“What, you don’t remember this glorious ode? You wrote it for me. For me. When I read it, I knew. I knew you would be the one. You would never betray me, Jilly. I knew it in my heart that we would be together forever. ‘And I lie in dreamless death, suspended in my cage’? When I read this, I wept. I knew I had found you, the one who could help me become immortal. I knew you would bear a child, a son, who will live on forever. A son who will be strong enough to lead all of us into the afterlife, who will bless us and make us pure.”
Jill was crawling backward on the bed. This man in front of her was not Gabriel. This was not the wonderful, seductive professor she had found so incredibly attractive. This man was a raving lunatic. She hadn’t written the poem for him; it was an assignment from another teacher in another class. She couldn’t even remember showing it to him, which meant he must have gone through all of her old things. But how...oh, that was it. She remembered asking him if she could store some old boxes of work in his attic months ago, after their affair began.
“Oh God, what have I done?” she groaned aloud. It had seemed so simple, so fun. An older professor, so smart and sexy. He had shown so much interest in her from the minute she met him, always wanted to hear her thoughts and opinions. Remarks she made to the boys her age in class were often met by blank stares or derisive giggles. They weren’t interested in talking about philosophy and religion. They just wanted to get in her pants.
But Gabriel, oh, he was so different. He encouraged her crazy questions, made her feel so intelligent. He’d treated her like an equal from the day she met him, pushed her to think about the world in ways she’d never dreamed possible. And when they’d finally consummated their intellectual courtship, she’d never felt anything had been so right in the world. She didn’t think for a minute that she was the only woman he was sleeping with, but it didn’t matter to her. He was sharing his life with her, and when she became pregnant he was overwhelmed with joy, promised to take care of her and the baby forever. No, this wild-eyed thing before her was not the man she’d known. The man she knew.
She swung her head around frantically, trying to find some way out of the room he’d been keeping her prisoner in. The door was open, and she lunged for it, but he was quicker and threw her back on the bed.
“No, no, no, not like that. You need to stay here with me, love. I need to take care of you and our son. I’ve put everything in motion and done all I know to secure his way.”
She continued to squirm, and he screamed, “You must listen to me. Listen!”
“No. Let me out of here, Gabriel. Let me out of here right now, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.” Her venomous threat made him laugh. He knelt on her chest, threw her hands over her head and secured them with handcuffs. He slid down her body till he was off the bed, then took each of her thrashing legs and tied them to the foot of the antique bed frame.
“Jilly. My beautiful, lovely girl, don’t you see? You can’t escape me. You can’t escape our destiny. You were given to me to bear me a son. You are carrying the Messiah.”
“Gabriel, let me go. Undo these handcuffs!”
Gabriel just smiled serenely and reached for her arm. She felt the prick of the needle and started becoming woozy. Gabriel patted her on the head and started out the door.
“God damn you, Gabriel!”
He was back to the bed in a shot and slapped her across the face, hard enough she felt blood filling her mouth.
He spoke quietly, gently. “Don’t ever say that again, Jilly. God will not damn me. He will welcome me to heaven with open arms, thankful that I have given His Son back to the world. I will be rewarded, Jill, not damned. I will be His righteous angel, and I will watch by His side as His Son, our son, saves the world. Do you not understand?”
He left the room and locked the door behind him, ignoring Jill’s shrieks of protest. She heard the phone ringing in the background, but before she could summon the energy to scream, her mind swirled into a blank, and she fell back into the pillows.
69
Price motioned Taylor and Baldwin into his office. “What do you have? Lincoln told me he’s looking for property records for a professor who didn’t make the initial list.”
Taylor threw herself in the chair. “His name is Gabriel Lucas. Professor of the classics at Vandy. He wasn’t on the list because he’s taken a sabbatical. The dean told us he has brain cancer.”