efficient that way.”
The internal momentum Nathan had been building almost pushed him toward Josh anyway. His friend had the gun raised and pointing directly at Nathan’s face. Still, if he could cut to the side....
“Actually, Mister Everson,” Quinn continued, still with his back to everyone else in the room, “shoot the woman if anyone makes a move toward you.” Josh quickly moved the gun away from Nathan and toward Elizabeth’s head.
Quinn turned around to face his small congregation. His smile was slight and mocking.
“Manny, if you would be so kind as to tie up Mister Dinneck, we have much to do, still.” He looked at Nathan. “One doesn’t need to be a psychic, Reverend, to sense when someone is planning a move against you. You wouldn’t be a very good poker player.” He glanced back at the Ark, the semblance of a smile dropping again. Paulson roughly tied Nathan’s wrists behind his back with what looked like a blue paisley necktie. His shoulders stretched painfully in their sockets. Quinn looked from the Ark back toward him, and his smile did not return. In fact, his mouth continued down, past what could simply be called a frown or a grimace. With a hiss, he added, “Still, everyone has one good bluff in them sometimes, don’t they?”
Nathan actually gasped when Quinn quickly reached out and grabbed the edge of the Ark’s lid.
And nothing happened.
Chapter Sixty-One
“Come over here, Paulson, and help me lift this cover.”
Manny moved slowly across the room. “But I thought, I mean, shouldn’t we wait for that guy from Maine to get here?” He looked at his watch. “He’s due any—hey, wait a second, that’s not—”
The air was changing in the room. As Paulson pointed at the plain wooden box, Quinn’s expression alternated between contempt, fear, and anger.
“Then stay where you are and learn something, you idiot!” He grabbed the cover with both hands and pulled. The box, in its entirety, raised up from the ground. Quinn glared over at Nathan, then slammed the Ark down onto the concrete floor.
It cracked; a wide crevice running down the middle of its face. Small splinters of wood and flecks of gold paint fluttered to the floor. He picked it back up, higher this time, and screamed like a mad man. Down came the box again. This time it shattered. Most of the pieces were large, oddly contorted. Other smaller splinters sailed back into the air to land on the altar or behind the macabre demon’s statue.
Quinn roared with rage again, kicked at the remnants. Elizabeth backed against the wall. Nathan was glad to see her mouth pressed closed, not daring to call attention to herself while the man’s rage exploded throughout the room.
Not knowing what else to say, Paulson muttered, “It’s empty, and... it looks different.”
Quinn screamed, “It’s not REAL, you idiot!”
Nathan tried, with everything he had, to contain the hysteria suddenly filling him. Everything since coming to town was too far removed from normal. The nightmares, Hayden’s disappearance and murder, a crypt with the Ark of the Covenant that was nothing but wood and paint, his father. All of it, insane. Nonsense.
Too much. It was all too much to expect one man to contain.
Nathan began to laugh.
A giggle at first, which he was able to stifle, but another came roaring out of him. He felt himself sliding into some uncontrolled idiocy, but he couldn’t curb it. Elizabeth had done the right thing, shrinking into the background while Quinn expended his anger on the wooden chest, but he could not stop himself. With one final guffaw and eyes tearing, Nathan knew it was useless to fight this sudden burst of emotion. He simply didn’t care any more.
“Nathan,” Elizabeth whispered, breaking her imposed silence, “be quiet.”
Peter Quinn straightened and turned. He moved slowly but consistently to close the gap between Nathan and himself. His movements were those of a jungle animal toward its prey. Nathan knew he was about to die, but he was exhausted, pushed beyond his limits. He didn’t care any more. He was tired of letting this lost, insane man terrorize him. He stopped laughing and straightened.
What would come, would come, whether he laughed at this man or did nothing at all.
“Something funny, you Jesus-loving freak?”
Nathan took a deep breath and forced himself to smile, though it was a weak gesture. “You,” he said.
The first punch slammed into his left cheek and sent him to the floor. Since he was still bound, Nathan fell to his side and something popped in his right shoulder. In a haze, he was lifted up, punched again in the same place. He did not fall this time, tried to open his eyes to see from where the next blow would come. Before he could clear his vision, something hit him on the other side of his face. He went down again. A hard kick centered in the stomach. Air raced from his lungs. He curled his legs for protection, too intent on finding a way to take a breath to feel more pain. Something moved over him, then the pain came, sharply tearing up his back. He’d either been kicked again or shot. He screamed and spat blood from his mouth. He’d bitten down onto his tongue.
He had to move, get to his feet. He could hear Elizabeth screaming for Quinn to stop. He forced his eyes open and in his limited vision saw Paulson holding her back. Josh still held the gun toward her head, arm wavering uncertainly.
He also saw Quinn returning from his altar with a jagged piece of wood.
“Are you done laughing yet?” The man’s eyes were wide with hysteria. Nathan tried to stand, to defend himself, but his muscles were too constricted. His shoulder throbbed dully where it had popped from its socket. He was helpless to stop anything that would come next.
Quinn raised the improvised wooden stake above him.
“Peter, wait.” Paulson’s voice, a thin warbling in Nathan’s ears. “We still need him. What if the real one’s back at the cemetery?”
Nathan kept his eyes riveted to the wooden point dropping down to his chest. It stopped just shy of penetrating his skin, poking hard between his open jacket, pressing into his shirt. It was taking so long to get through. Quinn was growling and his hands shook. A line of spit dropped from the corner of his mouth onto Nathan’s cheek. He pressed the point harder against his chest, but not hard enough to kill. It was painfully obvious that he wanted to, but his maddened expression was changing. His eyes turned back toward the altar. Paulson’s suggestion had taken root, fighting with the blood lust.
Paulson continued, “Just long enough to go back there and see for ourselves. Just long enough for that. If there’s not something else in the grave, we kill them all and leave them underground with their dead buddy. No mess, no evidence. But... not... here!”
Quinn’s eyes were darting back and forth. Considering. He leaned forward until his forehead touched Nathan’s, the stake pressing so hard into his chest that Nathan moaned in pain. “OK.” He sighed. His breath smelled like mint gum and onions. “OK. One more trip, Dinneck, back to the graveyard. I guarantee you that you will suffer greatly before you die. But it’ll happen somewhere more fitting. And you’ll be the last to go, so you can watch your girlfriend die.”
Then he was gone, standing up and straightening his clothes as much as possible. He tossed the stake to the floor. Nathan remained where he was, unable and unwilling to move.
“Take Dinneck’s father and the girl to this boy’s church. Any sign of people, just continue on and meet us at the cemetery. I’ll go out front and have a word with Arthur first, make sure he cooperates. While I’m doing that, put the girl in the trunk then swing around front and pick Dinneck up. Don’t linger there.” He then leaned forward and whispered more instructions into Paulson’s ear. Nathan vaguely wondered if he was using the Voice on him. He doubted it. Paulson didn’t need much prodding. Whatever Quinn was saying must have been good, because Paulson looked excited. He nodded enthusiastically. Quinn stepped back and said loudly, “But put it in the back seat. We don’t want the girl choking to death on fumes before all the fun starts.”
Paulson nodded. “Why can’t we just leave Art here? We’ve got enough to handle as it is, and—”
Quinn shoved him toward Elizabeth. “Just do what I say and stop questioning me. You were right about needing the preacher, for now,” he added with a contemptuous gaze at Nathan, “but whether or not we find what
