Free Ten Plagues by Mary Nealy Page B

now had plans to include her.
    Reaching for the phone, he wished he could make LaToya scream. That made the pastor do exactly as he was told. But LaToya lay silently on the table. Her arms tied, spread straight out at her sides, her legs secured. He’d cut deep, but it was necessary. He’d let her sin flow out and used it for something beautiful.
    By the time he was done, he would save her.

    Paul scrambled to grab his new cell phone out of his pocket. He hadn’t let it out of his possession since O’Shea had given it to him. He reached to flip it open.
    Keren grabbed his arm. “Don’t!”
    “This is my chance. LaToya’s kidnapper is going to give me some order. This is my chance to do it right and get her back.” His phone kept ringing.
    Keren’s grip was like iron. “Give me a second.” She pulled her own phone out. With a press of one button she reached O’Shea.
    Paul almost pulled away from Keren, but she held him too tightly. “What if Pravus isn’t in the mood to be patient? What if he’s watching us right now?”
    “He’s getting a call,” Keren said into her phone. “Are you set?”
    She hit a series of buttons on her cell. “Okay, I can listen in, and O’Shea is set to record. Is there a number on your display?”
    “I wasn’t told anything about my phone being tapped.” Paul’s phone rang again.
    Keren snagged it away from him and quickly recited the number to O’Shea.
    “It’s not tapped, not really, we just keyed our phones into the same frequency and muted the speakerphones in ours so he can’t hear us. And we’re recording it, so okay, yeah, I guess it is tapped.” Keren glanced up at him. “You don’t mind, right?”
    “Right.” Paul tried to take the phone away from her.
    “Cell phones are fast and easy to trace; we need maybe fifteen seconds unless he’s got something special going with it. The FBI should be in place by morning with all their space-age equipment. But we’ve got what we need to track him right now.” Keren shoved the phone into his hands. “Answer it.”
    Paul’s finger trembled until he nearly hit the wrong button and accidentally hung up. Then he got it right and pulled the phone to his ear.
    “What took you so long, Reverend?”
    Paul closed his eyes. Keren’s hand settled solidly on his shoulder. He looked at her, and she gave him an encouraging nod.
    “Is this Pravus?” Paul wondered at the name. He’d heard it somewhere. Part of his seminary studies maybe, but that had been awhile ago.
    “You know I’ve got little LaToya, and yet you make me sit here with the phone ringing and ringing.” The soft, cultured voice cut like a cold knife. “Almost like you don’t care. Almost like you understand that she needs to die.”
    Paul said, as calmly as his terror would let him, “Pravus, you want to rid the world of evil, but you haven’t looked closely enough at LaToya. You picked the wrong woman.” What was he doing, trying to convince him to let LaToya go and kidnap someone less worthy?
    Paul began to pray in his heart.
Lord, give me the words. If there are any words that will reach this man, let me say them
.
    “You told me the same thing about Juanita,” Pravus crooned. “You are weak, Reverend. Twice you’ve begged for the lives of sinners.”
    “Let her go, Pravus. Please, let her go. The way to cleanse the world of evil is to change hearts. To bring people to Jesus Christ with love. Killing people just spreads hate. You don’t want the evil to spread, do you?” Paul hesitated over the next words, but they felt right. And when you’re dealing with a madman, maybe it’s all useless anyway, so he spoke as he felt led. “I’ll help you face the demon that’s keeping you away from God.”
    Keren gasped when he said it. She gave him a strangely intent look.
    The soft, rhythmic voice broke, and Pravus snarled, “Don’t speak such foul words to me! I’m not evil.
They
are evil.
They
are the ones who won’t let my people