'God forgive me,' the woman said in a voice just above a whisper.
Veil reached over and gently stroked the back of her neck. 'What was that business back there all about, Reyna?'
Reyna reached over her shoulder, found Veil's hand, and squeezed it. 'I knew you could kill Nagle. I'm beginning to think that Archangel—'
'Don't call me that, Reyna—not ever. Don't even repeat the name, except to your friend. You told me you understood.'
Reyna released Veil's hand, slowly leaned forward, and rested her head against the dashboard. 'I'm sorry,' she said quietly. 'What I meant to say is that I'm beginning to believe that you can do just about anything.'
'I certainly could have killed Nagle. Why did you stop me?
'You really would have killed him, wouldn't you? Even in the dark, with just your knife against that terrible gun.'
Veil said nothing.
'Then we would have had Toby trapped inside the building,' Reyna continued after a pause. 'I could have talked to him and known for sure that he was listening. Then the sun would have risen and we'd have been able to find him. Maybe he would have finally come to us.'
'Those thoughts occurred to me,' Veil said dryly.
'God forgive me.'
'For what, Reyna?'
'You would have killed him.'
'Yes.'
Now Reyna turned to face Veil. The mask finally broke as tears welled in her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. 'May God forgive me, Veil. May you and Toby forgive me if anything happens to the two of you. I didn't want Carl Nagle to die so easily.'
Chapter Fourteen
Veil dreams.
He assumed he would be Toby, but he unexpectedly finds himself in the mind, looking through the eyes, of a sixteen-year-old boy. He is wondering if his mother might not be right. What if Toby
Sometimes, when the boy feels depressed or confused, he tentatively tries speaking to Toby's spirit, asking for the African's help or advice. The boy has often thought about the weeks Toby spent in Central Park and the pain He must have suffered from the bullet wound in His arm.
As a result of his thoughts, the boy has found that he no longer even wants to risk hurting people; he has turned from mugging as a chief source of income to robbing stores, stealing various items and selling them to a fence who lives in his neighborhood.
However, even robbing stores has begun to bother him. The boy has been having nightmares as a result of his worry that Toby
The boy's problem is that he does not know any other way to obtain the money he is used to having in his pockets. Now he is broke; he needs money and has decided that he has no choice but to get it the fastest and easiest way he knows—mugging subway riders in Manhattan.
He'd boarded the subway bound for Manhattan but had almost immediately suffered from a shortness of breath and a fluttering heartbeat. He does not want to threaten anyone with a knife; he does not want to put himself into a situation where he might have to hurt—or even kill— someone.
His mother could be right. Toby could be watching him.
He gets off the subway while still in Queens, at a stop on a street running parallel to Mount Olive Cemetery. The boy walks nervously to the north end of the cemetery, then stops when he comes to an intersection where all the streetlights have been shot out by children with air rifles. The intersection is dark, and the store on the corner closest to him is a camera shop. The boy glances quickly around him. Seeing that the street and sidewalks are empty, he walks quickly to the store.
There is an old steel gate drawn across the entrance to the shop and an adjacent display window. The boy knows it will be a simple matter for him to break the window with a rock or his elbow, reach through two broken slats in the gate, and grab two or three of the cameras on display. The fence might give him as much as twenty dollars per camera. It isn't much, the boy thinks, but at least he won't be broke.
The boy searches at the curb until he finds a piece of broken pavement. He walks back to the window, raises the chunk of cement—and stiffens. He slowly lowers his hand as he feels his body break into a sweat.
This is ridiculous, the boy thinks. He has done this sort of thing countless times in the past and has never been caught. Yet he's never been so nervous. What terrifies him is the thought that a Black Messiah might be around—a Black Messiah Who kills thieves.
To reassure himself that he is not being watched by anyone, much less Toby, the boy walks to the corner and again looks around. The block across the intersection is completely dark, and the boy marks that street as his escape route. To his left, halfway down the block, is a garishly lit bar, but there is no one standing outside on the sidewalk. All of the buildings on the block to his right have been razed to make room for a high rise; the steel skeleton of the building soars from behind a plywood fence into the night sky. He is alone, the boy thinks, absolutely alone.
He walks back to the camera shop, takes a deep breath, then smashes the stone through the window. A shrill alarm bell sounds, but the boy has expected that, and he does not panic. He reaches through the gate, through the broken pane of glass, grabs two Polaroids and a Nikon, then sprints across the intersection toward the night-black street beyond. He leaps up on the sidewalk, sprints twenty yards, then tries to stop with a suddenness that causes him to turn his ankle, stumble, and fall. He hurls the cameras away from him, scrambles to his feet, and stumbles backward until he bumps hard and painfully against the brick facade of the building behind him. His heart pounds wildly inside his chest, and his mouth has gone absolutely dry. He badly wants to scream, to howl his regret and sorrow at the sky, but no sound will come out of his throat. In this terror-filled moment the boy knows beyond any doubt that he is going to die.
Toby stands in the darkness no more than ten feet away from the spot where the boy cowers.
The figure is cloaked in darkness, but there is no doubt in the boy's mind that it is Toby. Toby is naked, slumped against a shop door, breathing hoarsely. Toby holds a ragged bundle in His arms, and from the cloth protrudes the head of a wooden statue.
His mother was right, the boy thinks. The Black Messiah has been watching him; Toby has seen, and now He will kill.
The boy's mouth opens and shuts a few times before he finally finds his voice.
The sound of his own yell galvanizes the boy's muscles. Oblivious to the pain in his twisted ankle, he pushes off the brick wall and dashes out into the street, expecting at any moment to feel a spear tearing into his back, ripping through his heart and lungs.
He makes it down the street to the bar and goes crashing through the door. He runs into a table, spins around, and sprawls on the floor.
'Hey, kid—!'
'He's gonna kill me, man!' The boy sobs, squirming in pain on the floor and clawing at his twisted ankle. 'He's gonna kill me!'
A big man with anchor tattoos on both hairy forearms laughs as he slides off his bar stool. He reaches down and hauls the boy to his feet by the shirt collar. 'Who's gonna kill you, kid?'
The boy swallows hard, wipes tears from his eyes, and points a trembling finger in the direction of the street. 'Toby,' he croaks. 'The Black Messiah.'
