Harsh Gods (3 page)

“Pretty sure I’ve never seen you before,” I responded.

She stopped at a crosswalk to let a trio of tattered pedestrians pass. Their clothes were insufficient for the weather, and they hunched miserably against the wind.

“If you were him, I would never have let you into my car,” she said. Some of the night’s chill had crept into her voice. The stumbling group of homeless finished their slow procession across the road, and she nearly spun the wheels when she accelerated.

Curiosity welled up in me—and I did my best to beat it to death with a mental stick. If I focused too hard on her while she was immersed in those emotions, there was a decent chance I’d pick up on some of what she was feeling. It didn’t take a psychic to guess it involved some kind of trauma.

I had enough of my own shit to deal with.

Clenching the imaginary fist in my mind while the nails of my left hand bit into my tingling scar, I got so focused on shielding myself from the echoes of her trauma that I failed to notice when she stopped the car in front of a row of houses along East 124th.

“Someone took my parking spot,” she said, and she pouted.

Her annoyance broke the cycle. I relaxed my hold on the shields a bit. Closing my mind off like that might keep me sane, but it also made me feel claustrophobic and—if I was being honest—a little scatterbrained. I hadn’t worked out a good middle ground.

“It’s that house,” she said, pointing to an old Craftsman painted a fading shade of slate. “You get out. I’ll go park.”

“It’s late, and it’s dark,” I observed. “Sure you don’t want me to walk you back from wherever you end up parking this thing?”

“I can take care of myself.”

The whetted edge to her words reminded me momentarily of Lil, my dead girlfriend’s gray-eyed sister. She regarded me with Lil’s same intractable glare, so I shut my mouth and got out of the car. She started pulling away as soon as I closed the door—another echo of Lil.

At least she wasn’t as terrifying a driver.

I stood for a moment on the icy stretch of street in front of the tired-looking house. A very practical—and legitimately suspicious—portion of my brain kept warning me that this could be a trap, but that little voice was sounding increasingly irrational. I didn’t think the girl could lie convincingly if she wanted to, and the house she indicated seemed excruciatingly normal.

An electric-blue tricycle with shiny Mylar ribbons on the handlebars sat half-buried in a drift of snow near the front steps. Lights in pastel Easter colors were strung across the porch while the front door sported a wreath of colorful straw and plastic eggs. Little clings of rabbits, eggs, and crosses were visible in the windows stretching all the way along the porch. Even the welcome mat had a seasonal theme—though if the weather kept up, Peter Cottontail was going to freeze his ass off when he came to deliver his chocolate eggs.

“Yep,” I told myself, just before pressing the doorbell. “Only thing you have to worry about here is being kitsched to death.”

The doorbell didn’t seem to work, so I tried knocking. Immediately, I heard footsteps from the other side of the door, then a woman’s voice, muffled.

“Sanjeet—I told you,” she called cheerfully. “You don’t have to knock any more.” The door swung open, as she continued, “You’ve been over enough you can just walk—”

The woman stopped short once she caught sight of me. Her mouth remained slightly agape. Comfortably curvy, she looked to be on the near side of forty. Her dark-blonde hair had even darker roots, and her hazel eyes were shadowed by bruised circles of fatigue.

“You’re not Sanjeet,” she said.

“Nope,” I responded.

“Well, it’s late and we don’t want any.” She started closing the door in my face.

“Late? You people sent for me,” I responded. “I’m here to see Father Frank.”

She caught the door at the last instant, keeping it open a crack, peering through the narrow slice of space.

“Where’s Sanjeet?” she asked.

I hooked a thumb in the direction of the street. “Pompom Hat Girl is out parking her car.” Yep. I said that with my out-loud voice. Hermit life didn’t help much with my social filters.

The woman silently mouthed the nickname, brows creasing in a frown. She was saved from offering comment when a strident boy’s falsetto erupted from deep within the home.

“Mooooom!”

The sound Dopplered as the child pelted from one unseen point to the next. I could just make out the rapid slap of tiny bare feet across what sounded like hardwood floors. The mother turned to respond, still keeping her body wedged against the opening of the door.

Snow crunched on the steps behind me and Pompom Hat Girl—Sanjeet—bounced onto the porch.

“Hi, Mrs. Davis,” she chirped. “This is the guy.”

Mrs. Davis didn’t budge from the nearly closed door. She didn’t outright say that she thought I was a crazed serial killer, but her look was eloquent enough. I rubbed my scruffy chin, not quite apologetic.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting company,” I said.

From her wintry expression, it was a good thing I didn’t mind the chill. Eyes on Sanjeet, Mrs. Davis stepped away from the door, pulling it open as she went.

A skinny little boy with a mocha complexion and brown eyes full of mischief rushed up behind her. He body-slammed her leg, throwing his arms around her thigh in something close to a flying tackle. She rocked with the impact like a ship weathering a storm.

“Tyson!” she cried, reaching down to tousle his hair. “One of these days you’re going to knock me right over. Didn’t I tell you to get ready for bed?”

“I’ll take him, Mrs. Davis,” Sanjeet said, skirting past me and into the house. She grabbed for the little boy but he clung like a burr, his huge brown eyes fixed upon me. I stared back, wiggling my fingers in what I hoped was a non-threatening gesture. Tyson buried his face in his mother’s thigh, giggling.

At least the kid liked me.

Mrs. Davis helped pluck his fingers from her slacks, muttering gratefully. Once they’d pried him loose, Sanjeet scooped the boy up, holding him in the air and rubbing her nose in his belly till he squealed with delight. He had her hat off in an instant, and streamers of her long black hair floated after it like she was attached to a Van de Graaff generator. He peered over her shoulder at me, then shoved the hat against his mouth, stifling his grin.

Mrs. Davis watched the boy, a weary smile tugging at her lips. Then she turned back to me.

“Father Frank is in the room with Halley,” she said, stepping further into the living room. “He hasn’t left her side since her last… episode.” Her voice hitched on the final word.

“OK,” I said, still having no idea what to expect. “Which way?”

She pointed to a hallway leading away from the main room, then hovered near the couch, her eyes still wary. I closed the door behind me, tapping snow from my boots onto the mat.

The sound echoed through the quiet home. Moving past the entryway, I navigated around a spill of toys almost certainly left behind by little Tyson. Framed inspirational sayings decorated the living room walls, along with one tongue-in-cheek prayer that stated, “Bless this mess.” Despite the humorous plaque, the place was tidy enough, with simple furnishings that looked well-used but hardly shabby.

“I’m Tammy, by the way,” Mrs. Davis blurted suddenly, extending a hand.

I shoved both of mine immediately into my pockets. I’d forgotten to grab my gloves, and skin-to-skin contact often made it impossible to block out emotional impressions. Once in a while, that was useful, but mostly it was a pain in the ass.

I nodded a brusque greeting. “Call me Zack.”

Her hand lingered in the air between us for a few moments, her expression flickering through uncertainty, disapproval, and finally, resignation. With a little sigh, she dropped it back to her side.

“Father Frank says you work at Case Western?” she ventured.

“Used to,” I replied. “On sabbatical.” A family photo angled on the mantel above the fireplace. A balding man with deeply hued skin and piercing eyes sat beside a glowing Tammy, who dandled an infant Tyson on her lap. A thin girl with a tangle of dark hair slouched beside them, maybe twelve or thirteen. The girl’s face was almost impossible to see. Shoulders hunched, she hung her head, looking away from the camera. Everyone else—Tyson included—wore happy family grins.

“Is that Holly?” I asked.

“Halley,” the mother corrected. “Like the comet, not the actress. My husband works for NASA. He likes astronomy names.”

“He around?”

She shook her head. “His father died a few weeks ago. There’s a bunch of property on the East Coast. He’s handling that while I watch the kids.” She reached for my sleeve. “You can help her, right?”

I shrugged off her clinging touch.

“I’ll go talk with the padre and see what’s up. No guarantees. I’ve got no idea what I’m dealing with.”

“Of course,” Tammy stammered. Tyson’s tintinnabulating laughter echoed suddenly from upstairs, followed by an answering giggle from Sanjeet. Mrs. Davis turned in the direction of the sound.

I seized the opening to make my escape down the hallway. Soft light spilled from a partly open door at the end. The air got heavier the closer I got to that door. Not oppressive, exactly. Just…
thick
. Curiosity got the better of me, and I relaxed my shields a little, peering across to the Shadowside. A filmy echo of the home shimmered there, agitated by pulses of power that moved like ripples along the surface of a lake. I wasn’t certain what to make of the disturbance, but it was clear the epicenter lay beyond that doorway.

I nudged it open with my elbow. A single lamp burned in the room beyond, the glow of its bulb soft and muted. The lamp—Tinker Bell green with glittery plastic fairies dangling from its shade—rested on a nightstand amid a small regiment of prescription bottles. Nearby, a frail girl lay on a steel-framed hospital bed that looked three sizes too big for her. Dark hair spilled over her pillows, framing a narrow oval of a face. Her thick lashes fluttered restlessly against waxen cheeks, and her hands plucked at the edges of her blanket, one of them clutching the pink and green beads of a garishly colored rosary.

The bed angled toward a big picture window, curtained now to keep out the late winter chill. Beside the window sat an old wooden rocker. Perched on this was a solid man wearing the black clothes and white collar of a Catholic priest. He had proud, patrician features surmounted by a shock of gunmetal gray hair. His precise age was uncertain—he could have been anywhere between fifty-five and seventy. Although his skin was lined and weathered, his eyes remained bright and startlingly intense.

I recognized him immediately from the flash I’d had earlier—though he’d been a bit younger in the image in my head. The instant he saw me, he stood with a smooth grace that reminded me more of a panther than a priest. He seemed to know at least some of my quirks, because he didn’t bother extending his hand in greeting. Instead, he cracked a smile that chased decades from his features.

“Zachary,” he said. He had a big voice, but he did his best to soften it, out of deference to the slumbering girl.

I nodded. “Father Frank.”

His poker face was better than Sanjeet’s, but I still caught uncertainty flickering around the edges.

“It’s been a while,” he said carefully.

Nodding again, I tried to work out how to respond. It would have helped if I’d had some idea how I knew him—and how well he knew me. There were lots of things I preferred not to share about my life, if I didn’t have to. All of it, really.

I teased my sight open a little more, trying to get a solid sense of the man. To all appearances, he was mortal. Theoretically, he could have been hiding himself behind his own variation of a cowl, but usually there were tip-offs for that. Cowled like that, a person came across as
too
normal, or gave off no impressions whatsoever. I felt a strong compulsion to like him, but figured that had more to do with his easy charisma. The man practically radiated affable competence.

“Thanks for coming out on short notice, Zack,” he said, breaking the awkward silence. “The way you were ignoring my calls, I figured you had to be in the middle of something. I know the demands on your time.”

I shrugged. The subtle pressure in the room teased my neck hairs to attention. Glancing in Halley’s direction, I tried to tell if the agitation was coming from her, or if it belonged to something that was
attracted
to her. The presence was vague enough that it could have been either.

The girl stirred, as if sensing my attention, muttering fitfully in her sleep.

“Exorcism, hunh?” I ventured, still not certain how much credence to put into that, despite the Roman collar.

For a long moment, Father Frank searched my face. I could feel the weight of his scrutiny as surely as I felt the odd pressure bearing down upon the room. His eyes were the color of old copper pennies—a brown so burnished and rich it lost you in its depths. I met his gaze without blinking. He parted his thin slash of a mouth to say something, but then seemed to change his mind. He shook his head once—a swift twitch of his narrow jaw—and gave a pensive noise.

“I’ll give you the high points,” he said.

I nodded.

He looked as if he expected me to say more. When I didn’t, he continued with the terse, efficient tone of a soldier reporting to a commanding officer.

“Her grandfather, Joe Davis, passed a few weeks ago. After the funeral, she started talking about this voice. Tammy thought it might be Joe reaching out to Halley from beyond the grave. The girl had been his favorite of the grandchildren.”

I glanced to the pill bottles clustered on the nightstand, trying to read the labels.

“Halley hear voices a lot?”

“With her talents? Yes,” Father Frank responded. He held his shoulders a little stiffly. “She has a lot of problems, Zack—severe autism, seizure disorders—but I know legitimate abilities when I see them. I’ve been around you long enough.”

My eyes snapped to his.

“Yeah?” I asked.

His brow knitted and I got the feeling he was trying to read me right back. Again, the weight of his attention plucked at me.