By the numbers.
Hollis knew how much her team had trusted her to have followed her like this, and without a whole lot of explanation on her part. To ignore their own instincts to rush in when a helpless victim’s life was at stake.
But they trusted her.
Hollis hoped to God she was right. Her team would never forgive her if she wasn’t. And she would never, ever forgive herself.
She wondered, for the first time, if every team leader had these doubts.
If their unit chief had these doubts.
Reese nodded to her and began moving, not making a sound. On his heels, she was just as quiet, just as careful. Through the exterior door whose alarm he had disabled only minutes before. Into a stairwell. Moving so quickly but quietly, quietly, because the stairs were hardly designed to muffle sound.
All the way to the bottom.
Through another door, precious seconds required to disable its alarm. Into a quiet hallway that wasn’t brightly lit, but wasn’t dark either. Probably a place very few people would think of as fun to visit.
“If he sees us,” Hollis breathed.
“He won’t unless he’s moved the table,” Reese responded in a whisper. “The angle is wrong.”
“God, I hope so.” Hollis looked at the watch on her wrist and wasn’t surprised it had stopped. That was, after all, the reason she and Reese were both taking this entrance. Because he had a clock in his head, and she could never carry or wear any kind of timepiece.
Especially now.
“Good thing I’m not looking for spirits,” she whispered. As always when she was enclosed within Reese’s shield, everything around her looked oddly . . . washed out. Gray.
Almost lifeless.
For the first time, she wondered if this was the way he saw the world when his shields were up. Surely not.
“No, it isn’t,” he whispered. “And we’ll talk about it later.”
“Right. Right.” There was a lot, she thought fleetingly, that they would have to talk about later.
Reese really was a very patient man.
They were nearly at the double doors at the end of the hallway. The doors with frosted glass windows etched with a single word most people found chilling.
Morgue.
Tonight, though, it was even more chilling, because behind the doors, the frosted glass, the chilling word, the light was red. He must have brought his own lights with red bulbs, turning off the normal overhead fluorescents.
They looked at each other, then separated, each taking one side of the hallway. Hollis spared a few seconds to wonder how he’d been so certain of having this space all to himself tonight, but answered the question in her mind almost before she could ask herself.
Because he believed in his power. In the power he summoned. And because he thought he had all his bases covered.
From his side of the hallway, Reese had the best angle. As they reached the doors, he moved just far enough to peer inside. When he went utterly still, Hollis felt a surge of almost wild anxiety, but then, in her head . . .
It’s okay. You were right. He’s waiting for nine o’clock. Ten seconds now. Ready? Three . . . two . . . one—
She didn’t even have a moment to think about this new and both amazing and unsettling thing between them, something she had heard telepaths refer to as “mind talk.”
No time. They had to do this.
They pushed open the doors in the same second, both of them leveling their weapons—at a man neither of them had actually met until this moment.
He had covered the metal autopsy table with rich scarlet material, draped all the way to the floor. On the peculiar altar, she was bound and gagged, her brown eyes more furious than afraid, which was undoubtedly not the reaction he’d expected. But Hollis knew that Jill had known rescue was just a few feet away, she knew they were very good at what they did, and it was obvious to Hollis that one of the first things she’d ask them when they eventually freed her—as Hollis was utterly determined they would—would be what the hell had taken them so long.
The time she had spent with this monster, no matter how strong and spirited she was, must have been a kind of hell.
He stood over her, wearing a long black robe with a scarlet lining, both hands holding high, almost above his head, an ornate dagger that looked old, very old. Like the candlesticks he had placed at Dr. Jill Easton’s head and feet.
There was room. She wasn’t very big.
Black candles burned in each of the candlesticks.
Hollis kept her eyes on him. “Hey, there, Reverend Webb,” she said softly. “If your congregation only knew.”
For a man who prided himself on control, who prized it, the moment was not one he had probably ever envisioned. He looked startled, if only for a moment. He was an unusually big man, and powerful, and Hollis expected his voice to thunder because so often a preacher had that skill.
In his day job, at least.
“You didn’t know,” he said, in a voice that did indeed rumble. “You couldn’t know. I made sure.”
“You mean your little spell? Your incantation to Satan? While you were crouched on the roof of the Cross house Friday night? Drawing symbols, the pentagram and whatever else you’ve perverted to justify torture and murder, and cutting yourself or maybe . . . maybe sacrificing some poor bird.”
His eyes flickered, and his mouth began to twitch.
“What, you didn’t think we’d know? Didn’t think we’d figure out sooner rather than later that in your twisted mind you had convinced yourself that Satan was speaking to you? That his voice was more powerful than God’s—no matter what you preach on Sundays?”
“Don’t blaspheme,” he said, still holding the dagger above Jill, his hands steady.
Hollis didn’t bother to point out the irony.
“I’m not doing that, Reverend. You are. You pervert ancient pagan rites, twisting and using the power of earth and nature to suit your needs, the needs you know, deep down inside, are more sick and evil than any normal human could ever understand. But even with all that, even with the trappings of an old religion you used or tried to use, actually, you’re just another serial killer. With a more than usually creative explanation for why you enjoy killing people.”
He smiled, and on his wide, pleasant face it was an ugly thing. “I tricked you, didn’t I, witch?”
“Did you? Did you really?” She made her voice lightly mocking, and it had just the effect she expected.
His smile twisted, and the darker-than-normal eyes narrowed as they stared at her. “I did. I got inside your head. I found your weakness, witch. And my Higher Power gave me the strength to turn it against you.”
“Yeah? So you—what? Slowed me down for forty-eight hours? I guess you didn’t know that most serial-killer investigations take months, even years, to solve. Our unit tends to be faster, but . . . forty-eight hours may be a record. I’ll have to look it up when I get back to Quantico.”
His face was reddening, and the hands above Jill began to tremble. Hollis didn’t have to look at the big clock on the wall to know that nine o’clock had already come and gone. And that, having missed the time he had set for himself, this monster would either give up, betraying the absolute weakness of his soul—or try to “sacrifice” Jill anyway, knowing he would be doing what he had forced poor Joe to do. Commit suicide by cop.
It would be the quickest and easiest way for him. Dying in a blaze of glory, at least in his own mind, and convinced his Higher Power had promised him a place of honor in the afterlife, at his Master’s side.
Hollis also didn’t bother to point out that what she and other SCU team members knew of true evil, and what the mediums knew of limbo and the afterlife, would have sent him fleeing in terror.
She was tempted. But she had already made up her mind how this would end.
/> And didn’t have to shift her gaze to know that behind Webb the walk-in freezer door was slowly, silently opening. And that off to her right at the middle of the three small windows that were high up down in this space, but at ground level outside, there was yet another gun leveled at the monster.
They had every angle covered. And none of them was in danger of being caught in the crossfire.
“My Master—” he began.
“Your Master is no more supernatural than the tricks you tried to use on us. The tricks you used on poor Joe, and probably others in Clarity. The trick you tried to use on one of my team.”
“She isn’t— I don’t see—”
“You don’t see Kirby? You poor bastard. You had no idea she knew immediately when you tried to trick her mind. She might look innocent and childlike, and she may even pretend she’s weaker than she is sometimes, even needing an arm for support. She may appear to you and others as just a girl, afraid of things she really doesn’t fear at all. And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. She knew, and I knew—and we let you believe you’d succeeded. Just long enough for us to be able to track you here. To know you’d be here.
“Waiting for us. See, what you probably don’t know, because you never got deep enough inside any of us to find out, is that we manipulate energy all the time. And we don’t have to shed our blood—or sacrifice any other living thing—to do it. It’s a perfectly normal human ability. You only know how to tap into that—barely. How to use it to control weak minds. Young minds. But all of us? We know a hell of a lot more than that. It’s a sick and twisted game for you, but for us it’s just another day’s work.”
“No. You don’t—you can’t—”
She ignored him, still mocking, sarcastic. “For instance, the electromagnetic impulses in your brain have already told me your real secret. Your real sickness.”
He shook his head just a little, the hectic color beginning to drain from his face. “No. She— This bitch has to die. She killed my sister.”
“No, she tried to save your sister. A car accident is what really killed . . . Sharon. Three years ago.”
“Don’t . . . You don’t . . . don’t say her name. You aren’t fit to say her name!”
His voice really did thunder.
“She was your priestess, huh? You perverted even your own sister? There’s a word for that, you know. An ugly word. When did you first climb into your sister’s bed, Martin? When she was six? Seven? Did you begin tormenting her that young, twisting her mind as yours was twisted?
“She was your partner in all these fun, pretend-satanic things, for so many years. Taking the sexual abuse from you at first because you’d half convinced her you were right. And you loved her . . . so much. But she had doubts. And the doubts tore at her, more and more. Until she needed drugs to help her through a day—and a night. Until crawling into a whiskey bottle was the only way she could cope. Until she’d had enough, or drank enough to give her the courage and the desperation to cut the unnatural tie between you the only way she knew how. By driving her car over a cliff. And that is what killed your sister, Martin. You killed her. You destroyed her. She was just another victim of your sickness.”
“No. She—this bitch—”
“Dr. Easton did everything in her power to save your sister when her broken body was airlifted to the hospital in Asheville. But Sharon was beyond help. You had done that to her.”
He opened and closed his mouth several times, his eyes darting around the room, looking at her and the gun she held steadily, at Reese and the big silver handgun that fit him so well, and Martin Webb began to look very afraid.
But Hollis didn’t stop.
“And, of course, you never told your wife about all those things. About what you did with and to Sharon for so many years, even during your marriage. About black robes and ancient artifacts you were convinced held dark power, artifacts you told your wife were just . . . religious objects. She believed you. She’s a God-fearing preacher’s wife. And your kids, those two cute little blond kids, they don’t know what Daddy gets up to when he’s away from home, do they?”
“I am all-powerful!” he roared.
Hollis was unimpressed and really didn’t have to fake her contempt. “Yeah, yeah. You’d be surprised how often we hear bullshit like that. And usually just like this, from some very ordinary guy in a Halloween costume holding a funny knife, pretending to be an evil badass. So tell me. Didn’t your Higher Power ever warn you never to bring a knife to a gunfight?”
Reverend Martin Webb let out what really sounded like an animal roar, and would have ended the life of Dr. Jill Easton then and there.
Hollis didn’t hesitate even a split second, and neither did her team. Bullets slammed into the Reverend from all four of the feds, Kirby’s shattering the glass window, revealing her lying prone on the ground just outside, Cullen’s possibly a little cold from the freezer where he’d waited, probably a bit longer than he’d expected—and Reese’s very accurately piercing the heart of the monster.
Hollis’s shot got him right between his infinitely surprised eyes.
EIGHTEEN
“What the hell took you so long?” Jill demanded when Hollis removed the tape over her mouth.
Hollis grinned at her. “Sorry.”
“Seriously,” Jill Easton said earnestly, “I thought you were going to talk him to death. You should teach a course at Quantico in advanced sarcasm.”
“Just trying to get a confession,” Hollis replied solemnly.
Jill stared at her. “You caught him standing over me holding a knife he was about to plunge into my bound and gagged body. We both know you didn’t need a confession. You just wanted to make him good and mad so you could justifiably shoot him.”
“Who, me? That would make me a bad person.”
DeMarco murmured, “Or just a good monster hunter.”
“Dammit,” Jill muttered as she maneuvered herself into a sitting position after Cullen, who’d produced a pocketknife, cut the tape binding her to the table. Cullen looked rather frosted after his wait in the freezer but appeared none the worse for wear. He cut through the duct tape wrapped around Jill’s wrists and ankles.
“There you go,” he said.
“Thanks. I couldn’t get any leverage. Thought he might blow before you got here, and had decided to do my best to at least try to roll off this damned table.”
“That’s a fairly long drop onto tile,” Hollis said. “And with your wrists taped to the table like that, you probably would have broken an arm. Or both of them.”
“Who’s the doctor here?” Jill glared briefly, then looked down at herself. She was not wearing her customary casual clothing but an odd little Greek goddess–type draping of virtually see-through white material. And was clearly naked beneath it. She was suddenly and obviously self-conscious about the results.
Studiously keeping his eyes on her face, Cullen said, “Do you want me to get your real clothes?”
“He cut them off me. Ruined them. Threw them into one of the biohazard bins. And then dressed me in this absurd thing. After hitting me on the head. Dammit.”
Hollis shrugged out of her light jacket and handed it to the other woman.
Jill lost no time in putting it on. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t mention it.” Hollis kept a hand on Jill’s shoulder for no more than a moment, and when she allowed her hand to fall, Jill lifted both eyebrows at her.
“Well, I knew you healed Reese after he was shot, nearly killing yourself in the process. But that was . . . really fast.”
“No headache?”
“Not anymore. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Hollis repeated.
Jill looked at the others with a frown. “Where’s Sam? The message I got was to meet him here. Don’t tell me—he’s having room service at his hotel.” r />
Mildly, Hollis said, “Actually, our monster here visited Sam before he sent you that message from Sam’s phone. Don’t worry—Sam’s okay. He also got hit over the head, but just has a mild concussion. I’ve had them, so I think I can speak with authority there. Anyway, Mal got a tip just a few minutes ago that a guest of Solomon House had been left bound and gagged in his room. Possibly robbed.”
“That actually happened?” Jill asked cautiously.
“Well, the bound and gagged part. And the concussion. I imagine Sam told them exactly who he admitted to his room, baffled but curious. And who hit him over the head.” She looked thoughtful. “I think Mal decided to come straight here. You know, I wonder if he’s a latent. He’s picked up on a few things most nonpsychics just don’t.”
Before anyone could venture an answer to that, the double doors to the morgue burst open, and Kirby came in, gun holstered now, smiling but also with raised brows.
“Heads up,” she warned them.
She had barely gotten inside when Sheriff Malachi Gordon and two of his deputies also pushed their way in, their guns drawn.
“What the hell?” Mal demanded after one sweeping glance around the room. He saw DeMarco just holstering his big gun, and the other three feds, their weapons already holstered, regarding him calmly. Jill was sitting on the table, bare legs dangling, wearing an odd toga thing that was sheer as hell and probably showed a lot more than she wanted it to, which was why Hollis had clearly sacrificed her Windbreaker to a good cause.
“Hey, Mal,” Hollis said cheerfully. “We had a little bit of a situation here. But all’s under control now.”
The sheriff came forward a few steps until he could see Reverend Martin Webb crumpled on the floor. His clothing, including the strange floor-length robe, was mostly black and so didn’t immediately show signs of bullet holes.
The blood pooled around his body, some of it making its way to the drain under the table, was mute testimony to the fact that he had been shot more than once. And killed.
Normally careful with protocol with the feds, at least at the station and around his own deputies, Mal clearly didn’t care about protocol or rules right now—which seemed to be going around.