Playing Saint

by Zachary Bartels

  In three large waves, the overhead lights in the church went out, leaving Parker and Xavier in the dark save for the glowing of some candles and the streetlights filtering in through the stained glass. Parker shoved his hand under the priest’s body, soaking his sleeve in blood. He grappled for a moment before locating the gun and struggled to extract it. He quickly wiped the weapon on his shirt and stood.

  He remembered passing the three rows of light switches on the way into the nave, which placed Danny there just a moment ago. There was a slim chance that the killer had doubled back past Parker in the meantime, but Parker would take those odds. He took off for the altar again, then stopped himself and returned for the knife, which he had to pry from Xavier’s lifeless hand.

  By any account, the detective was now completely unarmed and badly injured. Probably on his way to the hospital. Parker, on the other hand, had a gun and a knife and had only taken a beating, albeit a severe one. This changes everything, he told himself. Now able to put up a fight, he could make his way out the rear of the church. If he passed a phone, he’d make a call. If not, he’d draw the attention of someone with a badge. That much he was sure of.

  This is the knife that killed Paige, Parker suddenly realized. An alms box a few yards away in the north transept had a slot large enough to accommodate the weapon and was secured with a small padlock. Parker shoved it in blade-first and forced the handle through with a blow from the butt of the pistol. He returned to the chancel.

  This time no one stopped him from passing through the door into the vestry, which was dark except for the red glow of the exit sign at the rear. Parker pulled the small flashlight from his pants pocket and held it up under the barrel of the gun as he’d seen Father Michael do. He swept the room, imagining that Danny might jump out from any corner or crevice.

  One wall of the narrow room was dominated by three tall wardrobes, presumably housing a large assortment of robes and liturgical garments. Opposite these were a number of file cabinets and a large full-length mirror, which sent Parker several inches into the air at the sight of his own reflection. Thank God he hadn’t shot at the man in the mirror.

  He headed out the exit into the ambulatory, through a narrow corridor, and down a curved flight of stairs lit by a small, tasteful chandelier, where he came to a halt. The stairway ended at a pair of double doors, and in front of them on the stone tile floor, lay another body. It was a priest in full vestments, stabbed several times. Before Parker could resolve himself to step over the corpse and walk out into the dark night, he realized it was a moot point: the handles of the two doors were secured to each other with a pair of handcuffs.

  There were no windows in or near the doors. He briefly considered trying to do something clever like removing the pins from the hinges, but he hadn’t a clue how to go about it. He glanced back up at the door to the dark ambulatory and the vestry beyond. The gun in his hand was offering less comfort by the second. He’d gladly trade it for a phone.

  A phone! There’s not a clergyman alive without a cell phone, he thought. Of course, this particular clergyman was not alive, but Parker forced himself to descend the last few stairs all the same and approach the priest’s body. He reminded himself that he’d been in the presence of more than half a dozen dead bodies in the past week—all murder victims—and that he was beginning to think of himself as something of a professional. It’s just an investigation of a crime scene, he told himself as he began riffling through the priest’s pockets. He turned up a handkerchief, a case of business cards, a wallet, and a pocket missal, but no phone.

  Of course a priest wouldn’t have his cell on him while saying Mass. Parker rolled his eyes at his stupidity. It’s probably locked in his office downstairs.

  And that was it. He would get into the office, whatever it took. He’d call the police on the landline and the sheriff on the cell phone. And maybe he’d fax the National Guard too. He needed heroes right now, and he was surer than ever that he wasn’t one. He climbed the stairs and made his way back into the vestry. His resolve was mounting with every step, although the dread of reentering the sanctuary was growing in equal proportions.

  He’d just walk right through, he told himself. He wouldn’t even look at Father Xavier’s body, just head right out the back and down the stairs. He’d get into the church office even if he had to shoot the door open.

  Idiot! He stopped in his tracks. How can the chain on a pair of handcuffs keep you locked inside when you have a gun? Maybe he should go back, he thought. A single bullet might not separate the cuffs, but Parker was sure he had quite a few—somewhere between six and fifteen was his guess. He wanted to save one or two in case he ran into Danny again, but that still left plenty for opening the door. He stood in paralyzed indecision for what seemed like minutes, putting off commitment in any direction as long as he could.

  A revived prickle of fear climbed up Parker’s skull, as the eerie sound of a cappella singing drifted into the vestry.

  “The old and evil foe now means us deadly woe.” It was slow and mellow and just slightly out of tune—coming from the sanctuary, by the sound of it. Parker doubled back toward the rear entrance. “Deep guile and great might are his dread arms in fight.” Now it seemed to be coming from both directions. “On earth is not his equal.”

  Knowing it was a stupid move, Parker pocketed the flashlight and climbed into the middle wardrobe, sliding in behind a dozen robes and then pulling the door shut as quietly as possible. He was holding the gun out straight from his hip like an old West gunfighter, listening intently but only able to hear his own heavy breathing and his pulse pounding in his head.

  TWENTY-SIX

  DAMIEN WAITED TWENTY MINUTES, WEDGED SHIRTLESS AND shivering between the trees and the fence, before he dared to move. His body was getting steadily colder, particularly his T-shirt-wrapped broken arm—a source of growing concern. If he had been in shock, it was wearing off.

  He silently made his way up to the school and crept around to the front, hugging the outer brick wall. Ketcham’s car was still parked by the entrance, stopping Damien midstep and stealing his breath. The space beyond the school was dark, and he could only assume that a street lay beyond the darkness. He cursed himself for sending the flashlight with Parker and for not getting the keys from him. He’d love to drive out of here right now and never look back, but he had no idea how to hot-wire a car.

  Gathering his wits, he breached the darkness in the direction of the street—or at least where he expected to find one. The blacktop of the parking lot was cracked and cragged. He stumbled twice before going down, instinctively trying to break his fall with his cuffed hands. The pain in his injured arm was incredible, and he couldn’t stop a shriek from escaping. He rolled onto his back on the jagged ground and began to sob.

  He allowed himself only a moment of self-pity. Enough, he told himself. Get over it! They can’t hurt you. They can’t hurt you. He’d been repeating this mantra to himself for decades. It was a trick he’d learned as a child: use your fear to fuel your defiance. Never show weakness, especially not when attacked by someone stronger than you.

  A seedling of hope was trying to break through the surface of a week’s worth of compounding despair. The charges against him, the injustice of the system, the prospect of prison—if he could just get some aid to Parker while the hypocrite was still alive, the two of them might have a chance of setting the record straight. Unlikely, but worth a shot. Damien began planning the complex project of rising to his feet without bending or burdening his broken arm.

  He carefully rolled to his knees, then rose and pushed on. Another twenty yards and he came upon a chain-link fence, probably connected to the one Parker had jumped, he thought. He could see a little better now, by the light of a few streetlights, and were those headlights drawing nearer? Yes, he was sure they were.

  Hope sprang up in Damien at the sight of the car, and then fell just as quickly. Again, a fence stood between him and freedom. Receiving a second wind, he
raced along the chain-link fence toward the oncoming car. He could make it out now, an old red coupe full of rust. It would pass him in seconds and disappear into the darkness behind him. Damien pushed himself physically—something he hadn’t done in years before tonight—knowing this was a gamble. If he tripped and fell now, it would take him out of commission for hours.

  A gap appeared in the fence, wide enough to drive through, and Damien veered out into the road and thrust himself in the path of the red car, knowing immediately that he’d miscalculated, as there was no room for the driver to stop. Instead, he veered and locked up the brakes, missing Damien by only a few inches. The car skidded, then recovered, and squealed to a stop.

  The driver emerged, a ruddy, muscle-bound man with a bald head and a nineteen-inch neck. His button-up black shirt read Eagle Security.

  “I know who you are,” he said.

  Oh no. Damien looked down at himself, the tattered, shirtless, tattooed escaped prisoner in handcuffs, running through the night; the serial killer whose picture had been everywhere for the last two days. Yes, he had miscalculated indeed.

  The big man closed the space between them quickly and slammed a fist in Damien’s stomach, crumpling him to the ground.

  “You’re a psycho,” the man said. “I don’t like psychos. So you get a free ride in my trunk down to the cop shop.” He pushed a button on his keyless entry, and the trunk lid popped open. “I wonder if there’s a reward,” the man mused.

  Sweat was beading up on Parker’s nose, forehead, and upper lip. He scrunched up his face, afraid that Danny might actually hear a drop fall to the floor. The wardrobe was getting hotter by the moment and seemingly smaller, but he dared not move. He could hear Danny whistling now, still “A Mighty Fortress,” and it sounded like he was drawing closer to the vestry.

  By the next stanza, there was no doubt—the demoniac was in the room, just a few feet away, clomping past the wardrobe, the click of his ankle still punctuating each step. Then the footsteps stopped altogether.

  The overhead light came on. Parker could see the diffused glow spilling in around the edges of the wardrobe’s door. He slid his finger onto the trigger guard and waited, willing the steps to resume and fade away into the sanctuary.

  A rush of air rippled the vestments as the wardrobe door was yanked open.

  Before he could react, Parker felt his cover of robes and albs disappear along with the bar they’d been hanging on. Sudden, harsh light paralyzed Parker, who brought his left hand up to shield his eyes and felt an explosion of pain in his right. He screamed.

  The gun was gone, knocked to the floor by something heavy and pointed—something that had come roaring out of nowhere and broken bones in Parker’s hand. His eyes were adjusting to the light, and the image of Danny’s face coming into focus was the most horrifying thing Parker had seen yet. Most of his hair was burned away and the skin around his eyes was charred and curled up slightly. One eye was swollen and sagging, almost completely closed. But he was smiling wickedly and holding a bronze censer, suspended by a chain.

  “Look what we found, Saint,” Danny said. He swung it back and forth, mockingly. “Hocus pocus, dominus ominous.” With a jerk of his arm, he smashed the bronze globe into the side of Parker’s face, knocking him down into the soft piles of vestments. Parker rolled to his knees and scrambled through the folds of fabric, looking for the missing gun.

  Danny was hovering over him, swinging the censer in hard, tight circles, occasionally letting out some chain and bringing the bronze globe down on Parker’s exposed back or neck. After the third impact, Parker rolled defensively onto his back and tried to deflect the blows. Each time the globe made contact, it coughed a little cloud of black dust. The smell of coal and incense was floating all around him, and for a moment Parker could only think of Saint Maurus, the patron saint of coppersmiths and charcoal burners.

  The next blow glanced off Parker’s knuckles and connected with his head, leaving him dazed—his vision blurred and his limbs slow to respond to mental orders. Another swing connected with his jaw, knocking three teeth to the back of his throat, where they were momentarily batted about by his gag reflex.

  Danny chuckled and paused the beating. “I’m feeling inspired, Saint,” he said. “Let’s burn this place down. We don’t know where your friend Damien is or who he’s been talking to. But we do know it’s impossible to establish time of death from charred remains. Maybe Damien escaped and burned down the church. We always cover our bases.”

  Parker felt himself beginning to fade again. He knew that if he had one more move to make, it would have to be now. An experimental opening of his mouth brought a wave of terrific pain, causing him to choke on his own spit. Another verbal command to the spirits was out. He grunted in frustration.

  “We know what you’re thinking,” Danny said. “Don’t bother. We’re more than we were last time. Sevenfold more. And ‘this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting.’ We’re afraid you just don’t have the time.”

  Parker glanced at the far wall. A desperate idea was budding somewhere in his mind that, if he could just get to the switch and kill the intense light emanating from that bare hundred-watt bulb in the ceiling, he might be able to escape the room under cover of darkness and find a new place to hide.

  He clambered for the switch on the wall, realizing too late that the catlike speed he had envisioned was impossible at the moment. He took a wobbly step and then another toward the door, then felt the censer’s chain wrap tightly around his ankle and yank him back to the ground. Parker landed gracelessly on his hands and knees, having gained all of three feet toward his goal.

  “Come on, Saint,” Danny growled. “You’ve got to speak it into reality. Be positive. Hit me with your best shot.”

  Parker grabbed a white cassock from the pile on the floor and tossed it up toward Danny’s face, hoping to wrap him in it, to re-create his success from the boiler room. The garment was easily batted away, bringing another derisive laugh from Danny.

  “Look at you,” he spat. “You thought you could stay off the dragon’s list if you didn’t ruffle any feathers. You thought we’d let you slide.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” Parker wheezed.

  “It’s okay, Saint. You’re not cut out for this, anyway. You could never shoot another human being.”

  “No,” he huffed. “The Crown. We never found it. It’s probably gone forever.”

  Danny paused for a moment. “Crown? What are you talking about?” He nudged at Parker with his foot. “Don’t get delirious on me yet. We want to enjoy this.”

  Parker slumped. Danny didn’t even know the Crown existed. The Jesuits had been on the wrong track all along. Just like Parker, chasing the wrong crown all these years. The dragon’s crown. And now the rooster was crowing, and he had nothing left. The fight had left him.

  He was waiting for the final blow to come when he saw it, right there on the carpet in front of his face, where the cassock had lain a moment earlier: Xavier’s gun. Behind him, Danny was still offering mocking encouragement intermixed with blasphemous epithets. Parker snatched up the pistol and struggled to insert his finger into the trigger guard. His enlarged knuckle was a tight fit, and his fractured bones complained at being wrapped around the cold, hard handle, but he managed.

  Shuffling around awkwardly on his knees, Parker looked up at his enemy’s face. Standing was probably out of the question, he realized. Without much conviction, he raised the pistol with both hands and managed to grunt, “Back off.”

  Danny perked up, swung the censer faster. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Saint. You were right: lambs and guns don’t mix.”

  Parker tried to pull the trigger. He squeezed with every muscle he could access, but his hands were in knots and his fingers too swollen. Danny struck with his makeshift weapon, knocking the pistol away. It discharged a shot into the wall and bounced across the floor, once again obscured amongst robes, stoles, and chasubles.

  Pa
rker had never fired a gun before, and the sheer volume of the gunshot disoriented him all the more. He wilted and watched Danny circle around behind him, breathing heavy. He felt the cold chain wrap twice around his neck and then tighten, slowly lifting him up off the ground. He could smell the burned flesh and hair, not unlike the smell of the cat in his backyard.

  “It’s a shame,” Danny whispered into his ear. “We had hoped to take our time with you, but we have some other loose ends to tie up. My colleagues will likely be on their way after that gunshot, and there’s still the matter of disposing of the evidence.” Parker’s vision was dimming, but the words were still getting in. “Poor Pastor Saint, burned up in the church fire. Of course, as the papers will report, one heroic detective rushed in to the inferno to try and rescue you—with utter indifference to his own safety. Even sustained some horrific injuries. I’d say we’re looking at another mayor’s commendation. Probably be captain in a few years.”

  Parker’s arms were moving up and down frantically, although he wasn’t sure why. He had no idea how long it took a man to choke to death, but he had to believe he was nearing the halfway point. He flailed all the more. With his right thumb, he felt the soft, slick flesh of Danny’s burned eye and instinctively drove it in, feeling strangely as though he were stronger now, without oxygen holding him back. He felt his thumbnail digging deep into the rubbery tissue of the eye socket.

  This time, Danny shouted and loosened his grip long enough for Parker to steal another panicked breath.

  “Bad move, Preacher,” he said. “I was going to let you drift off peacefully.”