Brandy jumped when something on the roof hissed at her. It was one of the gendarme vampires crouched at the eave, ten feet away, where it couldn't see the crucifix head on. “I didn't see that there!” she said, her hand on her heart. The monster blindly reached for them with his yellow eyes averted.
“I'm sorry,” the priest said. “I should have mentioned. He's been there since I came up.” He closed his eyes and shuddered, wishing it away. Of course it remained, hungrily leaning over the eave. Trevelyan laid a hand on the big crucifix. “It's alarming how quickly I've taken God's protective power for granted.”
“That's a cue,” Brandy said, “if I've ever heard one.” Ray nodded his agreement.
“I'm sorry?” the priest asked.
They spilled their guts, explained as best they could Brandy's revelation, and what they intended to do about it. “As far as everyone else is concerned,” she said, “we're just going for help. That's the easiest explanation. And it isn't untrue.”
“Have you a plan?”
“Not one that makes sense. Just… get to the cemetery.”
Tears appeared in Trevelyan's eyes. “That is what I imagined you would say. It's mad. Even if it weren't, can you possibly cover that great distance without being caught?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Ray said.
Brandy scowled. “You're having second thoughts?”
“I'm not. I'm with you.”
“You don't sound like it.”
“Why? Because I don't believe this?” He pointed to the courtyard. “I don't know what the hell these things are or why they're out there. Okay, they're there. That doesn't mean I believe in magic.”
“Then why go?”
“Because I believe in you.”
Her eyes teared too and glinted in the moonlight.
“That doesn't mean I wouldn't like an advantage if we could get it.” Ray stared down on the dead and the living dead. Then a light went on behind his eyes. “Do you think,” Ray said, pointing to the tarp covering Blanc's corpse, “that he has the keys to one of the cars?”
Trevelyan shook his head. “He probably had a driver.”
“We'll never know,” Ray said, clapping his hands, “until we check.”
“Do you want me to do it?” Brandy asked.
Yes, Ray thought, hell yes! But he said, “I'll do it.”
Attending the occasional funeral was no preparation for searching a corpse. Particularly when it's smoky gray eyes, on either side of a large caliber gunshot wound, stared at you all the while. Thankfully, it didn't take long. And, of course, Clive had been right; there were no keys. Blanc apparently had a driver.
“What about the others?” Ray wondered aloud.
Brandy pointed at the hissing, gyrating thing on the roof. “With our luck,” she said, “they're in his pocket.” Then she took in the creatures below. “Or one of theirs.”
“May as well be on the moon,” Trevelyan lamented.
“We need a ride,” Ray complained. One of the police vehicles would have been perfect. But that seemed out of the question. The bus was an albatross. It might make the trip, but not fast enough. Ray tried to think. But the thousand sounds that made up their night were also making it difficult; the banging, scratching and hissing, the shrieks, the sporatic chanting.
Then Ray heard another sound… and it got him thinking.
Before they could initiate Brandy's plan they needed to ensure those left behind would be safe. Which meant a reassessment of the chapel's condition; and more hammering and sawing. The doors to the bell tower and office were toe-nailed to reinforce them. The windows to the work room and kitchen given another covering of plywood. Brandy laid several of the small ossuary cruciforms in accessible places.
Then they explained their plan to the others…
Only to find that 'we're going for help' was an excuse not to be believed. Aimee asked if they really thought they'd make it to the village alive. And if so, what help were they hoping for? All of the local gendarmes were dead – or worse. Luis asked if they planned to lead the Templars to the village. Brandy and Ray looked to Trevelyan for support, but he merely shrugged as if he'd known all along neither would buy the lie.
So… they explained their actual intention. Then the argument truly started. And raged for some while with no one changing their point of view.
“You can not go out there,” Aimee exclaimed.
Brandy waved her objection away for the third time. She appreciated Aimee's concern. But, with her mind made up, the reporter's pleas were falling on deaf ears. Brandy had bigger worries.
“Father,” she said hesitantly, “can you give us… some sort of blessing. I'm not asking for a miracle or a guarantee… just something to take with us on our way?”
Luis suggested something – and Trevelyan and Aimee reacted in horror. The priest answered brusquely. Though the words were unintelligible, the meaning was clear; he'd told Luis not to be ridiculous.
“What was that?” Ray asked.
“It doesn't matter. He's young. He says things.”
“What did he say?”
“He suggested I give you the Last Rites!“
“Hell, no!” Ray said flatly and slapped Luis with his eyes.
“I certainly didn't mean the Last Rites!” Brandy added angrily.
“I know. It's all right.” Trevelyan laid a hand on Brandy's shoulder and offered a reassuring smile. “We don't even call it that anymore. It's the Anointing of the Sick. You both look healthy to me.”
Brandy returned the smile. “Just a simple blessing,” she said. “Something to send us on our way… and hopefully bring us back.”
“I've been thinking about that,“ Trevelyan said. “It occurred that I could do better. I think I can provide you with a weapon.”
The small kitchen was full to bursting as the group of besieged humans reconvened. They watched as the unarmed pacifist priest donned his liturgical vestments with the ironic intention of presenting Brandy and Ray with a weapon. He kissed his stole and draped it about his neck. Then he placed an empty bucket in the sink tub and, working the pump handle, filled it with water.
“I appreciate the thought, Clive,” Ray said without sounding appreciative. “But I'm not sure throwing water on them will be enough. I mean, what the hell, unless we poke them in the eyes and scream 'Nyuk, Nyuk' what's the point?”
“Ray,” Trevelyan said. “I'm consecrating water for you.”
“Huh? What's that?”
The priest looked up with a guilty satisfaction. This having the upper hand, he thought, could become addicting. Anyway, at least he had the American's attention.
Ray looked a question at Brandy who also was smiling and had apparently caught what he'd missed. “Holy water, Ray,” she said. “He's making holy water.”
“You can make holy water?” Ray was dumbfounded.
Trevelyan fluttered his eyebrows above his glasses, tapped the tip of his nose, and returned to his task, saying, “The water already exits, Ray. God blesses it through me. Where did you think it came from?”
“I never thought about it.”
Luis, who had a knack for making himself invisible when it suited, chose suddenly to make his presence known. He shouted.
Aimee translated: “He says none of us are thinking.”
“What does he mean?”
Luis told her as he crossed to the cabinets in the far corner. He grabbed the handles of the upper, right side cupboard doors.
“He says, to save room at home and, more probably, to keep from reminding himself of his failure, his father stored them here.”
“Stored what?” Brandy asked - as Luis jerked the doors open.
Brandy was reminded of a novel she'd read in childhood, The Invisible Man, as she stared into the cupboard at the real-life embodiment H.G. Wells' Thousand and One bottles. Green bottles, brown bottles, white bottles, large bottles, small bottles, fat bottles with short necks, slim bottles with tall necks, and on and
on. The cupboard was stocked top to bottom with empty glass wine bottles.
Luis pulled a dust-covered cloth from a tall square 'something' occupying the shadows in the corner nearest the door. Brandy saw it earlier, assumed it was an appliance, and ignored it. It was, in fact, more bottles, stacks, in even more varieties. And on the floor beside them, boxes of unused corks.
Luis spoke again, directing Trevelyan's attention from the cupboard to the boxes and back again. The priest laughed. “Luis says, if I am going to make holy water, I may as well make enough for everyone.”
Seventeen
Not long after, Brandy screamed, “I don't wear dresses!”
With the priest providing the blessed water, and Luis providing the bottles, a discussion followed as to the best method for getting their holy weapons in the field.
“I've got that covered.” Brandy disappeared and returned a moment later waving her outsized shoulder bag.
“You're taking your purse with you?”
Ray found the priest's naiveté amusing. “What she means, Clive, is she refuses to leave it behind. They're two different things.”
“Yes and?” Brandy asked.
“And, dear, it's a good start. But your bag isn't going to be enough. Assuming these things really work. We'll need as many as we can carry.”
An impromptu brainstorming session produced a number of suggestions ranging from the impractical to the silly. When Luis wished aloud they both had de nombreuses poches, 'many pockets' according to Aimee, a light shown in Ray's eyes, memories of a misspent youth played in his head, and he announced that Socrates had brilliantly given them the answer. He took them to the caretaker's work room where, in no time at all, Brandy made it known that Luis' brilliant idea had turned into Ray's stupid plan by shouting, “I don't wear dresses!”
“It isn't about the dress,” Ray said, trying to be practical. “It's about the pockets. Aimee's dress has pockets.” Unable to move her, he took a different tact. “We don't have time for this crap! Aimee stepped up to the plate and generously offered. You're holding up the show and you're hurting her feelings.”
“Give me the dress.”
“She'll need your pants.”
“If I give her my pants, I really will be wearing a dress.”
“Brandy!”
She relented and the men left the room, offering the girls privacy.
The idea, from Ray's old shop-lifting days, was to borrow clothing (with big pockets) from their fellow inmates and over-dress; one shirt over another, a jacket over that, a coat, Brandy's hand bag, a carpenter's apron or, maybe, Socrates' tool bag. Whatever fit (with big pockets), stuffed with as many wine bottles as they'd hold.
Of course, the size differences made for an interesting look. Brandy's jeans became culottes on Aimee. The reporter's dress, with nifty wide pockets on the hips, developed a train when Brandy put it on. Without hesitation, Aimee ripped the bottom off for the cause. Brandy recognized the sacrifice, adjusted her attitude, and got into the spirit of the crazy adventure. Once both had covered enough of their persons to pass as decent they let Ray back in to ready himself.
Luis entered, bare from the waist up, carrying his button down shirt in one hand and T-shirt in the other. Frowning, he tried to hand over the tee. Ray frowned too. “Pockets,” he said, shaking his own on his left breast. Then he barked at Aimee, “Tell him I need pockets.” Before she could, he snatched the button down from Luis' other hand. “And tell him I need his pants too.”
Luis' were similar to what Ray'd worn as a kid in the States, a style somewhere between 'painter's pants' and 'cargo pants'; baggy, with huge pockets on the hips, the rump, and on the legs. Ray stripped off his jeans then waited with flagging patience for Luis. His refusal to participate was exposed, by the much larger Ray, as a waste of time and the trouser trade was accomplished.
Thanks to Luis' late father, and the remnants of his dead winery, Father Trevelyan turned the chapel kitchen into a microbrewery. The priest pumped and poured, Aimee corked, while Luis dried and stacked. The assemblage of glass bottles, pails, and all of the chalices they could find had taken a long time to fill. No one bothered to estimate the gallons. Enough water to bathe the Pope - and wash the feet of a good many Cardinals - collected in the kitchen waiting to become something other than water.
Trevelyan had, of course, removed his vestments while they worked. He'd looked a little formal as it was, with Aimee more awkward than usual in Brandy's small pants, and Luis a sight in T-shirt and boxers. With the bottling done, the priest was donning his vestments again, to ask the blessing, when Brandy and Ray waddled into the kitchen. To put it kindly, they looked like over-dressed hobos.
“If you have anything with pockets, Clive,” Ray announced, throwing his own too-big pants to Luis (and a rope for a belt). “It's your turn to contribute to the cause.”
For a moment, the priest looked dumbfounded, then thoughtful, then nervous. Finally he said, “The, eh, only thing I have with, ah, pockets is my cassock. They don't usually come with pockets, er, but I had them added so I'd, eh, always have candy, ah, with me for, eh, the children, the altar servers and, eh, er, I have a sweet tooth…”
“Give,” Ray said with his hand out.
“I, eh, er, I've never… eh, oh, without it.”
“I need pockets,” Ray insisted. “Whatever a cassock is God'll understand.”
Trevelyan nodded, though he wasn't sure he agreed, and asked Luis to give him a hand as he pulled off the liturgical vestments he'd only just put on. Luis held the chasuble and alb, while Trevelyan began the laborious process of unbuttoning his cassock. Soon, down to black pants, shirt sleeves and clerical collar, the priest hesitated, not so much reluctantly as thoughtfully, before he passed the garment to Ray.
Both halted mid-exchange, as Luis' gave the priest an earful in excitable French. When it subsided, Ray looked from the ex-con to Trevelyan. “What was that all about?”
Trevelyan blushed. “He said… things I don't care to repeat. But he wants to know the point. He says you are racing blindly into the Devil's Bed…”
“The Devil's Bed?”
“It is what his mother called the unhallowed graveyard of the Templars. The resting place of Satan's servants. He says you are risking your lives and your souls… and asks for what?”
“Because,” Brandy said, “we're running out of plywood. Tell him we have to try.”
“His father tried all of his life and his family are all dead. He did what he thought was right and went to prison. He's afraid you go to your death… for nothing.”
“Nah,” Ray said flippantly.
“Have faith, my son,” Trevelyan told Luis. “In the end, the reasons for everything will be revealed.”
“Oh, no!” Ray held the cassock up to Brandy. “What were you whining about? We're both wearing dresses.”
The priest winced. Hurt, he tempered the moment. “Did you want the collar too?”
Ray grunted. “It'll clash with my neck.” He wrestled the cassock on, over the other clothes, which proved to be a chore. Then, examining the parade of buttons, asked, “Don't you guys believe in zippers? Must be fifty of these suckers.”
“Thirty-three,” Trevelyan said, “the number of years Jesus spent on Earth.”
“You made that up!”
“I didn't!” the priest yelled in exasperation. He wasn't done. “Luis Socrates – Ray Kramer. Ray – Luis. While the rest of the world goes about its business, you two can sit around and yell, 'Bullshit' at each other. You'll get along famously.”
Silence. Then Brandy and Aimee roared with laughter.
“What?” Ray asked innocently, fighting to rotate the cassock's sleeves over two shirts and a jacket. “What'd I do? Did the priest just say 'Bullshit'?”
“I'm confident God believes in you, Ray,” Trevelyan said. “Even though you don't believe in anything.”
Trevelyan put the alb and chasuble on again and returned to his duties with precise and choreographe
d movements. He donned his stole, begged God for the eternal life Adam and Eve had so carelessly chucked away, and made the sign of the cross over the collected water.
“I exorcise thee in the name of God the Father almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord, and in the power of the Holy Ghost, that you may be able to put to flight all the power of the enemy, and be able to root out and supplant that enemy and his apostate angels; through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire.”
The priest crossed himself.
Ray, looking even more ludicrous than before in Trevelyan's long black cassock, stepped forward. “Well, let's hope that does it.” His tone, while not mocking, was less than enthusiastic.
“Not so fast,” Trevelyan said. “This isn't holy water - yet. It's just been prepared through the exorcism of the salt. The water still has to be blessed.”
Ray 'harrumphed' and threw up his hands in frustration.
Trevelyan, frustrated himself, sighed, “Ray, considering what you two are about to do, along with anything I can give you, you might want to take a little faith with you.”
Brandy took her fiancé by the arm and led him to the side of the room. Trevelyan returned his attention to the 'prepared' water.
“God,” he prayed, crossing himself. “Who for the salvation of the human race built your greatest mysteries upon this substance, in your kindness hear our prayers and pour down the power of your blessing into this element. May this your creation be a vessel of divine grace to dispel demons and sicknesses, that everything it is sprinkled on in the presence of the faithful will be rid of all unclean and harmful things. Let no pestilent spirit, no corrupting atmosphere, remain thereafter. Let whatever troubles the safety and peace of the faithful be put to flight by this water, that health, gotten by calling Your holy name, may be secured against all attacks. Through the Lord, Amen.”
Back in the nave, a nervous Aimee pointed to several cases of bottles and asked the Americans if they were ready to arm themselves. “No,” Ray said. “Not until we decide which way we're going out.”
The Devil's Bed Page 24