Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕

din. It was like a scrape, or a footfall, and the priest’s figure appeared beyond the altar, rising from a crouching position.

He stood, backlit by the candles and the lamps, and the reflections from the gold. He called, “Detective Stone?”

I said, “Detectives Stone and Dehan!”

And the two questions and the statement ricocheted against each other, climbing high into the cold vault.

He stepped a little closer. I still couldn’t see his face. Behind me I could hear only the cold spatter of water, and I could feel the touch of cold air on my ankles and on the back of my neck.

“Will you approach? Samuel is here.”

My footsteps reverberated, tapping like a clock, and Dehan’s made a strange counterpoint, almost like a train leaving a station in the dark. Now his face came into view, partly illuminated by the candles. He was a man of about fifty, with thin, sandy hair. He looked drawn, worried, with hollow eyes. It was the face of a man called upon to solve a human problem, when all his life he had relied on God to solve them for him.

I stopped at the base of the altar and looked up. “Where is he?”

“He is prostrate.”

“Where is Helen?”

“She is also prostrate.”

“Does he know I am here?”

He nodded. “He is just finishing his prayers.”

I sighed and raised my voice: “Samuel! You said you wanted to talk to me. I’m here! Let Helen go and tell me what you want!”

The padre peered behind him, then backed away. There was movement. Samuel emerged from behind the altar. He towered over us, looking down. In his left hand, he held Helen by the hair and forced her to kneel. In his right hand, he held a huge kitchen knife that gleamed and glimmered in the reflected light of the candle flames.

“She is a whore like her sister. God will exact his judgment. And you…!” He pointed at me with the long blade. “You will be the instrument of His justice!”

EIGHTEEN

“If I am the instrument of God’s justice, Samuel, then hear my words and lay down your knife, and let Helen come here to me.”

His voice was shrill: “Satan speaks in you! You will betray the Lord! You will not punish her!”

Helen was rigid on her knees, staring at nothing. I held up my right hand. “Slow down, Samuel.” I looked at the padre. “Get out of here, Father.” He scampered gratefully away. I looked back at Samuel. “Did you just say that I am the instrument of the Lord’s justice?” He didn’t answer. He stared with bulging eyes and swallowed repeatedly, with his Adam’s apple moving up and down in his throat. “If I am the instrument of the Lord’s justice, then you must have faith, Samuel, that I will do God’s will. Let Helen come to me…”

He shook his head. “No! I can hear it in your voice. The Lord has made me wise. Satan’s evil has been visited on our family and He has made me wise to it, to see the evil and excise it! You are lying to me. I can hear it in your voice.”

I went to the front pew and sat. Dehan moved back and sat in the shadows across the aisle. I spread my hands and then laid them on my knees. “All right, Samuel, you tell me what it is I have to do.”

“The evil is in her,” he said.

“So you say, but what do you want me to do?”

“It was in her sister.”

“And your sister, Samuel.”

“She brought the evil into the world, and she killed Momma.” His bottom lip curled in under his teeth. Tears spilled from his eyes, soaking his cheeks. He spoke in a choked, nasal voice, like he had flu. “She took Momma from us… She went into her belly and killed her. She went and she never came back…”

He yanked on Helen’s hair. It must have hurt, but Helen didn’t react. She looked catatonic. “It was her fault!”

“That is not Celeste, Samuel. That’s your sister, Helen.”

“She has the evil in her! She killed Momma and she put her evil poison into Helen! She must be punished!”

“So you keep saying, Samuel, but you won’t tell me what it is I have to do.”

“You are a policeman.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you must execute the law!”

“How?”

He pointed the big knife at his sister. She still seemed to be paralyzed, staring unseeing. “Kill her!”

I smiled, looked at the floor and sighed again. “That is never going to happen, Samuel.” I looked up at him. “God said, in the sixth commandment, remember? Thou shalt not kill.”

“Unless the Lord ordains it. Jesus himself said, Matthew 15:4, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ She has the devil inside her, she killed her mother and has brought her father low, crippled and broken him. She must die.”

“That is not Celeste, Samuel. That is Helen. You can’t punish Helen for Celeste’s crime. You have to let her go.”

He leaned forward, thrusting his face toward me. His voice was a rasp. “But she is inside her! She has gone inside her and made her sick! She is eating her mind, putting worms in her brain, making her crazy! She is killing her soul! She will kill us all!”

I spoke loudly. “Did you stop to think maybe she is doing that to you? The only person here threatening to kill anybody is you. You brought a weapon into the house of God. You are the one talking about killing, Samuel, not Helen.”

He was shaking his head before I’d finished, stepping toward me, dragging Helen with him, making her stumble onto her hands and knees. “Not me! Not me! You! You are the instrument of God. You are the one who must execute