Shut Your Eyes Tight

beside a rumpled bed in a space that seemed to be both a bedroom and a dungeon cell. There were no visible restraints upon him, yet he could move neither his arms nor his legs. The feeling was claustrophobic, and he feared that if he lost his balance and fell onto the bed, he would suffocate.

Into the dungeon, descending on dark stone steps, came Salome. She came toward him in a swirling air of perfume and translucent silk, stood before him, swaying, dancing. Moving more like a snake than a human being. The silk slipped away, dissolving, revealing creamy skin, breasts surprisingly ample for the lithe body, full round buttocks, breathtakingly perfect, breathtakingly deadly. The body writhing in the anticipation of pleasure.

The archetype of degradation.

Eve the succubus.

Avatar of the serpent.

Essence of evil.

Incarnation of lust.

Writhing, dancing like a snake.

Dancing around him, against him. Slime of sweat forming on her swaying breasts, pinpricks of sweat around her mouth. Electric shock of her legs brushing against his legs, her legs parting, the rasp of pubic hair against his thigh, a scream of horror building in his chest, horror racing through his blood. The scream in his heart struggling to burst out. At first a tiny constricted whine, building, straining through his clenched teeth. Her eyes burning, her groin pressed against his, burning, his scream rising, bursting out, a roar now, a torrent of sound, the roar of a cyclone leveling the world, freeing his arms and legs of their paralysis, his hunting knife transformed now into a sword, a blessed scimitar. With all the strength of heaven and earth, he swings the great scimitar-swings it in a sweet, perfect arc-hardly feeling it pass through her sweating neck, the head falling, falling free. As it falls, disappearing through the stone floor, the damp body dries into gray dust and is gone, blown away by a wind that warms his soul, filling him with light and peace, filling him with the knowledge of his true identity, filling him with his Mission and Method.

They say that God comes to some men slowly and to others in a flash of light that illuminates everything. And so it was with him.

The power and clarity of it had stunned him the first time, as it did each time he recalled it, each time he reexperienced the Great Truth that had been revealed to him in the “dream.”

Like all great ideas, it was astonishingly simple: Salome cannot have John the Baptist beheaded by Herod if John the Baptist strikes first. John the Baptist, alive in him. John the Baptist, destroyer of the evil Eve. John the Baptist, vessel of the baptism of blood. John the Baptist, scourge of the slimy snakes of the earth. Severer of the head of Salome the serpent.

It was a wonderful insight. A source of purpose, serenity, and solace. He felt uniquely blessed. So many people in the modern world had no idea who they really were.

He knew who he was. And what he had to do.

Chapter 34

Ashton uneasy

As Gurney was pulling in to the parking lot of the county building that housed the office of the district attorney, his phone rang. He was surprised to hear the voice of Scott Ashton, and more surprised at its new insecurity and informality.

“David, after your call last evening… your comments about people who couldn’t be found… I know what I said about the privacy issue, but… I thought perhaps I could make a few discreet phone calls myself. That way there wouldn’t be any question of my having given out names or phone numbers to a third party.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I made some calls, and… the fact is… I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but… it’s possible that something strange is going on.”

Gurney pulled in to the first parking space he could find. “Strange in what way?”

“I made a total of fourteen phone calls. I had the number for the former student herself in four cases, in the other ten the number of a parent or a guardian. One of the students I was able to reach and speak to. For one other I was able to leave a voice-mail message. Phone service to the other two had been discontinued. Of the ten calls I made to the families, I got through to two and left messages for the other eight, two of whom called me back. So I ended up having four conversations with family members.”

Gurney wondered where all this arithmetic was going.

“In one case there was no problem. However, in the other three-”

“Sorry to cut you off, but what do you mean by ‘no problem’?”

“I mean they were aware of their daughter’s location, said she was away at college, said they had spoken to her that very day. The problem is with the other three. The parents have no idea where they are-which in itself has no great significance. In fact, I strongly recommend to some of our graduates that they separate themselves from their parents when those relationships have a toxic history. Reintegration with one’s family of origin is sometimes not advisable. I’m sure you can understand why.”

Gurney almost slipped and said that Savannah had told him as much, but he caught himself. Ashton went on. “The problem is what the parents told me had happened, how the girls actually left home.”

“How?”

“The first parent I spoke to said her daughter was unusually calm, had behaved well for about four weeks after coming home from Mapleshade. Then, one evening at the dinner table, she demanded money to buy a new car, specifically a twenty-seven-thousand-dollar Miata convertible. The parents of course refused. She then accused them of not caring about her, aggressively resurrected all the traumas of her early childhood, and gave them the absurd ultimatum that they must give her the money for the car or she would never speak to them again. When they refused, she literally packed her bags, called a car service, and left. After that, she called once to say that she was sharing an apartment with a friend, that she needed time to sort out her ‘issues,’ and that any effort they made to find her or communicate with her would be an intolerable assault on her privacy. And that was the last word they ever heard from her.”

“You obviously know more about your ex-students than I do, but on the surface of it that story doesn’t sound that incredible to me. It sounds like something an emotionally unstable spoiled brat might do.” When the words were out, Gurney wondered if Ashton might object to that characterization of Mapleshade’s alumnae.

“It sounds exactly that way,” he replied instead. “A ‘spoiled brat’ stamping her feet, storming out, punishing her parents by rejecting them. Not particularly shocking, not even unusual.”

“Then I don’t get the point of the story. Why are you disturbed by it?”

“Because it’s the same story told by all three families.”

“The same?”

“The same story, except for the brand and price of the car. Instead of a twenty-seven-thousand-dollar Miata, the second girl demanded a thirty-nine-thousand-dollar BMW, and the third wanted a seventy-thousand-dollar Corvette.”

“Jesus.”

“So you see why I’m concerned?”

“What I see is a mystery about the nature of the connection. Did your conversations with the parents give you any ideas about that?”

“Well, it can’t be a coincidence. Which makes it a conspiracy of some kind.”

Gurney could see two broad possibilities. “Either the girls devised this among themselves as a way of leaving home-although why they would need to do it that way is unclear-or each of them was following the directions of an outside party without necessarily being aware that other girls were following the same directions. But, again, why is the real question.”

“You don’t think it was just a crazy scheme to see if they could force their parents to buy them their dream