Playing Saint

by Zachary Bartels

  I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own, or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver, but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the Militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ.

  It was the final vow that filled Parker with an almost insurmountable skepticism as to its authenticity.

  I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex, or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.

  After speaking these words, the young man would supposedly receive the Sacrament before being given the charge,

  Go ye, then, into all the world and take possession of all lands in the name of the Pope. He who will not accept him as the Vicar of Jesus and his Vice-regent on earth, let him be accursed and exterminated.

  Parker thought about the three men sitting in his living room the night before, trying to imagine them reciting these terrible vows. He needed to know where he stood on this. He prepared some green tea and began reading articles from both the pro and con camps. Those who maintained the Oath’s veracity inevitably appealed to its presence in the United States congressional record a hundred years ago and in the Library of Congress.

  But a little more digging on Parker’s part revealed that one could submit any document to the Library of Congress by simply filling out a form and paying a small fee, and that the congressional record in question was simply a transcript of an unsuccessful candidate making a protracted charge of divided loyalties against his Roman Catholic opponent. The whole thing seemed like a house of cards to Parker.

  Then he thought about Father Ignatius’s gun with the Jesuit crest on the handle, and he was inclined to believe every word of the Oath. His stomach tightened at the memory. He tried to calm himself with some centering breathing. A man in his position had to avoid internalizing sources of stress, he reminded himself. After all, Father Michael hadn’t called back since Damien’s interrogation. Parker checked his watch. Maybe he’d be lucky and never hear from them again.

  Seeing that it was nearly eleven, he decided to start on his homework for Detective Ketcham. He began with a search on Damien Bane, which led him to Damien’s video channel, The Devil’s Humanist. The picture at the top had been taken in an alley, converted to black-and-white, and inflicted with no fewer than fifteen filters and effects, by Parker’s estimation. The focal point was meant to be Damien’s eyes, dark and mysterious, semiconcealed behind his long black bangs.

  Parker brought up the feed and hit Play on the most recent video, which had been posted the afternoon before. The clip showed Damien sitting cross-legged on the floor, a short table covered in strange symbols before him and a banner bearing the words Satan, Self, and Will behind him.

  “Greetings, freethinkers, nontheists, polytheists, spiritualists, and revolutionaries,” he said with such a rote cadence that Parker assumed this to be some kind of recurring catchphrase. “Today I want to continue my sixteen-part series on the many tentacles of the Christian Imperialist Elite. I begin with an observation: as I speak, there are activists out there—commendable activists—trying to push for the inclusion of America’s reprehensible colonialism in our children’s history textbooks. And while I do respect these activists, they’re dead wrong when they try to relegate colonialism to the past tense. It’s a very present reality. Today, I offer proof.” Parker noticed the thirty-eight-minute length of the video and switched to a clip from a week earlier.

  “Greetings, freethinkers, nontheists, polytheists . . .”

  Parker scoffed at the words “Number of views: 146” beneath the video. He couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d appeared on Joshua Holton’s show. Seven million had watched him at home. Holton had warned Parker never to appear on small-time news programs or other broadcasts that might dilute his brand. “Let someone else spoon out the soup or emcee the coat drive,” Holton had advised. “It’s good work, but it’s not for us.”

  Parker was about to shut the computer down when he noticed a new video at the top of the list, activated just two minutes earlier. He opened it.

  “Greetings, freethinkers, nontheists, polytheists, spiritualists, and revolutionaries,” Damien recited, his voice quivering. “I’m a little shaken today, as you can see.” He held a hand up next to his face to prove it. “I’ve been accosted and accused by the Christian Imperialist Elite. I actually spent the whole day at the police station being lied to, yelled at, and interrogated. I was denied access to my attorney. I was treated as less than a human being.

  “This does not surprise me. Apparently I’ve been asking the wrong questions for too long, and now it’s catching up with me. I knew this was coming. The majority religious system cannot tolerate dissent.” He paused to take a drink from a bottle of spring water.

  “How do I know the hypocritical Elite was behind it, you ask? Because they sent their captain: this man.” Parker’s publicity headshot momentarily replaced Damien on the screen.

  “His name is Parker Saint. You might know him as the syrupy, insufferable Christ-monger often seen licking the boots of Hypocrite General Joshua Holton. Perhaps you’ve played the destiny drinking game while watching his sermons. I know it’s a favorite at my house. But this man is now working with the police. If this surprises you, then you haven’t been listening to me for the past two years.”

  The blood was pounding in Parker’s temples. He’d been the subject of many a critical Internet video in recent years, but this one raised the wrong kind of questions. His mind was already in overdrive, trying to spin the facts before they hit the public. Should he be proactive and issue a press release about his volunteering to aid the police? Maybe he could cut the head off this problem before it grew legs. Then he remembered Damien’s week-old video with fewer than two hundred views, and the panic subsided.

  His phone buzzed against the surface of the desk. The display read “Private Number.” Father Michael again, he assumed. Time to put an end to this.

  “This is Parker Saint.”

  “Are you enjoying the show?”

  Parker’s stomach dropped two stories at the sound of Damien’s voice.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “Everything can be bought. You of all people should know that.” There was an unnerving growl present beneath Damien’s voice. Parker wondered if it was some sort of modulator or voice synthesizer. He hoped that was it.

  “What can I do for you, Damien?” He tried to sound cool and collected.

  “You can’t do a thing for me. And you can’t do anything to me, either. But I’ve already done something to you, Saint.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Do you believe in curses, Parker?”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Sleep tight, Parker.” The line went dead, and at the same moment an orange glow backlit his curtains at the rear of the house. He scrambled to the window, peering around the drapes into the backyard.

  Parker gave an involuntary yelp. In the hub of his Japanese Zen garden stood two figures, all in black. He recognized the redhead from Damien’s house. The other was shorter and thicker around the neck. Between them they’d driven a dowel, a little
taller than a man, into the ground. At the top was a dead animal—a raccoon, Parker thought—burning with a bright, tall flame. The young men spotted Parker at the window and smiled wickedly in his direction for a few seconds, planted there on either side of the burning creature. One of them held up his middle finger. Then they scrambled over his back fence and disappeared.

  For half a minute Parker searched frantically for his phone before realizing that he still had it locked in his hand. He wanted to call Detective Ketcham but did not have his home phone number. Should he call 911? What could he say without opening up the whole affair? How could he explain the squad cars to his neighbors? How could he keep this from snowballing into a Brynn Carter exclusive interview on the nightly news?

  The smell of burning hair wafted into the house, but one thing he knew for sure: he wasn’t going to put out that fire. He could just imagine dark figures hidden in every shadow, baiting him out into his own backyard, fire extinguisher in hand. He’d stay inside and let it burn itself out.

  The phone vibrated, causing Parker to startle, and the 410 number appeared on the display.

  He answered it. “Father Michael, it’s not a good time.”

  “Never seems to be with you.”

  “I’m sorry, but something really serious just happened. I’m thinking of calling the police.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I just got a visit from some devil worshipers. They set a dead animal on fire in my backyard.”

  “Yeah, that happens sometimes.”

  “This isn’t funny to me, Michael. I think I’m going to hang up and call the police now.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “No, I haven’t called them yet.”

  “I mean the devil worshipers.”

  “Oh. No, I think they’re gone. I saw two of them jump the fence.”

  “Stay inside and keep the doors locked,” Michael instructed. “We can be there in a couple minutes. We’re just a few blocks away.”

  Of course you are, Parker thought.

  Parker could not retrace exactly how he’d wound up in the backseat of a luxury rental car next to Father Ignatius. He was not sure if it had been his idea or the priests’, and he was not sure where they were going. He was, however, sure of several things. He was sure the car wasn’t inexpensive. He was sure they were headed west on Michigan Avenue, toward downtown. And he was absolutely sure that Father Ignatius wore too much aftershave.

  “I completely understand your not wanting to stay there,” Xavier said from the passenger seat. “When our sanctuaries are violated, it’s a horrible feeling.”

  “Sure is,” said Parker.

  “Lucky for you, we were on our way back from St. Nicholas Orthodox Church on the east side,” Michael explained, weaving through traffic like a New York cabbie. “We’re sort of on patrol this evening.”

  “Patrol for what?”

  Xavier handed Parker a photocopied map. “I’ve analyzed the locations of the nine churches that were vandalized, including the two that caught fire. Then I cross-referenced the results with the remaining churches in the city. That gave me a list of the five most likely to be targeted next.”

  As he studied the map, Parker felt Ignatius’s eyes boring into him. A glance to his right confirmed that the old priest was glaring at him. Just glaring. It was then that Parker noticed the older man’s tabbed collar. The other two priests were dressed in casual clothes and jackets, while Ignatius wore full clericals.

  “We’ve already been to three of the churches this evening,” Michael said. “All locked up tight, not a soul around. The other two are downtown.”

  “What are you going to do if you find the vandals?”

  Michael ignored the question. “I just had a great idea,” he announced. “Both church fires were downtown, right? I’m thinking that makes these last two the most likely targets on our list. Why don’t we give them each a more in-depth look? I can drop my two colleagues off at St. John’s. And Parker, you and I can have a look at St. Andrew’s. That will give us a chance to talk, and you can tell me why devil worshipers would want to have a barbecue on your lawn.”

  NINE

  SNEAKING AROUND A 150-YEAR-OLD CHURCH IN THE DARK WAS not exactly how Parker wanted to spend the balance of his night, especially given the evening’s earlier events. But the thought of returning to his empty house, going up the poorly-lit stairway to his bedroom, was even less attractive. At least this way he wasn’t alone. And as far as bodyguards go, one could do a lot worse than the muscle-bound, presumably gun-toting Father Michael Faber—even if he had blackmailed Parker the night before.

  They dropped Xavier and Ignatius at St. John’s Anglican Church and agreed to meet there at the corner exactly one hour later. If either party ran into anything suspicious, they would call the other for backup. Parker, who rarely stayed up past eleven thirty, felt like curling up on the heated backseat and going to sleep. The purring of the engine and slow passing of streetlights weren’t helping either.

  “We’ll park here and leg it,” Michael said, putting the car at a meter half a block from the church.

  The chilly night air immediately revived Parker, as did the chill he felt at the thought of skulking around the nineteenth-century cathedral towering before them.

  “There’s no alarm here,” Michael assured him, as he produced a small, zippered lock-pick kit and went to work at a side door. “Did you know this is the mother church for the diocese?”

  “You don’t say.”

  Michael stowed his tools in his leather jacket and motioned for Parker to enter.

  “Are we looking for something in particular?” Parker asked.

  “I’m gonna say no.”

  Parker could see the headlines now. Brynn Carter was small potatoes compared to breaking and entering at a church. And the mother church of the diocese, at that. He followed Michael down a short hall by the light of emergency exit lamps.

  They turned a corner. Parker flinched.

  “What is it?” Father Michael suddenly held a black handgun in his sizeable mitt. He scanned their dim surroundings, alert to any possible threat.

  “I’m sorry,” Parker whispered. “It was actually that.” He pointed to a large, realistically painted crucifix in a niche on the wall. “Those have always given me the willies.”

  The priest shook his head and holstered his gun. “An icon of our Lord Jesus on the cross gives you ‘the willies’?” He pushed ahead, resuming his slow, systematic circuit of the church.

  “You have to admit, it’s a little grim. A little macabre.”

  “No, I don’t,” the priest answered.

  “Well, to me, the cross is a symbol of victory and life. Why put a dead man on it?”

  “The cross is a symbol of life for sinners by the death of Jesus—God in the flesh. Why wouldn’t you portray the Christ on the cross? That’s the most important part.”

  Parker shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just never really liked those things.”

  “I think that’s a pretty common reaction. Protestants are trained to be offended by certain aspects of the Catholic faith. Careful on the stairs.”

  “No, that’s not it. I cooperate with Catholics all the time. And I sit on a national, interfaith dialogue board. I don’t have a problem with your faith.”

  “Then why aren’t you a priest? It’s not like you’re married.”

  “I wasn’t raised Catholic.”

  “Neither was Father Xavier. He converted. Something’s got you going a different direction.”

  “Okay, I guess I do have a few objections.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Well, we studied the Reformation pretty hard in seminary, and I always have a hard time getting past indulgences—John Tetzel, going from peasant village to peasant village, selling pieces of paper to pay for all those beautiful Vatican buildings. You know, ‘When the coin in the coffer clings, the soul from purgatory springs.’ That seems wrong.”

  M
ichael came to a stop and locked eyes with Parker. “I admit that wasn’t the Church at her best. But can I speak plainly with you?”

  “I think it’s a little late for that question after last night.”

  “Fair enough. But tell me this: How are you any different from Tetzel? I checked out your website a couple nights ago, and it was pretty much the same thing. Tetzel was selling release from purgatory after this life; you’re selling people their dreams come true, wealth, and success right now in this life. You say Tetzel’s product was a mirage, that it had nothing to do with the gospel. Maybe it didn’t. But a lot of people would say the same thing about yours.”

  “I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.”

  “Neither do I. At least Tetzel was trying to build up the Church that he believed in—something greater than himself. He wanted to bring glory to the Body of Christ on earth, even if his methods were misguided. You just want to build your own name and influence. Maybe that’s why you don’t like crucifixes. They remind you that Jesus called us to die to ourselves and our little empires.”

  “You’re speaking plainly, all right.”

  “Saves time, you should try it. For example, why couldn’t you just tell me you’re not Catholic because you believe in salvation by grace alone through faith alone? You’re not Catholic because we differ in how we describe and divide the process of salvation and what it means. It’s not always better to gloss over differences. We can identify them and then move from there. But that’s just my perspective.”

  “You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”

  Michael’s eyes calmed a little. “I’m sorry if I’m being too direct.” He began walking again. “I get passionate easily. You’ve already noticed that, I’m sure. But it comes from a good place. I try to live my life by the Jesuit motto, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: ‘everything for the greater glory of God.’ They really pounded that into us at Stonyhurst. It’s a Jesuit-run school.” He turned on a small flashlight and led the way into a boiler room.