Free The Searcher by Simon Toyne

church as if in answer. Footsteps approached from behind a curtained area in the vestry and he turned just as the curtain swept open and found himself facing a modern version of Jack Cassidy. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, Cassidy’s face a mixture of curiosity and suspicion as he looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on his shoeless feet. “You must be Mr. Creed,” he said, walking forward, hand extended. Solomon shook it and his mind lit up as he caught the hint of a chemical coming off him.
    Napthalene—used in pyrotechnics, also a household fumigant against pests.
    He saw a small frayed hole in the pocket of his jacket—Mayor Cassidy smelled of mothballs. It was a dark suit, a funeral suit. “Youjust buried James Coronado,” Solomon said, and the pain flared in his arm at the mention of his name.
    Cassidy nodded. “A tragedy. How did you know him?”
    Solomon turned back to the painted landscape. “I’m trying to remember.”
    There was something here, he felt sure of it, some reason the cross around his neck had brought him to this place where its larger twin sat.
    â€œImpressive, isn’t it?” Cassidy said, stepping over to the wall and flicking a switch. Light faded up, illuminating the fresco in all its dark and terrible detail.
    There were many more figures populating the landscape than Solomon had first thought, their black arms and shrunken bodies almost indistinguishable from the land, as if they were made from the earth and still bound to it. The ones with faces had been painted in such realistic detail that Solomon wondered if each had been based on a real person, and what those people had thought when they had seen themselves immortalized as the damned in this macabre landscape. They seethed over the desert, their faces ghostly, their eyes staring up at the too-distant heaven. Solomon looked up too and saw something he had missed when the fresco had been sunk in shadow, something written in the sky, black letters on an almost black background.
    Each of us runs from the flames of damnation
    Only those who face the fire yet still uphold God’s holy laws
    Only those who would save others above themselves
    Only these can hope to escape the inferno and be lifted unto heaven
    The brand on his arm flared in pain again as he read the words, bringing back the feeling he’d first felt back on the road that he washere for a reason, that there was something particular he had to do.
    Only those who would save others . . . can hope to escape the inferno . . .
    â€œ I’m here to save him,” he muttered, his hand rubbing at the burning spot on his arm.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œJames Coronado.”
    Cassidy blinked. “You’re . . . but we just buried him.”
    Solomon smiled. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”
    A noise outside made them both turn, a siren howling past, heading somewhere in a hurry. Solomon could smell smoke leaking in through the open door.
    The fire.
    . . . Only those who face the fire . . .
    The whole town would be heading to the city limits now, preparing to defend their town from the oncoming threat. Most of them would have known James Coronado. Maybe his widow would be there too.
    â€œAre you okay?” Cassidy asked, stepping closer. “You seem a little shaken. Maybe you should head to the hospital, get yourself checked out.”
    Solomon shook his head. “I don’t need the hospital,” he said. “I need to go back to the fire.”
    He looked back at his reflection, trapped between the angel and the demon, their painted eyes looking at him as if asking: “Which of us are you?”
    Let’s find out , Solomon thought, and the pain in his arm flared again.

PART 3
    Thou shalt have no other gods before