Chapter Eight
Tried by Fire
Three Months Later
Half of me listened to the voice of the woman I loved in full song, while the rest of me remained attentive to the pressed throng of teenagers at the front of the mega-church and the packed house of individuals behind them, who to a one were on their feet singing along and clapping. How true all the worship was by all those gathered I could not be for sure, but I saw a genuineness of spirit on the faces of many, especially the gathered throng of teenagers that were pressed about the church’s stage area.
Desirée was a runaway success icon of the Christian world. Word had gotten out and now she was one of the most highly sought out evangelists that there were and yet rekindled fame had done nothing to change her.
She was genuine and it showed up in the fact of how many people naturally gravitated to her, especially men. I didn’t really care for that, but I didn’t really have to worry either, because she’d give a smile and a negative shake of her head before usually looking my way.
The question though that I increasingly pondered upon was, ‘How long would she wait?’ Forever seemed to be the answer and that was good, because it might take that long.
More than anything I wished I could ensure a happily ever after for Desirée. As it was I felt like increasingly we were living on borrowed time. So many life attempts and underhanded tricks had been thrown at us, but barring a few scars we had escaped almost unscathed each and every time.
In plain words it was a miracle that either one of us was alive. Desirée for sure should be dead.
Two weeks back I hadn’t noticed something off about a particular restaurant waiter, until it had been too late. He’d served up 2 cups of coffee to our table.
I’d had to use the restroom and I’d been on my way back when I’d witnessed the almost wicked and yet fearful fascination of the waiter serving us standing back a distance as he watched Desirée drink from her cup. It had been all my fault. I never took her to the same place to eat or drink anything, but she’d begged me to come back to that coffee shop on the third night of a revival that stretched on past the prescribed two nights it had been scheduled for.
I’d relinquished to her request and to my horror I’d become a witness to the sure and most probably painful death of the woman I loved. To locked in horror to move I’d watched in shock as Desirée quite unlike herself kept on in one long drink, until the whole cup of coffee was all gone.
The cup of coffee all gone she’d then stood up and turning to face the now mostly fearful waiter she’d audaciously picked up my poison laced cup of coffee and taken a sip. Then in a voice the whole coffee shop had heard she’d quoted from the New Testament book of Mark, ‘And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’
The waiter had burst into tears and come crawling across the floor towards her confessing all as he had just witnessed a power greater than the parlor tricks of the masters whom he had served previously. Desirée had forgiven him on the spot and led the man into confessing belief in her Savior as the Lord of his life from that day forward.
No one could doubt that God moved powerfully within this woman, who spoke and walked with an early church intensity to her in the likeness of the apostles. Wherever she went signs and wonders and too many healings to count occurred in great number.
However, it only went to show how impossibly far she was away from my own tarnished past that stood out more starkly with each passing moment I was with her. The urge to confess and change was great, but my courage was still lacking.
I had no courage in me to face my Creator, of whom I had taken the lives of quite a few servants of His, and beg for my forgiveness. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
What was almost as fearful as being denied forgiveness was the thought of what it would be like to be forgiven. To my way of thinking I hadn’t done enough yet to even think of being worthy of such a merit.
It did no good though, as I despaired of a way forward, as Desirée constantly found ways to show me that all my hold ups to faith were a sham and surely they were. How could she want a man without courage such as I?
It was inconceivable and yet real. My eyes traced back to her on the stage as her voice rang out in a new song that she had just written a month back and was even now teaching the members of the church,
“I sang and I fell.
Eyes of hate made me into a reincarnation of hell.
Yet Jesus delivered me, because it was within the Father’s will.
And now by faith I can tell you of hell.
For sure some of you know of what I speak.
I tell you now though of a better Way.
One fall is not too far for God’s love to overcome.
Sins and sins it makes no difference.
Mercy has been given through my Savior King.
Come one and all to Jesus.
It’s of Him I sing and find my call.
I sing and I praise and now so do you!
We sing because He has set us free and we now are free indeed!
No dark paths do I now travel upon!
For this child is born again!
I fell and yet He forgave!
I sinned and yet His Grace covers all!
I was dead, but now through Him I’m truly alive!
I’m alive and my soul does sing of my Lord, Jesus Christ, the King!
He’s alive and I’m in Him!
Oh Spirit of God reign now in my body from hell reclaimed!
Let my voice sing of the fame of Him who died for me!
Listen truly for there is no more shame!
My voice is now the sound of freedom’s ring!
In His presence I am now sustained!
Oh I will sing His praises!
All of me rejoices in Him!
He was dead and yet now is alive and forever my King!
He’s alive and now so am I!
Isn’t it great to be redeemed!
Forever now shall I sing the praises of my King!
*****
Four Hours Later
I turned the corner. The way ahead was clear.
The hotel was decent enough, but I hated it. Desirée deserved only the best and yet the best came with uplinked video surveillance and easily bribed or misled security personnel. Establishments like this were far less likely to be part of the system of surveillance that seemed to have infiltrated so much of society.
Making my way down the hall I located the room and slid the room card through the door lock key swipe. It clicked and flashed green and I opened the door.
I only let Desirée enter after a long silence filled perusal of the darkened room. “Okay.” I said, even as I distastefully took in the aroma of hotel room.
On her way past Desirée patted me on the forearm. Glancing to her I saw her reading me like an open book.
Feeling compelled to speak I said, “I wish it were better.”
She turned her head to the side and eyed me up speculatively before posing a question I was ill-equipped to handle, “And what to you Victor is better?”
Wordlessly I stared at her.
Her questioning smile deepened and she asked jokingly, “Aren’t you going to answer my question?”
I had an answer, but not one I wanted to share. However I relinquished enough of my reserve to say, “Warm.”
She arched an eyebrow at me and continued on past. Over her shoulder she asked, “I never imagined you liking to be somewhere in the tropics.”
“I didn’t say anything about wanting to be in the tropics.”
“But you said that you wanted to be warm.”
“There are different kinds of warmth.”
She didn’t say anymore even though I knew she wanted to keep asking questions. It seemed whenever I released something of my personal likes and dislikes she became watchfully quiet in hopes that I would divulge more and I usually did.
*****
There were two beds within the room and as was customary I took the one closer to the door as Desirée went about her nightly routine of getting a shower. I lay on my bed without a shirt doing nothing more but stare at the fly stains on the ceiling as there was simply nothing else to do.
I closed my eyes as Desirée walked past in her night dress. Sometimes the amount of togetherness in being this woman’s bodyguard was just way too much.
The necklace about my throat with its burden of gold pressed heavily against my skin. I listened to her pull the covers back and slip into her bed. I opened my eyes to now stare at the street lamp lit ceiling as Desirée had turned the lights out on her way to her bed.
“Good night Victor.” Desirée said softly.
“Good night.” I said.
“It’s so cold.” She whispered out, as she melodramatically tried to make it sound as if her teeth were chattering. Maybe they were chattering.
I slid off my bed and walked over to the heater by the window. I’d forgotten to turn it on again. I spun the dial and the fan came to life.
“How are you not cold?”
I glanced across the shadowy room to where Desirée lay. I stood bare chested in the room and yet I felt fine.
“Cold doesn’t bother me much.”
“Really. Then why pray tell did you tell me that you’d prefer to be someplace warm?” She asked revisiting the earlier conversation just as I’d known that she would.
I could feel her gazing at me expectantly and fumbling I said, “I did not mean warmth in the way that you speak of. I meant someplace nice.”
Her voice was different, softer in question, “What is someplace nice to you?”
“Somewhere far from people. I had a place once. It was a good place. I liked it.”
“It’s not yours now?”
“I left it behind.” I said flatly before making my way back to my bed.
As I slipped under the covers she said, “You’ll have to take me there someday.”
“You wouldn’t like it. To cold.”
“That’s why I have you.”
I glanced over in the darkness and bluntly said, “For a church woman you speak of temptation often enough!”
She laughed softly and mock hissed at me, but then made it all worse by saying, “I bet you’d keep me warm.”
I turned away from her and imagery of everything she evoked within me so thoughtlessly to stare at the wall. Silence reigned within the room then.
It stretched on and I heard her sigh and minutes later I listened to her breathing deepen. She was asleep, but I sure wasn’t!
I lay there a moment longer before turning over onto my back. I smiled briefly at the sound of her softly snoring, which filled the room with a gentle cadence of noise.
My smile disappeared though, as the frequent and incessant need to leave my place and slip in beside her, threatened to overwhelm me yet once more. Gritting my teeth I rubbed at my eyes savagely.
There was no hope of getting any sleep now. I got up and went to the room’s only chair. I sat there debating about what to do other than the obvious pursuit of my fantasies.
There she lay an open invitation of more than I could ever ask for. She would deny me nothing of anything I asked for and all she required in return was that I commit my soul to her God as she had.
I did not understand it. It was so simple and yet to be authentic required so much!
I stood up then and moved to where Desirée lay close to the interconnecting bedside table. It was too dark to see her clearly, but the ache for her remained.
Instead of listening to my passions for her I did then what I often did. I picked her Bible up off the table from where she had placed it.
She started every morning by reading her Bible, but what she didn’t know was that I spent most nights reading her Bible, until I couldn’t concentrate on the words anymore. I was always careful to put her Bible back exactly the way she’d had it before morning came.
Taking the Bible back to the chair I sat down and carefully flipped on the little desktop light. She didn’t stir.
Laying the Bible down flat I opened it and began to read. I preferred her Bible to the ones left within these hotel rooms for the sheer fact of the matter that it was something of hers. It even smelled like her.
I also liked reading the little notes and seeing the underlining of little passages of Scripture that her entire Bible was marked up with. I liked seeing her personality and being of purpose come alive in those little additions to the printed words on the page.
In a way it helped me to see her understanding of the words of God in the hopes that if she had changed so unutterably then perhaps so could I. Right now though that was still a fantasy. A fantasy increasingly hard to deny though.
I read for hours and at some point I caught my head abruptly from freefalling to hit the surface of the table. Blinking I glanced at a nearby digital clock that showed it was after 3 AM.
Often I could force awareness and alertness to stay with me through the universal biological slowdowns that was the body’s way of getting one to rest, but not tonight. The first biological slow down being around 9 o’clock. The second being around 11 o’clock.
If one managed to last past that and retain alertness one was good until 3 AM came around. Human bodies had a redundancy system for procuring the rest they needed and 3 AM was a clear sign to shut down all ongoing processes.
Closing the Bible I got up to replace it the way it had been previously. I stopped abruptly though as my tired senses came alive to the fact there was smoke billowing into the room from beneath the door.
Automatically I moved to where my gun was. I only took the time to throw a shirt on and slip the gun harness into position before I shook Desirée awake.
Her eyes flared and as calmly as I could I informed her of the situation, “There is a fire in the hallway. Too much smoke and too quick to be an accident. I haven’t heard the smoke alarms go off either.”
Desirée’s panicked eyes traced from me to the smoke pouring into the room from the hallway. Wetting her lips nervously, but in a gesture I found sexy she bravely asked, “What do we do then? Make a run for it?”
I shook my head in exasperation, “Don’t you ever have fire drill in school here in America?”
Blinking she focused her eyes back on me, “Yes, but what about it?”
“Never open door with flames on other side. Flames hungry for oxygen and explode into here. That being said I am sure the hall is being covered even should we make it past the flames.”
More worried then than I’d ever seen her Desirée asked, “Then what are we going to do?”
Reaching a hand up to caress the soft skin of her face soothingly I said, “We wait. We wait until others notice.”
Just then a scream sounded out from down the hall some distance away.
“See.” I said before continuing with, “Soon emergency personnel be here. Many eyes will be watching and our enemies will have to pull back.”
Instead of looking encouraged though she stared at me as if I didn’t get it, the gist of which she soon put into words.
“You still haven’t answered how we’re going to get out of here! If we wait and let the fire grow stronger it will only be worse for us!”
I shook my head and pointed to the window. She glanced that way and back to me before exclaiming, “We’re seven floors up Honey!”
Strangely I didn’t take note of her lack of confidence in me and my abilities to save her, but rather I focused in on the familiar way that she had of calling me ‘Honey’. She didn’t call anybody else ‘Honey’. I liked that.
Squeezing her chin I affirmed positively, “I will get you down safe.”
Her eyes searched mine and with what felt like a sighed release of anxiety she nodded her head. Looking into her eyes so close-up was making it hard to breathe, but feeling the need to explain I said, “We not leave now because of snipers, but soon the firetrucks be here and they will back off as there will be too many witnesses.”
Finally a fire alarm went off in the building and the sound of more screams and general mayhem echoed through the room’s poorly insulated walls above the crackle of the flames that could now be audibly heard like a low-grade freight train out in the hallway. None of that registered to me. All that mattered to me as I continued to stare into her eyes was the sure knowledge that I couldn’t even bear the thought of being even one day’s length of time apart from her.
All thought of everything seemed to leave me as something more primal in nature and yet what felt of my spirit as well caused me to pick Desirée up off the bed and press her up against the wall and kiss her as passionately as I had always ached to do. It was not a one-way exchange.
Desirée’s hands were to either side of my face as our mouths were locked in a kiss that threatened to leave us devoid of all oxygen before even the flames did. I let everything pour out that I had bottled up in terms of desire for this woman, until I knew I must be hurting her, but her only response was to take everything I gave and keep asking for more even as she had to gasp for air in the few short moments that I needed for catching my breath to continue on living.
I loved this woman and I didn’t know how to tell her and yet my kisses seemed to be doing it for me. I opened my eyes for the first time to see her staring at me with all the love she never ceased from letting me know that she had in store for me.
Heavy kissing aside it was getting hard to breathe in the smoke filled room. Alarmingly I took notice of how warm the wall behind Desirée’s back was for the first time. I had to get her out of here!
I let her slide to the floor from where I had held her imprisoned against the wall. It was hard to think in the moment being partially deprived of oxygen and inflamed with desire all at the same moment.
I started to turn away, but she caught a fistful of my T-shirt at the neck and tugged on me forcefully enough to pull me back around until I faced her again. The tears running down her face had nothing of a softening effect upon the stringent quality of her voice and the look of fire within her gaze as she said, “You can’t kiss me like that Victor and then walk away from me and keep me at a distance as soon as we’re free of this calamity! I want you! I desire you above all others and I respect whatever you decide, but please, you’re breaking my heart, by keeping back what you feel for me! Please make a choice so we can be of one mind and body!”
I nodded and reaching a hand up I took away her hand clenched full of my T-shirt and kissed it. Looking into her eyes I said, “I’ll change. I want you and your God. I promise I will change.”
With the sounding of those words she burst into tears and fell against me. It wasn’t that I was unmoved, but we were in a real threat of being consumed here and so despite the significance of the moment I hustled her over to the window.
Firetrucks were everywhere and the parking lot was ablaze with people even as the three alarm fire fully illuminated the early morning gloom. Swiping a sheet off of Desirée’s bed I used it to make a harness, which I formed around her and then turning my back to her I said, “Put your legs around me.”
With a little hop and a grip on my shoulders Desirée’s legs came around my waist even as her arms came around my throat. I didn’t miss the breathy kiss pressed against my ear or the whispered, “I love you Honey.” That followed the kiss.
Cinching the bedsheet tightly about my waist that now bound her to me I forced myself to verbally confess how I felt about her, “I love you Desirée.”
Her arms and legs squeezed tighter as she blubbered out against my ear, “Oh Honey!”
Right now all I wanted to do was throw her on one of the room’s beds and see how many times I could get her to say, “Oh Honey!” But there was no time. Taking the chair I smashed out both windows at once.
The sound of flames vamped hard and the door of the room buckled audibly with the force of the flames against it in eagerness for the oxygen now flooding into the room from the broken windows. I stepped closer to the window and was about to lift my foot to go over the sill when Desirée asked, “My Bible?” In a soft query, as if she didn’t want to bother me, but that it was something really important to her.
I knew it was and stooping to the side I picked it up off the table that I had dropped it on earlier, when I’d seen the smoke and handing it over my shoulder to her I said, “Here it is.”
“How did it get there?” She exclaimed, but I was already making my way over the windowsill and ducking mindfully of Desirée on my back and not wanting to get her cut up by the broken fingers of glass reaching out all around us.
My fingers found the grooved in sill that I had scouted out earlier when we had arrived here. There was a drain spout two windows over and I headed for it.
There was an explosive clang of metal and then the sound of more shattering glass as flames shot out the window of the room we had just been in. We were away from it now though and freedom beckoned as the fingers of my right hand seized a hold of the drain spout.
It was hard breathing with my own weight and that of Desirée’s, but my body responded as it always did when called upon. Pain meant nothing, only the accomplishment of the task at hand mattered. They had burned that skill set of awareness into me from an early age.
They had made me into a soldier for Darkness’s cause, but now in sheer irony of stated purpose I now served as a guardian of freedom. I relished the feel of doing something I’d been trained to fight against, only now, in opposition to the very entities who had trained me.
Revenge however was way below on the list in comparison to simply needing to see this woman, clutched against my back, safe and free from harm. I slid down the drain spout as fast as I could without burning the skin from off my fingers and it was only a surprisingly short time later that both of us were on the ground trying to make our way free from an unkempt landscape bush.
Once upon the grass I un-cinched Desirée and then quickly ushered her towards the oncoming firefighters and scene of firetrucks alive with action and flashing lights. All along the way though I flexed my other hand in order to regain the feeling needed to operate my gun and blast the life out of anything living that even attempted to indicate it was in opposition to us.
No such threat surfaced though and so after being checked over we were both left to stand as the focus of the emergency personnel shifted to both fighting the fire and helping seemingly what few survivors there were who were still managing to escape the blaze that was well in control of the hotel now and intent on charring it to the ground. The scene of mayhem and lights reminded me of war and yet war was usually fought by men trained and prepared for the task.
All I saw on the faces of those streaming by was emotional brokenness and a ill-prepared sense of what reality could offer. I felt sympathy rise up in my heart for them.
They really were clueless for the most part as to what went on behind the scenes, but that was no reason to think the less of them. That said I did wish that they would wake up to the darkness that they so blindly lived with and tolerated that glided about in their very midst as if ambassadors of goodwill.
A child’s scream rent the morning air and seemed to drown out all the other commotion. Someone pointed and following the gesture I saw the dim outline of a little face at a window two stories down and a couple of windows over from where we had slid down the drain pipe.
I looked around, but most of the firefighters were focused with invading the hotel through the main entrance and keeping the blaze contained to just the hotel and not spreading to other close lying buildings. Desirée’s hand squeezed on my arm and glancing to her I saw a woman’s compassion, which was reflected in the single word she said, “Go!”
I nodded, as it was in my heart to save the child as well. I wanted to save the child. Actually, I needed to save the child!
In a way this new positive roll of emotions was just one more evidence to be given that I was changing. That change was possible. These sudden changes to my character though were new and so it was best to save the evaluation for later as I didn’t want to mess up being different from the coldhearted individual who had brought death and ruin to far too many and wouldn’t have overly cared too much about the death of a child.
I climbed back up the drain spout with an eagerness to prove just how much I had changed. I ignored the shouts of a firefighter and started making my way out along the in-grooved sill of the fifth floor of the hotel.
It was treacherous as burning debris and exploding glass from the floors higher up would rain down unexpectedly. My one arm was bleeding from a dozen places by the time I reached the room that I’d seen the face at.
One window was cracked, but neither of them were open. Hauling myself up I got enough of a purchase to smash my elbow against the glass.
It punched a bloody hole through, but not of the sufficient size needed. Overcoming the wild emotions of the moment I thought things through a little wiser and pulled out my gun and holding it by the barrel I used the butt end of it to smash out a bigger hole in the glass.
Smoke poured out the hole I was making and in real fear for the child’s life I hurried in clearing a way into the room. The glass cleared away for the most part I swung into the room taking some more of the glass with me in the process.
Coughing I peered about in the smoke wreathed room. It was empty as far as I could tell and going to the bathroom I found it likewise empty.
I heard a noise from beyond the room and quickly exiting the room through the open door I found myself out in the smoke wreathed hall of this level of the hotel. Fire was already consuming the one end of the hall and turning from it I faced the other way and cried out, “Child? I come to help!”
I listened, but heard nothing but the crackling of the flames from behind me. I was about to turn back and make my way free of the hotel again when I heard a muffled cry.
Wheeling around I took off down the hall in the direction of the flames and the noise that I had heard. Coughing repeatedly I made a detour into a room with an open door.
The child’s cry sounded again and I hurried on into the room, but stopped short of the small body huddled in a dark corner of the room. It was hard to see, but something of a deeply instinctual nature told me to go no further.
“Child?” I called out uncertainly.
The object in the corner began to cry again, only the voice of a child began to leave it, as the cries for help turned into a spurt of demonic laughter that was discordant chaos in the making. In horror I watched the form of the child I had risked my life to come save turn into something from my childhood’s past that I had been forced to watch and pay homage to as it had feasted on the other boys and girls of my class who had not scored high enough in the exams that we were put through stringently.
As the thing of hell came nearer to me still laughing its body took its full grotesque shape and I recognized it individually for who it was. It had been the one initially, who had been pressed forcibly within my unconsciousness in order to make me the perfect soldier that would follow all orders which were given.
It stood now before me as a representation of all the evil that I had ever committed or encountered. I was never so afraid in life, as I was now, as the past I thought I had escaped now reached forward in an attempt to take me back.
Desirée had delivered me once from this foul spirit along with several others and she had warned me that………
…….All thought, even fear of repossession, froze within me, as a fear greater than the loss of my own freedom took hold of me. I had left Desirée alone!!!
Not only had I left her alone, but it had been done by design to lure me back into this building!