The old priest leaned in closer. “If His Holiness saw fit to acquire your services, then whatever is inside this briefcase must pose a threat to the Church itself. Perhaps hiring a private investigator like you suggests that- “
“I’m not a private investigator, Padre,” I interrupted, as I opened my trench coat to reveal my holstered Beretta. “I’m not a cop, and I’m not running a private security service either. I deal with stuff that would shatter your faith-based view of the world. If the man with the nice red shoes wants to hire me, I have no problem with that, but there’s no way on earth you could possibly be prepared for the kind of crap we might be drawn into.”
His eyes narrowed and he reached beneath his collar to pull out a silver chain looped through a small circular medallion. “Don’t be so sure about what I can or cannot do. This is a scapular that is worn only by eleven other men in the world. I too have seen the stuff of nightmares and when I’m not giving mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow or working in my office at the Archdiocese, I’m dispatched by my Bishop for one purpose only.”
I squinted as I examined at the embossed image of Saint Benedict holding a cross in one hand and the book of his Rule in the other and then I stared hard into the little priest’s eyes.
“Lowly priest my ass,” I snorted as he tucked the medallion back underneath his collar. “You’re one of the twelve – I thought you guys were just a freaking myth.”
He nodded once and a look of grim determination washed over his wrinkled face. “More than a thousand years ago, Pope Victor the Second created the Order of Charismata. We twelve are unknown to each other in order protect against those who would seek to offer the powers of darkness safe passage in the world of man. We are a myth for a practical reason – to strike fear in the enemy. There are few things on this earth that can compare to the power of myth and the secrecy of our Order is our greatest weapon to use against the enemy.”
Well shit, there it was. The head of the Catholic Church wanted to hire me and my sidekick was going to be an exorcist from a secret order who’d no doubt gone toe-to-toe with Hellions, Demons and probably Satan himself. Ezekiel had said the angel’s feather might be a curse or a gift and it was starting to look like I was being drawn into something that gave a hell of a lot of validity to my little daydream about a hell on earth.
I didn’t know what was inside the briefcase but clearly it was enough to scare the living shit out of the Pope. Yep. Big payday if I could figure out what the hell was going on in the first place.
I blinked hard as the old priest stood up and tucked his shirt underneath his belt. “Signs and wonders, Padre,” I said, as I grabbed the briefcase. “If a priest from a mythological order of exorcists has been assigned to me, then it tells me one thing about what’s in this briefcase.”
“And what would that be, Mr. Reaper?”
“That murder is no longer exclusively the domain for human beings.” I said grimly.
7
I said nothing as I stared at the four separate bundles of crime scene-style photographs laid across an enormous oak desk. Each photo showed the butchered body of a different golden-haired male, only they weren’t males as we knew them. Each was laid out in horrific poses on the steps of four Catholic Churches in four different countries, each missing male genitalia.
And their genitalia weren’t sliced off by some knife-wielding nut job in search of fleshy trophies to reminisce about his kills. The bodies didn’t have any sexual organs to begin with. Their perfectly formed six packs continued in a smooth continuation of muscle and tissues as if the four bodies had been renaissance statues come to life and the sculptor had forgotten to add their boy parts.
To make matters more surreal, each body had been spread out on a bed of blood stained feathers with bloody, pulpy stumps on their shoulders and backs from where wings should have been.
Father Butler and I had been sitting in the tiny parish office of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow for more than an hour. The good news was I didn’t burst into flames the minute I set foot on Church-owned property. The bad news was someone had figured out a way to kill angels, and judging from the pictures, this had all the earmarks of a serial killer. Each victim, if that’s what you called a murdered angel, had a gaping hole in the center of its chests from where the killer had removed the heart. (I had no idea angels had internal organs similar to humans, by the way.) Naturally, there was one glaring question that would have to be answered if I was going to be of any use: why would anyone want to kill an angel?
Father Butler held a white handkerchief in front of his face to conceal the look of sheer terror that had seized him when we laid the photographs across his desk. It was a hell of a thing to see a butchered human body, another thing entirely when the body is of divine origin. And the priest just wasn’t terrified. In fact, I was pretty sure that he’d been struck dumb by the sheer enormity of what the photographs meant.
“Wakie-wakie, Padre,” I said and snapped my fingers in front of his eyes. “We can’t do anything for these four. Remember that shit-storm I said we were walking into? Well, I have a feeling we’re about to experience a downpour of frogs or toads or whatever the hell the Almighty rains on Earth when he’s pissed.”
“Angels,” he said in an astonished voice. “Someone is killing angels … but how? They are an echo of His grace, they’re holy power manifest in divine form, and they’re His warriors and servants. But I’ve never seen one before, it has always been a matter of faith that angels exist, you see.”
“Serious? Dude … you’re an exorcist,” I said, surprised by his statement. “You’re part of a Holy order that kicks demon ass. Aren’t demons just fallen angels? If they exist, why shouldn’t angels exist in the human world as well?”
“But an exorcist is not in the business of killing a demon; we can only cast it back to Hell. A human cannot kill the divine.”
“Maybe the Romans didn’t get that message when they nailed you-know-who to the cross … and since when are demons divine creatures, anyway? I know a few demons and they’re complete assholes.”
He stood and walked to a window overlooking a tidy flower garden. “All that He created is divine by its very own nature. Satan and his fallen brethren were once just as those four in the photographs and when they rose up against God, angels from both sides fought and died just as easily as any human soldier on any battlefield.”
“Yeah, but they were duking it out with each other – immortal beings. Humans are mere mortals – a human would easily get his ass handed to him if he were to tangle with an angel in a barroom brawl. That doesn’t exactly explain how humans managed to kill Jesus, though.”
He turned and straightened his shirt with a sharp tug. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. You know the Bible, Mr. Reaper. His Son chose to die for the sins of God’s most divine creation: man. Angels and demons are not given the choice of life or death – they simply are and always have been.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re giving me a headache with all this holy parable crap, Padre. Whether a human can or cannot kill an angel is pretty much an irrelevant question, gauging from the photos, because somebody sure as hell killed the shit out of these guys. And by the way, the victims, if you can call an angel a victim, don’t exactly look like they chose to die. My thoughts are that someone with a pitchfork, a goatee and a pair of horns is behind this.”
The priest sighed and ran his left hand across the top of his head. “Forgive me, but I find it rather difficult to discuss these matters with a person whose surname is Reaper. What is your true name, my son?”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know your true name if I’m to trust you in this endeavour.”
I chuckled. “An endeavour, is that what this is?”
“Of course not,” he said in a sharp voice. “But we are likely dealing with unspeakable evil. Should you become possessed—“
I flipped open the briefcase and pulled out a file filled with news
paper clippings. “Yeah … that ain’t exactly going to work for me, Padre. You either trust me or you don’t. Besides, your boss in Rome seems to think I’m good enough for the task at hand. I’m just surprised that you weren’t at least briefed about who I am and what exactly I do for my clients.”
He took a seat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms. “Who are you then, my son?”
“It’s complicated, Padre,” I said, avoiding his gaze. “You’ve seen the kinds of things that most people can’t even imagine in their worst nightmares, but that’s only a fraction of the stuff that’s out there.”
“Try me,” he said, as his eyes narrowed.
I reached for my cigarettes and slid one out of the pack. I flipped it in my mouth and lit it with a quick flick of my Zippo lighter.
“All right,” I said, taking a deep haul of smoke. “Do you remember how old Noah was when he died?”
“According to the Bible, he lived to be nine hundred and fifty years old,” he said flatly.
“Do you believe it?”
“It’s a mistranslation of age.”
“Is it now?” I said as he slid an ashtray out from his desk drawer. “I sort of transcend mortal concepts of age and stuff. So, I’ll ask you this – do you believe in reincarnation?”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re to tell me that you’re a reincarnated Spartan soldier and that you’re over two thousand years old? Please, Mr. Reaper, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t insult my intelligence.”
“I’m no Spartan soldier, but I’m old,” I said flicking ash from my cigarette into his ashtray.
“You’re talking in circles,” he said.
“I’m trying to finesse something you’re going to reject, so sue me.” I shot back. “You’ve seen the stuff of nightmares, Padre. I’m no Demon, but I know they’re real. I know that a heaven exists and that divine forces govern life and death here on earth. The truth of me is the kind of shit that most human beings would be unable to believe because to believe it would mean that the world’s scientific and logic based view of things doesn’t amount to squat. You know my surname. You figure it out.”
“No, I don’t believe you,” he said with a slight edge to his voice. “But, I am going to have to work with you – the Church made that clear enough. We’ve looked at the photos, what’s the next step?”
I stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray and pointed to the briefcase. “Ideally, we’d have a heart-to-heart talk with whoever in the Church prepared this little bundle of high resolution gore, but I somehow suspect that ain’t gonna happen. There’s also the matter of my fee.”
He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out another manila envelope, only this time I could tell it had a stack of cash inside. “There’s twenty-thousand dollars in here,” he said, placing it on the desk next to the ashtray. “I’m advised to inform you that you’ll receive the other half upon successful completion of the contract.”
I picked up the envelope and pulled out the money. The hundred dollar bills were crisp and stacked in neat piles bound with thick elastic bands. “Successful completion of the contract, huh? It’d be nice if I knew what your boss means by that.”
“Presumably it means that we need to catch a killer,” the old priest said as he gazed down at the photos. “Only we need to determine whether the killer is human or something else.”
“On that we agree,” I said. “Unfortunately, I’m not a gumshoe. These pictures and the reports on each victim are meaningless unless we know what we’re looking for, and to do that you need someone with a trained eye for these kinds of things.”
“And who might that be?” he asked.
I clenched my jaw as I pulled out my cell phone and flipped through the address book. “Someone who doesn’t exactly approve of my methods. She’s probably going to need some spiritual guidance, Padre, because these photos are going to go over about as well as a nun in a whorehouse.”
I found the name I was looking for and pressed the send button with my thumb. It was time to call Detective Sergeant Carol Sparks.
8
I left the priest, deciding instead to deal with Sparks one-on-one. You know, in case she decided to shoot me after showing her pictures of dead angels.
“This better be good, Reaper,” Carol Sparks grumbled as she stepped out of her police cruiser. “Why the hell are we meeting at the bloody library of all places, anyway? You could have come down to my office.”
“The last time I was at the cop shop you had me sharing a cell with a mental patient who couldn’t stop whipping out his pecker,” I said as I gestured for her to follow me into the old four story building. “That left me scarred, Sparks, I still have nightmares about it.”
“Suck it up, sunshine,” she said as we climbed the steps and walked in through the enormous brass covered doors leading to the main foyer. “If you’re planning a one-on-one bitch session about not getting paid for that guy two nights ago, forget it. I’m not interested.”
“Nope – consider it your yearly freebie,” I replied casually. “I’ve rented a private meeting room for an hour and the clock is ticking. I figured if we met at my place, people would talk.”
She snorted. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want your scumbag friends to think you’re a snitch or anything, would we?”
“That’s not fair, Sparks. You know I don’t have any friends – only acquaintances.”
She snorted. “I’ll acquaint your ass with my boot if you’re wasting my time. This better be good, Reaper.”
I kept myself a healthy distance behind Sparks as she strolled into the meeting room. She sat down at the head of a small board room table and threw me an impatient glare and it was at that moment I half-wondered if seeking out her opinion wasn’t a good idea.
She was also scowling so hard I was afraid she might turn me into a pillar of salt. For the briefest of moments, I considered that Sparks might actually beat on me with the briefcase once she saw the photos.
“Carol,” I said cautiously. “I need your help with something.”
“Since when are a first-name-basis, Reaper?” she answered sounding as icy as ever.
I pushed the snappy comeback that was on the tip of my tongue back into its place and said, “Detective, I have some stuff I want you to look at but before I share it with you, I need you to keep an open mind. A very open mind.”
“If you’re looking for my help so you can shoot someone, then forget it. The law exists to catch these criminals and put them away.”
I pulled out the thick file containing the photos and dropped it on the table. “Not everything is a simple matter for the police to investigate – it’s why you’ve never prosecuted me.”
She glanced at the file and for a short moment and then leaned back in her chair. “Fine … what have you got?”
I opened the file and laid out the pictures in a neat row about an arm’s length from Sparks. I kept my mouth shut because the next move was up to her – she could believe that what she was seeing was real or she could have a meltdown. Knowing Sparks as well as I did, my money was on a meltdown followed by the liberal use of four letter words and possibly handcuffs.
Sparks rose from her chair and leaned over to examine the pictures. I watched her eyes as they panned over each gruesome shot mostly to gauge her reaction, and for the briefest of moments her eyes narrowed, as if she were squinting to make out the tiniest of flaws in a gemstone. She flipped over the first photo to see the stamp of the Holy See along with the date of the murder and then dropped down into her chair as a look of confusion washed over her face.
“Assuming this isn’t a forgery, it would appear that I’m looking at a Vatican seal or something,” she said pointing at the back of the photo. “How did you get these?”
I raised my eyebrows. “The photos are real – I was approached by someone from inside the Church. You know that what you’re looking at probably won’t fit neatly into any police report, right? It’s why they sought me out … so wha
t do you think?”
She slapped the photo on the desk and then placed her hands on the edge and gave a hard shove. Her chair rolled back about a foot as she stared at me, wide-eyed. “What do I think?” she huffed. “What the hell do you expect me to think, Reaper? You’ve got pictures of four dead men- “
“Dead angels,” I interrupted.
She immediately jumped out of her chair and headed for the door, so I leaped out of mine and grabbed her arm.
Bad move.
In a fluid motion, she spun me around and wrenched my arm into a hammerlock as she shoved me face-first into the wall. I felt the muzzle pressing hard against the back of my head and I could hear Sparks’ teeth grating together.
“Don’t ever fucking touch me, Reaper,” she snarled. “I don’t know what the hell the Church wants from you, but I’m not doing this – I can’t deal with this shit.”
“They hired me,” I said, wincing from the pain in my right shoulder. “But I’m not a detective, Sparks, that’s your department.”
She wrenched my arm higher into the center of my back and I ground my teeth together as another sharp jolt of pain stabbed at my shoulder. “What the hell do you expect me to say, Reaper? Do you honestly think I’m going to believe your bullshit story that those are dead angels?”
“It’s not my bullshit story, Sparks. You know what I am. Those are angels, Detective. It’s real, the Church knows it’s real and that’s why they hired me. They want me to take this guy down.”
She let go of my arm and stepped back as I turned around and massaged my shoulder. It was the first time I’d ever gone to Carol Sparks for anything, and it was just my dumb luck that it had to be a serial killer case that was about a thousand miles past any detective’s worst nightmare. She leaned over the photos again and I gave her a wide berth as she fanned them out across the table.
“I can’t accept this, Reaper,” she said coldly. “You’re asking me to believe in the unbelievable. I won’t do it.”
Immortal Remains: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 6
