Of Saints and Sinners Read online

  Suddenly, St. Abigail was on it from behind. Her stilettos darted in several times with quick punches, slicing between the scales that covered most of its back. Its grip loosened on Silas’ shoulders. It tried to turn to address this new threat, but this time Silas held on, refusing to let it turn to St. Abigail. She got in three more strikes before it went limp in his hands. He let it fall to the floor.

  It was a man, or had been a man, he thought. Scales gleamed through torn holes in old baggy clothes, next to flashes of pale human skin. It looked like half man half lizard. It even had a tail, jerking like it had a mind of its own.

  “What the hell is it?” Brother Harold asked.

  “An over-sized gecko,” Silas offered.

  More shots came from ahead.

  “Up the stairs,” Brother Talbot said.

  More monks were streaming down the hall, armed to the teeth. But Silas didn’t wait for them; he took the stairs two at a time. He did note that St. Abigail was right behind him. He heard the radio crackle.

  “Sir, all teams report that the other wings are clear. It seems the intruders are only in the east wing.”

  Of course they are, thought Silas, they’re after the same thing I am.

  Silas crested the top of the stairs and found his way blocked by five of the creatures. Dead monks lay strewn about the floor and the smell of discharged weapons drifted through the air. As the newcomers arrived at the top of the stairs, the creatures leaped forward. Gunfire erupted around him as Brother Talbot and the other monks opened fire. The creatures moved at inhuman speeds, but even so, they could not dodge the hail of gunfire. Two were hit, but it only slowed them. One sprung effortlessly to the ceiling, using its claws to find purchase in the plaster. It swung from its arms straight at Silas, who grabbed its swinging legs and pulled down. Its claws ripped free of the ceiling and the creature came crashing down.

  Silas didn’t hesitate; he slammed his fist into the back of its head. The back of its neck felt like it was armor plated. If Silas had been human his hand would be broken, but it was just incredibly painful. The creature fell forward at the blow, but lashed out with its left arm at Silas. He caught the appendage and with both hands yanked the forearm back, slamming his knee against the creature’s elbow. It howled in pain as the bone splintered, leaving the arm at an impossible angle. St. Abigail slit the creature’s throat as it stretched its head back in a roar of pain.

  She turned back to the fighting, if you could call it that. The monsters had waded into the monks like a farmer harvesting wheat. The guns were of limited use in the confined space and any shot had just as much a chance of hitting one of their own as one of the creatures. Even St. Abigail was cut in a few places from claws. But she was more than a match for these things. As she fought she moved more like a dancer attempting a complex, but beautiful choreography.

  He looked at the creature she had killed; it had dark goggles on its eyes also. In fact, all the creatures fighting them did.

  A sixth creature stood down the hall, but this one was different. Larger than the others, maybe close to seven feet tall, it was somehow less bestial. It too wore goggles around its head. Most of its body was covered in scales, but they shone silver as if they had been polished, whereas the others’ scales were a dirty, mossy color.

  This, Silas thought, is the leader. As he watched, the creature opened the door next to it and stepped inside. Silas guessed that was the door to Father Delentante’s room. He stepped forward to pursue then looked back at the slaughter happening behind him. He should leave them and get to Delentante before that thing, but at the same time these creatures would soon kill all the monks and then his back would be unprotected. One of the creatures looked at him, a large grin forming beneath those dark glasses.

  Dark glasses!

  Silas reached out with his demonic fury and created a small ball of fire in his hand, about the size of a lighter flame. Recalling words he had learned while possessing a sixteenth century sorcerer who specialized in sympathetic magic, he murmured quickly as the monster crouched to pounce on him. Silas felt the power of the words gathering like a thunderstorm and could feel the pull and push building in the air around him. He directed the pull toward the flame in his hand and the push at the lights along the wall. It was good they were incandescent, as this little trick wouldn’t work with florescent bulbs.

  The creature sprung at him and he released the power. Instantly the flame went out in his hand and the lights flared to life, making the hallway ten times brighter. The creature flew past him clutching at its eyes. The other monsters fell back and covered their eyes, screeching in pain. While bright for the creatures, in truth the hall wasn’t much brighter than a sunny day, so the surviving monks quickly took up positions around the stunned creatures.

  The monks had more of an even chance now, although Silas suspected the bright light wouldn’t keep their adversaries at bay for long. But he had other problems to deal with now. He ran to the door that the big one had gone through. St. Abigail was right behind him, apparently she assumed the monks could handle it also.

  “I saw one go into here,” she said.

  Silas didn’t answer, he kicked the door down, tearing it off its hinges. Inside the leader stood over Father Delentante. The Father’s throat was a bloody mess and blood flowed freely from the wound. The creature’s right hand dripped with blood and flesh. It looked up as they barged in, and Silas thought he detected surprise on the thing’s face. Surprise turned to a smile and then the creature leaped through the window.

  Silas ran to the window and looked out as the thing landed on the ground and started to run down the alley at incredible speed. Silas glanced at the Father. The gouge in his throat was weakly pumping blood now, but the priest already had a glassy look in his eyes. It was too late.

  “Go after it. I will take care of the priest.”

  Silas needed no further encouragement, the priest wouldn’t live to tell them a thing. He jumped through the window and landed thirty feet below on the pavement. The large creature stopped at the mouth of the alley and swung back to look at him.

  This one seemed unaffected by the sunlight, although it wore glasses. It looked from the window above, then back down to Silas.

  “What are you?” it asked, its voice deep and rumbling, but human sounding.

  “Just a rock ‘n roll singer,” Silas answered.

  With a roar the creature charged at Silas.

  Hmmm… must be a country fan.

  Silas dodged to the side, but the creature was too fast. Its hand lashed out, hooked him around the midsection and spun him against a large metal dumpster. Silas kicked out with his right foot and caught it in the face. The power of the kick knocked it back a few feet. It shook its head. Obviously it had not expected resistance like this.

  “Why did you kill Delentante?” Silas asked, as the creature carefully squared off against him.

  It struck at his face and Silas realized this was probably not the time for an interrogation. Silas brought his hand up to block, then slammed his fist into the creature’s stomach. It grunted, but otherwise seemed unfazed. The creature returned the blow to Silas’s nose using its scale-plated forehead. Pain exploded across his face and tears blinded him. He fell back against the dumpster, blood gushing from his nose.

  This is one tough lizard thing, Silas thought through the red haze of pain. He struggled with consciousness, awaiting the next blow. It didn’t come.

  Bullets rained down from above. The creature was hit three times, the first two rounds glancing harmlessly off the silver scales covering parts of its back and chest. The third round, however, cut through the remnants of clothing the thing wore and found soft flesh. It roared and looked back up at the window to Delentante’s room.

  The pain had receded and Silas had stayed conscious. Up in the window he could see Brother Talbot and another monk, each with rifles in their hands, firing at the monster in front of him. Two more bullets bounced off the creature’s scales a
nd with a final roar it ran off down the alley, moving with that same supernatural speed. When it reached the street beyond, it sprang into the road and onto the top of a car, crushing the top. The car slammed on its breaks and slid into the one in front of it. The creature sprang from that car to another and then out of sight into another alley.

  Silas couldn’t follow it. It moved too fast and his body was too bruised and battered. He walked to the service entrance of the monastery and kicked it open before ducking back inside.

  When Silas returned to the room, he was nursing aching ribs and had one son-of-a-bitch headache. Monks had been clearing the wounded and the dead from the hall; it looked as though the battle was over. The bodies of the creatures had disappeared.

  “What happened to the ones we killed?” Silas asked a monk helping with the injured.

  “They retreated shortly after the lights flared, but they took the time to grab their dead before leaving,” the monk answered in a thin voice, his face pale. He was still in shock from the combat.

  “Which way did they retreat?”

  “We saw them head down to the first floor, but none of us followed. We were in no condition to chase after them. If they hadn’t retreated…”

  The monk left the rest hanging. He didn’t have to finish. That any monks had survived was a miracle. Silas nodded and went into Delentante’s room.

  St. Abigail sat on the bed leaning over the body of the priest. Brother Talbot was speaking with another monk in the corner. Two monks with medical bags were packing them up next to the body of Father Delentante. Brother Harold and another monk looked out the window, rifles at the ready. A priest stood over the father’s bed speaking the final words of the last rites.

  Silas knocked the bottle of oil from the priest’s hand and shoved him back against the wall. The surprised priest fell splayed against the wall. St. Abigail jumped up from the bed, shock on her face. Brother Talbot turned from the monk he was speaking with.

  “What the hell is wrong with you Silas?” he asked.

  Silas looked at the monk to whom Talbot was speaking. “Get me three candles and brazier, or something else I can start a small fire in.”

  To Talbot he said, “I need something important to him, something sentimental, the older the better.” Silas started to take off his jacket.

  “Look Silas, I have no idea what you think you’re doing, but you can’t just start shoving people around making crazy requests. I just lost ten men and a lot more are injured.”

  “And do you want answers as to why those men died? Back in the early eighteen hundreds I poss—knew a guy who was a necromancer. I can try to get the answers we need. If he had completed the final prayers of the last rites it would have made it harder.”

  Brother Talbot looked stunned. “Are you saying you want to use Delentante in some sort of ritual to talk to the dead? I can’t allow that blasphemy and desecration of his body, not for some superstitious mumbo jumbo”

  “Why not? This is all for God’s work right? We are all on the same side here, at least in principle. It’s not as if I’ll be keeping him from moving on in the afterlife. It’s just a delay. You know, like a layover.”

  “Let him do it,” St. Abigail said. “He’s right Brother Talbot, we need information. You have read his file and know what unusual talents he has.”

  “But St. Abigail, talking with the dead? All of us in the Inquisition have had our experiences with the supernatural, but this is just unnatural.”

  It’s not really, just a different definition of natural. Brother Talbot, the report we received from the father was good, but it was incomplete, told while he was in and out of unconsciousness. We needed to speak to him about the details after he was moved here to recover. We have to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

  Talbot looked back and forth between them. “But you won’t actually harm the body right? No cutting or mutilation?”

  “Of course not, I’ll just need a chalice for drinking his blood.”

  Talbot’s eyes widened.

  “Just kidding, no funny business with the body. Just get me those things I asked for. It might already be too late.”

  Brother Talbot nodded to the monk who immediately left the room in search of the items.

  “And some booze if you got it. The stronger the better,” Silas called after him and began to take off his shirt.

  In the distance Silas could hear sirens. Police responding to the gun shots.

  “Don’t worry, we will keep them away. We will tell them there has been some gang activity in the area or something like that. We are, after all, just harmless monks. You know how it is dealing with those who have not seen beyond the Pale. They will believe almost anything that sounds rational. You won’t be disturbed,” Talbot said.

  Fifteen minutes later the room had been cleared of everybody but Brother Talbot and St. Abigail. Silas sat on the ground by the bed, three candles burning in a triangle around him. Father Delentante’s rosary was on the floor in front of him. They had closed the curtains at Silas’ instructions.

  Necromancy, or specifically the calling up of dead spirits, was tricky. Everything had to be perfect and there was not a lot of time between the moment of death and the soul’s passage beyond the afterlife. Too much time, and it was impossible to contact. The more troubled the soul, the longer it would linger close to this world. Father Delentante was probably strong in his faith and therefore had a direct line to heaven. There would be very little time to connect with him, and in fact might already be too late. Silas just hoped the method of his death was enough to keep the spirit here for at least a few more minutes.

  A monk came in with a bottle, handed it to Brother Talbot, whispered something to him and left the room.

  “We couldn’t find anything stronger than wine, but this is one of our oldest vintages and very potent. It’s priceless.” He handed it to Silas.

  Silas looked at it disapprovingly for a moment then said, “This will do.” He brought the bottle to his lips and took a long drink from the bottle. It was delicious and potent. Not usually a wine drinker, he was beginning to see the allure.

  “Thanks, necromancy is thirsty work,” Silas said.

  Brother Talbot’s jaw dropped.

  “Are you sure this will work Silas?” St. Abigail asked.

  “No, but it’s worth a try. Necromancy is a complex and rare style of magic. It’s dangerous to the practitioner because it can open a gate for all sorts of supernatural entities to come through. So we are going to wing it.”

  “Wing it?”

  “Yep, for example we are going to shorten the ritual and cut right to the chase by using the essence of both heaven and hell. Which means I am going to need a little blood, oh hallowed saint.”

  “You need my blood?”

  “Yep and a little of mine. That should be enough to open a gateway.”

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” St. Abigail said.

  “Look it’s either we short cut the rituals with our blood or we need to spend hours, if not days trying to gather everything we would need for a more complicated ritual. By that time Delentante’s soul will be long gone.”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  He pulled the brazier closer to him and lit the paper inside on fire. The he nodded to St. Abigail. “Let’s begin.”

  St. Abigail pulled one of her daggers out and sliced into her thumb, Silas offered his and she did the same, maybe cutting a little deeper than necessary. Then he pressed his thumb against hers letting their mingled blood drip into the fire beneath their clasped hands. He felt power where their blood touched, far more than he had expected. And there was something more, something just as powerful passed between them. He was shocked for a moment, then it subsided, but he saw in her eyes she had noticed it also. He began speaking the words of the ritual.

  They started as just words, but soon developed a weight of their own. He droned the words in a monotone voice, letting his own words hypnotize him just as h
e had learned long ago. It was while possessing the necromancer that he discovered a way to circumvent necessary rituals of mortals and reach into the spirit world. There are many worlds beyond, in what many would call the afterlife, but the two polarizing elements were heaven and hell, or good and evil, or whatever words were used in religions.

  While he could navigate and travel these realms, it was not as easy when he was confined to a human form. Then he was more beholden to the rules of mortals, but he could bend them when needed.

  The room darkened even more than it already was. The air became thick and heavy. The objects in the room, especially those on the periphery of Silas’ vision, started to blur and turn a dull gray as though the life was being drained out of the world.

  Next to him St. Abigail gasped. She would have traveled through this realm on her way to heaven and again when she was pulled back, but she would not remember the desolation. Besides, they were not fully into the afterlife; they had merely created a small space that allowed the mortal world to overlap with the land beyond for a short period of time.

  St. Abigail could see the change because she was part of the ritual, but Brother Talbot stood leaning against the wall staring at them, oblivious to the change around them. Silas looked for the shade of Father Delentante, hoping they weren’t too late.

  “There,” said St. Abigail pointing to a spot just beyond the bed in the gray and lifeless room.

  Silas saw it. The blurred spot came into focus as he stared at it and willed it to form. Soon he could see Father Delentante standing by the bed. The shade looked up at him and immediately it began to dissolve. Silas quickly picked up the rosary and held it up so the shade could see it.