Broken Angel Read online

  Her words almost broke the last of his strength and composure. But Jordan knew what she meant. She wondered if she had inadvertently broken a law. If she had triggered something that the Elders needed to punish. Had she been seen without her coat or said something that was reported?

  “No,” Jordan told Caitlyn. “You did nothing wrong.”

  He wanted to hold her again. But it would be a comfort of deception and shame. His shame. He should tell her that they were paying for his sins, not hers.

  Hiding during the day, traveling the dangerous paths through the valleys at night, he’d been snatching moments to write the letter that would explain. Because she would despise him later, he wanted his final memories of her to be untainted by the horror of comprehension that would come with truth.

  It was not the time to confess his sins. It was time instead to send her into the abyss.

  Jordan could not hope for a sacrificial ram to appear, but he understood what it must have been like for Abraham to climb Moriah to the place of sacrifice with a trembling mixture of faith and hope and sadness that was a far heavier burden than any physical weight. In her trust, Caitlyn, like Isaac, had been totally unaware of the purpose of their climb. Isaac’s ignorance could have only deepened Abraham’s sorrow, as Caitlyn’s did for Jordan’s.

  Yet Abraham wouldn’t have seen in Isaac’s eyes what Jordan saw now in his daughter’s.

  The wind and the height, as it always did, awakened an instinct in Caitlyn. On other days like this, all through her childhood, Jordan had taken Caitlyn to places where they could be alone and quiet, often at the edge of a cliff to give them a view, with Jordan hiding from Caitlyn how badly he was trying to suck the marrow out of each second together.

  That sweet poignancy of those picnics had always intensified as he observed little Caitlyn marvel at the hawks soaring below them, their shadows flashing across the tops of the pines of the valley. Caitlyn had watched with unknowing longing, the way God’s touch makes human souls instinctively yearn for a place unseen.

  Despite the baying of hounds, a constant reminder of the danger, Jordan hoped that this same longing had returned to her.

  In the last few months, triggered by puberty occurring far later than in most girls, changes had rapidly forced themselves on Caitlyn’s body. She’d become voraciously hungry, especially for milk and meats. The hunch between her shoulders had grown like a cancer, spreading down her back in slow ripples, shiny and swollen until near bursting. The coarse hair draping her shoulders and upper back and arms became thicker than straw, and the outer layers of what had once been hair became dull with a sheath of dead, flaky skin. Her fear at a first menstrual cycle Jordan had been able to explain. As for the growing bulge, he did little except assure her that it was what her body was meant to do. Anything more would have meant revealing the horror that he was too cowardly to expose, except by letter.

  Jordan wore a hip pack. He unbuckled it and squatted as he reached inside. When he stood again, he offered Caitlyn a piece of clothing.

  “You need to wear this.”

  She frowned. To her, it was obviously far too small. Jordan knew better.

  “A microfabric,” he said. “It will stretch.”

  She ran the shiny, smooth black material across her face. “Microfabric?”

  All her life, her clothing had been rough cotton. She’d never seen material like this. “From Outside,” Jordan explained, although this answer alone would raise a dozen more questions. Before she could ask, Jordan spoke again.

  “You’ll need to shed all your other clothing. Step into it, and pull it up your body.”

  He faced the other way to give her privacy, although her thin body had few curves to suggest womanhood. Perhaps the microfabric wasn’t needed, but he wasn’t going to send her into the abyss naked, like an animal.

  “Papa,” she said, “at the back. I can’t reach.”

  He turned to her.

  The microfabric emphasized her sleekness. It was sleeveless and would not restrict her arms. She spun to show him her back. The shiny black suit was open in a long slit, and the monstrous bulge of her back protruded partway through.

  Jordan was satisfied with the tailoring. The suit was worth the money and risk of getting it smuggled into Appalachia. “Leave me your blouse,” Jordan said. “Put the rest of your clothes back on. The cloak too.”

  He didn’t have to tell her why she needed the cloak. To hide what set her apart.

  “Remember everything I’ve taught you about Outside.” He’d always let her believe they would be escaping together.

  He took a shoelace from his pocket that he’d kept in preparation and tied it through a buttonhole of the blouse.

  “Papa, what is happening?”

  Through the years, he’d suffered her anguish at any reminder that she was so different. How much easier it would have been to show her a cocoon discarded by a butterfly, explaining the purpose of her hideous hump and what joy could be ahead of her. But it would have led to the other questions that he had never wanted to answer. So again and continuously, he’d been a coward. Not explaining.

  He placed the vidpod in her hands. “Unregistered. Use it for navigation. I have one too.”

  “Unregistered!” All Appalachians knew the sentence was five years in the factory for anyone caught in possession of an unregistered vidpod.

  “That’s not important.” Jordan uncoiled a rope from the hip pack. Thin, nylon, lightweight. “Below us is a stream. Follow it upstream to a cave behind a waterfall. Inside, you’ll find instructions. Hurry out of the valley. Travel tonight. I don’t know how long I can delay them.”

  She blinked hard. “No, Papa!”

  “You have to make it Outside.” Jordan spoke as he tied one end of the rope to the trunk of a stunted tree.

  “Nobody makes it Outside. Please, don’t leave me.”

  “There is a man named Brij. Among the Clan. He’s waiting for you.”

  “The Clan!”

  “Caitlyn, you’ve been taught not to fear the legends.”

  “I can’t go without you.”

  “We can’t both make it.” Jordan threw the loose end of the rope over the edge of the cliff. He had full confidence she could climb down with ease. She was light boned. Muscle and sinew. Unnaturally so, and unnaturally strong. “This will get you to a ledge below. You’ll find more rope to help you climb down.”

  “Not without you.” She wept.

  “Listen to the hounds,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier this was your plan?”

  He tested the rope again, looked over the edge and swallowed back the feeling of vertigo. He knew Caitlyn didn’t share that fear. “I can only ask that you trust me.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “You have no choice,” he said, shaking off the spinning sensation. “You can’t be taken, dead or alive. You must not fall into their hands.”

  “Who are they?” She reached for him. “Tell me what this means! Papa, I’m afraid.”

  He stepped back. It hurt, not to reach for her. “Trust me, Caitlyn.”

  “Papa!” He’d never rejected her before. But if he held her now, he would lose his resolve and keep her in his arms until the dogs arrived.

  “Caitlyn. I love you as big and forever as the sky.” That had been their game.

  “Caitlyn, how much does Papa love you?”

  “As big and forever as the sky, Papa.”

  He squatted and reached into the hip pack again. The letter. His confession. He walked around her again and slid it between the microfabric and her body.

  “Take the rope,” he said. He spoke in such a way that she wouldn’t fight him any longer. “Now.”

  He helped her over the edge of the cliff.

  “Papa,” she cried. “Papa!”

  He steeled himself to ignore her, acutely aware at how little her delicate body weighed. He waited until her weight was no longer on the rop
e, then untied it and eased it down the cliff.

  “Papa!” Wind brought her plaintive cry up to him. Then she was gone.

  Jordan leaned forward and whispered it again. “I love you as big and forever as the sky.”

  Then he took the lace that he’d tied to her blouse. He began to walk quickly, dragging the blouse behind him. The longer he could keep the hounds pursuing her scent, the better the chances that Caitlyn would make it Outside.

  At best, he’d stay ahead of the hounds another half hour. Long enough to make it difficult, if not impossible, to backtrack and discover where Caitlyn had escaped.

  The dark of night would be a mercy of sorts. He’d hear the hounds, but in the final moments, they’d only be a frenzy of shadows, throwing themselves upon him.

  Then, finally, his guilt and grief would end.

  * * *

  DAY TWO

  For years, you and I were safe, simply because the greatest empire the world has ever known was as dependent on water as any primitive culture. But when the Water Wars ended, the military machine went back to previous tasks. My desertion of the machine was once again relevant, and the agency resumed its pursuit.

  Caitlyn, I did not regret trading the freedoms of the civilized world for the theocracy of Appalachia. Others may have their memory bank transfers in lieu of vacations, their biological insertions of computer chips to efficiently monitor body functions. They may prefer the constant noise and sensory overloads. I prefer a fire on a starlit night, the sounds of insects like a blanket over us.

  I do regret that even the isolated valleys could not keep us safe. Cautious as I was, I underestimated the all-seeing power of Bar Elohim. I only wish they would have arrived a month later. A week later. A day later. Even hours later.

  Because I write this as we are on the run, the hounds are never far away, and there is not enough time to finish this letter as it should be written…

  * * *

  TWO

  Mason Lee was no handyman, but he took pride in the terror he could generate with duct tape and a few specialized articles of hardware.

  His appearance and reputation helped in this too. He had long curly hair and a waxed mustache and, except for the eye that he couldn’t change, was vain about his features, but anyone who commented on his obvious attention to appearance suffered for it. Although he was only medium sized, much larger men who knew him always gave him plenty of room, knowing he was as good with a knife as he was unpredictable. Those who didn’t know him gave him room too; his milky left eye, the one he hated to be reminded of, drifted to one side and made it difficult to tell where his eyes were focused, giving him what he knew folks described as a spooky, even cruel appearance.

  Still, much as he enjoyed the perception about him, it meant little unless a man could back it up.

  Like now, for example, just before dawn, in an ordinary, small-town hotel room. Low-wattage lamp. Lumpy mattress. Side table. Straight-backed chair. Cheap plastic shower curtain.

  With pride in his creativity, Mason had rearranged the room with a simple goal. To inflict pain and terror as efficiently as possible. Folks said he had no imagination, but they only had to see what he’d done in the hotel room to understand otherwise.

  First, he laid the shower curtain on the floor at the foot of the bed like a pull rug. He’d placed the straight-backed chair on top of the shower curtain, facing away from the bed and close enough that when he sat on the edge of that lumpy mattress, he could lean forward and reach the chair without straining. The side table sat in front of the chair, where the lamp illuminated his specialized articles of hardware: a metal bucket and blowtorch, the Heretic’s Fork, and a thumbscrew. Below the table, atop the plastic shower curtain, a small cage imprisoned two rats, and a burlap sack rippled with movement. The sack let the victim wonder exactly what animals it contained.

  Mason thought as he surveyed the room that a man could travel light, and except for the effort it took to capture the rats and snakes during the day, a setup like this only took a couple minutes and worked just about anywhere in Appalachia.

  On this occasion, all Mason had left to do was wait, and he wasn’t good at that, even with the flow of anticipation. Much more fun hunting his prey; at least, this morning, he expected a punctual victim.

  Sure enough, Mason had hardly taken his spot on the wall beside the door, a roll of duct tape in hand, when he heard footsteps in the hallway. The soft-heeled footsteps of a man in expensive shoes.

  Mason peeled back a few inches of duct tape and clenched it between his teeth, letting the roll hang from his jaws. He reached down and pulled his trademark bowie knife from a sheath on his belt.

  The knock on the door was as soft as the footsteps.

  “’T’s open,” Mason slurred around the tape.

  James Rankin turned the knob and pushed it open with the confidence that came from twenty years as one of the High Elders of Bar Elohim’s inner circle. He walked in with the same blind confidence. Mason imagined that Rankin’s long, lean face would register disdain, instead of fear or suspicion, at the plastic curtain on the floor and the table in front of the chair.

  But Mason wouldn’t be able to confirm that guess. He wouldn’t see Rankin’s face until after he stepped from the wall and, slipping forward, wrapped one arm around Rankin’s neck and jammed the blade against his ribs. He spit the tape on to the floor beside his feet.

  “On your knees,” Mason said.

  “Hardly.” The disdain was apparent.

  Mason had been hoping for that answer. He shoved the knife point in far enough to draw a gasp, to draw blood.

  “Got this knife sideways,” Mason said. “It’ll slide between your ribs like they’re cheese. Tip’s about four inches from your heart. Means you’ll be on your knees sooner than later. If I must use the knife to force you down, I’ll have to drag you onto the shower curtain so your blood won’t stain the carpet as you roll around and die.”

  Rankin lowered himself.

  “Good. Now, on your belly. Hands behind your back.”

  Rankin complied again, with dignity that gave Mason satisfaction, as it’d be all the more fun to strip away. He intended to own the man when they were through.

  Mason propped a knee in Rankin’s back and set the knife on the floor in easy reach. He taped Rankin’s wrists together, pulled another strip from the roll and again clenched the roll in his teeth. Taping wasn’t finished yet.

  “In the chair.” Mason again took hold of his bowie knife, which felt glovelike against his fingers.

  “You’re aware that doing this to me is essentially like doing it to Bar Elohim.” Rankin spoke with no emotion, but it was a deadly threat, enunciated clearly for the benefit of the vidpod that was surely recording this conversation from an inner pocket of Rankin’s suit jacket. Mason ignored him, as he, of course, fully knew what was at stake. Danger only made the deliberation of his plans even sweeter.

  Mason jabbed the point of his knife into the softness of Rankin’s lower back. “Liver’s right there. Trust me, it won’t take much digging to prove it to you. Now get on the chair.”

  Rankin rolled over and struggled to his feet. Mason figured Rankin was more concerned about soiling his fine suit jacket than about Mason’s intentions. Such was the power of Bar Elohim. But Mason would break that.

  Once Rankin was on the chair, Mason knelt behind him and taped Rankin’s ankles to the chair legs. He made a couple more long wraps to secure Rankin’s upper body and arms to the straight back of the chair.

  Rankin was helpless now, facing the table and Mason’s specialized hardware.

  Mason settled onto the edge of the bed behind Rankin and leaned forward.

  He found that whispering was most effective. It didn’t disturb folks in other rooms, and the quiet threat coming from the dark behind the victim seemed more lethal than a loud one. Just like Rankin’s quiet invocation of Bar Elohim’s name less than a minute earlier.

  “See on the left of that table
in front of you,” Mason said. “That’s called the Heretic’s Fork. I ain’t much on history, but I do know folks used it with great effect during the Inquisition. What’s the word I’m looking for? Ironic. That’s it. You’ll find it ironic that the power of the church will be turned against you for a change.”

  “Five twenty-three a.m.,” Rankin said. “The daily meeting with bounty hunter Mason Lee has degenerated into futile threats of torture against me.”

  Rankin didn’t have to explain that he was speaking on the record. Or that the vidpod recording was essentially indestructible and, because of GPS tracking, impossible to hide unless buried ten feet underground.

  “See how the Heretic’s Fork has prongs on both ends,” Mason said. “What I do is prop one end just above the center of your collarbone and the other end under your chin. You’ll have to stretch your head as high as it can go just to keep it from pushing through skin. Bring your chin down at all and you’ll be skewered. It’s tiring enough holding your head like that for even a few minutes, but when I begin with the next gadget, things get interesting, because pain’s going to bring your chin into your chest and you won’t be able to help it. I’ve seen it a hundred times. Those prongs are sharp enough, they’ll come up through your mouth and pin your tongue. Honest.”

  “I’m glad you’re explaining this.” Rankin sounded cold and imperious. “Better your voice than mine when Bar Elohim reviews our conversation.”

  “Someone in your position knows how to erase conversations. Soon enough, you’ll do it for me. You’ll do anything for me.”

  Rankin didn’t answer.

  Mason smiled at the back of Rankin’s head. Power did have privileges, including a way to escape Bar Elohim’s ubiquitous presence when necessary. After years of serving them, Mason knew that about the Elders.

  “On the table in front of you, to the right of the Heretic’s Fork, is something so old-fashioned it’s a cliché. You probably don’t recognize it, but that tiny vise is a thumbscrew.”