by DC Malone
“Meredith, is there someone held captive in your bathroom?”
I sighed and walked around her. “This was supposed to go more smoothly.”
“What was?”
I flung open the bathroom door.
Carter was standing on the other side with a dopey grin on his face. A small, bent metal rod was dangling from the area of his bindings where the chain connected with the handcuffs.
“Sorry for the disruption,” he said, gesturing toward the wrecked remains of my metal bath scrubber. “I think I broke your cleaning thingy.”
“You sure did,” I sighed. “You might as well come on out. Our little surprise is kind of a bust.”
Carter exited the bathroom and plopped back down onto the futon, dragging his chains with him.
“Meredith.” Francie’s voice was sporting an extra, and probably false, layer of calm. “Why do you have a police detective chained up in your bathroom? And why do I have a sinking feeling that it’s the reason I’m here?”
“I’ll answer your last question first. That’s because you’re a fiercely intelligent and extremely intuitive woman.”
“And the first question?”
“Carter has been influenced by a demon and can’t be trusted.”
“Allegedly,” Carter interjected.
“And the Congregation has no official stance on demons,” I continued, ignoring the man who just tried to use a shower brush to free himself. “So, I’m sort of on my own with the whole captive policeman thing.”
“And that means what exactly?” Francie asked. “If someone finds out, you’re on the hook for kidnapping and holding an officer of the law against his will?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“And my part in this is…” Francie smacked a palm against her forehead. “You want me to be the babysitter while you go out demon hunting. Which would make me—”
“An accessory to kidnapping, for one,” Carter said. “And there’s a handful of other charges I can think of off the top of my head. Plus, it’s a statistical fact that when a crime is committed against a police officer, the punishment is nearly always harsher. Just putting that out there.”
“Carter, it’s quiet time now.” I picked up the remote from the futon and tossed it onto his lap. “Watch your stories.”
I turned back to Francie. “Okay, bringing you here wasn’t my finest moment. I think I might have gone a little stir-crazy.” I led her back toward the table of food and away from Carter. “This food alone is going to make a difference there, at least. We’ve been eating Sason’s for three days straight. That’s got to do something to a person’s brain chemistry. And Hiram should have something for me pretty—”
“I’ll do it.” Francie took one of the food trays and a packet of plasticware and carried them over to Carter. She dropped them onto the futon next to him, careful to not get too close.
“You’ll do it? Babysit him?”
“Of course. When have I ever not been game for one of your schemes, Mer? Frankly, I’m a little offended by the subterfuge.”
“But this is quite a bit different. I’m not exactly working within the law here. If someone finds out about Carter, or if things don’t go the way I want them to with the demon—”
“Mer, you’re my friend. My best friend. And I’ve watched you commune with the dead, knock Nic on his butt with nothing but a touch, and countless other bizarre things. Hell, I watched you dispatch a vampire queen and her army of vampiric monstrosities with nothing but your friggin’ mind powers. I trust you, and I’m going to stand by you. It’s not even a question.”
There was a lump in my throat. A tidal wave of conflicting emotions crashed down inside my chest. I felt a swell of gratitude that threatened to burst me at the thought of having a friend like Francie, but at the same time, I felt like warmed-over garbage for not putting it to her straight in the first place. It was a rollercoaster ride that almost made me dizzy.
Thankfully, the moment didn’t last long.
“Wait a minute,” Carter said over a mouthful of lasagna, “Vampires are real? Holy crap.”
Chapter 16
The feeling of the hard, gritty sidewalk under my feet. The smell of exhaust fumes, open refuse containers, and too many people. The overlapping and overwhelming sounds of raised voices, angry car horns, and a low rumble of thunder in the distance.
I was in heaven.
I guess I was never one of those people who could stay locked indoors for days and weeks on end without a complaint. That’s not to say I needed, or even wanted, the company of other people all the time. I was perfectly okay with being all on my lonesome. I just needed to be out when I was alone.
The city, and its infinity of noises and smells, was probably my favorite companion. Once you’d lived with its seemingly rough and abrasive personality, its tantrums and outbursts, you began to understand its moods and even look forward to them. Morning, with its droves of zombies on their way to various cubicles and desks, was really just the city taking a long shuddering breath, pulling all of the pieces to their correct places. Afternoon was a release, a building exhale that started with a steady bustle and ended with the blowing out of the morning hordes, now spent and zombified in another way.
But night… Night was where the magic happened. Even for the Norms. Most of the same sights, sounds, and smells carried over from the day, but they were all remade into something fundamentally stranger. It was a kind of alchemical process that could only happen in a big city. The smells of half a hundred shabby food joints seemed to tangle and dance in the air, becoming intoxicating and inviting as they blew past on the crisp breeze.
The people changed, too. There were fewer of them, but not by much. But mostly they were just different. It was something in their eyes, I thought. Those mindless, featureless crowds of walkers from the daytime almost seemed to not have eyes. They were unfocused, living in their minds and going about the muscle-memory task of routine.
Not the nighttime folk. Their eyes seemed to dance with purpose, intensity. Sometimes they gave off a kind of wild energy like pure chaos. It may have been the unpredictability of it all that I liked the most. There was danger and excitement and mystery.
But above everything else, night in the city brought a sense of freedom. Not just because I had been cooped up in my apartment for three days straight. Although, that added to the feeling. No, it was the people, with their wild eyes and chaos, that magnified that sense of freedom. Tomorrow, when the city sucked them back to their gray desks and cubicles, they would once again be returned to their state of zombiehood. But for the night, for just those few hours, they were free.
And so was I.
Well, relative to what I had been just a few minutes before, at least.
It was that freedom that had me walking to my destination instead of hailing a cab. My chunky boots crunched against the debris-laden sidewalk, adding to the musical din of all the night sounds that swirled around me. I needed to be careful not to be lulled into a false calmness by the euphoric feeling I felt. Things were still dire. And Francie, as much as anyone, would be the victim if I didn’t keep my head in the game.
I didn’t think Carter would hurt her, just like I didn’t have anything to fear from him. That didn’t seem to be the demon’s game. It wanted him to act on some horrible impulse that was already inside of him, to prove to those around him how terrible the souls of men can be.
But that didn’t mean I hadn’t put Francie at risk. Carter was bent on escape, even if it were in a placid, Zen kind of way, and that meant anything could happen. One miscalculation and she could be staring at the inside of a jail cell. Or worse.
And really, that was just a very small part of my dumpster fire of a situation. Without Carter to keep me in the loop, I had no way of really hearing about any of the other murders that were taking place for the amusement of my demon quarry, but I had no doubt that they were still happening. What made it worse still was that I had a whole host o
f victims, but no real perpetrators, save for the demon itself. Even the murderers were casualties of this crazy little war, and if I did somehow manage to remove the demon from its role as puppet master, the men it had duped into unwitting criminals were still going to be on the hook for their supposed crimes.
It was your basic, everyday lose-lose situation. Yay me.
Holy Mother of Light church was not as much improved by the night as the rest of the city. I stood peering up at the darkened stained-glass windows and knife-point arches, unable to shake the feeling that the place was utterly haunted.
A lot of that feeling probably had something to do with the fact that it was haunted. By a bloodthirsty demon no less.
It had taken me nearly forty-five minutes to walk to Father Donovan’s church. When I left my apartment, I had only really known that I needed to see the place again. To what end, I didn’t know, but it seemed like a reasonable place to pick the thread back up. I mean, it was one of the two tether’s Hiram had mentioned, the other being Donovan himself, which meant it was important to the demon.
I didn’t know of any practical way to break this particular tether. Hiram had hinted at the fact that Donovan’s death would be a means of breaking the primary thing that held the demon to our plane, but I wasn’t in the business of killing priests and I hoped never to be.
The secondary tether, the church, wasn’t something that could be removed from the equation. So, it wasn’t as much of a liability to the creature. Sure, I could have burned the place down, but I wasn’t even sure that would have been enough to break the link. The place wasn’t the demon’s home. It was just one of its two links to our plane, so even getting the building razed to the ground probably wouldn’t have accomplished a thing.
A thought sprung into my mind as I continued to stare at that bleak husk of an institution. I wanted to see what I could find out from one of the church’s former parishioners. The three I had encountered when I was here the first time with Carter had been influenced in some way by the demon’s presence. But still, they had tried to give warning in their cryptic and creepy way.
Maybe I’d have better luck at getting some information from a fresh shade. There was still so much I didn’t know about what was going on, like how and why Father Donovan had summoned the demon in the first place. Maybe that kind of information wouldn’t make a difference at all, but it never hurt to have a clear picture when dealing with any case. Too much information was far better than too little.
I plucked the small multitool from the breast pocket of my jacket. A slip of a knife, tiny file, plastic toothpick, and a bendy pair of tweezers. Everything a girl needed to summon a friendly denizen of the afterlife.
“Sacrifice, intent, connection.” I whispered the three tenets of summoning Hiram had taught me all those months ago.
The sacrifice would be blood. My blood, to be exact. Hence the knife.
Intent was simple in this case. I needed to commune with a shade. There really wasn’t a more basic cause for summoning. Drunk teens with Ouija boards managed to pull that one off pretty much every weekend.
Connection was a fuzzier concept. Sometimes it was an item that belonged to the deceased, a personal bauble of significance or a photograph. But this time, I wanted a churchgoer. Pretty much any churchgoer. So, I figured the best place to start was the thing that connected them all—the church itself.
I walked up the stairs to the church’s doorway, letting the dark shadows from the eaves wash over me like inky water. I shivered as I approached the door. Every step closer to the church seemed to bring the already cold night temperature lower.
Thankfully, I didn’t think I needed to enter the building to get what I wanted. I could perform the ritual within touching distance of the façade.
I slipped the small blade of my multitool quickly across my palm, drawing a bright, sharp line of pain along its path. The pain was good. It allowed me to focus my will on the second part of the ritual—the intent, the purpose of my request. With that purpose firmly in my mind, I pressed my bloody palm against the church door and squeezed shut my eyes.
It felt different each time. Sometimes there was a light buzz of sensation that I barely even registered, and sometimes it was like a torrent of cold shooting through every inch of my body. Hiram said it was all part of being in close contact with the Source. I wasn’t so sure about that, but it wasn’t something easy to get used to. Not unpleasant, exactly. Just disconcerting.
This time, however, the sensation was immediate and violent. Something hot, like molten rock, poured out from the door and into my hand. I cried out and tried to yank my hand away, but there was no budging it. I was stuck, welded in place by some unknown force.
The fiery flood continued to pulse through my hand and arm, finally ending in the middle of my chest. It radiated outward in spiteful waves, touching every inch of my body and building intensity like a mounting thunderstorm. Panicked and pained, I wedged my feet against the bottom of the door and tried to pry myself loose. Nothing worked. And the pain kept growing.
Within seconds, the force that poured through me reached an agonizing crescendo. I was being burned alive from inside out.
Some small, rational part of my mind understood that this was the end, that I couldn’t endure pain of this magnitude for very long. My heart would simply stop beating. And, given the excruciating alternative, I was rapidly becoming okay with that.
And then it all stopped.
Whatever had hold of my hand let go, and I tumbled backward and down the few stone steps to the sidewalk. The pain was gone, too. Sure, I still felt the undignified bruise to my backside from the hard landing, and something in my shoulder had been wrenched when I tried to pry myself free. But the real pain, that searing, unearthly pain that had crawled into even the smallest corners of my mind and body, was completely gone.
I stood up and brushed myself off, feeling a mix of relief and unease.
What was that?
It wasn’t like any other summoning I’d ever experienced, and something told me it wasn’t just random bad luck. Maybe it had something to do with the church’s connection to the demon. Maybe that evil had corrupted my link to the Source. Hiram would likely have a theory or two, but that would have to wait.
I stared back up at the church, seeing the building through new eyes. It had a presence, like any entity. Once, it might have given off a feeling of good, of peace and safety. But now, pain and dread hung over it like low thunderclouds, bathing the stone and wood and glass in a darkness that seemed to penetrate to the structure’s very core.
It was that same darkness that very likely had emptied the sidewalk out front. The few pedestrians that were brave enough to venture into the area, did so by crossing to the other side of the street to keep their distance. They all felt it, even if they weren’t consciously aware that they did.
“Well, that was a bust.”
Or had it been?
A small flash of something light-colored caught my attention, and I turned to see a figure standing only a few feet away from me. The man had wide, shocked eyes and hair so white it seemed to glow in the nighttime darkness. He was ragged, hollowed out from the inside, and it took me a moment to figure out he wasn’t the shade I had tried to summon. Though, the man didn’t look to be very much more alive.
“Father Donovan?”
For a moment, he only stared at me with those round, horror-struck eyes of his, but finally, he turned away to stare up at his church.
“This was a place of hope.” His voice was like dead leaves blown over rough stone.
“What happened? Why did this happen?” I kept my voice low and soft for fear of spooking the man.
“Pride,” he whispered. “Hubris. I thought I was smarter than the Enemy. Stronger. Instead, I was a sinful fool. A stupid, sinful fool.”
“But the demon?” I prodded.
“We had a group, did you know?” He sounded as if he hadn’t heard me at all. “The Boys’ Club is
what we fashioned ourselves. Our fellowship was mighty. It became more to me than any of the rest of it—this church, my flock. I felt powerful with those men. I taught and they understood. I knew it was my true calling. We were going to make His will a reality. Something the masses could point to in awe. God’s mighty works would be done through our—my—hands.”
The old man took a shuddering breath.
“At first, I couldn’t figure out how. What would be worthy? What tangible act would He want of me? But then it came to me, like a thunderbolt in the night. It came and I understood. I would do what no other had dared. I would confront the Enemy—make him manifest—and listen to his words, his lies. I would learn. Evil would not be some abstract concept that I would coax others to avoid. It would not be a matter of repenting, of falling down, again and again, and hoping to get back up one more time. I would suss out the root of all Evil. I would draw it like venom from a bite, then smite it with the light of God shining on my back!”
“Father,” I said gently. “I have to banish it, the demon. It is connected to you and this place. But you most of all. If you come back with me, maybe—”
“You must see it.” His words were losing focus, becoming more distant. “It cannot be stopped. Not by you, at least.”
For the first time, I noticed his hand, which had been slipping beneath his dark coat throughout our conversation. In the cold breeze, the material fluttered aside for the briefest of moments, revealing something dark and shining beneath.
The priest had a gun.
“It is fitting when you really think about it. This whole thing started from my sin, a sin of pride and arrogance. And it must end in another sin, one equally as terrible. I am lost, but perhaps the others won’t be.”
I lunged at Donovan as he plunged his hand beneath the folds of his coat and after the gun. He stopped before I was halfway to him, his body locking up like some machine without power.
Both of the man’s hands dropped to his sides limply, and he swiveled to face me, moving in a palsied, stop-start fashion that added to the machine-like impression from before. When he spoke, it was almost as if he had lost most of his control over his tongue. Or it was being controlled by someone, or something, that shouldn’t have had control over it in the first place.