by John Saul
The baby rabbit screamed again, and Melody recoiled from what she was seeing. But then she took a deep breath, and before Sofia could do anything else, she snatched it out of her hands and sank onto her own chair, cradling the rabbit as gently as she could.
An instant later their door opened and they both heard Sister Mary David’s voice. “What’s going on in here?”
“Look,” Melody said, holding out her hands with the grotesquely twisted baby rabbit.
Sister Mary David crossed herself as if to ward off whatever evil had befallen the rabbit. “Where did that come from?”
Before Melody could speak a single word, Sofia spread her hands helplessly. “I just got back from the library,” she said. “Melody was torturing it.”
“What?” Melody stared up at her roommate, whose face revealed nothing—no shame, no remorse, nothing. “I can’t believe you said that,” she breathed, then turned back to the nun. “Sister, I came in to get my laundry, and she was the one who had it.”
“Give me that poor thing,” Sister Mary David said, and took the barely breathing, twitching little body. “You stay right here. Both of you!” She whirled and swept out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
“What’s the matter with you?” Melody demanded, turning on Sofia. “Why would you even do that? It was just a baby! A sweet little harmless bunny!”
Sofia said nothing, and for several long minutes a terrible silence hung in the room until the door opened again and Sister Mary David reappeared.
The nun took Melody’s arm and drew her to her feet. “Father Sebastian wants to see you immediately.”
“Me?” Melody protested. “But all I was trying to do was rescue the rabbit. Sofia was the one who—”
“Lying only compounds your sin,” the nun said, and began steering her toward the door.
“I’m not lying!” Melody cried, turning toward Sofia. “Tell her, Sofia! Tell her the truth!”
Sofia only looked at her impassively. “I only know what I saw,” she said softly.
With Melody still insisting she’d done nothing, Sister Mary David marched her out of the room, leaving Sofia alone once more. As the door closed behind Melody and the nun, she lay down on her bed and gazed up at the ceiling. Her fingers twitched slightly as the thing inside her remembered the feeling of the rabbit’s bones breaking beneath their pressure.
The feeling was good.
Sister Mary David guided Melody down a series of stairs into the labyrinth that was the school’s basement.
“Isn’t Father Sebastian in his office?” Melody asked, her throat dry.
“No,” the nun replied, walking so quickly through the darkened tunnels that Melody had to trot to keep up. “He told me to bring you to the chapel.”
“This is stupid. I didn’t do anything—it was Sofia!”
“Hush!” Sister Mary David stopped in front of an old wooden door, and a sudden surge of panic gripped Melody as she remembered what Sofia had told her about going to confession in the basement chapel.
A chapel where she’d been forced to pray on her knees for hours on end.
Was she herself going to have to do that now?
Was whatever had happened to Sofia about to happen to her, too?
She did not want to go inside, and took a step back, away from the door.
Sister Mary David pulled the door open, and in spite of herself, Melody looked in.
An enormous, hideous crucifix, with a hollow-eyed, dying Christ loomed over the candlelit altar.
“No,” she said, backing away. “I don’t want to go in there.”
“It’s all right, Melody,” Father Sebastian said softly as he stepped through the doorway from the vestry.
“It wasn’t me, Father,” Melody cried as tears of frustration and fear began to choke her. “It was Sofia. I came back to get my laundry, and she had that little thing, and—”
Father Sebastian beckoned to her, inviting her inside. “Come in and let’s talk about it.”
Melody felt her anxiety begin to melt slightly as she heard the priest’s soothing voice. “I—I don’t—” she began, but the priest held up a quieting hand.
“Please, Melody,” Father Sebastian said. “Talk with me.”
Melody swallowed. Something still told her not to go into the strange chapel, but surely Father Sebastian would never hurt her. And he was offering her an opportunity to explain what had just gone on in her room. “All right,” she breathed.
Father Sebastian held out his hand. She took it, and stepped across the threshold into the chapel.
CHAPTER 37
JEFFREY HOLMES OPENED his eyes and looked around, but the darkness was so deep that he had to put his fingers to his face to make certain that his eyes were open at all. He winced as he felt the sticky filth that covered him, and he tried to shy away from the fetid odor of his cell.
Why was he here? What had he done?
It had to be some kind of prison, but he couldn’t remember—couldn’t remember anything, really, except the strange sensation of flickering in and out of consciousness in the blackness, as if something else—some other being—had somehow taken over his body.
Suddenly Jeffrey felt a white-hot fury begin in his solar plexus and boil up through his chest.
It was starting again!
It was as if he was being pushed aside by something deep within himself, and in a moment the wrath burning inside him would consume not just his body, but his mind and soul as well.
“Please, no,” he whispered, the words emerging from his lips as nothing but a faint squeal. But he knew it was useless to plead in the face of the rampaging fury, and a moment later the rage erupted in his mind.
Jeffrey Holmes disappeared.
The evil that had conquered the boy’s body experimented with it, causing each limb to twitch spasmodically, each finger to clench so hard that its nail sank deep into the flesh of the palms. Relishing the pain, the evil squatted on its haunches and found the powers deep in the body’s brain that let it reach far from the cramped cell to probe the grounds of the buildings above the prison.
It detected a change. Something was happening.
It sent out thin tendrils of exploration, creeping through the building above, the grounds, the ancillary buildings, looking for something, something that had changed…
There! The place where the girls lived!
A new presence.
A kindred spark.
But wait. He had felt this spark before. But it was stronger now, much stronger. Though it was lying almost dormant at the moment, it was gathering strength, gathering momentum.
If somehow they could meet and their energies merge…
They would combine into a force so strong that it could never be conquered.
Yet this was not the spark of change the evil had detected, though it was pleased with this one’s progress.
No, there was something else.
Staring into the darkness with all-seeing eyes, the being continued to probe the consciousness of every living creature it could find, until—
There!
Directly above his cell!
A newly emerging larva of evil. Barely discernable, barely detectable, but there.
It concentrated on the fragile thing, and touched it with its awareness.
The other one squirmed within its host, recognizing its own kind, burning a little brighter.
The evil within Jeffrey Holmes fanned the flame for a moment, then retreated, so as not to harm the new host.
It rested against the wall of the prison and smiled. It was happening. Though still locked up, it could feel what was happening. From some nearby portal, more evil was seeping into this world, and soon there would be a release from this cell and the being within Jeffrey Holmes would be able to combine, to merge, to fuse with the others of its kind.
Fuse, and strengthen.
Becoming one, evil would rule.
The being gathered what strength its own
host still possessed and prepared to howl in exultation, when suddenly a cloud of danger darkened his awareness.
A priest!
A priest was drawing near.
It spat on the ground, its hatred and rage quickly rising.
It could feel the priest just outside, and already knew what it would do: when the priest opened the door, it would fling itself onto the human flesh, tearing his chest open to devour the man’s heart even while it still beat.
It tried to stand, to creep toward the door in readiness, but the legs of its host were no longer strong, and instead of readying to spring, the being staggered.
Its fury erupted. It wanted to break the legs, to beat them into submission, but then it remembered its last confrontation with the priest.
His host was not strong, but neither was the priest.
If it was patient, the opportunity would come for it to bond with the fledglings up above, and nothing the priest could do would ever overcome its power.
It sank back onto the floor, concentrating only on controlling its own rage, forcing it down just enough so that Jeffrey Holmes could emerge once more and deal with the priest while the evil rested.
Yet it would still be there, just beneath the surface, watching whatever might happen, just in case an opportunity for escape arose….
CHAPTER 38
RYAN ORDERED THE steak and baked potato, closed his menu, and handed it to the waiter. So far, the day with his mother and Tom Kelly hadn’t been as bad as he thought it was going to be; they’d gone to Quincy Market, then had lunch at Legal Seafood, which had always been Ryan’s favorite restaurant. Now they were at Ruth’s Chris on School Street, just a few blocks from St. Isaac’s, and Ryan was wondering why they hadn’t gone to some place closer to their house.
Something, he was sure, was going on. In fact, he’d had the feeling all afternoon that there was something his mother wasn’t telling him. Now, as the waiter took the last of their order, Tom Kelly stood up and laid his napkin on the table.
“If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes,” he said, leaning over to kiss Teri’s cheek. Then he nodded at Ryan, and walked toward the men’s room.
“So,” Teri said, leaning in slightly, and both her voice and expression taking on an odd anxiety. “Hasn’t this been fun, the three of us together?”
Ryan nodded uncertainly, sensing that his mother was about to tell him something that he wasn’t going to like.
“Maybe during Easter week we can go somewhere. Take a trip together.”
Ryan frowned. “We?” What did that mean? Just himself and his mother, or was she talking about Tom Kelly, too? “You mean just us?” he asked. “Or are you thinking that guy will go, too?” He tipped his head in the direction in which Tom Kelly had gone, and the flicker in his mother’s eyes told him the answer to his question even before she spoke.
“He’s not just ‘that guy,’ Ryan,” Teri said, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s a good man.”
Ryan shrugged. “I’m not saying he’s not. Just don’t marry him, okay?”
Again the look in his mother’s eyes spoke volumes, and for a second he had the horrible feeling that maybe she already had married him. But then she shook her head.
“I’m not marrying him,” she said.
Ryan started to relax slightly, but then she spoke again.
“But you need to know that Tom may move into the house next week.”
Anger and resentment began to boil in Ryan’s gut. “Boy, that didn’t take long.”
Teri did her best to ignore the anger in her son’s voice. “He’s a good man, Ryan, and he’s very good for me. He cares for me, and for you, too. If you’d just get to know him the way I do…” Her voice trailed off and she looked down and twisted the napkin in her lap. “And the house is just too empty with you gone.”
Ryan glared accusingly at her. “Don’t blame it on me.”
“Blame?” Teri’s head snapped up. “There’s nothing to blame. I love Tom, and he loves me, and if he makes me happy, I’d think you’d be happy for me.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tom coming back, and reached out to take Ryan’s hand, but he pulled away from her, his eyes stormy. “Please,” she whispered, “let’s not ruin the day, all right?”
Tom sat down, smiling. “What did I miss?”
Ryan took a deep breath. “Not much,” he finally said. “Just mom telling me that you’re moving in on her.”
Tom Kelly glanced at Teri, whose face had gone ashen, and raised a placating hand. “Hey, come on. I wouldn’t call it moving in on—” he began, but Ryan didn’t let him finish.
“I think it would be best for me to go back to St. Isaac’s tonight,” he said.
Tom Kelly looked genuinely surprised. “You’re kidding! Why?”
Teri shot Ryan a look, her eyes glistening with tears, and he squelched the angry words in his throat before they burst free. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on classes that I’ve never taken before,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “I was really looking forward to a weekend at home, but I think I’d better spend it studying, instead.” He felt Tom Kelly’s eyes on him, and met the man’s gaze with his own.
Teri McIntyre sat in frozen silence, praying that neither Ryan nor Tom would push the issue any further.
Finally Tom Kelly nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said. “At this stage, you’d probably do better to stay at school.”
Ryan nodded.
The waiter brought their meals.
Ryan looked at his steak, cooked to perfection, but his appetite had vanished. All he could think about was what Melody had intimated earlier in the day: that many of St. Isaac’s students were either troublemakers or inconveniences.
St. Isaac’s had been Tom’s idea, and with Ryan out of the house, he was moving right in.
Nor did he seem the least bit disappointed that Ryan wasn’t going to be home for the weekend.
“At least we had a good afternoon,” Tom said, and lifted his wine-glass.
Teri followed suit, and Ryan lifted his Coke.
“To many more good Saturdays,” Tom said.
“Many more,” Teri echoed.
Ryan clicked his glass with theirs, but knew that from now on he’d much rather be at school with Melody and Clay Matthews, and the rest of his new friends than be home with Tom Kelly.
For tonight, he’d just get through dinner, and be polite, and not make his mother any more miserable than she already looked. He’d think about Tom Kelly and the rest of it when he was back in his dorm room, alone.
As alone as he already felt, now that he had apparently become just one more of the inconvenient kids stashed away at St. Isaac’s.
CHAPTER 39
ABDUL KAHADIJA WALKED slowly down the street. It was twilight, that strange time when the light of Allah is bright enough to illuminate the goal, but faded enough to hide all but the most obvious intruder. And there was nothing obvious about Abdul Kahadija; to anyone glancing out a window, he would have appeared no different from anyone who lived in the neighborhood, and when he casually slipped between two houses and into the backyard of his target, he might as well have been heading for his own garage.
A covered barbecue grill sat like a great humped creature on the wide patio, along with a table and four chairs, minus cushions and the umbrella that surely made this a homey scene, come long summer evenings.
He listened carefully. No sounds from inside the house. No sounds from neighboring houses. Through the glass in the kitchen door, he could see one lamp lighting the living room, as well as the porch light; the rest of the rooms were dark.
He pulled his thin black gloves a little tighter, then took a glass cutter from his pocket. Moving close to the door to muffle the sound, he etched a rough circle in the pane nearest the doorknob, then turned the cutter to rap the glass sharply with its opposite end.
Instead of a single piece of glass falling away, the entire pane shattered.
A dog barked a few houses away. Nothing else.
Abdul Kahadija reached through the broken glass, twisted the knob, and moved silently through the doorway and into the kitchen. Though no one was home, he was loath to make even the smallest of sounds; the tinkle of broken glass had been regrettable, but unavoidable, but there must be no more noise.
Abdul intended to leave nothing of himself in this house, no sound, no print, not even the essence of his spirit.
But where to begin a search for the tiny, easily concealed object he sought?
It could be anywhere.
He stood still in the center of the room and tried to sense the inhabitants of the house. Where might they put such a relic?
But he had no feel for them. They felt foreign—soulless. Surely they had no idea of the treasure that was in their possession.
He checked his watch. He had allowed himself twenty minutes to search, and already four minutes had passed, and he had not even begun.
He started with the small drawers in the kitchen, but it was only a cursory search; surely they wouldn’t keep it here. Still, he rummaged quickly through the tangle of rubber bands, receipts, a few screws and broken switch plates that filled the drawers. Not the kitchen.
The living room seemed too austere; what he sought would not be here, not even in the drawers of the breakfront where surely they kept their silver, if this family owned anything of such value.
The bedrooms.
Lightly, making no sound, Abdul glided up the stairs into the master bedroom, where his eyes fell instantly on a lacquered, inlaid jewelry chest that sat squarely on the dresser.
Praise be to Allah.
He unconsciously tugged his thin black gloves once more, then opened the lid of the jewelry box.
A metallic tune began to play, shattering the silence, and setting his heart to jackhammering in his chest.
Abdul quickly found the music box switch and depressed it with a finger while he used his other hand to go through the jewelry.
What he sought was not among the cheap necklaces and bracelets that filled the beautiful box. The box, indeed, was likely worth far more than its contents.
