Saint (33 page)

There was still hope. More than hope, certainty. Even when Johnny won, he was really losing. But this didn't make Englishman feel any better. He would first kill the president, not because he had been ordered to do so, but because by killing Robert Stenton he would undo what Johnny had done in saving the man's life.

Then he would find Johnny, and he would reduce him to a desperate, blubbering fool.

And then, when Johnny was only a shell of himself, he would choose to kill him. That wasn't the original plan, but the original plan was now obsolete.

This new plan made Englishman happy. Not as happy as he'd once been, plotting and planning all these months, but still happy. He still had the trump card, and this, too, made him happy. But Johnny was turning out to be a more worthy adversary than he'd originally calculated.

He'd retrieved the information on Stenton's ranch and would soon board an airplane bound first for Denver and then Grand Junction, where he would collect all he needed from the safe house. He would then head for Arizona, where he would be free to level whatever paltry security they threw his way and take the man's life at his leisure. The Terminator would undoubtedly kill the whole family—father, mother, and son. So would Rambo if pressed.

So would Englishman.

He didn't need the information Kalman had provided, only the destination. But he had it nonetheless. Better not to be overconfident, considering a single stray bullet could end his life as easily as the president's.

Englishman began to whistle in the backseat of the cab that was taking him to the airport. But his whistle sounded hollow. In all honesty, none of these mental gymnastics were bringing him happiness. His identification with the Terminator and Rambo wasn't helping. He couldn't remember such a profound lack of happiness.

He stopped whistling.

When he met Johnny again, he would make sure that Johnny never whistled again. Ever.

35

H
ello, Johnny.”

Johnny opened his eyes.

H “I remember the first time we met here,” Samuel said.

Johnny pushed himself up on his elbow. The blond boy stood ten feet away, smiling at him. He was here? Johnny blinked. The image was still there. Samuel was here. He climbed to his feet, embarrassed to have been caught in such a vulnerable state.

“You remember?” Samuel repeated.

“No.”

“You will. Give it time. My father tells me that you remember your mother.”

“Some.”

“Then the rest will come too.”

Johnny felt dazed. Trapped in a hopeless depression. “I'm not sure I care anymore.”

Samuel clasped his hands behind his back and paced. He stood under five feet, a short boy. His eyes were blue, like his father's, and his skin fair. He wore tan shorts that ended just above knobby knees. His beige socks were scrunched down around the lips of brown leather hiking boots. It was amazing to think that he was the same age as Johnny. But was that really true?

Even though Johnny no longer cared to remember his childhood, he couldn't deny the strong sense that he'd known Samuel before New York.

“My father told you about Project Showdown,” Samuel said.

Was that a question? “Yes.”

“And about our meeting to discuss the vision I had. Your insistence to enter the X Group.”

“Yes. Do you know what I did in New York?”

“You saved the president and then killed his enemy.”

So they'd found the body. Not that it mattered.

“Do you know if Kelly's safe?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

Johnny nodded and turned to face the cliff. Samuel was undoubtedly here to talk more nonsense about Project Showdown, but Johnny only wanted to be alone. Or with Kelly. For all he knew she was dead. The terrible sadness he'd felt earlier returned.

“You haven't finished the task, Johnny. You know that, don't you?”

He looked at the boy. At the man who looked like a boy. Samuel drilled him with soft, kind eyes. Did he like Samuel? Johnny did. Maybe even Carl did. But the person trapped between Johnny and Carl felt too lost to care about a man who looked like a boy and claimed to be his best friend.

“You haven't become what you're meant to become,” Samuel said.

Johnny wasn't sure he'd heard right. “What I've done isn't enough for you?” He knew he was giving in to selfpity, but he felt justified. He couldn't imagine a man, woman, or child who'd been put through as much as he had been put through in these last few months.

“Enough? No. I know that sounds harsh, but you're not the only one to walk this path.”

What on earth did the boy think he was saying?

“Unless you become who you were meant to be, untold harm will come to an untold number of people. You are chosen, Johnny. I would be more gentle if we weren't so short on time, but you may be the only one who can stop the X Group from killing the president.”

“Me? You have the wrong person. I don't stand a chance against Englishman!”

Samuel blinked and stilled. “You've foiled him twice now. What do you mean?”

“Twice? You mean here and in New York. I was lucky that Kelly came back here, and I just managed to stay out of his line of sight as I fled him in New York. I wouldn't characterize either as foiling him. The next time he'll kill me.”

Samuel stopped pacing and dropped his arms. “You . . . You're saying that Englishman has power?”

“You don't know?”

“My father assumed the reports were about you.”

“Your father was wrong. I don't know who Englishman is, but he can maneuver physical objects with his mind. Knives and guns. Cars. I have no doubt he could walk up to this cabin and level it with a hard look. Me, on the other hand, I can change the temperature. Maybe the gift will come in handy when I find myself standing among the flames of hell.”

Samuel's face had lightened a shade. Two shades. For a long moment he stood stock-still, staring at Johnny without so much as breathing, it seemed.

“You're sure . . .”

“Do you think I would have fled his initial assault if I thought there was any way to take him? The only way to keep Kelly alive was to force Englishman into using her as a hostage.”

“That means . . .” Samuel had come upon a revelation of great weight. “Then he must be either a fictitious character or someone else who was given power by the books.”

“Fictitious character? He's real, I can swear that much.”

“Real, yes, yes, of course. But written from the books, not born of this earth.”

“A demon?”

“Or a human given power by the books like you were.”

“I don't have power! Why is it so difficult for you and your father to understand that? It isn't there!”

“I think it is. But I also think you're so lost that you no longer can truly imagine it. Belief begins with the imagination, you know. The day a faith loses imagination is the day it dies.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Of course you do. You never read
Spider-Man
? Accepting your true identity means understanding that you are a stranger to this world. A freak, ostracized by the very people you want to help.”

The words struck a chord. At least the bit about being a freak. But the idea of his being someone who had a unique power to dispatch evil seemed absurd. Even if it wasn't a fantasy, he honestly didn't know who he was or had been or wanted to be. He was trapped.

“I see it every day,” Samuel said.

“Sure,” he said. “There are thousands of superheroes running around this planet, struggling to find their magic.”

“Not like you, no. Unless I'm mistaken, there are only two others, not counting Englishman. But the path you're on is essentially identical to the path all men, women, and children of faith finds them-selves on. To be or not to be, that is the question, as they say.”

Johnny honestly didn't know what the boy was saying. Samuel elaborated.

“Once born into childlike faith, brimming with belief, typical people begin to lose their faith. Society mocks them. Their friends smirk. They come to change the world, but over time the world changes them. Soon they forget who they were; they forget the faith they once had. Then one day someone tells them the truth, but they don't want to go back, because they're comfortable in their new skin. Being a stranger in this world is never easy. Look at me, I should know. Don't feel sorry for yourself, Johnny.”

“Have you been in my pit? No? Have you been strapped to my hospital bed? No? Then you have no right to tell me anything, including how to feel.”

“Actually, I do. I've been through worse. But I admit I'm being a bit direct. We are running out of time. And if you're right about Englishman, we may already be out of time.”

“I don't want to be—”

“Stop it!” Samuel yelled at him. “Stop it!” His face was red, and a single vein throbbed on his temple. “This isn't about you anymore!” Johnny was dumbstruck. His heart pounded and his face felt hot, but more than either of these, his heart felt sick.

Samuel just stared, his face slowly losing its bright red hue.

The sickness in Johnny's heart slowly rose to his throat. He was no longer sure whether the emotions that swallowed him were self-pity or profound anguish at his own pathetic excuses for not stepping into the role he was destined to take.

A tear leaked from his right eye.

“I'm sorry, Johnny. I'm truly sorry for what you've been through.” Johnny closed his eyes and fought the waves of remorse that crashed through his heart. He lifted a hand and rested it against his forehead, as if to hold back the pain in his head or to hide from it. He accomplished neither.

A cool hand touched his hand by his side. Samuel was standing next to him now, looking up at him with tears rimming his eyes. In that moment Samuel who was a man was only a boy. Johnny remembered this. He remembered Samuel this way.

“Will you trust me?” Samuel asked.

“Yes,” Johnny said without thinking. Then he asked a very stupid question. “Will it save Kelly?”

Samuel smiled. “You see, you're still a child. Yes, I think it will. And it just might save you.”

Johnny nodded.

“You should know that if you walk where I'm going to ask you to walk, there will be a price.”

“I'll be strange. Ostracized by society. Rejected.”

“Yes, that too. But more. I don't know specifics, but it'll affect you physically. Like me. I stopped growing.”

Johnny considered the implications. “You're saying that I'll never be normal. That I'll be rejected by normal people. That I was chosen to be an outcast. And that if I manage to embrace this childlike faith of yours, I'll wear my abnormality in some debilitating way?”

“Yes. But you'll have the power to change the world.”

“A freak with a magic stick.”

“No magic. But a freak, probably. At least in the minds of most. In fact, the being-a-freak part will probably precede the power part.” “Will I be able to defeat Englishman?”

“Maybe. Maybe you've been chosen to die to rid the world of him. The rules are different in the supernatural reality.”

Johnny nodded. “All of this assuming I can become like a child and believe like I once supposedly did.”

“Yes. Will you?”

“I'll try.”

Samuel let go of his hand and stepped back. “Okay. That's good. That's real good.”

Johnny felt stupid, but he didn't know what he could do other than offer Samuel a stupid grin.

“Wow, that was easy,” Samuel said, smiling.

“Not as easy as you think. Now what?”

“Now what?”

“What do I do?”

“You believe,” Samuel said.

“Believe what?”

“Believe what you believed as a child. All of it.”

“How do I do that? Just believe?”

“Well, yeah. Just believe. Accept who you are. Remember Spider-Man? My father talks of Samson. Believe.”

Johnny wasn't sure what that meant. “Do I close my eyes?”

“Why? If you think it will help you focus, but believing isn't a matter of focusing. It's just . . . You just believe!”

“What if I don't?” Johnny asked.

“Well, do you?”

“What?”

“Believe. Do you believe?”

“It depends on what I'm believing.”

They stared at each other, caught in their circular questions.

“I think I believe,” Johnny said. “How will I know?”

Samuel stepped back. “Try it. Do what you do in your pit.”

Johnny nodded and closed his eyes, focusing his mind to form a tunnel. The long, dark space formed easily enough, but he didn't know what to form as the objective.

He looked at Samuel. “What am I trying to do?”

“I think your gift involves affecting the physical world. Like the temperature. Or bullets. Stones. Anything physical. Probably not the free will of people, though. I'm guessing inanimate objects.”

“Samson,” Johnny said.

Samuel grinned. “Samson. But I like Saint better.”

This time Johnny turned to his right and rested his eyes on a stone on the sand ten yards away.

He was able to enter the tunnel again.

He was able to step outside the tunnel and see the rock on the sand.

He was able to imagine the rock lifting off the ground and flying toward him, and he was quite sure that it was doing just that.

For a long time he watched the stone fly to him and around him. His pulse surged. Maybe everything Samuel had said was true after all. Maybe he really did have a supernatural gift as written in the book twelve years ago. Maybe he could do what Englishman did.

Johnny opened his eyes.

The stone lay on the ground, ten yards away, unmoved.

He stared at it, stunned. “It . . . It didn't move!”