Robert Browne - The Paradise Prophecy

Then he was gone.

Fine, Callahan thought, no big loss. And Ruiz certainly didn’t seem too broken up about it.

She gestured to Paradise Lost . “Do you have any idea why Gabriela was so obsessed with this thing?”

“No,” he said. “And I have to admit, I’ve never read it. I tried a few times, but it was beyond me.”

Except for a few religious scholars, a handful of uptight literary types-and maybe Gabriela herself-the same was probably true for most people.

Callahan thought about the facts surrounding this case. An improbable death, phantom gasoline smells, a victim who looked like barbecued roadkill, a satanic symbol burned into the floor of an otherwise untouched room, a secret prayer sanctuary, the strange, obsessive scribblings in the margins of an epic poem about the fall of Satan . . .

And, of course, the message in both the book and on Ruiz’s cell phone.

Protect her .

Maybe Martinez was right, after all. There was enough weird going on around here to attract a bucketful of goth nerds, with a side order of religious fanatics. Something had been going on in Gabriela’s life that was far beyond her role as a Christian pop star.

Something that had gotten her killed.

And call Callahan crazy, but she had a gut feeling that it somehow related to those two words, and the book she held in her hands.

Protect her.

But her knowledge of these things was far too limited for her to even begin to figure it out. What she needed was the help of an expert. Someone on call. A Milton junkie, religious historian and occult specialist all wrapped into one-assuming such an animal existed.

There was one sure way to find out.

Dropping the book to the prayer desk, she excused herself, then pushed past Ruiz and went back out to the living room.

She snatched up her phone, punched in the security code and was about to hit autodial when it buzzed in her hand. Checking the screen, she immediately put it to her ear. “I was just about to call you.”

“We had a look at the data you uploaded,” a voice said.

It was the same cold, disembodied voice she always heard when she dealt with Section. The agency wasn’t big on formalities like names or ranks or identifying information in case you were unfortunate enough to one day find yourself compromised.

It simply gave orders. If you didn’t follow them, you risked losing your job.

Or your life.

“I’m thinking I need a specialist,” she said. “Somebody at the top of his game.”

“We’re a step ahead of you. Proceed as usual and we’ll contact you when the arrangements have been made.”

Then the line clicked.

HARRISON, LOUISIANA

It was nearing midnight when the trouble started.

Batty hadn’t dragged himself out of bed until late in the afternoon, and had spent the first few hours of the new day fighting a raging hangover. By the time he had purged himself of the previous night’s toxins, he was ready to start anew and didn’t waste any time getting over to Bayou Bill’s.

Bill’s was busy as always and Batty was working on boilermaker number three (feeling generally sorry for himself that the redhead had once again failed to show), when the door blew open and a guy who may as well have had the word tourist stamped across his forehead stumbled in, looking lost and concerned and generally discombobulated.

He wasn’t the source of the trouble, however. Just a curiosity that got Batty’s attention right before the trouble began.

It was a hot night and the tourist was sweating like a man who wasn’t used to the weather. But the moment he locked eyes with Batty, his entire demeanor changed, as if he’d found what he was looking for and was grateful to have it over and done with.

Batty half expected him to head straight to the booth. He was wondering what this was about and why he was about to be approached, when the guy surprised him by averting his gaze and taking a stool at the bar instead.

Batty watched old Bill put a bottle of beer in front of him and wondered if he’d been imagining things.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

And a moment later, he was too distracted to care.

The trouble-when it finally came-came from the parking lot, just outside a window across from Batty’s booth.

It was dark out there under the trees, but there was enough moon that he could see a handsome but worn-looking woman and her biker boyfriend in among the parked cars. They’d pulled up on a Harley shortly before the tourist wandered in, and started making out, looking like they were about to do the dirty right there on the hood of Ronny Cantrell’s twenty-year-old Town Car.

Batty had been doing his best to ignore them ever since.

But some things were impossible to ignore. As he contemplated ordering another boilermaker, their voices began to rise-muffled behind the window, but loud enough to catch his attention. He looked over and saw that the make-out session had abruptly ceased and the biker now had hold of his girlfriend’s wrist.

This was not, mind you, a little love squeeze. This was an all-out assault, fingers digging into the ulnar nerve, trying to elicit a reaction and not a favorable one. It was rough and mean and-window or no window-generally ill-advised in the presence of a gentleman like Batty. A gentleman who believed that you never lay a hand on a woman unless you intend to make her feel good.

Batty rose, feeling the booze sluice through him, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He called out a good-night to Bill, who was too busy to notice, then went outside, staggering only slightly as he approached the biker and his girlfriend.

The bearded bastard still had her by the wrist and Batty could see from the look on her face that she wasn’t enjoying it one little bit.

“Excuse me,” he said, moving in close. “I’d advise you to let this poor lady go, and don’t touch her again or you’ll be making an appointment with the dentist tomorrow, assuming you can still pick up a phone.”

The biker looked at him, annoyed. Not a man who liked to be interrupted when he was busy inflicting pain.

“Who the fuck are you ?” He turned to the woman, not bothering to release her wrist. “Is this guy a friend of yours?”

She winced, trying to pull her hand away.

“No,” she cried, the terror in her voice clearly reflected in her expression. “I don’t know him.”

The biker’s eyes narrowed. “The hell you don’t, you little-”

That was when Batty swung, his fist connecting with a solid crack. He had warned the man, but the man hadn’t listened, and Batty was a big believer in following through on a threat.

The biker, however, was neither small nor flabby, and despite nearly toppling to the ground with a bloody mouth, he recovered from the punch much quicker than anticipated.

The next thing Batty knew, the asshole was upright and moving fast, and it was immediately obvious that he hadn’t yet had anything to drink-which, unfortunately, gave him an advantage. In the flurry of punches that followed, Batty came up two for seven, only one of which connected in any substantial way.

It all ended with Batty faceup on the ground between two cars, staring into the eyes of the man who might very well stomp him to death without even a twinge of guilt, as the girlfriend shouted, “Kill the sonofabitch!”

So much for chivalry.

The biker wiped at his mouth, looked at the blood on the back of his hand, then rolled his tongue over his teeth, checking to see if there was any damage.

“You may be right about that dentist,” he said thickly. “But they’re gonna have to carry you outta here on a stretcher, you little mother-” He froze as the barrel of a gun touched the back of his head. Batty was surprised to see the sweating tourist standing directly behind him.