Rabid

by T K Kenyon

  The empty church filled with their whispers like spiderwebs unreeling across the pews and kneelers, up to the oiled beams. The repetitive chants lulled him, and weight of the whisky tilted his body. Pressing the altar with his forearms steadied him.

  Across the silk-draped stone altar, her cold hands wrapped his fingers. The fading light lit the pale part in her hair. “From all evil,” Dante said.

  Together, they said, “Deliver us, O Lord.”

  “From all sin,” he continued.

  “Deliver us, O Lord.”

  “From the snares of the Devil.”

  Bev choked and she turned her head, swallowing, when Dante said, “Deliver us, O Lord. Bev, are you all right?”

  Her pianist-strong fingers tightened. Pink nail tips poked the skin on the backs of his hands.

  “Bev? What is it?”

  Her head jerked. “Release me,” she growled. Her hoarse, cramped voice spun in the waste space above them. Her hands sprung off the altar as if away from fire but his fingers tangled with hers.

  Dante held on. Bev struggled against his hands.

  Battle lust thrummed in his chest. “From anger, hatred, and all ill will, deliver us, O Lord.”

  “Let me go!” That smoky voice rasped from Bev’s body. Her tense fingers jerked in his hands.

  Discovering the diabolical’s name is standard exorcism protocol. “Demon or devil, what is your name?”

  Encouraging a patient to communicate with auditory hallucinations was not standard psychiatric practice.

  Dante should, indeed, decide where his loyalties lay.

  He yelled, “Devil or demon, I command you to tell me your name!”

  Bev yanked her hands, trying to escape. “Let me go!”

  Her voice sounded like thirty years of tobacco strata coated her throat. Bev jerked and pulled Dante against the silk-draped stone altar between them and slapped the air from his whisky-queasy stomach. His stomach scraped stone.

  Dante called, “From lightning and tempest, deliver us, O Lord.”

  Bev shrilled a cackle. Dante grabbed her wrists. She dragged him against the altar again.

  “From plague, famine, and war, deliver us, O Lord. From everlasting death, deliver us, O Lord.”

  Bev shrieked, “No!”

  Was this a true exorcism? Had Dante been so wrong that he had missed that Bev was truly possessed?

  He had been wrong about everything else. He gripped her hands tighter. “Devil or demon, what is your name?”

  Bev flung herself sideways but was tethered by Dante’s hands.

  She grated out, “Murderer.”

  He leaned toward her, hunting. Strength surged in him. He wanted this to be real, to be in the battle again instead of utterly defeated. “Is that your name, Murderer?”

  “Murderer,” she gasped.

  The trial’s graphic, repetitive descriptions of Conroy’s death had been too much. She had internalized the accusations.

  Dante held her wrists.

  Her trim hands double-locked over his arms. Her fingernails spiked his forearms.

  Her arms rested on the altar. There was no demon in her.

  The struggle, even with an imaginary demon, thrilled him.

  Dante edited the Holy Rite of Exorcism because there was no need to go through the whole ritual. She was not possessed.

  His voice projected over the pews. “I command you, unclean spirit, ‘Murderer’ or whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord for judgment, I command you to obey me to the letter, I who am a minister of God despite my unworthiness.”

  Those were the actual words, and Dante felt them.

  Bev’s head lolled backward and she panted. Her hands trembled but she did not struggle.

  He untangled her fingers from around one of his arms, snared both her wrists with one hand, and reached across the altar to brace his palm against her forehead. The power of the exorcism surged in him, and he stood on his side of the altar. “They shall lay their hands upon the sick and all will be well with them. May Jesus, Son of Mary, Lord and Savior of the world, through the merits and intercession of His holy apostles Peter and Paul and all His saints, show you favor and mercy. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Bev panted in her normal voice. The muscles of her skull shifted under her hair and his hands.

  Dante dipped his fingers in the holy water font beside the altar. “May the blessing of Almighty God,” he touched her forehead with damp fingers and she did not recoil or scream, “Father,” her sternum, “Son,” her left shoulder, “and Holy Spirit,” right shoulder, “come upon you and remain with you forever.”

  “Amen,” they said together.

  Dante shouted to the oak domed ceiling far above them. “Almighty Lord, Word of God the Father, Jesus Christ, God and Lord of all creation; who gave to your holy apostles the power to trample underfoot serpents and scorpions; who along with the other mandates to work miracles was pleased to grant them the authority to say: ‘Depart, you devils!’ and by whose might Satan was made to fall from heaven like lightning; I humbly call on your holy name in fear and trembling, asking that you grant me, your unworthy servant, pardon for all my sins, steadfast faith, and the power—supported by your mighty arm—to confront with confidence and resolution this cruel demon.”

  Energy grabbed his chest and rattled him.

  “I ask this through You, Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, who are coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire.”

  “Amen,” Bev said and wiped her damp cheek on her shoulder.

  Dante said, “I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every Satanic power of the Enemy, every spectre from Hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  Dante genuflected and traced a cross on Bev’s grief-wrinkled forehead.

  “Begone and stay far from this creature of God.”

  He genuflected again and inhaled a great lungful of air to cast the demon out.

  “For it is He who commands you, He who flung you headlong from the heights of Heaven into the depths of Hell. It is He who commands you, He who once stilled the sea and the wind and the storm.”

  He touched Bev’s forehead again.

  She shook her head as if trying to escape his damp palm and fingers.

  Dante pressed her head more firmly. “Be still, I command thee.”

  She stilled.

  Holding Bev’s head, Dante called into the air and glimmering wood above them, “Hearken, therefore, and tremble in fear, Satan, you enemy of the faith, you foe of the human race, you begetter of death, you robber of life, you corrupter of justice, you root of all evil and vice; seducer of men, betrayer of the nations, instigator of envy, font of avarice, fomenter of discord, author of pain and sorrow.”

  Bev struggled delicately again.

  Dante restrained her hands.

  “Begone, now! Begone, seducer! You might delude man, but God you cannot mock. It is He who casts you out, from whose sight nothing is hidden. It is He who repels you, to whose might all things are subject. It is He who expels you, He who has prepared everlasting hellfire for you and your angels, from whose mouth shall come a sharp sword, who is coming to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire.”

  Bev gasped, “Amen.”

  “Almighty God, we beg you to keep the evil spirit from further molesting this servant of Yours, and to keep him far away, never to return. At your command, O Lord, may the goodness and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, take possession of this woman. May we no longer fear any evil since the Lord is with us; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.”

  Bev said, “Amen,” with him.

  He let go of her hot hands so she could genuflect and wipe the tears off her face. Her palm smudged with pink, bla
ck, and gold makeup, and she rested it upward on the white altar cloth.

  Dante stepped back and bent to stretch his back, which had tightened from fighting her over the altar. Sweat trickled in his hair.

  This farce might have exorcised a splinter of a multiple personality generated from her mother’s abuse, or it might have indulged her mental illness and imbued it with religious trappings.

  “There was something. I was possessed.” Bev looked at her hands, spread-eagle on the altar cloth.

  There was nothing to do but concede the validity of the rite in order to maintain its placebo effect. “It appears there was something, but it’s gone now.”

  “How do you know it’s gone?” One of her cheeks was pale without its rouge.

  “My exorcisms always work.” He smiled gently. “It is the one priestly thing I am good at. Usually, the afflicted takes communion at this point.”

  She shook her head. A strand of her gold rust hair caught on her wet eyelashes. “I can’t.”

  “If the demon is gone, you can.”

  “Murderer. The demon was named Murderer. But I can’t take communion. I killed him.”

  “This suggests that you were not in control. You can confess.”

  “I don’t feel enlightened to unburden my soul. It wouldn’t be a real confession.”

  His facile opinions about confessional validity had come back to haunt him. The laity was too impressionable. Bev was too fragile. “As an ordained and sanctified priest, I should make that determination.”

  “It’s all right, you know, that I can’t confess, that I can’t take communion.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “It’s all right. I couldn’t really say I had faith before, because I’d seen the Virgin Mary and I’d felt God. I had proof. If I doubted, I prayed or confessed, and God returned, and I had proof. But now, I can’t feel that. I have to have faith.”

  Dante was so empty of a soul that his ears whistled through the air as he shook his head. “You can be reconciled with God.”

  Bev shook her head again. Her hair shimmied over her shoulders in the darkening church. “Not me.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said.

  “I’m sure. At least, now, I know. Not knowing was worse. Praying and hoping and not knowing and feeling nothing and dying inside and praying again, every time, was worse. Now I know there was a demon, and now it’s gone, but the sin is still there. I can feel it.”

  In the wide, empty church, gem-colored light slashed the air.

  “Yet you pray so much.” He had not meant to say it. Watching her pray felt like an alcoholic watching someone savor scotch. Like watching Leila savor scotch.

  “Mostly the Rosary. I like the Rosary, the Hail Marys, the Our Fathers. Thy will be done. It reminds me that it is God’s will that is important. Conroy was so sarcastic about religion, called it the opium of the masses and that thing about man not being free until the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

  “Marx and Voltaire.” Sloan had stolen that quote from Leila, like he had stolen everything in his life. Leila had used the Marx quote. The Voltaire must have been from her, too. Whisky rose in Dante’s chest and flushed into his blood.

  Light fell from the windows and cast confused rectangles of color, like someone had spilled Vatican treasure on the rows of pews.

  He pulled the stole off his shoulders. The cloth abraded the scruff of his neck.

  She said, “I like the Lord’s Prayer. Thy will be done. My will doesn’t matter.” She smiled. Her silk skin rose on her cheekbones, pulling the slight softness from her jaw.

  Dante stood. A priest should find comfort in the Church to withstand the pain of being alone in a world of women. A priest should have faith like Bev’s that asked for God’s will to be done when filled loneliness and absence. A priest, when threatened by guns, should commend his soul to God and, when confronted by the possibility of miraculous intervention or demonic possession, should not diagnose psychiatric pathology.

  “I will see you on Sunday,” he said.

  “I’ll be here just a little while longer.” She walked past the altar rail, over to the blue-robed mannequin with open arms.

  Dante walked out of the church.

  Twilight covered the parking lot and the street beyond that led downtown to the Dublin and, past that, toward Leila’s apartment.

  ~~~~~

  Leila was reading a book on her tablet as she lay on a sleeping bag draped over an air bed and was ruffling Meth’s velvet ears while he napped on a blanket.

  The printer on the floor cabled to her laptop computer scraped across the paper, printing five final drafts of her three hundred-page thesis. A file folder under the laptop held the five original thesis signature pages with each of the five required signatures in thick, black ink. The new dean of the medical school had signed on Conroy’s line, Dr. Linus Petering, PhD for Dr. Conroy Sloan, MD.

  A knock on the door was far louder than the printer’s mechanical scratching.

  Irritated, she pushed herself off the bed and meandered through her bare apartment.

  The peephole conferred acromegaly to the priest’s features, jutting his jaw, overhanging his brow ridges, and flattening his nose like a pugilist.

  She leaned her head against the door. She had thrown him out, tied him up and attacked him, and threatened him with a gun. He was insane to show up again.

  She had not shipped her gun with the rest of her toys.

  Leila opened her door to the crazy priest.

  His empty black collar flopped open two buttons, exposing tan skin and chest fuzz below his collarbones. The top black button dangled from a black thread.

  Leila asked him, “Why are you here, at midnight, again?”

  Blood vessels were a riot of ivy in the whites of his eyes, swollen by alcohol or smoke or emotion. “Can we discuss a matter?” His desolate voice was harsh and his head turned, staring down the hallway, not meeting her eyes.

  Leila opened the door wider. “There’s no place to sit. The couch is already gone.”

  Dante walked past her into her cleared-out apartment that smelled like fresh paint and wood floor cleaning solution. The wall behind her did not yield as she flattened herself to avoid touching him.

  The Tiffany chandelier he had admired was gone. A rudimentary fixture forged to resemble shaded candles hung in her empty dining area and cast blocks of shadow up her walls and ceiling.

  The conservators had rolled up the tapestries and boxed the paintings and crated the plaster facades, leaving her white walls dull.

  He touched the chalky paint and said, “I guess now someone would hear me.”

  “I’m sorry,” not enough air filled her lungs, “for threatening you.”

  Dante waved his fingers in the air as if dispersing cigarette smoke.

  She continued, “I was going to write you a letter to explain, but that’s such a cowardly way to do it. I was going to call, but whenever I picked up the phone, I couldn’t think straight.”

  “Yes,” Dante said and his black eyes widened. “I cannot think straight.” He pulled a pillow off her air bed to sit on the floor. He patted the bed beside him to indicate she should sit on the bed, away from him.

  It was less threatening for him to sit beside the bed, not to try to sit on it with her. That was nice of him. She sat on the middle of the bed. The ends ballooned.

  The laundry basket, full of odds and ends, was behind her.

  The printer hissed and spat pages of text.

  “How could you love him, this Gelineau?” Dante rubbed his fingers into his temples. “He is a pedophile, a monster.”

  “He was my first lover.” Two blunt ribs curved in and prodded her heart.

  Dante lowered his hand near Meth’s nose, offering. The dog sniffed, whuffed, and closed his eyes. “He raped you.”

  Her fingers trailed over the cheap, nylon sleeping bag that rustled on her bed. “No.”

  “Le
ila, he was brutal. Angry was worse.”

  Leila’s hands crept up. She wanted to hold her hands over her ears. “Dante, stop.”

  “It’s brainwashing, Stockholm syndrome, something.”

  “It’s complicated.” Meth was asleep, not guarding her like a proper watch dog. She prodded him with her bare toe. He snorted and flopped his head on his paws. Insolent pooch.

  “You did not love him.” He touched the floor as if to push himself up, lifted his fingers, and settled his hands on his knees. “Sex is power. Love is mercy.”

  “That’s facile.” But it sounded right.

  “But it is true.”

  “I still love him.” Her hair clung all over her face in single strands and clumps. Pushing it back charged it with static.

  “But how can you love him?”

  “Because that’s the way it is.” Her head dropped into her hands. All that black hair flipped forward and itched. Her pulse patted her palms.

  “You wanted to get away from him. You ran away from your father’s when it was time to go back.”

  All this reminiscing was sickening. “I don’t want to see him again.” But she did. She would give anything to see him again, except that she would freak and sob if she did. She felt like a piece of herself was missing, even though that piece had been cancerous.

  “Have you seen him recently?”

  “He showed up in California a few years ago, before I moved here. Meth cornered him.” She ruffled the sleeping dog’s ears. He declined to wake but grunted. “You should have seen Meth when he was young. He was magnificent.” He was grayer around the muzzle than last week, it seemed.

  “But you said you love him.”

  “It’s complicated.” Her voice echoed on the paint and cheap fixtures.

  “You do not love him.”

  It couldn’t be brainwashing because she had felt his heart beating under her palm when he had pressed her hand against his bare chest after they had made love for the first time and told her that she was the only woman he had ever loved. Her throat swelled at the terrible thought. “It’s complicated.”

  “You were ten years old,” Dante said. He touched the floor as if to push himself up. “You probably hadn’t learned fractions yet.”