The Catholic church in Hooperton was prettier than I expected, but then, Catholic churches usually were. This one had been built in the 1800s, according to its stone sign. It soared over a well-manicured space with trees and flowerbeds and lots of shade and benches, next to a former high school that was now, apparently, a grade school for local Catholic children.
We sat in the back of the church, near the confessional boxes and an alcove that boasted a statue of Jesus with dozens of small votive candles in metal stands sitting before it. About a third of the candles were lit, which I thought was kind of impressive for a Thursday morning.
Max and Mrs. Bell had gotten me cleaned up reasonably well. Joe had ended up having an impressive first aid kit in his kitchen, the reasons for which I didn’t want to think about too closely. He’d lasted seven years with the shedim plaguing him. Typically, those demons hung around gravesites, drawn to the newly dead. That wasn’t exactly the case here, but there were parallels. Joe and Carol Ann were supposed to have gotten married, and Joe had interred himself in this gravesite oftheir relationship, the lake cottage, out of grief and guilt. Two powerful pulls for dark forces.
Max approached down the long central aisle. It was quiet. I liked quiet. Churches always made me sleepy, and right now, I felt like I could lie down and sleep forever, rather than face another trial.
“You gonna make it?” he asked as he paused beside my pew. Not waiting for me to respond he glanced over to the Jesus statue. “Father Neismeth agreed to come here, to speak with us, even though I haven’t darkened the door of this place for Mass since forever ago, to hear him talk.”
“Is he the same priest you spoke to before? Who wouldn’t help?”
“No, it’s an older guy.” Max sat in the pew in front of me, angling to look back. “He’s apparently the younger priest’s boss or whatever, or he was, but now he’s retired, living in the priest-house thing. He was the first priest I found when I went looking. I explained to him what you did, and he got really nervous. Said he didn’t have the expertise.”
I smiled crookedly. Beneath my bandages, my wounds weren’t getting any better, though I wasn’t going to share that with Max. In fact, they were actively worsening, letting the emptiness leak out of me for all the world to see. Best I could tell, blood trickled out from about six puncture points on my body. It wasn’t a great feeling. “That’s a slightly different story than you got before.”
“Yeah, well. Before this morning, I’d never seen a flock of wooden ducks come to life as vicious projectiles and start puncturing me and my friends. It changes your ability to sell your story. But he said he’s not really a priest anymore.”
“I don’t think you stop being a priest, actually, unless you quit. Which if he’s living here?—”
“Well, he won’t come out to the house, I guess, is the bottom line.”
“Oh! Max.” I turned as Mrs. Bell called out, alerting us to her presence before she hurried up the side aisle. She was almost breathless when she reached us. “That was Frank. He finally got my text.” She scowled down at me. “Honey, you don’t look so good.”
I smiled a little. I didn’t feel so good either.
“I’m just—drained.”
That was an understatement. In my thoughts, in the dark back corners of my mind, I kept reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore—that voice, that presence, that terrible certainty. How many times in the past hour had I started to ask my inner voice—mydemon—a question before remembering the silence? How many times had I turned inward, expecting knowledge, and found only my own shallow understanding?
How much of what I’d thought was me remained, without Palemerious inside me anymore?
“Mmm. Well, Frank said he’d go check on Joe at the funeral home like you asked, bless him. Said he’d let us know if anything seemed…strange there. Stranger.”
“Good.” I hadn’t done enough for Joe. I hadn’t tried hard enough, when he’d still been alive. I’d been afraid.
I probably would always be afraid, no matter how many times I did this.
Blood trickled down my arm beneath my shirt. Grimacing, I pressed my palm against the worst of it—the puncture in my shoulder. When I pulled my hand away, my fingers came back red. Not good. I gripped the edge of the pew to steady myself as dizziness washed over me. The emptiness inside me made the physical weakness worse, like I was bleeding out from two different wounds at once.
“Hello, hello.” A short, slender man, far younger than I would have expected for a Catholic priest, especially a retired one, called from the altar as he emerged from the Sacristy of the church. He wore a clerical collar, black shirt and pants, and he moved with brisk assurance as he trotted down the steps. He had a fringe of white hair and an open, kind face. I didn’t know how this would go.
Something else the rabbi had taught me: Demonsbelievedin the soldiers of God. Even if those soldiers didn’t believe in them.
“Thank you, Father David, for coming in here to meet us,” Max said.
“God’s house is open to everyone.” His eyes rested upon me. I could feel their scrutiny. “You are no longer afflicted,” he murmured.
“I’m not.” I looked up at him, taking him in a little more carefully than my first glance. He was older than I thought, his gray hair now more pronounced in the shadows. But he was fit and healthy, smelling of green grass and scudding clouds, and bitterness born with humility.
Bitterness?
“Why did you retire?” I blurted. “Doesn’t the church need priests?”
If I offended him, he didn’t show it. “Alzheimer’s disease, early onset. Nasty business. I tend to forget myself and then forget what I’ve forgotten.” He smiled at my widened eyes. “Today’s a good day, though. I do what I can on good days. Who hurt you, child?”
I didn’t have time for that. I already felt the itch to leave, or to pass out. Or, ideally, to leave and then pass out.
“I need to borrow blessed objects from you, but theyhaveto be blessed. Crucifixes and rosaries would be nice, but water, a bible, anything will work. Whatever is sanctified.”
