The Overseer Page 15

There was a scream of tires as momentum propelled a car forward. A human scream. A sickly sound:

  Thud!

  They turned just in time to see a black sedan hit Angelo as he plowed across the lanes. His body thrown to the ground.

  The world seemed to stop for a moment.

  Traffic halted. The sauntering tourists paused, watching the spectacle. Trista held, John coming up beside her.

  The driver got out of the vehicle, walking toward the badly damaged front end.

  Trista swallowed, uncertain how to feel. She turned to John. “Is he…?” She didn’t finish her sentence.

  John shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  The gathering crowd leaned in for a moment around Angelo—obscured by cars and people—then stepped back. Surprise covered their faces. The top of Angelo’s head—covered in long grimy curls hanging from his bowed shoulders across his downturned face—lifted.

  Trista’s heart stopped.

  “John,” she stammered, trying to think of what to do next.

  He grabbed her arms, squeezing hard. “Trista.” His expression was sharp with a ferocious seriousness. “The room!” he barked. “I’ll draw him off. Go!”

  She tried to speak—to protest—to tell him that she would be fine and that she would stay with him—

  Angelo stood in the street, eyes lifting—making contact with Trista’s.

  “Go!” John shoved her, sending her back hard, nearly falling over. He stabbed down the sidewalk with a fingertip, pointing the direction to go. “Run!”

  Angelo shoved his way through the surrounding people, pushing past cars.

  Trista ran and didn’t look back.

  Angelo’s vision was still blurry.

  What had happened?

  There had been cars. Lots of them. He’d shoved his way through traffic. Something had gone wrong.

  He caught sight of a car’s front end. He’d been hit.

  His vision swished side to side, trying to steady on one particular thing. Someone was trying to talk to him—like voices beneath the ocean surface. Sounds took shape like blurring images sharpening under the twisting focus of a camera’s lens.

  “You need to watch where you’re going!” someone growled.

  Angelo braced his weight against his knees, pushing himself up.

  More voices: “You should get to a hospital, buddy.”

  “You’re lucky you aren’t dead.”

  Luck didn’t factor into it. At least it wasn’t important. Nothing was important. Only Temple and the woman—Brightling?

  The sidewalk. He looked. Two bleary figures through the haze of his eyes—a man and a woman.

  Angelo took a step forward, nearly toppling. Someone tried to help him, but he shoved them away. People hung from their car windows, shouting obscenities, demanding he get out of the busy street.

  He looked up again, vision clearing. The woman was gone. Run away? Temple stood there—staring. Then ran.

  An instinct took over and he charged after—powerless against the impulse.

  Like a bobcat, he thought, the way they took off after hikers and runners. Chasing after anything that would run away.

  He was over a car hood in a flash, tearing after John Temple, chasing him down an alleyway.

  A wild animal, Angelo thought to himself, coolly. He was a wild animal with tunnel vision. He noted how true this seemed— the way his mind seemed to narrow into a fixated tunnel. As if John Temple—his quarry—were the only thing that existed.

  Through the blistering hot alleyway. Around the corner—into a parking garage attached to the back of one of the numerous hotels on the Strip. Up a ramp. Higher and higher.

  He could feel Temple. He couldn’t let him go. He was so close. Just around— Angelo rounded the corner. And never saw it coming.

  John backed away.

  The third floor of the parking garage. Angelo on his knees— knocked to the ground from the solid kick he had delivered to the small of Angelo’s back. He moved in to kick again—leg cocking back.

  “Wait,” Angelo said, lifting a hand to ask for a moment.

  John stopped, confused. Just a moment ago he was being chased by something wild and unpredictable. Now he was staring at a seemingly lucid individual, asking for patience.

  “What do you want?” John shouted, overcome with panic and anger.

  Angelo began to raise himself, crouching—then lunged forward, wrapping his hand around John’s throat, slamming him into a cement wall. The shockwave rippled through John’s body and along his arms, hands grasping at his choking throat.

  “I was just hit by a car!” Angelo spat. “Do you think that kicking me will do anything?”

  John tried to fight loose, hands groping.

  “Stop struggling,” Angelo ordered, staring into John’s eyes. He seemed to lose patience in an instant. “Stop struggling!”

  John stopped, staring at Angelo, realizing suddenly that he wasn’t strangling.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” Angelo announced firmly.

  “What?” John asked, confused.

  “I’m here to warn you.”

  John looked over Angelo with suspicious eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  Angelo let go, taking a step back. “I obviously can’t stop you, so the least I can do is warn you.”

  John grabbed his knees, taking long and deliberate breaths, recovering from both the run and being pinned to the wall. “Warn me about what?”

  “How much do you know about the Thresher?”

  John shook his head. “Not much. I know the older Firstborn get spooked when they talk about the idea. He—it—whatever the Thresher is, it’s bad.”

  Angelo nodded, stepping away from John. “The Thresher is a simple thing. As long as the Firstborn are divided and useless, the Thresher stays dormant. But as the Firstborn come together, it wakes—and is unleashed, allowed to do greater evil.”

  “What are you saying?” John asked, wiping sweat from his forehead as he sat on the concrete.

  Angelo crouched in front of John, face getting close. “The last time the Thresher was unleashed was in the first half of the twentieth century. There had been a serious attempt to unify the Firstborn in Europe, and it almost succeeded, but as a result they were nearly wiped out. To this day there is still next to no Firstborn on the European continent. And the evil they restrained was set free.”

  John studied Angelo’s intense face, trying to remember what Jerry Kirkland had told him about the history of the Firstborn, trying to see if it all worked together. But it was too vague to make it work in his mind; he needed more. “What evil?”

  “The evil that plunged us into world war and slaughtered millions.”

  “That can’t be right,” John stammered. “That’s not possible.”

  “The Firstborn,” Angelo said, standing, “are not possible. But here we are, talking about unseen evils and visions of an otherwise unknowable future.” He took a step back, as if to leave.

  “Wait,” John said, raising a hand. “You said you came to warn me. About what?”

  Angelo straightened his long dark jacket. “Beware of the Thresher. God isn’t the only originator of visions. The Thresher can make you see things too.”

  “You think we saw something false?”

  “One of us must have,” Angelo asserted. “And I know what I saw.”

  “So do I,” John replied. “Which means that it’s my perception of reality against yours.”

  Angelo nodded. “Which has always been the problem with people and faith. Something the Thresher is going to exploit.”

  “What is the Thresher anyway?” John demanded.

  “The Thresher?” Angelo said with a nod, obviously preparing to share whatever he knew. “The Thresher is a job, a vocation among demons. Whichever demon is chosen to be Thresher is charged with destroying or containing the Firstborn. When you started to come together, they got rid of the old guy—he was too gentle—and they got somebody new. A demon
who was meaner and more aggressive. This demon has been given permission to take you out with extreme prejudice.”

  John thought for a moment, trying to see if Angelo’s sincerity showed any sign of cracking. “The Thresher has been unleashed.”

  “Yes,” Angelo agreed. “And the Thresher can trick you, trap you, and kill you.”

  John considered for a moment. “And the Thresher wants to kill me?”

  “Not you,” Angelo said, turning his back, walking away. “Trista Brightling.”

  Chapter 14

  THEY SAT IN a coffee shop they had found in a small town off the highway. The sign had said “Free Wi-Fi,” and that was something they might need.

  Hannah stared at the screen of the confiscated laptop, looking up occasionally at Devin, who glanced at his own personal laptop between casual and paranoid looks at the door.

  She watched a progress bar race across, fill with green, then turn over onto the next screen demanding a password. “Uhoh,” she muttered to herself.

  “What is it,” Devin said casually, still watching the door.

  “I need a password to get in.”

  Devin nodded. “That’s expected.”

  “You were military intelligence,” she said, shaking her head. “What do I need to do?”

  “I was HumInt—human intelligence—that’s a SigInt question.”

  “SigInt?” she asked, staring at the password screen.

  He took a sip of coffee. “Signals intelligence. Try password.” Devin taped at his own computer. “It’s the most common password.”

  Hannah typed in the word, hitting the enter key. She shook her head. “No good. Anything else?”

  Devin didn’t look up. “Birthdays, nicknames, hobbies. Those are all common mistakes. But those are weak passwords—the kind that people can figure out. Professionals don’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

  “Then what do I do?” she asked.

  Devin glanced naturally at a window. “Pray they’re amateurs.”

  She typed in dragon.

  Nothing.

  She tried girls.

  Incorrect.

  She typed several random dates. Place names—it was all grasping in the dark.

  “I’m trying everything I can think of,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “I think we already established that these people are professionals. I don’t think I’m going to be able to guess this.”

  Devin looked up, making contact with piercing eyes. “Then you have to find it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The password is buried somewhere in the past,” he said. “You’re the one who can see that.”

  Hannah looked down for a moment. “It doesn’t work like that. We don’t get to choose what to see; we only see what we’re shown.”

  “True,” Devin said, looking her over for a few moments. “But it can’t hurt to ask.”

  Hannah thought for a moment, then nodded. She stared at the screen. Some part of her wanted to plead with God, but instead she simply made a small, silent appeal—then closed her eyes.

  She focused on her breathing—listening for the quiet voice of eternity.

  Then she felt it.

  The past was quiet. No pictures. No sounds. Just the feeling of the keyboard. She lifted her hands, setting her fingers on the keys.

  She felt the motion, her finger moving from its resting place to a key—then struck. Then another key. She could feel what had been done before—so many times, as if warmth were rising from each key. Hannah tapped away—a string of more than ten letters and numbers—a code that meant nothing to her, a total jumble no person would ever guess.

  She struck the enter key and opened her eyes.

  The screen went black.

  Her breath caught in her throat for a moment. The desktop loaded, icons populating the field as they appeared intermittently in a jagged pattern.

  Hannah let out a small sigh. “We’re in.”

  Devin stood, coming around behind her.

  Her hands continued, feeling out the warm path backward through time. The mouse cursor glided effortlessly across the screen, her finger gliding toward the image that seemed to rise up in her mind.

  Double-click. A desktop folder opened. Another set of clicks, another opened folder. She didn’t even have a chance to read the label on the digital folder—images of the process unfolded in her mind like a tutorial, taking her through the steps.

  A document opened. Not a Word document. Something else.

  “Devin,” she said slowly, “what am I looking at?”

  He eyed the screen over her shoulder for several seconds. “These are source files for a Web site.”

  Hannah looked over the images: pornography. Naked bodies of young girls—their faces all cropped out of the image. Hannah felt embarrassment and discomfort, even though it wasn’t much different than some of the things she had seen hanging on dorm room walls back at school. She frowned. “Why aren’t their faces in the pictures?”

  Devin was silent for a moment, his eyes turning up toward the counter now to see if any of the management had noticed what they were perusing. “They’re minors,” he said, voice strained.

  “How do you know?”

  He groaned to himself. “Because in the eyes of the law it’s not considered child pornography unless the face is showing.”

  Hannah’s stomach tightened in a bad way.

  Devin continued, “And if you’re going to have a public Web site advertising what you have in your possession, you don’t want to make the girls identifiable to begin with, and you certainly don’t want to get hit with child pornography if you are caught. The courts don’t like it, and fellow inmates don’t take well to it either.”

  Hannah nodded, focusing on her breathing and her stillness. “Do you think these are our girls in these pictures?”

  “Does it matter?” Devin asked. “We’re still dealing with very horrible people.”

  “But will it help us find the girls?”

  Devin reached for the touch pad, moved the mouse cursor, and clicked on a link. He read for a moment: “Jackpot.”

  “What?” Hannah asked, not bothering to read the screen.

  “It looks like the girls are being auctioned off at a private residence in another state.”

  “Where?” Hannah asked, searching the large block of text on the screen. Then she saw it. She wasn’t as surprised as she might have suspected.

  “Las Vegas, Nevada,” Devin said with a nod. “Everything is pulling us there.”

  John Temple walked the halls of the hotel, nearing the room.

  He was tired. He was beaten. His body ached.

  Had Angelo been right? Was Trista Brightling going to die? Could he stop it? Was Angelo even lucid enough to know the difference between fact and delusion?

  His world seemed to float. Arms, heavy and fatigued, swung at his sides as he walked. Each step seemed to land with a strange certainty. Ahead he saw the room. A few more steps. Standing in front of the door he reached for the key card. John swiped the black magnetic strip, the light flashed green, and the lock slid away with a thud.

  He reached for the door handle, but it turned on its own. Someone inside opened the door and threw it open:

  Trista.

  Her eyes were wide—scared? Excited? It didn’t matter.

  She threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into the room, the door sliding shut behind them.

  “John,” she stammered, almost tearful, “I was scared to death. You ran off, and I came back to the room and you weren’t here.” She pulled away, smiling at him. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

  John stared into her eyes. Big and beautiful.

  “Are you OK?” she asked.

  He shook his head, eyes never leaving hers. “Why?”

  “You’re just looking at me like…”

  He pushed a blonde strand from her face with one hand, cradling her cheek with the other. “Trista, I want you to know something.”<
br />
  Her expression changed to confusion. “What?”

  “I’ll protect you,” he said with a sincere nod. “No matter what happens, I’ll do everything to protect you.”

  Her eyes seemed to soften, more vulnerable than before. “Are you OK?” she asked, still confused. “What about Angelo? What if he finds us again? Do you think he’s trying to kill us?”

  “I’d die for you,” he said, holding her face gently. “You know that, right? You know that I’d—”

  She kissed him.

  John stared at her. “Why did you do that?”

  “Shut up,” she seethed. “Shut up and kiss me.” She moved close to his face. “Kiss me before I come to my senses.”

  Lips touched. Like static, John thought, mind racing—world vanishing. Her arms around him, pulling him close. He pushed back, lips working in tandem, pressing her into the wall.

  She muttered his name, and he moved to her neck.

  “John,” she said.

  His teeth worked gently on the soft skin of her neck.

  “John,” she said again, “stop.”

  He pulled back, looking at her face, lipstick smeared. “What?”

  “Stop,” she stammered, pushing him away.

  “I’m sorry, Trista,” he said, trying to think of what to say to make it right.

  She wiped her lips with the back of her arm. “I’m sorry, John. I never should have done that.”

  “Trista,” he pleaded, stepping toward her, “talk to me.”

  She put up her hands. “Stay back, John, OK? Just leave me alone for a while. It was a mistake. That never should have happened.”

  He opened his palms to her, pleading. “Why not? Will you just talk to me?”

  She shook her head, backing away. “We can’t be together, John. We can never be together—not ever. I’m sorry to make things more difficult for you. I really am. I’m sorry for leading you on, but it was a mistake. It was always a mistake.”

  “Trista,” he called toward her as she moved into the suite’s bedroom, “wait.”

  The door shut. The lock clicked. And John Temple stood in the hotel room by himself. He walked to the bedroom door and knocked. There was no reply.

  He waited thirty minutes, then left.