The Exorcee

Chapter One

When you’re an agnostic, working for the Catholic Church is a dicey proposition even at the best of times. She has a strong tendency to attract or repel; whether you’re the personal secretary to the archbishop or the guy who cleans the toilet at St. John’s, it’s hard to keep a neutral attitude. But when you’re a freelance retrieval expert, clandestinely employed to track down the Possessed and drag them snarling and spitting to the local pastor for a big frosty mug of “back to the fiery pits from whence you came”—well, let’s just say the stakes are a bit higher. Part of you wonders angrily why—God? or Whatever—would allow such things, and even questions uneasily whether it’s such a good idea to be getting on the Other Guy’s bad side like this. Part of you sees Evil and wants to fight it, make a difference in the world, make your Father proud. And of course, part of you’s always clinging to, “Man, these people are crazy! There’s no such thing as demons—exorcism’s just a psychological placebo—if I can’t see it or punch it in the face, it ain’t real. Phew! Glad that’s settled, they almost had me going for a minute there.”

I’m Thomas Belmont, son of Hugh Belmont, of Boston, Massachusetts. More likely than not, you’ve never heard of me before. In my own circle I’m pretty well known, but it’s a small circle. We’re the kids who grew up loving nothing (and good at nothing) except the martial arts, and discovered in our twenties and thirties what any normally intelligent seven-year-old could’ve told us decades ago: for a grown-up in this millennium, the arts are a hobby, not a job. Oh, a few of us run dojos—brow-beat yuppie gym-rats for testing fees, throw colored belts at them, grind out cardio-kickboxing classes like unbelieving Mozart writing Masses for any paying aristocrat. A few of us “fight” professionally, in rings and octagons, with rules and rounds and referees, matched up by weight, stripped of weapons, clad in spandex shorts. Bread and circuses. And, inevitably, a few of us have turned to crime. ’Far as I know, I’m the only freelance retrieval expert from the old crowd; and I’m not completely sure what it says about me that the criminals are still my closest friends. Nothing good, I suppose.

Anyway, this whole mess started with a phone call from Fr. Joe—Monsignor Damascus, that is, my sub rosa employer. “Thomas!” he said briskly. (It’s “Belmont,” incidentally—only the padre gets to call me Thomas.) “I’ve got one for you.”

“That’s great, padre. I’m actually kind of busy right now, though. Maybe—might be better if I called you back on the—you know, tomorrow.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I’m—not entirely convinced that I perceive the relevance of that rather personal datum to the current topic of, whattayacallit there, things that people talk about—subject? Not subject. Topic! The current topic.”

“It’s eleven in the morning, old friend. On a Tuesday.”

“Yes,” I said testily. “For a Christian, maybe. For a Viking it’s Tyr’s Day, and only honey mead and the blood of men can properly honor the sacrifice of his hand in the jaws of Fenris the Wolf. Not being, particularly, a Viking myself, I have elected to utilize Bushmills Irish Whiskey instead, but the basic point stands.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Get some coffee in your system and get to the rectory. We’ve got a hundred-and-thirty-pound businessman who snapped a pair of handcuffs and jumped over a moving train after being presented with a crucifix.”

“I literally lie awake at night yearning to hear those very words, Fr. Joe. Consider me on my way.”

“Eat something too, Thomas.”

“Roger that.”

After we hung up, I stood glowering at my reflection in the bathroom mirror for a long moment. I had the blue eyes and red hair of my fathers before me, but the latter was finally beginning to show a touch of frost. I was twenty-nine that year, closing out my third decade on this earth, and still crouching in a rat-hole Beantown apartment like a crippled troll, barely venturing outside except to buy whiskey or kick the shit out of some poor civilian who had either—depending on your personal philosophy—gone crazy or run afoul of an immortal spirit cast out of Heaven before the foundations of the universe. I kept up with my katas, I lifted my weights, I jumped my jacks and jogged when I felt like it—physically, I maintained the keenness of my edge and would cheerfully take on the toughest opponents, provided I didn’t have to fight fair (whatever that means anyhow). But emotionally, or—oh hell, let’s just go ahead and say spiritually, I was starting to feel a bit lost, or adrift, or unhinged, or something. What in the holy name of God, if there ever was one, was the point of it all? This was my existential query as I faced down Norman Grey, Esquire, on a rooftop in the rain. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

If Monsignor Joseph Damascus tells you to drink some coffee and eat something, you had better bloody well do it. After throwing on some jeans and a sweatshirt, and I exited my squalid apartment (Pemberley, I like to call it) and found my battered old Honda Civic, Dave, awaiting me as ever in the parking lot: stalwart, steadfast, and staunch. The big D started up like a champion, and headed right for Dunkin Donuts. They know me there.

“Hiya, Bells!” said Leah, the pretty blond girl at the drive-thru. (It’s “Belmont,” folks. Only Leah gets to call me Bells.)

“Hey, sweetie. Gimme the usual.”

“Off to beat someone up?”

“I don’t even understand what that phrase would signify. Something involving drums, I can only conjecture.”

“Here’s your coffee.”

“You truly are a vision of loveliness.”

“Yep!” There was a rummaging pause, and then she brought me my blueberry donuts. “Be careful out there, okay?”

“Ever and always, little turnip.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I liked ‘little cabbage’ better.”

“That was last week. All things change with time.”

The guy behind me honked, and she smiled. “Be well, Bells.”

“See ya, Leah.” We bumped fists and I hit the gas.

It was a bright, cold day in early December and the last of the fallen leaves were swirling in the wind, gold and orange and scarlet. The skies were blue and stark, the trees were bare, and a strange, deep hush seemed to lay upon the earth. I drove slowly, letting my head clear, and sipped my coffee thoughtfully. I was trying to decide if that feeling in the air was calm or ominous. On the whole, I was leaning toward the latter.

St. Blaise Church was about twenty minutes away; by the time I got there I was sober enough for government work, or ecclesiastical endeavor, if you will. Fr. Max Colbey, the junior resident, let me into the rectory. He was a good kid, fresh out of the seminary—skinny and sort of bookish, but firm enough in his beliefs to be able to handle knowing what I did on the parish payroll. A lot of people don’t realize that the Church still performs over six hundred exorcisms a year in the U.S. alone, and more than a few of them went down right there at St. Blaise.

“Good morning, Belmont.”

“Mornin’, Fr. MC. Brought you a donut.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you. The monsignor’s waiting for you.”

“Figured he would be.” I clapped him on the shoulder and headed on down the hall.

Fr. Joe got up as I entered his office (or study? I guess? I’m not clear on the difference). He was a big guy, with broad shoulders and hair the color of steel. I clock in at 5’11” and 160 pounds, but he loomed over me, radiating quiet authority. Throw a campaign hat on his head and passing Marines would mistake him for a drill instructor and start doing spontaneous push-ups in the vestibule. He wore the clerical black like a Templar’s plate mail; I’d known him for years and never once seen him in civvies. As always, I could feel the weight of his presence as clearly as gravity. He caught my hand in a firm grip and offered me a chair.

“How’ve you been, Thomas?” he asked, resuming the seat behind his desk. “I haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”

“Same as ever, padre. Dashing, debonair, and—some other adjective starting with D, to complete the alliterative scheme. Dartmouth? No, that’s a place name.”

He came perilously close to cracking a smile. “Still a smartass, at any rate.”

“Strong language for a holy man.”

“I’m not holy yet, my friend. It’s a long road. But honestly now: how are you these days? You didn’t use to drink first thing in the morning.”

“Still don’t. I had some Froot Loops first.” He held my gaze in silence for a long moment, and I finally sighed. “Okay, okay. I guess I’m—starting to wonder what it’s all about. Where it’s going, and why. And not finding any terribly satisfactory answers.”

He rapped his knuckles, very gently, on the big red leather Bible on his desk. “And you still can’t bring yourself to look for answers in here?”

“So! Guy jumped over a train, huh?”

There was another pause, and then he sighed in turn. “Apparently. Norman Grey is the fellow’s name, an insurance salesman from Dorchester. He’s forty-three years old, married with two children, and has no history of violence, drugs, or mental problems. He was found in his neighbor’s garden this morning surrounded by the remains of her three cats, which he had ripped apart with his teeth.”

“Maybe he’d run out of dental floss?”

“Mrs. Dzenowski called the police, assuming he’d gone mad, but some of the things he was screaming when they showed up to arrest him made her think something else was going on. She showed him her mother’s crucifix, and that was when he reportedly went berserk and broke his cuffs. The patrolmen chased him down the street and lost him when he made the afore-mentioned jump.”

“Did you know that the word ‘berserk’ means ‘bear-shirt’? It’s Old English. Comes from the idea that a man could don the strength of a rampaging bear.”

“I did indeed. As a matter of fact, I’m fairly sure I was the one who told you that in the first place. It’s nice to see that you are in fact capable of listening on occasion.”

“Huh—I think you’re right, actually. That’s a little embarrassing. Well. Anyway.” I steepled my fingers. “Sounds like our sort of case, at least on the face of it. Who called it in?”

“Initially, Mrs. Dzenowski. She talked to her pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe, and he reported the matter of Bishop Salatino, who then got in touch with me. It turns out Mr. Grey had been causing minor disturbances at Our Lady for several weeks prior.”

“Catholic?”

He shook his head. “Nominally Presbyterian, but non-practicing. By all accounts, a perfectly ordinary man until recently.”

“This was his chance to be something more.”

“Ye too shall be as gods.”

Like most things, Possession’s a little more complicated than what you see in the movies. They can’t just hijack any random human and go joy-riding; on some level, however tacit or subliminal, they need the consent of the host. At the same time, however, those who ultimately fall under the Shadow are subjected to years of groundwork, suggesting that they’re chosen long in advance—even, it is sometimes said, before they’re ever born. It’s one of the frustrating things about my job. I’m a bright enough guy, but I’m not an intellectual—and yet, I’m constantly staring down the barrel of a classic paradox, the clash between free will and predestination, that’s baffled philosophers for centuries. Oh well, that’s why I get the big bucks.

“How long since the great train jump?”

“About four hours now. I’ve prepared the usual dossier.” He brandished a thin manila envelope. “Thomas—are you sure your head’s in the game?”

“Absolutely, padre. This is just what I need. I’ll contact you when I verify his location, and we’ll go from there.”

“Do I need to tell you to be careful?”

“Not in the slightest, but you will all the same.”

“Be careful, son.” He rose, handed me the envelope with his left hand, and made the Sign of the Cross over me with his right.

“Yes sir.”