Thief of Souls

  “I know where Dillon is,” said Winston, trying to catch his breath from the climb.

  “In that house over there?” Tory asked.

  “House?! Don’t you know what that is?”

  “Maybe you should tell us,” said Okoya.

  Winston kept his eyes locked on the distant hilltop, letting the shiver have its way with his spine. “That’s Hearst Castle,” he said. “Dillon’s in Hearst Castle.”

  9. SIDESTROKE

  * * *

  NEWSPAPER TYCOON WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST BUILT A shrine to himself in the golden hills of San Simeon, California: a glorious castle rising on a hilltop, ten miles from the Pacific shore.

  In this place, the billionaire wined and dined the stars of the twenties and thirties, as well as European royalty. He filled the place top to bottom with million-dollar trinkets . . . and when he died, he didn’t take it with him. Now the bizarre sprawling expanse of Hearst Castle fed the tourist economy of California’s central coast.

  But as of today, it served a completely new purpose. And tourists would not be getting in.

  Dillon Cole paced the floor of William Randolph Hearst’s private suite, thinking and reviewing, calculating and obsessing, focusing and refocusing all of his attentions on the events exploding around him.

  It had been five days since he had been carried from the Columbia River, in the hands of those he had fixed . . . and yet somehow he felt he had never left the river. He was still caught in its waters, floundering—drowning in a current out of his control. What he wanted—what he needed—was to get in control of the events spinning around him. He did not want to be worshipped by the stifling crowds drawn to him. He did not want them spreading word of his miraculous acts, and gaining converts to a cult dedicated to the service of Dillon Cole. But his power of cohesion was all too strong, and these people had enveloped him like a tidal wave.

  Then a simple lesson in survival came to him.

  You never swim against a current.

  To survive, you forge a diagonal, slicing sideways until you’re clear from danger. So he stopped fighting the needy souls around him, and instead began a slow, sideways crawl.

  Once again, he focused his attention on fixing, with a renewed passion. He didn’t resist the followers pressing in around him. He let them do what they wanted to do, and when they told him they were taking him to a worthier place, he allowed this siege of the castle—for if his current of followers was determined to carry him to higher ground, fighting them would do no good. Sidestroke. He had to keep reminding himself that regardless of what they did, his own focus could not be compromised. He had to keep his energies trained on his repair work. Only by diligent repair could he hope to stave off the insidious downward spiral he now sensed everywhere in the world around him. There were times he prayed to have that burden of sight lifted from him; for to be able to feel all those hairline fractures spreading in the fabric of civilization, was a prescience no one should have to endure.

  This morning, like every morning, he scoured the newspapers brought to him by his followers, with hopes of finding the nature of the reckoning to come. Although he could sense those fractures in the bulwarks, he still didn’t know their cause. There had to be clues—a series of smaller events that might point out to him the form that the great unraveling would take. Would it be a wound that slowly leaked out the world’s lifeblood, or would it be a massive hemorrhage from which there could be no recovery?

  If the great unraveling had a face—if it had a form—he knew he could beat it. If it were a creature that flew in on dark wings, like his own spirit of destruction, Dillon would find a way to grapple with it . . . . But this new sense of doom had no form—it was just a feeling that colored everything he saw in a deepening shade of gray. How could he fight a feeling?

  He wasn’t quite sure, but at least he knew he wouldn’t have to fight it alone. The others were coming. All four of them. He could see their faces in his mind so clearly—he could almost hear their voices. They were close now—he was certain of it. Their help would buffer his own growing sense of futility. With the five of them together, it would be almost like having Deanna alive again. Almost.

  The piles of newspapers were of no help today, and so he dared to take a look at the sports pages—not because he expected to find something earth-shattering there, but because he expected to find something enjoyable, and as he looked through the stats and articles of a hundred teams he had lost track of over the past year, it occurred to him that he could not remember when he had last taken the time for simple human pleasure. He had once been an athletic kid, but he hadn’t as much kicked a soccer ball since he was thirteen. He used to live for soccer before the world had heaved itself onto his shoulders. Days when his hair was a brighter shade of orange, and his parents were alive with worry about the stupid things he did.

  A knock resounded from the heavy wooden doors of his museum gallery of a bedroom, and he snapped the sports pages closed, as if taking some time for himself was a criminal activity. The door creaked open, to admit Carol Jessup—the woman whose daughter Dillon had “fixed.” She carried a tray of food, and although she was at least ten years his senior, she acted as if Dillon were the elder.

  “I brought you something to eat,” she said. “We thought you might be hungry.”

  A chorus of anguished wails blew in the door from elsewhere in the castle. People bellowing in pain. The high stone walls drained the life out of those screams, turning them into the hollow baying of ghosts.

  Carol forced a smile, despite the awful sounds.

  “More work for you,” she said. “They’re being brought to the Gothic Study—would you like to see?”

  “No!” snapped Dillon. “I’ll see enough of them later.”

  The woman put down the tray. “If there’s anything you need—anything at all . . .”

  “Yeah,” said Dillon. “How about a soccer ball, some cleats, and a retake of the last four years?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind,” he told her. “Thanks for the food. You can go now.”

  She nodded her head respectfully and quietly turned to leave, then turned back to him. “Oh, one more thing,” she said. “Three youngsters have arrived, claiming to be friends of yours.”

  Dillon snapped his eyes to the woman so severely, she gasped and took a step back.

  “What?! Where are they?” He had sensed they were close, but hadn’t realized how close.

  “Well . . . uh . . . we’ve been questioning them,” she stammered. “They do seem suspicious . . . .”

  Dillon stormed toward the door. “Where are they?”

  “We only wanted to protect you.”

  “Just tell me where they are!”

  “The Assembly Room.”

  And since Dillon had no idea where that might be, he had her lead the way, ignoring the mournful moans escaping from deeper in the castle.

  THE ASSEMBLY ROOM WAS A GREAT HALL FESTOONED WITH gold statues and exquisite tapestries. Flames filled an immense fireplace, large enough to be the mouth of a cavern, and the moment he entered, the flames wavered, and the two figures standing before him seemed to sway, as if suddenly blasted by the power of Dillon’s presence. He recognized them right away, in spite of how different they looked from when he had last seen them: Winston so much taller; Tory’s skin so clean.

  He approached them cautiously, as if the creak of every floorboard could be the trigger of a mine.

  Winston spoke up first. “I was going to ask how you managed to take over Hearst Castle, but, hell, you’re Dillon Cole,” he said with a sneer. “You can get away with anything.”

  He was met with an uncomfortable silence. They were waiting for an explanation. Why had he called out to them? What were they doing here? Dillon didn’t know where to begin.

  “I know this is going to sound strange,” Dillon finally said, “but you can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.”

  They didn’t answer to that; th
e feeling was clearly not mutual.

  “That’s all right,” said Dillon. “After what I’ve put you through, I’m surprised you came looking for me at all.” Then a third guest, who Dillon had not noticed before, stepped forward from the dim shadows of the corner. This wasn’t one of the shards. It was a stranger with dark eyes, high cheekbones, and black hair that ran smoothly from his head and down his spine. “Do I know you?”

  “You will,” said the dark-eyed stranger.

  “Okoya hooked up with us in New Mexico,” said Tory.

  He reached out and shook Dillon’s hand, keeping those dark eyes locked on his. The stranger’s grip was firm, but the skin supple. Dillon felt the bite of fingernails that were a fraction of an inch too long against the back of his hand. “I’ve become a big admirer of yours,” said Okoya.

  “I have too many of those.” Dillon turned to the Jessups who guarded the door. “I’d like to be left alone with my friends,” Dillon told them, but the couple was reluctant to go.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” said Mrs. Jessup.

  “We don’t know these people,” said her husband.

  “They’re not respectful of you.”

  “They’re not in awe of you.”

  “What if they mean to hurt you?”

  “We could never allow that.”

  “Just shut up and go,” Dillon told them.

  “We’ll be right outside,” Mrs. Jessup said. “If there’s anything that you need—anything at all . . .” Then the couple left, swinging the huge wooden doors shut.

  “Some group of happy campers you got here,” said Tory.

  Dillon chuckled ruefully. “Happy Campers. Yeah, that’s exactly what they are.”

  “So if everyone’s so thrilled to be here,” asked Winston, “where’s all that moaning coming from? And don’t tell me it’s just the wind.”

  Dillon thought about how he might answer that question. He could try to explain it in a calm, rational way, and sort of ease them into it . . . but decided it was best to let them see it with their own eyes. Then maybe they’d understand how badly Dillon needed their help.

  “I’ll take you there,” Dillon said. Winston and Tory didn’t seem too keen on the idea, but they went along. Unfortunately Okoya thought this was an open invitation. Dillon had to step into Okoya’s path to stop his momentum.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t come.”

  There was a flash of ice in Okoya’s gaze that was quickly replaced by an apologetic smile. “Of course not,” Okoya said. “Actually, I was hoping to explore the castle.”

  Dillon nodded, relieved. “If anyone tries to stop you, tell them you have my personal permission.”

  “Your name strikes fear into their hearts,” said Okoya with a grin. “I like that about you.”

  Dillon laughed, thinking it was a joke. But when he thought about it later, he wasn’t so sure.

  10. DEATH’S DOORSTEP

  * * *

  THE GOTHIC STUDY WAS A STEP BEYOND NIGHTMARE. THE dark arches of its vaulted ceiling gave one the uneasy sense of being trapped in the hull of a capsized ship. The walls were lined with aging, dust-coated volumes, and the entire room had become an ad hoc repository of misery: the diseased; the dying; the ones hopelessly broken by life. The floor was filled with almost thirty desperate souls suffering in pain and anguish.

  Winston and Tory turned their eyes away, but Dillon did not. He had surrendered his disgust long ago.

  “Every day, my ‘Happy Campers’ bring me people to fix,” he told them. “There’s more and more each day.”

  There was a man before them with multiple leg fractures, who appeared to have been hijacked right from the scene of an accident. “I suppose I’ve made some converts of the local paramedics, and emergency-room doctors. They’ve started to secretly divert patients my way.”

  The wounded man looked up at them in weak terror, not even knowing why he was there.

  “There’s some people I can help, and others I can’t,” Dillon said. “Because there are some things I just can’t do . . . . That’s why I need you.”

  Winston shook his head. “I . . . I can’t do things like that—I can’t.”

  “You can, and you know it,” said Dillon. “I’m sure you helped a lot of people back home.”

  “By accident,” snapped Winston. “Never on purpose!”

  “Somehow,” said Dillon, “I thought you would have grown wiser. Wisdom does come along with your gift, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe I’m wise enough to know not to screw with things I don’t understand.”

  Tory’s eyes drifted to a man across the room whose hacking, liquid cough spoke of tuberculosis.

  Like Winston, she had never actively sought to cure the ills of the world around her—as if she had no right to willfully use her power. But faced with the misery before her, it seemed selfish and cruel to stand there and do nothing. And maybe it would make her feel better about herself. Cleaner.

  She made her way across the room to the coughing man, and began gently massaging his fiery throat and inflamed chest. “Am I doing this right?” she called back to Dillon, but Dillon had no answer, because he had no idea. In less than a minute, however, the man was breathing easier, as the disease drained from his lungs.

  Dillon led the reluctant Winston across the room. “They keep bringing me people with lost limbs . . . but I have to send them away,” Dillon told him. “I can fix broken bones, but I can’t fix something that’s not even there.”

  They stopped before a man with bandages on his knees, and nothing but air where the rest of his legs should have been. His dressings had already been removed.

  “A human being is not a tree!” Winston shouted. “You don’t just regenerate a new limb out of thin air. It’s against the laws of nature.”

  Dillon took a step closer. “So break the law.”

  Winston shuddered out a sickening breath, then knelt down to the legless man, realizing, as Tory had, that his own conscience left him no choice. “Dillon, have I ever told you how much I hate you?”

  Dillon nodded. “Maybe we can fix that, too.”

  “Please,” begged the man. “Please take me back to the hospital.”

  Winston looked at the raw stumps, where swollen flesh was pulled tight by heavy sutures. “What happened to you?”

  The man grimaced. “I need morphine!”

  “Was it an accident?”

  “You kids are crazy! What are you doing here? What are you doing?! I need my medication!”

  “Shh.” Winston bit back his own revulsion, and pressed his hands forward. He had seen his share of charismatic evangelists lay hands on the infirmed, pronouncing them healed to the cheers of a wide-eyed flock. But this—this would be something very different. Because not even the most brazen of faith healers claimed the ability to put back that which the good Lord had taken away.

  Winston focused his attention on the man’s left stump, where his fingertips gently touched it. It took about a minute to see the flesh begin to swell—the stump to elongate almost imperceptibly. The skin gathered by the sutures began to stretch as new growth pushed on them from the inside. The sutures burst, but rather than spilling forth gore, new folds of flesh unfolded from within the wound, slowly inflating with bone and muscle. And Winston suddenly found himself smiling, no longer repulsed, but rather thrilled with himself and this ability he had never dared to tap; consumed by the magnitude of his own power.

  TEN MILES AWAY, CROWDS of angry tourists packed around the ticket booth at the Hearst Castle Visitors Center, when a weather system bore down on them from the north. In moments, the sky turned gray, and the wind blew bone-cold.

  Three teenagers drove up in a stolen car. The two in the front seemed anxious. The one in the back was dead.

  “The castle’s closed for repairs,” the parking attendant said. “You can take the garden tour, but you can’t get inside the castle.”

  Lourdes looked out of her window to the long lines
by the ticket booth. Hours’ worth of lines.

  “We have to get inside!” Michael blurted out. “He’s in there!”

  The parking attendant looked at him curiously. “Who’s in there?”

  Lourdes watched as Michael stammered helplessly. Her beloved Michael never had a head for strategy in tight situations. He either stormed too hard, bringing about disaster, or blew an ineffectual wind in the midst of panic. That’s why he needs me—to get him through the hardest times, thought Lourdes. He needs me for that and much, much more. He must realize that by now. She threw a glance to the backseat, and pulled the blanket over an exposed edge of Drew’s body. She didn’t know what had set off Michael’s lethal tantrum, and although Drew’s death was a bitter pill for them to swallow, Lourdes resolved not to dwell on it right now. They couldn’t abandon his body, nor could they bring him home. That meant they would have to bury him themselves—a grim prospect Lourdes was not ready to consider.

  “Is there a problem here?” the attendant asked, beginning to notice Drew’s lack of animation.

  “No problem at all,” said Lourdes. “Pleasant dreams”—and the guard collapsed to the ground with a thud and the skitter of loose gravel.

  Lourdes then turned toward the crowds, concentrated, and pushed forth an airborne nerve impulse. It struck all the tourists in the lot, and they fell to the ground like a collection of rag dolls in Hawaiian shirts.

  Michael turned to her, flabbergasted. It was the first time he had seen how her powers had grown. Clearly he was impressed. “Lourdes, what did you do?”

  “I put them all to sleep.”

  “For how long?”

  Lourdes shrugged. “It depends on how tired they were.”

  They locked the gate behind them to deter new tourists, then drove up the winding road to the castle.

  FROM THE COASTLINE, HEARST CASTLE appeared small and insignificant, but the closer one got, the more its audacious majesty came into focus. It had the semblance of a great Spanish cathedral—a four-story Castile, between two bell towers shimmering with blue-and-gold tile.