Pestilence Rising Read online

  Chapter 7

   

  We didn't bother ripping out the tracker and the GPS. It was only a matter of time until Gideon and his goons found us anyway. Celeste was like a living tracking device, and there was nothing we could do about that.

  We drove throughout the morning, along the highway, past flooded fields and eroding side roads. Billboards for tourist attractions were submerged halfway up their support posts. Cops turned us away from a couple of especially bad areas where the water had overtaken the road completely.

  There came a point on the ride at which I couldn't hold the questions any longer.

  “What's it like where you come from?”

  She looked at me as if I had asked her the rudest question in the world, “That's not for humans to know while they still breathe.”

  “Come on. How could you expect me not to ask? You can't give me a tidbit? A fun fact?”

  “What is a fun fact?”

  “Like a small piece of information.”

  Celeste looked out the window for a minute or so, pondering how much she should tell me, “It isn't what your culture says. We don't sit on clouds. No one lives in a mansion. Those are human ideals. It is a gathering of worthy souls and a place of light.”

  “Sounds kinda boring.”

  “Never. We're always struggling against the darkness. The balance is delicate. Human existence is delicate.”

  “Hence the angels?”

  “Yes.”

  She didn't sound happy about her duties. I couldn't say I blamed her. We can be good, maybe even deserving of some form of salvation, but from what I'd seen of the human race, saving us from ourselves is a losing battle.

  I remembered how Llewyn had led me astray. Back at Bill's drugstore, I had pretty much written her off as a hallucination, but seeing Celeste's wings partially restored gave me cause for concern that additional supernatural parties might have a stake in this familial drama of mine.

  If Celeste was an angel, what did that make Llewyn? What were her motives for removing me from my protector? And the stars. I couldn't believe that something I felt so drawn to could be evil. I decided to tell Celeste about Llewyn. I started at the beginning, her reflections, the stars and coyotes in the field.

  “You were alone when I found you.”

  “I kind of figured you would've said something if you could see them.”

  She asked, “Is she human?”

  “She's odd looking, covered in tattoos and somehow appearing in glass, but I still get the impression that she is human. What's the alternative? A demon?”

  “Demons exist, but they're extremely rare. If Llewyn were a demon, she would use stronger methods to manipulate you, such as torture or fear, perhaps force you to watch the murder of an innocent or a family member.”

  “Charming.”

  “Their methods aren't subtle. There are other threats: sorcerers, fallen angels,” She looked at me, “and people like you.”

  “Fallen angels like you?” I probably shouldn't have said it so bluntly, but the 'people like you' comment hit a nerve.

  Her face reddened, “I'm not fallen. The fallen are traitors. I'm merely being taught a lesson. I haven't heard of a fallen angel by that name, but she could be using a false identity.”

  “She called me on the phone to tell me how to escape Gideon at the motel and about the truck behind the kitchen. Do you think she can read my mind?”

  “Possibly. You must make a conscious effort to keep her out. Your willingness to see her makes you susceptible.”

  I agreed to try.

  The day was sunny, but clouds moved overhead in patches that brought yet more sprinkles. The wind picked up as morning became afternoon. We ate some of the food Bill gave me.

  The road the GPS led us to was relatively clear, despite the ruggedness of it. Rain had loosened the edges of the pavement, but it was drivable. We wound around curves, up hills and down, between fields that stretched toward the horizon and trees.

  The farmhouses we saw were mostly intact, the floodwaters reaching the bases of only a couple. Cattle stood up to their knees in the water in a fenced area near the road as a farmer assessed the damage to the pen. A man in coveralls drove his tractor up a winding driveway to a shed on higher ground. Near our destination, we passed a pair of girls in prairie dresses, splashing in the puddles in their front lawn.

  The female GPS voice announced that we had arrived. Due to a newly formed creek at the base of the driveway, we had to get out and walk.

  The house, a dingy two-story, sat at the top of a hill, untouched by the water on all sides. A fence around the property consisted of wire strung from broken, wooden posts that leaned in different directions. We found a spot where the stream was narrow enough for us to hop over.

  “This doesn't look like a place Michael would go willingly.”

  He was a vain teenager, always ready for the close-up or the attention of female admirers, especially at church. This decrepit farmhouse in the middle of nowhere couldn't be anymore un-Michael if it tried.

  The driveway cut through a lawn of tall grass and wildflowers. A rope swing hung lopsided from a thick oak. Between that and the front porch, a pair of chairs lay broken next to the cracked front walkway.

  The paint on the house had once been a sunny yellow with white gingerbread trim, but the color had worn thin and peeled. The front stairs were made of concrete with the corners broken off. We ascended them to find the wooden porch in equally degraded condition. Wooden slats defied their placement by bowing up. A couple of them were gone completely, having fallen to the shady ground beneath. The window to our left was dirty and broken, a jagged hole in dusty glass.

  “I don't get it. Why would he be here? He has money. He's always had money.”

  “Maybe he spent it all.”

  “Or lost his ability to heal. I'm not sure he would be worth anything without that.”

  Someone had broken in the front door. It leaned in and to the right, barely holding onto the only surviving hinge. Leaves and dirt littered the foyer, nature's intrusion on a place that apparently didn't matter to anyone. The slanted floor creaked beneath our feet. To our right, we found a sofa, a burgundy haunted mansion-looking piece of furniture with an equally battered Persian rug on the floor in front of it.

  Above the fireplace hung a plasma television. Additional home theater components and a game console occupied the mantle below it. All of the electronics looked new.

  “Now that’s more Mike's speed.” I moved closer.

  Llewyn's reflection passed across the glossy screen, looking like a ghost floating through the foyer behind us. I turned, but of course, she wasn't really there. I ventured that direction, into the kitchen.

  “Hello? Anybody home?” I called.

  The appliances were practically antique but clean, as was the floor. Pantry shelves held food, mac and cheese, a box of popcorn, some cereal, and canned soup. None of it looked like it had been there long. Beyond the pantry lay a utility room equipped with a state of the art washer and dryer.

  Celeste peered out the back door, “There's a rainbow.” She smiled as she pointed.

  “Let's hope that's a good omen.”

  We checked every room on the first floor, finding no sign of my brother. I could feel that he was there recently. I couldn't explain why, but I knew. For whatever reason, he had begun to make this place his home.

  “We'd better check the second floor, too.” I said, then called his name again with no answer. “What are we going to do if we don't find anything here? Where do we go next?”

  Celeste shrugged, “I was given simple orders and this address.”

  Great. The house wasn't turning out a wealth of information.

  Fresh air carried the scent of rain through the upstairs hall from an open door at the end, so I ventured that direction. Under a slow-turning ceiling fan, women's clothing covered a king-sized bed - dresses with the tags still on, scarves, shoes in open boxes, jeans and shirt
s spilling from shopping bags emblazoned with designer logos. Celeste picked up a silver necklace with a long chain and inspected the price tag still attached.

  “These are for a woman.”

  “Hopefully not Llewyn.” That was a scary thought - my brother with a witch or whatever the hell she was.

  Gauzy, white curtains over a sliding glass door billowed on a breeze. I parted them to step onto a balcony that looked over the field behind the house. The rainbow Celeste had seen downstairs reached from one end of the sky to the other in a great arc, burning brilliantly against the sky.

  “You simply must be Hunter.” A feminine voice said.

  A woman about my age lounged in a chair. She wore a flowered dress. It was sleeveless, revealing arms that were little more than bones. She smiled up at me from beneath a floppy hat, her face pretty but thin and pale, her eyes ringed in darkness. Her hair was long and blonde and diaphanous.

  “You look so much like him.” Her voice was weak. “Has anyone ever told you?”

  “They were too busy worshipping him to notice I existed.”

  She laughed, “You have to admit, he is pretty amazing.” She took the glass of red wine from the table next to her and drank from it. “This is the perfect day. The rain has stopped. This rainbow...it's for me, a sign that I can move on.” She saw Celeste standing behind me. “Oh, now you are an angel. I was hoping I would see one. Can you take me home, beautiful angel?”

  Celeste shook her head no.

  “What happened to your wings? Let me see.”

  Celeste whispered in my ear, “I'm waiting inside. Hurry. We don't have time to spare. Gideon will be here any moment.”

  “I will.”

  With that, she stepped back into the bedroom.

  “Someone is shy. Luckily, I'm not. Will you come sit with me, please? Just for a while? My name is Sarah.”

  I glanced into the bedroom to see that Celeste remained close by.

  “Do you know where Michael is?” I pulled a second lounger closer to hers to sit on the end.

  “Days ago, men came to take him. They broke through the door downstairs, threatened to harm me if he didn't go with them.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No. They wouldn't have been able to help him. I did pray for him, however.”

  She did nothing. I fought back my anger because I still needed information from her.

  “What was your relationship with him?”

  She leaned her head on the back of the chair and said wistfully, “He wasn't the man you thought he was. He talked about calling you to apologize for all that happened when you were kids.”

  “I'm sure he didn't tell you everything.”

  “He didn't need to. I could tell the remorse ate away at his spirit.”

  “You didn't answer my question. What was your relationship with my brother?”

  “I loved him. We loved each other.”

  “You're the reason he was here.”

  “This house isn't exactly his natural habitat, is it? You should have seen his face when we first arrived. I thought he would die. He kept his complaints to himself for my sake. He was always sweet to me that way.”

  “Glad he was good to someone.” I muttered.

  “We met at the Modern Faith Convention in Kentucky. I was there with my church. My doctor had already given me the news - lymphoma. My illness compelled me to seek out positive experiences. I wanted to see the best of what life had to offer before my time ran out.”

  “I'm sorry.” I was really happy that I resisted the urge to chastise her for not calling the police. I could tell she wasn't healthy, but with this confirmation, I viewed her condition in all the seriousness it warranted. She deserved compassion, whether I agreed with her actions or not.

  “Don't be. My father died of the same disease shortly after I was born. I always knew there was a chance of it taking me, as well. I accepted the reality early on. There is liberation in acceptance. Frees up the mind to concentrate on more important tasks, like making the most of one's remaining days.” Sarah adjusted her hat. “So I saw this wondrous event listed on the schedule, 'Faith Healer Michael Tomlinson Cures the Ailing'. It sounded so promising. I went to the show, not because I wanted anyone to heal me, but because I wanted to witness others being blessed. I wanted to see the reactions of people who were suddenly freed of their suffering. Have you seen him work?”

  “I got enough when we were growing up, trust me.”

  “The show was everything I hoped it would be. He healed a boy who had to use a back brace his whole life just to stand up straight. After seconds onstage with Michael, they took the brace off.” Sarah covered her smile with her hand, “It was just amazing to see him stand tall and walk off that stage with an entirely different life.”

  “I'm sure the collection plates really filled up then.” I grumbled. I'd never had an overly positive view of the church. My negativity didn't deter Sarah in the least.

  “They certainly did! I chose a seat near the back of the auditorium because I didn't want to interfere with the people who could be helped. He had just finished curing an elderly woman's emphysema when he spotted me in the back row. He waved for me to come up on stage. I politely declined. He insisted, calling me out on the microphone, which caused the people in my row to join in. I declined him again, and I could tell that he was bothered by my rejection.”

  “I believe that. It had to be a nice blow to the ego after years of everyone falling at his feet.” I wished I could've been there to see the look on his face.

  Sarah laughed, “That's probably true. He relented to keep the show rolling, but afterward, he found me in the crowd to ask why I didn't want to be healed. I told him the reason - that dying of this disease was my destiny, and I had accepted it. He told me I was being ludicrous. It probably does sound crazy, this willingness to die. Instinct compels us to survive. Giving in is going against the grain.

  He offered to buy me coffee with the hope that he could talk me into letting him help. We had the coffee. I liked him very much. He liked me, too, and before I knew what was happening, we were a couple, and I did let him heal me for a while. He quit the church, which left them quite upset. He took me to Paris because I said I always wanted to go. The flowers in summer and the cafés and the art - it was all so whirlwind and beautiful. I would have married him if I thought I would be around long enough for him to enjoy the relationship. Making such a quick widower of him seemed like a selfish act.”

  “What was the problem if he could heal you whenever you needed it? You two could go on indefinitely, right?”

  “The problem was that I kept getting sick. At first, he only had to heal me every month, then it was every couple of weeks, then it was every day. How long would I have until he had to heal me every hour in order to keep me going? That's no way to live. The fact that my health continued to decline despite his assistance reinforced my belief that I was meant to die sooner rather than later. I finally begged him to stop.”

  I never would’ve thought that Michael could be so devoted to anyone. I only experienced his dark side. I took the beatings and suffered through his experimentation of his healing abilities. Who was this guy everyone else saw?

  Sarah went on, “I made a request of him. I asked him to buy my grandmother's house, so I could come here to die. As you can see, he fulfilled my request. We didn't get a chance to restore it, but here we are. He did his part. I love him for that and many other reasons. He is the kindest man I have ever met.”

  Celeste stuck her head out the door to urge me to hurry. We had been there too long already. I nodded.

  Sarah waved to Celeste, “Hi, again. You can have the clothes on the bed if you would like. I won't need them,” then to me she said, “He kept buying me things as part of his campaign to get me to change my mind about sticking around. He is persistent.”

  I tried to steer her toward more recent events with the hope of finding some direction, “Did you see the men who took
Michael?”

  Sarah nodded, “I did. The leader had tattoos on his forearms, like writing, maybe Asian, but I don't know for sure.”

  Tattoos of writing. Llewyn's tattoos could have been described the same way. The men who took my brother worked for her. She was officially not a hallucination.

  “Was there a woman with them? She would've had tattoos, black hair, pale skin.”

  “No, but Michael did mention dreaming about a woman with that description. He became agitated whenever he thought he saw her. I told him she was just a dream.”

  Michael saw Llewyn of the glass, and then men came for him. The same could happen to me.

  “Did you see which direction they went?”

  She shook her head, “I'm sorry I did not. I haven't been moving around a lot since we set up the house.”

  Sarah had nothing for me. She couldn't even point me down the highway. This trip to the house, our only hope of finding my brother, was fruitless. I stood up to leave.

  “Hunter, wait. Can you help me die, please? Is that possible? Michael told me what you are.”

  No one had ever asked me that before. I had never intentionally ended a life. I glanced back at Celeste for divine input. She nodded.

  “Could you wait for me downstairs?”

  Celeste disappeared into the interior of the house.

  I knelt beside Sarah, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “This is better. My death was prolonged anyway. I should have died months ago. I'm so tired.”

  “But Michael -”

  “He knows my wish. You don't have to tell him you helped me if you don't want to.”

  I gently took the wine glass from her hand to set it on the table.

  I had seen a house less than a block away when we pulled up, the one with a pair of girls playing in the front yard. I had to be conscious of them to keep my reach from extending too far.

  I felt weight in my chest, sympathy for her situation. Instead of stifling the emotion, I channeled it through my hand into Sarah's. She fell away from mortal life with the faintest of smiles. Her last words were spoken in gratitude, for Michael, for me, for the rainbow that brought magic to her final afternoon. It faded from the sky as soon as she was gone, giving life to the idea that it really was for her.

  I went back inside to sit on the edge of the bed to collect myself. I rubbed my hand over my forehead, through my hair, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do next. I was about to leave my brother's house with nothing more than a new scar on my soul. If I ever did manage to find him, I would have to tell him she was dead. It was my responsibility.

  Celeste appeared at the door, “Gideon and his men are here.”