Chance Damnation

by DeAnna Knippling

  “Aye,” it said.

  “What are you—Why are you here?” he asked.

  “I will not say,” it said.

  “You failed, didn’t you?”

  It refused to answer.

  “Speak,” Sebastian said.

  It ground its teeth together and stayed silent. A rivulet of blood trickled down a corner of its mouth.

  “That means yes,” Aloysius said. “If you’d succeeded, you’d be taunting us with it. So you’ll be back. Why didn’t you bring any weapons?”

  More blood trickled. Then it roared, “Torturers, usurpers, you see the day that you are defeated, and you know it not!” Then it clamped its teeth together again.

  Aloysius frowned at Sebastian. It didn’t sound like the kind of thing a demon would say. Maybe an Indian, but a demon from Hell? They hadn’t taken any demon lands, and they weren’t threatening to flood what little they had left. But Sebastian wouldn’t meet his eye; he was staring at a page in his Bible.

  “Why didn’t you bring any weapons?” Aloysius asked again.

  The thing roared at him, splattering him with blood from its mouth.

  Hell. He caught himself wondering if he could catch anthrax from the damned thing.

  Liam said, “It has nothing more to say. Theodore, Aloysius, Sebastian, make sure the thing’s secure for the night, then get cleaned up and come in for supper. Sebastian, you’ll be saying grace.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Robert asked.

  “Sell it to a circus,” Liam said. “Shoot it and have it cut up into steaks.”

  They left.

  The beast howled a couple of cuss words.

  “You better shut it up, Sebastian,” Aloysius said. “Got a prayer for that?”

  “Be silent!” Sebastian commanded it.

  It cursed again, still in the human tongue. Theodore stood up from where he was leaning on the wall, kicked it on the side of the head, and knocked it out.

  Chapter 9

  Aloysius pulled his boots off outside the back door and left them outside. His socks were dirty, but not too bad, so he walked in and washed up at the sink.

  Peggy wasn’t so terrible about dirt as his mother used to be, but it seemed wrong, laying extra work on Peggy, that he hadn’t minded laying on his mother. His mother had been his mother, larger than life and twice as militant as a drill sergeant in boot camp, and she never laughed. It was almost a pleasure to bring a clod of dirt into her pristine house from time to time.

  Peggy, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about him leaving his dirty clothes in a pile on the floor to be washed, even though he didn’t live there anymore. She’d make fun of him, sure, but there was no bite to it.

  Aloysius walked into the kitchen toward the dining room and saw that Peggy wasn’t going to be able to hold it together. She was standing in front of the stove, taking deep sniffs while looking up at the ceiling, not smelling that the chicken-fried steak in the fry pans was burning.

  Aloysius reached around her and turned the burners off.

  “Oh,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Aloysius peeked into the oven; a pan full of steaks was warming beside a pot of creamed corn and a pot of cream gravy.

  “Potatoes?” he said.

  Peggy burst into tears. “I forgot the potatoes! There’s no time!”

  “Any bread made?”

  She brushed her hands on her apron and walked out of the kitchen and around the corner. She was still wearing her black dress from church, and hadn’t noticed that she had a big smear of dirt all across the back of it.

  Aloysius poked at the steaks a couple of times with his fork. Despite being burnt on the outside, they weren’t too dry.

  There was a bang and the screen door at the back slammed shut and footsteps pounded through the entryway.

  Jerome carried a big stick and his bb gun with him. He ran into the kitchen, thumped the stick on the floor, and said, “It sounds hollow.”

  “That’s due to the basement,” Aloysius said.

  “I checked the chickens and the horse barn,” Jerome said.

  “Good,” Aloysius said.

  Then Peggy came back around the corner with a pair of bread loaves wrapped up in cling film and aluminum foil. “Jerome!” she shouted. “Take your shoes off!”

  Jerome looked down at his boots, which were covered with clumps of half-dried. “Can’t. I’m going right back out as soon as I make a map.”

  “Right now.”

  Jerome sat on the kitchen floor, pulled off his boots (leaving them in the middle of the kitchen floor), and ran into the dining room and up the stairs.

  Peggy sighed and put down the bread.

  “I’ll get it,” Aloysius said.

  “You take care of that meat,” Peggy said.

  Aloysius pulled the pan of steaks out of the oven and added the last three from the pans on the stove. “We expecting company?”

  “Just Robert,” Peggy said.

  “That’s right.”

  Jerome pounded back down the stairs, slid around the corner in his socks, and grabbed his boots as he ran past.

  “You stay away from that shed,” Peggy yelled.

  “That goes double by me,” Aloysius said.

  “How far is it from Fort Thompson to Gray Hill?” Jerome asked.

  “Depends on which road you take,” Aloysius said.

  “If you cut straight across.”

  Aloysius looked up at the ceiling. “Thirteen miles?”

  “And how far from Grey Hill to Duncan? If you go straight?”

  “Six. The road’s about as straight as you can get anyway.”

  “Okay.” Jerome took off out the back door, letting it slam behind him.

  Peggy was blinking back tears again. “I don’t think I can handle him anymore, Aloysius.”

  “Jerome?” He was surprised. Jerome was just about the calmest, sweetest kid you could imagine. He got up to some pretty strange practical jokes sometimes, and never cracked a smile, but those were little things.

  “Ever since it happened. He’s been tearing around like a crazy man, digging holes in the grass and stealing kitchen knives. He spends hours practice shooting with his bb gun, then comes in the house and stares at the gun rack like he’s trying to work himself up to stealing something bigger.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “You have your own work to do,” Peggy said.

  “I’ll—I’ll start taking him out with me once in a while. Maybe he just needs something to do.”

  Peggy shook her head. “Liam won’t do anything with him but spoil him. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Aloysius picked up the loaves of bread; they were frozen. He unwrapped them, pulled off the cling film, and sliced them open with a bread knife. He spread the insides with butter—waiting until Peggy was looking the other way, and added more butter and some garlic salt—and put them in the oven.

  “Ten minutes?” he asked.

  “Fifteen.” Peggy brushed her hands down her apron again. “I must look like a mess.”

  “There’s a, uh, there’s a stain on the back of your dress.”

  Peggy twirled around, trying to look at the back of her dress and turning around like a dog chasing its own tail to do so. Aloysius laughed.

  “I better change.”

  “You better,” Aloysius agreed. “What would you do without—”

  “Don’t say it.” Peggy kissed him on his cheek. “Thank you.”

  He grinned. “Go change your dress, little girly.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t call me that anymore,” she said from the dining room. She clip-clopped up the stairs in her black dress shoes, and he could hear her walk up to her room. She was older than him, anyhow.

  By the time they’d eaten supper, it was late, and Peggy sent Jerome off to bed.

  “Is there any dessert?” he asked, not whining.

  “No, squirt,” Aloysius said. “It’s been a hard day
, so lay off your sister.”

  Jerome nodded gravely. “Are you going to talk about how to kill the demons now?”

  Aloysius looked around the table, wondering what he was supposed to say about that. “Well—”

  Liam said, “You want to get your licks in, don’t you?”

  Jerome nodded.

  “Can’t blame you, boy. But you do what your sister Peggy says and get ready for bed.”

  “I need to tell you—”

  “Bed,” Liam said. He might be spoiling the boy, but he wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise anyhow.

  Jerome cut himself off and looked at his father.

  “Bed.”

  Jerome nodded and went upstairs. Aloysius could clearly hear the boy thump up the stairs and go to his room.

  “You, too, Peg,” Liam said.

  “I have dishes to do.”

  “I’ll have the boys take care of them.”

  She nodded, relieved. Theodore jumped up and held her chair for her. They heard every step she took until she reached her bed. The springs creaked. They heard her start to cry.

  Theodore closed the door at the bottom of the stairs softly.

  “Well?” Liam asked.

  The upstairs toilet flushed, and water splashed in the sink.

  “I still say they’re looking for something,” Aloysius said. “And they haven’t found it yet. A person.”

  Liam’s eyebrow twitched. “A person?”

  “They don’t carry any weapons. They don’t hurt people, not on purpose, not unless you attack them.”

  “That’s a pretty big assumption.”

  Sebastian said, “Hypothetically…who do you think they’re looking for?”

  “Jerome thinks—” Aloysius cut himself off with a mental curse. He hadn’t meant to bring the girl up in front of his father. “He has some pretty crazy ideas, anyway. You saw him with the bb gun, patrolling the farm.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Liam said. “Tomorrow. Get it organized.”

  Aloysius nodded. “Yessir. Anyway, I thought at first they were looking for Sebastian, but they had their chance today on the steps, and they didn’t take him.”

  “Was it Maeve, do you think?”

  Aloysius pretended to consider this. “No, sir,” he said, after a few seconds. “I never heard of her having occasion to sin, not once.”

  Sebastian snorted, and Aloysius wondered whether he’d had a chance to hear Maeve’s confession. What could she have possibly told him?

  “I’m sure Theodore could tell you a sin or two. Any husband can,” Liam said. “But I take your point.”

  “Who, then?” Sebastian asked.

  Aloysius looked at him. “I don’t know. But I think the idea itself is the right one. They didn’t destroy the Fort Thompson church, just dug up through the basement. I ran around the other side of the church to turn off the propane, and there they were, a big group of them, snuffling around like a bunch of dogs. They were looking for something.”

  “That girl?” Liam asked, a dangerous question, as likely to get him angry and thumping the table and telling Sebastian to kick Blackthorn out of the church, to excommunicate him, by God, as anything else.

  “I can’t imagine why,” Aloysius said. “More likely Jerome.”

  A dangerous answer, but less dangerous.

  “Jerome?” Liam asked.

  “If you count Connor and Nickolas, that makes him the seventh son.”

  Liam snorted. “That’s just superstition.”

  Aloysius spread his hands. “I don’t know. It seems more likely than that the demons want a little half-blood girl.” As soon as he said it, he regretted it.

  “Now, there’s a sinner,” Liam said. “But Blackthorn won’t hear a word of it. I’ve spoken with him many times about his devil daughter. That’s what it is. The demons are here to reclaim their own.”

  Aloysius glanced over at Sebastian. He was staring at the ceiling, deep in thought. Next to him, Robert was shoving a heel of bread around in his gravy, rolling his eyes. He caught Aloysius’s eye and shook his head, as if in disbelief.

  Liam said, “Do you think they’ll come again at Duncan?”

  Sebastian snapped alert.

  Aloysius said, “Who knows?”

  Liam said, “It’s the last church on Se—on Father Vincent Paul’s route. They’ve attacked the other two.”

  Aloysius said, “That’s reasonable, I suppose.”

  Sebastian said, “I’ll cancel services until—just in case.”

  “You ought to say a mass,” Theodore said.

  Everyone looked at him. It seemed such a nonsensical thing for Theodore to say—something Sebastian might say.

  “There are demons in God’s house. A mass ought to be said.”

  Liam nodded. “A good thought. Any word from the Bishop?”

  “I don’t know what’s taking so long,” Sebastian said, and Aloysius knew he was lying somehow.

  Liam, of course, couldn’t see it. “All right, then. We won’t accomplish anything else tonight. It’s time to head to bed.”

  Aloysius wanted to howl with frustration, but he didn’t. Like the others, he nodded and said his goodnights.

  Robert and Theodore were sleeping in their old room, which Peggy had made up for them. They all went upstairs except Liam, who slept on the main floor, claiming he was too old to climb the stairs every night.

  Sebastian and Aloysius were sleeping in their old room that night, too.

  Aloysius waiting until the sounds of people moving around had died down, then said, “All right, Sebastian. What did you do?”

  Chapter 10

  Sebastian tried to play dumb. “Do? When?”

  “You didn’t contact the Bishop. Why didn’t you?”

  “I said I did.”

  “You were lying,” Aloysius said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know when you’re lying.”

  Sebastian didn’t say anything, which just confirmed Aloysius’s opinion. Aloysius got up and opened the window; it was too hot. The crickets were screaming. Aloysius opened the other window, the one facing the beast’s shed. It wasn’t making any noise.

  “We should check on it,” Aloysius said. “Make sure it hasn’t gotten out.”

  “I told him the Gray Hill church burnt down,” Sebastian said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about the Fort Thompson church.”

  “It doesn’t look good for you,” Aloysius said.

  Sebastian didn’t say anything.

  “You going to blame Blackthorn?”

  Sebastian gasped. “Blame Jim?”

  “I guess not,” Aloysius said.

  “Demons,” Sebastian said. “I’m just—it’s a miracle.”

  Aloysius lay back on his bed, the springs creaking under him like a warning alarm. “Aren’t miracles supposed to be good things?”

  “It’s proof that God exists.”

  Aloysius shook his head, which in turn shook his bedsprings. “You lost me there.”

  “If demons exist, then God must exist also.”

  “As long as these are the right kind of demons.”

  Sebastian said, “What do you mean, the right kind of demons?”

  “I don’t know. They just don’t seem like they’re from Hell. They big buffalo, you know? Maybe the Indian gods sent them.”

  “Don’t speak heresy. There are no Indian gods. Or spirits.”

  “Can’t they use the same argument?”

  “Yes, except it’s not true.”

  Aloysius shook his head again. There was a soft tap at the door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The door opened a crack, and Jerome slipped in. He closed the door behind him, but kept it from latching by sticking his fingers in the crack.

  “What’s the matter, Jerome?” Aloysius asked. “Can’t sleep? Are we keeping you awake? You’ve got a big day ahead tomorrow, patrolling the farm.”

  Jerome rolled his eyes. “I’m
not going to do any good with a bb gun.”

  “I doubt that Father will leave an inch of skin on your body if you pick up one of his rifles.”

  “You have to listen to me,” the little boy said. Aloysius tried to remember whether he was nine or ten. Ten. Maybe eleven.

  “The demons will be back,” he said. “They’re coming for Celeste Marie next week at the Duncan church.”

  “Services are cancelled,” Sebastian said.

  “They live there,” Jerome said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Sebastian said. “They live up the hill a ways.”

  Jerome shook his head.

  “Why the Duncan church?” Aloysius said.

  “It’s the last church that he—that Father Vincent Paul says Mass at. They can dig really fast. They can make it in time.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “They dug all the way from Gray Hill to Fort Thompson, and that only took them one week, and it’s twice as long.”

  Aloysius looked at Sebastian. He had a sudden urge to run out into the fields and start poking around with a post-hole digger.

  “I’ll have a talk with her father,” Sebastian said. “Now, was there anything else?”

  “Why do the demons want your friend?” Aloysius asked, feeling shy of saying her name out loud, like it was bad luck.

  “Magic,” the boy said.

  Aloysius shook his head again, and Sebastian said, “Why must you always question God’s work in the universe? Saying you don’t believe in magic is like saying you don’t believe in miracles. It’s like saying you don’t believe in God.”

  “She can do magic. Real magic, not some stupid church stuff,” Jerome said.

  That didn’t sit well with Sebastian. “You get your—you go back to bed.”

  “You have to listen to me!” Jerome hissed.

  “Just go back to bed,” Aloysius said. He didn’t want to wake up their father, and he couldn’t take Sebastian when he was making an ass of himself; it just made him want to pick on him more.

  “What are you going to do?” Jerome asked.

  “We’re going to set a trap,” Aloysius said. “At the Duncan church. Now go to bed, because we aren’t going to tell you about it. And if I hear anything from Liam—”

  The boy said, “You won’t,” and slipped out the door without another sound.