Possess (22 page)

A soft beep came from Matt’s pocket, and he dug down for his cell phone. “I’ve got practice in thirty. What time should I pick you up?”

Bridget wasn’t sure what kind of cloak-and-dagger insanity she’d need to pull to get out of the house, but she’d think of something. “Eleven. Park down the street, though. I’ll have to sneak out.”

“Okay.” He bent down and kissed her swiftly. “I’ll see you then.”

Thirty-Two

M
ATT CROUCHED IN THE SHADOWS
, fiddling with the lock to the back door of St. Michael’s Rectory. The air glowed a dull blue-gray as the beam from Bridget’s flashlight dissipated into the thick, low-lying fog. She shivered and tucked her free hand into the pocket of her jacket.

“I thought you’d be better at this.”

“Why?”

Bridget shrugged. “’Cause your dad’s a cop.”

“Right,” Matt said, shifting his body so he wasn’t blocking the light. “Why wouldn’t he teach me Breaking and Entering 101?”

Bridget stifled a yawn. “Might be helpful now.”

“Patience, grasshopper.” Matt inserted a second metal prong into the lock. “I know a few tricks.”

Bridget heard a soft click, and Matt raised his eyebrows in an unspoken “I told you so” before twisting the handle. The door swung open.

“Slick, MacGyver,” Bridget whispered, patting him on the head. “Remind me to give you a cookie.”

Matt’s face was serious. “You know where to go?”

Bridget nodded. He was right: enough with the crap, time to get what they came for.

They stepped into the rectory, and Matt pulled the door shut behind them, throwing the room into darkness. Bridget panned her flashlight: cupboards, butcher block table, stove. They were in the kitchen.

There was an open door on the far side of the room, and Bridget motioned for Matt to follow her. From the carpeted hallway, Bridget knew exactly where they were. Father Santos’s office was on the second floor, third door from the end of the hall, just above the kitchen.

They crept up the staircase. Bridget tested her weight on each step before fully committing. The priests, including Father Santos and Monsignor Renault, would be asleep on the top floor and hopefully wouldn’t hear the odd squeak or creak from the old rectory, but how the hell would she explain herself if the lights suddenly came on?

Her hand trembled so violently the flashlight beam shook. She wasn’t so much concerned about herself as she was about Matt. What if this little stunt got him suspended? Ruined his pitching career? Made him hate her forever?

Bridget paused at the door of Father Santos’s office. Hopefully, Matt wouldn’t have to repeat his perp skills in busting a lock. She held her breath and turned the doorknob.

The door opened easily, noiselessly. Bridget and Matt dashed inside and eased the door closed.

“I’m not exactly sure what we’re looking for,” Bridget whispered. “But Father Santos probably has his books arranged—”

Bridget froze as the beams of their flashlights illuminated the office. It looked like an earthquake had hit. Books were pulled down from every shelf, strewn about the small room haphazardly. The chairs were overturned and Father Santos’s desk had been toppled over, the contents of his drawers spilled onto the floor.

“Oh my God,” Bridget said.

“Someone got here before us,” Matt said. “Someone else had the same idea.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, it’s not. What did Undermeyer tell you? The Emim are trying to raise some demon king, right?”

“Amaymon, thanks for listening.”

Matt shone his light right in her face. “Hey, you threw a lot of info at me that day.”

“You mean yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah.” Matt swung his beam back into the upturned office. “Still, my point is, maybe the Emim or the priest working with them are looking for the same thing we are?”

“Maybe.”

Bridget scanned the chaos of Father Santos’s office. Every bookcase had been emptied onto the floor, creating a minefield of splayed books. Even if she knew what to look for, it would be impossible to find anything. Her beam moved past the cupboard behind the overturned desk, then zipped back to it. The door of the cupboard was open.

Bridget picked her way through the mess. “If you had something important, wouldn’t you keep it locked up?”

“Probably. Hey, maybe we should just talk to Father Santos.”

She gave him a look of disbelief. “Don’t trust the priest, remember?”

“Yeah, but someone obviously broke in here. Wouldn’t that mean Father Santos is on our side?”

She examined the cupboard. One of the doors stood wide open, the other was still locked. Neither showed signs of having been forced.

“Not necessarily,” she said. “Look, this cupboard was opened with a key.”

Matt stumbled through the carnage and peered down at the door. “Okay, fine. Someone used a key. But if they knew what they were looking for, why destroy the room?”

That situation had already crossed Bridget’s mind. “To make it look like someone broke in. Father Santos could easily have done this himself to make it seem like he’d been robbed.”

“But why?”

“To gain my trust, maybe?” It sort of made sense.

“I guess.” Matt was clearly unconvinced. “What’s in here, anyway?”

Bridget illuminated the contents of the cupboard. The wooden box was still there, unopened and unmolested; whoever had broken in clearly hadn’t been interested in the Skellig Manuscript. The only other object was a set of books on the middle shelf, six leather-encased volumes, one of which appeared to be missing.

She clamped the end of the flashlight in her teeth and pulled the set of books out of the cupboard. The volumes weren’t huge, maybe two hundred pages each, but the set weighed a ton.

“A widdle hewp,” Bridget said through the flashlight.

Matt grabbed the books and eased them down on the side of the toppled desk. “See, I knew you’d need my help.”

Bridget pulled the flashlight out of her mouth. “Oh, Matt, you’re so big and strong. My hero.”

“Your hero, huh?” Matt hooked a finger through a belt loop on her jeans and pulled her to him. “I’m going to remind you of that one day.”

Bridget’s heart fluttered as their bodies pressed lightly together. She had to fight the urge to reach her lips up to his. With a shake of her head, she turned back to the box on the table.

There was a label on the side of it.
“Les Grimoires des Rois L’Enfer,”
Bridget read awkwardly. “Oh, please tell me you speak French.”

“Sorry,” Matt said. “Spanish.”

“Perfect. And I took Latin.”

“Dead languages are so helpful. Any idea what it means?”

A voice answered them from across the room.
“The Grimoires of the Kings of Hell.”

Thirty-Three

B
RIDGET DROPPED HER FLASHLIGHT
. At first she thought it was a demon answering her from the darkness of the room, but then she saw the figure—the human figure—silhouetted in the doorway. It reached a chubby hand to the wall and flicked on the lights.

Father Santos’s jaw dropped. “What in the name of G-God did you do to my office?”

Bridget looked sidelong at Matt. “It was like this when we got here, Father Santos. I swear.”

“Are you s-sure?” Father Santos stepped into his office and closed the door behind him. He scratched his neck nervously as his eyes danced around the room.

Bridget snorted. “Pretty sure.”

“Hmm.” Father Santos bent down and began picking up books off the floor, examining their pages and spines, and stacking them on a nearby shelf.

Matt turned to Bridget and inclined his head toward Father Santos. “What the hell?” he mouthed.

“Um, Father Santos?” Bridget asked.

Father Santos didn’t even look at her. “Yes, Bridget?”

“Any idea who would want to break into your office?”

“Besides you two?”

“Look, Matt only came because I asked him to. I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

“Actually, Father,” Matt said. “It was my idea. Bridget was just trying to help.”

“What are you doing?” Bridget whispered.

“Keeping you out of trouble,” Matt said between clenched teeth.

Bridget set her jaw. “I don’t need your help.”

“Really? It doesn’t seem that way.”

“Um,” Father Santos said. He was staring at them now, as if he were watching a pair of chimpanzees at the zoo. “Can you two save the b-bickering for later? We have more important matters at hand.”

Bridget clammed up. She was keenly aware of how calm and patient Father Santos had been. No anger, no indignation. He wasn’t calling the police or waking up the rest of the rectory. He just stood there, book in each hand, blocking the door, serenely shifting his gaze between Bridget and Matt.

They were so screwed.

“First off, I’d like you to tell me what you’re doing in my office in the middle of the night.”

Yeah, that would be first. Was there any plausible answer other than that they had broken in to steal something?

“Right,” Father Santos said, interpreting their silence. “So you came here to find something. Do you even know what you were looking for?”

Bridget shook her head. At least that was the truth.

“And you found my office in this state, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea what they were looking for?”

Bridget glanced down at the volume of grimoires balanced on the side of the desk. “There’s a volume missing.”

“From
Les Grimoires des Rois L’Enfer
?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Hey,” Matt said. He took a step forward so he was slightly in front of Bridget. “What are you going to do with us?”

Father Santos pulled his head back. “Do with you?”

“Yeah.”

It took Father Santos a few seconds to realize what Matt was implying, then a look of utter surprise spread across his face. “You think I’m . . . I mean, that this . . .” His lips continued to form words but no sound came out. Father Santos shook his head in frustration, then stomped his foot on the floor. “Bridget,” he said, his lips tight and drawn. “I think it’s time you trusted me.”

That’s when Bridget lost it.

“Why should I trust you? I hardly know you, and since you showed up my whole life has turned inside out.”

“Your life wasn’t exactly p-perfect before I arrived.”

Bridget scowled. “See, that doesn’t help.”

“Sorry. But still, you need to trust me.”

“Trust
you
? Give me one good reason.”

Father Santos sighed, long and low. “Because your father did.”

Bridget’s voice caught in her throat. “How did you know my dad?”

“Take one of the volumes out of that set,” Father Santos said, pointing at the grimoires.

“What?”

“Please.”

“Fine.” Bridget pulled out the first volume. It was thin but solid, with thick, gilt-edged pages.

“Open the cover and read the inscription.”

Bridget scowled but did what he asked. “‘Property of Father Juan Santos, Order of Saint Michael.’”

“What does that have to do with Dr. Liu?” Matt asked.

Bridget gasped. “Oh my God. J of the OSM. Juan Santos of the Order of St. Michael. It was you!”

Father Santos inclined his head. “Yes.”

“You knew my dad was a Watcher.”

“Yes.”

Matt grabbed her arm. “Bridget, what are you talking about?”

She turned to him and laughed, a wave of relief passing through her. “It was in my dad’s notes, the ones I found in his study. He was waiting for instructions from someone—J of the OSM—when he was killed.”

“The Order of St. Michael,” Father Santos said.

Matt wasn’t buying it yet. “Who?”

“The Order of St. Michael.” Father Santos spoke quickly, with a fanatic’s gleam in his eye. “An ancient order founded in the eighth century, after Michael the Archangel appeared to St. Aubert at Mont Saint-Michel. An order of warrior priests—”

“Warrior priests?” Matt said with a raised eyebrow.

Father Santos jutted out his chin. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

Matt cast a glance at Father Santos’s pudgy form. “Whatever you say.”

“The Order of St. Michael is an order of the Vatican,” Father Santos continued. He was obviously proud of his affiliation. “Entrusted with the task of protecting what is left of the Watchers.”

“Including my dad.”

Father Santos nodded. “Yes. Your father and a handful of other Watchers we’ve been able to make contact with over the centuries.”

“There are more of us?”

“Oh, yes, but as I told you before, no one I’ve met whose abilities are as developed as yours.”

“So you knew all this time what Bridget was?” Matt asked. He sounded less than impressed.

“I explained it to her.”

“But left out the part about her dad.”

Father Santos shrugged. “I was trying to protect her, just as you are now.”

“Hey, guys, I’m in the room, remember?” Bridget was so tired of people trying to shelter her she was ready to scream. “And I don’t need either of you standing over my shoulder, okay?”

Father Santos nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Good. Now just tell me what’s going on.”

“All right.” Father Santos clapped his hands together. “Let’s start with the missing grimoire and work backward from there, shall we?”

With careful steps, making sure he didn’t so much as nudge one of the books strewn across the floor, Father Santos made his way to the set of grimoires. He didn’t touch them, merely bent at the waist and peered down.

“Bael, Paymon, Beleth, Gaap . . .” His voice trailed off, but his lips continued to articulate unspoken words as he ticked through the volumes. Then, with a start, he straightened up. “Oh my.”

“What?” Bridget asked.

Father Santos paced in a tight circle. “My, my, my.”

“What?” Bridget and Matt said together.

Father Santos turned to Bridget, his face draining of color. “Amaymon.”

“Amaymon? That’s the missing volume?”

Father Santos nodded. “The demon master from Mrs. Long’s exorcism.”

Matt leaned in to look at the grimoires. “Is that the demon king Undermeyer told you about?”

Father Santos’s eyes practically popped out of his head. “What? What?”

“Oh, right.” Bridget bit her lip. “You didn’t know about that.”

“You spoke with Milton Undermeyer?”

“Um, yeah. Yesterday.”

“And?”

Bridget’s eyes flicked toward Matt with an unspoken question: Can we trust him? Matt’s brows drew together. He was clearly thrown by the odd, fumbly little figure of Father Santos. It took a moment before Matt slowly nodded.

Father Santos scratched absently at his neck. Her dad trusted this guy. Bizarre as it seemed. He was on their side. Time to take the plunge.

“Don’t trust the priest. Those nonsense lines you gave me from the doll shop? It was an anagram for ‘Don’t trust the priest.’ And Mrs. Long, she basically said it too, told me not to trust either of you.”

Father Santos plopped down on the edge of the desk. “I see.”

“And after what happened, I figured it meant you.”

“W-what happened?”

“Yeah. You know. First you freaked out about my charm bracelet, then you didn’t finish securing the door of the doll shop with salt. It seemed like you were trying to work against us.”

Father Santos smiled wanly. “I was trying to protect you. I thought the doll shop might be a trap, and I was trying to leave a means of escape.”

“Oh.” Bridget hadn’t thought of that. “And the bracelet?”

“A St. Benedict’s medal
without
the image of St. Benedict? You don’t understand how rare that is. It serves a very . . . specific purpose.”

“An exorcist’s amulet,” Bridget said, clasping the charm between her fingers.

“Er, yes. Sort of.” Father Santos hurried on. “What else have you kept from me??”

“I went to see Mr. Undermeyer, and he gave me the same message he gave my dad. That the Emim were using a priest—a priest wielding a sword—to try and raise Amaymon, to give him a human form so he could stay in our world and, well, I don’t know. Do whatever it is demons do.”

“Cause rampant destruction and suffering,” Father Santos muttered.

“I guess.”

“Shit,” Matt said.

“Indeed.” Father Santos started to stand up, then sat back down again. Then, after a pause, he leaped to his feet. “Indeed. It all makes sense!”

“It does?”

“Absolutely. It’s funny, really.”

Bridget didn’t see the humor in any of this. “You’re kidding, right?”

Father Santos cleared his throat. “Oh, yes, I see what you mean. Catholic doctrine is just b-blown to bits, isn’t it? It completely destroys the belief that fallen angels can think only of evil if they are attempting to warn us about . . . about one of their own.”

“Um, that’s not what I meant at all.”

Father Santos angled his head, surprised that Bridget wasn’t thinking about Catholic doctrine.

Matt slapped his forehead. “Tell us how it all makes sense.” Even his infinite patience was failing the Father Santos endurance test.

“Oh, yes, of . . . of course,” Father Santos twittered. He rolled back on the desk and lifted a volume from the set of grimoires. “The rise in infestations and possessions. Undermeyer breaking into the church. Your father’s murder. It all makes sense now.”

“Dude,” Matt said. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Of course it does.” Father Santos flipped through the volume. “You just haven’t been paying attention.”

The confused look on Matt’s face begged Bridget for some sort of explanation, but all she could do was shrug. She was as lost as he was.

Father Santos popped up off the desk. “Ah ha! Here it is. Listen.
‘Le sorcier peut gagner la dominance au-dessus de Beleth seulement à condition qu’il reste dans le cercle du—’
”

“Um, Father Santos?” Bridget interrupted.

“Wait,” he said turning the page. “This gets really interesting.”

“Father Santos, we don’t speak French.”

“French?” He examined the book to see if there was something wrong about it, then laughed nervously. “Ah, yes, yes, of course. So sorry. Let me translate.”

“Is this guy for real?” Matt muttered.

Bridget poked him in the chest. “I would like to remind you that trusting him was
your
idea.”

“Thanks.”

Father Santos cleared his throat. “The conjuror may summon Beleth—that’s another of the kings of Hell,” he interposed by way of explanation, “by the ritual of blood. This ritual must take place on holy ground that has been rededicated to the Master—that would be Satan—with a relic of the old regime—those would be the archangels.”

Something stirred in Bridget’s mind. A relic of an archangel, holy ground that didn’t exactly feel holy.

“The conjuror may hold dominance over Beleth only as long as he remains with the ring of silver affixed to the third finger of his left hand.”

Bridget’s fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her palm. “A silver ring?” The words almost choked her.

Father Santos lowered the book. He was no longer smiling. “Yes, a silver ring.”

“Like the one Monsignor wears.”

“Exactly like that.”

A priest wielding a sword. The hungry way Monsignor had questioned her about Amaymon. His avoidance of all Bridget’s questions. He’d even been scheduled to meet with her father on the day of his death.

Matt’s hand was around her waist before Bridget even realized she’d lost her balance. “Bridge, are you okay?”

“I’m so sorry, Bridget,” Father Santos said. His voice was calm, and he spoke slowly, as if she were a child. “I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.”

“But he taught me. He taught me what I was, how to do whatever it is I do.”

Matt eased her into a chair and crouched down next to her while he questioned Father Santos. “Are you saying that Monsignor Renault is responsible for all this?”

Just like the son of a cop. He had to have it in black and white.

“If the Emim have been attempting to conjure Amaymon, it explains the rise in demonic activity recently,” Father Santos said. “Remember, Bridget, I told you how a demon must be invited in? I’ve been looking into things. Monsignor Renault administered last rites to Mrs. Long when she was in the hospital with pneumonia, just last month. And Ms. Laveau’s father is an old friend of Monsignor’s. She has him over for dinner at the apartment above the shop once a month.”

“And he blessed the Fergusons’ house when they moved in this summer,” Bridget said mechanically. Her mouth felt dry and parched. “That’s why Mrs. Ferguson called him after what happened.”

Father Santos nodded. “All perfect opportunities to perform a ritual or introduce a curse.”

Bridget’s head spun. “But why? Why summon all these demons?”

Father Santos shrugged. “Practice. Conjuring a king of Hell isn’t like placing a simple curse. I’d guess he was working his way up to attempting the ritual.”