The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (9 page)

Dawn could not pry her mind from the sound of
heavy footfalls approaching. Then a quiet chime rang and the doors
started sliding apart. Mr. Jay shoved her through and squeezed in
before they finished opening. He pushed a button set in a steel
panel. It had the number
one
on it. Then he started jabbing
another button that said, “Close Door.”

Their pursuers sprinted along the hall toward
them. She could feel the vibrations of their approach through her
bare feet.

Then the doors ground shut. She heard another
voice. “Stop!” There was a hard thud as something hit the closing
door. Dawn grabbed Mr. Jay’s hand when she sensed elevator
dropping.

A huge grin spread across her friend’s cheeks
and his eyebrows arched.

Dawn squeaked when the elevator shuddered to
a stop. Mr. Jay grabbed her hand. “Don’t worry so much.” He
straightened his top hat. “We will leave in grand style.”

The doors opened. With half-closed eyes, Dawn
saw an old couple standing there hand in hand. The man wore a pair
of thick glasses, and the woman had a giant hat. Startled, they
stepped back to let the strange pair out of the elevator.

Dawn held tight to her friend’s hand as they
crossed a red-carpeted lobby. There was a desk clerk and a couple
of old men reading newspapers by a fireplace. Mr. Jay led her down
three short steps to the sidewalk. He took her to a taxi that
waited at the curb.

“Six blocks west, please,” Mr. Jay said to
the driver as the taxi pulled away from the curb. Dawn squeezed his
hand until he looked down at her.

“That was exciting!” he whispered.

12 – Lots

Sister Cawood’s tongue snaked over the brown
skin at the nape of the Mormon representative’s neck. The Mormon
did not return the favor, opting instead to kiss the pale flesh
between her breasts. Sister Juanita Powell was an attractive woman
of pre-Change thirty years. Her long black hair, threaded through
with silver fell in ringlets, perfectly framing intense brown eyes.
The couple had become close friends fifty years into the Change
when Karen had attended the San Sebesta Inter-faith Christian
retreat near the rim of the New Mexican Crater. They’d become
lovers three decades later when Powell was assigned to
administrative duties in the Archangel Tower Mormon Offices. The
affair was a close-kept secret—and the orgasms more intense because
of it.

Powell was in love with Cawood so overlooked
the nun’s interest in men. Cawood loved Powell, but lacked the
courage to tell her the full extent of her interest. Powell was a
lesbian. Cawood’s tastes had yet to be fully defined. There was no
agreement between them, but Cawood knew from their late night talks
that too much information would crush the Mormon. So she lied every
time they met.

But she depended on Juanita’s insights, and
found the Mormon’s beautiful body responsive to her every touch.
Able’s visit and Cawood’s hangover left her useless for work—half
an hour of staring at her coffee cup said as much. At ten she’d
taken an elevator to the Mormon’s office to talk. Able had dredged
up the past, and Cawood needed a distraction. But Juanita smiled
impishly and started kissing her the moment she entered. A
passionate exchange brought them back to the Mormon’s apartment and
they had been making love for an hour. Cawood was distracted all
right. The physical tastes and sensations pressed in on her. She
dove so deep into her lust that she almost snarled when Juanita
stopped her.

“Hey!” Juanita blurted, closing her thighs
over the sister’s neck. “Let me catch my breath.”

Cawood looked up, her vision foggy; then she
smiled. Straining, crawling upward, she pressed Juanita’s lips and
their tongues met. They rolled over the bed, giggling in a pink
embrace.

“You aren’t feeling guilty are you?” Juanita
said, still sporting the traces of a Spanish accent. She rolled a
fingertip around the sister’s hard and rubbery nipple.

“No. Never—anymore.” Cawood lied. “I’m
sorry—I got caught up. You’re so beautiful.” Her hands slid over
the Mormon’s full hips—dallied a second between her legs. A wave of
passion rolled over them. “It’s Able, he came in with another crazy
scheme.”

A hot emotion flitted behind Juanita’s eyes.
“What now? He wants to put on an addition?” They both laughed.
Building the Tower had consumed the lives of everyone involved. “A
carport?”

“No,” she giggled. “Able loves the tower.”
Cawood’s mind rolled over the notion. “So do I. It’s not that.” The
sister remembered Able’s earnest face. She realized how important
this was to him. How important their spiritual intimacy was. He
trusted Cawood. “He’s just getting revved up again.” Juanita’s body
went rigid. The Mormon’s hand clasped on Cawood’s wrist.

“Can’t he bother someone else?” She shook her
head. “I like Able, don’t mistake me. I do. But always he goes to
you.” She kissed Cawood again, her body softened. “What does he
want now?”

“I can’t tell you.” Cawood sighed. She ran
her hands over Juanita’s soft shoulders. “I want to. I do. But, he
trusts me so much.”
And he shouldn’t
!

“Don’t you trust me?” Juanita’s eyes
glimmered. “I won’t tell.” She patted the bed sheets, slid her hand
over Cawood’s vulva. “You trust me with this.”

“I know, Juanita. I do.” Her breath caught,
and she closed her eyes. This was what it was all
about—relationships: the sharing of trust, of intimacy, giving and
receiving access to the soul. But it was God’s. It was the Holy
Mother’s.
I’m so fucking bad
. A desperate part of her mind
searched her memory of Juanita’s apartment. Liquor, there had to be
liquor. “Able won’t trust just anyone. And he trusts me.” Why not
tell? Her mind snickered. The whole thing’s a joke!

“I like that about you.” Juanita’s warm
spirit returned and they shared a kiss. “I guess he does too.”

Cawood remembered first meeting Able. She had
been on a personal revival of sorts, after falling far from grace
fifteen years after the Change. She had tried to blame the
difficulties with her vow of chastity on the fact that the Change
apparently halted her aging process, leaving her in the body of a
young woman for far longer than any nun ever had before. Before
long she stopped blaming anything at all, and dove into the erotic
world of human sexuality. Vows and chastity were thrown to the
wind, and she had cavorted with any interested man or woman.

God had left her behind with the sinners, so
she would sin. But, she hit bottom after going on a drunken binge
with two men she met at a Catholic sponsored conference on Poverty
in the World of Change. She woke up naked in a hotel bathtub. As
she hurried to leave, she discovered one of the men was dead from
an overdose of barbiturates. Cawood was already struggling with the
new realities of dying and the thought of becoming one of the
walking dead was too terrifying. And for a time, she was scared
straight. For a time, the fear brought her back to her faith.

She took this new passion for life to the
lost souls in the streets of the City. They would shuffle out of
their despondency long enough to listen to her loving words about
God and faith, and while salvation was rare, she spoke the Word of
God, and speaking it gave her the strength to remember her
vows.

She spent the following years praying with
ragtag groups of the lost and homeless, and revived her Bible
studies. She worked at mission houses and shelters. Cawood even
began to think that the Word held the answer for the Change—a reply
to its dark challenge. Trials defined a person’s faith. And
understanding the trials became her passion.

While working at a methadone clinic on Level
Two she stopped on the street one day to speak to a group of
forever-teen addicts who hung around looking for handouts. They’d
given her the predictable guff, but she had hope for one of them
who had hesitated before walking away. As she bent to retrieve her
bag, a man stepped up to her. He was tall, blue-eyed and wore a
deeply creased frown on his face. “You have Faith, Sister!
Hallelujah
!” Then he blushed. “I hope you don’t mind. I
overheard what you said to those poor unfortunates.” He continued
to blush. “Inspiring.”

“Thank you, sir.” She had studied his
demeanor. His head was large, his visage somewhat wasted. “God’s
love is the answer.” She gave him a longer glance. “You’ve accepted
this, brother?”

“I have, and share the message with all His
world. And I shall ever strive to do so. This darkness assails us
from the outside and we must not allow it into our hearts. The sun
no longer shines on us from above so those of us who remember it
must remind our brothers and sisters who have forgotten. For the
Light remains!” His thick lips moved expertly around the words.

“Sometimes they only see the clouds that
cover it,” she had said, the man’s gaze was open and honest.

“That is why my mission is to building a
shining beacon for all the world to see. A Lighthouse of Hope so
the storm gripping the world will claim no more of our brothers and
sisters on the rocks of despair. We must light the way.” He reached
out a hand, and she clasped the warm flesh in hers. “I have seen
the passion with which you speak. And you speak while so many are
silent. That tells me there is a will to live inside of you, and a
will to live is evidence of hope. I need that hope if I am to
accomplish what I struggle so long to do alone. Sister, let me tell
you of my mission for it comes Heaven sent, and I can carry this
only so far alone. I think you will agree that there is but one
choice for us.”

And Reverend Stoneworthy had told the sister
of his mission. All of it: his fall from grace, the Angel and the
Tower. He had already done much work, and the plans for the Tower
construction were being drawn. But resistance among the gathered
faiths slowed things. With her help he could expedite this mission.
So compelling was the light in his eyes, so seductive was the
passion of his revelation that Cawood saw this as a penance for
all, and so she committed herself to the difficult task ahead.

She dove into the work like a heaven sent
shower and scrubbed herself clean with endless meetings and
protocol. Together, with the help of like-minded people of God from
the four-corners of the earth, they labored to raise the funds to
build Archangel Tower, and in its construction—they believed—the
introduction to the manifesto for salvation.

And they succeeded. Combining their passion
for God had made them unstoppable in their ability to influence and
innervate. Gradually, the Tower grew slowly at first, growing in
speed with each passing year—as its magnificence was understood.
For as the structure grew, so also did its image as a beacon of
hope. Stoneworthy’s mission became the mission for all. Within
Archangel’s thousands of rooms would be headquarters for the
world’s religions. Theologians would be called there to study the
Change, to divine its meaning. Archangel Tower reached out to
God.

Dark waves of guilt buffeted Cawood’s mind.
Rest Your weary ones. Bless Your dying ones. Soothe Your
suffering ones. Pity Your afflicted ones.

“Hello?” Juanita’s face moved close; a smile
played at the smooth corners of her mouth. “I hate to
interrupt.”

“I’m sorry.” Cawood smoothed her hair. “Just
thinking.”
Damn it, Able
.

“Well, you just snuggle in here.” Juanita’s
lithe body pressed hot and close. “I’ll try to get your full
attention.”

Cawood felt a tingle run through her body
from the base of her spine to her breasts. “You’re so sweet.” Her
nipples rubbed the Mormon’s. “I’ve just had an idea.”

“What could that be, Sister Cawood?”
Juanita’s hands explored her belly. “Oh, dear, I must thank Able.
It is pleasant being your distraction.”

And as they embraced, Cawood fled from her
lies and her faithlessness. She immersed herself in sin until it
felt like drowning.

13 – Employer from Hell

Felon hated the cold. The chill wind that
tore at him rode the crest of a Winter rain. The frigid weather
system was plowing through the day like a glacier, dire and
destructive. Its impact diminished or increased in relation to your
location in the City. The City population created heat and certain
elevations in the Levels trapped it. The metropolis had its own
environment, and it all revolved around humidity and the dispersal
of water dropped by incessant rains. The middle Levels were
warmest, the upper Levels, ironically, the driest and the lowest,
were the coldest. The damp air flowed downhill.

The assassin pulled his overcoat tight around
his chest and spat a curse. Of all the sensations, cold was worst.
He hated the cold because he couldn’t prepare for it. They could
forecast the temperature, but they’d never be able to tell him how
cold it would feel. And the Change made it entirely unpredictable.
He couldn’t even count on seasons. His business depended on speed
and sensation. He couldn’t afford to be constricted by thermal
underwear and wool suits. Gloves were out of the question.

Felon clenched and unclenched his bare hands
like he was strangling the air. The fingers were numb; but the
gripping action moved the blood and kept them supple enough to work
the .9 mm automatic in the large front pocket of his overcoat. He
was on his way to meet a Demon. Instead of his client’s luxurious
Level Five office, he’d been given instructions to meet in the
basement of a six-story parking garage on Level One—which had to be
one of the coldest places in the City.

He parked his rental car two floors up, and
descended the rest of the way on foot. He’d be an easy target in a
car within the cramped confines of a parking garage. A pedestrian
couldn’t be parked in and gunned down.

Felon took no chances. His client had
exceptional taste, followed the rules of the Unholy Compact, and
dealt fairly in the past. But he was a Demon, and by his nature
unable to easily accept restrictions. The Unholy Compact was a book
of laws that balanced off the equation of the Bible.