“No, I can’t,” he moaned, his hand sticky and red.
Lopez winced seeing the quantity of blood. Did she hit an artery? He knew Houston was a trained agent and had seen her toughness before. But he was frightened by what he now saw. She was predatory. Cruel. Or in a corner and fighting for her life.
“The next shot is going hurt more,” she said, her tone ominous.
The bishop wept openly now. It was a pathetic sight. His huge mass shook as he pleaded for mercy. “Please, I can’t! You don’t know, don’t understand. They are everywhere. They know everything! It’s not just me! Even if you kill me, they have cornered too many in the Church, in law enforcement. Please! I don’t know who they are. They come from nowhere, like shadows. They speak terrible things, reveal terrible knowledge!” His breaths came in gasps, his face pale. “Whatever you do, you cannot do worse than to reveal that knowledge. Some of us will die before we allow that to happen.”
Lopez saw the truth in the frightened man’s eyes. Whatever “they” had on him, it was bad. So bad he would accept death rather than the shame of revelation. It turned his stomach. Dark forces had reached the Church and turned the Church against him. His last hope! The one source of truth and trust he had left in the world.
They have taken everything from us. Lopez felt a wild anger erupting from inside him, born of hurt and pain and betrayal. It rose like a solar flare. Before he realized what he was doing, he had stood up, grabbed the bishop’s collar, and was screaming at him.
“Why? How could you do this, you coward? How could you destroy my name, turn my family and friends against me? Bring down a false judgment on me for your own sins!”
“I’m sorry, I’m— “
Lopez struck him across the jaw with his fist. It hurt his hand, but that pain was a minor flash in the inferno of torment searing his mind. “Shut up! Tell me now, damn you! Where did you contact these people? How can we reach them?”
“Francisco.” It was Houston, but he ignored her.
“I told you, I don’t know,” said the bishop, blood dripping from his mouth, his eyes groggy.
“You liar!” Lopez swept his arm like a hatchet swinging and smashed his fist across the bishop’s face again. The large man crumpled downward, but Lopez miraculously held the three hundred pounds upright with one arm, again striking the man in the face, his rage completely consuming him. As he was to hit him again, he felt his arm restrained from behind and heard a shout from Houston.
“Francisco! Enough! He’s out!”
Her shout shook him out of his madness, and he dropped the form. The body of the bishop crashed onto his desk and then bounced and rolled to the side and out of the chair. The entire building shook from the impact as he hit the floor.
She sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t know any facts that will help us. He was a blind, manipulated without information. He wouldn’t clear your name anyway. He’d die before he risks the skeletons coming out of his closet.”
Lopez stared at her blankly. She grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“Francisco, look at me! I didn’t shoot him for fun. I had to find out what he knew. We’re one step away from jail, or worse, and we don’t know who’s chasing us. This man’s lies are part of the noose tightening around our necks. I had to push him! But we need to back off now, cool down, use our heads. We don’t have much time. The police are coming.”
Lopez tried to slow his breathing. He felt a dull pain radiating from his knuckles.
“Better,” she said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
They ran. Houston led the way. Keeping her gun on display, she darted down the hallway, through the now-empty lobby of the building, and into the parking lot. Most of the cars were gone, and there were no signs of police. The workers had fled at the gunshot, Lopez assumed. Houston ran straight for their car, and he followed, the wind whipping his face helping to bring him back into the moment. But things were only going from bad to worse.
“The tires are slashed,” she said, squatting down near one of the rear wheels. Lopez crouched and looked with her. The tire was completely flat, a long, thin gash running along the rubber. “Someone didn’t want us going too far.”
“Indeed, we didn’t!” came a male voice directly behind them.
Houston spun around, but was too late. As Lopez turned to look, a blur rushed past his head, and a foot kicked the gun out of her hand, the body continuing a rotation that ended in the other leg striking Houston in the face. She flew backward, smashing into the car, her head striking the edge of the door. Knocked unconscious by the impact, she sank straight to the ground.
Lopez began to rise but felt metal against his temple.
“No, no, priest,” said another male voice. “Best that you don’t try anything. I’m not a fat and clumsy bishop.”
There was laughter as Lopez felt his stomach turn. He looked down at Houston, who lay sprawled on the asphalt of the parking lot. He tightened and instinctively wished to reach down and see if she was okay.
Instead, he felt a wet cloth placed over his mouth and inhaled a strange, burning smell. Everything went dark.
38
The room smelled like dust and mold.
As Lopez came to, the room spun around him, his sense of smell overpowering his mind. His head felt swollen, and he felt heavy, unable to move. The hotel room? No. That was before. But the same sickness in his stomach. The crushing headache. The spinning slowed, the dim browns and blacks of blurry shapes wobbled, and like a coin finishing a spin on a table, everything dropped suddenly into place.
It was a cabin. Some nineteenth-century log structure that had rotted nearly beyond usefulness. Bright light streamed in from a filthy window, and it appeared that they were in some forested area. Turning his head was painful, and the right side felt huge, like a massive tumor had grown out of his brain. His bleary vision began to clear.
Houston was on his right, tied to an old, rickety chair, her mouth covered with duct tape. Her eyes were open and they locked with his. Lopez tried to speak, but there were only muffled sounds, and he realized that his mouth was taped, as well. There was laughter to the left and behind them, its source out of sight.
“Missed talking to your squeeze, priest?” came the male voice. Lopez recognized it as speaking the last words he had heard before blacking out. “Too bad. You’re not ever going to get the chance to say anything else to her. But you’ll get to watch her scream. Oh, you’re gonna get to watch a lot.” The voice sounded demonic.
Lopez instinctively tried to raise his arms but was unable to move. He understood at last the heaviness he felt: he was also tied to a chair. He looked down, saw the rotten wood and moldy rope lashed around his arms and legs. The smell of mildew and decay reached his nostrils and turned his stomach. The knots were well formed, tight, painful to press against.
The voice laughed again, and a second male spoke through it. “Come on, Tom. Let’s get this over with.”
The one called Tom stepped from behind Lopez into his field of vision, his face a mask of hatred. “Like hell I will, Billy. Because of these two, Ryan and Marshall are fucking grilled meat.”