Dark Vessel: An Urban Fantasy Series (Meredith Bale Book 3)

by DC Malone

  “Approach,” the demon rumbled. “Our time is finally at hand. Approach, and let us begin.”

  Francie reached up and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. I knew the gesture didn’t have anything to do with trying to assuage any fear she thought I might feel because of the creature before me. No, it was to let me know that what I was about to do was the right thing, even though no one here—aside from Lechbaalmet—wanted it to happen. I was about to go up on stage and take a man’s life, and he absolutely didn’t deserve it, but we were far beyond second options.

  I crept between the rows of pews toward the demon and his would-be vessel, feeling for all the world like I was walking down the aisle to participate in the world’s most horrific wedding ceremony. The process of moving through that dim, flickering candlelight felt more akin to swimming or running in a dream, and by the time I made it to the short stairs up to the platform, I felt like I had been walking for hours.

  “Leave your weapon in the receptacle below.” The demon’s command came as soon as I placed a foot on the first step. There was a wide, shallow offering plate at the foot of the pulpit on a small wooden table. I removed my little multitool from my jacket and tossed it in with a loud metallic jangle. It was the only weapon I had, and I knew it was what the demon had meant—it was the very thing I had threatened the priest’s life with.

  I came up on the side of the pulpit nearest Father Donovan. The choice of sides had seemed random at first, but I quickly realized it was a choice I had made consciously. I didn’t want to see Carter yet. Not that close. Not looking him in his eyes.

  The Father looked just as blank and out of it as when I last left him. The old man stared out far beyond the last rows of benches near the entryway, looking toward something that only he could see. And judging by his wide, round eyes and slightly agape mouth, it wasn’t anything I ever wanted to see. I wondered if some part of him recognized his familiar position up here behind the pulpit with a group of people watching from the audience below. I honestly hoped he didn’t register any of it—the parallels of the event couldn’t have made him feel any better about what was happening.

  “Your haste honors me, Meredith.” Even in the strange deep whispers of the demon’s voice, I could hear the sneer when he said my name. It was almost as if, in his eyes, I had chosen to go by the nickname Fluffy McSprinklebritches. “Now we will bestow upon this vessel the greatest honor it could have ever hoped. You may begin.”

  The demon took a single step back from the pulpit, allowing me access to Carter on the other side.

  Carter greeted me with a simple nod and a tired smile. Something in that smile—something both accepting and forgiving—stabbed like an icy blade into my chest. It was precisely the reason I hadn’t wanted to look at him. This was his choice, or as close to his choice as he was likely to get. But it was still going to be me doing the deed. None of this worked without me. Sure, maybe I wasn’t the one pulling the trigger, but that didn’t matter when I was the friggin’ gun.

  “Begin!” The demon whisper-bellowed.

  “Hey!” I snapped. “This isn’t a race. I’ll go at the pace I good and well choose.”

  The demon didn’t have a face with which to look surprised or abashed. But it amused me to think of a denizen of the underworld with an appropriately chastised look on its face.

  “Sorry about the Houdini act,” Carter said. “Guess I was a little more under this thing’s control than I knew.”

  I studied Carter for a moment. “Meaning you’re not now?”

  Carter shook his head. “It—he drew me here, I guess. Once he explained what was happening, and the ultimatum he’d given you, he released whatever hold he had on me. It didn’t take much detective work to understand he wanted me to volunteer for this. But honestly, it didn’t matter to me what he wanted. I knew I had to do it from moment one. It’s the only way to stop the killings. The only way to stop anyone else from having to step up.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “I am,” Carter replied. “Unless you happened to bring an extra-large bottle of demon-be-gone.”

  I glanced up at Lechbaalmet and shrugged. “He’s big, but I think I can take him.”

  Carter smiled again, twisting the dagger in my chest. “Naw, then you’d be the only one having any fun. I think my way is better.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “And you understand—”

  “That I have to vacate the premises in order for the big guy to take up residence? Sure do. I’ve made my peace with it, Meredith.”

  “Alright,” I sighed, “is there anything I can do. You know, after?”

  Carter considered for a moment. “I guess there is someone you could look after for me.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “Well, Al Tompkins will probably just be lost without me.” Carter’s face lit up in a genuine smile. “You’ve seen what he’s like. Just a real sweetheart. If you could look in on him a few times a week. Maybe cook him dinner sometimes.”

  His grin was contagious. “Yeah, that’s not happening. I’m mean, what you’re doing is valiant and all, but dealing with Tompkins still isn’t a fair trade.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got a point there. Guess I was overstepping.” His expression sobered a little. “And to your other point, I appreciate the offer, but I’m not really leaving anything behind. Makes this all a little easier, to be honest.”

  I couldn’t say that I agreed.

  I stared out across the rows of pews for a moment, letting my eyes rest on each of the blank faces in the front seats, and then looking toward the earnest expressions of Hiram and Francie in the very back. I still couldn’t shake the feeling of this whole thing being a macabre wedding, and I had more than half a mind to call out asking for any objections from those in attendance.

  It was with that exact thought in my mind that I watched the double doors of the entrance burst open.

  Chapter 24

  “What!?” The single word echoed through the dimly lit space, as Gwen screeched to a halt just past the entryway doors. She took in the odd tableau of the four of us—three humans and a giant demon—arranged behind the pulpit and immediately tried to scrabble backward and out the door. She only succeeded in tangling her feet and falling on her backside hard enough to cause a painfully loud thud in the otherwise silent room.

  I motioned to Hiram to collect our new arrival, and he grudgingly obliged, yanking the young woman from the floor and onto the pew next to where he and Francie sat.

  Despite the rather bizarre scene Gwen had stumbled in on, I was the one that should have been asking what. As in, what was she doing here? Of course, I didn’t need to ask—it was depressingly obvious. Gwen was dressed in an oversized black hoodie over dark jeans. Even her shoes were black. It didn’t take a genius to see that she had wanted to be stealthy, which meant she was stalking me.

  So much for that whole calling before she showed up nonsense.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Lechbaalmet’s grating voice seemed to bounce back at me from the ceiling and walls.

  “She’s nobody,” I said. “Just—”

  “She is not like the others,” the demon interrupted. “I can all but taste your affection for the two that came with you. But this new arrival, you despise her.”

  “Despise is a little harsh.”

  “Was she to be my vessel? The one you would have chosen for me?”

  I looked back at Gwen for a moment. She was slumped forward, leaning with both arms against the back of the pew in front of the one on which she sat. Her face was several shades paler than it had been when she first walked into the church. It honestly looked like she was going to be sick.

  “No.” I said with some slight reluctance. “She’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  If everything went according to plan, it was more a matter of her being here at the wrong time for me rather than herself. The absolute last thing I needed was for little Miss Stalker to go running back to
her Congregation bosses with stories of my demon antics. Luka had been pretty clear on the Congregation’s policy regarding demons, and I truly doubted they were going to be cool with me transferring one into the body of a local police detective.

  It was too late to do anything about it now, though. I wasn’t always the kindest person in the world, but even I had my limits. And one of those limits was trading Gwen’s life to the demon just because it was convenient for me at the time. Sure, it would be killing two birds with one stone, and I’d be saving Carter’s life in the balance, but it was beyond simply not being fair. Without her willing participation, the act would be murder, plain and simple.

  Lechbaalmet made a sound that was either an impatient sigh or a bloodcurdling shriek. “Then the time for distraction is over. You will begin. But do not think that you will go unrewarded. Those who curry my favor do not languish.” The demon raised one hand of strange tapering fingers and made a kind of small flourish. “This is but a taste.”

  Nothing happened.

  I looked to Carter, but he looked just as confused as I felt. Somewhere in the background, I could still hear Francie and Hiram trying to comfort Gwen.

  “Uh, thanks,” I said, no less confused. Still, I figured the big guy had a point. I wasn’t in a hurry to see Carter through to the afterlife, but we were just prolonging the agony by putting it off. Now was as good a time as any.

  For Carter’s part, he seemed perfectly resigned to his fate. Actually, maybe resigned wasn’t the right word for what he was. Aside from the tired look in his eyes, which was always there anyway, he looked quite calm. He seemed okay with the fact that his active part in the process was over, and now all he had to do was wait.

  “Care to step over next to the demon?” I asked Carter.

  Carter did as I requested, then gave a glancing look up at the huge creature next to him. “Why do I feel like you’re going to take our prom pictures?”

  “Aw, shucks,” I said. “You figured us out. This was all just an elaborate ruse to get you crazy kids together. Lechbaalmet finds you rather fetching.”

  Carter glanced at the demon again. “He’s not that bad either. If you have a thing for beings that look like ancient gothic architecture. Which I do.”

  I smiled and stepped closer to them, bumping into the practically catatonic priest in the process. The old man made a soft mewling sound, then slowly gave up all of six inches of floor space before resuming his death stare.

  I put my left hand out, palm up, and Carter immediately laid his on top. “This will be quick,” I said in all seriousness. “And I don’t think you’ll feel anything. It won’t hurt, at least. When you’re, ah, out of the body—your body, I mean—I’ll put Lechbaalmet in.”

  “I’m ready when you are.” Carter’s tone was casual, but there was an underlying tightness there too. How could there not be? He was about to go on his last great journey—the last great journey. I could set him off on the path, but he had to walk it alone. Just like everybody else. “If I get bored with whatever comes after, do you mind if I haunt you from time to time?”

  I squeezed his hand. “I’d be mad if you didn’t.”

  Carter gave a small nod, and I understood that was my final cue.

  I focused my will, first on the concrete reality of Carter’s hand in mine, and then beyond what I could feel there. It was almost like pulling on something just under the surface of the Carter I could see standing in front of me, and the scary thing was that it wasn’t all that difficult. In seconds, there was a divide between the man and his soul within. To me, it created a kind of overlapping blur of his features, like a photograph taken of a person in motion. But to anyone else, aside from Hiram or another Necro, it would likely not look like anything at all—just too people holding hands very intensely.

  Another moment, another tug, and the separation would be complete. And Carter would be dead.

  I jolted as someone grabbed my free hand from behind. My necked snapped around, but I could only see the Father, still staring in the opposite direction.

  But it was clearly his hand that held mine. He was standing practically against me.

  A quick, firm squeeze on my hand again, and I understood.

  I cleared my throat and set my eyes front and center again, praying that Lechbaalmet hadn’t noticed anything. I waited a full ten count, and when the demon made no move, I continued.

  I redoubled my effort, focusing my will through nerves that felt like they were practically on fire. I was going in blind this time, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I could feel my heart beating like a machinegun in both of my hands, one gripped firmly by Carter, the other by the Father.

  The process, that only moments before seemed like it would take no effort at all, seemed to drag on for seconds that became minutes, became hours. When I finally felt that sharp snap of release, something like the crack of static electricity, my body was covered in a sheen of sweat like I’d just finished running a marathon with rabid dogs snapping at my heels the whole way.

  “Done,” I wheezed. “It’s done.”

  “Then hasten to—” Lechbaalmet began.

  Father Donovan’s unceremonious fall to the floor interrupted the demon midsentence.

  Lechbaalmet began to howl.

  Chapter 25

  The demon’s shrieks continued to come like the voices of a thousand tortured souls all pouring out as one. It went on so long, that I began to fear that the priest’s plan hadn’t worked. But finally—and in reality, probably no more than a few seconds after it began—the screams died off and Lechbaalmet went still. The demon’s strange, mottled body simply winked soundlessly out of existence, leaving its even stranger stone circle head to hang in midair for a moment before crashing down to the wooden floor and bursting into a million tiny shards of blackness. All of the candles in the room began to sputter, and about half of them guttered out, plunging the expansive chamber into murky darkness that made everything seem even more dreamlike.

  Still holding onto Carter’s hand, I jerked him away from the spectacle, nearly tripping over Father Donovan’s body in the process. Maybe the black substance left behind by the demon was harmless, but it didn’t pay to take any chances.

  “I’m not dead.” Carter said as we cleared the steps down to the first row of pews. “Right?”

  “You’re not dead,” I confirmed.

  I followed Carter’s gaze as he glanced up to where the priest’s body lay still on the floor behind the podium. Lying there, haphazardly arranged, Father Donovan’s body looked much smaller than when the man had been alive.

  “I don’t get it,” Carter said after a moment. “He just died?”

  “Not exactly,” I replied. “He sort of volunteered to take your spot. Only, that wasn’t possible. Once I had the Father’s shade out of his body, he was technically dead, which meant Lechbaalmet’s tether was cut. And, well, you saw the rest.”

  “Jeez.” Carter said, still unable to take his eyes from the fallen priest. “I thought I was done. When you did whatever it was you did to me, I was certain I was already dead.”

  “It was close,” I said. “Another second or two… Which reminds me.”

  I looked around for Father Donovan’s shade, finally finding him standing near the exit by the last row of pews. “Hold on a sec,” I said to Carter, finally releasing his hand. “There’s something I need to do.”

  I walked down the aisle, between the confused and murmuring front rows of the formerly demon-altered men, and half-ran toward the back of the room.

  Hiram was staring in the priest’s direction when I got there, and Francie was still rubbing a reassuring hand across Gwen’s back as the younger woman kept her head down at knee level. I gave them a nod but walked straight to Father Donovan.

  “That was a smart plan,” I said when I reached the Father. “Kinda wish I had thought of it.”

  Donovan offered a small smile. He still looked like himself, same moony eyes and wild hair.
But the haggard, defeated expression was gone. As was the look of all-consuming exhaustion. “I wish I could take credit,” Donovan said, lifting his eyes to the shadow-darkened ceiling. His voice was stronger, richer, and, ironically, more solid than I’d ever heard it. “But it was His doing. Anything of worth I have ever done was His doing. All of the folly was mine and mine alone.”

  “Well, when the time comes, you can thank Him for me,” I replied. “But for now, we should hurry. I’m pretty certain I can put you back right, but I’m not sure how long the window is, and it’s certainly not something we want to test.”

  The priest offered an even softer smile, then shook his head. “I think you already understand that that’s not the way this is supposed to go, my child.”

  “No one else has to die, Father.” I felt a spark of irritation. Why could some people just not take the win? “I know you’re responsible for this, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay with your life. What is it that you people are always saying? That it’s only God’s place to judge? Seems to me you’re taking on some duties that don’t belong to you.”

  “Oh, He will still get to judge,” Donovan replied. “Do not think otherwise. But that comes after. I gave up my life to set right a grievous wrong. That is all this is.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be.”

  “Doesn’t it?” he asked gently. “I am dead. The fact that I am allowed this time to visit with you is down to His grace and that alone. I would not dare sully such a gift by asking you to resurrect me, were that even possible.”

  I had a barrage of verbal volleys ready to toss at the Father—how he was just giving up, how he could atone for his mistake with the living, how he might be a comfort to the men who were pulled into this thing that they likely didn’t understand. But as I stared back into the earnest man’s eyes, I saw the truth of it all. He was right where he wanted to be.