Decatur

by Patricia Lynch

  Gar lifted Marilyn up in his arms in a sweeping motion and ran with her towards the tomb, feeling the air pressure change and the temperature drop. He looked up and, not able to help himself, he howled at the dark clouds now whirling above them. “Storm!” he cried. “Let’s get inside.” He set her down lightly on the stone plaza in front of the mausoleum littered with broken beer bottles, a condom, and cigarette butts. The doors to the tomb were black iron with angels and skeletons carved into them. Perfect, thought Gar, as he pulled on the rusty chain that locked them remembering the massive gates to the Castello. Gar rarely physically exerted himself. He knew from experience that it could startle people so he just didn’t show off his prowess. But he had the source now and there was no way she could escape him here, so he allowed himself to break the chain with one yank; its links burst and he pulled the black doors open with a monstrous heave. The blind angels with their broken wings felt all the cracks in their foundations, with their own bitter memories of men pissing on them and cigarettes put out in their eyes, all they had endured up until this moment, until a man arrived with some knowledge of how the fall from light had its own mesmerizing descent into the dark. Now the abandoned angels knew they would get some of their own back. A new dark angel was rising to take the proper revenge on the humans who had created them.

  Marilyn wanted to scream but she held it in. Steady, she thought. It’s your only hope. The stale air from the tomb rushed out into the ozone smell and created a death storm odor that nearly made her faint. You’ve smelt worse, the thought came to her unbidden from another life.

  “Come my lady, your bower awaits,” said Gar as he pulled her into the crypt, propping the door open a crack with a sinister-looking iron pin created for that purpose in case the dead wanted out.

  “Nice,” Marilyn whispered as she looked around the gloomy space with high broken windows and stone walls lined with iron doors housing the deceased. Family names were carved on the doors, Luces, Ogelsby, Charlesworth. Crumbling wreaths made of feathers, silk flowers, and wire were hung around the room, along with family crests and, in one case, what looked to be the antique saber worked in gold and copper with faded colors hung above the family grouping of the Charlesworths. All of them but J.J., Marilyn couldn’t help but think, with a shudder so deep her rib cage rattled. The place was full of pigeon droppings and rats scuttling in the corners. This was a place where any human memory of lightness and sweet earth had been abandoned and now only darkness and ruined thrived. She looked at Gar, he was feeling the pull of some other place too, she thought. Gar was not human and something they had done together had made that happen, the realization streaked like lightning into her brain.

  Gar began to pace the four corners of the tomb blowing his breath out in short powerful bursts as the ancient incantation he had once said so long ago began to rise up in his heart like distant music. The source wasn’t acting frightened yet so she still didn’t know. He could take his time and savor what he had come so far for. “I want you here,” he said simply.

  Rowley let the rope slip away from him as he crouched low to the ground, slithering his way towards the massive broken-windowed building that smelled like a stone dead thing. He was going to have to wedge his way through the doors as they were only open a crack but he wanted to come at Gar in a full throttled run. It would be tricky.

  “Yes,” breathed Marilyn closing her eyes. She fastened her mind on the antique saber hanging above the interred Charlesworths. She had very rarely tried to direct her connections with supposedly inanimate objects before, largely they moved on her emotions but without her control but now she felt an energy flowing between her and the saber, an energy that was neither wicked or good just powerful and necessary at the same time.

  “Lie down,” Gar said, “And let me take everything from you just as I was meant to.”

  “This place seems familiar to me, does it to you?” she asked, trying to hold him off as she continued to concentrate on the saber hanging on the wall above him.

  Inside steel are molecules of iron and when the world was first created all the minerals in the universe exploded into being and are now part of all creation’s makeup. Including traces of gold, iron, and copper in human bodies. Normally the saber’s energies were not more present than the energies of stones, but the breeze through the tomb door carried with it a dark invitation and between that and Marilyn’s insistence of their shared particulates, the saber found itself waking. Marilyn willed herself into the blade and the handle, letting the forces that they shared come together and co-mingle in the air between them. The co-mingled forces were like the wind, there and yet invisible. Marilyn poured herself into their shared molecules and felt the skin of the normal separation between the animate and inanimate peeling apart. “Like the wind,” she whispered in her mind to the sword, “I’m a part of you and everything and you are a part of me.”

  Marilyn lowered herself to the cold stone floor, feeling the storm breeze coming through the crack in the tomb doors. An ill wind, the phrase never seemed so apt. She held herself in a half -seated position like the woman in the pink dress in the poster in her apartment. She didn’t want to open herself all the way up to Gar as she concentrated on the saber. It was beginning to vibrate with her will. “We hold molecules in common, there are trace minerals of gold, copper and iron in my body, we are one and I call for your help with all of my being’s fibers,” she implored, silently aware that she was now channeling a magic that was outside the governing rules of life, and that she was no longer an innocent in this battle.

  Gar saw the silvery net of Marilyn’s essence moving in and around her body and it made him dizzyingly ravenous. His tongue flicked and the anticipatory saliva filled his mouth, he could almost taste the orange, rosemary, cedar and sea salt of the source. Now he would be made whole as its light would finally fill him and he would be reborn and able to continue his journey into the darkest rings. He lowered himself to his haunches, bending over her beautiful face with the candy reddened lips. “At last,” he whispered, pushing her all the way to the floor so he could climb over her and devour her being into his own nothingness. He inhaled, catching just the barest filament of it in his mouth, pushing down the fear of what would happen to her when he took her. It couldn’t matter, he had to have her. Loss was the price of living. He held it like the monster he was in his teeth. No, it was just too beautiful to rush; he could feel it quivering with the Presence, connected. Would the Divine feel his pull when he swallowed her, he wondered with a shiver of anticipation. You will know me, he thought. It was perfect, she was undamaged and whole, he would suck the first shimmering thread of her now.

  Marilyn felt an icy whoosh; he had a piece of her in his mouth. He was going to suck her down to a place where she would never escape. The terror rushed up, nearly overwhelming her concentration on the vibrating saber. It was moving off the fasteners. Now, she willed all her being to the saber as it hovered in the air for a split second as if enjoying its new freedom.

  Rowley was at the door wedging his way in as he saw the man Gar bending over Marilyn with a tiny piece of her light being in his mouth. As an animal he was always aware of his own light being and knew its preciousness. Now, he thought, sink deep teeth as the blood and fang instinct pulled him through the doorway and with a snarl he leapt, flying towards Gar’s neck.

  The saber fell, remembering its glory days buried deep in its steel blade when it had charged through the taut flesh bodies of Confederate boys. Now, it flew off the stone wall and sliced the cheek of a man and then, falling still, cut through a shimmering thread he held in his mouth, taking off some of his lips. Clattering proudly on the stone floor, the blood showered all around.

  Gar felt the blade slice open his cheek and slash through the filament of Marilyn’s essence he held in his mouth. Howling in pain he frantically sucked the remaining gossamer stub down. It fell through him ephemeral as a lightning bug, not enough to matter and damaged on top of it. Yet there it was,
all he had, like a candle guttering out as the emptiness rolled in. He was devastated in his loss but still grabbing at Marilyn as she scooted away from him, a blood rain coming down from his face, so much so that he never saw the dog until it was on him.

  Marilyn rolled away screaming as Gar tried to snatch her back. She felt an icy wound in her soul, a tiny black hole that seemed infinite and it was only when she saw her dog Rowley leaping onto Gar’s neck that she was able to pull herself back from the brink of mind-numbing despair that threatened to overpower her. Rowley was risking his own being for hers and in that moment of love she was able to kick away from Gar and scramble back up on her feet, the tiny black hole shrinking.

  Rowley went for the big vein throbbing in Gar’s neck. His jaw clamped down hard as his fangs ripped at the unnatural man’s throat. It opened up like a blossom, and the killer instinct was on him now as he tore at it. Gar roared and backhanded him. Rowley felt his teeth rattle as his jaw absorbed the blow and he was thrown across the room smashing his head on the stone wall. He felt his brain move in his skull and then the light went out.

  Marilyn ran across the room to Rowley slumped against the stone wall as Gar held his neck, the deep bite spurting blood. She knelt down and scooped him up just as she had when he was a puppy so many years ago. She pressed his warm limp body against her own and staggered up, carrying him towards the crypt’s doors.

  Gar was blinded by a rush of red. He felt his lips, there was a fleshy flap hanging from the side of his mouth. He might be disfigured. No, it would mark him, he thought in a fury of despair and anger. He saw the saber that had cut him on the floor. You’re mine now, he thought, as he bent down to take it, even as the blood poured from his lips, cheek and neck. As his big hand closed around the curved handle worked in copper and gold he saw Marilyn with the dog in her arms squeezing her way out the door and he slipped in his own blood, coming down hard. His ankle buckled under him and he felt the muscles twist. She was getting away again. She had used her powers to protect herself and now she was escaping as she had before. He was cursed. She was more powerful than he knew; now able to command objects to her will. Like him she had been gaining things all along their twisted pursuit.

  Marilyn was running awkwardly down the path away from the ruin with Rowley in her arms. “Wake up, wake up,” she said over and over as she ran, unable to bear the thought of him dead. Thunder rumbled in the background. It felt like the apocalypse.

  Rowley was at a lake with a large full moon shining in it. Tall pine trees whispered secrets on the wind and all the animal spirits were one with the great mother. Wolves howled at the moon in a circle and gestured him to join them. “Well done, brother,” they said to him. He felt a deep contentment. He had fulfilled his purpose, the trees said, he could go and join his brothers. He was in a warm cradle and he just had to let go to be one with the great mother and the animal spirits. But something held him back, some scent from long ago, the scent of human fingers that smelled like oranges and rosemary, sea-salt and cedar. Marilyn’s fingers.

  Rowley’s eyes were slits but they were open; Marilyn fell to her knees behind a grave marker. “Come on puppy, you got to walk, he’s after us,” she whispered in his ear. “I know of a hiding place, you can make it.”

  The moon wobbled in the lake. The biggest wolf turned his head and looked at Rowley. “It’s alright brother, we’ll be here,” the wolf said to Rowley and then the animal spirit lake disappeared as Rowley fully came back into his body, every muscle aching and his jaw feeling bruised and swelling.

  They ran as best they could then not looking back, weaving through the cemetery they knew so well and coming out on the weedy side where a railroad trestle ran over Chestnut Street. Marilyn tugged him gently down the slippery embankment, the asphalt road fifteen feet below them. “Come on,” she said softly and crawled towards a narrow ledge that ran underneath the trestle. Rowley didn’t like it and he was beginning to shake, feeling sick and weak from his injuries. It didn’t look good to him, they could fall into traffic and after running across the street today he had a better feeling for what that could mean. “Now,” she said her voice steely, “Come.” Rowley did as he was told and slinked his way towards her on the ledge. She put her arms around his shaking body and held his jaw gently closed in her hand. They both shivered together on the dark and narrow ledge as the rain began to fall as it had threatened all morning. It wasn’t very long before they both heard it together, the feet pounding the railroad ties, the heavy breathing, it sounded like he might be dragging a leg, as Gar painfully ran over and past them in their hiding place.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A Morning Appointment with the Feds

  Mrs. Napoli greeted Agent House and Colby like she might have greeted armed intruders, which is what they were to her. Agent House’s mare’s nest of wild hairs on his left eyebrow seemed more off kilter than ever and even Colby was scowling when they were shown into the parish office at 9AM that Tuesday morning. Father Weston hadn’t slept well, still wired from the previous evening. He had drunk so much coffee while pacing the rectory hallway wondering if he should try to rouse Father Troy for the interview that he was jittery and exhausted before they had even begun. “Make it go away,” Bishop Quincy’s order whirled in Father W’s brain as he seated himself behind the office desk and waved the agents to the visitors’ chairs.

  “Father, it seems you’ve been harboring a possible suspect in the double homicide of the drug dealing carnies and haven’t thought to bring it to our attention or anyone else’s for that matter.” House leaned over the back of the brass buttoned leather chair, his white short sleeve shirt revealing sinewy arms, cracking his knuckles at the hollow-eyed priest in an accusing way. This bastard was hiding behind a Roman collar and he intended to stick it to him anyway he could. Country-clubbing with a cross around his neck: House knew the type. A priest that preferred the company of left-leaning alternative-lifestyle intellectuals to hard-working parishioners, oh yes, he just knew the type. House had taken off his jacket and laid it across the red leather seat of the visitors chair so Weston could see his holstered gun. Get his attention that way, he thought.

  Colby consulted his notebook, annoyed with the both of them. House was laying it on thick when it was Tooley they should be roughing up. He was the one who had blown it in the interview with the other priest, Father Troy.

  “Agent House, believe me, I have come to the conclusion that Gar is entirely capable of murder and I assure you we will be offering you our full cooperation in the matter,” Father Weston said, wondering if Father Troy was going to come out of his room at all today. He was supposed to be covering the first shift at Monsignor Lowell’s visitation starting at noon, but Father Weston was already thumbing through his mental rolodex for a substitute, perhaps Sister Petra, the head of the grade school. House and Colby seemed like just another hassle to get through until it was time to meet Tooley and go to the Surrey to see Marilyn.

  “Gar? Doesn’t this guy have a last name?” asked Agent Colby as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that a Decatur Police Department van had just pulled into the parish house driveway. The corner window of the rectory office overlooked the driveway and through the white sheers offered a clear view. Colby had an unsettled feeling, knowing that the locals had been told to stand down and let the feds take the lead on the case. So what the devil was a police van doing in St. Pat’s rectory drive?

  “Not that we know of,” Father Weston said, unaware from behind the desk of the van in the driveway.

  “We’re going to have to talk to Father Troy, where is he?” House said, leaning in closer and Father W couldn’t help but notice that the FBI agent needed to get his nose hairs under control along with his crazy eyebrow.

  “Not feeling well, I’m afraid,” said Father Weston.

  A skinny officer in plain clothes, windbreaker and jeans with a pencil mustache got out of the van and then, out of the passenger side, Agent Tooley emerged. Colby tried
to catch House’s eye but he was too busy looking intimidating for the priest. “What’s going on?” he said, hitching his thumb towards the window. House looked annoyed for a split second and then swore. Father Weston got up then from behind the glass-topped desk.

  “I’d prefer if you could keep the cursing to a minimum, Agent,” he said, not because he was really bothered but to jerk House’s chain.

  The skinny plain clothes officer pulled the van doors open and lifted out a three- speed black bicycle and put it down in the drive. The bike had a wire basket attached to the handlebars and was dented. The FBI agent folded his arms over his chest as if to say, “Come on, I got the goods.”

  Father Troy pushed the heavy pebbly cotton drape in the upstairs hallway aside; the exotic plant print from the thirties always made him think of his mother’s deck furniture cushions in Ely, Minnesota and right now that wasn’t a pleasant association. Out in the driveway was a Ford sedan belonging to the FBI agents downstairs with Father W, and now a police van. He watched the black agent get out of the van along with a policeman as his stomach churned. His invisible shields had lowered sometime in the night and, staring up at the ceiling, he came back into himself somewhat. He had acted like a fool last night going to the waitress’s home and if truth be told been a lousy priest all the way around since Gar had come into their lives. He had fallen in love with Gar to the point where he had lost his judgment, Father Troy realized as he saw them pull his bike out of the van. The daydreams underneath the library tree burned into his brain. He was a priest, a modern day Vatican crusader; he couldn’t let Gar ruin his life. Why was it so hard, he wondered, the choice between honor or love? It seemed so unfair. His black bicycle stood in the driveway like an accusing finger.

  “Help me, St. Francis. I call on your mercy,” Father Troy whispered to himself and started down the stairs, his black frock coat kicking out in front of his leather sandals.