“I’m sorry you felt the need to do that, but I can’t apologize for letting those people know you were deceiving them.”
“Just because you don’t believe in what I do doesn’t make me deceptive. I was helping those people. If you’d stayed out of it—”
“They were vulnerable and you were taking advantage.”
“And the great John Bergland had to step in. The great man himself had to put me in my place. The man who has more than a few skeletons in his own closet.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Not like yours. I’ve kept my ear to the ground these past three years, and I’ve heard things about you.”
“From Ray and Hattie Nickle?”
The mere mention of their names brought the conversation to a speedy end. Lebec stood, looked down at Berg, and again told him where to put his apple pie.
“Be careful of the Nickles, Audrey,” he said as we followed her to the door. “You’re not a killer, but someone you’re involved with is. Ray and Hattie are dangerous, and so is the game you’re playing.”
She yanked on the door handle, snarled, “I never play games,” and marched for her car.
“How come she can manage the steps in the dark and Nicole couldn’t?” I whispered.
Berg puffed out his cheeks and exhaled loudly, shaking his head. He cared about the con woman, and not, I knew, because he felt guilty about telling a client of hers that she was conning them.
The door eased shut on its hydraulic hinge, and once more I secured the chain and locked the padlock. “She’s no fool. She knows what the Nickles are up to, and despite that, she’s helping them.”
“She thinks she knows what they’re up to.”
“What’s important to her is that they’re trying to hurt you and ruin your reputation. It seems she’s been waiting three years for an opportunity. You could have told me that, you know. It’s not as if you did something terrible to her. You did what was right.”
Back in the kitchen, I threw Lebec’s partially eaten pie in the trash can and put her fork in the sink. I didn’t press him on Lebec. He’d spoken his mind and warned her. “I’ll take our pies to the sanctuary.”
“We need to write down everything we know so far. Did you bring a notepad?”
“Two of them.” I went to the fridge for another Diet Coke, stuck it in my coat pocket, then grabbed our plates. “I didn’t know you were the great John Bergland. I’m honored.”
The lights flickered, pulsed brighter, then went out.
CHAPTER 21
“Did you bring your flashlight?” Berg asked.
“I left it in the sanctuary before dinner,” I said. “You?”
“Same. Stay here, I’ll get them.”
“Mine’s in my backpack. We should wear them around our necks like cowbells.”
I was about to protest, tell him it was pitch black in the church—as if he couldn’t see that for himself—but I held my tongue. Berg hated being fussed over, even to a small degree, and though he would never admit it to me, he hated asking a woman to do things for him that just ten years ago he’d done for himself without hesitation.
He slowly thumped his way out of the kitchen, swinging his cane in an arc by the sound of it. On his way out he thwacked the doorframe, and I heard him rhythmically hit the wall—a slow, methodical cadence—as he made his way down the hall to the sanctuary.
My eyes soon adjusted well enough to the darkness that I could set the plates on the table. And then, hands outstretched, I edged toward the door, intending to wait just outside the kitchen for Berg. But when I reached the hall, a sudden, fetid odor hit me hard. It was the same disgusting smell that had emanated from the office shortly before we’d found Weston Meyer’s body, a fact that spooked me.
Something else disturbed me more. When I turned toward the sanctuary, the odor abated, but when I did a one-eighty, it increased, as if it were solid. Or sentient, and reaching out from wherever it originated directly to me.
I peered hard, searching the darkness, then felt my way down the hall, the odor growing with each step.
At the children’s bedroom, it was intense, but at Matt and Carissa’s door, it was unbearable. I staggered to a stop and bent forward, hands on my knees, trying to suppress my gag reflex.
The thing, the dead meat from hell, was no longer in the office—it was coming from the Petersons’ bedroom. I covered my mouth and backed from the door. Jesus.
Berg was swinging his cane again, trudging toward me.
“What is that?” I said. “I’ve never smelled anything like it.”
In a moment he was at my side—his tall, comforting shadow, the silhouette of his cane.
“It’s getting worse, Berg, and it moved from the office to here. If the Nickles are doing this, how? Or Lebec? Maybe it’s no coincidence she was just here, but I don’t see how she’s performing this magic trick.”
He circled around me until he was standing on my left.
“But Lebec didn’t leave our sight,” I went on, “and neither did Ray Nickle. They can’t be responsible for this. And this smell—nothing I know would make this. It’s chemical and animal.” Oh God, like dead meat and chlorine.
Breathing through my mouth wasn’t helping much. “I’m going to be sick.”
Why doesn’t he turn on his flashlight?
My eyes were burning, my nasal passages were on fire. “Berg?”
Why doesn’t he say something? Why is he breathing like that?
“Are you okay, Berg?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a thin beam of light riding out of the sanctuary. I whipped to my right and met the beam head on.
“Teagan? Who are you talking to?”
Oh, Jesus, Jesus. I tried to cry out, to move.
The thing was behind me—panting on my back, my neck. Going for my neck. I groaned.
“Teagan?”
“Behind me,” I moaned.
Berg doubled his steps, moving so quickly I was sure he’d fall.
“Teagan, there’s nothing there,” he shouted. “You’re all right, you’re all right.” In two seconds he was in front of me, aiming the beam at his own face. “It’s me, it’s me.”
“Berg,” I moaned, staggering forward. “Oh, God.”
He shot the light behind me. “There’s nothing there.” He hugged me, dropping his cane as he wrapped me in his arms. “It’s okay, you’re okay. God is with us. He’s here. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’”
“It was you behind me.”
“No.”
“It was your body, your cane. It moved like you.”
“You’re all right.”
“It was on me, panting like an animal. Like it wanted . . .”
He stopped hugging me and took a step back, holding his flashlight in his right hand, gripping my shoulder with his left. “You’re safe, Teagan. You’re not in any danger. Breathe. Now focus. Like it wanted what?”
“Like it wanted me.” I fixed my eyes on his. “It wanted me. It wants me.”
“It’s not getting you.”
My legs started to shake from the adrenaline rush.
“It has no power over you,” he said.
I whimpered like a child. “But it did. It did.”
“Never. Come out of the hall.”
He was about to bend down for his cane, but I still had enough of my wits and muscles about me to get it for him. We walked back to the sanctuary, Berg lighting our way with his flashlight, his arm around my shoulders.
By the time we made it to the sanctuary, my muscles were in full revolt and I dropped like a sack of potatoes to the first pew and slumped forward. “My God. God, help me.”
Berg squeezed around me and sat. He propped the flashlight on the pew, keeping it on. “Let’s talk. Forget your feelings and talk. Exactly what did you see?”
“A shadow.” My voice was weak, cracking. “But full, not flat like a shadow, and it was the perfect outline of you.”
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“What did you hear?”
“It breathed. A raspy kind of breath.”
“Did it say anything.”
God, the horror of that question. “No. It didn’t say anything.”
“Why did you walk to the Petersons’ bedroom?”
Bewildered, I stared at him. “Didn’t you . . . ?” I realized then that the odor was gone. Again it had disappeared. I’d been so absorbed with the shadow from hell that I’d been oblivious to the change. “You didn’t smell anything when you came down the hall?”
He shook his head.
“It was worse than before. I’ve never smelled anything like it. It was putrid, like decaying flesh, but it was chemical too.”
“What kind of chemical?”
I avoided his question, instead describing the peculiar way the odor had led me toward the bedroom and how the shadow had appeared at that moment, as I stood at Matt and Carissa’s door.
Berg listened calmly, but then, he was accustomed to encounters with beings from the demonic realm. Sometimes I forgot that. “You said it was on you. What did you feel, physically?”
“It was like cold needles. On my back first, then my shoulders and my neck. Like a blanket of needles.” I sighed, more loudly than I’d intended, and asked, “How could this happen? How could something like this take shape? It wasn’t in my head this time, it was concrete.”
“This is the first time you’ve experienced something so malevolent.”
“I’m new at this, remember?” I tried to smile. And failed.
“Not exactly new. You did very well.”
“I’ve never been so scared. My body wouldn’t listen to me—I couldn’t run.”
And I felt like I’d been a fool my whole life, I thought, as if I’d never really understood what evil is or what Berg and I do when we stay at places like St. Michael’s.
“Teagan, you know you don’t have to stay.”
My strength was returning, and with it the ability to think more clearly. I refused to leave. By God, for once in my life I would not cave, I would not take the easy way out.
“I thought I understood what evil is,” I said. “And I did—I do—but this was the deepest, most depraved . . . creature. It wasn’t in my head, it was outside it, a separate, conscious thing with intentions, and Berg, it wanted me. It’s not going to stop coming after me, or you.” My words tumbled. “I felt like I’d been abandoned, like I’d gotten it all wrong my whole life and it was showing me what real power is, what goes on behind what I see and what I think is going on. What happens when I pretend I have faith and guts. If you hadn’t shown up right then—”
“You would’ve been fine.”
He spoke firmly, resolutely, but I wasn’t convinced. He had far more confidence in me than I had in myself. And why? Because I had an advantage: I knew myself and my past. He only thought he knew me.
“If I could have, I would’ve run. My feet wouldn’t move.”
“I would’ve run too.” He tapped the top of his cane, which he’d hooked over the pew back. “This thing makes running problematic, but trust me, there have been times I wanted to run and times I thought I’d pass out from fear. I mean faint like an adolescent girl at a rock concert.”
“You?”
“My only hope was that if I ran, I wouldn’t fall and hit my head. I’d hate to be found like that. Very embarrassing. Listen, it’s the body’s natural reaction—pass out, run, scream—not a judgment on your character. It isn’t you, it’s something that happens to you. One of these days I’ll tell you about my first time alone on the job. Father Jonathan believed in throwing his trainees into the deep end.”
“From what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t like Father Jonathan.” I gave him a small smile, just to let him know I’d be all right. I was getting my strength back. “The thing in this church is evil,” I said, “and it has substance. It’s here right now. It could be standing next to us.”
Berg tipped his head toward the pew two rows up. “Have a donut.” He tipped his head again. “Go on, get one.”
I found the now-greasy Quick Mart bag next to my laptop, grabbed a glazed donut, and retook my seat next to Berg, weirdly reassured by the donut’s yeasty-sugary aroma.
Already caffeinated to the gills, I pondered getting another Coke. Wise or not, I wanted to taste it and feel the clean, cold carbonation rolling down my throat. Something of the stink from the bedroom lingered on my taste buds, and I wanted it gone, by donut, Coke, or both.
“You think it’s still here too, don’t you?” I asked.
“Evil may choose certain places as battlegrounds, but it’s never confined to those places. It’s around us all the time, whether or not we see it. But so is God, and he’s infinitely more powerful.”
I took a bite of donut, wiped the glaze from the corner of my mouth.
“Are you sure you don’t want to leave?” he asked. “You know I wouldn’t blame you in the least. Sometimes it’s wisest to leave.”
“No. If I run now, I’ll always run.”
He studied me a moment, pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. He knew just enough about me to understand what I was saying. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home, to turn on all the lights in my little house and watch TV. Retreat was my default. In a weird way, I found security in failure. Perhaps because it was familiar. But that would stop here and now. I would not leave him alone in this place.
I devoured my donut in record time, then announced I was heading to the kitchen for a Coke. Berg struggled to his feet before I could tell him to stay put. “Your arthritis is worse. I can tell.”
“It comes and goes. Don’t fuss.” He dug into his coat pocket for my flashlight, handed it to me, then fished around an inside pocket, drawing out a small plastic bottle. He popped a pill on his tongue and swallowed it without water.
As we walked out of the sanctuary, I realized my encounter had left me so physically drained that my legs were like spaghetti. Still suffering the aftereffects of adrenaline, I went to the fridge for my Diet Coke then sat at the table. Obviously hurting more than usual, Berg sat too.
I thumbed open the can’s tab. “Those who are with us,” I said. “So where were they?”
“Don’t focus on angels,” he answered. “Focus on God first and foremost, demons and their defeat second. Now we know how very important this church is to them, or perhaps to just one of them. Maybe a demon that’s stalked this church for years and now wants to tear apart this family. We find out why the church is important to it, then we hunt it down, and with God’s help, we destroy its influence over the Petersons.”
Berg to the core. I cede no battlefield to the enemy.
But I wasn’t Berg. For me, angels were evidence of God’s love and intervention in this terrible, modern world—a world in which not even Berg’s faithful prayers could open my eyes so I could see God’s armies on the hills.
And I longed to see them. Not for themselves, but as proof that despite everything, God hadn’t abandoned me and goodness would one day prevail.
Berg was hunting demons, but I was chasing angels.
CHAPTER 22
A few sips of Coke later, as we sat in silence at the kitchen table, I heard a loud rap at the church’s front doors. A “human knock,” Berg pronounced it. We answered it together—after I undid the chain—and found a plainclothes cop on the doorstep. I recognized him as one of the cops I’d seen on the Weston Meyer murder scene.
Coatless, dressed in suit and tie—a detective’s street uniform—he introduced himself as Detective Joseph Dempster and asked if Berg and I had a moment to talk. Berg invited him back to the kitchen.
“Your parking lot and outdoor lights are out,” Dempster said, lowering himself to a chair. “From the road, the church looks abandoned, except for a little light in the windows over the front doors. I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”
“Two minutes ago it was dark inside the church,” Berg said. “The lights went out then came back on.”
“Dodgy electrical system, I’d guess. Old building.” Dempster tugged on the knot of his burgundy tie. “Glad I found you in.”
In his late forties, dark haired and broad shouldered, Dempster’s chest strained against the fabric of his pale blue shirt in a way that hinted at a decades-long regimen of weight training rather than too much pasta.
“Light or not, we’ll be here all night,” Berg said, “and through Monday morning unless the Petersons change their minds. What can we help you with?”
“First, I’d like to know what you two know and what you hope to accomplish.” Dempster raised an apologetic hand. “You have every right to be here, of course, but I need the full picture of what’s happening in this old church, and I gotta tell ya, I’m not getting it anywhere with anyone else.”
“Did you ask the—”
Dempster interrupted. “The Petersons have been vague as hell, and Mrs. Peterson falls to pieces whenever I bring up Meyer or Lloyd, the priest in the wall. I’ve asked around about you, Mr. Bergland. You have a lot of friends across a lot of police departments. You also have a reputation for honesty and insight—and I’m not blowing smoke up your cassock or whatever you guys wear.”
“Suit jacket and jeans,” Berg said with a smile. “I was nondenominational.”
“Well, neither here nor there. You see what I’m saying. I’m going to trust your insight—what you’ve discovered so far and what you think about it. We’re at more than one dead end, and I need your help.”
“Of course. I’ll help in any way I can, and so will my colleague.”
At last addressing me, Dempster turned and said, “Miss Doyle. Or is it Mrs.?”
“Miss now. I went back to my old name.”
“You apprenticed under Mr. Bergland for about a year and a half.”
“You’ve been checking up on me too.”
“I’m a detective, what can I say?” He shrugged. “Gotta be honest with you, though.” Here he turned back to Berg. “When I first heard what you guys do for a living, I thought it was weird in a cosmic-hipster kind of way, and I wasn’t sure talking to you would do anything but waste my time.” He raised both hands this time. “I’ve been told I’m wrong. So can you help me out?”
Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1) Page 15