by Duncan, Lex
Dante stood. Went over to the table with the cards and the flowers and Sadie's balloons. He reached behind the glass vase and returned to his seat. Put my phone in my lap. “No, but you have a voicemail.”
From an unknown number.
Weird. I typed in my password and put my phone on speaker. You have one new message, sent today at 12:26 PM.
The recording crackled in silence for a few seconds and I was about to hang up when the voice kicked in. A gravelly voice that existed on the far-flung fringes of my memory like an echo. The more I tried to remember whose it was, the more distant it became.
“You escaped because He allowed it,” said the voice. It wheezed. “You will not be so lucky next time. You will burn like everyone else. And I will be there to watch.” Another wheeze. “Be a good girl, Beatrice Todd. We will see you soon.”
End of messages.
Okay, then. That was fun.
Aralia picked a good time to come traipsing through the door. Max and Sadie followed, a couple of crazy kids on their first date with their supermodel succubus chaperone. Sadie tugged at her hair and Max rocked back and forth on the heels of his sneakers, said something too quiet for me to hear, which made Sadie giggle more.
“You two are disgusting,” Aralia told them with a repulsed arch of her brow. She turned to me. “Aren't they disgusting?”
I stared down at the blank face of my phone. Max and Sadie's flirting was the least of my worries right now.
“You're being awfully quiet,” she said. “Dante, what did you do?”
“He didn't do anything,” I dialed my voicemail again. Let the message play.
When it was over, Aralia smoothed her dress and pulled her hair up with a rubber band Max found in his back pocket. Her long hands formed fists at her sides. “Well, Beatrice. We'll need to measure your head.”
I'd gotten a threatening voicemail from the person who attacked me and she expressed her concern by wanting to measure my head. “You want to measure my head?”
“You've got a crown that needs fitted,” she said. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
***
The hospital released me a day later because they insisted on keeping me overnight, despite my protests to the contrary. They just wanted to be “safe.” Little did they know, safety wasn't I luxury I enjoyed anymore. Safety took a nosedive out the window when the church tried to possess me.
I omitted that part―and many others―during my second chat with Chief Morales. A lot of parts, though, I didn't have to omit. Amnesia was good for that.
She'd returned an hour before my release with a fresh set of questions and I answered with the same variations of “I don't know.” Because I didn't. I had no idea what happened at St. Agatha's. Asking me if I saw anybody before it happened or if I had any enemies there wouldn't change that.
Clearly frustrated, she gave me her card and made me promise to call her if I remembered anything. I promised, then saw her out with a salute. She ignored it.
Mother Arden arrived in her minivan to pick me up right as my nurse wheeled me downstairs. Remnants of last night's storm lingered in the dark of the clouds, the snarl of the wind. The power flickered with each new gust but the hospital had backup generators, so an outage wasn't much of an issue.
Dante, however, did not have backup generators. None of the lights worked and stepping into the house felt like stepping into a freezer.
Mother Arden was hesitant to leave me there.
“Are you certain you want to stay?” She asked. She hugged her arms to her chest and grimaced at the cobwebs in the corner. It was a similar face to the one she made at the symbol carved in the door. “It's very cold. You could get sick.”
“I'll be fine,” I said, zipping my hoodie up the rest of the way. “We have lots of blankets and a couple of fireplaces. I think Aralia said she made soup, too. Before the power went out.”
Mother Arden found something new to stare at: Aralia’s knife collection spread out on the coffee table.
I changed the subject to keep her from realizing the roof was leaking. “I wonder where everyone is.”
“Upstairs?” She suggested.
It was as good a place as any.
“Beatrice,” she said before I could get too far, “could you wait a moment?”
Uh-oh. “Am I in trouble?”
She shook her head. “No, no. If anything, I'm the one who should be in trouble.”
“What? Why?” She was a nun. What could she have possibly done wrong?
“I pushed you to go to St. Agatha's,” she said. She clasped her hands in front of her and cast her gaze to the floor. Good ol' Catholic guilt. It happened to the best of us. “If I hadn't―”
As satisfying as it was to hear her apologize to me for a change, I couldn't let her shoulder all the guilt. I was a magnet for trouble. It wasn't her fault. “You thought you were helping me. I get it. I mean, let’s be real here for a second, I pretty much attract this sort of thing,”
That seemed to lift her spirits. Smiling, she rested a wrinkled hand on my cheek and kissed me on the other. “You've certainly grown, Beatrice.”
“I know, right?” I smiled. No matter how old I got, no matter how grown I was, there would always be a part of me that would bask in Mother Arden's praise. “I feel like I've gotten taller. Do I look taller?”
She pulled back, smile dissipating into something more thoughtful. “Yes, my dear. Much taller.”
See, that's why I loved her. She let me have my emotionally evasive jokes. I gave her a hug to show my appreciation. She hugged me back, and we went upstairs to find the others. Two bonding moments in as many weeks with the important authority figures in my life. More points in my maturity column.
“Dante?” I led Mother Arden down the hall toward my bedroom and his study. “Aralia? Max?”
Not a peep. Even Mo was suspiciously absent.
I stopped at the study, gave the doorknob a jiggle. It was locked. But both Dante and Aralia's cars were parked out front. They had to be here.
“Hello?” I lifted my hand to knock and the door opened a crack, Max's befuddled face appearing.
“Uh, hey, Beatrice!” He said. “And Mother Arden, too! Hi.”
“Hello, Max,” Mother Arden said gently.
Behind him, something crashed and someone cursed. Her smile
I gave the door a push. It wouldn't budge. “Max, move.”
“Hold on for one second okay?” He glanced over his shoulder, mouthing something that looked like hurry up.
“Max,” I repeated, “move.”
“But―”
“Max.”
“Okay, okay, fine,” he relented, and moved.
I fell through the door into the study. Max caught me. I shoved his hands away. “Okay, someone needs to tell me what's―”
“Surprise!” Aralia sat on Dante's desk, holding up a necklace. It was a long, dark chain with a pendant molded in the shape of the banishing seal. The pendant itself was a black color to match the chain, and set within it were a dozen tiny diamonds. Or rhinestones. I didn’t care which. “D'you like it?”
Mo, sitting at Dante's side, barked happily, as though the necklace was his idea all along.
“That's mine?” I asked, eyes widening. Aralia and I had talked about my ward, yeah, but I wasn't expecting anything so pretty.
She got up off the desk and came to drape the elaborate demon-repelling necklace around my neck. “Of course it is, darling. I know it's not a crown, but we did get you one of those plastic things. Dante? The plastic thing?”
He plucked the plastic thing from his desk. A rhinestone tiara purchased from a dollar store with the tag still on it.
“You got me a tiara?” I'd never been so happy to receive cheap costume jewelry. They liked me, they really liked me. “I can't believe you got me a tiara.”
“Believe it, darling.” She snatched the glittery hunk of plastic from Dante and placed it on my head. “There.”
> I gave an exaggerated sniff, flapping my hands at my eyes to dry the invisible tears. “I'm just so flattered, you know? I never expected to win this award and to win over such a large―” I quit flapping to gesture around the room. “―audience. To know that my work has affected so many people is truly―”
“Calm down, Beatrice, it's not an Oscar,” Aralia snorted despite a hardly concealed smile.
I dropped the act (literally) and threw my arms around her for a hug. Two hugs, three bonding moments. Wow. I was on a roll. “I know, but I'm not exactly a pageant girl. The Oscars are more my thing. And thanks, by the way. I love it. All of it.”
Though she initially seemed startled by my hug, she softened into it after a moment and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “You're welcome, Beatrice.”
“Anyone else want in on this?” I asked before stepping away. “Group hug? Yeah? No?”
“Let's not,” Aralia said. She separated from me like I'd suddenly contracted a deadly disease.
No one else moved.
I let my arms flop to my sides in defeat. “No group hug, then. You guys suck.”
“Well, Beatrice,” Mother Arden spoke up to alleviate the sting of my group hug rejection, “it seems like you're in good hands here. Do you need anything else before I go?”
I thought about it for a second. Came up blank. “I don't think so―Wait.”
“Yes?”
“Would you, uh...Would you happen to know where all my stuff is?” Being in the hospital had really distorted my spatial awareness. Everything happened so quickly that I hadn't much time to regain my footing. The concussion didn't help.
Mother Arden's mouth quirked in a wry smile. A smile that said she knew something I didn't. Her gaze lifted past me to rest on Dante. “Ask Mr. Arturo.”
“Mr. Arturo?” I turned on him, batting my eyelashes. “What's she talking about?”
“You'll see,” he said cryptically.
“I'd better,” I replied.
“I should leave you to it, then.” Mother Arden turned to leave, but before she went, she redirected her smile to me. “Please remember to call me if you need anything. I love you, Beatrice, and I'm glad you've found home.”
Home. That funny word that never fit right in my mouth. Home, a concept seen only in movies and on television screens. Home, a thing orphans heard about but rarely had.
It took a bit of trial and error, but I was here now. With Dante, with Max, with Aralia, with Mo. I was here. I was safe. I was home.
***
“Close your eyes,” Dante instructed shortly after Mother Arden took her exit. Aralia and Max were gone, too, leaving Dante and I alone in his study. I figured this was part of his overreaching plan.
No matter. I could play along. I closed my eyes and covered them with my hands to enhance the effect. “Okay. Now what?”
His response was his hands on my shoulders. He steered me forward, his lips at my ear as he spoke again. “You'll see.”
“You'll see,” I parroted, hoping to conceal how freaked I was by his close proximity. It was the good kind of freaked, but freaked all the same. “Where are we going?”
“You'll s―”
“I'll see, yeah I gathered that. Now why don't you just tell me because surprises stress me out especially if they make noise. This isn't going to make noise, is it?”
He chuckled. “I hope not.”
“You hope not?” What kind of response was that? “No offense, but that didn't really make me feel better. Can't you just tell me? Please?”
“Relax, Beatrice.”
“I can't relax. Haven't we had this conversation before?”
A door opened. Er, it sounded like a door. It sounded like a familiar door. My door.
“All right,” Dante said, “you can―”
I'd opened my eyes before he gave the okay. Sure enough, we were in my room. And it looked...exactly the same as it did when I left it. Huh. “Gee, Dante, I'm glad you let me move back in and all but, uh―”
“Check the nightstand,” he said.
“It's a very nice nightstand,” I nodded. And it was. Very…woody. Old. Dusty because I didn’t clean.
“Inside the drawer, Beatrice.”
“Oh.” That made a lot more sense.
I crossed the room and opened it. What I found was a card. Not a greeting card, not a get well soon card, but an identification card. A permit. Issued from Washington DC, stating that I, Beatrice Jayne Todd of Stone Chapel, Maine, was now federally authorized to hunt and kill demons.
Holy. Shit.
“Dante, you…” I whipped around, gripping the permit like a winning lotto ticket. “You didn't. Oh my God. You didn't!”
“I did,” he said. “Though I wouldn't have been able to without Mother Arden's help.”
“Oh my God.” My hands shook. I couldn't believe it. I was federally authorized now, officially a hunter. The police couldn't drag me to jail for shooting a possessed dog anymore. I was legal. I was one of them.
Dante cleared his throat. “You'll need to sign some things and I'll send them in for you, but other than that, you're perfectly legal now.”
“This is amazing,” I said. Everything I'd been working for, materialized in this permit. “Seriously, Dante. Thank you so much. This is all I've ever wanted.”
“I know.” He said. “You deserve it.”
I did. I did deserve it.
Giving it one last look, I tucked my permit back into the drawer for safe keeping, then opened my arms for yet another hug. “C'mon,” I said, “everyone's getting hugs today.”
He began backing out of the room. “That's very nice of you, but I have some work to do.”
“It can wait. Give me a hug.”
“Beatrice―”
“Dante,” I marched up to him and hugged him tight, resting my cheek on his chest. His heart beat a steady rhythm in my ear. “Just shut up and hug me back.”
To my surprise and subsequent delight, his arms wrapped around my waist and held me close against him, strong and intimate and safe. No head patting, no awkward frowning. This was a hug, a real hug.
I didn't want it to end.
“Beatrice?” Dante murmured.
“Yeah?” I asked, mind churning with all the romantic lines he could feed me. Like that one from The Demon and The Dame. Sylvie's character and her possessed lawyer boyfriend are dancing together in a glamorous ballroom and right before the big reveal―he's possessed, Sylvie!―he looks at her and says...
“The roof is leaking.”
Wait. That wasn't how it went.
“Huh?” I lifted my head, letting my Hollywood fantasies fade. “Where?”
He pointed directly above us to a dark brown spot in the ceiling. “There. That storm must have caused more damage than I thought. Wonderful.”
Poor old house. It was falling apart. “Can you fix it?”
“Once we get a day of sunshine, yes.” He raked a hand through his messy hair. Back to the regular, non-romantic Dante.
I took that tiny shred of disappointment I felt at his mood swing and tucked it away. We had more important things to worry about. “Should I get a bucket or something?”
“That would be wise,” he said. “Look in the kitchen underneath the sink. There should be one there.”
“You got it, boss,” I gave him a thumbs-up and went to do as he bid.
He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Beatrice?”
“Hm?” This was his chance. His chance to feed me a Sylvie Karlov movie line.
“Don't call me boss.”
Okay, it wasn't particularly romantic.
But it was a start.
Twenty-Seven
Evening settled and with the dark came the cold. The power still hadn't been turned back on, so the space heaters wouldn't work. To compensate, I gathered as many blankets as I could find and the four of us holed ourselves up in the study, where Dante started a fire. Aralia heated the soup she'd made earlier on the hearth and we a
te supper.
It was almost cozy. In a pilgrim sort of way.
Pilgrim living got boring quick, however, and to pass the time, we played a fun game called Compiling Evidence.
Dante dragged a rolling chalkboard in from one of the disused bedrooms. He taped photographs of the first crop of murders at the top of the board and photographs of the ones at my apartment on the bottom. In the middle, he taped Rosie's note and Henriette's letter. The book that contained Elias’s confession sat open on his desk.
“Everything started with this letter,” he said, pointing to Henriette's. “Days later, the first few bodies were found. We can plainly see the symbol of the First Sacrament branded onto their abdomens.”
“Which was also on the envelope Henriette's letter came in,” I supplied.
“Right,” Dante said. “And a day after the bodies were found, you had your incident with the church.”
“Seems so long ago.” Aralia rested her head on my shoulder. We sat on the floor sharing my comforter. “Poor Beatrice, you would have gotten eaten by that wretched dog if I hadn't come along.”
“My hero,” I said. “What were you doing out there anyway?”
“Looking into something for our fearless leader,” she replied, nodding at Dante. “We thought, perhaps, the church had something to do with the murders, per Henriette's letter. Turns out, we were right.”
“Did we ever figure out what exactly happened to Beatrice?” Max asked, looking up from his cell phone. He seemed distracted.
I shrugged. “I just assumed it was trying to possess me or something.”
“Can buildings even do that?” He directed the question to Dante.
“Not in a traditional sense.” He glanced at the book. “Elias had the church built because he thought God bade him so. Which leads me to believe that he was possessed. Whoever was possessing him deceived him into thinking they were the voice of God, when in reality...”
“God was just a demon,” I muttered. “Why would a demon want a church?”
