The Devil's Dream: Waking Up (11 page)

* * *

"
M
rs. Werzen
, my name is Art Brayden. I'm Director of Operations for the FBI. I'm calling to tell you that your son is missing."

Art hated himself for this phone call. He should have been on a plane, flying out to California, telling the woman to her face. Had they known for sure that Werzen was dead, he wouldn't have had a choice, but the kid was only missing—so the FBI considered this call a courtesy. A fucking courtesy. Art had taken her son from her and handed him over to Brand and now was doing her a
courtesy
. He wanted to go, to fly out there and say this to her face, on her doorstep, but there just wasn't time. It would have been a three hour flight, not including the return time, as well as time to the airport and every other little thing that would happen along the way. They didn't have six hours to give Brand.

Art heard her voice hitch.

"What happened?" She asked after a few seconds.

"We believe Matthew Brand took him last night," Art answered, knowing that he didn't have to tell her—that maybe he shouldn't have told her, but not caring. He wouldn't sit here and hide behind protocol.

"Is he dead?" She asked next.

"No. We don't have any confirmation on that." It was true; Art wasn't lying. All FBI documents said that Henry Werzen was still alive, if missing in action.

He listened as the woman cried, the noises muffled as if a hand was to her face.

"Is he going to die?" She asked.

"I don't know, ma'am. We're doing everything we can to bring him back. All of us, myself included."

Art didn't hang up, he listened to the woman's pain come across the phone. He would sit here on this phone until she hung up, even if that meant he died with the phone to his ear.

"Henry did this for you," she said. "He did this for all of you, because...because he thought he could help. Has he helped?"

A chill moved through Art. Had he helped? Or had he just been a sacrificial lamb that God rejected, letting its blood fall onto the altar without any meaning? Art knew the answer and didn’t want to deliver it to a woman hearing that she had lost her son. No, her son hadn't helped because Art hadn't thought it through nearly enough, because Art had gone in half-cocked and Brand took advantage of that. Her son was missing with absolutely nothing to show for it. Her son would most likely die without furthering the case in the slightest.

"Yes, he did. We're much better positioned to capture Matthew Brand now because of him," Art lied. He didn't even consider telling the truth.

"Will you find him?"

No, he wouldn't. Art knew what happened to those that Brand took. Knew that the only person ever recovered was a catatonic little girl who ended up being taken again. Henry Werzen was going to die, just as Brand said he would, and he would probably die painfully.

"I'm going to do my absolute best, Mrs. Werzen."

"Please do," she said, her voice full of misery, and hung up the phone.

* * *

A
rt pulled
the card from his wallet. He had taken it in Boston; on his way out of the Cathedral, he saw a tiny tray of cards with Father Mandalay printed on them and picked one up. He knew that Cathedral was empty now, probably full of rats and bats because humans wouldn't pray in churches without power.

He looked at the number printed below the name. It might go to the Cathedral, or it might go to the priest's cell phone—Art didn't know. He knew that he wasn't about to leave his DC office and head to the church down the street though, he knew that for certain. He wanted to call this priest; not to absolve himself of his sins, but to have a little inquiry into God's sins. Into God's role in this whole thing. The priest had offered his insight last time, what would he have now? What would he say when Art told him what they had done? What God allowed them to do?

He dialed the number and listened as his phone rang, knowing that the ringing meant it wasn't connected to the dead Cathedral in Boston.

"This is Father Mandalay," a voice answered.

"Hi, Father. I'm Art Brayden, we spoke a few weeks ago. I'm in charge of the Matthew Brand case, and you lent me some wisdom into it."

A second passed before the priest spoke. "Ah, yes, I remember. How are you?"

"I'm okay. Did you make it out of Boston?" Art asked.

"Yes, yes. I'm in Kentucky right now, a much different place to be sure." Art thought he heard a smile in the priest's voice. "What can I do for you?"

Art didn't answer right away. What could this man do for him? He could curse God, for one. Perhaps give Art permission to curse God. Perhaps the man could curse Art as well, curse the whole operation.

"I wanted to talk about some things that are going on...things aren't working out as I wanted."

"They rarely do. What's happening?"

Don't hold back now
, Art thought. "A young man, a boy in some respects, is going to die because of me. I put him in front of Matthew Brand thinking that the boy might slow him down, or stop him. It didn't work though; it slowed Brand down long enough for him to show up and steal the kid."

"How old was this person?"

"Twenty-four," Art said.

"That's hardly a boy."

"It's not a man, either, Father."

"Did he know what you were asking of him? Of the dangers involved?" The priest said.

Did Werzen? Truly? He'd been briefed on Brand and the case. He'd been shown the pictures of what happened to the rest of Brand's victims. He knew the possibilities, but did that mean he understood? If anyone truly understood, would they agree to what Art and Jake proposed or would they run as far away as possible? Jake and Art certainly hadn't gone to that new house to live, hadn't taken on the position of Brand's child, willing to look Brand directly in the eyes. They sent someone barely out of their teenage years to do it, and how could he really understand the likelihood of being snapped up into a shark's mouth?

"We told him, but that doesn't mean anything. At twenty-four, you're only beginning to sense that you might not be invincible. You haven't bought into it yet."

"And what is it you're asking me, son? Do you think you have sinned? Are you asking forgiveness?"

And that was the point, wasn't it? How was the priest to forgive him? How could God forgive him when He allowed this to happen? What forgiveness could be meted out for anyone involved in this?

"No. I can't even bring myself to pray, Father. God did this as much I did. God allowed this to happen, so how can I turn to him and ask his forgiveness? Who does He ask forgiveness from?" Art had never said anything like this in his life, never questioned the Creator, but here he was spewing blaspheme to a priest.

"God asks forgiveness of no one."

"Then how am I supposed to? If God is in the right here, how am I in the wrong?" Art asked.

"You are not in the—"

"No!" Art shouted into the phone. No. No. No. He wouldn't hear that. He wouldn't listen to the priest tell him such nonsense. "I am in the wrong, Father. I took a young man barely out of college and I gave him to a monster. That is wrong because I knew the risks, and I did it anyway. God knew. He had to know just as He knows how this thing is going to end, and He allowed it to happen. So if I'm wrong, He is wrong."

Mandalay said nothing but Art didn't hear a click. The priest was only quiet.

"God cannot be wrong. His very essence is righteous and anything that happens under His purview is in congruence with His plan, even the evil deeds that happen," the priest said.

"Father..." Art started.

"No, let me finish. The evil that happens is from the other, from Satan. He causes these things to happen as he tries to convince the world that his path is best. When people follow it, there is pain, there is suffering. That was not God's original plan, but the one forced on him by the other. These things that are happening, they are not your sins and they are certainly not God's. They are the other's, they are this Matthew Brand's. You will not be held accountable for the taking of this young man, but you also must not hold God accountable. That is Satan."

Art listened to the words, understanding that under no condition would the priest indict God. Under no condition would God be blamed.

"You told me that the potter doesn't allow his pots to smash one another. You still believe that? Even now with a quarter of the country in darkness and us light-years away from catching this man?"

"Of course, I still believe it. No one may alter God's plan. No angel in heaven and certainly no man on Earth. The pots perform as the sculptor has created them for, all of it designed to fulfill His plan in His time."

Art said nothing for a solid minute, maybe longer. Silence passed across the phones as easily as their words had moments before and Art was fine with that. The priest would not believe him, would not agree with him. Art felt fine with that too. He didn't need the priest to call out God; Art could do it himself. They both were guilty, God and himself, and he would take his blame.

"What if God didn't create this pot, Father? What if the Devil did?"

* * *

J
ake thought
for a long time after speaking with his father. He lay on the hotel bed and tried to avoid looking at the clock on the nightstand to his right, tried to avoid thinking about how he couldn't sleep and how much he needed to.

He had hoped speaking with his dad would bring him some comfort, but there hadn't been any comfort from his father's words. Go kill some people. That's all his father had for him. Keep trying, put one foot in front of the other, grab a gun and kill some people. Jake lay on the bed feeling like his mind was nothing more than a soup of fried neurons. He didn't know if he had anything left to give this case, didn't know what he would do when it was time for him to get out of bed and go back to the office. No ideas ran through his mind anymore, no momentary flashes of what might be done. Only despair lived inside him, despair and a deep, bone-saturating exhaustion.

Kill some people...

That's what his father did. His father got out of his bed, picked up his gun, and went to pull the trigger at people he didn't know.
That's all you can do in war.
Was it? For Brand, yes. Brand understood war, perhaps in a way very similar to his father. Brand kept moving, kept pushing forward, kept killing. Nothing would get in his way, nothing would slow him down. What were Art and he to do against it? What was he to do if Brand kept killing and they kept...getting people killed?

That's all you can do in war.

That's all you can do...

That's all...

Without bothering to set an alarm, Jake fell asleep with the thought floating through his head.

A
t two in the afternoon
, Jake still hadn't showed back up to the office. Art didn't call and didn't send anyone to look for him. Maybe he slept through his alarm or maybe he wasn't coming back. The kid was smart, and Art thought him tough, too—but he didn't know how much Jake could handle. He didn't know if Jake could handle that they sent Henry Werzen to what looked like certain death. Whether or not Jake was sleeping or had left town—ran away, quit—sending someone over there would do no good. If he was sleeping he needed it, and if he had left town, well...

God deliver us.

But, no, that wasn't going to happen, was it? God hadn't delivered Henry and he wouldn't deliver anyone else either. God had left this up to Art; God was resting. Art wouldn't cry off, wouldn't quit, but he was under no more delusions of deliverance.

Art needed Jake, knew that without him this thing might grind to a halt—and even so, he wasn't going to beg the kid (
but not so much a kid when compared with Henry, huh?
) to stay. He couldn't keep someone on a case like this, not if they wanted off. He'd have to let Jake go if that's what he wanted, and if so, Art would remain in this office just like now. If this was Art's last case, one way or another, he decided that he'd go on as he had the past thirty years. What other choice did he have? To quit? To walk away? To tell Gyle to fuck off and spend the remainder of his time hanging with his grandchildren? No. The best thing he could do for his grandchildren wasn't to go see them; he hadn't invested nearly enough time in their lives for that to matter to anyone but him. The best thing he could do was try and make sure that they lived longer than a few more weeks. Pride, ego—all of it could be thrown away. Fuck Gyle James and fuck Jake if he wasn't coming back. Fuck God if he was sitting this out. Fuck them all because Art was going to do his job the same as he had his whole life. He already sacrificed everything else, really. His marriage. His kids. His grandkids. What the hell was a few more weeks?

And so now ten boxes sat in Art’s office, all of them so full of files that he could barely squeeze anything out of them. Two agents from the floor spent the last hour bringing them over from records. Art was sort of surprised this all hadn't been uploaded to an on-line database yet, but in a way, he liked it. He would pour over the past twenty years of Brand at his desk, looking at paper rather than a digitized screen. Without sounding too nostalgic, or fuck it, maybe sounding nostalgic as hell, he was going to do real police work.

Art grabbed the first envelope in the first box and brought it to his desk. He wasn't Jake. His mind wasn’t built with the ability to create flashes of insight. He could read though, and that's what he was going to do. He would read every piece of the case he could and hope that a sentence or a picture clicked somewhere. If Jake showed up, he could grab a box and start reading. If he didn't, well, Art wasn't tired yet.

* * *

T
hree hours
in and without a single scent of Jake, Art looked at a name that had long since exited his mind.

Joseph Welch.

Good God, what happened to him?

The pictures in Welch's folder were beyond awful; in thirty years, they matched up with the worst Art had ever seen, and adding to them, Joe Welch watched the whole thing unfold with front row seats. Art wouldn't be surprised if the man was dead by now. His child had been stolen, his wife murdered—not to mention his dad too.

What had happened to him?

Art looked at the picture of Welch's wife, sitting limply on a chair Brand left her in, the blood that once flowed through her neck staining her lap and soaking into the carpet beneath her. Her head hung against her breastbone, her hair falling freely around her face. Art could see the silver duct tape that Brand used for almost everything. An image of Brand's house occurred to Art: every broken thing fixed with that same silver tape, making the whole place resemble the tin man in The Wizard of Oz. He didn't smile at the thought. He couldn't smile with these pictures in front of him.

He looked at his watch. It was a little past five in the evening. What day was it? He thought for a few seconds, counting backwards the best he could, until landing on a shaky idea that it was Tuesday.

"What day is it?" Art yelled out his open door. He could see one of the girls working for him at her desk. Past five and she was still here the same as he, making maybe a quarter of the salary. He didn't see the other two, and maybe they hauled off at five on the dot. Agents worked around the clock, but secretaries weren't required to.

The girl looked up from her computer screen. She smiled, almost laughing. "It's Wednesday, Mr. Brayden."

He nodded, staring at her. How old was she? Jake's age? Maybe. He didn't know, couldn't tell anymore, and really—what the hell did it matter? "Go home. I'll see you tomorrow."

The girl glanced back to her computer and seemed to consider the work there for a second before turning back. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. We won't catch him tonight."

"Okay, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow." She clicked on her mouse for a few seconds and Art went back to the pictures in front of him.

Joseph Welch, the forgotten victim. Or had all the victims been forgotten? Certainly Allison had been. This guy too. The only person not forgotten was Brand and that's because he wouldn't let anyone forget.

"Hey, could you do me a favor before you leave?" He looked back up to the girl.

"Sure. What do you need?"

"I need a number for Joseph Welch. He'll be in our database. Last known will be fine."

"Yes, sir. Just give me a minute," she said.

* * *

T
he phone rang
as Art flipped through the Welch files again. He would be thirty-two now, if he was alive. Art was calling his brother's phone, the last number they had for him. Apparently the man sold his landscaping company and moved in with his brother—distant cousin, really—which was all the FBI knew. Nothing after that, but did Art expect there to be? Art himself pushed the idea that there was no reason to worry about Brand, so why would there be any reason to look after the victims?

"Hello?" A voice answered.

"Hi, is this Lawrence Welch?"

"Larry, who is this?"

"My name's Art Brayden. I worked on the case involving your brother, or cousin, Joseph Welch, a few years ago. I, well, I got a bit curious about how he was doing so I looked up his last known and got your number. Is he around at all?"

A long pause came back.

"Hello?" Art asked.

"Jesus," Larry said. "I should have called you guys a long time ago. I really should have."

Art looked up from the pictures in front of him, his eyes flashing to the wall. "Called us? What for?"

"Are you working on Brand again? Are you trying to find him?"

"Yeah. What would you have needed to call us for?"

"Joe's lost it. Lost it years ago, really. I guess I just couldn't imagine how bad it would get back then, and even though it kept getting worse...I suppose it was like the frog in the pot. I just didn't notice how bad because I slowly adjusted to it."

The man paused and Art didn't push.

"Plus, how do you call the FBI on your brother?" A sigh. "Joe, I think, is trying to find Matthew Brand. He's been trying to find him for some time now, a few years."

"He's what?" Art asked, standing up from his desk.

"Yeah. He, umm, he's been looking for Brand for a while. The minute he heard the man might be alive, might have escaped from that prison again, he just sort of lost his mind. He started using cocaine and became obsessed with finding Matthew Brand. God, I sound awful, don't I? I mean, just saying this out loud...Should I have called you guys?"

"Have you heard from him lately, Mr. Welch?"

"A few days ago. He called. None of his calls are normal, and this one was as abnormal as all the rest, but different too. He told me he had cleaned up, was sober, and said he was going to find Brand within a week or so. I'm just so desensitized to it all, I told him best of luck and got off the phone. I have a family of my own and it's hard dealing with him, dealing with..."

Art stopped listening, hearing nothing of the guilt or excuses offered up. The man was looking for Brand? Said he was going to be in front of him within a week? And this motherfucker, Larry, didn't call anyone? Didn't think to let anyone know?

"You didn't call the police? Not even the local goddamn police?" He asked, interrupting whatever the man was spewing.

"No. I just…I'm so tired of it."

"Jesus Fucking Christ. What number did he call from?"

"Uhh, give me a second," Larry said. Art was pacing now, the phone to his ear, waiting on this idiot to go through his list of phone calls and hopefully come back with something useful.

"It's unlisted. Says private number on my caller ID."

"Of course it does," Art said. "Who's your carrier?"

"AT&T."

Art hung up the phone.

"Hey!" He shouted out his door again. "You still here?"

"Yes, sir," the girl said, appearing in his doorway with her purse on her shoulder. "You still need me?"

"Yeah. It's going to be a late night. First get me someone from AT&T on the line, and not one of their customer service reps. Then order some food."

She smiled. "We going to find him tonight?"

"We might," Art said.

* * *

T
he pounding
on the door grew from inside Jake's dream. He sat in a room, on a chair, with Henry Werzen next to him. Both of them were naked, their clothes discarded at their feet.

A door stood in front of them, and someone was banging on it, someone demanding that they open it.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM.

Henry turned his head to the left, looking at Jake, who whispered, "He's here."

And then the pounding on the hotel door pulled Jake from his dream. He awoke, lying on the hotel bed, wondering what in the hell was happening. Panic gripped him at first, both from Henry's whisper in the dream and the noises surrounding him. He sat up on the bed, quickly, his left hand out in front of him in a defensive gesture.

"Jake, open up the goddamn door. I know you haven't checked out!"

That was Art, for sure. The Cussing Catholic. Jake looked over at the clock next to him and—

"Damn it!" He shouted, leaping from the bed. It was six-thirty at night and he should have been at the office like five hours ago. How had he not set an alarm, or had he just slept through it? What was going on? "Hey, hold on!" He said as he half jogged and half stumbled to the door. He hammered down the door handle, twisting and pulling it as fast as he could.

"Did you quit or just forget to wake up?" Art stood looking at him, his face red and Jake thinking for the first time that the little midsection on Art might be catching up with him.

"I, uh, overslept, man. I'm sorry. What's going on?" He backed up as he spoke, motioning for Art to come in.

Art pushed through, passing Jake and hitting a light switch on the wall.