by J. R. Mabry
The radio crackled and hissed. “Says Caroline won some prize.”
“What did she win?” asked the presumed Mrs. Olivo.
“She won a new car. A Tesla,” Evans said.
“Nice job,” Richard said aloud. Evans was doing well.
“I’ve…always wanted a Tesla…” Mr. Olivo said. Richard had no idea what Mr. Olivo looked like, but his mind’s eye summoned up a picture of a slight, Italian man with full lips, thinning black hair and a pencil-thin mustache, his eyes focusing on the distance, almost trembling at the thought of that new car.
Richard cast about and saw a mop leaning on the railing where it joined the house. He crawled over to it and snatched it up, waving the mop about. No gunshots followed. “It’s now or never, Toby. Stay right here.”
Richard sprang up, then dashed down the stairs, running full tilt toward the garage. As he ran, he heard Evans’ voice, “We have to deliver notice in person, and Miss Lessing doesn’t seem to be home. We were wondering if we could leave the notice with you?”
At the basketball net, Richard jumped, snatching the scrap bearing the activated sigil from off the hoop. As he pulled it, a medium binder clip snapped off as well, clattering to the pavement.
“Uh…of course,” Mr. Olivo said.
“You know, maybe we could just leave the car with you?” Evans said. “How would that be?”
“Oh, that would be even better,” Mr. Olivo said.
Richard raced for the safety of the porch railing again. He dove up the stairs and rolled behind the railing. He turned and rested his back against it. Tobias’ tail was pounding against the railing on his side. “Good boy,” Richard said. He was afraid that Toby would follow him, but whether due to the dog’s innate intelligence, or the loaned intelligence of the angel inside of him, he had stayed put and safe.
Without hesitation Richard pulled a lighter from his pants pocket and held it below the sigil. The scrap of paper caught, curled, and crackled. Richard let go of it when the flame got too high. A howling scream pierced the air. Richard shuddered.
“What…what are we doing?” Richard heard Mr. Olivo say.
Richard breathed a deep sigh of relief. He rose and slung his rifle back over his shoulder. He switched off the radio and walked into the kitchen. He held his hand out to Rachel. Her eyes were brimming and her jaw trembled. “What happened to us?”
Richard was sure that she remembered the events that she had just witnessed. He took her to mean something deeper. Something like, “Whatever could have possessed us?” Richard stood his ground until she reached up and grabbed his hand. He raised her to her feet.
“Rachel, I can’t begin to fathom what you have been through or what you are feeling. But this is what we need to do right now. We need a sheet for Ben. Then we need to go over to the Olivos and get your children.”
“But they’ll shoot us,” she said.
“No,” he said, trying to sound as certain and reassuring as possible. “No, they won’t.”
He helped Rachel to her feet, and was taken aback when she threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. He paused long enough to give her a firm hug, even though his brain was screaming for them to hurry, to get on with it. This little diversion has taken up way too much time, he thought. Every minute we delay is another minute we are not destroying sigils.
She let him go, and he put his arm around her shoulders protectively. “Come on, let’s go.” Richard could hear Tobias trotting after them as they crossed the living room to the front door. Richard pulled the door open and pushed at the screen. Tobias burst past them into the open air, almost tripping Rachel. Richard steadied her, and together they descended the few steps in front of the porch.
Rachel seemed to be in too much shock to walk more quickly than she was—which was little more than a slow shuffle. “I can’t,” she said, finally slumping to the ground.
“Rachel, we’re going to get your children.”
“His head just…exploded,” she said.
“Yes, I saw it, too.”
“It was like the back of his head came off and sprayed itself across the wall.”
“It was…just like that, yes.”
She started hugging the lawn now. Richard pulled on her arm. “Rachel, we need to…” But she wasn’t budging. Instead, she was sobbing, clawing up fistfuls of soil, grinding her head back and forth on the grass. Then she began to wail.
Richard sat back on his haunches and looked at her. Then he looked at Tobias. The dog watched the woman with what seemed to be understanding and sympathy. Then Toby looked at Richard, and his tail swooped back and forth lazily a couple of times. “Okay, Toby, let’s go get the kids. Maybe seeing them will help her.”
He turned and started walking toward the corner with Toby at his heels. Am I being insensitive? he wondered. It seemed to him that he was just focused on what needed to be done. Still, his heart went out to her. She had witnessed a terrible thing, and it would take a long time—perhaps years—to heal from the trauma of it.
They turned right at the corner and Richard saw the Olivo’s house for the first time.
The front door was open. Richard sprang up the steps impatiently. He was anxious to put this little diversion behind him and get back to finding more sigils. He was about to cross the threshold when Tobias barked. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at the dog. Toby had stopped about four yards from the door and was sitting down.
Richard nodded and waved for the dog to stay put. Much more cautiously, he approached the door. Toby whined, but he continued. The first thing he saw upon entering was the body of officer Evans. A dark stain on the chest of his uniform was spreading. His eyes were open but sightless. His mouth was open but silent.
Richard unslung his rifle again and checked to make sure the safety was off. “Martinez?” he said tentatively. There was no answer. He stepped carefully over Evans’ body and, holding the rifle at the ready, burst suddenly into the living room. He took one glance and ducked again behind the corner in the foyer.
Martinez and an older man had been standing at arm’s length from each other, both pointing guns, and a woman was lying on the floor. Richard had not gotten a good look at her, but he assumed that she was dead.
“Okay, guys, I’m going to step out again in just a second,” Richard called. “I won’t be armed. Don’t shoot me, okay? I just want to talk to both of you.” He leaned the rifle against the corner where the wall met the door. “Martinez, okay?”
“Yeah, I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Mr. Olivo, I’m a priest. I just want to talk to you. Please promise me you won’t shoot me.”
“A…a priest? Oh…okay, I won’t shoot,” Mr. Olivo’s Italian accent was thick, but he was easy to understand. “I’m not making promises about him, though.”
Richard assumed he meant Martinez. “Okay, that’s fine. I’m coming out now.” Richard raised his hands and stepped into the open.
He looked down at the woman. He saw a messy exit wound near her temple, about the size of a quarter. His eyes snapped back to to Martinez and Mr. Olivo. “So, I assume you killed Officer Evans, Mr. Olivo.”
“He was going to arrest me!”
“I don’t think he was,” Richard said.
“And now this one is going to arrest me!” The pitch of Mr. Olivo’s voice rose with his level of panic.
“Mr. Olivo, no one is going to arrest you.”
“Don’t you lie to me. He has to arrest me! I just killed a polizia!”
“No, he doesn’t. In ordinary times yes, but these aren’t ordinary times. Mr. Olivo, please lower your weapon.”
“He killed my wife!” Mr. Olivo’s face screwed up as he fought back tears.
“Martinez, what happened to Mrs. Olivo?” Richard asked.
“She lunged at me,” he said. “I told her to stand still!”
“She didn’t lunge at you, she was running away from you!” Mr. Olivo countered.
“You don’t run away
from someone by running toward them!” Martinez countered.
“There is only one door to this room, and she was trying to go through it. She was trying to go past you, not at you!”
“Could that be possible, Martinez?” Richard asked.
“That’s…possible,” Martinez said. “But that’s sure not what it seemed like in the moment.”
“That seems possible, too,” Richard said. “Both of you, I want you to listen to me. You have both suffered a terrible loss. Senseless, unnecessary losses. But we don’t need to have more of them. I want to see both of you lower your weapons. At the same time now, on the count of three. One…two…three.”
Both looked from Richard to the other uncertainly but neither lowered their guns. Richard sighed. “Oh, good lord. Fuck you both, then. Where are the children?”
No one answered, so Richard started toward a dark hallway leading further into the house. He realized he didn’t know the children’s names—or their genders or ages. I don’t know anything, really, he thought. That stopped him for a moment, but no longer. He opened the door to a bedroom, but it was empty.
As he closed the door, he heard two shots in rapid succession. “Oh, Jesus,” he said out loud, leaning against the hallway wall. “Anyone left?” he called out. No one answered. “Oh, Jesus,” he said again.
He opened the door to the next bedroom and stuck his head in. Two children cowered in the corner of the room, their limbs entangled, clutching at one another for comfort and courage. “Hey,” Richard said in a calm voice. Their eyes were wide. The younger child, a little boy, was visibly shaking. The older child, a girl of about seven, clutched his head to her breast protectively.
“The man and woman who took you are gone now. I’m going to take you to your mother. Will that be okay?”
Although it seemed impossible, their eyes got even wider at the mention of their mother, and they began to well up with tears. Richard walked around the bed and squatted down on his haunches a couple feet from them. From behind the little boy’s back, the girl raised a gun, her hand shaking so hard it was a blur, its chamber clacking like a straight key tapping out Morse code.
Richard instinctively backed up. The gun exploded.
75
The large metal gate rolled back, filling the chamber with the sound of echoing thunder. Dylan jerked upright, his limbs straining against his restraints and his eye bulging. Mayor Betts stepped through the gate, followed by Milo.
“You must be Mr. Melan—Melan—”
“Melanchthon,” Milo said.
“Melanchthon…that’s an unusual name.”
Dylan was about to cuss the men out, but he thought better of it. Ya catch more varmints with honey than vinegar, he reminded himself. “Mah wife picked it out,” Dylan said to the man. “When we got married.”
“Really? Neither of you were born with that name?”
“Nope. We decided to pick a new name fer us both. She wanted to be named after someone she admired. So we took the name of Philip Melanchthon.”
“Er…and who was he?”
“Martin Luther’s right hand man,” Dylan said, his eye moving from one to the other warily.
The man waved his hand dismissively. “No wonder. I never really studied the civil rights movement.”
Dylan scowled. “Uh…don’t suppose you could let me know why Ah’m here?”
“I certainly can. First, though, I think some introductions are in order. I’m the mayor here in Alameda, Tom Betts. You can just call me Tom. Can I call you Dylan?”
Dylan nodded.
“And this is my secretary, Milo Richards.” Milo gave him a curt nod.
“Nice t’ meet you both. Ah’d shake yore hands, ’cept mah hands seem to be mysteriously immobile.”
“We apologize for that, Dylan. I understand why you might think us inhospitable. But I assure you, it’s just a precaution.”
“A precaution against what? The likelihood that Ah might need to scratch mah ass?”
Betts smiled weakly but did not answer. “I’ve been talking to your wife.”
“Is she okay?” Dylan jerked up again.
Betts patted the gurney. “She’s fine, she’s fine. She’s consulting with us, along with your colleague, Mr.…”
“Father Terry, Ah think you mean,” Dylan corrected him.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Father Terry is training some of our volunteers, and your wife, uh…” he said, snapping his fingers.
“Susan,” Milo whispered.
“Your wife Susan is taking care of that adorable little girl of yours,” Betts said.
“Is she now?” Dylan’s eyebrows raised.
“Yes, so please relax. All is well. The people you love are safe. The people on this island are safe…for now. I’d like to keep them that way.” Betts took another step closer to Dylan. If he’d wanted to, he could have reached out and touched Dylan’s face. “I’d like you to help me with that.”
“Ah would do anything Ah ken to help,” Dylan said. “An’ I would’a done it without the skullduggery or the restraints.”
“I understand you know something about demons.” The mayor cocked his head and waited.
“Yeah, Ah know about ’em. That’s mah job.”
“And you know how to control them?”
“Ah’m familiar with the basics of all the major grimoires,” Dylan answered, one eyebrow raised. “Goetia is really Richard’s speciality, but Ah’ve got a workman’s knowledge of it.”
Betts laughed nervously. “You know, until yesterday, I didn’t think that demons actually existed. The little meeting I had with your wife and Father Terry was…well, it was quite an eye opener for me.”
“I woulda liked to have seen that mahself. Do ya’ll have any morphine?”
“Do you need morphine?” Betts’ eyebrows raised.
He actually looks concerned, Dylan noted. He lowered his eyes. “Nah, not really. Ah think Ah was just lookin’ fer a consolation high.”
Betts and Milo exchanged puzzled glances. Betts turned back to Dylan. “Tell me about how powerful demons are.”
“Ya got eyes, dontcha?” Dylan said. “Ya got two of ’em! Ya know, Ah don’t think Ah was ever properly grateful for mah eyes. You sort of take ’em fer granted. Ah mean, have you ever prayed, ‘O Lord, thank you fer mah two good eyes’? Ah’ll bet ya haven’t.”
“Um…I don’t suppose I have.”
“Well, ya should.”
“Yes, well, about the demons?”
“The East Bay is burnin’ and yer askin’ ‘Are they powerful?’ Dude, how much more power d’ya wanna see?”
“Are they powerful enough to protect this island?”
Dylan blinked. His mouth opened to speak, but he closed it. Then he looked down at his legs. “Oh, Jesus. D’ya want me to make a list of all the ways that’s just wrong?”
“Humor me. Can you summon a demon or two to keep the Oaklanders at bay?”
“First of all, let me point out that you are suggesting we summon a demon to fight other demons.”
“All right, I suppose I am. So?”
“Mister, d’ya think they don’t talk to each other?”
It was Betts’ turn to blink. “I don’t understand.”
Dylan sighed, not sure where to begin. “Okay, let’s get one thing straight. Ain’t no demon gonna be yore friend. If you compel a demon to do somethin’ fer you, ya better be watchin’ yore ass, because the demon is gonna find a thousand and one ways to bite it.”
“And why is that?”
“’Cause no one likes to be told what to do,” Dylan said, with a tone that implied that Betts was an idiot.
“All right. We have to use precautions. That sounds reasonable anytime you are dealing with a powerful weapon, doesn’t it, Richards?” Milo raised his eyebrows and nodded encouragingly.
“Second, demons are a lot better organized than ya think,” Dylan continued. “They’re military. An’ their code is hella strict. So you might get a private t
o do yore bidding, but you can bet his general knows about it and is workin’ that into his overall game plan. And you can bet yore ass that game plan is not gonna work out in yore favor.”
“Given that half of me thinks this is nonsense anyway, I’m willing to take that chance,” Betts said, standing up a little straighter.
“Ya know who you remind me of?” Dylan asked.
“No. Who?”
“Them crazy Church of Satan motherfuckers,” Dylan said. “Ah’ve known a few of ’em. They get a boner fer raisin’ demons, thinkin’ how cool they are, raisin’ demons and shit. An’ the fact is they have almost no idea what they’re doin’ and it’s like they’re six years old pokin’ a beehive with a stick. ‘Let’s see what happens if we poke this a little harder’ they say, until they get swarmed by bees and swell up like a turnip. Fuckin’ turnips.”
Betts looked confused. “I think I might have lost the thread of your analogy.”
“Never mind. Look, the point is you got no clue what yer dealin’ with here, and it’s gonna bite you in the ass if yer not careful.”
“But you’ll do it.”
“Like hell Ah will.”
“Oh, you will do it, Mr. Melanchthon.”
“Uh-oh. Are we no longer on a first-name basis?”
“You’ll do it because you’ll stay here in your present condition until you do. And it does get cold at night. Plus,” he leaned over until his nose was almost touching Dylan’s own, “it would be unfortunate if something were to happen to that little girl of yours—or your wife.”
“You slimy motherfucker.”
“You have a salty tongue for a priest.”
“You have no idea. Ah have not begun to cuss, mister.”