Killing Rites

Chapter Nineteen

I wrapped ten hundred-dollar bills in a sheet of paper with the word Sorry written on it and shoved it under the office door before we left. My hip ached, my breath was white, and the coating of filth and slime made the night air even colder. I felt like I’d dragged myself through a thousand yards of sewer pipe. Even though no one else had come out to investigate, the darkness felt like it was watching me. Somewhere out there, the rider inside Dolores’s sister still knew it was in danger. If anything, it would be more desperate now, and I didn’t have a clue what kind of backup it could call on. So the next move was get the hell gone.

The SUV was idling, exhaust pluming out the tailpipe lke a permanent exhalation. Alexander had taken the passenger’s seat, leaving Ozzie and Dolores in the back. The dog was looking happily into the night, the girl less so, but at least she’d stopped crying. I slid in behind the wheel, buckled in, and flipped on the lights. If you didn’t know to look, the door to our thoroughly ruined motel room just seemed a little scuffed above the knob, the dent where the riders kicked it in showing as nothing more than a little discoloration. They were going to have to change the carpet to get the stink out. As I shifted to reverse, I promised to send them more money. A thousand bucks wasn’t going to cover the damage we’d done.

The roads were bad—ice and snow and other drivers who seemed dismissive of the dangers of ice and snow—but I’d been bouncing back and forth between Taos and Questa so much, it was becoming familiar. Probably if I came back in the summer, I’d have been lost, but in the black hours before dawn, I was recognizing individual snowdrifts. The heater roared, blowing its artificial desert wind against my cheek and ankles and drowning out the pop tunes on the radio. In the backsplash of the headlights, Alexander’s expression was sober.

“It’s ski season. We’re never going to find a place to stay,” Alexander said.

“I’ve already got a room,” I said. “It’s kind of craptastic, but it has a shower.”

He looked over at me.

“You have a hotel room already rented?”

“Key card’s in the glove box,” I said.

“Well,” he said. “Nice work.”

“Makes me wish I’d planned it,” I said.

When we got there, we trudged up the stairs in single file. Me and then Ozzie and then Dolores and then Alexander, like ants. Even Ozzie was looking tired, her head hanging at an angle and her tongue lolling pinkly from her mouth. I gave Dolores first bath rights. She handed out her soiled clothes. The slime and filth had begun to dry, flaking off the cloth. I took the plastic liner out of the wastebasket and put her things there. When she came out wrapped in towels, I took the next turn. First Midian’s cigarettes, now the Akaname’s stench. I washed my hair twice, scrubbed my skin with a washcloth until it hurt a little, and I still caught a whiff of sewer when I got out. I felt much better, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever really feel clean. I had one more complete outfit from my lawyer, so I put that on and threw my ruined clothes in the plastic liner with Dolores’s.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, Dolores was sitting on the edge of the bed wrapped in her towel, Alexander on the floor beside her. They were watching a morning show on TV. The anchorwoman was smiling at an old Korean woman and talking animatedly about a new movie she’d directed. They were both wearing Santa hats and the network logo was worked with computer-generated holly leaves. Ozzie, curled in a perfect circle with her nose tucked under her tail, snored gently beside them. Outside, the first blue of the coming dawn lit the windows.

“There enough hot water left for me?” Alexander asked.

“Better be,” I said. “You smell like ass.”

Dolores chuckled. She looked hausted. I wondered what her mother was going to think, waking up with one or both of her daughters missing. If I were the Akaname, I’d say Dolores had been taken by a crazy Anglo woman named Jayné who’d been staying at the Sangre de Cristo. I imagined myself explaining to the FBI that it wasn’t really kidnapping, because if I’d let her go home, the demons would have gotten back into her. Until I heard differently, I’d have to assume there was an Amber alert out for all of us. It always surprised me how much fighting against spiritual parasites could look like crime.

Alexander dragged himself to the bathroom and handed out his clothes. I stuffed all of it into the plastic liner, tied the top, and put it outside the room’s door. The sun was almost up, thin clouds glowing rose and gold in the immense blue New Mexican sky. I took the Do Not Disturb sign and hung it on the knob. Dolores was lying on her side now, her eyes glassy and empty. The show broke to a commercial for allergy medicine, and I turned off the TV.

“Get some sleep, okay?” I said. Dolores nodded and closed her eyes. There was an extra blanket in the closet, and I draped it over her. When I knocked on the bathroom door, it took a few seconds for Alexander to answer.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to hit Wal-

Mart for some fresh clothes. You stay here and guard the kid, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t let anyone in.”

“I’m a Catholic priest in a hotel room with an underage girl and no clothes,” he said. “So yeah, I think I’ll try to keep a low profile.”

“Funny,” I said.

“Here all week. Tip your waitress.”

I unhooked the cable that ran from the telephone to the wall and shoved it in my pocket before I left. I didn’t think Alexander would call Chapin while I was gone, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. And it wasn’t a risk I had to take.

I got back two hours later with a sweater and two pairs of slacks, one of which would probably fit Alexander, pink sweats with a pattern of hearts and snowflakes for Dolores, a pair of jeans and a blouse for me, and socks and underwear for the masses. Alexander was in bed, still wrapped in his towel. The wind spirit’s wound looked fresh and pink and painful. Dolores was sleeping where I’d left her, above the bedspread and under the spare blanket, curled up like a comma. Ozzie looked up at me hopefully.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t think about dog food. I’m kind of new at the whole pet thing,” I said, and she sighed and put her head back down.

I put the shopping bags down by the door and went to the far side of the bed. I lay down with my clothes on, fitting onto eight inches of mattress that the other two had left me. For a moment, I wondered if this was what it felt like having a family. A man, a woman, a child, all curled up in a bed that was a little too small, all with their own thoughts and dreams and nightmares. I tried to imagine my own mother and father on a vacation someplace when I’d been a little kid, or with my big brother, who was about to have a kid of his own. I couldn’t picture it. It wasn’t that it seemed wrong onny or improbable. It was just that when I tried to put them here where I was, my mind went blank. Part of that was the trickling exhaustion that came from a sleepless, anxious night, but part of it was something else. Part of it was not knowing anymore exactly who I missed when I missed my family. My mind wandered to the other people who belonged with me: Aubrey, Chogyi Jake, Ex. Maybe them. I could almost imagine them.

I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes until it had already happened. I left them that way, thinking I’d just rest for a couple of minutes and then go find some breakfast for us all, and woke up with the others a little bit after noon.

“YOU’RE SURE she came back wrong?” Alexander asked. “Is it possible that she was okay when we did the rite, but then the other demon was there waiting when it was over?”

Dolores took a bite of her hamburger. She’d gone for a weird Hawaiian thing with barbecue sauce and pineapple that smelled great. She chewed and shook her head. Her frown was entirely made of eyebrows.

“No,” she said. “And anyway, that isn’t what it did with me, remember?”

“I hate to do the dog-pile thing,” I said, sweeping a french fry through my ketchup. “But that’s my experience too. The Akaname attack was going on at the same time as the exorcism.”

The restaurant was a few blocks off the main drag. The decor was prepackaged plastic in reds and yellows, but the food was good. We’d taken a booth near the back so that we could talk with something like privacy. The decision to get out of the hotel room and track down food had been easier than I’d expected. When I’d brought up the possibility that the police might very well be looking for us, Alexander pointed out that kidnappers usually didn’t hang out in restaurants with their captives, and that by staying in the room and never coming out, we’d actually be acting more like criminals. And then Dolores had calmly threatened to throw a screaming fit if she didn’t get to go out.

The more she talked, the more she impressed me. It wasn’t just that she’d been through two demonic possessions in the last few days and was now hanging out with two grown-ups she barely knew. There was a calm about her, and a maturity, that only broke on our way out of the apartment when Ozzie was apparently startled by her own fart. Dolores collapsed with laughter. And in fairness, it was kind of funny.

“I just don’t see how that’s possible,” Alexander said. “You were on consecrated ground—”

“When Soledad came back, it was already in her,” Dolores said. “She sat right there with your boss and it was inside her.”

“But are we sure that it was there during the rite? If the timing—“

Dolores put down her burger and lifted her eyebrows. It was an expression of challenge and disbelief that came straight off daytime TV, and not the good shows. I wanted to laugh, but I also wanted the conversation to keep moving forward. I tried to imagine what Chogyi Jake would have said if he’d been there.

“So, Alexander,” I said. “I’m hearing you say that you have a hard time beliving that the Akaname attacked when Dolores and I say it did.”

“I am,” he said. “All of the protections it would have had to go through. And the Mark of St. Francis. You were wearing that, Jayné. And we know it was working because it stopped the Black Sun from taking control. It wasn’t ineffective.”

“But my report and Dolores’s don’t convince you,” I said. “Why is that?”

Alexander opened his mouth, closed it, looked down.

“This isn’t easy to say.”

“Do your best,” Dolores said gently. Without saying a word, she’d seen what I was doing and started taking her cues from me. Seriously smart kid.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but Dolores has been through a lot. Sometimes when a person has been through the kinds of things she has, their impressions and memories can be a little scrambled. Disoriented. And you’ve still got a rider on board, so your report has to be treated with an extra level of scrutiny too. Not that—“

“You have one in you right now?” Dolores said, her eyes going wide.

“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not like the ones you had. The thing that’s in me has been there for a really long time, and we’ve got a truce going.”

“Is it an angel?” she asked.

“I don’t think so, honey,” I said. “It’s just what I’ve got to work with. Alexander, I understand we don’t have enough evidence here to totally convince you. But can you at least see that we need to investigate?”

“Yes,” he said. “I mean, of course there’s a problem. If these things have been targeting the people we’ve helped, it’s absolutely our responsibility to go back and check on people. It’s just that I don’t see how a rider could be in one of the priests.”

The front door of the restaurant opened and a middle-aged woman ushered in two boys. She looked tired. Outside, an old man with a cane was trying to negotiate a sidewalk of melting snow.

I understood Alexander’s problem. He was an expert. Chapin and Ex and Tomás and Tamblen. All of them were experts on exactly this kind of thing, and that was the one thing that brought them all together. To say that they’d been tricked, that a rider had slipped through their defenses without being seen, meant rethinking everything that group meant. And, just like all of them, Alexander had given up a lot in order to be who and what he was. Dolores crossed her arms, scowling. All she saw was a grown-up who thought she didn’t know what she was certain of. There was a rage building in her that would explode if Alexander didn’t flex a little. I understood that too.

“Okay, look,” he said. “We can get all the information, go to Chapin, and—”

“Unless it’s Chapin,” I said. “Then we really can’t.”

At the front, the two boys were shouting each other down over something. Their mother stood at the counter, ordering slowly and carefully so that she be heard over the pandemonium. I took another fry and a sip of my Coke. The salt and the sweet made a great combination.

“Who, then?” Alexander said. “That same logic goes for anyone. What if it’s Carsey? What if it’s Miguel?”

“What if it’s Carsey and Miguel?” Dolores asked.

“I came to you because I knew you hadn’t been there when the thing tried to get into me,” I said. “But I knew I was taking a risk. We can’t assume it’s just in one person. Everyone in your group is suspect. And that aside, I’m pretty sure if I waltz into the joint in San Esteban, Chapin’s first impulse would be to throw me in the cellar.”

“It probably would,” Alexander said, then spread his hands. “So what’s your plan? If you don’t want me to take this to Chapin, where do we go? Father Amorth in Rome? The Pope? You wanted me to come witness what had happened to Dolores and Soledad. Who am I supposed to bear witness to?”

“Ex,” I said.

THE PLAN wasn’t a masterpiece of elegance, but I figured it didn’t need to be. I was pretty sure if I called Chogyi Jake, he’d be willing to broker a meeting. But Ex would be tempted to use it to spring a trap, and Chapin would insist on it. If I warned them I was coming, they’d have the opportunity to do something stupid. So I’d just show up, and I’d show up where Chapin wasn’t, and that meant the little condo.

We got there in the early afternoon. The day was bright, but the sun was hidden behind mountains and pines. Traffic on the thin road to the ski valley was thick and slow, and when I finally turned off, aiming for the dirt hill that I’d run down a few days before, it felt a little like coming home. Someone had shoveled enough dirt and sand on top of the ice and snow to give the cars traction. The black sports car was parked at the hilltop. I pulled in behind it and killed the engine. At the condo just down from mine, a girl was struggling out to a minivan on a pair of crutches. Her left leg was encased in a bright pink brace.

“Is there a problem?” Alexander asked.

It had seemed easy, coming up. It had seemed obvious. Sure, the last time I’d been around Ex, he’d chained me to a ring in the cellar. When he saw me, all he saw was the rider. And Chogyi Jake? I’d almost gotten him killed in Chicago, but worse than that, I’d ditched him. For weeks, I’d excluded and lied to him. Even now, Ex was the one who’d called him first when things went south. My friends were in there, and now that I was here, I had the unshakable fear that they wouldn’t be my friends anymore.

But I couldn’t drive away. I couldn’t even just sit there in the SUV while it cooled down to freezing. The plan was still the plan, and it was still obvious. It was just hard.

“No problem,” I said. “Let’s get this done.”

I got out of the car and held the door open while Ozzie scrambled up from the backseat to go out the same door I had. Alexander got Dolores. I wished I’d bought her warmer shoes. The door of the condo was closed, but I could hear their voices through it. Ex sounded tired and grumpy. I made out the words can’t and no matter what. Chogyi Jake sounded as calm as he always did. He could have been offering to sacrifice his own life or asking if there was any curry left. I put my hand on the doorknob, pulled back and started to knock, then went back to my first impulse. It was my condo, after all.

They were in the main room. Chogyi Jake was sitting on the couch. As I stepped into the little kitchen, Ex stopped pacing and stood frozen in front of the fireplace, looking up at me. The dark circles under his eyes and the pale, waxy look of his skin told me how little he’d slept, how hard he’d pushed trying to find me. Trying to save me. Seeing the damage he’d done to himself for my sake, I could only wish he hadn’t.

Alexander, behind me, cleared his throat.

“Hey, guys,” I said, sounding nervous even to myself. “So. What did I miss?”