The hospital lobby was stark, bright. Fluorescent lights shone off plastic chairs in an obscene multitude of sunny, mismatched colors. There were signs hanging by a doorway in the corner, pointing out the way to restrooms and vending machines. A large reception desk was built into the corner of the room, the woman behind it busying herself with a magazine.
We slipped through the lobby, sliding into the elevator. I pushed the button that would take us to Maggie’s floor, letting the one floor trip pass in silence. I could see Lucy’s reflection in the mirrored interior back wall of the elevator. Even with the scarf her reflection gave her away, the moment of her death forever written in her mirrored double. A ragged tear rested in the side of her throat, stained crimson. The torn edges shone wetly, a play off the elevator’s interior lighting. She kept her eyes straight ahead. Smart girl.
The elevator opened on a waiting room similar to the first, albeit smaller. A sign directed us towards Maggie’s block of rooms, at the end of a long hallway. Various medical devices on carts stared back at us, their little screens ominous and blank.
The door to her room was open, the TV set to some late night infomercial. The lights were off, casting the whole room in a pale, flickering blue. Maggie lay in the bed, covered by blankets up to her chin. Wires and an IV line ran under the blanket. She was asleep, and in the dim light she looked almost ethereally beautiful. The simple changes of hue in the lighting played off her skin, the dimness of the room muting out its paleness. She looked... peaceful.
“Maggie,” I whispered, gently shaking her shoulder.
Her eyes snapped open, darting between the two of us, one hand coming up under the blanket. A small squeak escaped her lips. Her eyes narrowed, and she settled back against the pillows sighing.
“Yer lucky I didn’t set you on fire,” she said, eyes closing.
“Please don’t,” Lucy said quietly.
“How you feeling?” I asked.
“Like the ball after a Manchester U game,” she said.
“Well, you’re going to really hate me.”
She opened one eye, glaring at me. “I already do, but why?”
“We have to get you out of here. Like, post haste,” I said.
“Why?”
“I still don’t really know. He thinks someone’s coming to get you,” Lucy said, taking a seat in the chair beside the bed.
“Not likely,” Maggie said.
“That they’re coming to get you?”
“That I’ll be able to leave. Self inflicted wounds, I look like a suicide attempt. They’re gonna lock me in with the nutters,” Maggie said, and she was right.
“Shit. Alright, here’s hoping it doesn’t turn into a prison break then. Can you walk?” I asked.
“Can. Don’t really want to.”
“Excellent, for a change I finally get to say your wants are about the least of my concerns,” I said, “Where are your clothes?”
Maggie pointed to a small, two door closet. I opened it and found her things neatly folded in the bottom. I tossed them to her.
“You mind?” she asked, looking at me as she sat up.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” I muttered and turned around.
I stared at the wall for a long moment while she dressed.
“Alright,” she said.
I turned. Maggie was unsure on her feet. Lucy supported her with one hand while she found her balance. Her arms had been wrapped in bandages from wrist to elbow.
“You have a jacket?’
“Did I have one when you left me bleeding in an alley?”
“Touche.”
“They took my bag,” Maggie said.
Lucy slid her jacket off handing it to Maggie. In some unseen, unheard girl language thanks was conveyed, respect earned, and a friendship started. At least that’s what I pictured from the nod that Maggie gave her, and the return nod from Lucy.
“Well, not much can be done about it now,” I said, peering out into the hallway. It was clear, the nurses apparently off doing more important things. I motioned them out.
We made it down the hall and out of the hospital with no incident. Outside, sleet had begun to fall, leaving a rapidly forming sheet of ice over the sidewalks and street. By tomorrow the roads were going to be a freaking horror show. We got across the street, ducking once more in the shadow of the building where Lucy and I had watched the place half an hour earlier.
“Well, that was easy,” Maggie said, still leaning against Lucy.
“Yeah, part one is done.”
“Part one?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah, part two is getting off the streets and holing up for a bit.”
“What about the bus?” Maggie asked, pointing weakly towards a small glass encased bench about a block away.
“Any port in a storm,” I muttered, looking to Lucy. She nodded.
“Alright, let’s go,” I said.
The bus, thankfully, was empty except for the driver. He was a middle-aged black man who kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut. He practically recoiled when Lucy stepped on, and kept a wary eye on the rear view while driving, but didn’t bolt and run. I was pretty grateful for that. We sat in the back, Maggie reclining as much as she could in the small seats. Lucy hovered beside her, eyes glazed and distant. She was nervous, constantly searching with her eyes at each empty stop. She looked like she was waiting for Adam to jump out of every shadow. Which, to be fair, wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
“Mind telling me what’s happenin' now, Jack?” Maggie asked, once we were rolling.
“I really don’t know to be honest. All the pieces are there, I just can’t put them together.”
“Try,” she said, eyes narrowing.
I related the story back to her, starting with everything after I left her. I told her about the hotel, which was our destination for the moment, about meeting up with Lucy at the Commons, the shelter, and the priest. I told her about Lucy’s dreams, and finding her information on Davidson’s desk. Lucy stayed silent through out the whole thing, content to keep her attention focused on anything but the Maggie, weak and wounded as she was.
“So yer thinkin that someone who works for the church, and is probably friends with Father 'Ernandez, wanted to do something bad to me? You didn’t think, that just maybe, they were lookin' out for their own?”
I hadn’t really thought about it like that.
“Uh...” I stammered.
“Yeah. What shelter did you say it was?” Maggie asked.
“Haven, in Dot,” I said.
Maggie closed her eyes, settling her head back against the window.
“Have you heard anything from The Three wise men?” I asked.
“I called them from the hospital, they’re in hiding. Said the green eyes came to the church, rampaged through the place. They beat it out the back door and are staying at a hotel for the moment. They called the police, said they took care of it. Vandals is, I’m guessing, what they told them happened.”
“You know that’s not true Jack,” Alice said from a seat in front of me. She peered at me over its top. “It couldn’t just come onto sacred grounds like that, no matter how strong it is becoming.”
Lucy looked up at Alice, eyes narrowing just the slightest. Alice simply returned the stare, face a blank, emotionless mask.
“How’d they get in then? That ground was holy. Something or someone had to desecrate it before they could even set foot on it. Someone would have had to consciously make it possible, go in and kill Ed. Unless...” I let the words trail off, following the line of thought.
I tilted my head to the side. It fit. It fit, and it had been at me since the first minute. It must have registered on my face. Lucy and Maggie both stared at me, curious.
“It’s one of the priests,” I said finally.
“That’s a load of bullocks, Jack,” Maggie said, her disbelief resonating in her words.
“Why would they? I mean I don’t know any of what’s going on, but why would priest
s play with demons?” Lucy asked. “How would they be able to be at the church? Like you said, they can't go there. If one of the priests had the demon in him, how would he be able to say mass and stuff?”
“Long story and I’m not a hundred percent on it myself.”
“Obviously,” Maggie said.
“Hear me out.” I looked to Maggie. “You let them know where you’re going right, check in or whatever?”
“’Course.”
“And the green eyes found us, constantly. At the hospital when we went to get Lucy. Did you call them before we went to Judas?”
“Yes, while you were asleep,” Maggie said. “It doesn’t prove anything though. Why would they do it? I’ve known these men for years. They're good men, maybe a bit on the extreme side, but good men nonetheless.”
“Right in our face the whole time,” I muttered.
“But that doesn’t answer the main questions, Jack. Why?” Lucy chimed in. “And how?”
“I don’t buy it,” Maggie said.
“Well let’s find out. Call them,” I said, the words sounding more like an order than I would have liked.
She looked at me skeptically. “I know how you 'andle problems. Need I reference your track record?”
“Just call them. Set up a meeting for tomorrow. Tell them we’ve figured something out or I don’t know. Something.”
She kept the stare on me for a long minute and then looked towards Lucy.
“Fine, if for no other reason than to prove to you 'ow stupid an idea this is,” Maggie said after a long pause.
Chapter 20
Maggie made the call from the hotel. She kept it short and somewhat terse in nature. She had spoken to the Imam, who came across as more than relieved to find out that she was all right and had no issues setting the meet for her. The hospital was none to happy that Maggie had vanished and had alerted the police, though in the same manner that my altercation with the detective had a few nights before, the incident had found its way to the not very important stack.
Maggie had fallen asleep shortly there after, still trying to recover from her wounds. She healed fast, already her color was something close to normal and she seemed to have more strength than she had even an hour ago. Lucy, as well, had settled in to the room next door choosing to sequester herself from us. At some point in time we were going to have to do something with her, though I had absolutely no idea what.
I sat in one of the cheap hotel chairs, staring out the window. Behind me, Maggie’s rhythmic breathing was almost soothing, a steady muted sound over the hum of the heater pushing air through the vents. I could see the meth hookers and dealers pushing their wares outside, each a shadow of addiction in their own right.
I settled my head back, closing my eyes.
“Jack.”
Alice’s voice came to me, distant and sweet sounding.
She always did this when she wanted to talk, to really talk. She recreated the day we first met.
“Jack.”
A hand, cool and comforting fell against my cheek.
“Wake up, Jack.”
I opened my eyes. The warm glow of the heroin was fading, and already the gnawing of addiction had begun to play along my nerves. Chunks of concrete dug into the small of my back. Snow, thick heavy flakes the size of quarters fell against my cheeks, and I was vaguely surprised when it dawned on me that they weren’t cold. I knew it wasn’t real, but everything still hurt. Everything still registered as if each experience was fresh and new.
“Ah hell,” I mumbled, still groggy.
Even in the dream, Alice looked the same. Her hair, her eyes, her lips, every part of her was the familiar and still startling, stark white. She almost seemed to fade in and out of the drifting snow, like a phantasm or illusion. She was dressed in the same plain white dress, something formal and girly.
I looked around, slowly, fighting for my eyes to get some focus. We were in an alley, the same alley I had shot up in and died in over a decade ago. I could draw it from memory, every single aspect of it standing out in sharp, unchanging focus. A dumpster sat off to my left, helping along with the empty shell of a building behind me to prop me up. Snow had piled in drifts along its walls, little sweeping dunes of dirty white.
“Jack.”
“Alice,” I said, and struggled to pull myself to my feet. The needle still hung from my arm, just beneath the belt that I had used to tie off the vein. I threw them both into the snow. Looking around, Boston seemed... different. Even though I knew this wasn’t Boston. It was purgatory, or at least how my mind registered purgatory. It was where Alice had snagged me after I died, keeping me out of Hell just long enough to seal the deal that would suck my soul back into my body, and her along with it.
The buildings, mostly old to begin with, now looked ancient. Steel girders lay exposed to the elements, bricks were crumbling, piling in empty pothole-lined streets. Overhead, clouds roiled and turned over themselves in constant motion. It might have been made to look like Boston, but it was definitely not any part of Boston that I was familiar with.
“You know, we could just talk. Like normal people.”
“I’d hardly call you normal, Jack,” she said, coming to stand beside me as I made my way to the end of the alley. As far as I could see the city was empty. No cars, no pedestrians, no lights. It was just the empty shell of a city stretching as far as the eye could see. Silence reigned, heavy and oppressive where there should have been the sound of foot traffic, cars, and sirens. Instead, there was simply nothing save for empty shells of what had been.
“Things are going to change, Jack. They’re going to have to,” she said quietly, her tiny hand slipping into mine.
I quirked a brow at that and looked at her again. She was frighteningly beautiful, in an innocent cherubic way. It was something I couldn’t find the words to define, as if they were just there on the edge of my mind but I couldn’t reel them in and put them to use.
“What’s going to change?” I asked. I flexed my arm once or twice, the memory of long forgotten pain dancing over where my rig had once settled into my vein.
“You’ll know when the time is right,” she said.
“Well that’s fucking cryptic,” I said with a sigh.
Alice sort of shrugged at that, sweeping her gaze over the ghost of Boston.
“It is, because it’s not something you understand at the moment. You’ll be broken, you’ll bleed, you’re going to Hell, Jack, in the end, and you know that right? You aren’t prepared to make the right sacrifices. There’s only one way this ends,” she said, letting her gaze sweep along the empty cityscape and making the statement sound as innocent and normal as “grass is green” or “the sky is blue” without any effort on her part. She made it sound like fact.
“So you’ve told me.”
“But you don’t believe it,” she said. “I’ve known it was going to happen. I didn’t think now. I tried to warn you away from it and you’re still so determined.”
I shrugged.
“You don’t owe her, or them, anything.”
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
“Why has it changed now? Why are they coming before everything else? Before us and our survival?”
“I don’t know. I just-”
“You just what?”
“Lucy, she deserves better I guess.”
“No. She deserves what she gets. Same as you.”
“Doesn’t have to be like that, Alice. Look at what I’ve been, how I've been, where it’s gotten me.”
“You made those decisions. You could have gone back to what you were doing, hurting people for money. You didn’t.”
I sighed.
“I was getting tired of it. It was wearing on me,” I admitted to her, and for the first time, myself.
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Yes, Jack. I do. More than you know. You still aren’t ready to make the right choices though. You’re afraid. You always have been.”
Looking around at the skeleton shells of humanity minus the humanity, at the alien sky tumbling overhead, at the total lack of life, of energy, I knew she was telling the truth. I had made the deal with Alice because I was a scared kid. I was thrown out to the wolves on the street, addicted to drugs, and I’d been terrified. I had been scared to die and taking drugs because I was afraid to live. I didn’t get attached because I was scared to lose. Seemed like the only time when I hadn’t been afraid was when I was stoned. In a lot of ways that fear still lingered. I was afraid to get close, to take responsibility, even for what had happened to Lucy, to Maggie. There was a part of me that wanted to, but there was that other part, that other part that wanted to just run away, to leave them to suffer through all this.
“I try not to think about it,” I said finally.
“Why?”
“Because, oh I don’t know, it’s Hell.”
“Do you know what Hell is?” she asked me.
“Never ending lake of fire... Guys with horns and pitchforks, Milli Vanilli on constant loop?” I answered.
“Hardly.”
“Care to enlighten me then?”
“No,” she said.
I cut my eyes towards her. She wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, staring out into Boston’s shadow. Her face still held that same perfect, emotionless detachment.
“Jack. I’m going to tell you this one more time. You’re going to see Hell if you keep on with this little crusade.”
“You keep telling me that, but you don’t seem too keen on telling me what I can do to avoid it,” I said, anger cutting my voice to a hard edge.
“It’s because I don’t have to,” she said. “You'll see soon enough.”
She turned, head slightly tilted and stared into my face. Her eyes, radiant in their unbroken perfection, traced the lines of demonic script carved into my flesh. She reached up and touched my forehead with the tip of her index finger.
The real world came screaming back in stark clarity. I started, falling out of my chair and to the carpeted floor. I lay there for a long moment, Maggie’s rhythmic breathing playing counterpoint to my own pounding heart. When I sat up, Alice was nowhere to be seen. I looked at the clock on the nightstand beside Maggie. Still at least four hours till dawn.
Demon Jack Page 16
