“Let the little vamp in, Padre,” said Rodriguez. “Who knows, maybe God will forgive her for her sins.”
Father Allen looked at him and frowned, obviously fighting an internal struggle. Then he finally said, “Okay, but she had better not…” He didn’t continue.
“Not what?” I said, genuinely interested.
“Nothing. She better not do a damn thing. And I’m withdrawing my invitation as soon as we’re done. The second this thing is over, I want it out of my church!” I had a feeling when this was over he would be spending the next few days scrubbing the entire place down with bleach and then blessing it, or whatever it is you did to re-holy a church.
Chapter 33
Toni was clearly upset, but Rodriguez had insisted on being his pack’s representative, which of course meant Quan had insisted that he would go as well. Which left Toni outside, fuming that Megan was inside with me.
Rodriguez smiled at me and winked as we all walked up to the church. “You owe me, kid.” Yes. Yes I did. Because if Toni and Megan had both been going in, I was pretty sure bloodshed would have been unavoidable tonight, whether or not Powers showed up or someone made a play for the urn. Quan didn’t seem to notice one way or another. He didn’t seem big on emotions. Or speech, for that matter; he still hadn’t said one word to me.
Father Allen led us to the side entrance of the church. The witches, including Lacey, were already inside. He opened the door, and Rodriguez and Quan went in. Megan and I walked up behind them. I entered, but she stopped at the threshold. I stopped and looked back. She stood there outside the doorway and looked at Father Allen, who stood inside and looked back at her with a sour expression on his face.
“Fine. You can come in,” he said at last. He probably hadn’t uttered more reluctant words in a long time.
Still, Megan paused for a few seconds, unsure, before taking a tentative step forward. Her foot crossed the threshold and nothing happened. I wasn’t sure what would have happened if she hadn’t been invited. Would she simply not have been able to take that step, or would she have burst into flames? After nothing remarkable happened after taking the first step, she stepped all the way in. She was visibly shaken. I didn’t think she ever thought she’d be inside of a church again.
We followed Father Allen into the main cathedral. He had obviously already prepared for the exorcism. The table was set up on the raised octagonal dais directly underneath the center of the dome, surrounded by pews on three sides, with steps leading up to an altar at the rear of the church. Dozens of white candles burned in five-foot-tall black candleholders surrounding the dais. I wasn’t sure if they were part of the exorcism or the witch thing, but they certainly made the spectacle look more impressive.
The witches now wore black robes, which made them look a little creepy. Mrs. Brewer was directing them. A large brass-colored amulet swung around her neck; I assumed it marked her as the head witch. Or maybe she just wanted a little bling. Anyway, none of the others had any jewelry showing.
The witches were working around the spot Father Allen had prepared for the exorcism, drawing a circle about fifteen feet in diameter and a pentacle in chalk inside it. It looked out of place on the floor of a cathedral. I stepped inside and set the urn down in the center, careful not to knock over the candles or smudge the chalk.
Lacey looked up and waved at us. “Hey!” Her voice echoed in the room, and she cringed a little. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Quan and Rodriguez stood back and watched everything. Unlike most of the werewolves outside, neither one of these men had any visible weapons on them. I felt a little guilty as I shifted the AK into my hands from where it hung from its strap over my shoulder. But not enough to go leave it outside.
The witches were wrapping up their preparations. Father Allen and a teenage kid stepped out of a back room, both carrying materials for the exorcism, and began to set them into position.
Megan stood beside me looking around in wonder—not at the preparations, but at the cathedral. Elaborate gilded ceilings were hand-painted with Biblical scenes, statues of saints hid in alcoves, and stained-glass windows lined the walls and capped the tall dome at its apex.
Megan saw me watching her, and turned to me and smiled. “Sorry; it’s been a while.”
“It’s all right. Cool church.”
“Yeah.”
Father Allen was getting into position, his helper by his side. They had just moved a large crucifix into position near the urn. The witches now waited at each of the five points of the pentagram they had drawn.
“Looks like it’s about to start. Here, hold these.” Megan took off her shoes and handed them to me. “I’m going up to go get a better view.”
She turned toward the wall and began to climb straight up. Between her nails and her preternatural strength, she ascended to where a narrow stone ledge ran along the base of the dome. She pulled herself onto the ledge and sat cloaked in shadows, perched on the balls of her feet like a gargoyle looking down on the scene below. It was an ominous sight, until she noticed me looking at her and ruined the effect by grinning and waving.
I heard a muffled laugh. I looked around to see Rodriguez smiling at me, shaking his head. Then I realized I was standing there holding an AK and a pair of high heels. I stashed them on a nearby pew.
Father Allen started the exorcism and everyone in the room paused to watch him. He made the sign of the cross, and then began sprinkling what I assumed was holy water on the urn and surrounding areas. If any got on the surrounding witches, they didn’t seem to mind. He was speaking in Latin. I recognized some names of saints, but that was about it.
The witches then began their own ritual. They drew their cowls over their heads, succeeding in making themselves look even creepier. Their chanting mixed in with Father Allen’s recitations for an unsettling effect. This went on for a while, and Father Allen transitioned to English. I think he might have moved on to reciting psalms; I wasn’t up enough on my Bible to know.
I was getting kind of antsy. On the one hand, I really would prefer this whole thing to go smoothly; on the other, nothing was happening. Like at all. And it was taking forever. The urn just sat in the middle of the scene, being an urn. I wondered whether someone had swapped out the real urn for a fake one, or whether Jonathan Powers had been fooled by whoever sold it to him.
More psalms followed, another prayer, and then Father Allen moved on to reciting selections from the Gospel. It must have been one in the morning by now. I looked up at Megan, who was still crouched up above us. She waved down again. She must have been immune to leg cramps.
The ritual plodded on. I had begun to pace when the ground started shaking. At first I thought it was just my imagination, but it wasn’t. It was a slight tremor, and I thought I must be experiencing my first earthquake. Then all of the candles blew out simultaneously, despite there being no breeze in the church. The electric lights, however, continued to illuminate Father Allen, who now held a cross out toward the urn. He continued to speak, having switched back to Latin. He traced a cross on the body and then the lid of the urn.
I heard the sound of distant thunder. Then I remembered that we were in California, and I didn’t think that August storms were as common here as they are in Texas. I looked around. Quan and Rodriguez were frowning, doing the same reckoning about the weather.
Then I heard the voices in my head.
Chapter 34
Father Allen continued the ritual, louder now. I looked around and saw others shaking their heads or covering their ears; I was probably not the only person hearing voices. Father Allen’s increased volume fought against what sounded like one hundred people speaking at once. The voices urged me to take the urn. Open it up. Let them out.
Then I heard more thunder, but this was different. It wasn’t thunder, I realized, or demons; this was the sound of a helicopter. Then I heard the gunfire. I saw both Quan and Rodriguez realize it as well. I ran back to the side entrance I had come through, which le
d out into the parking lot. The farther I got, the quieter the voices became, until they were gone and only the sounds of Father Allen’s exorcism echoed behind me.
The gunfire grew more intense as I reached the door. I could also hear what sounded like baying hounds. I opened the door and looked out onto bedlam. Flashes of fire lit the scene as some of the werewolves exchanged gunfire with men dressed all in black, like commandos, who were retreating across the basketball court and back through the playground to an adjoining parking lot. The werewolves slowly followed them.
Toni and Mike were near their bikes, in a firefight with several men at the entrance to the parking lot firing out of an SUV. The SUV began to pull away. I saw Toni run to her bike and start it up, then reload her MP5 and head out after them, not bothering with a helmet.
I cursed; I must have missed the change, because a couple of massive wolves had run around the chain-link fence surrounding the back of the lot and were trying to outflank and cut off the guys backing up through the playground.
I was expecting that when I finally saw a werewolf that had changed, it would be some huge half-man/half-wolf hybrid, but these seemed to look a lot like regular wolves, only much bigger. It looked like they didn’t lose mass when they changed; the wolves I saw running were close to two hundred pounds apiece.
Donovan stood near the wall of the church, scanning the three-story office building across the lot, while Amanda lay down behind the Mercedes next to him. In the yellow light of the parking lot, it looked like she had been hit by a bullet that had made a mess of her chest. The guy must have been using a Barrett Light Fifty or some other monster of a sniper rifle, by the looks of the wound. A scarf had been stuffed into it, to slow the bleeding. Amanda looked mad.
Another shot rang out and I saw a hole erupt out of Donovan’s back. He didn’t seem as upset about it as Amanda, though the impact made his body jerk. He stopped scanning the building, finally seeing where the shot had come from. I followed his gaze to a rooftop a few hundred yards away.
By the time I looked back at Donovan, he had disappeared, presumably to chat with his would-be assassin. I looked back at Amanda and our eyes met. She had lost a lot of blood, and the hungry stare she was giving me said I shouldn’t be sticking around. Everything looked to be moving away from the church, and I wanted to find Bryan. I ran around the lot toward the street.
The front of the church was relatively quiet. Paul and Bryan stood by the large front doors, which were inset a foot into an arched stone alcove. Paul was wearing his typical emotionless stare. Bryan just looked bored. A couple of unnaturally large wolves were crouched on the steps leading up to them, staring down the street. Both wolves took me in with a quick glance as I approached, then turned their attention back to whatever they were looking at.
Bryan saw me and said, “Man, this sucks. I wanted to get in on some of the action, and I got stuck defending the only place where nothing is happening. I mean, shit, who ignores the front door?”
Apparently no one. One of the wolves yelped as its hindquarters exploded. Its back end buckling, it fell down the steps. A second later there was a crack, and stone exploded right near Bryan as a shot impacted on the stone frame of the alcove where he was standing.
Paul grabbed Bryan and pulled him down to the ground with him. I hit the deck as well. Bullets slammed into the church, and I could feel pieces of masonry peppering my back and arms. I remained on the ground, propped myself up on my elbows, and returned fire. I couldn’t tell if I hit anything.
The shots had come from almost two hundred yards down the street, where a dark-colored SUV was pulled over. The passenger door was open and someone was using it to brace a fifty-caliber sniper rifle. The other wolf took off immediately in the direction of the shooter, weaving as it tore into the night and down the dark road. The rifle kept firing as the wolf came for him. A round must have hit the wolf. I didn’t know if these guys were using silver, but the impact alone sent the werewolf into a tumble.
I fired off a couple of bursts at the shooter, and I must have spooked him, because I saw the sniper get back into the SUV and close the door. It began to make a U-turn, its side facing us now, and we got a broadside as automatic weapons fire poured out from both the front and rear windows. I went flat and wiggled backwards, trying to squeeze into the alcove with Bryan.
Paul was up off Bryan, and he headed toward the SUV with a speed I couldn’t follow. I heard the howl of the V-Max, turned, and saw Toni racing down the street. She had either taken care of, or lost, the SUV she had been chasing. Now she was heading straight for this SUV at over one hundred miles an hour. Her machine pistol was straight out in front of her, spitting flame in the darkness.
They must have seen the bike, because we stopped taking fire as the weapons from the SUV turned their focus on Toni. They still hadn’t seen Paul, who must be almost on top of them given the speed he was running. I saw sparks where bullets collided with Toni’s bike, and I hoped she knew a good repair shop. Then it became moot.
Toni must have jammed on the front brake because the bike did a front stand, the front wheel skidding to a stop as the rear end kept going, launching the back of the bike into the air and throwing Toni forward over the handlebars and towards the SUV. The streetlights gave off just enough illumination for me to see her change from a human into something else during the few seconds she was airborne. Her wolf form hit the ground, rolled once and then catapulted through the front passenger side window.
I got up and looked down at Bryan, but other than bruised dignity at being hauled down by what looked like a 12-year-old kid, he was okay. I gave him a hand up, then ran toward Toni.
Screams, snarls, and gunfire came from the SUV. The bike followed, rolling end over end until it slammed into the side of the truck. I saw a figure that could only be Paul jump on top of the SUV, crouch down, put his fist through the sunroof, and then climb down through the opening. I heard another round of screams as Bryan and I ran toward them; gunfire lit up the SUVs windows one last time, and then all was silent.
We got there, and even with the poor lighting, we saw too much. It looked like an industrial blender had been run inside. I could identify individual parts from the shooters, but that was about it. Paul was in the back feasting on what was left of someone. A large wolf lay on top of a corpse on the driver’s seat.
I rushed around to the other side and opened the driver’s-side door, catching the wolf as it started to fall. It let out a pitiful whine as I picked it up and half-carried, half-dragged it—no, not it—her. This was Toni. I knew that. I set her down as gently as I could on the street. She lay on the asphalt with her eyes closed, mouth open, and emitted small wheezy pants. I wasn’t a vet, but even I could tell bones were obviously broken and she had been shot several times.
“Man, that’s just sick, dude,” Bryan said, coming over to me, finally having had enough of watching Paul. “Ah, shit, bro; she all right?” Bryan stared down at Toni. I shrugged in response.
The gunfire and the snarling of the wolves seemed to be moving away from us. I debated calling an ambulance. I knew the police had to be coming soon. Even for this neighborhood, we were making too much noise to be ignored for long, though Powers might have had enough pull and contacts in the police to hold them off for a while.
Bryan whirled, bringing up his Bushmaster. I turned and saw a figure running toward us. Fortunately, he checked his fire, realizing at the same time I did that it wasn’t one of the commandos.
Lisa ran up, crouching by Toni. “Oh wow,” she said.
“She going to be all right?’ I asked.
“If it’s not silver, probably.”
“And if it is?”
She didn’t answer. Her cell phone was already out, dialed, and up to her ear, waiting for someone to pick up.
The thumping of the helicopter made it hard for me to think. And then it hit me. The helicopter had gotten louder. I surveyed the night sky, but couldn’t see it. I stood up and ran out in the
street toward the church to get a better look. It took me a few seconds before I saw it. The chopper was running dark, no lights on at all. The shadow in the sky hovered above the dome. That’s when I figured out the attack had been a feint meant to draw away the protection from the church.
I sprinted for the front doors as fast as I could but found them locked. I was pretty sure this was a sin, but I pointed the AK at the lock and squeezed the trigger. The lock burst into shrapnel. I opened the door and rushed inside just as the stained glass oculus burst from the top of the dome. Glass rained down on Father Allen, who just managed to shield his assistant with his body as glass shards fell down on them. I had no idea if he had finished the ritual.
After the crash came a stream of black-clad commandos down the ropes. I ran down the center aisle and was leveling my rifle when a form jumped out from the shadows near the base of the dome. Megan hit one of the commandos, grabbing him with one hand as she severed the rope with the nails of her other. Both she and the commando hurtled to the ground. The two guys below them, their rope no longer connected to anything, crashed down. The lower one rolled and got up, his gun at the ready, but the guy who was higher up fell from twenty feet onto the hardwood floor and rolled in pain as he hit, his ankle either twisted or broken.
The witches still stood at each point of the star, maintaining the binding ritual just in case the exorcism was interrupted, which had just happened in spectacular fashion.
Another rope dropped down. The commando with two functional legs grabbed the urn and had just reached the second rope when a huge wolf emerged from a hiding spot in the shadows. It bounded out, leaping onto the man as the rope he clung to started rising. He fell screaming, and the urn crashed down on the marble floor. It bounced once, then hit a second time and separated into two pieces. The larger one rolled toward the edge of the pentacle while the smaller lid bounced, landed on its side, and rolled like a wheel down the dais steps, where it spun a couple of times and clanked to a rest.
Chance in Hell Page 24