by R. L. King
She swallowed. “Emilio showed up. He said he wanted to talk to me. I thought he was drunk or high at first. But he was talking nonsense, and getting angrier. It seemed like he was trying to fight something inside himself. I was scared—I thought he was going to attack me. And then he just—collapsed. Right there on the floor in the middle of the living room. And he started thrashing around, yelling things I couldn’t understand.”
Stone stared at her. “What did you do?”
“I was about to call an ambulance,” she said, still not looking at him. “I thought he was having a seizure or something. But then he looked at me, and for a moment, I could see the old Emilio—the one who loved me, who kept me safe—looking out from behind his eyes. He was scared. He begged me to help him. And it was then God revealed to me what was wrong—that somehow the Devil had gotten inside him. I could see this…thing around him. Like light surrounding him, but it was horrible. It nearly made me sick to look at it.”
Stone didn’t answer, because he had no idea what to say that wouldn’t be the wrong thing. He’d seen possessions before, several of them, and heard of others, but he didn’t think his skepticism over the “demonic” nature of such a possession would go over well at this moment. Instead, he waited for her to continue.
She didn’t continue, though. She stopped again, shaking as she relived what was obviously a painful memory.
“What happened next?” Stone asked softly.
“I—” She stroked her crucifix in a spasmodic gesture. “I was looking down at him on the floor, trying to decide what to do, when suddenly this sensation of peace came over me. I felt God’s presence around me, and I knew what I had to do.”
Stone stared at her, certain he knew what she would say next.
“I followed God’s will,” she said. “I knew if I didn’t do it, that thing inside my brother would kill him—and maybe me too. So I—I—” Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes.
“You cast it out…” Stone murmured, astonished.
“God cast it out,” she corrected. “I was just…the vessel for His power.”
“And it worked? It left?”
She nodded. “Emilio screamed and thrashed and yelled things—horrible things—at me, but then he went stiff and his eyes got huge and suddenly this…thing flew up out of him and disappeared through the ceiling. And he passed out.”
“Was he all right after that?”
“Yeah…for a while. He didn’t have that weird sickening light around him anymore. After he woke up, he was back to his old self…at least until he got killed in a drive-by two months later.” She swiped her hand across her face, wiping away tears.
“I’m so sorry…” Stone said.
She nodded.
“If I may ask…” he said after a moment.
“What?” She started walking again, her hands jammed into the pockets of her skirt.
“Well…you said that the situation with your brother had something to do with your decision not to enter the convent. But I would think that such a thing would give you more conviction about God’s plan for you, not less.”
“It did,” she said. “But I didn’t tell you the rest of the story.”
“There’s more?”
“Not much more. Just that my grandmother walked in on us right before the demon left my brother’s body.”
Stone frowned. “I don’t see—”
She let out a long sigh. “The Catholic church is very traditional, Dr. Stone. Very conservative. I love the Church and everything about it, don’t get me wrong. But…they don’t deal well with things that don’t fit with their doctrine. And one of those things is wannabe junior nuns performing unauthorized exorcisms.”
“You mean to tell me they—” Stone trailed off, unable to keep the indignation from his voice. It was one of the things he disliked the most strongly about organized religion—the church’s hidebound insistence on traditionalism worked great for those who fit the mold, but for those who didn’t, things didn’t always go as smoothly.
“They didn’t do anything,” she said. “Not officially, anyway. My grandmother—she didn’t know how to react to what she saw. But of course she felt she had to go tell the Father what happened. I think she couldn’t decide whether it was some kind of miracle or if I’d done something horribly wrong. They examined me, examined my brother, grilled me and Abuelita about what had happened, prayed over me…They even brought in experts from higher up in the Church. I actually got to meet with the local Archbishop. They were all very nice and polite about it, and they never made me feel anything but loved and protected. Not like I’d done anything wrong. But…it wasn’t long before I got the message that maybe becoming a sister wasn’t where my calling lay after all.”
Stone shook his head. “Their loss, I’d say.”
She shrugged. “It’s not for me to decide. I’ve made my peace with it, and I still believe God has things He wants me to do. If that’s not the direction He wills for me, then who am I to question it?”
They walked in silence for several more minutes. Stone debated whether to bring up what he wanted to say—on the one hand, it seemed a bad time for it, after he’d just opened up what were obviously still painful wounds by asking Grace to discuss what had happened with her brother. On the other, he’d been serious when he’d said that she was involved in this now—hell, she was neck-deep in it—and it wouldn’t be fair to withhold information that might keep her alive.
“I should be getting back,” Grace said. “They don’t mind if I take long lunches sometimes, but I do have some work I need to finish today.”
Stone made his decision. “Ms. Ruiz…”
“Yes?”
“Please, just give me a few more minutes. This is very important, what I have to say to you.” They’d made a full circuit around the park by now; he waved her back over to one of the picnic tables near the scatological sculpture.
“What is it?” she asked, climbing up and perching on the table as Stone paced.
He paused. “I know you don’t want to believe me. That what I do is magic. That’s fine—I don’t care if you call it magic or God’s will or card tricks. But whatever it is…I think you can do a form of it too.”
She stared at him, eyes wide. “What do you mean?” she asked, but she couldn’t keep the telltale tremble out of her voice.
“You drove something out of your brother’s body. You drove off a supernatural construct on your own, with nothing but force of will—”
“God’s will,” she insisted. “That wasn’t me. I told you that.”
“Whatever you want to believe. The point is, it doesn’t matter. Whether it was you working under your own power or God working through you, you did it. You distracted those things long enough to keep them from killing me last night. And somehow, with no training, you’ve managed to put up a potent magical ward around your apartment.”
“A what?”
“A sort of—magical protective field.”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong, Dr. Stone. There’s nothing like that at my apartment.”
“There is,” he said. “I saw it myself, last night when I took you home. It’s quite potent, and it’s probably the reason why none of those creatures have attacked you directly.”
“But—how can that be?” she asked in confusion. “I’m telling you, I don’t—”
He stopped his pacing and faced her. “How long have you lived in your apartment?”
“About four years. We had to move not long after…what happened with Emilio. We got evicted from our last place when Grandma got sick and we fell behind on the rent. If the Church hadn’t helped us, we’d have been homeless.”
“Did you do any sort of…blessing on the place?”
“When we moved in, the Father came by and blessed it,” she said. “And of course Abuelita and I say o
ur prayers there every day.”
Stone nodded. That had to be it. Prayers and other religious invocations were, of course, another kind of ritual. Especially when you were talking about a tradition as steeped in ritual and ceremony as the Roman Catholic Church, it wasn’t inconceivable at all that combining them with someone who possessed untapped magical talent could result in unexpected manifestations of that talent.
“Tell me something,” he said. “And please—it’s vitally important that you tell me the truth. I promise whatever you say to me will go no further than between us.”
“What…do you want to know?” She looked more nervous than she had before, gripping the table as if afraid she might fall off.
He kept his voice even, soft, comforting. “Do you remember ever doing anything else you couldn’t explain? Anything happening around you that you didn’t understand, or perhaps that you attributed to God working through you?”
“I don’t attribute it to God,” she said patiently. “It is God. If He chooses to work through me, then I’m only the conduit.”
“Fine, fine,” he said. “But have you ever done anything like that?”
She hesitated, looking away.
“Ms. Ruiz?”
“I…” She gripped her crucifix again. “Last night, after I called 911…I prayed over Father Reed. I asked God to watch over him, and prayed that his wounds weren’t serious. I was so afraid he would die. There was so much blood...”
Stone nodded. That didn’t surprise him. “Did something happen?”
“I don’t know…” she whispered. “Remember when you first got here today, I told you his injuries weren’t as bad as they looked?”
“Yes…”
“Well…” She swallowed. “It turns out they weren’t bad at all. Father Reed said the doctors were confused, because his injuries weren’t consistent with the amount of blood they found on his clothes. They wondered if anybody else had been hurt.”
“Indeed…” Stone said.
“I thought at first it might have been from your arm, but it didn’t bleed nearly that much.”
“No.” He didn’t mention that he’d done a little spell to neutralize the blood he’d spilled at the scene, so it wouldn’t have been identifiable by the EMTs—or available for any nefarious purposes—by the time they arrived. “So…what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know…” she said. She stared down into her lap.
“I think you do,” he said gently. He reached out and touched her hand. “Look at me, Ms. Ruiz.”
Her gaze came up with obvious reluctance until it met his.
“I think you know exactly what happened,” he said in the same soft tone. “You might not want to admit it, but you’ve got…abilities. Whether they’re magic, or something God has given you, or something else entirely, you can’t deny they exist.”
She shook her head, jerking back from him. “No!” she said. “I don’t have abilities. I don’t…I can’t…” Her voice trailed off.
“You do,” he said. He hated doing this to her, but he had to make her see. She could believe whatever she wanted to about where her magical abilities came from—for his purposes, it didn’t matter, as long as she accepted them. He suspected her talents lay in specific areas, consistent with her faith and her worldview.
“Listen,” he said, injecting a bit more force into his voice while still maintaining the soothing demeanor to avoid spooking her. “Just because you have these abilities doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It doesn’t even mean you have to use them, if they make you uncomfortable. But you saw those things last night. You saw what we’re up against—and those are just the henchmen. If you want to keep yourself and those you love safe, you at least need to understand the extent of the tools you have to do that.”
“I—” She looked miserable. She shoved herself off the table and took a few steps away from him. “I can’t deal with this right now, Dr. Stone. I need to get back to work. And I need to pray about it.”
This wasn’t the time. He’d pushed her too hard and now, like a skittish wild animal, she was pulling away. “All right,” he said. “All right. I’ll go now, and leave you alone. But please think about what I’ve said. Let me help you.”
She took another few steps away. “I’ll—call you. Later. I have your number. Thank you for everything, Dr. Stone.” She turned and hurried off at a fast walk, back toward St. Joseph’s.
He watched her go until he couldn’t see her anymore, then walked back to his car. After checking the rearview mirror (it had gotten to be a habit now), he drove off.
He let the radio play, so deep in thought about his conversation with Grace that he didn’t bother digging out a CD. The talking heads on the local news station barely registered as anything beyond a low-grade murmur as he navigated the San Jose downtown streets in the direction of the Rosicrucian Library.
At least until he heard the word “murder.”
That caught his attention in a hurry. He quickly snapped back to reality and hit the button on the steering wheel to turn up the volume.
“—authorities are asking everyone to avoid the area for the rest of the day as they continue their investigation. The identity of the victim hasn’t been released yet, pending notification of next of kin. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has revealed that the murder appears consistent with others committed by the killer dubbed ‘the Bay Area Butcher.’ Once again, authorities are requesting that anyone not having immediate business on the Stanford campus avoid the area for the remainder of today.”
Bloody hell.
He swung the wheel around, turning the car back toward the freeway. The library would have to wait.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
As Stone suspected when he arrived at the Stanford campus, they hadn’t blocked off all the entrances. That would have been nearly impossible, as well as unnecessary: the campus was the size of a small town, so shutting down the whole thing due to a single murder would be overkill even for a high-profile case like this.
He’d tried to call Laura at the office on his way up, hoping to find out more about the location of the murder, but discovered to his consternation that the battery on his mobile phone had died. Damn it, this wasn’t the time to forget to charge the bloody thing! He wondered if anybody else had tried to reach him, but it couldn’t be helped now. He continued listening to the news broadcast, certain something this big would be repeated.
He was correct. As he turned onto one of the many side entrances to the campus, the reporter repeated the story and this time he got more details: the victims (victims? More than one?) had been discovered in a little-used lecture hall by a janitor who’d entered to clean it. The press had few details yet; the discovery had only been made a couple hours ago and the police were still working the scene. The reporter once again cautioned the public to avoid the west side of the campus, as cordons had been set up and no one was being allowed in.
Stone picked his way through roads snarled with the usual traffic: cars, hordes of bicyclists, and pedestrians crossing without regard for corners or crosswalks. He seethed at his slow progress, wondering if he should just ditch the car and set off overland, but that wouldn’t work any better. Parking at Stanford during the day was terrible, and his best bet was to get to one of the faculty lots where he’d have a better chance of finding a space.
Tapping impatiently on the steering wheel, he darted into openings, earning him angry honks from other drivers. He shot glares at the oblivious students meandering in the road as if they hadn’t a care in the world and wished he could use a nice wide-spectrum concussion spell as a cow-catcher to shove them all off toward the sidewalk. Hadn’t they heard the news? Didn’t they know what was going on?
What was going on was that Archie had been busy while he’d been away. And right here on campus? On his own home ground?
This was a message. He was sure of it.
A cold flurry of fear ran up the back of his neck as he thought about how it could have been worse: the location the reporter had named was on the other side of campus from his department office. Had Archie decided to hit close, but not too close, to make his point? Was he planning to strike even closer next time? Would he go after Mortenson, or Hubbard, or Laura? One of his students? He couldn’t believe Archie would kill on the Stanford campus unless he’d meant for Stone to take note of it.
He knew trying to get to the crime scene was unwise in the extreme—if something went wrong, he could end up in a lot of inconvenient trouble just when he couldn’t afford to be sidetracked for even a moment from his investigations. But that didn’t matter. He had to see the scene. He had to know for sure whether Archie had just stepped up their little cat-and-mouse game to a whole new level. He’d just have to be careful.
As he approached the area the reporter had identified, traffic got heavier. Apparently a lot of people knew what was happening, and wanted to get as close to the scene as they could. Bloody ghouls, they were. Up ahead, Stone could just spot a police car parked across both lanes, blocking further progress. He quickly turned onto a side street and headed for a nearby faculty lot.
It was full, packed to capacity. A couple of cars had even parked illegally, making their own spaces at the ends of two rows. Bugger it, I’ll take the ticket, he thought, and did the same. He didn’t have time to play all nice and legal right now.
As he approached on foot, he noticed the cops only had the road blocked. They couldn’t block the whole area, not this far out. He knew where the building containing the lecture hall was; in fact, he could see it from here, mostly hidden behind trees. More police cars were parked around it. They’d have a closer cordon around that area, but the presence of the car blocking the road was probably enough to keep most of the lookie-loos from trying to get closer. Good thing, too, because a lot of people—a mixture of students, other university personnel, and reporters, from the look of it—had gathered nearby, craning their necks trying to get a closer look at what was going on beyond.
