by John Saul
He shuddered slightly as he remembered the last time he’d touched her, and she’d screamed, recoiling away from him even though she was unconscious.
Something was wrong with him. Something was very, very wrong, and it had all started when he’d come to St. Isaac’s, and tonight—right now—he was going to get away. And there was no place to go except the hospital. He moved quickly and quietly through the hallways of the ancient school until he came to a door that led outside into night.
The courtyard was filled with shadows and in every one of them Ryan could feel something sinister hidden, something evil waiting for him. Threading his way quickly through the courtyard, terrified of being seen in the dim moonlight but even more terrified of what might lie in the shadows, Ryan slipped through a narrow passageway between two buildings and emerged out onto the street.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock tolled eleven.
Could it really be that early? If felt more like three in the morning. But his watch agreed with the tolling bell.
He hurried down Willow and Spruce, glancing back over his shoulder every few seconds, half expecting to see Father Sebastian coming after him. But when he got to Beacon and started cutting across the end of the Common to the Park Street station, he began to relax just a little. At the subway entrance, he ran down the stairs, scanned his Link Pass at the turnstile, and headed down to the platform. According to the map, the green line would take him to within a block or so of the hospital, just three stops after the one he’d have gotten off at if he were actually going home. For a moment he wondered if there might be another route, but even if he could figure it out, it might take the rest of the night. Better to just go the way he knew.
A security camera caught his eye, and Ryan found himself stepping back until a pillar concealed him from its lens. But even if it caught him, what did it matter? He wasn’t really doing anything wrong—sneaking out of the school wasn’t like mugging someone. And yet, even as he tried to step away from the pillar, something—that thing—inside him held back, unwilling to step out of the shadows.
Was that it? Was it not he, himself, that was afraid of being seen, but rather that thing he could feel inside himself, trying to take over?
The D train pulled into the station, and Ryan boarded quickly, wishing there were more people on the car than the bum dozing in a seat in the far corner, and a woman about his mother’s age dressed in some kind of waitress’s uniform, who glanced at him for a second or two then went back to the magazine she was reading.
Yet even though the bum was asleep and the waitress was reading, he still had the feeling that someone was watching him.
What was wrong with him? Why was he feeling so paranoid? All he was doing was going to see his mother. It wasn’t like he was going to do something wrong.
Was he?
Now the dream he had last night about stalking Tom Kelly rose up in his mind. But that had been only a dream—it wasn’t as if he was actually stalking anybody. And he sure wasn’t going to kill anybody—he was just going to go visit his mother.
Then why was he afraid someone was going to see him?
Half an hour later, Ryan left the train and ran up the steps to the street two at a time. The hospital was just a couple of blocks to the left, and as he started walking, a vague sense of relief began to replace the paranoia he’d been feeling since he’d awakened only a little over an hour ago.
Ten minutes later he was outside his mother’s room in the ICU, gazing in through the glass at her thin, pale body. There were tubes and wires everywhere, and half a dozen glowing screens flashing graphs and numbers. His mother lay absolutely still in the confusion of equipment, and as he gazed at her, a terrible question rose in Ryan’s mind.
What if she doesn’t wake up?
What if she dies?
The cold fingers of terror began to close around his throat. He swallowed hard, then swallowed again, fighting not only against the fear that suddenly threatened to overwhelm him, but the tears that were welling in his eyes. His fingertips turned white as he gripped the metal window casing.
Every time his father had been sent away, he’d left Ryan in charge of taking care of his mother. But back then—back when his father was still alive—nothing terrible had ever happened. And besides, he’d always known, despite his father’s words, that his mother would take care of him.
But now everything was different. Something terrible had happened, and he had failed.
He hadn’t taken care of her. He had let her down, and he had let his dad down, and he had let himself down.
He needed his father. He needed to tell his father that he couldn’t take care of his mother, that it was too great a responsibility, that he was too young, and he wasn’t up to it, and he had failed.
A sob broke through the choking in his throat and reverberated through the silent hospital hallway and his eyes blurred with tears. But as he wiped the tears away with his sleeve, he suddenly saw something else in his mother’s room.
Something that hadn’t been there before.
A figure.
A figure standing at his mother’s bedside. But a second ago there hadn’t been anyone in there but his mother! He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes and looked again.
It was his father! His father standing at his mother’s side. Standing straight and tall, in his full-dress uniform.
Ryan rubbed his eyes—it was impossible!
Was he having another dream?
His father’s eyes met his, and Ryan sobbed again. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “So—”
“My gift.”
The two words struck Ryan as clearly as if he’d been standing right next to his father, not fifteen feet away on the other side of a heavy glass door. And now, as he watched, he saw his father touch the silver crucifix that hung around his neck.
Ryan stared at it. The crucifix! The one his mother had tried to give him, but that he’d refused. He rubbed the last of the tears from his cheeks and eyes, and looked again.
His father was gone.
But Ryan knew what he had to do.
The thing inside Ryan began to stir as soon as he rose to his feet to get off the subway train at the stop nearest his house. It was as if it understood that he was going home, and it didn’t want him there, and even as the train slowed and he moved toward the door, he felt an urge to stay on the train, ride it all the way back in to the city, and go back to St. Isaac’s.
Back to where whatever evil or madness that was growing inside him had begun. As the train came to a stop, Ryan knew that if he gave in to the desires of the being inside him, he would never be himself again. Slowly, inexorably, the person that was Ryan McIntyre would disappear, leaving only the strange dark force that seemed to be steadily invading his mind and body. Focusing his mind only on the vision of his father standing quietly next to the hospital bed, and the silver crucifix around his father’s neck, Ryan forced himself to move toward the opening doors of the subway train.
“You’re dreaming,” the thing inside him whispered. “Your father is dead.”
Ryan knew his father was dead, but he also knew what he’d seen.
“You saw nothing,” the evil being insisted. “You wanted to see him, but he’s dead.”
Ignoring the voice, Ryan focused all his attention on putting one foot in front of the other and stepped off the train onto the platform. As he climbed the steps to the street and started toward home, the voice kept whispering.
“You’re hallucinating.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“They’ll lock you up!”
Doubt began to creep into his resolve, and the evil knew it. Its power reached from his mind into his body, and suddenly he was turning away, starting back toward the subway.
The subway, and St. Isaac’s.
Concentrating hard, deafening himself to the insistent voice, Ryan forced himself to turn back again toward home. His whole body was twitching now, and he balled his hands int
o fists and stuck them into the pockets of his jacket. His arms jerked spasmodically, but he held them still against his sides. His head began bobbing and his legs seemed about to betray him, but he stiffened his neck, and forced himself to keep going.
He was doing the right thing—doing what his father wanted him to do—and he would not be stopped.
He would not be distracted by the voices in his head or the betrayal of his body or anything else.
The fury inside him suddenly surged, its wailing and howling built until Ryan could hear nothing else. It felt as if his head were about to explode, and then, as he stepped from the street onto the front lawn of his house, it was as if something had kicked his legs out from under him. He crashed to the pavement, his hip smashing against the curb as the asphalt of the street tore through his pants and into his skin.
Ignoring the pain, he got up again, and closed his mind not only to the demonic rage in his head but to the pain in his body. He walked up the front steps to the darkened house.
Yellow police tape was still stretched across the front door, but he tore it down. He picked up the little ceramic duck from the porch and retrieved the key that had been hidden inside it for as long as he could remember, then opened the front door.
The voice in his head screamed louder, but Ryan shut it out, his own rage growing as he stared at the dark blood on the hearth and carpet.
His mother’s blood.
His own anger drowning out the fury of the being inside him, he charged up the stairs, tugged open the attic door, and turned on the single light bulb that was suspended from the main beam of the roof.
His mother had brought him up here, had shown him the cross that was hidden in his father’s footlocker, and above the cacophony of the raging being inside him, he heard the echo of the words she’d spoken: “Your father said this always helped him do the right thing.”
Struggling to control legs that were no longer under his own control, Ryan stumbled over to the old trunk and lifted the lid. On top, wrapped in tissue, was his father’s dress uniform—the one he’d been wearing when Ryan had seen him in the hospital only a short while ago. He wanted to pick it up, wanted to press his cheek to it, just to feel the closeness to his father, but he didn’t dare. If he paused even for a moment, he might never regain control of himself.
He lifted the upper tray out of the trunk and set it aside.
The screaming voices residing within him rose, and as he reached inside the trunk to open the lid of the secret compartment hidden in its depths, first his fingers, then his hands, then his whole body began trembling as every nerve seemed to catch on fire. Ignoring the pain, he found the lid, and lifted it.
The rosewood box lay exactly where it had before, and as he reached down to touch it, he began to feel the evil within him weakening.
Power flowed into his hands, up his arms and into his heart as he lifted the box from the trunk and opened it.
The thing inside his head lost its grip on his body and its howling rage faded into whimpered obscenities.
Ryan, still kneeling on the floor, opened the box and closed his fingers around the silver crucifix that lay within. “What’s happening to me?” he whispered. “Dad? Tell me what’s happening to me. Tell me what to do.” He closed his eyes, certain he would hear his father’s voice, but all he could hear were muttered curses in his head; all he could feel was something still struggling to control his body.
He held the silver cross with both hands and curled up against the trunk, breathing in the scent of the wool uniform. Tears fell from his eyes and ran down his cheeks as the battle continued to rage inside his mind and his body and his soul, and it wasn’t until the darkest hour of the night that he finally emerged from the house and started back to St. Isaac’s.
But the battle inside him was not yet over.
CHAPTER 58
FATHER LAUGHLIN STOOD at the foot of Spruce Street. Across Beacon Street, the Common was a beehive of activity. Aside from the hundreds of people sprawled on the lawn to soak up the sunshine of the perfect spring afternoon, there were workmen everywhere. A platform was being built, upon which would stand the altar where His Holiness would celebrate the Mass that would be his only public appearance in the city. Even though the stage itself was as yet far from complete, sound technicians were untangling what looked to Laughlin like a hopeless snarl of cables, while a second crew was unloading and setting up truckload after truckload of folding chairs, which would be claimed by the earliest arrivals. Only a small section in front would be reserved for himself, the mayor, Archbishop Rand and the faculty of St. Isaac’s school. The Vatican had been very clear on that: even the governor would have to find his own seat, should he choose to attend. Faced with no reserved seat, that dignitary had already pleaded an immutable scheduling conflict, as had nearly everyone else who felt they deserved special treatment. And that, Father Laughlin was certain, was the whole idea. This Pope was far more interested in the common people and the welfare of their souls than in their leaders and the salving of their egos. It also meant, of course, that security could be far less intrusive, given that so few public figures would be in attendance at all, and the Pope himself would be protected only by a Plexiglas shield that would make him totally visible, but utterly safe from anyone not on the stage. The chief of police had still insisted on a fence around the seating area for crowd control, and as he watched, Father Laughlin could understand why.
Even today, with the actual crowd who would see the Pope not even starting to gather, there were people everywhere. Besides the enormous crew that was doing the actual work of setting up for the open-air Mass, the mayor’s staff seemed to be everywhere, wandering aimlessly with clipboards and cell phones, while the media was even more ubiquitous, cornering any priest wearing a collar for an on-camera interview. And all around the perimeter, policemen on horses stood sentry.
What had started out to be a small, personal visit by the Pope had turned into a circus, and even now Father Laughlin wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. Perhaps, when it was over, and the Pope had come and gone, it really would be time for him to retire. But for today, all he could do, really, was try to look out for the students of St. Isaac’s Academy as they rehearsed their part in tomorrow’s event.
Sister Mary David was trying to keep them in some semblance of order as they walked down Spruce and started across Beacon, but just as the intermediate classes were starting across, another flatbed truck pulled up carrying a dozen Porta Potties, which seemed destined to stand precisely where the senior class was intended to gather.
Brother Francis handed Father Laughlin a bullhorn. “I think you’d better move everyone to the front of the stage, Father,” he said, leaning close to Laughlin’s ear and raising his voice enough to be heard over the din of the sound testing.
Having never actually used a bullhorn before, Laughlin experimentally squeezed its trigger a couple of times, before actually speaking into it, but even then found himself jumping at the sound of his own voice. “If everyone from St. Isaac’s will please gather at the front of the stage,” he began, and found no need to repeat himself. The faculty quickly herded the nearly two hundred students into the area between the stage and the first row of chairs, and when there was a sudden lull in the sound testing, Laughlin seized the opportunity to quickly explain what would happen tomorrow. “The youngest children will be in the front row,” Father Laughlin instructed. “You will walk down from the school in classes, starting with first grade. Sister Mary David will lead you, and it’s really quite simple. Ours are the front rows of the center section, and as each row fills, a faculty member will lead you into the next row. The seniors will be last, except for the faculty.” He let his eyes wander over the students, focusing on those most likely to misbehave. “Keep in mind that the entire staff will be behind you, and we’re all quite good at recognizing the backs of your heads. So, shall we try it?” He dropped the bullhorn to his side as the classes began sorting themselves out and filing
into the rows in their designated order. Over to the side, Father Sebastian stood with the three students—Sofia Capelli, Melody Hunt, and Ryan McIntyre—who had been specifically requested by the Vatican to assist the Pope at the altar during the Mass. “Tomorrow morning,” he told the rest of the students as they began settling themselves onto their chairs, “you will all receive new uniforms, and you will not get them either dirty or wrinkled on the walk down from the school. Is that clear?” He saw the woman from Channel 5 listening and taking notes, and suddenly wished he had something more important to say than cautionary words about school uniforms, but nothing came to mind. “When the Mass is over, we will all walk together back the way we came, and when we are back at the school we will have a private blessing from His Holiness.” As the younger children started to whisper excitedly among themselves, while the older ones did their best to appear utterly blasé about a private audience with the Pope, Father Laughlin turned to the three students gathered around Father Sebastian.
Though it was not up to him to question the choice of the Vatican, Father Laughlin still wondered how wise that choice had been. Of course, these were the three students the Pope was most interested in—the three from whom evil had been totally exorcised by Father Sebastian—and certainly none of them had given Father Laughlin any cause for concern; all of them had been utterly cooperative in every way, paying complete attention to Father Sebastian as he’d instructed them in their duties as altar servers, rehearsing them in the school’s chapel all morning. They’d stood uncomplainingly holding the heavy candlesticks for a full hour, none of them seeming even slightly stiff after the ordeal. The two girls had carried the trays, holding the wafers and the wine in hands that never trembled at all, while Ryan McIntyre had supported the full weight of the large Bible that would be used during the ceremony tomorrow as if it were no heavier than a single sheet of paper.
And all of it had been done without a single word of complaint or a muttered grumble, or even the impatient glancing at the clock that is endemic among students everywhere. Deciding that the Vatican had, after all, known what it was doing, Laughlin turned to Father Sebastian. “You have their cassocks and their cottas?”
