Free 0513485001343534196 christopher fowler by personal demons by christopher fowler

of his study. 'I thought you might be interested in the health of your son,' she said, remaining on the far side of the room, her hands at her sides. 'The doctor came while you were out. Davey's going to be fine.
    The shock to his system is subsiding, and it seems likely he'll make a full recovery. I want to take him away from here, Brett. And I don't want you to stop me.'
    'I won't do that if you tell me where you're going,' said her husband. 'I don't want to lose what we have as a family.'
    'It's a little late for that, don't you think? You don't need us, Brett, you never have. You only ever think about yourself.' Her hands shook. She left the room before she started crying.
    She and Davey left the house three days later, on a warm autumn morning with the faintest hint of winter chill in theshadows.
    He tried calling Lisa half a dozen times, but there seemed to be something wrong with her phone. In the afternoon he drove over to her apartment and found the front door wide open. The hallway was deserted. It was the kind of condominium where nobody ever saw or heard anything. In the bedroom a chair was upturned, and clothes were hanging from closet drawers. There was broken glass on the floor of the kitchen. It didn't take a genius to work out that Lisa had either been abducted or had left in a hell of a hurry. He wondered if the same zealots who had murdered Elias had now made off with the old man's most attractive disciple. He called the police on his mobile, told them what he thought had happened and asked them to check out the building. He refused to leave his name and address, which was stupid; they could easily trace his mobile.
    He arrived back at his house to find the lounge filled with the members of the Church of the Phoenix. The maid had let them in. The praying men and women were now wearing white robes, in accordance with their instructions from the Book of Revelations. There were even little kids draped in cut-off bedsheets. Their numbers had certainly grown. It seemed more and more people were being converted as the foretold time approached.
    'Join us!' they cried as he tried to disperse them. 'Stay and pray! Stay and pray!' Listening to their cries made him realise that there was a simple way for him to defeat the prophecy and forestall his fate. All he had to do was leave town. He couldn't influence history if he wasn't in the foretold place at the right time, could he?
    Shoving the tiniest bedsheeted members of the church from his front door, he returned to the lounge and tried to call the police, but all the LAPD emergency lines were busy. Next he tried to purchase a flight out of the city, only to find that his credit card numbers had apparently been changed on the booking computer.
    'That's impossible!' he complained to the girl at the airline office.
    'Check them again, will you?' As he held on, he accessed his personal identification numbers on his home PC files. They all seemed in order. But as he watched, the numbers of his accounts flickered into serials of random lettering, and these in turn were replaced with a single word -
    PHOENIX.
    He stared at the word in disbelief. It was as if everyone and everything pointed in one direction, toward the fulfilment of his destiny, no matter how terrible that might prove to be.
    Stopping only to throw some clothes into a suitcase, he descended to the garage and revved up his Mercedes. There was more than one way to get out of town. He drove down from the hills, across Hollywood heading for the Santa Monica Freeway, and was just approaching the on-ramp when he saw a motorcycle cop approaching in his rear-view mirror. The cop gave a whoop of his siren and made a gesture to pull over.
    Brett wearily coasted the car to the side of the road and turned off the engine. The cop dismounted and approached, shaking his pant-legs free, taking his time.
    'I wasn't speeding, officer,' Brett called out, leaning from the window.
    'Maybe not, sir, but you weren't telling anyone