by Hopkin, Ben
And then they could see what lay ahead of them. It was a cathedral, its sweeping arches rising up to the height of the foundations of the Underground. A combination of wood and stone, the church was far more ornate than any other building here below the surface, a remnant of probable efforts in the 1800s to clean up a morally suspect city.
Stone gargoyles dribbled water down the face of the chapel, the tracks of its passage black in the dimly lit atmosphere. Its facade was pocked with windowless openings, from each of which blew an unholy blast of air. The low groan originated from inside the structure.
Trey whistled. “Yep. Triple A–rated for sure. ‘We’ll leave the light on for ya.’ Might as well be the Motel 666.”
As they approached, Trey stopped for a moment, peering more intently at the water draining down from the grotesqueries above. He stooped, scooping a finger through one of the dark puddles. It came back red.
“Yeah. That’s not water.” Trey peered up to the grinning creatures above, and a red drop landed on his forehead. “Ugh. Seriously?” He wiped his hand over his face.
Above the arched entrance, dark symbols bled their own drops, the trails meeting and flowing over and around the etchings on the stone. The letters removed themselves from the surface of the rock, dancing into Darc’s head, with traces of glowing light carving themselves into new patterns within his mind. The symbols knocked into one another, bleeding and merging together to form new ciphers. The newly formed glyphs flowed into place with ease, not fighting him at all.
“So,” Trey asked, “did he put the welcome mat out for us?”
The answer was clearly yes, but Darc had no time to inform his partner of this fact. The wind inside peaked, rattling the heavy wooden doors. And then, with no warning, the doors burst open, a gust of foul air hitting them both, along with a spattering of blood. Trey gagged and spat.
“Dude. Last chance for a beer and to bowl a few frames.” He looked over at Darc. “No? Okay, then let’s get this over with.”
They walked through the wide-swinging doors side by side, straight into the depths of the worst nightmare imaginable.
* * *
She heard the doors bang open, and she knew it was the tall man and his friend. Even though she had been sure he was coming for her, knowing he was here felt really good. Really, really good.
He was going to fix everything. He was going to make it all okay. He might even know how to get Popeye back from the bad man.
But she had to be careful. Super-duper careful. She couldn’t even look over to see the tall man’s shiny head. She wanted to. So much. But if she did, the awful thing would happen.
And that awful thing was so awful. It could never happen. Never, never, never. It was up to her. Daddy always said that she was brave. When she went to the dentist. When she was supposed to put her face under the water at swim lessons. When the monster would start coming out from behind the bookshelf in her old room.
She would start to cry, and Daddy would say, “It’s okay, sweetie. You are so brave. You are the bravest little girl I have ever seen.” And then she would stop crying and she would know she could do whatever scary thing she had to do.
This was a lot harder than the dentist or the pool or even the monster. There were so many bad things here. Scary things. Way worse than the monster from behind the bookshelf. Things that made her want to squeeze her eyes shut and never open them ever again.
But she was brave. She didn’t have her crayons or markers here, but even when she would just think of the tall man’s shiny badge, the drumming sound in her ears would slow down. So would the beeping clock next to her head. That was a good thing.
And now the tall man was here. He would save her. He would save everybody.
* * *
Trey was freaking out, big time.
Everywhere he looked, he saw a new horror. A new assault on the senses.
Before seeing all of this, Trey wouldn’t have called what the killer had done up to this point “understated.” But after only a few seconds of being inside this freaky church, that was pretty much where he was landing.
The deaths to date had been so many that Trey had stopped counting a long time ago. And brutal. So very, very brutal. But now the killer had landed firmly and undeniably in the realm of spitting in God’s eye. Trey couldn’t even take it all in.
“I gotta say it. I’m going to say it. God’ll forgive me for this one. What. The. Fuck.”
The once-pretty font at the entrance to the narthex was filled to overflowing with blood. The carved pictures of the saints around its surface had been defaced. Snakes curled around Christ’s hands, feet, and neck as he stood in what Trey used to call the holy pose, one hand over his heart, the other pointing toward what had once been the heavens but were now flights of demons overhead. The vipers had sunk their fangs into his flesh, the overflow of blood from the font looking like the figure of the Savior was weeping red drops.
The same bright and hot fire from the cemetery flared from cauldrons placed all the way through the cathedral, lighting the sick scenes around them with light that looked like it came straight out of hell. The glow washed over everything, giving the whole church a surreal feel like those paintings Trey vaguely remembered from college by that Spaniard dude with the awesome mustache and the crazy eyes. Surreal and totally psycho-sicko sick, sick, sick.
Torture devices that Trey hadn’t even known existed scattered themselves within the once-sacred chapel. An iron maiden sat, hinged wide to display the corpse sliced to ribbons within its jaws. A rack was placed in the central aisle, the body stretched way past the limits that Mother Nature intended.
In every nook and cranny, statues of the saints had been graffitied. Naked corpses of women draped themselves across the shoulders of Saint Matthew, making it look like the guy who wrote of one of the four Gospels was getting busy with wine-soaked floozies.
Saint Thomas was surrounded by figures with wings and horns, each one holding a tri-headed spear thrust into the body of the apostle. The devils were all laughing at the pain on the holy man’s face.
The stones used in the martyrdom of Saint Stephen were all carved with hideous faces, leering at the saint as they pummeled his flesh. The stones themselves were carried by statues of other saints ripped from their own alcoves, placed in sexual positions with one another, their sad faces totally at odds with what they seemed to be doing.
This was bad. This was so very, very bad.
The blasphemy probably wasn’t doing much to Darc. As far as Trey knew, his partner was neither a believer nor a nonbeliever. For Darc, it was all about what was happening in the moment, or where their killer was going next. Afterlife, schmafterlife.
But to Trey, this was like ripping his childhood out of his chest and then spitting on it. Everything that mattered to him, everything he believed in, was being degraded. And then there was the totally overwhelming loss of life. It was staggering. Everywhere he turned, another human life bled itself out in horror and suffering. It was almost more than he could bear.
Lifting his head, Trey found the worst of the worst above them. Corpses dangled by chains from the ceiling, huge industrial fans causing them to sway in the artificial wind, raining down gobbets of flesh and blood on the pews beneath. Occasionally one of the bodies would careen into the bared blades of the fan. The sound and spray from that contact were beyond description.
And ahead of them, on the altar within the chancel, lay the girl.
“Janey!” Trey shouted.
Although she wasn’t chained or strapped down, Janey didn’t move or even seem to notice their presence. Trey began to rush forward, but Darc placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping his movement almost before it started. Trey had no idea what the freak was going on.
“Dude? What the—?”
Darc pointed to several trip wires spread out at ankle level across the nave of the church. He then waved toward an LED display right behind the girl’s head. The numbers were counting down…4:54, 4:53, 4:52. Ok
ay. Yeah, that had been a good call. Trey turned back to thank his partner.
From the alcove behind the desecrated statue of Saint Matthew, a dark figure sprang toward Darc’s back, a metal meat hook glinting in the light from the fires. In the span of a gut-wrenching heartbeat, Trey’s pistol was out of its holster and pointed at the man’s face. He squeezed the trigger, slamming the attacker square in his center. The killer stumbled but kept charging forward, the hook coming dangerously near to his partner as he swung wide.
Trey fired again and again and again, hitting the killer straight in the chest, the shots clustered in a pattern that would’ve made his teacher back at the academy proud. He emptied his entire clip into the psychopath, still pulling the trigger well after all he heard were the clicks of an empty chamber. The assailant finally fell to the ground face up, twitching.
The man was heavily built, dressed in a dark blue canvas work shirt and Dockers, with heavy work boots. His face and torso were spattered in blood, some from the bullet wounds, but most probably from his victims. He sighed out a breath, blood and spit bubbling around his lips.
“Forgive…me.”
And then the light in his eyes was gone. The killer was dead.
“Holy mother of…” Trey breathed.
He stood there, stunned. He had saved his partner. He had put down pretty much the worst serial killer ever. This was…
Not right. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“Wow. That was way too easy. Right?” Trey glanced over at his partner, who remained where he had been, his face impassive as always. But even within that, Trey had a sense that Darc was…not shocked, so much…perplexed, maybe? His partner scanned the cathedral around them, as if he were looking for the next shoe to drop or something.
But there was nothing. Just Janey on the altar, with the beeping monitor ready to count down to zero in another four minutes or so. Speaking of which…
The two navigated the trip wires, stepping over and around them, hopping over the railing that separated the slightly raised dais of the chancel where the altar sat. Trey tucked the gun back into his holster as he approached the tiny form on the marble slab.
Janey lay as still as death on the altar, not moving a muscle. The only movement came from her breathing. Her very steady and deep breathing. Was she drugged?
The altar was the only thing in the whole freaking church that didn’t seem to be dripping blood. No defacements of the ornate carvings on the surface, no hideous pictures glaring out at them. The girl and the altar were completely pristine. Except, you know, for the beeping timer and stuff.
“Seriously, Darc,” Trey continued. “I mean, it couldn’t be that easy, could it?”
Darc kept peering around at the wires and electrodes attached to Janey, not even acknowledging the question. Trey ran his hand through his hair.
“Dude. Turns out he was just a wack job after all. Latin, Greek, and whatever the hell else, my ass. Beretta, baby.” Trey patted his gun. “That’s the language I speak.”
But before Trey’s enthusiasm could go any further, Darc pointed to the wires. Trey followed Darc’s hands as they traced from Janey to the beeping LED screen. He then continued on down to back behind and underneath the altar, pulling back the velvet draping to expose enough C-4 to blow the entire city block and then some.
Janey finally opened her eyes, her gaze latching on to Darc. A huge smile lit up her face.
And the counter on the bomb sped up.
Trey grabbed his hair, pulling hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “Oh, no, no, no! And I killed him. Aw, hellfire and damnation.”
Janey’s eyes shifted from Darc over to Trey and then back to the monitor behind her. The numbers sped up even more. There was nothing Trey could think to do.
“Oh, man. Oh, God. Oh, shit.”
“Calm down,” his partner intoned.
“What? But…How…How can I calm—?
Darc grabbed Trey’s arm, pulling him over to the altar. “If she can calm down, you can calm down.” He pointed at Janey.
Trey glanced at the girl, whose eyes were now shut once more, then looked back at the counter. It was slowing down. Darc pointed to the wires attaching Janey to the monitor.
“The counter is hooked to her heart rate.”
“Oh, Mary, mother of—”
“Calm, happy thoughts, Trey.” His partner was speaking in a level tone, like they were talking about baseball or the weather. Or like Trey was on a plump leather couch in his office, talking about his mother or something. Trey was done, man. Just done.
“Yeah, things are awesome. We’re in Satan-land, Seattle’s newest amusement park. Let’s go get a bucket of blood and a thigh burger before we go and hit the fan ride. Sounds like a freaking good time to me.”
So maybe Trey felt the slightest bit better after his little rant. That was, until Janey’s heart rate spiked again. Darc bent down to her, his face close to hers.
“Listen to me. Watch what I’m doing.”
Janey opened her eyes up again, her attention riveted on Darc. Trey’s partner began searching through his pockets.
“Dude. What the hell are you doing?” Trey knew to expect the unexpected with Darc, but what was going on here?
Finally, Darc pulled a marker out of his left inside breast pocket. He began drawing on the marble around Janey, tracing the form of a detective’s badge. Janey’s heart rate began to slow, coming back down to normal as his partner completed enclosing her in the protective drawing. Darc leaned close.
“I’m not going to leave you.”
Laughter echoed around the cathedral, bouncing off of walls, the ceiling, the floor, the demonic depictions of the saints. Janey’s monitor sped up again.
“What the—?” Trey swiveled his head around, looking for the source of the sound. “I killed him. He’s dead.”
The voice moved from the right side of them, to the left, then up. How was he doing that? Either he moved fast or he was throwing his voice. The disembodied words drifted down to them from up above.
“Do you think I’ve gotten his attention yet?”
The voice was distorted with frenetic passions coupled with dark despair. The laughter was enough to lift the hackles on the back of Trey’s neck. His hand inched closer to his gun, his fingers itching to fire a shot into the darkness from which the demonic voice spawned.
The counter was ticking down so fast, it was almost a blur. Darc looked up into the void and clenched his fist, seeming to listen, observe, and process all at once.
“You realize, of course, that Aristotle did not believe in the devil,” Trey’s partner calmly observed.
“But he did believe in the complete absence of good.” The voice floated down, this time from a different corner of the church. The sound of it was vaguely familiar to Trey. He could swear he’d heard it before. But the dark bite, the crazed intensity, the laughter? No. Trey would’ve remembered that. And the echoes weren’t helping things much, either. Darc repositioned his gaze to face the new direction.
“No. Aristotle did not believe in the absence of good. He said evil could never be scientifically proven.”
The laughter began again, the macabre sound vibrating through the chapel. Trey spoke out of the corner of his mouth to his partner.
“Um. Darc? Do you really think you should be insulting this guy’s knowledge base?”
But on the marble slab, Janey’s heart rate had diminished, returning to a semi-normal pace. Darc whispered under his breath, whether to him or to Janey, Trey couldn’t tell.
“Calm, happy thoughts.”
Once again, the maniac’s voice migrated to another part of the church, still up above, this time coming from behind them. Janey’s device beeped a little faster.
“All this.” The voice sounded proud and sad at the same time. “I have spilt more blood than Brutus and Cassius ever did. But has he appeared? Caesar flooded the Curia, but what have I done?”
Trey reached into his pocket and pulled
out a fresh clip, changing it out for the one he had emptied into…who? Not the killer, apparently. Accomplice? The guy Henry from the slaughterhouse?
Anyway, the extra ammo wasn’t going to do him much good. Every five seconds this psycho changed locations. The voice came from their left side now.
“More even than Judas. What did he shed? A grail’s worth, nothing more. I have surpassed him in all ways. But still nothing.”
The voice was growing louder, the distortion greater. The echoes bounced around the room, ricocheting off every surface they encountered and coming back stronger, more malevolent. Not to put too fine a point on it, Trey was freaking out.
“I’ve made the city streets slick with it. Babes have bathed in it. You know of what I speak, do you not, Detective? You can vouch for the veracity of my words. I’ve traveled the path Dante forged, but has he graced me? Has he graced me?”
The killer’s voice crescendoed up to a volume that felt like it was going to bust open Trey’s eardrums. That was it. He was sick of this.
“Show your face, and I’ll send you on the express, first-class, nonstop train to hell!”
The laughter again. Janey’s bpm skyrocketed.
“I want nothing with hell.”
Darc swiveled his head about, looking at the walls and their bloody symbols. He had the thousand-yard stare. Somehow, in this setting, that was comforting to Trey. The killer had no idea what was about to hit him. Darc raised his voice, his tone certain.
“You want purgatory.”
Then, from out of the sacristy, up close to where the choir would have been, strode Father John. He now wore full black robes that swirled around his feet, but his collar, instead of the standard white, was blood red. Trey backed away in disbelief. This could not be happening.
“What the—?” Trey sputtered. “I saw your head. It was boiling. Rolling around and stuff.”
Darc answered his question for him. “A wax replica. It would melt like flesh.”
Trey reached into his armpit for the gun in its holster. He lifted it up, pointing it in the pastor’s face.
“Had your last rites, buddy?”