Chapter Three
4 April 2018
I woke up with my left knee killing me. It had been a harbinger of horrible weather ever since I’d landed on it falling out of a helicopter in Iraq. I sighed. The forecast had been for ‘partly cloudy, with a slight chance of rain,’ while my knee was saying ‘buy all the gopher wood you can, build a big boat, and start rounding up the animals two by two.’ I rolled over, grabbed the bottle of Marine Candy (ibuprofen) that was sitting on the night stand and downed two of them, dry. Over the years, I’d gotten used to the aches and pains of getting older—after all, they indicated I was still above ground.
I gimped into the bathroom and showered, working my knee enough to get the limp down to a slight hitch in my giddy up. I looked out the windows, finally, and swore when I saw clear skies.
“Figures,” I said to the world in general.
After checking in with work—a quick text to a discrete number—I dressed for the day. Combat boots and black tactical pants with a dark blue t-shirt. I swung a light blue, short-sleeved shirt on to cover the 1911 holstered in the small of my back and headed out to find breakfast/kill time before I met with Miller.
I figured I’d start at the Pearl. After all, they’d had pretty decent food to go with the coffee when I’d last been in San Marcos. I got slapped in the face with ‘you can never go home again’ hard for the first time at the Pearl. They had a new manager, who was a vegetarian, which meant they no longer had meat on the menu. The baked goods were still there, but no sandwiches. I’d really been looking forward to their Reuben.
The kid behind the counter, a tall, lanky blond with a bunch of tattoos, took pity on me.
“Used to come here, huh?” he asked.
“Years ago,” I replied, trying to decide if it was worth it to order coffee before going back out into the street.
He looked at the clock.
“Give it ten minutes until the bar down the hall opens. When the new manager took over, she pissed off the cook, so he went to work back there to screw with her. You can get the same food,” he said with a grin.
“Damn it, John!” a shrill voice yelled from the office behind the counter. “Quit sending business back there!”
I got the coffee to go, and tipped the kid.
“Thanks,” he said, pocketing the ten spot.
I took my time adjusting the coffee/sugar/cream ratio in my cup, then wandered down the hall to the bar. I dawdled over breakfast, reading. It was forty-five minutes short of two when I finally paid the bill and rose, walking back to the Pearl in the front of the building.
The first thing I noted on exiting the bar was that the light had gone flat. I walked all the way to the front of the Pearl and looked out the windows. There still wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but the sunlight had taken on the same qualities as it did in the minutes before a thunderstorm—flat with a slight gray-green tinge. My knee was twinging on top of that. I had enough time to walk down to my B&B for my brace, so I did.
For some reason, I also changed shirts, putting on my ‘work’ shirt with the clerical collar, and shrugged into a gray herringbone tweed jacket with silver woven into the threads to cover my pistol. The silver had been blessed before being woven into the jacket. I don’t know why I changed, but I’d come to listen to the little voice in the noise at the back of my head a long time ago. It had kept me from dying more than once in Iraq. I looked at the cases on the wall—one had bottles of holy water, wafers, and sacramental wine—and then glanced at the pair of Pelican 1650 hard cases I’d placed at the foot of the bed. One had body armor and load-bearing equipment, along with about a thousand rounds of ammunition. The other wheeled Pelican case held three sub guns—two H&K UMP .45s and one of the last of a very special order of MP5s in .45 in a hard-shell brief case, along with a few other party supplies. Ginsberg, the company armorer/resident mad weapons genius, had gotten a few of the original H&K ‘operational’ brief cases as a test and decided they were a joke, so he had designed his own. He’d started with a hard-shell sample case that opened from the top, and had combined it with a carrying system for a very small MP5 with ten magazines. There was even a stock and suppressor that could be added if you had the time. His model wasn’t set up so you could shoot through the case, but I could have the MP5 out and putting lead and silver on target in under five seconds. If I had to, I could fire it through the case, but Ginsberg might be a bit miffed about what I’d done to his handiwork.
I hated the damn things. Short MP5s with just a pistol grip are hard to control, especially if you have to play rock n’ roll. The shoulder stock helped some—and adding the suppressor helped more—but neither one helped a whole lot, overall. I still took the case with me.
If the sky had been gray before, it now looked like dross on the surface of molten lead. There still wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but the birds, who had been cheerily shouting when I awoke hours before, were huddled together motionless like silent balls of feathers clinging to the power lines with a death grip.
I started to cross Guadalupe with the light, but had to jump back to avoid being run over by an ancient Lincoln Town Car that was apparently seeking revenge on John Wilkes Booth. I could see a mound of blue hair peeking above the steering wheel and a pair of skeletal hands gripping the wheel. The car roared through the intersection, disappearing down Guadalupe.
I looked at the guy crossing the street from the other direction. He shrugged. I shrugged back, too, and walked on to the Pearl, arriving five minutes late. Miller had already gotten a table and was going over the menu—a couple of sheets of printer paper in a page protector. The same blond kid from earlier was behind the bar, watching a pair of sorority girls try to decide what they wanted. I dropped the case next to the table and walked to the bar to order more coffee.
“Are you sure you don’t have Diet Coke?” one of the sorority girls asked as I stepped up behind them.
“Yes,” the barista said, exasperation evident in his voice.
“Can you look just to be absolutely sure?” she whined.
I could see a vein throbbing in his temple. I think I caught the actual moment he snapped.
“I tell you what. I’ll take a look in our vast cooler—” he pointed to the glass-fronted case behind the bar, “—if you can answer one question.”
I watched the girl’s reflection in the front of the case. Her eyes lit up, probably because the barista was playing her game.
“I’ll try,” she responded.
He struck a pose, one hip cocked, one hand resting on that hip, and the other hand on the bar.
“Why do sorority girls drink Diet Coke?”
She gave him a smile that clearly said she thought she was in on the joke, replying, “I don’t know. Why do sorority girls drink Diet Coke?”
“Because they think they’re fat, and they’re thirsty!” the barista said.
“I never!” the sorority girl shouted, flouncing off.
“I fucking hope so,” he responded to her back. He turned to me and saw my collar. “Um, sorry about that, Father. She comes in here about once a day, always asking for Diet Coke.”
I smiled at him. “I imagine it would be a bit wearing. John, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. What can I get you?”
“Coffee’s fine. When my friend over there figures out what he wants, put it on my check, okay?”
“Can do,” John replied, handing me a cup.
I fixed it to my liking and joined Miller.
“You get your holy Winston Churchill Garden Gnome?” I asked.
“Bird bath, yes. The owner was quite reasonable about it. I was even able to document a vision of Saint Mark the Evangelist while we were talking.”
“You saw a vision?” I replied.
“Yes. Even tried to film it with my phone, but all the phone picked up was lens flares like a JJ Abrams movie,” Miller said.
“That’s…that’s not good,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Think about it. Did you ask her how frequently the visions were occurring?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, pulling out a notebook.
There was an irritating background whine, like a gnat or a mosquito buzzing my ear. Miller waved a hand at his head before flipping to the last page with something written on it.
“Once a year for ten years, once a week for the last three months, finally once a day until today, when she started seeing a vision every hour or so…” he trailed off.
“If the frequency has gone up…” I started.
The buzzing had gone from an irritant to something that was causing the fillings in my teeth to vibrate.
“You hear that?” Miller asked.
“Hear it? I feel it,” I said.
There was a crash behind the bar. We rushed to the bar.
John lay on the ground, twitching.
“Seizure?” Miller asked over the buzz.
I looked at the kid.
“No medical alert tags, but, that doesn’t mean…”
The buzzing was actually causing the crockery to move on the shelves.
“Damn. Grab his feet, huh?” I shouted, picking John up by the shoulders.
We moved him out to the hall, under a beam, just in case. The buzzing became physically punishing. I slipped down the wall. Miller crumpled to the floor.
“Earthquake?” he managed to gasp before he passed out.
I must have followed his example within a few seconds. When I came to, John was leaning over me. A thin stream of blood had leaked from one of his nostrils.
“Damn, Father, you look like shit,” he said.
“You don’t look so good, yourself,” I managed to croak.
“Your buddy’s still out,” John said, unconsciously wiping the blood from above his lip with the back of his hand. “What the hell happened?”
“Good question,” I said, reaching for my cell phone.
The screen read, ‘No Signal.’
“Interesting,” I said, as Miller started to moan.
“Robert, you okay?” I asked.
“What were we drinking last night? My mouth tastes like something used it as a litter box, and my head feels four sizes too small for my brain.”
“I don’t know about you, but I only had one beer,” I said, grimacing.
I stood and helped him to his feet.
“Damn,” he said, crossing himself while looking out the windows.
The sky was flame-shot black over metallic gray-green.
“That’s not normal,” I said.
John had walked to the phone behind the counter.
“Weird; it’s dead too,” he said, before noticing the sky. “Fuck me.”
“Sorry, you’re not my type,” I replied, walking to my case.
I flipped it open and rooted around in it for a minute before I found the sat-phone. I flipped it open and got the same message as my cell—No Signal.
I snapped it closed, dropping it in the bag, and looked at the other two.
“This is not good,” I said, pulling out the MP5.
I added the stock, looking out the windows.
“What kind of priest are you?” John asked.
“Church Militant,” Miller replied. “He’s a priest of the Church Militant.”
“Let’s just say I work for folks who deal with this kind of thing on a regular basis,” I said as I screwed the suppressor onto the barrel and snapped a sling into place, then dropped the MP5 to hang over my shoulder.
“Robert, where’s the font?” I asked, turning to face him.
“Back of my van in the parking lot,” he replied, pushing off the wall.
“Font?” John asked.
“Relic,” I replied, looking at Miller. He was standing, but just barely. He looked, for lack of a better term, wobbly.
I put on a utility belt festooned with pouches. Once it was in place, I started pulling the rest of the gear out of the hard case.
“You think?” he asked.
“Probably not,” I replied as something struck the windows. I turned.
A red ball of mud was slowly rolling down the window.
“Damn,” I said. “Haven’t seen it rain mud since Iraq.”
“Guys, I don’t think that’s mud,” John said. He turned, dry heaving, and finally puked.
I turned and looked. Sure enough, there was an eyeball in the ‘mud’ sliding down the wall.
“That’s not good at all,” was all I could say.
“Have you got a plan?” Robert asked.
“I don’t know that you’re going to like it,” I said. “First, we need to get my other cases from the hotel. Second, we need to transfer the font to my vehicle. Third, we need to move to consecrated ground.”
“Why your vehicle?” Miller asked.
John had stopped puking and was staring at us like we’d sprouted horns, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Given what was going on outside, that wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.
“Are you driving a company car?”
“No, it’s a rental,” Miller said with a grin.
“Mine’s a company car,” I said. “It’s got certain embellishments…shall we say.”
Outside it began to pour. Dim shapes moved in the rain; seeking shelter, I hoped.
“Probably be shorter and drier to go through the bar,” John said.
One of the sorority girls came flying through the big bay window at the front of the Pearl, taking out the large clam with a pearl that was painted on the glass. Both eyes were missing. Her skin from the neck down had been peeled in alternating strips. I could hear her friend shrieking in the rain.
I looked at Miller.
“So, do the Knights train archivists in firearms?” I asked.
“For self-defense,” he replied. “Sometimes the places we’re doing research can get a bit strange.”
“This kind of strange?” John asked.
“This? This is nothing,” I replied. “Wait until you’ve seen a ghoul nest or a vampire hang out,” I said, handing Miller my 1911 with a couple of spare magazines. “It’s got the older military style sights.”
“Right. I should be able to hit the wall with it,” Miller said, flashing his teeth in a brief smile.
“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” I said. “John, stay with Father Miller.”
“Trust me, I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
The rain wasn’t water, I realized when I stepped outside. It was ectoplasm. It also evaporated just before touching me, retreating from my footsteps.
“Oh that is definitely not good,” I murmured.
Something had pinned the other sorority girl to the back deck of a faded, metallic-gold 1969 Chevy Impala. She was fighting it, but losing the battle—it was busy removing her clothes preparatory to peeling her skin and defiling her like her friend. Or worse. I could also see someone trying to get out of the car without attracting the attention of whatever monster was with the girl.
“Hey, Asshole!” I shouted.
If I survived, I’d get Miller to assign penance. Right now, I was thinking like a Marine, not a priest. Seeing the daemon there, I was glad I’d taken the time to assemble the entire system in the bag. If nothing else, the weight of the can would help keep me on target.
The beast looked at me, giving me a good view of the single horn on its forehead. It averted its eyes for some reason and bounded to the roof of the car with a roar. I put the first three-round burst into it, starting in the crotch—squeeze the trigger, count three, release, repeat application as needed. Full auto tends to climb, even on controlled bursts, so starting low and letting the aim point rise will usually put you into center of mass, especially if the target moves to your right.
It was definitely male—impressively, rampantly so. The silver-cored bullets shredded its member, causing it to shriek in agony before leaping again, this time toward me. I put the remainder of the clip into it, walking the burst along the torso. I stepped to the side and dropped the magazine to reload as the beast squelched face first into the car behind me. It twitched as I put three more rounds into the base of its equine-looking skull, just to be sure.
“Dude, you okay?” a panicky male voice called from the Impala.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’m fine,” the voice replied, calming somewhat. “I think the girl is okay, too.”
I walked back over to the Impala. If anything popped out, I should be able to handle it with twenty-two rounds of silver-cored .45. If not, I had eight more full magazines. If it took more than nine magazines to put it down, I’d try negotiations. Or, conversely, I might be in a bit of trouble.
When I got to the car, the guy had gotten out and was standing there, looking everywhere but at the back of the car. I could see the girl’s arms sticking up through a T-shirt she was pulling on.
“I’m John, John Holt,” he said, offering me his hand. In the other, he had a baseball bat wrapped in plaid duct tape. “I…uh…loaned her a shirt.”
“Nice to meet you, John,” I replied.
The rain of ectoplasm had stopped, but the sky was still the dirty gray of a television tuned to a dead channel. Except for the three of us, I couldn’t see anyone else in the square.
“I’m Dalma,” the sorority girl said, joining us. “What the fuck was that thing?”
I gave her a quick once over. She looked like she wanted to run for the hills, but was keeping it under control, for now.
“Daemon,” I replied. “Type Three, I think.”
Something skittered in the corner of my eye. I turned to find a pair of imps trying to remove the daemon’s horn. They fled as soon as I looked at them.
“Seriously?” Dalma asked. “Daemons aren’t real!”
“Welcome to Season One of MTV’s ‘Ain’t Real World.’ Because that thing sure looks real to me,” I said, pointing at the corpse.
“Aw damn it,” John said.
He’d moved to the trunk of the Impala. I walked to where he was standing, and I looked and whistled at the damage.
“Damn,” I said, running a finger along one of the deep scratches in the metal, before looking at both of them. “You may not believe this, but I work with this kind of thing from time to time.”
“Seriously?” they both asked.
“Nothing this bad, but yeah. I’m also going to be blunt—our best chance of getting out of this in one piece is if we stick together.”
“You’re the one with the gun,” Dalma said with a grimace.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t go off by yourself,” I said. “I just don’t think it’s advisable in these conditions.”
“That makes sense,” Holt said.
Dalma nodded.
“Mr. Holt, do you have anything you need to grab from the trunk?” I asked.
“My backpack—it’s got my clean clothes in it,” Holt replied.
“Grab it, so we can go,” I said.
“Right,” he replied, popping the trunk and reaching inside.
“Look, it’s not like I’m not grateful,” Dalma started.
I raised a hand to forestall her.
“Tell you what—Dalma, right?”
She nodded.
“Let’s get somewhere where we know we’re not going to be jumped by vulgar unicorns, so we can talk about things, huh?” I said.
“Fine,” she said, rushing toward the Pearl.
“You know, one of the problems with this town is all the damn sorority girls,” Holt said, slamming the trunk lid.
“That hasn’t changed in the last ten years,” I replied with a grin. “After you.”
He trotted across the square. I followed, my head swiveling from side to side to watch for anything trying to take advantage of us. I saw a couple more imps sneaking about, but nothing major.
“Coming in!” I shouted out of habit before stepping through the broken window into the Pearl.
Father Miller and John—the first one—had dragged the body that had come through the window out of the way and covered it with a couple of table cloths.
“Padgett,” Holt said. “Got any coffee?”
“Holt,” the first John said, “you know where the cups are. On your tab?”
Holt looked at him, then at the leaden sky outside. “Really?”
“You’re right; fuck the tab,” Padgett said.
“Oh,” Dalma said, looking at the body under the table cloths. “Is that…”
“Yes,” Padgett said in a soft tone. “You don’t want to look at her now, okay?”
Dalma slumped into a chair and started to cry. Holt brought his coffee over and sat down next to her. She wrapped her arms around him and bawled. Padgett disappeared down the hall to the bar. I looked at Miller.
“This changes things. We’re going to need more room,” I said.
“How many can you fit in your company car?” Miller asked.
“We can get everyone in the Tahoe,” I replied, “but we’re going to need a few more things. Got room in the van?”
“It’s a cargo job, so there’s only the front bench seats.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Once Padgett gets back, we’ll move. You have any ideas for consecrated ground?”
“There are a number of churches here in town we could use. I’ve got to ask, though; have you ever heard of something like this happening?”
“It reminds me of something, but I’m not sure what or where. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to do any research to figure out exactly what and where.”
“Why not?” Miller asked.
“No signal on the phones. Which means no connection to the internet and no connection to my resources for research,” I replied, running a hand across my face.
“About that,” he replied. “In the van, I’ve got access to most of the collected works on matters arcane that are in the Church library—if the computers still work. But even with the right search parameters, it’s going to take a while to figure out where and/or when we are.”
“Figuring out where and/or when we are; that’ll be the easy part,” I said.
“How so?”
“Getting back’s going to be the bitch,” I replied.
He just shook his head.
“Language.”
I shrugged.
Padgett came back from the bar down the hall, a six pack of Diet Coke in hand. He took a can and a glass to Dalma.
“Thank…thank you,” she said, drying her eyes on one of Holt’s sleeves.
“Sorry about earlier,” he replied. “But every day?”
“I…I just thought it was fun to aggravate you,” Dalma replied before taking a sip.
Padgett rolled his eyes at Holt and wandered over to where we were standing.
“I didn’t see anyone in the bar back there, but there was blood in the storage room. There should have been a bartender and cook back there, so,” he said, wobbling a hand from side to side.
“Great,” Miller said.
“Bother,” I replied.
They both looked at me.
“Look, I screwed up initially. I’ve been thinking short term, ok?” I said, walking over to where Holt and Dalma sat.
“How so?” Miller asked, dropping into a chair next to Holt.
“We get a place to hide out, then what?” I asked.
“We start doing research,” Miller said, shrugging.
“What are we going to eat?” Holt asked, sipping coffee.
“Points for the new guy,” I said.
“I…I hadn’t thought of that,” Padgett said.
Miller looked contemplative.
“Newer plan. You guys,” I pointed to Holt and Miller, “go bless your van. Padgett, take Dalma with you. Y’all start gathering all the canned goods along with anything else you think we’ll need from the bar and in here.”
“What are you going to do?” Dalma asked.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said with a wicked smirk, unconsciously quoting the Special from Eyelash the other night. “A very enthusiastic walk.”
I walked out the door and went west down Hopkins to my B&B. We needed those cases.
I didn’t go through the door when I got there, however. I walked to the Tahoe, hit the remote start, and it farted to life with a diesel rumble. I said a small prayer of thanksgiving to the spirit of Clessie Cummins, even if it was a heresy that the Tahoes all had Cummins diesels installed in them.
“Is there anyone there?” someone called from the B&B’s balcony.
“One moment,” I shouted. I went across the street and through the door of the B&B.
The voice had come from the second floor, so I went up the stairs two at a time. It wasn’t hard to figure out which room the voice was calling from—there were half a dozen imps outside its door, scrabbling and trying to figure out how to get in. They looked up when I walked into hallway and hissed at me before charging.
I snap shot the largest one as it bounded in my direction. It folded around the bullet, vanishing in a puff of smoke and stench. The others stopped, looking at me, while twisting their heads from side to side in a dog-like fashion. Their ears waggled, and one of them paused to pick its nose.
“Be gone,” I said, making a shooing motion.
They thought it over. The door behind them opened, disgorging a stately woman in her early to mid-forties, dressed in a mix of styles from the last thirty years or so. She struck the closest imp with the stick in her hand. It disappeared in a puff of stink, like the first one.
“You heard him, you little imps! Be gone!” she shouted, laying about her with the stick.
The imps fled.
The woman paused, breathing heavily from her exertions.
“You are real?” she asked.
Her voice had the buzz of an accent. She spoke English, but like she’d learned English from a Brit as a second or third language.
“Yes. I’m Father Jesse Salazar, Quentin Morris Group. We specialize in strange things,” I replied, lamely.
“So, Henry and Abraham’s Great Project is still in existence?”
I swear I could hear the capitals in her words. Her knowing about QMG wasn’t a big deal, since there were people who knew about QMG. I was a bit more concerned that she took the imps as real, and was about to ask about it, when I noticed the pistol in her other hand.
“Uh, ma’am? You mind pointing that in another direction?” I asked, adjusting the aim of my submachine gun.
“I apologize. I don’t know why I brought it out with me. I ran out of ammunition for it years ago,” she replied, slipping it into a slit in her skirt. “I am Diindiisi.”
I thought about it a minute. She wasn’t running from my collar, and she’d attacked the imps. She appeared human, so I decided to take a chance.
“Ma’am. We’re gathering the survivors we’ve found together, if you’d like to join us,” I said.
“Yes, there is strength in numbers here,” she replied enigmatically.
“Yes’m. I’ve got to pick up a few things here, but if you’ve got your things together, you’re welcome to join us,” I said.
“There are others?”
“Yes’m,” I said, sidling to my door. “I’ll be a few minutes. I need to change clothes and grab some things.”
She followed me into my room. I’d spent far too long living in tight spaces to be embarrassed if she saw me changing. Especially after waking up one morning in a transient tent in Iraq with an Air Force female staring at my really bad moto-tattoo. The tattoo itself had fallen victim to an Ottine swamp ape who had spent a good five minutes rubbing my arm against a tree to see if the painting would rub off. And besides, most of what I was going to do involved putting things on, not taking them off.
“Ma’am, can I ask you a question?” I asked, tossing my jacket onto the bed. I used a couple of rubber bands to blouse my trousers to the top of my boots.
“Go ahead,” she answered from the door.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“How do you know I’m not from your time?” she asked, glancing in my direction.
“The skirt and jacket you’re wearing are a bit out of date for 2018,” I said. “That length skirt went out of fashion I’d say before my grandmother was born.”
“Two thousand eighteen?” she whispered, stepping into the room as I started slinging on my body armor and load-bearing equipment.
“Yes’m,” I replied. I shrugged my shoulders to set the armor and pulled the Velcro tight.
“I’ve been in the Shadow Lands for one hundred and five years. I look remarkable for a woman of one hundred and forty-six years, do I not?” she trilled, spinning lightly on her toes.
“One hundred five years?” I asked, doing the math mentally. “So 1913 or so?”
“Yes. Henry had asked me to look into something in the archives that had been established in the United States. I was on my way there when a strange storm came up. I woke in the Shadow Lands. Today, I stepped through a door and was here.” She shrugged. “Things operate differently here.”
“So, we’re in the Shadow Lands?” I asked.
“Yes, neither limbo nor hell, but somewhere in between,” she replied.
I checked one of the spare 1911’s in my gun case, loaded it, and slid it into the holster under my left arm.
“Ma’am? You said your pistol was out of ammunition. Could I see it?” I asked.
“Here,” she said, handing it over.
It was a British Bulldog revolver, in .44 Russian. The gun itself was a work of art—arabesques on the barrel and cylinder, niello and silver inlay on the grip.
“Damn,” I said. “I don’t have any .44 Russian. Did you see any other pistols before you were swept into the shadows?
“Henry had purchased some—what were they?—semi-automatic pistols in January of 1912,” she said. “Made by Colt, if I remember correctly.”
I reached into the case and pulled out the final 1911 I had. Ginsberg had bought an entire run of 1911’s—not 1911A1’s—from somewhere as an experiment. For some reason, most of them had ended up in Austin. I wasn’t going to complain about the lack of a grip safety at this point, if it meant she could use it.
“Something like this?” I asked, locking the slide back and dropping the magazine before handing it over.
“Yes,” she said, handling the pistol.
It might be considered blasphemous, but I whispered a quick alleluia to the soul of John Moses Browning, unofficial patron saint of gunsmiths everywhere.
“Ma’am, I need to get these cases to my vehicle downstairs.” I said, handing her the loose magazine and a pouch with four more. “If you wouldn’t mind covering my back, we can start moving them any time.”
She took the pouch; it disappeared under her skirt. The magazine went into the well, and she ran the slide forward before putting the pistol under her skirt. Diindiisi walked to the closed case and shifted it onto its wheels.
“Do you need to take anything else?” she asked.
I handed her my jacket.
“It’s not much,” I said, “but the jacket has blessed silver woven into the cloth. It might help keep an imp or daemon off your back.”
She took it and slipped it on, and she didn’t burst into flame, so I took that as another good sign. The jacket was a little large on her, but not cumbersome. She transferred the pistol and ammunition pouch to the outer pockets of the jacket.
I turned, sweeping the rest of my loose gear into my AWOL bag, then tossed it into the other Pelican case and slammed the lid shut. I’d have to live with the hairs and skin cells I was leaving behind, since there wasn’t time to vacuum. I’d swap the MP5 for an UMP when we got where the others were.
“I’ll lead,” I said, dragging the case out into the hall.
“I need to get something,” she said, carefully setting the case down.
I waited while she dodged back into her room. A few seconds later, she returned with a large carpet bag, tied to a leather-wrapped bindle.
“After you, Father,” she said, an urchin’s grin on her face.
We thumped the cases downstairs and across the street to where the Tahoe waited. I checked the street, hitting the unlock button on the SUV’s remote. Diindiisi covered me while I swung the heavy cases into the back of the SUV. I slammed the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. Diindiisi joined me.
“This is what automobiles have become in 2018?” she asked as I backed out.
I didn’t bother with my seat belt. If I saw something, for now my plan was to run, not ram.
“Yes’m. This one has a few aftermarket goodies installed,” I replied, driving toward the square.
My five-minute paranoid walk was a minute or so ride. Holt, with his baseball bat, was waiting out front for us.
“The others are in back,” he said, stepping to my window.
“Hop in,” I said.
Once he was seated, I introduced him to Diindiisi and drove around back, where the others were waiting with the van.
“Took you long enough,” Miller said when we got there.
Holt hopped out and walked to the Impala, which was parked next to the van.
“Figured we’d need another set of wheels,” Padgett said. “Father Miller agreed.”
Diindiisi and I stepped out of the SUV.
“Everyone, this is Diindiisi. I found her when I went to get my gear,” I said.
Diindiisi curtseyed.
“Diindiisi, this is everyone,” I said, turning to Father Miller. “Father Miller, did you find a church close by?”
“Yes, but I don’t know that it’s going to work like we thought,” he replied, pointing.
Sticking up about a block over, I could see a steeple. As I watched, smoke started pouring from it.
“That’s been happening off and on since you left,” Padgett said, pointing at the smoke.
“We can still go by; it might be a signal of some sort,” I said, ever hopeful. “I’ll lead. Holt, you follow, Father Miller, bring up the rear.”
Everyone got in their respective vehicles. This time, I took a minute to strap Diindiisi in. I started to go around to my side, thought about it, and motioned for them to roll down the windows.
“Look,” I said. “If we get there, and it’s a no-go, I’m not stopping. If it’s bad enough, I’ll bull through with you guys following, okay?”
Holt swallowed and nodded.
“Right,” Miller replied.
I climbed into the SUV and belted in before driving down the alley toward the church.
Diindiisi played with the window controls, fascinated.
I drove toward the church. It was far worse than I had imagined. What had probably been a nice wooden late 19th or early 20th century church now looked like the bastard step-child of Bosch and Escher. Daemons were forcing their way inside and coming out with bits of people. They watched us drive by, but didn’t do anything else.
“That’s normal here,” Diindiisi said. “Sometimes things are far worse.”
“Worse?” I asked.
“When the imps catch someone they feed. When the daemons catch someone,” she replied, “they defile them, body and soul, before feeding, if they can.”
I drove down the road until I found a grocery store parking lot.
“Any other suggestions that are close?” I asked Miller when he pulled up next to me.
“One. But it’s gonna be a bit weird,” he replied.
“Lead on,” I said. “Holt follow Miller, huh?”
Miller drove up another block, turned right, and turned left onto the second driveway.
“Interesting,” Diindiisi and I both said at the same time.
There was a sign that read, ‘Monmouth Funeral Home.’ Miller parked around back. Holt followed. I pulled up across the open garage doors and broke out one of the full-sized UMP’s in my gear box.
“Y’all wait here,” I said, going into the garage. It took about ten minutes to sweep the building, but it was empty.
I came back outside to a spirited discussion between Miller and Padgett, with the others looking on.
“Hey, Father, you sure about this place?” Padgett asked, looking at Miller like he was mad.
“Yes, why?” Father Miller answered, walking toward an open garage door.
“It’s…it’s a funeral home,” Padgett replied, “Which is kinda fucking creepy if you think about it.”
“Yes, but it’s got a chapel, which makes it consecrated ground, even if it is non-denominational. The first church was blocked and desecrated. Ms. Diindiisi says that’s her experience here with most major religious structures. Whatever controls the place desecrates them quickly. Whatever brought us here was thorough,” Miller said, turning to me. “Building clear?”
“Yes,” I replied, shrugging under my armor. It rides up.
“Padgett, would you give me a hand with the font?” Miller asked, moving to the rear of the van.
I watched as Padgett moved over to help Miller move the font into the building, while the others brought in the other supplies. I took over watch. Diindiisi watched the other side of the building, assisting as needed.
Once everything was staged in the garage, I backed the SUV into a parking space.
“We need a plan,” Miller said, leaning against a hearse.
“You’re Catholic, correct?” Diindiisi asked him.
“Yes, why?” Miller replied.
I think he was surprised she could tell the differences in our working outfits. Most folks can’t.
“That makes you the senior, religiously,” she said.
“I’m an archivist,” he replied. “I’ve never done the kind of field work that Jesse here has,” Robert said.
“Not a problem,” I replied. “I’ll handle the Church Militant side of things while you’re going through the hard drives. Besides, we’re going to need to collect some more items.”
“Such as?” Dalma asked.
“More food. Ammunition. Weapons. Body armor if we can find it. See if there are other survivors. Consecrated wafers, wine—the ones I’ve got in my tabernacle aren’t going to last forever, and they’re useful things,” I said.
“Salt,” Holt said unexpectedly.
“Salt,” Diindiisi said in agreement. “A way to project holy water onto the daemons. Another change of clothes would be nice.”
She gestured to her outfit and Dalma’s.
“That makes sense,” Dalma said.
“I’m pretty sure hell was not where my boss meant me to go when he told me to take a vacation,” I said with a small laugh. “There are two apartments upstairs. Why don’t y’all argue over who’s sleeping where while Father Miller and I bless the grounds, just in case?”
We set wards as we walked through the garage and up the stairs. Everyone gathered in the far apartment around the kitchen table.
“I think we need to discuss a few things,” Diindiisi said.
“Shoot,” I replied, leaning against a wall. I realized she probably wouldn’t understand the idiom after it left my mouth. “What kind of things do we need to discuss?”
Miller took the last chair at the table.
“We’re in the Shadow Lands,” she said. “Neither heaven, hell, nor limbo.”
“How did we get here?” Dalma asked.
“It was the buzzing, right?” Padgett said.
“Some have described a buzzing, yes,” Diindiisi said. “Bringing humans here requires great magic.”
Dalma got a stubborn look.
“Ask it,” Miller and I said.
“There’s no such thing as magic,” she said.
“I’d argue that is an incorrect world view at this point,” Holt said. “We’re here, wherever here is. And we got here somehow. If it wasn’t magic, how’d we get here?”
“Fine,” Dalma snarled. “Magic. Whatever.”
“So, the Shadow Lands are another plane of existence?” Holt asked.
“Something like that, yes,” Diindiisi said, turning to face him. “What do you know about the planes?”
“Uh, just what I learned playing D&D,” he replied.
“D&D?”
“It’s a game,” I said. “Players take on the roles of fighters, clerics, and wizards, and go looking for treasure, stopping evil, and those kinds of things.”
“Ah. You’ll have to teach me this game, Mr. Holt,” Diindiisi said.
“Sure,” he replied.
Dalma gave him a look that said ‘nerd.’ Padgett just beamed.
“If we’re in the Shadow Lands, and it is another plane, why does it look like San Marcos, Texas?” Miller asked.
“I do not know,” Diindiisi said. “In my experience the lands change from time to time. Usually when other people come through. This is the first time I’ve been in a city this large in a long time.”
“Why are there so few people?” Dalma asked.
“Not everyone comes through when a rift opens,” Diindiisi said.
“What about supplies?” I asked.
“We will be able to take and use things here,” Diindiisi replied. “Even though the Shadow Lands look familiar to you now it is not a fixed place. Things will change. We will be able to find the supplies we need, and if the realm around us does not change drastically we’ll be able to return to most of the same places to get more supplies. I think it has something to do with the way time passes here in the Shadow Lands compared with the real world, but I’m not sure.”
I snapped my fingers.
“Of course—the missing sock theory,” I said.
Diindiisi gave me a puzzled look.
“So, I’m not sure how far back the technology goes, but there’s a theory about how you lose one sock out of a pair in the dryer. It slips through or is acquired by someone or something somewhere else,” I said, gesturing. “Here, most likely. Kinda kills Hawking’s black hole theory.”
“I do not know what a dryer is,” Diindiisi said, “but the rest of that sounds right. Things will appear here from time to time. As do people. People are more of a disruption to the way things work than objects; however, if the…the rift is big enough, we’ll be pulled to wherever the people came into this realm.”
“Why would something here need one sock?” Dalma asked.
“I don’t know. Outside of hunger and sex as a motivation, I haven’t had much chance to talk to the creatures that people the realm. From the look of things outside, right now they’re thin on the ground here. That will change,” Diindiisi said, her tone grim.
“How long do we have?” I asked.
“Depends. If there are more people than us here, the daemons will find us faster,” she said.
I looked out the window, then glanced at my watch. If there had been a sun in the sky, it should have been going down. Instead the sky was static gray.
“Ok, everyone, it’s been a long day. Think about what you need, write it down, and get some rest,” I said. “We can talk more in the morning.”
* * * * *