Caldwell raised his hand to strike her.
“Do you know you can’t even lay a hand on me unless God allows it?” Keren asked. “Good is stronger than evil, Pravus. God is stronger than Satan. You think you are victorious when you kill a woman, but God is in charge. He can slap you down with a single wave of His hand, if He chooses.”
“Then why doesn’t He? Why will He stand by and let me kill you, like I’ve killed all the others, if He’s so good?”
Keren tried to calm her voice. “That is something I have to deal with every day on my job. I’ve finally made peace with the simple fact that bad things happen because the earth is the earth. We are human beings with human failings. If we want perfection, we have to go to heaven to find it. God’s main work is in our souls. And He’s in my soul, Pravus. Even if you batter my body, even if you kill me, I’ll still be fine, because I’m a believer in Jesus Christ.”
Keren remembered Paul’s constant comfort. “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Caldwell used his chisel to run a slit the length of Keren’s other sleeve. The rip of the fabric would soon be replaced with cuts to her flesh. “Then you should thank me, Kerenhappuch.”
“Thank you? Why?” Keren felt her sleeve fall open.
“Because you are about to gain.”
“We’re doing this one right,” Higgins snapped as they raced toward the location the tracking device registered. “If you had waited, Morris, Detective Collins wouldn’t be in his hands, and Caldwell would be in custody!”
Paul sat beside Higgins in the dark, government-issue sedan. “We couldn’t know that. If you had heard Rosita—”
“Look, you’re too emotionally involved to use your brain on this one, that’s why you’ve got to let me take charge. I’ve got cars en route. Some of them might be there already.”
“Then send them in,” Paul said with a surge of hope. “Maybe he hasn’t hurt her yet.”
“They will not go in. Not until I order it. We set up a perimeter. We close off any escape routes. We do this right, and Caldwell doesn’t slip away to kill again!”
“And how long is Keren at his mercy while you make sure all your Is are dotted?”
“I don’t know,” Higgins said with vicious sarcasm. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who let him get his hands on her!”
O’Shea said from the backseat, “It was all a setup from the beginning—the pitch dark, the escape route he used. When we finish tearing that place apart, we’ll find he built a secret door somewhere as an escape hatch. If they hadn’t gone in when they did, Caldwell would have disappeared with Rosita, and we’d be no better off than we are now.”
Paul looked over his shoulder at O’Shea. The man was like a rock in the middle of Higgins’s condemnation and Paul’s panic. O’Shea, who knew Keren better and had loved her longer than any of them.
“You’ve got to be crazy to be able to stay so calm,” Paul said to the grizzled veteran of countless manhunts.
“Yeah, I guess that could describe me. But the thing that’s keeping me from acting like a complete jerk”—he threw a fiery look at Higgins—”is Keren. Keren isn’t a woman to be at anyone’s mercy.”
Paul ran his hands through his hair and tried to get a handle on the careening images in his head. Keren cut. PESTIS EX TENEBRAE painted onto a death shroud. Keren trapped somewhere in the spirit-sapping dark, as he had been for those few minutes with Rosita.
Keren.
Paul remembered who he was dealing with. He looked over his shoulder and, unbelievably, found he could smile at O’Shea. “You know what she’s doing right now?”
Higgins raced his car through the busy Chicago traffic, leading a parade of five other dark sedans—sirens shrieking, lights flashing.
O’Shea grinned back. “Sure I know what she’s doing,” he said with a laugh. “Man, nothing gets the best of my little girl for long.”
“What are you laughing for?” Higgins growled. “What about any of this is amusing?”
“It’s not amusing, and if you think I’m not scared to death for her, then you’re a fool, Higgins,” O’Shea said without venom.
“Then what do you mean?” Higgins directed his question at Paul. “What is she doing right now?”
Paul rubbed his hands over his face to keep from smiling again because it was so wrong to smile. “Our little, helpless, kidnapping victim is trying to save Francis Caldwell’s soul.”
“I can lead you to the Lord, Francis. I can pray with you and you can have rest for your soul.”
“My soul is dead. Long ago.” Caldwell cut from the gaping sleeve hole all the way to her collar, then he circled the table to do it again on the other side.
“No, Francis, every man has an immortal soul, put there by God, that exists to love and serve God. ‘As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.’ It’s the nature of every human soul to long for God. You long for God, Francis. You are thirsty for Him.”
Caldwell slit more fabric on her shirt. Keren said with all the intensity in her Christian spirit, “I don’t believe I would feel the demon in you if there wasn’t hope. Francis, look at me!”
By the sheer force of her will, she brought his eyes around. He saw her. She knew Francis, not Pravus for this one instant, was in control and listening.
From her position of absolute helplessness, she said, “I’ll help you, Francis. I’ll stay with you. I’ll stay by your side through all that is to come.”
“And you can protect me from the police?” Francis asked bitterly.
“No.” Keren wasn’t going to lie to him. “No, Francis. When you get rid of the demon, you will still have to face up to all the harm you’ve done, because you’ve always had a choice. The demon in you has only had the power over you that you’ve given him. So they’ll lock you up, and you’ll find out that prison walls don’t keep God out. You can be a Christian anywhere.”
Francis looked at her, listening.
Keren said gently, “I can see your thirst, Francis. Let me go. Let me tell you about my Savior. There is joy for you in this life, Francis. How long has it been since you’ve felt a moment’s joy? There is peace and love and victory—true power, Francis.”
Francis’s eyes flickered and his breathing became uneven. She could see the struggle in him, but she fervently believed what she said. If there was no hope, then she wouldn’t have been given this gift of discernment. She prayed silently, not for her own safety,
but for Francis’s soul.
He laid his hand in hers, where it was bound.
“He loves you, Francis. God loves you, and I love you. That’s why I’m here, to tell you He loves you.”
Suddenly Francis’s hand gripped hers with violent strength.
Then, with a sudden slashing movement, her hand was free. Francis reached across her and unbound her other hand. He released her feet with a final slash of his chisel and handed the sharp metal tool to her.
“This is crazy. I’m crazy.” His whole body trembled violently. “The demon has made me into a monster. Stop me.”
Keren sat up. “Let’s pray together.”
As she prayed, Keren saw darkness seep out of him from every pore. The darkness fought to hold him. Francis held her with his gaze. She prayed fiercely as the demon that had Francis in his grip began to take shape and twist as it rose in the air. A low wail of tormented agony erupted from the black cloud that filled the room. It built and built until Keren wanted to cover her ears from the shriek of fury. The evil wrapped itself around her throat.