Michael waited. He let half an hour pass in calm and patience.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I whispered finally.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” he answered easily. “But between the two of us, perhaps we can figure it out.”
Rapid footsteps thudded in the house’s entry hall, and the front door and storm door opened in rapid succession. Daniel strode out onto the porch and directly toward us, his footsteps swift and purposeful.
“We just got a call from Father Forthill,” he said, his expression strained. “There’s a problem. He’s asking for you, Harry.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
I heard the screams coming from inside St. Mary of the Angels by the time we were ten feet from the door.
St. Mary’s was less a building than an edifice. Taking up a whole city block, the church was famous for its architecture and artistry. To me, it had always looked like someone from a different age had popped into the middle of the city and decided to show everyone how it was done back in the day. The building exuded a sense of solidity, permanence, and order—things I’d never found myself taking comfort in when I’d visited before.
But there was something inside me that ached for them now.
The screams kind of put me off, though. They were high-pitched, desperate, animalistic. I couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a man making them. I recognized agony. Recognized it in my soul. And for a second, I was overcome by a sense of pure panic, by dread, by a desire to go find a dark, quiet room and shut myself inside. I had plenty of pain already, thank you, and the wounded part of me wanted nothing to do with more.
But I closed my eyes and took a slow breath, as I’d been practicing daily. Then I did it again, forcing myself to slow my breathing, my heart rate, separating myself from the terror I felt deep in my bones. I visualized myself from a bird’s-eye view, noting the panic I was feeling without letting it overwhelm me, and embraced reason as best I could.
Someone was hurting.
Father Forthill thought I could help.
This wasn’t about me. This was about the poor soul in agony.
I nodded as my thoughts stabilized and opened my eyes again. Michael and I exchanged a look, his concerned, mine a lopsided smile of reassurance. He’d put on an insulated flannel shirt and a leather vest against the cold. He leaned on his cane and frowned at me for a moment, and then at the church.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “What the hell?”
The door opened before we could step up to it, and Father Forthill appeared there, looking ragged and tired. The old priest managed a faint smile and gave us a quick nod. “Michael. Harry. Thank you for coming. This way, please.”
I went in, and as I did, I could sense the quiet power of decades of faith that permeated the building—and it had been roused and was stirring. That was unusual. It took the presence of real evil to bring the power of holy ground out of the earth and stones, and that meant that whatever was happening inside, it was capital-B Bad.
Michael tilted his head at the same time I was sorting through the energies around me, and his grey eyes brightened and went hard. His jaw flexed a couple of times, and his grip on the cane shifted, as though he had begun to seize the shaft of it like the handle of a sword.
Forthill led us to the entrance to the chapel, and as he did the screams weakened and trailed off.
“It’s Robert,” he said quietly. “He’s a member of the Brotherhood of St. Brigid. One of the Brotherhood is a doctor, but he has no idea what’s causing the problem. We had him in my quarters, but he was getting worse, and Doctor Brazell feared cardiac arrest. We took him into the chapel on the way to carrying him toward a car to take him to the hospital, and the moment we carried him in, he was given grace and relief for a few moments at a time. It seems to be going in cycles, but we judged it too great a risk to move him and put him in continual agony again. Hospitals are already overloaded, and I feel certain this is not a medical problem.”
Forthill opened the door, and we followed him into the chapel. There were a dozen men wearing St. Brigid’s cross standing in the nave,while a middle-aged man knelt over a panting, grunting, sweating younger man who lay on a narrow cot’s mattress in the sanctuary—presumably Dr. Brazell and Robert, respectively.
The moment I looked at the victim, I felt the nauseating, greasy feel of black magic swirling around the poor bastard, and I was pretty sure I knew what was happening to him.
Because I’d seen it before.
I walked over to the victim and spared a nod for the elaborate altar and painted cupola above it, because I didn’t want to show any disrespect and because I didn’t think a full genuflection would be appropriate for someone not of the faith. The last time I’d dealt with this curse it had been difficult enough. I didn’t need to make myself work uphill to handle it again.
“Doctor Brazell?” I said quietly.
He was a pretty average guy. Grizzled hair, silvering beard, thirty or forty pounds overweight, with thick forearms and capable-looking hands in a polo shirt and slacks. His eyes looked haunted, but he offered his hand.
I shook it. “Harry Dresden,” I said. “Wizard. What can you tell me?”
“It started at sundown,” Brazell said. He was holding on to Robert’s hand. The stricken man was breathing as if he’d just run a marathon at high elevation, covered in sweat, and his eyes were sunken and closed. I wasn’t sure he knew what was going on. “He was on a ghoul patrol in the ruins,” Brazell continued, his voice bitter, “and he just pitched over and started screaming. He’s barely said an intelligible word, even in his pain-free moments. I tried a dose of tramadol, but it did absolutely nothing for him.”
