Vicarious

by Jon F. Merz

  Alicia tugged on his sleeve. “In here.”

  The bathroom was a simple two-stall job. Nothing fancy. A crummy old sink with worn handles and tarnished fixtures dripped in time to the beating of Curran’s heart.

  On the floor, already in the body bag, Curran could see the Asian man. He looked about fifty. Lean. A thin mustache crested his upper lip. His hair bristled short.

  “Way we found him,” said Alicia, “he was sitting on the toilet with his pants down. We figure he came in here to do his business and maybe had a massive MI on the throne.”

  “That what you think?”

  She nodded. “Sure seems that way.”

  Curran ducked into the neighboring stall. He stooped and checked the clearance of the board separating the two stalls. If he was Darius and needed to get contact with this guy, how would he do it?

  “That you, Steve?”

  He looked up. Jesus Christ. Not him. Not here. Not now.

  Frank Krause.

  “Frank.”

  Krause had aged since he’d been Curran’s superior at the FBI. Thirty pounds extra weight gave him a slightly bloated appearance around the waist. His chin had a few offspring. And his receding hairline had relocated to his back by the look of it.

  Krause pumped his hand once. “Good to see you. I heard you were with BPD Homicide.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  Krause shrugged. “You still sore about getting the boot? I would have thought a guy like you have let that die a long time ago.”

  Curran sniffed. “Yeah, well, I would have, but you’re still breathing apparently.” He patted Krause’s stomach. “Although that may not be for much longer by the look of it.”

  “Freak you, too.”

  “You with State now?”

  “Easier life for the most part. I head up the local DSS squad. Most of the time I’m on the road. I just got transferred here a month back or I would have rung you up.”

  Lucky me, thought Curran. “You got some dirt on the deceased?”

  Krause looked at Alicia who was bent over the body bag checking something. “Hey, sweetheart?”

  “Dr. Briggs,” said Alicia standing. “What do you want?”

  “Do me a favor and take a walk for a second while I chat with Curran here, would you? We’ve got some stuff to discuss.”

  Alicia frowned, looked at Curran who nodded once, and left. Krause leaned back against the wall and lit as cigarette. He offered one to Curran who took it and let his old superior light it for him. Curran inhaled and blew out a stream of smoke.

  “So?”

  Krause spat on the floor. He nodded at the bag. “This guy here, lemme tell you – a real piece of work.”

  “Someone told me he was a Hmong.”

  “Come down from the mountains, sure as crap,” said Krause. “Real bastard of a guy. He was an asset of our friends down in Langley for a while.”

  “Those are your friends, Krause. Not mine.”

  “Hey, c’mon pal, you used to be with the Bureau. You know the rivalry we’ve always had with the spooks.”

  “Get to the point, will you? I’ve got work to do.”

  “Okay, okay. Guy’s name was Chung. Did a lot of heavy dealing in opium and heroin. One of these jungle warlords straight off the Golden Triangle. Started out as some type of freedom fighter and gave it up when he saw how lucrative drugs could be. Rumor is he slaughtered something on the order of thousands in his rise to power. Including women and children.” Krause took another long drag on his cigarette and Curran did the same.

  But somehow the cigarette didn’t taste that good.

  “One of Uncle Sam’s DEA boys filed a field report that said this guy used to bury his enemies in the ground up to their neck and then pour honey all over their heads.” He glanced at Curran. “You know what honey attracts over in Cambodia?”

  Curran sighed. “I don’t know, Krause. Ants?”

  “Yeah, but not your ordinary picnic-disrupters. Soldier ants. Ever hear of them?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Chung used to get his rocks off watching the ants crawl all over his victims – into their mouths, noses, and ears - and start eating their way from the inside out. You imagine going like that? I’d pull the trigger myself before I let that happen to me. I hear it takes almost two days to die like that. Eaten alive from the inside out. Thousands of those ants swarming all over you. Biting. Ripping. Bleeding. Screaming. Jesus freaking Christ.” He shook his head. “Sick crap.”

  Curran sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Had another hobby this guy. He used to kidnap and impregnate poor teen-age girls. Five months into the pregnancy, he’d cut out the fetuses with a rusty hand scythe and throw the bodies of both the girl and her unborn child to a pack of ravenous dogs. By last count, he’d done it almost two dozen times.”

  Curran’s stomach churned. His ground the cigarette out against the mildewed tile wall and faced Krause again. “What in God’s name is this putrid freak doing in Boston?”

  Krause grinned. “Ain’t that just like our good ol’ gov’mint? Making friends with the very people we ought to be killing. But that’s what we did. CIA took him in under their wing. In exchange for information on Soviet activities in the eighties, we shielded him. And then, wouldn’t you know it, this piece of crap decided he wants to get into politics. Fixed some local elections and winds up in a cabinet position. Works his way into an ambassadorship. That’s where State comes in.”

  “Still doesn’t answer what he was doing here.”

  “Well, old habits, you know, they die hard. Chung still had both hands in the drug trade. Guess you can’t make much of a living doing civil service work over in Asia, neither. Go figure.”

  “He was here to deal drugs?”

  “Way we figure, he had some contacts with the VC boys here in town. Maybe a new deal going down. I don’t know.” He grinned. “Don’t make much difference now, does it? He just ended up dying. Makes my job a helluva lot easier, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Glad to hear it’s worked out so well for you.”

  Krause grinned. “You’re gonna get stuck with this case?”

  “ME thinks it’s a heart attack. Who am I to argue?”

  “They call you down here for a potential heart attack?”

  “Precaution.”

  Krause smiled. “My ass. Someone thinks this is a homicide. Better hope that fancy pants doc can make it look natural. Save you an awful lot of heartache trying to figure out who did it.”

  I already know, thought Curran. And even still, it wouldn’t make things any easier.

  He glanced down at Chung. Soldier ants, knocking up little girls, and killing the unborn – that just about made Chung the most evil thing Curran had ever come across.

  No wonder Darius wanted him.

  And in that instant, his stomach dropped with sudden revelation.

  There’d be no more bodies like this.

  Chung was the last. The most evil. With his soul, Darius – the Soul Eater – would have the last of what he needed.

  And the resurrection would begin.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Darkness surrounded her.

  Her eyes, now fully open, could make out nothing of the room she lay in. She tried flexing her arms again. They were bound fast. The same with her legs. Even turning her head produced pain from the edges of whatever she lay within.

  Darius.

  The demon.

  She could hear his voice as he had touched her.

  “You cannot stop me. You have not the power to do so. And now your time has come; your hour of service is at hand.”

  In the periphery of her vision, her eyes had seen the two feet of the real Sister McDewey. Lauren cursed herself silently feeling like some naïve Little Red Riding Hood who’d shown up too late at Grandma’s house.

  She’d seen Darius’ hands then. At first glance they appeared normal but as he drew down the distance between
them, she could see the skin changing. Thick scales broke out along the surface while underneath thick tendons and ligaments flexed and undulated like giant unseen tidal fluxes.

  Her stomach had lurched – ready to retch – as his hands came closer.

  She tried to back up but could go no further. And then they touched her, the cold seeping into her skin. Into her mind. Into her soul.

  And blackness had swallowed her.

  Lauren had thought she was dead. She’d thought this would be it.

  But she didn’t feel dead. Just lost.

  And scared.

  The room she was in was cold. She could tell her clothes were gone and yet something else covered her body. A simple one-piece robe of sorts perhaps. Nothing too substantial since she could feel a cold draft wafting throughout the room that penetrated the robe as easily as if she was naked.

  What did he want with her? She wasn’t evil. How could she figure into his plan? Did he need her soul for some depraved part of his resurrection plan? Perhaps he intended to eat her.

  She shivered, suddenly realizing the weight of her own thoughts as they tumbled over her in rapid succession, a veritable avalanche of doom.

  Where was Steve?

  Chinatown.

  She sighed and tried to flex again. Useless. Whatever type of restraints held her, they were solid and unyielding.

  There’d be no way for her to escape.

  Unless she had help.

  She thought back to seeing Darius when she’d been asleep. But she hadn’t been asleep at all. She’d traveled out of her body.

  That had been an unconscious move on her part. She hadn’t set out to do it. She wondered if it was possible to do the same thing again.

  Another draft swept over her, a rising tide of imminence. Time grew short. Either she got help or she’d die here.

  Or worse.

  She closed her eyes and tried to reach out with her mind.

  Steve.

  In her mind’s eye she saw him as a sketchy figure. She concentrated on making him as fully realized as she could. She mentally added in details after details, down to the smallest item she could recall.

  Making love with him had helped emblazon his physical details in her mind. She drew on those memories now to help flesh him out as best she possibly could. Gradually, he started becoming whole within her mind. Two-dimensional at first, she made sure she turned him over and over until he was almost real

  Almost as if he’d actually been there.

  I need you, Steve.

  I need you now!

  ***

  Curran shivered again as another cold breeze washed over him. He cranked the heater and frowned. The cold had been more than just a temperature in the course of this case. When this is over, he thought, I’m moving to the equator.

  Maybe he could take Lauren with him.

  He grabbed his cell phone and punched in the number to Father Jim’s house. The phone rang.

  And rang.

  He checked his watch.

  She ought to be home by now.

  “I should be there by noon.”

  Her words.

  The ringing continued.

  His dashboard clock read 12:45.

  He disconnected.

  And shivered.

  Traffic began moving again. Curran shot down Commonwealth Avenue and then halted by the Burger King that stayed open later than any other in the city. More traffic.

  He sighed.

  Lauren.

  She’d been amazing in bed this morning. Curran almost grinned. If she’d been holding anything back, it sure hadn’t seemed like it. Her appetite was voracious. They’d sweated their way through at least an hour of non-stop sticky aerobics.

  I wouldn’t mind a repeat of that performance, he thought.

  But would she?

  Something about the way she seemed to give herself so totally to him this morning stuck in his head. Was that the only time she would do so? Would she leave him when this was all over? Would she go back to what she’d originally planned to do?

  Would she become a nun after all?

  Curran glanced down at the hair on his forearms. They still stood straight up.

  He rubbed them down absently but they jumped back to life as if the entire car was surrounded by an electrical field.

  Lauren.

  His mind kept going to her.

  He frowned again.

  It got colder in the car.

  Curran turned the heater on. But only cold air came out.

  “What the hell-?”

  Lauren.

  He kept saying her name in his head. Why? Or was he really saying it at all? Curran got through two more traffic lights until he came to another stop. Another red light.

  And still it remained cold inside his car.

  And her name kept repeating in his mind.

  Lauren.

  Lauren.

  Lauren.

  Curran glanced down at the portable blue light, most of the unmarked BPD units used. It fed right into the cigarette lighter.

  He looked back at the slow traffic. And glanced at the clock.

  12:55pm.

  It would take him easily another twenty minutes to reach Father Jim’s house in this traffic.

  Lauren.

  Curran sighed. “Hell with it.”

  He jammed the end of the blue light into the cigarette lighter plug and slapped the light on his rearview mirror. He switched on the light and the siren wired into the car already. Instantly cars began parting, and more horns wailed as people tried to get out of his way.

  “C’mon,” said Curran. “Move, move, move.”

  More cars slid right. A minivan blocked his way. Curran cranked up the volume of the siren and at last the van moved. He shot through, slowed by the intersection by the grocery store and then shot up Commonwealth Avenue into Allston.

  At Harvard Avenue, he hesitated but then kept going straight on. It would be easier to get to her by taking a left off of Commonwealth Avenue than trying to snake his way through the neighborhoods.

  At last, he broke into the neighborhood where Father Jim lived. Curran switched off the siren as he drew up by the house.

  Somehow in the daylight, it looked simply like another house.

  There seemed nothing holy about it.

  He hopped out, running for her front door.

  Reached the door and yanked hard.

  Stopped – locked.

  “Crap!”

  He stooped and examined the lock. It was a serious caliber deadbolt that would take too long to pick.

  Curran frowned.

  Time’s up.

  He turned sideways and used his right elbow to bust through the pane of glass directly next to the lock. The glass shattered and sprinkled the inside floor.

  So much for surprise, he thought.

  He snaked his hand in and found the lock’s knob – turned it – and tore the door open.

  Curran balled himself up and then crashed through the open doorway.

  He brought the gun up and moved fast and carefully, bracing himself at doorways as he worked through the house.

  He moved down the hall, checked out the living room.

  Nothing.

  He sidestepped toward the kitchen.

  Empty.

  Likewise for the bathroom.

  He eased to the left side of the house.

  Toward the bedroom.

  His mind briefly filled with images of this early morning, of the incredible passion he’d shared with Lauren in there.

  The door to the bedroom was closed.

  Curran frowned.

  He hugged the doorway.

  Again, with one hand he gripped the doorknob.

  And turned.

  It was locked.

  He bent again, trying to see through the keyhole. He couldn’t see through it in the fading daylight.

  H
e stood back up.

  Was she inside?

  Was someone else in there with her?

  No time left.

  Curran placed himself opposite the door across the hallway. He clasped his gun in both hands by his chest, the muzzle leaning off toward his left.

  He took a deep breath in.

  And aimed a front stomp kick at the area just above the doorknob.

  Kicked.

  Crashed.

  The door flung open.

  Curran moved in.

  Saw the bed.

  Saw the sheets.

  Sniffed Lauren’s perfume.

  And then,

  Saw nothing else in the room.

  She wasn’t there.

  He exhaled.

  On the table next to the bed, he saw the leather-bound journal of Graham Westerly and grabbed it. He could feel the age of the journal, enclosed by the stiffened leather.

  But where was Lauren?

  “Can I help you?”

  Curran spun and brought the gun up – aiming.

  The priest jumped back raising his hands quickly. “Good Lord!”

  Curran felt everything bleed out of him and he slumped back. “Sorry.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Curran. I’m a cop. Where’s Lauren?”

  The priest lowered his hands. “You’re a friend of Lauren’s?”

  Curran nodded. “You must be Father Jim.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sorry about the gun.”

  “This is something of a holy home, Detective. I’d hope you try not to draw your weapon too often in the house of God.”

  “Never do,” said Curran. Because I’m never there. “Have you seen Lauren?”

  Father Jim shook his head. “No. No I haven’t.”

  “She said she’d be back by noon. She’s not here.”

  “Where was she coming from?”

  Curran frowned. “The divinity school, but she should have left there ages ago.”

  “Well, she never returned here.”

  The divinity school.

  Damn.

  His heart sank. Part of him knew he was already too late. He knew – somehow – that Darius already had her.

  Curran ran from the house.

  And behind him, he could hear Father Jim ask, “Who’s going to pay for my front door?”