Disconnection (29 page)

U
nder the velvet curtain of night, Lewis and Sawicki turned off the interstate onto an exit leading to a narrow, poorly maintained lane that wound through a patch of cypress trees. Anticipation rose in both of the men; they had been lost for nearly an hour, and now, after a short stop at a gas station to ask for directions (“How long have you been driving around, looking for this place?” the woman behind the counter asked. When she was told the answer, she shook her head. “Men. You never ask for directions. No wonder Moses was lost in the wilderness for a hundred years.”), they had finally found their way to Gunter Davis’s house.

Lewis’ eyes searched the scenery as he drove past the widely separated driveways and tiny fishing shacks along the road. Miles passed before he finally found what he was searching for: a badly painted white house with blue shutters that backed up against the bayou.

Bingo

A gust of wind carrying the wrenching smell of pig shit passed the detectives’ noses when they exited Lewis’ Tahoe and walked steadily to the peeling painted steps of Gunter Davis’s doorstep.

“The door’s already open,” Sawicki acknowledged.

“You think so?” Lewis tilted his head Sawicki’s way. His partner was famous for stating the obvious around the station.

Sawicki shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry. Just making an observation.”

Lewis turned his attention to the house. “Mr. Davis?” he called through the open door. When there was no reply, he looked at Sawicki and nodded toward the door. “It’s Detective Kline and Detective Sawicki, Mr. Davis. We’re coming in.”

Something happened in this house
, Lewis immediately thought as he stepped through the entrance. The hallway wall was blown to shreds. Broken glasses and plates were scattered over the vinyl kitchen floor. Something red—was it blood?—had splattered against the rooster wallpaper.

“Looks like someone beat us here,” Sawicki said, pulling his gun out of his holster.

Lewis drew his gun and moved against the wall. Sawicki followed his lead. Together, the two men treaded lightly, covering all corners, until they came to the living room entrance.

“Holy shit,” Sawicki muttered under his breath.

The man that Lewis assumed was Gunter Davis lay on the floor, his back in the air, his hands tied. Part of his skull was blown off. Gray brain matter dressed the opposite wall. Beside him was another body, a young male, eternally resting in a fetal position. His head was slit at the neck and half-way falling off his shoulders.

Lewis and Sawicki stood in silence for a moment, taking everything in. Finally, Sawicki lifted his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the station. He ordered backup from the answering dispatcher.

“Check the rest of the house,” Lewis said as he finally came to his senses.

“Right,” Sawicki agreed. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who would do this, Lew?”

“That Fishhook fucker for one,” Lewis answered, moving to the hallway.

In the first bedroom they found two more dead bodies. Both young, male. Lewis moved closer. The first body lay sprawled on his back, a knife stuck through the center of his chest. Judging by the wounds, he had not been dead long.

“Lew, this one’s still alive,” Sawicki called from the other side of the room.

Lewis rushed over. The second body—not a body really, for he was still breathing—was that of Dean Wolf, the boy who had been with Sela Warren that night at the police station. Dean was leaning against the wall—his right eye black and blue and half-open. Blood poured from an open wound on his head. His entire midsection looked as if it had been run over by an M truck.

“Dean, can you hear me, son?” Lewis asked, leaning down to touch the boy’s chin.

Dean looked up at him with one working eye. “Hello,” he said drowsily.

“I’m calling for an ambulance,” Sawicki said from behind Lewis.

“Good,” Lewis muttered. “What happened here, Dean? Can you tell me what happened?”

“Help her,” was Dean’s reply.

“Help who, Dean?”

“There’s no one else in the house,” Sawicki offered.

Dean lightly shook his head. “No,” he began, “not here. Sela.”

“Sela Warren? Is she in trouble?” Lewis asked.

Dean didn’t have to say anything; the look in his one good eye told Lewis that he had guessed correctly. “Where is she?” he asked. “I can’t help her if I don’t know where she is, Dean.”

“Reverend Applegate, he killed …” Dean’s breath became shallow, and a slow drizzle of blood fell from between his lips. “… Chloe,” he finished.

Lewis wasn’t sure he had heard him right. “Dean, did you just say that Reverend Harold Applegate killed Chloe?”

Dean nodded. “A sacrifice. A religious sacrifice. Tonight. They kill Sela. Please, help her.”

Lewis had heard enough. “Sawicki!” he barked, standing. Sawicki came around the corner, his face pale. Lewis continued, “Get someone to look up Harold Applegate. I want to know every place the man’s lived and owned since he crawled out his mother’s womb.”

Sawicki’s face fell in confusion. “The Reverend Applegate?” he asked.

“That’s the one.”

“But Lew…”

“Just do it,” Lewis ordered, looking down at the battered face of Dean Wolf. “Quickly. Before New Orleans becomes one big body farm.”

O
ur Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
.

The Lord’s Prayer. Sela hadn’t been to church in a long time, but she knew the Lord’s Prayer when she heard it.

Give us this day our daily bread

She opened her eyes. She was in the same dark cellar as before. Patches of light showed the wounds on her body—the bite on her neck, the long cut across her forehead, the snake bite, the scrapes on her arms. Sela tried to move but the pain was too much. She reached down to touch her swollen ankle. It burned under her hands. Sela blinked back hot tears and looked around her. At least, she thought, the coyote was gone. But if and when it would be back, she was not certain.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
.

The Lord’s Prayer was not in her head, Sela realized. It was coming from above. There were people here, in the church, praying.

Sela heard Harold Applegate’s voice in her mind:

They won’t come to help you
.

Somehow, she would have to learn how to control her thoughts. He could read her mind, and he knew too much already.

Slowly, Sela tried to crouch again on her knees as she had done before. The pain was awful, but bearable. She would endure, just to get a glimpse of the world above the cellar room. She reached for the door where the light was coming through. Her fingers encircled the wooden panels, and she was able to raise herself just high enough to see the top of the room above her own. The ceiling was high and vaulted. Like a church’s.

Would you like to see, Ms. Warren? I will show you such great things
…

And suddenly Sela’s viewpoint changed. It was if her eyes had been raised over the door and were now looking down from the vaulted ceiling. An eagle’s eye view.

It was a very old church made of wood. There were no windows. The only light came from tall purple candles along the aisles and at the altar.

Candles.

Sela shuddered.

The church was filled with people. Maybe a hundred or so. Sela studied each of their faces. She recognized some of them. The toothy blond reporter from the local news channel. The drunken girl from the Black Kitchen and her frat boyfriend. The lady in the pink outfit from Harold’s church, the woman that had reminded Sela of Barbara Cartland.

And the shaggy-bearded man. He was there, holding the severed cat head in his lap like it was a crystal ball.

Sela looked away and sucked in her breath. Mandy was tied to a post at the center of the altar wearing only her lacy pink bra and panties. Her mouth was gagged with a piece of white cloth. Her nose ring was missing.

Mandy stared at the crowd with wide, frightened eyes. Candles on long metal candle holders stood around her in a circle, as if wardens at a prison. Two men in red robes stood on either side of her, holding talon-shaped iron batons, their faces masked with artwork drawn in blood.

Sela’s heart exploded in her chest. She could hear Harold’s voice sing in her head:

Oh, Mandy, you came and you gave without taking, and I need you today, oh, Mandy
…

(Satan Sings the Very Best of Barry Manilow)

Harold Applegate entered the church. People on either side stood as he walked by in purple robes, a large white turban-looking hat covering the top of his silver head. He wore a gold medallion around his neck, something Sela might suspect a rapper would wear, only this medallion was shaped into the Fishhook sign.

Harold walked with purpose in his step, stopping only after he had reached the post where Mandy waited to die.

Behind Harold, the men in red robes, and Mandy, was a large coffin-looking contraption made of glass. It stood upright, with a hose attached at the bottom.

Harold Applegate smiled at his congregation, the way a proud father would smile at his children. Gone was his evil exterior, Sela thought. He looked again like a humble preacher from Any Town, USA.

Harold raised his arms and spoke in a voice loud enough to reach the entire congregation. “Blessed are they that do his Commandments, that they may have the right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” He paused to let his words sink into the crowd. “This is the blood of the Testament which God hath enjoined onto you.”

Harold turned to Mandy and placed his hand on her forehead. He said, “For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought to the sanctuary by the high priest of sin, are burned without the camp.”

The red-robed men untied the rope binding Mandy to the post. In her one second of freedom, Mandy struggled to flee, but the men were quick and strong, and they tightened their hands around her arms, keeping her from moving.

Harold released Mandy’s forehead and turned back to face his congregation.

He said, “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify his people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”

One of the men held Mandy upright as the other man took a steaming iron marker—shaped in the form of the Fishhook—and pressed it against Mandy’s skin.

Despite her gag, Mandy was still able to cry out, and though it was only a mere whimper, Sela could hear every ounce of pain and suffering in her gasp. Spurred by her friend’s pain, Sela rattled the door.

That’s not going to help your friend, Ms. Warren
.

(I hate you)

Good. I will feed off your hate
.

Mandy’s eyes widened with despair. Only seconds passed by, but for Sela, it seemed like eternity. Fireworks of images exploded in her head. All of her memories of Mandy collided into one, sad, beautiful montage.

Sela remembered the night Mandy had invited her to Bourbon Street, the way she had stood under her window with her cell phone in her hand, a mischievous smile drawn on her face.

Sela’s insides plummeted in despair. If she could only go back in time. If only.

It’s too late now
, Harold laughed.
I’ll tell you what you shouldn’t have done
—
you shouldn’t have come to my brother’s house. I saw you as a sinner then, oh boy did I ever! Fiddle-faddle, I saw you murder your parents then! Yes, I sure did. Now, watch while I save your friend, Ms. Warren. Just wait and see
.

Mandy’s spirit was beaten down. Defeat was written on her face. One of the red-robed men took her head, while the other man took her feet. They carelessly loaded her into the glass chamber like she was already a corpse. When they were sure she was fitted just right into the chamber, they closed its glass door.

Harold turned to his congregation and said, “Pray with me.”

And the congregation prayed:

Let us go therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His approach. For we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By Him therefore let us later the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased
.

As they prayed, the red-robed men turned the knob of the hose that was hooked up to the glass chamber, and it began to fill with water.

Sela watched Mandy’s eyes watch the chamber fill with water. Her friend’s eyes were filled with more fear than she had ever seen in her life. Waves of anguish attacked the core of Sela’s soul, and she began to wail in sobs too deep and intense for the living to bear.

What’s the matter, Ms. Warren? Feeling the need to repent?

“If I wanted to repent,” she spoke through tears, “it would not be through you.”

The Devil is God is the Devil. Haven’t you figured that out yet, Ms. Warren? There is no wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. That was always man’s biggest fallacy
—
to separate good and evil. Truth is, the wolf and the sheep are the same. Please tell Mikko Jarvi that when you see him in Hell, won’t you?

Mandy took her last breath just as the congregation finished the prayer for the fourth time. The water swelled around her face. Mandy’s face turned from red to blue to white as she shook her head back and forth.

(Oh Mandy, please don’t go, please fight it, I need you.)

After what seemed too long in time to measure, Mandy closed her eyes forever.

(Goodbye, my friend.)

Harold lifted his arms. “Hallelujah! She is saved!”

The congregation erupted in applause. They stood up and hooted and hollered

As if they were at a Saints game!
Sela thought with revulsion.