They came to ask for my help again on Thursday night, and the third victim of the week was Daniel Carpenter.
I handled it.
It wasn’t pretty.
By the time I was done, Daniel’s jaw had locked down on the roll of leather he’d been biting. His face was blotchy and red, his eyes bloodshot, his body soaked in sweat. He looked up at me as the awareness of something other than pain showed up in his eyes. Michael was sitting on the floor, one leg painfully out to one side, supporting his son’s head in his broad, calloused hands. He put his thumbs on the muscles at the base of Daniel’s jaws and started rubbing them in circles, urging Daniel to relax, until the younger man could spit the leather out.
Then he just bowed his head, murmured a brief prayer of thanks, looked up at me, and said, “And thank you, Harry.”
“Sure,” I said, without much panting. Repeating the same spell over and over is a lot like working out a muscle group with a specific exercise. The more you do it, the easier it gets to do. I sat back, tired but not entirely enervated.
Father Forthill sat on the nearest pew, and about a dozen other members of the Brotherhood were hanging about, visibly angry and armed. He nodded to Dr. Brazell, and the man went to Daniel with a stand and an IV kit and got to work giving him saline, replacing lost fluids.
“All right,” I said. “This is getting ridiculous now.”
“We have to do something,” said one of the Brotherhood guys, younger, taller, more muscular, and apparently angrier than the others. “We can’t just keep putting up with this. This can’t be allowed. These Satanic attacks have to be answered.”
“Probably not literally Satanic in nature,” I said. “There’s a lot of evil out there, kid. Powers and principalities abound.”
“It has to be stopped,” he snarled, the anger focusing on me. He took a step toward me.
In the shadows under the loft, I saw Bear come silently to her feet.
“Carl,” Michael said gently. “Take a deep breath.”
“Look what those bastards did to your own son!” Carl snapped. He pointed an accusing finger at me. “For all you know, he was the one that did it!”
“Carl,” Father Forthill began.
Bear took a step forward. I flipped one of my palms toward her, a silent command to wait.
Carl snarled and slashed his hand at the air. “Well?” he demanded of me. “Witch. Was it you?”
Michael, still holding his exhausted son’s head, gave me a look that pleaded for my patience.
I eyed him, took a deep breath, and stood up slowly, spreading both of my hands at my sides, palms toward Carl. “Carl, I’m as upset by this as anyone.”
“You don’t look it.”
“No. Because I’m setting it aside so that I can think clearly about solutions.”
“There needs to be a solution,” Carl snarled.
“No kidding. Which is why I’m setting my anger aside. And why you should, too.”
“Convenient, the guy solving the problem wants us to not get upset about the problem, so he can keep doing it!”
“Yeah, I like going out in the freezing cold at night in a dangerous city for zero pay instead of staying home in my room and getting sleep. Come on, man. Think.”
Carl stared hard at me. Then he whipped about and stalked out of the chapel. About half of the members of the Brotherhood followed him out.
Bear turned to watch them go. The big Valkyrie’s expression was unreadable.
“This gonna be a problem?” I asked aloud after a moment.
Forthill stared after the departed men for a moment, frowning. “They’re afraid. Perhaps they’re right to be.”
“Sure,” I said. “And when people get scared, they often go kinda nuts. Do irrational things. Sometimes if there isn’t an obvious source of their fear, they pick something and pour it all out on that. Carl there looks like maybe he’s ready to pick anything close enough to pound on.”
