Exorcist

by Steven Piziks

  She slammed the book shut and rubbed her face. The strain was telling on her. Joseph had been drifting in and out of consciousness for almost a week now, and Sarah had yet to find a cause, let alone a cure.

  The events of that terrible night still haunted her sleep. Emekwi had gone after the hyenas with his shotgun and had returned with his son’s bloody, headless remains. The villagers had burned them, according to local custom. Merrin had fled, Francis had closed the school before it even opened, and Joseph remained in Sarah’s clinic.

  Click-click-clack.

  Sarah shot a glance at the open doorway that led into the clinic proper. A shadow glided past, accompanied by the clicking of claws on wood. She caught a whiff of rotten meat. Adrenaline spurted through her and she forced herself to get quietly to her feet. Her hand found a scalpel on the desk. Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing. She ghosted to the door and peered into the clinic beyond.

  Darkness dimmed her vision, but she was able to make out shapes. It occurred to her that she was backlit by the lamp in the room behind her, so she eased around the doorjamb into the main room. Her heart pounded in her ears. Any moment she expected to sense hot breath on her body, feel teeth pop through her skin and skull. Her eyes adjusted to the low light and she scanned the clinic. No hyenas in sight. So what had made the—

  Joseph’s bed was empty. Nerves humming, she moved closer. The sheets and blanket were rumpled. The tube from the IV bottle dribbled fluid from the needle, which lay on the floor. Something moved on the other side of the bed. Scalpel in hand, Sarah forced herself to ease around it and look.

  The boy was sitting on the floor, facing away from her. A blanket covered an object in his lap. His fingers moved beneath the cloth, stroking the object. The boy rocked in place, crooning a little song. Sarah glanced around the room again. Nothing.

  “Joseph?” she said quietly. “What do you have there?”

  He rocked and crooned some more without answering, or even looking up. That was when Sarah noticed the bloodstains on the blanket. Kneeling on the floor, she twitched the blanket aside. James’s bloody head stared up at her. Tooth marks had punctured his forehead.

  “It’s mine,” Joseph said. “He’s mine now.”

  Sarah jolted up from her pillow, heart pounding hard. The dream hung in the air before her, palpable and real. She could almost smell the blood. But it was only a dream. She sighed, turned over—

  —and looked straight into Jefferies’s oozing face. She screamed and shoved herself backward against the wall. He was kneeling next to the bed, had been breathing into her face.

  “You threw it away,” he said like a petulant child. The St. Joseph medal he had put around her neck dangled from one fist. “You tossed it like a piece of garbage.”

  “Get the hell out of here!” Sarah barked, holding the blanket up to her neck.

  “It was in the dirt outside,” Jefferies continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Why did you throw it away?”

  “I didn’t.” Sarah tried to back away, but she was already against the wall and there was no place to go. Cold fear clutched her heart. “The clasp must’ve come loose.”

  “Liar!” he snapped.

  She flinched. Automatically her eyes darted about the room, looking for a weapon, any weapon. Although she kept the clinic spotlessly clean, her personal living quarters hovered at the edge of slovenly. On the bedside table beside her empty dinner plate lay a knife. Behind it was a wedding photo in a heavy silver frame. She tensed to lunge for the knife, but Jefferies climbed up on the bed. The springs squeaked beneath him.

  “Do I repulse you that much?” he said. Spittle sprayed her face. “Maybe if you could cure my fucking skin, I might look as good to you as that archaeologist.”

  A scream tore through the air. Jefferies spun around on the bed. Joseph stood in the doorway, eyes wide, looking like a ghost in his sweat-stained nightshirt. He raised a shaking hand and pointed at Jefferies.

  “He’s coming for you,” Joseph said in a harsh whisper.

  “What?” Jefferies gasped, clearly unnerved.

  “He’s coming for you! Coming for you! COMING FOR YOU!” The words came out as a howl. Jefferies bolted from the bed and stumbled out the door. Sarah stared at Joseph, hyperalert to every detail. Joseph was barefoot, and the whites of his eyes were yellow. A few crumbs of bread were scattered across her dinner plate. In the distance, she heard drums begin to beat.

  “Joseph,” she said, opening her arms to him. “You’re awake!”

  “I had a bad dream.” He ran forward and hugged her. Tears ran down his cheeks. “It was a very bad dream.”

  Sarah held him close while he cried. Then she noticed the sores on his body.

  The sea of white crosses shone in the moonlight as Merrin passed them in the jeep. They gave him a sense of foreboding, as if the graves were a restless army about to awaken. Then he forced himself to pay attention to his driving. It wasn’t a good idea to drive after dark, but he was almost to Derati and didn’t want to spend another night on the road.

  He reached the outer edge of the village, where the huts stood guard against the inner buildings. The night air was warm and dry, and he heard drums beating. Two figures emerged from between the huts and waved at Merrin in the jeep’s headlights. Merrin pulled over, and the figures resolved themselves into Chuma and a teenage girl Merrin didn’t know. The girl had a medicine vial in her hand. Chuma spoke to her in Turkana. She nodded and vanished into the shadows. Chuma climbed into the jeep.

  “Where is everyone?” Merrin asked, putting the jeep back into gear and driving farther into town.

  “Sebituana’s baby is coming,” Chuma said. “The village has gathered in welcome. Except the labor isn’t going well, and Sebituana’s wife, Lokiria, is in much pain. The girl was Felashaday, the midwife’s apprentice.”

  “Oh?”

  “Bititi—the midwife—sent her to fetch medicine from the lady doctor.”

  “Why doesn’t Lokiria come to the clinic?” Merrin asked. “Or Sarah go to Lokiria?”

  “Sebituana does not trust western medicine,” Chuma replied. “This must remain a secret.”

  The jeep pulled up in front of the clinic. Merrin climbed out of the vehicle and went inside while Chuma drove off in a puff of dust and exhaust fumes. Lamps burned in the clinic’s main room, casting bright light everywhere. Merrin was surprised to see Sarah up and about, though the dark circles under her eyes worried him. Still, he was glad to see her. She was standing next to Joseph’s bed, just as she had been doing when he left for Nairobi. For an eerie moment, Merrin wondered if she had moved from that spot in the seven days he’d been gone. She heard Merrin come in and hurried over.

  “You’re back,” she said.

  “How’s Joseph?” Merrin asked.

  Sarah hesitated. “Odd,” she said at last. “Come see.”

  The boy tossed and turned on his bed. The rubber lead still ran from his arm to a glass IV bottle that hung upside down above him. He was covered in sweat, and when he shifted one more time, Merrin leaned forward. Angry red lesions covered Joseph’s neck and shoulders. They reminded Merrin uncomfortably of Jefferies’s face. Troubled, he pulled the blanket back up.

  Joseph’s eyes popped open, wide and white. Startled, Merrin pulled back. “Joseph?” he asked. But the boy’s eyes had already closed again. Outside, the drumming continued in a bone-throbbing rhythm. Merrin turned to Sarah.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  She shrugged. “Just tired. He’s been like this all week.”

  “These lesions—they can’t just be from the shock of what happened to James.”

  “We really shouldn’t talk here,” Sarah said. “Come.”

  She led Merrin away from the bed, down to the other end of the lamplit room. With a concerned expression she sank down on one of the other beds. “The lesions are completely asymptomatic. It doesn’t make any sense. He should have recovered by now. Instead, his blood pressure’s
dropped and he’s running a fever.”

  “What could it be?”

  “In this part of the world?” Sarah gestured at the front door and, by extension, the continent beyond. “A dozen things. But his symptoms don’t exactly match any of them. All I can do is watch and wait.”

  A moment passed. Drums throbbed and pounded. Merrin realized he was staring at Sarah, at her blue eyes and soft, lovely face. She looked back at him, and he found himself hoping she thought him handsome. Unpriestly thoughts. The book Gionetti had given him weighed heavily in the pocket of his trousers.

  “I have some work to do at the dig site early in the morning,” he said to break the silence. “I should go to bed. Will you be all right?”

  She gave him a tired smile, then patted the hospital bed beside her. “Come sit with me, Lankester. I promise I won’t bite.”

  Merrin was all set to refuse, to walk quickly away, but his body sank to the bed beside her. A fly landed on his arm, and he waved it away.

  “So how was Nairobi?” Sarah asked, still smiling. “Did you see…Monsieur Bession?”

  “He’s dead,” Merrin said flatly.

  “What?” Her smile died. “How?”

  Merrin regretted his harsh tone, regretted he had killed her smile, but couldn’t bring himself to apologize. “He killed himself. Right in front of me.”

  “Oh God.” Sarah put a hand to her mouth. “I don’t understand. He was my…I can’t believe he would…God. What happened to him?…What’s happening to Joseph?…I can’t seem to help anyone anymore.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes, and it hurt Merrin’s heart to see them. He produced a handkerchief, put an arm around her shoulders, and gently wiped her eyes. Her body was warm under his arm, and he smelled her unique scent. A tendril of brown hair tickled his nose. She leaned a little toward him, and he never wanted to move again. Her hand stole up to his face, and it tingled where she touched. He leaned hesitantly forward, heart keeping beat with the drums. What if he was mistaken? What if she didn’t want him to touch her? What if—

  She leaned in and kissed him. Her mouth was soft on his. Merrin’s head sang. But a strange feeling plucked at him like a ghostly hand. He pulled away.

  In the clinic behind them, unseen, a puff of blood clouded Joseph’s IV tube.

  Merrin discovered he didn’t like pulling away and leaned back in. Sarah smiled and they kissed again. She ran her hands over Merrin’s chest and the hard muscles of his stomach. Passion roared within him, and he had to fight to keep from pushing Sarah down on the bed.

  One of the wheels on Joseph’s bed began to turn. It made a slow revolution, squeaking just loud enough for Merrin to hear it. The wheel squeaked again, and this time he broke away from Sarah. Joseph’s bed had moved away from the wall.

  “What the hell?” he said, rising. Sarah got up with him. They moved quickly across the room to see what was going on. Blood had colored the entire IV bottle.

  “I don’t understand this at all,” Sarah said.

  Monsieur Bession was touched by…

  “No,” Merrin said firmly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Merrin put out a hand and laid it on Joseph’s forehead—

  —and the boy’s body leaped from the bed. Merrin jerked back as Joseph went into full-body convulsions. His arm snapped out and the IV bottle crashed to the floor. Shattered glass and bloody fluid cascaded across the wood. Sarah tried to grab him, but the convulsions shook her off.

  “Help me hold him!” Sarah shouted. “I can’t—”

  The convulsions ended. Joseph lay on the twisted bedclothes, his breathing deep and even, as if nothing had happened at all.

  Sarah did a quick vitals check, then pursed her lips and said with an edge of hysteria, “What’s going on here, Lankester?”

  Merrin’s mouth became a hard, straight line. He didn’t have an answer for her, but he suspected where one was hiding.

  Felashaday ran through the dark streets of Derati, the precious vial clutched tightly in her hand. Chuma had offered to drive her, but she had refused. She couldn’t afford to look like she had accepted any help from the whites or the people who worked for them. The birth drums pounded out their familiar rhythm, and she matched her steps to their beat.

  From the rounded hut ahead of her, Lokiria’s groans sounded like a wounded spirit keening for release. Felashaday paused long enough to snatch a handful of palm fronds and wrap them around the precious vial. Outside the hut, a group of elders, including Sebituana, stood in a ring of torches, looking concerned. Nearby, a group of musicians played the childbirth song on flute and drum. The song was supposed to calm the child and call it into this world, but Lokiria’s cries nearly drowned them out. Felashaday prayed the white doctor’s drugs would help ease Lokiria’s pain.

  Felashaday was about to enter the hut when Sebituana caught her by the arm in a hard wooden grip. “You have come from the western woman’s sick house,” Sebituana said. “You taint yourself and our child with your presence. You may not enter.”

  “I passed by the sick house, Revered Elder,” Felashaday confessed, “but I did not enter. Bititi sent me for more herbs.”

  “Let me see.”

  Lokiria groaned again. She needed something for the terrible pain, but this brute of a husband wouldn’t allow it. How could he, a man, understand the pain of childbirth and how terrible it could be? But he was Lokiria’s husband and the elder, which meant no one could gain-say him. Heart pounding, Felashaday held up the palm fronds, hoping that in the dim light Sebituana wouldn’t recognize them right away. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and Lokiria’s heart sank.

  “Those look like—”

  “There you are!” snapped a new voice. Bititi had stuck her head out of the hut. “Bring those herbs in, girl. Now!”

  Felashaday nipped inside the hut before Sebituana could protest and gave an inward sigh. In here she was safe. Not even Sebituana would enter a childbirthing hut.

  The rounded hut was normal-sized, long enough for two people to lie end to end across the middle and tall enough for a man to stand erect in the center. A flexible wooden frame supported thickly woven palm fronds. A hole in the roof let out the smoke from a small fire. Near the fire, an older woman helped Lokiria remain on her feet. Lokiria was young and very pretty, with glossy skin, hair woven into dozens of plaits, and soft brown eyes. She was naked, and Felashaday saw muscle ripple across her distended stomach. Lokiria’s face was clenched with pain.

  Felashaday handed the palm fronds to Bititi, the gray-haired midwife, and went over to help the other assistant keep Lokiria on her feet. The white doctor usually had women give birth lying down, something Felashaday didn’t agree with, despite the power of western medicine in other areas. It made much more sense for the mother to stand up so the earth could help draw the baby forth.

  “Praise the ancestors,” Bititi said in a voice that would not carry outside the hut. “This will help her.”

  Lokiria screamed again. Felashaday bit her lip. The sound made her hair stand up, made her want to run and hide with her fingers in her ears. She scolded herself to grow up. At age sixteen, Felashaday had assisted Bititi with over a dozen births now, and all of the women had screamed. But these screams had a different quality. The other women had screamed to release the pain. Lokiria screamed because there was nothing left for her to do. Felashaday’s blood chilled every time she heard it.

  Bititi, meanwhile, poured some of the white doctor’s “mor-feen” into a cup, added goat’s milk, and was holding it to Lokiria’s mouth for her to drink when a hand slapped the cup away. It tumbled hissing into the fire. Sebituana, his face angry as a thundercloud, glared down at Bititi. He did not look at his wife. Felashaday shrank back, aghast and frightened at seeing a man in this place. Sebituana snatched the vial from Bititi’s hand and, ignoring his wife’s screams of agony, crushed it beneath his sandaled foot.

  “Bad medicine,” he growled. “You will not poison my wife!”
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  Lokiria screamed again as Sebituana stalked out of the hut.

  Merrin stood on the roof of the church. Overhead, the full, ripe moon shed enough silver light to read by, which was exactly what Merrin was doing. He had unrolled Bession’s drawing of the double church and was now pacing the boundaries of the roof.

  A frown crossed Merrin’s face. If Bession had meant the drawing to be literal instead of metaphorical, and if there had at one time been a second church on top of this one, there would be signs of it—support columns, specially reinforced walls, something. Yet Merrin saw nothing.

  He rerolled the drawing and slid it into his back pocket. It stuck out like a holder for candy floss. He drew aside the piece of canvas that covered the dome and peered into the depths of the church. From his backpack he pulled what looked like a bundle of rope with a pair of hooks on one end. He set the hooks against the lip of the dome and tossed the bundle into the darkness. The rope ladder he had bought in Nairobi unrolled without a hitch. Merrin donned his pack again and climbed carefully down.

  It was like descending a shaft of moonlight. The ladder swung and twisted within the silvery beam that lit his descent. He reached the bottom and stepped onto the hard marble floor. A menace of shadows greeted him.

  A part of Merrin called himself an idiot for coming out here alone at night—night was when the demons and devils came out to play. Then his more rational self pointed out that the church was dark inside whether it was day or night out, and that the incident with Bession—if demons were involved—had happened during broad daylight. It didn’t prevent a certain amount of nervousness from making his skin shiver.

  A low muttering croaked in the dark. The hair on Merrin’s neck slowly rose. From his backpack he pulled a lantern and lit it with his lighter. One of the St. Michael statues was covered with crows again, easily twice as many as before. They blinked at him with fierce yellow eyes.