The Tenth Order (6 page)

“Well,” Valdis finally said. “It sounds like you’re one unlucky man, Mr. Friskin.”

“I didn’t think priests believed in luck.”

Valdis snorted. “I think you’ll find I’m more of a scholar than a priest. That’s what originally attracted me to the clergy, at any rate.”

“So you think that’s it? Bad luck? Because I’ll tell you Father, I feel more like a man cursed than some schmuck who broke a mirror a few years back.”

Valdis tried not to show his excitement. “I don’t follow. Cursed?”

The nervous, caged look came back into Hunter’s eyes, and he shot another quick glance around the room. He looked back at Valdis, and suddenly the priest’s excitement evaporated. The inviting, gray wells of Hunter’s eyes had filled with a dark menace. A veil of predatory fervor that made Valdis suddenly wish it was daytime.

“Father, I left a few things out.”

Valdis swallowed a large gulp of brandy and averted his gaze. “Oh? Like what?”

“The hospital said I tried to kill myself. That they were restraining me for my own good. But I’ve never
thought
about suicide. I may not be the happiest man to walk the Earth, but I’m pretty attached to my life and I’m not planning on ending it anytime soon.”

Valdis nodded sagely, trying to shake off his impeding sense of doom. “Well, if it wasn’t suicide—”

“They said I did things to that corpse. Father, that corpse did things to
me!
”

“I’m sorry, the corpse—”

“The corpse attacked me.”

Valdis knew he should be surprised, even a bit worried. A strange man, obviously escaped from some hospital, was telling Valdis a corpse attacked him. But he wasn’t surprised. The priest kept thinking about the symbol decorating Hunter’s arm, and the bruises that had miraculously faded in only a few hours. “Alright,” said Valdis. “I’m listening.”

Hunter’s eyes widened. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“I didn’t say that. Let’s assume I’m withholding judgment for a moment. Tell me why a dead woman—a Sunday school teacher, right?—would attack you?”

“I think it has something to do with the visions,” Hunter said.

“Come again?”

“I’ve been having these dreams kinda off and on for the past few months. Real weird shit—er, sorry Father—where I’m fighting…things. All medieval. There are swords and spears, and it looks like the whole world is covered in blood. Like some kind of fucked up movie, pardon the language.

“Well, dreams aren’t that un—”

“That’s just it,” Hunter interrupted. “They started out as dreams, and that was alright I guess, but this last week I’ve been seeing them in the daylight. When I’m awake.”

God, be with me.
“I see.” Valdis took a sip from his brandy.

“I get these headaches,” Hunter continued. “Bad ones, like my brain’s trying to leap out of my skull, and then every time, just a few minutes after I start to feel the pain, I see these figures. The sky turns red, and everything seems hazy and twisted together, like a Dali painting. And I hear these words.”

Valdis put down his drink and leaned closer. The priest was obsessed with words, always had been, and had made most of his life’s work translating obscure and dead languages. “Words?”

“Well, not in the beginning. At first it’s just buzzing. Or sometimes it’s a person, but what’s coming from their lips sounds like a bad radio signal. You know what white noise sounds like?”

“Hunter, I’m a priest, not an idiot.”

“Yeah, alright. It sounds like static at first, and then some kind of language comes out, only the words aren’t matching anyone’s lips. And then, just when it feels like I’m watching some foreign flick, I hear a phrase or two I understand.”

Valdis was at the edge of his chair. “What words, Hunter?”

“Well, that’s the strange part.” Hunter looked off in the distance, his eyes wide and unfocused. “They don’t make any sense.”

“Words like ‘Legion?’”

Hunter’s eyes snapped to Valdis, and the priest realized he’d made a mistake.

“How do you know that,” Hunter whispered, his eyes taking on the predatory gleam again.

“It was…it was something you said. Earlier. In the alley.” Valdis leaned back, suddenly anxious to put distance between him and this large, dangerous stranger.

God almighty, am I nuts? I don’t have a clue about this guy, he could be a serial killer for all I know. Those men passed out in the alley, they’re probably there because of him…and I brought him
inside
.
A bead of sweat slid down Valdis’ cheek.

As the silence lengthened and Hunter’s gaze intensified, Valdis tried to think of ways to leave the room. He could scream, but it was still too early for Lauds and most of his brothers were asleep in their cells. The priest would be dead before he had a chance to cry for help. Valdis looked nervously around the room, trying to spy a way out, when Hunter suddenly stood. A small gasp escaped the priest’s lips, and he flinched as Hunter moved past his chair.

“Thanks for the clothes, Father, but if it’s all the same to you I’ll be on my way.”

Valdis cowered in his chair, eyes lowered. “Well…if you think it’s…”

“I do.” Hunter said, turning and striding into the corridor. As the door closed Valdis looked up, but he was too late to stop the fleeing figure.
Idiot.
He
cursed himself.
You had one chance to get your answers—ONE—and you piss it away because you got scared?

The priest squared his shoulders, swallowed the rest of the brandy, and hurried out the door. Running into the large stone hallway, he could just make out the large man’s back as he exited the steel entranceway to the alley.

“Hunter!” Valdis yelled, but the door was already closing. Rushing to the entranceway, Valdis threw his weight against the metal door and flung it open to the alley. He could see Hunter making his way across the garbage strewn street, brightening in the first rays of dawn.

Valdis hurried after him, shouting “Hunter,” again, but to no avail. The man had already turned a corner, and by the time Valdis reached the intersection he had disappeared.

“Great,” the priest muttered. Turning, he made his way back to the door, but stopped when he reached the two jumbled figures he’d seen the night before. In the budding daylight he was able to make out more details. First, the men weren’t breathing. And second, the bruises on their necks were darkening into…

“God be with me,” the priest whispered, and ran back to the cathedral.

CHAPTER FOUR

Detective Jackie Riese arrived at Denver Memorial to a sweaty Chief of Medicine and a bad case of indigestion.

Wincing, she tried not to rub her stomach as the Chief of Medicine, a man with the unfortunate name “Dr. Moss,” told her once again the details of the case she was already calling “The Mortician Murder.” She had a thing for alliteration, and didn’t much care that Friskin was technically a
beautician
and not a
mortician
.

“We didn’t think the man was violent,” the doctor said for what must have been the hundredth time. He kept repeating it like it might provide some measure of protection against a law suit.

“Doctor, correct me here, but don’t you have some kind of security around patients who are deemed suicidal? Because, from what I’m hearing, it sounds like this man just killed a nurse and strolled out the front door.”

Moss pulled out a handkerchief—
Really,
Jackie thought,
who still uses those?
—and mopped his brow. “I’ve already told you several times, Detective. We keep all our questionable patients in a secured branch of the hospital. In Mr. Friskin’s case, we even added wrist restraints to ensure he didn’t injure himself further. The hospital cannot be held—”

“Yes,” Jackie cut him off. “Tell me more about those restraints. Because I might just be a simple government worker, but in
my
field when we use ‘wrist restraints’ they tend to
actually stay on
.
”

Moss swiped at his forehead again and muttered something intangible. Jackie almost broke her pencil; one more word and she would strangle the man. Though he might technically be blameless—he
had
followed hospital procedure from everything she gathered—Moss was at least guilty of incompetence.
Who puts a giant like Friskin in
Velcro
restraints?
Jackie patted her metal cuffs reassuringly as she walked away from the doctor and joined a pair of officers who were taking a statement from a wild looking man in a dingy hospital gown.

“What’ve we got?” She asked.

“Not much, detective,” said one of the officers, glancing significantly at the man in the faded hospital gown. “Not much at all.”

“Why won’t you
listen
to me?” The man begged. He was an ancient character with wild hair and sallow eyes. “I saw him lift her with
one hand
!”

Jackie turned to the old man. They hadn’t released any of that information yet. “You saw the attack?” She asked.

“You better believe it! That’s what I’ve been telling this ruffian,” the wild-haired man glared at the officer.

“Okay, let’s start from the top. Tell me what you saw.”

The man, pleased to finally have an audience, smiled broadly. Jackie tried not to laugh as his lips pulled back to reveal an empty mouth, teeth long since rotted away. The old man looked over at the first police officer and his smile turned to a comical frown.

“Not with this one here.” He leaned close to Jackie and whispered, “I don’t like his looks.”

Jackie nodded and motioned for the two officers to leave. The first one rolled his eyes, then signaled to his partner who followed him around the corner.

Alone with the old man, Jackie pulled out her cellphone and pressed record. “Alright Mr…”

“Alvarez,” the old man smiled again. “But my friends call me Pickle.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“It’s actually a pretty funny story, see—”

“That’s okay, Mr. Alvarez,” Jackie tried to smile, but had to suppress another wince as her indigestion came roaring back. “Let’s stick to the details of the attack for now.”

Alvarez wrinkled his forehead. “Alright, just business then. Well, it all started a week ago when Small Richard came over to play some Pinochle.”
Jesus, pinochle? How old
is
this guy?
“Well, Old Richard tried to dispute his bid, and I said ‘no way in hell you lousy cheat! You just took a trick and you expect me to—’”

“Mr. Alvarez?”

“Please, call me Pickle.”

“Mr. Alvarez,” Jackie sighed. “Could we focus on the events this morning?”

“Don’t rush me!” Alvarez pursed his lips at Jackie, and the detective tried not to laugh. “Alright, well, I’m sleeping, dreaming about this time me and Molly, rest her soul, went down to Mexico to see the pyramids. You ever seen those pyramids, Detective? They say they were built by men, but between you and me I think it was something else. Hoover knew all about it, would have blown the lid on the whole thing if the gov’ment hadn’t shut him up.” Alvarez gave her an enormous wink. “But I could never get Molly to believe me, rest her soul.
She
said they had all kinds of people working—”

“Pickle!” Jackie said sharply.

The old man jumped, then wrinkled his brow again. “Fine, fine,” he muttered. “This morning. Okay. So I’m dreaming my dream about Mexico, and then I start hearing all this muttering. Really loud, alright? I mean, it took me out of my dream and everything, and I was even having this conversation with Molly. She was always talking, that one and—oh. Right. Sorry,” Alvarez smiled sheepishly.

“This mutterings really loud,” he continued. “And I thought maybe I had a new roomy, but I looked over and it was still just me. That’s one nice thing about this hospital, you know? It’s really quiet. Anyway, so I look across the hall through the door they always leave open—I don’t understand why they do that, it’s terribly rude—and I see this big fella writhing around in his bed.”

“Writhing?” Jackie asked.

“Yeah, he’s moving around like he’s got bed-bugs. And he’s muttering this really weird stuff, probably Russian cause he looks a little pink to me, ya’ know? And he’s just going crazy, which I don’t have to tell ya’ happens
a lot
up here.” Alvarez looked up and down the hallway, his lips pursing.

“Did you make out any words?” Jackie asked. “Anything would be a big help.”

“Sorry,” Alvarez reached over and patted Jackie’s hand. “I was never good at that stuff. If it ain’t English it’s just rubbish to me. Math was my thing; my mother used to put my marks on the ice box, she was really proud of those.”

“And after the muttering?” Jackie asked in what she hoped was a pleasant voice.
Stupid burritos, Russ promised he wasn’t going to get hot sauce,
Jackie rubbed at her stomach and tried not to moan.