Free Dark Harbor by David Hosp Page A

give rise to a new age of damnation for all but the chosen. That he was one of the chosen had been made clear to him years before, and now he’d been called to help clear the way for the plagues and the locusts and the great lake of fire. It made him important.
    No one suspected. How could they? There was nothing to suggest the truth. And even if there were something, only the righteous would see it; and the truly righteous would understand, and would rejoice with him.
    The house was unassuming; a small, freestanding wood-frame structure on the edge of the commercial district that spread between downtown and South Boston. His parents had left it to him. Their passing had been a painful blow, but in time it had given him clarity, and he knew they were watching him from their graves with pride, and waiting for judgment day to rise again.
    The interior was sparse but clean, almost puritanical by bachelor standards. A few religious artifacts were spread around the rooms as the only decoration, but they weren’t so prevalent as to draw attention—just enough to suggest a healthy respect for his religion and his God. He was deliberate about that, so that there would be nothing on the first two floors of the little house that would suggest the truth.
    The basement was a different story. Concrete, white paint, and bright lights had transformed the space into an odd sort of medical bunker. Against one wall, stainless steel shelves held a wide assortment of medical tools, supplies, and bottles. In the center of the room, underneath a halogen light, a metal gurney was bolted to the floor, the mattress removed and replaced by a flat steel platform. It was less comfortable, but easier to clean, and he’d learned from experience that the latter was more important.
    He was down there now, standing in front of the glass case at the far end of the room. It was his shrine. Six jars, lined up neatly, each filled with formaldehyde. This was his sanctuary, where he drew his strength and prepared to continue His work so that he’d be united with his parents again; so that they could all stand together among the trumpets in their white robes with the lamb of God as the others burned in an ocean of sulfur and acid.
    Give her as much torture and grief
    as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
    In her heart she boasts
,
    “I sit as queen; I am not a widow
,
    and I will never mourn.”
    Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
    death, mourning, and famine.
    She will be consumed by fire,
    for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.
    It was another favorite passage, and he repeated it for nearly thirty minutes before he pulled himself away from the glass case and locked the basement up tight.

Chapter Twelve
    “R OUGHLY TWELVE HOURS ,” Farmalant said.
    “Are you sure?” Flaherty asked. “As sure as I can be. One thing is absolutely clear—the Caldwell woman was dead for a long time before her heart was removed. She was strangled to death, and then her heart was taken out later. I could be an hour off, give or take, but not more than that. You can be sure it wasn’t near the time of her death.”
    “Shit,” Flaherty muttered.
    She was back in Farmalant’s posh office. He’d called her earlier in the morning with the news that the autopsy was finally finished. “Why won’t you just send the report over?” she’d asked. He’d been clear that she should come to his office.
    “There are some things in here you’re going to want to discuss,” he’d said. At first she thought it was just a ploy to flirt with her again, but something in his voice told her there
were
things he really needed to explain in person. This was clearly one of them.
    “You told me the other six had their hearts removed within a few minutes of their death, right?” she asked.
    Farmalant nodded. “That’s what I told you, but we’ve gone back and run some more tests on the blood of the other victims, and I may have been wrong,
sort of
.”
    “What