The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 57

THE FLICKERING LIGHT glowing at the end of the long tunnel drew Ryan through the darkness like bait in a trap, and even though he knew that very soon the jaws of the trap would close in on him, he could no more turn away from the light than a wolf can turn away from fresh meat.

Moments ago, he’d been sitting in the cafeteria eating dinner with Melody and Sofia, and trying to figure out the easiest way to get to the hospital to see his mother. But then a strange feeling had washed over him, a feeling that he was wanted — that he was needed. He’d looked around, half-expecting to see one of the priests or nuns beckoning to him from the doorway, but even as he saw no one he realized that the feeling hadn’t come from outside himself at all. It had risen from somewhere deep within himself, and he had stood up from the table and walked toward the door.

He’d wanted to stop, wanted to bus his dishes, but there was no time.

He had to follow the summons.

Melody and Sofia had risen at exactly the same moment as Ryan, and he followed them out of the dining room and through the door at the top of the stairs. This time, though, there was no hesitation as he gazed into the darkness below and no fear of the confusion of tunnels through which he must pass.

As he drew close to the soft, pulsing light he found himself gazing into the dank chamber in the very center of which stood Jeffrey Holmes’s carved marble sarcophagus. But unlike the last time he’d been here, when the chamber had been filled with darkness, now there was a circle of candles around the room’s perimeter, and a strange diagram — like a maze — was inscribed on the floor.

Inscribed in chalk, and in blood.

To the depths of his soul, Ryan did not want to go into that room and though his feet threatened to disobey him — though he felt an almost irresistible force drawing him into the chamber — he stopped at the doorway.

Sofia and Melody were already inside, standing quietly at two of the three entrance points to the labyrinth that had been drawn on the stone floor.

The third entrance point was vacant, and Ryan knew they were waiting for him.

The strange force inside him urged him on, but still he resisted. He could smell the stench of death mixing with the smoke of the candles, and the stink of the rotting corpse that lay inside the coffin.

Now the power of the candlelight itself combined with the force within Ryan, and he gripped the edge of the doorway to keep himself from crossing over the threshold.

A black figure emerged from the shadows of the far corner of the room and stepped into the glow of the candlelight. “Come in, Ryan,” Father Sebastian said, his voice soft, soothing. “A gift awaits you.”

Beads of perspiration erupted on Ryan’s face as he struggled against the forces that were compelling him to step into that room.

“It is through my blood that you exist and you are bound to my bidding,” the black-clad priest intoned.

The words reached out to Ryan, combining with the force inside him and the power that seemed to fill the room itself, and he knew he was not going to be able to deny Father Sebastian.

He felt his fingers slipping from the doorjamb.

“I command you to submit,” the priest said, the words belying the softness of his voice.

Ryan felt his feet move, inching closer to the threshold.

“Submit,” Father Sebastian instructed, a little more forcefully.

Ryan’s left foot slipped over into the room, and instantly an eerie calm washed over him.

Suddenly he felt as if he had come home.

He looked at Melody and Sofia. Both of them were smiling at him.

Smiling in welcome, as if a family — a family of just the four of them, three children and a father — were now complete.

But that wasn’t true.

The priest wasn’t Ryan’s father, and Sofia and Melody weren’t his sisters. Something was wrong — something was very, very wrong.

“Excellent,” Father Sebastian crooned. “Please take your place.”

Ryan’s whole body trembled as he struggled to resist each step that led him to the third entrance of the intricate maze that had been drawn on the stone floor, but his mind seemed to have lost control over his body, which seemed now to be obeying only the commands of the strange presence — the thing—inside him.

The thing, and Father Sebastian’s hypnotic voice.

As if he had somehow been forced out of his own body, Ryan watched himself move to the third entrance to the labyrinth.

Father Sebastian laid a small bundle on the lid of the sarcophagus, then ceremoniously untied the scarlet ribbon and folded back the black velvet. A glint of silver flashed from the dark material, and then the priest picked up a large silver crucifix, holding it almost as if he were offering it to Ryan. But then he turned it upside down and Ryan saw that it was more than simply a crucifix.

It was also a dagger, and as the priest closed his right hand around the head of Christ, he pressed the stiletto-sharp point of the cross’s base to his lips, kissing it.

Candlelight glinted off the blade, and cold sweat began to trickle down the side of Ryan’s face.

The priest laid the holy weapon on the cold marble of the coffin’s lid, and turned again to the black velvet, opening its last fold. Now he lifted up an ancient scroll, its edges tattered, its dowel worn. Father Sebastian carefully unrolled it and began to read in Latin.

After a few words, first Sofia and then Melody began to recite along with him.

And then, even though Ryan had never heard the words before in his life, the verses began to emanate from his lips as well.

He not only spoke them, but he understood them.

They were uttering a prayer for unity.

A prayer for power.

Their voices began to rise into a chant, and though the candles seemed to grow brighter, Ryan felt the room beginning to fill with something else.

Something dark.

Something evil.

All the resistance he’d felt as he entered the room melted away, and as their chanting continued to rise, he and Melody and Sofia began moving slowly through the chalked labyrinth, weaving first one direction, then another, approaching close to one another, only to turn away at the last moment.

Back and forth Ryan walked, one slow step at a time, as if in a dream. Melody and Sofia kept passing him, each treading her own path, never touching him or each other, their courses never crossing. The strange ballet went on, the chanting rising ever higher as the three of them drew inexorably closer to the center of the maze.

Closer to Jeffrey Holmes’s cold tomb.

Their voices rose together into the howling crescendo, as if all the demons in hell had unloosed their bonds, and as the last note sounded all three of them stood at the center of the maze, separated only by the marble coffin. With the echo of their voices still reverberating in the chamber, Father Sebastian raised the heavy silver crucifix once more. He held it high, the stiletto’s point aimed at the ceiling. His voice rumbled as a new invocation rose from his lips.

He handed the desecrated cross to Sofia.

Without hesitation, Sofia drew the point of the blade across her palm, then let the blood from her wound drip onto the white marble as she passed the crucifix to Melody.

Melody repeated what Sofia had just done, and her blood, too, fell onto the sarcophagus.

The blade was passed to Ryan.

Against his own volition, he took the blade from Melody, and the instant their eyes met, Ryan saw that the light in her eyes — the light that had first drawn him to her — had completely gone out.

Something in Melody had died, and as he took the crucifix from her hands, Ryan knew that something was about to die in him, too.

But he was powerless to stop it.

He held the point steady above his wrist. Then, just as he was about to plunge it into his own flesh, a vision flashed before his eyes.

It was his father. His father clad in his full-dress uniform. A silver crucifix hung around his neck, and he was looking Ryan squarely — lovingly — in the eye. “Do not be afraid,” he heard his father say. “I have a gift—”

His father’s words were suddenly cut off as the blade bit into his flesh.

The vision vanished.

His blood flowed from the wound onto the stone lid of the coffin, and as the blood of the three of them mixed together, the white marble turned to mist, then vanished completely.

Now their blood was pooling on the rotting flesh of Jeffrey Holmes’s corpse, and as Ryan watched, the flesh itself began to bubble.

“This is my body,” Father Sebastian whispered, his voice low and raspy. “And this is my blood.”

“Eat of my body,” Father Sebastian commanded, but now it was no longer Father Sebastian at all, but only a face — a face that Ryan recognized at once.

It was the face of the darkness that had filled the room, the face of the thing inside him, the face of the thing that had come to inhabit Melody and Sofia as well.

It was the face of pure evil.

The face of the Devil himself.

“Drink of my blood,” the voice commanded.

Silently, unable to summon any resistance at all, Ryan McIntyre and Melody Hunt and Sofia Capelli obeyed the commands.

They dipped their fingers into the bubbling putrefaction that had once been Jeffrey Holmes, and completed the blasphemous communion.

“It is finished,” Father Sebastian said. “Now sleep. Sleep, and forget until you’re summoned.”

† † †

Ryan awoke in his bed, in his darkened dorm. Clay Matthews stirred in his bed on the other side of the room, then was still.

A nightmare…it had to have been a nightmare!

But a moment later, as every detail of the dream came flooding back to him, a great wave of nausea rose over him. He scrambled out of bed and raced toward the bathroom, the vomit spewing from his mouth even as he dropped down in front of the toilet. When it was over he found himself gazing down into a vile mess of what looked like entrails mixed with fresh blood.

A mess that smelled not like vomit, but exactly like the rotting corpse he’d beheld in the dream.

His gaze shifted from the toilet to the palms of his trembling hands, and as he stared at the blood-red marks where the stiletto had cut into his flesh, he knew the truth.

It had not been a dream at all.

Ryan rested his heated cheek on the cold porcelain floor.

It had not been a dream, and he had not forgotten it, despite Father Sebastian’s final command.

What was happening to him?

† † †

Even though his stomach had calmed — and the marks on his palms were invisible in the darkness — he still couldn’t bring himself to go back to bed. The memories, or fragments of dreams, or whatever they’d been, were still too fresh in his mind to risk going back to sleep.

All he really wanted to do was get out. Out of his room, out of the dorm, out of St. Isaac’s. But where could he go?

It didn’t matter — all that mattered was that he get out. Pulling on his clothes, Ryan slipped out of his room into the silent hallway, grabbing his jacket just before he closed the door silently behind him. But even as he made his way quietly through the dorm, the question of where he was going still hung in his mind. He couldn’t go home — no one was there. But where else was there?

The police?

Even if he found a police station, what was he going to tell them? What had happened — or at least what he thought had happened — sounded crazy even to him, and there was no way the police were going to believe him.

His father.

That’s who he really wanted to talk to. If his father were here, he’d know what to do.

But his father was dead, and his mother was in the hospital.

The hospital! That was it — he’d go to the hospital, and maybe his mother would be awake.

Awake, and able to touch him, and smooth his hair and tell him everything was going to be all right, even though he knew that nothing would ever be right again. Even if she wasn’t awake, at least he’d be able to touch her.

He shuddered slightly as he remembered the last time he’d touched her, and she’d screamed, recoiling away from him even though she was unconscious.

Something was wrong with him. Something was very, very wrong, and it had all started when he’d come to St. Isaac’s, and tonight — right now — he was going to get away. And there was no place to go except the hospital. He moved quickly and quietly through the hallways of the ancient school until he came to a door that led outside into night.

The courtyard was filled with shadows and in every one of them Ryan could feel something sinister hidden, something evil waiting for him. Threading his way quickly through the courtyard, terrified of being seen in the dim moonlight but even more terrified of what might lie in the shadows, Ryan slipped through a narrow passageway between two buildings and emerged out onto the street.

Somewhere in the distance, a clock tolled eleven.

Could it really be that early? If felt more like three in the morning. But his watch agreed with the tolling bell.

He hurried down Willow and Spruce, glancing back over his shoulder every few seconds, half expecting to see Father Sebastian coming after him. But when he got to Beacon and started cutting across the end of the Common to the Park Street station, he began to relax just a little. At the subway entrance, he ran down the stairs, scanned his Link Pass at the turnstile, and headed down to the platform. According to the map, the green line would take him to within a block or so of the hospital, just three stops after the one he’d have gotten off at if he were actually going home. For a moment he wondered if there might be another route, but even if he could figure it out, it might take the rest of the night. Better to just go the way he knew.

A security camera caught his eye, and Ryan found himself stepping back until a pillar concealed him from its lens. But even if it caught him, what did it matter? He wasn’t really doing anything wrong — sneaking out of the school wasn’t like mugging someone. And yet, even as he tried to step away from the pillar, something — that thing—inside him held back, unwilling to step out of the shadows.

Was that it? Was it not he, himself, that was afraid of being seen, but rather that thing he could feel inside himself, trying to take over?

The D train pulled into the station, and Ryan boarded quickly, wishing there were more people on the car than the bum dozing in a seat in the far corner, and a woman about his mother’s age dressed in some kind of waitress’s uniform, who glanced at him for a second or two then went back to the magazine she was reading.

Yet even though the bum was asleep and the waitress was reading, he still had the feeling that someone was watching him.

What was wrong with him? Why was he feeling so paranoid? All he was doing was going to see his mother. It wasn’t like he was going to do something wrong.

Was he?

Now the dream he had last night about stalking Tom Kelly rose up in his mind. But that had been only a dream — it wasn’t as if he was actually stalking anybody. And he sure wasn’t going to kill anybody — he was just going to go visit his mother.

Then why was he afraid someone was going to see him?

Half an hour later, Ryan left the train and ran up the steps to the street two at a time. The hospital was just a couple of blocks to the left, and as he started walking, a vague sense of relief began to replace the paranoia he’d been feeling since he’d awakened only a little over an hour ago.

Ten minutes later he was outside his mother’s room in the ICU, gazing in through the glass at her thin, pale body. There were tubes and wires everywhere, and half a dozen glowing screens flashing graphs and numbers. His mother lay absolutely still in the confusion of equipment, and as he gazed at her, a terrible question rose in Ryan’s mind.

What if she doesn’t wake up?

What if she dies?

The cold fingers of terror began to close around his throat. He swallowed hard, then swallowed again, fighting not only against the fear that suddenly threatened to overwhelm him, but the tears that were welling in his eyes. His fingertips turned white as he gripped the metal window casing.

Every time his father had been sent away, he’d left Ryan in charge of taking care of his mother. But back then — back when his father was still alive — nothing terrible had ever happened. And besides, he’d always known, despite his father’s words, that his mother would take care of him.

But now everything was different. Something terrible had happened, and he had failed.

He hadn’t taken care of her. He had let her down, and he had let his dad down, and he had let himself down.

He needed his father. He needed to tell his father that he couldn’t take care of his mother, that it was too great a responsibility, that he was too young, and he wasn’t up to it, and he had failed.

A sob broke through the choking in his throat and reverberated through the silent hospital hallway and his eyes blurred with tears. But as he wiped the tears away with his sleeve, he suddenly saw something else in his mother’s room.

Something that hadn’t been there before.

A figure.

A figure standing at his mother’s bedside. But a second ago there hadn’t been anyone in there but his mother! He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes and looked again.

It was his father! His father standing at his mother’s side. Standing straight and tall, in his full-dress uniform.

Ryan rubbed his eyes — it was impossible!

Was he having another dream?

His father’s eyes met his, and Ryan sobbed again. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “So—”

“My gift.”

The two words struck Ryan as clearly as if he’d been standing right next to his father, not fifteen feet away on the other side of a heavy glass door. And now, as he watched, he saw his father touch the silver crucifix that hung around his neck.

Ryan stared at it. The crucifix! The one his mother had tried to give him, but that he’d refused. He rubbed the last of the tears from his cheeks and eyes, and looked again.

His father was gone.

But Ryan knew what he had to do.

† † †

The thing inside Ryan began to stir as soon as he rose to his feet to get off the subway train at the stop nearest his house. It was as if it understood that he was going home, and it didn’t want him there, and even as the train slowed and he moved toward the door, he felt an urge to stay on the train, ride it all the way back in to the city, and go back to St. Isaac’s.

Back to where whatever evil or madness that was growing inside him had begun. As the train came to a stop, Ryan knew that if he gave in to the desires of the being inside him, he would never be himself again. Slowly, inexorably, the person that was Ryan McIntyre would disappear, leaving only the strange dark force that seemed to be steadily invading his mind and body. Focusing his mind only on the vision of his father standing quietly next to the hospital bed, and the silver crucifix around his father’s neck, Ryan forced himself to move toward the opening doors of the subway train.

“You’re dreaming,” the thing inside him whispered. “Your father is dead.”

Ryan knew his father was dead, but he also knew what he’d seen.

“You saw nothing,” the evil being insisted. “You wanted to see him, but he’s dead.”

Ignoring the voice, Ryan focused all his attention on putting one foot in front of the other and stepped off the train onto the platform. As he climbed the steps to the street and started toward home, the voice kept whispering.

“You’re hallucinating.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“They’ll lock you up!”

Doubt began to creep into his resolve, and the evil knew it. Its power reached from his mind into his body, and suddenly he was turning away, starting back toward the subway.

The subway, and St. Isaac’s.

Concentrating hard, deafening himself to the insistent voice, Ryan forced himself to turn back again toward home. His whole body was twitching now, and he balled his hands into fists and stuck them into the pockets of his jacket. His arms jerked spasmodically, but he held them still against his sides. His head began bobbing and his legs seemed about to betray him, but he stiffened his neck, and forced himself to keep going.

He was doing the right thing — doing what his father wanted him to do — and he would not be stopped.

He would not be distracted by the voices in his head or the betrayal of his body or anything else.

The fury inside him suddenly surged, its wailing and howling built until Ryan could hear nothing else. It felt as if his head were about to explode, and then, as he stepped from the street onto the front lawn of his house, it was as if something had kicked his legs out from under him. He crashed to the pavement, his hip smashing against the curb as the asphalt of the street tore through his pants and into his skin.

Ignoring the pain, he got up again, and closed his mind not only to the demonic rage in his head but to the pain in his body. He walked up the front steps to the darkened house.

Yellow police tape was still stretched across the front door, but he tore it down. He picked up the little ceramic duck from the porch and retrieved the key that had been hidden inside it for as long as he could remember, then opened the front door.

The voice in his head screamed louder, but Ryan shut it out, his own rage growing as he stared at the dark blood on the hearth and carpet.

His mother’s blood.

His own anger drowning out the fury of the being inside him, he charged up the stairs, tugged open the attic door, and turned on the single light bulb that was suspended from the main beam of the roof.

His mother had brought him up here, had shown him the cross that was hidden in his father’s footlocker, and above the cacophony of the raging being inside him, he heard the echo of the words she’d spoken: “Your father said this always helped him do the right thing.”

Struggling to control legs that were no longer under his own control, Ryan stumbled over to the old trunk and lifted the lid. On top, wrapped in tissue, was his father’s dress uniform — the one he’d been wearing when Ryan had seen him in the hospital only a short while ago. He wanted to pick it up, wanted to press his cheek to it, just to feel the closeness to his father, but he didn’t dare. If he paused even for a moment, he might never regain control of himself.

He lifted the upper tray out of the trunk and set it aside.

The screaming voices residing within him rose, and as he reached inside the trunk to open the lid of the secret compartment hidden in its depths, first his fingers, then his hands, then his whole body began trembling as every nerve seemed to catch on fire. Ignoring the pain, he found the lid, and lifted it.

The rosewood box lay exactly where it had before, and as he reached down to touch it, he began to feel the evil within him weakening.

Power flowed into his hands, up his arms and into his heart as he lifted the box from the trunk and opened it.

The thing inside his head lost its grip on his body and its howling rage faded into whimpered obscenities.

Ryan, still kneeling on the floor, opened the box and closed his fingers around the silver crucifix that lay within. “What’s happening to me?” he whispered. “Dad? Tell me what’s happening to me. Tell me what to do.” He closed his eyes, certain he would hear his father’s voice, but all he could hear were muttered curses in his head; all he could feel was something still struggling to control his body.

He held the silver cross with both hands and curled up against the trunk, breathing in the scent of the wool uniform. Tears fell from his eyes and ran down his cheeks as the battle continued to rage inside his mind and his body and his soul, and it wasn’t until the darkest hour of the night that he finally emerged from the house and started back to St. Isaac’s.

But the battle inside him was not yet over.