Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) (6 page)

“Do you smoke an occasional cigarette? Some of you are shocked I’d even pose the question. Good for you. But I’m telling you, there are folks listening right now who just felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit because they’re in the habit of lighting up, and I’m talking on a regular basis. Do you really want to be tarnishing the temple like that? Really? You don’t, I know you don’t. But you need help. You need a little motivation. That’s where we come in.

“You don’t drive a car without guidelines. There are rules of the road to follow. And the spiritual road we’re driving down has more enticing-looking off-ramps than you can count. Off-ramps with lights that look like they’re from heaven. But they’re not. Get it together, folks. Get on the straight and narrow. Be worthy of your calling. Starting when?” Carson lifted his arms wide. “There is no tomorrow. There is only this moment. So start now. Are you with me? Are you?

“Maybe this is the first time you’ve listened to my show. Maybe you haven’t heard of the Redemptive Reminders. It’s nothing fancy. No bells and whistles, just seven simple reminders of what a child of God looks like. But I promise you, they’ll change your life. Let me read ’em to you now. Open your mind and hear what the Holy Ghost is saying.

“No cursing. Ever. Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth. Ephesians 4:29.

“No crude jokes. Ever. Same verse.

“No smoking. Ever, in any form. Cigars, pipes, cigarettes. Nothing. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19.

“Sin will grow at R-rated shows. Keep yourself unstained by the world. James 1:27.

“A sip at most
might
be fine, but any more is too much wine. Proverbs 20:1.

“No slander, no gossip about anyone. Ever. Proverbs 16:28.

“And the final Redemptive Reminder, no missing church. Ever. Be there every week or you’ll grow weak. Hebrews 10:25.

“You can download this list from our website. It will cost you nothing but a click of your mouse. More than five million of you have downloaded it. But that means ten million of you haven’t. Print out multiple copies. Put it on your refrigerator. Stick it to your bathroom mirror. Put it on your kids’ mirrors. Put a copy in your car, at work. Rise up, friends, and have done with lesser things!

“Time for a break, folks, but one more thought. I’m not saying
these things to make you feel bad. It’s because I care for you. God has put his love for you in me, and so with his love I love you. But sometimes love is tough. Sometimes love calls you to repentance. Stay strong, folks. And stay there. We’re coming right back with more talk, more callers, more truth. This! is
The Carson Tanner Show
!”

SEVEN

B
RANDON FINISHED THE SECOND
-
TO
-
LAST SONG OF HIS
first set on Friday evening and scanned the back of the arena looking for the stalker. If the man had come again and kept his pattern the same, he’d stand and walk out within a few seconds. He’d done it every time for the past five concerts when the band finished “Running Free.”

No one but Kevin and Brandon’s bass player, Anthony, knew about the guy—Brandon hadn’t even hinted about it to any of the Warriors except to Marcus earlier in the day. For one thing, he’d been on the road for three weeks and wanted to talk to all of them about it at the same time, and in person. For another, he wanted to figure out if it was just your friendly neighborhood wacko or something darker, like Zennon.

They’d seen little of the demon during the past ten months. Yes, there had been minor skirmishes, but most of their days had been filled with going deeper into the Spirit and helping set others free. But now? Maybe this was part of Zennon’s resurgence. Maybe the stalker was Zennon. Brandon had asked the Spirit repeatedly about the tall, well-built man who stuck to the shadows of the halls they’d played in over the past two weeks, but he’d gotten no answer, not even a deeper insight into what action to take.

Brandon pushed back his longish, dirty-blond hair and squinted against the glare of the spotlights bathing his band and him in dark
reds and blues. Where was the guy? Was it over? Maybe he’d stopped coming. Brandon scoffed. Yeah, right.

“Wake up, Song Boy. One more tune.” His bass player bumped his shoulder into Brandon’s. “You with us?”

“In a second.” Brandon scanned back over the crowd. Each time the guy sat on the left side of whatever hall Brandon was playing, two-thirds of the way back.

“Are you looking for the guy again?”

“Lucky guess.”

Anthony thumped out a bass line, probably to keep the crowd from wondering why the concert had screeched to a halt. “If he was stalking you, he’d have approached you by now, sent a note, sent flowers, done something. Let it go. Maybe he’s just a megafan.”

“Yeah, a megafan who just happens to have an ax in the trunk of his car.”

“Men don’t stalk men.”

“They don’t?”

“Well.” His bass player grinned. “Not typically.”

“I’ll be sure to mention that to the guy when he shows up knocking on my bedroom door at two in the morning with an Uzi in his pocket. I’ll call you, hand the guy my cell, and you can tell him he shouldn’t be there.”

Brandon made another scan of the room. Nothing. Wait. There. Sitting five or six rows back from the spot he usually sat in. Was the guy blond? Wearing a T-shirt? Hard to tell with the lights in Brandon’s eyes and the audience buried in shadows. Two concerts back Brandon asked security to talk to the guy, find out who he was, but they hadn’t been able to corner the man. Which didn’t make sense. He would be hard to miss. The guy had to be almost as tall as Reece.

If he was a stalker, why didn’t he ever try to get to Brandon? And why spend the money to see the same concert over and over again? Tickets to his shows these days weren’t cheap. Between plane fare
and buying a ticket for each show and food while traveling, the guy had to be dropping upward of five hundred dollars per city.

He’d had strange fans before. Those wanting him to sign non-PG areas of their bodies, those whom God supposedly told they were to become a member of his band; there were even a few who thought they were told to come to his house, set up tents, and pray for him every morning at five thirty because “Jesus rose early to pray, so we’re following the path he has showed us.” But something about this guy was different. He wasn’t your ordinary whack job. Which meant the enemy was most likely involved.

Anthony bumped his shoulder again. “Did you see him?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool. Can we start playing again?”

“Sure.” Brandon blew out a quick breath and called out the next song to the beat of his foot thumping on the stage. “One, two, three, go!”

An hour later the concert was over and Brandon stood in front of the stage praying with people, hearing their stories, signing autographs, and scanning the back of the room. There was no use—the stalker had never shown up after a show—but he couldn’t help himself.

As the last concertgoer turned and waved one more time at Brandon, Kevin clicked up to him on his right. “Done?”

Brandon glanced at the crew milling around the stage, breaking down their gear. “The stalker was here again.”

“Yeah, Anthony told me.” Kevin nodded. “And we were ready. The guys watched hard.”

“And?”

Kevin stepped closer and lowered his voice. “They saw him tonight.”

“What?”

“Apparently he left from a door fifty feet from where two of them stood. They went after the guy.”

“Talk to me.” His heart pounding, Brandon stared at Kevin. “Who is he? What does he want? What’d the guy have to say?”

“They didn’t get to talk to him.”

“Hold it. They see the guy leave the concert, they’re only fifty feet away, and they couldn’t find him?”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. They say they ran after him. Turned the same corner the guy did three seconds earlier, but when they got there the hall was empty. There were only two doors and both were locked.”

Heat washed over Brandon. Zennon. Had to be. Or someone who had learned Reece’s teleportation trick. The former was more likely. Fine. Zennon wanted to stalk him? Brandon would hunt the demon in return.

“Next concert I want security racked and stacked every ten yards. We’re going to corner this guy and find out who he is. And if he’s not human, I know who and what he is, so we’ll get ready for that possibility as well.”

“Something right here”—Kevin pointed to his stomach—“tells me there won’t need to be a next time.”

EIGHT

B
RANDON STARED AT
K
EVIN AND GAVE A SLOW NOD
. A
S
he’d told Marcus that afternoon, his gut was saying the same thing.

Twenty minutes later Brandon hefted his Nike bag onto his shoulder and strode for the back door of the arena. Just before he got there, two of his bodyguards fell into step with him, their black steel-toed boots clicking on the concrete floor of the hallway.

“Thanks, guys.”

“No problem, Mr. Scott.”

“You keep calling me Mr. Scott, either of you, and I’m going to lay you both out with one punch.”

The second bodyguard cleared his throat. “I have grave doubts you’d be able to accomplish that, Mr. Scott. I don’t believe you could do it with ten punches.”

The first bodyguard gave a mock cough. “Maybe twenty.”

Brandon put his hand against the back door and grinned. “That’s why I love being around you two. Let’s go.”

Brandon saw the man’s moving silhouette the instant he stepped through the backstage door leading to the roped-off parking lot. The streetlight above and behind the man cast a long shadow of him that ended at the bottom of the steps in front of Brandon and his bodyguards. If the man saw them, he didn’t acknowledge it and continued to saunter across the huge parking lot with his head down.

“Hey!” Brandon called.

The man stopped but didn’t turn to face them until five seconds had passed. When he did, he lifted his head and gave a single nod.

Brandon glanced at his bodyguards. “That the guy from earlier tonight?”

“Without a doubt,” the one on his right said.

“Ready to find out who he is?”

Brandon didn’t wait for an answer and marched down the steps, guards at his sides, toward the man who stood staring at him, legs shoulder-length apart, hands behind his back, blond hair thick and cut short.

From the stage the man had looked close to Reece’s height. Up close it was obvious the man was at least a few inches taller. At least six six.

Brandon stopped ten yards from the man. “Can I help you?”

“You’re the one who called to me. So perhaps I’m the one who can assist you.” The man folded his hands in front of him.

“You’ve been showing up at my concerts.”

“Really?” The man tilted his head and gave an astonished smile. “I’m surprised you’ve spotted me. I tried to be more discreet than that.”

“Is there something you want from me?”

The tall man studied each of them for at least ten seconds before responding. “No. Not yet.” He turned to go.

“Who are you?”

“Someone who would rather talk to you another time.”

“You’ve been coming to every one of my shows for two weeks now.”

The man turned back around. “As I said before, I didn’t realize you saw me. I’ve always left before your concert was over. I wouldn’t want you to think you had a stalker, nothing as unsettling as that.”

A hint of laughter in the man’s eyes seemed to say this statement wasn’t quite true.

“I think you did want me to spot you.” Brandon glanced at his bodyguards who both looked ready to jump the guy. Good.

“This is true.” The man clapped his hands together three times, softly enough that there was no sound. “Well done, Brandon Scott.”

“Well done that I’ve seen you?”

“Yes. But to repeat myself, this is not the time to talk. But when it is time I wanted us to have met so you’d be more open to further conversation. I mean you no harm.”

“If we had a conversation, what would it be about?”

The man stared at the sky as if waiting for instructions. “That would take more than a few moments to explain, and I’m sure you are exhausted.”

“The only thing on my schedule tonight is going back to the hotel, and my energy level is peaking at the moment.” He motioned to the bodyguards on his right and left. “My friends and I have plenty of time to hear why you’ve been tracking me. So start talking.”

The man took a stride forward and glanced at Brandon’s bodyguards. “Can we do so alone?”

“Not thinking that’s going to happen.”

The man pursed his lips. “It would be better if we spoke alone.”

“Do you want me to repeat what I just said, or would you like to play it over in your head by yourself?”

“I understand.” The man looked up to his left as if studying the bright quarter moon that cast a dim light on the parking lot. He glanced at Brandon’s bodyguards, frowned, then turned back to Brandon but remained silent.

Brandon pulled his bag from his shoulder and reached into it. “Listen, how ’bout I give you a few signed CDs and a couple of signed photos and you stop following me around on tour.”

“If that were possible, I would do it.”

“Who are you?”

“One who would help you.”

“Sure. Got it. You’re going to help me.”

“Yes. I would like to.”

“Great. Then it’s settled. Stop coming to my concerts. Thanks. That will help a lot.” Brandon glanced at his guards. “Time to go.”

“As you wish.” The blond man put his hands behind his back again and stared at Brandon with eyes that seemed to cut holes in his head.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“Are you Zennon?”

The man frowned and his eyes grew dark. “My name is Tristan, and I look forward to meeting with you again soon, as well as with the rest of your band.”

“My band?”

“The Warriors Riding.”

“How do you know about them?”

“In time I’ll explain that to you.”

Brandon slung his bag back on his shoulder and glared at the man. “Just Tristan? No last name?”

“Barrow. Tristan Barrow.”