Death of an Immortal (23 page)

Still, it had piqued her interest in spiritual matters. She had stumbled upon her current beliefs by herself one day, riding in Dad’s car while picking up Jamie from her volunteer work at the shelter. She’d wandered in and stared at Christ hanging there in the main room, and the iconography had attracted her like nothing else ever had.

She’d started reading up, reading the parts of the Bible that made sense, talking to Father Harry, and it had only seemed natural when she was baptized in the Catholic Church. It had totally amazed everyone, but Sylvie had never regretted it, never looked back.

She was especially interested in the concept of redemption. Now that she was being put to the test, she found that she could forgive, but only if the sinner was repentant.

Richard didn’t even think he’d done anything wrong.

Terrill seemed crushed.

#

Grime noisily finished his soup. When he was done, he pushed the bowl away with a satisfied sigh. He looked Sylvie in the eye and said something.

“Pardon?” she asked.

He repeated it, and it sounded to her like he’d said “Are you The Girl?”

Was she The Girl? Well, she supposed she probably was. “I think so,” she ventured.

He nodded, as if it confirmed what he’d thought.

“What’s he like?” she asked. “What’s Terrill really like?”

Grime grinned, showing two front teeth and acres of vacant gums. When he started talking again, Sylvie found that she could understand him, her brain supplying the first letters he left off of the words.

“Good man. Very good man. He saved Perry, got stabbed instead. Right in the heart.”

“Why isn’t he dead?’

Grime shrugged. “He ain’t human.”

“What?” Until that moment, Sylvie hadn’t realized that she’d suspected that very thing, somewhere inside. “Not human?”

“Not a monster, not a human. Something in between. He’s
becoming…”

She didn’t question Grime further, realizing that he was only speculating himself. But from what she knew, it sounded right.

Terrill hadn’t fought back when attacked. He’d turned the other cheek. He had tried to help Sylvie. Was that enough? Could she truly forgive a man––or whatever he was––who had committed the ultimate sin?

He must be punished. She knew that. He must wholly give himself up. But she couldn’t hate him. He had to be given a chance to repent and, through his actions, redeem himself.

Grime was about to say something else, but he was interrupted by a bone-shaking scream from the alley.

#

While Sylvie and Grime conversed in the kitchen, Father Harry entered the main church. He knelt in front of the cross and prayed for guidance. He hadn’t believed, truly believed, since he’d been at the seminary. Somehow he’d managed to fool everyone.

Oh, he believed in the message of Christ, and he believed in some kind of higher power, which made him a good Unitarian but a lousy Catholic. The girl, Sylvie, was a better Catholic than he was.

But he couldn’t disappoint his family or his flock. He could do more good as a priest than he could do outside the church. Or so he told himself.

Day and night, he prayed for forgiveness. Prayed that he might do the right thing. Prayed that no one would see through his hypocrisy.

Terrill had come to him asking for forgiveness. He hadn’t said for what, but Father Harry believed it was for something dreadful, most likely the murder he was accused of. But technically, he hadn’t confessed. Nor, unless Father Harry was completely mistaken, was the man Catholic. If he was guilty of as horrendous a crime as killing Jamie Lee Howe, than he needed to be taken off the street.

Here the divide between the unbeliever and the believer was widest. The priest should have been able to forgive Terrill, but he was angry that Jamie had been taken from this world. Jamie Howe had had one of the purest hearts he’d ever encountered. He’d heard rumors about her that should have horrified him, but it hadn’t changed his opinion of her.

He went to his office and looked through his papers until he found the address he needed.

It was the man, not the priest, who picked up the cellphone and dialed Richard Carlan’s number. He left a message. “Officer Carlan? I’ve thought about what you said. The man you’re looking for is at this address: 2965 Williamson Avenue. He’s in the basement apart––”

He, too, was interrupted by the scream in the alley.

As Father Harry ran down the hallway, he saw Grime and Sylvie jumping up from the table in the kitchen. The sleeping room, which had settled back down, was in an uproar again. He didn’t stop. He threw open the back door and froze on the threshold.

Somehow, he had the presence of mind to hold Grime and Sylvie back when they reached him.

It was as if he understood at a glance what was happening––which should have been impossible, because he simply didn’t believe in the supernatural. Yet what other explanation could there be?

After being rousted out of bed by Officer Carlan, a half a dozen of his regulars had taken to the alley to smoke.

One of the men was flying through the air, as if he’d just jumped off the roof of the church. As Father Harry watched, another man was picked up and tossed an impossible distance into the air.

In the center of the alley was the mad juggler of these humans, a huge grin on his face. No… that was not a grin––it was an extension of his mouth, and those weren’t teeth, they were fangs. The creature was dressed in a spiffy gray suit and shiny black shoes, like a midtown Manhattan tycoon.

One of the victims had already landed and lay broken and unmoving. It was his cry that had brought them all running. As Father Harry watched, the second man landed on his head and crumpled into an unnatural tangle of limbs. The third man was falling, a look of sheer terror on his face, which was fixated on the monster who had thrown him. He landed flat and writhed in pain, groaning. He was unconscious, but alive.

Grime tried to force his way past, to help his friends, but with a strength he didn’t know he possessed, Father Harry held him back. Behind him, the other homeless residents were coming to see what the commotion was all about. There were three other vagrants in the alley, but the monster was between them and the door.

One of them made a break for the end of the alley, but another shape moved out of the shadows. One moment that part of the alley was empty, and then suddenly someone––something––was standing there. A woman, Father Harry thought, but with the same malformation of her face. Against the backdrop, he saw her hands, which were twice as big as normal, with long fingers tapering to claws.

The man cried out and ran back and huddled with the other two.

“Tell me what I want to know and these men will live,” the first creature said. As the priest watched, the thing’s face flattened, the muzzle became a mouth again and the huge claws became hands. Now that it looked human again, Father Harry could see that there really was a smile on the monster’s face after all, but it was a humorless smile.

The creature reminded Father Harry of the man called Christian, though he couldn’t exactly say why. “What are you?” he asked.

“I am vampire. Your church and I are old acquaintances, though you priests seemed to have forgotten us. When you report this––if you live––they’ll take your report and file it somewhere deep in the Vatican. Where it belongs.”

Father Harry had a strange reaction to the vampire’s words. He pulled his crucifix from under his vest and touched it with a devotion he hadn’t felt in years. Never again would he shamefully hide it under his clothing. It was a small, sophisticated little cross, more Protestant than Catholic in its features. Father Harry would be pulling out the church catalog tomorrow and ordering the biggest crucifix he could find.

If he survived this.

Chapter 38

“What do you want?” Father Harry asked, feeling strangely calm.

“I’m looking for a vampire named Terrill,” the creature said. “Tell me where he is and I’ll let these men go.”

“He isn’t here,” the priest said.

The vampire laughed. “Of course he isn’t here! He’s vampire! But some of the men here know where he is and have given him shelter. Tell me where he’s hiding, and you can forget I ever existed.”

“A man named Terrill was here,” Father Harry said. “He entered this sanctuary. I fed him and he went on his way.”

“Come, now––such a stupid lie. He could no more cross the threshold of a church than I can.”

Father Harry didn’t know what to say. Should he play along or tell the truth? If he lied and said Terrill was inside, the vampire would be stymied. But then he might take his anger out on the three hostages.

When in doubt, tell the truth.
“He was here, I assure you. But he is gone now.”

He could tell that the vampire believed him, and that it enraged him. He transformed in an instant to the monster he really was, his fangs glistening in the moonlight, his claws extended in anger. The vampire grabbed one of the three men and tore into his neck, and the man’s head half-detached, flopping onto his back. Blood sprayed upward in a fountain and the monster dropped him. Then he grabbed the second man.

The surviving vagrant started screaming at that point. The men in the hallway began shouting for the door to be closed. Father Harry heard one of the men puking behind him.

Father Harry should have been terrified, but the opposite was happening. He felt a surge of religious devotion such as he hadn’t felt since he was a child, and a firm resolve to confront any danger in defense of his flock.

He had always doubted, but it didn’t matter. Evil existed; the proof of it was manifest right in front of him. And if evil existed, then so did good. So did God.

The priest felt the church around him, which had been his home for a decade, become a fortress of belief. It was hallowed ground, and he was an ordained priest, and he knew the sacred words. He started chanting:

“Behold the Cross of the Lord; flee, bands of enemies. We drive you from us, whoever you may be: unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies, and sects; in the name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ, may you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls made in the image and likeness of…”

The vampire cringed, threw the vagrant he’d been about the bite away from him, and lunged toward Father Harry. But, only inches away, he stopped.

It will be all right,
Father Harry thought. The church would protect him, and so would the crucifix, and the Bible, which he had, until this moment, only half believed. They would help him defeat this evil.

But he hadn’t counted on Sylvie slipping under his arm and stepping out in the alley.

“Jamie?” the girl said in disbelieving whisper. And then, her voice stronger, “Is that you, Jamie?”

The fool girl was walking toward the other vampire, the one in the shadows.

Father Harry reached for her, and he felt himself losing his balance and stumbling onto the concrete of the alley.

The vampire was on him before he could move another inch. Claws snagged his vestments and pulled him further into the alley, carefully avoiding the priest’s small crucifix. Father Harry felt hot breath on his neck and smelled the stink of rotted meat. “Pray all you want, priest,” the monster hissed. “You’re mine.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Father Harry saw Grime run into the alley and drag the wounded man into the church. The two surviving vagrants had beaten him to the doorway, and there were cries of relief from inside the hallway.

“Begone, demon!” Father Harry shouted, grabbing his cross and pressing it against the vampire’s wrists. There was a sizzling sound. But the vampire caught the chain with one of his claws and snapped it, flinging the crucifix away. It landed on the muddy concrete with a tinny sound.

The vampire laughed. “What are you now, without your church and your cross? I sense a weakness in you… you, a priest who only half believes.”

The vampire turned Father Harry around and brought his face to within inches of the distended, drooling fangs. “I’ll ask you one last time. Where is Terrill?”

Father Harry had been ready to turn Terrill in to the authorities, but he wasn’t going to tell this monster where he was, no matter what. No matter that it would be his death. He was ready now, secure in his belief in God. Here, in the last moments of his life, he had finally become the priest he had always wanted to be.

As if the vampire could sense the stiffening of his resolve, he turned toward Sylvie, who was standing near the female vampire. “Hold onto her, my baby vampire. I’ll need her for leverage.”

“No,” Jamie said, for Father Harry could see that was who it was, as impossible as it seemed. “You won’t touch Sylvie. Not unless you kill me first.”

“Then I’ll kill the priest instead. Do you understand, girl? Tell me where Terrill is and I’ll let your priest go. You have no reason not to tell me––Terrill changed Jamie, made her a vampire. She’ll never be your sister again.”

Sylvie had a serious look on her face. She wasn’t frightened, Harry realized. She had a faith even deeper than his. She looked at Father Harry and said, “Forgive me.”

“No need, Sylvie,” the priest said. He felt the tightening of the vampire’s claws, the drip of fluid down his neck. He closed his eyes and prayed.

As he gave himself to God, Father Harry sensed movement from the direction of the church. Liquid splashed over him, and he tasted it.
Water,
he thought.
What…?

It was slightly stale-tasting, and with that realization, he knew what it was. He’d tasted it once before, out of curiosity, wondering if holy water would taste any different than normal water.

Grime was standing there with a defiant look on his face, a cup in his hand. Harry noticed that some of the dirt had washed away from the back of the man’s hand, and that the skin there looked almost pink. He almost laughed; then he felt himself being lifted into the air and tossed.