by Vic Kerry
What she found was a hallway with a few patients walking around in a dazed state. She walked past them to the nurse’s station. No one was there.
“Hello,” she said loud enough for her words to echo down the hallway.
“Hello.” A voice fell flat without any echo.
Cybil turned back toward her room. Archbishop Harrington stood looking at her with dull eyes and an expressionless face.
“What are you doing here, Archbishop Harrington? Did they finally call Father Smalls to come and get me? How is Ashe? Is he is okay?”
“I do not know who you are talking about. I am Gerard Segarelli.”
“He’s with me.” She turned back to look behind her. Rogers stood with a huge grin on his face holding something like a thumb drive in his hand. “Actually, they are all with me. Ashe did a good job on this thing. It works like a charm. Be glad I figured out how to cut off the intercom to your room, or you’d have been one of them too.”
All the staff of the unit and the patients surrounded her. All their eyes were dull and flat like Harrington’s or rather Segarelli’s. Rogers had zombified everyone on the unit except for her. Hope fell away as heavy and flat as Harrington’s greeting had.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Czernobog has an agreement with your boyfriend. If Ashe found out you’d escaped, he might renege on the agreement. We can’t have that. Come with us all quiet like or this could be unpleasant.”
Cybil nodded her head to signal her surrender. To resist would get her manhandled by the possessed mental patients.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“There’s a smart girl.” Rogers smiled and shoved the small thumb drive–like thing into his pocket.
She followed him off the locked psychiatric unit with Harrington, the nursing staff and patients following.
Ashe paced from his cot to his workstation. Since Czernobog had taken the engram device, he’d worried about the outcome of its use. If he’d accidentally given the Devil the wrong one, Cybil was dead, and he was more damned that he already was.
The lock on the door turned over. He stopped and waited, holding his breath anticipating the worst. The door swung open, and Czernobog stepped in. He smiled his hollow artificial smile.
“It is your lucky day,” he said.
“It worked.”
“You sound like it would be any other way. That makes me worry.”
“I always worry about my product when I make something. Just the perfectionist in me.”
Czernobog’s smile changed to one of genuineness. “I like a perfectionist. It is a keystone in life. Do not worry. Your device worked flawlessly. So good in fact, I don’t have to worry about the rest of them.”
Relief dropped through Ashe like a stone down a well. The room even felt cooler. It was good news indeed. The Devil dug into his vest pocket and brought the engram recorder out. He handed it to Ashe.
“I’m glad it worked so well. That is really good news, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“If it worked that means people died.”
“True but it means that Cybil is safe for another day, which is really the good news.” Czernobog waved toward the door.
Harrington pushed Cybil into the room. He held her by both arms. Ashe looked at the archbishop or what had been the archbishop. The man’s eyes told him a heretic occupied the place the venerable churchman’s soul had once been. Cybil looked both terrified and relieved at the same time.
“You’re alive,” she said.
“So are you.”
Harrington let her go. She ran to him and gave him a hug. Before they could kiss, Czernobog cleared his throat.
“Understand I only put her here because it’s easier to guard you both in the same place. I do not require as many workers for such a dull task.” He smiled his insincere smile again. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
He laughed his dead soulless laugh and walked out. Harrington followed. The door closed and locked. Cybil looked into Ashe’s eyes. He felt all the passion and relief he thought a man could. Tears fought to be released.
“I almost got away,” she said. “They found me. Dr. Rogers killed everyone where I was and turned them to those things. Everyone.”
“Trust me; Czernobog’s plan is far worse.” He thought about telling her what he had done, but stopped. As far as he knew, she could be brainwashed or bugged. “It will make what’s happened so far a moot point.”
“What do you mean?”
He let her go and walked to his workstation. The engram recorder went back into the slot so he would know where it was. “I can’t tell you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Cooper pointed to a blurry image on the television screen.
Smalls squinted. It was hard to make out anything in the grainy black and white still from the video. A line of paused movement obscured part of the picture. Even if he wasn’t sure of everyone in the picture, the man in the forefront was Erik Rogers, and he knew the man behind him was Archbishop Harrington.
“I can’t be positive, but the other man is Harrington, or was the archbishop.”
“You think the archbishop is dead now?” she asked.
“I think he was dead then.” Smalls pecked on the screen. “If what I think has been happening is then that’s the shell of the man that was once head of the Mobile Archdioceses.”
“I still don’t buy this whole possession thing.”
“How do you explain this?” He pointed to another screen shot of a string of medical staff and patients walking single file down the hall with Cybil at the lead. “Pied piper?”
“There are many explanations better than possession.”
“Like?”
“Brainwashing. Threats of harm,” Cooper said. “What kind of detective would I be if I jumped straight to demons every time something strange happens?”
“Why can’t we recover any more of the images on the screen?” Smalls asked.
“There was a power surge right as that picture was taken.” The house supervisor pointed to the distorted picture of Harrington and Rogers. “This one was taken a few minutes later according to the time stamp. According to the tech guys the video system has to reset. It takes about that long.”
Smalls stared at the television screens. He looked from the first picture to the later one. Ashe had suspected that Rogers was working with the Russians because they had threatened him. Czernobog seemed to be a Russian with something to hide. Harrington warned of the Devil and now seemed to be in on everything. His head swam with so much information.
“We finally got an ID on the van that kidnapped Harrington,” Cooper said. “It belongs to the Mystics of Mayhem parading society. Mikal Czernobog signed the registration.”
“So why haven’t you moved on this?”
“Just in case you are living in a cave, most of our resources are focused on the church arsons. Over fifteen churches or religiously affiliated buildings were torched including your basilica and the largest Baptist church in the county. Chasing after these kidnappers has been left to me alone.” Cooper lowered her voice. “To be honest, they’ve limited how much longer I can work on this thing.”
“How long?”
“Until Ash Wednesday.”
“Two days from now.” Smalls nodded. “I’m pretty sure everything will be over by then.”
“The judge has given me another warrant to check out that warehouse, and one to look through the house that Cybil told the beat cop she escaped from. My usual partner is tied up at St. Simon’s School. You game?”
Smalls pulled a small book from the inside pocket of his coat. “As ready as I’m going to be.”
“The Bible?”
“A book with incantations to expel evil and vile spirits. It’s an ol
d volume considered heretical. It’s been in my arsenal for years.”
Cooper reached behind her and brought out a pistol. “9mm expels creeps and weirdoes. Been in my holster all day.”
The house they strolled up to was unassuming. Nestled behind a plank board fence, the two visible stories of the house sat between a pair of Spanish moss–covered live oaks. The yellow paint peeled from the wooden siding. The hurricane shutters hadn’t seen a coat of paint in years. Smalls remembered the place. He’d passed it many mornings on his jogs through downtown. Usually, he came from the front side of the house, where there was not a fence. Today he and Cooper had to approach up the street from the back of the house. The smaller streets around it were no-parking areas, even for police vehicles.
“Cheery place.” Cooper stared up at it. “Hard to believe kidnappers would be in there.”
“I know you’re being sarcastic, but it kind of is. I would expect crack dealers more than anything. I jog through this neighborhood a lot. The fear of getting shot in a drug war or pricked by a used needle is always present.”
“You’re a priest. Why would you worry about that.” She walked the way down the sidewalk that led to the front of the house. “You should be straight with the man upstairs.”
“Until now, it was my biggest fear. The world ending at the hands of Satan trumps most everything else.”
They stepped into the yard. High weeds flanked the broken concrete sidewalk. The steps to the porch listed to one side, and several of the floorboards stuck up, warped from time and lack of care.
Cooper drew her pistol out. “We’re going in fast and hard. I don’t want to give anyone time to get out the door.”
Smalls nodded. He crossed himself then kissed his fingers. The detective rushed up the steps and kicked the door. He came up after her. The door creaked, popped, and slammed open. She rushed in. Before crossing the threshold, the priest took out the book of incantations and flipped it open. He wanted to try some different ones to see if they worked. Although he feared failure, the Buddhist one did the charm and would be a good fallback point. A quick silent prayer went up as he headed into the dark entryway.
“Mobile police,” Cooper yelled. “Come out now with your hands where I can see them.”
Smalls followed the direction of her voice. He entered into what would have been a living room at one time. There was no furniture. The wallpaper peeled from the walls, and cobwebs hung from the blown ceiling. The next room looked like a dining area. An old round breakfast table sat in the middle of the room. A large column candle was in the middle. Red wax spread everywhere over the tabletop like a pool of blood. He heard quick footsteps in the room just beyond that one. Smalls headed that way. The kitchen looked as if it had been recently used. A coffee maker sat on the filth-encrusted counter. It still perked. From the corner of his eye he saw movement.
The priest turned as a small black woman lumbered toward him. She held a cleaver in her hand. Her amber eyes had the look of evil and possession in them. The urge to yell out to Cooper for protection filled him up, but he turned to his book. This was not the time to turn tail.
“Bless you.” He read from the page he’d turned to. The shock of such a simple phrase children used when people sneezed took him aback but did nothing to the advancing woman. He regrouped and put real meaning into. “Bless you!”
The woman stopped. The cleaver dropped from her hands. The words stunned her. Smalls said them again, but in a Gregorian chant cadence. The amber eyes that stared at him rolled over white. The woman pitched and shook, hitting the floor with enough force to make the boards creak. A few flops like a fish out of water and a dark shadow erupted from her mouth. Smalls kept up his bless you chant. The shadow charged him and passed through him at great speed. He felt the heat of a million fires as it enveloped him, but didn’t stop. Everything cooled. The body on the floor stayed in place. He stopped his chant.
“That was some pretty singing,” Cooper said from behind him.
He turned. She held Rogers by the arm. His hands were secured behind him with handcuffs. Her 9mm poked his ribs at an angle that would send the bullet to his heart.
“I found him hiding in a closet under the stairs.”
Smalls nodded toward the dead body. “I found her in the corner ready to chop me up with a meat cleaver.”
“They’re too slow after a few days,” Rogers said. “Rigor mortis starts to set in, and they all move like Frankenstein.”
“So they’re dead bodies?” Cooper asked.
“I’m not saying anything without my lawyer.”
“Are there any more in here?” Smalls asked.
“I’m not answering.”
“I’ll remind you that I’m not a cop. I can make it real uncomfortable for you,” Smalls said.
Rogers huffed a laugh of derision. “You’re a priest, and I’m alive. That little chant won’t work with me. It wouldn’t have worked with a spirit better entrenched either. Don’t think Czernobog isn’t aware of that. Fortunately, he’s more powerful than those childish chants and stupid witticisms.”
Smalls walked to Rogers. He loathed the man at that moment. Although such an emotion should never enter a priest’s mind, his former friend brought Satan into all their lives in an overly personal way. The hubris of the Devil bolstered his former friend’s confidence.
“The power of Christ compels you.” He planted a knee into Roger’s groin.
The psychologist bent double, but Cooper wouldn’t let him go so that he could crumple to the floor. His face turned red.
“She’s all that’s here,” he said between pained gasps.
“Who is she?” Smalls asked.
“I’m not telling.”
“I’ll grind it in this time.”
“I don’t remember her name. I brought her from the Pascagoula hospital a few nights ago.”
“The night you killed the doctor. Her name was Debra Henry,” Cooper said.
“I’m going to say a prayer for her soul. She didn’t deserve the fate she received.”
“Do it on the way to the car. I want to get him back to the station so we can get his lawyer to him.” She looked at the body on the floor. “I’ll call her location in.”
Smalls nodded and started his silent prayer for the poor dead woman and one for his own forgiveness for his treatment of Rogers.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Devil seemed extra vindictive. Ashe sat on his work stool across the room from Cybil who lay on the cot. The possessed corpse of Marianne kept watch over them from the corner nearest the door. Only Satan himself could have thought up such a diabolical plot. Even though he wasn’t one hundred percent sure Cybil wasn’t in the Devil’s fold, Ashe still wanted to talk to her, but with Marianne’s watchful eyes, the thought of even innocent conversation stalled.
The eyes that watched them were nothing like his late fiancée’s. These stared like doll’s eyes. Nothing of Marianne lived within the shell of her body. The stiffness in her walk told him that the flesh was breaking down already. Still, there was something guilt inducing about her being there. He gave over to the temptation of Cybil too quickly. Maybe that was what mourning did to people sometimes.
He tried to read the novel Czernobog gave him. Although the movie had scared the daylights out of him as a kid, the novel of The Exorcist didn’t really keep his attention. Many things rattled around in his head though. Holding the book was more to keep Cybil from talking to him than anything else.
“Did he give you that?” Cybil asked, breaking a long silence that Ashe wished would have stayed unbroken.
“Yeah.”
“Quite a sense of humor he has.”
Ashe set the book down. There was no reason to attempt to pretend he still read it. “That’s what I thought when he gave it to me.”
“And he leaves us with her.”
&
nbsp; A twinge of guilt twisted inside of Ashe. Why did Cybil have to acknowledge her? Why did the Marianne thing have to just watch them in silence? A roaring ball of emotion threatened to burst from him, when the door opened. The tall black woman he’d encountered at his first Mardi Gras parade, which now seemed centuries ago, stepped inside carrying several colorful garments over her arm. He remembered that before she walked out of a hospital in Birmingham her name had been Heinz. Now he had no idea what her name was.
“The Master wishes for you to pick out a costume for tomorrow evening.” Her voice fell flat and cold to the floor, gray words for bright clothes.
“What if you tell your master I’m happy with the clothes I’ve got on,” Ashe said.
“That is unacceptable,” Marianne said. “The Master wishes for you to wear garments like everyone else will tomorrow.”
“I’m not planning on riding in your death parade,” Ashe said. “I made the deal to build the engram machines, not to toss out beads.”
“The Master demands it,” Heinz said.
“You will do what the Master says.” Marianne shuffled across the room. She took Cybil by the arm. Twisting it, she pulled her to a standing position. “He said that if you did not cooperate I was to deal with her.”
Ashe stared into Marianne’s dead eyes, then to those of Cybil, which held terror inside of them. Heinz’s eyes were as doll-like as Marianne’s. The words he had recorded on the engram device came to him. Smalls told him they should expel evil spirits. He licked his lips ready to say them. Before he started, memories surfaced. Several of the possessed corpses were in the room when he recorded the words. Nothing happened to them. If he said the incantation and it worked, then Czernobog would keep his promise to harm Cybil. Also if the chant hadn’t worked when he recorded it would it work tomorrow night? Maybe it needed to be said louder than a whisper or more frequently.
Cybil sucked in breath between clenched teeth. Ashe stared at her. Marianne twisted her arm more severely. It looked almost like the twist of a pretzel. He couldn’t risk the incantation right now. A blue outfit with silver sequins was on top of the pile Heinz held.