I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (23 page)

He sipped his single malt Scotch and leaned
forward, replacing the glass on the coaster. The glass was nearly
empty and he would have to get up and visit the bar, refill it
soon.

He sat back and admired the brilliance of the
sun against the wall above the television. He jabbed the channel
button on the remote.

Click

“Honey—have you seen the formaldehyde-covered
afterbirth I was keeping in the fridge?”

“Edith, this is
great
dip. What’s your
secret?”

Canned laughter.

Cassidy flexed his right wrist, clicking to
another channel.

Click

Behind him, two phones sat on an end table.
His house phone and his cell. Janelle had called on the house phone
yesterday, letting him know she was having a grand old time with
Harold in Martinique. The call that’d come after that, the call on
his cell, had him rethinking his retirement.

He was enjoying these days away from the life
very much. As an associate of the Genesse family, he’d made enough
to secure himself and Janelle all the pleasantries in life. His
family wanted for nothing. Even now, Janelle and Harold in the
Caribbean with Harold’s wife and kids, they were there on his
dime.

“Elderly? Invalid? Lonely? Have you ever
considered live-in European care?”

Click

He’d survived the streets of Chicago, the
gang wars and random violence. He’d put in two decades of work for
the family and been able to walk away, one of the few. Unlike so
many others, he was not indebted to the Genesse, his bond with them
a friendship forged with Anthony Genesse back in their high school
days.

They’d let him enjoy his retirement, not
calling him once. And now they were calling him, requesting a
favor. One last job. He
could
decline. It really was a
favor, not a thinly veiled threat or order. They wouldn’t go that
route with him because they respected him, respected what he was
capable of. He was the best at what he did. They’d come to him.

He rested on his couch, sipping his Scotch,
the killer in repose.

“Walk brother! Walk! You can walk brother!
The Lord is in you—the Lord is in you! Walk, get up, walk! You can
do it!”

Click

The job would pay well, not that that was the
thing. Making money had ceased being a concern of his long ago.
He’d never been one given to fancy dress or flashy cars. All those
years, he’d taken the money they’d paid him and put it away, had
guys smarter than him invest it. Thing was, he was sitting on his
couch with a glass of Scotch and a remote control in his hands. He
knew he should be happy, should be satisfied. Content.

Cassidy looked over to the .45 on the table.
It’d been awhile. A long while. Restlessness, he thought, might be
one of his defining qualities.

Some rap guy was doing what he did on the
black video channel.

“And what we can do right here is go back/How
far you gonna go back/ Way back…”

Janelle with Harold and his family in
Martinique. Cassidy enjoyed travel, but not enough to accompany his
family on a month long trip. Especially one that required an eight
hour flight. He hated flying. Absolutely hated it. Cassidy was
convinced he was going to be on a plane one day and it was going to
go down, plummet into the ocean or a city block or something, him
pressed against his seat, enough time to know
exactly
what
was happening and what was going to happen, enough time to
appreciate the absurdity of it all.

So he’d let Janelle go with Harold and
Harold’s family because he thought nothing bad would happen to them
if he wasn’t with them. If he was ever going to be on a plane and
the plane was going to go down? He’d want to be on it alone, not
with anyone he loved.

“…brothers would lay back/cut a line drop a
rhyme and press the playback…”

Click

“Hi. You’ve reached the home shopping
club.”

“Oh, hello!”

“Hi. How do you like your handsome two-inch
dog belt buckle?”

“I’ve been sitting here all day waiting to
see this on your show.”

Click

Janelle had chosen the artwork for their
walls. The Knight and the Briar Rose depicted three armor clad
nobles tangled in briars, one lone hero with his sword drawn
working his way through. They were in search of the sleeping
princess, but three of them weren’t going to make it.

“…now the ancient relaxation techniques and
sexual secrets of the Polynesian masters is available for the first
time in this—”

Click

One last job, Anthony had said. A week, tops.
Details to follow, if he was interested. A respectable payday.

“Welcome back to the Saul Resnick Show. Ah,
Jerry, when did you first start noticing this attraction to
amputees?”

Click

A week. Enough time to do the job, get back
meet Janelle at the airport.

“—new from the makers of Sure Soak adult
undergarments—”

Click

“But Bradford, I love you.”

“I don’t care, Tina. I love Trish.”

Click

His glass nearly empty, another sip left.

“Erection problems? Not a problem!”

Click

The last four years had been nice and
quiet.

“Off the top turnbuckle—”

Click

“It slices, it dices, it grates, it
vibrates—why it’s more fun than electric origami.”

In the painting, three knights lay tangled in
the briars, seemingly asleep.

Click

“—this Texas barbed wire match is getting
downright out of hand—”

One lone knight made his way solemnly through
the brambles.

Click

“Hey, sweetheart—what’s the difference
between a blowjob and a baloney?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?”

Cassidy shut off the television, placing the
remote on the table. His glass was empty. He sat up, placing his
feet on the carpet. He looked at his hands, held one out in front
of him. Still steady.

He was going to get up—

Cassidy reached over to the end table,
retrieved his cell.

—get up and go over to the bar—

Hit speed dial.

—pour himself another inch or two.

Waited for the voice to answer on the other
end.

The intrepid knight wading through the
brambles, looking for his princess.

“I’m in,” he said, and then listened to what
they had to say to him, told them it would take him a day or two to
get there, no way he was flying.

He’d drive to New York.

Father Mark had a lot on his mind as he laid
down his copy of Erich Fromm’s
Escape
from
Freedom
to don his vestments. At six and a half feet tall,
he had to crouch to see that his collarino and the white square of
cloth at the base of his throat were properly placed. Weighing in
at over three hundred pounds of muscle, his frame didn’t fit in the
mirror. He had to turn and apprise himself and his cassock from
various angles. Bent kneed, Mark squared himself in the mirror and
forced a smile.

He’d woken up and presided over the 6:45 a.m.
morning mass. As a kid, he’d been an altar boy and served that
mass, albeit in a different parish. Attendance hadn’t been anything
to write home about even then, and that was twenty years ago. This
morning there’d been six old ladies in attendance with their rosary
beads, listening to Mark do his thing. Monsignor himself served the
9 o’clock mass, freeing Mark up until it was time for confession.
At half past ten he donned his vestments and walked from the
rectory to the sacristy, where he waited for 10:45 to arrive and
with it, the penitents.

The decline in confession attendance wasn’t
what troubled Mark.

It was the new priest, Tad.

Tad had shown up two weeks ago, transferred
to St. Ann’s without explanation, which could only mean one of a
very limited number of things. Tad had either pissed off someone
higher up in the hierarchy than he, or….Well, it all amounted to
the same thing in the eyes of the Church. Mark suspected he knew
Tad’s deal. Growing up in group homes, Mark recognized predators
when he saw them. Tad had come in with little fanfare, occupying
the room left vacant since Father McGuigan’s passing. The Monsignor
wouldn’t speak ill of the man to Mark, but Mark could tell
Monsignor wasn’t particularly happy to have the new priest
around.

It was the altar boys Mark would need to talk
to. Need to watch out for.

He squared his clerical collar in the
mirror.

Kind of name was Tad for a priest anyway?
Sounded like a tennis pro at a country club, or a character on a
bad soap opera.

Satisfied all was in place, Mark exited the
sacristy and crossed the chancel, passing the aumbry where the
communion wine was stored, its altar, the choir stalls on either
side. He stepped down into the nave, motes of daylight filtering
down from the clerestory high up in the wall. The nave stretched
before him, aisles on either side, held up by pillars with little
arches. A handful of men and women, all elderly, sat or kneeled in
the pews. Mark’s steps echoed through the nave.

Votive candles flickered on a platform before
a statue of the Virgin Mother. St. Ann’s was going to switch to
electric candles in the next few months. The smoke from the wax
candles had done a number on the ceiling over the years.

He greeted them by their first names and they
called him
father
, these men and women old enough to be his
grandparents, great-grandparents. The same men and women had been
coming to St. Ann’s for years and confessing their sins to whomever
was in the confessional.

Mark squeezed himself into the center
compartment of the confessional. Enclosed sections on either side
of him had small screens in the adjoining walls.

Mrs. Daly was first.
Forgive
me
father
for
I
have
sinned
. She’d
spoken ill of her sister-in-law to her brother. She’d cheated at
Bingo over at the rec center last week. She’d given the cashier at
the supermarket a hard time when the girl maybe hadn’t had it
coming to her that bad.

Mark listened and when Mrs. Daly finished her
litany of transgressions he absolved her.

Three
Hail
Mary’s
and
an
Our
Father
.

He slid one mesh screen closed and another
open.

It’s
been
a
week
since
my
last
confession
. Mr. Dominick.
He’d had impure thoughts looking at a woman who wasn’t his wife.
He’d been arguing with his son, the younger one, one that had
walked out on his own family and didn’t seem to be able to hold
down a job. Sins. They always started with the major ones and
worked their way down to the smaller ones. Mark listened and as he
listened he thought about the psychological effect of expiation, of
unloading oneself on another.

Be nicer to your wife, Mr. Dominick. Four Our
Fathers and the Apostle’s Creed.

Mark closed and opened screens.

Bless
me
father
for
I
have
sinned
…

He recognized them by their voices, regulars
at confession. Once in a while someone dropped in who hadn’t been
by in some time, but even then it was usually a church regular.
Lapsed Catholics, Mark knew, had a habit of finding their way home.
Like they had some sort of spiritual radar inevitably leading them
back.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Mrs. Quinn.
God loves you. Now give me two Hail Mary’s.”

Lot of old women came to confession. Not as
many old men. Mark opened the screen for the next penance.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

The voice wasn’t one he would have expected
to hear in this place.

“
Boone
?” He leaned forward, attempting
unsuccessfully to peer through the screen.

“Hello, Mark.”

“Jesus—” Mark caught and crossed himself.
“Where you been, B?”

“I need you to listen to me, Mark.”

“I’m listening to you.”

“Not as my friend. In your…official
capacity.”

“I’m on duty, B.” An image of the Peanuts
cartoon flashed through Mark’s mind. The doctor is in. He attempted
to inject some levity into his voice. “Talk to me.”

“I’ve done…” The voice on the other side of
the wall dead serious, cold. “…I’ve done a lot of bad things,
Mark—
Father
, a lot of bad things. And, Father, I’m planning
on doing a lot more bad things.”

“God gives us free will, Boone. I know you
know what that means. We don’t have to act in any one way. If
you’re feeling tempted—”

“That’s the thing. The bad things don’t
bother me. If anything, I
like
them.”

“If you’re feeling tempted, you can steel
yourself. Avoid the temptation.”

“It’s not temptation, Father. It’s—sometimes
the bad things have got to be done.”

“Boone, seriously—where you been? No one has
heard from you. You haven’t been going to the gym—”

“Mark, let me ask you: You ever hear of a guy
calls himself Kane?”

“Kane? Like killed Abel?”

“Maybe, yeah.”

“No.”

“Maybe someone they call the Wrath of
God?”

“No.”

“Somethin’ else, Mark.”

“Talk to me, B.”

“You do something for me?”

“Go ahead.”

“Protect my family, Father.”

Protect
my
family
. Mark
stared at the screen. Protect them from what, he wanted to ask but
didn’t. “You got it.”

Sinners came to ask for forgiveness in
penance, not for favors.

“B? In return,” Mark didn’t want his friend
to go, “will you do something for me?” He waited for Boone to say
more. When he didn’t, Mark asked, “Pray with me?” but again Boone
didn’t speak. “B? Boone?”