by Hunter Shea
The city was buzzing with theories about the attack on the Javits Center. Mayor Peter Spinelli was presumed dead, as were over a dozen other mayors from across the country. The president urged the population to remain calm as the authorities looked into the exact cause of the melee. All of the survivors had been sequestered for the time being. What many of them were telling the authorities was beyond their comprehension and had not been leaked to the public.
Yet.
The priest and his two charges arrived at Saint Luke’s Church in the late morning. The announcement board in the front of the church listed the date and time for the wake of their beloved Monsignor Stanton. Silently, they entered the church unseen and headed for the balcony. Father Michael retrieved a bag he had hidden there and handed two packets to Shane and Aimee.
“Take this to the Vatican. Aimee, do not stop at your apartment. Go this afternoon.”
“The Vatican?” Shane blurted. “What are we supposed to do at the Vatican? I wouldn’t know how to act around the pope. They probably won’t even let us in the place.”
Father Michael pulled a large clothbound object from the bag and stuffed it in Shane’s coat pocket.
“You’re expected,” he answered. “As I said before, this day, though dreaded, had been foreseen. There was hope that events could have been diverted, delayed, destroyed. That hope is lost.” He turned to Aimee when he said, “You will go to the Vatican and be protected.” He then clasped a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “And you will learn.”
“What about you?” Shane asked.
“I must stay…for now.”
Father Michael turned to leave.
“But, wait!” Shane said.
Aimee gently tugged his arm. “We should go,” she urged him. “He’s gotten us this far.”
Father Michael took one long, last look at Aimee and felt a swell of emotions. Maybe she was his Ailis. If it hadn’t been for the boy, he would have failed her again. No matter what his feelings, his Ailis, his wife, lover and mother of his child, was forever gone from him. Perhaps God would permit them to be together once more, to play in the fields with their son, Kerwynn, and know the limitless joy of infinite love.
Aimee left Shane’s side and approached him. Her dark brown eyes sought answers that he could not provide. “I called you by another name the other night,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “And, somehow, I think if I can remember that name, I’ll get something back that’s missing from me.”
Father Michael ached to reveal all to Aimee in the hopes that it would unlock the door and free his Ailis within her. However, to give new life to his departed wife would require extinguishing the soul of Aimee, and no amount of selfish desire could drive him to do it.
He gently touched her arm, savoring the warmth of her skin. “You were frightened to death, confronted with an evil that very few people survive. I’ve seen countless people say and do stranger, more inexplicable things when the scent of their impending death is near. Do not let it worry your mind. You are safe now.”
She nodded once and the priest slowly broke away.
“Guard her well,” he said to Shane and left.
Father Michael?
Here, in this world between worlds, you may call me Liam.
The spirit of Monsignor Stanton, still carrying the appearance of an old man even in the afterlife, shuffled to embrace his returning friend.
Is it over?
Yes. And it has begun.
I so wish I were young again, to be there to take part.
You have done more than most. It is time to receive your reward.
Liam held Monsignor Stanton’s hand and they began to walk.
You have come to guide me?
Yes.
You are a good friend. He paused, then added, Liam.
Along the way, I would like to introduce you to my wife and son.
That would be lovely.
Together, they entered the dream along the lighted path.
Incertum
Chapter Twenty-Six
The kiddie parks at dusk were always good hunting grounds, especially in the lower income sections where safety, and especially good lighting, were not considered high priorities. Whether humans couldn’t afford to care or simply didn’t mind if a poor child here or there ended up dead or missing was none of the demon’s concern. Either way revealed the dark soul of humanity, something he was quite familiar with. There was nothing as satisfying as bringing a brother or sister to the right side of the playing board.
Even better than the children were the old people, the stragglers who perhaps stayed in the park later than most to feed the cats as they emerged from their hiding places to reclaim the night. It loved to make the old biddies cry or the doddering men shit their adult diapers.
Tonight was a lucky night.
A daily double, so to speak.
Still shooting hoops into a warped metal basket was a young boy, no more than twelve years old. It was so dark he could barely see where he was shooting, but that didn’t deter him. In all likelihood, shooting hoops in the dark was preferable to going back to a home of poverty, despair and possibly abuse.
Watching the boy from a nearby bench sat a very old man wearing a rumpled suit that must have once fit his now shrunken frame. A newspaper lay by his hip and a cane was propped across his lap.
“Mmmmm,” the demon whispered from his dark hiding place. “Fresh meat and aged wine. Tasty.”
Anyone passing by the demon would have been wise to keep their stares to themselves as it had adopted the camouflage of a muscular, hardened man sitting just outside the rusted fence. Just your average gangbanger looking for a place to get high.
How were they to know it was only a disguise, the lifeless flesh of what had once been an ordinary man? In a similar late night setting, that man had been attacked and turned by one of the thousands of hellspawn that had been given free rein on earth several years earlier. Now his soul was trapped in a nowhere realm while his body, inhabited by one of the denizens of hell, was free to destroy everything it touched.
A woman’s irritated voice shouted, “Khalid, get your butt inside! You still have homework to finish! You know you’re not supposed to be out after dark.”
The demon watched as the boy tucked the ball under his arm and walked oh so slowly back to his house.
“Oooh, you stink. Take a shower first,” the woman scolded before closing the door.
That left the old man who didn’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere.
Not than an old man could rush anywhere, even if he wanted to, the demon thought with a chuckle. It checked the nearby houses to make sure no one was in sight.
True, a new age had dawned for all demonkind, but there were still enemies about. One still had to use caution. The demon had heard tales from its brethren—stories of a killer in priest’s clothing, more deadly and vicious than anything Lucifer could conjure from his demented mind.
The demon’s eyes darted back to the old man whose chin was now resting in quiet repose upon his chest.
Like lightning, the demon rushed towards the man. Bloody talons burst through the flesh of its costumed hands while its face fell away to reveal a maw of puckering holes, each jammed with rotating, pointed teeth.
It approached soundlessly, taking great care not to alert its prey of the certain, horrid death it was about to deliver.
When it was only inches away from the old man, it felt the fiery jab of steel as a golden crucifix with a dagger at its tip was planted directly into the center of its hideous mouth.
The fires of hell couldn’t touch the agonizing searing of flesh as the crucifix-dagger obliterated the foul essence of the stunned shapeshifter. Something also made it repel backwards, as if it had bounced off a trampoline.
Dear Lucifer, it burned!
“Asmodai, save me!” it shouted.
The old man rose from his seat and smiled.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” he said i
n a voice far too young to have come from such a dilapidated old wretch. “The truth is, you never had a chance.”
The man took a step towards the wounded demon. It skittered back two feet, the way opposing magnets sought distant corners from one another.
The demon could do nothing as the man retrieved another blade-tipped crucifix from his overcoat. The pain was unbearable. What in the name of all that’s unholy was in that dagger? With each passing second, the demon felt its centuries-old soul disintegrating into pure nothingness that made it long for the confines of Hades.
“And one more for the road,” the man said before launching the second crucifix between its fiery eyes.
The demon felt, and was, no more.
The door to a dingy apartment in an equally depressing neighborhood swung open with a loud crash. The old man from the park bench hopped across the threshold and slammed the door shut.
“Why don’t you make some more noise while you’re at it?” said a much younger man sitting at a battered kitchen table. “I think there are some people in the building across the street who didn’t hear you come in.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the old man muttered with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Did you get it?”
“Of course. Can of corn.”
“Good. At this rate we can probably pick up stakes by this time next week.”
“And just move on to the next place. It’s never going to end, is it?”
“You should know,” the man at the table sighed. “It never does.”
The old man dropped his coat and shirt to the floor, revealing a wiry, toned body clad in a black, formfitting T-shirt. He pulled at the tufts of gray hair at his temples. The hair was easily removed, like silver wads of spider web. Next, he used his fingers to pick off huge wads of wrinkled flesh on his face and neck. The fresh skin underneath was tacky with glue.
“Good work on this one. It’s gonna take me all night just to get it off.”
“I left some remover in the bathroom. What that doesn’t take off will come off in the shower.” The man at the table picked up a racing paper and perused the lines for tomorrow’s races.
“This disguise thing is getting to be a drag. You should try it yourself, you’ll see what I mean.”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch. That’s why I’ll always know it’s you, no matter what disguise you wear, Shane. Your mouth gives it away.”
Shane kicked his legs out of the old-man trousers and threw them onto the kitchen table.
“Then I guess it’s lucky for me that demons aren’t as bright as you.”
“It’s lucky for you that they can’t get close enough to know you.”
“Hey, Tony, I brought something back,” Shane said as he headed for the bathroom. He flipped Tony the bird, which only resulted in disgusted, heavy rustling of the paper.
It took over an hour to fully scrub every spot of makeup and latex from his body. When he was done, Shane’s skin was pink and sore, like a newborn cat.
It was laughable. Demons couldn’t touch him, but his traveling master of disguise could inflict heavy doses of pain at will.
Another demon vanquished. An endless parade of hellspawn and cities to go.
Things had gotten so bad that Shane didn’t even know the name of the city they were in now. He was pretty sure it was in the state of Michigan—it was damn cold enough for an early fall night. Not that it mattered. At least it was nice to be in the States for a while.
Two years of training his mind, body and spirit, traveling the globe on a bottomless bank account. Not bad for a homeless kid from New York. The pay and travel were unbeatable, though the job left much to be desired.
The Vatican made sure he received everything he needed so long as he operated in the shadows, much as the demons had conducted their affairs to this point. His days of painting were behind him, his artistic talent left to odd doodlings here and there. Pope Pius XIII had promised him that, if they managed to stem the tide of evil flowing into this world since the debacle in New York City, he would be given ample time to reacquaint himself with his brushes and canvas, as well as a chance to study the masters in every major art gallery in the world, not to mention the Vatican’s own vast store of artistic treasures.
Shane looked at his bare body in the mirror. He was still thin but his muscles were now rock hard. His mohawk, once his pride, had been replaced by a military-style buzz cut. And despite his almost daily scrapes with the worst that hell had to offer, there was nary a bruise on his body.
Father Michael had been right. His gift, as he chose to look at it, was truly remarkable. Through the whim of the Almighty, the citizens of hell could not lay a hand on him. There were times early on when his confidence in his power was less than solid. Now that it had been tested many times over, he was sure to the point of cockiness.
Tony knocked on the bathroom door. “I have some leftover Chinese. You want some?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Tony was a good guy. He could be a trifle righteous at times, an expected trait from a Vatican-appointed assistant. He’d been a member of the Swiss Guard until being paired up with Shane. He was the epitome of an upstanding guy. Yet he loved to watch the ponies, and occasionally gamble. It made him human, which in turn gained Shane’s trust.
The smell of Chinese food made him think of Aimee and their countless takeout dinners.
He hadn’t seen Aimee in almost a year and a half now. No one had seen Father Michael since the day he’d sent them off to the Vatican—for protection for Aimee and training for him. The surreal had been replaced by the too real that day, and it made him dizzy thinking about it.
Wondering where either of them could be made his stomach feel like it was filled with restless fire ants. If he thought too much about them, and especially how much he missed Aimee, he would be distracted. His job and the countless lives of others demanded a near-supernatural sense of focus and calm.
To just know that Aimee was all right, that’s all I really need. He couldn’t put into words how much that would mean. And to have Father Michael at his side, to learn from him, the benefits would be immeasurable.
As long as Aimee remained sequestered and Father Michael missing, he would worry. The trick was to know when to bury his fears and when to dig them up for brief moments of quiet, painful reflection.
Shane threw on fresh clothes, starving and ready to eat.
“Smells good. I hope you got a little of everything.”
He turned the corner into the kitchen and gasped.
Tony’s body was draped across the table, his throat cut, a ragged wound weeping torrents of crimson onto the tiled floor. White boxes of steaming Chinese food had been placed upon his chest. Bloody smears and half-formed fingerprints painted the sides of each box.
The apartment was completely silent, save for Shane’s hollow breathing.
He instinctively reached for his pocket in search of a weapon, only to find his sweatpants had no pocket.
Shit.
Looking at Tony’s body again, he saw raw, empty sockets where his eyes should have been.
Now what? He’d never been found before. The demon in the park must have had a partner that had followed him here.
“If you wanted my attention, you got it,” Shane said to the hushed apartment. “Worst part for you is, you also got me pissed. An angry me is only going to end with a dead you, so there’s no sense in delaying the inevitable.”
Something hit him in the back.
He whirled around to face the demon at the end of the hall. It looked mostly human, only with boil-covered flesh and luminescent, yellow eyes.
A quick glance at the ground confirmed that he’d been pelted with one of Tony’s eyes.
“I’m right here, Godfucker,” the demon hissed, boils popping along its lips and leaking thick, green fluids.
Shane knew the trick was getting to his room to grab a weapon of exorcism before the beast ran off into the night. If it had witnessed the
scene at the park, it must have known attacking him was futile. Shane’s room was just behind the oozing beast.
He rushed down the hallway towards the grinning demon.
“Make way, zit boy!” Shane shouted.
Something smashed across his chest. He dropped to the floor. The pain of cracked ribs poking into his lungs brought black specks to the corners of his vision.
“What…the…hell?” he wheezed.
The demon laughed. “Exactly.”
Standing above Shane was a young boy holding a bat high above his head.
It was the boy from the park.
But if he had been turned by the demon, how could he have connected with the bat?
Shane’s stomach convulsed, sending fresh waves of agony as he tensed to keep from retching.
“Better finish him off, kid,” the demon ordered in a gurgling growl.
The boy was panting like a dog. Tears streamed down his cheeks as the bat wavered in his hand.
“But…but,” he stammered.
“Do it or I spend eternity raping your mother in hell!”
The walls shook from the powerful blast of the demon’s command. The boy jumped and dropped the bat. It glanced off the back of Shane’s head.
So that’s how he did it, Shane thought through the haze of pain. It kidnapped and blackmailed the boy into doing its bidding. He couldn’t blame the kid.
He had to find a way to get to his feet and reach the demon without hurting the boy.
“Pick up the bat or I’ll eat your goddamn face off!”
This time the boy did as he was told and took a half-hearted swing at the side of Shane’s head, connecting with his temple.
The world went black. Shane could no longer see or take a full breath.
“Please kid…don’t…” he sputtered. “If you kill…me, it’s going to…to kill you…next.”
Shane felt the world spin around him. Every breath brought fire to his lungs.
He was as helpless as a baby.
