The First Sacrament (The Demons of Stone Chapel Book 1)

by Duncan, Lex

  “Careful, Mr. Arturo.” The mayor said. “Keep it up and your face will get stuck that way. What would your legions of delusional fans do if something horrible happened to your pretty mug?”

  I fiddled with the tassels on the end of the altar silk and pretended to be very interested in the gold pattern stitched there. I didn't like the mayor. He was a liar and a crook and an asshole, but I had to admit...That was pretty good.

  “And who is this?”

  I felt the blood rush from my face, amusement dissipating to anxiety. How'd that saying go? It's all fun and games until you're the one being called out by the suspicious politician?

  Fortunately, Dante came to my rescue. As usual. “My protégé.”

  Protégé? I'd gotten an upgrade.

  The mayor made a vague noise. “Isn’t that nice.”

  “It’s super,” I muttered. So much for keeping out of their drama.

  “And your name?” He asked.

  I looked up. “Beatrice.”

  “Beatrice what?”

  “Todd.”

  “And you're in the demon business, Ms. Todd?”

  “Maybe.”

  Dante and I exchanged tense glances. I hoped I was saying the right things. Hoped I wasn't giving too much away.

  The mayor chuckled, rising to his feet. “You've trained her well, Mr. Arturo.”

  “I'm not his dog―”

  “―She's not my dog.”

  Once again, Dante and I looked at each other. The mayor looked at the both of us. Made another noise.

  “Of course you aren't, Ms. Todd,” he said. “I apologize if you thought I was implying such a thing.”

  “Weren't you?” I put my hand on my hip then immediately dropped it. Max was right. I'd been spending way too much time with Aralia lately.

  Mayor Bishop regarded me darkly, but his smile remained as Hollywood as ever. “You should be careful, Ms. Todd. Your friend here may seem like one of the good ones, but I have a feeling he hasn't told you everything.”

  Dante visibly tensed, his fingers twitching at his sides. “Your low opinion of me has nothing to do with our current conversation, Mayor Bishop.”

  “Low opinion?” The mayor repeated incredulously. “On the contrary, Mr. Arturo, I quite admire you. Though I think your acting talents may be put to better use in Hollywood, not my fair city.”

  I'd been pretty well following their conversation until now. Acting talents? Dante told me the other day that he’d never even seen The Exorcism of Mary Morton. It was only one of the best films ever made. He wouldn’t know acting if it punched him in the face.

  Dante sighed. It was a I'm Trying Really Hard Not to Murder You sigh. Sharper than his others. “The book, Mayor Bishop. It's important that I find it. If you happen upon it, please contact me. I would very much appreciate it.”

  The mayor straightened his jacket despite the fact that it was already perfectly aligned, then smoothed his hair back. “It must be important if you're so willing to work with me.”

  “It is,” Dante said dryly. “People are dying, Mayor Bishop. You may be willing to turn a blind eye as to why, but I'm not. Any assistance you give me could save lives.”

  “Yes, of course,” the mayor replied in the sort of voice I used when I didn't care about what the other person was saying. If he’d have rolled his eyes a little he would have pulled off a good imitation of me. “And while we're asking favors, would you do me a courtesy, Mr. Arturo?”

  Mr. Arturo looked like he'd rather swallow battery acid. “That depends, Mayor Bishop.”

  The mayor's smile returned and he clasped Dante on the shoulder as he walked past him to leave. “Call before you stop by my office again. We'll make a day of it.” He grabbed my hand and gave it a shake. “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Todd.”

  The feeling wasn't mutual.

  When he was gone, Dante crossed his arms over his chest and turned his gaze up as though he was asking the God why we had to run into the mayor, of all people.

  “Dante?” I asked after a beat.

  He finally looked at me. “I hate that man.”

  Sixteen

  If my life were a movie, I was finally hitting my training montage. In the weeks following our encounter with the mayor, Dante insisted I devote what time I didn't spend in school or the sanatorium to memorizing the different types of demons, to perfecting my aim, to studying the various seals and Sacraments. We spent our nights in his office, pouring over demonology textbooks and studying old letters he'd dug up from the city library. If we were going to accuse the mayor of possibly being in bed with the Devil, we needed more than theories. We needed evidence.

  That's where Max came in. Having recovered from his exorcism inflicted stab wound, he invited me down to his techie basement-lair when I wasn't with Dante and we surfed the internet for any and everything involving this so called “Solstice Earthquake.”

  The results were largely the same. Blah blah blah earthquake blah blah blah Stone Chapel blah blah blah solstice. Nothing Henriette hadn't told us.

  “We're going to have to join the CIA to get anywhere,” I complained, popping a potato chip in my mouth.

  Max squinted against the blue glow of his screens. He had four of them mounted on the wall, each one dedicated to a different website. Save for the last one. He'd been watching some sort of anime when I came down. “Someone really wanted this thing buried.”

  “You think?” I ate another chip out of frustration. Then another. And another. “It's stupid. People are gonna keep dying if we don't figure out what the hell happened.”

  He brushed the subsequent crumbs from his keyboard. “Have you and Dante found anything?”

  “Nope. Nothing. Either Henriette was doing some really good drugs at the time or no one else decided they wanted to write about the ritual sacrifice of a bunch of people at a church.”

  Can't say I blamed them.

  Max typed something and Armageddon Now popped up on the third screen. It felt like forever since I last logged on. “A little crowdsourcing couldn't hurt, right?”

  I shrugged. It was a long shot, but we were running out of short ones. “Guess not.”

  The stairs creaked in noisy protest as someone came down. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Look who finally decided to show up.” I twisted around my seat, offering Dante a smile and my chip bag. He'd been gone all day doing something he refused to tell me about. Top secret celebrity business. “Chip?”

  “No, thank you.” He gripped the back of my chair, leaning forward to frown at the monitors. “Have you found anything?”

  “Other than a recipe for pumpkin bread that calls for demon blood, nope.”

  His brow furrowed, mouth pinching at its sides. “That's disgusting.”

  “People'll do anything for a fix. Are you sure you don't want a chip?”

  “Yes, Beatrice, I'm sure.”

  “Does this sound okay?” Max asked, nodding to the third screen.

  I skimmed the contents of his post. Earthquake, Solstice, something about the church, Henriette's letter. “Sounds good.”

  “Post it,” Dante agreed. He straightened. “Beatrice, I need you to come with me.”

  “For what?”

  He walked back toward the stairs, knowing damn well I'd follow. How rude. “I'll explain on the way.”

  “I guess I'm leaving,” I sighed. I offered Max my chip bag. “You want this?”

  He shook his head, mouth set in a contemplative line. He had the Department of Demonology's website up on the first screen, a video of an exorcism on the second, Armageddon Now on the third, and his anime on the fourth. Clearly too occupied for chips.

  More for me, then.

  I met Dante at the top of the stairs. “Where are we going?”

  He led me into the kitchen and grabbed his coat off the rack by the door. “Three more bodies were found an hour ago.”

  “What?” That upped our count to eight. “Where?”

  He o
pened a nearby cabinet, selecting a bottle of iron pills and tossing it to me. “Your apartment building.”

  The bottle fell to the floor with a hollow rattle. “Excuse me?”

  “The victims haven't been identified as of yet,” he said, “but I'm told they each have a symbol branded on their stomachs. Which is why you need to take your iron.”

  Fighting against a sudden wave of nausea, I picked up the bottle. Downed my pills. Holstered my gun to my hip.

  Attacking me was one thing, but attacking the people in my building was another. This bastard—whoever or whatever it was—needed to pay.

  ***

  The police had the entire block sectioned off. Dante parked down the street and we made our way to the crime scene through a maze of caution tape and black and white cruisers, lights flashing brightly against the rainy evening gloom. The people who lived in the apartments across the way gathered at their windows to catch a glimpse of the action while an increasing number of bystanders flocked to the perimeter.

  Murder might have been more common in Stone Chapel than it was in other places, but it was still a spectator sport.

  “Oh my God,” one girl gasped as we walked by, “is that―”

  “Dante!” The girl beside her yelled. She waved from her place behind the tape.

  Three people were found dead in a building a few feet from where they were standing and all they cared about was getting an autograph.

  “Go home!” I yelled back. “It's dangerous here!”

  The girls exchanged confused glances. I saw one of them mouth “who's that?” before Dante pulled me along.

  “Ignore them,” he said.

  I pushed his hand away. “They need to leave.”

  “I agree, but they won't, so ignore them.”

  As we approached my stoop, an officer with glasses and a mustache blocked our way. “In case you haven't noticed, this is a crime scene.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No sh―”

  “The nature of this crime is demonic,” Dante cut in. “Therefore, I'm more than authorized to be here.”

  The officer frowned. Well, his mustache did. “Aren't you that guy from the papers?”

  Dante reached into his Mary Poppins coat, coming away with a leather wallet. He flipped it open, held it up so the officer could see. “I've worked directly with your department on several occasions.”

  Officer Mustache squinted at the wallet. I assumed it contained an ID card of some sort. “Arturo. Right. Chief wanted to talk to you.”

  “I'm aware,” Dante replied coolly, tucking the wallet back into his coat. “May we?”

  “She didn't say nothin' about a guest.” Officer Mustache eyed me warily. I had the creeping feeling that he was about to tell me to get off his lawn.

  Too bad, buddy, this was my lawn first.

  “I'm with Arturo over here.” I said.

  “She's with me,” Dante affirmed. He took a step up the stoop. “If you'll excuse us, we have a job to do.”

  “Fine, fine,” Officer Mustache moved aside, grimacing. “Hope you have strong stomachs.”

  That's exactly what I wanted to hear upon entering a crime scene. Thanks, Officer Mustache.

  We went inside and another officer met us at the bottom of the stairs. The lightbulb overhead flickered indecisively, the moldy scent of blood flooding my nose. I hadn't even seen a body yet and I already wanted to throw up.

  Dante shook the officer's hand. “Chief Morales. You wanted to see me?”

  She nodded. Her presence, combined with Dante's, made me feel a little better. She was exactly the sort of no nonsense cop you saw on TV. Her brown eyes were sharp, her dark hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. She had a gun on her hip and a stare that said she could kick your ass three times over and still come back for more. “I did. What we've got up there is brutal stuff. Not my line of murder, though. More your speed.”

  “Can you tell me what the symbol looks like?” He asked. “The one on their stomachs?”

  “Diamond. Big triangle enclosed in a circle,” she drew the shapes in the air with her finger. “Square in the triangle. Triquetra enclosed in a circle in the middle. Couple of lines on the bottom. That mean something to you?”

  Dante peered into the dark stairwell, made me think his calculating gaze saw something I couldn't. “It certainly does.”

  “Glad it means something to someone,” Chief Morales said. She sounded tired. “This girl with you?”

  “Yes, this is―”

  “Beatrice Todd,” I stuck my hand out like Dante had done. “I'm his partner. Sort of. And I used to live here.”

  Chief Morales responded in kind, giving my hand a firm shake. “Nice meeting you. Hope you didn't know any of the victims.”

  “Yeah, that would be...” Horrible? Awful? Terrifying? All of the above? “Bad.”

  She tried to smile, but I could tell it wasn't something she did often. “Coroner's still up there. If you have any more questions, ask him.” A pause. Her eyes darted from the flickering lightbulb to Dante's face. “Thanks again for coming. No one wants to admit it, but we need your help. We're way out of our league here.”

  “Thank you for letting me do my job,” Dante replied, a faint note of bitterness in his voice. When he spoke again, it was gone. “Were you on the scene of the last crop of murders? At the warehouse on Barton?”

  Chief Morales disappointed us both by shaking her head. “I was in New York. Personal business. Read the reports, though.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then started up the stairs. “The reports are wrong.”

  I sighed. Here we go again. Dante makes a dramatic exit and I had to follow because that's what sidekicks did. One of these days, I was going to switch it up. Make him follow me.

  Chief Morales wasn't impressed. “Hey, wait a minute! What's that supposed to mean?”

  “We'll explain later!” I promised. I tugged Dante's sleeve, said in a quieter voice, “we'll explain later, right?”

  “Focus, Beatrice,” he stopped at the top of the stairs. “We have a job to do.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I―...”

  The words faded from my lips once I realized the extent of what we were dealing with.

  The narrow hallway I once called home unfolded before us in a strip of darkness and gore. Blood streaked the walls and the lights were blown out, shards of glass speckling the floor. The smell―like corpses burned to a crisp―tied my stomach in knots.

  I lifted my shirt over my nose. “Oh my God.”

  “Come on,” Dante said.

  We proceeded slowly, checking each apartment for signs of damage. The doors were all standing wide open, offering glimpses into the lives of people I never bothered to know. Never bothered to care about. Except for one.

  A bald man in a blue jacket exited the last door on the left. Mr. Zarcotti's. “Dante. We've really got to stop meeting like this.”

  “Warner,” Dante said with ragged half-smile. “What have we got?”

  Warner the Coroner rubbed his forehead. “It's bad. Same sort of thing we saw at that warehouse. Only worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “Yeah, the...”

  I wasn't listening anymore. I needed to know. Needed to see for myself what exactly “worse” meant. Swallowing the bile at the back of my throat, I edged Mr. Zarcotti's door open.

  And what I saw nearly brought me to my knees.

  His bloated body and those of two others lay in the middle of the room. The man on the left was Marion. I would have recognized him anywhere. The woman on the right was burned so badly that any recognition was lost in the flames that scorched her. A bloody tapestry of seals painted the walls, with three of the five Sacraments represented. The ceiling was dominated by Creation, the floor by Exorcism, and the rest of the walls by Summoning. A small crucifix nailed to the opposite side of the door overlooked it all.

  Marion was an asshole but he didn't deserve this. That woman didn't deserve this. Mr. Zarcotti, with his cheerful smile
and constant reassurance that I'd make it through okay, didn't deserve this. No one did.

  “I'm so sorry,” I said, crouching beside him. I took his stiff hand in mine and squeezed. I hated the way death felt. Clammy, cold, final. Hated knowing his association with me was probably the thing that got him killed. “I'm so―”

  His hand squeezed back. His eyes, closed a breath ago, snapped open.

  They were black.

  Oh, shit.

  I tried pulling my hand away but since he was a fully grown man possessed by a demon, and I was, well...not, it didn’t work out as great as I’d hoped. “Let me go.”

  He didn't let me go. With a rough yank, he pulled me down so that he could whisper directly in my ear. His accent was gone, replaced by the rough growl of a demon. “He's coming.”

  “Beatrice?” Dante's lean shadow threw itself across the floor. “What―”

  I waved my free hand at him, hoping he knew enough social cues to understand when someone was trying to tell him to shut the hell up. “Who's he, Mr. Zarcotti?”

  Demons were unpredictable. That's part of the reason why they were so scary. They could go from talking to you one moment to killing you the next, which is what I supposed Mr. Zarcotti was doing when he shoved me over to charge at Dante. I'd never seen him move so quickly before. A man his size wouldn't have been able to without help. The demon possessing him had to be powerful. So powerful that it managed to catch the world's greatest demon hunter off guard.

  Dante hit the wall with a soft oof, Mr. Zarcotti's hands wrapping like beefy manacles around his neck. Warner the Coroner scrambled uselessly away from grappling men, yelling about how he thought Mr. Zarcotti was dead.

  “Does he look dead to you?” I grabbed my gun and aimed it squarely in the middle of my former neighbor's back. I knew what I had to do. Pull the trigger. Kill him. Again. But shooting a possessed dog was different from shooting someone who used to make you spaghetti all the time. It almost felt like murder.

  Almost.

  Mr. Zarcotti wasn't Mr. Zarcotti anymore. He was a slavering behemoth whose body served as a vessel for a murderous demon. And for that, he needed to be put down.