Faith of the Divine Inferno - Leslie Thompson (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

the Children wanted, and I had no interest in helping them with their world domination schemes. I was certain that was what they were up to. Howard was lying to himself if he actually believed that the Children’s involvement would stop with advisement and charity. No one ever let go of control once they had it. And the more well-meaning the organization, the more bent they were in their quest to protect people from themselves. I wanted no part of such oppression. It was time to leave before Howard thought of some new way to waste my time. Without another word, I turned on my heel and walked away.
“Be careful. The beast is rising, and he has already set his sights on you.” Howard called after me. “This morning’s silly bomb was only the beginning. The Immortal Church of God is far more than you believe.”
The Children did nothing to impede my exodus from their safe house. They even called a cab to take me home. I gave the driver my address as I climbed into the back seat, and gave a last accidental glance to the old, stately house. I spotted Alejandro standing in one of the large picture windows watching me go. His dark features were stained orange in the setting sun as he lifted his hand and waved a sad and fearful good-bye.


Chapter 8

Detective Philip Shaw did not look very happy when I opened my door and found him standing behind it. He was still cute though, so I didn’t mind so much. I could see Mrs. Atwater watching us from her doorway, eagerly taking in everything that was happening. I heard Ed yell at her to mind her business, and suddenly I knew who had fixed my broken door.
“Thank you for fixing my door, Ed!” I yelled as I stepped aside to let Shaw in.
“He says your welcome,” Mrs. Atwater replied quickly and went back into her home. I heard the sharp beginnings of a domestic battle and I smiled. Mrs. Atwater had finally done something that got Ed all wound up and now he was going to throw down. Or at least he was going to pitch as much of a fit as his laid back little soul could muster. Mrs. Atwater will win the fight, but Ed will keep her occupied until I get my current disaster straightened out. I made a mental note to send the man a basket full of the things Mrs. Atwater won’t let him eat.
“You look very good.” Shaw didn’t say it like he meant it as a compliment. Instead, it sounded like an accusation. He touched my cheek with his fingers, tracing the spot where the bruises had been, and leaving a trail of warmth across my skin. I had to fight off a lecherous grin. No need to outrageously flirt with the nice detective until I know it will get me somewhere. “I thought you were dying when they took you out of here.”
“Is that why you came here?” I asked, smiling and deflecting the implied question. Shaw wanted me to explain how I survived something that killed everyone else, and I wasn’t going to do it. “You were worried about me?”
“I thought it was rather remarkable that you managed to walk out of the hospital after your brain liquefied for no reason.” Shaw was upset and his accent showed. He had a hint of the sweet Southern drawl that is so popular in movies and Mark Twain books. “I wanted to see if it was true.”
“Who told you that my brain liquefied?” I scoffed.
“I spoke to your doctors. They had some interesting things to say.” Shaw produced a file and spread it out on my kitchen counter. Inside were my miniscule medical records. Like I said before, I avoid doctors whenever possible and I stay away from competent medical professionals at all costs. That habit doesn’t acquire very much paperwork.
“How did you get a hold of my medical records?” I asked, outraged. Not because it was a huge breach of privacy, which it is, but because it isn’t normally part of a kidnapping investigation. Shaw was digging too deeply into my personal history. If he keeps this up, I’ll be forced to kill the man if I wanted to avoid making uncomfortable admissions. I don’t want to kill Shaw. I liked him.
“It didn’t take much. Your doctors practically threw them at me. I think they’re hoping that I’ll drag you back to them for more tests.” Shaw plucked a sheet of paper from the file and showed it to me. It had two columns on it. On the right side was a list of abbreviated names that held no meaning to me, and the left side was nothing but numbers and percentages. My medical knowledge is limited to first aid and herb lore, so the paper was indecipherable.
“So what?” I asked after glancing at it.
“This is the results of the antibody and toxic substance tests your doctors ran.” Shaw waited for me to react. When I didn’t, he continued on. “The doctors didn’t give me the full details, but basically what they said was that your blood work is loaded with heavy metals and some foreign substance that they can’t identify.”
“And?”
“They also found antibodies for bubonic plague, Ebola, tuberculosis, malaria, and small pox.” That made sense. I’ve had all of those diseases, and then some. I’m actually surprised that was all the laboratory found.
I shrugged nonchalantly.
“How old are you, Miss Calden?”
The question was so unexpected that I had to think about it. For the life of me I couldn’t remember how old my new identity was supposed to be so I picked an age that was compatible with my physical appearance. “I’m twenty-one.”
“Are you sure about that?” He cocked his brow in a look of disbelief.
“Yes I am,” I replied dryly.
He gave me a firm flat look that meant that he had already concluded something he didn’t like about me. Shaw continued on to his point. “They can’t understand why you tested positive for small pox virus anti-bodies. There hasn’t been a reported case of it in decades. No one knows how someone your age has been exposed to it.”
“I’m just lucky, I guess.” I couldn’t believe the doctors thought to run that particular test.
Shaw knew he wouldn’t get me to say anything else on the subject until he had something to wave under my nose and force me to talk, so he let it go. “There’s another reason why I came by. I was wondering if any of these men look familiar to you.” He produced mug shots from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and he put them in my hand. I flipped through them, barely seeing the brutish faces sneering at the camera. Obviously these were the usual criminals that the cops always went to when they were stumped for suspects. There was quite a large stack in my hands, and it made me wonder what kind of city I was living in. Finally, I came to the last two pictures and saw Baja and Kootch glaring at me from the little snapshots.
“This is them,” I told Shaw, holding out the pictures to him.
“Are you sure?” he asked, taking them back and using a paperclip to attach them to the file with my medical records in it. He had a small notebook in a leather cover that he used to write down the prisoner numbers from the mug shots along with the men’s legal names.
“I’m sure.”
“Was there any mention of a ransom or were they after whatever it is that makes you so healthy?” Wow, that wasn’t a subtle hint toward my mysteriously good well-being at all. But he asked the question like it was a normal thing to wonder about rather than an attempt to make me confess all of my secrets. Even the look he gave me was one of patient blandness rather than interest. Shaw was trying very hard to stay non-threatening while he silently told me that he knew I was up to something illegal. I frowned at him and tried not to take it personally. Shaw is a cop and it is his job to be suspicious.
“No,” I lied. “They broke down my door and beat me up. If they made demands, I don’t remember it.”
“Memory loss is common with skull fractures,” Shaw commented, implying that he knew that my head was cracked and I didn’t. It was meant to fluster me and I refused to respond to it. He didn’t know what to be suspicious of, and from the look of frustrated hostility he gave me, it was driving him nuts. He couldn’t justify getting a warrant to search my house and put me under surveillance, but it wouldn’t be long before he found something. We both knew that he had gotten my medical records illegally, and while the burden of responsibility probably fell on the doctors who gave them to him, I could still pitch a fit nasty enough that he could be facing ethics charges. Shaw wouldn’t push his luck with me until he knew for certain that I was breaking the law. If he thought that making off the cuff comments and staring hard at me was going to make me spill my guts, he had another thing coming. I’ve been alive far too long for that to work on me anymore. So I stared cheerfully back at him and waited for him to do whatever else he had planned.
I have to admit Shaw is a lot more attractive when I haven’t had my face beaten in and I’m not bleeding from my eyeballs. I was able to see the soft reddish gold highlighting his brown hair and there was a blush of color covering his skin that marked him as a person who spent his free time outside. There was a tan line around the ring finger of his left hand that meant he was recently widowed or divorced from a marriage of several years. I studied his clothes for a stain or trinket that would give me some sign of fatherhood, but I found none. Either his marriage had been sterile, or he thought displaying clues of his family life was unprofessional.
“That’s all I have for today,” Shaw said, finally giving up and deciding it was time to go. “I’m sure I will be contacting you in a couple of days to let you know that we have the suspects in custody. Then we’ll take it from there.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at him and politely offered my hand to shake. He grasped my fingers firmly, and a strange, heated shock trembled up my wrist and into my arm. It startled both of us, and we exchanged wary looks.
“That was weird,” I commented, rubbing the palm of my hand.
“Must have been static build up.” Shaw grimaced as he flexed his fingers and gathered up the file he had with him.
I don’t know what that was, but it certainly wasn’t static. I let Shaw use the mundane words to