The Kingdom

by J. R. Mabry

  As she worked, the old man stabilized, and his breathing returned to normal. Wiping sweat from her forehead, she turned and faced the friars. “I was afraid this would happen. I don’t care how nasty this demon is, if you try this again, you murder him.”

  The friars swallowed and looked at each other, angered by the abrupt exorcises interruptus, but Richard knew in his heart she was right. They would have expelled the demon, all right, but at the expense of the old man’s life. It would have been a shallow victory indeed.

  Just then the door at the far side of the room smashed open. A tall, handsome man of about Terry’s age burst through, his mouth open in disbelief. “What the fuck is going on here? And who the hell are you?” He was dressed in a dark blue suit, sans jacket. His sleeves were linkless and flapped around, his forearms wet as if he had just been washing. Rings adorned his hands ostentatiously; a large red stone in particular flashed on his right hand.

  Nurse Stahl looked around at the disaster area the room had so quickly become, and her horror showed on her face, plain for anyone to read. “Oh, Mr. Dane, I’m so sorry. I had no idea this would happen—”

  His rage was evident, but instead of mounting a defense, Richard froze. There was something about the angry young man’s face—something disconcertingly familiar. Then his blood ran cold. He knew him—had known him, he realized with a shock, in the biblical sense. It had been at the Jizz Factory, the gay bathhouse in west Berkeley, only last month. He hadn’t known Dane’s name then, or that he was one of the richest men in the Bay Area, but he remembered every detail of the man’s ass.

  “Mr. Dane, these are priests,” Nurse Stahl said quickly, before Dane did anything to hurt the friars. “They’re here to help your father.”

  Silence hung in the air as Richard was momentarily paralyzed.

  “We’re from the Old Catholic Order of Saint Raphael,” Terry jumped in, extending his hand in greeting. “I’m Fr. Terry Milne. These are my colleagues, Fr. Richard Kinney and Brother Mikael Bloomink, one of our novices.”

  Mr. Dane’s eyes locked on him, and Richard knew he was experiencing his own little shock of surprise. “Mr. Dane and I have met before,” Richard admitted, “in a rather…anonymous environment.”

  Terry rolled his eyes. “Oh Jesus Christ. Well, I guess formal introductions are not necessary, then, since you two already know each other intimately.”

  Mikael was utterly lost but did not ask for clarification. Dane’s anger appeared to drain from him, but he seemed uncertain what to say or do. He ran his hands through his hair and breathed deeply, trying to catch his breath. It was obvious he was working hard to master himself.

  “So, you’re a priest?” he said as if Richard were the only other person in the room.

  “Yes. I take it you’re a tycoon or something,” Richard answered.

  “And we’re both liars,” Dane said, a slight smile beginning to curl his lip.

  “When we need to be, I guess that’s true,” Richard conceded.

  “Well, it’s nice to see you again, Richard.” He looked around the room at the rest of them now. Then, staring straight at Nurse Stahl, added, “Although I would have preferred other circumstances.”

  “Mr. Dane, Ms. Stahl called us because she was concerned about your father, that he might be possessed by a demon,” Richard interceded. “She did the right thing. He is possessed. We didn’t do any of this,” he said, waving his hand around the wreckage of the room. “The evil being resident in your father did it.”

  “And yet,” Dane said, “before you got here, nothing had been smashed in this room for, oh, a hundred years?!” His eyes narrowed, and the anger returned to his face. “Who the hell gave you permission to come in here and do an exorcism?”

  None of them spoke. Finally, Richard cleared his throat. “Mr. Dane, surely you wouldn’t want your father to suffer having a dem—”

  “I did,” Nurse Stahl stepped forward. “I called them, I told them what I saw, and I asked them to help your father. If you want to fire me, go ahead, but these priests have done nothing wrong. They were just doing…their jobs. And honestly, so was I.” She looked down. “I know I should have asked you about it first. But I was afraid…I was afraid…” She didn’t finish.

  Richard had a good idea of what she wanted to say but couldn’t. She was afraid Dane wanted his father to be possessed, for some unknown, twisted reason of his own that Richard could not begin to guess.

  Dane once again mastered his anger. He placed a compassionate hand on the nurse’s shoulder. “I understand. You were just trying to help.” He turned back to Richard. “Did you succeed?”

  Richard shook his head. “We met with…a bit of an impasse. We were on the brink of expelling the demon, but in your father’s condition…we almost lost him.”

  A satisfied smile passed over Dane’s face, but he quickly covered it up with a look of concern. “I’m sorry you troubled yourself for nothing, then. I will…consult with some experts of my own, and decide what to do. I’m grateful that you brought this issue so forcefully to my attention.” He shook Richard’s hand and gave him a disingenuous nod of thanks. “However, if, in the future, you plan to conduct any rituals that might include members of my family, I will thank you to consult me first.” With that he walked toward the door and called over his shoulder. “I trust, Nurse Stahl, you can show these monks to the door.”

  “Friars,” Terry corrected him and then jumped at the sound of the slammed door.

  9

  Kat wandered a foggy street, the cement covered with occult symbols painted in white and yellow like lane division lines gone horribly awry. She skipped through them as if she were playing hopscotch, daring not to touch any of the lines. But it was getting harder because she was aware that she was being pursued—by what she did not know, but she could feel a chill breath on the back of her neck.

  Then, suddenly, the lines stopped. A huge circle appeared, empty of the yellow and white symbols, a large white house at the center of it, across the street from where she stood. Floating out to meet her was a scarecrow of a man with wild black hair, his legs gyrating as if pedaling a unicycle but his feet never touching the ground. He floated straight up to her and kissed her on the lips—

  She awoke, to the embarrassing realization that she was drooling on the seat next to her. She looked around and recognized the place. She was in the waiting area of the emergency room of Alameda Hospital.

  Comprehension swarmed in. Randall, comatose, and she had been waiting…how long? She rubbed her eyes and squinted at the clock on the wall. Three hours. Three hours, and the doctors had yet to say one word to her.

  She moved her head around to work out the kink that had developed in her neck. She had been dreaming, but had it been just a dream, or was it a Dream? She could never tell—she just knew that sometimes her dreams were portentous. More than that, they were often true—sometimes symbolically, often literally.

  She pulled out her phone and checked her email. She rolled her eyes at the seven messages devoted solely to her coven’s drama du jour. She loved her sisters, but it seemed to her that the Berkeley brand of feminist-eco-pagans was addicted to interpersonal conflict and perpetual emotional processing in a way she had rarely encountered before moving to the area. By comparison, Seattle Wiccans seemed almost sane.

  She exhausted her email and began surfing the web. Ignoring the sign prohibiting cell phones, she tried to distract herself. Moving her thumbs like lightning across the buttons, she went to Google and typed in Satanic Ritual. Then, in a flash of inspiration, she typed investigation.

  The first website on the list belonged to a Christian group. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. The Order of Saint Raphael, she read, was dedicated to the expulsion of demons and the investigation of occult phenomena…As she continued reading she discovered that they specialized in Satanic ritual and spiritual emergencies of all kinds.

  As she read, she battled against an internal aversion to anything even remotel
y connected to Christianity. She felt anger rise hot in her throat as she thought of the nine million women accused of witchcraft in the past one thousand years that the church had condemned to horrible, grisly deaths. Those women’s stories were her legacy, whether any of them had been witches or not. Kat was a witch, and proud of it, and an angry defiance welled up within her whenever she encountered Christians.

  All Christians were hicks—at least every one she had ever encountered—backward, anti-intellectual bigots who would stop at nothing, no matter how unethical, to coerce the rest of the nation into sharing their own prejudiced opinions. That was why, as she read the order’s website, much of what she read simply did not compute. The friars of Saint Raphael were of a liberal theological orientation and were committed to the well-being of peoples of all faith traditions.

  She could hardly believe what she was reading. She was sure she didn’t understand it; perhaps she didn’t want to. She certainly did not want to call them, but where else to turn? It seemed that something like fate was involved when she got to the bottom of the website and discovered that their friary was less than five miles away.

  The Holy Apocrypha Friary was in north Berkeley, just a couple of blocks from the original Peet’s Coffee. She knew the neighborhood well, as a former boyfriend had lived just across Shattuck, near Big Apples. The area was informally known as the “Gourmet Ghetto,” as it was home to Chez Panisse and many other fine restaurants. She didn’t know exactly where the Holy Apocrypha Friary was, but she was sure she could find it without too much trouble. She scribbled the address on a piece of paper and chewed on her lip, staring at the TV but not seeing it. As soon as she had news about her brother, she decided, she would pay the friars a visit.

  10

  When the doorbell rang, Dylan had been in the backyard wrestling with the great golden lab, Tobias. At the sound of it the dog had barked and rushed off to investigate, while Dylan stumbled into the kitchen. Brian was laying a huge handful of kale into a frying pan, and a cloud of steam arose, filling the house with the glorious smell of garlic.

  Although Brian was about Dylan’s own height, he seemed larger, mostly because he was a hunchback—the large dromedarian hump swelled from just behind his right shoulder, stretching tight the fabric of his flannel shirt. It also forced Brian’s head to cock to the left, creating an illusion of perpetual inquiry. “Smells good, amigo,” Dylan said, swallowing against the rush of saliva.

  “You got a meeting?” Brian asked. “Now?”

  “Yeah. Baptism.”

  “You got grass in your hair.”

  “Thanks, dude.” Dylan picked at what was left of his unruly red mane.

  “And you reek of marijuana. Altoids are on the fridge.”

  “You are mah salvation,” Dylan responded almost liturgically, shoving four of the mints into his mouth and crunching them.

  Brian looked up at the clock and shot him a look. “Dinner’s at eight.” However unsettling his disfigurement might seem to strangers, among the friars Brian was the benevolent dictator of the household, a true Jewish mother in all but genitalia.

  “Ah’ll make it quick. Start without me if you need to.”

  Brian didn’t say anything—a wordless reproach, which, Dylan realized, was justified. An artist deserves to have his friends show up on time to appreciate his art, after all, and Brian’s cooking was high art indeed.

  The foyer was at the foot of the chapel, and Tobias was sniffing at the door and making rumbling sounds in his throat. “It’s okay, big boy, they’re nice people.” Dylan realized he had no evidence of this as he opened the door and then conceded to himself that, indeed, some things needed to be taken on faith. He grinned, swung out the screen door and offered his hand. “You must be the Swansons! Welcome to the friary, I’m Father Dylan.”

  A couple in their early thirties stood there, looking like they might cut and run at any moment. Holding on to the end of her father’s arm, a little girl of about four bunched a wad of her blonde, curly hair in her fist as she twisted to and fro.

  “Hello, little one!” he said to her cheerfully. But seeing the surprise registered on the couple’s faces, Dylan realized what a sight he must be after his wrestling match with Tobias. “Sorry about mah appearance. Ah’ve been…working in the yard. Why don’t y’all come with me?”

  The couple shook his hand and followed him inside the enormous farmhouse that had once been the only structure in North Berkeley for miles around. The two seemed a little spooked by the gaudy excess of the chapel, and gladly followed Dylan to an adjoining room used by the friars for spiritual counseling.

  Dylan’s heart melted as he saw that someone—probably Susan—had placed a plate of Brian’s famed snickerdoodles on the little table. “Please have a seat—and a cookie.” The little girl ran up to the plate and snatched one off. She already had it in her mouth when she looked at her mother for permission. Her mother nodded, and the little girl began chewing with gusto.

  Dylan ran his hand through his hair in one more pointless attempt to look presentable. “So, we’re doing a baptism for this beauty, eh?” He leaned in and made a funny face at the little girl, who immediately shrank back in horror.

  “Well, yes, I suppose so.” The man looked at his wife hesitantly. For a moment indecision played over his face. With a grim look of resolve, he started in. “Look, we’re not sure we should even be here. And I’m afraid that if I just tell you the truth, you’re going to kick us out on our asses.”

  “Dude,” Dylan laughed, “you are so speaking mah language. Why don’t you just spill the beans and see how it goes? Ah guarantee you ain’t gonna ask me anything Ah haven’t heard before.”

  “Okay,” said the man warily, choosing to take Dylan at his word. “Look, my wife and I are not Catholics—in fact, we’re not Christians. Hell, we’re not even religious. But Connie’s family, they’re rabid. They’ve been calling us every day asking us when we’re going to get Jamie, here, baptized, sending us these horrible articles from these fucking fundamentalist Catholic websites about how our baby is going to spend eternity in Limbo if she dies. We both think this is complete and utter bullshit, but we don’t know how to get her folks off our back! So, we’re giving in…” he trailed off with a look of defeat.

  Connie picked up the thread. “You—well, not you but one of the monks here—did a wedding for my friend Pam, and she said you were…pretty cool, which I thought was a pretty strange thing to say about monks.” Her voice was unusually rough as if she had been smoking three packs a day since infancy. “So, we thought we would just come and talk to you about it, without making any plans or promises or anything, because we’re just not sure, well, even what we’re doing here, or if we should be here—”

  Dylan held his hand up to stop the sentence that didn’t seem to have an end in sight. “First off, we’re friars, not monks—we friars live and work out in the world with regular folk. Second, Ah think Pam is right. Ah think we can probably help. What if we gave your family everything they want—a baptismal liturgy with all the right ritual actions, performed by a qualified Catholic priest—and, at the same time, we craft the words of the liturgy to reflect your spirituality and your real hopes and desires for little…”

  “Jamie,” said Connie.

  “Little Jamie, here. What do yuh think?”

  They looked at each other, a little surprised. “Sounds…okay,” the man said.

  Dylan glanced at the plate of snickerdoodles—they were calling to him. “Why don’t we start with you two telling me your own understanding of baptism?” He grabbed a snickerdoodle and ate half of it in one bite.

  “Well, I—”

  “Ah’m sorry, what was your name?” Dylan asked, his mouth full of cookie.

  “John.” The man swallowed and started again. “Well…I…I wasn’t raised religious, so I guess I don’t really know…”

  “I hate that original sin stuff,” Connie piped up with the ladylike timbre of gravel in a blender. “
If baptism is all about wiping away original sin, then we are so out of here.”

  Dylan laughed. “Thank you, Saint Augustine,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, it’s true that Western Catholicism has tended to focus on the original sin side of things, but that’s not the whole story. The Eastern Orthodox maintain an earlier tradition that says that all babies are born good. Well, morally neutral, actually. They’re good just as every other part of God’s creation is good, but they don’t have any stains on their souls or any nonsense like that.”

  Connie relaxed a little. As he talked, Dylan noticed that her features softened a little. Maybe, he allowed himself to hope, they’re starting to like me a little. “For the Orthodox,” he continued, “baptism welcomes the child into the Community of God.”

  “But…what does that mean?” asked John.

  “Well, that’s the million-dollar question!” Dylan laughed. “Some people draw the circle very small—you know, who’s in the circle of grace and who’s out. Like Christian fundamentalists draw the circle very small, only those who believe exactly like they do are ‘in.’ Some of them even exclude other fundamentalists who don’t belong to their particular sect. The Orthodox are interesting because they mean, on one level, the Church, but they also believe that the entire universe is in the process of being transformed into God’s Community. So, in the Church they celebrate in miniature the community of grace that is transforming the cosmos into Divinity itself.”

  “Wow,” said John. “I’m not sure I follow, but it sounds pretty trippy.”