Unearthed (46 page)

“Nice to be here,” Arch said, realizing that he meant not a word of it, but a little belatedly. “Or something.”

Spellman smiled. “Why don’t you step into my parlor? We can chat in … comfort?” He gestured to a room near the end of the hallway, and started walking toward it without so much as a concession to Arch that it was a suggestion or invitation.

“He’s a real charmer,” Arch said to Alison. He waited a moment to hear anything in reply, even a grunt, and then he turned.

The door was closed. Alison was gone.

Kitty felt the car come to a stop, the body of the Rog’tausch seated next to her in the car. It wouldn’t have been her first choice, sitting next to the massive, oversized body of the thing, but she wasn’t left with an abundance of options. It was either this or sit in the front seat with Rousseau.

Next time she’d opt for that. Though it still wouldn’t do anything for the fucking chatter.

She bailed out of the car as quickly as she could, taking a deep breath of the warm air. The sun shone down on her shell, and she fixated on an exposed, rock-built house. It reminded her of a cairn in the old world, but more evenly spaced. The waters of the Caledonia River were in the near distance, lapping against the new shore a few hundred feet from where she stood.

“This was all river a few weeks ago,” Rousseau said, catching her attention from where he stood. “Good timing on the drought, eh? Otherwise we’d be excavating in scuba gear.”

“In the third age,” the Rog’tausch said, bleating and filling the air as he had for the last hour, “this was all swamp and forest. The armies of Mok’tavar marched through a great valley in a slow slog, bringing forth their fire and—”

“Okay,” Kitty said, shaking her head as she rolled her eyes. “That’s great. Wonderful story, I’m sure. But we need to find your other leg.” She’d united the head with the rest of the body, and had been regretting it ever since. The Rog’tausch’s high, squeaky voice had been replaced with a deep, foreboding one. He’d still been damned surly toward her, though.

“It is this way,” the Rog’tausch said, promptly falling upon its newly installed face.

“Bardsley, help him up,” Kitty said. “Where are we digging?”

“Yonder,” the Rog’tausch said, pointing from where he lay to the shadow of a silo in the distance, unearthed by the rollback of the waters. “In the shadow of that great monument—”

“It’s a silo,” she said, going to the back of the car to open the trunk. “They stored corn in it.” It sprang open to reveal two shovels. “Rousseau, come carry these.”

Rousseau eased back to her smoothly. “Anything else, madam?” he asked as he picked up the shovels and shut the trunk with a slam.

“Not unless you have one of my ball gags handy,” she said, shaking her head and striking out toward the silo in the distance. She heard the Rog’tausch begin to speak again as Bardsley helped it to its feet. She tried to ignore it, but the reverberation of its words seemed to rattle her essence, setting her teeth on edge.

Even if they turned it up in the first shovel, this was going to be a long dig.

Brian followed his father into St. Joseph’s, almost cringing as he crossed the threshold. It was more annoyance than anything physical. It wasn’t like there was a presence or spirit or anything that could affect him here, after all. It was the heaped-on work of decades of psychological itch that he just wanted to scratch the hell out of.

“What are we even doing here, man?” he asked, half-laughing, awaiting the answer he knew was coming.

“You’re too smart to keep asking questions you already know the answer to,” Brian said, looking over the church. There was warm light streaming in from the stained-glass windows, mixed with some overhead lighting. There was a baptismal font straight ahead, built into the middle of the floor and surrounded by a wood and steel railing, probably to keep little children from accidentally baptizing themselves to death. The sound of burbling water filled the air, recirculating it, Brian presumed, so it didn’t get mildewed. Or something.

“I keep hoping I’ll get a different answer.”

“No different answers,” his father said wearily, looking down the main aisle toward the altar. “Maybe try different questions?”

“Fine,” Brian said, and something snapped within him. Something about this place reminded him of the church he’d been dragged to for all those years. The smell, maybe, like hymnal pages and padded seats. “Why do you play dumb all the time?”

Bill gave him that same weary look. “I don’t play dumb, all right? And I’m not dumb. Maybe it’s in your perceptions.”

“You’re so full of shit—”

“Language,” Bill snapped. “You’re in God’s house.”

“Looks like he’s not home,” Brian shot back, indicating the empty room with a sweep of his hand. “Maybe it’s because he doesn’t exist. Places like this are the perfect symbol for the divide between you and me.”

“Because I see what you don’t?” The expression on Bill’s face was maddening.

“Because you go along with the prevailing bullshit around here just to get along with the fucking huddled masses,” Brian said. “Because you dumb yourself down to act all homespun and good-ole-boyish. Everybody thinks they’re smarter than their parents, but I never harbored that illusion. I always knew you were as smart or smarter than me, and one step ahead. I could pull one over on you now and again, but that’s about it. You always played dumb, though—”

“I never—” Bill started.

“You fucking did!” Brian said, voice echoing in the church. “And it always pissed me off. Smartest man in the room throwing it away like it’s nothing. Turning his talents toward managing money so he could buy a string of stores and property for middling returns. That old saw of, ‘If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich’? Well, you beat the hell out of that one, didn’t you? You got rich half-assing it, but you never did anything but go along around here. Never made waves. Never challenged the status quo—”

“Maybe I like the status at present,” Bill said. “I know how you feel, though.”

Brian shook his head. “I doubt it.”

“No, I do,” Bill said. “It’s the same pain I get watching you waste your life away in a basement, squandering your gifts and smoking yourself into oblivion every God-blessed day.”

“What can I say?” Brian smiled smarmily. “I learned from the best.”

Bill just stood there, immovable. “You didn’t exactly follow my example to a T, did you?”

“I made some modifications,” Brian said. “To suit my personality and whatnot. But it doesn’t matter. Here we are, anyway. Wasting our prodigious talents,” he threw a little sarcasm into that, “standing in an empty church so you can ask a priest for help killing demons.” He lowered his voice. “And here I am with you, because I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“I think it’s because you’ve got a lot of unchanneled anger,” Bill said. “Maybe you should find a release for that.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll make an appointment with a counselor or something,” Brian said with a shrug. “I got nothing but time.”

Bill stared at him, blinking a little. “I don’t think we can overstate the generational difference between us for the direction of our lives, son. You may have perceived me as aiming low, but the truth I was playing society’s game as was appropriate for my age cohort. Just like you sort of are now. Times have changed. What I did—and did well, I might add—may seem foreign to you, but it was a product of my time.”

“I don’t want to be a product of my time,” Brian said.

“Well, if that’s your intention,” Bill said, “you might want to break out of the hipster millennial mold you seem to have accidentally mired yourself in.”

“The hell?” Brian asked, looking at himself. These were not the clothes of a hipster. “I don’t think you know what that word means. I don’t even have a beard. And this isn’t even about me!”

“It’s not?” Bill asked. “Oh, well, then. Maybe you might consider taking your angry diatribe out to the truck while I talk to Father Nguyen?”

“I’m not—” Brian made a grunting noise. “I’m calling you out on being a fucking plant, on basically letting yourself act like an unthinking idiot, and you’re—you’re still deflecting.”

“I don’t really have the time or inclination to argue with you right now,” Bill said. “And if you don’t think it’s all about you, maybe you might consider holding this argument in which
you
vent
your
spleen about how I failed
you
until a time when it would better suit me rather than
you
. Hmm?” He hit the “yous” in the sentence with extra emphasis, and each one drove the temperature on Brian’s irritation up a few more notches. “Thank you kindly,” Bill said, and started toward the back of the church.

Brian just burned, standing there for a minute, tempted to kick something—like the baptismal font’s railing. That’d be a fly in his father’s ointment for sure.

But it would also prove the old man right.

Brian just followed him, straight up to a door to the left of the altar. “It’s like you’ve been here before,” he said.

“I have,” Bill said, heading down a long hallway that was surprisingly long, given how much of the church they’d already covered. The building hadn’t looked quite this big from the outside, had it? “I get along with all sorts, you know, being a good ol’ boy. Tend to make the rounds as I’m dumbing my conversation down, you see.”

Brian just rolled his eyes, and his father took a turn in the hallway into an outer office that had no one manning its desk. The inner office opened to a square room where an Asian man with a priest’s collar had cards spread out in front of him. “What the …?” Brian muttered under his breath. “Is he playing—”

“Solitaire,” the priest said, shifting the cards around without looking up. His voice was a little accented. “Some of my brethren prefer to play on computer, but I like the old-fashioned feel of the cards in my hands.” He flipped one over and immediately moved it to a stack of ordered hearts. It was the eight. “I don’t get the automatic score keeping mechanism, but that’s probably like gambling in a way, what with the release of endorphins it produces. Unjust gain of happiness, perhaps?”

“Father Nguyen,” Bill said, stepping into the priest’s office. He said the man’s name like a greeting.

“Hello, Bill,” Father Nguyen said, still not looking up from his game. “You don’t usually stop by when it’s not fundraising season.”

“I’ve got a reason,” Bill said, “and it’s not the season, you’re right about that.”

Nguyen looked up, sliding back from the pile of cards like it took a true effort to put them down. “Well. I don’t suppose you’re here to finally convert to Catholicism?”

“Sad to say I’m not,” Bill said.

“Why do you do that?” Brian asked, giving his father a look of utter disdain. “Just—go along and play nice, when what you really want to say is—”

“Manners,” Bill said, not even looking at his son. “Sorry about that, Father Nguyen. This is my son Brian. We’re still working on courtesy.”

Brian felt his face go flaming red, but Father Nguyen said nothing in acknowledgment of his father’s shaming tactic. Brian managed to keep his mouth closed by virtue of—hell, a miracle for all he knew. It certainly wasn’t natural.

“So what brings you in today, Bill? You don’t seem like you’re looking for a simple conversation,” Nguyen said, then his eyes flicked to his cards. “Texas Hold ’Em for toothpicks, maybe?”

“I wouldn’t want to unjustly gain toothpicks,” Bill said.

Nguyen’s eyes gleamed, and he smiled. “You wouldn’t. What can I do for you?”

“Consecrating a weapon,” Bill said. “You ever heard of the practice?”

Nguyen’s face went guarded in an instant, which to Brian was a massive giveaway of its own. “I’m not sure what you’re—”

“There’s a ritual,” Bill said, “wherein you … give the blessing of the Lord to … say, a sword.”

“I can’t see why you would want to do something like that,” Nguyen said.

“To kill demons with it,” Bill said. “To split their earthly shells and send their essence back to the fires of … well, you know.”

Nguyen just stared at him, mouth slightly open, considering. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps you’ve heard of the ritual?” Bill asked. “Or perhaps you know how the demons are sent back with the aid of a holy blade?”

“Perhaps I’ve heard of both,” Nguyen said.

“So you wouldn’t know how to do something like that?” Bill asked. Brian could tell his father was being a little shrewd, holding something back, playing his own game.

“I can’t see the purpose,” Nguyen said, just a little too breezy.

“I would think the purpose would be obvious,” Bill said, “what with Midian being infested with the denizens of Hell.”

Nguyen let a sheepish giggle. “Bill, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m pretty sure you do,” Bill said, arms folded, leaning against the door. “I’ve heard whispers around the town. People wondering what’s going on. Sheriff Reeve is banging his head against the wall, running in circles. He’s looking for a pattern, something he could find from an FBI, or a state agency, something that would indicate that they’ve ever seen this before. But he’s spinning wheels, because if they’ve dealt with it before, they never recorded it. I’m thinking that’s not an accident.” Bill took a step closer. “But … if there was one organization on the planet that had seen something like this happen … that knew what it was … someone who was … I don’t know, dedicated in some way to fighting against a plague of evil … I guess I figured it’d be the Church.”

Father Nguyen stood. “That is … quite the web of assumptions. Each more tenuous than the last.”

“But you’re not ejecting me from your office,” Bill said. “You’re not even screaming in protest that I’m a madman.”

Nguyen tugged at his white collar, like he was trying to let heat escape. “If I thought you were a madman, do you think that I—unarmed—would try anything forceful to get you out the door? Because I suspect I would appease you, try to talk you down.”

“You going to talk me down?” Bill asked.

Nguyen looked desperately uncomfortable. “It’s a fanciful story.”

“Here’s another one for you, then,” Bill said. “There’s a demon royal in town. Her name is Katlin Elizabeth, and she’s a duchess of the underworld.” Brian watched the priest subtly twitch at the mention of her name. “She’s here to assemble something called a ‘Rog’tausch.’”