Fire Of Heaven 02 - Threshold Read online

  They’d started seven years ago. The voices. Back in high school, back when Mr. Johnson, the philosophy teacher, had turned him on to Eastern mysticism, particularly Zen Buddhism. It was no big deal — just a cool way of relaxing and “connecting to the cosmic consciousness within.” To heighten the effect, Lewis and a few friends started using pot, then later, hallucinogenics.

  And then the whispering began. A gentle presence. Then another, and another. It seemed that the more he emptied his mind, the stronger and more numerous those presences became. Sometimes they whispered things to him, warned him, revealed information that no one could possibly have known. And the more he gave himself to them, the stronger they became.

  That was when Dr. Reichner over at Moran Research Institute took him under his wings. He was one of the few who believed that Lewis wasn’t crazy, that the voices really did exist. He began running tests on Lewis. And the more tests he ran, the more Reichner reassured Lewis that there truly was something remarkable about him, something “gifted.” That was his exact word: gifted.

  For a while everything had been great. Lewis had been Dr. Reichner’s golden boy. But, as the tests went deeper and deeper, as he surrendered more and more of himself to the voices, they began to take more and more control. Eventually Lewis, growing frightened, tried to silence the voices, to demand that they leave.

  That’s when they became ugly.

  That’s when they grew terrifying, demanding. That’s when they began disrupting the experiments, filling Lewis’s head with shrieks and screams, causing him to explode in violence. And that’s when Reichner turned traitor, insisting that it was just too dangerous to continue his experiments. Of course Lewis had pleaded with him, had begged him to understand. His giftedness was certainly worth the risk of a few outbursts. But Reichner disagreed and had said no to Lewis.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible for Lewis to say no to the voices. They kept growing, in power and in number. And they kept increasing their demands. Usually there seemed to be one or two in charge, and Lewis could pick out their voices and understand what they wanted. But not when the others joined in. Not when they all began screaming and shrieking their demands for violence at the same time.

  Yet, even now, he knew they didn’t just want violence for its own sake. Even now, Lewis sensed a broader purpose. There was some sort of plan behind all of this, some logic. If he could just figure out what it was that they really wanted.

  He looked down at the list of words Acne Face was writing from the letters that appeared on the board:

  Slay

  Execute

  Kill

  Exterminate

  What did he need the board for? These were the same words he heard on his own. There must be some sort of pattern here. If the voices would just stop screaming long enough for him to —

  “Is anybody else getting bored?” Acne Face asked as he stopped to rub the cramp out of his hand. “We’ve been doing this like for a couple hours, now.”

  Pierced Eyebrow glanced up. “Yeah, maybe we should give it a rest.”

  “Or start asking it other stuff,” Acne Face said.

  “Like what?” Pierced Eyebrow asked.

  “I don’t know. Hey, I got it. Let’s ask it if I’m going to be rich.”

  Pierced Eyebrow frowned. Suddenly his face lit up. “No, I got it. Ask if — ask it if I’m going to get lucky with Julie Nelson.”

  Acne Face snickered.

  “No, better yet, ask it if there’s like some kinda spell I can cast on her — you know, words or something that will make her —”

  Lewis leaped to his feet. He grabbed the board and threw it across the room. Then he turned his rage on the boys, swearing vehemently at them, using only a fraction of the words filling his head.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Acne Face protested as he rose to his feet.

  Pierced Eyebrow did the same. “What’d we do?”

  “Get out!” Lewis screamed. “Get out of my house!” He wasn’t sure if it was him yelling or one of the voices. Maybe it was both. Didn’t matter. He’d had enough of the two boys, of their childishness, of their need to be entertained. What was happening to Lewis was far more important than entertainment.

  “Easy, man,” they said. “Just take it easy.”

  Lewis swept the beer bottles and ashtray off the table. They exploded against the wall.

  “Hey, come on,” Pierced Eyebrow protested.

  Lewis focused on him.

  The boy took a half-step back. “Take it easy, man, just — take it easy, okay?”

  Spotting a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor, Lewis scooped it up and smashed it on the table. Booze and glass sprayed in all directions. Before Pierced Eyebrow could move, Lewis lunged at him with the broken bottle. “Get out!”

  Pierced Eyebrow stumbled back. “Hey!”

  Lewis rounded the table and lunged again, this time catching the boy’s arm, slicing through his shirtsleeve.

  Pierced Eyebrow grabbed his arm. “You’re crazy!”

  Acne Face was already pulling his buddy back, trying to get him out of the room. “Let’s go. Let’s get outa here.”

  “Get out!” Lewis shrieked. “Get out! Get out!”

  The boys turned and broke for the front door.

  “Get out!”

  “You’re crazy, man! You’re cra —”

  “Get out!”

  They threw open the door and raced into the night.

  Lewis stood in the tiny living room, all alone, breathing hard, trying to get his bearings. Something was about to happen. Inside, he was about to explode. But he felt something else, too. A focusing. A focusing that would direct the explosion. And God help whoever it was that would receive the brunt of —

  Hold it — whoever? That was the word he’d thought. “Whoever.”

  Then it was a person. The senseless animal slaughters had been only a harbinger, a preparation for the real thing. A real person.

  But who?

  Lewis stumbled back into the kitchen, kicking aside the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles. He yanked out a kitchen drawer, letting it and its contents spill to the floor. He dropped to his knees and in the dim light began searching through the clutter. A moment later he found it, wrapped in a cellophane bag. A joint. But not just any joint. He tore open the bag. This was a joint soaked in PCP, angel dust.

  It had been partially smoked. That’s how it was with this stuff. So powerful that he only took one or two tokes at a time. That’s all he needed to make the connection, to feel the universe swelling up inside him, to open his mind to the infinite.

  But not tonight.

  He rummaged through the spilled debris on the floor until he spotted a book of matches. With trembling hands he placed the joint between his lips and struck a match. It flared, momentarily lighting the room and his face.

  He took the first drag, inhaling deeply, letting it burn the back of his throat, his lungs. He held in the smoke as long as possible, making sure none of it was wasted. Then, a moment later, he felt it. The growing sense of perception, the strength surging through his body and mind. Normally, he would take one more toke and butt it out. But not tonight.

  He exhaled and took another long drag. Perspiration popped out on his forehead. But it was only perspiration for a second. Soon it became beads of enlightenment. Rotating like colored prisms, vibrating in perfect synchronization, each connected to the consciousness of the universe, each pumping its power through the pores of his skin and into his brain, filling him with indescribable wisdom, overwhelming strength.

  He exhaled and took a third toke. Then a fourth. He would continue until he had finished the joint. Then he would know exactly what he was to do. More important, he would have the unlimited power necessary to do it.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I’M TELLING YOU,” FRANK said, letting out a burp that swelled to a belch, “if we formed ourselves a band, we’d have to fight off the chicks.”

  Brandon said no
thing as he inched the pickup along State Street. It was Friday night and summer. This meant that all four lanes of the main drag through Bethel Lake were packed with teens and young adults enjoying the ageless American tradition of cruising. Several shouted to one another from passing cars; others checked out the newest wheels or the added accessories to those wheels. Then, of course, there was all that guy-and-gal action.

  Spotting an interesting prospect, Frank leaned past Del and shouted out Brandon’s window. “Hey, Marty! Where’d you find the babe?”

  A young man in a four-wheeler beside them flashed Frank a grin as his free arm tightened around the buxom blonde sitting beside him.

  “Listen, sweetheart?” Frank shouted.

  The girl turned toward him, all smiles.

  “You stick with ol’ Marty there. You got yourself a real nice boy.”

  She agreed, snuggling deeper into his arms.

  “But when you want a man, you be sure to look me up, hear?”

  The girl giggled and Marty pretended to laugh. But as they pulled away, his free hand was firing off a universal gesture of contempt.

  Frank’s laughter reverberated through the cab. No sooner had it faded than Del pointed at something up ahead and asked, “Say, guys?”

  There, two lanes over, in the oncoming traffic, was Henderson in his Firebird. Beside him sat Reggie, the other kid from the club. And crammed in the back were two passengers who could have passed as linebackers for any Superbowl team.

  Frank was the first to speak. “You don’t suppose…They’re not looking for — ”

  The occupants of the Firebird spotted the pickup and immediately broke into a tirade of oaths and gestures.

  “Lucky guess,” Del replied.

  Henderson began honking, trying to force the cars ahead of him to pull out of the way.

  Brandon glanced up the street. The traffic in front of him was queuing up to stop at a traffic light. Luckily, he was in the outside lane, a good two lanes away from the approaching Firebird. But, judging by their anger, two lanes might not be enough.

  As if proving his point, the doors to the Firebird flew open and the backseat passengers climbed out, rising to their full Herculean stature.

  Frank cleared his throat. “Uh — Brandon?”

  The hulks started across the lanes toward the pickup.

  Immediately Del reached past Brandon and rolled up the driver’s window. “I hope we’re talking safety glass, here.”

  They closed in, less than twenty feet away. Other passengers in other cars turned to watch.

  Fifteen feet.

  “Yo, Bran.”

  Ten.

  Suddenly Brandon yanked the steering wheel hard to the right and punched the gas. The pickup bounced up the curb and onto the sidewalk. Brandon hit the gas harder, causing the rear end to slide out — and the approaching hulks to leap out of the way.

  “Alrighteeeee!” Frank shouted.

  Pedestrians scattered as Brandon guided his pickup carefully down the sidewalk. Del turned pale and a wide-eyed Frank gulped his beer.

  Brandon threw a look over his shoulder. The linebackers had already clambered back into Henderson’s car. Copying Brandon’s action, the Firebird bounced up on the opposite sidewalk and quickly backed up after him. Apparently, they had no intention of letting the pickup get away.

  Brandon reached the end of the block and headed out into the intersection. Oncoming cars hit their brakes and horns blared as he made a hard right, tromped on the accelerator, and peeled out down the street.

  The streams of water pelted Sarah’s back, her neck, and the top of her head. But she didn’t move. She remained on the floor of the shower, legs drawn in, head down, huddled into a tight ball as the water beat against her body. She was done crying now. At least she hoped so.

  She had made a mistake. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the second glass of wine, or just bad luck. Whatever the reason, she had momentarily lowered her defenses. It had taken only a moment. She’d started off by thinking about her day at work and the strange effect the boy from the club had had upon her earlier that evening, which had led to memories of Samuel, which had led to memories of the baby…which led to …

  … the grinning picture of Garfield up on the ceiling, and the shots of Novocain, and the soothing voice of the doctor, and the pain from the metal rods forcing open her cervix, and the assurance to herself that it was only a thing — a nine-week growth of her body, and then remembering that it had different DNA, which made it different from her body, and the grinning Garfield, and the doctor’s soothing voice, and the digging and poking of the nozzle, and the sound of the suction machine with its clear vacuum cleaner canister, and the blood filling the tube, and the screams in her head begging the baby to forgive her, and the hope that he wouldn’t feel pain, and the knowing that his pain receptor cells and neuro pathways were already forming, and the doctor’s soothing voice, and the grinning cat, and the dizziness, and the doctor’s concern over her loss of blood, and her demands to know what was wrong, and the panic, and the fighting for consciousness …

  And waking up in a hospital room with a major portion of her reproductive system removed, followed by the helplessness, the outrage, the guilt, and the loss.

  Back in the shower, Sarah’s body convulsed in another sob. And then another. The crying had started again. “No!” she whispered harshly. “Stop it!” She forced herself to her feet. But another sob escaped and then another until she was leaning against the wall, her arms wrapped tight around herself.

  For a moment, she thought of crumpling back to the floor. But experience told her she had to stop. Now. Not another sob, not another tear. This was nothing but self-pity, and self-pity served no purpose. It could undo no wrong; it could never bring him back. Now all she could do was make sure his sacrifice meant something. Now she had to be the best she could be, to work harder, to prove herself, to prove his death was not entirely in vain.

  With a deep breath, Sarah stood upright and reached out to shut off the water. She stepped out of the shower and numbly reached for the towel. She was spent and exhausted, but she had to keep moving, to keep pushing. She was good at that. She could do that. She’d been doing that for years.

  Five minutes later, Sarah Weintraub scooped the keys off her kitchen counter, passed the sink buried in two weeks’ worth of dishes, and headed out the back door to her car. It was almost 11:00 p.m. Fortunately, she had keys to the Institute, which meant she could go to work anytime she wanted to.

  Anytime she had to.

  Things were coming to a head faster than Gerty had imagined possible. She was now conscious of the forces gathering, moving into position around the boy. Tonight there would be at least one assault. Maybe more. And others would follow, stronger, more frequent.

  The hunger pangs were gone. They usually left during the third day. Now there was only the sense of urgency — and her prayers. There were no visions, no supernatural experiences, just prayer.

  Over the years, she’d learned that although they were interesting, the supernatural experiences weren’t usually necessary. More often than not, it was simple prayer that was the most effective…and the most powerful. Sometimes this merely involved singing, or directing quiet thoughts of adoration toward the Lord. Sometimes it was the slow, thoughtful reading of Scripture. Other times, she found herself confessing her failures, asking him to forgive her. And finally, like tonight, there were times of heartrending supplication and intercession.

  “Please, dear God, protect him. Whatever he’s goin’ through, whatever he’s about to meet, save him, protect him, dear Lord.”

  She had prayed for him frequently over the years. On more than one occasion, forces had tried to rise up and destroy him — but none like those coming at him now. Still, such attacks shouldn’t surprise her. If he was to become such a formidable threat to evil, why shouldn’t the forces of evil concentrate their attack upon him? It made perfect sense.

  However, there was one thing
that she had never understood: the boy’s own weaknesses — his internal doubts, his external sins.

  Why? Why did her Lord always choose to fight the impossible wars? Wasn’t battling against the outside evil enough? Did he always have to choose as his champion someone who was wounded and weak on the inside as well? And what of the young man’s sins? He was certainly no saint. How could her Lord use someone like him to accomplish such great purposes?

  The thought had barely risen before Gerty broke into a quiet smile. Wouldn’t she have said the same thing about other great men of God? Jacob the con artist, Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, Paul the persecutor?

  Her eyes welled with moisture. It was true, his ways were not hers. And if one of his habits was to choose the weak to confound the wise, then so be it.

  But this boy …

  A picture came to mind. She’d sketched it years ago. It was a picture of the boy as a weak sapling, a tiny olive tree struggling to grow in a desert. At his roots were a thick, impenetrable mass of weeds that choked out the water and nourishment of the soil. Higher up, on the trunk, were dense parasitic vines that sucked out what little life he had managed to acquire. She sighed heavily. There were so many fronts on which to battle. The desert heat, the thick weeds, the attacking vines, his own internal weakness.

  Should she pray against the vines, those demonic counterfeits trying to sap all of his strength? But what about the other outside forces — the heat, the weeds? And what of his internal struggles — his deep emotional scars, his obvious lack of faith?

  She shook her head. No, a higher level of prayer was needed. Not a prayer of pleading and begging and groveling. But a prayer aligning itself with her Lord’s will. A prayer thanking God in advance for accomplishing his purposes, whatever those purposes would be.

  The smile returned to Gerty’s lips. Thanking God in the midst of attack and confusion made absolutely no sense at all. Which was another reason she believed she was on the right track, that this was how she was supposed to pray for the boy.