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“Does cremation count?” I asked him.
“Not if it’s done after death. We must all suffer to achieve grace. It’s important you understand this because you’re going to suffer terribly. You’re going to beg me to stop the suffering, but it will all be worth it to you. You’ll die cleansed.”
“Why me?”
“You’ve been chosen. Ranger chose you. So now I have to cleanse both of you.”
“So this is about Ranger.”
“He did a very bad thing. And he encouraged Kinsey to follow him. They abandoned the unit. When they left we were broken up and scattered to the winds.”
“They left when their tour of duty was done.”
“We were a brotherhood. It was a holy pact. While we were together we had divine protection. Once the bond was broken we were unprotected. These scars I wear are the result of that broken bond. I was attacked by the devil. It would never have happened if Ranger and Kinsey had kept us together. They did the unthinkable and now we’re all at risk. The devil stalks us and I’m the only one who can set it right.”
“Ranger thought you were dead.”
“Everyone thinks I’m dead,” Orin said. “I’m like a zombie.”
His voice was flat and soft. No emotion. No emotion in his face. I wondered if he’d always been like that or if the craziness had reached critical mass and taken away all else.
“When the lesson happened I was in a truck in Afghanistan.”
“Lesson?”
“The divine intervention that showed me the penalty for Ranger’s sin. The day the devil was allowed to visit me.”
I could feel goose bumps break out on my arm and a chill slide the length of my spine. As a bounty hunter I’ve come into contact with a good number of unhinged souls, but there was an otherworldliness to Orin that I hadn’t seen before. A total detachment from reality that could only be described as cruel serenity.
“We were under fire and the truck took a hit,” Orin said. “The impact was so violent the truck was tossed into the air and came to land in a field. There were five of us in the truck and everyone but me
was blown to bits. Nothing left but bloody body parts. As it was I lost my foot.” He raised his camo pants to show a prosthetic. “That’s how I was identified as dead. Nothing left of me but my foot.”
“But you didn’t die.”
“I’m not allowed to die until Ranger and Kinsey die. Only part of me burned in the explosion. The rest of my mortal body is waiting.”
“Why weren’t you found with the rest of the men in the truck?”
“I was captured and caged. After years of imprisonment, when I realized my purpose for living, I escaped. I inched my way out of the Middle East, to Europe, to rehabilitate myself enough to complete my mission. And here I am.” He said this very matter of fact, his hands folded in his lap. “Imagine how saddened I was to learn that Ranger and Kinsey had infected two women with their evil. Although in a way it enhances the process for them. They’ll have the additional agony of knowing someone they loved had a painful and early death. Perhaps it will save them from eternal hell. So you see I’m not actually a zombie. I’m an angel.”
I was sure he believed it. He believed everything he said. The whole crazy jumble of devil and divine intervention and abandonment.
“I’ve brought this fire starter,” he said. “I thought I would burn you a little at a time. Let you enjoy the pain. Allow you to see your flesh blister and melt away. I don’t want to go too fast and rob you of the experience.”
“I could help you,” I said. “Counseling, drugs, a religious advisor, a girlfriend.”
“I don’t need help. I’m in a good place. I just need to finish my task. It’s taken me years to get to this point. It’s all I’ve worked for.”
He grabbed my ponytail and set fire to it.
I shrieked and tried to jerk away but he held fast. I smelled my hair burning, felt the fire burning my neck. And over my shrieking I heard someone pounding on my door, ringing my doorbell.
“I hate this sort of distraction,” Orin said.
He yanked me up by my hair, shoved my head under the faucet, and turned the water on to put the fire out. He went to the door and looked through the security peephole.
“It’s a man,” he said. “Tell him to go away.”
