The Devil's Labyrinth (23 page)

C
HAPTER
38

R
YAN ORDERED THE
steak and baked potato, closed his menu, and handed it to the waiter. So far, the day with his mother and Tom Kelly hadn’t been as bad as he thought it was going to be; they’d gone to Quincy Market, then had lunch at Legal Seafood, which had always been Ryan’s favorite restaurant. Now they were at Ruth’s Chris on School Street, just a few blocks from St. Isaac’s, and Ryan was wondering why they hadn’t gone to some place closer to their house.

Something, he was sure, was going on. In fact, he’d had the feeling all afternoon that there was something his mother wasn’t telling him. Now, as the waiter took the last of their order, Tom Kelly stood up and laid his napkin on the table.

“If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes,” he said, leaning over to kiss Teri’s cheek. Then he nodded at Ryan, and walked toward the men’s room.

“So,” Teri said, leaning in slightly, and both her voice and expression taking on an odd anxiety. “Hasn’t this been fun, the three of us together?”

Ryan nodded uncertainly, sensing that his mother was about to tell him something that he wasn’t going to like.

“Maybe during Easter week we can go somewhere. Take a trip together.”

Ryan frowned. “We?” What did that mean? Just himself and his mother, or was she talking about Tom Kelly, too? “You mean just us?” he asked. “Or are you thinking that guy will go, too?” He tipped his head in the direction in which Tom Kelly had gone, and the flicker in his mother’s eyes told him the answer to his question even before she spoke.

“He’s not just ‘that guy,’ Ryan,” Teri said, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s a good man.”

Ryan shrugged. “I’m not saying he’s not. Just don’t marry him, okay?”

Again the look in his mother’s eyes spoke volumes, and for a second he had the horrible feeling that maybe she already
had
married him. But then she shook her head.

“I’m not marrying him,” she said.

Ryan started to relax slightly, but then she spoke again.

“But you need to know that Tom may move into the house next week.”

Anger and resentment began to boil in Ryan’s gut. “Boy, that didn’t take long.”

Teri did her best to ignore the anger in her son’s voice. “He’s a good man, Ryan, and he’s very good for me. He cares for me, and for you, too. If you’d just get to know him the way I do…” Her voice trailed off and she looked down and twisted the napkin in her lap. “And the house is just too empty with you gone.”

Ryan glared accusingly at her. “Don’t blame it on me.”

“Blame?” Teri’s head snapped up. “There’s nothing to blame. I love Tom, and he loves me, and if he makes me happy, I’d think you’d be happy for me.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tom coming back, and reached out to take Ryan’s hand, but he pulled away from her, his eyes stormy. “Please,” she whispered, “let’s not ruin the day, all right?”

Tom sat down, smiling. “What did I miss?”

Ryan took a deep breath. “Not much,” he finally said. “Just mom telling me that you’re moving in on her.”

Tom Kelly glanced at Teri, whose face had gone ashen, and raised a placating hand. “Hey, come on. I wouldn’t call it moving
in
on—” he began, but Ryan didn’t let him finish.

“I think it would be best for me to go back to St. Isaac’s tonight,” he said.

Tom Kelly looked genuinely surprised. “You’re kidding! Why?”

Teri shot Ryan a look, her eyes glistening with tears, and he squelched the angry words in his throat before they burst free. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on classes that I’ve never taken before,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “I was really looking forward to a weekend at home, but I think I’d better spend it studying, instead.” He felt Tom Kelly’s eyes on him, and met the man’s gaze with his own.

Teri McIntyre sat in frozen silence, praying that neither Ryan nor Tom would push the issue any further.

Finally Tom Kelly nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said. “At this stage, you’d probably do better to stay at school.”

Ryan nodded.

The waiter brought their meals.

Ryan looked at his steak, cooked to perfection, but his appetite had vanished. All he could think about was what Melody had intimated earlier in the day: that many of St. Isaac’s students were either troublemakers or inconveniences.

St. Isaac’s had been Tom’s idea, and with Ryan out of the house, he was moving right in.

Nor did he seem the least bit disappointed that Ryan wasn’t going to be home for the weekend.

“At least we had a good afternoon,” Tom said, and lifted his wine-glass.

Teri followed suit, and Ryan lifted his Coke.

“To many more good Saturdays,” Tom said.

“Many more,” Teri echoed.

Ryan clicked his glass with theirs, but knew that from now on he’d much rather be at school with Melody and Clay Matthews, and the rest of his new friends than be home with Tom Kelly.

For tonight, he’d just get through dinner, and be polite, and not make his mother any more miserable than she already looked. He’d think about Tom Kelly and the rest of it when he was back in his dorm room, alone.

As alone as he already felt, now that he had apparently become just one more of the inconvenient kids stashed away at St. Isaac’s.

C
HAPTER
39

A
BDUL
K
AHADIJA WALKED
slowly down the street. It was twilight, that strange time when the light of Allah is bright enough to illuminate the goal, but faded enough to hide all but the most obvious intruder. And there was nothing obvious about Abdul Kahadija; to anyone glancing out a window, he would have appeared no different from anyone who lived in the neighborhood, and when he casually slipped between two houses and into the backyard of his target, he might as well have been heading for his own garage.

A covered barbecue grill sat like a great humped creature on the wide patio, along with a table and four chairs, minus cushions and the umbrella that surely made this a homey scene, come long summer evenings.

He listened carefully. No sounds from inside the house. No sounds from neighboring houses. Through the glass in the kitchen door, he could see one lamp lighting the living room, as well as the porch light; the rest of the rooms were dark.

He pulled his thin black gloves a little tighter, then took a glass cutter from his pocket. Moving close to the door to muffle the sound, he etched a rough circle in the pane nearest the doorknob, then turned the cutter to rap the glass sharply with its opposite end.

Instead of a single piece of glass falling away, the entire pane shattered.

A dog barked a few houses away. Nothing else.

Abdul Kahadija reached through the broken glass, twisted the knob, and moved silently through the doorway and into the kitchen. Though no one was home, he was loath to make even the smallest of sounds; the tinkle of broken glass had been regrettable, but unavoidable, but there must be no more noise.

Abdul intended to leave nothing of himself in this house, no sound, no print, not even the essence of his spirit.

But where to begin a search for the tiny, easily concealed object he sought?

It could be anywhere.

He stood still in the center of the room and tried to sense the inhabitants of the house. Where might they put such a relic?

But he had no feel for them. They felt foreign—soulless. Surely they had no idea of the treasure that was in their possession.

He checked his watch. He had allowed himself twenty minutes to search, and already four minutes had passed, and he had not even begun.

He started with the small drawers in the kitchen, but it was only a cursory search; surely they wouldn’t keep it here. Still, he rummaged quickly through the tangle of rubber bands, receipts, a few screws and broken switch plates that filled the drawers. Not the kitchen.

The living room seemed too austere; what he sought would not be here, not even in the drawers of the breakfront where surely they kept their silver, if this family owned anything of such value.

The bedrooms.

Lightly, making no sound, Abdul glided up the stairs into the master bedroom, where his eyes fell instantly on a lacquered, inlaid jewelry chest that sat squarely on the dresser.

Praise be to Allah.

He unconsciously tugged his thin black gloves once more, then opened the lid of the jewelry box.

A metallic tune began to play, shattering the silence, and setting his heart to jackhammering in his chest.

Abdul quickly found the music box switch and depressed it with a finger while he used his other hand to go through the jewelry.

What he sought was not among the cheap necklaces and bracelets that filled the beautiful box. The box, indeed, was likely worth far more than its contents.

Where else to look? Then he remembered: women sometimes kept their most precious objects hidden with their lingerie.

He opened the top drawer of the dresser and gently ran his hands through the soft silk underwear, probing all the way to the back of the drawer.

Nothing.

Where?
Where?

The bedside table.

As he opened the nightstand drawer, his elbow caught the edge of a picture frame, which tipped over the edge. He lunged to catch it, missed, and watched as it fell to the wooden floor, the glass shattering.

He looked at the photograph beneath the broken glass. A young boy, holding up a small fish. Should he take the broken photograph with him?

No, better to encourage wrong thoughts.

Abdul let it lay, returned to the jewelry box, grabbed up a handful of earrings and necklaces and stuffed them into one of his pockets. He opened the lingerie drawer and left it open.

Then he left as silently as he had entered, his spirits heavy with disappointment. It was dark now, and in the blackness of the shadows behind the house he stripped off his black gloves, then walked nonchalantly back to the quiet street and around the corner of the next block.

He would dispose of the cheap jewelry in the Dumpster behind the convenience store he had passed on his way here.

As he slipped away into the darkness of the night he told himself that his failure to recover the relic was only a potential problem for his mission. The chances that the stupid people in the house even knew what they owned were slim, and if they truly didn’t, then the object’s existence would be of no consequence. Though he would feel supremely safer if he had it in hand, his chances of success in his mission were still all but certain.

Victory
—vengeance—
would still be his to claim.

C
HAPTER
40

F
ATHER
L
AUGHLIN SLOWED
as he neared the door to Jeffrey Holmes’s tiny room buried deep in the subbasement beneath the old brownstone that had been absorbed by the school nearly a century earlier and now served as its rectory. As he stood alone in the murky depths of the labyrinth beneath the school, what had seemed like an excellent idea in the aftermath of his conversation with the boy’s poor grandmother now seemed more like the act of an old fool. Still, if he could recreate what Father Sebastian had achieved with Sofia Capelli a few days ago, and Melody Hunt this very afternoon—and he believed in his heart that he could—what a wonderful thing it would be.

He would bring Jeffrey Holmes back into God’s light.

Despite Sebastian Sloane’s certainty that the boy was beyond redemption, Laughlin’s faith told him that God would not abandon Jeffrey any more than he had Sofia or Melody.

He would not abandon any child.

Laughlin reached to draw the bolt on the door of Jeffrey’s cell, but before his pale, soft fingers touched the cold metal, he hesitated. He could still go back upstairs to his rooms, enjoy a cup of hot tea, put his aching legs up on a stool and listen to some Puccini. No one would blame him for leaving the boy solely in the hands of Sebastian Sloane, who was an expert in the ancient rites, far better educated than Laughlin himself.

But if he could manage to save the boy in spite of Sebastian’s certainty that he was lost, then he could retire—even die in peace—knowing without the shadow of a doubt that he had done God’s work.

God would not let Jeffrey Holmes down, and He would watch over the recitation of the litany as Laughlin remembered it.

Ernest Laughlin looked at the low dark ceiling and whispered a barely audible prayer: “God provide me sufficient faith.” Then he crossed himself, kissed his fingertips, and with those same fingertips threw open the bolt on the heavy metal door.

An ice-cold wave of pure evil carrying the fetid stench of rot poured forth from the darkened cell, withering Laughlin’s resolve.

Then, in the faint light of the open doorway, he saw Jeffrey’s naked body, cowering in the corner.

The boy’s pale, veined skin was stretched taut over his protruding ribs, his hair was matted with filth, and his eyes streamed with yellowish pus.

Laughlin’s first instinct was to go to the child, hold him, comfort him. Yet the aura of evil surrounding the child held him back, and instead of kneeling next to the starved and fragile body, the old priest concentrated only on the evil that was consuming Jeffrey from within.

Laughlin gripped the crucifix that hung from his belt and began the litany he’d heard Sebastian Sloane recite only a few hours ago, repeating the words as closely as he remembered them, holding the beatific smile of Melody Hunt clearly in his mind. Even now, the girl lay quietly in the infirmary, in the same bed occupied by Sofia Capelli earlier in the week, both of them completely cleansed of all evil, and at peace.

He must do the same for this poor, wretched creature.

But while the words seemed clear in his mind, they didn’t sound right as they left his lips. Where Sebastian’s robust and vibrant voice had been filled with the authority of his faith, Laughlin’s sounded thin and reedy even to himself.

Even the pronunciation of the Latin words sounded wrong, weakened by his own age and infirmity.

He knew now that he should not have come.

Yet the young boy’s body began to writhe, and Sebastian had assured him that such movement was certain evidence that the evil residing in the boy was responding. Encouraged slightly, Father Laughlin raised up his crucifix and intoned the passages of the liturgy as best he could remember.

He deepened his voice and filled his lungs as if to command the evil’s obedience by sheer volume.

Jeffrey Holmes’s limbs began to spasm and anguished moans escaped his lips.

“Thank you, Father,” Ernest Laughlin whispered, then raised his voice even further, feeling the power of the Lord welling up inside him to cast out the demon that inhabited the poor boy’s body.

“Most cunning serpent,” Laughlin found the phrases he’d been trying to remember. They weren’t in Sebastian’s Latin, but he remembered them from his college texts. “You shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God’s elect and sift them as wheat. The Most High God commands you, He with whom, in your great insolence, you still claim to be equal!”

As he bellowed the last words, he saw the wasted muscles of the boy’s back and arms bunch as he struggled to a sitting position.

“Begone, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of man’s salvation.” Laughlin fumbled in his pocket for the vial of holy water he had brought with him.

“Father?” The boy’s voice was so faint, Father Laughlin wasn’t certain he had heard anything at all.

“Father?” It was the tiny voice of a small child.

“Yes, my son?” Laughlin stepped into the cell, closer to Jeffrey, to better minister to the boy. He leaned down and reached out to touch him. “I’m here to help you.”

“You!” the evil roared, its foul breath knocking Father Laughlin back. “
You
help
me
?
Never!
”

Laughlin stumbled backward, struggling to maintain his balance, then felt the solid wall behind him and regained his footing.

The boy stood up. Though his body was frail, his face reflected the twisted countenance of Satan himself.
“You will never defeat me!”
Jeffrey stretched out his filthy hands and moved slowly, one step at a time, toward the old priest.

Laughlin, frozen with a terror such as he’d never felt before, could only stare at the snarling, drooling creature that approached him.

Jeffrey spat, and a hot, viscous gob landed on the priest’s lips and began to sizzle.

Laughlin cried out as he wiped the stinking mucus from his face. Finally jarred from his paralysis, he bolted for the door, finding it only an instant before the creature would have been on him. He slammed the door shut and threw the bolt, just as Jeffrey’s poor body slammed against it. A furious howl erupted from the being trapped beyond the door, and it smashed Jeffrey Holmes’s body against it over and over again, the unearthly voice reverberating through the walls of the tunnels and into the very bones of the buildings above them.

Laughlin hobbled away from the cell as quickly as he could, and when he was far enough to be certain he was safe, he leaned against the wall and tried to catch his breath.

He dampened his handkerchief with the holy water that was supposed to have washed the evil from Jeffrey Holmes’s body and soul, and used it instead to wipe the spot where the devil’s sputum still burned his lips.

When his heart had finally slowed its pounding and he trusted himself to walk, he crossed himself, and hurried back toward his rooms, listening to the unearthly howls that might fade from the walls of the school, but which would follow him all the way to his grave.

In the infirmary, Melody Hunt’s eyes snapped open. She listened to the howling for a moment, and then, as if soothed by a lullaby, closed her eyes and fell back into an easy sleep.

In her room in the dormitory, Sofia Capelli sat listening to the wailing of a kindred spirit. As its volume rose, it awakened in her a hunger so desperate that it clawed at her insides. She curled up on her bed and held a pillow to her stomach. The time would come when they could be together.

Not yet, but soon.

Deep in the bowels of the underground, the being inhabiting Jeffrey Holmes fell to the stones in rage and frustration at the weakness of its host. Forcing Jeffrey to his feet, it hurled him against the wall, forcing the boy to smash his own head against the stones, but keeping him conscious. Totally conscious.

The boy must suffer—suffer as the evil itself was suffering.

Using the boy’s own long, broken fingernails, the evil began gouging at Jeffrey’s face, thrilling at the agony the boy was feeling. As its power and rage built, the thing went after Jeffrey’s throat, tearing at the pulsing artery in his neck, ripping and slashing at his skin and muscles and tendons until finally the torn and jagged nails found what they sought and tore into the pulsing artery that pumped blood into the boy’s brain.

Blood gushed from the ruined artery, spewing onto the stone floor.

One final rattling laugh bubbled from Jeffrey Holmes’s throat as his life drained away, spreading across the floor of the dark cell.

The evil sucked in the last of Jeffrey Holmes’s strength, then retreated like a maggot into a chrysalis, waiting for its next host to come….