“Is that a criticism of the father or the son?”
The voice was Aimee's, the words belonged to Luis, as they appeared side by side on the stairs.
Trevelyan was mortified. “I, eh, ah, meant no criticism at all, I assure you.”
Aimee relayed the message, then passed on Luis' reply, “He says his father was not religious, but was superstitious. Both require belief in that which cannot be seen.” She came onto the gallery, while Luis stayed leaning on the banister, and told Ray, “And, he says, if you want to know about him, or his family, you need only ask.”
“All right. I will,” Ray said, without Clive's embarrassment. He proceeded to do just that; questioning Luis, through Aimee, hard and fast. And, with a distrust honed in prison, Luis answered openly but carefully.
Aimee enjoyed translating. It offered a chance to contribute without the need for strength or grace. What she didn't enjoy was Ray's hostile tone. Inexplicably, she felt an attraction to Luis and a desire to protect him. She took it upon herself to soften the American's more severe inquiries and, conversely, to favorably embellish Luis' more caustic replies. Aimee Laurent, peacemaker.
Her editorial license, undetected by either Brandy or Ray, was not lost on the multilingual priest. He said nothing, but Trevelyan knew what she was doing and, at intervals, said so with his eyes. Still he let the questioning go on.
“His father was the sole caretaker here?”
“Oui. Yes. For years,” Aimee said. “This was his playground as he grew up.”
“Not much of a playground,” Brandy said distastefully.
“You're not a little boy,” Aimee said for Luis. “It was a wonderful place to play.”
She didn't understand his French, but Brandy recognized the nostalgia in Luis' voice; the joy, the pain. As he told his story, Luis was alive with emotion. She envied him the feelings. Right now, she envied any feeling.
Ray continued to hurl his questions. “If his story is true…” Feeling ridiculous yelling at Aimee, he turned to Luis. “If your story is true, you know this place as well as the authorities.”
Aimee translated. Luis laughed.
“He knows it better than anyone alive.”
“It would appear,” Trevelyan said, “you know it better than the dead.”
Silence. Stares. The priest reddened again.
Luis filled the void (with Aimee's help). “The dead know I am here. But there have been changes since the Templars were in residence.”
Discussing the Templars in an historic setting was one thing. Admitting, and accepting, the reality of bloodthirsty resurrected knights laying siege to a building they occupied was quite another. Stranger still was hearing someone speak with conviction as to what the dead know. Brandy shivered involuntarily.
“They know I'm here,” Luis repeated, “but they can not find me.”
“How long has he been here?” Brandy asked. Now she was doing it; talking to Aimee instead of Luis. “I'm sorry. How long have you been here?”
Again the language exchange.
“He's been secreted here since the murders; hiding. He watched you, both of you,” she said, pointing to Brandy and Ray, “the morning after. From the keep, he watched you…” Aimee laughed, then nodded agreement and passed it on. “He says he watched you with that gendarme ass, Blanc.”
“He doesn't have a very high opinion of you either,” Ray said.
“Of what difference is Blanc's opinion?”
“He says you're a murderer.”
“He is a liar.”
“He misrepresented the facts, Luis,” Trevelyan said, “but you did go to prison for taking a man's life.”
The gallery grew deadly silent; save for the Templar scratching at the door.
Aimee did not translate the priest's comment. “The Inquisition,” she said hurtfully, “is done.” But she was not. She reiterated Luis' justification; his girl's death and what followed. “I was there. I reported on his trial. I believed him; and still do.”
Whether or not he understood, Luis watched, with admiration and a budding infatuation, as Aimee pled his case. It had been a long time since anyone had taken his side. He couldn't help but appreciate the young woman.
“Still the police are looking for you,” Ray said. “Why didn't you show yourself to the authorities? Why haven't you shown yourself before now?”
Unimpressed with Ray's tone, Luis spoke quietly to Aimee. “The authorities suspect Luis of murdering his family. The ability to listen is not among Blanc's virtues. And Luis has no alibi. No doubt, they suspect him of killing the girl as well.”
“My sister?” Ray barked. “Are you responsible?”
Now Aimee was angry. “I won't ask him that.”
“Ask him,” Ray demanded.
“Étes-vous?”
“No,” Luis said plainly.
“Why should I believe him?”
Luis' smiled at the big American. Bad tempers were nothing to him. The prisons were full of men issuing threats and throwing tantrums. He answered and Aimee passed it on: “He says, it makes no difference. Believe him or no, he could not care less. His mother and sister were killed by Templar knights. He was helpless to defend them; could only watch these monsters drink their blood – like the vampyre. His father died in the courtyard and, again, the Templars were responsible. They even killed his father's mule. If your sister died here, monsieur, by violence, she died at the hands of the Templars.”
“It's just strange he showed up out of nowhere.”
“For God's sake, Ray,” Brandy screamed. “He didn't. He was hiding!”
“Who hides in a cupboard?”
“A little boy on a playground,” Trevelyan said. “Just what he said he was.”
The Templar on the balcony groaned and renewed his efforts. Chip. Chip. Chip. Luis pointed and spoke again. “If you do not believe him,” Aimee said. “He invites you to open the door.”
Before Ray could respond to Luis' invitation they were interrupted by Felix's scream from below.
Like a startled herd, they abandoned the gallery on the run; Luis, Brandy, Aimee, Ray and, on their heels, Father Trevelyan. Their uproar, as they descended the two short flights, shook the gallery, vibrated the floor, and made so much noise… none of them heard the scratch of the legs or the thud of its high back as the Deacon's chair slipped from the door and fell away.
Eight
They arrived running from the gallery, alarmed, with many questions, and found Felix holding a candle at the west end of the ambulatory. Behind him, undetected in their earlier search, illuminated now in the soft yellow glow, was another padlocked door.
“Where the hell'd that come from?” Ray shouted.
Brandy shook her head at her fiancé's latest display of subtlety and, as she turned, was nearly skewered. He still had Trevelyan's screwdriver and was brandishing it like a weapon. “What are you doing?”
“I thought he was in trouble. We all thought he was in trouble.”
Felix signaled for quiet then, in explanation, pointed around the corner at Eve.
“You're the one that screamed.”
“Ray!” Brandy returned her attention to the tour guide. “What's going on Felix?”
“I'm sorry,” Felix said. He pointed at the door.
“That's just the bell tower,” Trevelyan said. “The ringers' chamber, actually, and stairs, and the bell chamber above.”
“Yes, but I heard something,” Felix said. “Inside the tower.”
Ray lifted the screwdriver and stepped toward the door.
“Ray! What are you doing?” Brandy grabbed his arm. “You opened the gallery door, wasn't that enough? We're trying to secure the place, you're turning it into Swiss cheese. Stop while you're ahead.”
“Until we know what's in the building, we're not secure.”
“Father just said it's the bell tower. That means it's open at the top. By definition it's not secure. So it's better locked. I let the gallery go; I'm not budging here
. If you break that lock…”
Suddenly they heard Felix's 'noise' behind the door. A scratch, a skitter, on the stairs, perhaps on the wall. Something was in the bell tower.
It wasn't a competition; they were in this together. Brandy knew that. She also knew it felt nice to be right. She enjoyed watching Ray walk away with an unused tool in his hand.
She got an even better feeling a short while later when Felix wished aloud for something to sustain Eve. Brandy had taken a lot of crap from Ray, more than she cared to admit, about her purse. Now she had her revenge. No sooner had the tour guide made his desire known than Brandy opened her bag o' plenty – and disgorged breath mints, chewing gum, three candy bars, two granola snacks, a sleeve of crackers, a tin of water packed tuna (with a key chain can opener) and a pack of bouillon cubes.
Using an altar chalice (Trevelyan bristled) and a candle, Brandy soon had hot chicken broth for Felix's injured love.
Father Trevelyan contributed to the kitty. He dug out his cassock, removed a mound of candy from its pockets, and carefully stored the vestment back in his satchel. Then he handed the treasure over, confessing, “They don't normally come with pockets. I had several sewn in. Between you and me, I don't travel well without sugar.”
Brandy promised his secret was safe with her.
Getting into the spirit, Aimee produced one of the ash-covered pyramids of cheese she so adored. (She'd stopped at the café that afternoon, but had yet to take it from her backpack). Coupled with Brandy's tuna and crackers, the feast was on.
Luis disappeared, to an inconspicuous box amid many in his father's work room, and returned with a bottle of red wine. It was already opened but no one complained.
Truth be told, Ray complained. But not about its being open. Merely that they were drinking at all. He thought it better they remain mentally sharp – and was roundly jeered for his concern. “There are eight of us,” Brandy said, chewing a cracker daubed with Valençay, “and one bottle of wine three-quarters full.”
“I, er, ah, applaud your positive attitude, Brandy,” the Father said. “Some, er, cynics would have called the bottle one-quarter empty.”
Brandy, Aimee and the priest were suddenly laughing.
“And we don't want no cynics round here,” Brandy said, pausing her study of the bottle's label to eyeball her fiancé over the top of her glasses.
“Do not worry, Ray,” Aimee said. “We shall not get drunk.”
“Yeah, stop being a poop.” Under the circumstances, Brandy was enjoying herself. Laughing, she looked around the candlelit chapel as if for the first time. “Speaking of poop,” she said. “Where are the pews?”
Even Ray was laughing now; though partially from embarrassment.
“There are no pews,” Trevelyan said. “In the 13th century, the nave was wide open. Worshippers stood through the service.” With Catholic superiority, he added, “Fixed pews were a 16th century Protestant, eh, er, innovation.”
“The nave?”
He spread his hands indicating the width and length of the open chapel. “The central approach to the High Altar from the vestibule to the chancel. Nave is the original Latin; the base word for Navy.” The priest pointed to the ceiling which rose to a sharp vault above their heads. “Shaped like the upended keel of a ship.”
Their candles, through rising ropes of smoke, threw flickers of gold light and stark shadow against the gloomy ceiling. A shaft of colored moonlight stole through the two stained-glass windows in the otherwise boarded-over row in the south wall. And, oddly, a shaft of moonlight no one noticed before crossed the ceiling from the north.
Aimee screamed.
Above the gallery, clinging upside down to the ceiling, hung one of the Templars. On hand and knee, his rotted cloak dangling like a banner, his head spun backwards, he stared down at them with blazing red eyes. Even in shadow, Brandy knew it was the monster that had grabbed her through the office window. The creature's right hand was missing, amputated above the wrist by Ray's candelabrum. He hissed, then like a spider skittered across the ceiling.
Felix, in the far corner, blew out his candle and plunged himself and Eve into darkness. Then he stood watch; over Eve… and the thing on the ceiling. Loup, oblivious, merely rocked on the sanctuary steps near the south wall. The others abandoned their meal and ran. Perhaps instinctively, they wound up in a knot behind the High Altar.
Above, the creature came on like a demon. He reached the transept in the ceiling, marking the boundary between the nave and the sanctuary, then stopped as if he'd hit a wall of glass. He glared down at them, bunched beneath the altar crucifix, hissed again angrier than before, and crawled back into the shadows. There, partially hidden by the thick beam at the height of the vault, he hesitated. Then the knight saw Loup and was off and crawling again across the ceiling and down the wall.
Father Trevelyan bolted down the sanctuary steps. He reached Loup at the same moment the creature did. The priest grabbed him and, surprising even himself, threw Loup backwards. Ray caught the blackguard and, unceremoniously, shoved him again onto his butt on the sanctuary floor.
The Templar, red eyes blazing, was livid.
Trevelyan, like a sheriff in an American western, drew a crucifix from his jacket pocket and held it up. The icon glinted in the candle light. The knight shook his helmed head and screamed as if he'd been poked in the eyes.
Then, in a further defiance of the laws of physics, the knight scuttled, upside down and backwards, back up the wall. Trevelyan held the crucifix aloft – driving the monster. The knight crossed the ceiling and Trevelyan hurried across the nave after him. The Templar crawled into the gallery; apparently from where he'd come.
Trevelyan ran for the ambulatory and, showing no sign of his age, took the stairs two at a time. He reached the gallery to find the Deacon's chair pushed aside and the balcony door gaping. The Templar clung above the door.
His wall-walking trick was something to see up close. The priest couldn't help but gawk. The creature hung there like a fly; only the toes of his boots and the fingers of his left hand making contact. The knight's anger was also something to see; a hatred brewed in hell. But there was something else the Father recognized – desperate fear.
Terrified himself, but resolved, Trevelyan raised the crucifix. The creature howled, dropped to his feet in the door way and, shrieking, was propelled back through the door and onto the balcony.
Trevelyan didn't waver. He followed the mummy out.
The knight, flailing left claw and right stump to protect his eyes from the image of the crucified Christ, continued his retreat. He scrambled for the rail.
Trevelyan advanced as the Templar, still screaming, stepped from the rail to the roof. The knight missed his footing and fell to the courtyard. He hit the stones with a sickening thwack and the clank of metal as his helm bounced away. A fluid, more black than red, spurted from his head. Yet he climbed back to his feet.
Trevelyan retreated to the gallery. He slammed the door, busting the jamb, and sagged against it. Shaking violently, he dropped the crucifix beside him.
Brandy, with Ray behind, raced up the stairs. She ran to the priest, got his assurance he was unhurt, then turned on Ray with menace. “Quote,” she said acidly. “They can't climb buildings. Unquote.”
Ray knew when to keep his mouth shut. He knew when Brandy was right.
Nine
Everybody had “their space” in the chapel; museum tableau in pools of flickering light surrounded by stark shadow. Felix at Eve's bedside; in candlelight when she was awake, in the dark when she slept. Aimee and Luis encamped mid-way down the nave, their backs against the wall with the vestibule, ambulatory door to the bell tower, and gallery all in view. Father Trevelyan in the gallery, crucifix in hand, watching and listening at the broken balcony door; God's sentinel. When Brandy or Ray relieved him, the priest floated down the stairs like a character in a gothic novel to pray at the High Altar or rest upon its steps.
Loup, free from his catal
epsy since the Templar's attack, avoided these pools and their occupants and roamed the patches of darkness between like a nocturnal predator.
When they weren't standing in for the Father, Brandy and Ray moved relentlessly about, candles in hand, making sure of the building, cheerleading and looking for cheer. On one changing of the guard, Brandy pointed at the gallery door and asked the priest:
“Why did that work? The crucifix?”
In their camp, Luis heard the question. He said something that Aimee hesitated in repeating. He nodded his insistence and she shouted up, “Luis says, they cannot abide that which is Holy.”
Ray grunted derision.
Luis heard that too but couldn't have cared. His girl was dead, his family was dead, and now he was facing death. He had real problems and the doubting American was not one of them. He had information that might help and would offer it to any who would listen. Through Aimee, he tried again:
“They can not abide the graveyard.”
Ray leaned over the gallery rail. “What does he mean by that?”
“One of the Templars, chasing him, fell from his horse into the cemetery. It was, he says, as if he fell into acid, as if he were on fire. He could not crawl out fast enough.”
“In the cemetery?” Trevelyan asked, joining Ray and Brandy at the rail.
“Here, outside the chapel. When he crawled out he stopped burning.”
“The others?” Trevelyan asked. “Were they there? How did they react?”
Through Aimee, Luis said, “The others rode the perimeter. They were angry and frustrated but they did not enter.”
“Perhaps they couldn't,” Trevelyan said thinking aloud. “Perhaps they couldn't.”
“What do you mean?” Brandy asked.
“Huh, er, ah, haven't you ever gone to the movies, for heaven's sake? Luis is right. They can not abide holiness. That's why the crucifix worked.”
The Devil's Bed Page 19