Six Times a Charm

by Deanna Chase

  The pews were empty, and I considered heading over to the hall to see if my rendezvous was there. But I’d actually arrived a few minutes early, so it seemed silly not to wait.

  I’d brought an empty glass vial, and I filled it with holy water, replenishing my stock. That errand completed, I just stood there, idly flipping through a missal, and checking my watch about every twenty-four seconds. At eleven-fifty-seven I heard the creak of a door, followed by footsteps. Because the room’s acoustics were designed more for singing hymns than pinpointing sound, I had no idea which direction to look. I turned a full circle and was walking toward the communion rail when the mystery was solved—Father Ben passed through a velvet curtain to appear on the sanctuary in front of me.

  He carried a clipboard and a pen and didn’t seem to realize I was there.

  I cleared my throat, and he looked up, startled. His face cleared almost immediately, though, and he smiled broadly. “Kate Connor. What brings you here today?”

  Okay. So he definitely wasn’t my alimentatore. I let loose my preplanned excuse. “I’m picking up some more inventories to type. But the message on my cell phone was garbled, so I’m not sure who called.”

  Since our project involved reviewing and indexing the extensive donations received by the cathedral’s sizable archives, I assumed there was a list somewhere waiting to be typed. Thus, I was not actually lying to a priest.

  Father Ben rubbed his chin. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Delores would know, but she’s not here today,” he added, referring to the committee chair.

  “Oh. That’s too bad.” I frowned and tried to look suitably flummoxed. “I was hoping to get started on the pages tonight.” I turned a bit, looking around as if I expected someone to materialize in a pew. “You haven’t seen anyone else around, have you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll go check the Bishop’s Hall. If someone is looking for me, would you let them know I’m there?”

  “Of course.”

  I made polite good-bye noises and headed out the door. I popped into the Bishop’s Hall, looked around, and found no one except the janitor, who was mopping the floor. I backed out quickly, careful not to muck up his work.

  The adrenaline rush that had accompanied the thought of meeting my new mentor was being fast replaced by annoyance. I had at least three loads of laundry piled up at home. Not to mention a body that was going to get pretty ripe if it stayed in my shed much longer. I decided to head back to the cathedral in case we’d been passing each other in a not-so-funny comedy-of-errors kind of way. I’d just stepped onto the walkway when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned, but didn’t see anyone. I called out but no one answered.

  I reached the church doors at the same time Father Ben did. His face lit up instantly, and this time I could tell that I was exactly who he wanted to see.

  “Oh, Kate, I was just going to look for you. I bumped into a gentleman looking for you in the parking lot”

  “You did?” My gaze automatically shifted toward the lot. I saw five cars, but no people. “Who?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know his name,” Father said. “He said he’d just looked for you in the hall, but that the floors were wet.”

  “They are. I was just there.”

  “He asked me to direct you to the courtyard if I saw you.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  We parted ways, him entering the church, and me heading around the building toward the courtyard, a small sitting area bordered by the cathedral, the rectory offices, and the Bishop’s Hall. Primarily used by church staff as a place to sit and eat lunch, the courtyard boasts nothing much more than a few concrete benches and some potted plants. A decorative iron fence marks the entrance. The gate was open, and I walked through. I saw no one. The concrete benches had been bleached to near white from day after day of California sunlight and I thought absurdly of bones in a field picked clean by vultures and left to bake. I shivered, as if someone had walked over my grave, and I turned my gaze to the statue of the Virgin Mary, looking for comfort. “Give me strength,” I whispered, closing my eyes only briefly as I crossed myself.

  This cloak-and-dagger routine was irritating. I had a cell phone, a fax, a Palm Pilot and high-speed Internet access. Was it really necessary to skulk around the cathedral grounds when one simple e-mail message could have set out an exact time and meeting place? Another glance at my watch revealed that it was now ten past noon. Father Ben had just seen the man, so where the Devil was he?

  “Hello?” I called, feeling stupid since there was obviously no one there. Then I muttered the kind of curse you really shouldn’t say in a churchyard, and headed back in the direction I’d come. My blood was boiling as I turned, my entire body tight with pent-up frustration. I wanted to hit something, to lash out and let my frustration find some tangible release. The reaction surprised me. For a decade and a half, I’d worked so hard to stifle those urges, and to live by a different set of rules. I’d succeeded, too. Suburban life made it easy to bury my past. I repeatedly tell Timmy not to hit, bite, kick, or scream; hitting isn’t nice, hitting doesn’t solve anything.

  Except sometimes hitting does solve things.

  Sometimes, hitting saves your life.

  I may have buried my years of training, but I never truly lost them. And now I felt my old instincts clamoring to the surface, my blood burning and my strength returning. And, even more, I felt the desire. To fight. To win. To live.

  A twig snapped behind me, the sharp crack reverberating through the courtyard. I spun around, fists raised, muscles tight. I truly expected nothing more than my tardy alimentatore, but I’d crossed some line; I couldn’t simply turn and say “Hi, there.”

  And thank God for that.

  He was right there. Larson. Looming not two feet behind me.

  “Son of a bitch,” I howled as I launched myself at him. I wasn’t consciously thinking, but satisfaction still tickled in my head. I’d been right all along! He was a demon, he’d found out about this meeting, and somehow he’d delayed (or killed) my alimentatore.

  On top of all that, I simply didn’t like the man. His comments about Allie had pissed me off, and it was with an absurd breed of joy that I tackled him.

  His eyes went wide as he saw me coming, and he held out his hands at the last minute as if to stave off my assault, but the reaction came too late. I hit him with the full force of my body, and down we went. Not the most artful of moves, I’ll admit, but my primary concern had been to get him before he got me.

  He recovered quickly from his initial surprise and twisted violently to the left, managing to toss me off in the process. He was much stronger than I’d expect for a sixty-something man of the judiciary, and that only confirmed my belief that he wasn’t a man at all.

  His parry had sent me crashing to the cold stone ground, the motion sending my purse flying. My stuff spewed out like the payload from a suburban bomb. I clambered to my knees, clawing at the debris, my hand closing around the first solid thing I found—a Happy Meal action figure, complete with a molded plastic sword. Not great I admit, but I could make do.

  I climbed to my feet, and saw that Larson was doing the same, pushing himself up to a standing position. He wasn’t there yet, though, and I took advantage, landing a solid kick somewhere in the general vicinity of his kidneys.

  The bastard didn’t stand a chance. He went down, and I lunged, landing on top of him and wrestling him into a chokehold. I’d won, and we both knew it. There was fear and defeat in his eyes, and the thrill of victory pounded in my ears. I moved in for the kill, bringing the Happy Meal action figure closer to his left eye.

  “For the love of God, Kate, stop! I’m your alimentatore!”

  Chapter 6

  ***

  “Like hell you are,” I said, keeping the plastic sword just millimeters from his eyeball. We were on the ground, my other arm tight around his neck, his head pressed near my chest. If he moved, my makeshift weapon would penetrate t
he sclera to sink deep into the vitreous fluid like a hot knife through butter. If he were a demon, he’d be dead. Human, he’d be blind.

  At the moment that was a risk I was willing to take.

  “Kate, think about what you’re doing. Forza sent me to assist you.” He pulled back away from the sword, his head pressing against my breasts. He was cold with fear, practically trembling.

  I tightened my grip around his neck. “Explain yourself,” I said. “Explain the dinner party.”

  Nothing. Just silence. I gave him a little shake, meant to jostle his enthusiasm for spilling his story.

  “Test,” he finally sputtered, the word so low and raw I could barely understand.

  I released my hold on his neck just a little, but my fingers tightened around the Happy Meal toy. “Bullshit.”

  He coughed, started to speak, then coughed again. I steeled myself to remain unmoved by his apparent discomfort.

  “Talk,” I said.

  “You’ve been out of touch for a while. I needed to know what we were dealing with. How much training you needed. What your skill level was.”

  “So you came to my house and impersonated a demon? I could have killed you.”

  “But you didn’t.” He cleared his throat and sucked in a breath. I realized I’d loosened my hold even more. “You passed that test at least.” He started to get up, but I jerked him back. He winced. “Although I may still modify that grade.”

  “You deliberately baited me. The breath. The comments.”

  “The breath I’ll concede,” he said. “A week of eating garlic and not brushing my teeth. The comments, though…”

  He trailed off.

  “What?”

  “I never said a single thing that was damning. You assumed I was a demon and heard what you wanted to hear.”

  I tried to think back over the evening, to see if what he said was true. But it was too much of a blur. All I could remember was what he’d said about Allie—that he’d been sorry he hadn’t met her. That she was probably a lot like me.

  Shit.

  He was right. Unless he was one of Satan’s minions, that was pretty damn innocuous.

  Without letting go, I leaned over and took a good long sniff. He opened his mouth helpfully. Minty fresh.

  I released the hold from around his neck, and he sat up, rubbing his shoulders and doing head rolls.

  “Apology accepted,” he said.

  “I haven’t apologized.” I kept the toy poised near his face. I was pretty sure he was okay, but I wasn’t positive.

  He groaned, either in frustration or pain, I couldn’t tell, and shifted slightly to the left. “Refilled your supply?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, then I turned in the direction he was looking. My checkbook was lying open near the base of a bench, a vial of holy water half-buried beneath it. I couldn’t reach it without letting him go, and I did a quick run-through of my options. It might be a trick. He might be planning on attacking me (or running like hell) the moment I let go. But since I couldn’t sit there forever, that was a risk I was going to have to take.

  “Don’t move,” I said, as if I could keep him there by force of will alone.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  I scooted backward, retrieved the vial, and moved back to crouch over him again. I still held the toy, but a bit less enthusiastically. He hadn’t moved a muscle during my scramble for the water, and now he watched me, his face impassive, as I unscrewed the metal cap. “Truth time,” I said, tossing the water at him without preamble.

  He didn’t even flinch, and I knew right then what the result would be. Nothing. No ripped and burning flesh. No screams emanating from the depths of Hell. Not even a little pop and fizzle. I felt my body relax.

  No demon could tolerate a direct dousing of holy water in the face.

  Larson wasn’t a demon. He was just a man, bemused and dripping.

  I sighed and passed him a crumpled tissue from the back pocket of my jeans. He started to dab water off his face. “Okay, then,” I said. “I believe you.”

  “I would hope so.” He started to stand. I took the opportunity to crawl around, looking for my various personal belongings.

  “So you were testing me,” I said, now stating the obvious. “At the party, I mean.”

  “I was.”

  I shoved my checkbook in my purse, then started collecting loose coins. “Did I pass?”

  He peered at me. “Let’s just say there’s work to be done.”

  “Right. Of course.” Damn.

  ***

  I don’t like being wrong, and, frankly, I’ve gotten used to being right pretty much all of the time. I’m the mom, and Mom is always right. So it would not be an exaggeration to say that I was taking my error about Judge Larson’s identity a bit less than gracefully.

  Fortunately, he seemed to understand, and while I sulked, he drove to the county dump, the demon carcass in his trunk and me in the passenger seat brooding quietly. Not that I’d been sulking the whole time. After a few vigorous mea culpas on my part (I can’t believe I drenched my alimentatore with holy water!), we’d headed to my house. I’d parked the Infiniti out front, while Larson pulled his Lexus into the garage. We tugged the body from the storage shed, schlepped him back though the kitchen, and filled Larson’s oh-so-pristine trunk with one geriatric dead demon.

  I learned it costs twenty-five dollars to enter the dump, and no one writes down your name, license plate number, or anything. One grizzled old man was guarding the entrance, but he was more interested in The Price Is Right playing in grainy black-and-white than he was in us. Considering the ease with which we entered—dead body in tow—I had to imagine that a whole plethora of murderous fiends had come this way before us. Not a pretty picture.

  Larson parked behind a pile of debris, shielding us from the view of anyone who might wander down the road. The place wasn’t exactly hopping, though, so I wasn’t that worried about onlookers. Together, we hauled Pops out of the trunk, then stuffed him into a space we’d carved among the debris. The stink factor was significant, but with two kids (one still in diapers) my gag reflex is well under control.

  We rearranged the trash to cover the body, dusted ourselves off, then headed back out the way we came. With any luck, no one would ever find the body. Or, if they did, they’d never figure out who left it there.

  “Are you still annoyed with me?” Larson asked after we’d been driving for a while.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’ll get over it.”

  “It was necessary,” he said.

  “I understand,” I said, and I did understand. “It just irks me that you felt compelled to test skills I haven’t used in years. I mean, how would you like it if your Property professor dropped by unannounced and quizzed you on the Rule Against Perpetuities?” For the record, I have no idea what that is, but whenever Stuart invites his lawyer friends over for drinks, they inevitably bring it up, and complain about what a bitch it was to understand, and then say how glad they are they don’t write wills for a living. Larson’s eyes crinkled in a very Paul Newman-esque sort of way. “Point taken,” he said. “I wouldn’t like it at all.” He stopped at a traffic light, then held his hand out to me. “Truce?”

  I took it. “Truce.” The light changed and we were under way again. A few minutes later, he turned onto Rialto Boulevard, the cypress-lined street that leads into my subdivision. I twisted in my seat to face him. “So how pathetic was I?”

  “Actually, under the circumstances you were surprisingly resourceful. Not that I’d expected any less. I’ve read your file and I know Wilson would not have been lax in his training.”

  If he was trying to snare my attention, he’d succeeded. “You knew Wilson?”

  Wilson Endicott had been my first and only alimentatore until the day I’d retired. The eldest son of some British bigwig, he’d forfeited his inheritance when he left home to join Forza. Where Father Corietti had been like a father to me, Wilson had been l
ike an older brother. I’d trusted him, looked up to him, and I missed him terribly.

  A shadow crossed Larson’s face. “He was as good an alimentatore as he was a friend. His passing is a great loss.”

  “He’d probably have been mortified to see the way I reacted to you.”

  Larson shook his head ever so slightly, then reached out to gently touch my hand. “On the contrary. I think he’d have been very proud.”

  I focused on my fingernails. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll be sending a positive report back to Forza, Kate. You did well. Truly.”

  “Oh.” I sat up a little straighter, trying to pull myself together. “Well, that’s great. How come you didn’t say so earlier?”

  He glanced quickly in my direction and I saw a grin sparkle in his eyes. “If memory serves, you had a miniature swordsman aimed at my eye.”

  “Right. Sorry about that.”

  “No offense taken,” he said. He flipped down his visor to reveal a pack of Nicorette gum. He unwrapped a piece and popped it in his mouth, then aimed a frown in my direction. “Harder to quit than I thought,” he said.

  “So how are you going to find Goramesh?” I asked, getting down to business. “That’s the plan, right? You find him, I exterminate him, and life goes back to normal.” I squinted at him then, my comment spurring another thought. “Are you really a judge? Stuart’s going to have a fit if it turns out you can’t really endorse him.”

  He laughed. “I assure you, my place among the judiciary is quite secure.”

  “So, what? You moonlight for the Vatican?”

  I was being sarcastic, but he nodded. “Something like that.”

  “No kidding?” Back in my day, Hunters and alimentatores were full-time, full-fledged Forza employees. Outside employment wasn’t even an option.

  “I was twelve years out of law school when I contacted Father Corletti about training as an alimentatore.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t help the incredulous tone in my voice. Forza is supersecret. I’d never heard of anyone contacting the organization out of the blue.