by John Manning
He needed a better look. In a sudden move, he began climbing the bare branches of the tree, confident his black coat and the moonless night would obscure him from the windows of the house. The limbs of the tree gave him a closer view of the dean’s house than he could have obtained on the ground, and would also allow him to drop down on the other side of the wall if need be. Now he was able to make out faces in the lighted windows. Most of them Billy didn’t recognize. But he picked out Dean Gregory—and wasn’t that the state cop who’d been asking lots of questions around town about Bonnie Warner? He was drinking a glass of wine, laughing with the dean. And over there—Goddamn!—wasn’t that Joyce Davenport, the political commentator he’d seen on TV?
The sound of tires on gravel distracted his attention. Billy peered through the branches to see a car pulling into the long circular driveway around the dean’s house.
It was his mother’s Toyota.
He watched, too stunned to move, as his mother got out of the car and sauntered up the front door. She was let inside.
His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.
In moments, he could see her through the window, being handed a glass of wine by Joyce Davenport.
She’s part of this—whatever this is.
He swallowed hard as another car pulled into the driveway. He reached for his cell phone and dialed. “Bernie,” he whispered. “They’re arriving.”
67
Deputy Perry Holland peered out from between his blinds. These days, he did this eight or nine times a night—jumping at every sound, certain someone was out there, trying to break in. The wind was blowing hard and the night sky was covered in gray clouds. That blizzard is going to break at any minute, he thought. The weather forecast was predicting another snowstorm. Two already—and it’s not even Christmas.
Christmas. He dreaded the holiday. If he felt alone and paranoid now, he could only imagine how he’d feel on Christmas Eve.
Jennifer had been calling him. She’d heard he was having “a hard time of it,” as she put it, since his father’s death. Perry imagined Marjorie had spoken with her. Jennifer asked in her last message if she might come see him. Was it just pity—or did she really want another chance with him? Perry didn’t intend to find out. He was in no frame of mind to see the woman he’d once loved. She’d run screaming from me anyway, Perry thought.
He glanced in a mirror. I look a wreck. His hair was matted down, greasy and unwashed. His eyes were shadowed with dark circles.
Since he wasn’t going into the sheriff’s office these days, he didn’t need to be cleaned up. All he had to do was stay in this apartment with the doors locked and the blinds drawn. There were things out there—and he was terrified of them.
Bernadette deSalis told me I was right in my suspicions. And she’s seen the Virgin Mary. She knows. She knows the truth.
Another sound. Perry jumped. His gun was strapped to his waist, but he knew guns wouldn’t protect him against the forces that had killed his father. Still, his hand went automatically to the gun’s handle.
The rapping continued.
Someone at the door.
Every nerve in Perry’s body tingled. They’ve come for me. They’re here!
He peered through the blinds on the door.
It was a priest. He wore a heavy black coat, but his white collar was visible.
“Might I have a moment of your time, Deputy?” the priest was asking—shouting, really, over the wind.
“Who are you?” Perry called through the door.
“My name is Father Fernando Ortiz. I come seeking your help.”
Why should I trust him? Perry didn’t budge.
“Bernadette deSalis sent me,” the priest said.
Perry opened the door a crack. Bitter cold air came rushing into the house.
“What has Bernadette told you?”
“That you understand. That you know what’s happening here. The evil that threatens us all.”
Perry opened the door, nodding for Father Ortiz to enter.
“We need your help,” the priest said as Perry shut the door and turned to face him. “Tonight. We cannot delay any longer.”
“What’s happening tonight?”
“A girl will be killed.”
Perry studied the man’s deeply creased face. “Why not go to the police with your story?”
“You are the police,” Ortiz told him.
Perry laughed. “Not exactly. I’ve been put on leave. They think I’ve gone a little nutso. And they’re investigating me for removing official documents from the archives.”
“Who knows this? Is it general knowledge?”
He shook his head. “Out of respect to my father’s memory, all that’s been officially said is that I’m taking some time off.” He made a sound in his throat. “To grieve.”
“Then they won’t know at the college that you’re not officially authorized. Dean Gregory, for example—he’ll think you’re there in your official capacity.”
Perry’s mind was clearing. “That’s where you think this girl is going to be killed? At Wilbourne? Again?”
“It continues, Deputy,” Father Ortiz said, nodding. “All of the research your father did is confirmed by what is taking place tonight on the Wilbourne campus.”
“And you think I’m enough to prevent it? Won’t we need backup? A few state police…”
“I don’t trust the state police, and I don’t think you do either.” Father Ortiz looked impatient. “That’s why I came here. We felt you were the only one we could trust.”
Perry sighed, walking around the room like a caged animal. He’d been hiding out too long—and that’s exactly what they wanted. They didn’t need to kill him the way they’d killed his father. They simply turned him into mush. They chopped off his balls and sent him into hiding.
No more.
He turned and faced Ortiz. “I need to know more. What’s going on up at the school? What’s behind these deaths? What kind of cult?”
Father Ortiz’s eyebrows came together at the bridge of his nose. “These atrocities have been going on since the school was founded. They are why the school was founded.” He held up a hand to stop Perry from interrupting. “Oh, certainly, it is a fine institution. That’s the brilliance of the plan, you see. For over a hundred years, it has been hidden in plain sight. Most girls go to school there, get a degree and a fine education, and go out into the world to make a difference. Only a very few are part of the dark side of the school. But now, the cult makes up a majority of the new board of trustees.”
“Satanists?” Perry guessed.
“They worship Satan, but it is even more than that. They have tapped into the elemental evil that exists in this world. Satan is merely the name Christians use to describe this fundamental force. Evil predates Christianity by many aeons, and all societies have recognized the power evil can have when men give it free rein. These people are attempting to harness evil for their own greed and lust for power. But evil is not easy to control. It takes over—it grows larger—it consumes and destroys. They feed it—sacrificing virgins in a nod perhaps to ancient societies of devil worshippers. But now they’ve reached a turning point—they have engineered the birth of a creature who is literally the human embodiment of the elemental evil, and with her they believe they will be able to take over the world.”
Perry stood staring at the silver-haired priest. “Father,” he said, “I think you might be as crazy as people say I am.”
Father Ortiz smiled. “And the story will only get stranger, Deputy. We mustn’t delay any longer. Their plans are very close to completion—the moment they’ve been planning for almost one hundred and fifty years.”
“You need to give me more specifics than that.”
“I know it is a fantastic story to hear from a stranger. These days, it is difficult to convince people that good and evil are not merely abstract concepts—that they exist as powerful forces, independent of men. Call them God and Satan—cal
l them what you like. But good and evil exist as forces outside of ourselves. We have become so educated that faith is no longer possible. Anything that cannot be explained in a rational and logical manner simply cannot be. But it is true. It was foretold, explained to St. John in a revelation from the Lord.”
“I’ve read Revelation, Father, and I don’t remember anything about—”
“You haven’t read the real Book of Revelation.” A gentle smile played at the corner of the priest’s lips. “You read the rewritten version, the one the Vatican allowed to be seen. The true book, in its original Greek, is in a vault at the Vatican. When this college was founded, we knew what had been foretold was beginning. These people, who got a copy of the lost Revelation, decided to cash in, as they say, on the prophecies by making them happen on their time schedule, with their input and their control.” He shuddered. “And so they play a very dangerous game.”
Perry was rubbing his temples. “It’s all so fantastic…”
“Let me posit this, Deputy,” said Father Ortiz. “Isn’t it entirely possible to believe in this conspiracy without believing that their goals are actual fact? Isn’t it possible that a group of people can believe they are bringing about the birth of the Antichrist even if it isn’t true? And isn’t it entirely possible that they would also kill to preserve the secrecy of their goals?”
“Yes.” Perry said.
“So even if your mind refuses to let you accept what is happening, you can see that we mustn’t waste any more time…a girl’s life is in danger.”
Perry held his gaze for several seconds. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Use your badge to get us into the dean’s house.”
“Us?”
Father Ortiz nodded. “You, me…and Bernadette.”
“I can’t take a child into a place where a murder might occur! Or you either, for that matter.”
“Yes, you can, Deputy! You know as well as I do that what is happening here is beyond the bounds of natural understanding! You know as well as I do that Bernadette is no mere child, not anymore—and that without her, we have no power against the forces they are summoning, even as we speak, on the campus of Wilbourne College!”
Perry let out a long sigh. “All right. I’ll go to the dean’s house and ask to look around. But you two will wait in the car.” He glanced in the mirror again. “I need to wash up quickly. They’ll know something is wrong if they see me looking like this.”
“Okay,” Ortiz said. “But hurry.”
Perry stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Just as he did, Father Ortiz’s cell phone chirped. He dug it out of his coat pocket, looked down at the Caller ID, and didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello,” he said.
He listened, and a broad smile stretched across his face.
“Thank God,” he said. “I was wondering if we’d hear from you…”
68
“I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier,” Ginny was telling Father Ortiz. “But I haven’t been myself.”
That was putting it mildly. Two days ago, she’d awoken in her living room, dazed and uncomprehending. She seemed to have missed a day—or at least a night. The last thing I remember, she’d thought to herself, is sitting at my desk writing—and then someone was at the door…
But nothing after that. I guess I must have dozed off here, Ginny told herself. How unlike me.
She looked around the house. Everything was tidy—tidier than she usually left it. The coffeemaker was washed and cleaned, rather than sitting with a black sooty mess from the day before, the way she usually found it in the morning. And it was late—almost noon—why did she sleep so long?
She walked around the house. The guest room was neat, the bed made. So was her own bed. “Now I know I did not make my bed,” she said out loud. “I never make my bed.”
The living room, once she walked back in, had the vague scent of cleaning fluids. On closer inspection, she saw that her rug had been scrubbed. It was cleaner in one section than it was elsewhere.
“Something happened here,” she said to herself. “Only I can’t remember what it was!”
For two days—two whole days—she walked through her life as if in a dream. She knew something was wrong—but to probe her mind too much was painful. It physically hurt. And she was scared, too—of what, she wasn’t sure. But she was scared.
The worst part was that she couldn’t write. All that momentum was out the window. She sat and stared into space. She didn’t return calls. Not even when Father Ortiz left a message saying it was “vital” that he speak with her.
Finally, she forced herself to sit back at her desk and try to write. A call from her agent had spurred her into action. Her editor wanted to take a chapter with him to read over the Christmas holidays. Ginny stared down at her computer, but still couldn’t bring herself to write anything.
Then she pulled open her top drawer.
A notebook.
“I don’t remember this,” she said, pulling it out and opening to the first page.
My handwriting. When did I write this?
The date at the top…two days previous.
The day she’d lost partially…those missing hours.
And then she started to read.
She read the whole account Sue had given her, as if she was hearing about it for the first time. Parts of it she couldn’t believe—but when she reached the last page, she remembered everything. All of it.
The gunshot. The blood. Joyce Davenport.
And that horrible creature of darkness that Sue had become.
For twenty minutes, all Ginny did was cry and shake.
Then she was on the phone making flight arrangements to Senandaga.
“I barely made it in,” she told Father Ortiz now, driving her rental car through the first flakes of furious snow. “They were worried the blizzard would close the airport, but it held off just long enough.”
“It is God’s will then,” Father Ortiz said. “Ginny, I am so glad to hear from you. We were worried.”
“I know everything,” she told him. “I know about Sue Barlow. She came to see me.”
“Bernadette felt certain she had,” Ortiz said. “Please hurry, Ginny. Tonight…tonight Sue is being consecrated to her father. She will be asked to officially accept her destiny.”
“Where should I meet you?”
“How far away are you?” Ortiz asked.
“Half an hour.”
Ortiz gave her the address of Perry Holland’s apartment. “We will wait half an hour for you, but no longer. Bernadette has just heard from her lookout. People are arriving at the dean’s house.”
Ginny told him she’d drive as fast as she could, given the snow. She snapped her cell phone shut. Perry Holland. He wasn’t crazy after all.
Hang on, Sue, she thought. You’re not completely lost to us yet. You could have killed me. That’s what a true evil nature would have done. Killed me, and enjoyed it. But you spared me—and you had to know my memory would come back.
In fact, Ginny suspected, Sue was likely counting on it.
69
Sue sat in a room upstairs, listening to people arriving below. Laughter, loud voices, classical music playing in the background. Dean Gregory was offering everyone who came through the door a cocktail or a glass of wine. If Sue didn’t know better, she might really think there was a Christmas party going on downstairs.
“This was the eldest son’s room,” she said all at once to Joyce Davenport, who was fixing her makeup in a mirror. “The one who died not long ago. An overdose. He’d been living in a homeless shelter on Long Island.”
“Marvelous, isn’t it?” Joyce turned to face her, a broad smile on her face. “Like a Shakespearean tragedy. Those boys were offered so much—and fell so low.”
“After what they saw in this house,” Sue said, no emotion in her voice, “they were shattered for life.”
Joyce approached her. “They were weak. J
ust like their mother was weak. You did right in eliminating her, Sue.”
Sue let her eyes move past Joyce and find their reflection in the mirror across the room. She felt numb. Her mind didn’t seem to work the way it once did. Her emotions felt turned off. She was like an observer, not a participant, in her own life.
“They’re all gathering downstairs,” Joyce said, “waiting for you. This will be quite the ceremony. The beginning of great things for you, sweetie.”
“My grandparents?”
Joyce nodded. “Seated in places of honor.”
“Yes,” Sue said. “I can see them.”
And she could. Her grandmother was done up with her best jewelry and a dress of black satin. Her hair was piled on her head. Beside her, Granpa smoked his cigar, his ascot tie proudly puffing out of his jacket. Sue could see them clearly. They were being greeted by the guests as if they were a king and queen.
That’s what Granpa had wanted. That’s why he had allowed his daughter to be raped by the devil.
In Sue’s mind, she saw several of her grandfather’s colleagues from the law firm, their wives on their arms. They stuck close to Granpa, hoping to bask in his glow.
“All of my grandfather’s success,” Sue said, “that was part of the bargain, wasn’t it?”
“Of course, sweetie. Everything he’s ever wanted, he’s achieved.” Joyce drew close to her. “And that will be even more true for you, Sue.”
She laughed. “But what is it that I want?”
The door opened. In walked Dean Gregory, resplendent in a black suit and bright red satin tie.
