Page 22 of Go Under

A spasm of pain ran through his midsection. He gritted his teeth and hissed, a natural physical reaction, unavoidable. He breathed through the pain, thanking God for His instruction, His correction, His mercy.

Just like his namesake, God was teaching Elijah patience and trust and sending a raven to feed and care for him in the form of Obadiah MacCready, a burly, stoic farmer descended from the earliest white settlers to tame the harsh wilderness of the Northeastern United States. Obadiah was no sniveling sycophant like Cox’s other disciples. He knew his calling was to guide Cox through his purgatory, and he entertained no thought of doing anything else.

Still, he brought Cox news. The steward of the Ninth Commandment was correcting those who bore false witness. God’s will was done despite Cox’s invalidity.

That was another lesson. Cox was not the master of this plan. He was only a servant, no better or worse than any other servant of God. He was the steward of this plan, but his stewardship had been relinquished until God saw fit to return him to active service.

In the meantime, he lay in his bed, a hospital bed, though he wasn’t in a hospital, and remembered.

Kate had fought. Scared, lost lamb that she was, she had resisted her fate fiercely. She didn’t see, didn’t understand how glorious her sacrifice was, what honor she would receive in Heaven for it. She didn’t understand that this life was but a puff of wind, less than a vapor, a spark in an eternity of light beyond. For surely God would take this poor wounded soul into His paradise. Cox could not imagine an end for Kate that didn’t provide succor in the arms of her Savior.

Cox had nearly overcome her, but in those last moments, when his only thought should have been God’s glory, he allowed himself to experience a more personal ecstasy, a joy related not to the fulfillment of God’s will but to the closeness he shared with God’s lamb. He looked into Kate’s eyes, and rather than see the eyes of God, he saw the lamb: beautiful, soft, frightened, so in need of guidance, safety, and understanding.

He would show her that guidance. He would show her understanding. A brief pain now, then an eternity of safety. In a way, Cox loved her. He was under no illusion that his love was anything like that of a father for his child, and nothing at all like the love of a man for a woman.

Yet…

Her blood pulsed under his hands. She beat at him, her fingers soft and pleading. Her chest heaved under him, her body twisted and writhed. Cox squeezed tighter, sinking his fingers into her flesh, feeling her blood, her life under his grip.

She was his entirely.

Cox blinked the memories away. No. No, nothing like that. He had wanted to possess her. He had broken the tenth commandment. He’d coveted what was God’s.

Next time, he wouldn’t make that mistake. Next time, he would cleanse his thoughts. He would give his soul and his mind utterly to God and let God guide his hands.

And Kate would achieve her destiny. It was inevitable. God’s will would be done.

The lights switched on, driving away the ethereal glow of the sun and revealing the drab white walls, threadbare blue carpet, and splintered wooden ceiling of the basement. A television hung on the wall across from Cox’s hospital bed, and the remote sat on the tray next to him so he could amuse himself while he rested and Obadiah was away in his fields.

Cox had never used it. He received all the news he needed from Obadiah, and he had no need for the distraction of a wicked world.

This was his penance. He would accept it meekly, and when God was ready, He would grant Cox the strength he needed to finish his work.

Heavy footsteps descended the staircase. A moment later, the lock on the door turned. The door opened, and Obadiah stooped through and stepped into the basement.

Obadiah was a giant of a man, six-foot-seven-inches tall and two hundred ninety pounds, nearly all of which was muscle. Yet his touch was as gentle as a mother’s as he changed Cox’s dressings, emptied his bedpan, cleaned him, and rebandaged him.

When he finished, Obadiah looked at the IV bag hanging next to the bed and frowned. “Mo-feen not workin’?”

Obadiah was perhaps the most intelligent man Cox had ever met, but he had no interest in showing that in his speech, choosing instead to keep the thick backwoods accent his ancestors had used for generations.

“I assume it is,” Cox replied, his own voice hoarse and dry with limited use. “But I have no need for it.”

Obadiah frowned at Cox. “Got to soften yer pain. Pain too much, and yer body won’t heal.”

“I will heal when God is ready for me to heal,” Cox told him. “In the meantime, this is my penance for breaking God’s commandment.”

Obadiah shrugged. “Eggs ‘n grits fer dinner. Ready in an aar.”

He trudged up the stairs, each step straining the integrity of the old wooden steps. Cox watched him leave with a small smile. He was a good man. Cox hoped God would reward him handsomely in Heaven.

He looked up at the ceiling, eyes roaming the cracks and rills in the planks as he waited patiently for his dinner. God was good. Cox would wait.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kate might no longer be comfortable in hospitals, but she was surprisingly at home in morgues. Fourteen years as an FBI agent had desensitized her to the presence of dead bodies. It was the nearly dead, the sense of life slipping away, that disturbed her.

So, though she was looking at the dissected corpse of Gerald Mace, naked and cut open without thought for his dignity, she felt no turn of her stomach and no restlessness.