Evil Eternal (24 page)

Aimee couldn’t remember the name she had called Father Michael in the heat of the moment at the Javits Center. Why would she call him anything other than his name? Ever since his arrival, inexplicable feelings, like an old memory where you can’t recall whether it was a dream or reality, tugged at her senses. There was something so familiar about this strange man who had saved their lives, but how could that be? She wasn’t even sure he was exactly human, though no amount of probing Shane had made things clearer over the course of their vigil.

What was that name
? revolved in her head in an endless loop.

She was shaken from her musings when the large man began to stir.

“You waited,” Father Michael said, the bass rumble of his voice lessened.

“Got nowhere else to go,” Shane said. “Besides, we don’t have a clue where we are or what to expect when we walk out those doors. We were kinda waiting for you to give us the thumbs-up.”

Father Michael remained supine as he recounted the night’s events and just what world they should expect in the coming days.

After talking for several minutes, Father Michael said, “One more moonrise and I will be replenished enough.” He placed his hands on their heads and they fell slowly forward into a deep sleep. He wasted no time doing the same.

The next day, Father Michael rose before them and somehow procured new clothes for all of them and food. Shane and Aimee had plucked all of the shards of bone and tooth from his limbs, back and chest while his body healed. Penniless, they hopped on a train and hid in the bathrooms to avoid the conductors. They reemerged when the speakers squawked “Grand Central, last stop”.

The city was buzzing with theories about the attack on the Javits Center. Mayor Peter Spinelli was presumed dead, as were over a dozen other mayors from across the country. The president urged the population to remain calm as the authorities looked into the exact cause of the melee. All of the survivors had been sequestered for the time being. What many of them were telling the authorities was beyond their comprehension and had not been leaked to the public.

Yet.

The priest and his two charges arrived at Saint Luke’s Church in the late morning. The announcement board in the front of the church listed the date and time for the wake of their beloved Monsignor Stanton. Silently, they entered the church unseen and headed for the balcony. Father Michael retrieved a bag he had hidden there and handed two packets to Shane and Aimee.

“Take this to the Vatican. Aimee, do not stop at your apartment. Go this afternoon.”

“The Vatican?” Shane blurted. “What are we supposed to do at the Vatican? I wouldn’t know how to act around the pope. They probably won’t even let us in the place.”

Father Michael pulled a large clothbound object from the bag and stuffed it in Shane’s coat pocket.

“You’re expected,” he answered. “As I said before, this day, though dreaded, had been foreseen. There was hope that events could have been diverted, delayed, destroyed. That hope is lost.” He turned to Aimee when he said, “You will go to the Vatican and be protected.” He then clasped a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “And you will learn.”

“What about you?” Shane asked.

“I must stay…for now.”

Father Michael turned to leave.

“But, wait!” Shane said.

Aimee gently tugged his arm. “We should go,” she urged him. “He’s gotten us this far.”

Father Michael took one long, last look at Aimee and felt a swell of emotions. Maybe she was his Ailis. If it hadn’t been for the boy, he would have failed her again. No matter what his feelings,
his
Ailis, his wife, lover and mother of his child, was forever gone from him. Perhaps God would permit them to be together once more, to play in the fields with their son, Kerwynn, and know the limitless joy of infinite love.

Aimee left Shane’s side and approached him. Her dark brown eyes sought answers that he could not provide. “I called you by another name the other night,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “And, somehow, I think if I can remember that name, I’ll get something back that’s missing from me.”

Father Michael ached to reveal all to Aimee in the hopes that it would unlock the door and free his Ailis within her. However, to give new life to his departed wife would require extinguishing the soul of Aimee, and no amount of selfish desire could drive him to do it.

He gently touched her arm, savoring the warmth of her skin. “You were frightened to death, confronted with an evil that very few people survive. I’ve seen countless people say and do stranger, more inexplicable things when the scent of their impending death is near. Do not let it worry your mind. You are safe now.”

She nodded once and the priest slowly broke away.

“Guard her well,” he said to Shane and left.

Father Michael?

Here, in this world between worlds, you may call me Liam.

The spirit of Monsignor Stanton, still carrying the appearance of an old man even in the afterlife, shuffled to embrace his returning friend.

Is it over?

Yes. And it has begun.

I so wish I were young again, to be there to take part.

You have done more than most. It is time to receive your reward.

Liam held Monsignor Stanton’s hand and they began to walk.

You have come to guide me?

Yes.

You are a good friend. He paused, then added, Liam.

Along the way, I would like to introduce you to my wife and son.

That would be lovely.

Together, they entered the dream along the lighted path.

Incertum

Chapter Twenty-Six

The kiddie parks at dusk were always good hunting grounds, especially in the lower income sections where safety, and especially good lighting, were not considered high priorities. Whether humans couldn’t afford to care or simply didn’t mind if a poor child here or there ended up dead or missing was none of the demon’s concern. Either way revealed the dark soul of humanity, something he was quite familiar with. There was nothing as satisfying as bringing a brother or sister to the right side of the playing board.

Even better than the children were the old people, the stragglers who perhaps stayed in the park later than most to feed the cats as they emerged from their hiding places to reclaim the night. It loved to make the old biddies cry or the doddering men shit their adult diapers.

Tonight was a lucky night.

A daily double, so to speak.

Still shooting hoops into a warped metal basket was a young boy, no more than twelve years old. It was so dark he could barely see where he was shooting, but that didn’t deter him. In all likelihood, shooting hoops in the dark was preferable to going back to a home of poverty, despair and possibly abuse.

Watching the boy from a nearby bench sat a very old man wearing a rumpled suit that must have once fit his now shrunken frame. A newspaper lay by his hip and a cane was propped across his lap.

“Mmmmm,” the demon whispered from his dark hiding place. “Fresh meat and aged wine. Tasty.”

Anyone passing by the demon would have been wise to keep their stares to themselves as it had adopted the camouflage of a muscular, hardened man sitting just outside the rusted fence. Just your average gangbanger looking for a place to get high.

How were they to know it was only a disguise, the lifeless flesh of what had once been an ordinary man? In a similar late night setting, that man had been attacked and turned by one of the thousands of hellspawn that had been given free rein on earth several years earlier. Now his soul was trapped in a nowhere realm while his body, inhabited by one of the denizens of hell, was free to destroy everything it touched.

A woman’s irritated voice shouted, “Khalid, get your butt inside! You still have homework to finish! You know you’re not supposed to be out after dark.”

The demon watched as the boy tucked the ball under his arm and walked oh so slowly back to his house.

“Oooh, you stink. Take a shower first,” the woman scolded before closing the door.

That left the old man who didn’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere.

Not than an old man
could
rush anywhere, even if he wanted to, the demon thought with a chuckle. It checked the nearby houses to make sure no one was in sight.

True, a new age had dawned for all demonkind, but there were still enemies about. One still had to use caution. The demon had heard tales from its brethren—stories of a killer in priest’s clothing, more deadly and vicious than anything Lucifer could conjure from his demented mind.

The demon’s eyes darted back to the old man whose chin was now resting in quiet repose upon his chest.

Like lightning, the demon rushed towards the man. Bloody talons burst through the flesh of its costumed hands while its face fell away to reveal a maw of puckering holes, each jammed with rotating, pointed teeth.

It approached soundlessly, taking great care not to alert its prey of the certain, horrid death it was about to deliver.

When it was only inches away from the old man, it felt the fiery jab of steel as a golden crucifix with a dagger at its tip was planted directly into the center of its hideous mouth.

The fires of hell couldn’t touch the agonizing searing of flesh as the crucifix-dagger obliterated the foul essence of the stunned shapeshifter. Something also made it repel backwards, as if it had bounced off a trampoline.

Dear Lucifer, it burned!

“Asmodai, save me!” it shouted.

The old man rose from his seat and smiled.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” he said in a voice far too young to have come from such a dilapidated old wretch. “The truth is, you never had a chance.”

The man took a step towards the wounded demon. It skittered back two feet, the way opposing magnets sought distant corners from one another.

The demon could do nothing as the man retrieved another blade-tipped crucifix from his overcoat. The pain was unbearable.
What in the name of all that’s unholy was in that dagger?
With each passing second, the demon felt its centuries-old soul disintegrating into pure nothingness that made it long for the confines of Hades.

“And one more for the road,” the man said before launching the second crucifix between its fiery eyes.

The demon felt, and was, no more.

The door to a dingy apartment in an equally depressing neighborhood swung open with a loud crash. The old man from the park bench hopped across the threshold and slammed the door shut.

“Why don’t you make some more noise while you’re at it?” said a much younger man sitting at a battered kitchen table. “I think there are some people in the building across the street who didn’t hear you come in.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the old man muttered with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Did you get it?”

“Of course. Can of corn.”

“Good. At this rate we can probably pick up stakes by this time next week.”

“And just move on to the next place. It’s never going to end, is it?”

“You should know,” the man at the table sighed. “It never does.”

The old man dropped his coat and shirt to the floor, revealing a wiry, toned body clad in a black, formfitting T-shirt. He pulled at the tufts of gray hair at his temples. The hair was easily removed, like silver wads of spider web. Next, he used his fingers to pick off huge wads of wrinkled flesh on his face and neck. The fresh skin underneath was tacky with glue.

“Good work on this one. It’s gonna take me all night just to get it off.”

“I left some remover in the bathroom. What that doesn’t take off will come off in the shower.” The man at the table picked up a racing paper and perused the lines for tomorrow’s races.

“This disguise thing is getting to be a drag. You should try it yourself, you’ll see what I mean.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch. That’s why I’ll always know it’s you, no matter what disguise you wear, Shane. Your mouth gives it away.”

Shane kicked his legs out of the old-man trousers and threw them onto the kitchen table.

“Then I guess it’s lucky for me that demons aren’t as bright as you.”

“It’s lucky for you that they can’t get close enough to know you.”

“Hey, Tony, I brought something back,” Shane said as he headed for the bathroom. He flipped Tony the bird, which only resulted in disgusted, heavy rustling of the paper.

It took over an hour to fully scrub every spot of makeup and latex from his body. When he was done, Shane’s skin was pink and sore, like a newborn cat.

It was laughable. Demons couldn’t touch him, but his traveling master of disguise could inflict heavy doses of pain at will.

Another demon vanquished. An endless parade of hellspawn and cities to go.

Things had gotten so bad that Shane didn’t even know the name of the city they were in now. He was pretty sure it was in the state of Michigan—it was damn cold enough for an early fall night. Not that it mattered. At least it was nice to be in the States for a while.