Vicarious

by Jon F. Merz

  Lauren said nothing. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of old Church officials spreading the word that something evil was prowling the streets of Boston. She doubted Steve would be thrilled with the idea, either.

  “Sister McDewey, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “Don’t try to dissuade me, Lauren. I won’t have it.”

  “I won’t try. But I would like to ask you to hold off on informing anyone for forty-eight hours.”

  “There could be other victims in the meantime.”

  “Yes. Perhaps.”

  “Are you comfortable accepting responsibility for that? If I don’t tell the Bishop today and they are unable to act, those deaths would be on your conscience.”

  “I know that.”

  Sister McDewey sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot today, thought Lauren. “Very well. Two days. From now. If you don’t have something more concrete, then I will tell the Bishop. It’s lucky for you he’s still busy dealing with sexual abuse scandals or I’d be hard-pressed to accept your deadline.”

  A small victory. Lauren inclined her head. “Thank you.”

  “What will you do if you find this Soul Eater, anyway? You aren’t trained for dealing with the supernatural. Certainly not something as ominous sounding as a Soul Eater.”

  Lauren stood. “I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’m hoping that it can be killed with bullets. As is the homicide detective.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Sister McDewey. “I’ll expect to see you back here in two days’ time.”

  Lauren turned and headed toward the door.

  “Lauren.”

  She turned. “Yes?”

  “Have you given any thought to how you’ll find this Soul Eater?”

  Lauren could see the concern evident in the old nun’s eyes. The crows feet at the edges of her eyes had deepened and the creases by her mouth seemed firmer.

  “I don’t think me finding the Soul Eater will be much of a problem, Sister.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s had no trouble finding me.”

  Sister McDewey’s eyebrows lifted again. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Last night at the library, someone was across the street. Waiting for me. If my friend hadn’t shown up, I’d hate to think what might have happened.”

  “My God.”

  Lauren nodded. “One way or another, I’m starting to think that I might just somehow figure into this whole bizarre mess.”

  And God help me if that’s true, she thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Curran sat in the coffee shop on Newbury Street reading through the stack of files he’d pulled together on the various antiques dealers he’d spent the day interviewing. For some reason, his gut ached when he thought about them. Maybe his body was telling him there was a connection to the crime here, he thought. Maybe the Soul Eater is one of these people.

  He flipped through them, never really settling on any in particular. Most of them read the same: advanced college degrees, some type of money in their background, a lot of bachelors – some gay some not, and not really a lot that made any of them stand out to the degree Curran hoped.

  But one file was slimmer than any of the others.

  Darius Assiniya.

  It wasn’t just that he was a foreign-born national that had made finding things about him so difficult, there just didn’t seem to be very much information out there at all.

  Curran found that unusual.

  Especially when his gut ached even worse when Darius’ file surfaced at the top of the pile. Curran flipped it open and began reading the scant information the computers had spat out.

  According to several sources abroad, including a dispatch from Interpol, Darius Assiniya had been born in the 1950s. Location: unknown. Parents: presumed deceased. Siblings: none listed. Education: On record of having graduated from Oxford in 1966 with a degree in Ancient Religions.

  He’d moved around quite a lot. He’d lived a few years in the United Kingdom, in London and Manchester. He’d shown up in Germany, Italy, and Spain. Two addresses in Southeast Asia, including Thailand and the Philippines. He’d bounced over to Australia and then over to Kenya. From there he’d come north to Moscow before crossing the Atlantic and hanging out in Rio de Janeiro for a while. He’d finally worked his way north to the United States a few years back. There was a record of him entering the United States in Seattle, Washington.

  Seems more like the kind of lifestyle a career criminal would have rather than a normal person, thought Curran. But Darius had said his clients and products dictated his location. That much made sense.

  So what bothered him so much about the guy?

  He took a drag on his coffee and leaned back. He’d kill for a butt right now, but this was one of those new age hippie shops that catered to the VegeNazis and Soy Gestapo. Curran wouldn’t have even come in here at all if Lauren hadn’t called him an hour ago asking to meet him here.

  He stared out the window at the throngs of people shuffling past the murky windows. The skies had darkened again. Gray streaks bled into charcoal and blackness. He sighed.

  I hate this freaking month.

  A cool breeze swept over him and he instantly felt his adrenaline drip. But the front door had opened ushering in a taste of the cold from outside.

  Lauren came hustling over. “Hi.” She was out of breath. Curran smiled. She still looked so beautiful even when she was rushed.

  “You okay?”

  “Just cold.” She dropped into the chair opposite from him. Curran closed the files and pushed them to one side. He motioned for a waitress who came over.

  Lauren ordered a coffee and then leaned forward. “I had a meeting today with one of the administrators at the school.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She told me she’d have to inform the Bishop what was going on.”

  Curran frowned. “What gives her the right? This is a police matter.”

  “It might well become a Church matter, Steve.”

  He sighed. “I don’t like this.” The last thing he needed was a bunch of priests warning the populace about demons in the streets. Cripes it’d be a circus. The media spotlight would be unbearable.

  “Don’t worry.” Lauren looked pleased. “I got her to give us forty-eight hours.”

  Curran looked at her. “Two days? What the hell are we supposed to accomplish in two days?”

  She looked hurt. “I thought you’d be glad.”

  “I am. I am.” He shook his head. “Just wasn’t expecting a deadline so damned soon.”

  “Aren’t you getting pressure at work?”

  Yeah, right. Like anyone was going to bitch about a bunch of scumbags who’d gotten wasted. “No. In fact, I could let the cases ferment for years in the unsolved file and no one would give a damn. The only reason I am is because I know the killer is more dangerous than any of his victims.”

  She nodded. “Did you have any luck today?”

  “You mean aside from exhausting myself?” He shrugged. “Depends on how you define luck.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I spent the day interviewing a bunch of antiques dealers in the area. That’s not exactly a prescription for excitement.”

  “What on earth did you do that for?”

  “The souvenir from last night, remember?”

  She sighed. “The button. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “I’d want to forget, too.”

  “Did Dr. Kwon do the carbon-dating test?”

  Curran smiled and took another sip of his coffee. “Would you believe the bone is almost 30,000 years old?”

  Her eyes opened wider and Curran thought they looked even more brilliant. “That’s incredible.”

  “It was turned into a button much later. But the bone is that old. So, I figured that maybe someone with a real fetish for stuff like that would know about it.”

  “Did
you find anyone who fit the profile?”

  He shrugged. “A few of them had a thing for buttons, but no one had ever seen anything like what I showed them. Except for one guy.”

  “Yes?”

  “Got a shop over on Charles Street. Little place, but some interesting items in there.”

  “What did he say about the button?”

  “He knew the age the bone came from. Called it ‘agni-‘ something or other. Said it came from a region in Southern France. Amazing, huh?”

  “Maybe he specialized in that in school.”

  “Maybe,” said Curran. Outside, the sky gave way to more rain. He watched a few drops stain the white cement dark.

  “What is it?”

  He looked back at her. “Probably nothing. I’ve just got this feeling that there’s more to this guy than I can see on the surface.”

  “Your feelings are telling you something.”

  Curran looked at her. He could see the glimmer in her eyes. Hope. She wanted him so much to give in to his feelings. To listen. To learn.

  He sighed. “Yeah. Probably.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Maybe sit on him for a while. See what turns up.”

  “You mean surveillance, right?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. It’s just there was something there this afternoon when I saw him. Weird. Like some sort of connection. I didn’t go there with the intention of questioning him so much as just asking him to keep an eye out for something strange. But then we got to talking and the next thing I know, I’m asking to see his winter coat. Weird.”

  “He complied, of course.”

  “Be damned foolish not to. But even though nothing turned up, I couldn’t shake the idea that he was – I don’t know – almost mocking in the tone of his voice. Like he was the keeper of some great secret. Crazy, huh?”

  “Maybe not, Steve.”

  “Yeah, maybe he’s the Soul Eater. Maybe he’s the caretaker of some beast he lets loose upon the world at night.” He smiled. “I’ve been watching too many bad horror flicks.”

  Lauren’s eyes never left his. She seemed to be staring intently at him. “Seems to me that your intuition might be gaining some strength.”

  Curran nodded. “So we sit on him and see what happens next.”

  “You know if he’s really involved somehow in this, he might just be able to spot any surveillance.”

  “Yeah. But what other choice do we have? I don’t know too many people who can psychically monitor someone.”

  “Neither do I,” said Lauren. “But we might want to be real careful.”

  “Kwon and I will handle it. You’ve got other stuff to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like try to figure out what exactly this Soul Eater is trying to accomplish. Didn’t you mention that Sister Donovan’s last words were-“

  “-he lives best through the evil of others,’ yes. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those words as long as I live.”

  “Right. But what do they mean?”

  She shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

  “Tell me about Sister Donovan.”

  Lauren took a sip of coffee and then wiped her mouth on a napkin. “No one really knew her all that well. She’d been a missionary for years. Traveled all over the world. She told me the other night, before her death, that her husband had researched a lot of evil things in the world. Supernatural stuff. He died and she took over his research. Said she moved from place to place trying to piece together what her husband had been trying to accomplish.”

  “She say if she was successful?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about journals? She might have kept some type of diary. Maybe she wrote some of this stuff down somewhere.”

  “I thought that too but I found nothing at the library the other night.”

  Curran nodded. “So, maybe she kept it some place else. Maybe she felt like she couldn’t share this stuff with the powers that be. After all, how open is the Church to matters like this?”

  “Judging from how the nun I spoke with today took the news, they’re not all that well primed for it. Most of the Church administration is far too focused on dealing with the sexual abuse cases that have been pending.”

  Curran nodded. “As well they damned well ought to be.” He fought back the rising surge of anger and sighed. “So, maybe this old nun she was a lot smarter than anyone thought. Maybe she hid the journals.”

  “You think?”

  “Seen stranger things before.” Curran frowned. “Cripes, maybe the Soul Eater showed up over there the other night trying to find them himself.”

  Lauren’s eyes lit up. “My God, you really are starting to believe.”

  “I haven’t seen any alternatives that make a strong case. So if this is the way it comes down, I have to try and figure it out like a normal case. Just with abnormal ingredients.”

  Lauren seemed to be getting excited. “Maybe Sister Donovan hid them at her house then.”

  “Maybe,” said Curran. “Maybe the Soul Eater found them.”

  She slumped back. “That would be bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe he didn’t.”

  Curran nodded. “Always a chance she hid them well enough. Especially if she knew anything about what we’re dealing with. She might have known how to conceal it from this guy.”

  “I wonder if I can get in there,” said Lauren.

  “You want to go right now?”

  “We don’t have much time. Two days will be over before we know it.”

  “I’ll have to go watch that antiques dealer, though.” Curran frowned as the thought hit him. “You’d be alone.”

  Lauren bit her lip. “Yes. I would.”

  Curran reached into his coat and brought out the small automatic. He kept it in the palm of his hand and pressed it into Lauren’s hands. “You ever fire a gun before?”

  She looked down. “Once. I took a self-defense course that stressed real life knowledge and practice.” Her eyes seemed sad. “But I can’t take this. I can’t carry a gun, Steve.”

  “You’d rather end up dead?”

  She looked at him.

  Curran continued. “Look, you might not like the idea of the gun, but if you die and you’re not able to help fight this evil thing off, then wouldn’t you be even more responsible? You could use this to defend yourself and possibly save hundreds of lives.”

  “Most of those lives are pretty evil in their own right.”

  “Yeah. Yeah they are.”

  “But we’re all God’s creatures.”

  Curran smiled. “I was waiting for that.” He nodded. “Just tuck it away in your coat. You won’t even notice it. It’s a small .380. Carries six rounds. You know how to work a safety catch and all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Curran looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get going. Kwon’s going to be waiting for me.”

  “All right.”

  Curran stood. The pile of folders he’d been reading through when Lauren came in shifted. He saw it too late. His hands flew out trying to catch them, but they dropped to the stained linoleum floor. Papers and printouts scattered across the small area between their table and the one next to them.

  “Dammit.” Curran bent and started shoving the papers back into the folders. He and Kwon could take turns getting them straightened out later on. At least it would give them something to do.

  Lauren bent down. “Let me help you.”

  Her hand brushed against his. Curran looked up and met her eyes. She smiled. And kept her hand there. Curran smiled. Her skin felt so warm. He wondered what the rest of her felt like.

  He broke the contact. Gonna burn in hell for deflowering one of God’s women, he thought.

  “Steve.”

  He sighed. “Yeah?”

  “Who is this?”

  Curran glanced up. Lauren held a glossy p
hoto of one of the antiques dealers. “Let me see.”

  She handed it to him. Curran nodded. “This is that guy Darius I was telling you about.”

  Lauren’s eyes never left the photograph. “I think that was the man outside the library.”

  “How can you be sure? You said you only caught a glimpse of him. You said there was a mustache.”

  She took the photo and a pen out of her pocket. Curran watched her scribble across Darius’ upper lip.

  Lauren leaned back.

  “My God. It’s him.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The house looked different now, thought Lauren as she walked toward it.

  After she’d left Curran, she’d taken the train out toward Boston College. She’d walked slowly down the streets of this neighborhood, almost oblivious to the growing wind and ever present drizzle. But she did look behind her a number of times. Part of her almost expected to see the man again.

  Her stalker.

  What did the Soul Eater want? Lauren wanted to know the answer to that question worse than anything she’d wanted before. She stopped. What if the answer’s not good?

  She frowned. Of course it wouldn’t be good. The Soul Eater was a minion of the Devil. How could anything he wanted be good? It wouldn’t be. Better to just resign myself to the inevitable rush of horror that will happen when I discover what it is.

  If I discover it, she quickly corrected herself.

  She drew close to the front steps. There was no sign that anything had even happened here. No tape marks from where the police would have put up the yellow crime scene tape. After all, there was no crime scene. No bodies. No nothing.

  Darkness had fallen on the neighborhood almost an hour ago. Deep shadows bled out from the shrubs surrounding the small house. There were lights on in only one or two of the houses further down the street. Most of the people living close by weren’t home from work yet.

  Perfect.

  Lauren looked at the front door and frowned. It would, of course, be locked.

  There had to be another way in.