Smalls laid an old tattered book on the table. His study was lit by a small lamp. He’d been up before sunrise. A nightmare woke him that early. He’d dreamed that Hell burst through the ground, opening the graves of the recently dead. Many of those corpses rose. Marianne walked the streets of Mobile, along with the woman from Birmingham. Francisco San Roman or the man who claimed to be San Roman led the resurrected through the streets. It ended with the sacrifice of the Goth Sox lead singer. Her throat was slit like a ceremonial goat. The blood from the wound splattered on him. He awoke after wiping it from his face, the stain on his palm forming a satanic pentagram.
He had spent enough time researching paranormal phenomena to recognize a psychic dream, although he’d never had one himself. During research, however, he had recorded the dreams of some very reliable sources. The book in front of him was an old copy of an ancient treatise on psychic dreaming. He put on his glasses and began to read.
The book had no index for easy reference, and the text was entirely in Latin. If the Church found out he had a copy of it, he could be excommunicated. A papal decree had made it blasphemous centuries before. The inquisitors used it to proclaim witches during the dark times of the Great Inquisitions. For the first time, Smalls definitely thought that everything going on around him concerning Ashe and the disappearance of bodies from the morgues was supernatural in nature, even bordering on satanic.
He scanned the text. The best thing about the book was it had headings for different sections. After a search of these, he found the one listed as Hell Raised.
The book detailed imagery in dreams related to prophecies of demonic invasion of the Earth. Smalls had seen many supposed psychoreligious phenomena including possession, but things described within the text were foreign to even him.
Dreams of the dead rising from the grave bodes ill not only for the dreamer but the world. Evil is at work. Oft times when Devils cannot enter people in a waking state, they haunt the dreams.
Smalls picked up his pen and jotted this on a piece of paper. Something in the back of his mind wanted to surface. He knew somewhere he’d seen information related to demons not being able to completely possess the living. At the time, he found it a strange theory and little else, but the memory wouldn’t come. A nice walk in the crisp early morning air might help jar his memory.
The wind off the bay gave the air an extra chill that Smalls hadn’t expected. His light jacket still hung on the coat hook near his front door. The Alabama Tech hooded sweatshirt he wore wasn’t quite enough to cut that damp cold, but he’d gone too far to justify going back for it.
Nothing much moved downtown. Cars belonging to people who either lived in the low-rent apartments on the streets around the downtown or were too drunk to drive home after the parades lined the streets. Half strands of broken beads lay in the gutter as Smalls passed down Dauphin Street in front of random bars. He always felt that the lively nightlife area looked so different in the morning light. The old feel of the area was strong much like the Vieux Carré in New Orleans in the middle of the morning. All the good timers were gone, and the natural flow of an old French town could be seen.
He turned up St. Joseph Street and walked north. The financial firms along this stretch of street were still empty. Morning business would not begin until much later. As he walked past the intersection of St. Louis, he spied Water Street several blocks away. Traffic moved along that thoroughfare between the interstate heading north and I-10 heading across the bay.
Wind swept down between the tall buildings. The nip in it chilled Smalls deeply. He pulled the hood over his head and tugged the strings to tighten it around his face. Nothing made him feel worse than cold ears. His mind started to turn things over and over as he passed by the power company, which had been the site of an old slave auction before the Civil War. A plaque memorialized the historical significance of the location. The place always gave him the creeps. He thought about all the terrified souls that had been bought and sold at that very location. Some of them would have just been off the boats from Africa, jerked from everything they had known to be put on the block. The negative psychic energy felt overwhelming. He was surprised no one had ever reported some kind of paranormal phenomenon at that location.
St. Anthony Street intersected St. Joseph just past the old slave auction. Smalls decided that the morning air had done its job. He turned down the street heading toward the bay. A walk south on Water Street would bring him back to Dauphin and his circle would be complete. He remembered where he had read about demon possession that had plagued his memory. The only problem now would be finding it down in the basement of the church with all the other books he’d put into storage.
He’d been walking much faster than he usually did, and he could feel the effects. His leg muscles burned a little. Smalls stopped when he reached Water Street. Across the street in a large parking lot on the bay, numerous police cars idled with lights flashing. Yellow tape cordoned off the entrance to the lot, and uniformed and plainclothes officers milled around. He thought of poor Detective Semmes who ended up dead and abandoned at the conference center. Butterflies flurried in his stomach. He began to worry about Ashe and Cybil and even Rogers. With all the craziness surrounding his friends, something very bad and very strange could have happened to one of them.
Smalls made sure that nothing sped down the street. He crossed the first two lanes then the next and entered the parking lot. A uniformed officer trotted over to him with his hand held up.
“Excuse me this is a restricted area,” the officer said.
“I understand, but I live nearby and thought I might be able to help with the investigation,” Smalls said. “I’m a priest at St. Mary’s-by-the-Bay.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Moses,” the officer said. “This is a secure murder investigation area. You need to go back to your church, Father.”
Smalls could see beyond the police cars. A few cops poked around a white sedan. Long streaks of blood covered the rear section of the car. A lump underneath a plastic tarp lay at the back of the car. He couldn’t tell anything about it.
“I am worried about my friends,” Smalls said. “I knew Detective Semmes who was murder a few days ago. I was assisting him in an investigation into the missing bodies from the morgue.”
The officer looked him up and down. Then he turned toward some of the plainclothes officers behind him. “Chief, I need you over here.”
Smalls recognized the man who walked over to him as the police chief. The county sheriff came with him. They both looked the priest over. Neither of them gave away any thoughts through their expressions.
“Who are you?” the chief asked.
“I’m Father Smalls from St. Mary’s-by-the-Bay. I was helping Detective Semmes on his investigation into the missing the bodies from the morgue. I was taking a walk this morning and saw the commotion.”
“And just decided to wander on over?” the sheriff asked.
“I was concerned for some friends of mine. There have been some very strange things occurring around here. I was afraid that one of them may have fallen victim to the goings on.”
“Do you live over at St. Mary’s?” the chief asked.
“In an apartment near it,” Smalls said.
“So you know a lot of the folks that live and work around downtown?” the chief asked.
“I suppose, even if it’s just seeing them in passing.”
The chief of police and sheriff looked at each other and nodded. The sheriff put his hand on Smalls’ shoulder and pointed toward the body.
“We found the victim earlier this morning. She had no ID on her. Maybe you’ll recognize her,” the sheriff said.
“I’d be happy to try.”
Smalls and the two high-ranking police officials walked past the police cars to the body under the tarp. A few of the forensic techs swiped samples of the blood from the car. A photographer snapped pictures. The chief pointed to one of the techs and made a gesture to uncover the body.
When the cover was lifted, Smalls recognized the face immediately despite the ashen complexion and gory gash in the throat. Hortense stared up at him with dead, fish scale eyes. He crossed himself.
“Do you recognize her?” the chief said.
“Yes.”
“Who is she?” the sheriff continued.
“All I know her by is Hortense. I’ve got no idea what her last name is, but I do know that she was lead singer in a local band called the Goth Sox.”
“I’ve heard them,” the tech said. “They suck. She looks a little bit different though.”
“Maybe it’s because she’s dead,” the chief said.
“I think that we should be more respectful,” Smalls said. He never liked people making comments about the recently deceased. He found it distasteful. A worse feeling than distaste came over him though. She had died just like in his dream, a slit throat over an altar, even if it was a car. “Do you know how she died?”
“By the looks of it, heart attack,” the sheriff said with a large dose of sarcasm. “Her throat was cut.”
“I know that, but do you know who did it or how? Was she raped or kidnapped?”
“According to our brief investigation, it looks like she may have had some kind of intercourse. Her pants are down around her ankles,” the chief said. “We also have video surveillance showing her murderer and his accomplice.”
The sheriff pointed to a security camera mounted just overhead. Smalls looked up at it. A hard wind blew and ruffled his hood. If he hadn’t tied it on so tightly, it would have blown off.
“It also showed that she had sex with the accomplice who allowed her to be murdered,” the sheriff said.
“So you’ve got faces. That is great. Maybe everything can get worked out,” Smalls said.
“I think we’ve pretty much got it wrapped up,” the chief said. He pulled a small snub-nosed pistol from a clamshell holster and pointed it at Smalls. “You’re under arrest for the murder of this girl.”
“What do you mean?” Smalls said. “I’m a priest.”
“That surveillance camera shows a man wearing a shirt, just like yours, with the hood up, just like you’ve got on, having sex with her before she got it. He’s even got your build, and you know the victim,” the chief said.
“If the glove fits,” the sheriff said.
“It doesn’t fit. I’m a priest and a professor at Alabama Tech. That’s why I have a sweatshirt from there,” Smalls said.
“Okay, so where were you last night about one a.m.?” the chief asked.
Smalls looked down at the ground. He was dreaming about Hortense’s bloody death, but they weren’t going to hear about that until he had a lawyer. “At home asleep.”
“You live with any other priests?” the sheriff asked.
“I live alone.”
“No alibi and you match the video evidence,” the chief said. “You have the right to remain silent.”
The chief continued the Miranda rights as a uniformed police officer put handcuffs on Smalls. He breathed in deeply and tried not to sigh. Now he knew something beyond the normal was at work, something that dealt death and despair to anyone who interfered.
Cybil pushed a cart piled with reams of paper out of the engineering department’s copy room. For some reason, the adjunct professor who had taken over Ashe’s class decided that the textbook being used didn’t cut it. He had her copy every page out of another textbook for the entire class. This was the third trip she’d made with the overloaded cart. As she walked down the hall, a group of undergraduates stood around the announcement bulletin board. They were talking louder than usual, especially when classes were still being held on that hall. She stopped.
“Guys, what’s all the noise about?” she asked. “You need to hold it down, classes are still being conducted.”
“Hortense from the Goth Sox is dead,” one of them said and pointed to a photocopied poster for one of the band’s shows. Someone had written “cancelled” across it in what looked like blood.
Cybil tore the poster off the bulletin board despite the jeers of the other students. A wave of heat seemed to wash over her. Everything started to feel distant. The voices of the students took on a tinny quality as if her head were in a bucket.
She laid the poster on the cart and walked toward Ashe’s office. He had given her the key to the door so she could bring him some items that he needed. She opened the door and went inside. The room was dark. She walked to one of his guest chairs and collapsed into it, not bothering to turn the lights on. The world seemed a little off kilter. The room began to slowly turn over. The feeling of vertigo overwhelmed her. Her stomach tossed like the waves on the bay during a storm. At the same time, her chest tightened, and her heart beat so hard it felt like it might explode. Her lungs couldn’t get enough air. Everything piled up on her. She knew that she’d pass out or die.
Images zipped through her mind. Hortense at the bar leaving to meet the mystery man. The gory death of the singer from her dream imposed upon that. All the while she sang “Pink-Striped Hair” over and over. As the blood from Hortense’s dream murder splattered out, the contents of Cybel’s stomach would stay down no longer. Cybil jumped up and made it to the trash can before vomiting.
Not much came out except bile. She’d been too tired to eat lunch and hadn’t fooled with breakfast either. Another wave of nausea came over her, and she puked again. She lifted her head and wiped her mouth on her sleeve when the door opened and the light flickered on. Rogers stood in the doorway.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m having a bit of a thing with my nerves.” The urge to vomit hit her again, and she spewed into the trash can.
Rogers brushed what little hair hung in her face away. His touch was soft and almost caring. She sat up and wiped her mouth again. Everything seemed to come back under control.
“What’s the matter?” Rogers asked.
“Have you ever had a dream come true?” she asked.
“You mean like having a law named after me?”
All the panic left her as she considered what a narcissist Rogers was. “No, like an actual dream like you have when you sleep.”
“You mean a psychic dream?”
“I guess if that’s what you psychologists call them.”
“I’ve never had one, but I’ve done research about them. There is evidence that some people are capable of dreaming of future events. Why? Have you had one?”
“That girl we were looking for at the bar yesterday evening was murdered. I dreamed about it last night.”
“A psychic nightmare,” Rogers said. “Those are very rare. Let me help you up.”
She gave him her hand. He pivoted and pulled her up, but too much, sending her off balance. She began to fall over, and he caught her under the arms. His hands just happened to be in position near her breasts. As he helped to steady her, his thumbs brushed over her nipples. He acted nonchalant about it, but Cybil felt he had done it on purpose.
“I don’t appreciate that,” she said.
“What, helping you up?”
“No, copping a feel. What would Ashe say if he knew?”
“Knew what, that you almost fell and I caught you?”
Cybil shoved him into the door. “And made sure to put your thumbs on my nipples. Were you trying to see if I had on a bra?”
“What do you think Ash will do? You’re a rebounder. He’s screwing you because he’s emotionally confused right now. If you want meaningless sex, just let me know. I’ll bang the hell out of you with no strings attached.”
Cybil glowered at him. He meant what he said. At the same time his words infuriated her, she thought that maybe she was just a rebound for Ashe. She shoved the professor back into the door.
“I hope that gangster you were talking with yesterday kills you,” she said and started out the door.
Rogers caught her by the arm. The pressure from his grasp felt like pliers squeezing down. “What do you mean?”
She tried to jerk her arm away from him, but couldn’t. He tugged her to him and pressed her close. His stare pierced, and his breath felt hot.
“I heard you talking about the emotion engrams and giving them to some shady people. Are they sponsoring your research?”
“Be careful.” He squeezed her arm harder. “You might be getting into something that you don’t want to. Those men are dangerous and will do anything to keep their business lucrative and secretive.” He dropped his other hand down and squeezed her crotch. “Anything.”
Cybil broke free from Rogers once he’d had his say. She felt dirty, and his look was no longer lustful but hateful. Everything inside her wanted to scream out. She needed relief from the dream and the murder, from the feelings of betrayal from Ashe, who hadn’t done anything except what Rogers had implied, and of course from the violation he had committed. The college would do nothing to him. They almost encouraged professors to fool around with students.
“I’ll tell Ashe about this,” she said.
“That’s fine. He knows how I am.”
Cybil spat on Rogers and ran down the hall to the stairwell. She needed to get out and get back to Ashe’s before she went crazy and did something even rasher.