Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) (39 page)

  The next morning Doug woke with sunlight slanting in through the bedroom windows. He got out of bed and tentatively stood up. His legs were rubbery but he realized they were strong enough to carry him. There was a stack of clothing on the chair beside the bed. He sat down on the bed and inspected the clothing; underwear, socks, a pair of sweatpants, a simple pullover sweatshirt and a pair of size eleven running shoes. The tags had been removed but it was obvious that the stuff was new. He undressed, slinging his stale pajama bottoms on the floor, and went into the adjoining bathroom.

It was a spacious and well-lit room. Freshly laundered towels hung on a rack. There was a shower as well as a bath. He switched on the mirror light. Lucy had laid out a complete shaving kit for him; razor, shaving cream, cologne, all unopened. He
gazed at himself in the mirror and was shocked by what he saw. His face was gaunt, covered in weeks of hair growth—nearly a full-fledged beard. His skin was anemic, his eyes black-rimmed, sunken and pale, his cheeks hollow. His greasy hair hung in strands to the tops of his shoulders. The artifact lay against his chest, dull and unglamorous. He picked it off, inspecting it, perhaps hoping it would communicate something to him. But of course it did not, so he dropped it back down with a sigh.

The night before, Lucy had told him a story, that under any other circumstances, he would have dismissed out of hand.
Even now, after all that had happened, he was having trouble making sense of it. He sighed again.
Oh well,
he thought.
Nothing I can do about it now. My first order of business is to get strong.

He stepped away from the mirror and began removing his chest bandages. The pain was excruciating as the hair pe
eled away with the surgical tape. Once all the tape had been removed he inspected his wound-scars. That’s all they were now, just scars. Lucy had said that he’d reopened one of the wounds during his flight from the hospital. How long ago had that been? Thirty-six hours? Impossible. Yet, he knew his eyes weren’t deceiving him. During his flight one of the wounds had opened up and had bled profusely, now they were both small pink puckers. He was healed. He touched the scars and felt no discomfort. He turned around, craning his neck to get a look at the exit wound Lucy had mentioned. This one was larger than the entrance wound and ragged around the edges. Exit wounds most always were. Especially when hollow point bullets were used. He suspected that’s what he’d been shot with. He wasn’t supposed to have survived. A network of alternating pink and white striations fanned out from a round and pink epicenter like the leftover scars of a volcanic eruption. Even so, the wound appeared completely healed.

Doug stepped over to the bath and ran the shower lukewarm. Stepping in he lathered himself from head to toe with spring-scented soap. The water was stimulating, like standing in a warm
, clean rain. His body began to tingle with life.
“I’ve been dead,
he thought,
and now I’m coming back to life.

He rinsed and then indulged himself with a repeat of the ritual, this time turning the tap to hot. The assault was invigorating. The bathroom filled with steam.

When he stepped out of the shower he moved to the mirror and cleaned the condensation off with a towel. The water had brought some new color to his cheeks.

He thoroughly lathered his beard and mustache with the shaving cream. It took quite a soaking to sufficiently soften
the coarse hairs. The razor blade protested and so did his skin, but his diligence paid off as parts of his beard hit the sink in a slop of suds.

Finished, he re-inspected his face in the mirror. It wasn’t as bad as he’d first thought. Amazing what a little soap and water and a sharp razor can accomplish. He wrapped a towel around his waist and sauntered back into the bedroom. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began donning his new wardrobe.

It took no more than a sense of smell to lead him to the kitchen. Lucy stood at the stove dressed in sweats and running shoes. She was frying bacon while fresh coffee brewed.

She turned as he entered the kitchen. “You look chipper,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty good, actually.”

Lucy smiled. “You’re as handsome as that day in the airport when we first met.” She turned quickly back to the stove trying to conceal a blush. Nevertheless Doug saw it
, his discomfort mounting.

What’s going on here
?
He wondered.
Why is this woman coming on to me?
Was it possible that his mind was in overdrive, reading too much into Lucy’s comments and body language? No! He knew the signs. He’d been here before. He knew the effect he had on certain members of the opposite sex, although he didn’t understand it. A sudden sense of foreboding struck Doug like a lance telling him to be very careful. But before he could articulate the feeling, Lucy said, “A fine morning for us to get started.”

“Started?”

“We’re going for a little walk.”

The kitchen door was open. Doug crossed the expanse of the
room to survey the day. It was beautiful. A clear sky, sun breaking above the trees. In the distance he could see what looked like tennis courts, and beyond them, a stand of forest. He was aching to get outside and taste the day.

“I’m going to feed you first,” Lucy said, sensing his longing. “Then we’ll
go. How does that sound?”

Doug nodded his approval.

Lucy served up a huge breakfast. Bacon, eggs, hash browns, pancakes with maple syrup, lots of hot, black coffee. Doug ate ravenously. And as Lucy had promised, afterward, they went outside. There were trails which circumnavigated the estate. They walked slowly at first, taking in the sights, and as they did so they talked, mostly about Annie and the unborn child, about De Roché and his intentions, the mysterious organization known as the Brotherhood of the Order, and about Lucy’s part in it all. Absent was the flirtatiousness Doug had sensed at breakfast, and again he caught himself doubting his own instincts.

Of course, it didn’t matter if Lucy did have designs on him. He was
hopelessly in love with Annie, obsessed with Annie, and all he could think about was getting back to her. He had to fight the nearly uncontrollable urge to run and find a phone and let her know that he was alive. But Doug was no fool. He understood the implications of breaking his silence. This knowledge, however, did not help to ease the burden of his grief; in Annie’s heart he was a dead man. How did she feel about that? What were her days like now that she had accepted his death? And what about her nights? He certainly knew how he would feel in the same situation. Alas, for the time being, at least, there was nothing he could do to ease her pain except wait and wonder. Annie had a child to deliver and he knew it would take every ounce of strength and courage she had left in her to accomplish the task.

Doug went through his days in
self-imposed punishment. His life had become an endless regimen of emotional anguish and physical torment. He needed to be strong if he was going to win the fight against evil, realizing that evil was exactly what he was up against.

The weeks saw Doug’s physical condition improve dramatically. The strict
routine of exercise he’d set for himself began as torture, but after several weeks the punishment eased and the exertion began to bear fruit. His body was returning to its pre-trauma days of rock-hard abs, of bulging biceps and steel-cord legs. He got up at five-thirty each morning and took an hour-long run around the grounds. There was a well-beaten path that covered several miles, traversing woods and fields. Evidently the owners of the estate—whoever they were—(strangely Doug could find no evidence of them inside the house) were health conscious individuals, and had put a considerable amount of effort into cutting the trails and seeing to their proper grooming. In the beginning Lucy ran with him, showing him what trails he could use and which ones he should avoid, but she soon tired of the routine and left him to his own devices.

After several weeks of following the same route
, Doug became bored with it. Ignoring Lucy’s warnings, he began to alter his route, cutting away from the main trail and onto some smaller, less-traveled routes. This allowed him to explore the estate a little more thoroughly. There was much to see. Summer in the Kentucky countryside saw a riot of flora. The mellow greens of summer had begun to morph into the deeper shades of the coming fall. It took nearly two weeks for Doug to explore the estate thoroughly and understand the lay of the land; where roads intersected and other estates lay in proximity to theirs.

One morning he passed a place in the trail that felt different, and he stopped abruptly. He wasn’t exactly sure why it felt different, but there was something about it
that bothered him. He stood very still, allowing his heart and his respiration to settle down. This wasn’t the first time he’d sensed something odd about this particular spot, but it was the first time he’d actually stopped to investigate why. He looked around him. To his left there were stands of alder, cottonwoods and scrub pine making their way upward to the crest of a small hill. Beyond that Doug could see a series of larger, rolling hills with rounded tops. Immediately to his right there was a stand of deep dark woods that looked like old growth. These were mostly hardwoods; a mixture of cherry, walnut, oak and chestnut. He stood looking into the woods. His heart had settled down and he took a deep breath and held it. The world was silent. He realized suddenly that this was the problem. There was no noise here; none at all. Everywhere he went it seemed birds were plentiful and their joyous song filled the air. But not here. Here there was no noise at all. No birds, no insects or peeping frogs, and barely a breeze to stir the leaves in the trees above him.

A thought struck him
like a lance, or perhaps it wasn’t a thought at all, but an inspiration; perhaps even a voice. And the moment it happened, forgotten memories came flooding back to him with a vengeance.
Please, you need to find me.

Doug stood frozen. “
Ariel?” he said, barely able to breathe. After all this time her voice had returned. One of the last times he’d heard the voice he’d dreamed that Ariel was his daughter. Crazy, but it was true. He remembered that she had taken him by the hand and told him that everything was going to be all right. “Where are you, Ariel?” Doug said, feeling a sudden and nearly desperate love for the lost little girl.

There was no response.

Of course there’s no response, you idiot. The voice is in your mind. It always has been.
But deep down Doug believed otherwise. He’d heard the voices of lost children before, Ariel’s included, and he understood that they
were
real, and that they came from some place beyond the realm of the rational. Feeling sudden heat on his chest, he reached into his collar and quickly brought out the artifact, holding it in his hand. It was glowing intensely, nearly hot enough to burn his flesh, its surface pulsing, shifting, like a snake beneath shedding skin. A sudden slice of intense pain in Doug’s hand caused him to release the object. He grabbed the chain holding the artifact out away from his chest. Blood poured from his wound, trailed down the chain and dripped to the ground. “Holy crap,” Doug breathed. The object had changed shape so suddenly that he hadn’t had time to react. It had morphed from a time-worn fragment of inert bronze to something beautiful yet patently menacing. The artifact was now a fully-formed golden spearhead with razor sharp edges. He realized suddenly that what he’d seen at Rachael De Roché s funeral had been no illusion.

Doug’s eyes shifted from the
object, back to the dark forest and again back to the object. “What’s going on?” he said, as if to the object. “Why is this happening? Why am I feeling this way?”

It is time for you to go
,
Ariel’s voice answered inside his head.
It is time for you to save me.

Doug
froze. “Who are you, Ariel? How do you know me?”

I’ve always known you
. You’re part of me and I’m part of you.

“How is that possible?”

You were chosen to guide me. You are my father and I am your daughter.

Doug
stood very still. “I don’t understand how that could be,” he said. “I have no children.”

You will, and soon. But b
eware, for you are about to be betrayed.

A
sudden and nearly deafening noise caused Doug to recoil in fear, his heart pumping adrenaline through his system. From out of the forest to his left ran a herd of giant stags, their frantically beating hoofs pounding the earth like thunder, antlers clacking together audibly, bulging eyes swirling in panic. A rag-tag flock of disheveled black birds flew like macabre guardians above the panicked herd, and Doug recognized their leader as the creature with the single red eye. Doug leapt out of their path just as the herd came crashing across the trail. He went down, sprawling face first as the animals shot past him, their beating hooves sending up clouds of dust and forest debris.

Doug got to his feet as their noise receded into the forest. He spun, taking in his entire circumference. But the stags and the birds were gone.

He’d forgotten about the object.
He’d left it dangling outside his shirt. A quick moment of panic seized him. He was suddenly sure that it was gone. But he was wrong. It hung there on its chain, now just a cold and unglamorous old relic, stained with the blood of his hand. He stared at it for a long moment before tucking it back beneath his collar.

A voice inside his head said:
It cannot truly be yours until it has been baptized in your blood. Guard it well until the time comes for you to pass it to the child.

Doug recognized the voice as belonging to the
Collector. But how could that be? The Collector was a murderer and a destroyer. He had taken everything good from him. Was this just another of the monster’s tricks?

Doug
waited in frustration for some sort of explanation. When it did not come, he brushed himself off and headed back to the house.