The Power: Berkeley Blackfriars Book Two

by J. R. Mabry

  “It sounded like it was coming from outside,” Brian said. Then he cocked his head. “Did I just hear a horse whinny?”

  “A horse? In Berkeley?” Susan scowled, but she stopped when she looked at Kat. “Kat, what’s up? Your eyes are huge.”

  In answer, Kat walked to the back door and threw it open. A giant of a man dismounted from an obviously agitated horse. The man was clothed in mail that clanked as he moved. A tunic bearing the Crusader’s cross covered a hauberk. A cervelliere was fixed to his head, and bushy pepper-colored hair stuck out from every side around it. As he stepped into the light, she saw the scars on his Mongolian face. “My lady,” he said, and bowed slightly.

  “Uh, guys,” Kat called over her shoulder, “we have company.”

  81

  “DAVID, GET BEHIND ME!” Bishop Preston called to his friend as the first wave of attackers poured through the door. They immediately fell over, apparently dead. In a flash, it occurred to Preston that the force needed to bust down the door had been so great, that these first few had been crushed by those coming up behind them.

  It seemed that hundreds of snarling, savage monsters were on their heels. Yet, Preston knew, they were not monsters. But something was seriously off. He could see that. They were normal-looking people—businessmen and baristas and boho chicks and homeless guys and everyone in between—but their actions were strange. It was as if they were being driven by some intelligence that did not know how to work the bodies. Their movements were birdlike and stiff. Their eyes were glaring and glazed. A couple of them were jerking about in periodic spasms. Several were drooling. No one looked happy. And all of them were advancing toward him.

  Preston glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ivory was there. The governor was climbing up into a window loft, crouching like a cat. The bishop brandished his crozier and concentrated his thought on the Spear contained within a compartment on its handle. As he did so, a golden ball of fire collected in the crozier’s crook, spitting energy like lightning.

  The first of the attackers to come within reach lunged at him, and Preston felt the crozier kick, much like the recoil of a rifle, as it punched back at the advancing man, sending him flying backward with the same force as his forward lunge. As more of the attackers came near, he struggled to maintain a grip on the crozier as it bucked to and fro, sending the frenzied, monstrous horde flying one by one. As the attackers were kicked back, they landed on several of their fellows, crushing heads, injuring limbs, and pinning some where they lay under the dead weight of their broken bodies.

  “John, how are you doing that?” Ivory called, his voice quavering but straining to be heard over the din of the snarling mob.

  “Did you call the police?” Preston asked.

  “No…I…”

  “Call the fucking police, damn you! If you’re waiting for the apocalypse, it’s here!”

  Ivory fumbled for his cell phone again but dropped it. From the height of the inset window, it hit the polished wood floor in a splash of electronic parts. All Ivory could do was stare at the scattered pieces of what used to be his phone. “It broke!” he called to Preston.

  “No shit, it broke!” Preston called over his shoulder in between jerking blasts from his crozier. His arms and shoulders hurt like a motherfucker. Fighting monsters, he thought, is a younger man’s sport. For just a moment he flashed on the image of that tiny, vaguely Jap-looking friar who had visited him earlier that day. What was his name? But he remembered the name of the order—Saint Raphael.

  Just then, Preston heard the wail of sirens and saw the blazing red strobe lights of the police cars flashing through the stained glass of the office. Sweat poured down his face as he turned quickly from one side to the other, repelling the attackers with reactive thrusts that threatened at any moment to rip the crozier from his now raw and aching hands. Turning quickly to meet the rush of one frenzied, jerking man in a Hawaiian shirt, another stepped in as his back was turned.

  Suddenly, the crozier took on a life of its own. It shot the man in the Hawaiian shirt back against the wall, so hard that Preston heard his spine crack. Then he barely kept hold on the crozier as it whirled overhead and met the oncoming swipe of a fierce-looking matron in trendy cat-glasses. The thrust of her attempted clawing was met, matched, and bettered as she spun away, knocking down more of the snarling crowd.

  Preston heard gunshots, and heard the tinkling of broken glass. Smoke began to fill the room, and—one by one—he saw his attackers succumb to the effects of an unknown gas. He stayed upright as long as he could, continuing to brandish his crozier until it became too heavy and he was overtaken by darkness.

  82

  ARRIVING in front of the house where Susan had been attempting her exorcism, Mikael took a couple of deep breaths. “Maiden voyage of the SS Confessor,” he said out loud. He pulled on his mask and settled the cowl over this cassock. It all felt right. He opened the door of the car and got out.

  Catlike, he moved with speed and grace to the house. It wouldn’t do for The Confessor to simply knock on the door, he decided. He saw light in the windows, so someone was home. But the lights were farther back in the house. Accordingly, he snuck around the side, looking for the source of the light. The window of a back bedroom shone out against the moonlight, even though the shades were drawn.

  Mikael continued around the back and tried the door. It was open and, willing his heart not to beat quite so furiously, he slipped inside. He flattened himself against the wall in the little anteroom by the back door where there was plenty of shadow. Folded paper bags stuck out on either side of his head, and boxes blocked a firm placement for his feet. He leaned out and peered into the hallway.

  It looked like someone was in the bathroom. The light was on, and Mikael could hear a fan. The door was ajar about three inches, but he didn’t see anyone. Quietly, he stepped into the bedroom where the light was, and crouched in the open closet. It afforded him a clear view of the room, but he would not be immediately noticeable.

  He willed his pulse to slow and his breathing to quiet as he sat. A part of his brain was railing against every bit of this. That’s the Mikael part, he told himself. I have a new identity now. The Confessor does what has to be done.

  The Mikael part of his brain told him that sounded ridiculous. The Confessor part of his brain told him to shut up. The Mikael part of his brain screamed that they were going to get into big trouble. The Confessor part of his brain insisted that there were things worth risking trouble for.

  Before the argument could escalate into a civil fistfight, someone entered the bedroom. It was a man in his early thirties, dressed in flannel pants and a T-shirt. The man picked up a bottle of beer and took a long pull. As he turned toward the bed, Mikael could see that he had a black eye. His nose looked swollen as well.

  “Get into a fight?” Mikael asked, intentionally deepening his voice.

  The man jerked around, his eyes wide. He stumbled, nearly losing his balance, but he sat on the bed and steadied himself. His eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, looking for the source of the voice.

  Mikael rose to his full six feet five inches and spread his shoulders as wide as he could manage before stepping out of the dim closet into the room. The effect was every bit as dramatic as he’d hoped. The man’s jaw dropped, and he cowered on his bed.

  Mikael placed his hands on his hips and stared at the man for several moments in silence. He suddenly realized he didn’t know the name of the man who was possessed. His shoulders sagged momentarily as a wave of guilt washed through him over this fact. He caught himself, though, just in time. Appearance is everything, he thought, and he drew himself up again to his full, broad-shouldered height.

  The man did not seem to have noticed his brief diminishment—because he was visibly shaking. “Look, I’ve already been beat up once today,” he said. “Just tell me what you want.”

  Mikael took an intimidating step toward the man. “I’m not here to hurt you. And I’m
not here to steal from you. I only want information.”

  “What? What kind of information? I don’t know anything!” the man almost whined. “I work at the fucking DMV!”

  Mikael thought of commenting on how there might be lots of pissed off people wanting to get even with the DMV, but he let it go. “I’m interested in your roommate,” Mikael said.

  “Doug?” the man said. “Or Vincent?”

  “The one who’s been acting strange of late,” Mikael said, lowering his head menacingly, a motion that said, Don’t trifle with me. He also liked the slightly archaic phrasing. Very nice. The Confessor will have to do more of that, he thought.

  “Oh…Doug,” the man looked down. “Yeah. He beat me up.”

  “Your roommate did this to you? Your black eye?”

  “Yeah. He promised to take me to work. I lost my license. DUI. If I don’t get to work, I lose my job. I was coming back from the store, and we were supposed to go in, like, five minutes.”

  “Go on,” Mikael said, still hovering over the man and concentrating on keeping his voice low.

  “He was walking out of the house. He had…that look.”

  “What do you mean?” Mikael asked.

  “That look he’s been getting lately, like he’s somewhere else and no one else matters. It’s creepy. It’s like it’s not even him.”

  “How long have you known Doug?”

  “I don’t know…about five years,” the man said. “So, you’re not going to beat me up?”

  “No,” Mikael said.

  “Or rob me?”

  “No,” Mikael said. “I just want to talk to you.”

  “You could have just knocked on the fucking door,” the man said. “Are you supposed to be some kind of superhero or something? You scared the shit out of me.”

  Mikael didn’t know what to say. He deflated a bit. “You’re right,” he said, “I could have just knocked on the door.” He motioned toward the bed. “May I?”

  The man scooted back a bit and nodded warily. Mikael sat. He sighed. “I’m sorry for scaring you. But the truth is, I didn’t know what I was going to encounter here. We found blood on the walk outside. We thought your roommate had been kidnapped or taken into hiding. You do know he’s possessed, right?”

  “Possessed? What does that mean? Like The Exorcist possessed?” The man looked at Mikael like he was out of his mind.

  “Exactly like that,” Mikael said. He waited a moment for it to sink in.

  The man shook his head slowly. “Oh man, that makes so much fucking sense. It’s crazy, but it makes so much sense.”

  “We were afraid that maybe one of you—his roommates—was also possessed. Demons sometimes gather in nests. We thought maybe you were trying to keep him from…well, from getting the help he needs.”

  The man relaxed a bit. “No, I like Doug. I’d do anything to help him. Especially since he’s been…getting weird. It’s just not Doug. I know that Vince feels the same—we’ve talked about it. He’s at work now, but he gets home about 1 a.m. You can ask him yourself.”

  Mikael nodded. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I take it the blood outside was yours?”

  “Yeah, that’s my blood. I told Doug I had to leave now…then…to get to work on time. He ignored me. He just up and left the house. I kind of panicked, and I rushed out to stop him. I yelled at him, but he just pretended I wasn’t here. Finally, I stood in his way.”

  “And he hit you?”

  “Yeah, fucking flattened my nose,” the man said. “It was gushing blood. Didn’t stop for about a half hour. Hit me in the eye, too.”

  “I can see that,” Mikael said, a note of sympathy in his voice. “What happened then?”

  “I don’t know. I was on the ground.”

  “Do you have any idea where he was going?”

  “Oh yeah. That was the one thing he did say. He was headed for San Francisco.”

  83

  WHEN BISHOP PRESTON opened his eyes, two things intruded on his awareness. One was a powerful headache so profound that it made the sky he was looking up into start spinning. The other was the fact that what was left of his dinner was coming up quickly. He turned on his side and vomited.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, choking back on the acrid taste. He was surrounded by people—firemen and police. He could see red and blue strobe lights through his eyelids.

  Someone bathed his face with a wet cloth. He opened his eyes and saw a plainclothes detective with the cool wet cloth in his hand—his other hand was on his shoulder. The man was African-American, in a dark blue suit that had seen better days. Preston blinked. “Thank you,” he said. “Ivory?” He waited.

  The man nodded. “Governor Ivory is fine. Sick, like you, but unhurt. It’s the gas. It’ll pass. You’ll both be fine. That headache you feel should clear in about an hour.”

  “That seems like an eternity,” Preston managed.

  “I can ask someone to give you some morphine,” the detective offered. “One dose should do you until it passes.”

  Preston shook his head. He had too much to think about, and too much to handle. He couldn’t afford any degree of brain fog. “I’ll manage,” he said. He pointed with his chin toward the smoking building that was his office—the energy required for using his finger to point was simply beyond him. “Who did this?”

  The detective cocked his head. “I was hoping you could tell me. Several of them are dead, and we have several in custody.” He bit his lip. “Trouble is, we can’t find anything relating these people. Other than the fact that a lot of them were also involved in a break-in at the Jewish Museum in Berkeley yesterday, we got nothing.”

  “I’ve never seen any of them before—not that I know of,” Preston said.

  “Do you have any idea why someone might want to attack you?” the detective asked. It seemed his legs were getting tired of crouching, so he just sat down on the ground.

  Preston thought hard. “I have plenty of enemies, Detective…”

  “Tanner.”

  “But none of them rises above the level of simple spite. I represent a kind of Christianity that’s out of style right now. People are annoyed at me. Some clergy feel alienated when I have to hold a boundary or discipline them. But that’s what bishops do. I can’t think of anyone who might engineer something this—”

  “Ambitious?” Detective Tanner suggested.

  “Exactly. But David, on the other hand…”

  “Do you mean Governor Ivory?”

  “Yes. He has real enemies.”

  “You’re referring to the Dearborn thing?”

  “Yes…and given his policies on Muslim issues, a lot of people are…upset.” Preston’s mouth quirked, a suggested but brief smile. “You know…I’ll be putting him forward as a presidential candidate. That’s going to ruffle some feathers, even among his friends.”

  “The Secret Service is already on the scene,” Tanner nodded. “They’re tending to the governor now.” He patted the bishop on the arm. “You rest. If you remember anything, please tell me. I’ll check back in with you in a few minutes.”

  Bishop Preston nodded. He closed his eyes and struggled into a sitting position, leaning against the tire of a police car. All possibility of thought seemed obliterated by the staggering block of pain that filled his head. He probed it in his mind for some way around or through, but it seemed impenetrable. The only thing he could do was endure it.

  So he entered into it. He chose not to resist it. This reminded him that nothing could resist him. Not with the Spear—

  His eyes snapped open. Panic filled him. Where was the Spear? He felt around on the gravel. It was nowhere to be found. His eyes scanned the paving stones that made up the cathedral close—nothing. He staggered to his feet and began to lurch toward the open door of his office.

  Light was blazing inside. Wisps of smoke still trailed out of it. Through the windows he could see firemen with gas masks poking around and talking to one another.
His right knee gave out under his weight, and he went down, striking his kneecap on the stone. A red flash of pain cut through his entire body, and even slashed through the pain already resident in his brain—pain on pain.

  He struggled to rise again and stumbled. Suddenly, though, hands caught at his elbow and buoyed him up. Turning his head, he saw his secretary, Ms. Finn. He smiled at her. “Thank you, Patricia,” he said.

  She tried to pull him away from the Dio House. “You can’t go in there, Bishop. It’s a crime scene.”

  “I need my crozier,” he said matter of factly.

  “If it’s in there, it will be fine.”

  “You don’t understand. I need it.” He met her eyes.

  Her eyebrows lowered, and he could tell she was judging his mental state. “Would you please ask the detective…Detective Tanner if he would ask one of the firemen to bring it out for me?”

  “If I do, sir, will you sit down?”

  “And I’ll behave,” Preston promised.

  “You sit. I’ll ask the detective. Deal?”

  “That’s a deal,” he said, knowing when he was beaten. In all honesty, he could not have walked to his office under his own power anyway. He sat gratefully.

  He watched Ms. Finn as she wove her way through the mob of emergency responders. She disappeared from his view quickly, but in about five minutes she came back with Detective Tanner in tow.

  When they reached him, Ms. Finn sat down next to him. Detective Tanner squatted again. “How are you feeling, Bishop?”

  “I’m clearer. Head still hurts. But I don’t need to throw up again.”

  “Thank God for the small favors,” Tanner smiled. Preston could tell that he was observing him closely. He could not guess what the man was looking for, however.

  Whatever it was, he seemed to have found it because he stood and put his hands on his hips. “I’m going to go talk to the site chief.” He pointed over to where the fire trucks were congregated, down the hill on Taylor Street. “I understand this…crozzy-thing is pretty important.”