•–•
When Evan woke up, they had exited the highway and were driving at a snail’s pace down a dark and narrow road. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Out the window, the city skyline was far away, like tiny sticks of light in the distance. For a moment, the man Rook came to mind. A dark imagining of him running through the whirling snow and disappearing into the night. Evan was very glad to be away from all of that.
The SUV bumped along the road, turned right and continued over some heavily uneven ground. They were driving among trees and there were no lights save for the moon. Evan put his nose to the window and his breath fogged the glass. He wiped the fog away, and beyond the window he saw the vast rolling of the lake.
They drove for a while longer and then turned again and the headlights shone out over the water when they stopped. Clarke shut off the engine.
“Where are we?” Evan asked, yawning.
Agent Gallo glanced over his shoulder but said nothing, while Agent Clarke opened his door and stepped out. Evan watched Clarke hurry past his window to the back of the SUV. He pulled his legs up and hugged his knees. Still in the passenger seat, Agent Gallo sat very still, his chin bowed, as if staring with great intent at his kneecaps. The car was draining of warmth.
Then Evan heard the trunk unlock behind him and the pneumatic hum as the door lifted. He looked back through the small space between the seats. In the open cargo area, Clarke was bent over a large black duffle bag. Evan heard the long zipper pull. Over Clarke’s arched back, the night was pitch black and the many trees stood bare, with an icy wind blowing through them. Evan could hear the slow ebb and flow of the lake not far away.
At that moment, the door to the back seat unlocked and opened. The cold flooded in. Evan had failed to notice Agent Gallo get out of the car. When he turned, he saw the man standing at the open door with a gun in his hand.
Evan stared at it—a big silver revolver. It was bigger and older looking than the cops’ guns. It seemed heavier.
“Get out,” Gallo said.
Evan sat still. His eyes fixed on the gun. His heart was starting to race. After a moment, Gallo reached in across the seat and grabbed Evan by the arm and dragged him out. Evan fell and landed on cold, uneven ground, and his fingers went through the snow. There was hard sand underneath. Gallo yanked him to his feet and shut the door.
A beam of light flashed out from the back of the SUV and the trunk door began to close. Agent Clarke came around the side. Evan looked at him and thought for a second that he was someone else entirely. Clarke had changed his clothes. Instead of his peacoat, he wore a long white robe with a green and silver V-shaped sash draped over his shoulders. He carried the flashlight in one hand and clasped a leather-bound book to his chest in the other. Evan saw the glint of a silver cross hanging from Clarke’s neck overtop the green of the sash.
“Are you a priest?” Evan asked.
“Silence,” Gallo hissed.
“We are Novitiates,” Clarke said. “Of the Order of Michaelian Knights.”
Evan was about to ask what “novitiates” meant, when the barrel of Gallo’s big revolver levelled in front of his face and his mouth went dry. The SUV’s automatic locking clicked and then beeped.
“Let’s go,” Clarke said.
In single file, they walked from the SUV among the trees towards the water’s edge. The ground was hard and cratered and covered with snow. Evan could sense the barrel of the gun aimed at the back of his head. The water grew louder as they came out onto the beach. A steady rolling of the waves.
Near the head of the beach, Clarke shone the flashlight over the ground.
“All right,” he said. “Here, this is a fitting spot.”
They stopped and the two men stood on either side of the boy. Evan put his hand into his pants pocket, feeling for the shiv.
Clarke opened the leather-bound book, holding the flashlight over the pages. He cleared his throat, as if it were crucial that he speak well and be heard. Gallo kept the revolver trained at Evan’s head.
Trying to move as little as possible, Evan squeezed his hand around the shiv in his pocket, his fingers cold and sweating. He didn’t know what he was going to do or when, but just holding the shiv was something.
From somewhere beyond the glow of the flashlight, in the dark of the trees, they all heard the loud snap of a tree branch. The two Novitiates looked out into the gloom of the trees. Gallo’s shoulders lifted as he scanned the perimeter. He thought he saw something move, something more than the shift of shadows and moonlight, but it happened only the once.
“Let’s hurry up,” Gallo said.
“It can’t be rushed,” Clarke said. “Every part must be observed in whole. You remember Father Harris’s instruction.”
“I know. I just mean, let’s start already.”
“Lead us in prayer.”
Gallo drew the sign of the cross in the air and said, “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.”
“Amen,” Clarke said and nodded. Then he steadied the flashlight over the chosen page and began to read aloud: “And I stood upon the sand—”
Right then, there came a fast whistling from out of the trees across the beach and Agent Clarke gave a cry and the book flew from his hands. The flashlight hit the ground and rolled and the beachhead went into darkness. When the light levelled, it shone flat across the snow and revealed Clarke on his knees. His hands were raised to his chest where he’d been skewered through with a gnawed and broken branch. After a moment of hopeless consideration, Clarke sputtered blood and toppled over.
Quickly, Gallo grabbed Evan and stuck the gun to his head and turned towards the shadowed trees. Evan shut his eyes with the cold steel barrel at his temple. The thoughts that came to him in that moment were not of forgiveness or mercy or God, but instead, for some reason, he was thinking of Gallo’s little girl. The phone call from inside the car replayed inside Evan’s head.
He’s a dad, Evan thought. He loves his little girl. How can someone who loves with their heart also kill with their hands?
“I’ll kill him,” Gallo shouted. “I swear I will!”
Rook walked out of the trees. His heavy coat was open and his hands were empty and he stood out plain in the moonlight. Even against the surrounding night his eyes were a deep voided black. When Evan saw Rook, his heart leapt in his chest. Whether from hope or dread he didn’t know. Agent Gallo dug the barrel of the gun against his temple, and Evan whimpered. He could feel Gallo’s hand trembling.
“Let the child go and you can live,” Rook said.
“No. No, he must die. It has been decreed. I had my doubts before, but I know now that it’s true. It’s all true. And he must die.”
“I won’t tell you again. Let him go.”
“I have the power of God on my side. You can’t frighten me.”
“On the contrary, priest. I’ve frightened you your entire life.”
Gallo’s face was awash in a cold sweat and his chest and arms trembled. His legs were shaking. And yet he held the boy and the gun with the remnant strength of his conviction.
At that moment, out of the dark of his peripheral vision, Gallo glimpsed a small figure sweep across the beach in the moonlight. He started, swinging his whole body around to face it and pulling the boy with him.
Rook saw it also and he turned.
A wisp of cloth. A pink, spotted nightgown. Tiny footprints tiptoeing across the snow-covered beach. The waves rolled upon the shore and with them carried the little girl’s voice.
Daddy. I’m scared. Please come home. There’s something outside my window.
Agent Gallo swung back around and his face, stained with tears, was warped with a savage intensity of fear and rage. He raised the gun and took ai
m at Rook and fired.
In the flash of the shot, Rook had bounded across the beach towards them. Gallo fired again, and there in the second flash Rook was beside him and his hand clamped down hard on Gallo’s neck and twisted.
As Gallo’s legs gave out, Evan pulled his hands from his pants and then shrieked as Gallo fell over on top of him face first into the snow.
Rook pulled Gallo off and saw the blood, and then he saw Evan’s hand and the shiv stuck deep in Gallo’s belly. Evan was panting and shivering.
Rook rolled Gallo out of the way and lifted Evan into his arms and walked clear of the snow-swept beach into the safe gloom of the trees.
Rook carried Evan back to the SUV, feeling the child’s heartbeat drumming hard. It had a clear double beat. When they reached the car, Rook tried the doors, but they were locked. He set Evan down on his feet.
“Stay here,” he said.
Evan turned his face away from the wind, huddling against the car. Rook sprinted back through the trees and out onto the beach. The flashlight lay in the snow, illuminating a flat half-circle in which could be seen the two bodies. Rook reached them and knelt and felt the men’s pockets and found the SUV keys underneath the white robe. He hurried back.
He lifted Evan into the back seat and closed the door. Then got in the driver’s seat and put the keys in the ignition and turned on the heat. The SUV’s headlights came on, shining out over the water. Snowflakes drifted through the beams.
Rook turned around and looked at Evan. His face was flushed and his teeth chattered, but he looked unharmed. His right hand was dark and wet with blood.
“Stay inside the car,” Rook said.
He stepped out and shut the door. Evan saw him cross through the beams of the headlights.
Again, Rook sprinted through the trees and out onto the beach. He came to the half-circle of light and the bodies and he picked up the flashlight and shone it over the snow. He found the bible and the gun, and wedged the big revolver in the back of his pants. He looked at the bible for a long moment and then replaced it gently on the ground.
Rook turned off the flashlight and put it in his coat pocket. Then he grabbed both men, each by an ankle, and dragged them across the beach and through the trees to the car. There, he stacked them against a tree.
He walked to the front of the SUV and out into the glow of the headlights towards the water. He took the gun from the back of his pants and threw it into the lake and threw the bible in also. When he turned around the lights were in his eyes. He walked again to the SUV and opened the back seat and gave the flashlight to the boy. Evan took it without a word. Rook shut the door again. He had not found the boy’s shiv and he had cared little to look, assuming it was somewhere deep inside the Novitiate’s stomach.
Evan sat and held the flashlight but he could have been holding anything or nothing. He could feel only the thick, cold, drying blood on his hand. A sudden gust of cold wind blew over the back of his neck and shoulders and he trembled and drew closer to the heaters. He looked again through the gap in the seats and saw Rook standing in the opening of the trunk.
In the trunk’s cargo area, there was a large black duffle bag and a red can of gasoline. Rook rifled through the bag and found a length of rope, a white and red sash, two wooden crucifixes, and a black wool peacoat. He left everything and closed the trunk.
When he got back into the driver’s seat, the car was warm. The windows had lightly fogged. He turned the heat down. He leaned across the passenger seat and opened the glove compartment. There was a map, a pack of gum, and a box of .357 Magnum bullets. He tossed the gum over the seat to the boy and closed the compartment. Then he pulled back the door handle and once more started to get out.
“Stop,” Evan said.
Rook paused and looked over his shoulder.
“Can you just wait?” Evan said.
Rook pulled the door closed. He sat in the front seat and rested his head back. From behind him, he heard the boy sniffling and he heard him begin to cry. Rook closed his eyes.
Between sobs Evan said, “Who was she?”
“Who was who?”
“That little girl out there. Who was she? Is she all right? Did she get shot?”
In all the commotion and the need to get Evan safe, Rook had forgotten about the little girl. Or rather the vision of a little girl. What power had summoned her phantom he could hardly guess, but he knew it was far beyond his own conjuring.
“The little girl’s all right,” he said.
Evan sniffled and said, “Did I kill the man?”
“No.”
He started to cry again. “But I stabbed him.”
“You didn’t kill anyone,” Rook said. “I broke his neck before he fell. There’s no need for tears. He was going to kill you.”
Evan wept even more.
“Just calm down,” Rook said. “You’re all right.”
“She was his daughter,” Evan said, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Wasn’t she? The little girl.”
Rook shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why do you say that?”
“She called him on the phone when we were driving. She was scared about going to sleep. She wanted him to come home.”
“You heard her on the phone?”
“And then he was thinking about her out there. He was scared for her. When he saw you, he thought you hurt her. He was really scared for her.”
“That’s enough,” Rook said.
“She was his daughter.”
“I said that’s enough.”
They both fell silent.
Rook watched the snowflakes drift like silver through the beams of the headlights, and he could hear the low roar of the wind beyond the glass. As he watched the falling snow he thought about each flake as it fell and considered the many particular paths of descent. The slow side-to-side drift of their perpetual fall. Each one upon the same invisible current that all things follow—those priests, the boy, the little girl, one day even himself—each drifting along at last to land upon a hard surface and dissolve and vanish into nothing.
After a few minutes he rolled his head to the side and glanced back at Evan and saw he was asleep. Rook turned out the headlights and lowered the heat. He stared out at the dark of the lake and then in the windshield he saw his own face reflected, and so he shut his eyes.
Rook sat and watched the grey light of dawn come up over the eastern edge of the lake, and then he roused Evan and told him to get out of the car. Together they stood in the early dark and Evan shivered. Rook opened the trunk and took out the wool peacoat and the can of gasoline. He told Evan to take off his torn and bloodied jacket, and then he dressed him in the peacoat. It hung past Evan’s knees. Rook folded up the sleeves and told Evan to button it. Then Rook walked to where he had stacked the two dead priests at the edge of the trees and he dragged both bodies to the back of the SUV and lifted them one at a time and stuffed them into the trunk. He opened the can of gasoline and doused the bodies and the interior and tossed the canister inside once emptied. He stepped back and motioned for Evan to step back also. The boy remained at the rear of the SUV, trying with numb fingers to turn up the collar of his new coat.
“Evan, come here,” Rook said.
The boy obeyed, rubbing his eyes.
Rook cupped his hand over his mouth and sucked in a breath and blew it out again. He did this twice more and then and a puff of smoke escaped his closed fist. When he opened his hand there was a small flame in the centre of his palm. Evan watched and his mouth came open.
Rook steadied the flame in his hand, and then popped his wrist and the small flame drifted forward as if carried on a slight breeze. When it reached the open trunk, the flame spread like wildfire.
“Come on,” Rook said.
They had walked a fair distance from the SUV when the vehicle exploded. Evan jumped, feeling the great rush of the heat against his back. He stopped and turned around and the sight of the flames seemed to awaken him as no force of light
or heat ever had before. He stood in a kind of trance, hearing the crackle and roar and sizzle of the flames, and he felt naked and exposed and also cleansed. Where the heat of the fire touched him, something inside him seemed to reach out and touch it back. It was a tingling sensation, and it made him want to look deeper into the flames as if looking into a mirror. There was something special about the fire, and he was reminded then of a dream he often had—a nightmare—in which he was running from something, running as hard as he could, until finally he came to a great blaze of fire—and a man.
He looked up at Rook. A sudden impulse to take Rook’s hand overcame him, but he stayed still. Rook glanced at Evan and saw that the child was smiling.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked.
“I’m smiling?” His voice drifted unawares.
“Are you hungry?”
Evan nodded. “Yep.”
They turned from the burning vehicle. Ahead of them was a long narrow road and they walked side by side in the grey morning light, the boy waist height to the man. In the distance, the city was hushed and still dark. Evan dragged his feet.
“Quit that,” Rook said. “Lift your knees.”
They followed the long road out to Lakeshore Boulevard and after a short time they found a Tim Hortons bakery. The restaurant was empty save for two young women behind the service counter, brewing coffee and loading trays of muffins and donuts into the display cabinets. Rook ushered Evan straight into the washroom.
The overhead lighting was yellow and sterile. Rook washed Evan’s hands and face with warm water and then he washed his own. The bathroom mirror had the circled streaks of a recent spray-and-wipe and Evan spit a mouthful of water up onto the glass. Rook raised an eyebrow. Evan stood with his dripping hands held out, a small grin on his face. Rook handed him a paper towel and they both dried their hands and faces together.
Evan said, “I got to go.”
Rook looked down at the boy. “Then go,” he said.
Evan went into one of the stalls. Rook heard the latch click over. He stood and waited.
“Are you waiting?” Evan said.
Only the Devil Is Here Page 4
