Dark Prophecy (33 page)

chapter 86

Johnny Knack never wanted to be in a war zone. That was his one rule—domestic assignments only, thank you very much. Hell, he even avoided going to the UK, because of the IRA. One of his greatest fears was being plucked from the sidelines of a story and dropped right into the violent, churning
middle
of a story. One minute you’re asking a question. The next you’re sucking air through a fetid black hood, on your knees, not knowing if someone was going to cut your head off, or rape you with a broom handle, live on the Internet. Or maybe both, take your pick which comes first. So yeah—no fucking Iraq, no Kabul, no Korean border, no India, no Pakistan, not even Northern friggin’ Ireland.

But Knack knew that if you take great pains to avoid something, you’ll eventually end up confronting it anyway.

That’s how life does ya.

Like right now: bound to a steel chair. Right arm behind his back, strung up in some kind of sling wrapped around his throat. If he tried to lower his arm, let the muscles breathe a little, then he’d start to choke to death.

Left arm: affixed, palm up, to the arm of the chair. At first the idea of his exposed palm and upturned wrist frightened the living fuck out of him. No worse torture for a journalist than to be forced to watch as your hands are mutilated.

But the crazy bitch didn’t use a knife. Instead, she taped Knack’s own digital voice recorder to it, his thumb poised so that it could easily reach the RECORD button.

“What do you want with me?” Knack asked. His voice sounded thick, slow. None of the precision and speed he liked to use. This lady had drugged the living shit out of him.

The woman—who’d helpfully introduced herself as Abdulia (which would come in handy when telling the police later, provided he lived through this experience, ha ha ha)—put her hand to his cheek.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Knack,” she said. “The Death card is not for you. You are to be its herald.”

“Death card,” he said, shuddering involuntarily. “So that’s next, huh. Guess I should have seen that one coming. What was the priest? The Holy Man card, or something?”

“Do I hear mockery in your voice, even after all that you have seen and experienced?” Abdulia asked.

“No mockery. Just trying to understand.”

“All will become clear if you keep your eyes open.”

Knack adjusted his right arm—God, it
hurt
—and nodded his head toward the opposite side of the room. “What about her?” he asked. “Is the Death card for her, then?”

In the corner was a sleeping woman—long dark hair, kind of pretty in a hippieish kind of way. He’d watched Abdulia kneel down and shoot her up with something. Probably the same shit she’d been slamming into his veins. Keeping him nice and blissed out.

Knack heard a buzz. Abdulia put a cell phone to her ear, turned away from him. Well, it was good to know that a killer immersed in the ancient way of the tarot stayed nice and connected.

But with whom? Knack knew she couldn’t be working alone. She would have needed help stringing up poor Martin Green. Help slaughtering those girls in Philadelphia.

“Okay,” Abdulia said. “I’m ready. Don’t worry, Roger.”

So “Roger,” huh?

So much great material, Knack thought. Other journalists would kill for access like this. Imagine being able to hang with the Manson freaks as they breached Cielo Drive?
Hey, dirty hippie. Before you plunge that fork in that nice pregnant lady’s belly, mind if I ask you a question or two?

Abdulia finished her call to her husband, Roger, then crouched down and rooted through a small duffel bag. She returned to Knack’s side, and he saw that she had three objects in her hands.

“Wait,” Knack said. “You said Death wasn’t for me! What the hell are you doing?”

“This will be uncomfortable,” Abdulia said, “but it will not bring death.”

In her hands: A dirty rag.

A roll of medical tape.

A pair of surgical scissors.

chapter 87

Steve Dark never thought he’d think these words in his mind. But part of him wanted to thank Sqweegel.

The monster stole nearly everything in the world from him. But he did leave one sick gift behind:
stealth
.

For many years Dark had studied this monster’s movements and methods; he couldn’t help but pick up the skills and methods of the monster. He thought of him every time he patrolled his house in the middle of the night, listening for the tiniest sound, the slightest hint that another monster had come for him.

Now, as he approached the lighthouse, those skills came in handy again.

Adrenaline was a factor, certainly. Dark’s muscles surged with raw, nervous strength, even though he’d been through literal hell just a few hours ago. But it was Dark’s ability to crawl, duck, and contort his body as he approached the lighthouse that saved him. The terrain was rocky, which was ideal for crouching and hiding as he made his approach. This made his joints and bones loose, like rubber. Dark kept the location of the lighthouse fixed in his mind so he didn’t have to look up from behind a rock to see it. The structure was there, and it wasn’t moving; he guided himself to it.

Finally he found a pile of rocks that served as adequate cover. Dark used a tiny mirror on a thin metal rod to observe the lighthouse. Only three stories tall—about the size of your average Victorian home. He could see two figures inside the lantern room—one seated, one standing. The Maestros, alone? There was no sign of Hilda. Could she be in the watch room down below?

Dark put away his mirror, then crouched down low again, on his fingertips and the toes of his boots. Quickly, he scurried to the base of the lighthouse. The Maestros would be expecting him through the main entrance—the only way into the lighthouse. The structure was built long before building codes demanding fire exits or wheelchair access. Maybe Dark could come in on their level, surprise them.

When Dark reached the base, he began to climb immediately. The rusted-over rivets cut into his skin, but Dark didn’t care. It was something to cling to. He reached the main railing and looked into the lantern room.

chapter 88

The lens and lamp were long gone, as were many of the glass storm panes.

Reporter Johnny Knack, tied to a chair, lips around a rubber ball that was strapped to his head. The Maestros seemed to like their ball gags. His eyes were unusually wide, as if in a perpetual state of terror. Dark squinted. Knack’s eyes were taped open, thick wide pieces of medical tape affixing his eyelids to his brows and cheeks
Clockwork Orange
-style. His cheeks were wet with tears.

Standing next to him was Abdulia herself, cell phone pressed to the side of her head. Dark hadn’t seen her since Venice Beach, back before he knew the truth. But Abdulia seemed just as calm, at utter peace. Why were the worst monsters able to seem so cool and collected, even at the most desperate of moments?

And then, in the corner, passed out on the floor—Hilda.

 

 

Meanwhile, Roger watched Dark from fifty yards away. The shot couldn’t be easier. But he had to wait. Sometimes Roger didn’t understand his wife’s ideas—not completely. He believed in her, he believed in the power of the cards, but he didn’t understand why she had to make things so complicated sometimes. Roger thought they should have taken the money from Green and gone somewhere they could live cheaply. Instead they’d spent most of the past two weeks apart, traveling all over the country, killing and arranging. Killing and arranging.

And now he was perched in a small cave across a rocky plain from the lighthouse, rifle in hand—waiting for the final kill.

Roger’s side still hurt from where Dark had slashed him. He’d managed to give it a quick field dressing, but his battered body needed rest. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could hear tiny explosions, and he imagined it was his veins, bursting from the stress of the past few weeks. The past few years, really.

But Abdulia had assured him it would be over by nightfall. And then they’d be together. Finally at peace, after the torment and grief both had endured.

Roger was eager for it to finally be over.

 

 

The light was so intense Knack was starting to go blind. Sensory overload.
God, this tape. This is worse than hand torture
. All he wanted to do was blink. If he ever got out of this, that’s what he’d do—just spend a day blinking. Or maybe just close his eyes, tape them shut for a few days, let the moisture slowly resoak his eyeballs . . .

How did this crazy tarot lady expect him to “observe” if he couldn’t see?

Then, out of the corner of his eye: a blur. Outside the window.

 

 

Dark leaped through one of the open spaces between the metal bars. As he landed he drew his Glock 22. Pointed it at Abdulia’s chest.

“On your knees, hands behind your head.”

He quickly scanned the room. Where was Roger? Probably downstairs in the watch room with a gun, waiting for Dark to use the front entrance.

Obediently, Abdulia knelt down in front of Dark. “Go ahead,” she said. “Bring me
death
.”

Dark kept his pistol aimed at her heart, one eye on the winding staircase on the side of the room. “So this is what you wanted all along? You should have called me ten days ago. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

Abdulia smiled. “You know it had to be this way. Actions mean nothing unless you have the will to surrender everything. Including one’s own life. And you are my dark knight. Death riding proud on a white horse.”

“You think I’m Death?”

“Why else would our paths have crossed?” Abdulia asked. “The moment I saw your face . . . oh, the moment I heard your name, Steve Dark, I knew it was fate. I knew you would follow us to the end. You would never give up. Never surrender.”

Dark nodded in the direction of Hilda—still unconscious on the floor.

“So why involve her? She has nothing to do with this.”

“She has
everything
to do with this,” Abdulia said. “You sought her counsel, and you spent all night in her shop. I was there. I watched you enter that evening. I watched you leave, blinking in the morning. Hilda brought you into the world of the tarot, and I knew she would draw you here to fulfill your destiny.”

So that hadn’t been paranoia—or Graysmith—at Venice Beach that night. Abdulia had started watching him from that moment. Johnny Knack here had snapped his photo in Philadelphia, bringing him to the killers’ attention.

Dark glanced over at the bound reporter.

“And you have Knack here to watch me kill you?”

“The world needs to know what it means to embrace your fate. They will study my example and learn.”

“You didn’t need me here for this,” Dark said. “You could have had your husband do it. He’s killed a lot of people—he’s very good at it.”

“He would never hurt me. Roger loves me too much. But you’re different, Steve Dark. When you stepped into our path, I read all about you. You’re a born killer. Your life was meant to intersect with ours.”

Dark’s fingers tensed. He’d been here before—at the brink. Once again he was standing in front of a psycho responsible for the deaths of people he cared about. Once again, he held the weapon. He heard Sqweegel’s voice taunting him:

“Do it,” Abdulia cooed. “Slay the monster, Dark. Collect your accolades. Your medals. Your honors. Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all along? To prove yourself to your colleagues that you’re not damaged goods? That you can do this on your own? That this is what you were meant to do with your life? So do it!”

Dark came to his senses. This was not Sqweegel. This was some fucked-up chick who believed that tarot cards were commanding her to kill. She had a killer soldier for a husband, who followed her every command. The Maestros were not monsters of his blackest nightmares; they were just psychotic people who needed to be taken off the playing field. Dark lowered his weapon.

“You think that following the cards will give you some kind of peace, is that it, Abdulia?” Dark asked.

“Fate wants me to die. For allowing my son, Zachary, to perish. I am as guilty as everyone else—the nurse, the priest, as well as the greedy, the vain, the pompous. You have a daughter. Surely you must understand the punishment I deserve.”

“You’re wrong,” Dark said. “Can’t you see that? You and Roger are in bondage, just like in the Devil card. You could easily take the shackles off, but you choose to be enslaved. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Abdulia’s eyes widened. Blood rushed to her cheeks. Her face seemed to explode with sheer rage.

“DON’T YOU SPEAK OF THE CARDS TO ME!”

“You know I’m right.”

“YOU MUST BRING ME DEATH!”

“No,” Dark said. “You’re going to jail.”

Abdulia charged at him suddenly, attempting something Dark had seen before: suicide via cop. But Dark quickly sidestepped, taking the cuffs from his belt, and caught Abdulia by her arm. She screamed and struggled wildly as he brought both arms behind her back. There would be no Death card. There would be a trial. There would be a verdict, delivered by a jury of her peers. There would be a sentence.
There’s your fate.

In the middle of the struggle, Dark caught a look from Knack. Flicking his open eyes to the window. Urgent. Quick.
Look!

Two seconds later, the windows exploded.

chapter 89

When Roger Maestro saw Dark squeezing a pair of handcuffs around his wife’s wrists, he was momentarily stunned. He didn’t know what to do.

Abdulia had told him she would force Dark to kill himself. Dark would become the Death card, just like Jeb Paulson had been forced to embody the Fool card. Otherwise, Hilda would die. The journalist, too. And a man like Steve Dark wouldn’t allow any more innocent victims to die.