Boys in the Valley(74)

“Killed him? No, Father,” the boy says. Then: “Go on, Johnson. Show him. Show him our strength.”

The buzzing in his brain, blessedly absent for a few moments, comes back on him ten-fold. He winces at the intensity of it, and in doing so feels—no, hears—his face.

It crinkles like paper, there’s a stench he can’t place . . . and he’s oddly numb.

Regardless, the instructions come through the swarm, and he obeys.

Johnson pushes himself up. First to an elbow, then to a sitting position. The room straightens, and he looks up into the faces of several boys. Bartholomew stares down at him, his eyes wide and so dark as to appear black, the pupils impossibly large. The others—Samuel, Jonah, Terrence among them—all watch closely. Some look guarded.

A few look afraid.

Good.

“Go on, Teddy. Stand.”

Johnson does, fascinated at how he towers over all these children. The very ones he now serves. He looks down at Poole, the once great dictator, now nothing but a weak old man, bedridden with a damaged leg. The priest looks up at him in horror, tinged with disgust.

Curious, Johnson raises his hands to gently feel his new face. Whatever damage was done, it does not hurt. Instead, it tingles, as if there is an enormous amount of pain waiting for him, waiting to be released, just on the other side of some thin neural membrane currently blocking it from his mind. A membrane he knows (somehow, deep inside, he knows) could easily be popped. Removed.

And all that pain would rush in. It would consume him.

It may even kill him.

Still, he’s curious. He touches his cheeks, his nose, his chin. In some places, he feels tight, hot skin, and despite the membrane it hurts—just a little—at the pressure of his fingertips. Like being poked with a fine needle. In other places, he feels fabric, as if his face is part flesh, and part the cloth he was wearing when . . . when . . .

OH GOD.

Moaning, he frantically moves his hands higher. Groping now. He touches his eyes. The one he can open feels normal, unobstructed. Working.

The other is gone. A hollow of gnarled flesh. A lump of gristle. He moans louder, his tongue thick and useless in his mouth.

“Take it easy, Teddy.” Bartholomew is watching him carefully. “You’re fine,” he adds, smiling as naturally as any young, innocent boy. “In fact, I think you’re much improved. Don’t you think, lads? Much improved.”

The others laugh. The ones who were afraid now smile. The others murmur mocking agreement.

Johnson ignores them. He moves his hand atop his head. There are brittle patches of hair, but mostly what he feels is that same combination of taut skin and coarse, burned fabric. His scalp is wrinkled and hot. In places it feels cracked, and there’s moisture there. Blood, most likely.

He lowers his hands to his sides. He closes his eye and lets out a large, held breath.

I want no more of this, a dying part of him thinks.

He opens his mind to the swarm, and the swarm consumes him greedily, taking away the guilt, the doubt, the pain.

It feels like heaven.

When he opens his eye once more, his vision is steady.

Bartholomew smiles with satisfaction, then turns his attention to Poole. “You see, Father? How can you possibly fight us?”

Poole tears his eyes from Johnson, focuses once more on the child sitting at the foot of his bed. “What do you want?”

Bartholomew shrugs. “What does anyone want? I want to live. I want to take. To kill. I want to breathe foul air. To laugh. To be free. You have kept us prisoners here, Father. Punished us. Hurt us.” Bartholomew’s sardonic smile slips away. For the first time, Johnson senses a flare of anger in the boy.

It terrifies him.

“But no more.”

“Let’s stick him with this.” Simon lifts a treasure discovered from within Poole’s dresser drawers. An ornate dagger in a sheath of jeweled metal. He frees it from the sheath, which he tosses to the floor. Johnson recognized the blade: a Chinese, silver-handled knife that Poole treasures, a gift from an archbishop given decades ago for his service in the war. The handle is intricately carved and subtly molded with a grip. The blade is razor-sharp, slightly curved.

Johnson has always thought of it as a gutting knife.

Bartholomew holds out his hand and Simon, albeit with mild reluctance, places it handle-first onto his palm. “And the sheath.”

Simon bends and scoops it up, hands it over. Bartholomew sheaths and unsheathes it a few times, the sliding sound of metal-on-metal the only noise in the room. “This may come in handy, Simon. Thank you for the gift, Father.”

Bartholomew sets the sheathed blade in his lap, studies Poole’s face. “But it’s not for you, I don’t think. No . . . I have something else prepared for you.”

“You children need to pray.” Poole’s voice is strained, weary. Delusional. “You need to ask forgiveness.”

“Interesting you say that, Father Poole,” Bartholomew says. “It reminds me of a story. Shall I tell it to you?”

Poole groans, lets his head fall to the side, his fire vanquished.

“Wonderful,” Bartholomew continues, as if Poole has given him nothing but enthusiastic acquiescence. “It goes like this:

“Once there was a little boy named Jeremiah. He was very small and frail. Sickly, I’d say. Do you agree, Poole?”