Dead silence.
Donovan started to wonder if he’d overplayed his hand when everyone began talking at once. Mike Quentin, the captain from the 28th Precinct, who looked like a young Morgan Freeman, spoke the loudest. “You’re telling us those people are devils from Hell? And we’re fighting to stop the end of the world?”
Yes. “I’m not ‘saying’ it. I’m telling you they believe it.”
“Mister Graham,” Clark interrupted. “In 1890, the tenets of a Lakota Sioux religious cult held the ‘ghost shirts’ their ancestors gave them would make them bulletproof against the U.S. Cavalry at Wounded Knee. They didn’t. Why does it make a difference to us what they believe?”
“Their beliefs dictate their behavior. Even though the Lakota Sioux weren’t bulletproof, they attacked as though they were. How many cavalrymen could have been saved if they’d understood that? This has less to do with your reality than their perception. The key to beating them is to understand their perceptions and exploit them.”
“What perceptions?” Devine asked.
“Valdes has been feeding them drugs and liquor all day. They have a very high tolerance for pain and very low threshold for reason right now. They’ll follow their beliefs before they take time to think things through. They believe themselves invulnerable to most things but vulnerable to others, and will respond accordingly. For instance, they’re a Christian cult; certain symbols of Christianity will be effective.”
“Like crosses?” Darenelli sneered. “You want us to go in with wooden stakes, too?”
His tone of voice gave Donovan flashbacks to his father, but he resisted arguing. “It’s not about what I want, it’s about what they believe. If you understand it, not only will you have a better chance of rescuing my fiancée, you’ll have a much better chance of surviving this. So no, they’re not afraid of wooden stakes. But they are afraid of wrought iron,” he held up the spire, “like this.” The fact that it looked like a weapon—it was about three and a half feet long and painted black—gave him confidence he could sell it. “As it happens, the Parks Department has stacks of them for a fence they’re looking to build. If you equip your men with these you will definitely have the advantage if or when you go hand-to-hand.”
Clark shook his head, dismissive. “I can certainly accept these people believe they’re devils, but are you saying the only way to defeat them is to treat them as though they are? To use iron fence spires instead of our standard weaponry?”
“Not ‘instead of,’ in addition to. They also fear holy water, so—”
“So why not get some squirt guns, too?” Darenelli scrubbed his head with one hand. “Look, I don’t know why we have to complicate this with talk about devils and cults and iron bars. After what we just saw, there is no way I’m going into a whole mob of them armed with something designed to keep dogs off the grass. I have a hard time justifying anything besides bullets, and plenty of them. If it’s true they took out the Central Park Precinct, let’s send ’em to meet whoever they worship as fast as we can.”
Murmurs of agreement ran through the group.
“They aren’t afraid of guns. If you shoot at them, they’ll keep coming. If you come after them with an iron bar, they’ll hesitate, they’ll back off.” Donovan withheld as much urgency as he could from his voice. “You’ve seen what they’re capable of. When you try to stop them, they’re going to throw everything they have at you, up to and including suicide attacks. If you have these—”
“Thank you for the strategic advice, Mister Graham,” Clark cut him off. “We’ll certainly keep it in the mix as we prepare. I think your fiancée will have a much greater chance of survival, though, if we stick with tactics and weaponry that have been developed and tested over time. Scary make-up and drug-induced rage are no match for the firepower we’ve assembled.”
Captain Matz took the spire from Donovan’s grasp and hefted it. “What is this, about five, ten pounds? That’s a lot of extra weight when you’re trying to move fast.” He handed it back. “Sorry, Mister Graham. I’m inclined to agree with Special Agent Clark, too. But my men will keep an eye out for your lady.”
Donovan’s mouth tightened. He noticed and consciously relaxed the tension. “Thank you, captain. I appreciate that. I saw her on one of the video feeds. Wearing a white dress, tied to a tree at the north end of the Lawn.”
Before he could go on, Fullam nudged his arm. “Are there any other questions?” he addressed the circle. With cursory shakes of the head and nods of thanks, they turned back to their planning. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen.”
“Good luck,” Donovan added, before the sergeant steered him away. “What’s going on?” he asked. “That’s it? That’s all I get?”
“Here and now, yeah. You did what you could. Go wait with Maurice.”
Donovan looked at the spire, taking strange comfort in its weight in his hand. “What’s the hurry? Maybe I can—”
“Go wait with Maurice,” Fullam repeated, pointing his chin at a dark gray Lincoln that had just pulled up near the 60th Street subway entrance. “And keep your head down.”
Donovan recognized the car from Newark Airport. Yarborough. “Got it.” He held the spire out of sight and started to walk away. “I’ll see you over there.”
***
As tightly as Joann clung to unconsciousness, the wailing around her finally grew too loud and too pained to avoid. With a groan she forced her eyes open. Darkness kept the night air slightly opaque, allowing her to see shadows but not differentiate too many details. She had never felt so alone.
A ring of odd-shaped torches was being lit in a circle in front of her, and she could see a recognizable figure moving around them. “For the love of God, Faustus, put those people out of their misery!” she cried. “Don’t you have any mercy in your soul?”
Faustus paused from his task and started to turn and respond when an amused voice got there first. “Well that’s a bit of a problem,” Valdes said, coming around from behind the tree to which she was bound. “He hasn’t got a soul. At least, not here and now.”
“Stop it! Stop lying! Faustus was just a story!”
“Was it?”
She saw Coeus step out from behind the tree in her peripheral vision. Valdes turned and spoke to him. “As I was saying, at this point she’s become somewhat delusional; she maintains the conceit that she can affect the outcome of tonight.” The giant nodded and, without speaking, stepped closer as if to study her. “But I think you’ll agree, a Vessel of great beauty. And she is a force for good, or at least she tried to be. She was a prosecutor for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.”
The giant extended a black-gloved hand. Joann flinched. What happened to him? He showed a small, almost shy, smile and used his index and middle fingers to turn her face to him. She refused to meet his eyes, staring at the ground, trembling. The sounds of suffering reached a crescendo as a woman somewhere screamed over and over, her voice growing hoarse until finally all they could hear was desperate whimpering.
Tears streamed down Joann’s cheeks. “I’ve dealt with criminals for years,” she said, still looking down. “All of them, even the worst of the killers, have had some humanity. But not you. There is no greater good that can be served by this, this slaughter.”
“‘Greater good’ depends on your perspective. I sacrificed twelve people for my resurrectus maledicat; however, I made every effort to select only those who offered little or nothing compared to what I will bring to society. On balance, I know I did the right thing.”
“You corrupted Coletun, and all these people—”
“I forced no one. I gave people a choice, and when options are available, people will do what they want. I would have thought your time in the justice system would have taught you that.” Valdes laughed. “You aren’t telling me you’re shocked by their behavior?”
“Coletun is nine years old! He has no capacity to make that kind of choice!”
The giant glanced up. “Sh
e’s got you there, Neil.”
His voice wrapped her in the folds of a funeral shroud. Joann snapped her head around and looked into Coeus’s face. In the spiraling galaxies of his eyes she saw indescribable agonies, losses and defeats of cosmic proportions that drained all life and vitality from her, replacing them with only the darkest human emotions. Hopelessness sucked her down, stealing the only strength she had left, that of righteous anger. Donovan, where are you…? She sagged against the tree. “What are—you…aren’t real…”
“I am, actually.” Her despair energized him, lighting his features. “And this is reality.”
Joann swung her head back towards Valdes; anything was better than to be trapped in the giant’s gaze.
“Beautiful, spirited, and,” the giant’s nose wrinkled in a hideous parody of delicacy, “she stinks of love. She’s an excellent choice, Neil.”
“Thank you.”
Donovan. Please, help. Please come… His name was a life preserver and she clung to it, but it was small comfort in the vast, dark ocean of the giant’s eyes.
He put his face next to her ear. “Hold tight to your life preserver, Joann.” She turned her head to gaze at him, eyes popped in shock. “Because once you let go and find despair, you’ll never recover your faith.”
TWENTY-THREE
CATCH A DEVIL BY THE TOE
Donovan walked close enough to his motorcycle and the stack of iron spires so that Father Carroll could see him, then angled his head and followed the southern curve of Columbus Circle. He paused behind an unmanned fire truck, exhaled, and stared at the neon signs above him while he waited for the priest.
“It did not go well.” Father Carroll’s words were not a question.
“I gave them the information, but I don’t think I convinced anybody.”
“Will it be enough?”
“Going to have to be.”
“Clearly you don’t think it is.” Father Carroll touched his shoulder. “You did as much as you could under the circumstances facing you. For better or worse, that’s what life is, Donovan.” He glanced at the shadows of the park. “The police will do what they do. We’ll try to help them, but we have a higher priority.”
“Joann.”
The priest regarded him for a moment without saying anything. “The summoning of Mephistopheles,” he began, “is a very real possibility. We cannot allow the Prince of Darkness himself to be called here, now.”
“When we save Joann,” Donovan replied levelly, “he won’t be. If she’s not there, they’ll have no host body, no Vessel for him. She’s tied to a tree at the north end of the Great Lawn, next to some kind of stage that Valdes has set up.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Working on it.” Donovan chewed his lower lip. “So far we have blessed iron spires to fight them. I told the captains holy water would work, too.”
“It will. Find some water and I’ll bless it.”
“Then that’s two weapons.” Why don’t I feel any better? “What have you got?”
Father Carroll lifted his gym bag onto a step along the fire truck’s side. “‘For Jesus said unto him, ‘Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.’ And He asked him, ‘What is thy name?’ And the man answered, saying, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’” His eyes sharpened. “We face a similar situation here. That possession was of one by many, while what we face here is many by many. The traditional Rite of Exorcism would be ineffective for the simple fact that it is geared towards a one-on-one situation. However.” He went into the bag. “Through certain channels I was able to procure something that should serve our purposes well, a prayer that has roots in that passage of Scripture I just recited.” Father Carroll produced a rolled piece of paper. “The Vatican archives have a great many things to use in the struggle against evil. One of them is this: the Orison of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. A purification benediction of great potency.”
“Someone faxed you a medieval super-prayer?” Donovan allowed himself the luxury of being totally baffled for only a moment before adjusting his perspective. Reality is flexible. “What does ‘purification benediction’ mean?”
“Essentially, what it says. A benediction is a blessing; ‘purification’ refers to the intensity of the prayer’s strength. Raymond Nonnatus was a saint who devoted most of his life to the redemption of captives. His canonization was supposedly confirmed by his transcription of this prayer, which redeemed the possession of one section of Cardona, the Spanish city from which he came. You might compare it to a concentrated Rite of Exorcism. It will take almost a minute to recite once, but from what I’ve been told about the cumulative effects of constant repetition…know we don’t enter this struggle unarmed.”
Donovan felt the weight of Fullam’s Glock in his belt. “Never thought that. But even if the Orison is as effective as we hope, how do we use it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Could you recite it over the area where the possessed are? Like if we got you to that stage somehow. If you said it over the Great Lawn—as an exorcism ritual, would it cleanse the possessed? Purify their souls?”
Hope flickered in Father Carroll before being overcome by anxiety. “They’d have to stay and listen. An exorcism can’t work without the possessed present. Could the police hold them all in hearing range?”
“Not without the iron bars.” Damn. “What about the source? Can we go to it?”
“Mephistopheles?”
“The Cancer Hospital. That’s where the darkness came from.”
“Infernal portals are dangerous creations. One doesn’t just kick over a few candles and expect everything to go away. The energies that create and hold a portal open are quite vast. Consider the death and destruction it took to open this one.” Father Carroll thought about this, scholastic curiosity now supplanting anxiety. “Generally speaking, one must use the proscribed rituals to close a portal before mucking with it. To do otherwise would be akin to dynamiting a dam on Central Park West.”
“What if you recited the Orison inside it? Which way would the flow go? If it’s all energy, do you think the Orison would reverse its…I don’t know, polarity? Draw all the heliophobic devils back to it instead of freeing them?”
Father Carroll opened his mouth to speak before closing it. He regarded Donovan, impressed. “I would not have considered that.”
“Frank said I don’t think like a cop. I guess I don’t think like a priest with an Augustine Dictate either.”
“In theory, it sounds plausible. In reality—”
“Do we have a choice?”
Father Carroll looked at the faxed prayer in his hand. “All things are possible through the Lord when you open your life to Him.”
After Special Agent Clark’s curt dismissal, Father Carroll’s attitude renewed his determination. “I hope ‘all things’ covers crazy motorcycle stunts, too, because that’s the only way I’m going to get Joann.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once the police move in it’s going to be a war zone in there. In the middle of it all, while Valdes and Faustus are defending their ritual circle, I can ride in, grab her, and get away to someplace safe.”
Father Carroll’s eyebrows rose. “Crazy motorcycle stunts, indeed.”
“What do you think?”
“Evil of this sort has always seemed steeped in ancient tradition and musty ritual, but police assaults? Riding a motorcycle through an army of the possessed? This time it’s very modern, very large, and very daunting.” For all his concerns, he burned with a resolve greater than Donovan had sensed in Braithwaite and the helicopter pilot. “Still, only the dead face no change. We persist.”
“We’ll do more than that.”
“If we avoid overconfidence. You must know exactly where you will ride, and it can’t be far. If you stay too long in range the possessed will catch you.”
“I’ll make it through Valdes’s mob. I’ll get her free. Once I do I need somewhere safe to take her, but what does ‘
safe’ mean? Hallowed ground? A church?”
“Mephistopheles himself wouldn’t be stopped by one,” the priest said. “According to Marlowe, he and Faustus played tricks on the Pope in Rome, after all. Mephistopheles’ acolytes, though, will be unable to follow you into a church without great suffering.”
“Considering the stakes, I think it’s a safe bet they won’t let that stop them.” Donovan gripped the spire tighter. “But I won’t let them have Joann.”
“On Central Park West there are at least half dozen churches between the Lawn and here. Any of them will do; the closest may be the Universalist Church on West 76th Street. But Donovan—there’s something else we have to address. The worst case scenario.”
“You mean if we’re too late, and she’s already been possessed by Mephistopheles? I thought about it.” Donovan took in a deep, resolute breath. “I won’t let it happen.”
“It may be out of your hands.”
Donovan half-turned away and stopped, rubbing his palm down the leg of his jeans. “Then…you can use the Orison on her, too. A ‘concentrated Rite of Exorcism’ sounds like the right way to handle a Prince of Hell.”
“Without a doubt, but as I said, the subject for the exorcism has to be present. We must hold her physical form to perform it, and we are discussing a Prince of Hell.”
This point Donovan hadn’t considered. “You have thoughts, I hope?”
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