Ten Plagues

“the demon that lived among the tombs, when he saw Jesus, cried out, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name, don’t torture me!’ Jesus has command over demons.” Keren had tried reaching Francis by appealing to his humanity, but now she spoke to the demon. “God is more powerful than you, Pravus. You know that if He willed it, you would be back on the floor, just like you were when I hit you. You’d be curled up, begging for mercy.”

Caldwell raised his hand to strike her.

“Do you know you can’t even lay a hand on me unless God allows it?” Keren asked. “Good is stronger than evil, Pravus. God is stronger than Satan. You think you are victorious when you kill a woman, but God is in charge. He can slap you down with a single wave of His hand, if He chooses.”

“Then why doesn’t He? Why will He stand by and let me kill you, like I’ve killed all the others, if He’s so good?”

Keren tried to calm her voice. “That is something I have to deal with every day on my job. I’ve finally made peace with the simple fact that bad things happen because the earth is the earth. We are human beings with human failings. If we want perfection, we have to go to heaven to find it. God’s main work is in our souls. And He’s in my soul, Pravus. Even if you batter my body, even if you kill me, I’ll still be fine, because I’m a believer in Jesus Christ.”

Keren remembered Paul’s constant comfort. “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Caldwell used his chisel to run a slit the length of Keren’s other sleeve. The rip of the fabric would soon be replaced with cuts to her flesh. “Then you should thank me, Kerenhappuch.”

“Thank you? Why?” Keren felt her sleeve fall open.

“Because you are about to gain.”

“We’re doing this one right,” Higgins snapped as they raced toward the location the tracking device registered. “If you had waited, Morris, Detective Collins wouldn’t be in his hands, and Caldwell would be in custody!”

Paul sat beside Higgins in the dark, government-issue sedan. “We couldn’t know that. If you had heard Rosita—”

“Look, you’re too emotionally involved to use your brain on this one, that’s why you’ve got to let me take charge. I’ve got cars en route. Some of them might be there already.”

“Then send them in,” Paul said with a surge of hope. “Maybe he hasn’t hurt her yet.”

“They will not go in. Not until I order it. We set up a perimeter. We close off any escape routes. We do this right, and Caldwell doesn’t slip away to kill again!”

“And how long is Keren at his mercy while you make sure all your Is are dotted?”

“I don’t know,” Higgins said with vicious sarcasm. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who let him get his hands on her!”

O’Shea said from the backseat, “It was all a setup from the beginning—the pitch dark, the escape route he used. When we finish tearing that place apart, we’ll find he built a secret door somewhere as an escape hatch. If they hadn’t gone in when they did, Caldwell would have disappeared with Rosita, and we’d be no better off than we are now.”

Paul looked over his shoulder at O’Shea. The man was like a rock in the middle of Higgins’s condemnation and Paul’s panic. O’Shea, who knew Keren better and had loved her longer than any of them.

“You’ve got to be crazy to be able to stay so calm,” Paul said to the grizzled veteran of countless manhunts.

“Yeah, I guess that could describe me. But the thing that’s keeping me from acting like a complete jerk”—he threw a fiery look at Higgins—”is Keren. Keren isn’t a woman to be at anyone’s mercy.”

Paul ran his hands through his hair and tried to get a handle on the careening images in his head. Keren cut. PESTIS EX TENEBRAE painted onto a death shroud. Keren trapped somewhere in the spirit-sapping dark, as he had been for those few minutes with Rosita.

Keren.

Paul remembered who he was dealing with. He looked over his shoulder and, unbelievably, found he could smile at O’Shea. “You know what she’s doing right now?”

Higgins raced his car through the busy Chicago traffic, leading a parade of five other dark sedans—sirens shrieking, lights flashing.

O’Shea grinned back. “Sure I know what she’s doing,” he said with a laugh. “Man, nothing gets the best of my little girl for long.”

“What are you laughing for?” Higgins growled. “What about any of this is amusing?”

“It’s not amusing, and if you think I’m not scared to death for her, then you’re a fool, Higgins,” O’Shea said without venom.

“Then what do you mean?” Higgins directed his question at Paul. “What is she doing right now?”

Paul rubbed his hands over his face to keep from smiling again because it was so wrong to smile. “Our little, helpless, kidnapping victim is trying to save Francis Caldwell’s soul.”

“I can lead you to the Lord, Francis. I can pray with you and you can have rest for your soul.”

“My soul is dead. Long ago.” Caldwell cut from the gaping sleeve hole all the way to her collar, then he circled the table to do it again on the other side.