Page 66 of Shadow of Death
“I will never be safe!” Ian said quietly. “They’re out there. They’re out there everywhere and you never know...”
“Ian, please tell us what you mean. Who arethey?”
“The saviors,” Ian said. “I met them at the graveyard after my mom died. And they were...they were wonderful. They told me I should be grateful because my mother had been loved and chosen, and she was sitting in the sweetest seat of Heaven, and she had sent them to me. I didn’t understand at first, but then I did. They showed me all the passages, and we went over all the things that had happened recently. And it is coming to pass—Armageddon is on the way. The great battle would come, and only those who saw and believed could be among the warriors—but those who were deeply in trouble...they needed help. They needed their sins to be taken on by those of us who would be left to fight the battle.”
Hunter’s temptation was to blurt out,And you believed all this crap?
But he’d seen it before. Ian had apparently cared deeply for his mother. At the moment when he had been in the most pain, feeling horribly lost, they had given him friendship and comfort, and then they had drawn him in.
“Who came to you in the graveyard, Ian?” Amy asked quietly.
“A man named Mateus and he was with a woman. She was called Mother Mary.”
“Mateus had a ceremony on the cliffs recently,” Hunter said. “Were you there?”
He shook his head. “I was told I must watch the young woman at the house, Carey. She was crafty and canny, but she could be saved.”
“Then you don’t need to be afraid of Mateus anymore,” Amy said. “Mateus is dead.”
He nodded. “I know. I was told. By the new archangel.”
“Who is the new archangel?” Hunter asked.
“He calls himself Gabriel. He was driving the van.”
“Ian, you always knew murder was wrong. I believe you know and understand killing someone doesn’t take away any of the sins others might have perceived they committed,” Hunter told him, his tone quiet, soft, and sincere. He shrugged and gave the young man a grimace. “The world has always been a mess, so nothing happening really indicates anything for the future. But life is precious. Life is precious to all of us.”
“I know, I know!” Ian said miserably, his eyes closed, his fists against his cheeks.
“It’s all right,” Amy said softly. “But thesearchangelsare preying on people like you. People in pain, people who have been hurt. And what they’re doing isn’t for you. If there is a Heaven, your mom is there, I’m sure, because she raised a man who couldn’t kill when he knew it was wrong. But these people will keep killing if we can’t stop them. To do that, we’re going to need your help.”
He nodded. “I—I understand.”
“We’re going to send you to a sketch artist,” Hunter said, “and the artist will ask you about the woman at the cemetery and the man in the van—the man who took Special Agent Gleason. Will you help?”
“I will help,” Ian said. “I will help.”
Amy reached across the table and touched his hand. “You’re going to be okay—”
“If I leave here, if I go to jail, they will get to me,” he said.
“You’re not going to leave here, not now. And when you do, you’ll go to a safe house, and you will be—safe,” Amy promised. “They’ll see to it that you’re okay. We need to go now. We need to get some sleep and you need to get some sleep. That will help you remember more people or events, more information that might help us.”
“We can and will help you,” Hunter said. “And will depend on you to help us, so thank you. Someone will be in to set you up with a sketch artist and see that you’re set for the night.”
Amy rose to follow him out. But Hunter stopped and turned around. “Wait. We’ll be here a bit longer. Amy?”
She stared at him blankly.
He smiled. “When we met, you were sketching away. Maybe you can—”
“Oh! Hunter, I’m okay, but the artists here are so much better. They’re trained, they’re professional sketch artists and portraits have never been my forte—”
“We don’t need a drawing to hang in the National Gallery. We just need a sketch. We’ve gotten so focused on different aspects of these cases that... Hey, come on, Amy, please. Ian wants to help. He can meet with a dedicated artist later. For us, now...just an idea.”
Amy nodded and sat down. She didn’t look at him as if he was supposed to supply the pencil and paper. She always carried a sketchbook and he knew it.
“Ian?”
