The Kingdom (Berkeley Blackfriars Book 1)

by J. R. Mabry

  Panting heavily, he nodded at his companions, and Dylan went in, holding his lighter aloft. That’s why you need a pothead in your pack, Richard thought, and followed Terry down the narrow, winding stone steps into the dark.

  It seemed a long way down, and Richard fought hard against the claustrophobia rising up in him. It triggered the emotions he had been fighting over the past several days—the frustration of being in a situation he couldn’t find a way out of, his overwhelming feeling of shame, his suspicion that he simply wasn’t adequate to the task. The cold and the dark seemed to amplify his feelings with every step, and he began to sweat. He fought the panic and willed his mind to fix on Mikael rather than his own fucked-up self.

  It helped, and before long the panic subsided, just as the narrow staircase emptied out into a long hallway cut into stone. It, too, was narrow, but there was more room to move about.

  “Shit!” Dylan cursed and the lighter went out.

  “What happened?” Terry asked, fighting his own rising panic.

  “Burned mah damned fingers on the lighter. Wind changed when we left the stairs.”

  Richard paid attention, and it was true. There was a discernible draft coming from behind him.

  “Want me to hold it?” Terry offered.

  “Ah will when Ah find it,” Dylan said. Then both he and Terry said “Ouch!” simultaneously, and Richard’s mind painted on the velvet black field of his lightless eyes a comic scene of Dylan and Terry on their hands and knees, bumping heads.

  “Found it!” Terry said. In a moment, leaping yellow light flooded the hallway again.

  Richard noted the many holes cut into the stone, all up and down the hallway. Each opening was about a cubit square, one on top of another, about four holes from floor to ceiling. Each stack of holes was followed by another about every four feet. Richard whistled. There were literally hundreds of holes. “Terry,” Richard called and grabbed Terry’s arm to shine the light into one of the holes. There was something in there, and it appeared to be wrapped in linen.

  “It’s a body,” breathed Dylan.

  “Of course it’s a body,” Richard said, “these are catacombs. Probably been the Dane family resting place for a hundred years.”

  They continued on, looking for a door, or for the hallway to branch out into a room—anywhere Mikael might be.

  “Oh God,” Dylan breathed. “D’ya think…?” he pointed to one of the burial holes.

  “No, I don’t,” Richard said, marching doggedly after Terry. “I can’t.”

  Just then, Dylan froze in his tracks. “Terry, bring the light.” Terry stopped short near where Dylan was crouched. Although in his black cassock, he was especially hard to see. Terry had almost tripped over him.

  Dylan stood up and held something to the light. A red Hello Kitty purse, about the size of a small Chinese take-out box.

  A chill ran down Richard’s spine. “This. Is not good.”

  “What does it mean?” asked Terry.

  “It means we gotta get Mikael out of here, pronto, before he ends up stuffing one of these holes.”

  Richard raced ahead of his companions. He was beyond the reach of the light, but he didn’t care. Only when Dylan reached out and held him back did he slow down at all. He let Terry take the lead again, and they followed the sputtering light into the bowels of their own fear.

  The passage turned to the left and then abruptly ended. “Shit!” said Richard.

  “No, look, dude, the wall here isn’t solid. These are fake rocks, plastic. This is a door.” Dylan scratched at the end of the passage, and his nails made a sound like they were running over a gallon milk jug.

  Richard allowed himself a brief flood of hope. “How do we get it open?” he asked.

  “Be prepared,” Terry said, reciting the Boy Scout motto. He reached through the slit in his cassock to his jeans pocket and drew out a black leather case.

  The lighter went out briefly. “Dylan, you have to hold this again.”

  Dylan yowled in pain as the hot metal of the lighter touched his hand. “Suck it up, you big baby,” Terry said.

  “Dude, that is so unkind,” Dylan complained and raked his thumb along the lighter’s flint wheel. Blue sparks shot out, then the yellow flame danced again.

  Terry knelt by the door and withdrew lock picks from the leather case. He held back the plastic flap covering the keyhole and began to work at it with the slender silver instruments. In a few moments, Richard heard a click, and the door swung inward.

  They were met by a blast of rank air, smelling of excrement and sweat. Richard ignored it and followed Dylan into the chamber without hesitation. Terry, showing the better part of valor, kept watch in the hall. “What do you see?” he called into the chamber after them.

  At first, Richard thought that the chamber was empty, but then he saw a dark form in the far corner. Tugging on Dylan, he drew him over. As they grew near, they saw that the floor was covered by a thin mattress, spotted by water—or worse. On the mattress, covered by rough army surplus wool blankets, was a slight figure. Richard knelt on the mattress, which, he noted, was wet and stinking, and drew back the edge of the blanket.

  It was Mikael. His wild hair was matted, and he looked more bone-thin than usual. Richard placed two fingers on his neck. Yes, there was a pulse, however faint. Richard slapped lightly at his face, but Mikael did not budge.

  “We found him!” he called to Terry. “And he’s alive!”

  “Thanks be to God!” Terry called back from the doorway.

  Richard took one of Mikael’s arms and threw it over his own shoulder. He motioned for Dylan to do the same. Dylan did. The lighter went out momentarily, and Richard felt a flash of panic in the pitch blackness, but as soon as they had lifted Mikael between them, the flame sprang to life once more.

  As soon as they were through the door, Terry took the lighter and led the way. Mikael’s feet dragged behind them, and Richard worried that they were hurting his arms in their haste, but he put it out of his mind. He didn’t care if they dislocated both of Mikael’s shoulders, so long as they got him out. They could fucking pop his arms back into their sockets later.

  Richard wasn’t really concentrating on where they were going, and he collided with Terry when the shorter man stopped in his tracks. “Oh shit,” he heard Terry whisper.

  Richard looked up and added his own expletives. Coming down the narrow stone steps was a flaming figure, so bright that Richard had to squint against it until his eyes adjusted.

  When they did, however, he wished again for the relative coziness of the dark. Descending from the final step onto the hardpacked earth was Alice Stout, transfigured by an orange luminosity emanating from her eyes and from balls of light affixed to two of her four hands.

  In the other two hands, in constant motion up and down, were curved blades that flashed and reflected the light like razor-sharp mirrors.

  Beneath her page-boy haircut, beneath the orange balls of fire that were her eyes, a tongue hung twisting obscenely from her gaping jaws, much longer and more prehensile than a human tongue had any right to be.

  But that was because, it was obvious to the friars, this creature was not human.

  “I knew there was something about her,” Richard breathed. He quickly but gently lowered Mikael to the floor. “Terry, the rite. Dylan, something cruciform, quick!”

  Instantly, Terry began to recite from the Rite of Exorcism, pausing only briefly to allow his memory to fill in the gaps: “Holy Lord! All powerful! Eternal God! Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ! You who destined that recalcitrant and apostate Tyrant to the fires of Hell; you who sent your only Son into this world in order that He might crush this Roaring Lion. Throw your terror, Lord, over this Beast. Give faith to your servants against this most Evil Serpent, to fight most bravely—”

  Dylan had a harder time of it, finally grabbing at Richard’s belt, tying it to his own to form a makeshift equilateral cross. Once he had it crudely assembled, he stepped in
front of his colleagues, holding the talisman before them like a shield. Richard fumbled at the fanny pack beneath his cassock and withdrew a vial of holy water, blessed at the last vigil of Easter.

  The demon was noticeably subdued by the recitation, and at the sight of the cross she shrank back a couple of steps, turning her fiery gaze away.

  Richard stepped forward, flicking holy water at her, and the sound of water crackling against a hot frying pan echoed off the stones.

  In the dim and failing light of her flailing palms, they could see smoke rising from where the water had struck her. The friars moved in on her as one.

  She retreated a couple of steps but was not undone. Screaming with fury, she lashed out at them with the scimitars, lunging toward them, so close that Richard felt the wind of the blades.

  He swung the holy water vial furiously, sending streams of silver beads arcing through the air toward the faltering demon, great gushes of steam issuing from where they landed. Howls of pain unnerved the friars as they strove to hold their ground.

  Richard flung another arc of holy water, and then the stream ceased. The vial was empty. Richard shook it and tried again, to no avail. Sensing the worst of it was over and that victory was near, the demon advanced again, forcing Richard to step back to avoid the slashing blades. He tripped over Dylan, and both men went down with a groan. The demon raised her blade over her head in an act of ritual victory before taking off their heads.

  Just then, Terry ceased the recitation and began a chant. “Keshava klesha-harana, narayana janardana, govinda paramananda, mam samuddhara madhava…”

  The demon stopped short, dropped both blades, and shrank back, holding her various hands to her head to block out the sound. Richard noticed, and although he did not know the chant, picked it up as best he could and added his own voice. Dylan did the same with his deep baritone, and the hallway was soon thrumming with the insistent, even militant cadence of the chant.

  The demon fell to the floor, and the lights in her palms guttered out. With a final cry of anguish, the friars found themselves engulfed once again in clean darkness and cold silence.

  “Thanks be to God,” Richard breathed.

  “Ah heard that,” Dylan agreed.

  The feeble flame of the lighter sprang up again, and Dylan and Richard lifted Mikael to their shoulders. Following Terry, they stepped over the demon’s carcass toward the stairs.

  44

  ONCE IN THE CAR, Dylan threatened to break the land speed record for San Francisco. “Better back off,” Richard advised. “We don’t need to explain why we have a friar passed out in our backseat, reeking of shit.”

  “Oh I dunno, dude, that’s not so hard to explain. We friars are notorious fer bein’ drunken louts thanks to Tuck.” But he slowed down just the same, trying to maintain a steady five miles an hour over the posted limit as he made for the Bay Bridge.

  Terry checked as many of Mikael’s vitals as he could unaided by any instruments. When he finished, he held the unconscious man’s hand and looked out the window. In the strobe of passing amber streetlamps, Richard could see tears trailing Terry’s cheeks. Terry noticed him looking and forced a smile. Richard smiled back, grimly, and turned back to face the front.

  “Terry, Ah wanna know how you knew to do that Hindu chant. Ah thought we wuz gonners fer sure. How the hell did ya pull that one out o’ yer ass?”

  Terry sniffed, but Richard could hear a note of pride in his voice. “It was obvious from her iconographic form that the demon was Indian. She reminded me of Putana, the first demon that Krishna defeated as a child. Her thing was murdering babies, and she used to gain access to their rooms by posing as a nurse. She used to smear her breast with poison, then when the baby went to suck, boom! Dead baby. But when she tried it with Krishna, it was she that keeled over. Anyway, I assumed that since the demon was native to the Hindu paradigm, an invocation of the Hindu pantheon would be more efficacious. Since Jesus is considered by Hindus to be an incarnation of Vishnu, I decided to invoke the most popular incarnation of Vishnu—Krishna. And since the demon reminded me of one Krishna had defeated anyway, it seemed like confirmation that it was the right thing to do.”

  “Well, praise fucking Krishna,” Dylan said with genuine awe, shaking his head. He then shot Richard an inquiring look. “So, dude, did ya get any useful information out of Dane’s demon while we was chasin’ our tails?”

  Richard’s silence told him that he had. “Well, spill it, man!”

  “What did you find, Richard?” Terry called from the backseat.

  “I learned how Dane is controlling these demons without being a magickian.”

  “Ah jus’ figgered he was a magickian,” Dylan shrugged.

  “Nah, wrong type,” Terry commented. “He’s the playboy, an’ I don’t want to work any harder than I have to kind of person. Magickians work their asses off.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Dylan. “It takes a high level of geek proficiency and commitment.”

  “More than Dane could ever muster,” Richard added. “So, he found a workaround.”

  “I can only think of one magickal artifact that could provide that,” Terry said.

  “Would it be something involving a red stone in a gaudily ostentatious setting?” Richard teased. “Like the ring Dane was wearing when he interrupted our exorcism the other day?”

  Richard looked over his shoulder to see Terry’s reaction. The smaller man’s eyes were wide. “Solomon’s Ring? The man has the fucking Ring of Solomon? Where the hell…?” And he trailed off, incredulous.

  “Think about it,” Richard said, “The man has almost unlimited wealth. He could get his hands on just about anything.”

  Above Terry’s head, Richard could see the headlights of the cars behind them. They had just pulled onto the Bay Bridge, and the merging cars typically got a little too close for comfort, but as Richard watched, the car behind them did not back off.

  “Okay, Dylan, don’t panic, but the car behind us is really eating our ass.”

  Dylan’s eyes flicked back and forth between the road and his mirrors. “Shit, he is not backin’ off, is he?”

  In fact, Richard noted, the car was closing the distance. He grabbed the headrest in both hands against the impact, but even so, when it came, he was not ready.

  It was only a tap, but it rattled his teeth in his head just the same. “Shit!” Dylan exclaimed, correcting the swerve caused by the rear collision.

  Richard looked closely at the car behind them. In the dim fluorescent light of the bridge’s undercarriage, it appeared to be a black town car, with tinted windows such that he could make out none of the occupants.

  “Fifty bucks says that if we ran those plates, we’d find Dane somewhere on the other end,” Dylan said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m bettin’ you’re right,” Richard nodded.

  Dylan accelerated, trying to put as much distance between them and the car behind as he could.

  Richard watched as the car fell behind but then picked up speed again, heading for their bumper without any hesitation, and this time with a lot more speed. “Hold on,” Richard warned.

  This time, the impact pitched them all forward. Mikael’s head struck the back of Richard’s seat, and Terry swore. Dylan fought the fishtail, steering into the swerve and accelerating.

  They hit Treasure Island doing about eighty miles per hour, the car behind them toying with them like a cat does a mouse. It came closer, then backed off, then came closer as if to ram them again.

  “What does he want?” Terry asked.

  “My guess is that he wants Mikael back probably because if he comes to, he can put Dane away for kidnapping.”

  “But why did he take Mikael in the first place?”

  Richard didn’t know, but he didn’t have time to speculate. The car behind them was threatening another ram.

  “Well, dudes, this is only likely to get uglier once we get off the bridge,” Dylan said, gripping the wheel so hard his fis
ts were white. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I have an idea,” said Terry.

  “I wuz hopin’ you would say that, little buddy,” Dylan’s voice betrayed his relief.

  “We have to slow down when we get near the toll plaza—too many CHP around. He’ll play along, I’m sure. About a hundred yards past the toll plaza, you have to let me out—to the left, not the right, so I can make for the protection of the median divider.”

  “Okay…”

  “Then you take the first exit to your right—to the Oakland docks. Circle around to the toll plaza—stick to the left and just turn into the parking lot before you hit the toll booths. Zoom through the parking lot and pick me up.”

  “Just make a loop, yer sayin’?”

  “It’ll give me just enough time to set some wards.”

  Dylan looked at Richard for approval. Richard shrugged. “I don’t have a better plan,” he said.

  Dylan nodded and swerved into the left-hand lane. The off-ramp for the bridge was just ahead of them, and Terry got ready. “Don’t stop; just slow down. I’ll roll out, and then you step on it again.”

  “Aye-aye,” Dylan affirmed.

  The black car behind them backed off as they slowed, cautious of being observed by the highway patrol near the toll station, as Terry had predicted. Terry opened the door just enough to lower himself out and then rolled as he hit the pavement.

  “Shit!” he swore, as his funny bone took a jolt. A wave of pain coursed through his arm, straight to his head, so severe he was certain he would vomit.

  But he didn’t. In a moment, he stopped rolling, and, cradling his elbow, he sat up and looked toward the East. He was hoping that it was dark enough that the pursuing car would not have noticed, but perhaps that was hoping too much. At least, he noted with relief, the car continued to follow their own.