Private Demons

by Robert Masello

  “I was starvin’,” Molloy resumed, “and when I looked in the buckets, that’s what I found—pieces of meat, in salt and water. I knew it couldn’t be Skolnick, Father—I knew it couldn’t be my friend, ‘cause nobody ever came out of the cabin. And it was days before I did it . . . until I couldn’t stand it anymore. And I knew, Father, it couldn’t be Skolnick.”

  “I know that, Kevin.”

  “Father . . . could we stop for a while? The pain’s comin’ back, and I’m havin’ a hard time with it.”

  “Yes . . . of course, Kevin. But I just want to know one more thing. How did you get off the Death Ship, Kevin?”

  “I emptied out two of the buckets, and tied ‘em together . . . and one night, I saw a fat guy, a guy I’d never seen before, come out onto the stern. He was holdin’ the yellow lantern and talkin’ to somebody . . . somebody out in the water, for all I know/cause I sure as hell didn’t see anybody myself . . . But I figured, his coming out was a bad sign—maybe they’d all be coming out soon. So as soon as he went back into the cabin, and those oars started at it again, I took the buckets and slipped overboard.” He licked his lips, and moaned softly. Lucien couldn’t tell if it was from the pain, or relief from the drug already taking effect.

  But how in the world, he wondered, had Molloy lived through all this? “And is there anything else you remember, about the ship, or that fat man you saw at night?”

  “I don’t know . . .” He was starting to drift away. “The fat guy, he was bald . . . except for a topknot . . . tied up with . . . I don’t know, it looked like a red ribbon . . .” Molloy chuckled. “Can you believe that? A big fat guy like that, with a little red ribbon in his hair?”

  Lucien sat stupefied; he could believe it all too well.

  “A big fat guy . . . with another bunch of dead guys, rowing him around . . .” Molloy breathed more deeply than before; Lucien could see his whole frame relax. “But that’s good . . . about Skolnick . . . that he knew . . . that’s good, Father . . .” He swallowed, and sighed. “I don’t want him, you know, thinking I let him down . . .” His hands, still strapped to the bedside, drooped listlessly toward the floor.

  Dr. Chom whispered something urgently to Lucien, who got up slowly from the stool. He had not learned any of the things he had expected to learn, but he had come away with other things that he would never have imagined . . . things that would force him now to reevaluate everything else that he thought he knew. Now, for the first time, he began to suspect that the fight he was facing was for more than ships, or riches; he was fighting, as he feared that he would one day have to do, for his own immortal soul.

  CHAPTER

  9

  It was late afternoon, and the heat of the day was slowly, blissfully, beginning to abate. Sister Celeste, finished with her other chores, had just taken the broom to sweep the yard when she heard the cries, coming from the trail to the village. She rested her hands on the wooden handle of the crudely fashioned broom—the simplest chores were assigned to her, as she was considered the simplest of the nuns—and waited for the villagers to break out of the dense jungle and burst into the compound. Sister Elizabeth and Mother Agnes hurried out of the cloister to meet them.

  The first to appear was a little girl, no more than eight or nine, running barefoot, with her arms spread wide. Close behind her were her mother, in a loose sari she held up with one hand, and several other people Celeste recognized from the village. They were frantic, and crying out, and went straight to the feet of Mother Agnes, who asked them, in Thai, what was wrong.

  “My son,” the mother wailed, clutching at the black hem of Mother Agnes’s habit, “my son is lost! You have to help us! Please, help me save my son!”

  “Of course I will,” Mother Agnes assured her. She was a broad, heavyset woman with a face that, even after all these years in the tropics, remained milk-white and smooth. “Of course we’ll help you. But tell me what happened to him.” She took the woman by her hands and raised her up. “Where did you lose your son?”

  “In the Temple of Kaliya!” the little girl piped up. “We were playing, and my brother went into the Temple of Kaliya. I saw him go inside.”

  The woman confirmed all this with a rapid nodding of her head. “That is why no one will go in to find him. No one dares! I would go myself, but then who would take care of my daughter? I do not have the power to fight with a god!”

  And she thinks that Mother Agnes does, Celeste thought to herself. Still holding the broom in her hands—the wounds had healed over, and faded to a faint purple scar—Celeste came closer to the Mother Superior. Sister Elizabeth was muttering something in her ear, and Mother Agnes had bent her head to listen; the expression on her face grew increasingly doubtful. Finally, she asked the distraught woman if she was sure her daughter was right and her son—by what name was he called?—had disappeared in the temple.

  “Ranji,” the woman replied. “His name is Ranji.”

  “It will be very hard to find him, in such a large place, so late in the day,” Mother Agnes explained. “Perhaps he’s already found his own way out, and is waiting for you at home?”

  The mother, hearing this, cried out, and fell to the ground again. “No one has ever come out of the Temple of Kaliya,” she wailed, and several of the villagers behind her nodded in agreement. Kaliya was the king of the nᾱgas—the serpent gods revered throughout Southeast Asia—and this abandoned temple, though never consecrated to his use, had nonetheless become over the centuries his unofficial home. It had become so, Celeste presumed, because its cool stone walls, and murky waters, provided such a welcome haven for snakes. It might also explain the Mother Superior’s reluctance to go inside.

  “Please,” the woman cried out again, “before it’s too late. Will you go and find my son for me? Can’t your god protect you from evil? Don’t you believe in the power of your god?”

  Mother Agnes must have felt the weight of this challenge, and the stirring of her own conscience; here she was, being asked to serve as a witness to her faith, and she was equivocating, even as the life of a little boy hung in the balance. “Yes,” she said, firmly, “I do believe in the power of my god.” Still, she sounded nervous to Celeste. “Take me where the boy was last seen.”

  The little girl—Ranji’s sister—took the nun by the hand and started to pull her in the direction of the temple. Celeste knew the place as well as anyone; it was buried in the jungle about two miles east of the convent. Two more of the nuns had come out of the infirmary—Sisters Mary and Theresa—and they too joined the march toward the ancient ruins. Celeste, so caught up in the drama that she forgot to leave her broom, followed, unbidden, at the rear.

  For the first mile or so, there was a semblance of a trail, which the others in front of her made somewhat clearer by pushing and chopping at the vines and tendrils. Celeste used the handle of the broom to hold the drooping branches away from her face. The second mile had no trail at all. But through the gaps in the palm trees overhead, the top of the temple towers could occasionally be glimpsed. Like all temples built in the region, its site had been chosen principally for its elevation; higher ground was not only closer to the gods, but better protected against the frequent floods. And this one had occupied the highest ground of all.

  Still, it had been lost, to all but the inhabitants of the local villages, for centuries on end. Its walls and towers had become overgrown with moss and weeds; the heavy flagstones of its causeway had been broken apart by burrowing roots. And the god, or king, to whom it had originally been dedicated had been long forgotten. Now it served as nothing more than a sanctuary for snakes and crocodiles, and all the fears such creatures engendered.

  The sun had fallen even lower in the sky by the time the ragtag rescue party had broken free of the underbrush, and into the comparatively sparse grounds that surrounded the ruins. At one time, judging from the broad flat stones that littered the earth, this must have been a huge forecourt to the temple. The only entrance, toward which th
ey made their way over the mossy, uneven rubble, was in the western wall; Celeste knew what this signified. For the ancient Khmer, who had once held sway in this region, the west was the way to the World of the Dead. And this superstition too would not have been lost on the villagers.

  The little girl, still holding Mother Agnes by the hand, was jumping up and down and pointing toward the distant gate. In Thai, she was saying, “Ranji went through there! I told him not to. But Ranji went through there.” The gateway stood at the end of a long, narrow bridge. Lining both sides of the bridge, which spanned a moat filled with water as black and still as ink, were close to a hundred monumental stone statues, evenly divided on either side. Those on the left bore calm but melancholy expressions; they were gods of goodness and light. Those on the right were demons, whose faces were carved into grimaces of pain and anger. Each row of figures held the body of a monstrously long, stone snake. The heads of the two snakes formed matching pillars at the entry to the bridge; their tails, which extended all the way into the temple itself, could not be seen.

  “Please,” Ranji’s mother was begging, “please—before it gets dark. Can you go and find my son?” Agnes was seen to kiss the crucifix hanging around her neck, and then, in the company of Sister Elizabeth, step up onto the vaulted stone bridge. The villagers hung back, afraid even to approach too close to the snarling stone heads of the serpents. The two nuns, murmuring what was undoubtedly a prayer, moved together down the bridge. Their eyes, Celeste could see, were shifting from side to side as they walked—on the lookout for the snakes that infested these stones. They had gone three quarters of the way down the bridge when they suddenly stopped, and clutched each other’s hand. A scream went up from Ranji’s mother; several of the villagers fell on their knees, chanting to the Buddha for help. Celeste moved closer to the bridge, to see what was happening.

  From the moat that surrounded the temple walls, two huge shapes were climbing up out of the water, onto the bank, and then, propelled by their stubby legs, scrambling beneath the row of silent demons. Now, looking a little as if they had been summoned for a job they didn’t yet understand, they snapped and turned in front of the vast, empty gateway. The water glistened and dripped from their scales; their narrow snouts twisted in the air. For the first time, Celeste felt the full weight of the villagers’ superstition; it was as if these crocodiles had been posted as sentries . . . as if some malevolent spirit—perhaps Kaliya himself—was indeed warning them away from his home.

  Slowly, the crocodiles seemed to settle down and turn their attention to the nuns on the causeway. They spread themselves out, their tails nearly joining, and regarded the would-be trespassers with a baleful, yellow glare. Mother Agnes had pulled the crucifix from under her collar, and still grasping Elizabeth’s hand, had taken a step forward. The crocodiles appeared unperturbed. She took another step, hesitantly, and this time the one on the right thwapped its tail against the gray flagstones. The wet echo of the slap reverberated off the walls. Sister Elizabeth pulled her hand away, and retreated a few steps. Agnes remained where she was.

  Ranji’s mother was no longer screaming; now she was nearly catatonic, gazing down the causeway with a blank, hopeless stare, her daughter clutched to her bosom. Celeste felt a twinge in her palm, and realized that she was gripping the broom with unwarranted vigor.

  Mother Agnes had turned her head, and was saying something to Elizabeth, who appeared to be crying. Elizabeth shook her head, not moving forward or back. Agnes faced the waiting reptiles again, and alone, stepped toward them. Suddenly, they were both up on their stunted legs, poised and alert. Agnes shouted something—Celeste thought she heard “. . . of the Son and of the Holy Ghost"—and took another step toward the gate. As if obeying the same silent instruction, the two crocodiles slithered forward, toward the nun. Agnes stopped dead. Elizabeth, sobbing, grabbed at her arm, to pull her back; the crocodiles, noting the sudden movement, shot forward, squirming on the rugged stone. Agnes jumped back, colliding with Elizabeth. The crocodile closest to them plunged at their feet; Elizabeth screamed, and tangled in the folds of her habit, fell. The crocodile lunged, snapping its jaws. There was the sound of cloth, ripping; the crocodile yanked its snout back, a piece of black fabric flapping in its teeth. The second, perhaps fearing that it would miss out on the feast, scrambled over the body of the first, and took its own bite. This time Celeste could swear that she had heard the sound of flesh and bone tearing; Elizabeth made not a sound. Her hands were raised toward Agnes, who fumbled for them, struggling to pull her away from the animals.

  Celeste could never have said when or how it had come to her to do what she then did—but before she was even aware of it, she had found herself passing between the nᾱgas’ heads and striding toward the struggle on the bridge. One of the other nuns had tried to stop her—Celeste knew she was considered a half-wit by most of the convent—but she had merely brushed her hand away and continued on. She could see a puddle of blood, glittering on the stones, where Elizabeth had been bitten; the crocodile was contentedly waiting in place, chewing whatever it had come away with. Agnes was desperately trying to drag the inert body of Sister Elizabeth out of range. Hearing the sound of footsteps on the bridge, she had glanced over her shoulder and seen Celeste. It was the last person she had expected to see there; still, any help at all was welcome. Where was Theresa? Or Mary?

  Celeste marched on, oblivious to virtually everything around her, focusing only on the two huge crocodiles. In her hands she still held the wooden broom, with the rushes bound together at its base. In her mind’s eye, she saw the sculpture of St. George and the dragon, which she had often contemplated at the monastery. In her heart, she felt no fear . . . only a kind of righteous fury. God was being insulted by these creatures; his very servants had been attacked. And not by mute, dumb animals. Not these. These, she knew with a conviction she could never have explained, were acting as the agents of a greater power, an evil power that lived—could the villagers be right?—somewhere among the massive stones of this ruined temple.

  “Yes . . . yes,” Mother Agnes was saying to her, “come and help me. Bless you, Celeste. Bless you.” But Celeste was coming less to help than to fight, less to rescue than to avenge. She looked down at the wound on Elizabeth’s leg—a slab of bloody flesh, from the calf to the ankle, had been ripped loose—and then she looked directly into Mother Agnes’s eyes. “Call to Mary and Theresa,” she said. “Let them help you. Elizabeth will be healed.” On Agnes’s face, there was a look of astonishment—not only at Celeste’s sudden willingness to speak, but at her deliberate, even imperious, tone. “I must find the child.” Then she turned away from the dumbstruck nun, and faced the two reptile sentries. Their slitted eyes were raised and unblinking, and in them Celeste could see a spirit of pure and undiluted malevolence. What, she wondered, could they see in hers? She hoped it was the power that she felt coursing through her, pulsing in the faint purple scars that marked her hands and feet.

  “And now,” she said, the sound of her voice ringing strangely even in her own ears, “the work of Christ must be done.” She stepped forward, and the crocodiles lifted themselves to pounce. “Demons have no power here,” she said, and swinging her broom back and forth, as if she were doing no more than sweeping the dirt from the convent yard, she advanced on the crocodiles. From behind her, she heard Mother Agnes scream, and a chorus of cries from the villagers gathered at the foot of the bridge. “Be gone,” she muttered, under her breath. “You have no power here.” And the crocodiles suddenly blinked their eyes, snapped their deadly jaws—and retreated. Still watching her every move, they slowly backpedaled, switching their tails from side to side and looking, to Celeste, as if they no longer understood their orders. They looked uncertain, confused . . . even fearful. And Celeste advanced upon them, swinging the broom with greater and greater force. “Back, “ she said, “back into the water with you.”

  She was close enough now that the end of the broom could touch their jaws. One o
f them snapped, instinctively, at the rushes, and Celeste flicked the broom back into its snout; the crocodile turned away from the blow, and quickly crawled over its comrade’s back. It scurried to one side of the bridge, ducked between the bowed legs of one of the stone demons, and slithered down the muddy bank; a moment later, Celeste heard the splash of its ponderous body entering the water. As if that were all the other crocodile needed to hear, it too suddenly turned around, and squirmed between the legs of a stone god on the opposite side of the bridge. The last Celeste saw of it was its deep green tail, sliding snake-like off the flagstones. Once in the moat, it remained submerged, leaving only a telltale ripple on the surface of the black water as it swam away to safety.

  For a second, Celeste stopped where she was, and took a breath. Only now could she evaluate what she had just done—and what she had yet to do. The gateway lay ahead of her, surmounted by three massive stone heads, one facing west, one north, and one south. All, so far as she could tell, were identical—with broad and flat features, almond eyes, sensual lips. Perhaps it was a likeness of the king whose funerary temple this had been—or a god whose cult had disappeared. She would probably never know. But the setting sun was casting long shadows, and she knew that her time was short. Without so much as a glance behind her, she walked the remaining length of the bridge, flanked by the rows of gods and demons, and passed through the partially demolished gate. As she had suspected, the tails of the nāgas that were suspended by the statues ended here, in a swift, upward curve.

  Once inside the actual walls, Celeste had to stop again . . . if only to take in the vastness of the monuments before her. There was a huge, vaguely cruciform court, and ranged on all sides of it were temples and colonnades, terraced steps and corner towers. All of them were crumbling, and overgrown with moss and lichen, but still she could easily imagine what this site had looked like when it was first built, and all the stones were scrubbed and smooth and intact. It was more than a single temple, as it might have appeared from a distance, or from the other side of the walls. It was a whole complex of buildings, organized around some plan she could not yet discern . . . and which, she knew, there was no time to discover now.