Keeper of the Faith: Finnegan #3 (The Midnight Defenders)

by Joey Ruff

  Then there was the Hand. Likely, there was a team on stand-by that would be here within the hour. As for back-up, on a good day, it was about five hours from Boston to Philadelphia by car, which they would do, as it would be easier to transport their gear. That wouldn’t be efficient. They’d call in any field agents, regardless of their current assignments. Something this high-profile would trump a grindylow. Hell, it would trump the Jersey Devil.

  Then… I shuddered. Hunter’s words hit me all of a sudden: Lots of non-people, too. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I could guess. The Pope was a global figure, the leader of the largest denomination of arguably the world’s largest religion. God didn’t abandon the children he loved in a world full of monsters. He put in place guardians and fail-safes. Maybe that’s what Hunter meant. There were things, non-people, that would want to ensure the Pope stayed safe. I only knew about a handful of those guardians, and I doubted they were the strongest. Still, I didn’t want to have to fend off bigfoots on top of everything else.

  Whatever I was going to do, the only smart play was to do it now. There was no time to waste. Time only allowed every force against me a window to get in place and make it harder for me. The police wouldn’t care about the truth, only what appeared to be true. They’d want me dead. The others, there might be a way to reason with them, but it would be easier to get in and out and not be around to find out.

  The obvious choice was to take out the assassin before he had time to strike again, but how did you find someone that could look like anyone? Start at the last place you know he was and follow him from there. I couldn’t do it myself. That would take too long.

  It was time to call in a favor.

  Walking back into the diner, the waitress greeted me again with a smile. “Forget something?” she asked.

  “Do you have a public phone?”

  She spun and pointed to a hallway in the back. “Pay phone by the bathrooms.” She laughed. “Maybe the only one left in the city.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Entering the hallway, I pulled out my phone and turned it on, putting it immediately into airplane mode. I clicked the contact list and found Cameron’s number, put a couple quarters into the payphone and dialed. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?” came the youthful voice.

  “Cam, it’s me.”

  “Austin, hey. What’s up?”

  The greeting was too casual. “Haven’t been watching the news, eh?”

  “Been busy, why?”

  “Hunter didn’t talk to you?”

  There was hesitation in his voice. “Should he have? Am I in trouble?”

  Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I shook my head. Then I said, “Not you. Me. I don’t think we work together anymore.”

  Cameron was part of the Hand, out of the Portland office, just like me. A natural computer guru, even at twenty-one, he worked in the cyber division, debunking blog articles and social media posts that claimed to have information on the Midnight. In the age of the smart phone, everyone had a camera on them at all times, and most of the pictures that crept online were genuine. It was his job to hack the sites and alter the images. Nothing major, just a misplaced shadow, an added glare. Enough subtlety to call the validity into question. What he did was an art form.

  “Shit,” he said. “What…what happened?”

  “No time right now to get into it.”

  “Are you safe? Are you okay?”

  “For now. Which is why I’m calling. I need to find someone. You told me once that you could hack camera feeds. ATM cameras, traffic lights, that kind of thing.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Where at?”

  “Philadelphia.”

  “Okay. Just give me a second.”

  I could hear the rapid fire of keystrokes through the phone as he worked. “Is Hunter there?”

  “Haven’t seen him….”

  “Don’t let him see you, Cam. Not doing this.” I paused, hearing his key strokes. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  He laughed. “I don’t owe Hunter shit. I’m here because of you. What’s he gonna do to me?”

  Back when I was a priest, a short time before I got my scars, I was asked by a member of the congregation to help her son. He showed signs of troubled behavior: sneaking out, drug use, that sort of thing. The kid was Cam. He was a nineteen-year-old college dropout, running illegal websites from various cafes that offered free wi-fi in the Seattle area. He was into dark stuff and didn’t even know it.

  Running code and maintaining server traffic for as many sites as he did, he didn’t pay too close attention to the content. He was young and stupid enough to know the bulk of his work was illegal, but not care because it paid well (and under the table). One of the human trafficking sites he monitored wasn’t for the sex trade. It was ferrying human sacrifices for a cult. Another site was an import business run by Tengu, who were international smugglers of rare and mystical artifacts.

  Long story short, he was in over his head and things went south pretty quick. Luckily, I made a connection in time. I offered him a better life by recruiting him into the Hand.

  “You’ve got a good position,” I told him. “Don’t mess it up.”

  “Fuck that. Listen,” he said, still typing away. “Wait, who are we looking for? You got a name, photo, something? I can pull up their Facebook…”

  “Me.”

  He was silent for a second. “What?”

  “The guy I’m looking for, last night in the Four Seasons hotel downtown, he attacked the Pope. He was wearing my face. Minus the scars.”

  He took a second to process that, and rather than get bogged down with the gravity of it, he said, “So that’s where we start? Hotel footage?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What time?”

  I told him.

  “Okay. Give me a second.” His fingers started dancing over the keyboard again. “So, what are you planning on doing now? Ya know, if you aren’t with the Hand?”

  “Hand or not. I’m going to find this guy. I’m going to stop him, and then hopefully I’ll get to talk to the Pope.”

  “I mean, after that. Do you…what? Start your own practice?”

  “I don’t know, Cam. It all just kind of happened.”

  “If you do, you let me know, okay. Whatever you do. Let me know. I’ll totally follow you. Like some Jerry Maguire shit. I’m serious. I don’t owe Hunter….”

  “I know.” Cameron never knew his father. He died of cancer when Cam was really young, but his older brother, Danny, was about my age. Danny was in the Army, died in Afghanistan, leaving just Cam and his mom. That was when things got dark for Cam. He didn’t talk about Danny much, but I had a suspicion that Cam filled that hole with me.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  He didn’t say anything, and I just listened to the arrhythmic keystrokes for a few seconds before he said, “Got it.”

  “What? You know where he is?”

  “Not so fast. I just pulled up the security feed from the hotel.” He cleared his throat. “Shit. That’s uncanny. He looks just friggin like you. What is it, some kind of shapeshifter or something?”

  “Yeah. Naga. Can you follow him?”

  “Yeah. Of course. He went out the window. Just need to…” He whistled as he typed, and then said, “Traffic camera picks him up fifteen seconds later. He…damn. This is gonna take a hot minute.”

  “What is it?”

  “He changed. Like on camera. It’s kind of badass. Like Hollywood… the fuck?”

  “What is it?”

  “The fucking video just…shit. Dammit. Somebody else is… Shit. Cock. Whose jurisdiction is Philly?”

  “Boston.”

  “Bastard. Their guy’s better than me. Prick named Thorne. I met him a couple times. He’s efficient.”

  “Is he looking for me?” I asked.

  “Is he… Oh, right. Fuck. Because this guy looks like you.” He considered it a
second as he typed. “Don’t think so. Seems like a routine sweep. If he was looking for evidence, he wouldn’t have taken the vid down. He’s removing the video as a precaution. You can’t have video footage of people morphing. That will hit the news and then shit goes viral and there’s no stopping it.”

  “So, is that it then? We’re done? Trail go cold?” Then another though ran through my head: that video would have exonerated me. If it was gone…

  He laughed. “Give me a bit of credit. I’m compiling a folder as I go, downloading copies. I still have it, it’s just off the server. When I said he was better than me, I just meant… ah, forget it. He’s just on top of shit. He’s good, but I’m better.”

  “Hang on to it.”

  “Will do.” He typed some more. “This is gonna take me a minute. It’ll be faster without the phone at my ear.”

  “Yeah, of course. Call me back at this number?”

  “You want current location?”

  “That would be awesome.”

  “Give me ten.” Then he hung up.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the phone rang.

  “Cam, what did you find?”

  “He walked into the convention center five minutes ago. He doesn’t look like you. He’s a fucking nerd. I text you a screen grab.”

  “I’ll turn my phone back on. Keep an eye out, if he changes again, let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  “Cam, thank you.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  I hung up the phone and ducked out into the parking lot, jumping onto my bike and speeding out onto the street. I knew as I drove that I was heading into the eye of the storm, but it couldn’t be helped. I was the only one who knew what was happening, and I had to take care of it.

  The Pennsylvania Convention Center was located on Arch Street, on the block between 11th and 12th Avenues, right in the heart of Chinatown. The parking garage was behind the center, and after I parked, I ducked into a curio shop that advertised city souvenirs in the window display. I dressed like a tourist in a Philly t-shirt and large glasses, a backwards ball cap. I stuffed my leather jacket into a newly purchased Jansport backpack.

  I’d decided to leave my Colts with the bike, and I was glad that I did. There hadn’t been any visible security the previous day when I was there, but things were different this time. There were no armed guards at the door, but uniformed officers were inspecting bags as people entered, and a metal detector had been set up. No doubt this was in response to the attack.

  It didn’t take long to make it through security. The melted flesh on my face kept them from looking too closely at me. It was one of the few times I was thankful for them.

  Once inside, I stood just inside the entrance. The first thing I noticed was the enormity of the place. I was standing in a large, glass atrium with people everywhere I could see. For a while, in the early 90s, I lived in Chicago and went to a few Blackhawks games. This had that kind of feeling, but without the beer vendors and giant foam fingers. It hadn’t been this busy at the end of the day yesterday.

  For a moment, I considered the milling crowd, undoubtedly composed of all faiths, not just Catholic. From the matching and varied colored shirts, it was obvious that several churches had each brought a group. Several from out of the area, and one from as far away as Detroit. Without meaning to, as I watched the people, I grew very sad. I began to pity them. All so innocent, so blissfully unaware. There was an entire war happening directly under their noses, and they all just gathered here at the abstinence rally in the hope that they’d somehow manage to stop having sex with each other.

  Pangs of guilt swept over me like a bath of hot wax. I never used to think this way. I used to be swept with love at a sight like this. I used to swell with joy at the sight of so many believers gathered to put aside their doctrinal differences and celebrate their faith as one people, like it would be in Heaven.

  Heaven…

  “Everyone but me,” I said quietly, pulling out my phone and switching it on.

  What I wouldn’t have given in that moment to trade places with any one of those people. To be as ignorant and happy as any random person in that place. No. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t wish my condition on anyone. No hope of heaven…just like the devil, an angel who gave up on trying to be good.

  Cam’s text hadn’t come through yet, so I moved to a nearby table, grabbing a schedule of events and a map of the place. I tried to push the dark thoughts from my head by studying the map. Unlike the Chicago Stadium, the Convention Center was three separate buildings at ground level, with streets running between them. The upper levels connected the separate bases and unified it into one massive building that spanned four city blocks.

  According to the schedule, all of the speaking events, including the Pope’s, took place on the second floor. As I fell into step amongst the moving crowd, heading toward the stairs, I felt the vibration in my pocket. Pulling my phone out, I opened the text from Cameron to see a screen grab of a curly-haired red-head with freckles and thick, plastic frames. The kid in the image couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. It had to have been the most unassuming, least suspicious cover ever. From what I could see in the image, the kid was pencil thin, maybe sixty pounds soaking wet. What made it worse, as I looked around at the faces that moved beside me, it wasn’t an uncommon look among the target audience. Sure, there were plenty of normal, plain, and pretty people in attendance, but there were plenty that looked, well, like what Cameron called a nerd. I wasn’t looking for a needle in a haystack, here. I was looking for a needle in a needle stack.

  I began to pray. Despite knowing that my words literally fell on deaf ears. Call it a force of habit. The words weren’t fancy or rehearsed. It was just simple. “God, help me find this bastard.” I didn’t think my choice of language would do anything to persuade him to hear me any better, but it was all I had.

  It was like a light went on. A bright, fiery red light. I don’t know how I had missed it previously, but all of the sudden, it was unmistakable. About a hundred yards or so in front of me, just cresting the top of the staircase I was beginning to climb, was the shock of red hair from the kid in Cam’s picture.

  For about a half-second, my heart stopped beating. It was too much to be simply coincidence, but I knew better than to claim providence. Still, I mouthed a silent, “Thank you,” and quickened my pace.

  As my eyes caught sight of my target, the eyes behind those plastic frames locked onto me. He just happened to glance my way at that particular moment, and from the hesitation in his step and the way his eyes went wide, I knew he recognized me. His eyes. There was something familiar there. A twinkle of green light. He flashed me a smile as he disappeared around the corner.

  I reached the top of the stairs and found myself in an open area. Vendor tables lined each wall, selling everything from leather bracelets and bumper stickers with the Ichthus fish logo to CDs and merchandise from Christian bands that were performing throughout the event. The space in-between the tables was filled with another sea of heads and shoulders. At the front of the building, the crowd filtered into a long, not-wide-enough hallway which ran the entire four blocks of the second story. There didn’t appear to be any other doors or access points, which meant there was only one way for him to go. He wouldn’t risk changing his form in the thick of all these people, but I had no doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to shift once he got alone again.

  From the map, I knew the second floor, what the map called the two-hundred level, was essentially comprised of five exhibit halls, the combined area of which was upwards of a half million square feet. The long hallway that I was heading toward ran in front of that space with several access doors along its length. Four blocks away, the hall ended at a concierge desk and a Grand Hall, which was where the schedule said the Pope would be speaking in a few hours.

  I pushed my way through the crowd, scanning frantically as I went, but didn’t see the kid. He couldn’t have just
disappeared. As I moved, I began to feel very self-conscious. The people that I passed had gone from a casual dismissal of me to what I felt was a studying gaze. I could feel eyes on me, likely due to my scars or possibly due to my frantic movement. Either way, panic and paranoia chipped at my brain. I was sure somebody would recognize me, somehow, from the news perhaps. I didn’t know. I couldn’t stop to think about it.

  Then I saw him. Or…it.

  Up ahead, I caught the eyes of a small Asian girl. She paused only briefly inside the doorway to the exhibit hall. She flashed me a smile that I would have missed completely if not for the eyes. The flash of green.

  I struggled forward, trying to ignore the feeling that I was being watched. By the time I’d reached the first door into the long conference hall, it felt like ten minutes had passed. As I pushed through the doorway, I was convinced that at least two people had pointed in my direction.

  The exhibit hall, by comparison, was much less crowded. The room was one of those modular spaces you’d see in a modern church or other communal meeting space, with the track walls that folded up to make several small rooms into one massive one. From what I could tell, every modular wall had been opened, and enough chairs were organized to make the place into a giant lecture hall. At the far end of the room, a stage had been erected, and large speakers hung periodically along either side.

  Despite being between events, the hall was far from empty. Large numbers of people maintained their chairs, which was especially true the closer you got to the stage. Elsewhere, small groups of people were huddled together in any open area, some of them praying together, others laughing.

  I didn’t linger at the back of the room, quickly spotting a middle aisle that ran directly to the stage. As I moved, I noticed the music. Off to the left, a couple of college-aged kids in baggy jeans had begun to draw a crowd with their guitars and soulful rendition of an old hymn.