Blind School (12 page)

‘Oh God. I'm sorry.’

He didn't know what else to say. He felt so inadequate, his own problems with his parent’s split paling in comparison.

‘But the worst thing was feeling so powerless.’ Jessica sighed. ‘I wanted to help, but how could I without my mum knowing that I'd found out? Which would mean confronting her... and then the secret would be out and Ben would know too.’

She looked ahead for a moment – the bustling activity of the canteen lost beyond her gaze.

‘So I kept searching on the net, and finally hit upon something from a German doctor: oral enzymes, used to treat both arthritis and cancer patients. So I grind them into a powder and give them to her in some juice every day.’

Ryan slotted the pieces together. ‘And your mom thinks the treatment's just for arthritis?’

‘Yeah. Like the blind leading the blind.’ She smiled tautly. ‘Sorta fitting with what's meant to be happening with us now.’

Ryan reciprocated with his own pained smile.

‘But you can see why my mom's worried now. She thinks the same might be happening with me: one day it's one thing, then the next...’ Jessica held a hand out. ‘So she's panicking that if anything happens to me, whose going to take care of Ben after she's gone? Or if I'm going blind, how am I going to cope with him?’

Ryan looked at her in wonder, thinking how brave she was juggling all this at her age. And now this new dilemma.

‘You should talk to Ellis about this 'second opinion' problem. He seems to be the man with a plan for every situation.’

Jessica was thoughtful for a second, then nodded.

‘Yeah, yeah. I will.’

FOURTEEN

It had been dark for over an hour, shadows muted under a weak moon, as the three long black vans rolled into the suburban side-street.

They stopped twenty yards short of their target house: a run-down board-frame bungalow, the paint chipped on its green shutters and a hole kicked through the bottom part of its screen door. 

Inside the front van sat Ellis Kendell with six
Blind
School
pupils, including Ryan and Jessica. The second van was full of agents, the third empty – only a driver. Ellis looked towards the house.

‘Okay. First practical 'containment' lesson. Inside is a John Doe who regularly beats his wife. But the main reason for that is that he's in the grip of a level-seven fallen angel known as
Waldeval
. Not a killer or in control of other demons, but more than just mischievous nonetheless.’ Ellis did a steady eye sweep of the group. ‘Now as you already know, fallen angels can't be killed – they can only be 'contained'. And that can happen at only two specific times, one of which is measured from the equinox when they fell from heaven's grace. In other words, when they're at their weakest.’

Ellis looked back towards the house as two agents and a back-up SWAT team got out the van behind and moved towards the house.

‘And for Waldeval, that time is now.’

The two lead agents, a man and woman in suits, rang the bell as soon as the five men in SWAT fatigues were in position behind them.

A porch light came on and seconds later a woman with heavy make-up opened the door. She had dark red hair, and even in the dull porch light the bruise on one cheek could be picked out beneath her make-up.

The female agent stepped forward with her ID.

‘Mrs Burchell.
Albany
PD. We'd like to speak to you and your husband, if we may.’

The woman looked flustered. ‘I... I suppose.’ She called out behind her: ‘Dougy, some police people here to see us.’

As she turned, the agents used the opportunity to step forward and were already two paces into the hallway as Mr Burchell came out of the front room. They didn’t want to risk him shutting them out.

Heavy-set, shirt open with a T-shirt beneath, his eyes shifted quizzically over the entourage.

‘What’s this all about?’

Inside the van, the
Blind
School
pupils heard Burchell’s voice and saw his reaction on the screen that Ellis pointed to.

‘One of the back-up men has a helmet cam, so you'll be able to follow the progress on here.’

The female agent addressed her answer to both Mr and Mrs Burchell:

‘We've received a domestic dispute complaint, I'm afraid. So we'll need to talk to you separately.’

Mr Burchell's face reddened. He glared at his wife before his eyes shifted back to the female agent.

‘Who from?’

Mrs Burchell silently mouthed “
Wasn’t me,”
clearly terrified.

‘That's not important. We can't divulge that in any case. Now
please
...’ The agent held one hand towards the kitchen and nodded at Mrs Burchell, then turned to Mr Burchell. ‘And if meanwhile you stay with my colleague.’

The male agent took his cue and stepped forward. They moved down the hallway and he gestured towards the lounge sofa.

‘Uh, yes. If you stay here with us. When Officer Henning is finished with your wife, we'll get
your
account.’

As Dougy Burchell watched the kitchen door close behind his wife and he was left alone with the other agent and four SWAT men, he became more unsettled. His eyes darted between them, and he started to smell a rat: full-blown SWAT team for just a domestic incident? He thrust a hand out.

‘Like I said: what the hell’s this all about?’

As if in answer, one of the SWAT men took out a taser-like gun and pointed it at Burchell.

Inside the van, Ellis explained what was happening:

‘The gun will give him a reading of whether the time is right – which it should be. If not, they'll just walk away from the situation – come back later.’

Looking at the screen over Ellis’s shoulder, the
Blind
School
pupils could clearly see the
Waldeval
apparition swirling inside Mr Burchell.

But at that moment Ellis watched it all start to go horribly wrong: the taser-operator paused, as if unsure he'd got sufficient reading.

‘What the
fuuuu...
’ Dougy Burchell exclaimed, and in that split-second gap he bolted for the front door.

Ellis watched the rampage on screen as the SWAT agents lunged after Burchell. Chairs were overturned, a table lamp sent crashing. But they were still a yard behind Burchell as he reached the front door.

What Burchell hadn’t figured on was the SWAT agent hanging in the shadows just outside the door and another halfway down the path.

Mrs Burchell was alarmed as she heard the commotion. She pushed past the female agent keeping her in the kitchen and ran out.

She got to the front door just after her husband had been creamed and tumbled to the ground by the first SWAT man. The second one moved in to help pin him down. In the half light, she only noticed the taser gun in the agent’s hand at the last second. She watched open-mouthed as he pressed it against her husband’s chest and zapped him.   

On screen in Kendell’s van, the teen ‘watchers’ observed
Waldeval
sucked out of him and into the taser.

Yet to Mrs Burchell it appeared simply as if her husband had been tasered. She was in total shock, and moved tentatively towards her husband’s prone body.

But as he came round, he smiled meekly up at her. He looked suddenly like a gentle pussycat, all the aggression gone.

The agents hustled quickly back to the vans, and the last SWAT man passing touched his helmet at her with a tight smile.

‘He'll be no trouble from now on, mam.’

FIFTEEN

The agent with the taser went to the last van in line and plugged it into a side-socket. 

As he pressed a button on the taser, the apparition of
Waldeval
re-emerged inside the van's empty back compartment and was held in a sparking, electricity-forked force-field.

Each action was caught on camera and fed through to the monitoring van screen. Ellis explained to the
Blind
School
pupils what they were seeing:

‘The force-field gun can hold them only four minutes, and the van compartment no longer than another forty-eight hours. Then they have to go somewhere permanent.’

‘Where's that?’ Ryan asked.

‘That's containment lesson three,’ Ellis said. ‘First there's lesson two: the only
other
time they can be 'contained’.’

‘...Which is when they feel the end is near for the person they're inhabiting – or that person, that vessel, has outdone its 'usefulness',’ Professor Mentinck elaborated.

   Before his next lecture, Mentinck had viewed the CD of the previous night’s
Waldeval
containment session, then picked up where Ellis Kendell left off.

‘And as they prepare to move to another body, once again they're vulnerable.’ He paused and scanned the class. ‘But when they do finally make that jump, they have to be close, no more than thirty yards away. And that person has to be 'susceptible' to being inhabited: weak, vulnerable, or a bad streak that would benefit from an extra dash of pure evil.’

Ellis stayed for a moment watching Mentinck’s lecture through the side glass screen. Josh Eskovitz came out of the main operations and approached along the corridor, his expression heavy.

   ‘That
Pittsfield
girl. It’s been twelve days now and still no sign of her.’ Josh eased a tired sigh. ‘And now there’s been another just six miles away, missing two days now.’

‘Same age range?

‘Yeah. Just a year older.’

Ellis looked back through the glass window, and after a moment Josh joined him in surveying the class.

‘Reckon we stand a chance?’ Josh said. ‘Putting this bunch of kids with 'special gifts' up against the worst murderers and criminals this country

has to offer. Or are we just throwing them to the wolves?’

Ellis didn't answer, just continued staring thoughtfully through the window at this class full of kids he might be sending one-by-one to their deaths.

That thought was still heavy on Ellis's mind at home that night. He and Carla were at the coffee table sharing an after-dinner brandy. Meanwhile
Santos
had taken over the dining table to finish his homework.

Ellis looked down as he swirled his brandy in its balloon. ‘Sorry about that incident at the school the other day. But it's the one line I said I'd never see crossed: my work posing any threat to my family.’

Carla gently touched his brow, smiled tightly. ‘I understand.’  

Carla knew that he worked for a special FBI unit. But all he’d ever explained about what made it ‘special’ was that he worked protecting vulnerable groups of people, including children. Strict secrecy rules precluded him going into detail beyond that. He remained pensive.

‘But a question: How would you feel if someone was lying to you about
Santos
. Telling you he had an ailment which he didn't in fact have.’ He glanced back at
Santos
. ‘But they were doing it to protect him from danger.’