Rise of the Beast (46 page)

“Yes, we were very close,” confirmed Julio.

“And that is how you came to know Chris and Serena Davis, through Claire James?”

“Yes,” replied Julio.

For a while, Detective Strom said nothing. They were almost at the coffeehouse when he continued. “You know, something else has me concerned here. Lately, I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on a certain cold case. You remember it Julio, the murder of your three friends in the park two and a half years ago.
I’ve looked over hundreds of hours of video footage from all sorts of cameras around Central Park. So many businesses have security cameras, and nearly all of them have a cooperative agreement with the department, allowing us access to them via the Internet. I’d downloaded them a long time ago, but there wasn’t time to go through them all. It was just two months ago that I finally got a break in the case.”

By now they had reached the coffeehouse, but the detective paused at the door. He focused on Julio, who seemed visibly nervous.

“I was looking at the images from a security camera at a café on Central Park West,” continued Detective Strom. “Just before ten I noticed four youths running across the street into the park. Then at about 11:15
P.M.
, I saw someone running across the street out of the park, he was practically stumbling over his own feet, as if the Devil himself were on his tail. From his clothes I suspected he was one of the four I had seen earlier. Sadly, the person was too far away, and the image wasn’t clear enough to make a positive identification.

“Now, that was almost two hours after you told me that you’d left your friends at the edge of the park. Julio, don’t you think it’s about time you came clean about a few things?”

Julio looked over at the detective, yet he said nothing. Still, his expression said volumes. He seemed sad perhaps even ashamed.

“Julio, two and a half years ago, when your friends from the Latin Kings were cut down in Central Park, you were with them, weren’t you?”

Julio looked down at the snow before him. “Yes, I was.”

“And it was you running for your life, across Central Park West, wasn’t it?”

“It probably was,” confirmed Julio. “That was the direction I ran.”

“So you saw the whole thing; you know who killed your friends,” deduced Strom.

“Yes,” confirmed Julio, who still hadn’t looked up.

“They were your friends,” Julio. “You saw who killed them. You even came forth to make a report, but you weren’t being truthful about what happened. Julio, I just don’t get it. Were you afraid that the killer or killers would have come after you if you testified?”

“They would have,” confirmed Julio.

There was a long pause. Then Strom continued. “It’s cold out here; let’s go on inside.”

The group found a table and sat down. Julio was shaking, though Serena suspected that it wasn’t from the cold. The detective placed his hand on Julio’s shoulder.

“It’s OK, Julio. We’re going to get through this. But answer me this: it was that Lusan character who was behind the killing of your friends, wasn’t it?”

Nothing much surprised Serena anymore. She’d been through way too much. But this was one of those moments. This Detective Strom was either sharp or lucky. Maybe he was both. Oh, if Detective Strom could just make that charge stick, they’d finally have Satan on the ropes. She looked toward Julio, whose eyes had finally turned to the detective.

“Yes. But he wasn’t just behind it, he killed them himself, at least he killed two of them. The third was killed by this guy called Duras” said Julio.

“Then, after all of that, you joined that cult of his? I think you’d better tell me the whole story from the beginning,” said Strom.

“That’s the problem,” said Julio. “You won’t believe it.”

“Try me,” replied Strom. “You might be surprised.”

And so he did. Julio spoke of a game of toll taker in Central Park gone horribly wrong. He told of watching his friends butchered right before his eyes only to end up kneeling before Lusan as he awaited his own fate at the end of a sword. He had been granted mercy, only to face an even more terrifying ordeal several hours later atop a high-rise parking garage in midtown Manhattan.

There he had been offered a horrible choice. He could throw himself to his death or submit to possession by a demonic force. It was then that the detective stopped him.

“Wait a minute Julio,” he objected. “Are you talking about demon possession, the exorcist, Linda Blair, type stuff?”

“Yes,” confirmed Julio. “But the real thing, real demon possession, usually doesn’t work like that. The demon first seizes your body; he takes full control. Then he uses it for whatever purpose pleases him. He uses your body as his
own. You become a prisoner within your own body, unable to do anything but watch.”

“Please believe him,” said Karina. “It happened to me too. I know what it’s like.”

“It wasn’t until Grandma Claire freed me that I became myself again,” continued Julio. “Since then, I’ve had a new master, Jesus Christ. Believe me, He is a lot gentler.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Strom, not quite sure what else to say. “So who is this Lusan guy that he has this kind of power to control demons?”

“He is the Devil himself, Satan,” said Julio.

“He’s telling you the truth, detective,” said Serena. “I saw him up close. Lusan is Satan. As I said I have met him personally. I’ll never forget that face.”

“Yes, I know who you are now,” said the detective. “You’re that woman who went to Hell and came back again. You wrote a book. My wife told me all about it. She’s into that kind of thing.”

“And you’re not,” deduced Chris.

“Well, no, not like that,” said the detective. “I’m a Lutheran. I go to church and all. I go with my wife and son. I mainly go for them. I believe in Jesus, really I do, just not quite like that. Exorcism, demon possession, that’s Dark Ages sort of stuff.”

“I only wish it were,” said Pastor Smith. “But I’ve seen it at work more times than I care to remember, especially since Lusan arrived.”

With difficulty, Julio continued. He left nothing out. Detective Strom was attentive throughout. He nodded a few times, but asked no questions.

“You’re asking me to believe an awful lot of incredible things on faith alone,” said the detective, leaning back a bit. “I suppose that also explains why your original testimony was false. It all makes sense. The problem is, it sounds crazy. I doubt that a jury would see it any differently.”

“Then you believe our story?” asked Pastor Smith.

“Reverend, I don’t know what to believe,” admitted the detective. “A couple years ago, I’d have dismissed the whole story as pure fantasy. But you haven’t
seen and heard the sorts of things I have down at the precinct these past couple years. And it all started around the time that this Lusan showed up.”

“Believe me, I have,” replied Pastor Smith.

The detective smiled, though slightly. “Yeah, I guess you have.” The detective turned to Chris and Serena. “Are you folks going to be in town for a while?”

“Yes,” said Chris. “We’d sort of planned on staying the week.”

Detective Strom nodded. “OK, I might need to get back to you regarding a few things. However, I want you to promise me that you won’t be visiting the Davidson Building again. That place is off limits, understand?”

“Certainly, Detective Strom, I promise. I won’t go back there,” said Serena.

The detective nodded once more. “Mrs. Davis, have faith in me. I’m going to be pursuing this investigation further, I assure you. I’ll get back to you in a few days. Just stay safe, OK?”

“OK,” said Serena smiling.

“Detective Strom, I’m really sorry,” said Julio. “I feel like I really let you down.”

“Don’t feel that way, Julio,” said Strom. “From what I’m hearing, the blame isn’t yours. Still, what I told Mrs. Davis, I’m telling you and Karina too. Don’t try to get involved in this investigation, at least not until you’ve graduated from the police academy and are a member of the NYPD.”

“Sure,” said Julio, smiling for the first time.

“I promise, I won’t leave you out of the loop,” said Detective Strom. “After what happened today, I think this cold case is about to open up wide.”

Krissie looked at her husband incredulously. “Serena Davis visited you right there in your office?”

“Sure did,” said Leland, finishing up dessert. “She had a hard copy of that email that my grandmother sent me the night she died. You know, the one that
turned up blank. Apparently she and my grandmother were close friends.”

“But do you really think that this email is the real thing?” asked Krissie. “She might have forged it.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Leland. “There were just too many things, personal things that only my grandmother would know. She also sent me some files from the missing hard drive. I’ve had a chance to look at a few of them already. It’s just the sort of thing that my grandmother would write.”

“But you don’t know this woman like I do,” retorted Krissie. “She’s a real witch. The things she has said about Lusan are horrible, just horrible. I’ll tell you, some of these Christians are total haters. They are a big part of what is wrong in the world today.” Krissie paused. “Your grandmother was a real exception.”

“No she wasn’t,” corrected Leland. “She was very opposed to Lusan; you know that.”

“I guess I do,” said Krissie, “sorry.”

Leland smiled but said nothing.

The conversation, such as it was, was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Leland opened the door to discover two plainclothes police officers, Detective Strom and Lieutenant Stoddard.

As they all gathered in the living room, Leland wondered what this was all about. He had a bad feeling about it all, but was hoping for the best.

“We are here regarding two issues,” began Detective Strom. “Do you know a woman by the name of Serena Davis?”

“Sure,” replied Leland. “She was a friend of my late grandmother, or so she said. She seemed like a very nice person. She dropped into my office early this morning with some documents that my grandmother had written. I was very happy to get them. We spoke for 20 minutes or so; then she left.”

“And you didn’t see her again after that?” asked the detective.

“No sir,” confirmed Leland. “Nothing has happened to her, has it?”

“No, she’s fine,” replied Strom. “It would seem that several of Lusan’s security people roughed her up a bit. It wasn’t serious, mind you; they just scared
her a little, that was all. I was just checking up on her story.”

“I didn’t know anything about that,” said Leland.

“Mrs. Davis didn’t think you did,” confirmed Strom. “I just wanted to hear your side of the story. If assault charges are filed and it goes to court, you might be called as a witness, that’s all.”

“There is another matter,” said Lieutenant Stoddard, “a more serious one. It has to do with one of our cold case files, a murder that occurred about two and a half years ago.”

“A murder?” asked Leland.

“Actually, a triple homicide,” said Stoddard. “Are either of you familiar with a young man by the name of Julio Mendoza?”

“Why, yes,” replied Leland. “He was in our youth group for a while, but he left almost two years ago for unexplained reasons. He was also a friend of my grandmother. They studied the Bible together along with a friend of his. I think her name was Katrina or Karina, something like that. The thing is, he was with my grandmother when she had her first heart attack. He probably saved her life that time. But then she had the second one when she was alone.”

“Yes, that’s the young man we’re talking about,” confirmed Strom. “He told me a rather incredible story this morning. The night that his friends were killed, that was the night of September, 11, 2014, do you remember where you were, what you might have been doing?”

Well here it was at last. Lusan had warned Leland that this day might come. Thing was, Leland had expected it to occur two years ago, if ever. Lusan had prepared them for this day.

“You remember that night, don’t you Leland?” said Krissie. “That was the night we walked through Central Park on our way home from the Anderson’s party on Central Park East.”

“Oh yeah,” confirmed Leland, “that was some night.”

“How so?” asked Lieutenant Stoddard.

“That was the night we got stopped by those kids in the park,” said Leland. “They were wearing the Latin King’s colors. They wanted a handout or something like that. But I wouldn’t give it to them.”

“Then these two businessmen came up the trail from the other direction,” said Krissie. “One of them hollered at the kids. I guess that kind of spooked them and they moved on.”

“That was the first time we ever saw Lusan and Duras,” said Leland. “To say the least, we were grateful that they’d happened by right then. We invited them to come on over to our condo for a nightcap. I guess you could say that the rest was history.”

“It was about an hour or so later that we saw the lights of the police cars at the edge of Central Park,” continued Krissie. “Those murders had occurred not far from where we had been walking. They must have occurred just after we left.”

“But you never contacted the police about it,” noted Stoddard.