by David Dwan
That left Mendez and his team with a pathetically short time to find something, anything to arm Ross against the creature if it did indeed exist. Or he feared he too would suffer Winthorpe’s fate, live on the internet. An internet that was already buzzing with anticipation at the next edition of demon time.
Time in which Father Shane Ross had never felt so lost, or so alone. Not since those nightmare days of his youth. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on the young priest either. The church had been his saviour back then. The light that had led him out of the darkness of addiction. And as thanks he had devoted his life to it and the betterment of his mind, through psychology, so that he could help heal those other lost souls find peace and understanding of that all too familiar mine field called life.
And yet now he faced his greatest and most potentially damaging challenge precisely because he had walked that chosen path of faith and knowledge over the syringe and needle.
He felt like a pawn in the chess game between Father Mendez and the Devil Himself. A game he felt he was sleep walking through, jumping whenever Mendez told him to do so. Go here, sign this, when he was nothing more than a voice on the end of the telephone. Some off stage puppet master pulling the strings and whistling the tune Ross was to dance to.
A dance that had now taken him from his humble flat in Newcastle to half a world away.
Within hours of officially agreeing to be the next contestant on demon time, Mendez had couriered Ross plane tickets to London, where he had then taken a nonstop flight to Mexico City Airport, where he now found himself, standing daze and confused in the impressively modern building by the luggage carousel waiting for his suitcase to come around.
The structure was an impressive architectural achievement which should have felt open and welcoming, but even in this massive construction of glass and steel Ross felt closed in and oppressed.
The whole situation was getting so surreal that Ross hadn’t even questioned the reason he was being sent thousands of miles from home just a couple of weeks before his show down with the bizarrely named Mister Minx (although why that particular part was any more bizarre than everything that had happened to him this month he didn’t know). He had just nodded, accepted the tickets and packed his bags.
Mendez had done his best explain this new turn of events.
“I know this is hard on you, Shane,” Father Mendez had told him over the phone. He had last spoken to Mendez in Heathrow airport’s departure lounge as he waited for his flight to Mexico to be called for boarding. “But I want you to know you are not alone in this. Even though we cannot physically be with you when you enter that house. We can make sure you have all the help we can give you.”
“You have some way of fighting this thing?” Ross asked. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe such a creature as Mister Minx was even real but Mendez had a tendency to speak like it was common knowledge that it was.
“No,” Mendez relented. “Not as such. But we do have the next best thing. We know the whereabouts of the man who we believe captured the creature. And possibly sold it on to Michael Davis.”
“In Mexico.”
“That’s right, Shane. A small town, about a hundred miles south west of Mexico City. Everything’s arranged.”
Well at least that explained the jet setting, Ross thought as he scanned his fellow travellers waiting in the departure lounge. “And this fella, he can help?” Ross asked.
“It’s not that simple, Shane.” Mendez answered and Ross detected a sickening tone of defeat in the man’s voice. “He, Hauser, that’s his name. We’ve tried to get him on board before. He won’t even return our calls. He’s not what you would call a man of faith, Shane. It’s the exact opposite, I’m afraid. He hates us.”
“So why am I here, Father?” Ross asked, he smiled bitterly. There was an old philosophy joke in there somewhere. But why indeed?
Again the dead air, then after an age. “Cards on the table, Shane.” Mendez said softly, it was disconcerting to hear one normally so self-assured sound almost lost, almost ashamed. “We had hoped we had something you could use, against the creature.” He seemed to be stumbling over his words, which was worrying for a man whom had always seemed so confident of what he was doing and asking Ross to do.
“Had hoped?” Ross asked. He glanced towards the exit, which was only twenty yards or so away. It was as if he had just realised he didn’t actually need to be here. There was nothing to stop him just throwing the phone into a nearby bin and walking away from it all.
After all this wasn’t war, he didn’t have any moral duty to put himself in such harm’s way. He suddenly felt the absurdity of the whole endeavour. Mythical internet demons, clandestine phone calls from some shadowy organisation in the Vatican. Plane tickets to Mexico? Who the hell was he? A Catholic James Bond?
“We had thought...” Mendez continued, less than convincingly. “We actually have something, a relic. For want of a better word, a spell, well it’s a poem actually to exorcize the creature, to send it back to where it was conjured from. But of course that was before we found out you couldn’t take anything in with you. I’m sorry Shane, it all very hard to explain.”
Spells? Conjured? Ross could feel what little grasp on reality he had left slipping away as he stood there. He glanced around to see a bench close by and he made his way over to it on unsteady legs. All the while the gapping doors of the departures lounge exit loomed large out of the corner of his eye. He sat down hard.
“Shane, you still there?”
In body maybe, Ross thought bitterly. “Yeah,” he croaked. “Just about.”
“The truth is, we’ve really cocked this whole thing up,” Mendez confessed. “The poem, our records show if you recite the passage written on it within the vicinity of evil, that evil will be banished back from whence it came. That’s the theory anyway, not that we can now get it passed their security.”
“You aren’t making any sense, Father. Are you telling me you’re talking about magic?”
“I know this all sounds crazy, but you have to remember we are talking about banishing a demon here.” Mendez reminded him, a little too blasé for Ross’ liking.
“If it’s real,” Ross said almost hopefully but reminded himself the thing must surely be just some special effect.
“You’ve seen the case for yourself, Shane. I believe it is, and at the moment we don’t have anything else to use against it.”
“Whatever happened to faith, Father?” Ross snapped back.
“Sometimes,” Mendez said his voice barely above a whisper. “Faith isn’t enough.”
TEN
Father Ross actually felt his jaw drop open at this. “I want to go home,” he said after a full thirty seconds of catching flies. Despite the air conditioning in the terminal he was sweating so badly now that the phone nearly slipped through his hand, he switched them and wiped his sweaty palm on his trouser leg.
“Please, Shane, just hear me out. You have to at least admit we are travelling the lost highway here?”
“I’m the one travelling Father, remember that. And I’m getting the distinct impression you’re making this up as you go along.”
“I know it must seem like that, but the truth is this is almost as new to us as it is to you. Sure we did think we had a way to beat this thing, and put an end to that blasphemous show. We were wrong. But I swear to you, Shane. I swear that we won’t have let you go into that house without protection. Some way of fighting that thing.” The strain was clear in Mendez’s voice as he spoke.
Ross could hear the man collecting himself on the other end of the phone and felt a stab of remorse. He wasn’t being thrown to the lions here as he had first thought. “This man,” Ross said after a while. “If he hates the church so much, why do you think he’ll help me?”
“We don’t,” Mendez replied flatly. “Over the years we’ve made every attempt to bring him on board. This man’s knowledge of the occult must be staggering. He seems to have had numerous
dealings with it down through the years. Real practical experience which would be invaluable to us.” Mendez sighed forlornly down the phone. “Something happened, something bad, I don’t know all the facts, but let’s just say it was bad, and the church didn’t come out of it with much honour. But’s that’s all by the by. We have to make one final attempt, Shane. You have to.”
“What can I do? I’m lost here,” Ross said.
“Demon time,” Mendez replied. “It’s the only card we have left to play with this fellow. Show him the recording we have of the last show, show him Winthorpe’s file. After all it’s his demon that’s doing all this.”
“Guilt trip?”
Mendez gave a short hollow laugh at this. “Call it the last act of a desperate man. But without Hauser, I really don’t see how we can stop that whole debacle which is making Michael Davis so much money.” He exhaled, his fatigue all too evident. “It’s obscene, it really is.”
Ross had never felt so conflicted. Despite all the cloak and dagger routine Mendez seemed so fond of, the young priest couldn’t help but feel for the man. He sounded rung out, exhausted from all the clutching at straws he had clearly been doing. They must have put all their faith in this ‘spell’ he had spoken of. What was it he had he said before on the subject of faith? Ross recalled with unease; Sometimes, faith isn’t enough? So in the end Father Mendez he was just as lost as Ross at this point.
“What if this Hauser isn’t convinced, even if I show him demon time?” Ross asked. He bit his lip in anticipation of the answer which held his fate.
“Then it’s over.” Mendez replied. “We can’t ask anymore of you. You can go back to your life, and with our thanks. It’s our problem, I won’t have you put in harm’s way. All you will need to do is once you are with Davis’ people, try get as much information on the location of the show as you can, perhaps even where they are keeping that thing, then leave. If you have no protection you can’t go inside.”
Ross had to stop himself letting out a long loud sigh of relief at this. “Of course I’ll try, Father,” he gushed. “I’ll do my best to bring this guy on side.”
“And that’s all we can ask, Shane.” Mendez said. “Besides,” he added a little brighter. “What’s the worst that can happen? Sunburn? You get a few days in Mexico, on us. Not bad I’d say.”
“Not bad at all,” Ross agreed. He took out the envelope he had been given along with the tickets. It contained all the info he needed to get him to the town Hauser was thought to be living in. That and three thousand U.S Dollars.
“Just do your best, my friend.”
“I will,” Ross told him, he already felt pounds lighter now that the weight of the unknown had lifted from his shoulders. His good mood soured only slightly by the fact that he realised he was actually hoping this mysterious mister Hauser would flat out refuse to see him.
After all what was the alternative? Guest of honour on a show where he would come face to face with an alleged real life monster? And armed with what? Magic?
“Well as long as he doesn’t give me a fucking wand!” Ross blurted out before his brain could engage.
“Sorry?”
“Oh, nothing, Father, just thinking out loud... Without actually thinking,” he replied.
“We’ve all done that, Shane, believe me.”
“One last thing. If this Hauser does agree to help... Can he actually help? After all, that creature...” he couldn’t finish that ludicrous thought, this insanity seemed to be catching.
“I know what you mean,” Mendez assured him. “But put simply, we are all amateurs in this misbegotten game we’re playing. And I include that fool Michael Davis. I have a feeling he’ll reap what he’s sown soon enough, but then that won’t be an end to it... If that thing ever gets loose... But Hauser? He’s a professional.”
One hell of a game indeed, Ross thought despondently. And one where even death might not be the ultimate price, if Mendez somehow turned out to be correct about what Minx actually was.
He tried to put that out of his mind for now. It was no use to anyone dwelling on what might be. Beside, in a week, God willing, he might be out of it for good with body and soul intact.
“Well, adios, as we say around those parts,” Mendez said. “Safe journey.”
“Thanks, Father.”
“Oh and Shane? I don’t think he’ll give you a fucking wand, my friend.” And with this he hung up.
Ross sat with the dead phone against his ear for a full twenty seconds, blushing like a school girl. Finally he pocketed the phone with a shake of the head. Still he didn’t move, as if weight down again with what was before him. Ross knew he would have to at least try to convince this Hauser to help him. He owed the faith that Mendez had shown him that much. And his own conscience of course, damn it.
ELEVEN
Karl Hauser was only sixty two years old but to the casual observer he looked a good fifteen years or so older. Chasing the darkness in the world would do that to a man. Doing what he did, or had done took its toll on one’s body as well as one’s mind.
Hauser had hoped that now he had retired and settled his weary bones in Mexico, his lost vitality would somehow return. That his mind would regain the sharpness it had gradually lost throughout the years.
He looked into the bathroom mirror and an ancient stranger looked back. Grey eyed, white haired with skin like an inner city road map it was so lined. It didn’t seem fair to the German, to be left so desiccated after a lifetime of sacrifice. But then again when did fair ever come into it?
He abandoned his ghostly reflection and came through to his spacious bedroom. And although he had only gotten out of bed ten minutes previously Gabriela was already in the room changing his sheets. Hauser stood in the doorway and watched her work.
Gabriela was about fifty as far as Hauser could tell but whereas he wore every year on his face and then some, she could easily pass for thirty five, forty on a bad day. Her long straight hair was still jet black and her olive skin was only just showing the early stages of age, and mostly around her deep brown eyes.
It could almost be supernatural if Hauser didn’t know what supernatural really looked like. No this was just good old fashioned clean living and having a large loving family. Neither of which could be more foreign to him.
“Are you coming to the barbeque?” Gabriela asked without turning around. She bungled up the bedding and thrust it into her wicker wash basket.
Hauser had been so wrapped up in the letter he had received last week from Mendez at the Vatican that he had clear forgotten it was that time of year again. Three years ago Hauser had saved Gabriela’s nephew, Pedro, from the clutches of a nasty little demon that had taken up residence in the village, Pedro and a dozen others. It had been Hauser’s most exacting case in years and had damn near killed him.
“He’d be heartbroken if you didn’t come,” she said and turned to him with the basket in both hands.
“Do I have a choice?” Hauser asked good naturedly in his now almost flawless Spanish.
“What do you think?” She said with a smile.
He could tell she wanted to say more, but there was an unwritten rule with the people of the village that you don’t pry too deeply into the crazy German’s life. They owed him that much.
“What’s on your mind Gabriela?” He asked.
She glanced guiltily at the letter from Mendez on his bedside table, Hauser had forgotten he’d left it there. She was a devout Catholic and must have seen the Vatican crest on the letter head. “I didn’t read it!” She blurted out. “But I suppose this means they found you.”
Everyone knew Hauser’s feelings on the church it had been the subject of many a drunken discussion between the German and the villagers since they had invited him to stay for saving the children. He nodded, “they want my help with something, but as always they can go...”
A look of daggers from Gabriela stole the curse from Hauser’s lips. “I keep telling them I’m retired,” he said
instead.
“And so you deserve to be,” she said.
“They never once helped me,” Hauser said with an edge to his voice. He took a breath, all those years fighting on his own had made him so bitter it used to eat him up inside, but he knew it was something he really needed to let go of for his sanity as well as his health. But he had to admit it gave him no little satisfaction telling them to go fuck themselves.
Father Mendez was a reasonable enough man, Hauser had to admit, and the priest knew more than most at the Vatican about what evil truly looked like. But if he insisted on bowing and scraping to a God that didn’t exist, then the German had little time for him and his ‘research.’
“So, you’ll come?” Gabriela said.
“Will there be booze?” Hauser asked.
“More than enough for you, old man.” She told him with a smile.
“Then how could I refuse?”
When Gabriela had left with the washing, Hauser stepped out onto the balcony of his room. She or one of the others had set out a generous breakfast for him as they usually did. He sat at the wooden table and poured himself a glass of fresh orange juice.
The balcony looked out onto the village’s main square and already people were about their daily business. Occasionally one of them would look up in his direction and seeing him sat there would give a wave or doff their hats in greeting.
He felt like the mayor of the place at times like these or some drug cartel leader surveying his compound. Everyone who lived there knew his name and what he had done for them and in return they almost all contributed to his well-being. He had never asked to be treated like this but he knew they saw it not only as an honour for the lives of their children, but also a pleasure.
For all his years of wandering, for the first time in his very eventful life Karl Hauser felt at home and this was a place he could never imagine leaving again.
No, he had done his part in this life, more than most in fact. The things he had seen and done to this day made him wince but still he could be content that he had never taken an innocent life, just the lives of those either created by evil or those who had allowed themselves to be seduced by it.