by J. S. Bailey
“Then you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“Oh, I’m still mad at you. I’m just trying to be nice.”
“Uh, thanks.” He swallowed. “I think.”
The sound of Joanna moving around upstairs made them both give an involuntary glance at the ceiling.
“So, do you live here?” Bobby asked, recalling Phil’s statement that both Carly and Joanna were residents of the safe house.
“Only when we have a female in residence, and only when she’s roughly my age, which in our case means any woman under the age of thirty-five.”
He stared at her, unable to detect a single facial crease or gray hair that would indicate the first signs of aging. “You’re not thirty-five.”
“I didn’t say I was now, did I?” It was almost as if she were daring him to ask her age. He wouldn’t give her the pleasure. “Sometimes we have two guests here at the same time so we have to share space with Roger or his wife.”
“And she counsels the older women?”
She nodded. “We don’t require her service very often. Most of the residents are young.”
“Why?”
“Easy pickings, I guess.”
“For demons, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“You get that this all seems kind of crazy to me.”
“What can I say? Life is a crazy thing.”
“But this?” He spread his arms wide. “This is like something from a movie. The Exorcist, or something.”
“This has been going on for a lot longer than there have been movies. And I’ve never seen The Exorcist.”
“Me neither.”
“Then what’s your point?”
“My point is this doesn’t seem like something that could be real.” But as soon as he said it, he heard in his mind the ticking at his windows and saw the pop cans flying at him in the back yard without anyone having thrown them.
Okay, so maybe it did seem real, but he didn’t want it to.
Carly smiled. “Quiz time,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m going to ask you some questions.”
“Why?”
She ignored his query. “Do you believe that God created the universe and everything in it?”
He tried to set aside his frustration with her and thought of the roses that his stepmother liked to grow and the way each bloom started out as a small, closed thing before unfurling its petals into a crimson blossom. He thought of the day Jonas entered the world and remembered his unspoken fascination at seeing a human being who bore the likeness of his stepmother and father yet at the same time was totally different and separate.
He thought of the day his father died on the kitchen floor.
“Yes,” he said.
Carly gave him an odd look, and he wondered if his thoughts had been displayed as plainly on his face as they had been in his mind. “And do you believe that God created angels to serve him?”
“Yes.”
“And do you believe that they, just like us, have the free will to choose between good and evil?”
“I guess so.”
“Then why is it hard for you to believe that some formerly angelic beings chose the darker path and now seek to destroy everything good and holy?”
It was a good question, and Bobby wasn’t sure how to answer—maybe because his mind rebelled at the knowledge that something so vile could happen and be allowed to happen, or maybe because believing that evil spirits could oppress humans in such a manner was too traumatic for his mind to handle. “Because it scares me,” he said, and that was true enough.
She looked him right in the eye, all traces of anger and irritation gone. “That’s the most honest thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth.”
“It is?”
She just smiled.
AS GRAHAM wrapped the corpse in sheets, he did another visual sweep of the basement work area. He’s watching you, she’d said. Maybe she had only been trying to scare him. He couldn’t fall for such pranks. Having spent five years driving out the blackest of spirits from their suffering victims, he knew all too well what it was like to be in the presence of one of the fallen. An evil spirit would give itself away by its aura, black and pulsating like a living void in his mind.
He had lost the ability to detect evil spirits when he’d passed the mantle of Servitude on to his successor. He supposed that a demon could have paid the basement a visit while he worked, but he didn’t think so.
Later, after he finished cleaning up, he would review the recording of the killing taken by the camera hidden up in the corner and transcribe their conversation into his journal, and then he would compare it with the many others he’d accumulated over the years in order to find a pattern.
With each transcription he included a brief biography of the victim. Name, age, physical description, personality, and religious background were of greatest importance, but if the individual had any remarkable quirks or health problems, he made note of those, too. For example, the one who had seen the purple cows with her dying eyes claimed to be Lutheran and grew up in Indiana Amish country. Mary, on the other hand, attended a nondenominational church and had knitted scarves and mittens for the poor before her health declined. It was all very interesting. Useless, maybe, but interesting nonetheless.
Having set the cocoon-like body off to one side of the room, Graham went to the washbasin and filled a five-gallon bucket nearly to the brim. As he prepared to slosh it on the floor to wash the blood down the drain, the telephone upstairs began to ring.
He paused and stared at the ceiling. “I’m busy,” he said, and tipped the bucket over. His caller would have to wait.
The ringing ceased as the water mingled with the congealing liquid and formed a whirlpool as both dissipated into the drain. He filled the bucket again. Dumped it on the floor. The drain gurgled, and the sump pump kicked on as it delivered the evidence to a place where no soul living or dead would ever find it. Once he finished he would scrub the floor with bleach to help eliminate the smell and stains.
He took a few moments to catch his breath, and the phone started ringing again. What was going on? He could count the number of people in possession of that number on fewer fingers than he had on his hand, but he couldn’t guess why any of them would be calling him now.
Again, the ringing fell silent. Graham checked his shoes to make sure he wouldn’t track blood on the living room carpet and, satisfied that at least that part of him was clean, went upstairs.
He had left his cell phone—the prepaid kind that couldn’t be traced back to him—sitting on the kitchen counter. It rang in his hand when he picked it up, and the number on the screen gave him a start. He accepted the call with his thumb. “What is it?”
His contact sounded breathless. “It happened like you said it would.”
Graham closed his eyes and willed himself to remain calm. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“How positive?”
“I have eyes, and I can see.”
“You’re there?”
“How else would I have known for certain?”
Graham gripped the phone so hard his hand hurt. “What do you think you’re doing? Get out of there!”
“I plan on it.” A pause. “But don’t you think it’s interesting?”
“Interesting that nothing has been done about it yet? I knew it would be like this. Now get out before someone shows up.”
“I told you, I will. But I have an idea. I thought I should run it past you first before I did anything.”
Graham thought about the nasty job he had yet to complete downstairs. If he put it off much longer, it would become even nastier. “Make it fast. I’m in the middle of something.”
“I understand. Now what if we . . .” The contact proceeded to explain the idea as well as its details. It was a grand idea. How had Graham not thought of it himself?
By the time Graham hung up five minutes later, he was smiling. The joke he’d s
tarted had a new punch line.
RANDY PULLED off the blindfold when Phil announced they were about to turn into his driveway. He brushed his hands through his hair so it wouldn’t look suspiciously disheveled to the officers to whom they would be speaking. “How do I look?”
Phil glanced in the mirror. “Like a dead man. Did you get any sleep?”
“No.” He’d dozed off a few times at Lupe’s apartment but the scattered minutes of sleep could hardly be counted as such. The only things keeping him going at the moment were about four cups of coffee. When the caffeine wore off, he would crash worse than a falling jetliner.
Oh, Lupe. I should have told you about Trish. He’d wanted so badly to bring it up that morning, but Lupe’s mood had improved from the night before and he didn’t want to say anything that would put a damper on it.
But he would have to tell her. Soon. And he didn’t have a clue how he would say it.
He saw that a tan car had already parked in the driveway when they drew up to the house. A man sat in the driver’s seat talking on a cell phone and was jotting down something in a notebook that lay open on the dashboard.
“Looks like Father Preston got a head start on us,” Randy said. He prayed that the priest would lend him some credibility when facing the authorities. His presence certainly shouldn’t hurt.
Randy got out his house key and let himself and Phil into the living room, leaving the front door open so Father Preston wouldn’t feel the need to knock when he got off the phone.
Phil put his hands in his pockets and looked uncertain. “Do you want me to look around and make sure nothing looks incriminating?”
Randy shook his head. “You know they’re going to go over this place with a fine-tooth comb no matter what. It’s probably standard procedure.”
His friend’s face grew long. “I don’t want you go to prison.”
“St. Paul was in prison.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Acting like this is a joke. Suppose something really goes wrong. Say you’re convicted of involuntary manslaughter or worse. What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to take it one step at a time. That’s the only way to get through any crisis.”
“I’m talking about you. The Servant. You can’t do your job if you’re locked up.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways, dear Philip. You should know.” Randy gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile even though his insides tangled themselves into knots. “Whatever happens to me is what was meant to be.”
Phil opened his mouth to reply, but Father Preston’s arrival at the door cut him off. “Sorry about that,” the priest said, hesitating in the doorway with the closed notebook clutched in his hand. “Parish business. Mind if I come in?”
“That’s why the door’s open.” Randy walked up to the man and shook his other hand in greeting. The priest had dressed in the traditional black slacks and shirt with a Roman collar, probably so he’d leave a better impression on the police when they arrived. “Thanks for coming.”
“Not a problem.” Father Preston stepped inside and nodded at Phil. His graying hair had been parted in a neat line off to one side, and it was damp with sweat. “Afternoon, Phil. I wish I could say it was good.”
Phil dipped his head. “And the same to you.”
Father Preston tucked the notebook under his arm and clasped his hands in front of him. He had one of those faces that always seemed to analyze everything. His gaze flicked from Randy and Phil toward the kitchen, to the contents of the living room, and back again as if assessing every last detail of the place. Randy wondered if he was looking for where they’d left Trish. “You both understand this isn’t a situation I’m fully used to,” the priest said.
Randy pitied him. From what he’d learned from talking to Father Preston over various lunches and from books he’d read on the subject, he knew that the vast majority of clergymen wanted nothing to do with exorcisms. It terrified them as much as it would anyone who believed such evil existed in the world. And what better way to quell their terror than by turning a blind eye to the very source of it?
He said, “I understand. But if it makes you feel better, the afflicting spirit is gone. It left when she died.”
Father Preston let out a long breath. “I’m glad to hear it.” He straightened his shoulders. “Before we call anyone, I’d like to see the deceased. Have you moved her?”
“No, but I did touch her while administering CPR. I hope that won’t be a problem.”
“It shouldn’t be.” Father Preston’s face took on the countenance of stone. “Please lead the way.”
Randy led him through the kitchen and into the back hallway, with Phil bringing up the rear. “We converted the basement into the safe room,” he explained, but now that a death had occurred there, the name seemed morbidly ironic. “It’s more comfortable than the meeting room at church.”
“I’m sure it is.”
Randy opened the basement door and flicked on the light. He didn’t know how long it would take for a corpse to smell, but he covered his nose with the collar of his shirt just in case decomposition had already set in. “It happened right down—”
He froze three steps from the bottom and let his shirt slip off his face.
The floor in front of the couch accommodated no corpse. The body of Patricia Louise Gunson was gone.
“What’s the matter?” Phil asked.
Randy swallowed and finished his descent, not bothering to answer. There had to be an explanation for this. Maybe in his shock the previous evening he’d mistaken the location of the body. He could have laid Trish on the other side of the couch where he couldn’t see her from the bottom of the steps.
He walked up to the burgundy couch and peered over the back.
No Trish.
His pulse thumped in his ears. Father, help me. Please tell me what happened to her.
The reply was less than satisfying. Open your eyes.
They are open.
Then use them to see.
Behind him, Phil and Father Preston spoke in agitated tones. “She was right here!” Phil said, gesturing at the floor beside the chair to which the young woman had been tied.
Father Preston’s pale blue eyes were wide. “You’re absolutely sure she passed away?”
“She wasn’t breathing and had no pulse,” Randy said, feeling so lightheaded all of a sudden that he sat down in one of the more comfortable chairs. “It doesn’t take a genius to do the math.”
A shadow fell over the priest’s face. “Yes, but it does take a physician. What if the possession caused her to go into a deep coma?”
Phil’s expression oozed skepticism. “Nonsense. Don’t forget I’m a registered nurse. I couldn’t even find her pulse with a stethoscope. Unless she somehow came back, which I doubt.”
Open your eyes. Randy found himself staring at the coffee table in front of him, or rather the empty place where Bobby had gone through Trish’s things last night. “Her purse and suitcase are gone,” he said, which bothered him because he had known without a doubt that Trish had indeed died—and dead people had no need of luggage.
“Did you move them anywhere before you went to see Lupe last night?” Phil asked.
Randy shook his head. “I left everything as it was. Someone’s been in here.”
“Unless she was really alive and decided to bail on you,” said Father Preston.
“She wasn’t alive.”
Phil put his hands on his hips and stared in the direction of the sleeping area where Trish spent her last few nights. “I don’t know, Randy. You’ve got to admit his theory works better than yours, as much as I don’t like it. Who could have come in here and taken her away? The only people who know about Trish are here.”
“You’re forgetting someone.”
“Bobby?” Phil gave a nervous laugh. “The person you trust oh so much? To be honest, he doesn’t look strong enough to have moved her on his
own.”
Randy’s jaw clenched. Could Phil have been right about Bobby after all? He didn’t want to believe that the kid who’d saved his life could do something so vile, but there were few alternative explanations for Trish’s disappearance. And if Bobby told the truth about his disappearing roommate, then he didn’t even have an alibi for the hours between two in the morning and noon when Phil had taken him to the safe house.
“Who’s Bobby?” the priest asked, his interest piqued. “How did he know about Trish?”
Randy had no desire to go into detail about how Bobby had snuck into the house the night before. “To make a very long story short,” he said, “Bobby is the new hire for the maintenance job, and he accidentally walked in on the procedure. That’s when Trish collapsed and died.”
Father Preston closed his eyes as if in deep thought. “Why didn’t you bring him back here so he could be questioned with the two of you?”
“The death wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want to be involved.”
“Don’t you find that suspicious?”
Randy wasn’t about to accept that Bobby had anything to do with this. “Heck, Father, I don’t want to be involved! Bobby’s just a kid who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Now Father Preston was the skeptical one. “If you really believe that Trish’s body was abducted, then I would talk to him. He may have told someone else about the young lady’s demise, and that individual took it upon himself to retrieve the corpse.”
This theory didn’t sit right with Randy at all, but he said, “Fine. I’ll talk to him about it as soon as I can.”
An awkward silence settled over them. Randy suddenly wished that Trish had never come in that day at the church; that he had never seen her and sensed the blackness feeding on her thoughts and on her soul. That he had never promised her that he could help her be free.
His vision blurred for a few seconds. Trish, wherever you are, please forgive me.
“What are we going to do in the meantime?” Phil asked, glancing back and forth between Randy and the priest as if waiting for either of them to initiate some form of action.
Father Preston straightened his collar. “I can keep an eye out for Trish at the church in case she’s alive and decides to return there.”
