Deal with the Devil

by Kevin Lee Swaim

  Desmond was silent for a moment. “How do you know?”

  “You said you tamed your hunger quickly, but you didn’t stop feeding until much later. Henry had to come to Chicago to warn you because you were attracting attention that the Ancients didn’t like.”

  “I wanted to stop sooner.”

  The funny thing was, I believed him. “I murdered my daughter. Did you know that?”

  “I’m … sorry to hear that.”

  “Silas gave my wife the gift, and she gave my daughter the gift.”

  Desmond shivered. “Turning a child is—”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “And you killed your daughter after she turned?”

  I shrugged. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “I’m not saying you did the wrong thing…”

  “We all do what’s in our nature. I’ve learned that. I let her turn and then I killed her. That’s my nature. It’s who I am. What I am. You knew you were feeding from their souls and you kept on feeding.”

  “I—”

  “You stopped,” I said. “Eventually. You tried to do the right thing and finally managed it. That’s your nature. You will do the right thing. It just might take you a bit to get there.”

  We drove the next four blocks in silence. Finally, Desmond said, “Fair enough.”

  “We constantly battle our nature, Desmond. It’s who we are.”

  “You’re pretty smart for being so young.”

  “Not smart enough,” I said. “Callie is still missing, and I don’t know what’s really going on. I just hope we can get some answers.”

  “From whom?”

  “Would you believe a group of killer nuns?”

  Desmond laughed, but when he saw that I wasn’t smiling, his laughter died out. “Are you serious?”

  I turned right and then took a left into the Order’s parking lot. “You might want to stay here. They can be a little … twitchy.”

  Desmond looked at the building’s facade. “This place looks like it’s been deserted for years.”

  “It’s all an illusion,” I said. “These nuns are…”

  “What?”

  Someone had been tipping off Garski. Maybe it was Burzynski, but maybe not. “I think I’ve changed my mind. Come with me.”

  “I thought you said they can be twitchy.”

  “I’m getting pretty twitchy myself.”

  * * *

  I slid the sign next to the door sideways and pushed the red button. Next to me, Desmond appeared shaky. “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m not feeling good, man. Something ain’t right.”

  “They have ways to protect themselves against your kind.”

  He took deep breaths. “Well, it’s working.”

  As I waited, Desmond swayed in the stifling heat. The sun had finally set, and the streetlights were turned off or broken.

  There was a large bucket of roofing tar not more than five feet to the left, and I wondered if it had been there during my earlier visit with Callie. There was another bucket to my right, and the more I thought about it, the more I was positive they hadn’t been there before.

  “Desmond?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t move.”

  “Why?”

  “Just … don’t move.”

  Desmond swayed farther and raised his right leg, then straightened and put his foot back down on the ground. “Not sure I can do that. I feel…”

  “Feel what?”

  “Like I’m gonna pass out. But that can’t be. I ain’t felt like this since I was human.”

  Sweat ran down my forehead, across the bridge of my nose, and down my face. I wiped it on my shirtsleeve and said in a loud voice, “I want to speak with Sister Beulah. I’m with a vampire, but he’s safe. I promise.”

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who you talkin’ to?”

  “We’re being watched.”

  Desmond grabbed my hand to steady himself. “I can’t … hardly stand up.”

  I held him steady and shouted, “I want to speak with Sister Beulah!”

  The door cracked open, and I heard Sister Beulah’s voice. “Are you out of your mind, Harlan? Bringing that thing here? I should—”

  I cut her off. “They’re bombs, aren’t they?”

  “What are you talking about?” the nun asked. “So help me—”

  “The buckets weren’t there before.”

  “They’re just trash.”

  “I’ll bet they’re full of silver shrapnel and explosives.”

  The old woman was silent for a moment, then finally said, “Smart. You’re learning.”

  “Have you been feeding information to Burzynski?”

  There was a long pause. “I’m still looking into it.”

  “You don’t know, do you? Your mysterious Order is doing things you don’t know about, and it scares you.”

  “How did you—”

  “Garski took Callie.”

  “What?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “Where is she?”

  “What do you know about Burzynski?”

  “Where is she?” the nun demanded. “So help me, Sam Harlan, if you let her come to harm—”

  “If I let her come to harm?” I snarled. “One of your Order fed information to Burzynski about us, and he passed it on to that lunatic, Garski. And you have the gall to threaten me?”

  “Watch your tongue—”

  “Get your ass out here and tell me what’s going on,” I yelled so loudly that it ripped at the back of my throat. “Get out here, Sister. Now!”

  The door swung open, and Sister Beulah stepped out, still dressed in the same clothes as before. She placed her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Do you want me to say that you’re right? Someone has been loose with information?”

  Desmond squeezed my hand. “I can’t … take much more of this.”

  I pointed at the vampire. “Stop whatever you’re doing to him.”

  “I can’t,” the nun said.

  Desmond’s hand went limp. “Sam…”

  “Stop it,” I told the nun.

  “I can’t,” she said. “It’s not something I can just flip off like a light switch. You need to get him away from here.”

  “And take him where? Garski killed his clutch. That bastard even shot me with a silver bullet.”

  “He shot you?” Sister Beulah’s eyes swept up and down my body. “If he shot you with silver, then how are you still alive?”

  The anger rose like a white-hot fire inside me. “If you and your precious Order know so much, then you know I’ll do whatever it takes to survive.”

  “That’s what worries me, Harlan. That’s what I pray about.”

  “You better pray harder, Sister, or I swear—”

  “You’ll do what?” Sister Beulah asked. “Do you hear yourself? Threatening a nun? Is it any wonder we fear hunters?”

  “I want to know who spoke to Burzynski and whether they’ve also been talking to Garski.”

  Sister Beulah raised her finger, then took a deep breath and sighed. “I’ll admit that … someone might have passed along information.”

  “Sam,” Desmond gasped. He sank to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

  I knelt beside the vampire and stared up at Sister Beulah. “Will you help him?”

  “He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t try and enter the bunker. Tell him to quit fighting it.”

  “Hah,” I said. “Quit fighting. That’s what your Order hopes I’ll do, isn’t it?”

  Sister Beulah frowned. “It may not seem like it, Harlan, but I wish you no harm. That’s not what the Order does.” She pointed at Desmond. “We fight against that. They are evil, in every sense of the word. You’ve seen it yourself. Such tragedy. Such … pain. You more than anybody should understand.”

  I stared at
Desmond, who lay sprawled on the broken and pitted concrete. “Understand what?”

  Sister Beulah said, “That sometimes things are more … complicated than they seem.”

  “You’re not in control,” I said. Maybe it was the exhaustion or the heat, or maybe I’m slow, but the truth finally dawned on me. “You didn’t know about Garski and Burzynski. You had no idea.”

  Sister Beulah glanced down at the vampire. “I … I didn’t.”

  “If you’re not in charge, then who is?”

  The Sister turned and shouted into the bunker. “Agnes. Agnes? I know you’re there. Come out and speak with the Harlan boy. Now, Agnes.”

  The door cracked open, and the old nun from before glared at us. “I will not, not while that … that thing is still on our doorstep.”

  “He won’t hurt you,” Sister Beulah said. “He can’t even stand.”

  “I will not—”

  “Get out here, Agnes!”

  The door opened wider. “You do not order me—”

  “Then how about I order you?” I said. “Tell me what’s going on, or I swear, I’ll expose the Order. I’ll tell everyone.”

  “That’s hardly a threat,” Sister Agnes said. “How many people do you know, boy? How many are still alive?”

  “I’ll take out an ad in the paper. Hell, I’ll put it on the Internet.”

  “No one would believe you.”

  “You willing to take that chance? Maybe I’ll tell the world that vampires are real. Maybe I’ll videotape the next vampire I stake as it bursts into flames.”

  The old woman drew back. “You wouldn’t.”

  “What did you tell Burzynski?”

  “Nothing more than the truth.”

  “You told him about me. About Callie. About what we’ve been through.”

  “You overestimate your importance. You are nothing. Less than nothing. Sister Calahane is wasting her time with you. She should be tending to her duties.”

  “The information that Callie sent in was for the Order’s benefit,” Sister Beulah said. “It wasn’t to be shared.”

  “I am in charge,” Sister Agnes snapped. “You forget your place, Beulah. I decide what is shared.”

  “You told Burzynski about us,” I said. “What about Garski?”

  “Joseph Garski is a good man,” Sister Agnes said. “A good Catholic. He has faith. What do you have?”

  “A house full of guns and a shitload of silver bullets,” I said. The old woman flinched, and I continued, “Garski has Callie. Where are they?”

  Sister Agnes snorted. “Joseph would never harm a human, let alone one of us.”

  “You willing to bet Callie’s life on that? Garski has a screw loose.”

  The old woman glared at me, but her eyes couldn’t quite remain focused on mine. “Joseph was probably only doing what he thought best.”

  “Shooting me was best? Is this because of the Angelic script the Monticello coven carved into Callie’s skin?”

  * * *

  Sister Agnes’s mouth dropped, and her pale, wrinkled skin went nearly white.

  Sister Beulah spun to me. “They what? Tell me, Sam. Explain what you meant.”

  “We saw a psychic. Madame Wang.”

  “Madame Wang is a fraud,” Sister Agnes growled.

  I ignored her. “Madame Wang said the scars on Callie’s body were Angelic script. Or something else.”

  “That’s … that can’t be,” Sister Agnes said. “What scars? They weren’t in the reports.”

  “I guess Callie didn’t put everything in them,” I said. “The coven in Monticello carved those on her skin. Haagenti was trying to—well, I don’t know what exactly, but it involved blood magic.”

  Sister Beulah shook her head. “No, no, no. It can’t be. It can’t.”

  “It can’t what?”

  “Ignore the boy,” Sister Agnes said. “He’s lying.”

  “I am not lying,” I said.

  “Callie’s report,” Sister Beulah. “It said Haagenti was trying to perform some type of magic.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Blood magic. Hey, Madame Wang said all those missing young men were sacrificed as part of some type of blood magic.”

  Sister Beulah grabbed me by the shoulders, and her eyes bored into mine. “Is there anything you aren’t telling me, Sam? Think, young man.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I blurted out. “I keep stumbling along, hoping that I’m making the right decision.”

  “What about the sheriff?” Sister Beulah asked. “What part does he play in this?”

  “He disappeared this afternoon. I think he went to meet the Ancients.”

  “The … Ancients?” Sister Agnes asked, her voice cracking. “The sheriff said that?”

  “No, he didn’t say that exactly. But when we met with the first man this morning, he said there were four Ancients in Chicago.”

  “Dear God,” Sister Beulah said. “Four of them?”

  “You spoke to that … that abomination?” Sister Agnes asked.

  Sister Beulah shot Sister Agnes a dirty look. “This isn’t the time for that, Agnes. Do you understand what the boy is saying? If Callie has been marked with Demonic script—”

  “Not in front of them,” Sister Agnes hissed.

  “The time for secrets is over,” Sister Beulah said. “Which four Ancients are in Chicago?”

  “The Magician,” I said. “The Crone. The Seeker, and the Knight.”

  “Listen to me very carefully, Sam. The Magician is one of the oldest of the Ancients. The smartest, too. He hoards knowledge. The Seeker works for him, trying to maintain their control.”

  “Their control?”

  “They’ve lived a really long time, Sam. They practically run the governments of dozens of countries. Their collected wealth powers the world economy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They didn’t come to Chicago on a whim. They’re here for a purpose. They wouldn’t have brought the Crone and Knight if it wasn’t something important.”

  “What about them? What do they do?”

  “The Crone is wise. She rules on whether the Magician is making good decisions.”

  “And the Knight?”

  “The Knight is the Magician’s best friend. He slaughtered his way through Mesopotamia on the Magician’s orders almost six thousand years ago. The Knight is one of the strongest vampires on earth, second only to the Dragon. If he is here…”

  Sister Agnes had been listening to this, and she finally cleared her throat. “The boy must be lying. He doesn’t even know what those names represent. And if he received this information from the abomination? It’s trickery.”

  “I promise you it’s all true,” I said. “What about the runes carved into Callie’s skin? Madame Wang was going to tell us what it meant, but a vampire named Spurlock killed her before she got the chance.”

  “Tessa Spurlock?” Sister Agnes asked. “Joseph killed her months ago.”

  “I saw her myself. She is alive and well. Or, dead and well. She’s been killing people for months.”

  “Impossible.”

  I pointed at Desmond, who hadn’t moved in several minutes. “Desmond gave information to Garski about Spurlock, thinking Garski would kill her. And you thought Garski had killed Spurlock. Well, he didn’t. What’s her part in this?”

  Sister Agnes was shivering in the oven-like night air. “This makes no sense.”

  “Agnes,” Sister Beulah said. “If Sam is telling the truth, then they could be trying to open a portal.”

  “A portal?” I asked. “To where?”

  Sister Agnes’s mouth opened and closed. Finally, she said, “To Hell.”

  “You—you’re joking.”

  “If the runes are demonic, and with Callie’s bloodline,” Sister Agnes said in a quavering voice, “they could open a portal to Hell itself.”

  Chapter Fifteen
r />   “Oh my God,” I said. “Haagenti.”

  “Perhaps,” Sister Beulah said. “Perhaps not. There are a host of demons.”

  “Haagenti is the demon of knowledge, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Magician hoards knowledge?”

  Sister Beulah nodded.

  “It has to be the Ancients. Why would they want to free Haagenti?”

  “They’re evil,” Sister Agnes hissed. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “It doesn’t add up,” I said. “According to Madame Wang, a human has to be killing those young men. She said the undead can’t work death magic.”

  Sister Agnes glared at me. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Maybe Garski—”

  “Absolutely not,” Sister Agnes spat out. “Joseph is a good man—”

  “He shot me and took Callie,” I pointed out. “What if he’s in league with the Ancients?”

  “Never. It goes against everything he stands for. He must think that Callie is in danger.”

  “Then why did he shoot me?”

  Sister Agnes inspected me. “It could be…”

  “What?”

  “It could be that Joseph thinks you are the danger.”

  “Me?”

  “Your family,” Sister Agnes said. “What Jack Harlan became. It does give one pause.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I sputtered. “If killing enough vampires turns a hunter into a vampire, then why isn’t Garski a danger?”

  “It can’t be Joseph. Perhaps the abomination had something to do with it.”

  “You mean Peter?”

  “That … thing is barely a human. Oh, it may have a soul, but if you only knew the terrible mistake that abomination has made.”

  “Mistake? What mistake?”

  “Sam,” Sister Beulah said quietly. “Haven’t you ever wondered where vampires came from?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “We know,” Sister Beulah said. “Maybe not all the particulars…”

  I wiped the sweat from my brow. “You’re telling me Peter created vampires?” I glanced down at Desmond, who was sprawled out on the concrete, his body rigid as steel. “How?”

  “That’s one of the particulars we don’t know,” Sister Beulah said. “We just know that thing you call Peter is responsible. Please, Sam. This piece of information is … sensitive. You must keep this secret.”