Ten Plagues

So he wasn’t going to be allowed to stalk and wait and choose with the care he preferred. That was a pity, because of them all, this was his favorite so far. The steady killing he’d done in the park. He’d spent days preparing for the plague of beasts. This gave him many chances to kill.

Accepting that wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. Even God had to compromise to achieve freedom for His people. Pravus compromised now because he needed someone new.

He needed someone now.

Paul spent so many hours being grilled, he almost turned into a T-bone.

He had never heard of Melody Fredericks. He’d never met her. He’d never seen her. He’d never eaten at her restaurant. The mission had never gotten a contribution from her.

Nothing.

When he wasn’t being questioned, he was poring over his old cases.

Keren filed her incident report and had a long talk with her lieutenant. She came out quiet, her blue-gray eyes more ghostly than usual.

“How’d it go?”

She sat down at her desk. “Later. I want to go over these files again.”

His interrogation, her interrogation, endless paperwork to comb, and through it all he kept thinking, Pestis ex culex. Plague of gnats. Then, Pestis ex rana. Plague of frogs. He could still feel those frogs crawling around inside his shirt.

He kept in touch with the hospital by phone. Every time he called he felt more detached from LaToya and his work as a pastor and more attached and comfortable as a cop. The drive to solve this crime and save Melody Fredericks overcame any need he felt to sit with LaToya. She was unconscious. She needed someone there, maybe. The doctors said talking to her might help. But why him? He’d forgotten how important police work was. All those years since his wife and daughter had died, he’d battered himself about how he’d put his job first. But back then he’d had a child who needed him. Now he had no one except the people he could save by catching a killer.

Anyone could sit at the bedside of an unconscious woman. Only he knew his cases and his people from the mission well enough to cross-reference the two groups and find the killer.

He didn’t get back to the hospital all day and it didn’t matter, because LaToya didn’t wake up. They returned to the ICU waiting area at ten o’clock that night. Paul glanced at Keren walking beside him. She must think she was doing guard duty. As she strode along, even her walk screamed cop—impressive, considering the argument she lost just last night with a sedan. Purposeful, fast, long strides, going somewhere. Paul was walking just like her.

Rosita was waiting in the intensive care lounge.

“How many hours have you spent here today?” Paul settled into a utilitarian gray chair in the waiting room and caught himself fidgeting, impatient with the long, wasted night ahead. Giving himself a mental shake, he groped around for peace, and it proved elusive.

“I didn’t count.” Rosita rose from the chair where she’d sat reading.

His conscience pinged. “I didn’t mean for you to end up sitting here all day.”

“It don’t matter.” Rosita frowned. “LaToya is still unconscious.”

Paul leaned forward in the chair beside Rosita. “I’m not worrying about LaToya—well, that’s not true, I am— but I’m talking about you. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being taken advantage of.”

Rosita waved a book in the air. “C’mon, Pastor P, I been sittin’ readin’ all day. Closest I ever come to a vacation. It was great.”

Paul relaxed. “I really appreciate it. I just don’t want her to wake up and be all alone.”

“I know how it is to be alone. I’m glad to do it.” Rosita stood and began to pull on a jacket that lay in a chair nearby.

“You’re not going home alone, are you?” Paul stood, ready to hold her there by force if necessary.

“She’s not if that’s Manny.” Keren pointed toward the exit.

Rosita looked down the long hospital hallway and lit up when she saw a man standing at the end. “Manny said he’d come and sit with me when he got done with work today.”

Paul waved at the silhouette, and Rosita hurried off with a wide grin on her face.

“You’re a nice man, Pastor P.” Keren settled into a chair beside him.

Paul sank back and tried to let go of the driving need to be doing something. “I don’t feel very nice lately. “He looked sideways at Keren. “I wanted that gun from you last night.”

Keren shrugged.

“I wanted to hurt that guy. Kill him.” Paul wanted Keren to admit she was shocked and disappointed in him.

“There’s always a tug-of-war inside a person.” Keren shrugged her brown suit jacket off and began rolling up the sleeves of her yellow button-down shirt.

Paul noticed her scraped-up hands and saw her move her aching joints gingerly. He still wanted some time alone with Pravus.

“Wanting to catch Pravus is the right instinct. Your human side also wants revenge. That’s perfectly normal. The part of you that is ruled by God actually goes against human nature. So, yes, you wanted my gun. Yes, you saw yourself making Pravus pay for the harm he’d done, but God has a nice firm grip on you. You’d have done the right thing in the end.”

Paul eyed the nasty bruise on her forehead, almost covered by the hair that had escaped her barrette, and felt himself sink deeper into cop mode. “How’d it go with the investigation into the discharged weapon?”

“I told my story, told the truth.” Keren exhaled slowly, maybe with relief. Maybe her ribs hurt. “But I didn’t tell all of it. I can’t decide if I feel right about it. Am I denying God when I deny this gift?”

Paul tried to shift into pastor gear. This would be an excellent time for that. All he could do was remember how badly he’d wanted that gun. “You did right. They wouldn’t have understood if you’d talked about discerning spirits.”

“But there’s no law that allows me to shoot at a person I can’t see, can’t identify, but ‘know’ in some spiritual way is the right man. “

“Tell that to Spiderman.”

She slugged him but there was no force behind it. There was an extended silence before she added, “They seemed to accept my story and be okay with it. They didn’t take me off the case, so that’s a good sign. But it’s by no means settled.”

“If I were still on the force I’d probably be making an example of you right now.”

Keren scowled at him, and he smiled right into her bared teeth. She couldn’t sustain any true anger, but Paul suspected that was mainly because she was tired.

“You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever pulled the trigger on my gun outside a shooting range.”

Keren ran her hands through the wild curls that rioted, trying to escape the bun on her head. She rescued her barrette and replaced it with graceful efficiency.

Paul wanted to offer to help. Having his hands in her hair was very tempting.

“Part of me feels like a failure because I didn’t stop him. But then, the other part of me is horrified that I could have killed a human being. The part of me that’s horrified seems like the Christian part, but I’m not sure it is. We have to stop this guy. I may have no choice except to kill him before this is over.” She had her hair back under control long before Paul had himself under control. She leaned forward, forearms on her knees, and turned to look at him.

“I shot a man while I was a cop.” Paul remembered the price he’d paid.

“Killed him?” Keren asked, watching him closely, like a good little investigator.

Paul matched her pose and noticed his face was really close to hers. Well within kissing distance. Talking about killing someone put a damper on his wayward thoughts, though. “It was my third year on patrol. I don’t think, even now, that I had a choice. He was out of control, unloading his gun in every direction. He’d already hit a couple of bystanders. He put a bullet into me before he was done.” Paul rubbed his shoulder and felt the old scar under his T-shirt. “Of course, I acted like it was nothing. I was at my very macho best. I never admitted to anyone how torn up I was inside. I’d only been married about a year when it happened. I didn’t talk to my wife without biting her head off for six months. I got drunk every Friday night for a year. That was the first time she left me.”