Ten Plagues

“Well, they’re not a usual kind of frog. They’re a really small tree frog, native to the southern part of the United States, mainly Louisiana. They can also be purchased in pet stores, but no stores would carry that many. The medics estimated there were over a hundred frogs crawling on LaToya and scads of them were hopping away in all directions. They got twenty in the ambulance with them because they seemed to kind of cling.”

“Tell me about it.” Paul rubbed at his stomach as if he could still feel the little wrigglers inside his shirt. “I’m going to go home for the night. I hope a shower helps me forget just what special little frogs they were.”

Paul nearly staggered as he climbed the stairs to his apartment that night. He would have gone back to the hospital directly from the station house, except he hadn’t showered or changed clothes since Sunday morning—two days ago. He was starting to disgust himself. A shower, a change of clothes, and right back to LaToya.

He opened his apartment door, jogging straight for the shower. The apartment smelled stale, like it had been closed up for too long, which it had. He felt like a jerk, leaving LaToya all day. As her pastor and her friend, not to mention the catalyst of this mess, it was his duty to be at her side. He rushed through his shower and pulled on a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes; then he ran to his tiny spare bedroom to snag his jacket.

He pushed the door open and the air hit him in the face. It was thick. It was alive. His mouth filled with choking dust that crawled down his throat.

Then the smell hit him.

Choking and covering his mouth, he fumbled for the light switch on the wall. The bare bulb was almost snuffed out by the swarms of gnats.

He could just make out the body on the floor. Covering his mouth and nose with one hand, he knelt and virtually pushed aside a solid wall of bugs. He felt for a pulse. There was none. The body was stone cold. She was long dead. But the smell of death had told him that before he’d touched her.

Gnats covered her body. They clustered on the hideous rust-brown painting on her death shroud. Paul lurched to his feet, suddenly remembering he was invading a crime scene. He backed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He ran into his bathroom and spit gnats out of his mouth, clawed at his face to wipe them away, then pulled out his cell phone and called Keren as he rushed out into the hall.

O’Shea beat Keren there. Paul was leaning against the wall outside his door, posting himself as guard. He’d been thinking like a cop. Call it in. Preserve the crime scene.

“Where is she?” O’Shea pulled out a handkerchief and reached for the doorknob.

“No.” Paul moved to block O’Shea from going in. He wasn’t sure if it was to protect the crime scene or O’Shea. “It’s bad.”

“Melody Fredericks?” O’Shea didn’t protest.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s her, but I couldn’t see her really.”

“Why not?”

There was an extended silence. Finally, Paul said, “Gnats.”

Keren emerged at the top of the stairs as Paul spoke. She grimaced.

Paul repeated his orders to stay out. The three of them stood waiting.

When Higgins got there, Paul said, “Wait a minute.”

“I’m allowed in.” Higgins reached for the door.

Paul grabbed his arm. “You’re going to run into a million gnats when you get in there. Cover your mouth.”

“I’m not afraid of a few bugs.” Higgins looked at them like they were wimps.

Paul almost let him go in without further warning. “You’ll need to cover your mouth to breathe. There’s a small bedroom on the right, beside the kitchen. The body is in there.”

Higgins looked at Paul for a long second and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. Then he went in. He was back out in thirty seconds, with his mouth and nose covered.

“She’s been dead at least twenty-four hours.” Higgins swatted at the bugs all over him. He muttered, “Crazy freak. Where did he get all these gnats? When were you last in there?”

“I left here Sunday morning after church and I haven’t been back. I’ve been at the hospital.” Paul could hear himself talking like a cop, reporting the facts in a brisk, no-nonsense voice. “She may have been here since then.”

Higgins looked up and down the hall. “We’ll need to question the staff. Aren’t there offices on this floor?”

“Yes,” Paul said in the clipped tone he couldn’t shake. “But they’re closed today. It’s always quiet around here on the first. Welfare checks.”

“With this case, I didn’t expect it to be easy,” Higgins said sardonically. “I opened a window to thin out the gnats. I don’t think we need to keep them all as evidence.”

“You’ll need to get face masks before you can go in there and get her out,” Paul said through his tensed jaw.

Higgins didn’t even debate it. He placed the call and settled in to wait with the rest of them.

Paul’s phone rang.

He flipped his phone open without a second thought.

“No,” Higgins hissed, “wait for the trace.”

Paul wasn’t thinking about anything else, except who would be calling him. He knew.

“Are you expecting a package to arrive momentarily, Reverend?” the silky smooth voice asked.

Paul waved at them to pay attention. O’Shea immediately started recording. Higgins gave Paul a disgusted look and began the process of having the call traced.

“You ruined things for me last time,” Pravus crooned. “This time I don’t think I’ll give you a chance to spread my message. But you will find a carving in the room with pretty Melody.”

“I didn’t ruin things,” Paul said. “I gave them your message and they heard. That’s why the bomb didn’t go off. They listened to me. They let your people go.”

Pravus hesitated. “No one as evil as they are would accept the message I sent. You’re lying.”

Paul was lying, and he had the strange idea that he shouldn’t be. In fact, he decided in a split second that he wasn’t acting at all the way he should be. Whether that was God’s inspiration or his own temper, he couldn’t be sure. “All right, Pravus, you want the truth? The truth is no one is going to listen to your message because they know the message is being sent by a coward.”

Keren’s hand clamped on his forearm in warning.

Paul ignored her. “Everybody knows you’re a fool who says he speaks for God but really only speaks for himself. I’m sick of your threats. I’m sick of listening to a weak little piece of slime who thinks his pathetic imitation of God’s miracles makes him equal to God. Read the book of Exodus, Pravus. Over and over Pharaoh’s magicians do their little tricks to try to copy the plagues. They’re trying to prove Moses is just doing tricks, too, but they can’t prove it, because Moses is doing the work of God. Well that’s all you’re doing, Pravus. A bunch of sneaky, little tricks. You say you hate me, but you’re too much of a crawling worm to face me and take out your anger where it belongs. So instead you hurt innocent women.

“You’re the fool, Pravus. You’re so weak that you have to use women to act out your hatred for me. What did I do to you when I was a cop, anyway? I’ll bet whatever it was, you deserved it.”

“I killed the dancer and her mother. They beheaded the voice in the wilderness. And you were too blind to see it. I was too smart for you then, and I’m too smart for you now. Why do you think I picked her? Why do you think I put pretty Melody right under your nose? So that this time, even someone as stupid as you could see my creative brilliance. I’ll make sure the whole world knows they should have let my people go.”

“Pravus—” A sharp click told Paul the call was over. He looked up at Higgins.

Higgins shook his head in frustration.

“Why isn’t the sign out here in the hall?” O’Shea asked. “And where’s the threat against some larger group?”

“He’s changed his pattern. It doesn’t make any sense.” Higgins stared at the cell phone number on the caller ID. “It’s a new number. We’ll track down the number, but it’ll be another stolen cell phone.”

“Don’t serial killers usually follow rituals?” Paul crossed his arms, stared at his closed apartment door, and realized he wanted to go in and examine the body more closely. The thought didn’t scare him a bit.

Mark Dyson spoke from behind them, “Only some of them.”