Chapter 16 #2
“Beelzebub. Just call me Beelzebub,” he protested, looking at Zach and frowning.
“You’re not getting it at all. We need to behave as the witches, the devil, and the evil, so that those around us can see that it is out there!
We work against type, don’t you understand?
People are sheep; they believe what they see; and what they see can be so, so wrong. ”
“But your name is David,” Skye said softly.
She shook her head. “You’re not any kind of a devil, David.
We can see that you’ve spent a miserable, miserable life!
And your supposed master knew that and offered you something better—food, a home, caring.
And you were eager to listen to someone who wanted to help you. ”
“Because he knows!” David exclaimed.
“So, who is he? If he’s so wonderful, you can tell us who he is,” Zach said quietly.
David Harrison sat back, smiling. “He’s the wicked witch!” he said.
“You don’t know who he is, do you?” Zach asked.
Something flashed across the man’s face.
He didn’t know! But how is that possible?
“He’s the wicked witch, teaching those who are truly evil the truth. He will win; he will take the power because he must,” David said.
“Where does he live?” Skye asked.
“In the darkness of the woods, where he can fight the devil and keep him at bay,” David told them earnestly.
“When you need to see him, you see him in the woods?” Skye asked.
David waved a hand in the air.
“When were you supposed to meet him next?” Zach asked.
David hung his head again. “I failed him! I was to have met him in the forest with … with the devil’s woman.”
“The woman you were threatening to kill?” Skye asked softly.
“Yes, she needed reconditioning. Badly,” David said. “She needed to be brought into the light; she needed to be saved.”
“Where in the forest?” Zach persisted.
David laughed. “Head in from the road, find the center, the large space in the midst of the star copse of trees. Except most people don’t know the forest, and even if they know the forest, they’d never know the star!”
“Maybe we’ll have you bring us there,” Zach suggested.
The man sighed deeply. “I’d be … I’d be as lost as you. I just knew that I had to get the woman and start looking until I found it. Or until he found me.”
“Where else do you meet him? What else do you do for him?” Skye queried.
“I’m earning my wings,” the man said. “I … I bring people to designated places.”
“People,” Zach repeated. “Like Bella Dunn?”
David smiled then. “Bella is my friend. She deserves everything the master can give her, do for her! Yes, I brought Bella to him.”
“Where’s your gun? Did you force her?” Skye asked.
“No! I invited her. And only a few carry weapons such as guns!” David said, as if horrified by the idea that all of the master’s followers might do so. “And only the master himself carries Eve.”
“‘Eve’? An assault weapon, you mean,” Zach said.
David shrugged. “She is Eve; only someone who truly gains their wings may carry a weapon such as Eve.”
“How many have earned their wings?” Skye asked him softly.
He shrugged. “Perhaps a few. But there is tending to the flock; there is food; there is guarding those who, we fear, have not understood; who might try to take the innocents, who are learning, away from the righteous path.”
He sat back, closing his eyes. “There is nothing more I can tell you. The master cared for me a long time. He made me well; he made me whole. But he is smart. He knows that the devil dancers can sweep us up, and he’s careful that none of us can give him away.
I can’t tell you anything else. It’s not that I won’t tell you anything else.
I simply can’t, because he keeps places, people, and plans to himself.
He knows that devils can be tricksters!”
Zach glanced at Skye; they both believed the man was telling the truth.
And yet …
They knew Bella had been introduced to the master, and she was among the “flock” that he was gathering.
They stood together. “Thank you, David,” Skye said. “They will take care of you tonight. They will see you have food and a bed. We aren’t devils, nor do we dance with any. Hopefully, you’ll begin to see the truth.”
She wasn’t waiting for an answer. She stood and walked out.
Zach stood and looked at the man. “Yes, thank you, David, for your honesty. And because I do believe you’re a good man at heart, I hope for your sake the innocent people your master has taken don’t wind up being brutally killed in defense of his lies.”
The man looked at him. Zach thought something almost like fear touched his eyes. He didn’t know, and there was nowhere left to go in the little room.
Zach headed out to join Skye in the hallway, just as Gavin and Captain Claybourne came out of the observation room.
“Connie? The cook and the waitress?” Zach asked Gavin immediately.
“Connie is coming around. She was still groggy and not very coherent, but the doctors say that may change. In addition to being stabbed, the waitress had a blow to her head; she’s been put into a medically induced coma and may need further surgery to reduce swelling in the brain.
The cook is out of surgery, stable, but still sedated.
Tomorrow is the earliest we have a chance of talking to those two,” Gavin told them.
“But Connie could …” Skye began.
“Bit by bit. She was hit with some heavy scopolamine, which was what the doctors believe was somehow put in her coffee!” Gavin told them. “Ironically, I’m told that scopolamine is also known as ‘Devil’s Breath.’”
“Ironic, all right,” Skye murmured. “So, I imagine, when she was in there, the cook had probably already been struck. The witch slipped the drug into the coffee being served to Connie and waited for the waitress to head back into the kitchen. Maybe the witch was on the way out after Connie—with his minion in the woods, ready to sweep her up—when the waitress interrupted him.”
“Possibly,” Gavin agreed. “And this guy, this minion …”
“We’ve been listening, but it’s almost as if he’s been speaking a foreign language. Do you think we have anything?” Claybourne asked anxiously.
“We know Bella is with whoever this master is, but that’s obvious to all of us. At least, you can tell her parents that she’s alive,” Skye said.
“At some point, we’ll get back into the forest—” Zach began.
“Well, the master won’t be there now! He’ll have known that David failed, and he isn’t getting Connie,” Claybourne said.
Of course, Claybourne didn’t know just what Skye might see if they were able to find the star copse in the woods, Zach considered.
“We know these people are being taken as pawns, as shields,” Zach said flatly.
“This guy has doped and brainwashed the addicts, kids, and anyone he saw at the bottom of the ladder as being vulnerable. Frankly, I think he killed Mike Bolton because he might have had an idea of who he was and what he might be up to. He took the Bolton kid—and Mrs. Howell and little Sophie—to have small children in his number. He also went for the obvious, instead of doing his usual—stealing a kid out of a group home or something like that—because he wanted us spinning our wheels searching for them. I believe it’s because whatever the great plan is—it’s happening soon.
We need to see Detective Berkley, which we’ll do now and get whatever she can give us.
And maybe there’s hope we can speak with the cook or the waitress from the café, but I don’t think they’ll be much help.
When they’re able to talk, they’ll say they were stabbed by a witch.
If I’m right, the witch came into that place through the back, trying to verify that Detective Berkley was there.
Maybe the TV freaked her out—or maybe she saw he had followed her into the café.
The waitress and cook had to go because they were going to call the police.
Captain, I think Gavin, Skye, and I will go to the hospital and try to speak with Berkley.
Then we’ll get some sleep after seeing to it that our best people, and your best people, continue seeking something that would make this man a king in truth—a gold shipment, a massive money exchange, something, perhaps the movement of tech or a serious military weapon—”
“A bomb, a bioweapon!” Captain Claybourne said with dismay.
“Possibly. And when he goes after it, the kids—the innocents—will be his shields. We must know what—and stop it!” Zach said. “So, Skye and Gavin, ready?”
“Incidentally, we’ve got another problem,” Gavin said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m afraid we’re going to find Detective Vince Cason … dead,” he said flatly. “He still hasn’t responded. Either someone slipped him something, and he’s in deep, deep hiding, or … or he’s dead. He’d have responded by now if he could have.”
Claybourne shook his head. “No. You found Berkley. Get out there and find Vince Cason, too!” He headed off to his office.
“I can drive,” Gavin said.
“We’ll take our car, too,” Skye said quickly, glancing at Zach. She smiled. “We haven’t eaten since breakfast, and now it’s very late. So after we’ve spoken to Connie, we’ll need to grab something—”
“And probably fall asleep in our soup,” Zach joked. “But we’ll meet you there, all right?”
Gavin nodded grimly. They all left the station and headed for their cars.
* * *