Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  Butcher, they’d called him.

  But he was no butcher. He had avenged what was sacred, had known from the first that, if it ever happened, he would avenge them. And now it had all come home again, and he felt it again. Maybe, he thought, things just had a way of coming around, of bringing you back home.

  After a moment he shook his head, his mind returning to the desert. He had sought something there for so many years in the silent dark that would close the memories and ghosts and regrets. And now he’d been brought back to what haunted him... most of all.

  Make a decision.

  Soloman bowed his head.

  “Tell them I’m in,” he said.

  “It’s done.”

  Suddenly the door opened and Maggie Milton entered, looking far better than she had on the previous night. Her hair was fresh, and she appeared striking in a businesslike black pants suit. She nodded cordially as she came close and sat down, opening a file.

  “Good morning, Maggie,” Soloman said pleasantly. “You look refreshed.”

  “I am,” she smiled. “Shall we get started?”

  “Let’s,” he said.

  It took most of the day for Maggie to explain fully the complex alterations she’d made to Cain’s body. Soloman compared the endless scientific data with Cain’s extensive military 201 file, searching to find any clue that might enable him to anticipate Cain’s next move, to discover some small weakness. But he found nothing because there was simply nothing there. And, even as he sat there, dozens of agents were busy in the field, checking Cain’s comrades and contacts. As Soloman had predicted, Cain had made no contact with any of them. It was infinitely frustrating, and at day’s end all three were fatigued at finding nothing.

  Shaking his head angrily, Soloman leaned back from the table, eyes dry. Then he began replaying the video in his mind, again and again seeing a dead man brought to life by this strange, occult experiment, once more walking the world of the living to—Di liberatus!

  I WILL BE FREE!

  Soloman shot to his feet, staring.

  “Damn!” Ben hurled a file aside. “What is it?”

  Soloman focused on Maggie, then his watch.

  “What is it, Sol!” Ben staggered.

  Soloman leaned hard over the conference table, unable to contain the intensity of his voice as he asked, “Maggie, in this mutated form, what is Cain’s anticipated life period?”

  “It’s unknown.” She seemed to catch something in his tone, became vaguely alarmed. “Maybe a few years. But his DNA is suffering too much damage, so it won’t be longer than that.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes. As certain as I can be. According to enzyme tests, Cain’s DNA can only hold the HyMar in check for three years. Then there will be a backflow that will be too much for him to counter.”

  But Soloman knew something else was there. It had come to him again and again as he had watched Cain on the screen, a thought driven into him by that roaring white threat: I will be free!

  “This is very important, Maggie,” he continued, watching her for the faintest flicker of doubt. “Could the blood of the donor that was used to alter the DNA code of the original Marburg virus be used to reinstate the machine language for Cain’s mutated DNA, thereby correcting his genetic imbalance? Could the original donor’s blood be used to negate any further mutation of the HyMar virus?”

  One of her hands clenched involuntarily.

  “It’s ... possible. The bottom line is that the ribosomal RNA in each cell is the ... uh, the genetic guardian of the process. It makes sure that every replication of each individual cell is genetically perfect. If Cain could acquire the molecular guardians of the blood used to alter the virus that altered him, he might reverse the backflow and cancel further mutation. In fact, we considered that a while back, but it wasn’t an option.” She paused. “At all.”

  Ben joined in. “Well, forgive me for saying it, Doctor, because I might be stupid—I certainly feel stupid—but why didn’t your people just normalize this thing’s DNA in the beginning instead of turning him into some sort of blood-sucking freak?”

  “One reason,” she answered, hard. “The donor, who was the only perfect genetic match for Cain, is too small. She’s only six years old, and she couldn’t sacrifice enough blood to correct Cain’s instability.”

  “And why is that?”

  .”Because ...” She hesitated. “Because of Cain’s proportions it would take an explosive infusion of all her enzymes and stem cells and blood serum all at once, something done within minutes. Either that or Cain would just burn it up drop by drop. Which means, General, that it would take all the blood in her body, given all at once. And I wouldn’t allow that. I would never allow that.”

  “Well, Doc, why did you let them use her blood to alter this Marburg virus in the first place?”

  “Modifying the Marburg virus only required a few milliliters of blood, General. That’s nothing! That’s far less than a blood test. But to give Cain enough blood to correct his genetic spiral would have required a simultaneous infusion of every drop of blood that she has in her body. And that was not going to happen.” She shook her head. “It’s never going to happen!”

  Cigar smoking in his hand, Ben leaned back. Then his jaw tightened as he scowled, studying her.

  “Listen, gentlemen,” Maggie continued, spreading her fingers flat on the table, “please understand me; I agree that this experiment could have been coordinated much more effectively, but I did not have full authority. The Central Intelligence Agency had full authority. Basically I never liked any of the containment measures, and I’m repeatedly on record about it. I wasn’t even in the facility when Cain achieved resurrection. If I had been, I would have seen the EEG activity and heavily sedated him before he reached this unexpected resuscitation. As it is, I’m as stunned as you are.”

  Ben grunted. “I doubt that, Doctor.”

  “Maggie,” Soloman asked gently, “who donated the human DNA that was used to alter the original Marburg?”

  She briefly closed her eyes, raising her hands a moment as she took a deep breath. “There was only one choice,” she answered, “but they were an almost perfect match.”

  Soloman sensed it somehow, but heard himself ask, “Who?”

  Her face paled in a quickening fear.

  “My daughter.”

  ***

  Trembling at the carnage despite his control, Father Barth left Father Lanester’s room. Weak-kneed, he heard an angry debate in the hallway. A harsh old voice rose strangely over both the demands of police and the hysterical cries of nuns, and he knew she had finally arrived.

  He entered the corridor to see the standoff.

  Mother Superior Mary Francis was short and stooped and implacable as she stood between police and the shocked nuns. Her wrinkled old face of sixty-seven years was set like flint, mouth locked in a grim line as she stared up at the angry, frustrated investigators.

  “Look, Sister, I’m serious about this!” shouted Wescott, appearing to at least attempt to be diplomatic. “We need to ask these nuns some questions! And we can’t let them leave!”

  “And how will you question children who can share words only with tears?” Mother Superior Mary Francis asked, evenly holding his glare. Her pale gray eyes didn’t blink at all.

  Wescott didn’t respond but he didn’t move, either. So Mother Superior Mary Francis moved for him. She turned and reached out to roughly shake each nun by the shoulder. “Hush!” she shouted. “Hush now! You are bent! Not broken!”

  Startled by the implacable authority, the nuns looked up through tears, and Father Barth glimpsed the thin, hidden smile of the Mother Superior. There was a moment of intimate eye contact, and then she hugged each of them fearlessly with an old, strong arm.

  “God alone can hear what your heart speaks,” she whisper
ed to their faces. “So you will speak with God, first. Then you will share a cup of hot tea with your friends to remind you of how wonderful is your own strength!”

  Grimacing in tears, they nodded, slowly composing themselves. Then the old nun released them, turning without hesitation to the investigator. Her stern face would accept no protest. “When they are ready, they will send for you,” she said, her world and life behind her. “But you can do nothing for them now, Captain, and they can do nothing for you.”

  Not waiting for agreement, she turned and shooed the young nuns away as other, older nuns took them inside protective arms, escorting them down the hallway like a black-cloaked cadre of bodyguards. Then she gazed with a suddenly demure aspect at Father Barth.

  “Have they removed the body of poor Father Lanester?” she asked gently, folding her wrinkled hands.

  “Yes, Sister,” he replied, trembling. “They have collected their evidence. And they have said that we can clean the room whenever ... whenever we are prepared to do it!” Abruptly he blessed himself and the Mother Superior. “Ecce Crux Domini. Fugite, partes adversae!”

  Mary Francis silently blessed herself.

  But Father Barth could not prevent himself from repeating the blessing in English, turning to slash the cross in the air over police officers who stared wide-eyed at the gesture. All of them took off their caps at the movement and the great enraged voice.

  “Behold the cross of the Lord!” the priest thundered, raising his hand again. “Begone, ye hostile powers!”

  Then the old man lowered his gray head, perilously exhausted. He was breathing heavily as he lifted a slender hand over his heart. “Yes, Sister Mary Francis, the police have said we can clean the room whenever we are prepared ... to do it ...”

  Mother Superior Mary Francis nodded mournfully and moved to the door of Father Lanester’s hauntingly empty, silent room. Yet when she reached the doorway, she paused. Without expression she stared at the hideous, wholesale carnage.

  Old eyes looked over the bloody marks scarred in the walls, marks left by monstrous taloned hands raking in infinite rage to claw unspeakable curses in ancient Hebrew and Latin. And beneath the thin, wooden crucifix hung above the bed, where the whiteness was stained a deep black-red, two horrific words were scrawled.

  TYRANT!

  And beneath that...

  SPITE!

  Her aspect hardened as she seemed to see something else clawed into the wall, raked into the plaster by razor-sharp talons that knew no resistance in earthly substance.

  “So and so,” she said, “it has come ...”

  Silence fell like a thunderclap in the corridor.

  Police, involuntarily, stepped back together.

  “Tell the others to abandon this floor,” she whispered, frowning. “I will do this alone.”

  And, blessing herself, she went in.

  CHAPTER 6

  “This is a matter of grave concern, Father.”

  Father Jacob Marcelle sat with his usual lack of ceremony in the imperial office of Father William Barth, positioned before the glistening oak desk and a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

  With his immaculate black cassock and nicotine-stained ringers, Marcelle was a study in almost laughable contrasts. Though he carried himself with humility, he had the physique of one who worked with his hands—short and hairy with a solid torso and thick arms—and he clearly commanded a measure of strength that could intimidate larger men.

  His face was shadowed with a beard only six hours after he had shaved and the backs of his hands were obscured with black hair. The thick hair on his head was short-cut and also utterly black while his eyebrows seemed a solid bar on his heavy forehead.

  Father William Barth stared across his desk with commiseration, as if he had true sympathy for the slightly younger man seated before him.

  Marcelle shifted. “Yes, Father?”

  “There has been a dark deed committed,” the old man said, as if no more would be welcomed.

  “I am ... very sorry,” Marcelle responded, unshaken. “May I inquire?”

  “Father Lanester was killed this morning, Marcelle. He was murdered in his room at the rectory.”

  “I see,” said Marcelle, eyes glinting. “And how was Father Lanester killed?”

  Remorse masked the older priest’s face as he shook his head once more. He struggled before he spoke. “As I said, it was a dark deed. For Father Lanester was not merely ... not merely murdered. That would have been merciful. No, he was murdered and mutilated, his bones torn out one by one and driven like nails through the walls. He was also disemboweled, his entrails laid in obscene signs on the floor.”

  Marcelle bowed his head as Barth continued. “Yes, Marcelle, and all done within easy listening distance of others living on the third floor. Moreover, it was clearly an act of malice because Father Lanester was already dead at the time. Or so the police tell me.”

  Pausing respectfully, Marcelle replied in a low voice, “I am ... deeply grieved, Father.”

  “Yes, Marcelle. As are all of us, I assure you.” Barth paused. “But we have a situation that, perhaps, requires your attention. Because there were two words written on the wall.”

  “What are the words?”

  “ ‘Spite,’” Barth said with a bend of his head. “Yes, ‘Spite.’ And below that the word, ‘Tyrant.’”

  “I see.” Marcelle’s thick black brow seemed to become more solid. His voice was measured. “And do the police have this murderer in custody?”

  “No,” Barth answered. “They are interviewing the list of habitual desecrators and psychomaniacal attackers of the evangelical community. But I do not think they will find ... this one.”

  “And why is that?”

  Barth seemed suddenly older. “Tell me, Marcelle, what kind of unnatural strength would enable a man to dismember another man using nothing but his own hands? What kind of power could give a man the strength to drive a human rib through stone?”

  Marcelle did not blink. “There are certain mental illnesses which could conceivably provide sufficient epiphenomenalism,” he answered finally. “This deed, while incredible, is not necessarily an occult act. And intellectual credulity, as we both know, is a sin.”

  “Yes, Marcelle, I know it is an intellectual sin to believe too readily in occult phenomena. But nevertheless, what we have confronted must be investigated.”

  Marcelle said nothing.

  Educated at Fordham University in New York City, he had been a Jesuit since he had joined the order at seventeen, enduring the long fifteen-year tenure of training in philosophy and theology only to find that he had come to love rigorous thought.

  After completing the courses, he continued to quench his enormous intellectual appetite by acquiring dual doctorates in archeology and clinical psychology, consequently spending three years in Israel where he excavated the ruined Temples of Dagon.

  At present, however, his primary responsibilities were as priest of An-tiguis Cathedral in San Francisco and as Professor Emeritus of Aberrant Psychology at the Jesuit-controlled University of San Francisco. For, despite his revered reputation as an archeologist and psychologist, he was also regarded as a devoted pastor and an accomplished speaker.

  “Yes,” repeated Father Barth, “I am quite aware, Marcelle, that being too willing to believe in occult phenomena is an intellectual sin. But the sum of this phenomenon is indicative of such, so we must examine the event and strive to answer the mystery.”

  “And what mystery do you perceive, Father?”

  “The first mystery, Marcelle, is this: Why was it Father Lanester who was murdered? Why Father Lanester and not I? Or even Sister Mary Francis? Yes, that is the question. And then we must ask whether the words written upon the wall are simply the deluded ravings of human evil, or whether it is the work of... of a more sinister force.”
<
br />   Jesuit intelligence, twisting in endless gliding circles, glinted in Marcelle’s narrow black eyes. “You ask these questions because you wish to know if someone within the Church is subjugated.”

  As it was said, it was not a question.

  Father Barth’s hands rested on the desk. “It is a premise that I harbor, Marcelle. I will not deny my solicitude, nor should I. The skepticism of intelligent men is both the shield and sword of evil, and evil flourishes nowhere so strongly as where men refuse to believe that evil itself exists. For there, where it is unsuspected, it walks among us protected by our arrogance, laughing as it feasts on our pride.”

  Marcelle concentrated. “If you don’t mind my asking, Father, why did you send specifically for me?”

  “Because you are revered for your understanding of these things, Marcelle. Because you have worked with the Behavioral Science and Research unit in Quantico, and have been an adviser to the FBI on ritual crimes. And, known only to a few, because you are the senior member of Eradicare In Carne.”

  With a frown Barth blessed himself at the mention of the Jesuit Society’s secret, official group of exorcists, and Marcelle respectfully repeated the gesture.

  Marcelle was without expression. “As you know, Father, I am under formal restraint not to speak openly of these things. There is a necessity ... for discretion. And you must know that for years I have been more of an academic than a participating member of the Order.”

  “And yet, in your experience, would this murder not seem to qualify as satanic?” Barth pressed.

  “Perhaps,” Marcelle replied steadily. “But you must remember that even the terms ‘satanic’ and ‘ritualistic’ can be confusing and counter-productive.” He paused. “I stress, Father, that an investigation of this nature is best left to the police. Ritual murder, if this qualifies as such, can stem as easily from psychotic hallucinations and delusions as from true subjugation which, I add, is exceedingly rare. And to make it even more confusing there are emotional, religious, sexual, and psychological rituals that can overlap. Often these situations have more than a single root cause. They are not necessarily ... evil.”