A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) Page 7

  The thought that Heather could be injured pushed back against the sedatives in his bloodstream and roused him to alertness. He stood.

  “Whoa, there. Take it easy, fella.”

  “Where’s my wife? Heather. Is she okay?” Brandon squinted to see the nurse against the harsh fluorescent lights.

  “She’s just fine. A little scuffed up, but she came in here with you. Not sure where she ran off to, but I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

  Dark fog speckled Brandon’s vision. Dizziness forced him to sit back down.

  “That’s it. You’re fine. Just relax. Can I get you anything?”

  “Water would be nice.”

  “Sure thing, dear. I’ll be right back.”

  The bed beckoned, but Brandon was hesitant to lie back down, for fear that he might doze off. Before he let himself rest, he needed to know exactly what had happened.

  Luckily, shortly after the nurse left, Heather peered around the doorframe and stole into the room like a runaway, glancing all around, her eyes awash with fear.

  “What’s wrong?” Brandon asked.

  “There are some police downstairs who want to talk with us,” Heather said. “We have to go.”

  Brandon hefted himself off the bed, more gingerly this time. The dizziness wasn’t as bad now. “What do you mean we have to go? Let’s tell the cops what happened.”

  Heather slung Brandon’s good arm over her shoulder. “Hon, can you trust me with something?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “We need to get out of this hospital. Now.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not something I can explain. Not for a while. But we’re not safe here. I have a place where we can hide. Where you can rest.”

  “I don’t do well taking things like this on faith,” Brandon said. He’d followed Virgil on faith last night, and the lunatic had nearly gotten them killed. He’d caused the plane crash! Hadn’t he?

  “It’s not on faith,” Heather said as she led him toward the hallway. “I took vows to you. You know me, you know I love you. I have good reasons for not telling you what I know. I can tell you eventually—just not now. Can you be okay with that?”

  Brandon idled. Seeing the pink light of dawn seep through the outer windows, and new doctors and nurses arriving for their shifts as their yawning colleagues departed, he marveled at how normal it all looked. This white-walled hospital appeared so innocuous, so mundane. No danger would assail him here, and he was so tired. Staying in his bed and talking to the police after he woke up seemed like the best option.

  Nevertheless, he let Heather help him get his shirt and jacket back on. She led him downstairs, out a back door, down some concrete steps next to a loading dock, and away from the building. He never answered her question; he didn’t have the energy to protest. He’d have lain down here on the asphalt and slept if his wife had let him. Whenever he tried to think about what she’d said, or tried to analyze what was happening to him, a cloud of drowsiness blocked his efforts, lulling and dulling his mind into a childlike daze. I’ll go wherever you want to take me, hon, he thought. But let’s get there soon. Heather had promised safety, and safety sounded good. But the comfort of sleep sounded better.

  As the sun rose, the newlyweds blended in with a steady stream of pedestrians and walked through the unfamiliar city. Brandon tried to convince himself he was in Charlotte, or even Seattle, but after fifteen minutes of not recognizing a single street or landmark, he let himself believe they were truly walking the streets of Atlanta.

  They passed some brick houses, a power substation, and some hole-in-the-wall restaurants where the smells of sausages and pancakes woke Brandon up a little. In his disoriented state, he half-wanted to go in and try a bite. An American flag overhead snapped in the wind, brakes squeaked in the morning rush hour, and a metro train rattled on its tracks. Brandon’s internal clock protested as the sun rose steadily higher.

  As Heather led him beneath a series of pedestrian skybridges, deep bells rung far away. Down one side street, Brandon glimpsed a hundred or more people waving signs and hollering slogans in the midst of a heated protest. Some kind of street preacher stood on a wooden box beside them, egging them on. Straight ahead, skyscrapers reached up past clouds and looked down on the demonstration with indifference.

  And none of it mattered. Every brain, every dollar, every hope in this whole city amounted to nothing more than an arbitrary collection of particles, flung to the cosmic wind just as Brandon had been when his wedding reception was cut violently short. No purpose had been bestowed on these particles, these people bustling all around him, but in their naivety, they’d seized purpose for themselves, unaware that any struggle they took up was ultimately meaningless. They should all just go to sleep. We should all just go to sleep forever.

  Heather stopped at an unseemly old apartment building just below a freeway. “This is the place,” she said as she checked the numbers above the doors. The humming and honking of the traffic above would threaten the slumber of any person on a normal sleep schedule, but Brandon had no doubt he’d drift right off once he laid down.

  Heather helped him climb the stairs to an apartment on the second floor, then placed a key in the lock. Where’d she get that from? They stepped inside to find a quaint little place badly in need of upkeep. A mound of grimy dishes spilled over the edge of the sink, while stacks of paper and dirty clothes littered the floor. Most of the walls were blank, with only a few generic floral paintings lazily sprucing up the milieu. Across from a small TV set, sooty cigarette butts lay scatted across a table beside a sunken old couch. It’s been far too long since I’ve had a smoke.

  Before Brandon could fully take in the space, Heather returned from the back rooms, carrying some clothes. He hadn’t even realized she’d left.

  “You need to change out of that bloody tux,” Heather said. “We were drawing everyone’s attention on our walk here.” She handed him some blue jeans and a plain black shirt. “I think these are women’s clothes, but I tried to pick something gender-neutral for you.”

  Heather inverted her blue frock up over her head, then changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Brandon swapped clothes too, and moved his wallet, keys, lighter, and cigarettes to the pockets of his new pants. As he changed, he noticed a leather jacket hanging on a rack by the door. The word “OUTLAWS” was emblazoned across its back, above the image of a skull crossed with two pistons. A matching motorcycle helmet lay on the floor beneath it.

  Brandon sniffed the jacket. It smelled clean. He pulled it off the rack and slid it over his shoulders. Although he couldn’t fit his cast through the left sleeve, he was still glad for some warmth after the brisk air outside. And as he glanced in a mirror, he saw that the jacket did make him look slightly less odd in these clothes that had been fitted for a woman.

  He turned to Heather. “What do you think?”

  She eyed him doubtfully. “I think we should try calling our relatives.”

  “I already tried that. My cell’s had no signal ever since we were in those dark hallways.”

  Heather paced to the landline—they were lucky this apartment still had one—then snatched up the phone and dialed.

  Thirty seconds passed. She tried dialing again, maybe another number this time. “Hello?” Heather said after a few seconds, surprise crossing her face. “Aunt Diane?”

  Heather’s surprise gave way to disappointment, then confusion. She shook her head at Brandon in bewilderment. “Okay,” she said into the phone. “I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number. Thanks.” She hung up and stared at the crisscross pattern of tiles on the floor.

  “Have you tried calling Karen?” Brandon said.

  “He was right,” Heather muttered. “He was right about everything.”

  “Who was right?”

  Heather looked up at him. “No one. Let’s get some sleep.” She plodded toward the bedrooms, and Brandon noticed for the first time that her eyelids were sagging too.

  “Whos
e place is this?” he asked.

  “A friend’s. Come on. There’s a bed in the smaller room that we can share.”

  •

  Thick, soupy sleep tried to hold Brandon down, but the knocking at the front door reminded him—even in his dreamy state—that danger had been stalking him all night long. He wrenched his mind out from its slumber and tried to see through the bleary film separating him from his surroundings. Where was he again? Some apartment in Atlanta? Atlanta? And Tim was dead. But there was Heather, asleep on the bed next to him, breathing steadily. So she was okay. But his plane had crashed. How had he gotten here?

  He stumbled out of bed and to the bedroom door. Another knock. With great effort, he put his left foot in front of his right, then his right in front of his left. He tried to steady himself with his left arm, but then saw that it was covered by a cast. This startled him, but he quickly recalled that his arm was broken.

  After a minute of struggling against drowsiness, Brandon reached the front door, made sure it was locked, then peered through the eyehole. On the other side stood a man in his fifties with an average build; he appeared to be completely naked save for a pink bathrobe wrapped around him. Sweat covered the man’s brow where his receding hairline did not. He looked like he was panting after a hard run. “Helloooo?” he said. “Anyone in there?”

  Brandon felt adrenaline kicking in. Remembering the events after his wedding last night, he was waking up fast. Who was this strange man at the door of this strange apartment? Could peril have followed him and Heather all the way to this new city?

  “Who is it?” Brandon asked, his speech rasping from his dry throat. He swallowed to regain his voice, then shuddered to shake some of the fatigue out of him.

  “Ah!” the man outside said. “Hi there. Are you Brandon?”

  Brandon considered the question for a moment. “Tell me who you are first.”

  The man outside seemed to consider Brandon’s question for an even longer moment. “Uh, people call me the Judge. I’m a friend of Thorn’s.”

  The Judge? Thorn? What are those? Drug dealer handles? “I don’t know anyone named Thorn,” Brandon said.

  “Thorn?” Heather said, rubbing an eye as she wound around the hallway from the bedroom. “Who said something about Thorn?”

  “There’s a guy outside who says he knows someone called Thorn.”

  Heather ran to the front door and pushed Brandon aside. “What’s the password?” she said, loud enough for the man in the bathrobe to hear her. Perplexed, Brandon peeked through the window blinds.

  “The password is… ‘password’?” the Judge said, cringing while he said it.

  “Nope,” Heather said. “You’re gonna have to leave.” She turned to Brandon and whispered, “Get ready. We might have to run for it.”

  “No, hey, I’m here to save you,” the Judge protested. “Thorn’s stuck in prison and I need to use you two as a distraction. We can rescue him! Not that Thorn would agree with this strategy, but screw him. I can be the hero for a day.”

  “Are you human?” Heather asked nonsensically. Brandon threw her an inquisitive glance, but she ignored it.

  The Judge laughed a showy laugh. “Psh, of course I’m not human. This is my man Greg Cohn. Say hi, Greg.”

  The man’s facial expression suddenly shifted to one of total panic. “Shit! What the fuck? Let me go, you alien fucker! If you think you can abduct—”

  Abruptly, the man’s face relaxed again into an amused grin. “Greg thinks I’m an E.T., taking control of his body. Isn’t that just the best?”

  “How’d you find us?” Heather asked through the door.

  “Oh, Thornyboy’s had a little crush on this girl called Amy, so I thought I could use her to spring Thorn out. She turned out to be kind of knifed in the stomach, though, but I did hear her tell her mom not to go back to her apartment, which is, conspicuously, this apartment, of which you are not a resident. So I put two and two together like the clever cat I am. Now are you gonna let me in, or what?”

  “Not unless you can tell me the password. If Thorn sent you, he’d have given you the password. Are there any more of you things around here?”

  Brandon noted that Heather was eyeing the sliding glass door that led to the small balcony.

  “Lock those doors,” she told him. Brandon accommodated her.

  “There were two of them, but I came in while you were asleep and kicked their asses out. Come on. Time’s a-wastin’. I don’t know how long Marcus can resist killing Thorn when he’s got him right there under his thumb. Especially when he’s scared that some kook like me could just distract his guards and yank Thorn out through the walls.”

  “I thought Thorn was in a physical body,” Heather said.

  “What are you talking about, hon?” Brandon said, but she ignored him again.

  “Eh, sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t. It’s weird. Now please, for the last time, I need you to let me in so we can talk about a rescue plan.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Heather said.

  “Fine,” the Judge’s muffled voice came through the door. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll—”

  •

  For a moment less than a tenth of a second in length, Thilial dropped into the physical world to cushion Heather from the falling door. The Judge abandoned Cohn’s body, then sped past the wrecked hinges in the doorframe. He reached Brandon before Heather even hit the ground. He wrapped himself around his head, and—

  God almighty! Is he trying to possess him? He hasn’t studied him. He doesn’t even know him! Given this, possessing Brandon would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

  Back in the angelic realm, Thilial rushed to Brandon and wrestled for control of his mind. But after the Judge easily settled inside of Brandon’s headspace, Thilial realized she’d only made the problem worse. Two sets of spiritual hands pulling at Brandon’s fatigued brain wrung it into submission faster than the Judge’s hands alone could have. Thilial half-wished she’d never found those two demon bodies in Amy’s hospital closet, so she could wash her hands of anything that happened here.

  Four of her underlings had been guarding Amy’s room since midnight in hopes that Thorn would show up, and they certainly hadn’t put those bodies there. The dead demons’ presence left Thilial with a hunch that Thorn had visited Amy already. The angels must have just missed him—a mistake that would never have happened had Thilial continued to oversee Atlanta instead of rollicking around after Thorn in the Sanctuary. She cursed herself for her negligence.

  Still, she was immensely grateful to God for sparing Amy. That was at least some consolation, no matter what happened with Thorn. Thilial had been getting to know Amy these past few months while watching Thorn’s interactions with the girl, satisfying her own morbid curiosity about Thorn’s circumstances. And it was a good thing, too. Had she not cared for Amy, she might not have stayed at the hospital to whisper words of reassurance to Amy, and she might not have been there when the Judge came barging into Amy’s room.

  What are you doing, fool? Thilial had asked herself over and over again during her hasty flight here, chasing the Judge across town. You swore to Thorn himself that you’d never aid him again.

  But Gleannor’s talk of warfare had frightened her, as did the suspicious murmurings of a coming war among Atlanta’s demon population. Despite Thilial’s hatred of demonkind, she did not want war. War would mean the deaths of untold multitudes of her own kind, and the neglect of as many humans. Besides, as Thorn had shown her last night… maybe not all demons were quite so bad. Thilial couldn’t bear to think that her own actions in the Sanctuary might lead, even if indirectly, to the extermination of all demonkind. And if Thilial was to prevent bloodshed, she needed allies. No angel she knew of would dare to assist her, and under God’s wary eyes, she would not dare to ask.

  But Thorn could help her. With him handling the demons and Thilial handling God, and the two humans as evidence that all demons were living u
nder an oppressive system of lies, maybe war could be avoided. It was a long shot, but maybe God could finally have the long talk with demonkind that He should have had ages ago.

  But for the moment, Thilial couldn’t worry about any of that. She needed to keep Brandon safe from the maniacal Judge who’d just possessed him. She considered outright killing the Judge, but God would only punish her further for that, and the Judge was also a potential ally in her plight. But only potential: she didn’t trust him yet, and his manner was too haphazard to entrust with Thilial’s delicate responsibilities. Nevertheless, she needed to free Thorn from Marcus’s confinement just as much as the Judge did.

  Brandon’s body convulsed and nearly fell as the Judge asserted imperfect control over it, breaking his own esteemed Second Rule. Brandon stabilized and looked up at Heather, who was dusting herself off, recovering from her fall.

  “And I’ll blow your house down, muthafuckas,” Brandon said at the Judge’s behest, a wild simper on his face. He sprinted out through the front door.

  Heather grabbed some shoes from beside the door and ran after him, down the stairs outside.

  “Wait!” called Cohn, who was picking himself up off the concrete walkway at the top of the stairs. “Who are you? Did you probe me? You think you can just abduct my rich ass and walk away? Get back here!”

  Thilial grimaced at the ridiculous situation, but she knew she’d have to help the Judge if he was to have any chance of success, and if the humans were to be kept safe. And her own chances of freeing Thorn would be greater with the Judge’s help. She rose into the sky above the apartment, spread her wings, then gave chase.

  And so it was that the Judge, the beleaguered angel, the possessed flight instructor with the broken arm, his wife, and a half-naked banker all raced across Atlanta to go rescue Thorn.

  7

  A prisoner in his own body, Brandon strained for control. Sweat drizzled down his neck as he ran across the city, struggling even to breathe, since whatever had taken over his body seemed inattentive to Brandon’s basic bodily functions. And something was controlling him. For the first couple minutes, he’d taken his sudden involuntary movements as some sort of mental break resulting from his recent trauma and lack of sleep. But as his body sprinted relentlessly forward, he realized that he was still lucid, and he began to sense that someone else occupied his mind with him. He didn’t know who it was or how this was possible, but he could feel the foreign entity issuing commands, and he could only disobey those commands if he resisted with all his effort—a difficult prospect in his fatigued state. He couldn’t even turn his head to see if Heather was behind him, or how far. Thank goodness my arm is still numb from the hospital. And that I’m in decent shape. This run might have killed me otherwise.