Life and Limb

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. And it’s talkin’ to us again, so to speak.”

  I stuck the cutlery and plates in the sink, took the coffee with me as I followed him down the hallway to the common room.

  This time a two-word opening message: Consecrated ground.

  Okay. We looked at one another blankly.

  Then Remi seemed to get it. “A church is consecrated. And unconsecrated if the building is sold.”

  Before I could say anything, a series of photos appeared. Two churches, a mosque, and a synagogue. All were charred skeletons, but identifiable.

  “Phoenix,” McCue said. “Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim. All on the same night. Last night. They’ve ruled out hate crimes, because no one religion was targeted.”

  “We’re supposed to go to Phoenix?”

  Remi shook his head. “Grandaddy seemed to think we’d be busy in Flagstaff for a while.”

  I thought it over. “I’m pretty sure demons can’t go inside a holy place. Consecration is its protection.”

  More text appeared: Chapel of the Holy Dove.

  Nothing more came up. The screen went blank. “I guess that’s our assignment,” I said. “Find out if a surrogate is targeting it, stop him/her/it before the chapel burns down. A holy place can’t be a domicile, but there’s nothing to stop a demon from getting busy from the outside with gasoline and a lighted match or a Molotov cocktail.”

  First we had to find out what and where was the Chapel of the Holy Dove. That turned out to be easy. The regular internet was working again, so Remi typed the name into the search field. Photos along with info came right up.

  There wasn’t much to it. It was twenty miles from Flagstaff, neither large nor imposing. Just a small, simple A-frame building, with a shingled roof and a red-painted door hosting a cross made of mirrors.

  “It burned once before,” Remi said, “Got rebuilt in ninety-nine, all volunteer labor.”

  “Demons?”

  “In ninety-nine? The hell vents didn’t open until recently. Probably just a careless human.”

  “Soooo, we go out there to see if you can get a feel for any demonic activity?”

  Abruptly the screen went dead. Remi depressed the power button a couple of times. Nothing happened.

  Well, until one word appeared: Now.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Well, at least it’s daytime.”

  “Maybe not so good. Other people will be there.”

  I rolled my head back until I could see the ceiling, released a noisy breath. “Collateral damage.”

  * * *

  —

  Once again I said I’d take the bike. Remi mentioned that it was a waste of gas to use two vehicles. I just looked at him, threw a leg over the saddle, pulled on gloves and helmet. I figured that was message enough.

  The ride out U.S. 180 to the chapel reminded me of back home, which I was not expecting. Back home in Oregon with its great tracts of forests, yeah, but here? Ponderosa pines, fir, aspen, juniper. Brilliant blue skies. A winding asphalt road. I felt sorry for McCue, walled inside his big pickup. Bike and an open road. What more can you ask?

  Twenty miles out, I saw the sign on the right for the chapel. I pulled off, rolled slowly into a cinder parking area that was actually just a wide spot in the road. Tire tracks proved that people did park here, but with no delineated spaces. It was just dirt and cinders.

  I was beginning to hate cinders. Maybe I should have a talk with Ganji about it.

  Up close, you could see just how small the chapel was. And its simplicity. At the west end, the end with the red door, the entrance was quite low. Beyond, soaring upward on an angled line, the roof gave way to windows. The entire east wall was made up of glass. I climbed off the bike, waited for Remi to park his truck, and then we walked inside. The view was astounding. The windows and A-framed roof embraced the San Francisco Peaks, the volcano cluster Ganji wanted to wake. Meadow, wild flowers, scatterings of pines. And the A-frame shape was carried through with interior, sharp-angled upside down V-shaped beams marching from door to windows. No formal pews, just wooden benches with backs, the kind you’d find in parks.

  Graffiti covered the interior. Every inch of wood contained commentary in markers, pens, even rough knife-blade carving, and notes pinned to the walls. People from all over the world had left their marks. At first I was shocked that people would deface a chapel so badly. But as I walked the gravel floor and read a few of the notes, the messages written on wood, I realized most were of hope, prayers for others, or requests asking for intercession. There was great respect for the little chapel built atop mortared natural rocks.

  No one else was present. We stood alone within the walls of stone, wood, and glass, upon gravel in place of manufactured flooring. The chapel featured a modest wooden pulpit, also covered with graffiti, a low stone altar, and a rough-hewn wooden cross mounted high in front of the windows, as if it were floating.

  Remi found handouts explaining how the chapel had come to be built, then rebuilt after the fire, information he naturally shared with me. He ended with, “Weddings are held here all the time.”

  I walked to the windows and stood there gazing upon the Peaks. As I had on the mountain, when Grandaddy had hiked my hungover ass up and down Fatman’s Loop, I sensed the peace of the place, the sanctity. Here, there was no koyaanisqatsi—no life out of balance. Life in this chapel was very much in balance.

  Which explained why surrogates wanted to burn it down. Out of chaos comes Lucifer. Burned churches, synagogues, mosques, even this little roadside chapel, would make people think less of worshipping God and more of Lucifer. And to think of him was to open the door.

  I stared at the cross. Thought again about what McCue and I knew now of Grandaddy, of ourselves: That he was a seraph, and we were born of heavenly essence, of celestial energy.

  I asked what the girl in that kid’s book had: “Are you there, God?”

  God did not, as far as I could tell, offer any answer.

  Remi was wandering around the chapel, reading notes and carvings. “I don’t feel anything,” he said. “I don’t sense any demons.”

  “But you’re not running at full capacity yet.”

  “We’re in a chapel,” he clarified. “Consecrated ground. Any sense of surrogate activity around here ought to be obvious, regardless. It would be like a black stain on white linen.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe the demon hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Well, if it wants to burn down the place, let’s make sure it can’t.”

  As Remi turned and headed for the red door, I called, “How the hell are we supposed to do that? And wouldn’t someone else have already thought of it?” But McCue was gone, so I followed and found him up in his truck cab, pulling out Lily’s duffle. He dug through it, came up with two flasks I recognized: holy oil and holy water.

  “It’s possible.” He shut the passenger door, “Maybe after the fire the new chapel wasn’t reconsecrated. And even then, if they did, it may only have been the building itself, not the land surrounding it.” He tossed me a flask. “You man the oil. I’ve got the water. Let’s walk a large circle all around the chapel, say twenty feet out from the building, and dribble oil and water every three feet.”

  All things Biblical I left to Remi, so I didn’t object, didn’t ask questions. Just eyeballed the twenty-foot distance from the chapel, and began to walk in a large circle. Remi started on the other side. We met, passed, wound up back where we’d begun. Both of us stared at the chapel.

  I asked, “What now? Anything more?”

  Remi nodded, then spoke quietly. But not to me.

  “We present this building to be reconsecrated for the worship of God and the service of all people.”

  I waited.

  “This house shall be known as the Chapel of t
he Holy Dove.”

  It was markedly quiet all around us.

  And finally, after a fair bit in Latin, he added, in English:

  “By the power of your Holy Spirit consecrate this house of your worship.

  Bless us and sanctify what we do here,

  that this place may be holy for us and a house of prayer for all people.”

  And that was that. Remi said the land around the chapel was consecrated, and the chapel itself reconsecrated.

  “So nothing inside the circle will burn?”

  “Nothing inside the circle will burn.”

  A minivan pulled up. I glanced at it, saw Remi concentrating, eyes distant as he went inside himself. “Anything?”

  He shook his head. “There might could be a demon—but there also might not.”

  The minivan doors slid open and a family got out. Man, woman, older woman who was probably a grandmother, three kids. I thought of the family the black dog had killed, and I wanted none of this family to be at risk—nor did I want any of them to be a demon in disguise.

  They all went into the chapel, which answered that question.

  A moment later the mother came back out. Petite, brown-haired, wearing a University of Arizona football jersey. She looked at the truck, the bike, and us. Clearly noticed the motorcycle leathers, the cowboy attire. In her eyes was reticence, confusion, a hint of shyness, but also a need to know something.

  “This is going to sound really weird,” she said, “but are you by any chance Gabriel and Remiel?”

  I felt a cold finger at the base of my spine. “Why?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes,” Remi said.

  “Wait.” She put up a delaying forefinger. “He gave me something for you.”

  Remi and I exchanged concerned glances as she went to the minivan, unlocked it, reached in and pulled out a manila envelope. She relocked the vehicle, then walked back to us.

  “We stopped for gas,” she explained. “Just on the outskirts of Flagstaff. A convenience store. The cashier told us about this chapel, said it was very pretty, and added that if Gabriel and Remiel were here—cowboy and biker; he was explicit—I was to give this envelope to them.” She held it out, eyes doubtful.

  I tamped down foreboding, managed a smile. “It’s a scavenger hunt,” I told her, manufacturing a false amusement. “The clues come in the envelopes.” I took it from her. “Thank you so much. The cashier’s in on the game, too.”

  That eased her concern. “The kids love scavenger hunts!”

  And then one of those kids started yelling inside the chapel, and she excused herself to deal with it.

  As before, our names were written on the outside. Nothing more. I glanced at Remi, who nodded solemn encouragement. I was wearing gloves, so I used my KA-BAR to slit the envelope open.

  A note, prepared as all the others were. The message was simple: ‘More to come.’

  I looked inside the envelope again, discovered something else. Pulled it out, held it so both of us could see it.

  Oh, holy shit.

  Remi was swearing also.

  The 8 x 10 color photo was of a young woman, very dead. Blood obscured her face, soaked half her clothing. Her limbs were sprawled.

  I turned the photo over. In red ink, two scrawled words: Mary Ann.

  Remi wasted no time. “We’ve got to go to the cops.”

  “Wait.” I thought back, recalling the other two notes. “The first said, ‘I know who you are,’ the second, with bolded emphasis, ‘I know what you are.’ Whoever this is—I’m assuming a demon, as Ganji noted—it’s playing a game with us. If we go to the cops, there will be all kinds of awkward questions we can’t answer—and I’m pretty sure we’d become suspects. After all, I’ve got a record.”

  “Then we mail it,” Remi’s words were clipped, his drawl reduced. “Clean it of prints, send it to the police. Let them take it from there.”

  I held up one hand, wiggled my fingers. “Wearing gloves.”

  “So let’s go back into town, get it done.”

  I nodded, slipped note and photo back into the envelope, placed it carefully in one of my saddlebags. I had no affinity for cops, after eighteen months inside, but McCue was right. This was police business.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  As we headed down the road with its elegant asphalt curves winding through the forest, I found my mind making the jump to lightspeed again.

  It had to be a demon playing us—unless it was an angel. I hated the latter idea, but Greg had sounded absolutely certain Remi and I were in pretty deep, that we’d be used by anyone who wished to manipulate us. Then again, what if she were the one playing us? Some Grigori had fallen, she claimed, and made Nephilim by sleeping with human women. For all I knew, she was a fallen Grigori with an agenda all her own.

  I thought again of Grandaddy. There was nothing in the man now, nor had there ever been, that made me distrust him. But he himself had alluded to Lucifer’s greatest trick—convincing people he didn’t exist. Because then he could work in private, observed by no one until it was too late.

  What if Grandaddy’s greatest trick was convincing us he was working to save the world, when he wasn’t?

  And why on earth wouldn’t he?

  I thought of the magic phone tucked into my jacket. Perhaps it was time we summoned Grandaddy, instead of him summoning us.

  And then a woman on the right-side shoulder darted out into my lane.

  Oh, shit.

  Laying down a bike is not something anyone ever wants to do. You veer, you swerve, you do everything you can to keep it upright, especially a big twin Harley weighing over seven hundred pounds. Laying down a bike also is nothing like in the movies. For one thing, it hurts like hell. And a human body can break. The late Evel Knievel could attest to this after his attempt to clear the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas. He broke more than forty bones.

  So I veered sharply, then again even more sharply as the woman, who apparently had a death wish, or was drunk, or high, or just downright stupid, took three more steps into the road, turned toward me with her hands up. I hit the brakes, tried to keep the bike upright with sheer strength and balance, but I lost it.

  I lost it.

  You can’t perform miracles with a big twin Harley, can’t stop as short as with dirt bikes and the like. I really, really wanted not to hit her, so this meant I needed to control the machine the only way I could: laying it down in order to avoid her, and also not destroy myself in the doing of it. I hit the rear brake because now I needed the bike to go down, in hopes of sliding by without clipping her, rather than plowing right into her.

  In seemingly slow motion the rear tire locked up, the bike slid sideways, tipped, leaned over—gravity was winning—and the rear assembly rotated forward. Both wheels now faced the way I’d been going because the bike was turned sideways across the lane.

  I saw her face, very pale, surrounded by clouds of black hair. She appeared to be in shock. Well, yeah; I would be, too, with a huge motorcycle bearing down on me.

  All I could think about were two things: Getting my left leg free before it got turned into ground-up hamburger sandwiched between road and bike; and keeping my head up. Helmets do a lot of good, but they’re not impervious.

  So as the bike went down I yanked my left leg out of the way. Metal hit the ground, sparks flew as the foot peg dragged. I slid with the bike a few feet, then got loose from it and commenced an awkward, involuntary series of tumbles.

  I flipped, flipped again, rolled, strained my neck as I tried to keep my head off the ground. Asphalt grabbed at leather, which slowed me, but also changed the arc of my body, this time me without the bike, and thus considerably lighter than I was with the Harley. I flipped off the road entirely. I ended up on the shoulder of the lane across from mine.

  Oh crap. Oh Jesus. Oh s
hit.

  A woman. A woman in the road.

  I tried to lever myself up. Saw my bike, uncontrolled, miss a curve and slide straight ahead at 50 mph, where it disappeared into trees and underbrush.

  By this time Remi had stopped and was out of his truck, running across the road toward me. I pushed myself upright with my left elbow until I realized that was not wise, since I’d gone down on my left side. I tried to suck back the pain on a series of stuttered breaths.

  As Remi arrived, I blurted, “Woman. She okay?”

  McCue knelt at my side, eyes frantic. “Hey—hey . . . don’t move. Okay? Just don’t move. I’m calling 911.”

  “Wait,” I said urgently. “Go find the woman. See if she’s okay.”

  “What woman?”

  “The one in the middle of the road. I didn’t—didn’t just fall over, you know. Go look. I’ll call.”

  McCue was unconvinced and focused strictly on me. “I didn’t see any woman.”

  I moved a little, wished I hadn’t. “Well, I did. Go look. Go back and look. I’ll call, I’ll call. If she’s hurt, the ambulance can pick up both of us.”

  I didn’t want to think about her actually being dead. But I didn’t recall contact. Maybe she’d jumped out of the way even as I swerved and laid the bike down.

  Remi stared hard at me, assessing, reluctant. He still didn’t move to follow my instructions, and now I was frustrated.

  “I’m okay! I don’t think I broke anything. Bruises, scrapes—I’ll live. Got my left leg out, kept my head off the ground. Go look for the damn woman!”

  He didn’t like it, but he rose and started jogging back the way we had come. I fumbled at a jacket pocket, pulled a phone free, hit the Contacts screen.

  I didn’t call 911. I called Lily.

  After five minutes or so, Remi jogged back. Once he reached me he knelt and said, “There was no woman. Nothing, Gabe. No scrap of clothing, no tracks—nothing. It was the right place—I saw your skid marks.”