Riordan expected Father Calixto Banderas to look gaunt, grave, and gray, projecting the austere demeanor of one who wrestled with evil spirits on a regular basis. But the man he met, a week after the delivery of the bishop’s letter, was on the bright side of forty, with a cherubic face and a salesman’s affability. He arrived in a dinged-up SUV, accompanied by a still younger priest, an exorcist trainee, whom Riordan dubbed (but only to himself) “the sorcerer’s apprentice.” His name was Father Franco Sandoval, and he carried the tools of his mentor’s trade: a Bible, a book of exorcist prayers, a gold-plated crucifix, bottles of holy water and anointing oils, and a solid brass staff, its function a mystery.
The guests were shown to their room—the rectory always kept one open for visitors—and then came to dinner. Riordan enjoyed having someone other than Hugo Beltrán and the Old Priest to talk to. Banderas’s hearty appetite was encouraging. The exorcist dove into María’s pollo mole. He volunteered that he’d been trained in his occult art at the Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum, in Rome, and told tales about his encounters with tormented souls and the demons who possessed them. So many demons! The need for exorcists was growing all over the world, and there were few places where that need was greater than in Mexico. San Patricio was the first call on his tour of the archdiocese because of the indescribable thing that had happened here. It had been an attack, he opined, on the church herself, on faith itself, and he was certain the heinous act had been committed by men conscripted into Satan’s legions.
Domingo, Riordan thought, would have argued that the attack had been on him. The youthful Father Sandoval—he could not have been past twenty-seven or eight—drew booklets from a briefcase and passed them out to the three parish priests. They contained the prayers and litanies of the Great Exorcism, along with directions as to its performance. Banderas explained that he would recite the invocations; Father Sandoval, joined by Riordan, Father Hugo, and the Old Priest, would deliver the responses.
“I suggest we hold a rehearsal early tomorrow morning,” Banderas said. He mopped up the mole sauce with a tortilla.
Suppressing his proprietary feelings—he didn’t like turning his church over to a priest he considered wet behind the ears—Riordan looked over the service and the stage directions. He noticed that at each of the cardinal points on the compass, a prayer was to be said in a ceremony called the “Conjuración.” The word jumped out at him. In Spanish, it denoted “warding off,” but his mind automatically ran to the English, “conjuring,” which, well, conjured visions of primitive rites, magic spells, the type of superstitious mumbo jumbo Captain Valencia scorned.
“Uh, Father Banderas, can you tell us what is supposed to happen?” he inquired, ironing all incredulousness out of his voice. “What can we expect this Great Exorcism to accomplish?”
“I am happy you asked that,” the exorcist replied, eyeing an extra chicken thigh in the serving dish. “You will notice nothing, most likely. Nothing will be changed.”
Riordan looked surprised.“Would you mind explaining, then, why we’re going through it?” he asked.
Banderas’s lips turned up so that, with his chubby, spherical face, he looked like a happy emoticon.
“Not at all! Few exorcisms work immediately. Some take weeks, months. Once, in San Luis Potosí, I exorcised a man five times before he was free. And the Great Exorcism? We may have to have three, four, five, six of them before we see any effect.”
“The devil’s minions are numerous,” added Father Sandoval.
The Old Priest bobbed his head in agreement. “They roam the world, seeking the ruin of souls.”
* * *
Riordan suspected that most of the parishioners who jammed the church the next day had been drawn in by the novelty. But those whose lives had been ravaged by the violence—Delores Quiroga, the Reyeses, the Díazes, others—came out of desperation, hoping for anything that promised deliverance. As for Riordan himself, he’d reflected on Giotto’s painting of Saint Francis expelling demons from Arezzo the previous night, before he’d gone to bed. It was a purely mythological event; nevertheless, the picture of the Franciscan Order’s founder conducting a mass exorcism swung him from skeptical to indifferent about the ritual. It could not do any harm, even if it did no good.
It began at noon. Booklets had been placed in the pews during the morning rehearsal. Clad in brocade vestments, Fathers Banderas and Sandoval stood front and center on the altar; Riordan, Father Hugo, and the Old Priest, wearing simple surplices, stood off to one side. Banderas bestowed a benign look on the congregation, bundled up against the midwinter chill, and told them to turn to the Litany of the Saints in the booklets. This they did. Then he chanted in a high, melodious voice:
Señor, ten piedad. Lord, have mercy.
Señor, ten piedad, the parishioners answered, raggedly, hesitantly.
Cristo, ten piedad. Christ, have mercy.
Cristo, ten piedad.
San Miguel, Arcángel, ten piedad. Saint Michael, Archangel, have mercy.
Ruega por nosotros. Pray for us.
The assembled voices grew stronger, more certain. On and on it went, through the archangels Gabriel and Raphael, through the prophets and patriarchs, the apostles, evangelists, martyrs, monks, Levites, and female saints, forty-five names altogether: Saint Peter, pray for us.… Saint Anthony, pray for us.… Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us. The repetition of invocation and response was at once monotonous and entrancing, and not without an ascetic beauty.
From all sin, Banderas sang,
Deliver us, O Lord,
From all evil.
Two hundred voices appealed in unison:
Deliver us, O Lord.
Now it was time for the procession around the church—the Rite of Encirclement. Banderas turned to face north, his back to the congregation, and intoned the first of the “Conjuración” prayers: “Lord, you are our defense and refuge. We ask you to free our Holy Church from the snares of demons. Surround it with the shield of thy strength, and show mercy. Through Christ our Lord.”
“Amen,” Riordan answered with Father Hugo and the Old Priest, their voices merging with the congregation’s. He considered whether he was a slave to rationalism. Maybe this mystical drama was the needed weapon, for evil itself was irrational and could not be overcome with reason.
Banderas picked up the brass staff, and he and the other priests proceeded to the west nave, where more prayers were chanted, then to the east, before they wheeled, precise as a drill team, marched to the center aisle, and faced south. “Listen, Holy Father, do not let your children be deceived by the father of lies,” Banderas intoned, his head bowed, one hand raised. Despite the chill, his forehead glistened. “Retire, Satan, by the sign of the Holy Cross, of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns forever and ever …
“Amen.”
Led by the exorcist, the priests filed at a solemn pace toward the front doors, there to send the infernal militias back into hell. The parishioners turned to follow them with their eyes, as they might the recession of a bridal party. Riordan’s glance sidled quickly to the people standing nearest the aisle. He tried to read their expressions. Did they believe that the command “Retire, Satan” would liberate them from violence and ruthless terror? Hope it would? Did he? How many graves would he pray over, how many families console between now and when this rite had its desired effect, if it ever did?
“Lord, King of Heaven and Earth,” prayed Banderas, loud enough to create an echo, “strike the powers of hell!” He hammered the floor three times with the staff. “Almighty God, through the intercession of Mary Most Holy and Immaculate, strike and crush the Ancient Serpent!” Again he pounded the staff three times. Riordan’s pragmatic side cried out silently, Not so hard! You’ll crack the tiles! “Creator of all things, strike, crush, and shatter all the hierarchies of the Abyss!” Bang-bang-bang. Ring of brass on stone. “I command thee, Ancient Serpent, depart from the Holy Church of God! Depart from this town! Depart from this diocese!” The members of the congregation were into it now, mesmerized, some swaying to the rhythm of the incantation. “God the Father so commands! God the Son so commands! God the Holy Spirit so commands! Through Christ our Lord …
“Amen!”
A shrill howl rose from a pew in the rear, then broke into a series of rapid, shallow gasps. Goose bumps scurried up the back of Riordan’s neck. He spun and saw a woman on her hands and knees in the aisle—a young woman with thick, frizzy hair that looked like an Afro losing its shape. She attempted to crawl, then fell flat and rolled onto her back, her body jerking once before it went stiff, as if from an electrical shock. He rushed toward her just as another woman, somewhat older, pushed out of the pew and knelt beside her. He did not recognize either of them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen them before, here in the pueblo. The one on the floor was staring blankly at the ceiling; her hands shook spastically while her jaw muscles flexed and her mouth worked back and forth, as if she were grinding something between her teeth.
Father Banderas, recovering from the shock of the woman’s screech, hovered over her for a second. He went down to one knee and laid his crucifix between her breasts and called, “What is your name? Tell me your name!”
Riordan suddenly felt like a character in films of the occult, the one who doesn’t believe in the paranormal until it confronts him.
“In the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, tell me your name!” Father Banderas commanded.
“What are you doing?” the older woman said. A tough-cookie type, fair-haired and sinewy, with eyes the color of a thundercloud.
“What is your name?”
The prostrate woman came to, propping herself up on her elbows. Her lips moved soundlessly at first; then she croaked, “Miranda.”
“Miranda, I command thee to depart. Depart, accursed one, from this child of God!”
Riordan looked away. People had spilled into the aisle, gawking as if at an auto accident. Some had raised their arms, palms outward, certain they were witnessing a struggle with an evil spirit.
“Depart, Miranda! Why do you still linger here, seducer? I adjure you, specter from hell, to cease your assault on this child of God!”
“Stop it!” said the woman’s companion. “She is having a seizure. She has seizures. Miranda is her name.”
But the exorcist was having none of it. Bowing low, face-to-face with the woman called Miranda, he summoned the spirit to be gone to its abode, a nest of serpents. Miranda stared at him, mouth agape. She was sweating now.
“Crawl with them, those snakes! You might delude man, but God you cannot.”
Riordan saw that he needed to reassert himself. This was his church, after all, these people his parishioners. Another minute of Banderas’s ranting might bring on mass hysteria.
“It is He who casts you out, Miranda,” Banderas intoned. “It is He who—”
“Father, please. That’s enough,” he said, gripping the exorcist under one arm, as if to jerk him upright. “She’s right. It’s a seizure.”