HORTON COULDN’T LOOK at the kid when they walked into the room. He’d caught a glance of him as “Father Bob” moved out of the door, prone and empty-eyed in the bed. Jeremy actually looked a little better, like maybe he had put on a little weight, was more substantial. But it still wasn’t him in there and that made the slight recovery all the worse. Horton couldn’t afford the treacherous match flare of hope in his chest. This situation was going to get ugly soon and he had to stay focused, detached.
He kept his eyes on the good Father, not listening to the diatribe of pompous bullshit he began spouting as soon as they’d opened the door. He’d actually started with, “So, my old foe, we meet again,” before Horton tuned him out. It was embarrassing, like playing sidekick to a comic book hero from the 40’s. Priestman was doing his best to loom over the bed, saying something about “driving you back to the depths” when Horton heard another voice.
Jeremy.
Horton looked at the bed. It was impossible. The kid couldn’t talk, he was totally out of it. Looked like he was deep within the throws of a Thorazine dream, his eyes fever-bright slits between puffy red lids. Horton scrutinized the boy’s chapped lips, seeking the slightest hint of movement. A fine web of dried saliva in a corner of his mouth shivered in his respiration, but nothing else. Except… Except he heard it again. His name? Something about mooning? The hell? Forget it. He was going crazy, paranoid. Or, it could be another trick from the thing that was in kid. If it had been able to break Horton’s little finger from across the room, it stood that it could get into his head and make noise.
“Hey,” Horton nodded at Neary. “You might want to watch what you say. That thing can do nasty tricks when it’s pissed.”
Neary closed his eyes and inhaled a long breath through flared nostrils. “Mr. Horton,” he began.
Horton rolled his eyes.
Neary opened his. “The process of exorcism is more than just…” He trailed off, no use explaining complex theologic principles to a simple-minded thug. “Listen,” he offered. “Why don’t you go outside and keep watch in case Father Calvin returns? We need to handle this situation very carefully, and I’m afraid he’s apt to react somewhat defensively if he comes back and finds us. We’ll have to subdue him, I think, and then we can talk, calmly, peacefully. Perhaps, he’ll even take our view of the picture without much of a fuss if we have the chance to explain everything. In any case, we can’t afford to let him take the initiative, get the drop on us, if you will.”
A voice from the bedroom door. “I’d say it’s a little late for that, boys.”
Horton and Neary spun to find Tiesha in the doorframe. Before either man could react, the bore of a large pistol peeked from behind her right ear. Mason appeared behind his human shield. Even with Tiesha blocking most of his face and body, the rotting gore-coat was plenty visible. He moved the .44 back and forth between Horton and Thom Neary.
“Either of you moves and it’s over.”
Horton didn’t need to be told twice. From the look and the smell of it, Mason had waded through a few bodies to get here. He made eye contact and Horton got a strange sense of doubling. Like father, like son. Mason’s peepers were a couple of empty fishbowls. And look at that, Horton had been right about Tiesha being here. Well, he’d just have to move to Venice Beach and open up a fortune telling stand.
Neary, the amiable salesman, spread his meaty palms. “Mr. Mason? I’m so glad you—”
Tie winced as Mason pulled the hammer back on his pistol and leveled it Neary’s crotch. “One more word,” he said. “Okay, Padre? Just one.”
Horton was seized with the urge to stick out his tongue at “Father Bob.” At least they were on the same ground now: equally fucked.
“Mr. Horton,” Mason said, eyes sliding over to bodyguard.
“Sir?”
“You have a gun, yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Put one in the good Father’s left kneecap would you?”
Tie gasped, “Oh, shit.”
Mason and Horton both looked over. Neary had drawn his piece and had it against Jeremy’s left temple.
Mason sighed. “You could have told me he was packing, Mr. Horton.”
“Didn’t know, sir,” Horton lied.
Mason raised his pistol to bear on Neary’s eye.
Horton hauled his own gun out and aimed at Mason. “Don’t do it, sir! You shoot and he’ll kill Jeremy.”
Mason glared at Neary who betrayed only excited interest in the situation. “Some losses,” Mason said. “Are unavoidable.”
Horton pulled his hammer. “Sir, please.”
“You haven’t got a clear shot.” Mason shook Tie’s shoulder. “You’ll hit this silly whore before you hit me.”
“Teflon-coated, Frank.” Horton said.
Neary grunted in appreciation. “Rip right through your reluctant young lady and into you, I’m afraid, Mr. Mason.” He threw a nod at the bodyguard. “Nice choice.”
“Eat a dick.”
Neary ignored him and appraised the situation. He had control over what everyone in the equation wanted: the boy. Except for the woman. He had no knowledge of her priorities. Although, from the look of it, they were not in line with those of her captor. Her face, probably quite attractive under lighter circumstances, was tear-streaked and distant. She was limp in Mason’s grasp, defeated. Neary gave her a zero threat rating.
“Now,” he said. “Mr. Mason, we can all still get what we want, but you’ll have to start by putting down your weapon.”
Mason tipped his head to one side and smiled. “Okay,” he said and kept the gun trained on Neary’s head.
Horton snickered. He couldn’t help it.
“I’m sure,” Neary tried again, “that we’re all interested in what’s best for the boy. If we could only talk about this like rational human beings…” He sighed. Mason was about the farthest from rational that he had ever seen a person. Well, there had been this one time when Neary had extracted some information from an uncooperative enemy of the Church with a mixture of pentathol and PCP. That man had looked slightly more wild than did Frank Mason. In any event, peaceful discourse still seemed unlikely.
Horton’s arm was beginning to shake. The triangle was the most stable shape in geometry. Someone had to think of something to break this one. For a second he entertained the notion that if he was careful he could shoot Neary’s cannon out of his hand. Bullshit. He wasn’t a cowboy. He was an ex-cop turned wiseguy. Neary’s gun would go off, or he would miss. Either way, it meant a headless ten-year-old. Horton had planned to insert Mason as the wild card to break up the situation in case something like this happened, but his intention had backfired. Horton needed another piranha.
Tie started to giggle. Little triplets of hm, hm, hm’s blipped past her pressed lips.
“Shut up, bitch,” Mason ordered.
She was obviously trying to shut it off, her lips turning white with the effort, but it was getting the best of her. Her shoulders began to shake, the laughter a randy cat bashing around inside her torso.
“Lady,” Horton warned. “Maybe you should chill it out.” He widened his eyes and nodded at Mason. “I don’t think Mr. Mason’s in the mood right now.”
“BAH! Ha, ha, ha!” She responded, doubling over and holding her stomach.
Mason yanked her back up by the hair. “I said shut up!”
Tie wiped a tear, her laughter slowing a little. “Oh, man,” she said. “It’s just so funny, though.”
Mason thought about biting her ear off, but his curiosity was piqued. “What’s so fucking funny?”
“You are, sweatmeat.”
He gave her hair a hard jerk. “What?”
She winced with the pain, but her smile returned the next second. “Oh, I’m sorry, but you actin’ all high n’ mighty, bein’ yo badass scary self, then it hit me. You got nothin’. You a closet monster, Francis.”
“A what? What am I? I own your ass, bitch. When you’re dead I’ll use it for a—.”
“I used to have night terrors,” she interrupted, explaining smooth and even. “When I was little, after my mama took off, I couldn’t go to sleep at night ‘cause of the closet monster. Shit, I was afraid to go into my room during the day sometimes.”
Mason’s mouth hung open but nothing came out. His grip on Tie’s hair slackened. His mind, already acid-burned by the ferocity of its own illness, could not comprehend. He owned her. He had the control for fuck’s sake, but here she was acting like he didn’t have a thing. It was like walking outside one morning to find that gravity had reversed. Frank Mason couldn’t process it.
Neary and Horton watched in silence. Both men waiting for any variable they might turn to their advantage. The girl was going to get herself killed, but Mason would have to take the gun off Neary to do it.
Tie continued. “When I started to go crazy from lack of sleep, my daddy sat me down and explained about closet monsters. ‘Oh, they real’ he told me, but they only got power over you if you let ‘em . You laugh in the face of the monster and it’ll just dry right up.’”
“Everybody you used to have power over don’t give a tin shit for yo’ gray ass, Francis. Lookit,” she threw a nod at Horton. “Even Kojack over there’s ready to bus’ a cap in ya’. And he was your main bitch-boy.”
“Watch it, honey,” Horton said.
She winked. “Sorry, sugar.”
Horton smiled in spite of himself. It was an incredibly sexy wink. Tiesha might be about a second away from getting a bullet in the skull, but she had power over herself and it showed. She was strong and it was beautiful. She was right, too, Mason’s whole world had gone to hell. He was one of the most powerful men in America, in the world, but he didn’t own anything real. And as Horton watched a twitch flicker over Mason’s face, he realized that the big man himself knew it. “You’re done, Frank,” Horton said. “Put your piece away.”
Mason jerked the gun over at Horton, his voice flat. “I can still control you, Horton. I can control you right into the ground.”
Neary spoke up, running with thread. “No, you can’t. Even if you dispatch Mr. Horton, it’ll be because he chose the option of going to his death, walking into your bullet, if you will.” Neary shook his head. “Even your son is no longer yours. You have nothing.”
Mason’s mind blurred and spun. His world was built upon the sociopathic premise that it was all for him, that no one truly existed outside of the sphere of himself. But these people that had once been a part of him, petals that he manipulated as effortlessly as his own limbs, no longer paid him any heed. The logic clicked home and the life drained from his face. His pistol clunked to the floorboard. Frank Mason’s emptiness was complete.
Tiesha stepped away and turned back to look at the closet monster. Mason stood, covered in the crust of his latest victims, an automaton, now as empty of mind and will as he had always been of soul. His arms hung limp at his sides. A fly buzzed around his head and settled at the corner of his eye, probing for moisture. He didn’t even blink. Tie waved her hand in front of his face and the fly lifted off. “What’s wrong with him?” she said.
Calvin appeared in the door. “He’s catatonic,” he said, side-stepping into the room around Mason.
Tie beamed, “Johnny!” and pounced. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed like a vice. He grabbed her around the waist with his left arm—he still grasped the medical bag in his right—and lifted her an inch off the floor. They held each other, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Tie smelled of saline tears and the adrenaline of her emotion. It pulsed off her in delicious feminine waves. Calvin smelled of the forest and sweat and the evening air.
“Taken a holiday from your vows, Father Calvin?”
Calvin sighed and with eyes still shut said, “Hi, Thom.” He opened his eyes, kissed Tie on the forehead and pulled away. “That was one of things I wanted to talk with you about. It’s time I retired.”
Horton had shifted his gun from the now drooling shell that had been his employer to Father Calvin. “What’s in the bag, Padre?”
“Hey, Horton. How hangs it?”
“Fuck you, okay? What’s in the bag?”
“Just some medical stuff. Syringes and Thorazine mostly.” He dropped the bag.
“And what,” Neary wanted to know, “were you going to do with it?”
Calvin poked a finger at Mason’s shoulder, rocking him back and forth like a gentle breeze. “Thought I might be able to use some of it on Mr. Mason to chill him out, or to take down you or Bishop Neary here if I had to.” Calvin stared hard at Neary and nodded at the .50 cal he had pointed at Jeremy’s head. “Do I have to, Thom?”
“That depends very much on your intentions from this point out, Johnny.”
“What do you need from me, Thom?”
“Your return to the service of the Lord.”
Calvin rubbed his forehead. He and Thom both knew exactly what that meant in the immediate context. It had all gone much too far, too many laymen knew too much about the operations of the last Templar Knights; they would have to kill everyone in the room. “C’mon Thom, we’re corporate hit men for the largest non-profit on earth. Service of the Lord? I’m just not buyin’ it anymore. The fucking Yakuza have higher ethical standards than we do.”
Horton chortled, but steadied his aim on Calvin. It really blew that he was going to have to kill this guy.
“Then we could start over,” Neary said. “We could reform our order. Maybe you’re right, Johnny. Maybe it’s time to modernize our little corner of the Church. Heck, they say Mass in English now. Maybe we could make some changes of our own.”
“Thom,” Calvin said. “I can’t do it anymore. Besides, see this woman? I’m in heavy love with this woman and would really like to keep her. It’s not you Thom, it’s me. I need some space.”
Tie laughed.
Neary’s Sweet Old Man act disappeared like a patch of snow melting away to reveal a corpse. “Shut up whore,” he spat.
Tie squinted at him and nodded. This one she’d keep quiet for. He had more of his marbles and one hell of a big gun.
“How could you choose this,” Neary held his hand out in Tie’s direction, fumbling for a description vile enough, “this unclean thing over me and the Church? I found you, Johnny. I saved you.” He shoved the handgun into Jeremy’s temple. “I saved you from this.”
Calvin looked at the floor, ashamed of the mixture of arrogance and wanton need on Neary’s face. “I’m done, Thom.”
Neary stared at his pupil, his wayward lamb. “May the Lord forgive you, Johnny. I never will.”
Calvin raised his eyes. “What’re you going to do, Thom?”
Neary shook his head. “I’ll just go.” He swiped his eye with his free hand. “Try to start over again.”
Calvin nodded, readied himself.
Horton shifted his aim to Neary. “Then do it, Bob. Get the fuck outta’ here.”
“You think me foolish enough to turn around and walk away? You’ll put a bullet in my back the moment I’ve relinquished my cover of the boy.”
“Put the gun away, Horton,” Calvin said. “Let him go.”
“Otherwise I’ll kill the boy,” Neary threatened. “You’re checkmated, Mr. Horton. You want two things: the boy’s safety and my absence. I can give them both to you, but you must allow me to do it.”
Horton considered, eyes hopping from Neary to Jeremy to Calvin and Tie. “Ah, fuck it,” he growled and shoved his pistol back into its shoulder holster.
Neary sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Horton.” He flashed the barrel of his gun away from Jeremy’s head and pointed it at Horton.
“The fuck you doing?” Horton shouted, his bald head glowing. “You lying motherfucker.”
Neary kept his eyes on the bodygu
ard and spoke to Calvin. “Johnny, go stand next to Mr. Horton. You too, young lady.” He glanced at Mason. A line of saliva silvered from his lower lip and the thirsty fly had returned to his eye, joined now by several buzzing kinsmen.
Calvin nudged Tie over to stand next to Horton. Heat and the dry mustard stink of anger boiled off the big man. When the three of them were grouped in the corner, Neary began to dance the sight of his gun from one face to another.
“Would any of you like to make a confession?” he asked.
“Oh, fuck you,” Horton answered, then aside to Calvin, “He any good with that?”
“Taught me.”
“Oh.”
Tie intertwined her fingers with Calvin’s.
“I have something to say, Thom,” Calvin said.
Neary smiled, triumphant. “If anyone needs to cleanse his soul, I suppose it’s you, Johnny.”
“Thanks.” Calvin crossed himself.
“That’s backward, Johnny,” Neary admonished. “Still blaspheming at a time like this?”
“Shit, Thom, I’m a little freaked. Cut me a some slack, okay?”
“Just get on with it, Father Calvin.”
Calvin faced Jeremy. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. He opened his mind and thought of the desert and the bowl of stars over the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. He thought of all the magic he’d experienced in his life, both light and dark, and of the greatest trick of all: Faith. Father John Calvin never had much faith in the Church or the precepts of its elders, but he believed in his connections with the liminal world and those who dwelled within it. An image of two boys standing on the edge of a great abyss glowed into life behind his eyes. He didn’t know where the image came from, but he’d learned to trust his inner eye. Calvin’s face crinkled in concentration as he thought, Jump, kid! Jump! The image faded.
John Calvin opened his eyes and spoke in a clear, loud voice. “Return, Legba. Return, Papa Loa. Return, Great Rider. Unseat your horse.”
Jeremy sat bolt upright and sighed deep and long in a voice that issued from one mouth but spoke for a legion. “Ahhhhh.”
Neary took a step toward Calvin, pointing the handgun like an accusing finger. “What was that? What have you done?”
Horton scrutinized the child. Jeremy fell back into the pillows, his breath came in even, dreamy gasps. He looked like a kid asleep after a hard day at play, long lashes against his cheeks. Horton’s breath caught. That was his boy there. His boy was in the bed and he was just sleeping like a little guy was supposed to do. His boy. His good boy. A sob ran up Horton’s throat and snagged behind his teeth. He couldn’t quite tear his eyes off Jeremy’s face as he addressed Calvin in a voice roughened by tears, “Yeah, man, what’d you do?”
Calvin smiled. It had worked and it was all he had left. He’d played his last card and hoped it would be enough. “I let it go,” he said.
Neary stared at the boy a moment. It was true. Jeremy was still scratched and sallow, but something underneath was different. It was like staring at a wound that has been thoroughly cleaned. Shame that when he was finished with the adults, Neary would have to take care of the boy as well. At least Calvin had freed the poor child’s soul. Neary centered the gun on Calvin’s forehead. “Perhaps you’ll make it to the Kingdom of Heaven after all,” Neary said.
“Priest?”
Neary spun, his breath gone.
Frank Mason grinned with a hundred triangle teeth, his eyes dull black saucers. A voice that harmonized between male and female, young and ancient, rasped from his shark’s mouth. “Do you want to make a confession?” The air turned cold and a stench fouler than the gore coat wrapping Mason’s shoulders filled the room. Tie gagged and threw up in the corner. Calvin instinctively put his arms out in front of her and Mr. Horton like a parent bracing a child for impact in a passenger seat. The demon was free of Calvin’s binding, and from the look of it, in full force. Neary stared, transfixed by those eyes and the sheer enormity of rage they held. Twin black holes punched in the fabric of space time focused on him. It was like looking into the eyes of God Himself and finding nothing.
Mason’s face fell in on itself, rearranging. The eyes were now more like those of a man, but still alive with terrible knowledge and the glee of the truly insane; a salesman’s grin. “Shove your rosary up your ass, Neary, and we’ll say each bead together.”
Bishop Neary came back to himself with that last remark. It hit him like a slap in the face, petulant and low-browed. But of course, what should he expect from this: the foulest creation, an abomination to the dignity and righteousness of Holy Mother Church. He raised the handgun. “Your time on this earth is at an end, filth.” Neary squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, clamping down with all his might on the trigger. It wasn’t the gun, it was him. His index finger wouldn’t move. “What?” he said. “No. No!”
The demon chuckled. It turned Mason’s head to one side and gave a roguish wink.
There was a loud, moist crack and Neary screamed. (Horton winced and involuntarily flexed his healing finger.) The demon winked again and again. The room filled with Neary’s shrieks and the sound of wet twigs snapping under foot as Neary’s finger bones splintered one after another. The old man stood with his arms out to either side, the gun tangled up and dangling from his right hand, the fingers branching off in unnatural directions.
Calvin, Tie and Horton could only watch from their corner of the room. Horton and Tie wore identical slack-jawed expressions. Calvin’s face was expectant and wary. It could go anywhere from here. He and the demon had made a deal: Calvin had laid off the torture treatment and the demon had gotten out of the boy. He had put it through agonies that must have rivaled its experiences in the bowels of Hell. But would it think they were even?
The demon halted its attack on Bishop Neary. “Are you ready to meet your god, priest?”
Neary wailed. He held his ruined hands out to the figure of Mason, pleading for his life. He could only shake his head back and forth, his mouth a gaping frown. The demon stepped forward and placed a hand over the old killer’s heart. It brought its stinking maw in close and licked the line of Neary’s tears. Neary’s gorge rose, he moaned in protest, but remained frozen to the spot. For a long moment, the demon stared into Neary’s face, searching. It shook its head and muttered, “Nothing,” in its multi-note voice. Neary’s eyes popped wide. He clutched his chest and fell over the bed, laying across Jeremy’s legs.
The demon stood over Neary’s prone body as if listening, its eyes far away. For what seemed like a long time it waited. Just when it looked as though Mason might have slipped back into his catatonic state, the demon snatched a claw at the air above the bed. It lifted its fist over its head and squeezed, its tendons shaking. Dark blood pushed from between its fingers and pattered down into its waiting mouth. It licked its lips, spreading rancor like hastily applied lipstick. The demon faced John Calvin and the others.
“It’s over,” Calvin said, voice shaking. “We had a deal and it’s done.”
“Our business is far from concluded, Templar.”
“No!” Calvin shouted, sticking his hand out like a traffic cop. “No, I said I would let up if you got out of the kid. I gave you the chance to leave and now it’s done. You can fucking have Mason.”
The demon gave a stiff little half bow, arching Mason’s eyebrows. “We want you, Templar. We want your life.”
Tie stepped forward, her heart hammering her ribs. “Sorry,” she said. “The Templar’s spoken for.”
Mason shifted his attention. “Your father’s dead, Tiesha.”
Tie’s heart slowed. “You lyin’.”
“Here’s in the meat with us. Mason had him killed. The bondsman did it.”
“Hell I did!” Horton blurted. “Don’t you believe that sonofabitch, lady.”
“It’s lying, Tie,” Calvin soothed, reaching for her hand. His fingers wrapped around her fist, a ball of hard ice. “S’okay, babe. Don’t buy any of it.”
The demon chuckled. “The bondsman followed him home and cut his old cock off, fed it to him.”
Horton drew his pistol, thumbed the hammer back and screamed as the demon broke his arm at the elbow from across the room. It hadn’t even blinked. The big man crumbled to the floor, holding his savaged limb at a sickening angle. Tie dropped to her knees, her hands fluttering uselessly around Horton’s shoulders. Horton clenched his jaw, the muscles bunching like bags of rock under his skin, and yelled through his teeth. “Don’t touch it!” he hissed. “Oh, God dammit that hurts.”
Calvin spared a look at Tie. “Okay,” he said. “You take me, then.”
Tie’s face drained. “No, no!” Her mouth worked and a great racking sob broke her. The demon was the closet monster for real. There was nothing anyone could do. She made to get up, but Calvin put a gentle hand on her shoulder. It was warm through the fabric of her shirt. That one curl of dark hair fell across his forehead. She remembered his breath in her ear when they had made love. Calvin blurred with her tears and she was grateful.
He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Bye, babe.”
She couldn’t speak, just shook her head and looked at the floor.
Calvin tipped his chin at Horton. “Sorry ‘bout this, man. I was kind of hoping things would work out better than this.”
Horton’s skin had gone a cheesy non-color. He grimaced and spoke through the pain. “I’m glad I didn’t have to kill you.”
“Templar.” Mason held his arms out as if to embrace Calvin. “Come to me.”
Calvin glanced back at Tie just once. This was the only chance she had. Maybe the demon would be satisfied with his sacrifice and leave her alone. They were all dead if he didn’t. He sighed and put his head down. John Calvin took a step toward the open arms of his first father. When the toes of Mason’s shoes came into view he stopped and raised his face. He would go with his head up, dammit. Time glaciated as John Calvin looked into the eyes of endless rage.
Silence.
As before, Calvin was engulfed by a quiet where he could hear only his breathing and heart beat. This was it, the beginning of his end. It seemed right somehow that there should be no noise, as if the moment itself were sacred space, a cathedral event. The demon beamed at him, the altar in the church of his death. Calvin tensed.
Mason’s face warped out of shape, his skull imploding on one side and exploding out the other. Calvin blinked. A quick finger of blood sketched from Mason’s right nostril. Another second drew out and the top of Mason’s skull lifted off and fragmented. Calvin blinked again, focused still on those eyes, radioactive crystals of betrayal and surprise. An instant later, and what was left of Mason’s head was wiped from the stem of his neck. Calvin’s face was wet and warm, coated. He blinked again as Mason’s body hit the floor with a resounding thud.
Jeremy was sitting up in bed, Neary’s handgun quivering at the end of his skinny arms. His child’s fingers could barely encompass the grip. A line of blue smoke drifted from the barrel, the breath of a tiny metal dragon. Wheels of dark fatigue ringed the boy’s eyes, but they sparked with a flint of character strange in the face of a ten year old. He let out a long breath and lowered the gun. Jeremy Mason leveled his gaze on John Calvin.
“I jumped,” he said.
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