TWENTY
HORTON SAT SENTRY by the bedroom door and waited for the priest. The demon sat up in bed, it’s arms still restrained for all the good it did. It stared at Horton, its head tilted to one side, face focused on the bodyguard. Horton kept his eyes on the floor, but he could feel it looking at him, waiting for him to engage. It was hard enough just being this close to the damn thing, let alone by himself. He glanced at his taped-up pinky finger.
Its attention was palpable.
Horton gave in and glared at Jeremy, the familiar tug of pity in his chest cooling the disgust and anger. Poor kid, all scratched up and sick. It just looked like it hurt so much in there.
“The meat will bleed all the more if the Templar has his way,” the demon croaked.
“Fuck you keep callin’ him that?” Horton spat. “Templar? What’s that about?”
“Loosen these restraints and we’ll enlighten you.”
Horton blew a short raspberry. “Do it yourself, Houdini.”
Jeremy’s eyes twinkled. “The Templar will try to take the Master’s whore. He dreams of fucking her so she can shit his piglets.”
Horton knew better, but he just couldn’t keep himself together. He was exhausted and every time the damn thing talked at him he wanted to hit a wall. Talking back was the only way to vent at least some of his frustration. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who’re you babbling about now?”
“You’re perfect for your position, bondsman. Loyal as a good sword and witless as the metal from which it’s forged. Perhaps his lordship will mount you over the fireplace. Perhaps, once his whore is gone, he’ll just mount you.” Jeremy leaned forward. “Is that particular duty part of your job description?”
Horton looked away. “Eat shit,” he said and immediately regretted it as the aroma of fresh excrement stained the air. His nose wrinkled and he coughed. “You’ve got a real sick sense of humor.”
Sadness rippled through Jeremy’s torn face, almost softening it. “Ignorance your shield.”
“That’s me, dumb as a hunk of metal, right?” Horton’s brow rose. “Fuck you. I can’t wait until the Templar gets here, so we can commence to kicking your ass out of my boy.”
“Your boy?”
Horton sat up. “Well, I meant…”
“The meat has no love for you, bondsman. No more feeling than he has for the family car.”
Horton looked at the floor, his cheeks flushed.
“Does that smack of betrayal?” the demon asked. “Shall we punish the meat for you?”
“No!” Horton held up his hands, the tops of his thighs tensed. “No, just…don’t.”
As if animated by invisible hands, one of the leather restraining cuffs began to undo itself. Eyes locked on Horton, the goblin-boy yanked a hand free and held it out for Horton’s inspection. The nails were splintered and split back to the quick, the tissue beneath blue-black. The demon cramped the fingers into a talon. “Hmm?” it mused. “What would befit a proper punishment for the meat’s lack of feeling for such a loyal servant?” It brought the claw toward its face. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. You believe in vengeance, bondsman, yes? An eye for an eye?”
Horton tried to stand and found he couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t work. He couldn’t even feel them. “Lemme’ up.”
The demon fingered its own scabby brow. “Which eye will it be, then?”
Horton shook his head back and forth. “Don’t,” he begged. Sweat slicked his head and popped out against his skin as his body trembled against the demon’s force. Horton’s voice broke. “Why can’t you leave him alone?”
“Just think of what you can do with the extra hole.”
Horton gave up and slumped back in the chair. “He’s only a little boy. Just little…”
“Perhaps you could use it as a paper weight.”
Horton slammed forward against the force of the demon’s will and shouted, “Take mine! You can have mine! LEAVE THE BOY ALONE!” He collapsed forward, wracked with silent sobs.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder.
Horton bucked out of the chair and sprawled on the floor. Emma Grouwe stood over him holding a stainless steel tray of medication. Her eyebrows bent, “What’s all this shouting about?”
Horton looked over at Jeremy, the boy lay back in bed, the restraints clamped tight around his wrists. Both eyes were shut and motionless behind thin eyelids. Gentle breaths puffed between his parted lips. Were it not for his sallow coloring and the scratches, he would have appeared to be a normal child in the warm clutches of a deep sleep. Horton got to his feet and mumbled something about a nightmare.
Emma made a sound that at once conveyed annoyance and apathy, then busied herself with administering Jeremy’s evening meds. When she was done, she checked his vitals then left the room without a second look at Horton who mumbled a lame “Thanks,” as she closed the door.
The bodyguard slumped up against the door and put his face in his hands. He felt the demon staring at him and peered through his fingers like a kid hiding from a horror movie. Jeremy wore a look of deepest concern and shook his head back and forth. Horton squeezed his eyes shut. Helpless remorse draped over his shoulders like a lead coat. Hot tears welled and ran over his face. “God,” he whispered. “Help me.”
“God,” the demon said. “Ignores.”
Horton looked into the bleeding face of despair and knew it told the truth.
The demon’s own gaze shone bright and triumphant through the ragged boy’s eyes as a soft knock came on the bedroom door.
“Finally,” it whispered.
Horton opened the door and exhaled. “Father. Man, am I glad you’re here.” He squinted at what appeared to be a chicken’s claw hanging from a knotted cord around Calvin’s neck like a bizarre pendant. “The hell is that?”
“Hungry?”
“Huh?” Horton’s whole world was spinning. He flinched as if struck as the demon roared behind him.
“TEMPLARRRRR!!”
Calvin flicked an annoyed glance over the bodyguard’s shoulder. “Shaddup a minute, okay?” He pulled Horton out into the hall and slammed the door. “Jesus, that fucker gets on my last nerve.”
“What’s with the chicken foot?”
Calvin smiled at Horton and for a moment the bodyguard was overcome with a feeling he’d not experienced in some time. Buoyancy filled his sagging muscles like helium and he stood up straighter. Outside the lair of a monster that had eaten a little boy and wore his skin like a coat, outside in the darkened halls of the evil master’s house, Father John Calvin glowed. His eyes shone with inner metal. Horton looked the priest up and down. Save for the strange medallion, Calvin fit his station to a tee: black suit, white collar, dark leather book clutched to his chest.
“Something’s different about you,” Horton said. “You get laid or something?”
Calvin laughed. “You studied martial arts; what do you know about Zen?”
“Not much. I mean, I read a little about it and I had an instructor used to fuckin’ go on and on about it, but…” He looked over his shoulder at the closed door, then back at Calvin. “What’s this got to do with our problem?”
“I’ll give you the simplest crash course on Zen you ever heard,” Calvin said. “Ready?”
“Go.”
“Zen’s about letting go.” Calvin paused, thought. “Okay, some of Zen’s about letting go. If you align yourself with the target, aim, and then give up at the instant before you fire, you can’t miss.”
“What are you fucking talking about?”
Calvin put a warm hand on Horton’s cinder block shoulder. “In a minute I’m going to go in that room and perform a magic act the world has probably never seen before. I have very little idea if it’s going to work or not. In so doing I’m probably going to piss off a demon.” Calvin squeezed Horton’s shoulder. “Let that one sink in, okay? I’m going to go pis
s off a demon.”
Horton held the priest’s eyes. Calvin had a look that Horton had seen before, but he couldn’t quite place it. No, that wasn’t right. Horton had seen men get close to that look. It was abandon. He’d seen it in the eyes of a junkie who’d charged his gun when he was still on the beat. The kid had watched Horton pull his piece, aim it straight at his chest, and then the punk had smiled. He’d been so sure the bullets would just bounce off, and they had. The hollow point slugs had bounced off his breast bone and rib cage, fragmenting and shredding his insides as if he’d swallowed a swarm of metal hornets. And now Calvin radiated that same abandon, but with even more intensity; born of soul not PCP.
“You ain’t scared?”
Calvin’s mouth twitched. “I think I’m past it. I’ve got something…else, now. I’ve got something that’s more important than this. If this doesn’t work, I mean.”
Horton wondered if Calvin was talking about God or—he glanced again at the chicken foot—something. Fuck it, he didn’t need to understand what was going on with the quarterback to follow his lead on the play. “Okay,” Horton said. “What do you need me to do?”
Calvin gave Horton’s shoulder one more squeeze and let his hand fall. “Where’s mister Mason right now?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s in his office.”
Calvin thought of the camera in the ceiling fan in Jeremy’s room. “Box seats for the big event, huh? I want you to join him then. And Horton, whatever you do, whatever you hear or see, I need you to make sure you keep his eyes off those fucking cameras. Don’t let him get in my way, you get me? It could mean everything.”
“I don’t know if I can—“
Calvin stared. “Jeremy.”
“Yeah, okay.” Horton nodded. “Done.”
“Get moving, then.” Calvin said.
Horton walked on down the hall and stopped as he heard the doorknob on Jeremy’s room click. He turned and caught Calvin before he could open the door. “Don’t matter what happens anymore,” he said. “Just save the boy.”
Calvin spared the bodyguard a last look, willing Horton’s image into the deepest parts of his memory as if he were a rare bird worth cataloguing. A trace of sadness tinted the edges of Calvin’s mood. If his wild plan worked, part of the boy would be beyond salvation forever. Perhaps the best part. He pushed into room, into the stench, into an atmosphere charged. Bishop Thom Neary lay on the bed, frowning at him.
“What are you doin’, boyo?”
Calvin closed his eyes and breathed. It wasn’t Thom Neary; it couldn’t change itself into a shark or turn its tongue into a roller coaster ride that ran through a bunch of tunnels in its head. What it could do was get inside Calvin’s head and make him see things. No matter what it said or what he thought he saw, he had to keep on top of himself. Calvin opened his eyes and exhaled. “Smoke and mirrors,” he said.
Neary turned his head half to the side and held up his jeweled hand. “Kiss the ring, Father Calvin.”
“Kiss my ass, motherfucker.”
“Oh, Johnny, such language.”
Calvin glanced down at his watch. He’d give Horton a good ten minutes to get set in Mason’s office. “Whatever,” he said. “You’re not Thom Neary, so you might as well,” Calvin waved his hands back and forth, “do what you do and morph back into some other Power Ranger or whatever. This shit isn’t gonna’ do it.” Calvin blinked and Neary was replaced by the boy again. Scarred and monstrous, but the boy. Calvin sighed. “I’d say that was better, but you look like shit.”
The demon smiled and inclined its head.
“Listen,” Calvin asked, leaning up against the door. “What’s the deal with possession anyway? I mean, I realize the whole point is to try and make everyone around the victim feel awful and lose faith and everything, but after that…what? Is it just evil for evil’s sake?”
Jeremy squinted, the corners of his eyes wiggling. He let go with a violent sneeze and sprayed the bedclothes with greenish phlegm and blood.
“That some kind of symbolic answer or are you just allergic to poultry?” Calvin waggled the chicken claw. He waited for it to answer, but the demon boy just glared over a huge grin. Calvin switched tracks. “You’ve really freaked out Horton, you know? I don’t think he’s ever going to be okay after this.”
“Shame.”
Calvin’s left eyebrow folded up. “You mean that?”
“We do,” it said. “We respect the bondsman’s loyalty.”
“Weirdest goddamn thing, isn’t it? Considering.”
“Considering…?”
“Can’t you guess? I mean, can’t you read my mind and figure out what I’m talking about?”
Jeremy spat a wad of yellow bile at Calvin’s head with the accuracy of a cobra. The priest ducked and the sputum splashed against the wall, a phosphorescent streak against the white paint. Calvin recovered and checked his shoulder for any splashback. “I bet you’re good at flipping cards into a top hat, huh?”
“The slave princess already has a master, Templar.” The boy writhed under the sheets, thrusting his pelvis and grinding. “He sodomizes her as we speak.”
A random memory flew into Calvin’s mind and he said, “I once stood on an old woman’s chest, pinned her down in the middle of the street in the Balkans back in ’91. Fired a Desert Eagle with hydra-tips dead into her nose. What was left looked like a perfect red halo.”
The demon’s smile faded and it looked away.
Calvin’s heart pounded. It hadn’t been expecting that. He might actually be able to pull this off. Calvin checked his watch. Almost time. He walked over to the side of the bed and sat down. The demon eyed him, it’s head turned slightly. “You know what happened to the last one who tried to touch the meat. The boy cunt is mine, Templar.”
“Yeah, Sinclair. You bit his dork clean off. Saved it for Finch,” Calvin nodded. “It was kind of you to share like that.”
The demon grinned. Its features started to melt into themselves, rearrange. Calvin’s gut lurched at the sight, but he kept himself together. Just smoke and mirrors. But still, it was hell trying to keep his cool watching the little boy’s scabby face whirl into that of a pretty young black woman. “It won’t work, honey,” she said, her eyes bright and cruel. “You know you can’t have me. I don’ go with faggot priests, Johnny.”
Calvin laughed and sat back. Better all the time.
The demon swam back to the surface, erasing the Tie mask. “Something amuses you, Templar?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I never told her my first name. Kind of makes it hard to pass off the lie if you make mistakes like that.”
The demon scowled, focused. Pain skewered the back of Calvin’s hand as a blood vessel burst just under the skin. He restrained his reflexive flinch, breathing a measured exhale and holding the demon’s eyes with his own. After several silent moments, Calvin looked down at his hand. A splotch of darkness about the size of a quarter stained the back of his hand below the middle finger.
“That could have happened within the confines of your diminutive cranium, Templar.”
Calvin nodded, and checked his watch again. Time enough. He got up, walked toward the door then stopped.
“Giving up so soon, priest?”
Calvin’s upper lip bent to the side. “Just arranging for more privacy,” he muttered, pulling out a small can of black spray paint from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He shook it, the interior mixing ball clacking against the metal, and raised it up to the ceiling fan. “’Night, Gracie,” he said and began to spray every bump and opening in the motor housing. Anything that might be or conceal a lens got a healthy coating of Krylon Midnight Black. The scent of petrochemicals cut the air, but anything was an improvement over the demon’s bodily discharges.
Calvin faced Jeremy and closed his eyes. This was it. Place your bets, high-rollers.
He let himself and his situation go, allowing the world and its dangers to fall away as emptiness flowed into every corner of his mind like cool water. What came next would be the hardest part, convincing himself that what he was about to do was viable, real. If he believed, the demon might believe as well. If he had faith, the magic could work. Every spell, every prayer, every ceremony were all just guides for the mind, molds for reality. The only way to fly…
“Is to forget you’re falling,” he said and opened his eyes.
The demon cocked its head.
“Adagime ooeeh nist surt oowhat neuhaverse rooeeh ahvesss.” Calvin mumbled, his voice far away, his throat open and low. He shoved the spray can back into his pocket and removed an old-fashioned hip flask. He unscrewed the cap and repeated, “Adagime ooeeh nist surt oowhat neuhaverse rooeeh ahvesss.” Calvin took a pull off the flask. It was warm and tasted like iron and diluted salt. His face wrinkled, but he held the liquid in his mouth and walked closer to the boy.
“What game is this, Templar?”
Calvin leaned down and spat a mixture of chicken blood and holy water in the boy’s face. “Adagime ooeeh nist surt oowhat neuhaverse rooeeh ahvesss.”
The demon sputtered and cried, “Hurts! Hurtsss!” It sat up and shook its head to clear its eyes. “Bastard! Cocksucker!”
Calvin placed his thumb over the opening in the flask and sprinkled the bed with the blood-water in a circle around the boy. He winked. “Oh, I’m just gettin’ started.” He took another mouthful and spat into his own hand. “Adagime ooeeh nist surt oowhat neuhaverse rooeeh ahvesss.” Calvin pressed his dripping palm onto each of his own cheeks, printing them with red hand marks like war paint. He drew a rough cross on his forehead, and stepped back, stopping at the foot of the bed. He turned three hundred and sixty degrees, dribbling the boundaries of a circle around himself, careful to save a little liquid for the rest of the ceremony. He faced the hissing, spitting demon child. “With this circle, I describe the boundaries of dark and light. I bind you to your side and me to mine.”
The demon screamed. “Insolence! Arrogance!” It glared, eyes like ingots. “This is your end, Templar.”
Calvin held his breath and waited for it, the telekinetic death blow, the stroke or aneurysm, the heart attack. Maybe Jeremy would just stop his lungs and watch him flop around like a fish out of water as he suffocated. The demon squinted at him, focusing all its rage…and nothing. A moment passed, another.
“What is this?” the demon growled.
Calvin’s mouth dropped open. “Holy shit,” he said. “It worked.”
* * *