Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1)

by Karin Kaufman

  I sank to the seat. Again he told me to breathe. I slumped forward, arms on my knees. God, I was making a fool of myself. My nerves were unraveling. I had to get control or I would be useless.

  “You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Berg said. This time he wasn’t asking, politely or otherwise.

  “I’m sorry, this place is getting to me.”

  “Stop apologizing. Why did you think you were drowning?”

  “It was a dream, Berg.” Gaining a small measure of self-control, I took a slow, deep breath and sat straight.

  “Teagan, tell me something. Am I a fool?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’re treating me like one. You’ve had two nightmares—that I know of—in this church. You had nightmares at the Steer house, too, and I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve had nightmares on every job.”

  “People have nightmares. Don’t you?”

  “Not like that. Never. You should see yourself.”

  Horrified, I shot him a contemptuous look. “You’re watching me sleep? Do I have to bring a tent for privacy?”

  “When you’re thrashing around like a fish on a hook—”

  “It’s my business!”

  “Talk to me. Maybe I can help. We’re not just colleagues, we’re friends.”

  “So says the man who lied to my face about his dead brother.” It was a supremely unfair thing to say. A brother dead forty-five years versus insanely bad dreams on the job. There was no comparison. I rose—too soon, because my legs began to wobble and I had to steady myself by holding the pew back.

  “I never lied to you,” he said.

  Still I pushed back. “Don’t you think not telling can be the same as lying?”

  “Sometimes, yes, you’re right,” he said quietly.

  Berg did that a lot. Backed down when I knew full well he disagreed with me. He was the strongest man I’d ever known, but he continually capitulated and soothed and made peace with not only me, but with people like the loathsome Lebec.

  “You also wouldn’t tell me what the deal was between you and Lebec. Why she’s taking this personally.”

  He’d ratted on her to the family or possibly some authority, I now knew, and in my mind it had been the right thing to do. But for Berg it must have been difficult, knowing his action would cause her financial trouble or even ruin.

  A loud cracking sound from outside the sanctuary shocked me out of my thoughts and brought both of us back to the task at hand.

  “Where’s that coming from?” I asked.

  “Have you got your flashlight?”

  “Here.” I patted my coat pocket. Cold as always, we were both still dressed for winter inside the church, and this time we had our flashlights.

  “Well, all right then. Let’s roll.”

  We exited the sanctuary and stood in the narthex, on alert for the smallest sound. I was sure the lights would go out at any second, sure the foul stench from hell would start up again, sure the demons of this place were on the move.

  Years ago I’d seen an art exhibit in Denver called Beelzebub: Demons of the Mind. All its artists were of one accord: there were no real demons, only gullible, tortured minds that had given rise to myths over the centuries as a way of explaining evil.

  Complete and utter crap.

  Yet the evil depicted in these artists’ paintings had profoundly affected me. If a black ram’s head swallowing an infant whole or a man eviscerated by a horned devil with the face of a pig were nothing more than manifestations of the myth-making human brain, the human race was still in a world of trouble. If that’s what the human mind, unabetted by demons, could conjure up, what could it accomplish when aided by incarnate evil?

  Long before I’d encountered the shadow figure in the Peterson’s home, I’d known demons were real. They were often beautiful, as Berg frequently reminded me, or if not beautiful, then harmless looking. Like feckless old men with bad teeth. Beauty and banality were two different covers, but covers nonetheless.

  “Do you hear scratching overhead?” Berg asked me.

  My eyes went to the ceiling. “That’s too loud to be rodents. Could someone have broken into the church again?”

  “Possibly.”

  Shifting my attention to the floor, I said, “Hear that? Now it’s coming from the basement.”

  We set off for the hall and the basement door, the anger welling within me for what the Nickles and others had done to this once-beautiful church. It spurred me on and helped counterbalance my growing sense of panic. Anger was useful in that way.

  Pausing at the closed door, we listened, but the sound from below had ceased. Someone or something was toying with us.

  I opened the door, listened again, and began to trod down the staircase.

  Berg sat down on the landing, flashlight at the ready though the dim basement lights were on, and I kept going until I was at the foot of the stairs. There I listened for the noise I’d heard in the narthex.

  “In the other houses we were in, disturbances stayed in one room or general location,” I said, “but they’re all over the place here.”

  I moved toward the open green door that separated the two parts of the basement, my eyes shooting to the bloody spot where Lloyd’s body had been found, then stepped through the door. “There’s no one here,” I reported as I glanced around the room. “No animals, no animal nests, nothing.”

  “How large is that room?” Berg called.

  “They’re both about the same size. Wait a sec, I didn’t see this before. There’s something on the wall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something carved in the limestone. Hang on.” I shifted an old paint can on a shelf. “It’s a drawing between two shelves.” I aimed my flashlight for a better look.

  Someone had carved a stylized lightning bolt into the wall and partially concealed it with a paint can. About a foot long and varying from one to two inches wide, it was the color of new limestone, not oxidized like the surface of the wall, indicating it wasn’t more than a few weeks or maybe months old.

  “Everything all right?”

  “I’m taking a photo.” After snapping a shot, I headed back through the green door, mounted the staircase, and showed my phone to Berg. “Ever seen anything like this?”

  “Not outside of books. Is this the only one?”

  “I’ll find out.” Taking my phone with me, I headed back through the green door. I inspected every inch of the walls, slowly walking the perimeter, moving boxes, plastic drop cloths, and other assorted junk out of the way. “Remind me to tell Matt and Carissa to install more lighting down here,” I called. “The contractor must have brought his own lighting because you can’t see enough to do any work. Oh, here we go.”

  “Another one?”

  “Yeah, on the third wall, to the right through the door. It looks exactly the same. And there’s something . . .”

  “Keep talking so I know you’re all right.”

  “I had to move a box. There’s a word carved in the wall, a few inches below the lightning bolt. ‘Tillers.’”

  I snapped more shots, completed my exploration of the room, went back to the green door, and flipped through the photos I’d just taken. “What does ‘Tillers’ mean? Like garden tillers or cultivators? It’s capitalized, so a family name, maybe?”

  Berg issued one of his mulling-the-possibilities grunts as he swept his flashlight over the wall abutting the staircase.

  “The Tiller family,” I mused aloud. “Could be. Wonder if they attended church here.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Berg said. He set his cane firmly on the landing and was about to rise when the lights went out.

  CHAPTER 26

  “Oh, for the living crap.”

  “Teagan,” Berg chided.

  I put Berg in my flashlight’s beam. “If there was ever a more appropriate occasion. Don’t move, I’m coming to you.” Redirecting the beam at the floor, I started for the stair
s.

  Before I’d advanced three steps, my flashlight went out. The hair stood at the back of my neck. “Damn the lights.”

  “Careful where you’re walking,” Berg said, guiding me with his flashlight.

  An instant later the basement went completely dark.

  “Berg? What the hell? What happened to your flashlight?”

  “I’m still here,” he said. “It just went out.”

  “Yours too?”

  Terror like nothing I’d ever felt surged through me. I cursed and froze in place. I slapped my flashlight. And again.

  “I’m coming,” he said, his cane thudding down a step.

  “No, don’t!” The thought of him falling kept me edging forward, though I heard Berg move too, his cane striking each wooden step, his labored breathing evidence of the pain he felt as he forced his arthritic joints to bend.

  But Jesus, what if? I froze again. Oh, God, not again. “Berg, is that you? Is it you?”

  “Yes, it’s me. I’m coming, Teagan.”

  “Are you on the stairs?”

  “It’s me, Teagan, just me on the stairs.”

  “I feel . . .” My right foot hit something heavy and immovable—something I knew couldn’t have been there before our flashlights went out. My pulse raced, my heart pounded in my ears. “God help us.”

  “I’m at the bottom of the stairs. Talk to me. Keep talking to me.”

  “Something’s near me.”

  “What?”

  Fingers grazed the back of my head. I spun around and lashed out with my flashlight, striking nothing but empty air. “Now I hear you breathing. Is it you?”

  “It’s me breathing hard, it’s just me, just me.” His cane was clapping on the concrete floor.

  “I hear something else.”

  “So do I. Hang on, stay where you are.”

  “There’s something scraping on the floor to my left. Are you in front of me?”

  “It’s me, Teagan. John Bergland, the best pie maker in all of Colorado.”

  A wheezy laugh escaped my lips.

  “If it wasn’t me, I’d ask you who you’re talking to, wouldn’t I? Stick your hand out so I can find you.”

  I turned toward him and stuck out my left hand. A moment later he grabbed it.

  “What do we do?” I asked, half hoping he’d advise a quick exit.

  “We stand our ground. This is why we’re here.”

  Damn.

  The second he finished speaking—as if in reply—the scraping noise resumed.

  Seeming to come from a fixed location at first, it now drew nearer. Louder.

  That’s no damn rodent. Something inhuman was scuttling over dirt and concrete, headed straight for us.

  Not satisfied with the first couple times I’d futilely whacked my flashlight, I let go of Berg’s hand and did it a few more times. Then I shook it, clicked the push button on and off. Nothing.

  “You have no power over us,” Berg said. “We’re children of the Most High. But you will return to the pit you came from.”

  A ribbon of cold shot past us. I drew a shuddering breath.

  “Haven’t you read the Bible?” Berg asked. “Those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Your bluster means nothing. You will leave this place.”

  The scraping continued. The scraping of long, crablike claws. I said a silent prayer and slapped my flashlight again.

  “You can’t show yourself in the light, can you?” Berg said. “Why not? Are you afraid? You should be. Be afraid of the light. You will be exiled. Not by our power, but by God’s alone.”

  The thing moved again.

  It was all I could do not to run, not to scream like a ten-year-old girl.

  “‘Now war arose in heaven,’ Berg said, quoting the Book of Revelation in a strong, steady voice. “‘Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.’”

  It scuffed its claw, its whatever-it-was, along the floor. Was it a shadow form? Had the unseen presence taken on flesh? Jesus, the lights!

  “‘And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated—and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.’”

  It gagged. The thing gagged.

  “There’s no longer any place for you,” Berg said.

  A gushing sound followed—like vomit into a toilet—and the basement began to reek of sewage.

  “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.”

  I hit my flashlight again and again until Berg reached out and stilled me with his hand.

  “‘He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him,’” he said, his voice unwavering, full of confidence and fury. “That is your end. There is no other.”

  The odor was overpowering now, the basement one big cesspool of filth. I began to cough reflexively.

  God, make it stop, make it stop.

  “You will leave this church,” Berg said. “Forever. By the authority of Christ, you have no claim on these people or this place. Get out.”

  Silence.

  The overhead lights flickered, then went out again. In that fraction of a second I saw nothing ahead of me. Nothing.

  No way. It’s not over.

  They flickered again.

  I swallowed hard.

  There was no figure, no shadow, nothing near me that my foot could’ve hit. And the floor was dry.

  What about the sewage? The sound of vomiting?

  Again Berg said, “By the authority of Christ.”

  And a moment later, voice trembling, I said, “By the authority of Christ.”

  Berg stood his ground, and shaking though I was, I stood with him. Partly, I had to admit, because flailing around in the pitch black and running into who-knows-what was a more frightening prospect than standing next to him as he bellowed like some Old Testament prophet.

  Is it over?

  I exhaled with a groan.

  I must have sounded on the edge of flipping out, because Berg asked me if I was going to be all right.

  “I’ve never.” It was all I could say.

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t speak until . . .”

  “You stood your ground, and I couldn’t have done it alone, Teagan. Believe me.”

  The lights flickered again. I hit my flashlight but it stayed off.

  “I don’t have faith, Berg.”

  “You do. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. God wouldn’t have brought you here if you didn’t.”

  Though he couldn’t see me, I shook my head. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know enough.”

  I felt tears fill my eyes, run down my cheeks. Berg was checking his flashlight, clicking the push button on and off. “I thought this was about you, but it’s about me too. About me and water. And I brought you into it, and I’m sorry. I’m guilty as hell, Berg. A child died because of me.”

  The clicking stopped.

  Decision made, wall breached, the words tumbled from my mouth.

  “She was eight years old, and her name was Bethany Scott, and I’ll never forget her name. She was so young and small. I was twenty and I was a lifeguard in Ohio, but I ignored her. I ignored all of them because they were bugging me all the time, they were on my nerves and they were noisy brats and I wanted to read my damn book instead of paying attention to them, which is what I was supposed to do. It was my job—and the parents trusted me to do it. They trusted me with their kids, and some kid had to come up to me with my nose in a book and tell me Bethany wouldn’t get up from the bottom of the pool. That’s what he said. ‘Bethany won’t get up.’”

  The lights flickered again and Berg put a hand on my shoulder. I pulled away.

  “I can still hear his voice and how scared he sounded. ‘Bethany won’t get up.’ Like I was the adult so I was supposed to fix it. When I got her out of the pool, she was dead, Berg. I tried, I tried so hard
to breathe into her, but nothing happened. She was going white and blue. Kids started screaming and an ambulance came, then her parents came. They were screaming. The mother couldn’t stop screaming.”

  “Teagan.”

  The lights blinked twice then came back on and stayed on. Damn. No, not in the light.

  I swiped the tears from my eyes and cheeks, sniffed the snot back up my nose, started for the stairs, then looked back to Berg. He was staring at me like—like what?—like he didn’t know me and didn’t want to. Like he’d been wrong about me all along.

  Well, I made sure everyone was wrong about me, that no one outside of those children and parents back in Ohio knew who I really was. It had been a release to spill it all, but now I wanted to kick myself for losing control.

  “We have to get out of here,” I said. “Come on! Can you make it?”

  “Is this why you put yourself in danger?” he asked.

  “Please, I need to get out of here right now.”

  Grimacing in pain, he made his way to the staircase and began his slow ascent. I wanted to help, but I knew if I tried he’d wave me off, and anyway, there was no helping his arthritic ankles, and they were taking most of the beating as he mounted each step.

  A couple minutes later, I slammed the brown metal door behind us and prayed I’d never have to open it again.

  Avoiding Berg’s searching eyes, I gave him a moment to recover and then started for the sanctuary. By some miracle, I didn’t pass out or sink to the floor on the way there, though my leg muscles had turned to jelly.

  The monster had known. It had come for me.

  Had Berg banished it? Having questioned people about him before deciding to become his apprentice in his mad quest to drive out demons, I knew he’d performed such feats before. But never did I think I’d be standing next to him—albeit impotently—when he did it.

  It wasn’t the words he’d recited. That I knew. He didn’t read from a book of special prayers, he didn’t chant in Latin or Koine Greek—though he knew both. No, what drove evil back from where it came was his faith as a man of God.

  He was a godly man.

  Would he ask me to leave and find other work? I was ready. As soon as my story crossed my lips, I knew things would never be the same between us, but to keep lying to him month after month, lying by omission, was impossible. And though I’d chastised him for not telling me about his brother, I knew our lies were of a different nature—and vastly different in gravity.