Sorry about the little-later-than-usual posting. Time got away from me yesterday.
This chapter is from an untitled work that I pick up and put back down every so often. It’s set in the UNSETIC Files universe, though it deals less with UNSETIC and more with a faction that’s the baby of L.P. Loudon, not necessarily me. The Hunters first appeared in Between Fang and Claw (Maralyn Acton, Galahad Henebry, and David Tierney are all Hunters) in a somewhat ambiguous role–which fits them perfectly.
The chapter below looks into the life of one that followed a rather different calling for a Hunter: a priest and exorcist.
One
“Father Orestes St. Cyr?”
The hairs on the back of his neck stirred at the sound of the voice, unexpected at this hour. St. Malachy’s was busy at every time of day except nine in the morning, when most of its parishioners were either still abed after long nights or working a normal shift until their acting careers took off. He took a slow, deep breath and turned toward the sound, toward the unfamiliar man that stood near the baptismal font at the rear of the chapel.
“Father Orestes, please,” the priest said, tugging unconsciously at his sleeves. The stranger studied him for a long moment, looking doubtful, as if Orestes wasn’t quite what he’d expected.
Orestes was used to that by now. He was young, wore his hair long, and had never gotten rid of the earrings in his left ear that were an echo of long-ago teenage rebellion. The archdiocese and Rome had decided that he was appropriate for the Actor’s Chapel, and the assignment had suited him. Most of his parishioners appreciated his youth and his readiness to relate to them and their problems.
But the look in this man’s eye told him that he hadn’t come for simple confession.
“Who sent you?” Orestes asked softly.
“I—the archdiocese—they—I—”
“You went looking for an exorcist and they sent you to me.”
The man swallowed, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s it precisely.”
Orestes studied him for a long moment, expression blank as his storm-gray eyes drank in details visible and unseen to all but the most discerning eye. “You didn’t come for yourself,” he said after a moment.
“How did—never mind. I came for my daughter.”
“Your daughter,” Orestes echoed quietly. That made more sense and explained the shadow of worry that hung over the man, the weariness. He wasn’t demon-ridden, but he believed someone in his life was. “How old?”
“Seventeen,” the man said. “She was supposed to start at NYU in the fall, but…” his voice faltered and he swallowed hard. “Father, say you’ll help us.”
Orestes sat down in one of the pews and waved for the man to join him. He did after a moment’s hesitation, settling on the hard wood seat next to the priest. The man stared at his hands, fingers twisting together.
Orestes waited and wasn’t disappointed. It was only a few more seconds before the man started to talk, the silence all the invitation he needed.
“She hears voices,” the man whispered. “She hears voices, but she’s not schizophrenic. Medicating her doesn’t help. She hears them whether she wants to or not. They’re too much. She knows things she shouldn’t, secrets she was never told, things she has no way of learning. She cut her wrists this past May, two days after graduation. We don’t know what else to do, Father Orestes. All we can think is that she’s somehow tormented by some demon or worse.”
His heart beat a little faster even as his lips thinned. Voices. She hears voices, but isn’t schizophrenic. Knows things that she shouldn’t. Medication doesn’t help. “I’ll need proof of inconclusive diagnosis from her doctors,” Orestes said. “And I’ll need to meet her. Does she know you’ve come?”
“No,” the man said, his voice abruptly hoarse. “My wife doesn’t even know I’ve come. I didn’t tell them. This is all I could think to do, though, the only thing that might—the only thing I thought could help.” His dark-eyed gaze met Orestes’s. “You’ll help us?”
“As much as I can,” Orestes said. He reached over and patted the man’s knee. The man stared at that hand for a moment, at the Jerusalem cross tattooed there, dark against pale flesh.
Orestes withdrew his hand and tugged his sleeve back down again to cover most of the mark on the back of his wrist. “Bring her here tonight,” he said, standing slowly. “Bring her records with you. Come after the eight o’clock Mass.”
The man nodded silently. Orestes watched him for a moment before turning away.
“Father?”
He paused, looking back to the stranger again. Hope had kindled in the middle-aged man’s eyes, a hope Orestes prayed wouldn’t be shattered.
“Can you help us?” the man asked in a bare whisper.
Orestes shook his head slightly. “It seems as if you’ve tried just about everything else. She may not need an exorcism, but there’s more to what we do than simply banish demons.”
The man stared hard at him before he nodded. “We’ll be here at nine.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He watched the stranger go, leaning against a pew and crossing his arms. It was as if there had been a weight lifted from the older man’s shoulders, like simply saying he’d try to help was more than enough to ease the burden he felt. It wasn’t the first time Orestes had seen that look. Sometimes, all it ever took was saying he’d try to help. Usually, he could. Usually, all that was ever needed was a sympathetic ear and counseling that the modern mental health establishment didn’t seem to give to many of the men and women who sought his help.
Then again, every so often, he found someone that genuinely needed his abilities—either as an exorcist or as something more.
Wonder which one this will be. His lips thinned for a moment and he shook his head, turning away as the doors shut behind the visitor. He’d find out soon enough.
• • •
The sun hadn’t quite set by the end of the eight o’clock mass, nor had the man arrived. Orestes glanced toward the doors, the chapel quiet as the few worshipers that had come to the Tuesday evening mass drifted out into the streets of Manhattan and the twilight that settled upon it like a shadowed veil. Night would come soon and the creatures that dwelled more in shadows than in light would come out to stalk the streets in their own ways. Some might cross his threshold here, others would keep their distance. Not all had earned the right to call the young priest friend, though some had.
New York was a city of monsters and saints, of light and darkness hidden from the eyes of most. He was blessed—or cursed—to live in both worlds.
He moved to the rack of red hurricane glasses that stood before a mosaic of Saint Malachy ministering to the people of Northern Ireland, a few candles flickering in their bloody depths. He struck one of the long matches and picked up one of the remembrance candles, lighting it and murmuring a soft prayer for the souls of the departed.
One for Tom Sutherland, now gone nearly two years. One for Father Abel Mason, who’d taught him everything he’d known about being an exorcist before his death at the ripe age of eighty-three. One for his mother, another for his father, both dead since his seventeenth birthday.
The doors opened, then closed again. Orestes snuffed the match and turned, craning his neck to see the pair of shadows that had slipped through his doors. He recognized his visitor from this morning and the girl at his side—a slip of a thing, her blonde hair glinting gold in the chapel’s lights—must have been the daughter he’d spoken of.
He offered them a smile, not sure that they’d be able to see it in the shadows, then moved toward them. He was still in his vestments from the evening’s Mass, green over white, ginger hair glinting like fire in the dim. The girl met his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath, exhaling it in a shaky sigh. Her father glanced at her nervously, then back to the priest.
Orestes inclined his head toward an alcove near the altar. “Over there,” he said. “We can talk.”
The man thrust a folder at him. “The records,” he said, nerves and eagerness mixing in his voice. Orestes took the folder, not really looking at the man.
The girl held his eye for a long moment before she looked away from him. Those eyes were a deep, dark blue, like the Atlantic before a storm. Orestes’s heart gave a strange double-beat. There was something about the girl, something he hadn’t quite put his finger on yet.
“Thank you.” Orestes turned and led them toward the alcove, thumbing through the folder as he went. There were a number of documents tucked inside, neatly arranged. The girl’s name was Nora Patterson and she’d seen no less than six psychologists and psychiatrists in the past four years. Clark, her father, was the man that had come to him and begged for his help for the seventeen-year-old girl. According to his cursory examination of the documents, the voices had started when she was fifteen and had gotten worse and worse until her suicide attempt. His lips thinned and he closed the folder. It wasn’t an unfamiliar story.
They sat down in the small alcove and Orestes set the folder to one side, folding his hands in his lap and regarding the girl carefully. Her gaze was wary as she peered at him, her lips thinning to white. Orestes could see the livid scar from her suicide attempt peeking out from beneath the sleeve of her light cardigan.
He glanced toward Clark. “Would you mind if I spoke to your daughter alone for a few minutes?”
Patterson blinked, looking sidelong at his daughter. She bit her lip, then nodded slightly.
“It’s okay, Dad,” she said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
“All right.” Patterson stood up. “I’ll be over there, okay?” He pointed to the mosaic and the remembrance candles. His daughter nodded, solemn as she folded her hands in her lap and her father withdrew.
Orestes watched him go, speaking softly once he was out of earshot. “Your father says that you hear things.”
“Voices,” she said, her gaze meeting his. “I hear voices. He thinks that they’re demons or figments of my imagination or I don’t know what.”
He nodded slowly. “What do you think they are?”
“I’ve got no idea. All I know is that they’re real and they’re there and I hear them all the time.” Her lips thinned to fine white lines. “They sound like people I know. Like my neighbors or my parents or the kids at school.”
Orestes took a deep breath, eyes half-lidding as he studied her. She was trying to keep the raw emotion from her voice, but he could hear her frustration, her fear and absolute exhaustion. He could hear it, taste it, like wet ashes and saltwater and cayenne pepper, which he’d never liked. There was something in her aura, something that burned bright and familiar. “Give me your hand,” he murmured. A touch might tell the tale, might tell him what he needed to know.
She regarded him warily, skittish as a newborn filly, but she unknotted her fingers from each other and slid one hand into his. The touch sent currents skittering through his flesh and up his arm and Orestes shivered as Nora shuddered and looked away.
The mother. I need to meet the mother.
“Why?” the girl whispered, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Orestes raised a brow.
“Why what?” he asked softly, fingers tightening on her hand as she tried to yank it out of his grip. She gave a quiet whimper, trying to pull her hand away one more time before she stopped trying to tug free.
“Why do you need to meet my mom?”
He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “It’ll help me confirm what I suspect.”
“What’s that?”
He squeezed her hand, giving her a warm, reassuring smile. “That you’re not possessed and not crazy,” he said quietly. That you’re special. That you’re one of us.
Nora bit her lip. “She doesn’t know Dad brought me here.”
He raised a brow. “And you don’t want to tell her?”
“She’ll freak out. She freaks out about everything. She thinks I’m faking, that I’m doing it for attention. She doesn’t understand.” Nora looked down at their linked hands. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“I believe you more than anyone else ever has,” Orestes said softly. He gave her hand one last squeeze before releasing it. “At least as much as your dad.”
“He’s not really my dad,” she said softly, looking away and toward the man who’d brought her here. “He raised me like he was, but he’s not really my dad.”
The plot thickens. Orestes studied her. “How do you know?”
“My mom told me. I’m adopted. She had this friend in England who couldn’t keep me and she and Dad adopted me and brought me back here. It all came up when I was seeing the shrinks. They needed to know if there was a history of mental illness in the family and Dad didn’t know but she did because she knew the people they adopted me from and they were fine.” Nora blew out a quiet breath, staring at the hem of his vestments, at the black leather Doc Martens that peeked out from beneath it. Her gaze flicked back up to his face. “I’m not crazy,” she whispered. “And I didn’t do it for attention. It was just too much. I’m tired of hearing them.”
“The voices?”
She nodded, tears welling up along her lashes.
Orestes touched her cheek gently, wiping away one of the tears that slid free with his thumb. “Don’t worry,” he said to her softly. “I’m going to help you. I promised your father and I’m promising you, too. I’m the kind of man who keeps his promises.”
“Thanks.” She sucked in a ragged breath and shivered.
The door to the chapel whispered open, night air spilling into the space and making the candles flicker. There was the scent of rain on the air, heavy and coming soon. Orestes glanced past the girl toward those doors, leaning to one side to see who the newcomer might be.
She was slender, curling auburn hair pulled into a braid down between her shoulder blades, dressed in dark jeans and a tank top of wine-colored silk. Her eyes met his and a shiver crept down his spine, just like it always did.
“Father Orestes, I’m afraid I’ve need of your skills this evening,” she said, her voice softly commanding.
A frown creased his brow as he stood up, not liking the sound of that at all.
The woman’s name was Cassidy Beckett, and she was a vampire.
He looked toward Patterson, then back to Nora. “Come back tomorrow,” he told the teenager. “Nine o’clock in the morning. Can you do that?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I can do that.”
“Alone?” Patterson frowned. “Are you sure—”
“It’ll be fine, Dad,” Nora said, her voice firm as she stood up. She gave Orestes a weak, tentative smile as she stood. “I’ll be here.”
“So will I.” He patted her shoulder and watched as she went to Patterson.
“Thank you,” Patterson said again as he slid his arm around his daughter.
Orestes just nodded and watched them walk out into the deepening twilight.
“Troubled?” Cassidy asked.
Orestes made a soft, noncommitmental noise. “What do you need, Cassidy?”
“I need you to introduce me to the General.”
He blinked at her. “What?”
“I think you heard what I said.” She crossed her arms tightly under her breasts, drifting behind him as he headed for the alcove where he could strip out of his vestments and down to street clothes. “You’re the only one I can ask, Orestes. You’re the only one I know well enough to trust with this.”
“You mean I’m the only one you know who’s got enough of his ear for this,” Orestes snarled. He sucked in a breath, trying to calm himself. “Why now? Why tonight? You saw I was busy.”
“A civil war is about to erupt,” Cassidy said, watching him with those knowing eyes of hers. “There’s no stopping it. I’ve tried. I have to warn them. People are going to die and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Not alone, anyway.”
Orestes stared at her. “And I can’t tell him this for you?”
“This is something he needs to hear from me. It’s time.” Her lips thinned. “It’s probably past time. I should have made myself known to him a long time ago. Braedon Chandler knew enough of me to listen when I voiced my warnings, though I know he never trusted me. Still, he would listen and I can’t fathom how many people may have been saved because he did.”
The priest winced slightly. “Did it occur to you that best time to make introductions might not be when you’re bearing bad news?”
“Are you going to make me approach him myself? Because I will if I have to.”
Orestes sighed, silently saying a prayer for patience. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to make you approach him alone. You’ll owe me a favor for this, though.”
“My doors are open,” Cassidy said. “Can we go now?”
He finished tucking his vestments safely away and nodded. “Yeah, we can go now. Just let me grab my phone.”
“I’ll wait outside.” She headed for the front doors and Orestes shook his head, heading for the chapel’s office to snag his cell phone from the charger. He sent a text to Father Stanislas, the other priest assigned to the chapel, letting him know that he was heading out on an errand, then punched in a text to Wes Chandler.
Need to know where you are. I’ve got someone who needs to meet you.
He shoved the phone into the back pocket of his jeans and headed out into the night.
