by mike Evans
Tony looked at the clock, he didn’t keep tabs on Billy and knew that if there were demons to send to hell he’d be out fighting them. “We can go by the church, or if you promise not to run off I’ll go check on him. You think you can sit here for two minutes while I check on it?”
Dursky motioned for him to leave and the orderly helped him get his bad leg back up on the bed. Dursky laid back ready to pass out, but shook his head, trying to keep in the game. “You hurry up!”
Tony disappeared out of the room, the fact that his girlfriend had been left at work and his mom unaccounted for as of when he went to jail made him sick to his stomach. Within a half hour the two were headed out, disobeying every order the doctor had told him, but with an influx of patients coming with gunshot wounds realized that there were more important things to be done. Tony had poked his head out of the doorway, hearing a few police in the hallway talking about how the precinct where Tony had been was on some sort of drugs and everyone had lost their minds. The civilians walking in the streets had been gunned down, something Tony instantly felt guilty about, even though he knew that there was nothing he could do. He was somewhat surprised they had not tried to take the bodies, unless Satan had been trying to send demons to heaven again, he questioned.
Dursky whistled until he couldn’t stand it and began cursing when his leg muscles contracted as he got out of the hospital bed. He looked at the cheap metal cane the doctor had given him with the advice to put as little weight on it as possible and thought the odds were stacked against them, of course, had he known who the real players were tonight and that Satan was leading the way he would have been even less optimistic.
Chapter 20
Billy checked his watch. He felt like his heart was going to explode. He felt light-headed as his pulse was racing and therefore was making his hand want to explode. It had quit bleeding for a while, but had just squeezed the handkerchief tighter in his hand. He was halfway to the church when he realized he needed to know his family was okay.
He changed direction running for his mother’s house. The thought that even one demon let alone an entire horde of them were after Tony again, made him sick. He tried to think of the times he’d fought them and realized he was on his own, and had no backup, no way to get hold of James or Father Michaels and didn’t know if they were even at the church to call. He wasn’t thinking practically and wanted to find his mother and Tony in hopes that he could do something to save them or if they were safe still, move them into the church and its protection.
He was determined and fearful and he didn’t take long to make it to his mom’s. He tried to watch every person as he sprinted looking like a crazy man in the streets. Billy didn’t focus on what they were carrying, how they were standing, he watched their eyes waiting for them to suddenly turn red. The last thing he wanted to see were five hundred sets of red eyes chasing him down. He thought of the zombies in the street knowing that they were still somewhere, unsure what they were going to do with them. Billy tried to think of what the plan was, what they were doing and could come up with nothing. He was confident that there was something much bigger at play here, but the end game was hard to see.
When Billy made it to the doorstep, he could see lights on already. He did the sign of the cross with a short prayer that everything he’d been worrying for on the way here was where it should be. He knew if he had to run all over town looking for Tony that it could be too late by the time that he found him. He didn’t knock and used his key to get in. His mother was reading at the table and there were no worries, at least…not yet on her face. Billy was sure that he was about to ruin that.
Joan looked up to see him, smiling until her motherly instincts took over and she did what every mother did and that was do a run over his personal appearance. His suit was dirty and torn from the exorcism earlier, his hand covered with a handkerchief and by now was fully soaked through with blood, his face swollen, scraped, and more than likely had dry blood. Small drops were finding their way to the ground and it was the only noise in the house. “Where’s Tony, mom, I need to find him.”
“Tony, what happened, Billy?”
“Mom, I don’t have time for-”
“Don’t you mom me, William Parker, not for one damn minute. You tell me what is wrong with you, why you are standing in my living room bleeding and you look like you went to hell and back?”
Billy held up his hand, seeing it and how the running had not helped keep it from bleeding worse. He went to the kitchen sink, pulling the handkerchief off, wincing when he did. “Look, it isn’t as bad as it seems. James and I had a job today, I don’t think that I need to tell you what kind of job it was. It didn’t go well-”
“Oh, Billy, honey, are you okay, I mean, did you save whomever it was that needed helping, who you were trying to save?”
“Yeah, we saved them, I almost lost James in the process but we came through. If it wasn’t for that whole God thing and being able to help more than other people because we knew that he was there and there was a real fight I like to think maybe being an accountant sounds nice. I can’t think punching a calculator is all that hard, I was always good at math.”
“Do you remember your report cards? I don’t think it would have been an option for you dear. So why are you looking for Tony, what is going on?”
“I just want to make sure that he’s okay. The demon said something about him, about the family and how they wanted him back. It didn’t set well with me and I want to get him to the church. I want you there too, until this is over. I can call your boss and explain, or whatever you want to do, you tell me. But I want to get a bag for the two of you, and I want to get out of here. I don’t like the way the city is acting, it seems off to me, I don’t know how to explain it.”
“A priest who is freaked out about demons is all that I need. If you think that things are worse than normal, the last thing I want to do is sit and argue with you. I just hope it isn’t like all those years ago.”
Billy nodded; he had no issues remembering what it was that happened all those years ago. “I pray that it isn’t that serious, but with all the work I’ve done, all the people whom I’ve saved, there has never been a demon who has taunted me threatening my family. I don’t know what they want with him or you for that matter, but I'm sure as hell not going to do anything that is going to jeopardize the two of you. Go get a bag and come on, we need to go and find Tony, else I’ll drop you off at the church get James and the two of us can go together.”
“Oh, wouldn’t that be just lovely, leave me with a nun or Father Michaels to worry sick over the lot of you. Can we please do that?” Joan said hands on her hips and full of sarcasm.
“Would you rather have a demon rip you in half and make Tony and I have to look at our only mother in the world lying on the ground with her gut-”
“Christ our Lord, would you quit! You are going to make me see things that I am unable to forget. Take a breath Billy, let’s get a couple things and head out.”
She went up the stairs with Billy behind her, he told her to go get her clothes, enough for a few days and some toiletries for the two of them and he’d only be a few minutes. Billy went into Tony’s room, the same one the two of them had shared for almost two decades together. His posters from boyhood long gone. The cross that had burned off the wall as children now replaced many, many times over. Those who had been allowed to know about the demons had happily bought the boys crosses every time they’d seen one. At one point, they finally had to start turning them down, as they had no more room with which to hang them.
Billy opened the dresser seeing nothing but a pack of smokes, a Bible and a backup rosary bead necklace. He went through the rest of the drawers not seeing any clothes. He could only shake his head at his brother being a slob. He could already imagine finding all of his work overalls crumpled on the ground and a selection of equally messy looking Levi’s and black pocket T-shirts lying with it. He looked under the bed, finding a backpack and opened t
he door to the closet. Had he known what he was getting himself into he would not have laid a finger on the knob.
The demons practically barked with laughter when he broke the holy barrier and the door knob ripped from his grasp. Billy looked at his hand, seeing welts that could very well be blisters soon forming on the inside of his palm. The force of the demons sent him back five feet on to Tony’s bed. He hit with a bounce already swinging his momentum, ignoring the pain and rushing toward the hallway door. It slammed shut before he could reach it and Billy ran with everything he had. He looked behind him and while he could not see it, he knew that there was something evil in the room. He knew they wouldn’t take him but would sure as hell toss him out of the window with great satisfaction. Billy ran straight into the door. The force with which he hit it with sent it off the hinges shattering the wood frame.
Billy stumbled out falling on the broken door. His mother, Joan had jumped three feet, clasping her chest, frightened that her heart might come out of it and tossed the bag full of toiletries in the air spilling them everywhere. Billy could feel something go past him and when he looked back at his mother who had been dressed to be in for the night noticed she did not have her cross on. He realized she’d either taken it off or it had come off when she changed. He screamed to her, but knew it would be too late if he didn’t do something. “Ma, get in the tub, get in the tub and turn on the water, do it now, do it, plug the drain!”
It took a minute for Joan to realize what she was hearing because it made no damn sense at all. She climbed into the tub carefully not caring or needing to take off any clothes. She watched the look of fright in Billy’s eyes and feared for her own safety as she watched the frames along the short hallway begin to shake frantically. She put in the stopper turning the water on full blast. The echoes of pain filled the hallway.
Billy kicked off of the door until he was back on the wood floor. He rushed down it seeing the door beginning to shake. He knew that if it shut, that she would either be taken by them or they would try and send her to hell by making her break some Catholic commandment. Billy got a few balls full of holy water from his pocket, feeling around and seeing that yes, there was very little left of them in his pocket. He took out three of them diving for the bathroom and throwing the glass against the white plastic of the bathtub. They thankfully shattered against it and the holy water mixed with the bath and formed a shield for Joan. He cringed when the radio began to float across the floor toward her and still plugged in. The digital numbers blinking six six six on them. Billy ran sliding and threw one last ball shattering it and it fell to the floor breaking into pieces.
The screams of frustration and failure came back toward Billy. They lifted him off his feet dragging him backwards at speeds he did not know that demons could travel. They tossed him up in the air. Billy had lived there long enough to know the hallway wasn’t long and didn’t need to look to know he was almost out of the hallway. At the end of it was a staircase and a balcony and neither of those were something he wanted to deal with falling down.
The invisible hands let go, he felt nothing beneath him now but gravity and air. Billy held out his hand, the best one he had to use now given the nail wound in the other. His hand hit against the railing and he used everything he could to grasp on and clench his fingers around it. Billy felt thankful when he could feel the wood beneath his grasp, at least until his momentum stopped and he jerked to a stop almost letting go. His body stopped moving in the direction and he swung down, hitting hard against the side steps. He tried to pull himself up but between a burnt hand and the other with a nail wound through it could barely believe that he was able to hold on this long. His grasp slipped and he fell from the balcony to the ledge beneath it.
He heard the house’s front door rattling, realizing something was either trying to get out or in, but wasn’t sure what. A thin hand weathered from age and years of manual labor wrapped around his wrist followed by the other. Joan smiled, soaking wet sitting on the edge of the step pulling with everything she could muster to try and get her oldest son a helping hand. She helped give him the time and reassurance that she could and when Billy had an elbow under him, he was able to pull the rest of his weight up. When he made it over the edge of the steps the door burst open. Billy saw Dursky come through gun up and running…or doing his best to hobble.
Dursky came off like a crazy man with a dirty work shirt and tie, a pair of green scrub pants and a large pistol in his hand aiming it where he looked. Billy scrambled to his feet pushing his mother in front of him as they headed back down the hallway. When they passed the hall closet he opened it getting a baseball bat he still kept at the house as his quarters in the church were not plentiful. He ran the best he could for the stairs. Dursky was coming up the steps as fast as he could, he had not seen Billy coming yet and when he was within a few feet could just barely duck in time to not have Billy take his head off with the slugger. Billy yelled, “Get out of my house demon, your body will be no good to you once I knock the head off it!”
Dursky fell backwards as he avoided the massive swing. Even with Billy’s bum hands, he still swung the bat with a hate filled angst. Dursky let go of the cane using his hand to grip onto the banister. Billy had wasted no time getting ready with a second swing, but Tony was at the bottom of the steps screaming at the top of his lungs. “Billy, he’s here to help, he’s here to help, don’t do it!”
Billy shook his head, making sure that he wasn’t seeing things. He knew the demons could get inside your head and wasn’t about to let him be fooled?”
“Anthony, is that you?”
“Only mom gets to call me that ass and you know it!”
Billy let the bat down slowly smiling, nodding his head. “Yeah, that’s you, who the hell is this, and why didn’t you come in first?”
“I was parking the car, he took a shot to the leg earlier. He helped me get out of jail.”
Joan, who was a mom above all else yelled, “What do you mean you were in jail, Anthony Parker?”
“It wasn’t my fault, MA!”
“You accidentally ended up in jail?” Asked Billy
“There were demons, they were taking people over in plain sight. I was the only one that saw them of course. I bolted from there, two cops stopped me…probably for looking like an insane man. I woke up in a cell after one of them clubbed me over the head. It didn’t take long before whatever had been on the outside started coming after me in the cell. One of the guards opened the door and I kicked it and got out. By the time I was halfway through the door guns started going off and they were coming for me. When I made it outside they weren’t far behind me. Dursky took one in the leg and I took him to the hospital. I wanted to make sure mom was okay, I was going to take her to the church. I figured you were going to be okay on your own as long as you had James’ help.”
Billy walked down the stairs with his mother in hand. When he got close enough to Dursky to see the LAPD on his shield he pointed at it. “So, what the hell are you doing here in Chicago, sir? Don’t get me wrong, I’m very appreciative that you saved my baby brother, but what are you doing out here?”
“I was in LA this morning, minding my own business. I got a call about a homicide with a maid. Things I won’t dare repeat. Not much later there was a call about deaths at a church, massive numbers of deaths, the type that you only see when an entire congregation decide to try and move on to the next step in life and think that they are above Earth.”
“It was a Catholic Church? How does that tie in with the maid, if you don’t mind me asking, Detective?”
“Just call me Dursky, the maid was…are you sure you want to hear this, ma’am we don’t have to…”
Joan smiled, still dripping wet with holy water and shaking her head. “You think that you are going to scare me, I assure you that you have no idea the things I’ve seen. I’d happily trade you with what my old eyes have lay witness to.”
“She was crucified onto the hotel’s wall. The two t
hat saw the man who was in the room that morning said he was dressed like a priest, that is the connection to the church, not saying anyone can’t just dress up but when we checked the video all we got were blurry face images. When we went to the church we saw the same thing, and the men that were at the airport who got information from their video feed for me saw the exact same thing. I don’t know what kind of tricks he’s using but it seems like it has something to do with his face. I really can’t say.”
Billy nodded, trying to think about it attempting to put everything in order in his head. “You said a congregation, there were priests there, they had priests that…what were their names?”
Dursky flipped open his thin manila folder. He saw the two names, and read them off like they wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. His job as a homicide detective felt more like at times he was just going through the motions. He didn’t give up, he didn’t hate the job, but he did not try to think of the victims as people. They were facts, they were statistics but they weren’t someone that could come into his dreams. “There was a Father Edwards and a Father Nathaniel.”
