Footsteps slid behind her, and Kate whirled around.Cox’s shadow retreated again, and this time, she followed it, rage overcoming her common sense for a dozen yards before something scraped in her chest again and she stopped for fear of separating her damaged ribs.
"You're not well, Cox.Listen to yourself.You've gotten worse since you escaped.You need help."
Cox cackled.“Help?What could man do to help me?You know, Cirillo tried to enforce medication when I was in prison.I refused to eat until he stopped.Satan’s poison will not keep me from performing the will of my Savior.”
“And you really think God is proud of you?”Kate challenged.“You think the God of love truly wants his Lawgiver to murder people?”
“Love is obedience!”Cox called back.“I told you that, Kate.And the Lord my God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children.Just like he visits your father’s iniquities on you.”
“I’ve heard it all before, Cox,” Kate called.“You’ve tried before to convince me that my father’s actions led me to this place.But guess what?My dad was murdered by a crazed asshole like you.Not by God.A common criminal.Just likeyou’rea common criminal.You think you’re some emissary of Heaven?There are always killers like you.You’re just the flavor of the month.When we bring you to justice, some other freak will show up to take your place, and we’ll bring him to justice too.”
“Oh, Kate,” Cox retorted.“How you fight what you know to be true!Yet long before you knew of me, I knew of you.Long before your father met his fate, he told me you were destined for great things, and I knew he was right.I could see it in your eyes.”
Kate laughed despite the agony the action brought to her.“Oh yeah.Right.You knew my dad.Sure, Cox.Your lies are getting worse.Give it up.You’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“I remember how the sun fell across your eyes in the photograph.You were holding your stuffed animal, an armadillo, I believe.”
Kate stiffened, ignoring the hot nails that dug into her chest when she did.
“You held your mother with the other hand and beamed at the camera,” Cox continued.“So pure, so radiant.I knew when I saw you that you were the lamb, the one whose snow-white fleece would bear the sins of a wayward nation.”
Kate opened her mouth, to retort or to scream she wasn’t sure.It didn’t matter.No sound came out.
No.He must have found that photograph somewhere else.Maybe…
But she couldn’t think of where else he might have seen it.That armadillo was lost a week later, and only one picture showed her holding it.That picture had been in her father’s medical bag in her locker at the Portland Field Office for fourteen years.There was no way Cox could know about it.
Unless her father had shown it to him.Unless his path had crossed with Cox prior to his death.
Cox laughed, triumph etching his voice.“I knew as soon as I laid eyes on you that God had called me to use you, to mold you, to raise you to the creature you needed to be to cleanse humanity of its sins.And now the time has come for you to give up the ghost, Kate.For your soul to bear the iniquities of the faithless that they might find salvation.”
Footsteps pounded toward Kate.She turned toward them, but when she threw a right hand, Cox slipped outside of it and swung.Kate caught a brief glimpse of the black steel of her flashlight before it caught her temple.
She heard the impact when her body hit the ground, but she didn’t feel it.Her body buzzed, save for the cracked ribs that throbbed in agony.Her vision shook, flickering like a candle flame.She tasted iron in her mouth, and her teeth clicked together.
Cox planted his heel onto her shoulder and pulled her onto her back.He settled atop her almost gently, eyes meeting hers with the intensity of a lover’s gaze.He brushed her hair back from her cheek, his expression tender.
She tried to fight back, but she couldn’t move.Her body was limp, clinging to the last thread of consciousness.
He steadied himself on her chest, sending ripples of pain through her body.She tried to breathe, but his weight pressed on her diaphragm, turning each breath into a gasp but refusing to allow oxygen into her lungs.
His hands found her neck again, slender fingers caressing at first, thumbs sliding over her throat as they sought her windpipe.His eyes held hers, the look in them not unlike love.
“Please,” she whispered.“Please don’t.”
He smiled softly at her.Then his face twisted, and he squeezed.
His fingers tightened, cinching her jugular veins shut.Her blood pulsed, struggling to make it to her heart and from there to her brain.His thumbs pressed down on her windpipe, and she felt the arch of the bone tense, straining to remain intact.Gray swirled on the edges of her vision, looping across the center and growing slowly darker.
She reached for her eyes, but he straightened, pulling himself out of reach while using his longer arms to maintain his grip on her throat.In between his thighs gripping her chest, she felt his body respond, the base motivation of his actions revealing itself in her final moments.No servant of God was he.Just a slave to the flesh like all killers.
Her vision dimmed red, and he released a soft moan.She batted at his arms, but her strength was waning and he didn’t budge.
“Go, Kate,” he whispered.“Just go.Submit to God’s will.Thy will be done, Lord, thy will be done.Thy will be done.Go, Kate.Sleep.”
The church faded away.Kate was no longer on the floor of St.Anselm’s but in her bedroom in Mulberries, her childhood home in Chicago.She recognized the ending of the dream she’d had nearly every night since her first battle with Cox at the original Church of St.Simon and St.Jude.
Cox was leaning over her, hidden in shadow as he always was.He was whispering, his voice soft, but this time, she could hear his words.He spoke no prophesy, said nothing coherent.Just waffled back and forth between a spastic recitation of Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane and the pleading anxiety of his own carnal drive.