He tilted the chair back, sinking into the fragrant leather.
Four men dragged Mark Taylor through a doorway. He looked frightened, but also angry, his hands were bound behind him. Three of the men physically pushed him to a podium on the makeshift stage. The fourth man stood in front of the microphone. His long greasy hair and scraggly beard were flecked with gray while his robe looked like it had once been white. Reverend Jim. He gripped Taylor's arm, his fingers digging into Taylor's flesh.
"Welcome to our gathering, gentle people. I'm Reverend Jim, and as I promised we have Mark Taylor here as our special guest." He yanked at the struggling prisoner. "He was feeling a little shy, so we had to persuade him to come." Reverend Jim smiled. "Don't worry though, we didn't have to use extreme measures, not like what happened to him last time."
Adrian shifted in the chair. A part of his mind was still lodged in the dream, while the other part realized he was sitting in his office. An uncomfortable feeling pulled at him as he tried to awaken. The pull was too strong and he sank back into the dream.
Reverend Jim spoke about his dream. How Taylor had called out to him. "One minute, I was sleeping in my recliner, the next, I was awake and listening to Mark's prayers. I don't know how he did it, but he drew me there with his mind."
Taylor shook his head, but any protests he might have uttered were lost in the swell of noise from the audience.
Reverend Jim grabbed the microphone. "Folks, quiet down. We're gonna hear from the man himself in just a few minutes, but let me tell ya about a special treat we have planned. We have a representative of the Guild of the Rose here with us tonight. He has promised to show us how he was able to entice Taylor to use his incredible powers to reach out to me. In fact, he reached out to Mr. Kern as well, didn't he?" Reverend Jim grinned at Adrian. "He contacted you through a dream too, didn't he?"
Adrian woke up with a start and almost fell out of his leather chair. He blinked as a ray of sunlight stabbed into the office. He rubbed his hand down his face. It had been just a dream, but so real. He recalled every bit of it, more like he'd been there and walked through a door from the revival to his office -one minute he was there, the next, here. Even as he thought of it, it began to dim. Something about the dream was important. Could it finally be that he'd been given power by Satan?
Although he'd always preached about how powerful he was, he knew his gift was in persuasion, not anything truly otherworldly. This had felt different. While he'd been in the dream, he had felt like he'd been directed by someone else. He yanked open his desk drawer and grabbed a yellow legal pad. He needed to write it before he forgot. Perhaps Satan had shown him the way to seize Mark Taylor's power. It was a better plan than he had, and he just knew it would work. It was as if Satan had planted the scene in his head, it was so vivid. What was even better was that it had worked.
Mark jolted awake and rolled over on to his side, wincing as phantom pain jabbed his chest, a holdover from the dream. He glanced down, half-expecting to find himself covered in blood. Relief coursed through him as the reality sank in that it really had been one of his dreams. He'd expected the dream after viewing the photos, but this one had felt different. It seemed filtered, as though he wasn't quite part of it, but merely watching from the sidelines. It didn't make sense.
The warmth of the sun bathed him in a warm circle of light, and Mark settled into the comforter, loathe to get out of bed until he made sense of the dream. Had it been one of his prophetic dreams? Kern had been so prominent in it, which wasn't surprising, but Mark had the sense of seeing the dream from two perspectives-his own and Kern's. It was crazy. Like he'd had parallel trains of thought going at the same time.
Jim had said Mark should try reaching out to Kern to get him to the revival, and maybe viewing the photos had been enough. Stretching, Mark wondered if it had worked. His head even ached, as though Kern had left a trace of his evilness behind.
Mark shuddered, hoping like hell that nothing like that could happen. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He needed to call Jim. He glanced at the clock. Seven a.m. Well, maybe he'd shower first. The stale smell of fear still clung to him.
Clouds had taken control of the sky and cast the loft in shadows. Mark drummed his fingers on the breakfast bar, glancing around at Jim, Jessie and Lily. His dream had matched the photos, but only to a degree. He had only sketchy details. When he'd first awakened, he'd had the sense of knowing what Kern had been thinking in the dream, but the longer he was awake, Kern's thoughts slipped away. It was like trying to hold onto a handful of slime. The harder he tried to hang onto the details, the more they squirted out of his mind.
"That's it? All you remember is that Kern is wearing a dark suit, has gray hair at his temples, and you didn't see him until just before you were shot?" Jim glared at Mark as though he'd done something wrong.
"I told you reaching out to Kern wouldn't work. All it did was give me a muddled dream." Mark spun off the stool and yanked open the fridge. After staring inside for a few seconds, not sure what he was looking for, he snatched a bottle of water, then kicked the door shut hard enough to make the fridge contents rattle. He shouldered past Jim, and plopped onto the sofa.
The other three carried on a hushed conversation, but he tried to block them out, focusing on the scenes in his dream. He couldn't help if he wasn't shown everything. He got what he got and there was no way to edit in scenes he missed.
Lily sounded like she was scolding Jim and Mark almost smiled. She was the only one who seemed to get away with it. One of the stools clanked, followed by footsteps on the hardwood. Jessie stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the television as she sat on the coffee table.
He tried to ignore what she held, but she pushed the Kevlar vest into his lap. "You have to wear it, Mark. If you refuse, we'll call the whole thing off."
"But now that we know what he's going to try, we can stop him before it gets to the point where he…he shoots me." His mouth suddenly devoid of moisture, he took a gulp of water.
"Just put the damn thing on, Taylor. I don't understand why you're arguing about it."
Mark swiped his arm over his mouth and craned his head to see Jim. "I just think the vest will show. If it does, it could alter what happens. If he sees the vest, he might do something differently than what he did in the dream."
Jim paced the loft, passing behind the sofa. It was making Mark nervous.
The pacing stopped. "Okay, so it's not the vest you object to, just that he might see it?"
Mark nodded. Jessie moved over to the chair beside the sofa, and he knew they both thought he was being pig-headed, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Kern was still there, still inside his head and privy to his thoughts. He tried to keep his uneasiness under wraps and pretend like this was a routine save.
"Be straight with us. Jessica and I get the feeling you're hiding something."
Mark sighed and massaged his forehead. "I'm not hiding anything. You saw the photos the same as me and Lily. I told you guys the whole dream, but I can't explain how I feel. It's like there's this…" He circled his hand in front of his face, "this feeling like Kern is here. I keep smelling rotten eggs and burnt popcorn, and for some reason, I think of him when I smell it. It's crazy, I know."
Lily perched on the other end of the sofa, her nose wrinkled in disgust. "I bet Kern's soul smells more like shit than-"
The remark was so unexpected, Mark burst into laughter, cutting off whatever Lily said next. Jessie chuckled too, but then turned thoughtful. “Mark, what if you wore a robe like 'Reverend Jim' here plans on doing?"