Sins of the Fathers

by John Richmond

SIXTEEN

  HORTON LED CALVIN further into the house, down the dim hall sentried by closed doors. When they stood outside of Jeremy’s bedroom door Calvin realized he had no memory of their short trip from the kitchen. It was as if he had been in the light and comfort of that warm room one moment and now stood here the next with no time in between. He couldn’t even remember thinking about anything on the way. Calvin stared at the door. It was like standing at the foot of some dark mountain, waiting for it to fall.

  “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” he said.

  “You’d make a hell of a cheerleader, Padre,” Horton muttered.

  Calvin made a noise that was almost a snicker, an aborted laugh. He reached out and put a damp hand on the doorknob, his sweat liquid nitrogen on the ornate brass. For a moment he just stood, trying to feel the thing on the other side through the door, trying to see the future through a couple of inches of imported wood. He jumped when Horton spoke.

  “You, uh…,” Horton didn’t know how to put it. “I was wonderin’ what it was like. If you remember an’ all.”

  Calvin half-looked over his shoulder. “When it was in me, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  Calvin faced the door. “Like floating inside the guts of a storm that has a mind,” he said. His grip tightened on the greasy knob. “Like it’s been raging all thunder and lightning and wind and hail, rain, like it’s been shouting forever at the ground and wants to stop.” He opened the door. “But can’t.”

  “Templar.”

  Calvin felt his teeth slide past his lips. He always smiled like a wolf when terrified. His breath shook with it, the fear, and something else, something warm that gave him what he needed to take a step into the room. His eyes locked on the warped, wrinkled creature strapped to the bed. He understood it was the boy he’d seen in the file, that same super-bright kid with the physics club trophy, but it might as well have been a mirror to the past. He’d worn that twisted costume himself not so long ago. “Hello, you fuck.”

  “Is that any manner in which to address an old friend?”

  Calvin’s fists clenched and unclenched. The fear turning his guts soupy was the only impediment to his lurching over the floor to clamp hands around the monster’s throat. The part of his psyche trained always to float just outside of the situation found the sensation curious. He was halved, one self rushing across the room to take vengeance on the greatest purveyor of pain he had ever known, the other fleeing in terror, weeping like a beaten child. He hadn’t expected to lose his cool so early. Calvin barely registered Horton coming in behind him.

  The demon’s eyes darted over Calvin’s shoulder. “Close the door, bondsman,” it crooned.

  And that was enough. The moment its eyes left Calvin’s the spell was broken. He took a breath and relaxed his fists. The cold calculus of his trained will took hold and he felt at home in his own skin again. At least enough to speak without much of a tremor.

  “What do you want with the boy?”

  It smiled, one eye rolling around the room, the other fixed on Calvin.

  “I said what do you want with the boy?”

  Both eyes rolled up, revealing the jaundiced whites, red lids flickering. It’s voice dropped into a dungeon and rasped, “There is no boy.”

  Calvin didn’t move any further into the room, but asked, “Where is he, then?”

  It’s eyes snapped back at Calvin, the left pupil a huge black marble, the right a pinprick. “We ate him.”

  “Well,” Calvin said. He felt giddy, as if he were about to go sky diving without lessons. “Any good?”

  The stench of old decay gassed into the room and a slow gout of black sludge oozed over the boy’s lower teeth. “Delicious.”

  Calvin heard Horton gag. He was glad of it. Someone else losing his shit in the immediate vicinity made it easier for Calvin to hold onto his. “Any chance I can get you cough him up?”

  The troll grunted laughter through tubercular lungs. “We just did.”

  Horton put a hand on the wall to steady himself. The sleep deprivation, the smell and the scene were getting to him.

  “You should not have crossed swords with your master on so little sleep,” the demon remonstrated, managing somehow through the twisted lines of its face to show concern. “Here, bondsman,” the chair next to the bed, the one to which Sinclair’s corpse had so recently been tied, slid across the floorboards with a wooden moan, “rest yourself.”

  Horton stood back from the chair as if it might bite him. His voice rose in a harsh semi-whisper. “See! See! He fucking did that!”

  The demon looked back at Calvin. “This has been very difficult for the bondsman.”

  “Why not give him a break, then?”

  The troll focused on Horton again and favored him with a look of sweetest compassion. A dry snap punctuated the room and Horton clutched his left hand to his chest, sucking a breath past his teeth with a hiss.

  Calvin moved over to him. “You okay?”

  Horton spoke through clenched teeth, afraid to look over Calvin’s shoulder at the monster on the bed. “Broke my pinky finger. God damn, that hurts.”

  “We could grant the bondsman an even bigger break if you like, Templar,” the demon said. “Perhaps an embolism would facilitate the length of rest he requires.”

  Calvin grabbed Horton by the shirt and reached for the doorknob with the intention of thrusting him out into the hall, but the knob turned in his hand. The door wrenched open and a large woman filled the frame. She carried a small steel tray with a hypodermic needle and a labeled glass vail. Calvin stared, startled into a freeze.

  “You must be the witch doctor then,” she said and walked right past him. She thudded over to the bedside and grabbed the boy’s restrained wrist with the thumb and forefinger of her free hand. The boy stared up at her, an adoring smile on his ruined face. “Cunt.”

  “That’s nice, dear.” She let his wrist go and picked up the hypo, flicking the tip to dislodge any bubbles. With a scowl of professional concentration she inserted the needle into a rubber port attached to the saline tube running into Jeremy’s arm. “I’m Nurse Grouwe,” she said, not looking at Calvin. “You can call me, Emma.” She pushed the plunger on the hypo and pulled out the needle. She smiled down at Jeremy, his eyes already drooping. “Night, sweetie.”

  “Rot, whore.”

  “Whores get more action,” she said and turned to the two men. “Here now,” she said, pointing at Horton. “What’s the matter with your hand? You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?”

  “Jesus, Emma, like what?” Horton asked. “Try to feed it to him? He fucking broke my finger from way over there.” He indicated the chair with his elbow, afraid to loosen his grip on his wounded hand. “And he moved this right across the floor.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Horton looked at Calvin, old exasperation on his face. “She never believes us.”

  “I don’t know what you and that other lummox, Finch, are always trying to pull with me, but I don’t appreciate that kind of joking around a sick boy.”

  “You think he’s sick?” Calvin asked in a low voice.

  Emma turned toward him, looming, “And what else could he be, Father…?”

  “Calvin.”

  She put a pair of large red-knuckled hands on her hips. “And you’re here for the exorcism, is that right?” She sighed. “Can’t believe I’ve said it.”

  “You think the kid could what,” Calvin glanced over at the bed. The boy was out cold, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow swells. A thick reek still hung in the air. “Benefit from Prozac and some therapy?”

  Emma sighed, obviously a fighter on this side of the argument for some time now. “You, Mr. Mason, and Dr. Riley may all believe that what the boy needs is some kind of voodoo ceremony to shock him out of his psychosis, but I’m of a different mind. Jeremy is a v
ery sick boy. He needs six months to a year under observation in a long term facility, not some antiquated religious rite that will most likely exacerbate the situation. I’ve stated my case time and time again with Mr. Mason and Dr. Riley, but no one wants to hear from me. Let’s all just forget that I’ve been a psychiatric nurse for over twenty years.”

  A quiet moan escaped Horton.

  Calvin pointed to the chair. “You mean you haven’t seen anything strange, no evidence of something other than a medical explanation. No telekinesis, precognition, anything like that?”

  She crossed her freckled forearms, a vein pressed out against the muscle. “Are you quite finished?”

  Calvin restrained the urge to smile. For whatever reason, the demon had kept Emma Grouwe in the dark. Lucky her. “Yeah, I’m finished,” Calvin said, nodding toward Horton. “Can you take care of Mr. Horton please, Ms. Grouwe?”

  “Emma.”

  “Right,” he smiled. “Emma.”

  She walked over to Horton and yanked his hand away from his chest. “What’d you do?” she growled under her breath.

  Horton deadpanned, “It spontaneously shattered.”

  “Cute, baldy.” She dropped the hand. “Broken. C’mon let’s go get it taped up.”

  Horton caught Calvin’s eye as he and Emma walked out. “Thorazine,” he said, tossing his head at boy, “but watch your ass, ya’ know?”

  “Finch mentioned.”

  “Just don’t get too close.”

  Calvin thought about the chair and Horton’s finger. “What exactly would that be?”

  “There’s a call buzzer on the floor by the bed,” he said and was gone, closing the door behind him.

  Calvin turned around, half expecting the boy to be sitting up wide awake and staring. He grabbed the chair and dragged it over to bedside. Too close, sure. He mused about the telekinetic range a demon might have. Was outside of the door far enough away, or could it get you on the dark side of the moon if it wanted? Calvin looked at the boy’s purple eyelids, the orbs beneath roving back and forth. “Don’t suppose you’d just tell me, would you?”

  The eyes stopped, the eyelids peeled back. “We’ll answer any question you pose, Templar.” Slowly, so as not to scare Calvin away from the bedside, the troll sat up. It rotated its head to face him. A complicated tracery of veins leapt into relief along the boy’s forehead, at his temples and contouring his cheeks. A blood vessel burst in his right eye and his whole body began to shiver with minute tremors. Calvin watched frozen for less than a minute, then two lines of thick, clear liquid pulsed from the corners of the boy’s eyes and ran down his face. He stopped shaking and the veins fell back into place. “Poison spoils the meat.”

  Calvin wasn’t sure if what he had just witnessed was medically possible. He supposed if it could move a chair with a thought it could perform feats of telekinesis that required more—.

  “Finesse. Yes, of course we can.”

  Calvin sat back, remembered to breathe, willing himself to be more interested than terrified. “And you read minds too?”

  “Not as a matter of course.”

  “Why not? It seems so much more efficient.”

  “We find it rude.”

  Calvin stared at the drying gore on the boy’s chin. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “Language, Father Calvin.”

  Calvin looked at the demon and tried to see the boy underneath. Horton had asked him what it had been like for him. Truth be told, he didn’t have many clear memories of his own experience in Jeremy’s position. Images, knowledge, almost everything had faded scant hours after the demon had released him. He’d been left with memories of emotion and an ancient loneliness that never seemed to fade at all. In fact, he’d kept that feeling of solitude close, he’d been able to identify with it. Calvin squinted at the monster’s face, trying to look past it. Pointless, he wouldn’t know the kid even if he did see him.

  Calvin sighed, switched tracks. “When we were…together.”

  “Ah?”

  “Where was I? You were on the outside, but where did you keep me?”

  The distinct sound of voiding bowels and the accompanying odor slapped Calvin’s senses. The demon raised its broken eyebrows.

  Calvin pushed back in the chair. “Fuck you, then.”

  The demon frowned, mocked pity. “It won’t work the way you think it will, boy.”

  Calvin wasn’t sure what it meant. “The Roman Ritual? No, it’s just another spell isn’t it.” He looked at the floor. “I’ll try it anyway.”

  “Good.”

  Calvin’s own brows lifted. “Good? You want me to try to remove you?”

  Jeremy looked away from Calvin, focusing on an invisible point in the middle of the room. For a long time, the boy started off into nothing. Calvin sat, his hands in his lap, the knuckles intertwined. This is the church, this is the steeple. After what seemed like several minutes, the demon spoke again, eyes still far away. This time it was a voice Calvin knew.

  “They ain’t never gonna’ find his body.” Flat Southwestern accent. “I had a dream and came back the next day to cover them tire tracks.”

  Calvin’s eyes went wide for a moment. Jesus, what a magic show. He kept it as cool as he could. “Nathaniel, right?”

  “Yeah. I went back and stared at it for a while.” The demon’s face was frozen, without expression. The cracked mouth was the only feature that moved. It was like watching someone with a Botox overdose, or an animatronic latex dummy from some amusement park ride. “The snakes were all gone the next day, but there was flies all over ‘im.”

  “You said you had a dream.”

  “Yeah,” from the speaker-face, “this little white boy in pajamas took me out to the desert and told me I hadda help cover your tracks. It was weird. When I woke up, I’d pissed the bed.”

  Calvin wondered, was this a trick, or had the demon actually tapped into the Ute boy? He had a thought and his skin crawled. “You okay, Nathaniel. You’re not dead are you?”

  “Sleepin’.”

  A shout leapt from Calvin’s mouth before he even knew it was coming. “You let that one alone!”

  The demon’s face animated and grinned at Calvin. “Why ‘this one’, Templar?”

  “He’s been through enough,” Calvin answered, voice low and quiet. He sat up a little straighter. “Why’d you help me with the body? Why’d you do that?”

  “What do you mean, kid?” This time the voice was Thom Neary’s Bronx core with Italian edges. “I’ve always been on your side. Been helping you for years, Johnny.”

  “You’re not Thom Neary,” Calvin spat, his hands balled into fists. “Thom Neary got rid of you. He cast you out.”

  “So dramatic,” the demon’s own cracked, high/low, growl/song voice returned. “Cast us out,” it mused. “That old cocksucker is the only one who believes that.” It sat up a little straighter. “You knew that didn’t you, Templar? Your precious bishop likes to choke on a stiff rod from time to time. It’s why he sought you out.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  A yellow, thrushy tongue slid from the child’s mouth and writhed like a worm. Calvin gaped. It was far longer than a human tongue should be. The probing tip found a blood caked nostril and began to penetrate, the demon moaning with pleasure. Calvin looked away.

  “You said you’d been helping me,” Calvin said to the wall. And if that didn’t work he’d ask it about the damn weather. Anything to get rid of that tongue. “What’d you mean by that?”

  “Templar?”

  Calvin looked back and grimaced. “Oh, good lord.”

  The boy’s tongue had pushed deep into one nostril, stretching it out of size. The furred tip teased from the other.

  Calvin knew what he was seeing couldn’t be possible. Couldn’t be. There was no way the kid had enough tongue,
possessed or not, to thread it up one nostril, through his sinuses and out the other. He remembered an obscure portion of his training in which Thom Neary had taught him to function even when poisoned or drugged. Under potent doses of pentathol and LSD, Calvin drove a car at speed and had even navigated complicated computer programs. He’d learned not to fight the impossibilities his mind had thrown at him, but accept them and move on. Calm flowed over him like warm water. The demon had gotten into his head and was manipulating his perceptions. It didn’t mean his mind was gone or that what he saw was real.

  Calvin stared at the insanity in front of him, the tip of that obscene tongue now wiggled from the boy’s left ear. “That’s a neat trick, kid. Can you tie the stem of a cherry in a knot too?”

  Calvin blinked and the illusion was gone. The demon smiled and wagged a tongue, still furred and yellowed, but of normal length.

  “You going to answer my question?” Calvin pressed. “You said you’d answer any question I posed.”

  Jeremy closed his eyes, his head lolled to one side. A line of thin bile leaked from the corner of his mouth. A stream of quiet muttering fluttered over his lips. Calvin couldn’t make it out, but it had the cadence of a heated argument minus the emotion. He was reminded of street people he’d seen having conversations within their delusions. Jeremy appeared to have fallen into some sort of drugged burnout. Perhaps the scene with the expulsion of the Thorazine had also been an illusion and it had finally kicked in.

  Calvin leaned in close to hear better and whispered, “How’d you help me?”

  The demon reared up. It’s eyes were giant black saucers, devoid of iris, pupil or whites. Calvin could see his face reflected in them. The demon’s mouth yawned, the teeth a hundred serrated triangles. It roared. “WE SENT THE SHARK!”

  Calvin slammed back in the chair, blinking, heart trip-hammering.

  The demon’s eyes changed again. This time they were a complicated mix of green and brown, again without white, but split by huge vertical irises. It’s tongue slipped out, forked and dripping. It hissed loud as a gale through tree bows, “WE WERE THE VIPERS!”

  Calvin covered his face with his hands and squeezed his eyes closed. Flares erupted in the dark and he tried to breathe. The demon was laughing, contented, easy.

  Calvin opened his eyes and saw Thom Neary’s head atop Jeremy’s wasted little boy frame. He blinked again and this time it was the Ute boy, Nathaniel. Again, and Matthew Katey, black and swollen, glowered at him. Again, and Calvin’s own face as it had been when the demon first found him. It winked.

  Calvin made a strangled noise that hurt his throat. He jumped from the chair and bolted for the door. His fingers scrabbled at the doorknob, and just as he was yanking it open, a quiet voice froze him solid.

  “Please.”

  Calvin’s put his forehead on the doorframe and shuttered. He didn’t need to turn around to know who’s voice it was.

  “Please, it hurts.”

  Without turning Father John Calvin said, “I know, kid. I’m sorry,” and walked out of the room.