The Canary List: A Novel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Sixty-Seven

  rockett felt a chill.

  “The next pope,” Crockett said, “could be the insane guy who had us locked down here?”

  “It’s worse than that. Here’s a term I doubt you’ve heard before,” O’Hare said, his voice calm from the utter black that surrounded Crockett. “Cardinal Saxon is perfectly possessed.”

  “You are correct. I have not heard that term before.”

  “Most people associate demon possession with what they learned through Hollywood. Weird deep voices and all the other special effects. And there’s truth in those assumptions. I do see that during exorcisms. Those who go to a priest or who are taken to a priest for exorcisms are literally fighting their demons. It’s this struggle—host against parasite—that hints to the outer world of a demon’s existence within that person. There are some, however, who are totally at peace with the demon inside. Nothing outwardly betrays the existence of the demon. A perfect possession. And nobody ever knows, unless it’s someone like Jaimie.”

  “Not saying I buy into this,” Crockett said, “but you are telling me that Cardinal Saxon, likely to become pope, is perfectly possessed. He’s happy to host a demon.”

  “Yes.”

  “With Jaimie the only one who would know?”

  “Well, her or someone like Jaimie,” O’Hare said.

  “Like the old man that Cardinal Ricci took her to see a few hours ago. To test to see if that cardinal, too, is demon possessed?”

  “The perfectly possessed are a dangerous force that has faced the Vatican for centuries. The trouble is that in our modern times, most people don’t believe they exist. Even those in the top hierarchy of the church don’t even give a thought to their existence. And that makes it all the more dangerous.”

  “With Jaimie in a position to stop this?”

  “I believe,” O’Hare said, “that’s exactly why we’ve been left to die in the catacombs.”

  “But you don’t think we’ll die, do you, Father O’Hare?” Crockett said. “Because I don’t think it’s an accident that you had us meet here at the Church of Domitilla.”

  After a beat, O’Hare said, “That’s a bold statement.”

  “Not really.” Crockett had been giving it some thought. “If you had those suspicions about Saxon, could you have made it any easier for him to get us all in one place, the perfect place to get rid of us?”

  Crockett had been giving something else some thought. The e-mail he’d received from the geneticist and had read earlier in the day—although it seemed like a week had passed since Mackenzie had shown up in the Internet cafe.

  “Hammerhead sharks,” Crockett continued. He assumed the silence around him meant that he had O’Hare’s full attention. Still, the sense of isolation was so complete that he didn’t even know if stretching his arm would touch one of them.

  “Hammerhead sharks?” Jaimie asked, approaching unseen.

  “Jaimie,” Crockett said. “How much have Father O’Hare and Dr. Mackenzie told you about all of this?”

  “About me and knowing about demons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A lot,” she said. “It’s made me feel way better, knowing why I feel the darkness and all that.”

  “And you know it might be because of genetics?”

  “That I’m wired this way? In my DNA? Yes,” Jaimie said.

  “Dr. Mackenzie and I are aware of the genetic aberration,” O’Hare said. “We were happy to tell Jaimie.”

  The e-mail from McFarlane, the one he’d scanned in the Internet cafe, offered the comparison results. Jaimie shared a gene code sequence found in hammerhead sharks. Most sharks have an eye on each side of their heads. When the shark faces forward, one eye sees to the left, the other eye to the right. But the hammerhead doesn’t have this problem. Its eyes can look forward, because the head is T-shaped and the eyes are set apart. Great advantage for depth perception. But with its mouth so far below its eyes, when it moves directly above its prey, say, shrimp in the sand, the hammerhead’s eyes can’t see its food. It would have to back up to see the shrimp, but then, of course, its mouth is too far away. Through experimentation, scientists discovered that the shark relies on electromagnetic currents, which are found in every living creature. Hammerheads have twenty-thousand times the sensitivity of other sharks. The result of a slight anomaly in genetic programming.

  Like in Jaimie. With an extremely high sensitivity to shifts in electro magnetism. Poor child, thought Crockett. With Mackenzie and O’Hare convincing her that when she detected hostility or aggression, she was actually detecting demons, they had accomplished what Dr. Moller had warned was a danger. Through autosuggestion, particularly hypnotherapy, they had altered her perception of what the ability meant and brought her to the point of blaming demons for what she felt around her.

  Was the magnetic bracelet a placebo, or did it really work?

  Crockett had no opinion on that but was prepared to believe it did have a true physical effect on her. After all, if you draped a magnet around a hammerhead’s throat, it probably wouldn’t find a shrimp.

  Just as significantly, if people who believed they were demon possessed now believed Jaimie could detect the demon by taking off the bracelet, they too would fall for the autosuggestion effect. This was not the time to argue that in front of Jaimie.

  Crockett spoke. “Father O’Hare, you knew all along, thanks to Dr. Mackenzie, I presume, that the cardinal from Los Angeles is a Satanist. I can’t believe, knowing that, you would have been stupid enough to put us in an isolated room in an isolated church, at night, where he could trap us. I think instead, you put Jaimie in the room, hoping he would come and expose himself and his insanity.”

  “The man is possessed by a demon.”

  “While you won’t be able to convince me of that,” Crockett said, noticing O’Hare hadn’t really answered his question, “you’d have foreseen that these catacombs are a tempting place and very convenient for an insane man to hide the people who might expose him as a Satanist. So, let me ask you a blunt question, Father O’Hare—what steps did you take to make sure we could get out of here?”

  “If you know about the electromagnetism, then surely you know about the rest of it. How animals migrate because they sense the magnetic field of the earth?”

  Crockett sat silently for a moment, trying to get his head around O’Hare’s suggestion. It was utterly crazy. But either all of it was false, or all of it was true.

  “She’s a compass,” he finally said.

  “Yes, a compass,” O’Hare said. “If you ever wanted proof of Jaimie’s abilities, you’re about to get it. It may take awhile, but I’m confident she’ll be able to keep us from wandering in circles as we track our way backward.”

  Sixty-Eight

  n the second bedroom of his second apartment, Saxon wore a luxurious black robe, nothing else. His body was flushed and warm from a long, hot bath. The lights were off, the thick curtains closing off the lights and noise from the street.

  Curling smoke of incense. Black candles, small flickering flames. Light nearly absorbed by the black paint of the walls.

  Saxon was on his knees, chalice above his head, one hand on each of the ornate handles with the Christ-figure on the inverted crucifix.

  Prayerfully, he whispered the Latin words engraved around the rim.

  In nomine Magni Dei Nostri Satanas. Introibo ad altare Domini Inferi.

  The Prince was worshipping the Prince.

  Saxon waited to be filled with the power, drawing into his mind the images from his Polaroids in the trunk against the wall. With the power came the hunger. Soon enough, he would add to the collection.

  Then came the mundane.

  A rapping at his door.

  It broke the spell, and he cursed.

  Again, the rapping at his door.

  He stood, pulled his robe tight. At the door, he peered through the spy-hole to see Raymond Leakey calmly staring straight ahead.

  How
had the man discovered this? Saxon felt instant rage and knew he would punish Leakey at the first opportunity. But it was unthinkable now to let the man inside. Not with the incense able to draw the man in to where the candles still burned. Just as unthinkable to step into the hallway and vent his rage.

  No, The Prince would remain silent, safe behind his triple-bolted door. Endure this now, and let retribution flow later. In only days, he would have the ultimate earthly power to go with his dark spiritual powers. Leakey would suffer then.

  There was a slight scratching.

  His eyes were drawn to the top bolt. Movement.

  A key, on the other side!

  Then the second bolt began to move.

  His reaction was to grab the first and relock it. Then to hold the third and lower lock. He had more leverage with his hands than Leakey would have with a key on the other side.

  It was a reaction of panic.

  He couldn’t call the police.

  He frantically ran through the options and decided he’d have to order Leakey to leave.

  He drew a breath to voice his command and caught a whiff of something sweet and cloying. With his next breath, the smell was overwhelming, coming to him with a hiss.

  As he sank to his knees, he noticed a slim nozzle at the floor, sticking through a tiny hole that had been drilled near the bottom of the door.

  When Saxon woke next, he was wrapped tightly in a blanket, on the floor in the black painted room, helpless to move his arms or legs. The lights were on, and Saxon blinked against the brightness.

  Leakey sat in a chair beside him. It took several moments for Saxon to understand that Leakey had a glass bottle of scotch squeezed between his legs, with a small plastic funnel sitting atop the bottle. Several more moments for Saxon to make sense of what Leakey was doing with his hands. Hands in rubber surgeon gloves.

  Breaking open plastic pills. Pouring powder from each pill into the funnel.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Saxon croaked.

  Leakey finished breaking and pouring one last pill. “I know you like single malt. This came from your own supply. Lots of your own fingerprints.”

  “This is clearly insane,” Saxon said. “Whatever you are doing is totally unacceptable.”

  “No,” Leakey said. He took something else from his lap. A Polaroid. He dropped it onto Saxon. “This is unacceptable.”

  Leakey moved out of the chair. He knelt, squeezing his knees together, one knee on each side of Saxon’s head.

  Saxon was immobile, helpless.

  Leakey put his right hand on Saxon’s face, forming an O with his thumb and forefinger to pinch Saxon’s nostrils shut with thumb and forefinger, fitting the tip of the funnel into the O and into Saxon’s mouth.

  Saxon gasped like a cod.

  “I really wish this could have been more painful for you,” Leakey said. And began to slowly pour the scotch into the funnel.

  Sixty-Nine

  ardinal Ricci stepped into the courtyard of his villa, where Crockett and O’Hare had been waiting for him to arrive from Rome, finishing a light breakfast of cut-up fruit and croissants.

  Both rose from chairs and faced the cardinal.

  “The doctor and the girl?” Cardinal Ricci asked, rushing forward to embrace O’Hare. “Safe? Here in the villa?”

  Crockett stood to the side, wanting this to be done.

  “Safe,” O’Hare said in answer to Ricci, stepping back from the embrace. “I believe both are still sleeping. As you can imagine, it was a long night.”

  Long night? Understatement. All of it was an eerie memory that Crockett expected would be fresh for him for the rest of his life. The escape had been as spooky as the rest of it. Moving through the complete darkness of the catacombs with all of them linked by holding hands—Jaimie in front, then Mackenzie, Crockett, and O’Hare. At every turn, the four of them stopped, and Jaimie decided which direction felt north, and then O’Hare made the decision which way to turn based on it. Slowly feeling their way out, based on the certainty that they were not wandering in circles. It had only taken them an hour, but it had felt like days. The mental strain of wondering whether they’d reach safety had worn him out far more than the slow shuffling in the dark.

  Yes, it had been a long night.

  O’Hare had found a cab to take all of them to the villa, and Crockett had slept poorly, not knowing if the sensation of holding together a shattered body was a result of aftereffects of the stun gun shock, lingering jet lag, his body getting rid of traces of drugs, or his struggle to accept all that he had witnessed.

  Demons were not real, he’d told himself again and again, staring upward in the dark. But what if they were? For Crockett, acceptance of the reality of demons would almost be like being struck with blindness on the road to Damascus; not easy for a person to make a total shift from seeing the world as purely physical to one filled with spirits that stalked humans.

  Overwhelming as it was—he’d witnessed a cardinal contender for the papacy turn into a savage beast—it was still secondary to what he wanted most.

  Home. Mickey. No charges hanging over his head.

  O’Hare had promised him it would happen. But, as O’Hare had explained over breakfast, Cardinal Ricci needed some assurances from Crockett before Ricci could put the wheels that would clear him into motion.

  Cardinal Ricci gestured for all three of them to sit at the table. O’Hare cleared it of dishes, then Cardinal Ricci took a chair and sat back, appearing relaxed.

  Crockett and O’Hare joined him, and the three of them formed a triangle at the small circular table.

  “Do you fully understand what happened last night?” Cardinal Ricci asked Crockett.

  “I doubt it,” Crockett said. It was a sincere statement. “Hell isn’t something I want to believe is real, let alone the fact that demons live among us.”

  He’d been running through the either-or possibilities during his hours of sleeplessness. Either the cardinal from the Los Angeles archdiocese was perfectly possessed and Jaimie had the genetic ability to sense the man’s demon. Or the cardinal was insane, and because he believed Jaimie had the ability to sense demons, he had reacted accordingly.

  “My question was too ambiguous,” the cardinal said. “Nobody likes to be reminded that the gates of hell are open. What I meant is, whether you understood the need for Cardinal Saxon to know about Jaimie. Has Father O’Hare explained to you that we needed him to take the bait?”

  “He has guessed at some of it, your Eminence,” Father O’Hare said. “I thought it best that the complete explanation should come from you.”

  The cardinal gave a slight bow of his head and spoke again. “I will tell it as simply as I can. As you know, months ago Dr. Mackenzie contacted Father O’Hare to ask if his decades of experience as an exorcist had ever brought him in contact with someone who could detect demons. This eventually led to Dr. Mackenzie’s disclosure of what she knew about Cardinal Saxon from a patient who had been abused as a child by the man. Father O’Hare came to me with this information. Because of Cardinal Saxon’s high profile, it would have been disastrous for the Vatican to be forced to prove his innocence or guilt in court. After great consideration, we devised a trap of sorts. It involved planting spyware so that Saxon would believe the information brought to him by a middleman in Entity, who continuously reported back to O’Hare. You’re aware of Entity?”

  “Vatican’s spy agency,” Crockett said. “Dating back centuries.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry if this seems complicated.”

  “Not complicated,” Crockett said. Politics and betrayals he could accept far more easily than demons. “All along, I doubted it was an accident that O’Hare allowed Saxon to find us last night.”

  “You understand, then, if Saxon was an innocent man, he would never have reacted the way he did to learn about Jaimie. Father O’Hare had a recording device on him, and has it all on audio as proof. It puts us in a position to ensure he will never become pope. This is
not a scandal that the world needs to discover. Not with a papal conclave ahead of us any day.”

  Crockett blinked a few times. He wanted to be slow and measured in his response. “What about justice?”

  O’Hare leaned forward to answer, but Cardinal Ricci waved him into silence.

  “Justice?” Cardinal Ricci said.

  “There’s already been cover-up of church abuse, going back decades. This, too, you want hidden from the world? A cardinal who abused children as part of Satanism rituals?”

  “Please understand. Actions were taken to stop him as soon as possible. The cover-up is not of ongoing abuse. The stakes are so high here that the Vatican should not have to pay for his sins too.”

  Again, Crockett tried to stay slow and measured. “Tell me something. Why was I dragged into this? Because somehow, through Jaimie, it looked like I’d interfere?”

  “It was a mistaken assumption,” O’Hare said quickly, “based on Jaimie’s time alone with you the night she fled the fire, that she might tell you things. The decision—not by me or Cardinal Ricci—was to immediately discredit you to prevent you from speaking publicly about Jaimie’s situation.”

  “To keep this covered up,” Crockett said. “This is the same reason you hired Sarah Rinker, your pet lawyer, to do that. She knew I was at that Internet cafe, and wow, what a coincidence, ten minutes later Mackenzie shows up with a couple of Swiss Army Knives waiting in a car to drag me to the villa.”

  “I made the decision to hire her so that you had the best legal help possible,” O’Hare said. “You would have been cleared sooner than later. When you disappeared from the hotel near the lake … of course I used her help to find you.”

  “Someone broke into my house and strung me up to the point of unconsciousness to get me to quit trying to find out why I was wrongly accused,” Crockett said. “That was for the greater good too?”