Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch (2 page)

“I don’t want to leave you, Kate, it’s just that….”

“I know.”

“I thought this was all over.”

“But it’s not. Not yet.”

Sullivan nodded. “I’m the one who’s made up my mind to go, but you seem more at peace with it than I am.”

Kate lifted her head from his chest and looked up into his eyes. Once again she fought back tears. She had to stay strong for him. She couldn’t have him worried about her. She thought of her father and what he would say. She took a deep, steadying breath. “There’s no point in worrying about the things you can’t change. Hasn’t Epictetus taught us that?”

“What if I don’t come back?”

“You will.”

“We can’t know that, Kate. I’m already living on borrowed time. I could have—should have—died a dozen times already.”

Kate smiled. “That’s why I know you’ll come back, Rick. With everything you’ve been through, you’ve always had something to live for. First it was Edaline’s freedom. Then it was me. And it’s still me. As long as I’m here waiting for you, you can’t die. You just can’t.”

Sullivan sighed. “We have to be realistic.”

“No, we don’t.”

Sullivan smiled down at her. “All right, then. I can’t die.”

She bit her lip and looked away. “When will you go?”

“Tomorrow. Whatever is happening, it can happen another day without me.” He leaned down and kissed her. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back over to the couch.

Sullivan watched as she lifted her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. “Maybe,” he said, “the day after tomorrow will be soon enough.”

Kate unhooked her bra and let it fall. Sullivan reached out toward her, but as his hand touched her skin, he felt it prickle with goose bumps. A second later, the cold air hit the back of his neck.

He whipped his head around as Kate pulled her shirt back on. Behind him, a cloud of vapor was forming. As it solidified, he saw the face of Frank Allen come into focus.

Sullivan stood and stepped toward Allen. “Jesus, Frank! What the hell is going on?”

“I’m sorry about earlier. Energy here… it waxes and wanes. Sometimes I’m stronger, sometimes they are.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s difficult to explain, Rick. When I crossed over, they thought they could use me to direct events, to control people… like you. But I’m stronger than they expected. They can’t keep me under control all the time. Just some of the time.” Allen tilted his head as though he were listening for something.

“What do I need to do, Frank?”

Allen looked back at Sullivan. “Get to Earth as soon as you can. Take the hyper-hyperspace ship. It will be safe, I promise.”

“What’s happening?”

“Those aliens we fought on Captain Quinn’s Earth? The only reason we were there was so they could pick up our trail, follow us back home. The entities planned the whole thing.”

“Why?”

“It’s simple: humans are a nuisance to them, as are the aliens they’ve sent against us. They know that we’ve reached the point where hyper-hyperspace technology will become commonplace. It may take fifty years, but it will happen. And when ships travel that deeply in hyperspace, it causes them unbelievable pain.”

“So what they told us when we first encountered them was true?”

“Yes. But these aliens… their wormholes are even more excruciating. They don’t just travel through hyperspace, they punch holes through it. The entities are hoping you’ll destroy each other, or at least do enough damage that you’ll both be set so far back technologically that it’ll take decades to recover… time they can use to figure out how to finish the job.”

“They could have just told us this, Frank.”

“And who would have listened? Benjamin Alexander probably would have stopped his development of the hyper-hyperspace ships, but someone else would have figured it out before long. And these aliens… there’s no bargaining with them. Their very survival is at stake. Unfortunately, that means ours is as well.” Allen frowned. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, Rick. The entities have laid waste to dozens of advanced civilizations in the past. It explains why in all this time, we’ve never before encountered intelligent life.”

Sullivan put his hands on Kate’s arms. He could feel her shivering beside him. They knew the hyperspace entities were capable of influencing people, making them do their bidding, but to learn that they had used this power to destroy civilizations over and over again? Kate’s response was justified; it was a chilling revelation. “What do I need to do on Earth?” he said, turning back to Allen.

“Things are escalating, Rick, but there’s a chance all this can be brought to an end. For that to happen I need you in the mix; you’re the only one I can trust.”

“How can I stop it?”

Allen’s eyes tightened in pain.

“Frank? What’s going on?”

“My power is fading, Rick. The other entities are trying to pull me back.”

“Fight, Frank!”

“I am.” Allen winced again. “But I have to tell you, when you go to Earth, be sure that Kate….”

Allen screamed in agony.

“Frank!” Sullivan yelled. He reached his hand out, but it passed through the fading mist where his friend had just been standing. “Frank, where are you?”

Kate stepped up behind Sullivan and put her arms around him. “He’s gone.”

Sullivan closed his eyes and lowered his head. “What was he going to say about you?”

“I don’t know.”

“He said, ‘be sure that Kate….’ Be sure that you what?”

“Be sure that I’m safe?”

Sullivan shook his head. “You are safe here, as far as we can tell.”

“Maybe he wants me to go with you?”

“No. If I’m going into the middle of a war, I can’t be worrying about you the whole time.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll leave tomorrow. Hopefully, Frank will be able to get back to us before then.”

Kate nodded. She tugged at his arm and turned him toward her. “It will be fine, Rick.
I’ll
be fine.”

“It must have been important. What if the entities are trying to get to you?”

“I’ll be careful. And Frank will be looking out for me, I’m sure of it.”

“He can’t look after both of us at the same time.”

“Maybe he can. Frank is beyond physical limits now. And he’s strong, Rick, stronger that either of us realized.”

Sullivan broke their embrace and turned back to the spot where Frank had materialized. He could still feel the chill in the air. “Why did it get cold? It didn’t happen every time when Liz showed up, so I thought it was something she did on purpose, something to intimidate us.”

“Maybe Frank did it for the same reason Liz did: it was a warning. It was to get our attention.”

Sullivan smiled. “Guess he had one look at us and decided we needed a cold shower, huh?”

Kate laughed. “I suppose so. And since we do only have one day left….”

Sullivan turned back to her and put his hands on her hips.

“When did you fall in love with me?” she asked, helping him remove his shirt.

“You know, I think I loved you from the moment I first saw you in that cell back on Abilene.”

“I must have looked horrible.”

Sullivan laughed. “Yes, you did. If you had been a man, I would have opened the cell door and left you to your own devices. But when I saw you there, looking so small and helpless, I knew I couldn’t leave you. I knew you needed me. And in that moment, you got into my heart.”

“And now you’re stuck with me.”

“I’d be nothing without you.” Sullivan smiled and leaned in for a kiss.

Kate broke the kiss. “Then I was right. You will come back to me, Rick. There’s just no other option.”

BROTHER PETER KNELT down beside his bed and clasped his hands together. He glanced over the words on the pages in the open book in front of him. He took a deep breath and began quietly reading to himself.

“After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said, ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, ‘There is a man child conceived.’ Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.”

Brother Peter lowered his head and rested his cheek against the cool pages of the book. He felt a tear form at the corner of his eye but wiped it quickly away before it could stain the pages.

He raised his head and stared at the wall of his cell where it met the ceiling. From somewhere else in the prison he heard a cell door open with a soft click. One of his fellow inmates was most likely going to see a visitor.

Peter had received only one visitor since he’d been incarcerated. Father Curtis had made the trip from America to Italy. He’d quietly prayed with Peter for a while, then, lifting his head, fixed Peter in the eyes and asked, “Why?”

Peter sighed. “I know that what I’ve done is a horrible thing, Father. But I cannot explain it. I can’t tell you why I did it, even how I did it. I remember nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“I remember talking with Pope Pius a few moments before he went to the window. The next thing I knew, I was being thrown to the ground and dragged out of the Pope’s study.”

Father Curtis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Brother Peter, I’m sure you’ve heard about what’s been going on in the world… you get the news?”

“Of course.”

“Your vision—our vision—does not seem to be as unique as we thought it was. All over the world people are seeing things. Not just Christ, but Allah, Krishna, Buddha… people are seeing whichever gods or holy figures they believe in.” Curtis reached across the table to take Brother Peter’s hands but withdrew them after a stern look from the prison guard. “I suppose I should just say it. I no longer believe our vision was truly of Christ. I believe there is some other force at work here.”

“You mean a malicious force?”

“Yes.”

Peter took a deep breath and let it out. “I had considered that myself. I held no animosity toward Pius. He had been nothing but kind to me. I can think of no other reason for me to do that except… I was being influenced.”

“And if that is the case,” said Curtis, “all these visions, visions too many of the faithful are putting their belief in, must also be the work of Satan.”

“What do we do?”

Curtis smiled. “Even though I believe our vision was not genuine, I do believe the Second Coming is upon us. I believe the forces of Hell are striking the first blow by trying to scare and confuse us all.” Curtis raised his hand and wiped his eyes. “So the thing we do, Brother Peter, is pray. We pray and we stay strong.”

AFTER FATHER CURTIS’S visit, Peter had prayed nearly constantly for several days. But as his time in prison wore on, he began to feel betrayed. He’d been officially denounced by the Cenobian Brotherhood—Father Curtis has sent him a short note apologizing and saying it had not been his wish—and even God seemed absent to him.

It was then that he had turned to the Book of Job and carefully read it over and over again. The sufferings Job faced were certainly more severe than his own, but Peter could not help but feel that he was being tested. But for what? He had not yet lost his faith. Like Job, would he have to do so and curse God before the nightmare would end?

As Peter sat in prison, the tendrils of chaos twitched and stretched across the Earth, consuming the faithful and the unfaithful alike. The visions of Christ, of Allah, of Krishna, of Buddha, had reopened old wounds that humanity had thought healed for a hundred years. Worse, the deities of the world were not only making themselves known in visions but also in words. They were encouraging action against infidels. They were speaking as the gods of two thousand years ago, not as the enlightened gods humanity had, with great effort, shaped them into. Religious attendance had soared and so had acts of religious violence.

At what point, thought Peter, would the individuals committing these acts open their eyes and see who was behind it all? At what point would the real enemy be fingered and destroyed by the righteous?

Peter lowered his eyes back to the Bible and flipped to the end of the book, to Revelation. He knew that salvation would never come for some. He knew that some would take up arms and fight alongside Satan. Whatever the reason they believed they were doing it, they would fight against God.

Peter knew that he should be looking forward to the Second Coming, but he felt only sorrow. It would cause so much misery. So many innocent people would suffer; even if they were ultimately welcomed into Heaven, they would suffer, they would lose loved ones, they would feel the anguish and fear of watching their lives crumble around them.

Peter didn’t know why it had to be this way. Why did God, all-powerful as he was, choose for an end ruled by pestilence, war, famine and death? Why not simply throw open the gates of Heaven and welcome the return of all his children, imperfect though they might be?

Peter climbed up on his bed and cradled the Bible in his arms. As strong as he believed his faith to be, there were so many things he did not understand. He knew that he could never know the mind of God, but it all seemed so unnecessary.

Peter heard footsteps in the corridor and opened his eyes. A pair of guards stopped outside his cell and leered in at him. One of them began rolling a large ball of phlegm around in his throat. Peter pulled his bed sheet over his head. He knew what was coming. Many of the prison guards were Catholic. If being spat upon was the worst they did to him today, Peter would consider himself lucky.

The guard released his projectile, and Peter felt it land wetly on his exposed arm. He waited for the guards to walk away, laughing, before shaking the phlegm into the sink and washing the residue off.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” Peter said quietly. He immediately regretted comparing himself to Christ and prayed for forgiveness, but even though he tried to deny it, he felt persecuted all the same. He was hardly Job, and he was certainly not Jesus, but Brother Peter
was
being persecuted for something that, to his mind, had not been his fault. He knew Satan had, in the instant he’d pushed Pius out the window, taken control of his body. And God had allowed it to happen. But was Satan being used by God just as Peter had been used by Satan? Peter knew that it could be for some higher purpose. The death of the Pope could have set in motion events that would bring salvation to an even greater number of people.