by mike Evans
The two went in through the chambers and Father Nathaniel saw the cart sitting by itself. “You want me to get this taken out, Father Edwards? Seems like your altar boys might have forgotten about it this week.”
“Those boys, they’ll be the death of me. I mean really, they come here a few times a week every week, how hard is it to remember what they are supposed to do? Really, they get the wine filled, then put the bread chips in the basket and then they make sure that we have extras of everything that we might need more of. How difficult is that, really?”
“Hard to say, Father Edwards, you remember what it was like being a young boy, a million things going through your head at every waking minute. You trying to figure out life and how not to get in trouble were your main concerns. It is difficult to keep them focused, I feel. I wouldn’t give them too hard of a time, not all of them are planning on taking their vows to God when they graduate.”
“Well, I bet if they knew what you got to do the boys would be fighting to be priests.”
Nathaniel didn’t want to remind him that they’d lost one today, and those looking at what he did with admiration would quickly fade if they knew what they had to do. The things people thought were amazing would only last until they walked a mile in his shoes. Keeping respect for a man who he cherished, he said, “Don’t worry, Father Edwards. At least if there isn’t an influx of people attempting to be men of the cloth we can skip wasting time on those not truly cut out for the job. The ones who think they got the calling, but truly didn’t. Not that I am the one to say if someone is or is not worthy to wear the cloth.”
Father Edwards went to open the door which led directly out to the front, but when he twisted the door handle found that it was locked. “Who would lock this door, this door is not to be locked under any circumstances,” Father Edwards said, slowly letting his voice rise.
“I have no idea; do you have the extra key for it. I'm sure someone just removed it and didn’t even think about it,” Father Nathaniel replied.
“Probably, but I don’t carry my keys around regularly. You want to see if someone has a set around the bend real quick?”
Nathaniel nodded disappearing and a few minutes later opened the door from the outside. Father Edwards was already pushing the cart out as the door was opened. He saw they had a full house today; the word must have somehow spread that one of the priests residing in the church had been lost. The people of the church didn’t get reports of what they did, of course, but rumors spread and they knew that these men helped keep hell at bay and away from them.
The congregation rose to their feet as the two priests made their way out, it filled both men’s hearts with goodness seeing it. The support of the followers did more than he could have possibly imagined it would have done. Father Nathaniel looked over to see a hand on his shoulder, but when he looked to see who it was saw nothing. He placed a hand on it unsure what was going on but it was gone. He made a sign of the cross, unsure who was there, but he had a suspicion…or more of a hope that it was Father Carter, who was there with him now, hopefully watching over him and keeping him and the others safe from harm’s way.
Father Edwards whispered in his ear, “You look fifty shades of white, are you all right. If you aren’t up for service, if you need to rest, then you go ahead and go, you do what you need to do, please. Whatever it is you do it, we want you to be whole again.”
“No, I think I’m all right. I can do it, I just…I just felt like there was an old friend there for a moment.”
“Just because he’s passed doesn’t mean that he is gone. We spend such a short time on this earth doing God’s will that it doesn’t mean we are finished when we pass,” Father Edwards said. “Why don’t you go ahead and start our service today, if you are up for it I mean, it might do your body good.”
Father Nathaniel, who usually wasn’t the one to speak at mass walked forward flicking on the microphone to address the crowd. He looked around at the faces, sorrowful expressions were looking at his every feature. He tried to smile, but he didn’t have one that he could fake to try and make them feel better. He wasn’t ignorant and he knew that if you couldn’t be your true self with your congregation you would not be able to do it elsewhere.
He leaned in too far making the microphone scream like nails on a chalkboard. “I'm sorry, I wasn’t expecting to speak. A few hours ago, I would not have been able to. I wanted to speak to you about faith, and loss today. I hope that I do you justice, I know exactly how long Father Edwards and the other priests spend on their sermons each week. I will try my best to not let you down. I see your faces; I understand that rumors have already begun to flow freely through the congregation. You want to know details, you want to know what happened, who to blame, what you can do to help, so many questions, so little time. The short and bittersweet is that we lost Father Carter; he died doing his duty to the church. If you want someone to place your blame on, I can only say Satan.”
The crowd gasped at this, many started doing the sign of the cross and holding their hands together. Most of them had their rosaries tucked in between their clasped hands. “Keep it down please, yes we all know there is a devil, for if there wasn’t one what fear would you have? You might ask what is bittersweet about losing a priest, losing one that you all know worked hand in hand with myself? I can only say that he died doing what he was put on this earth to do. I feel that even though he is gone, he will never be forgotten and while I am in no hurry to join him in heaven, I have every confidence that when our Lord and Creator comes for me, that will be exactly where I find him. This time is dangerous, there is something afoot, but if we stay strong, and faithful the dark wishes of others will fail. You must do your best to have the faith that I know you are capable of. Please bow your heads for we need to pray for those lost, those still fighting and those we will lose who are trying to do well on your behalves.”
Father Nathaniel led the prayer going slow not looking up. He’d hooked them from the beginning of the service, and every watchful obeying eye was upon him. He did not want to scare the congregation, but letting people roam around freely unaware of the dangers was not something which he was okay with letting take place.
Chapter 18
Route 66 Motel Los Angeles, California
Dursky was punching in the number to call the precinct up and get back on their way to the church. The officers from earlier came up, the older one first. “Detective, you don’t need to send anyone additional to the church, sir.”
“What in the hell are you talking about? The man that they had in that room that did the devil’s work was dressed like a priest. He’s five to ten minutes away from it and has a two-hour head start on us. You give me one good damn reason why we don’t send everyone we got there?”
“Because we already have everyone we can spare on their way there?”
Dursky rolled with his fingers for him to keep going, “Get to it, the short version.”
St. Mary’s Cathedral, Los Angeles
Dursky pulled up slowly, looking out the window to the church. He could only shake his head, even from a block away he could see he wasn’t going to be prepared for this. He took out his badge sliding it around his neck on a chain. He tried to take it in, there were twenty medics in the chapel, each of them with a clipboard. A detective he knew went walking past and he gripped his arm. “Mark, what in the hell is going on here? What is going on with the medics?”
“Time of death, Dursky, you know that. They have to declare it so they can make note of when they passed away.”
Dursky didn’t say anything, he left Mark standing there waiting for another question to come. He walked into the chapel and the fact that he’d never seen this many dead people in one room made his stomach drop to his knees. “Oh my God, what happened?” He whispered.
“You ever hear of the crazies that drank the Kool-Aid, killed every single one of them?”
“Yeah, there’s no way a Catholic Church would do that though. You aren’t
saying that is what happened, right?”
“No, all I can assume is that someone put something deadly inside of the wine glasses, or inside the wine itself. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mark said.
Dursky gripped at his gut not sure if he was going to be able to keep what was on the inside where it belonged. “Were there any survivors, Mark?”
Mark smiled lightly, “There were a handful of babies, all the children who haven’t had their communion before, and some recovering alcoholics that only took the bread survived. By the time the members started passing out in their seats they ran to the phones. At first, they thought it was just a few people that had gotten ill from something, maybe the flu, I don’t know what was going through their mind. In my defense, I can’t imagine having to look up from a prayer to see people dropping like flies, that’d be torturous to my head. By the time the medics got here everyone who’d touched it was gone. They said that they’ve never seen a drug or poison act so fast to kill before.”
“First thoughts, is there anyone here that you think they might have been after, do you think it was a church reason for trying to do it. Were any of the members in here important enough to send a hitter into the house of God?” Dursky asked.
Mark shrugged, “We’ve been here less than twenty minutes. I don’t have a clue if anyone here is important or not. We are trying to get information on them but other than an envelope for the church gatherings in the offering plate we don’t know much about any of them. My guess though is someone is either trying to accomplish a mission or-”
An officer near the dressing room yelled to the two detectives from across the church. “You two better come see this, and do it quick please!”
Dursky thought about it and the fact that there were almost two hundred dead bodies here, and in a few of the saddest cases there were new orphans and widows that made it even worse. Dursky knew if God didn’t put a hand on the widow’s backs, they would definitely have their lips around a bottle of whatever they could get their hands on tonight. Dursky looked to Mark and shrugged, “You want a part of this, or am I going to do this on my own?”
“That officer has been on the job for two decades. If he says we need to see it, then let’s make sure that we aren’t screwing anything up. Whoever this guy is I’m either putting him away or putting two in his chest. He can pick how that goes down when we pick him up.”
The two headed for the back-dressing room. They looked around not seeing anything. Dursky said, “We’ll have more paperwork than the guy that originally had to write the Bible. I thought that you said there was something in here which we needed to see? Where is it, for God sakes?”
The officer pointed to the curtain and neither of them wanted to be the poor bastard to pull it back. When they approached it, they nodded unconfidently to each other and each took a side of the curtain. They pulled them back quickly like a band aid. The breath they were holding when they did it began to burn like a deep fire until each of them realized they weren’t breathing but simply holding it in. The two of them seemed to have had the exact same revelation. That something evil was here or had been.
Dursky looked at the boy on the left first, his eyes had not been closed. He pulled down the collar of his dress shirt, he’d never seen hand marks on someone’s neck this deep. There was a rage this man was trying to get out, or something else angering him past his breaking point, he thought. Mark was looking at the other boy, “This one wasn’t strangled, I don’t know what the cause of death was.”
Dursky wanted to say check his arms, but this was a ten or twelve-year-old boy not one of the junkies overdosing on skid row. He looked at the way the boy was leaning and slowly pulled back his collar not seeing anything. “Right, just like I said, Dursky, he didn’t get strangled.”
Dursky pulled his cassock down looking closer at his neck. He ran his gloved hands over the boy’s neck seeing nothing but then running his fingertips across the back of the boy’s neck he could feel a large lump under the cassock on the rear of his neck. He let go patting the boy on the shoulder not thinking it was a pointless gesture at this point. He looked down at his hand, seeing a Los Angeles International Airport slip of paper in his hand. The number said flight five-sixty-two. “What the hell is that, Dursky?”
“I have no idea, but I think…no, I know that there is something bigger going on. Call the airport, tell the security force there to look at the tape. It is going to look like there is a glitch, like there will be a man they can’t focus on. You find out where that is, where he is going. I’m going to try and catch up, you figure it out, you radio me in the car and the airport if I’m not in there. You understand me, Mark, you do it and you do it now!”
“How are you going to get on the plane?”
“I’m going to show them my ID and my gun and they are going to give me a seat to wherever we go and hope that God and the officer’s in the next town have a sense of duty. I know I won’t have jurisdiction, or a way to bring them back here. But with God as my witness I want to get this guy, I don’t know what he’s trying to do, a maid, a congregation, priests for God sakes, and doing it all in the house of the Lord, what is he thinking? He’s practically paving a one-way path to hell. But he said stop me at the hotel.”
“I thought you had to find him on video, that you didn’t know where the hell he went?”
“I was going over the room. I honestly found it on accident, he wrote it or something wrote it on the mirror.”
“Something?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know, it just seems like there is something bigger going on here, something crazy that seems more evil than anything I’ve worked on before, Mark.”
“That is absolutely horrifying to hear considering the kind of things you get called in on.”
“I just hope that I can find him, the worse thing about this job is you don’t get a call till the body has already hit the floor. I gotta figure out where he’s going and what he’s doing.”
“I’ll get on the horn and try to get you a step ahead of him.”
Dursky headed out of the dressing room with his head spinning. He was confident the boys walked in on whomever was doing the poisoning to the holy wine. The priests were lying on the floor each of them lying where they’d fallen except for one. Dursky noticed Father Nathaniel lying on his back. His arms were crossed on his chest, two gold coins from the devil were on his eyelids and he had in blood written on his forehead stop him. Dursky whispered to no one that was in earshot, “I’ll stop the son of a bitch, Father, I promise you this!”
He leaned down seeing a white business card sticking out of the breast pocket. He went to grip it but realized he’d already removed his gloves. He patted at his pocket for a fresh pair, but was out. Dursky found a pen sliding the cap off and using it like a pair of tweezers and stuck it to the card. In simple Times font it said, In case of emergency, please contact Father Michaels, head of those who do the holy work and send those unworthy of Earth back to hell where they belong, Chicago, Illinois. He turned the card over seeing a simple black cross and the address and phone number to a church in Chicago, Illinois.
He held up the card looking around and ran to the back of the church where he found an office and a telephone he could use. He punched in the numbers knowing it’d be a very awkward conversation but had no choice. If this man could be of any help, he would not look the gift horse in the mouth. He punched in the numbers to reach Father Michaels. He sat there practically bouncing in his chair. “Hello?”
Dursky cleared his throat, “Hello, I'm trying to reach a Father Michaels, please.”
“Try no harder because I am him. Is there something I can do for you?”
“I have something I am supposed to tell you I think.”
“I can imagine that, because this number is private, and I know everyone alive who has it. I fear you got this number from one of them, are they in the hospital? Were they hurt, were they at your home trying to-”
“I fear I ha
ve bad news to break to you Father Michaels. My name is Detective Dursky, I'm from the Los Angeles Police Department. I was responding to a case which led me to the church here. If you haven’t already seen it, you will, or it will be in the papers tomorrow and on the news tonight. We have the scene locked down currently.”
“The scene, the news, the papers, can you give me some information, my heart’s going to explode if you don’t give a few details. There are many people in the church and I care for them all but there were a handful of men at that church who are very special.”
“We were at a hotel this morning, a man dressed like a priest took a maid and crucified her and left her there. In his hotel room, it said to stop him, I'm unsure if he’s speaking of himself or-”
“The Devil, dare I say?”
“Look, I just wanted to call and let you know that this seems personal. None of the victims seemed to receive any special attention except for one young priest with a full head of hair, and looks like he’d blow over in the wind.”