Ten Plagues

been in that car out in front of the mission, photographed by Higgins, but she couldn’t pick them out of this mob.

Wilma was loaded and the coroner’s wagon drove slowly across the expanse of green.

Higgins stepped toward the reporters. “I’ll make a statement now.”

The press abandoned Keren without a backward glance.

Pulling Keren aside, Paul asked, “If you can feel the demon, why can’t you cast it out?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Well, what is it like?”

“It’s not something I can do. My gift is to discern spirits. I can’t cast them out like some exorcist.”

“Are you sure?”

“The person with the demon has to do it. Like with Roger, I can help them believe such a thing is possible, but the choice to be free has to come from the one who’s possessed. That’s the only way I know.”

Keren watched the video camera being swept across the crowd. Keren turned to Paul but only for a second. She couldn’t stop moving through the crowd, searching, praying. “You’re done here.”

He nodded. “I think I’ll walk back to the mission now.”

“I’m not letting you go alone.” As casually as possible, she pressed on shoulders, eased past people, making sure to brush against them. Paul kept pace. “We both know that one of these times this”—she turned to hiss at him—”this maniac is going to turn his attention on you.”

“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “He’s after women. He may be blaming me for this, but his hatred is for women.”

“Maybe so, but you seem to be his real target. Maybe he only plans to torment you, but I wouldn’t count it as an established fact that it’s some mommy dearest situation.” Keren felt the demonic presence ease and wanted to scream. Who was it? There were people walking away in all directions. She checked her watch. The video would be time stamped. She’d see who walked away at just this time.

“The profiler is researching his background since we know his name now.” Keren kept studying the crowd, trying to fine-tune her sense of evil. “He’s hoping, if we look into his past, it’ll help us predict the future.”

“You don’t have to escort me home. I see Roger over there.” Paul pointed at Roger, standing alone.

“Okay. But don’t go alone with him.”

“You don’t trust Roger?” Paul looked alarmed.

“Yes. No. Look, it’s not him, but just… just make sure there are several of you.” Keren studied the people near Roger, but none of them were the killer. The killer was gone. But maybe she could eliminate a few suspects. “Are any of the men still here that were riding with Murray that morning?”

“I don’t see them.” Paul studied the crowd.

Frustrated, Keren dragged her cell phone out of her pocket. “Let us know if anyone calls so we can start a trace.” She pushed a couple of buttons. “That’s how you record. Don’t forget it, even if he calls in the middle of the night.”

“I don’t like you going without a cell.” Paul accepted the phone only when she jammed it into his hand. “He may have his eye on you, too.”

“I can get another one from the station. And I’ll ride back with O’Shea. I’m not going anywhere alone either, Rev.”

They stood and watched Higgins finish his little press conference then approach them across the killing field of the park.

As soon as he left the press, his expression turned grim. His perfect hair even seemed a little flat. “We have another woman missing.”

The top of Keren’s head almost blew off. “And you told the press before you told me?”

“No.” Higgins’s eyes glittered gold and icy.

“So you lied to the press?” “bure.”

“We really try not to tell blatant lies to the press here. They don’t forget.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m going back to DC when this is over.” Higgins shrugged, not the tiniest speck of concern for Chicago cops and their relationship with a skeptical press. “She’s homeless, but someone saw her being taken, and when they went up to the spot she’d been dragged away from, they found a sign that said this.” He held up a scrap of paper that said, “Pestis ex ulcus.”

“I can’t take any more of this.” Paul ran one hand into his hair.

Keren grabbed his arm. “Tell us what it means first, Paul. I’ve got them all written down back in the car and at the office, but I can’t remember them.”

Paul said, “I can barely remember my name.”

“Morris,” Higgins said sharply.

Paul reached for the paper but pulled his hand back at the last minute as if touching it would bring the plague on himself. “Plague of boils.”

“Boils?” Higgins grimaced. “What does that mean?”

Paul said, “This one might be the worst yet. He could go a lot of different ways with boils. He could infect someone with anthrax or smallpox.”

“If he had access to such a thing,” Higgins said doubtfully.

“Boils are nasty blisters. A plague of them, they’d cover your body.” Paul stared at the paper in Higgins’s hand, then he said under his breath, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Go,” Keren said. “We’ve got nothing left, except to get the dead animals tagged and bagged.” She wanted Paul away from there. She wished she could order him out of the city.

“We’ll handle it,” she said.

Paul watched the coroner’s team start picking up dead animals, sacrificed to a madman along with poor, harmless Wilma. Then he jerked his head as if he had to force himself to look away and stalked off toward his friend from the mission.

“What’s the matter with him?” Higgins asked.

Keren watched Paul walk away, then she turned to Higgins. “He’s just trying to remember who he is.”

“That’s something I never waste time doing.” Higgins turned his tawny eyes on her. She wondered if he’d ever tried to hypnotize the truth out of perps.

“Why not?” Keren asked.

“Because I’m afraid if I figure it out, I won’t like what I find.”

Keren frowned. “I think, right now, Paul’s afraid of exactly the same thing.”

She went back to work gathering evidence. They found hundreds of poisoned pellets still scattered around.

Keren stayed alongside city crews, working into the night, so the plague of beasts could come to an end.

CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

“Festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land.”

Pravus raised the red-hot andiron out of the fireplace and turned to the woman. Her eyes widened in terror as he approached. She struggled against her bonds.

This was an experiment. He didn’t know quite how to raise satisfactory boils on a body. It wasn’t an art form he’d worked with before. But a true creator had to try new things. Finally, when he felt that his work was worthy to be one of his people, he turned his attention to the gown. This he understood. But it was almost impossible to paint. He felt like his blood raced faster. He felt like maybe he’d finally found his true calling. Torture as art.

The boils painted on the gown were hard to recognize.

Laughing, Pravus thought of how angry his father would be. How frightened his mother would be while she begged him to behave and make Father happy.

But neither one of them was here to stifle his power. The ability to create only possessed by a god.