Sinner (42 page)

Johnny swung around and faced her. “But we haven't taken it anywhere yet. This is only the beginning, surely you know that.”

Her anger seeped out. She shoved a finger at the mountains. “The monastery was the beginning!” she cried, leaning into her words. “The beginning of a lie! We can end it here, tonight.” She stomped one boot. “Give this up!”

“How can you ask us to deny the truth?”

“And just what is that truth, Johnny?”

“That Jesus is the Light of the World.”

“Jesus? Only Jesus? Do you even know how foolish that sounds? You're spitting in the face of the world!”

She was still focused on Johnny, but her words reached into the crowd. A well-rounded woman standing at the front was shaking, bug-eyed eyes on Darcy. She looked too frightened to cry.

The whole western half of the crowd had been smothered by her accusation of foolishness and was already staggering under the weight of doubt her words had awakened in them.

Johnny looked out over the people again. “We are not here to itemize the rights or wrongs of Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or any religion. We are here because we believe the Light that came into the darkness is hated by that darkness. I believe Jesus is the Word made flesh. Despised and rejected by all but a few. He said you would call us fools.”

Darcy leapt to the edge of the stage and faced them all. “It's a lie!” she screamed.

The effect was immediate. As if her words had physical power, they hit the nearest people like a gale. But it wasn't enough. They should be
falling
under the force of their doubt, Darcy thought.

“It is all a big mistake,” she cried, “taught to you by your parents and their parents, all this nonsense about light! Think for yourselves! How dare you insult the American people by defying our laws and dying for a faith in what you can't prove!”

The round woman in the front was on her knees, eyes clenched tight, begging some unseen force to rescue her. Darcy's words reached all the way to the back of the dimly lit town square, filling it with the sound of whimpering and shifting feet.

Darcy pushed before anyone could form an argument against her.

“You're giving up your lives as zealots for a truth that is based on a lie!”

“No!”

The scream came from Darcy's left. A young, dark-skinned teenager with hair past her shoulders stood at the front, glaring at her.

She knew this girl from the Net reports. It was Katrina Kivi, the one who'd stopped the school riot in Boulder City, Nevada.

“No, that's not true!” the girl cried. “I was a witch full of hate until I saw the kingdom of light. It filled me with love, although I can say that loving you at this moment isn't easy.How dare you step on our stage and tell us that we are foolish!”

Darcy was at a loss. The girl stood firmly against the full weight of Darcy's words. She'd swayed all of Washington to embrace constitutional change but she couldn't sway the mind of one teenager?

“I was once a true believer too,” she finally said. “I've earned the right to question.”

“Then question,” Johnny said from her left.

She watched Katrina Kivi's eyes shift to where he stood. They widened and the girl's mouth parted slightly.

Darcy turned. Johnny had removed his glasses and stared at her with bright blue eyes

“Show her, Johnny,” Katrina said. “Show us all.”

“I've heard your words, Darcy. I've listened to you explain the world and remain unconvinced. The question is, are you willing to look into my world and see the light?”

“There is no light but what your trickery shows,” she said. “You are a trickster.”But she felt inexorably drawn to see what all the fuss was about. Her breathing thickened at the mystery of it all.

“No, I won't use any illusion. I'll simply open your eyes. What you see is beyond my ability to control.”

“Show her, Johnny.” There was a desperation in Katrina's voice now. Darcy glanced over and saw that she was walking slowly toward them with her hands clasped in front of her. Tears wet her cheeks.

“Please, Johnny, show us.”

“Why, Kat?” Johnny asked.

“Because I want to be reminded.”

“You have eyes of faith.”

“But you're here, and she's here, and we're all here. Isn't that why he gave you your eyes?”

Johnny gave her a slight nod and looked at Darcy.

“I've listened to you. Will you look at me?”

“I am looking at you.”

BILLY PACED in the command center's lounge, ignoring Kelly, who stood with her arms crossed watching him. Looking into her eyes did nothing but fill him with more hate, and he already hated the hate seeping from his pores like a sour sweat.

He'd ordered the room closed to all but them and Kinnard, who was making the final arrangements now. The clock on the wall read five minutes past six o'clock.

They were looking for Darcy. She'd gone off sulking, and not having her with him at this time was making him sweat.

“Stop it, please,” Kelly said.

Billy absently lifted his hand and trimmed the nail on his index finger with his teeth. “Stop what?”

“Pacing. You're making me think that you're full of second thoughts.”

She lowered her arms and walked up to him. Placed her hand on his cheek and brushed his hair back.

“Are you?”

“How could I have second thoughts about killing Johnny?” he snapped. “He's ruined me!”

“Not Johnny. I know how much you hate him. I'm talking about the others.”

The three thousand or so conspirators who'd joined Johnny in his stand against the law.

Billy turned away from her, fighting back a fresh wave of fury.

At Johnny.

At Paradise.

At the three thousand.

At Black.

At Kelly.

At himself.

Where was Darcy?

“They've made their own choice,” he said. “Three thousand fewer bloggers to clog up the Net next week.”

His eyes stung and he blinked away blurred vision.

Kelly turned his face back to hers. Her eyes watched his lips, then rose to his. “Accept it, Billy. This is what you were born to do. It's a great honor.”

She kissed his lips where she'd bitten him and pulled back, fighting to control some unnamed emotion. “I would give anything to be you. To be flesh, real flesh. Human. You're the king of the world.”

He felt a moment of pity for the beautiful woman who walked because he'd written Black into flesh. Black had written Kelly for the sole purpose of delivering Johnny to this night.

And all of it was because of him. Billy.

The door opened and Kinnard entered.He stopped at the sight of Kelly's hand on Billy's face, but she didn't remove it until he reached them.

“Well?” she demanded.

“In the air now. One air-fuel bomb. Over the target in fifteen minutes.”

“Air fuel?” Billy asked. “What will that do?”

“It's twenty thousand pounds of high-explosive, designed to spread as it burns. It will detonate two hundred feet above the ground and has a blast radius of 1.2 kilometers. Basically? It will incinerate the whole town, including the buildings, the media, the cars—all of it will burn. We'll be able to say whatever we want about how this went down. There won't be any evidence to the contrary.”

“Good,” Kelly said.

Billy nodded. “Good.”

KAT STOOD in front of the stage, looking up at Johnny and Darcy squaring off.

“I
am
looking at you,” Darcy said, and Kat knew by her tone of voice that she was saying yes.

Her hands were trembling and her heart was racing because she wanted to see the light on the road to Damascus the way the apostle Paul had seen it.

“The problem, Johnny,” Darcy said, placing both hands on her hips, “is that you just don't—”

But that's all she could say, because Johnny's eyes went black and she sucked at the air as if a huge boot had landed in her belly.

Johnny was showing Darcy herself.

Kat felt fear's familiar fingers lock on to her heart as she fell into the twin holes where Johnny's eyes had been. She ripped her stare away and threw her hand up to block the image. She'd been here before and the image had been much stronger then, but she couldn't bear to face it again, weak or not.

A terrible groan swelled behind her. She leaped to the stage and spun to face the crowd. Looks of horror had rounded their eyes in shock. Most stared at Johnny, unable to tear themselves from the striking sight of blackened eyes, from the very real, albeit forgiven, evil that haunted them all.

The light, they needed to see the light!

“Look away!” she cried, sweeping her hands to one side. “Don't look yet!”

They threw up their arms and buried their heads in their hands, but most were weeping already.

Kat whirled back and faced Johnny, whose eyes were fixed, coal black. She clenched her jaw against the terror that lapped at her mind and turned to the woman.

Darcy had fallen to her knees and allowed her arms to go limp as the darkness flowed into her. Her body shook with terrible sobs and her face was twisted in such anguish that Kat couldn't help but feel her pain.

Still, Johnny refused to remove his gaze. Darcy's eyes were held captive.

The woman's mouth went wide in a silent cry.

“Johnny?” Kat cried.

Still he would not let her go. Darcy clamped her jaws shut and bared her teeth as if trying to keep her head from shaking off.

Kat had stared into those eyes for only a couple of seconds and nearly died. Darcy had endured thirty seconds, and Kat wondered if it just might kill her.

“Johnny!”

But he kept it up. Deeper, harder. Her eyes began to roll back into her head. That she was reacting meant she'd opened herself to the truth, which was a good thing, but not if it ended her life!

“Stop it!” Kat jumped in front of Darcy, blocking her from Johnny's eyes. “You're going to kill her!”

He closed his eyes and opened them again. Blue.

For a moment he looked at her, dazed. She could hear Darcy breathing hard through a soft whimper behind her, the only sound on the night air.

Then Johnny blinked and his eyes became white, and Kat caught her breath.

“SIR, WE'VE located Darcy Lange.”

Billy swiveled to the door and looked at the staffer who'd intruded. They were now less than two minutes from the strike and Darcy had finally come out of hiding. Lovely.

Kelly stepped up behind him and placed a supportive hand on his elbow. He had no idea what Darcy would think of Kelly, who wasn't really vying for his affection as much as returning to him. She presented no real threat to Darcy, not in a romantic way.

Darcy was flesh and blood. Kelly was flesh and words. She was here to help them take down the traitor who would destroy them all.

“Is she coming?” he asked.

“She's not on the base, sir.”

“At the armory then, whatever.Why isn't she coming?”Heat flared up his neck.

“She's in Paradise, sir.”

Billy's blood ran cold. “Paradise? She's in the town of Paradise?”

“That is our understanding, yes, sir.”

There had to be a mistake.

“
The
Paradise?”

“A helicopter pilot just called in reporting that she forced him to fly her to Paradise almost an hour ago. He left her there and is on his way back now.”

Billy was too stunned to speak.

“I knew she would betray you,” Kelly said in a low voice. “It was the way she was looking at him that first day in the tent. She's—”

“No!” He shook her arm off and ran forward, then pulled up and paced back, gripping his hair. “No, no, that's not right, she would never do that.”

The staffer watched them with big eyes.

“She's there, isn't she?” Kelly snapped.

“She isn't there for Johnny.”

“Then why?”

Billy didn't know why. Nothing else made any sense. Darcy had crossed over to Johnny? No, this wasn't right.

“Should we call off the strike, sir?”

“No,” Kelly whispered. “Johnny has to die.”

DARCY DIDN'T have the thoughts, much less the words, to describe what had happened to her in those eternal thirty seconds, but she knew that everything she had known for the past ten years was in fact wrong.

Not just wrong. Dreadfully, horribly incorrect.

She'd looked at the world and seen dark gray, when all along it was a brilliant red.

She'd walked through life looking for nice, neat squares to protect her from her past when in reality there wasn't a straight line to be found.

Tonight she'd come face-to-face with the rawest kind of evil and this feeling, this terror . . . it had made a mockery of her worst nightmare.

Then she'd become perfectly aware that this evil resided in her.Was a part of her nature. Was a disease that she had contracted and protected like a deep pit might protect the fungus growing on its walls. She drowned in the black lake of her own soul.

She was drowning in that lake, unable to scream, when the water had turned red. And for a moment she thought she had died.

Now someone was standing in front of her, the young girl, Katrina Kivi, yelling out for Johnny to stop. It occurred to Darcy that she was trembling on her knees, not drowning in a lake.

The girl gasped and stepped away.

Johnny stood where she'd seen him last. But his eyes weren't black any longer; they were white.

And then the world erupted with white-hot light. The brightness rushed her, slammed into her chest, and knocked her back on her seat.

For the briefest of moments, she wondered if a massive explosive had been detonated right here on the stage. But she wasn't dead. Was she?

No. Two realizations crashed through her mind with equal force. The first was that she was shaking again, but this time with pleasure.