Exorcist

by Steven Piziks

  The initial shock passed, and the warriors howled their anger to the sky. They pressed forward. The soldiers, shocked themselves, raised their rifles and shouted at the Turkana to keep back. The warriors hesitated. Rifles clacked. Tension rode heavy in the air. Merrin started toward Jomo’s body, but Chuma appeared and cut him off.

  “You must go,” he urged hoarsely. “Quickly! They believe the evil is upon us, that it’s inside Joseph. They’re going to kill him.”

  A Turkana raised his spear to the hot heavens and let loose a war cry. Others around him took up the sound. The cry thirsted for justice, screamed for revenge. It didn’t care if it lived or died in the pursuit as long as it took everyone else with it. It chilled Merrin’s blood.

  “Go!” Chuma repeated, and gave Merrin a rough shove. Merrin ran. Behind him he heard a shot. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a warrior go down as the Turkana surged toward the soldiers. Chuma was nowhere to be seen. A warrior hurled his spear and skewered a soldier through the neck. The man clawed at the shaft sticking out of his throat before dropping to the bloody dust. Merrin reached his jeep and roared away with the sound of gunfire in his ears.

  He drove down the rutted road as fast as he dared until he came to the village. British soldiers dashed in every direction, rifles and pistols at the ready. Drums throbbed in the distance, mingling with rifle fire. Merrin rushed into the clinic, his heart in his mouth, and found Father Francis kneeling in prayer next to Joseph’s bed. The boy was shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm. A low, animal growl issued from his throat.

  “Where’s Sarah?” Merrin asked breathlessly.

  Francis didn’t open his eyes or change position. “I don’t know.”

  “You must leave. Now!”

  “Why?”

  Merrin ignored the question. In a swift move, he gathered up Joseph—the boy was surprisingly heavy—and ran from the clinic. Francis scrambled to follow and caught up as Merrin was placing Joseph in the back of the jeep.

  “Take him to Father Gionetti in Nairobi,” Merrin instructed. “He’ll be able to…” He trailed off, his eyes on the distant horizon beyond the village.

  “Able to what?” Francis said, then followed Merrin’s gaze. The sky beyond the village was obsured by a black curtain, accompanied by the faint sound of howling wind.

  “What is that?” Francis asked.

  “Sandstorm,” Merrin said.

  “It won’t let us leave,” Francis murmured in awe.

  The drums grew louder, pounding at Merrin’s bones. A gunshot sliced the air, followed by a scream.

  “We have to hide him, Francis,” Merrin said with a gesture toward Joseph. The boy’s eyes were open, but staring at nothing. “The Turkana are coming.”

  “The church?” Francis suggested.

  “No. Jefferies was murdered there, and his corpse was mangled. Granville figured the Turkana did it, and he shot Jomo. Now both sides are on the warpath. The dig site is too dangerous.”

  “Joseph’s people won’t go in there. It’s his only chance. There’s a back way to get there—rougher, but the Turkana won’t think we’d use it.”

  Francis jumped into the jeep and cranked it to life. Merrin wanted to stop him, tell him it wouldn’t work, but he couldn’t think of any other option. Francis put the jeep in gear. There was fear in his eyes, but also determination. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Merrin shook his head. “I have to find Sarah. We’ll meet you. Take this.” From his pocket he pulled The Book of Roman Rituals. He’d been carrying it with him ever since meeting Father Gionetti in Nairobi, though he wasn’t sure why. His eyes met Francis’s for a long moment. Then Francis accepted the book with a nod.

  “And you had better take this,” he said, and pressed a small object into Merrin’s hand. It was a bottle of holy water. “You might need it. I have a spare.”

  Merrin shoved the bottle into his pocket. It clinked against the St. Joseph medal he had found in the bar, the medal Jefferies had given to Sarah. Before Merrin could respond further, Will Francis drove away.

  The rising wind made the tent flap and shudder. War drums beat, sounding close by, then far off as the wind shifted and changed. The rifle fire had died down. Major Dennis Granville sat at his camp desk, watching a butterfly struggle to get out of its jar. An ether-soaked cotton ball sat beside it. Four of Granville’s men were dead, pinned to the ground by Turkana spears just like his butterflies were pinned to the mounting board. He neither knew nor cared how many Turkana had died before the bloody savages had retreated to the hills. Corporal Finn would take care of the paperwork, leaving the major himself free to tend his collection. He took it with him wherever he went, the wood and glass display cases packed in crates stuffed with raw wool, and the first thing he did whenever he arrived somewhere was unpack them for display in his quarters—or in this case, his tent. Besides being nice to look at, the butterflies were neat and tidy, perfectly arranged on mounting board where they could be properly appreciated instead of fluttering messily through the forest where birds could eat them or animals might tread on them.

  Granville liked order. He felt it his duty to impose tidiness and precision wherever he might be, whether it was by seeing his commands carried out or by bringing proper civilization to the jungle savages.

  The butterfly had stopped moving. Granville unscrewed the jar, releasing a puff of ether, and teased the butterfly onto a mounting board. The mounting board was made of balsa wood, soft enough to stick pins into, and it had a groove down the center. Granville used a pair of tweezers to twitch the butterfly into place, so that its body lay in the board’s groove. The butterfly itself was a gold-banded forester, with shimmering purple wings tipped with wide black and yellow stripes. A perfect specimen. As Granville reached for the box of pins, the tent flap opened. Corporal Finn stepped in and saluted.

  “Sir,” he said, “the Turkana are preparing to attack.”

  Granville selected the pins he would need—a number three and several double-oughts. Sometimes the world resisted order. Sometimes it fought back against the rightful order Granville tried to impose. The lazy natives didn’t appreciate working in gold mines for a decent English wage. The blasted Catholics put their noses into military business. The savage Turkana murdered good white men.

  The image of Jefferies’s flayed corpse among the Michaels rose up in his mind. Granville set his jaw. His men would take care of that. In the meantime, he could impose a little more order on the universe right here, right now.

  “Sir,” Finn said again. “The—”

  “Leave me,” Granville said, irritated.

  Finn hesitated. “Sir, I—”

  “Leave!” Granville thundered. His breath made the butterfly’s wings flap. Finn vanished from the tent. With rock-steady hands, Granville held a number-three pin above the gold-banded forester’s thorax, just a little to the right of the midline. A fluttering sound brushed his hearing. He turned his head, seeking the source. He saw nothing. Odd. He checked the position of the pin again and pierced the butterfly’s body, driving the pin into the balsa wood. Perfect. Next he covered the butterfly’s left wings with a sheet of clear glassine paper. Gunshots cracked in the distance, but Granville ignored them. With precise, practiced movements, he pierced the glassine and pinned the butterfly’s wings flat with the double-ought pins. Neat and orderly. By the time he had this specimen properly mounted, his men would no doubt have taken care of those godless savages. They would lay the bodies in neat, tidy rows for his inspection. The major set another sheet of glassine over the butterfly’s right wings and pinned those down as well. After two or three days, he would remove the glassine and all the pins except the center one, pin a label to the board—Euphaedra neophron—and put the butterfly in a display case like the others.

  The fluttering sound returned. Granville looked around again, but still saw nothing. It must be stress. He wiped a hand across his forehead, then looked down at the butterfly again in satisfaction of a job well done
. There was something wet on his forehead where his fingers had touched. Granville checked his hands.

  They were covered with blood. Granville gasped and his eyes went wide. Scarlet dripped onto the mounting board, which no longer held a butterfly. Granville stared down at the crow, its black and bloody feathers spread and pinned down. It was twitching. A tiny gasping sound emerged from its yellow beak, and the eye that looked up at Granville was bright with pain. The fluttering sound grew louder. Granville looked around, searching for the source, and finally found it. The glass-front cases that lined the floor of his tent were full of fluttering butterflies. Their wings moved madly, as if they were angels pinned by spears. Granville heard the tiny squeaks, the soft, insistent rustling sound. The noise grew louder, accusatory. It whispered to him, whispered that he was ineffective, worthless, powerless. No matter how many orders he gave, no matter how many plans he devised, the world would devolve into unpredictable chaos.

  Tiny black legs thrashed, antennae waved. Granville felt the chaos wash around him, and the events of the day came crashing down on him. Jefferies’s horrifying corpse. The confrontation with the Turkana. The ruined, mushy face of the warrior he had shot. There was no order, no order at all. He was a worthless smear of a man, not fit for the uniform he wore.

  The butterflies squirmed and flapped. One of the cases actually bumped against its neighbor. The crow stiffened and went still. Its bowels let go, flooding the board with foul liquid. Granville pulled his service revolver from its holster. It felt heavy and comforting. He pressed the barrel against his temple to see what it felt like.

  The butterflies stopped moving. Granville held his breath, but they remained perfectly still. With a slow hand, he lowered the gun.

  Something squirmed inside his mouth.

  One single black leg, then a second pushed out from between his lips. Granville made a choking noise, and a purple butterfly with yellow and black markings on its wings crawled from his mouth as if it were emerging from its cocoon. It crawled across his cheeks, flapping its wings to dry them. Granville felt its tiny feet tickling his skin, felt like he was falling into a deep, black pit.

  In one swift motion, he shoved the gun into his mouth and fired.

  Sand whirled on the wind, giving it claws and teeth. Merrin shoved open the door to the clinic and ran through it to the back, passing a full-length mirror in the hallway. Behind Merrin’s back, a pale, fanged face appeared in the glass, soft as a nightmare. He burst into Sarah’s kitchen, shouting her name, but she wasn’t there. An icicle of fear stabbed his heart. Had the Turkana already—?

  No, she was fine. She would be here somewhere. He hurried back up the hallway, passed the mirror again, and paused. Someone was staring at him. He could feel cold eyes on the back of his neck. Merrin whirled, and the mirror shattered into silver shards. Outside, the wind continued to prowl around the building, scratching at windows and scrabbling at doors.

  Merrin left the broken mirror to check the tiny sitting room, then the bathroom. “Sarah!” No answer. He dashed over to her bedroom. Faint light leaked from under the door. Merrin reached for the knob, then froze as a shadow passed in front of the light. A floorboard creaked inside the room. If it was Sarah, why hadn’t she answered? Rustling sounds skittered beyond the door. Merrin braced himself and burst inside.

  Chaos filled the room. Clothes, books, and tarot cards lay strewn everywhere. The window was broken, and the wind whistled through torn mosquito netting. Flies buzzed and swarmed. Something had clawed the mattress to shreds. The stench of a sewer pervaded the air. On one wall was a finger-painting of the statue Merrin had seen under the church—a man with wings and a lion’s head, with a serpent where the penis should be. In the center of the painting’s chest, rammed straight into the plaster, was the blocky idol from Semelier’s rubbing, the one missing from the statue under the church. Flies swarmed over the painting in a happy orgy. Merrin looked closer, gagging as he realized the work had been done in blood and feces. Where was Sarah? Was that her blood?

  He forced himself to set his hands on the idol and, ignoring the flies that crawled down his arms, pulled it from the wall. It was heavy and solid. He set it on the torn mattress for a better look. Broken springs creaked.

  A photograph lay among the tarot cards scattered on the bed. Merrin picked it up. It was a wedding picture framed in silver. Half the glass was shattered, and all Merrin could make out beneath the haze of cracks was Sarah, dressed in a lacy white gown. She was smiling becomingly at the camera. Merrin picked the broken glass out of the frame so he could see the entire photo, but he cut his finger. Exasperated, he smashed the frame against the bedpost. Glass tinkled to the floor, revealing the groom. Merrin gasped and felt a momentary dizziness. Hand-in-hand with Sarah, dressed in a tuxedo and looking serious, was—

  A hand landed on Merrin’s shoulder. He spun with a shout of surprise. Chuma stood behind him, a shotgun tucked under his arm.

  “What’s happening out there?” Merrin asked.

  “The warriors are assembling in the hills,” Chuma said. “The sandstorm will give them equal footing with the soldiers. The British have rifles, but they can’t shoot what they can’t see.”

  “Sarah went into the church when the dome first was uncovered, didn’t she? Didn’t she? With her husband.” He turned the photo so Chuma could see it. “Anton Bession.”

  Merrin had been expecting disbelief or a floundering attempt at lying. Instead, Chuma looked mildly surprised. “No one told you they were married? Or perhaps you did not ask.”

  Realization struck Merrin like a bolt of lightning. The picture and its frame crashed to the floor. “We’ve been deceived, Chuma. Joseph’s not the one possessed. It’s Sarah.”

  Chants rose and spun around the fire as Sebituana, his warriors, and the other tribal leaders whipped themselves into a war frenzy. Dozens upon dozens of visiting warriors danced and shouted, forming a seething mass of angry bodies. Knives flashed in the firelight as they cut and slashed at each other with the blades, giving each other a hundred tiny cuts and whooping in ecstacy as their blood splashed the flames. Their resentment toward the whites grew. It went beyond Jomo’s death and the horror of Sebituana’s son. The anger went back to the gold mine, the fighting, the loss of land and life.

  “Remember the slavery,” Sebituana cried.

  “The slavery!” shouted the men.

  “Remember the slaughter!”

  “The slaughter!”

  “Remember our revenge!”

  “Revenge!”

  Above them, the sky became a violent, murky green.

  The wind intensified, carrying with it a stinging load of sand that burned the eyes of Father Will Francis, clogged his nose, and filled his mouth. Still, he was glad for it. The flying sand gave him extra cover as he circumnavigated the site to approach the church unnoticed by both Turkana warriors and British soldiers. Somehow he got the jeep close to the giant double doors without being noticed, prompting him to breathe a silent prayer of thanks. He shut the jeep off and gathered Joseph into his arms. The boy’s skin was hot with fever, and the lesions had gotten worse. Will’s heart was pounding hard enough to shake his shirt and make his Roman collar bob visibly, but he tried to move with confidence and faith. God was with him. God would see him through this. God would not abandon his servant.

  The moment Will entered the church, the air went still, though it carried a stench of blood and bowel. The area around the altar was slick with both materials. Dead crows littered the floor. Will couldn’t avoid treading on them. Their bodies crunched beneath his boots. He swallowed. He didn’t know exactly what had happened to Jefferies, but it must have been hideous.

  Joseph began to shake again. Another bestial moan emerged from his throat, and his teeth flashed white in the dim light. Will had a sudden image of Joseph snapping at his neck, tearing at the jugular. That urged him to hurry forward, passing the statues of the archangels huddled around the bloody altar…and failing to notice th
at the stone sword was missing from one of the Michaels.

  Will paused at the bloody altar with the top stone askew. Unusable for his purposes. Flies bounced off his head and neck. He hadn’t fully explored the upper structure, but he knew that most Byzantine churches put a baptismal font in one of the transepts—the short arms of the cross-shaped church. He checked in the north transept. Completely empty, except for a mosaic of a six-winged angel glaring at him from the wall. He checked the south transept, and there it was—a raised stone basin, easily large enough to contain a small child. Joseph’s shaking intensified, and Will had a hard time holding him. He placed Joseph in the basin.

  The boy vomited on him, sticky and green and steaming. Will leaped back with a cry. He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped off what he could, and tossed the handkerchief aside. Joseph went back to moaning in the basin, low, guttural sounds that echoed eerily around the church.

  From his other pocket, Will drew a purple stole wrapped around a bottle of holy water. He kissed the stole once, then draped it around his neck. A black feather, caught on an errant draft, brushed his cheek and fluttered to the floor at his feet. Will tried to clear his mind of everything but prayer. It was difficult. Could he do this by himself? He had never performed an exorcism, didn’t know anyone who had. He had read about them, of course, but the Vatican’s current policy was to treat requests for exorcism with psychiatric help. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Joseph was just sick. Maybe hyenas always ganged up on a single victim and ignored any others.

  Then he thought about the crows in the church and events at the clinic. No. Satan’s hand touched this place, these people, and the duty fell to Will to fight back.