Chapter Fifteen
Despair
Evette watched as Larc climbed down the ladder and moments later she saw a light come on. She didn’t want to look at her father, who sat breathing heavy on the pew near her, so she went to a window and stared out at the little town that lay below the church.
She had been raised in this church, but had never cared for it or the town. They had always seemed to be empty of substance to her.
Her father and mother had come here after all of her father’s attempts to make it on the big television evangelist circuit had all failed.
She wasn’t quite sure why all his attempts to make it big had failed. Hadn’t done enough believable miracles or hadn’t convinced enough people that all they had to do to be wealthy and blessed in life was to sponsor him in his sharing of the gospel.
Maybe they had seen through his cultured veneer or faked sincerity and seen him for the shallow ego centrist that she had always known him to be.
Much of what she had learned spiritually had come from her quiet study times with her mother. She had never gained anything from her father’s grandiose bigger than life sermon topics that were often built on personal opinion and a liberal interpretation of the scripture, which he hadn’t even bothered to quote from.
The only message that had come across to her most predominantly in her father’s sermons was, ‘I need your money and you should give it to me, because I’m better than you and more deserving because of the work I do for you all.’
Having been a failure for the most part to gain a wider following and deeply in debt, from living a life well beyond his limited means, he had brought her mother to this hole in the wall to hide from his past mistakes and creditors. He had been in a self forced exile from the greater world, until he had come up with a big idea. One that he had thought would launch him back onto the big stages and packed auditoriums.
He decided to start a revival and bring the people to him first before branching out and accepting the pleas to rejoin the big crowd. It had been going well for a while, but then the disaster had struck and everyone’s life had turned upside down.
He lost his new following and his new found source of capitol along with it. Her mother had died in that time frame, not that he had cared much about the occurrence of it. Her mother’s death had rocked her world though.
Her father still trying to make his dream come true, but without the money to make it happen, came up with the devil’s bargain that he had struck with the Baron. Her in exchange for the Baron’s funding of Papa’s ministry.
Remembering the past made her want to vomit and slit her father’s throat all over again. She steered her thoughts elsewhere before she did both.
How were they going to get the last Bible from the Baron?
Movement outside the window caught her eye. Pickup trucks and cars converged on the church pulling up outside.
Men armed with guns spilled out of the vehicles. Then it dawned on her how much she resembled her mother all grown up. She shouldn’t have washed her hair dye out!
The cleaning lady must have recognized her and told the Baron in exchange for what money she could coax out of him. They would be here for the strangers too no doubt.
She had to warn Larc!
She was halfway to the trapdoor, when she stopped abruptly. What would Larc do?
He’d go out there and try to defend her in order to give her time to get away. He’d be mowed down by gunfire within seconds and killed!
She couldn’t let that happen!
She had come to care for him to much to see him die, especially when there was another way. Going to the hole in the floor she got down on her stomach and peered into the room below. Larc was at the far end of the narrow subterranean room.
“Larc!”
He turned to look up at her and smiled, “Found them!” He said as he held up two big books.
“Larc there are men outside with guns sent by the Baron! I’m sorry but I have to do this for your own good!”
She finished with three words that she really didn’t say, but Larc was able to clearly read them from off her lips.
“Evette don’t!” He yelled, even as he ran for the ladder, but Evette had already reared back, and slammed the door shut and locked it.
The door shook violently from the force of Larc’s bodily blows against it. Briefly Evette stared at the bucking door in panic, as muffled shouts sounded out from below demanding for her to open the door.
They’d hear him!
She saw the pulpit and relaxed. Leaning down she kissed the frame of the door and whispered, “Please come for me!”
She jumped up to her feet and pushed the heavy pulpit over the trapdoor. There was silence.
Evette picked up the knife she had set down and walked over to her father brandishing the knife as she did so.
Holding the knife up she said, “If you tell those men outside about Larc or the whereabouts of the others I swear I will find you even if I have to come back from the grave. I’ll skin you and roast you over a fire myself and that’s a promise! Do I make myself clear Papa?”
The man, who was her father shrank back from the hellish promise he could seeing glowing from her eyes with savage intent for him, not doubting one word of which she had spoken would come true if he talked.
He managed to shake his head, but it was hard to tell because of how badly he was shaking overall. Leaving him, Evette hurried up the main isle of the church toward the big double doors saying a prayer as she did so.
She slipped the knife into a fold of one of the linen bandages that were beneath her shirt. Rebuttoning her shirt she paused before the big doors and mentally forced herself to put on a face of nonchalant coolness, which had been her trademark for years, to shield the outside world from being able to see the mixed up emotional child that she viewed herself to be inside.
She hadn’t needed such a look while being with Larc, because he demanded authentic emotion and could handle what it was to be her. With her face in place she pushed the doors open and stepped outside.
Over twenty guns were instantly trained on her, which she responded to only by a lifting of her hands to show that she was unarmed.
The guns stayed on her though as she made her way down the stairs. The car door of a black shiny sedan opened and the Baron himself stepped out of it. He was a man of about sixty five, who had only recently begun to gray.
He had the healthful vitality and appearance of a man twenty years his junior. Most people agreed that his most remarkable feature were his cobalt blue eyes.
They could pierce straight through an individual and were capable of expressing volumes in a single glance.
He was known to be utterly ruthless when he wanted something and a shrewd businessman overall. He had an iron grip over the town and was answerable to no one.
He did as he pleased while making sure to drop enough crumbs to keep the people of the town dependant and loyal to him only. He was a confident man.
His sharp features creased into a smile, that didn’t reach his cold eyes, as he saw her draw near. “I didn’t believe it was true, when I heard the news, but now I can see that they spoke the truth. You are even more radiant than your mother! I will very much enjoy discovering you all over again!”
Evette’s heart threatened to break free of her chest. She wanted nothing more than to rip the knife free and slash into him, but she kept her face devoid of the savage emotions that ran amok within her or at least she hoped she did.
His eyebrows rose and his eyes seemed to laugh at her, “My, my you have changed! You’ve learned to control that hellcat temper of yours! Impressive!”
Evette continued to stare levelly at him showing no emotion. He was only trying to get a rise out of her so that he could show how he was in control of everything again.
“One thing before we leave darling, your companions where are they?”
“They’re gone.”
“Why did they come here?”
“They came for a Bible. They found two and now they’re gone.”
“A Bible! What on Earth would they want one of those for anymore?”
“Someday you’ll find out.” Evette said succinctly.
The Baron laughed slightly, “Touché my dear.” and held open the car door for her.
She got in and he got in behind her. Within minutes all the vehicles were gone from the church parking lot.
I stepped around the corner of an outlying shed on the church grounds and made my way to the church quickly. They had taken Evette, but I hadn’t seen Larc taken.
I bounded up the front stairs of the church two at a time in fear that I would find Larc dead inside or wounded and near death.
I burst into the auditorium and ran up the aisle. Evette’s father was still where he had been only now he was blubbering unintelligibly to himself about something that sounded like, “This is all my fault!” ,over and over as he shook his head.
I didn’t see Larc anywhere. Turning to him I fairly yelled unmindful of being heard by others, “Where’s Larc? Where is he?”
He paused his blubbering to point at the pulpit. I jumped up onto the stage and shoved the pulpit to the side. The trapdoor fairly exploded apart before I could even unlock it.
Two books were thrown up and out, which I deftly caught. An irate and panicked Larc exploded up out of the hole in the floor and looked around feverishly.
“Where is she?” He asked turning to me in desperation.
“There were a bunch of vessels pulled up outside with armed men. They took her with them.” I said and then added, “She saved your life by what she did.”
The anger faded away from his face to reveal that it had only been a mask to hide the naked fear that I saw in his eyes now, “I’ve got to rescue her!” He said almost to himself, as he wiped the sweat off his brow with a hand that was bleeding all along the knuckles, from where he had been pounding away at the trapdoor.
I corrected him, “We have to rescue her and while we’re at it we can grab the Bible too.”
A breathless voice broke into our conversation, “And I know where they’ve taken her!”
We both turned towards the voice heaving for breadth. Talaric stood panting heavy at the front doors of the church, as he leaned against one holding his left side.
“The security looks tight. The place is a veritable castle. It’s going to be hard to find a way in.” Talaric finished still breathless sounding.
Hard or not we had to rescue Evette before further abuse could be done to her by the Baron.
“I know of a way that you can get into the mansion that will take you past all the security.” The voice had come from Evette’s father, who looked up at us his face stained and puffy from tears.
We all turned to him and I asked, “How would you know of such a way? You don’t appear to be on the best of terms with the Baron.”
He hung his head down and said almost too softly to be heard, “Because it was the way my wife went to the Baron’s mansion, when she was summoned by him.”
Larc stalked up to Evette’s father and I thought for a moment that he would pick him up and shake him around, like a dog would a hated chew toy.
Instead Larc squatted down in front of the man, who was already cringing backward in fear from him.
Larc’s tone was one of barely restrained civility, “Just what haven’t you told us or your daughter about?”