Blood Red (19 page)

“Okay. Good night.”

She let herself out and crossed the courtyard to her own place.

After she’d cleaned up and gotten comfortable, she lay back on her own bed and thought about Ben for a moment. He had a few homemade posters on his walls, and one of them looked very familiar. It was a poem by Byron; the same poem that she had pinned to the wall above her desk.

She drifted to sleep thinking about the poem and about the boy next door.

The view from his new home was spectacular, but not good enough for what he needed to see, so Jason Soulis lifted into the air and rose until he could properly view the entire town of Black Stone Bay.

Their faith was like a beacon to him, a light that shone brightly even in the darkest hours of the morning. Through the centuries, he had seen many of the powerful auras on thousands of people.

These days it happened less and less. That suited him very well.

Inevitably, there were the ones who served their god with undying devotion and they were always a burden to him. Most times the truly devout served in a church, either in an official capacity or as a volunteer. They were the ones who could make his life uncomfortable. Through their piety, they served to protect the holy places from his influence and to protect their unwitting associates from his needs.

His eyes scanned the town, looking for the places of worship that had nearly blinded him when he first came into Black Stone Bay. There had been several places that were painful to see when he arrived. Most were barely noticeable anymore.

He smiled, looking to the buildings that had grown dark, pleased that his suspicions had been correct. It was not the building so much as those who attended to the structures that provided them shelter. Faith was a fleeting thing when laced with sin and guilt.

Every place that Maggie had visited had been tainted, not by the acts committed there but by the crisis of faith the acts had brought about.

Throughout Black Stone Bay people slept and, in some cases, worked. The proud were here in abundance, as were the wealthy and the vain. That was true in most towns. The difference was simply that the faithful were becoming an endangered species.

In the far distance a siren called out, an ambulance racing to save some fool driver who’d hit another vehicle and was now pinned in the metal that folded around his body on impact.

Slowly, very slowly, he descended back to the earth below and finally settled on the lawn of his home. He moved to the Cliff Walk, staring out at the ocean and the increasingly violent waves.

Somewhere below, deep beneath the waves, he could feel them as they moved about, growing stronger and more desperate. They were his now, to use as he saw fit, or to discard as they became redundant.

Soon they would be freed, but for now they suffered, lost in darkness and growing tired of their prison.

“Soon,” he promised them. “Soon, but not just yet. The way has not been cleared.”

There were two abiding pains in Ben Kirby’s world when he woke up. The first was the throbbing, shrieking thing that had been his brain trying to crawl out of his head and find a place to die in peace. The second was the raw humiliation of having the girl he loved find him outside his apartment and help him inside.

The head he could do something about with a few hundred aspirin and a gallon or two of water; the heart was just something he had to endure. The only good news for him was that it was Sunday and he could sleep in for a while. Being a proper masochist, he made himself climb out of bed as soon as the sun’s rays tried to fry his eyeballs.

He made it out to the living room and sat down on the couch just in time to see Maggie leaving her apartment dressed in her Sunday best. One look at her and his headache faded to a whisper. Her hair was free to run around for a change of pace, instead of pulled back into her traditional ponytail; the thick, dark cascade of curls held his attention as surely as her smile always did.

She cast her eyes in the direction of his door for a second, warring with whether or not to check on him. Her teeth worried at her lower lip and he decided to make it easy for her.

Ben opened his door and looked out at her, smiling against the glare of the sun. “Good morning.”

“I was just thinking about you. You all right?”

“I think my head exploded, but otherwise, yeah, I’m good.”

She had a wonderful laugh. “It looks like it’s still attached to me.”

“I meant what I said last night, Maggie. Thanks for being a friend.”

“You saved my ass the other day, Ben.” She shrugged and looked away. Then she got a playful grin on her face. “Besides, I couldn’t leave you to puke in the courtyard. Somebody would have to clean it up.” She smiled, fired a wink over her shoulder, and headed toward the parking lot. “See you around.”

He watched her walk away, savoring the chance to look at her without being noticed. When she was gone, it was back inside to medicate his aching brain.

Maggie sat in the center of the third row of pews and found herself staring at Father Wilson as he stood behind the altar and started speaking of sin and the wages it most certainly brought about. He looked a little twitchy up there, which was rare for him. He certainly wasn’t quite as calm as he had been in the past, and while he looked at her several times, he didn’t wear the same expression of fatherly kindness she’d gotten so used to seeing.

His desire was torn between giving his all to the parishioners and simply bending her over the altar a second time: she could see it in his face and his troubled eyes. She couldn’t keep a small smile from playing around her lips, and the more she thought about what they had done right where he was standing in front of his congregation, the more aroused she became. It wasn’t just the act of sex; it was everything else as well. The man was trying his best to behave, but she knew what he was thinking. He wanted her; he wanted to run away from her. He wanted to speak with her and tell her what a mistake it had been, and he wanted to make sure she would keep her word about never telling another soul.

Wilson’s voice faltered for a second and she looked into his eyes. Maggie smiled for him, a fast sultry expression, and her eyes traveled the length of his body. She placed one finger against her lips, just for a moment, and licked her fingernail for his benefit. Nothing overt about the gesture; it would mean nothing at all to anyone but him, but for Father Wilson that gesture had powerful meaning.

He cleared his throat and looked away as if burned. Part of her was appalled by her own actions; part of her was amused by his reactions. Part of her wanted to bare her breast to him and see how long it took him to hurtle the rows of faithful churchgoers between them in order to take her again.

He turned his back to the parish and gathered his thoughts. Maggie looked off to the right and saw Patrick Flannery staring at her, his eyes slightly wider than usual and his lips parted as he watched her. She looked back in his direction and smiled again, a secretive, appreciative expression that told him exactly how much she had enjoyed her last confession. His hands were placed strategically in front of his crotch. She could still see his arousal.

When the sermon was done and everyone rose to pray, she felt the eyes of several men in the church seek her out. She stood before them all, hidden behind her proper clothing, and gave lip service to the words that were supposed to be spoken. They watched her as she left the church, and she in turn watched them as surreptitiously as she could.

Maggie knew good and damned well that she would be on the minds of the priests who attended to Sacred Hearts, and she reveled in that knowledge.

It was good to be wanted; sometimes it was better to be desired. Anyone that didn’t know the difference between the two hadn’t been paying attention.

Brian sat in the congregation, the space next to him left empty, held for Angie. There had even been a prayer said at the very beginning for her safe return to him. He watched the girl with the dark lustrous curls and just possibly the finest ass he’d ever seen, and thought about how much he would love to give her a ticket. It was a brief thought, a respite from the fear that was growing inside of him and mingling with the rage that was already dominating his thoughts.
I bet she’d be a screamer. I bet she’d fight and scream and bite and beg. I’d love to hear her begging me to stop. I’d love to make her crawl and—

He cut the thoughts off; he was in a church after all, it wasn’t appropriate.

Angie should have been next to him. He’d never even bothered with the church before they’d met. She’d changed him in a lot of ways and even he had to admit that most of the changes were for the better. Only now that she wasn’t here, he actually came to the church seeking solace. It wasn’t working very well though. All he could think about was how much he missed his wife and how badly he wanted to nail the piece of ass a few seats over and in front of him.
She’s a college girl, I bet. Probably goes speeding around corners more than she should. Maybe I’d be doing her a favor if I tailed her for a few days. Gotta remember to check what kind of car she drives.
He shook his head, trying to get his mind off the girl a few seats away. He had to focus on Angie and their baby. That was what was important. But remembering the little bitch he’d raped in the woods was becoming a little bit of an obsession, and he wanted to get relief from the hard-on that was making his balls ache.

Still, not here and not with a member of the congregation. Too close to home. Even if she didn’t protest enough to warrant getting her pretty little head bashed in, she might decide to confess it to one of the priests, and then if Angie did come home—
no, not if, when
—he’d have one hell of a lot of explaining to do.

After what seemed like hours of genuflecting, the Mass was finally said and done. He rose and headed for the doors, accepting best wishes from several people he knew and a lot he didn’t. There was one girl back in the corner that he’d been with a few months back. She barely looked at him. She was still afraid of him and what he could do to her. That was a lovely thing.

The brunette with the pin-up body got outside before he did. That was all right. He wanted to see where she went, not follow her right now. All he had to do was get a tag number and the odds were beyond good that he could follow her anywhere: it was one of the advantages of being a cop.

There was a traffic jam at the threshold. Several people were standing in the doorway and looking out at the lawn of the church, not scared by whatever they saw, but certainly taken aback. Brian moved through them as carefully as he could until he saw what had them all so overwhelmed.

The girl was out there, and a few others were as well. And so were the crows. The birds were on every car, every open space around the entire church, on the telephone poles and trees, and even, he guessed, on the cross that adorned the top of the building.

They were just there, barely moving, not at all perturbed by the world around them. It had to be close to a thousand of the black carrion eaters. No, maybe closer to two thousand. But that wasn’t possible, was it? Could there be that many crows in the entire state?

The sexpot walked toward her car and Brian’s eyes were drawn to the movement; so, too, the eyes of the birds. Without any warning, they were airborne, black wings were flapping and generating an unsettling amount of wind. Autumn leaves blasted through the air in their wake and for a moment the air was as thick and fierce as a hurricane.

Brian backed up hastily as several of the crows suddenly veered and banked and came for the front entrance to the church. One of them came within inches of plucking his eye from his face, screaming indignantly as it came closer. His hand tried to settle on the holster he carried at work and clutched only air. It was probably for the best that he was off-duty, because he wanted the damned thing dead. That screeching noise reminded him too much of Angie when she was having a bitch fit about damned near anything.

The birds rose in a spiral, a storm of feathers and beaks and cackling cries of derision, circling the church and its parking lot several times before they dispersed.

By the time the crows had finished their aerial dance, the girl he’d been looking at was gone. If she walked or took a car, he had no way of knowing.

Sullen and bitter, Brian Freemont headed for his empty home. It was his day off, and he had nothing planned. He thought he might go for a drive, however, and see if he could find a few places with pleasant memories attached.

Danny was being a big baby. He wanted to be in church but there was too much work to do. He didn’t want to go to church because of his devout faith, mind you. No, he wanted to go because there were about five women there that he said dressed up so nicely he could go without seeing a girly magazine for a whole day after ogling them. “They’re good for my soul, I tell ya,” was his favorite line on any Sunday when he had to work.

Boyd didn’t care about church one way or the other, and as for ogling women, he could do that when they were dressed like angels, hookers, or even if they were naked. He was, in his own words, an equal opportunity leerer.

So it was IHOP instead of Sacred Hearts. That was okay. The food was better at the pancake place.

“Any leads on the Falcones’ car?” Danny was also nursing a mild hangover, so his normal cheer was down to a dull roar and that was good, because Boyd was nursing a slight hangover too. He blamed his partner; it was just too embarrassing to watch the bastard get drunk on his own.

“Yeah. According to Maria Falcone, it was her husband driving. She has no idea who would have been in the car with him. Says he was always picking up street trash to play hide-the-pepperoni with.”

The lady at the next booth over was listening to their conversation and her eyes went wide when he talked about hiding sausages. She got an indignant expression on her face—she was either on her way to church or on her way back, he could tell by the fancy clothes—and he skewered her with a glare that had her suddenly looking elsewhere.