After the Woodstrom affair, Montague eventually resigned and virtually disappeared in New York City setting off an unprecedented hunt by the Vatican. The orders had been: find the ex-sheriff. His description and photo were secretly sent to every parish and church organization in New York state with a registered confidential classification.
The search had culminated when a priest, working out of the Opus Dei headquarters, had accidentally found Montague. And, with the Church’s help, he put some sort of life back together.
Unknown to him, of course, the awesome influence, and political, and monetary forces of the Roman Catholic Church had been there under the surface, quietly opening doors and smoothing his path to re-enter society.
Murphy had enjoyed his assignment of being Montague’s secret guardian angel; in particular putting that officious little bastard of a Loan’s Officer at the First National Financial in his place with a threat to the bank’s president to withdraw many tens of millions of Church money if the bank didn’t comply with their wishes. That and a secret guarantor signature secured the man his credit.
Scanning world news and discovering multiple murders in New York two months ago, Rome had decided to step up the surveillance of the detective on the suspicion that Adramelech was at work again. But with the Crusaders recalled due to monetary concerns, the current plan was to remove Montague if he proved to be in harm’s way.
Now, they’d been sent this nun with some hocus pocus ability to sense evil and tell them when this creature was nearby? Inwardly, Murphy wondered how that idea had been sold.
He looked again at Maria who was standing rigid on the sidewalk a few feet away. Oh no, he thought, don’t tell me she’s going into a trance, or having some kind of fit.
Maria was staring at something down the street in front of their automobile.
Murphy followed her gaze and groaned aloud: “For God’s sake, it’s just a child, Sister.” He began to move forward towards the small, barefooted waif. The child was purposely walking up the damp sidewalk towards them.
“Don’t move!” Something in Maria’s tone conveyed both a sense of fear and menace raising the hairs on the back of Father Murphy’s neck.
“What’s the matter,” he asked, disturbed by the intensity of Maria’s look as she stared towards the child. He turned towards her in annoyance.
Slowly the young novice reached beneath her cloak, drew out an eight-inch, silver Crucifix and extended it towards the small figure.
“Sister Maria, cut it out – !” Murphy’s sentence was interrupted by a thin scream and a vicious hiss reverberating off the brownstone and brick walls of the surrounding buildings. He spun around and looked back in shock at the little girl.
She stood about twenty feet away, legs wide apart, eye sockets glowing with a fire-red incandescent as though someone had just lit a torch in the middle of her skull. The problem was that now she was standing three feet up in the air...on nothing. Her mouth was open and drooling, exposing long, needle-sharp teeth. As he watched in disbelief, the little girl suddenly descended back to the street, clamped her upper teeth over her bottom lip and shredded it by scissoring the fangs back and forth. The flesh parted and blood first spurted from her mouth a good three feet out onto the sidewalk, and then poured down her chin.
The child grinned at them, a bloody-toothed, mirthless smile.
“Holy shit!” Father Murphy exclaimed in a momentary lapse of priestly decorum as he stared, sickened by the sight.
If Maria had not been so terrified she would have laughed at his abrupt turnaround.
The child had stopped walking now and just stood on the sidewalk, transfixed by the sight of the Crucifix, savagely whining and snarling like a whipped cur.
“Get Mr. Montague,” Maria whispered quietly without moving, holding the cross as far forward as possible as the sound of the snarling increased in savagery.
“But Sister–!” Langevin protested, glancing fearfully at the child.
She cut him short. “Do as I say!”
The two priests’ didn’t hesitate. They raced to the opposite side of the street and along it towards Montague’s building, keeping a wary eye on the child as they drew parallel with her. She didn’t seem to notice as she stared in fascination at Maria’s Crucifix. The clatter of their footsteps died away as they entered the building leaving Maria on the sidewalk, alone and frightened.
Still smiling her bloody smile, the child backed up a few feet and danced sideways into an alley. The moment she was out of sight, Maria’s fears intensified. She didn’t know this child-thing’s capabilities. She continued holding the cross up pointing towards the alley. She waited a few minutes, and then a sixth sense made her turn around and look behind the Saab.
The small bloody-mouthed figure was coming at her from behind. It sported a wicked grin, was less than fifty feet away and was skipping closer by the second.
~ 3 ~
Clay found the Tasco binoculars in the third drawer of his filing cabinet jammed between papers in a file folder under V for Vision. He extracted the heavy glasses, breathed on each eyepiece and then used his tie to scrub off a thick layer of dust covering the outer lens.
Wandering back to the window, he shook out the plastic strap, put it around his neck and pulled open the curtains, first a crack and then thought: What the hell! He yanked them wide.
The tavern sign blinked on and off filling the window and office with its scarlet brilliance. Clay shielded his eyes against the glare and stared down at the black Saab.
Now the lone figure of the woman stood beside it staring down the street and holding something before her like a shield. Clay noted it was raining again as he tried to find the object of her attention. There was no sign of any person or automobile; the street was virtually deserted.
He looked back at the woman and was surprised to suddenly see a small figure appear and begin approaching her from behind. The woman spun about to face the figure. Still grasping something in her hand, she suddenly thrust it out in front of her, like a warning.
Puzzled, Clay shaded his eyes from the neon light. He’d just begun to raise the binoculars when he felt a jolt race through his entire system. The figure on the street facing the woman was a small child, a girl! And there was something disturbingly familiar about her.
Clay pressed closer to the window and stared at the tiny waif-like figure below. His mind raced: could this be the one who attacked him years ago, just minutes before he found his murdered deputy?
Judging from her height, she seemed to be about eight years old. And, like the girl back at the Baker house in Vermont, and on the hill at Hitch’s funeral, her hair was a sodden, tangled mess and she was clothed in a dirty, tattered dress.
He narrowed his eyes, squinting to make out her features.
WAS IT POSSIBLE?
He dismissed the idea. It was impossible. The child he’d encountered would have been a teenager by now. The little girl below was nowhere near that age. He told himself that his imagination was working overtime. After all, what were the chances he’d encounter her hundreds of miles away, in a city of 18 million people?
Still he couldn’t shake a nagging and urgent suspicion that she was the one. He continued to stare down at the child who stood unmoving in the rain, rooted to the street. She faced the cloaked woman who was also frozen in a curious posture of confrontation, her hand held high in the air.
What the hell was going on? He raised the field glasses to his eyes. The woman was holding a Crucifix aloft. His heart racing, his breath quickening, he focused them on the child. “Jesus Christ!” His oath was loud and bitter as her pale, milk-white face leaped into view. It was her! There was no doubt! She was standing calmly in the street a mere stone’s throw away!
Her mouth yawned open, bloody froth dribbled from her teeth and her eyes gleamed wickedly, as they had so many times in his nightmares. She still wore that same expression of quiet, cunning detachment as she stared at the woman in the cloak.
&
nbsp; Then, as he watched her through the binoculars, the child slowly shifted her gaze from the woman up towards where Clay stood in his window. Somehow she knew he was watching her. She stared straight up into his lenses.
Ever so slowly, a grin of recognition spread across her face. Her glowing eyes met his. As he watched, they lost their pupils and became milk-white orbs that bulged outward and expanded, becoming larger and larger until they completely filled the lenses of the binoculars; great luminous discs awakening his hidden fears and his darkest thoughts as they probed the faraway corners of his mind. He could feel her trying to seize control.
A wave of nausea washed over him as a malevolent force poked and pried at his mind. He shuddered and tore the binoculars from his eyes. Outwardly trembling, sweat running freely down under his collar, he knew without doubt: it was her!
A sudden wave of anger cowed the fear he was feeling and he silently vowed that she wouldn’t get away this time.
Clay dropped the binoculars onto his chest and spun around to get his revolver from his desk drawer. A new thought brought him up short and he whirled back to the window.
The street was still empty except for the woman and the child. Where were the others – the other two men!? He leaned his face flat against the window pane and looked up and down the street. No-one in sight.
Where the hell were they?
Below he saw the child shift from foot to foot as though her feet were cold. The woman still stood silently before her, a cowled guardian keeping her at bay with the Crucifix. Did this woman, now tied into this bizarre nightmare, not realize she was in mortal danger! He watched as the child moved a few inches forward; the woman retreated a step, thrusting her hand out farther. The child moved forward again.
Again the woman retreated.
Somehow he had to warn her. To get her away from this hellion.
“Damn it to hell,” he groaned aloud, grabbing the window frame and trying to force the window up. Locked.
He reached up and tried to twist the lock open; multiple coats of paint over the years had invaded the window tracks and completed an effective seal holding the window solidly in place. It was no use. He would have to break it!
He spun back towards his desk to get something heavy to drive through the glass and stopped dead.
Shadows flitted across the window in his office door. There was someone or something...outside!
~ 4 ~
Father Murphy and Father Langevin slammed through the front door of the detective’s building, their wet shoes skidding on the polished granite floor; they barely remained standing as they clambered inside. Their hard sole shoes beat double staccatos as they ran forward.
“I never would have believed it,” Murphy said.
“What...kind...of creature can stand...in midair?” Langevin panted as they crossed the foyer, still slipping and sliding. They headed for the elevator.
“Did you ever see The Exorcist movie?”
“No.”
“Well save your money...I think we just got a taste of the real thing.” Murphy stabbed the elevator button repeatedly. It refused to light up. “They must turn the damn thing off in the evening.”
They ran for the stairwell, pushed open the door and began running up concrete flights of stairs. The frantic pounding of their dress shoes echoed up and down the stairwell chimney like a nail gun on full auto.
“What do we do when we get up there?” Langevin yelled to Murphy who, by now, was a full flight of stairs ahead of him. He found himself gasping desperately for breath.
“Use the pistols...if necessary,” Murphy shouted back, also out of breath from the exertion.
Langevin looked up to see him banishing his heavy .50 caliber smooth bore pistol. The breach-loading triple barrel weapon had been custom made for the job. As he took the stairs two at a time, he dug his own pistol out of his topcoat pocket.
They continued upward for another few seconds until Murphy let out a yell of triumph. Langevin grabbed the pipe style railing and pulled himself up the final flight to the landing where the older priest was preparing to open a door with a large orange number 3 painted on it.
“Mon Dieu...!” Langevin gasped, the air rasping painfully down his windpipe. “One minute...let me catch my breath!”
“Get ready,” Murphy said, his adrenaline level at an all-time high.
He readied his pistol, yanked open the door, stuck his head through and then disappeared. Langevin swallowed an acid-like bile rising into the back of his throat. He followed him.
They were in an office corridor lit only by a single fluorescent light at each end; an energy-conscious building management was obviously doing its best to help save power. The corridor itself was silent except for the faint buzz of the fluorescents.
Holding their pistols at the ready, the two priests moved quickly and quietly down the carpeted corridor towards Montague’s office. They arrived at the mahogany door half-filled with a frosted, ripple glass window on which the detective agency’s name was stenciled in Times New Roman-style gold letters.
“Try knocking on the door,” Langevin whispered.
“And say what? We’re here to save you from the devil?” Murphy shook his head. “Dollars to doughnuts he’s armed and pissed off after all he’s been through. He’d welcome a chance to take a shot at us.”
“What if he’s not in there any longer?”
“The elevator is out of commission, and we didn’t pass him on the stairs. He’s got to be in there. When I pull open the door, you cover him...then we talk...fast!”
“Right.”
“Ready?”
Langevin licked suddenly dry lips. “Go ahead!”
Murphy reached for the door, grasped the brass knob and tried to turn it. It was locked.
~ 5 ~
Clay barely had time to glimpse the shadow of a figure in a broad-brimmed hat outlined in the office door window before he heard the door knob creak.
“Cripes!” he muttered, dropping the binoculars and diving for his desk to get at his Ruger. He yanked open the drawer and grabbed the butt of the snub-nosed .45 revolver.
Everything happened extraordinarily fast.
Outside, Murphy cursed, and he and Langevin immediately drew back their heavy pistols and slashed at the frosted window in the door.
It shattered inwards and great shards and plates of glass collapsed onto the office floor exploding into hundreds of pieces as the two priests leaned through the window frame with their weapons leveled.
“Hold it!” Murphy shouted, even as Clay, bent half-way over, pulled his revolver out of a desk drawer. “Stop!”
Clay glimpsed the two Watchers with weapons pointed at him but he’d gone too far to give up now. He dropped to a half-crouching position, snapped up the weapon and squeezed off two quick shots towards his assailants.
“He’s got a gun—!” Langevin yelled needlessly as the Ruger’s muzzle flash illuminated the room and the deafening roars and tongues of fire spit towards them.
The crash of the shots filled the room with slugs tearing into a corner of the mahogany door frame an inch from Murphy’s head. They blew shards of wood splinters into his temple near his left eye before slamming on through the wall on the opposite side of the corridor to lose themselves in another office.
“Shoot!” Murphy cried desperately, already squeezing the trigger of his weapon.
Langevin began firing, the soft muffled plops of his shots an impotent-sounding response to Clay’s third and fourth cannon-like reports.
By the time the detective began to squeeze off another shot, he had been hit twice in the chest and his firing reflected it with a bullet crashing into the far wall. The blows stunned him and though he was vaguely aware of pains in his chest, it was only for an instant.
He squeezed the trigger again even as he felt further stabs of pain in his stomach, and shoulder. His final shot went wild, hitting the chain holding a large lamp suspended over his desk. It immediately dropped and e
xploded onto the desk’s surface in a burst of metal and glass pieces.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Clay’s sight began fading. He tried to fight the weakness, to make himself stand and fire again, but his head whirled. He groaned and pitched forward onto the top of his desk. The Ruger clattered to the floor as he became totally limp, rolled off the desk and landed with a crash face-up. His chest, stomach and shoulder were bleeding through his shirt.
At the door, the two priests looked at one another.
“Are you okay, Dermott?” Langevin asked.
“Yes, quick, get inside!” Murphy said, as he wiped away the blood and tears flooding his left eye. He kept his gun trained on the man on the floor.
Langevin reached through the broken window for the door lock. “Your eye...?”
“Just a few splinters....”
Langevin reached inside, twisted the lock and they entered the room. Pieces of glass crunched underfoot as they advanced cautiously. The stench of gunpowder hung heavy in the air.
“Do you think we killed him?” Langevin asked fearfully. They approached Clay cautiously. The detective lay unmoving on his back, his eyes half-open, staring at the ceiling.
“Keep him covered,” Murphy warned, kicking the Ruger away from Clay’s hand. He bent down and quickly felt for a pulse in the neck.
Clay groaned softly.
Dear Lord, let him be alright Murphy prayed as he looked at six bleeding wounds in the man’s chest and torso. They had hit him six out of eight shots despite the confusion and danger. He was relieved to find a pulse but it was alarmingly weak. Murphy spotted two of the eight silver cylinders with plastic feathers on the floor. “We have to get the others out of him right now! Too many hits. This stuff can kill him.”
Murphy searched Montague’s desk until he found a letter opener in the form of a medieval dagger. Langevin flipped up the detective’s tie, ripped open his shirt and Murphy began probing the wounds with his make-shift instrument.
The dim light made it almost impossible to find the small, narcotic-laced darts in his chest.
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