Ten Plagues

“We really try not to tell blatant lies to the press here. They don’t forget.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m going back to DC when this is over.” Higgins shrugged, not the tiniest speck of concern for Chicago cops and their relationship with a skeptical press. “She’s homeless, but someone saw her being taken, and when they went up to the spot she’d been dragged away from, they found a sign that said this.” He held up a scrap of paper that said, “Pestis ex ulcus.”

“I can’t take any more of this.” Paul ran one hand into his hair.

Keren grabbed his arm. “Tell us what it means first, Paul. I’ve got them all written down back in the car and at the office, but I can’t remember them.”

Paul said, “I can barely remember my name.”

“Morris,” Higgins said sharply.

Paul reached for the paper but pulled his hand back at the last minute as if touching it would bring the plague on himself. “Plague of boils.”

“Boils?” Higgins grimaced. “What does that mean?”

Paul said, “This one might be the worst yet. He could go a lot of different ways with boils. He could infect someone with anthrax or smallpox.”

“If he had access to such a thing,” Higgins said doubtfully.

“Boils are nasty blisters. A plague of them, they’d cover your body.” Paul stared at the paper in Higgins’s hand, then he said under his breath, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Go,” Keren said. “We’ve got nothing left, except to get the dead animals tagged and bagged.” She wanted Paul away from there. She wished she could order him out of the city.

“We’ll handle it,” she said.

Paul watched the coroner’s team start picking up dead animals, sacrificed to a madman along with poor, harmless Wilma. Then he jerked his head as if he had to force himself to look away and stalked off toward his friend from the mission.

“What’s the matter with him?” Higgins asked.

Keren watched Paul walk away, then she turned to Higgins. “He’s just trying to remember who he is.”

“That’s something I never waste time doing.” Higgins turned his tawny eyes on her. She wondered if he’d ever tried to hypnotize the truth out of perps.

“Why not?” Keren asked.

“Because I’m afraid if I figure it out, I won’t like what I find.”

Keren frowned. “I think, right now, Paul’s afraid of exactly the same thing.”

She went back to work gathering evidence. They found hundreds of poisoned pellets still scattered around.

Keren stayed alongside city crews, working into the night, so the plague of beasts could come to an end.

CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

“Festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land.”

Pravus raised the red-hot andiron out of the fireplace and turned to the woman. Her eyes widened in terror as he approached. She struggled against her bonds.

This was an experiment. He didn’t know quite how to raise satisfactory boils on a body. It wasn’t an art form he’d worked with before. But a true creator had to try new things. Finally, when he felt that his work was worthy to be one of his people, he turned his attention to the gown. This he understood. But it was almost impossible to paint. He felt like his blood raced faster. He felt like maybe he’d finally found his true calling. Torture as art.

The boils painted on the gown were hard to recognize.

Laughing, Pravus thought of how angry his father would be. How frightened his mother would be while she begged him to behave and make Father happy.

But neither one of them was here to stifle his power. The ability to create only possessed by a god.

He’d silenced those ugly, critical voices years ago. Shortly after the first glimpse of the beast had come and helped him, saved him.

Now, to do a poor, fast job of the gown suited Pravus and suited the beast. He was a genius. He wouldn’t be confined by anyone else’s vision of art. It didn’t matter if anyone else could see. The vision was his.

He got lonely for the sound of screaming again, but he didn’t have to live without it.

Smiling, he found another object and heated it, not quite so red hot this time.

Coming back to the mission was an act of cowardice.

Paul needed to stay on the job. He needed to keep tracking down leads, however slim. He thought of Wilma, poor, muddled Wilma, who never hurt anyone except herself. He thought of the slaughter of animals, so senseless. A madman’s idea of a joke. Right now he couldn’t stay with the police. Not even Keren. Especially not Keren, not after the way he’d treated her this morning.

Paul got back in time to serve supper. He worked with his flock, talking to them, loving them, but he didn’t find what he was looking for.

The mission always had empty beds in the summer. The homeless people preferred to sleep outside, but they came in to eat. Paul scooped up creamed corn alongside Murray and Roger. They’d taken up the slack in the kitchen.

He should call Keren. Get her down here to see if Murray was their killer.