Dan led me upstairs, ran me that bath, and left me to it. I added whatever potion was in that blue bottle, and Sheila was right, it did smell good. Lavender and maybe raspberry? After taking that disgusting gown off, which I later burned by the way, seeing the full extent of my injuries suddenly frightened me. Normally, I quite like a big, purple bruise or an impressive scar; it’s like a badge of honor, a war wound if you will. I still had that hideous scar running down the front of my face too. That and all the rest were physical reminders of the amount of shit I’d just been through.
I eased into that hot tub and instantly felt soothed. I drifted a bit and let myself relax. Maybe it was being in Simon’s home, but I felt safe again for a change. And yet I couldn’t completely switch off. There was still a job to do. I’d had a lucky escape from the Pit, but there was a much bigger danger still to face, but that wasn’t the only thing on my mind. I got out of the bath; my bruises were a little less blue, my scars a little less prominent, and my aches a little less painful. Sheila was a miracle worker. I wondered what else she had in that bag of tricks of hers as I rifled through the mirrored medicine cabinet on the wall. Plasters, Vick’s Vapor Rub, and old bottle of TCP, but not the thing I was looking for. If Simon had whiskey in his home, even though he was a recovering alcoholic, I was damn sure he’d have Brimstone hidden somewhere too.
I put on some fresh clothes that I’d packed and a wave of panic hit me on realizing that I no longer had my wallet on me. It had to be at the Met. Those bastards must’ve taken it, along with the rest of my clothes when they changed me into the gown. I shuddered to think that any of them had seen me naked, and even more at the prospect of anything more than that. I went downstairs, bypassing the chat coming from the lounge and made a detour to the kitchen. The cupboards and drawers were still empty. I wasn’t able to give the place a thorough search, so had to make do with relieving my itch with a few gulps of Val’s bru from the big jar on the counter. I wanted more; I always did. Not only was the stuff delicious, it curbed the craving that was building up inside of me. How quickly I’d forgotten that near-death experience of taking Brimstone in Hell, right? The bru would do, but I had it in my mind to turn the place over when I had the chance. Don’t judge me. The drug still had a hold over me.
Feeling a little fresher, I joined everyone else in the lounge. It was weird, this was the first time the famous five, six if you want to include Brimm, had all been together for a long time, and here we were in Simon’s awesome house. It hadn’t quite sunk in that the place belonged to me. There was still paperwork and whatnot to do, but, already, it sort of felt like home. Dan was playing hostess; Gabe sat in the shadows smoking; Archie was fingering books on the shelves; and, having finished tending to me, Sheila had set about tending to the many neglected house plants dotted around the place.
“You look much better,” Archie beamed. Everyone was glad to see me, even Gabe managed a small smile.
“Thanks, but no rest for the wicked, anyone have any idea on what our next step should be?”
“We’ve got to figure out who Mary is,” Archie started. “She’s not a demon, or Hellborn, so she’s got to have started out here.”
“If you can figure out who she is, you may be able to find out what her weakness is,” Sheila added.
I told them about my last encounter with the crazy old hag, trying to remember any small detail I could. About how I’d attacked her, and she’d pretty much laughed it off.
“Okay, invulnerable to physical harm,” Archie noted down.
“She’s got her own debt to pay off. Something she did when she was alive. This is why she wants our souls so bad,” I remembered, thinking about the feckin’ ongoing debt issues she kept harping on about.
“Okay, so a possible criminal, there could be records,” Sheila deduced.
“Those Hunters seem to be under her spell. She can talk to them telepathically. They’re bigger and badder than she is, so she must have some sort of hold over them, why else would they be doing her bidding? She treats them like slaves,” I was trying to work it all out. “Although it probably has something to do with those huge, empty jars she has. She keeps souls in them, but she also sucked the essence of one of her Hunters right into one. You know of any magic like that?” I asked Sheila.
“Yes, there’s all manner of enchanted objects that are capable of draining life essences, souls, energy, the lot, but jars, I’ve never heard off,” She shrugged.
“She’s Northern Irish, dressed like she might be from the nineteenth century maybe. Gabe?”
“Yes, I’d say early to mid-century,”
“And, a boy, she had a young son. I think something terrible happened to him, she’s a bit all over the place on that one.”
“Okay, early-ish nineteenth century Northern Irish immigrant, there were plenty of them in Glasgow at that time. A criminal, maybe mentally ill, with a family tragedy involving a young boy,” Archie jotted the information down into a notebook.
“And she has this horrible necklace made of human teeth,” I remembered with disgust. “Maybe she’s saving them up for the tooth fairy,” I guessed.
“Teeth, yes, I remember that now,” Gabe sat up, suddenly animated. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier…” Gabe’s flow was interrupted by Archie’s phone ringing loudly into the suddenly hushed room.
“Sorry,” Archie looked at the screen. “I’ll take it outside,” he added, jogging towards the door. We all turned back to Gabe.
“Well?”
“Well what?” he asked.
“The teeth? What about them?”
“Oh that, um….” And he furrowed his brow in deep thought. “Let me think a moment,” We sat poised, watching him expectantly. “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” he drifted off. I rolled my eyes. Fuck’s sake! Of all the times to have a moment of senility? Unbelievable.
“Think back, was it…” Dan encouraged him, but Archie coming back into the room interrupted his train of thought. Archie, on the other hand, looked worried sick.
“It’s James. He wants to see me.”
“In prison?”
“Yes, he’s requested a priest.”
Chapter Four
Archie and I drove to Barlinnie; one of Scotland’s biggest prisons, which lies on the northeastern outskirts of the city. He wanted to go alone, but there was no way that was going to be an option. He hadn’t waited long enough for Sheila to cast that demon-repellant spell and, even though she’d offered to come with us, Archie had said that a bunch of strangers would spook his brother.
“This is a good thing, Arch, he’ll be able to help with this soul-collecting business for sure,” I said, secretly clutching onto the car door handle for safety as Archie took a corner a little too fast. Archie’d been right, he wasn’t the best driver, and having the nerves and excitement of facing his brother for the first time in several years wasn’t helping.
“Yeah, but why now? Something’s happened. He suddenly wants to talk to me out of the blue? It’s too much of a coincidence.” He was right of course.
Archie stalled the car three times on the way to the prison and even punched the horn out of frustration at a boy racer who cut him off at a junction. Archie was usually calm and collected, someone who’d weigh up options and come to a logical explanation, but that’s what family does – they pull on your emotions, make you worried sick.
Demon activity doesn’t usually run as rampant as I’ve described, so the something that’s happened, I was pretty sure was not demon-related. Mental illness or drug abuse was always more likely to be the culprit in the majority of the cases we came across. That’s what the prison guards at Barlinnie thought too from what Archie said. James had been sectioned to solitary after some violent outbursts and, even though he’d been spouting religious doctrine, I can’t blame them for jumping to the conclusion that he’d just gone plain nuts.
“Doesn’t look so bad,” I said as we pulled up to the visitor’s car park. What I
meant was, it looked quite modern, at least from the outside. Turns out the front was a recent addition to the building; a façade designed to hide the nineteenth century abomination behind. The prison was everything you’d think it would be: countless security doors, security checks, and security guards. Just being there, even as a visitor, gave you the uncomfortable feeling that you were guilty of a crime. And I’d killed those Templar Knights remember, so you know, guilty. This was a stark reminder that, while I might have escaped the Pit, I could easily find myself locked up in another prison if I wasn’t careful.
I wasn’t on the visitors list, so had to blag my way in using the old Church ID I found at the bottom of my bag. I’d had to use plenty of times when working cases with Simon, especially when the police were involved. Archie wasn’t a fully fledged priest yet, he was still an exorcist in training and, even though I was a lowly Homalus, I actually outranked him. And no, Homalus wasn’t listed as my official title on the ID. It’s not exactly something you can go down to the job center and apply for, and it certainly wasn’t listed on my CV, but ‘Official Roman Catholic Church Representative’ did the job nicely. I also gave some spiel about my supervisory role of monitoring Archie for training purposes, but he was too nervous to appreciate the humor of it.
We both had to provide photographic ID, as well as have our photos taken and our fingers scanned. A sniffer dog was walked past us. I knew that Brimstone wasn’t exactly on the class A drug list, but I still held my breath as it trotted past just the same. We had to leave our belongings in a locker, meaning that the only thing that went in with us was Archie’s Bible.
“This way,” a guard held a side door open. We weren’t going into the main visitors’ area?
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“His brother’s in solitary. We’re taking you straight there.”
“Is that normal?”
“No, but you’ll soon see why.”
We were led through a maze of corridors that took us deep into the belly of the building. I expected to find a dark and dingy row of cells that looked like something out of a horror movie, and while, yeah, the place could’ve done with a lick of paint, it was actually light and well lit. It was by no means quiet though. There was chanting. I picked out a couple of Latin phrases mixed in with passages I recognized from the Bible. Archie and I looked at each other and both thought the same thing, ‘James’.
The guard led us past closed doors, behind which we heard colorful phrases like “Shut the fuck up!” and “See if you dinnae quiet the fuck down, I’ll get your fucking tongue ripped out.” Clearly the inmates had had enough Bible stories and Latin chants for the day, and so had the guard by the way the way he rolled his eyes. We reached James’s cell. Actually the smell reached us first. The guard opened the small hatch in the door and peered in.
“Got your brother here, Jimmy,” the chanting stopped. “Stay on the bed and don’t move.” He turned back to us, “He’s cuffed, so he can’t do anything. The door’ll be left open and I’ll be right outside, so shout if you need me, okay?” We both nodded. I don’t know about Archie, but I suddenly wasn’t that excited about visiting this James. The guard used a huge set of keys to unlock the door and swung it open. “Mind where you step,” he added with a raised eyebrow, obviously knowing something we didn’t.
Archie went in first, but I was right behind him. “Fuck,” the place was disgusting. “Is that what I think it is?” Archie glared at me, telling me to shut up. The walls were covered in sigils, symbols and text, and it looked like James had used whatever he’d had to hand to write with, and I mean anything. That accounted for the stench anyway. James sat on the bed, eyes shut. He looked a mess. The same markings that were on the walls were also on him. His shaved head covered in tattoos and cuts, his rolled-up sleeves revealing more scarifications that were a mixture of deliberate designs and deliberate self-harm. The guy was unhinged; there was no doubt about it. He looked so much older than Archie, but the family resemblance was there.
James opened his eyes and smiled. He was pleased to see Archie, so that was a good start; he tried to get up, but was stalled by the restraints around his ankles. The guard had been right, he was cuffed, that made me feel slightly better about entering the cramped and revolting cell, but, at the same time, it felt like I was entering another version of the Pit, and this guy was probably nowhere near as dangerous as I was.
Archie bent down to meet his brother, they embraced. “You came?”
“Of course I came.”
“I’m sorry Archie, please, please, forgive me. You huv tae.”
“Don’t be daft, there’s nothing to forgive. What’s done is done,” Archie’s voice wavered with emotion.
“Dinnae be so sure about that,” James pulled away. “They’re coming…” he stopped on seeing me standing in the doorway, his face turning mean.
“It’s okay, she’s with me,” Archie said quickly. “She can help,”
“Hi,” I gave a small childlike wave. James still looked wary, so I didn’t go in any further, not that there was much room; we’re talking bed, a weird toilet/sink combo, and tiny table in the corner.
“I need to confess and then I need your blessing,” James blurted out. He was certainly coming across as being desperate.
“Of course, whatever you need,” Archie started.
“I’ve tried everything, and I mean everything! Blood lettings, hours and hours of prayer, even… sacrifice,” That didn’t sound good. “It’s coming Archie, you’ve got to do something to help me, ‘cos if it’s coming for me, then it’s coming for you too,”
“Tell me what happened,” said Archie,
“Not in front of her.”
“If you think that I think you’re crazy, I don’t,” I tried to reassure him. “Your choice of décor’s got a lot to answer for,” Sorry, I couldn’t help myself, “But I’m here because I believe you. I’m in the same boat.” That surprised James. He looked to Archie.
“It’s true,” Archie confirmed, “I know things are escalating, we need your help just as much as you need ours.”
James pulled something out from under the pillow. It was a well-worn photo of a toddler. He handed it to Archie.
“Take it,” he insisted. “Just in case. Name’s Tommy. He doesnae carry our surname. Carries hers. Promise me you’ll make sure he’s all right.”
“James…”
“I’m no’ asking you to be his dad or anything, just… if he ever needs someone.” Archie took the photo. “I tried. I actually tried, and this is where I ended up. He’s why I did all of this shite in the first place.”
“James, you’ll see him yourself… ”
“Just promise Arch, you’re the only one that keeps them,” Archie nodded.
“Okay, but only until you get out of here, ok?” James smiled. It was the same smile Archie had. Pity the heartwarming family reunion was about to be ruined.
“Guys?” my senses suddenly tingled. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Something’s with us.” James didn’t question it and I quickly wished I hadn’t said anything at all because he went into total panic mode. He struggled to his feet and took up a defensive stance; all the time looking around the cell for his enemy, but there was nothing to see.
“Are you sure?” Archie glared, as he tried to calm his brother. I nodded. I sensed demon, there were no qualms about it.
“No, no, no, no, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy,” James shirked away from Archie. “Protect us from all evil” he was frantic, “Christ do something!” he begged.
“Take my hand,” Archie grabbed his brother’s cuffed wrists. “We’ll pray together.” This sort of calmed James a bit. He gulped in deep breaths, like a pregnant woman in labor, as Archie started to recite a passage from his Bible. James joined in, bellowing the words out loudly. I stood still in the doorway, not convinced it would work, but, at the same time, at a total loss as what else to do. The scent of demon wasn’t leaving; it was getting strong
er.
The other inmates started shouting and swearing in response to Archie’s Bible reading and then the guard appeared behind me. I thought that we’d be asked to leave. James clocked the guard and decided to make a run for it. Bolting for the door, he smashed into me and pushed past the guard. By all accounts, James seemed to be the one that was possessed.
“What you doin’, man?” Archie didn’t understand his irrationality either. The guard gave chase, which wasn’t exactly difficult, considering the ankle cuffs. James was easily wrestled to the ground just a few feet past the door. The guard had him pinned to the floor face down, arms trapped underneath him, he wasn’t going anywhere, but, for some reason, the guard rolled James onto his back. That’s when I saw the terror in James’s face and I knew exactly where the sense of demon had come from: the guard!
The guard punched James in the face while James screamed for help and began to shake violently, froth appearing in corners of his mouth. Then the guard was on top of him, hands pressed over his chest. Archie didn’t react, maybe not realizing what was happening, I mean, it could theoretically have looked like the guard was trying to administer CPR or other first aid on someone who was fitting or having a seizure. But I knew better. I trusted my instincts.
I tried to wrestle the guard off James; he didn’t budge an inch. Hammer fists had virtually no effect either. I backed off, ready to unleash some kicks to the ribs, when the guard turned his head turned towards me; slowly, unnaturally, nearly swiveling a hundred and eighty degrees. If Archie didn’t suspect demon activity by that point, I don’t know what else he needed to see. The guard gawped at me; his eyes, I noticed, had turned to black voids, his mouth gaping wide, releasing a wheezy rattling breath. He looked as if his life force was being sucked out of him, never mind what he was doing to James. I didn’t get a chance to land a kick, the guard thrust his hand out and an invisible force threw me up against the wall. I smacked my head off the concrete and everything went a little fuzzy. Two concussions in one day wasn’t good.
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