by Hunter Shea
“Ungh,” Father Michael grunted with each step.
Time was needed to mend. Already he could feel his nerves immersed in the fire of healing. With each wound, his mortal flesh had to endure the fires of redemption, only to rise whole again like a blazing phoenix. It was a process that was many times more painful than the injury.
He had to find a place to hide and allow his body to convalesce. Cain had invited him to follow and he would not disappoint. There would be no returning to the Vatican. Not until Cain had been stopped.
Father Michael pushed in the door to the house nearest the church. The mephitic scent of days-old ham and eggs wafted throughout the abandoned house. Limping past the kitchen, it was as if the family that had once lived there had only gone for a moment, bound to return and finish the family breakfast that was laid out on the blonde-wood table.
He wearily made his way to the living room and collapsed on the couch. The door had been left wide open but the cold had no effect on him. What mattered now was being able to meditate, take his mind away from the sheer agony that would accompany the healing. He sucked in a great breath, closed his eyes, and traveled, far within his mind.
Father Michael was back in Limerick, just before the close of the eleventh century, at a time when he was Liam Monahan, a strapping man in his midtwenties with arms the size of cannons and a mane of curly blond hair that made him the target of most of the village’s fairer sex. He was back in the comfort of his smithy, the coals so hot they could take a lesser man’s breath away. He gripped the iron mallet with a calloused hand, striking a hunk of red-hot metal with the force and delicacy of a finely trained tradesman. He had worked hard to build his smithy, having apprenticed under the tyrant William Purcell for ten long years where he was forced to endure the verbal and physical whippings of the aged, alcoholic blacksmith. As a young boy he hated the man, but since William’s drowning several years ago, passed out drunk in a bog, Liam had grown to respect the lessons learned at William’s sometimes cruel hands.
Liam was a man of great respect in Limerick. He had a beautiful wife, Ailis, whose dark, mysterious eyes, fair skin and coal-black hair still made his stomach quiver at the sight of her. Even though he’d had his choice of any woman, he’d never had eyes for anyone but Ailis. From the moment he spied her working on her father’s farm when they were both seven, he was helplessly in love. Years were spent stealing glances at one another, flirting relentlessly as they grew older, until succumbing to their desires along the riverbed after sneaking off from the harvest festival. Liam had been oblivious to the overt advances of the village girls as they tried to wrest his attention from Ailis. When he took over the smithy, he asked her to marry him, and she made fast in giving him the greatest gift of all, aside from her love.
They had a son, Kerwynn, a curious, towheaded five-year-old who had already decided he would become a blacksmith, just like his father. Kerwynn was a flurry of activity, never content to sit still until it was time for bed, where he passed out more than fell to sleep. His laughter filled one-half of Liam’s heart, while Ailis’s tender voice filled the other. They’d not been able to have another baby, and tended to dote on young, wandering Kerwynn, happy to live in the town of their forefathers.
Limerick had gone through many changes over the last hundred years, with the Norse invasion and their ouster almost fifty years ago. Liam beamed with pride whenever he retold his grandfather’s heroics in the Battle of Clontarf where the Norsemen were defeated by an army under the leadership of High King Boru.
The odd remains of Celtic and other pagan religions still dotted the landscape while Christianity began to gain a foothold not just in Limerick but in all of Ireland. Liam believed in no religion, entrusting his faith in his own abilities to shape his destiny. Ailis, on the other hand, had taken a keen interest in Catholicism. She tried to bring him to the tiny church at the edge of town, but to no avail. She once asked him, “Don’t you ever worry about your immortal soul?” His reply was to gather her in his arms and swing her around the room until she laughed like a young girl. He was far too busy enjoying this life to contemplate what lay beyond the grave. The history of Ireland was rife with long-gone as well as up-and-coming religious movements. With so many claiming to be the end-all of all things, it seemed to Liam that his best course would be to steer clear of them altogether, for who was to say which was the one true religion, if any at all could ever be declared as such by some almighty power.
Better to work with iron, to forge objects with his own strong hands, to shape his life and provide for his family.
He transported himself to that summer night where he lay with his wife, sweaty and exhausted after an hour of passionate lovemaking. A long lock of her raven hair lay across his chest as she fondled his softening penis, eager to make him rigid once more.
“You’re insatiable, Ailis,” he joked, breathing in the aroma of their sex.
“Why do you think I married the strongest man in Limerick, silly fool,” she replied with a sly smile across her alluring face.
Kerwynn stirred in the next room and they froze.
“I knew your wailing would wake him,” Liam mock-scolded. “If we’re to do this again, you need to be quieter.”
Ailis giggled softly into the crook of his arm. Pulling the sheet over her back, she straddled him, burying his face between her soft, full breasts. Liam moaned as he sucked longingly at her nipples.
“It appears you’re ready,” she said. She grabbed the back of his head, pushing him closer into her bosom while a fire grew between her thighs. “I love you, Liam. Promise me our love will always be as strong as it is this night.”
Liam shifted his weight and was now atop her. The muscles in his arms rippled as he supported his weight on them. He stared into her eyes and was lost. No other woman had ever plumbed the depths of his soul as Ailis could with just one look.
“Aye, our love will be stronger than the thickest slab of iron. I vow it, forever.”
She tenderly ran her fingers over the contours of his face. “I will never, ever leave you, Liam Monahan. No matter what happens in this life, I will always be by your side.”
They made love again, well into the night, savoring every kiss, every thrust, every moan that escaped their lips.
Father Michael’s mind was flung forward.
The sun hung hot and heavy in the sky that day. The stench of garbage and other waste was especially repellent along the main street. Proper plumbing and waste disposal had yet to make its way to Limerick, and on hot days like this, the sun baked the piles of urine and feces that sat below windows and back doors. Even Liam was finding it hard to keep up his normal pace.
He had just grabbed a ladle of water when the screaming started. Dropping the tin ladle into the barrel of tepid water, he ran from the smithy.
Mrs. Deevey, a portly widow who would occasionally visit Ailis and pass along the latest gossip, was barreling down the street and shouting as if the world was about to end. Liam was quick to notice that her hair, usually a dusty brown, had turned completely gray.
She was also covered in blood.
“Murder! Murder! They’ve been murdered!”
Alarmed, Liam rushed out to stop her. Holding her by the arms, he was struck by how wasted she had become. Only thirty summers old, she had been a strong, vibrant woman just the day before. Now she was a frightened old hag with madness in her eyes.
“Who has been murdered?” Liam said calmly.
A large crowd gathered around them. People were crossing themselves, others spitting on the ground to ward off evil spirits.
“Sweet Jesus, they’re dead! Murdered!”
Liam lightly shook Mrs. Deevey and forced her to look him in the eye.
“Who is dead?” he asked, firmly this time.
For a brief instant, the terror washed away from her eyes and was replaced by a sorrow as limitless as space itself.
“I’m so sorry, Liam.” Huge tears poured down her face. “It’s
Ailis and Kerwynn. I went to see them just an—"
Liam was off and running before she could even finish. Several men, stunned by the news, followed behind once Liam had rounded the corner, heading up the path to his house.
Liam had never been assaulted by so many emotions at once. Fear, anger, confusion, grief and panic—all battled for control. He hoped, above all, that Mrs. Deevey had been wrong.
As soon as he saw his house up ahead, he knew something was amiss. The front door had been left open and Kerwynn, his beloved son, was not out in the yard playing in the grass.
“Ailis! Kerwynn!” he shouted, pumping his legs even faster.
Running into the house, he skidded across the room, collapsing against the far wall.
The entire floor was awash with blood.
He looked up to see the remains of his wife and son laid out in the center of a ring of small stones. Their torsos had been completely ripped open and entrails laid about in sickening piles at four corners of the circle. The death masks that were now their pale faces told the tale of the terror they had endured just moments before their demise.
“Nooooooo!”
As he struggled to regain his footing in the pool of blood, an old man, also blood-soaked, emerged from the other room.
“I’d advise you not to touch the circle,” he ordered. Odd bits of flesh and pulp were strewn about his bushy beard.
“You! You have done this!” Liam exclaimed, all of his other emotions replaced with rank hate.
The old man smiled. “Of course. A proper necromancer needs a fresh kill if he’s to divine the future correctly.”
The five men from town who had rushed to help Liam bounded into the doorway and stopped dead in their tracks at the sight before them.
The old man looked their way and hissed, “Leave here, superstitious fools, before you end up like them!”
They needed no further encouragement, sprinting from the house, shouting phrases passed down by the generations to guard their souls. The old man was obviously some sort of evil mystic and, despite the introduction of Christianity, the fears of the old gods and the ancient ways still ran deep in the hearts of the people of Limerick.
The rest was a haze, but Liam remembered a mighty struggle and being surprised by the strength of the old man. They locked arms, throwing each other about the small house until the walls shuddered and began to crumble.
He recalled the icy feeling of the knife as it slashed across his throat.
The insane laughter of the old man.
He stumbled from the house, clutching his throat in a vain attempt to staunch the blood cascading from his severed neck.
The world started spinning and he began to choke on his own blood. Through sheer will and the stamina acquired from years as a blacksmith, he managed to bring himself to the small town church as a parade of terrified onlookers trailed behind him, every one of them refusing to touch him for fear of being contaminated by the evil that would soon take his life. His legs wobbled as he walked past the five rows of pews, finally collapsing before the altar.
This was a place that gave his Ailis solace. He hoped her god would hear his lament.
“Give me my revenge,” he gurgled at the figure of a crucified Christ. “I give you everything until the end of time. Just please grant me more breath in my lungs, more strength in my arms, to kill the beast that took my family from me!”
He fell face forward onto the floor, his nose snapping from the impact.
His life was ebbing from him with each strained breath. Still, he managed to say, “I never had much cause to believe in you. Make me a believer. If you are the one true god, show me now and I will serve you for all eternity.”
One more breath, then he was no more. Liam’s eyes clouded over and his bowels loosed themselves.
Then the fire began. The kiss of flames across his flesh, into his bones, searing his soul. He screamed with all his might.
Words were spoken.
Images, the most beautiful and the most horrible he had ever seen, flashed within him.
A whisper. A soft touch.
And he awoke in a strange bed, surrounded by strange men. He was too tired to speak, his limbs too atrophied to move.
They hadn’t noticed that his eyes were open, confused.
He could hear them talk at the foot of the bed.
“We’ll ordain him as Father Michael,” one of them said, the oldest one with a round belly and long white beard.
“I’ll take him to the Lateran Palace and our Holy Father,” another one said, this one young and broad with short black hair.
“Yes, he should be well enough to travel now. There is much to do.”
The old man looked at his face, registered the fact that he had regained consciousness. He moved quickly to his side, placing a warm, calloused hand on his forehead. “Welcome back…Michael.”
Liam’s throat burned, but he forced out the words, “I’m…not…Michael.”
His head felt woozy and the man’s face wavered. Before he slipped back into a stupor, he heard the man say, “Poor man. I’ll leave it for the Holy Father to tell him he’s dead.”
Father Michael’s eyes snapped open to the agonizing present; the embrace of his wife, the fields of Limerick, the horror of that final day with his wife and son cast into shadows and memory. His body had returned to full strength. He rose from the couch, stretching newly mended muscles and bones.
Cain had mentioned an apple. Sleepless nights. As Father Michael’s body regenerated and his subconscious wafted back to his life as a man, another part of him ruminated over Cain’s final words, and knew where to go next. The clues were almost childishly simple, but that was probably the point.
New York. He had to get to New York.
Grabbing his gunnysack, Father Michael stormed from the house.
Chapter Eight
The train came to a smooth stop and Father Michael found himself amidst the masses in Penn Station. Here was a mix of every walk of life, a churning mosaic of humanity, all with a single purpose, to be somewhere else. This patchwork of colors, religions, madness and sanity was the stuff of fevered dreams in Father Michael’s early life.
The crowd carried him along, leaving the oily, sharp stench of the tracks and walking up to the central station, where he was greeted by an array of aromas that wafted from the food court. An announcement blared from overhead speakers. Heads tilted as people attempted to decipher what seemed a coded message. The crowd pushed on, ever forward to the front doors.
He wore a pair of dark glasses and a black fedora he had taken from the general store in South Russell before leaving for the train station. Knowing that he was about to thrust himself into the global crossroad that was New York, he needed to bring as little attention to himself as possible. As he left Penn Station, he came across a huddled mass of rags hunched in a corner by the exit doors. The heap of filth smelled of weeks-old body odor and urine. A pair of yellow eyes peered out from a dirt-smeared face.
The homeless man said nothing. He stared at Father Michael with the hopeless, mad gaze of a time-hardened derelict. Father Michael knelt, touched the man’s face and pulled his glasses down so his pure ivory eyes met with the man’s jaundiced, bloodshot orbs.
“Let the madness be gone,” Father Michael said in a hushed tone.
Instantly, the sickly amber in the man’s eyes began to swirl like departing storm clouds, seeping into the corners until it was no more. A clarity, an internal strength that had long since been obliterated, returned to the man’s soul. He took in a deep breath, his lungs thirsting for air like a child fresh from its mother’s womb. The tall priest was gone before he could even thank him.
Shane Baxter had seen a lot of bizarre shit during his last year living on the streets of New York, but this one took the cake. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands in an attempt to wipe away what was hopefully a mirage brought on by hunger or the onset of acute hypothermia.
Nothing changed.
So he started to laugh. What he was watching was way too absurd to comprehend. It wasn’t a nervous laugh, because he was too numb to be nervous. He had a habit, a bad one according to some people, of laughing like a jackass at all the wrong moments.
Well, this was certainly one of them.
“You find this funny, fuck-stick?”
That it—because there was no better way to describe the creature that had invaded his alley—was now talking to him made him laugh even harder. He tugged at a lock of his mohawk-trimmed hair just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. His laughter escalated until tears formed at the corners of his eyes.
“Dude,” he managed to say once the laughter died down for a brief moment, “you have to see what this looks like from my perspective. Un-be-freakin-lievable!”
Shane sat back on a dented garbage can awaiting the inevitable. He had resigned himself to the fact that he had no chance of walking away from this nightmare alive and that was fine with him. The first twenty years of his life had been no picnic and he was not eager to be crapped on for another twenty. That it would end this way was somehow cool.
Besides, the only way out was through the monstrosity, and he wasn’t about to get near it.
The thing before him was still trying to slip inside the skin of some guy an older man had carried into the alley, slumped over one shoulder. The noise of his arrival had awakened Shane from a restless sleep underneath a pile of newspapers and old blankets he had nicked from a Salvation Army deposit box.
The older man then dropped the guy’s body on the ground, took off all his clothes in thirty-degree cold and proceeded to peel his own flesh away like it was sunburned skin. That only took him a gut-churning minute or so. He then started to wriggle his flayed body into the husk of the younger man he’d brought into the alley. It seemed like a tight fit and Shane was wondering where the other guy’s innards and bones went as this creature slipped itself into his skin.
