Deliver Us From Evil (Demons Beware Book 2)

by mike Evans

  “Check his breast pocket for his wallet please. I fear I already know who it is though.”

  “Can you hold for a few minutes while I run back?”

  “Please hurry, I need to know.”

  Dursky jogged back up sliding in between a slew of people. He ran back to Father Nathaniel’s coat, pulling his identification from his wallet and made his way back to the phone. “It says Nathaniel Hufford, twenty-nine-years old, does that sound like someone that you know?” Dursky asked. He held the phone wanting to ask more questions but refused to take a moment from the man if he needed it. There was no doubt that there was sobbing coming from the other end. Dursky waited just as long as he could before finally asking, “Can I assume that he is someone that you know of, Father Michaels?”

  “He was one of the ones that you don’t want to lose. We have so few of these men that there aren’t any we can afford to be without. He’s going to be missed and I don’t know how his partner is going to be able to live without him.”

  “Can you give me a description, or a name, because he wasn’t the only priest, Father Michaels.”

  “What details aren’t you giving me, Detective, please don’t hold anything back, you aren’t helping make me feel any better. Are you saying that there was more than one?”

  Dursky looked at the sign on the desk saying thank you for not smoking and flipped it upside down. He put a smoke to his lips, lighting it and leaned back. “It was all the priests, it was almost the entire congregation, there was a poisoning at the service today.”

  A thud, which Dursky assumed, was Father Michaels dropping the receiver upon hearing the news. He waited for him to pick it up when a second much heavier thud came. Screaming came from the background that he could hear, followed by a man screaming to call an ambulance. James picked up the phone. “Who is this, what did you say to him.”

  “This is Detective Dursky I'm just doing what this business card said to do. I was on my way to the airport, but if I was able to help someone in any way at all, or give some type of warning to anyone to be careful of this psycho then that was what I was going to do.”

  “What are you talking about, what does the card say?” James asked, looking down at Father Michaels lying on the ground, but feeling better when he could see his chest rising up and down, his eyes were beginning to flutter and realized that he was all right, that he had just fainted.

  “You make sure you are sitting down. I don’t need anyone else to pass out on me. It says, In case of emergency, please contact Father Michaels, head of those who do the holy work and send those unworthy of Earth back to hell where they belong. Maybe you can do me the justice of telling me what the hell this card is talking about, send what back to hell? Who was this Father Nathaniel?”

  “He was one of the few in the states that regularly sends demons back to hell. When they come to Earth and take over one of the innocents, we cast them back to hell where they belong.”

  “So, you’re talking about real life demons?”

  “Those are the only kind of demons that I know about, Detective Dursky. I thank you for calling him, but what made him go down?”

  “He asked if only Nathaniel was the one I found. I had broken the news to him that it was all the priests and the congregation. We think…no we are sure that the only thing that could have happened was poison in the wine. Only those who skipped drinking the wine because of age or previous demons haunting them were excused from it. Everyone else here died. There had to have been over two hundred people. It is the worst thing that I have ever seen. Women, children, men, teenagers, everyone. Whoever did it had absolutely no concern for their victims.”

  “He was one of the only two who were in charge of fighting demons in the California area. Things have been picking up here lately. My partner got hurt and had issues of his own to temporarily deal with and I haven’t seen him since. If I need to go warn him of danger, you say the word.”

  “I don’t know, the man had a ticket on him I assume, and one of the boys must have ripped the stub off when he was being killed in the dressing room.”

  “One of the altar boys? Good lord, what is wrong with this man? Who kills innocent boys?”

  “I’d say confidently that there is a lot wrong with him. I can call back when I have more information, can I give you my name. The precinct can get a hold of me at any time, day or night, regardless of where I am.”

  “I thought you were getting on a plane?”

  “I will in just the minute I find out where he is going,” Dursky said as calmly as he could. He was having a hell of a time wrapping his head around all the information which he was hearing for the first time.

  Mark poked his head in the door, and the words coming off his lips felt like a blow to the head. “He’s heading to Chicago, Dursky. I had the security team run the number and then they checked the flight video. Guess what they saw when they watched the tape, or guess what they didn’t see when they saw the tape. The bastard has to be doing something to the videos I just don’t know what?”

  “I don’t know either, but he’s doing something, and it is horrible. We need to stop him. You want to head to the Windy City?”

  “We don’t have any jurisdiction there; what do you really think you are going to do?”

  “I'm going, you let the captain know that I decided to go to Chicago.”

  “He’s going to have your ass!”

  “Better than the devil having the world,” he said as he uncapped the phone. “I'm on my way their Father, I’ve got the address on the back of your card. I'm going to stop at the police station and then I’ll be right there. If you can lock down your church, I suggest that you do it as soon as you can.”

  “Lock it down, are you kidding me? If he knows how to kill hundreds of people do you really think a lock is going to keep him out?”

  “Just be aware that he might be there, he has a few hours head start and it is impossible to say if he is going there or not. He is going to Chicago though, I have to wonder if he is headed for you?”

  “I need to find Billy. Are you stopping here after you leave the Chicago Police Department?”

  “I plan to keep an eye on it, unless there is something else going on. You have a partner, like this man did by chance you said?”

  “Billy Parker, we’ve been together forever since we had to save his little brother Tony.”

  “Okay, well if you aren’t out fighting demons, I want to meet with you. If I know where you are, I know where he will be going. If he has Intel on where you guys are going to be, then he has some kind of inside information. I don’t know who would want you guys dead, I mean it, I know there are some dark ass people out there, but seriously, who wants to do something like that to someone of the cloth?”

  “Someone who isn’t worried about heaven, a person so dark that maybe quite literally they made a deal with Satan. That is someone that I could truly fear.”

  “We can talk about all this when we are face to face. You just stay alive for the next six hours and I’ll be there. You think you can do that.”

  “I’ll definitely be trying my best, Detective Dursky.”

  “You do that Father, you do that. Give me one less thing to regret if we live through all of this.”

  Chapter 19

  Chicago Police Department Hours Later

  Tony lay on the bench of the holding cell, he was in with everyone waiting for the processing and to be sent where they needed to go. He was mumbling in his sleep. Not one soul in the cell cared about his well-being, and those outside of it could have the same said about him. He was moaning in his sleep, the men on the bench looked at each other. The boy was skinny, sweat soaked, and his leather jacket had been removed; the vast array of different religious tattoos and crosses were hard to miss. Tony started to come around, everything he could see looked like he was trying to see it through a glass bottle. He tried to pull himself up but didn’t realize the thing he was holding on to wasn’t a wall but a man. When To
ny felt skin beneath his sweaty fingers, he let go. A man that had two feet on Tony towered over him. He took Tony by the hand and then put his other behind his shoulder and practically threw Tony to the ground.

  Tony held his hands out trying to catch himself, but with no way to see yet was unable to do anything. A voice filled with authority yelled, “Benny you leave him alone, or you are going to upset someone out here. You want out on Monday, or not?”

  “Don’t do much good, but mean, I don’t know where my food is coming from, Boss,” he said to the guard on the outside.

  The guard smiled shrugging and spun on his heel walking backwards. Half the night’s entertainment was watching the drunks fight it out on the inside of the cell. If they were here, nine times out of ten they deserved it and for the poor bastard that didn’t, well he figured it helped them make a decision to not come back if they could possibly avoid it. The large man walked over and Tony was still trying to see. He pulled his shirt up, rubbing at his eyes with it. A pain erupted in the back of his head; the officer’s, the men at the restaurant, and the people on the street came rushing back to him. The first thing he really couldn’t stop thinking about was his mother and girlfriend. What would happen to them, would they know where he is, would he be getting out of here, were those things after him?

  Tony screamed, the men all didn’t think such a loud voice would be coming out of such a skinny young man. “Guards, hello? I need out of here, I need out of here now.”

  The guard on duty, Wright strolled over running his nightstick across the bars. “You aren’t going anywhere until Monday, unless someone comes to bail you out. You know anyone that has enough money to bail your ass out? You’d be lucky if they charged by the pound for bail, wouldn’t cost much at all.”

  “I’d like to call my mother and warn her.”

  “Warn her of what, that her son is in prison and she’s going to have to go out for her own crack rock?”

  “I tell you what, I have one healthy movement I need to go and take, you stay in here and keep thinking of someone that can bail you out of here. I’d love someone to post bond, the idea of having to listen to you whine for the next two days of my weekend shift doesn’t do much for my sense of well-being. I already hate working weekends, I don’t care to have you ruin that.”

  “You need to listen to me, there’s something going on. Please let me call my mother, my girlfriend, or my priest.”

  “You need to shut up runt,” Bennie said walking toward him.

  Tony, not all that short himself looked up, seeing he was just barely above this man’s crotch level and had to strain his neck backwards to see him. Bennie picked him up smiling, “You hear me, you little bitch? Huh, did you? You want to leave here with all your teeth and bones the way that they should be?”

  Tony ignored the man screaming for the guard as he walked away. Bennie walked quickly, not affected by Tony’s weight. He slammed him into the cell wall hard; the brick wall made his head pound even worse. Tony let out a lung full of breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the pain race through his skull and down his body. The man laughed and for good measure looked at the other men who started laughing to.

  Tony opened his eyes slowly and saw dead eyes staring back at him. The man whispered, “The devil is everywhere boy and he got you in his sights. You were so close when you were a kid, that he thinks you could still be helpful. You let us in, you hear me?”

  Tony held up his arms folding them together, he had two half crosses that made one very large one when placed together. Across them it said Cavete, Daemones in Latin meaning demons beware. The man yelled, taking a few steps back, but not letting go, his eyes went back to normal almost immediately. Tony yelled for him to let go, but the man who had him in his grasp was no happier to see him. Tony yelled for help, but the rest of the men in the cell had no reason to help him and therefore did not want to join in the pummeling, which was sure to be served. Tony looked feverishly for a guard, anyone walking by that would help him. He had never been in trouble and did not understand what was going on or why this man was doing anything to him as he had been unprovoked.

  A voice that sounded like the man’s when possessed came from behind him. “You should beat him, Bennie, you should rip off anything you can from him, maybe it’ll teach the police to just not pick you up when you go off on a bender.”

  Bennie, who didn’t have a handful worth of common sense nodded. He smiled and Tony could see hygiene and a lack of teeth wasn’t something which bothered the man. When he went to bring Tony into the wall again, Tony brought two hands up in between the man’s arms. The man didn’t know what the boy was doing and Tony brought them across as hard as he could, aiming two smaller fists into the man’s ears. He hit hard and the man’s equilibrium immediately buckled.

  Bennie let go, not wanting to, but cupping his ears was the only thing which he could think of. When he let go of Tony, he fell to the floor, he pushed back up as quickly as he could trying to right himself. Bennie took a step forward, not ready to use his hands, but for some reason worried that Tony might get away and disrespect in prison or jail was not something which was allowable.

  When the man got close, Tony righted himself, bringing back a barefoot because the police took boots and shoes to give men and women one less thing to fight and kill themselves with. He unleashed it into the man’s balls. Bennie tried to be ready for it, but that wasn’t something that anyone could be prepared for. The pain exploded through his body and Tony took a few steps back waiting for the attack that wasn’t going to come. When Bennie fell to his knees Tony took a running start jumping at just the right time to get his knee up high enough that he rammed it into the man’s face. Bennie’s head snapped backwards and his nose broke instantly which led to blood pouring from his face. When Bennie tried to get up, he flipped him over and kicked him once more in the ribs for good measure.

  When the other man on the bench looked at Tony he saw that his eyes were not a threat, at least that of a demon possessed cell mate. Tony took a few steps backwards looking at the rest of the men in there and holding his hands ready to fight. Most of these men had seen Bennie before. This was the first time for him and they realized that they might want to treat him with a little more respect than they were thinking he originally deserved. Tony walked to the cell bars keeping an eye on the man on the ground and began screaming, drawing all the attention which he thought he needed to get some help. Unfortunately for Tony he didn’t get even a look from them. When he looked behind him, he started screaming at the top of his lungs. The eyes of the cellmates started to glow red. He saw that there were a number of them that would be more than he had any chance of stopping. Tony yelled to a few of the men near him, “Do you see that, please, we need to fight them off, I need you to take care of them with me.”

  The men looked at who he was pointing at and figured Tony for a drunk or drug addict, not someone who was being taunted by the devil, for reasons still unknown. The man who’d been sitting on the bench stood up shoving Tony against the bars. “What is it you want us looking at you little psycho bastard. There’s nothing there but a bunch of criminals. You think that there is something special about them, something that makes us different than them?”

  “They are going to eat your soul; you have no idea how dark they are…how dark they can be. They are the devil’s henchmen, they want all of us, they want to rule the world, to take sin to a new level.”

  The man laughed until the demons came running toward them. He was in between Tony and them and that was all they needed for a reason to attack him. He was not ready for the strength that the possessed had. One man single handedly lifted him by the throat with one hand spinning him around and crushing him into the bars. His skull hit first and crushed beneath the force of the impact. His echoes filled with pain consumed the ears of all to be heard which were not already taken by the demons.

  Tony gripped at his chest not because of heart pain, but for his rosary and other crosses
he kept. Tony was not ignorant and the fact that they had taken his belongings before they stuck him in here to live or die dawned on him quickly.

  He’d made his brother Billy long ago teach him how he performs an exorcism, it had not been a quick process. Billy had told him no for weeks. When his hand fell on bare skin his stomach sank. He looked around wild-eyed. There was no shortage of criminals in the cage with him. Tony knew men like these would not be willing to put themselves before others including himself.

  Tony had no clue if it would work and if it did how long it would work for but seconds extra to try and think of his next move was better than none. Tony joined his two arms in front of him, the two long black tattoos, which looked like nightsticks by themselves were united and made a foot-long solid black cross, which had the words ‘Save Us, Left Not’ inked in black. The demons ran toward him not veering or slowing down at all. Tony heard the keys rattling behind him feeling a moment of hope. He saw an officer frantically trying to get the door open.

  “Hurry up!” Tony screamed. “Those things are almost here, get it open, now!”