by R. L. King
“The energy on this thing’s pretty strong, so I’m hoping it won’t take too long once I get the circle set up.” Already he’d opened his briefcase and begun setting out materials along the shelf over the sink. “I’ll have to be more careful than usual, though, since I’ll need to do a modified version of the ritual.”
“Why is that?” Grace was looking distinctly uncomfortable at all this talk of rituals and circles.
Stone began drawing a circle on the tile floor with a grease pencil. “Normally, the tracking ritual consumes the tether object. I can do one that doesn’t, but it’s more difficult. I don’t want to destroy the box, since I promised I’d return it.”
“Is there…anything I can do to help?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to,” he said without looking up from what he was doing.
“I don’t, really. But this is more important than that. If I can do anything—”
“No, just make yourself comfortable. This will take a while. Expect to be here at least an hour.”
She settled herself on the bench in front of the door with a sigh. Her stomach rumbled again.
“There’s a vending machine just down the hall,” Stone told her. “Might want to get yourself a candy bar or something.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Let’s just do this.”
He worked as fast as he dared; it wasn’t as imperative that he get this circle exactly right as it had been with the one he’d used to summon the demon from Archie’s plane; nobody would die if he got this one wrong. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the time they’d been forced to waste today waiting for his power to come back had put them at a disadvantage. He could almost feel Archie plotting, sending his dust devils out to commit more murders, or perhaps even beginning to implement his plan.
Not for the first time, he wished Verity were here to help him—she could assist with the circle, or put wards up while he finished. Grace had power, but no understanding of how to use it, which meant he couldn’t count on it. He hoped that perhaps, at least, her presence would be enough to prevent Archie from figuring out where they were and what they were doing. He still planned to put up a minimal ward before he started the ritual, though. Something about trusting in God but tying up your camel.
By the time he finished with the circle, including the simple ward around it, nearly an hour had passed. He stood up straight, listening to the little pops up and down his back. Grace lay stretched out across the bench, dozing.
“Wakey wakey,” he called. “It’s showtime.”
She started and sat up with a jerk. “I wasn’t asleep!”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’m sure you always snore when you’re wide awake.”
“I do not snore,” she said, indignant. She pointed at the circle. “So that’s it? That one looks a lot more…finished than the one I found you in.”
“Different purpose,” he said. “Listen—I’ve got to get started with this. If you’d be so kind, can you do whatever you do? Say the appropriate prayers and whatnot? Who’s the patron saint of hopeless causes, anyway?”
“Saint Jude,” she said with a half-smile. “I don’t think we’re that bad off, though, are we?”
“We’ll find out soon. In the meantime, pick whoever you think is most appropriate. And please keep an eye on that door while I work.”
Stone settled himself into the middle of the circle, sitting cross-legged with the open box in front of him. He closed his eyes, shifting to magical sight and taking deep breaths to help him slip into the meditative state he used during his ritual work. When he opened them again, the ordered lines of the circle and the magic around it glowed brightly, everything in its place and undisturbed.
He sensed a few small swirls of disruptive energy, but that was expected—he was in a women’s bathroom at a university, which no doubt meant these walls had borne witness to more than their share of emotional heart-to-heart talks and in-stall cries over lost boyfriends, failed tests, and the numerous other issues university students experienced. One by one, he filtered these out as he would unwanted sounds in a recording, until all that remained were the circle’s clean, glowing lines, the box with its muddy red energy warring with the purity of its original purpose, and Grace’s solid, golden aura over near the bench.
Good, good. Everything was going as he planned so far. He shifted his focus to the box, reaching out with his own magical energy to touch the dull red miasma around it. He had to be careful—even with the ward up, he didn’t want Archie to catch on to what he was doing. The red cloud made him uncomfortable even to touch it with his perceptions, but he didn’t pull away. In order to trace the energy back to its source, especially without destroying the box and its contents in the process, he’d need to get in a lot closer.
It was exacting work. First, he had to separate the red energy from the box’s inherent aura, and the leftover traces of Dennis Avila’s pain and fear as he bled out from his self-inflicted throat slash. The former was easy: whoever had originally created the box had meant for it to be a thing of beauty, glorifying the God he had devoted his life to worshiping. Its pure, golden aura was antithetical to the red interloper; Stone sensed that the two didn’t even want to be near each other. The fact that the red energy clung so strongly after all this time attested to Archie’s power, and to the fact that his physical heart was the earthly source of that power.
The latter was a bit trickier, since Avila’s suicide had been so inextricably tied with Archie in the first place. Stone had to pick carefully at it, pulling the traces away one by one. An absurd thought poked its way to the forefront of his mind before he banished it: the process was akin to picking tiny, unwanted toppings off a pizza.
He had no idea how long it took him to finish separating them; part of the mental state he entered when he worked divorced his awareness of things like time and the position of his body. But eventually the last piece fell away, leaving the shifting red cloud laid bare and separate from the other energy around the box.
Now to find you, Archie.
He tightened his perception even more. This would be the hardest part, because the connection wasn’t a strong one, not after all this time. A being or spirit could never truly separate itself from those objects most deeply connected with it, but as time and distance intervened, the connection became ever more tenuous until eventually it would require more power than even the most potent of practitioners possessed to trace it without a ritual far more elaborate than the one Stone had constructed. He was counting on the fact that, when dealing with a being of Archie’s power level, the connection would stay stronger for a longer period.
Even so, it took him a while to spot the tiny thread. He had to narrow his focus to the point where his magical sight was almost squinting, blocking out everything else around him. When he did spot it, he wasn’t sure at first that he wasn’t just seeing things.
But no, there it was—a tiny, impossibly thin strand, as wispy as a single thread, glowing faintly in the same muddy red as the aura around the box. “There you are…” he murmured, unaware and not caring whether he’d said it aloud or only thought it. He latched on to the tiny thread before it could drift away again and began the slow, painstaking process of following it to its terminal point.
It could have taken him ten minutes or two hours—he still had no idea. He couldn’t go too fast, lest he lose track of the thread and have to re-establish his connection with it, but he moved as quickly as he dared.
As he went, the connection got stronger. That was a good sign, and made it easier for him to follow the path. He sped up a little. Wherever Archie was, Stone was sure he wasn’t far away. What was he up to?
When he reached the end of the line, at first he didn’t believe what he saw. It couldn’t be what he thought it was. It had to be a mistake; some of the golden energy from the box had managed to reassert itself, to take o
ver part of the pattern. How else was he seeing a larger version of the same thing he’d seen in microcosm with the box: a warring, swirling conflict between Archie’s muddy, potent red aura and the pure gold imparted by the faith of whoever had crafted the box?
When the answer came to him, he actually felt his body physically slump in the middle of the circle. “No…” he muttered.
They’d have to go, and soon.
Carefully, using all his magical discipline not to sever the tenuous connection too quickly, he made mental notes of where the thread led. He’d be able to follow it most of the way in the car, and once he got closer, he could re-check it. He could sustain the magic for perhaps an hour using one of his crystals, but they’d have to move fast.
His eyes snapped open. The tiny red thread collapsed in on itself and disappeared along with the twin auras as he shifted back from magical sight to normal. Leaping to his feet, heedless of his stiffening leg muscles, he looked around for Grace. “We have to go,” he said. “Help me clean this up. We don’t have a lot of time.”
She hurried over from where she’d been sitting on the bench. “Where are we going? Did you find him?”
“Yes. He’s in Milpitas. In a church.”
Chapter Sixty-One
“I don’t get it. How can he be in a church?”
They were back in the BMW, driving up 880 in the direction of Milpitas. It was just after eight o’clock—the ritual had taken over an hour.
“I don’t know,” Stone said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m so concerned about this.”
He stepped down harder on the gas, goosing the big car up to eighty, cruising steadily along in the fast lane without much traffic getting in their way. He hadn’t said much to Grace during the time they spent cleaning up after the ritual and returning the box to Dr. Ocampo’s office, but by the time they made it back to the car and got to the freeway, she hadn’t been able to rein in her curiosity any longer.
“Are you sure that’s where he is?” she asked, still looking dubious. “I thought he couldn’t even go into churches.”
“I don’t think that’s quite right. Remember—when he was here before, he was corrupting people in churches, starting with one of the priests. I think he can go into them just fine, as long as nobody there…” He trailed off.
“Nobody there what?”
“As long as nobody there can do what you can do. You and Father Eustace.”
She frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, you need to get it, and the sooner, the better,” he said. He hated the hard edge that had crept into his tone, but he didn’t do anything to soften it. “I’m sorry, Ms. Ruiz, but if you’re going to be any help to me with this, you’ve got to fully acknowledge that you can do things the average person can’t. I know you were moving in that direction before, but I’m not convinced you’re completely there yet. If you’re not willing to do that, I might as well drop you off at your apartment.”
She stared down at her hands in her lap. “There’s nothing special about me. I know I can do these things. But I also know that anybody could do what I do, if their faith was strong enough. God could choose anybody.”
“No. No, they can’t.” He glanced over at her, then back at the road. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve let you carry on convincing yourself that you’re just some kind of conduit for God’s power—”
“I am—” she started to protest.
“—but you have to see that it doesn’t matter,” Stone continued with inexorable insistence. “What matters is that you have to know it’s you who can do these things. Whether it’s something within yourself or God working through you or whatever, you are the one who’s making it happen. Some random person at your church wouldn’t be able to do what you do, no matter how strong his faith. Father Reed couldn’t. Your Archbishop couldn’t. Hell, the bloody Pope probably couldn’t.”
She spun on him, eyes flashing in anger. “Don’t mock my faith, Dr. Stone. I’m not going to let you do that. I know you don’t believe, but that doesn’t mean you get to insult me.”
“I’m not insulting you.” Stone let his breath out in a long, frustrated exhalation. “Believe me—I respect your faith. Just because I don’t share it doesn’t mean I don’t think it has value. I’m just trying to tell you that this humility routine of yours is going to get us both killed. If God’s trying to work through you, then let him. Accept the fact that there is something special about you. That’s all I’m trying to tell you.”
He gripped the wheel, shifted to magical sight for a moment to check the location, then pulled off at the next exit toward Milpitas. “Do you think Archie’s evil?”
“Of course I do! He’s killing people. He’s using their skin and blood to make horrible magic. How can that not be evil?”
“Do you think God wants you to oppose him? To fight him?”
“I already told you I did. I don’t think it—I’m sure of it.”
“Well, then, this is the time to commit.” He glanced at her again. “Listen—I’m trusting quite a lot to you. I’m not good at that. It takes me a long time to trust someone, especially when I’m putting my life in their hands. But I trust you. Can I count on you? I give you my word—I’ll do everything in my power to protect you, to ensure that Archie doesn’t hurt you. Honestly I don’t think I’ll need to. I’m not sure he can hurt you. But I know he can hurt me. If we’re to do this, we’ll need to work as a team. I’ll bring the pain, and you help make sure we both get out of there in one piece.” He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “You can do this. I know you can. That, I do have faith in.”
She didn’t answer for several seconds, but then he felt her firm up under his hand. “I know I can too. Let’s do it.”
“Brilliant.” They were close now; Stone could see the lights of the church at the end of the street. “I don’t know what we’re going to see in there. It’s possible it might be quite gruesome. Be ready for anything.”
“Yeah.” Her voice shook a little.
The church wasn’t large, but the parking lot was full to brimming. Stone had to park the BMW halfway up the street. He got out and double-checked that his purple ring and the crystals he’d put in his pocket were at full power, then slipped on his long black overcoat.
“That’s quite a crowd,” Grace said.
“Indeed. I thought most churches met on Sundays, not Saturday evenings.”
“It’s not unusual to have a Saturday mass,” she said. “Don’t know if that’s what this is, though. I’m not familiar with this church.”
“Let’s find out. Stay sharp, though, and expect anything.”
“You’re not going to use your disguise this time?”
“No need. He’ll know I’m here soon enough.”
They headed through the deserted parking lot toward the big double doors, which were closed. Stone was struck by how much the little church resembled the chapel from Archie’s domain—it was much larger, of course, but had the same basic structure: steeply pitched roof, double wooden doors, stained glass windows with faint light shining out through them.
It would have been an attractive, inviting-looking little place, except for the cross on the steeple.
It was upside-down.
Grace gasped and gripped Stone’s arm, pointing up at it with wide eyes.
Stone nodded. “He’s here, all right.”
No one was stationed outside the doors, which were closed. Stone tried to open them.
Locked.
“They’d never lock a church door during a service,” Grace whispered.
Stone didn’t answer. He concentrated on the door, hoping Archie hadn’t used magic to lock it. But no—the mechanism flipped under his own magic.
He wreathed both of them in the disregarding spell and opened the door just wide enough to let them in. “Let’
s see if we can slip in without being noticed, shall we?”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Inside, the small church was as packed as the parking lot. Every pew was full of people, with more standing in the back of the room. Stone and Grace took places behind this standing crowd, peeking through the spaces between them at what was going on up at the stage.
Grace gripped Stone’s arm again, tighter this time. Her hand was shaking. He didn’t look at her.
The house lights had been dimmed, so it was impossible to pick out any detail in the crowd. They looked like an enormous, many-headed gray creature, leaning forward slightly but otherwise sitting almost perfectly still, their attention focused completely on the figure at the front.
Archie stood on the stage. Stone knew it was Archie—he had no doubt, even though the demon looked nothing like any of the guises he’d assumed before. Gone was the fearsome figure of the tall, skeletal man with the long coat and glowing red eyes. Gone was the student-Archie’s handsome, fleshy face.
No, this version of Archie could have been mistaken for an angel. Tall and commanding, with shining blond hair, perfectly arranged, blindingly white clerical robes, and a beautiful, kindly face, he paced back and forth across the stage while he addressed the crowd. His voice was deep and resonant, with the soothing, hypnotic cadence of a master orator or every archetypal loving father one could possibly imagine.
Behind him, an ornate wooden cross, at least eight feet tall, had been wrenched free of the wall and re-hung upside-down, with its pointed lower shaft aimed toward the ceiling like a sword. The cross on the front of the pulpit had been likewise desecrated.
Stone shifted to magical sight, and what he saw made him stiffen. Archie’s new, fair form was swathed in the muddy red energy—that was no surprise—but the same energy had crept outward, surrounding not only Archie himself and the area around him, but every member of the crowd.
Oh, bloody hell, he’s already done it.
He grabbed the arm of an elderly man standing in front of him and spun him around to look into his eyes. As expected, they were glazed over, open but not seeing. His mouth hung slack, his hands dangling at his sides.