I Will Come for You (29 page)

“Evil?”

The potential for evil exists in every one. It is a human trait, not a separate entity. Doss is asking him to change his belief system. To do it quickly. To put rational thought aside and jump head-first into the River Styx.

“The devil?
I’m hunting the devil?” Graham looks into Doss’ eyes, really looks into them. Is the man crazy? Or is Graham, to even consider suspending logic?

“The
devil, or something like him.”

Doss’ words fill Graham’s ears like a slow, warbling melody.

“Let me show you,” Doss says. “Let me show you what I know.”

Graham feels an intrusion that is not exactly physical,
more mental and emotional in nature. He senses sudden light, like an opening door, and resists. He feels prying fingers at his mental threshold, a shadow cast by the entrance of something so foreign, so unbelievable he is stunned speechless. Not ESP. This is not merely the reading of his thoughts, but an actual

possession
. He
feels
Doss inside his mind.

“Let me in, Chief,” Doss says.

“No.”

“For Isaac.”
             

Colors.
Black and red. Red blooming into an intense orange. Fire. Graham wants to shut his eyes. Feels them burn. Smells the sweat of living flesh. Then images. Death. Dying. Victims dart through Graham’s mind. Hunted. He recognizes none of them. He knows the terror reflected in the eyes of men, women and children. Fear. It’s universal. The images keep coming, spinning through the darkness, bright flashes of color that crystallize into the misshapen faces of the dying. He wants out. He wants out of his own mind and begins clawing at the seams, looking for escape.

“You can’t run,” Doss says. “They’re waiting for you.
On the bluffs.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Monday, 2:45 pm

“Are you OK?”

Natalie opened her eyes. Her vision continued beyond the parameters of her mind. Lance Marquette stood in front of her, older, unblemished.
A living, breathing boy. Only she knew better now. This was Isaac Marquette, Graham’s son. Lance’s nephew, had he lived long enough. The resemblance was startling, down to the curious arch of his eyebrows and his freckled nose.

“Hi
Natalie.”

He held a hand out to her. Natalie stared at it and wondered
what form of comfort the boy was offering. Doss had said that Isaac was like the others, like Steven and Lance. But what did transcenders do? If Natalie was the before and Graham the after, that made Isaac the during. Was this the moment, then, that she would die? Half way from torment to peace, knowing she had witnessed the murder of her brother but not yet knowing who had done it?

The boy dropped his hand and looked at the wooden cross.

“This is where my uncle Lance died,” he said. “It happened a long time ago. Did you know my uncle?”

             
She nodded. “You look a lot like him,” Natalie said. She got to her feet and looked down at the boy.

“I know. I don’t look like my father at all and only a little
like my mom. Sometimes it works like that, genetics.” His smile was off-center and too full of maturity. “I think it bothers my father, that I look so much like my uncle. It makes him remember...” He nodded at the cross and his eyes grew somber. “You must have been a little kid.”

“I was eight when they died.”

“Steven was your brother.”

“Yes.”

Isaac drew closer and pushed his hand into hers.

             
A golden light flared around them and Natalie felt a surge of pure energy rush the blood through her veins. Power. A sense of well-being and ability. Direction. All of that flowed into her consciousness. She could do what she came to do and he was going to help her. This boy.

             
“Wow,” he said.

             
“Yeah.”

             
Natalie looked down at him.  “How did you know my name?”

             
“It came to me. I think I’ve been looking for you.”

“Does that happen often?”

He hesitated. She saw it in the slow shrug of his shoulders, in the way his gaze flickered and moved back to the wooden marker rising out of the ground beside them.

“It’s all right
.” She hadn’t seen her own death, but so many things pointed to it.

“O
nly when I’m looking for the dying,” he confirmed.

“And you’ve been looking for me.”

“But this is different. When I’m called to the dying, I leave time and place behind. But I’m here. I’m
in
this moment.”

Light seemed to
radiate from him, like the aura of a splitting atom, so that it was hard to look at him fully.

“I came to the island to find my brother’s killer,” she admitted. “That’s what I thought. But I think there’s something more.”

“Something bigger,” Isaac agreed.

“Do you know what it is?”

“We’ll find out together.”

And will we die together, Natalie wondered, like her brother and his uncle? 

“My brother and your uncle were good friends,” Natalie said. “They played up here. Pirates mostly. Sometimes I played on the sand below and the wind carried their voices to me, full of secrets.” She lifted her face to the sun, breathed in the crisp, salty-sweet air. “I’m remembering more about that now.”

“You were with them when they were killed.”

“Or close by.”

“You were with them,” Isaac insisted.

“Yes.”

“You saw it, before it happened.” he said. “That’s your gift.”

“I see things,” she agreed. “But I don’t remember knowing. . .back then.”

She’d
stood among them, but was unable to see, as though she was struck blind by

fear
. She’d heard voices, her brother’s and Lance’s, and an angrier, fully-charged voice that pained her ears. She didn’t remember words but tones; in the boys’ she’d felt their trembling, their paralysis; in the killer’s his intent.

“You’ll remember,” Isaac said. He pushed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and regarded her with solemn eyes. “This kind of thing happens slowly. I think it’s the only way our minds can handle it.”

“What kind of things have you seen?”

“I don’t see. Not really,” Isaac admitted. “I help people die. But when I’m doing it, I know things. Their names, names of the people they’ll miss. Sometimes I’ll see their memories, but not always.”

The wind flowed through his shirt, made the material ripple against his thin chest. He was small for his age, had high cheekbones and a strong chin, and eyes deeper than the ocean they stood over.

“Can you see my memories, Isaac?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“There have been two murders this week,” she continued. “Were you there?”

He nodded.

“Did the victims speak to you?”

“Both of them. They were scared.”

“Did they tell you anything about the man who murdered them?”

“No. People don’t spend the last seconds of their lives thinking about justice.”

“No, I don’t think I would, either.”

“Justice is for the living,” Isaac clarified.

“For those who have lost,” Natalie agreed.

“Exactly.” He paused and then approached her, his voice stronger, confident. “The dying want peace,” he said. “Isn’t that what you came here for?”

“Yes.” And what did that mean? Was she dying? Was she already dead?

“You’re in-between,” Isaac said, his words similar to those Michael had spoken to her. 

In-between.

Neither past nor present. Stuck in the moment. Murder had a way of doing that. Of stopping all the life around it.

“We’re going to stop him,” Isaac said. “Maybe that will set you free.”

“Maybe.”

Isaac tugged on her ha
nd and she looked down at him.

“We need my father’s help,” Isaac said, “and he’s not exactly open to the idea of supernatural gifts.”

“Does he know about yours?”

“Yeah.
He just found out. He’s still in the denial, there’s-got-to-be-some-way-to-fix-this stage.”

Natalie nodded in sympathy. “It took me a long time to
believe in my gift. Today is the first full day I haven’t fought it.”

“Why are adults so closed?”

“We let fear control us,” she said. “Do you have a plan? A way to find the killer?”

Isaac shrugged. “I came here looking for him,” he explained. He told her about encountering the evil at the scene of the last murder, how he hadn’t been able to look fully upon him and so only had a feel for who they were looking for. “I have no idea what he looks like. But I think we’re close.”

“Why?”

“The air is thicker here,” Isaac said. “That’s the first thing I notice.”

“It’s not because he’s been here before?”

“No. This is new.” He shrugged. “I feel the heaviness of
his intent not the aftermath.”

“Does he know who you are, Isaac?”

“He can’t see me. When I transcend, only the dying see me.”

“Transcend,
” Natalie repeated. “My brother and Lance were able to do that.”

Isaac nodded. “I knew there were others.”

If only the dying see transcenders, then how had the killer found Steven and Lance?

“They weren’
t in their gift,” Isaac said. “They couldn’t have been.”

“You picked up on my thoughts again,” Natalie pointed out.

He nodded. “I think we’re getting closer. I’m sorry.”

But Natalie wasn’t.
A calm had settled over her. She saw the world clearer, and in it the circular pattern of life.

“That’s one of the first things I discovered,” Isaac agreed. “We never cease to be.”
He returned to her earlier thought, “Your brother and my uncle, I don’t think they were transcending when they were killed.”

“Because when you’re doing it you’re safe?
”

He nodded. “Good
does
prevail over evil.”

“But it was the King’s Ferry
Killer?”

“Yes.
I know the feel of him.”

“W
ill he kill me, too?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one who sees into the future.”

“Not everything,” she said. “I can’t just call up images. They unfold on their own.”

“But y
ou’ve seen him,” Isaac pointed out. “You know his voice.”

“It was a long time ago.”
It was Saul Doss, or his son. Or maybe Alana. She was a part of their lives almost every day of that summer, unbalanced and often at the mercy of the wind. Was it her voice she’d heard coming from the truck?  “And I don’t know for sure. Not yet.”

“You can’t hide,” Isaac admonished.

“You know his voice, too.”

He nodded. “I remember more how the voice made me feel than what it actually sounded like.”

“That makes sense,” Natalie said. “That’s about what I remember, too. It’s probably better for us that way. Instinct is more reliable than memory. We’ll go with that.”

“That’s what my father says, too. A person’s memory is full
of perception and is self-regulated.”

“He’s the chief of police.”

“Yeah.”

“That must suck for you.”
That, and the fact that his mother was unstable. She remembered Alana’s words about looking at the ends of things. She’d included her inability to raise her son. Natalie felt her sadness now.

“Sometimes.
Most of the time.”

“I knew your mom, too,” Natalie said.

“I know. She was different then. Healthier, but not a hundred percent. I’ve never known her,” he finished.

“I’m sorry,” Natalie offered.

“What was she like happy?” he wanted to know.

Natalie looked for a memor
y she could share. “She had a beautiful smile. It touched every part of her face.” On the occasions she was happy. “She liked us. Liked kids. She sat on the floor and played games with us. Sometimes for hours. When she read to us, she
was
the character. She gave them accents and made up some of the dialogue. She helped the boys make swords and willingly walked the plank.” Natalie smiled, remembering. “She was fun.”

“Thank you. My father doesn’t like talking about the past, especially about my mom. And there’s no one else, really, who can do that.”