Chapter Thirty-One

Hastings Mills, NY, July 20th, one year ago

In the parking lot, Stone was about to get into Officer Corday’s cruiser when his phone went off.

“Hello?”

“Stone Graves? This is Dr. Al Ronsen at Hastings Mills General. You’re listed as Claudia Brock’s family.”

“Is she okay?” At Stone’s words, Randi Zimmerman motioned for him to put the call on speaker.

“Her condition has taken a turn for the worse. I think you should be here.”

“No.” Stone ended the call.

“Stone?” Randi stepped in front of him. “Go. The demon can wait.”

Stone shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? This is Claudia we’re talking about.”

“Is something the matter?” Father Bonaventura asked.

“His girlfriend is dying and all he’s thinking about is television ratings.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“The woman whose sister was shot?” Bonaventura asked.

“Yeah.” Stone nodded. “But we have to get you to the house—”

“We must go to her,” the priest interrupted. “If her current state is due to the demon rather than a medical condition, I may be able to help.”

Stone hesitated, guilt and anger freezing him in place. Randi was right. He should be with Claudia. Let his crew handle the exorcism. Randi would be there.

You’re gonna blow your big chance? For what? You can prove to the world that the supernatural exists. That demons are real. You’ll be the most famous person in the world.

He’d waited all his life for an opportunity like this. Could he really throw it all away just to sit in a hospital room while everyone else grabbed the glory?

I’ll bet that’s what Randi wants.

“If you’re not going, I am,” Randi said. “Father Bonaventura can come with me. We’ll meet you at the Rawlingses’.”

“Why? So I look like the bad guy? We’ll all go to the hospital.” That would show her. They’d check on Claudia and then perform the exorcism. And then he’d be the hero not once, but twice. He got into the back of the cruiser. The priest squeezed in next to him, followed by Randi. As Corday pulled out of the lot, the priest touched Stone’s hand.

“Ow!” Stone jerked his hand away as he received a shock.

“My apologies.” The old man put something in his pocket and leaned forward. “Officer, I think we need to hurry.”

Rick Mordecai stood on the riverbank while three officers in a flat-bottomed aluminum boat used a gaff to pull a man’s body close, so they could lift it inside. The water was shallow enough that they could have waded out to where the dozen corpses lay, but the slime-covered rocks made walking too dangerous. Instead, the officers settled for retrieving the bodies two at a time and bringing them ashore, where the coroner’s team verified they were dead – as if there was any doubt – and bagged them.

Twelve suicides. It seemed impossible. That kind of thing simply didn’t happen, except in one of those crazy cults you read about.

Cults.

The same word Corday Rose had used in the report he’d filed to describe the loonies at the motel.

Could there be a connection? Some Satanic group that had picked Hastings Mills for their demented rituals?

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Years ago, when he’d still been a rookie, he’d responded to a call about a disturbance in the woods behind the McCrearys’ farm. He and his partner, Tim Maynes, had found a full-blown black mass going on. Men and women in black robes, with nothing on underneath. A plucked chicken pegged to the ground in the center of a pentagram drawn in colored beads. A man reading from a book.

They’d all been arrested for trespassing. Over the next year, the same group got caught three more times for practicing their black magic shit. On one occasion, they’d been dancing nude in the moonlight. All locals who held respectable jobs. Said they had a right to follow whatever religion they wanted. Eventually, Chief Showalter gave them a final warning: take their bullshit religion out of his town for good or he’d release their names in the paper.

That had only been dead chickens and nudity. What he had now seemed more like total Jonestown insanity. A death cult. Maybe brought on by the bizarre falling rocks and frogs, which scientists attributed to high-level atmospheric storms bringing them from other parts of the state and then dropping them.

Whole damn town’s turning into an apocalypse movie. Maybe it’s good to have a priest here.

Mordecai cursed. Now he’d started thinking crazy too. And that didn’t mix well with police work. Despite being a good Catholic, he’d never fallen into the trap of devout worship the way some people did. He attended masses out of habit, and to set a good example for the kids.

What he needed to do now was get to the bottom of the suicides. And that meant talking to the wackos from the motel, who’d been brought to Memorial General for psych evals.

“Hey, Lloyd,” he called out to the boat. Lloyd Cadeyona looked up. “I’m heading over to the hospital. Call me when you’re done here.”

The officer nodded and Mordecai climbed up the hill to where he’d parked his SUV. As he reached the top of the embankment, he saw a boy of about eight sitting cross-legged at the edge. In one hand he held a raggedy teddy bear. A dirty ball cap with the Yankees logo sat askew on his head.

Mordecai glanced over his shoulder. The bodies of the dead lay in plain sight, their crushed skulls and twisted limbs clearly visible. Not the kind of thing a child should see.

“Hey, kid. You shouldn’t be here. Why don’t you—” Mordecai’s words stopped as the boy rose up in the air, floating a good two feet off the ground. His eyes had turned yellow, with the sideways pupils of a goat.

“Asmodeus suscitat,” the boy said.

The rocks shifted under Mordecai’s feet and he stumbled back, losing his balance. He fell and his skull smashed into something hard, releasing red and black explosions.

A final thought registered before the darkness claimed him.

Corday was right.

—Claudia, wake up. There’s no more time.—

Shari was back, her presence both welcome and torture. Each time Claudia heard her voice, it reminded her of all she’d lost.

—No. I just want to be with you.—

—It’s not your time, sister. You have a job to do. The final battle is about to begin.—

—We can fight together. We’re more powerful that way.—

She sensed Shari shaking her head.

—We will be together. Separate, but together. We must come at the beast from different directions. You from the outside, me the inside.—

—Why?—

—Because the priest needs you. Stone needs you.—

—What about me? I need you.—

—I’ll be there when you do. Go to them.—

—No.—

—You must.—

A point of light appeared in the darkness. Although Claudia had no physical form, she felt warmth emanating from it. The light expanded and the heat grew stronger, began to burn. Claudia tried to back away but an unseen force trapped her in place as the light enveloped her, searing away the empty void. A roaring sound filled her nonexistent ears. Over the noise, she heard Shari’s voice one last time.

—Be ready when I come.—

At the hospital, the front desk clerk tried to stop everyone except Stone Graves from going up to see Claudia.

“Family only,” she insisted, finally relenting when Officer Rose showed his badge and Leo his Church ID.

When they got to her room, they found her doctor, a short, cadaverous man named Ronsen, by the bed. Leo’s heart stuttered when he saw the young woman on the bed, her dark hair spread like nightfall across her pillow.

Her! The woman from his nightmares, the one who’d led him back to the world of the living. Even with her eyes closed and clothed in a hospital gown, he recognized her instantly. Her face was as pale as her sheets and glistening with sweat, and a dark bruise marred her forehead. Deep shadows rested in the hollows of her eyes. A machine next to the bed kept dinging an alarm and a set of lights flashed yellow. A gray-haired nurse tended to the IV attached to Claudia’s arm.

“Doc, what’s going on?” Randi asked.

“We don’t know.” Ronsen checked something on an electronic chart and handed it to the nurse. “We’ve ordered a CT scan, in case it’s a cerebral incident, but there’s someone in the machine right now so we’re just waiting until we can get her downstairs.”

Leo took a deep breath to regain his composure. Lockhart had said he’d shot a woman, one of a pair of identical twins possessed of psychic abilities. Was this her, or the sister? One of them had come to him, and he needed to understand why. There was much more going on in Hastings Mills than just a case of possession.

“Doctor, can you give us a few minutes alone with her?” Leo flashed his ID again.

“I can, but as soon as that gurney gets here, we’re moving her.”

“Understood.”

Leo waited until they left and then quickly took his cross and a bottle of holy water from his pockets. “Please, Ms. Zimmerman, Officer Rose, step back.”

They did. Stone moved as well, but Father Bonaventura motioned for him to stay next to the bed. “I’ll need you to hold her hand,” he said.

Frowning, Stone did as he was told.

Holding the cross aloft, Leo recited:

“Christ beneath us, Christ above us, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love us. Strengthen us in the power of Your might, O God. Dress us in Your armor so that we can stand firm against the schemes of the Devil. Protect us, Lord, from the forces of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in all their forms. Be the shield that guards us.”

Leo splashed the blessed water on Claudia, the bed, and Stone, who gasped and tried to back away, but Claudia’s hand tightened around his, even as her moaning grew worse.

“You are our keeper, O Lord, and we your flock. Protect us from all evil and keep our souls from danger.” He splashed the holy water again, this time on everyone. Stone cried out and his body went rigid.

“Guard our going out and our coming in. From this time and forever. In Jesus’s name, amen.” A third spray. Stone’s back arched and his mouth opened.

A puff of black smoke burst from him and disintegrated in the air. His body went limp and he collapsed to the floor.

On the bed, Claudia’s writhing and moaning stopped. She opened her eyes.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” she whispered.

And began to cry.

“Any other time, I wouldn’t allow this.” Dr. Ronsen paused with his stylus over Claudia’s e-chart. “But we’ve got a shortage of beds. More emergency cases in six hours than we usually get in a week.”

“I’ll be fine,” Claudia said, but she kept her gaze averted. Stone understood completely. He still felt like he’d just come out of a coma himself.

That thing used me like it used Curt Rawlings.

The very idea of it made him want to puke. Or bathe in holy water. He remembered everything. Every snide comment, every selfish thought. For the rest of his life, he’d have to suffer the guilt of what he’d said. What he’d almost done.

What would have happened if he’d gone back to the house and left Claudia behind to die? He was afraid to ask the priest.

Worst of all, Claudia still didn’t trust him. He saw it in her eyes, the way she kept glancing at him and then looking away. Does she know what I tried to do to Randi? What had she seen when he held her hand?

Rosen tapped the stylus on the pad and nodded. “All right. Your papers will be waiting down at the desk and—”

Randi’s phone went off, playing the theme to Ghostbusters. Everyone turned.

“Sorry. Guess I should change the ringtone.” She went out into the hall. Stone tried to help Claudia off the bed but she shook her head, adding another ball of guilt to the pile inside him.

Randi opened the door.

“Ken’s downstairs. We’ve got problems.”

“She specifically said, bring the priest.”

Ken was waiting in the lobby with Curt Rawlings when Stone and the others got off the elevator. Officer Rose had gone outside to take a call from the station.

“The demon was referring to me,” Bonaventura said.

Ken shook his head.

“No, she had to mean Lockhart. Abby doesn’t even know you’re in town.”

“It knows.”

The argument had been going in circles for several minutes, with Bonaventura insisting the demon wanted him, not Lockhart.

“Enough.” Stone’s voice carried farther than he’d intended, causing several people to glance at them. He forced himself to speak softer. “There’s a simple solution. We get Lockhart and bring him too.”

“And how do we do that?” Randi asked.

“We have to convince Mordecai to let him go.”

“No, you don’t.”

Stone turned. Officer Rose had come back inside, wearing a stunned expression. Before he could speak, Claudia let out a small whimper. “Oh no.”

Her eyes changed from violet to cloudy white. “Chief Mordecai is dead.”

“How the hell does she know that?” Corday asked.

“Is it true?”

“Yeah. Someone pushed him off the river embankment. Witnesses…they said it was a little boy.”

“Not a boy,” Claudia whispered. “A beast with many heads.”

“Jesus, pray for his soul.” Bonaventura made the sign of the cross.

“What else do you see?” Stone asked her.

“All of us are needed. The priest. The fallen one. We must fight together. It’s waiting for us. Laughing. It has—” Claudia’s eyes returned to normal and she burst into tears. Randi went to her and pulled her into an embrace.

Stone turned to Corday. “Who’s in charge?”

“Right now, no one. Our deputy chief has been in California for a week because his mother passed away. I’m sure someone called him, but it’ll take a couple of days for him to get back. In the meantime, one of our two lieutenants will take over.”

“Can you get Lockhart out?”

Corday nodded.

“Okay. Meet us at Curt’s house.”

“No.” Bonaventura held up a hand. “Before any of us enter the dwelling, we need to be prepared spiritually and informationally. There’s a church a few miles from here. St. Mary’s.”

“I know it,” Corday said.

Stone looked around at the group. “Last chance if anyone wants to get the hell out of town. This isn’t what you signed up for.”

“It’s my daughter,” Curt said. “I’m not leaving.”

“I’m in to the freakin’ end.” Randi gripped hands with Claudia, who nodded.

Ken cleared his throat and Stone got a sinking feeling.

“Uh, I’m sorry. I can’t. Me and Del talked earlier. This is all getting out of hand. We almost died. I – we – can’t take that chance again. We’re leaving as soon as I get back to pick him up.”

Ken’s words hit Stone like a gut punch. Del and Ken had been with him since before he got his television show. They’d become almost family. Which was why no matter how much it hurt to lose them, he couldn’t get angry at their decision. Forcing a smile, he nodded.

“It’s okay. You guys take a cab to Buffalo. Get a hotel and wait there until you hear from me.”

Ken looked embarrassed and grateful.

“Thanks, man.”

Stone turned to the others.

“All right. We meet at St. Mary’s Church in an hour.”