On Harrow Hill

When he spoke again, it was with less volume but no less emotion. “My fellow Americans, we come here tonight with our sacred land, our sacred rights, our sacred traditions under siege. All that we hold dear to our hearts is under assault by socialists, sodomites, and Satanists. The signs of the End Times are visible to all who have eyes to see. Look at the fires and floods ravaging the corrupt state of California, successor to Gomorrah, hotbed of every kind of anti-Christian iniquity. The Lord in his wrath is giving us a call to action. He will not purify America without our assistance. This is the word that the Lord has spoken to me. He invites us, he summons us, to join him in the great battle ahead. He calls us to enlist in his army—to be the vehicles of his word, his power, and his fire.”

Gant paused, out of breath, and again wiped the sweat from his face. Then he leaned into the podium, his closeness to the microphone giving his voice a throatier intimacy. “Even as I speak, a devil stalks us—right here in our own hills and valleys—a devil in the body of a man risen from the dead. Creeping through these dark woods. Cutting throats. Defiling churches. Leaving his foul words, dripping with blood, on the walls of his victims. But with the gun and cross we will beat back the Prince of Darkness. We will bear arms into the great battle and save our country from perdition. Join us in the mighty Church of the Patriarchs. With gun and cross we stand for God and country.”

After a dramatic pause, Gant pulled the microphone from the podium and strode to the edge of the top riser. “With gun and cross, we’ll beat the demons down!” he cried. Then, tilting his ear toward the crowd, he asked, “What’ll we do?”

The crowd responded. “With gun and cross we’ll beat the demons down!”

Once again he asked, “What’ll we do?”

They responded, louder this time. “With gun and cross we’ll beat the demons down!”

He asked a third time, “What’ll we do?”

They responded even louder. “With gun and cross we’ll beat the demons down!”

With his white leather riding suit gleaming in the spotlights, Gant extended his arms in a triumphant embrace of the whole crowd and shouted, “God bless America!”

The crowd rose to its feet with applause that continued until the last of the thirteen motorcycles had passed down the center aisle and disappeared into the night.

33

By the time Gurney got home it was past ten thirty. Madeleine was already in bed. He drank two glasses of water while trying to decide whether to stay up or go to bed. After checking his email and finding nothing but fundraising appeals and a notice for his thirtieth college reunion, he opted for going to bed.

Although his body seemed eager for sleep, his mind was reviewing events of the day. Recurring images included the bloody Dark Angel message on Mary Kane’s wall . . . the glint in Hilda Russell’s eyes when she mentioned her namesake’s power over snakes . . . Selena Cursen’s tear-filled eyes . . . Aspern offering him Mike Morgan’s job . . . the “dead man has a plan” message Aspern received from Tate but supposedly ignored . . . Silas Gant’s promise of victory by the gun and the cross . . . the long roar of applause from his followers.

The recollected din of that cheering crowd gave Gurney a chill. Or maybe it was the breeze from the wide-open window next to the bed. As he reached down to pull up his side of the blanket, he was surprised by Madeleine’s wide-awake voice.

“What are you wrestling with?”

“I don’t have a firm enough grip on the situation to wrestle with it.”

“Do you feel like you’re making progress?”

“I’m accumulating facts, but they’re not forming anything like a coherent picture.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“On one hand, there’s a simple story. Billy Tate revives from near death with a desire to kill the man responsible for putting him in prison. On his way to do this, he is recognized by two women, one of whom he kills. Two nights later, he kills a woman who put him in a juvenile detention center when he was a teenager. He leaves a trail of occult symbols and messages in blood. Then he vanishes.”

“Sounds awful, but somewhat coherent.”

“The thing is, I’m having a hard time putting together a picture of Billy Tate. One Billy Tate is a hotheaded, impulsive kid spray-painting crazy symbols on a church steeple in the middle of a thunderstorm. The other is a cool, premeditating murderer who killed three people, each with a single, precise slash with a scalpel.”

“Haven’t you encountered other murderers with conflicting characteristics?”

“If it was just that, it wouldn’t be bothering me so much. But there’s a world of ugliness surrounding the three murders. It may be coincidental, but I don’t think it is.”

“Ugliness?”