“You! Stay down!” said Edmund, his shotgun pointed at my head. “Do not even attempt to move.” He had an odd accent, clipped and precise, faintly German.
The shotgun had an intricately carved stock and filigreed etchings along the barrel. It was the same one Isobel had used to subdue that bounty hunter in Inverness Station.
I knelt, palms flat on a dingy carpet, staring at a shriveled, baby carrot that has escaped from someone’s salad. I had an urge to bolt and force his hand, but that other guy was standing in front of the door. I was a rabbit surrounded by coyotes, heart still pattering but as good as dead.
Edmund strode forward, keeping that long, dark barrel pointed at me. “Who are you?”
“My name is James.”
“You are an American. How do you know my daughter?”
“We were … um … pen pals.” L lied because the truth was too hard to explain.
“Impossible. I screened every piece of mail that came to us. What is your full name?”
“Moody. James Moody.”
“Are you a Christian, James? Do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour?”
“No,” I said, without hesitation, and he smacked the side of my head with the barrel of the shotgun, knocking me flat on the floor.
“So brazen!” said the other man, brandishing the fretted neck of an electric guitar like a club. “Can you believe this one? How appalling!”
“What are you, then? An atheist? A Jew?”
“Neither,” I said. “I don’t pretend to understand how the Universe works.”
“Faithless bastard,” said Edmund. “Get up. Slowly! Sit at the table, hands behind the chair.”
The smiley man hauled me to my feet and shoved me into a sort of kitchenette. Linval, dreadlocks disheveled, was already seated at the table, his wrists duct-taped together behind him. His lip was torn and bleeding. Tears streaked his cheekbones. His chin quivered.
“Do you know this boy?” said Edmund, as the smiley one taped my ankles to the chair legs.
“No,” I said.
“You are lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you do know Karla?”
“Yes.”
“How? And don’t tell me you were only pen pals, because I know that is a lie.”
“We both suffered from … depression. We met at this place … where depressed people go.”
“Here? In Glasgow?”
“No.”
“In Inverness? Really? How did she find the time to see a counselor?”
“You did let her out to run chores, Ed,” said the smiley one. “Maybe while she was out and about.”
“I had her on restriction. And she was never tardy, Joshua. I made sure of that.”
“What can I say? Your girls are clever ones. They obviously figured out that we were coming.”
“I still don’t see how they could have known. Unless Gwendolyn—”
“No. There is no way she could have known. She had no idea her calls were being monitored. And my brother may not be one of us, but he sympathizes with our cause. He would have never spilled the beans to her.”
Linval had this weird look on his face. He hadn’t said a word since I entered the apartment. I suppose I should have been terrified, but I didn’t get the sense that I was in any imminent danger. I had the impression that the shotgun was just for show.
In Edmund I saw a concerned father who was a little bit too overzealous in pursuing his runaway daughters. He was a creepy enough guy, and I didn’t envy Karla and Isobel for having had to share his house, but I didn’t exactly see a monster here. But then again, Karla had implied he had done bad things to her and Izzie, things that she had never fully explained to me.
“These counselors,” said Edmund. “Who were they? Volunteers? Social workers? Did they work for the health service?”
“There were no counselors,” I said, as the smiley one peeled another strip of tape off from the roll and wrapped it around my wrists.
“But you said—”
“I said I met her at a place where depressed people go.”
“What do you mean? A support group?”
I sighed. “Kind of.”
Edmund rubbed his hands nervously down the length of the shotgun. “This is serious, more serious than I thought,” he said. “They may not have informed the authorities directly, but the girls have been talking. There are infernal forces at play here. I feel them!”
“Lord, have mercy!” said the smiley one, bowing his head.
“We need to know who and what is involved in this,” said Edmund, his creepy eyes flashing wide. “We need to take them to a consecrated space.”
He opened the refrigerator and removed a carton of milk. He poured two glasses and reached into his tweed coat for a plastic bag full of a bluish pastel powder. He placed a heaping spoonful in each and stirred. The milk turned a bright fluorescent blue.
He squeezed my nostrils shut with a calloused thumb and forefinger, tilted my head back and held the cup to my lips. “Drink up, boy.”
