Decatur (30 page)

“That’s good, big padre. I told you it was a mess,” Gar said.

“Oh no, it’s not bad. I mean you need stitches but you’ll be fine. I’ll be praying for you,” Father Troy said, watching Gar as he walked over and peered into the Monsignor’s casket and then shook his head.

“Nothing left. A real shame. Say, anywhere we can go, you know in private, so you can give me the dough and the doctor’s note and well, maybe we can say goodbye like a couple of good friends?” Gar asked without turning around, looking down at the Monsignor’s body. He didn’t want Father Troy to see the hunger in his eyes. He saw a freight elevator then, mostly hidden behind heavy damask drapes. The morgue must be below. Perfect. There was another little doorway in the corner of the room; he bet that led downstairs too. Such a discreet place this was, with the real process of tending to the dead carefully hidden. It made him want to laugh, a bitter laugh maybe, but laugh all the same. “Looks like maybe we can tuck out of sight there, I think it leads to the basement,” he said pointing to the door.

Father Troy looked at the door; it seemed like a passageway to another world. He wanted to go with Gar but something was holding him back. What if a parishioner came early, he didn’t want the parlor to look abandoned.

“Or don’t you want me now?” Gar said in a sad husky whisper that made Father Troy rush over to the corner door and open it for them. There was a bare bulb and wide concrete painted steps that led into the basement morgue.

Father Weston speeding made it to Clarkson’s funeral home in minutes. He parked right in front, not even bothering with a space. Taking the kit he had made from his traveling case, he slipped it in his black jacket and sprinted into the funeral home.

Father Troy went first down the steps holding the railing, feeling ashamed and overwhelmed with guilt and desire. Gar couldn’t be saying goodbye, he thought, he would convince him to meet him somewhere in a few months time when things had settled down. St. Louis maybe, it was even in a different state and only a few hours away by bus.

Gar gently shut the door behind them and ran his left hand over Father Troy’s neck, feeling for some trace of his soul. When Father Troy shivered at his touch he felt it for an instant. Aha. He really wanted to feed.

Aloysius Lowell was content in his death and had mostly lingered in the funeral home so he could give a presence when his beloved parishioners said goodbye, so they could feel something when they trooped by the casket. Monsignor Lowell’s ghost recognized Gar when he leaned over his now useless body. Gar was so deeply unsettling to the Monsignor’s shade that when Gar and young sweet Father Troy went down the basement steps, the ghostly spirit blew the basement door back open like a wind had come up out of nowhere.

Father Weston saw the empty visitation parlor with its heavy damask drapes and Monsignor Lowell’s casket placed on the far end of the room in the center. Everything looked normal, except where was Mark Troy? Then he caught sight of the open doorway in the corner. He felt a rush of fear, crossed himself, and stealthily made his way over to the corner: wide gun metal painted concrete steps led down to the morgue.

Father Troy stepped on the painted concrete floor and looked around at the tables, sinks, and shelving full of make up, wigs, wax pots, pliers, tweezers of all sizes, brushes, tooth enamels, glass eyeballs in blues and browns, molds for fingers and plaster of Paris. There were big built-in refrigeration units and everything smelled of heavy duty air freshener to cover over the chemical smell of the embalming fluids. He took the bank envelope out of his slit pocket meaning to count out some bills, but suddenly that seemed all wrong and he just handed it all over along with the note for the doctor to Gar, who took it with his head bowed. The place was giving Father Troy a bad case of the nerves; he didn’t care anymore about saying goodbye. He felt like he was suffocating down here. “I think we should go back upstairs Gar. We shouldn’t be here.”

“Not now, big padre,” Gar said and lunged for him.

Father Weston pulled out the exorcism kit, the black silk scarf it was wrapped in falling away like a black cloud, while running down the stairs, calling out the prayer, holding the small silver crucifix and shaking holy water before him, “Most glorious Prince of the Heavenly Armies, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Come to the assistance of men whom God has created to His likeness and whom He has redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil-” the last words broke off as he was stunned by what he saw before him.

Gar felt the drops of water stinging his back and heard the words of the prayer rushing by his ears but he was too intent on scooping out Father Troy’s essence to pay it much mind. He bent the terrified priest back and his tongue licked out as the anticipatory saliva in his mouth caused him to make slight sucking sounds. He would take Father Troy living, he decided, as a warning; even as the light from the silver crucifix forced him to half-close one eye. No matter, he found it, the gossamer thread to Father Troy, it wasn’t all bent and ruined, he gathered it in his mouth, rolling his tongue, and pulled it forward into the dark cavern of his emptiness.

Father Weston felt the temperature in the morgue descend as he called out, “Oh God, deliver us.” Something horrible was happening to Father Troy, he was moaning and the light was going out of his eyes.

Monsignor Lowell’s shade followed Father Weston down the steps and floated in the room. The ghostly spirit shrank back as it saw Father Troy’s soul, all silver and shimmery with just a few long jagged tears in the translucent threads being sucked down into the vampire bent over the priest.

Father Troy wished he was dying. Gar’s face was inches from his own and it was terrifying, with his tongue rolling around, and then he felt it, a sharp pang, a pull, and then like a tablecloth with dishes still on it his essence was pulled out from under his body. He tried to snatch it back, wriggling away and moaning as every spiritual memory was sucked away, from the light on the tops of tall pines in Ely, Minnesota to the first time he held the chalice aloft in a mass at a black church in East St. Louis, it was inhaled into a darkness that he knew would never lessen.

Gar felt the light of Father Troy’s essence flash into his own emptiness. It made a lovely, lovely light and filled him with scenes of snow falling thickly on a long path. Father Troy’s path, never to be trod again. He then let the young priest’s limp body fall from his hands, enjoying the empty eyes and blank slack look. There would be more later: the delirium, the endless pacing and picking at themselves looking for what had been lost that most living victims did, their night terrors. It was all ahead of him. Very few had what it took to join the hunt. Still he was alive. Now it was Father Weston’s turn: him he would finish.

Father Weston’s guts had turned to water. What was wrong with Father Troy, he thought stupidly, already knowing the answer. He had just seen the soul hunter devour Mark Troy’s innermost being and leave his body like an empty husk.

Father Troy lay in a heap but Gar was now focused on Father Weston who was holding the silver crucifix up and backing away. Gar dodged, weaving in and out as Father Weston frantically shook holy water from the silver rattle, the drops landing on Gar’s skin like prickly rain. The ghost of Monsignor Lowell moved then in front of Father Weston like a cold long hand. The ghost wasn’t afraid, the soul had departed; this spirit plane was like a chilly afterburn, a fading impression of the life before.

Gar felt a resistance in the air, a long cold shaft pressing against him, stopping his forward lunge for Father Weston and he snarled, “You don’t belong here.” The force wouldn’t budge. Damn stubborn ghosts, he thought as the light from the silver crucifix stung his eyes. The old man priest, the meddler who had touched the source.

Father Weston realized he was witnessing his miracle here in the morgue of Clarkson’s funeral home. He could see the faint outline of his old mentor and friend in front of him, insubstantial but a cold implacable force. Monsignor Lowell’s ghost spirit was protecting him from Gar.

Gar realized in that moment it was time to cut his losses; he had the money and the doctor to see. Things were getting very complicated and he just wanted some stitches before he finally descended onto Marilyn. He sprinted to the freight elevator. Gar could see Father Weston’s shocked white face bending over Father Troy as he pulled on the woven leather strap which closed the metal doors shut like large jaws and he pressed the L for lobby.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Aftermath

What happened following the taking of Father’s Troy soul, which is how Father Weston always remembered that terrible day, was chaotic. Tom Clarkson, who had seen fist-fights, casket-robbing, hair pulling and drunken sobbing at visitations, had never before had to exert quite as much on the spot coordination and calm as a funeral director. He found some Quaaludes he kept for emergencies and forced, with Father Weston’s help, two down Father Troy’s throat as he was emitting painful moans and picking at himself once they half carried and half dragged him up the morgue stairs. They put him in the crying room, a small sitting area designed to help those overcome with emotion pull themselves together or to isolate a fussy child, and Clarkson kept watch. He didn’t know what had happened or why Father Troy had been down in the morgue but the younger priest looked ghastly. Father Weston started working the phones from the funeral director’s office, first calling for an ambulance and then managing to find Agent Tooley still at police quarters. The first of the mourners were just starting to arrive as the ambulance and police cars with sirens blaring came roaring into the funeral home parking lot.

As the ambulance drivers took Father Troy out on a stretcher and the detective directed a search of the grounds, Father Weston and Agent Tooley anxiously huddled in the director’s office out of sight of the shocked and curious first mourners. It was up to the sallow faced Tom Clarkson to man the visitation for Monsignor Lowell. Secretly he was gratified because
funeral directors are never welcome until they are needed
, which was of course the motto he kept in a framed embroidered square over his desk. He told the curious that Father Troy had been the victim of a robbery, which is what Father Weston told him, saying that a tramp had stolen the cash Father Troy was carrying. It seemed true because the poor young priest kept asking him before the ambulance came, “where is it?” and “it’s gone?” over and over. Still there was something deeply wrong with Father Troy and even Clarkson, who wasn’t given to any kind of nerves, felt unsettled and glad that the ambulance had taken him away.

Max and Marilyn went back down to the Combined Sciences Department and found Mrs. Travers feeding Rowley bits of hamburger. “I sent a grad student to the cafeteria,” she said as Rowley delicately took morsels of hamburger patty from her fingers. He was feeling better and while Mrs. Travers’ fingers didn’t smell nearly as good as Marilyn’s, the hamburger patty was going down pretty good.

Marilyn smiled wanly and thanked her as Max went into his office to use the phone. “I’ve got to reach someone who can help us,” he said by way of explanation to Mrs. Travers. He waved Marilyn in and closed the door. She glanced at the scrap of paper on his now empty desk, from where he swept it clean to lay Rowley down. It read Steward House and she knew he was calling Dr. Gretchen Wendell. It didn’t have the effect of making her feel better. It made her feel chilled to the bone because it meant there was no denying what was happening.

From the conversation she could tell he got put through a switchboard to her guest suite.

“Gretch, it’s me. The vampire is here and it’s bad. He attacked but she escaped. We’re gonna need your advice at the very least. No, don’t take a taxi, we’ll come to you. I want to keep everybody together now. I’m gonna try to scoop up Weston, too. Yeah, okay then, where should we meet? No, you’re right, let’s not leave a trail. Think of a neutral place. Some place that’s on the innocent side, you know. We can’t take any chances now. Okay. Sunflower sounds good. Until then.” He rang off but it was almost more than he could bear to look up from the beige desk phone into Marilyn’s face, a face that was both dear and now forever an ‘other’ to him. “Come on,” is what he said because he knew they had to keep moving.

He put a note on his door cancelling office hours. “Let the students that ask know I’ll make it up to them but I’ve got to take Marilyn and the dog somewhere safer,” he said to Mrs. Travers, confiding in the plump woman who hours before he had barely noticed.

“I’m truly sorry for your trouble. You can count on me,” Mrs. Travers said as Max lifted Rowley down from the desk. Max felt like they were being sent off a journey then, dark and uncertain, with very little in the way of normal to rely on. He bit his lip and nodded, reaching for Marilyn’s hand as the three of them walked out into the moody Decatur early afternoon.

After a little silence in the Impala, with Rowley resting on the black leather upholstery in the back seat, Marilyn said, “We better get to Father Weston, Max. Gar was on a rampage. We’re all in danger now.”

“He should still be at the rectory. I believe Father Troy has the morning at Monsignor Lowell’s visitation.”

Marilyn saw Father Troy’s face swim in her consciousness and felt a new rush of fear. “Hurry,” she whispered and Max put the car in reverse and they pulled out on to Eldorado heading for St. Patrick’s.

Sister Petra was bustling across the grade-school playground in full habit, with the stiff white rounded collar, veil, and rosary hanging from her belt. Some of the younger nuns tried showing hair, or daringly shortened their habit skirts to mid-calf, but she didn’t believe in that. Her habit was like her crown, it signaled to everyone that she was a bride of Christ and should be respected as such. After hearing about the robbery at the funeral home she had sensibly called a taxi to take her to Clarkson’s. Father W had his hands full and now she was needed. The green Impala that pulled into the rectory drive wasn’t familiar to her and she squinted behind her rimless glasses at it. A tall man got out wearing a sport coat and jeans. Then a woman swung her bare legs out of the passenger side. She was wearing a waitress uniform and a dog clambered out of the back a little gingerly like he might be hurt. Sister Petra pursed her lips; who were these people?

“Can I help you?” Sister Petra clapped her hands and shouted as she walked briskly towards the little group that turned startled to look at her.

Marilyn felt like her throat was closing when she saw the nun. She tried to catch her breath but it was ragged and she smoothed the wrinkles on her uniform self-consciously, hoping the blood wasn’t too visible. She had been taught by nuns as a child, she saw them all the time, this was nothing new, she told herself. But Isabella’s experiences at Our Lady of Consolation now seemed imprinted on not just her mind but her body so that the tall severe-looking nun clapping her hands at them seemed like a bad memory.

“We’re friends of Father Weston and we need to see him at once,” Max said to the nun in a firm way once she had gotten close enough that he didn’t have to shout. He saw how wide Marilyn’s black eyes were in her face and knew she must be flashing back on Isabella’s experiences.

Rowley sat down on the pavement as the woman in a long black gown and veil came over to them. He was saving his energy in case they ran into Gar, and this imposing older woman that smelled like soap and Elmer’s glue didn’t seem like a real threat.

“He’s not here,” Sister Petra said, pulling herself up to her full five foot eight height. Even at fifty-four she prided herself on her posture and she wasn’t sure she liked the look of this group. Still, there was something about the woman’s face, it was pretty but something else, familiar and heartbreaking in a way, and she looked badly shaken. The dog was sitting at her feet, watchful but behaved. The man looked intelligent, possibly of Jewish descent and there wasn’t a rough thing about him. She let her guard down a little bit, enough to really listen.

“I’m a parishioner, Marilyn Newcomb,” Marilyn managed in a shaky voice. “It’s important. And Father Troy too, do you know where he is?”

Sister Petra was falling back in time. Suddenly she wasn’t the principal of St. Patrick’s school anymore but a newly ordained nun teaching her first class of the fourth grade in the old school, now used for the middle grades but then every pupil went through the pink sandstone archway of St. Patrick’s school. It was a different time then, the light was different, and women wore hats to church and President Kennedy hadn’t been murdered, hadn’t even been elected. She was kneeling down in front of a little girl with long black hair and big dark eyes that seemed to suck every thing into them only now she was crying, fat baby tears rolled down little Marilyn’s cheeks. She had been picked on again on the playground and Sister Petra didn’t know what to do. It was her first semester teaching and everything that fall seemed so hard and this little girl, so smart and so different, was a troubling mystery and a problem that no matter of lesson plans could solve. The fifth grade teacher next door was an experienced lay woman but Sister Petra desperately wanted to do everything right without having to ask Mrs. Cantrell a thing. The kids were just being kids, she told herself, unsure of how to discipline the rowdy clique of third and fourth grade boys whose parents all happened to be on the school funding board.
“Offer it up,
” she told nine-year old Marilyn giving her little shoulders a shake. “
What are you doing to get these boys so worked up?
” she had asked her and the little girl looked at her like she had just stabbed her in the chest.

Then something happened she had never told anyone about. The copper holy water font that was mounted on the door just inches from where Sister Petra was kneeling looking at the fourth-grader began to bubble up, the water splashing out on both of them in an angry geyser. “I guess I’m just not good enough,” sobbed Marilyn as the water gushed out of the font and fell on them both. Sister Petra felt a terrible shame come over her then as she realized how inadequate she was as a teacher and a nun. She tried to pull the little girl towards her but Marilyn stood rigid and shaking as the water finally ran all the way out of the font and onto the floor in a big puddle like an accusation of failure. Sister Petra mopped it up and sent Marilyn home with a note saying the little girl felt feverish to her. Then she told Mrs. Cantrell after recess that Marilyn Newcomb was too smart for the fourth grade and needed a more experienced teacher and would she take her on. Mrs. Cantrell had looked at her with a curious expression then but agreed to let Marilyn into her class and Sister Petra managed to find ingenious ways over the next few months that Marilyn remained at St. Patrick’s never to have to deal with the little spooky girl again. Her mother took her out of St. Pat’s at the end of the year for reasons that were unclear and Sister Petra never looked into.

And here she was back at this sad and troubling time. Sister Petra made her decision. She wasn’t going to let Marilyn Newcomb down again. “I’m Sister Petra,” she said, wondering if Marilyn would remember her (probably) or say anything if she did, “Father Troy’s been attacked and robbed at Clarkson’s funeral home and I was going to meet Father Weston there as soon as the taxi comes.”

“Get in,” Max said motioning to the car, “We’ll go together.”

“What about the taxi?” asked Sister Petra.

“Things happen. He’ll get over it,” Max replied, feeling a nauseous pang in his stomach. Father Troy attacked and robbed, who else could it be but Gar?

“I know who you are,” Marilyn whispered to Sister Petra as the nun climbed in the back seat.

“I’m sorry, I was very young,” Sister Petra said gravely as Rowley looked at her over the front seat with Max pulling out of the drive. The woman in black in the back was giving off an embarrassed heat, he noticed.

“It was a long time ago,” Marilyn said, remembering the copper fount bubbling and how that just seemed another sign of the mysterious journey that she fully entered in the year she was nine. But now she was too worried about Father Troy to let old memories suck her down and away.

Gar found the doctor’s office on West Main easily; he must have ridden past it a number of times while biking around town doing errands for the parish. There was a sign that said “Be back soon” with a little paper clock with the red cardboard hands at 1:30 on the door. Gar stood on the cement porch of the brick one-story thinking and then he took off his shirt, wrapped it around his fist, punched the glass window on the door and, reaching in, turned the inside knob unlocking the door. The waiting room was dim with the blinds closed, a sickly looking plant, a couple of chairs, and a table with magazines. He walked past the nurse receptionist desk and went down the linoleum hallway, pushing a blond wood door open to an examination room, empty with a white paper-covered vinyl-padded reclining chair the color of blood waiting for the next patient, and an eye exam chart hung on the wall. In the back of the building was the doctor’s consultation room with a skeleton hanging from a rod, bookcases of medical books including a thick Merck’s manual, and some baskets of sample ointments and pills from pharmaceutical companies. Gar heard a toilet flush and smiled. The narrow bathroom door opened and Doctor Smythe came heavily into the room in his rumpled white coat with his mustache trailing down to the first of his double chins.