Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (30 page)

“Do you know where this man stays, Isaiah?”

“Doan’
know nuttin’ ‘bout him.
Seem
like
he take care I doan.
So whut’s we
goan
do?”

Paul still didn’t know
. Not exactly. He felt himself edging towards an irrevocable decision he still wasn’t ready to make.
Not quite. Not just yet.

“Isaiah, Sadie saw ‘em.
And I think I have to.
Maybe his power isn’t quite as absolute as we think.
Maybe if I can watch, I can figure something out.”

“I’m goin’ wid you
den.”

“I don’t know if you should, Isaiah.
I know you don’t
hold with soothsaying and all that, but those headaches, the smells you say you smell?
I smelled something like that in Tamara’s cottage.
If Cain has some means of cau
sing your headaches, it might mean—”

“
H
e have some sort of control over me?”

Paul nodded.

“Might be.
But whut we knows for sho’ is, he got control over my peoples.
I’m goin’
wid you.”

Paul looked at Isaiah
. A man of simple dignity, simple goodness.

“Alright.
Come to my house.
We’ll leave from there.
Right at dark fall.”

* * *

“Doan like dis,” muttered Sadie while they
all
waited for Isaiah
in the front parlor
. She’d mad
e that abundantly clear through
out the afternoon.

“Sadie, I don’t know what else to do!” exclaimed Paul, edging close to exasperation.

“You could tell
de
Chief.”

“No, I can’t.
He’d massacre them, Sadie.
Everybody.
Everybody there.”

“But neither one of
my
boys would be
dere!”

“Sadie, you don’t mean that!”

“I
do
mean
dat!
I do
!
By what right, what justice, do
dis
land in
yo
’
lap?”

“Tama
ra said—
”

“Doan give a
da
mn
what
Tamara say
!
You
my
boy!
Ain’t
I done spent nights sittin’ by
yo
’
bed when you little, when you runnin’ fevers?
Ain’t I kept
yo
’ clothes clean and
yo
’
stomach full ever since you tiny?
Ain’t I miss
you
dose
years you gone up North and in Scotland, r
eadin’ yo
’
letters to yo
’
d
a
ddy over and over, prayin’ every
night
you stay safe?
Ain’t
I grieved and cried for you de
days and nights after I watch you bury Chloe?
Well
?
Ain’t I
?”
Then Sadie did the unthinkable.
She dissolved into tears.

Paul pulled her into his arms and stood, holding her for a moment.
In a two-day span, he
’d seen his
brother reduced to mindless terror, watched his father’s
irrevocable change to an old man. Now
he watched
the woman who’d
raised him
as her own
lose
control.
He’d never
imagined he’d see that.
Not ever.
Oh,
yes.
Thi
s son
of
a
bitch
was going
down
.

A knock sounded on the door.

“That’ll be Isaiah.”

“Doan
go, son.
Please
doan
go.”

“You went, and you came back home.”

“Tonight’s different.
I feel it.
Please
doan
go.”

Paul kissed her forehead
.
He looked over at his brother.
“Joshua!”

“Yes, Paul?”

“You’re in charge here.
You take care of Mama and Papa.
You hear?”

Paul
walked out the door.

* * *

Sadie’s ground work gave Paul a huge advantage tonight. They knew w
h
ere they were going.
They waited for full dark
and rode their
horses swiftly toward the river. Teethering the horses, t
hey moved
soundlessly into the woods
toward the river banks.

Paul’s hand slipped
down to check the side holster cradling the
Colt .45
that
usually resided
in
a locked drawer in his office desk.
Paul only took it with him
during
late night emergencies
to the o
utskirts of the city.
Even then, he
sometimes forgot it.
This was his town, these were his people.
It seldom crossed his mind
he
could meet with
danger.

Tonight,
though,
danger hung heavy in the air.
No longer
abstract, it
had
shape and form.
Paul
had
spent the h
ours between his return home and Isaiah’s arrival in his office chair, deep in thought, examining the situation first from one angle and then from the other.
And he knew what he had to do.

Cain was an abnormality. A
rogue, a murderer, a butcher.
He
’d
killed and burned with great pleasure in the past
. He planned to do the same here. Then
h
e
’d
move on and
do it again. Again. And again.
Until someone stopped him. Th
ere was one man on earth
with
sufficient knowledge and information to
do that without unleasing a full-scale massacre.
Paul Devlin
.
And there was only one way to do it.

He intended to
place a .45
bulle
t squarely through Cain’s brain,
coldly, with good aim and absolute calculation.
No
warning.
He’d have only one chance.
He h
adn
’t shared his intentions with Isaiah Gorley, man of God.
It was his alone
, this decision to serve as executor,
a
nd the burden of it sat heavy
on his heart.

They crept closer.
Paul’s blood froze as he heard the voices,
reverberating back and forth in
the trees.
These were the people, the friends, he took care of? T
he people who always
greeted him with warm smiles and genuine pleasure?

“Blood!
Blood!
D
e
power be blood!
”

The chant rose
to crescendo and c
ut off
abruptly when C
ain rose to assume his position as Master of Ceremonies.
The two intruders reached a hiding spot and crouched in observation.
Beads of sweat popped up on Isaiah’s forehead.

“
O
ur enemies
!” shouted Cain.
“
D
ey be searching for us
!”

“
No
!”

“
Yes
, I say!
Yes, forever and always,
de
truth
have enemies searchin’ for it!
D
e
white man and his white
g
od,
dey
always
look
in’
for ways to keep you from
de
truth!
But
dey
ca
n’t do it!
No,
de
truth,
our truth
, it give us ways!
I say it give us ways to protect ourselves!”

“
Yes, yes
!”

“An’ it use
de
enemies
demselves to do it!”
Cain grabbed
the
rough sheet
covering a crude table.
His sentri
es.
Cain lifted two of the four
skulls
high.

“
Sweet
Jesus
Christ!” Paul hissed.
Isaiah was
speech
less
.

Cain
chanted,
garbled and twisted words and phrases
breathing darkness
. Paul knew
Tamara would die before she
’d
utter
this chant
.

His hand gripped the butt of the pistol.
One chance.
He
’d get only
one chance.
Isaiah’s eyes widened
at the sight of the weapon.

“T
here’s no other way, Isaiah,” Paul
whispered.
“Leave if you have to.”

“No other way,” Isaiah
whispered back.
“I’s staying.”

Cain fell to his
knees
while he chanted,
encircled and shielded by his followers
.
Far in the distance, lightning flash
ed
.
Horrendous cracks of thunder
shook the ground
as Cain
call
ed
forth th
e denizens
Sadie claimed c
ould pass back an
d forth between the worlds that
ringed this world.

Isaiah
grabbed Paul’s arm in a grip of iron
and pointed. Two
winged shape
s
, bat-like of body and demonic of face, with razor-edged teeth and gr
eat, glowing golden eyes,
swooped low out of nowhere and settled on the skull
s
C
ain held aloft in his huge hands. Its brethren
rained forth
with the
lightning
cracks
, as though an invisible door opened with each flash.
Two
others settled on the skulls
sitting on the crude table.

“No,” Paul whispered, trying to deny the sight that had unfolded in front of him.

“Mist’ Paul, I be mighty afeard it be yes.”

The chosen denizens
settled
on the skulls
,
folded their wings
. Sending
forth clouds of hissing steam, they melted into the white bone of the skulls.
The crowd swayed in ecstasy.

In seconds, the perched creatures were gone
. The skulls glowed with an
eerie blue light, highlighted by
the red embers flashing in
the empty eye sockets.

“
O
ur sentries
!” Cain r
oared
. He stood erect and rotated
the skull
s he held in his hands, sending their light out into the s
hadows surrounding the clearing.

Deep in those shadows,
while the light streamed from the skull, coming
ever nearer to their hiding place,
Paul steadied the pistol and wished like hell he’d spent more time perfecting his marksmanship.

Chapter
Thirty