by Amy Cross
“My faith doesn't exist despite the bad things,” he explains, “but because of them. I still believe that there's balance to the world, Mark. And whenever I see something truly awful, or truly evil, I firmly believe that somewhere there's an equal powerful force for good. Maybe that force doesn't make itself so readily apparent in our world, maybe it doesn't flaunt itself, but I believe it's out there somewhere. I can only assume that it's waiting for us.”
“And that's enough?” I ask. “That keeps you going?”
“That keeps me going,” he replies. “What would be the alternative?”
***
As soon as Liam opens the door and steps into the pub, all the talk stops and the place falls silent. Everyone turns to watch us as we enter, and I can't help feeling like I'm in one of those horror films where all the locals suddenly turn against the outsiders.
“Gentlemen,” Liam says cautiously, as he steps into the middle of the room and looks around at all the drinkers. “Ladies.”
He looks over at the bar, where his bags have been neatly packed.
“Thank you to whoever brought all of that down from my room,” he continues. “You've saved me the trouble of -”
“We think it's time for you to leave now,” the barman says, interrupting him. “No offense, but we've been talking and we don't want any more interference. We want to be left alone.”
“And then what will happen?” Liam asks.
“Then life will go on as before,” another man says.
Liam turns to him. “For how long?”
“For as long as no-one opens that door.”
“That's not how it works, I'm afraid,” Liam replies. “You don't know what you're dealing with here.”
“We know it's stayed in the church for all these years,” a woman tells him, her voice shaking with fear. “We know it doesn't bother us, as long as we don't bother it.”
“We've all tried to leave,” a man adds. “We've all tried to sell up and go, but no-one'll buy here in Briarwych. They come and take a look around, they say how pretty it is, then they leave and we never hear from them again. It's like on some level they sense what's going on. So we've had to accept, all of us, that this is how things have to be.”
“I can change that,” Liam says. “I can get rid of it.”
Spotting my bags over in the corner, I turn and see that Caroline and Brian Neill are standing nearby.
“We've called Mrs. Trevor,” Caroline says coldly, staring at me with barely-disguised hatred. “We warned you what would happen if you disobeyed us. She's coming to pick you up tomorrow. Tonight you can stay here at the pub. We don't want you in the house anymore.”
“Are you serious?” I ask.
“We should never have had you and the girl come to stay with us,” she continues, folding her arms across her chest. “We just wanted to be good people and help out a couple of kids who needed a home. Look how that backfired. We ended up with a a couple of ungrateful little bastards who -”
“Hey!” I snap, stepping toward her.
“Don't make this difficult,” Brian says, moving past his wife and standing right in front of me. “I'm sorry it didn't work out, Mark, but you've only got yourself to blame.”
“All this,” I reply, “because you're scared of a ghost?”
“We can live with that ghost,” he says firmly. “What we can't live with is people like you, who interfere.”
I open my mouth to tell him that he's a coward, but at the last moment I manage to hold back. There's no point making the situation even worse.
“It's not a ghost,” Liam says suddenly.
We both turn to him.
“It's not just a ghost, anyway,” he continues, as he looks around at all the people gathered here in the pub. “I first became suspicious when I spotted some markings on the wall in the church. Then I spoke to the spirit of Kerry Lawrence today, and she confirmed my worst fears. I don't know exactly how it all started here in Briarwych, I don't know what happened to Judith Prendergast when she was alive, but I'm quite certain now that at the time of her death she had become possessed by the spirit of a demon that goes by the name of Shaltak.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“That thing in the church isn't just the ghost of Judith Prendergast,” he explains. “It's her ghost mixed with Shaltak's presence. That's why it has become so cruel and persistent, and it's why it has been slowly growing in strength over the years. Frankly, I'd have thought that it would have forced its way out of the church by now, but for some reason it has remained cowering in there. That won't last forever, though, so the only option is to perform a ceremony that will cleanse Briarwych Church forever. That's the ceremony I shall be performing this afternoon.”
“With all due respect,” Tim Murphy says from the bar, “that's not your decision to make.”
“I have the necessary authority,” Liam replies. “You know that's true. The church doesn't belong to the village, and the responsibility of dealing with its infestation does not fall to any of you. It falls to the authorities that I represent, and I can't afford to wait any longer. So I'm afraid that, whether you like it or not, this madness ends today.” Stepping over to the bar area, he picks up a couple of his bags and then turns to me. “Mark, can you help me please?”
I hesitate, before looking over at the Neills and seeing the hatred in their eyes.
“Sure,” I mutter, and then I grab the rest of Liam's things and help him carry them to the door.
“You'll bring ruin on this village,” Tim Murphy calls after us. “We had everything under control until you showed up, Father Dermott.”
Once we're outside, I help carry Liam's things to the car. The rain is getting a little worse now, and when I glance back toward the pub I see that they're all talking again, no doubt discussing everything that just happened. Turning to Liam, I watch as he opens one of his cases and checks the contents.
“What if they try to stop us?” I ask.
“They won't. They'll do what they've always done. They'll go to their homes and they'll draw the curtains and they'll pray that nothing happens. And nothing will happen, at least from their perspectives. Because tomorrow morning their lives will carry on. It'll likely take them quite some time to realize that the evil is gone from Briarwych. They're so accustomed to living in fear, and change won't be easy.”
“But was that true?” I ask. “What you said in there, I mean. There's not actually a demon in the church, is there? Demons aren't real.”
“I'm afraid they are,” he replies. “Maybe ghosts can be ignored, but demons can't.” He closes the case and turns to me. “Now, are you going to help me or not?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Mark
With every step that we take across the cemetery, the church spire seems to grow taller, until finally we're standing right outside the wooden door and I look up through the rain and see the church towering high above us. From this angle, the spire looks so sharp, it's almost as if it could rip through the sky at any moment.
“Someone should have confronted this thing a long time ago,” Liam says as he stops at the door and fumbles for something in his pockets. “If they had, Briarwych wouldn't have spent seventy years living in fear, and your friend would still be alive.”
I watch as he loosens the lock, and then finally he opens the door and I feel a shiver pass through my body as I look along the gloomy corridor and see the far wall.
“It's here,” I say cautiously. “I can sense it. It's watching us.”
“Of course it is,” he replies, picking his bags back up and stepping across the threshold, into the church. “It's not stupid. It's cautious, but never believe that these things are stupid.”
I know I should follow him, but for a moment I can't quite pluck up the courage. Turning, I look back across the cemetery, but to my surprise there's still nobody else in sight. I really thought that some of the locals would come and try to argue with us again, but it seems
Liam was right when he said they'd all keep well away. I guess they're still in the pub, or in their homes, hoping that nothing will happen and that everything will go on as before.
“Are you coming inside?” Liam asks. “We need to get started.”
***
“If she knows that we're here,” I say a few minutes later, as Liam and I unpack his cases in the office near the rear of the church, “why doesn't she try to stop us?”
“Actually, I've been wondering that myself,” he replies. “As demons go, Shaltak seems especially cautious.”
“So it's not actually Judith Prendergast?” I ask.
“It's her,” he explains, “but she's still possessed by Shaltak. I don't understand why or how, but I suppose she was possessed at the moment of her death all those years ago, and somehow they're still entwined. I'm sorry, Mark, but I can't go into the exact details because I simply don't know.” He looks past me, and I turn to see that he's looking at some scratches at the bottom of the nearest wall. “The entity haunting this church is most likely a kind of amalgamation of Judith and the demon, although the demon is undoubtedly stronger.”
“And that mark on the wall proves that there's really a demon here?”
“That's one of the few things you can rely on a demon to do,” he replies. “They love hearing and seeing their names. In cases of possession, they always take on the form of their human victim. Not just the form, either. They take on the voice, the expressions, they take on pretty much everything. The one thing a demon really has, of its own, is its name. So they rather childishly enjoy seeing and hearing their names whenever and wherever possible, even if that means -”
Before he can finish, there's a brief, faint shuffling sound out in the corridor. We turn and look, but there's no-one in the doorway and – for once – I don't feel as if we're being watched.
“So if this thing is a demon,” I say after a moment, “why doesn't it just kill us and leave the church?”
“It's very cautious, for some reason,” he replies. “It prefers to wait and see what we're doing first. I have no idea what can be causing such a strong degree of caution, but -”
Something bumps against a wall out in the corridor.
“She is getting more confident, though,” he adds. “Seventy years is nothing to a demon.”
He sets a book on the table, and I can't help but notice that his hands are shaking slightly. I think he's actually scared.
“So what is a demon?” I ask finally. “You said its name is Shaltak, right?”
He nods.
“So who is Shaltak? What does she want?”
“To be free in the mortal world,” he replies. “To cause trouble. They usually have no greater aim than that. They just seek to create chaos and pain and turmoil among mankind, as if they just want to prove that they can. They seem to get some kind of kick out of revealing mankind's every fault and failing. That's why they don't simply kill indiscriminately. They want us to kill each other, to torture each other, so they dedicate their time to making that happen. I can only assume that, back in 1940, this demon Shaltak somehow became linked with Judith Prendergast while Judith was still alive.”
“And you'd heard of Shaltak before you came here?”
“She's mentioned in several ancient texts,” he explains. “She's not a particularly notorious demon, but she's recorded as having caused trouble as far back as the time of the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which is essentially the dawn of recorded history. So I guess you could say that she's an old hand at this. Quite why and how she ended up in a church in the English countryside, I can't imagine. Maybe she just likes to travel.” He sets some more books onto the table. “That was a little joke, by the way.”
His hands are still shaking, and I'm starting to think that I really don't want to be here. In fact, I'm already trying to think of an excuse to leave.
“Why you?” I ask finally.
He glances at me.
“Why are you here, doing this all alone?” I continue. “Don't you have, like, priest friends to come and help you out? Hell, shouldn't the police know what's going on?”
“We've found that priests should work alone in these cases,” he explains, “in order to avoid certain tricks that the demons like to pull. One non-priest assistant is usually fine. And you could call the police and tell them about this place, but guess what? They'd either laugh at you, or they'd refer you to the organization I work for. There's no need to -”
Suddenly there's a loud banging sound. I turn and look toward the doorway, but Liam hurries past me and looks out into the corridor.
“Well,” he says after a moment, “it looks like she slammed a door. How cliched for a ghost. I think maybe she's getting angry or nervous, but she's too afraid to strike at us directly. I'll have to -”
“I don't think I can do this,” I say suddenly. “I'm sorry, man, but I'm no ghost-hunter or demon-hunter. This shit's starting to feel way too real and I want out.”
“Impossible.”
“I'm walking out that door right now.”
“You can't seriously think she'll let you do that, can you?” he asks, as he sets some empty vials on the table and then takes out a bottle of mineral water.
“Why wouldn't she?”
“Because you know about Shaltak.” He pours a small amount of the water into each vial. “I made damn sure that we just talked about Shaltak here in the church, where she can overhear us. And while demons always like to hear their name, she won't want you going around telling people what's going on here in the church. She'll kill you, just like she killed Kerry. I'm sorry, Mark, but you have to stay now. I've made sure of that.”
“You tricked me?” I ask, shocked by his confession.
“I made sure that I had some insurance. I bound you to this ritual, because I knew that I'd need you. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but I did what was necessary in order to ensure that the demon is cast out. If it's any consolation, the same applies to me too. I can't walk away either. Not now.”
“Bullshit,” I reply, pushing past him and heading out into the corridor. “I'm not falling for any more of your games.” I hurry toward the closed door and reach down to grab the handle. “There's no way this -”
Stopping suddenly, I realize that there's a hand on my shoulder. I'm certain that Liam didn't follow me out of the office, at least not quickly enough to have caught me already. Just as I start trying to convince myself that it must be him, I realize I can feel the icy fingers burning through the fabric of my t-shirt, and the hairs on the back of my neck are starting to stand up. I have one hand on the door's handle, but I'm starting to feel nauseous and finally, slowly, I turn around in an attempt to prove to myself that none of this is real.
Judith Prendergast lunges at me and screams.
Pulling away, I slam against the door and then I slump to the ground, landing hard on the stone floor. I wince, but as I look up I see that there's already nobody standing over me. She was there, and then she wasn't, but I can still feel the cold patch on my shoulder.
A moment later, Liam comes out of the office and stops in the doorway. He has various books and other items in his arms.
“Okay,” he says, “I think you probably understand now that I was telling the truth. Are you ready to get this job done?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mark
He's reading from the book, taking care with each unintelligible word. He told me earlier that the text is in Latin, and that it has to be read in its original form, which means that I don't have a clue what he's saying. There's one word that I keep hearing, though; every couple of minutes, the demon's name is used.
“Shaltak.”
Looking out across the church from the steps of the altar, I see no sign of anyone else here. The burned, ruined pews are all still in position, just about visible in the late-afternoon gloom. Rain is crashing down harder than ever outside and the light seems to be dimming, and some of the shadows here in the church are getting
darker and larger. I keep watching those shadows, in case anything appears, but so far it's as if we're being left alone.
Glancing at the altar, I see the vials sitting in a row.
“Holy water,” Liam explained a few hours ago, when we came through here.
“From a bottle of mineral water?”
“Any water can be blessed.”
And then he held a hand against each vial, and simply announced that they were now blessed.
“It can't be that easy,” I told him.
“There's nothing easy about faith,” he replied. “It doesn't even matter what you have faith in. Faith in the power of good, in the face of evil, is just as powerful as faith in the Lord.”
Now those seven vials are standing on the altar, as if they're waiting to be used. I don't really understand how this ritual is supposed to work, but I'm pretty sure that Liam's trying to summon the ghost of Judith Prendergast so that he can cast her out of the church and send her away from this world forever. So far, however, she doesn't appear to be taking the bait, and I can't help thinking that she might be too smart to fall for whatever Liam's got planned.
I guess I just have to try to have faith in him.
“How long are we going to do this?” I ask. “How long before you try something else?”
He doesn't reply. He glances at me, but he keeps on reading from the book. I suppose the book might be his only idea, and he did say earlier that this task might take a while. I feel as if he's daring the ghost to appear, as if he thinks its arrival is inevitable. To be honest, I don't see why the ghost or the demon – whatever it is – can't just hide away and wait for us to give up. Unless it can't help itself. Unless it's somehow drawn to us, and eventually it'll have to come.
I look over toward the shadows again.
And then I see her.
The ghost of Judith Prendergast is standing in the archway that leads through here from the corridor. She's not in the shadows at all; she's silhouetted against the corridor's stone wall, and she appears to be staring straight at us.
