembering the guilt she had carried for so long. It had been years before she had spoken of it, not until she had begun to make breakthroughs, to achieve understanding. Now she heard the feelings that had once plagued her coming from Gab's lips.
"You are being made a victim," Althea said softly. “Someone is using Heaven to bring guilt and pain to you. The blame goes to whoever is behind this, Dave or whatever or whoever it is."
Softly she touched Gab's hair, wishing she could offer comfort, but all of her training and experience did not give her words. This was a hell that had to be endured.
~*~
Danube watched through the cabin window as the jet climbed through blue-gray storm clouds. Tiny droplets of water formed on the glass outside, were quickly pressed flat and became small moist streaks like the tracks of tiny slugs. Then they were above the clouds, and he was looking out across a blanket of damp gray cotton, but he felt like he was sitting still.
It had been a mistake to leave Gabrielle and Heaven.
He had faced many dark forces during his time with the order, but now he could sense something or someone had seized great power. Vibrations inside him were more intense than he had known, even in the presence of almost pure evil.
The use of the gates was just the beginning. More and more power could be obtained, and if the proper doors were opened he could only begin to list the nightmares which might be released.
The drugged-out man he had left in Los Angeles could not be responsible, nor were the
Gnelfs
' creators aware of the full extent of the powers with which they had dabbled. What did that leave?
Some other lunatic who had been able to lay hands on forbidden writings.
He wondered how bad it would be if he lost. In losing, at least he might be set free. Free for the first time in almost an eternity.
A new scene fluttered into view, projected above the clouds from his memory, a dirt road, crowded on either side by people, hundreds of people, perhaps thousands. They shouted and jeered at the man walking down the road, Roman legionnaires behind him.
Danube had stood among the crowd, not jeering or throwing things or spitting. He was too young for that, too young to be swept up in the frenzy. He did not understand why they hated the man so. He could not explain the fury in their cries. The man—he had hardly known him—had seemed so gentle, so caring.
Many things were confusing. He could not understand why his father had been so withdrawn the night before, so despondent and sick.
Had he been upset because he knew his friend was to be punished?
Shimmers of heat danced across the brown dust, layering the ground, and he could smell the sweat and the blood which dripped and oozed from the man's mangled back as he passed.
Then as the man reached the spot where the boy stood, he turned his face toward him. In his eyes was the same kindness that had always been there, but the pupils were clouded with agony.
He reached out then, touching the boy's cheek. The contact left blood and dirt as he was prodded on, and the lad's tiny hand reached up to feel that sticky residue.
The boy knew then that his father had betrayed the man. The realization seared into his brain as if he had been struck by a solid ray from the overhead sun. The man had trusted his father, had loved his father, and had been destroyed by him.
At that moment he knew he would have to make amends for the man's betrayal, he would have to atone.
Now, so much later, he could still remember the look in the eyes, the touch, and the anguish he had felt. Had any of it prepared him for what was coming now? Could any of his past experiences or his dedication since the moment the stranger's hand had touched his cheek prepare him for what awaited?
Perhaps he was facing the last battle, the battle that would release him from his commission and would let his soul go free to whatever reward or condemnation was to be bestowed upon it.
Tanner slept for a while, showered, and tried to write, but his imagination was blocked by thoughts of Marley. Rising, he started toward the kitchen. The computer popped as it cooled, making him wheel and look back … at nothing. A smile of relief crossed his face, and he continued. He was not thirsty, but a glass of water, the act of running the tap and drinking, promised to bring solidarity, an anchor in reality.
As he passed the windows, he noticed the sky turning charcoal. Evening was turning into night quicker than he'd expected. He realized he did not relish shadows and flipped on an overhead light.
Then he was at the sink, running the water, letting it cool, filling a glass, sipping. The metallic taste that always seemed to taint tap water touched his tongue, and he poured the remainder down the drain. It was time to head back to Gabrielle's. When darkness came, things happened, and he didn't want her to face them alone.