“His pattern has been to bring a loyal team of henchmen with him and add the cryptids he is able to turn or recruit to his cause,” Jones said. Somehow, hearing him use the word “henchmen” made this feel like a low-budget action movie.
“Any idea of how many of these ‘henchmen’ he’s got? Are we talking a few or an army? And if he’s working for some shady Vatican black ops group, is he going to have magic-slingers with him?”
Jones turned to his partner. “I told you he was useless.” He looked back to me. “What the fuck use are you if we have to spoon-feed you everything? We said we’d keep the black helicopters off your backs. Now man up and pull your weight, or I’ll be very tempted to have those helicopters make a pickup here before they leave.”
“That would be most unfortunate—for you.” A deep, heavily accented voice rolled like thunder from behind me. I wheeled and came face to chest with a man I’d never seen before. He towered over me by at least six inches and probably outweighed me by at least thirty pounds. The stranger had short dark hair and a long beard, but something about it struck me as more diocese than Duck Dynasty. His black cassock fell to his ankles, and a silver crucifix on a chain around his neck glinted in the sun.
I didn’t know who he was, but given the reaction he got from Homer and Marge, I liked him immediately.
“I am Father Jacinski,” he announced before any of us asked. “Of the Logonje. I have been sent to provide assistance by the community in Pittsburgh when they heard that Adolph Brunrichter had returned.” He glowered at Jones. “You, I do not like. Be quiet.”
I expected Jones to bluster and threaten. Seeing him pale and silent made me wonder who the fuck this newcomer was, and whether I’d been rescued or—just my luck—pushed from the frying pan into the fire.
“You should request a better partner,” Father Jacinski chided Smith. I knew Father Leo outranked Smith with the Occulatum. I’d never heard of the Logonje, but now I wondered who they were and just how far down the pecking order Smith was.
“Of course, I expect that you will do everything in your power to keep other interests from becoming involved in this matter.” Father Jacinski spoke to Smith in a tone that made it clear he meant to confirm expectations, and that the matter was not open for discussion.
“Of course,” Smith replied. He didn’t seem quite as cowed as Jones, but he wasn’t trying to throw his weight around, either.
“Good. Then we are agreed. We will be in touch when the plan is formed. You have things to do now, do you not?”
I had the good sense not to laugh out loud at his blunt dismissal of the two agents. Jones had gone from pale to florid, and I wondered if he had swallowed his tongue. Smith’s expression gave away nothing, but his ramrod-straight posture indicated his annoyance. Their abrupt departure signaled a weird power shift I didn’t understand.
Now that I was alone with the giant stranger, I found myself at a loss. “Hi. I’m—”
“I know who you are, Mark Wojcik.”
He not only got my name right on the first try, he said it with the old school full Polish accent like my grandfather.
“Okay. Good, I guess. Is there something I can do for you?”
The big man smiled, which made him only slightly less intimidating. “Leo said you would need my help. And so I am here.”
My phone buzzed, reminding me that I’d gotten a text on the drive home that I’d been too busy to read. I glanced down, to see a message from Father Leo. “Expect my friend Pawel. You can trust him.”
“Father Leo says you’re okay,” I announced, looking up from my screen.
Father Jacinski let out a deep belly laugh. “Well then, if Leo says I am ‘okay,’ how about we go inside before your dog loses his voice?”
Poor Demon. He’d been barking his fool head off all this time.
“Sure. Follow me. And, don’t worry about Demon. His bark is worse than his bite.”
“Your dog is named Demon?” His voice had a note of mirth in it, and I felt like I’d missed the joke.
“Yeah. He’s a Doberman, but he’s not vicious. Unless you’re a bad person. And then he totally is.” I was lying through my teeth. Demon was a pampered couch potato.
The priest slapped me on the back with a huge hand, and the friendly gesture nearly sent me sprawling. “I must meet this brave dog. Then, we talk. You have vodka, I assume?”
Demon met me at the door, wagging his tail so hard that his entire back end twerked. I petted him and scratched his ears, and then he passed me up to greet our visitor who gave him a hearty welcome and belly rubs.
The priest looked like he could snap me in half with his bare hands, but he was obviously a dog lover, so that was another point in his favor.
“Have a seat,” I said, gesturing toward the kitchen table. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the thermal carafe on the counter, then got down two glasses and the fifth of Zubrowka I’d gotten for the next poker night. My family was a couple of generations removed from the Old Country, but we took our vodka seriously.
I put the glasses and the bottle on the table in front of Father Jacinski. He looked askance at the vodka and sighed.
“It’s better with the buffalo grass.”
I brought my coffee over and sat down. “I’ll take your word for it. You can’t buy that version in the States. They say it’s bad for your liver.”
He threw back his head and laughed, a rich baritone sound that made me think of the dwarves in The Hobbit. “Of course it is bad for your liver! It’s vodka!” He poured a generous amount into both glasses and plunked mine down in front of me.
“Father Leo speaks well of you. We have known each other for many years. He is not easy to impress. He likes you. So I am impressed.”
“He, um, hasn’t really mentioned you.”
“The Logonje are a need-to-know resource.”
My grandparents spoke Polish fluently. My parents were reasonably proficient. Me, not so much. I remembered a childhood prayer my grandmother taught me, a few curse words, and several drinking toasts.
“Who are the Logonje?”
“We are specialists,” he replied, taking a sizable sip of his vodka and thumping his chest as the burn hit. “Demon hunters.”
I was glad I hadn’t started on the vodka, because snorting coffee out of my nose was painful enough. “Demon hunters?” I glanced toward my dog, who was lying upside-down in the living room like a dufus. Well, that explains what he thought was so funny.
“You are surprised?”
“I’ve run into vamps and werewolves, vengeful ghosts, and a bunch of cryptids most people have never heard of. But no demons.”
“Count yourself lucky. But that luck is soon to change.”
He took another drink, and as his sleeve rode up, I saw an old, raised scar that ran from his palm in a jagged course until it disappeared beneath his shirt. Not clean, like a knife blade. More like the mark big claws might leave.
“You think demons are involved in this mess with Brunrichter?” My head spun. Hadn’t Smith told me Brunrichter worked for Vatican dark ops?
“I know so. How do you think he has lived so very long?”
Fuck. “Honestly? I blamed identity theft.”
Father Jacinski shrugged and knocked back the rest of his vodka, without even a twitch to show the potent liquor affected him. I finished my coffee and figured that I might need a slug of the hard stuff, given the way the conversation was going.
“Others have borrowed his name over the years, because of his reputation. That is true. But the real Adolph Brunrichter is not an urban legend. He made a deal with the Darkness long ago, which grants him near immortality.”
“He’s possessed? Sold his soul?” This was beyond my pay grade. Everything I knew about demons I’d learned from TV and video games. But I didn’t doubt that they were real. My friends Travis and Brent had gone up against some demons not long ago, and others I knew had their run-ins as well. I’d just counted myself lucky up
to now to avoid that part of the supernatural world.
“There are many ways to make a deal,” Father Jacinski replied, and refilled his glass. I took a swallow of my drink and tried not to gasp as it burned down my throat. “Those who ‘consort’ with demons are often granted favors that likewise benefit their masters.”
“But Agent Smith told me Brunrichter worked for the Vatican. How is that possible?”
“That’s not entirely correct,” Jacinski replied. “He works for a radical splinter group that deals with occult threats by any means necessary. They have been officially disavowed by the Holy Father. But they serve as his left hand, in the shadows, when the need arises.” He smiled, showing his teeth. “I, however, do not work for the Vatican.”
No, of course not. I remembered that the Polish Orthodox Church was separate, with its leadership in Warsaw. That was the extent of my knowledge.
“Brunrichter works for the Sinistram?” I asked. He nodded. “Why is the Church working with someone who consorts with demons?” Although now that I thought about that, I suspected it wasn’t the first time.
Father Jacinski looked remarkably unaffected by the vodka. I’d only been sipping mine and already felt warm and far more relaxed than I should be, given the subject.
“You know how it is in large families. One brother has a falling out with another brother, and they don’t talk for a long time. But a sister or an aunt speaks to both. Heaven and Hell are a family, separated by an old, unsettled argument between father and son. That does not keep the cousins from staying in touch—or those who serve the cousins.”
I’d walked away from the Church after I’d prayed for help the night the wendigo attacked, and only silence answered. Nothing I was hearing made me regret my choice.
“So there’s backchannel communication going on, and sometimes, collaboration?”
Another nod. He seemed content to let me puzzle it out for myself.
I remembered what I’d heard about the Sinistram. Father Leo and Agent Smith spoke of it like a dark power to be avoided at all costs. My friend Travis Dominick, who helped me out with lore, occult resources, and the occasional vision or ghost message, had left both the priesthood and the Sinistram.
“They aren’t the good guys.”
“Assuredly not. Evil done in the service of Good is an even greater evil.”
“So the Logonje are willing to help the Occulatum get rid of Brunrichter, even though he’s working for the Sinistram? And Brunrichter is playing Dr. Frankenstein with cryptids and supernatural creatures to figure out how to make them into weapons or super soldiers.” As family feuds went, this was a doozy.
“There you have it.”
I knocked back a good slug of vodka because the more I understood, the less I liked what I heard.
My phone went off again, and this time, it was Chiara’s ringtone. I had to take the call and honestly welcomed a moment to recover from learning secrets I wished I didn’t know.
“Mark? I found Penny Michaels,” China said. “Remember how Jon said she wore old-fashioned clothing? That’s because she died in 1936–and I know where. I’m texting you a photo now.”
Up came a picture of a huge brick Victorian building. It had a main section and two wings on each side. The massive structure had three full stories, plus a gabled roof that showed a partial fourth floor, and a tall tower in the middle of the main section. I felt a chill, remembering what the ghost had told Jon.
“A brick castle.”
“Yep. That’s the old Mercer County Poor House. It got shut down in the 1960s, and it’s sat vacant since then—too expensive to turn into something else, and too solidly built to be cheap to tear down.”
“Phoebe’s vision…hallways like a school—or a hospital,” I said, and I knew Chiara was already ahead of me. “Peeling paint…holy shit.”
“Be careful, Mark. Remember what she saw. Somebody is going to be doing a lot of bleeding. Best if it isn’t you.”
Amen, sister. “Any words of wisdom?”
She snorted. “Like you’d listen.”
“Actually, I might.”
“You’ve got a guy who might or might not have ever gone to med school, but has done a lot of on-the-job training with questionable experimentation, dissections, and vivisection over the last hundred and forty years or so,” Chiara added. “Makes sense he’d pick an institution that had an infirmary to hole up in, especially if the ‘patients’ are cryptids and supernatural creatures.”
“And an abandoned alms house not only offers the right type of facilities but plenty of space and privacy,” Chiara went on. “At one point, it was a working farm. Also has its own graveyard for the residents who died—graves are largely unmarked, and never relocated.”
“Lovely.”
“Isn’t it just?” The resentful dead didn’t like being sent off in a mass burial and forgotten. That alone spelled trouble.
“It’s not close to modern main roads, and the rail line that used to run near there shut down around the time the poor farm closed,” Chiara added. “Which means there might not be anyone around to notice a flying dragon-like creature trying to get away.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s all in the email I just sent. I’m not kidding, Mark. Watch your back.”
I promised her I’d be as careful as possible, which we both knew was probably not true. When the call ended, I looked up to see Father Jacinski watching me.
“We know where Brunrichter is. Let’s get him.”
6
My dog took one look at me, then yelped and hid under the bed. He knows when I’m gearing up for a hunt.
I’ve heard it said that demons run when a good man goes to war, but I don’t think that’s what they had in mind. Unfortunately, even with Father Jacinski on our side, I doubted real demons would be easy to beat.
I’d rallied everyone to my place for a war council. Father Leo came as soon as he got back from Kane. He and Father Jacinski greeted each other with back slaps and a hearty hug.
“It’s good to see you, Pawel,” Father Leo said, looking like a bantam rooster next to a bear when he stood beside the Polish priest.
“The years have been good to you, Leo,” his friend replied. “We have much to catch up on.”
I’d let Joel know about the plan, and it didn’t surprise me when his Focus pulled into my driveway, and three of his friends piled out along with him. They looked like a college gymnastics team, compact and muscular like their bobcat other-selves.
“Friends of Corey’s,” Joel said. “They were all kits together.”
“Go on inside,” I told them. “Just don’t scare the dog.” Some watchdog Demon turned out to be.
I had a stack of take-and-bake pizzas in the kitchen, along with chips and beer. Father Jacinski and I had put a good dent in the vodka, and I wasn’t planning to get shitfaced the night before going into battle, but I wouldn’t mind a beer to take the edge of my nerves.
Chiara’s Subaru was the last to pull in. She hopped out and retrieved a big box of cookies from the back seat as Blair and Donny got out, each with more boxes of cookies. If an army travels on its stomach, then whatever we were obviously drew strength from sugar and alcohol.
“We brought supplies!” Chiara called out as if we were watching the big game and not planning an armed strike against a mad doctor and demon. “And I made sure to bring some without chocolate, so Donny and Demon can have them.”
Donny rolled his eyes and sighed. “I can eat chocolate just fine,” he huffed.
Blair gave him the stink eye. “Chocolate gives you the farts, and dog gas has got to be against the Geneva Convention.”
Donny muttered something and blushed deep red. Chiara and Blair chuckled, but I knew how fond they were of their “guard dog.”
“Hey, Donny! Watch out for the—”
“Holy fuck! What is your problem!” I heard Donny yelp when he walked into the kitchen. I sprinted up the steps behind him and found Joel and
his cat shifter friends in a standoff just inside the door.
“Stand down, everyone,” I ordered. Donny looked like he might piss himself, and Joel’s friends didn’t need fur to make it clear their hackles were standing. I pinned Joel with a glare. “Donny’s part of the team. You need to get past this cat/dog thing.”
I saw a glint of yellow flash in Joel’s eyes as he rounded on his friends. “We’re here for Corey,” he snapped. “Behave.” Apparently Joel could be quite the hellcat when needed.
I made sure everyone introduced themselves and mentioned their specialty, including Joel’s three friends, Anton, Keith, and Robert.
“Seriously? You’re Bob the bobcat?” I said.
“I go by Robby. And, yeah. My parents think they’re clever.” From the grins, elbowing, and jostling, it was clear the others had just been waiting for the reveal.
“Hey, Mark. Are you expecting someone else?” Father Leo called from the living room.
I went to the window and stared at the black Crown Victoria that had just pulled into my drive. The older model might have been a decommissioned cop car, complete with jacked up engine and suspension.
“Who in the hell….” I muttered. A tall, lean man with longish black hair got out of the driver’s side. From the passenger side, a second man with short blond hair got out. He carried himself like military or law enforcement.
I went out to the porch as the two men came to the bottom of the steps. “Hi, Mark. I know this is a surprise, but you said there was a meeting, so here we are,” the dark-haired man said. It took a minute for his voice to register.
“Travis and Brent?” I’d talked to them both many times over the phone, but they were based in Pittsburgh, and we’d never met in person.
“Got it in one!” Brent replied. We shook hands, and they followed me into the house, which had become very crowded.
“Hey everyone!” I yelled above the bedlam, and conversation dropped to a murmur. “This is Travis Dominick and Brent Lawson.”
“Good to finally meet both of you,” Father Leo said, shaking their hands. Father Jacinski was just a step behind him. He and Travis eyed each other warily.
Monster Mash Page 8
