The Exorcee

Chapter Ten

As you’ve no doubt read in a score of hastily-penned spy thrillers, there is such a thing as the art of tailing an automobile. What they tend not to tell you is that the art consists largely of finding targets too dumb to realize they’re being tailed. Any moron who notices the same car behind him for an extended period of time will begin to entertain suspicions, even if he’s not embarked on a secret mission. On the other hand, most people can be relied upon to fail to notice such a detail—even if they are on a secret mission. In short, a good deal of it comes down to having an inconspicuous vehicle and hoping the other guy isn’t terribly observant; but unless you’re tailing an individual with special training of some kind, the odds are usually in your favor.

I followed the Subaru at a discreet distance for several blocks until we emerged into the major artery of Riverside Ave. and became one with the morning traffic. At that point, tailing became easy: all I had to do was sit in the jam and listen to Skynyrd while keeping an eye on the slow-moving tan blob whose driver I thoughtfully dubbed Asshole Alpha. I spent about ten minutes debating whether the next car I tailed should be Asshole Beta, Asshole Baker, or Asshole Bravo—and then we crossed the bridge into the neighboring town of Winooski, and I had to start paying attention again.

We swung around the rotary and proceeded up Main Street until the nearby spires began to dominate the horizon. I threw my hands in the air and almost swerved in frustration. “Seriously? Another church?” Sure enough, Asshole Alpha was heading straight for what turned out to be St. Thérèse Cathedral, and I prepared myself wearily for yet another brawl—but then, to my surprise, he passed the place and kept on going. I slowed down and gave him some space, wondering if he had made me; but, somehow, you can usually tell if you’ve been made, even if your mark doesn’t overtly act any different. I speak as one blessed with qi-sight, but the truth is that everyone has it to some degree. Only, most of us tend to ignore it.

Asshole Alpha went a little further and pulled over. I drove on by, hooked the next right down a side street, and found a parking spot the second I was out of sight. Snatching my binoculars, I leapt out of the car and jogged back toward the main road. There was the Subaru: and there was the moron in the driver’s seat, peering across the street through his own set of binoculars. I ducked behind a snow-wreathed bush, lest he glance randomly in my direction, and then followed his gaze. And there, in that fateful time and place, I beheld St. Thérèse High School.

“Dude,” I muttered. “Are you kidding me?—you’re stalking high school kids? I need a really compelling reason not to go compromise the integrity of your spinal cord, and I—I’m just not finding one right now. I think it’s time we had a horrible, horrible chat, you and I.” And with that, I strolled very casually down the sidewalk in the direction of my prey. I didn’t have my wig on, but no one had seen my face; there was no way Asshole Alpha could perceive me as any kind of a threat.

But alas, the luck abruptly turned against me. My soon-to-be-permanently-maimed buddy in the Subaru seemed to find what he was looking for; I was close enough to see the look of relief on his ugly stupid face. He dropped his binoculars and started his engine. “Aw shit,” I said aloud, and rapidly reviewed my options. He still hadn’t seen me, but I was half a block away on foot and my car was two blocks away in the other direction. “All right, Belmont, relax. We know where he lives.” I lowered my head and let him cruise obliviously past me. “Catch you on the flip-side, Asshole.”

Once he was gone, I stood there in the cool morning air wondering what to do with myself. The obvious thing was a headlong dash back to Dave and a daring pursuit to the fiery death; but a dim, half-buried part of me interjected. It might be worth sticking my head into the school—only for a minute or two—on the off-chance of learning what Asshole Alpha had come here to ascertain. It might be important. “Oh, all right. Fiery death can wait.” I headed on down the street to the front door of the school and pressed the buzzer, smiling cheerfully at the security camera. After a moment there was a ker-chunk and the door unlocked itself. I pulled it open and stepped inside.

Unsurprisingly, it was much like my alma mater and much like any high school anywhere. A long, bright-lit corridor lined with red lockers, punctuated by classrooms and the occasional crucifix. No windows; those were all inside the classrooms. And the ones visible from the street would be the ones on my left-hand side. Whatever he’d seen would be in one of them. I started slowly down the hallway, but I hadn’t gotten far when the door of the office opened up and disgorged an educator. I tried hard not to look like an itinerant sociopath.

“Good morning!” she said, and I gaped a little. She was a nun of a grey-habit order—Franciscan, at a guess—with a white wimple and an open throat, seemingly in her late twenties or early thirties. Her skin was dark as loam at dusk; sent over from the African missions, maybe. She had an accent I couldn’t place, exotic and almost musical, and she gave me a merry smile I couldn’t help returning. It was a little early to say for sure, but I thought she might be the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. “May I help you?”

“Yes!” Instantly, I assumed a stock persona from my archives. “Good morning, Sister. I’m Patrick Strider from the Boston archdiocese. I’m here to observe teaching methods?”

She looked amiably skeptical. “Do you have an appointment, Mr. Strider?”

“I. . . believe so. We’ve been having some secretarial difficulties of late, I sincerely apologize if there’s been a mix-up of any kind and, oh, please call me Patrick.”

“Certainly, Patrick. I am Sister Immaculée.”

I said, “How do you do.” And thought, Wow. She had a good firm handshake. Belmont, Belmont—what’re you doing, buddy. She’s a nun, for Pete’s sake. “Right,” I said aloud, and thought, Oops. “Er—yes, good. Perhaps I could just take a quick peek into some of the classrooms. I wouldn’t wish to disturb your teachers.” Hmm—maybe I could find a way to sound more creepy, but it wouldn’t be easy.

The amiability was beginning to fade from her look of skepticism. “That might be arranged, Patrick. Shall we step into the office for a moment, and I can see about getting you a visitor’s pass?”

“Ah. . . yes. Of course. Naturally—one would—have need of a visitor’s pass. So that one might—visit. Without such a pass, one would—would not be the sort of visitor that, generally speaking, one would desire in one’s school—although presumably one would be disposed to extend such a pass to—to oneself, as a general rule.” I had no idea why I was stalling, but a second later I found out. The bell suddenly rang to end what must have been second period, and all the classroom doors flew open. I realized I hadn’t been in a high school since adolescence, and my God, they all looked so young. Yet some of them were the same age at which I had left home, so very long ago (it seemed). I stood and studied them all for a moment, and was already concluding that there was nothing to see here and I should go back to face the GOB directly, when one of the kids came wandering over to us.

“Hey, Sis,” he said, beaming.

She turned her darkening gaze from me for a moment and smiled at him. “Hello, Danny. How is your morning?”

“Good, thanks! How’s yours?”

“Blessed as ever. I trust you finished your essay on Hobbes?”

And he said something, and she said something, it all faded out. I didn’t even see him at first—literally—because what I was looking at was so titanically vast. It was like putting your nose to Mt. Rushmore and trying to get an overview of all four faces. I physically took a step back, and then another, and realized I was staring—staring, bug-eyed, and this kid was now staring back at me, but I couldn’t help it. Usually qi feels like a wind; his qi felt like a steamroller. I heard myself whisper, “What are you?”

His eyes widened, and he glanced back at Sister Immaculée. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

She was furious. Pretty solid qi herself, for a normal—four or five, maybe, on a ten-scale. But this Danny shattered it; on a scale of ten, he was a hundred and fifty. I could barely even see her, now that I’d focused on him. “Mr. Strider, you will depart these premises immediately and leave my students alone, do you hear? If I see you bothering—” and there was more stuff about leaving and police and I’d never seen anything like this kid, he wasn’t a demon, there was an odd feeling of—of purity that glowed in his aura, and there was no conflict, he was totally solid and somehow felt like he was meant to be—whatever the bloody hell he was. But definitely, definitely not human. Or rather—human but, but—also something else—

“Who are you?” he asked—I don’t know, a second later?—a minute?

I got a hold of myself. “I’m Thomas Belmont, kid. I hunt demons and I see qi and you, my friend, are something I have never seen before. And in my line of work, I’ve seen damned near everything. Pardon my language, Sister.”

She gaped at me—which, I’ll admit, was a little gratifying. “Are you insane?”

“Ask him,” I said. My equilibrium was coming back, and I was starting to feel pissed. Not for any even remotely logical reason—just because I’d been startled and scared, and that’s how I handle it when that happens. “Danny, right? Tell her if I’m insane, Danny.”

Now he looked scared—which was ridiculous, since he clearly could have flicked me through the nearest wall at any time he chose. “Look—Mr. Belmont—”

“Just Belmont. And you look, the both of you. I’m standing here because less than five minutes ago I followed a member of a demon-cult who was checking this place out from across the street, and I’ll bet you all the money in the world he was here to check on you.” I thrust my finger at the poor kid, who pretty obviously had no idea what was going on. Somehow I couldn’t help feeling like it was all his fault. “I don’t have a clue what they want with you, but I can promise it ain’t good. And I’m also willing to bet that the people around you don’t have the same, let’s say, resources that you have to keep them safe. So we should really talk about what the hell’s happening here while we still have the chance. Please pardon my language, Sister.”

“If you would watch your language, Mr. Belmont, I would not have to pardon it. Into the office—now—both of you. And I will give you one minute to explain before I call the police.”

“Fair enough.” Danny and I followed her into the chamber of scholastic despair. Even I felt a little oppressed, though my school days were far behind me. Danny looked miserable. As my qi-vision cleared, I began to get an ordinary impression of him, and he certainly looked like a nice enough boy. He had messy brown hair, wide green eyes, and an honest, open sort of face. I put his age at seventeen or eighteen, and he was well-favored, broad-shouldered but not huge, a little shorter than me but probably not done growing yet. If I’d seen him in a picture, I would’ve said he looked like the world’s friendliest quarterback. But in person, I couldn’t tune out the gigantic power I felt driving forth, inexorably, from his mortal-looking frame. What the hell—er, well, fine—what the blasted, horrifying heck was this kid?

“Now,” the sister declared. “I wish to know what you mean about a cult and my children being in danger.”

“All right. I’m sorry I gave you a fake name at first, it’s kind of a reflex. But if you call Bishop Salatino in Boston, he’ll confirm that I’m here under the unofficial auspices of the Church.”

“Unofficial.”

“Yes ma’am. Sister. You can get the number for his office from the—”

“I know how to get the number. Stand there and do not move.” She snatched up the phone and started dialing. A minute or two went by as she was bounced around by a series of secretaries. Danny and I glanced covertly at each other, neither of us speaking. Finally she said, “Yes—hello, Father. This is Sister Immaculée from St. Thérèse in Winooski, Vermont. I have a man in my school calling himself Thomas Belmont, and he claims to be working for Bishop Salatino.” She listened, and a look of surprise began to tamper the hostility in her face. “I see—but what is it that he is doing here? . . .Yes, Father.” She held out the phone. “He wishes to speak with you.”

I took it. “Hello? Oh, hey, Fr. MC. How’s the holiday home stretch treating you?”

“Quite well, quite well, thank you. Now, I gather you’ve made contact with a local sister.”

“That’s a—not precisely how I would’ve put it, but yes, in effect. I’ve already told her what I do, so there’s no need to stonewall her.”

“Are you sure that’s altogether wise?”

“I yyyyeah, probably not in retrospect, but it’s done. There’s something else, too—but I’ll have to investigate a bit further. Can you tell the monsignor I’ll call him sometime in the afternoon?”

“I’ll make sure he has his phone on him.”

“Thanks, Father. Here’s Sister Immaculée again.” I handed the phone back.

As she resumed her discussion with Fr. Max, Danny glanced at me again. “Do you really hunt demons?” he asked quietly.

“’Fraid so, kid. And listen—I’m sorry I’ve been snapping at you. There’s just something really—different about you, and it threw me off. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

He lowered his gaze. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Says who?”

The sister hung up. “Daniel. Are you all right? Can you go to third period?”

“”Well—yes, Sister, but I want to know what’s—”

“I promise we will speak of this as soon as I sort matters out with Mr. Belmont. Go on now, you can still get to class before the bell. Come and find me during the lunch break.”

He slumped a little. “Yes, Sister.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Danny. Believe it or not, there’s a really good explanation for all this.”

“Okay. See you around.”

“Yeah.”

He walked out of the office like a fading earthquake, and I was left alone with Sister Immaculée. I held up my hands. “Before you start,” I said in a conciliatory tone, “—is there any coffee in this place?”