Into the Breach Read online

  "What did he say?" she asked, shakily.

  "He talked crazy. Said he made her like this."

  "That’s what he said this morning." Stephanie looked as frightened as Michael felt.

  "He called before? Oh, the wrong number." The realization came as he remembered how upset she had looked that morning. "He said he is calling back at seven with demands, at least that’s what it sounded like. He would let her wake up if you did as he asked. Whoever this guy is, I will keep him away from you and Sally. You don't need more stress on you right now."

  "No," she mused.

  "No? I don't understand."

  "I have a better idea." Stephanie began dialing a number on her cell and in moments, had her cavalry on the line.

  11

  S am stood in front of the Old North Church in awe. There was so much history here. There were several churches in New York that had also withstood the test of time, but this was something right out of the history books, at least the little he remembered of them. The old steeple stood straight, beckoning the surrounding onslaught of progress to challenge it. There were buildings that Sam assumed were apartments and small businesses all around it, with a gleaming mirrored business tower looming in the background, but the red brick church with the white steeple stood out surrounded by its neatly kept lawns.

  "One if by land, two if by sea," said a whimsical voice behind him. Sam turned to find his chief looking up at the steeple top. "This is where we were tipped off about the British, ya’ know."

  "Yeah, so I hear," replied Sam, slipping his hands into his trench pockets. "Well, I'm here. Mind telling me what we are doing?"

  "Yeah, in time. I want you to meet someone." Drew walked past Sam and climbed the steps to the church. Sam followed close behind. Still uncomfortable with the ideas that Drew and Faith were putting in his head, Sam wanted to simply go back to the station and put in a transfer back to New York. Something pushed him forward. It may have been old loyalties to his friend, but he didn't think so. This ran deeper. Sam just wasn't the type to quit just because he was challenged.

  Sam was surprised by the inside of the church. The architecture screamed old world; but the gray-trimmed white pews, white walls and elegant staircase up to the podium felt fresh and new. There were flags hanging from the banisters and beautiful mosaic paintings beneath expansive windows that let in the brilliant, natural lighting. It felt open and welcoming, even to Sam who hadn't felt at home in a church for a long time. He used to go every Sunday with Fallon and his mother. She lived across town and depended on her son to get her there. Mrs. Fallon always followed the service with a big meal for them all. She talked about when she was a girl and when Sunday dinner was a bigger deal than it was now. They were both gone. Jerry by a bullet, his mom by grief.

  Sam followed Drew up the aisle. A priest was sitting in the front pew, deep in thought, looking up at a large painting of Jesus.

  "Hey, Padre," Drew said as the old priest turned to greet the visitors. The small man with short-cropped hair grinned widely as he spread his arms to give the larger man a grand hug.

  "Drew, my boy," the priest began in a distinctive English drawl. "I am glad you came. I am surprised that you called, but it was a pleasant surprise. And you must be Detective Sam Wesson, I presume," added the man as he turned his attention to Drew's guest.

  "Yes, sir. Nice place you got here." Sam shook the priest’s hand.

  "Yes, yes, thank you, so much," the priest beamed. "Is this the first time being in our church, Detective?"

  "Yes, sir. I am new to Boston."

  "Ah, well then, may I offer you a hearty welcome from the citizens of our community. Enjoying the sights, I assume?"

  "Well, I haven't had much of a chance for sightseeing." Sam shifted uneasily.

  "Perhaps you won't feel so uncomfortable after our chat, hmm?" the priest grinned. "Is it the current situation that is making you so antsy, Detective?"

  "Yes, and," Sam continued. "I get nervous in churches, to be honest."

  "Maybe you can come to a couple of our services to acclimate yourself."

  "I'm not Catholic anymore," Sam protested politely.

  "Neither am I, son," the priest smiled widely as he indicated the church with his hands, "Episcopalian."

  Sam flushed. He decided that he had the right to remain silent. Anything that he might say would find his foot in his mouth.

  "Let’s go into my office. I have some tea brewing and Mrs. Cavendish made me some wonderful breakfast scones. You must try them while we chat."

  They followed the little man around to an arched doorway leading from the sanctuary, down a hallway lined with small portraits of the founding fathers. He was no taller than five foot three but carried the confidence that equaled the former quarterback that followed his lead. At the end of the hallway, the priest opened the door to his study, stepping aside to let them enter. The room was an old-school office with bookshelves lining each wall and a mahogany desk taking front and center of the small room. There was a leather couch and two cushioned chairs in one corner where the priest led them to sit down. On the coffee table between them was a china tea set and three cups, along with the promised basket of scones. Sam helped himself to one as the priest poured them each a cup of tea. Taking a bite, Sam agreed that Mrs. Cavendish did indeed make wonderful scones.

  "Now, you were quite vague on the phone, my son," said the priest as he handed Drew his cup.

  "Yeah, I didn't mean to be," Drew apologized. "Padre, the attacks are getting serious. Six people have died that we know of. If it is what I think it is, there are probably more, hundreds more."

  The priest glanced at a painting that hung neatly between bookshelves. It was a painting of himself, although it had looked relatively old, and in the distant background was a battle raging between good and evil.

  "Tell me everything."

  Drew began relating the reports of the eight known cases that were in the local hospitals, including that he suspected demon interference, and about the reported phone calls.

  Sam could still hear the deep, penetrating voice of the caller from that morning. He didn’t like feeling out of control. It was not him. That caller, that monster, played on him like he was his for the taking.

  "Do you think this is true? Or could it be someone trying to play on emotions?" asked the priest.

  Sam felt the respect for the priest rise. The priest thought first of the real-world possibilities before jumping to conclusions.

  "We will keep trying to figure that one out. If it is a person who is making these people sick, then we must stop him, but if it is something else..." Drew shook his head and lowered it as in prayer. He was comfortable here and it was plain that Drew saw the priest as a father figure, as well as a confidant.

  Sam stood up and walked up to the painting, looking at the small bronze placard below it, John Thomas Donovan, 1836. Sam quickly turned his head and looked back at the two men sitting comfortably having tea. Father Donovan's expression didn’t change. Neither did the chief's. They had to have known or had some idea as to what was going through Sam's mind at that moment, but they sat silently and waited for him as he slowly walked back and sat on the couch.

  "Are you Father John Thomas Donovan?"

  "Yes, I am," answered the priest.

  "The same Father Donovan that is in that portrait?" Sam was skeptical, but he was determined to get answers.

  "Yes, although it had been quite a while ago. The likeness is quite accurate, is it not? Of course, I had longer hair back then." The priest sipped his tea.

  "How is this possible? I mean, Drew told me some stuff but this..." indicating the picture.

  "Is quite remarkable."

  "Not exactly my words for it."

  "I could just imagine," chuckled the priest. "Son, surely you have seen things in your life that exceed normal explanations. The wondering how and why looming still long after the incidents are forgotten, am I right?" Sam nodded. "Sometimes, we do not questio
n these things. Other times, we keep mental notes of them to relate to others so we can try to make sense of them that way. Legends are born, folktales, urban myths, but always the wondering and asking how. It is our nature to ask these questions, but not in our nature to always seek out the answers. Our self-preservation keeps us from pursuing the unknown. I felt the same way when the gift came to me."

  "The gift," repeated Sam.

  "Yes, it is a gift. Oh, I didn't think it was in the beginning. It took a couple of centuries for it to sink in. You see, people like us are put here to take care of everyone else. The others are defenseless against such things as we battle."

  "And tell me again, what is it that we, or rather, you battle." Sam leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and hands clasped together to keep from shaking.

  "Demons, son. Demons and other dark forms that tend to bleed through to our realm." Sam jumped up.

  "This is insane!" Sam ran his hand over his head. If he had hair, he would have pulled it out. "How old are you?"

  "Officially for the D.M.V, I am 46, in truth, I have stopped keeping track of my age but I was born in the year of our Lord 567, in a small village in the Ukraine."

  "How does this sort of thing happen?" Sam sat back down. Barring mass hysteria, people didn’t tend to tell similar stories unless there was a glimmer of truth about them.

  "I'm not really sure," Father Donovan answered slowly. "What I do know is that people like us have been at work for centuries. My mentor was a Norwegian, the son of a Viking. His battles were something that would have made his father cringe. I do not know who taught him. There are others across the globe just like us, fighting a silent war to protect humanity."

  "Huh, no pressure on you is there," Sam only half jested as he sat back against the pillows. Father Donovan chuckled again.

  "I found my calling, if you will excuse the similarities to my occupation, when I was traveling as a young man from Russia toward Iceland. It was a tedious journey that I only undertook to get away from my childhood war-torn village. I took up with some gypsies that were caravaning across the country and we just kept going. Their leader, a magnificent woman by the name of Urtricia, took me under her wing. We fell in love." The priest had a faraway look in his eyes and sighed. "One night, we were attacked by something we couldn't see. Several somethings. I can still hear the people screaming and the babies crying. Women were throwing themselves over their children to protect them, but it did them no good. Whatever it was, had torn through their bodies like razors. I was knocked back by a big fellow who was trying to help me. I couldn't see anything attacking, but it seemed as if the others in my camp could. At least most of them. The big man was called Otto. Although since he couldn't speak, his given name could have been anything, I suppose. Anyway, he knocked me back against a tent and was swinging his knife at the open air. Then I saw it. Vaguely at first, then more pronounced. It crawled on all fours but was as tall as a man. There were no eyes that I could see but the teeth, there were so many teeth. Otto went down on top of me. He was gasping for air, his throat was torn out. Mercifully, he did not suffer long. I couldn't get the man off me, he was so heavy. When it started after me, Urtricia came out of nowhere and lunged hard into its side, knocking it over. It seemed that the fight lasted for an eternity. They met each other’s attacks blow by blow, sometimes rolling in a clash of spindly arms and legs. When it was over, Urtricia was sitting there on the ground just staring at the creature. It was dead. She had killed it with her own hands. I wasn't sure if I should have felt relieved that it was done or inadequate that my lover had fought my battle for me. She crawled over to me and helped roll poor Otto off. I took her in my arms, so grateful that we were both alive that I failed to see the gash on the side of her chest. She died there in my arms, Detective. I never even thanked her." Sam and Drew sat quietly as a tear slowly glided down the priest’s face as if the pain was still fresh. "There were a few survivors, but not many. We burned our dead, as was the custom at the time, including my dear Urtricia, then over the next two days tried to scavenge what was left of our camp. I was still at a loss as to what had happened. Those things that attacked us vanished just as quickly as they appeared. The one my lover had killed had dissolved back into the soil. There was nothing left to help me figure out the puzzle, including the question about how a young woman in her twenties could have fought and killed something like that. I salvaged Urtricia's wagon, mine was destroyed, and an elderly woman that had survived the massacre came up to me and said she had to show me something."

  Father Donovan got up, stepped behind his desk and took down a rather large book from his shelves. He brought it over and laid it on the coffee table beside the tea service and scones. Sam knew that this had to be the same book that Drew had been shown years ago. It was well aged with traces of gold lines on the cover. There was no title on it or the binding.

  "Wait," began Sam slowly. "You are the priest that taught Drew? Back in England?"

  "Yes, I am that," answered the priest with a slight smile. "At the time, I had been in England for close to a century. Drew came to me several times, but he didn't know what he was yet. He wasn't ready."

  "My God! This is for real, isn't it? The demons, the angel talk...Dear God, the perp is actually taking souls..." Sam buried his face in his hands.

  "The old woman gave me this book. She was Urtricia's mother but she was as old as one would consider a great-grandmother to someone Urtricia's age. I wasn't aware of the age-slowing back then. She tried to explain what her daughter was but I couldn't believe it. I took it as the ramblings of a grieving mother. I accepted the book as a courtesy and she told me to look for more like her daughter. I left the caravan a few months later. My grief over Urtricia was just too much for me to bare being around her people any longer. I studied that book daily, although it was more to have a connection to my Urtricia than anything else.

  As years passed, I noticed that I didn’t age as quickly as the others did, even though I lived the same hard lifestyle they did. In my sixtieth year, I began searching for more answers in that book. I learned so much once I opened my eyes, but I continued traveling, thinking I was cursed. I had a death wish at this point. I joined every militia group, every army I could find, in search of that death but it never came. I discovered that in the art of battle, I would win when there was no chance of winning.

  Around the year 790, I had reached Scotland and began fighting for them. An abbey close to where I called home was attacked by a band of Vikings off the coast. Of course, I fought. I was almost bested by one of the Vikings. We had met toward the rectory with our swords. He was strong. Very strong. The fight was almost over when we locked eyes and he suddenly laid his sword on the ground. We were the only ones in that area and when he spoke, he sounded like a storm in those close quarters. He said, 'I am your brother. Lay down your sword.' "

  "Caught you off guard, huh?" Sam finally spoke, trying to absorb what he was saying.

  "You could say that," he chuckled. "I don't know why I did it. I had the fight won and I could have killed him easily with him disarmed, but instead, I laid down my sword. He told me to meet him on the hill behind the abbey. I refused. The battle was still going on and I refused to let these people die. He grabbed his sword and ran out of the room shouting in a language I could not understand. Within half an hour, there was not a Viking in the abbey and they could be seen fleeing to their ships. I took this as a sign and left the abbey to meet with the Viking. He was building a fire by the time I arrived. We talked for the entire night. He explained what we were and that he would teach me what I needed to know. He left his ship and his people that night and we traveled together. We searched out these demons that I had been avoiding like the plague, but we were a good team. We found God somewhere along the line and it intensified our fight against this evil. Strange, they get angry when they find out you’re a man of faith, go figure?" he chuckled again.

  "How long have you been in Boston?" Sam asked.

/>   "Twenty-four years come this August. I came to the States with young Drew and settled in New York for almost twenty years, after we spent some time in China. I left him there in New York to establish a base here in Massachusetts. We cannot risk more than twenty or so years in any one place you see. It gets to be hard to explain ourselves, plus the evil that plagues us does not settle down in one location."

  "What is this thing, Padre?" asked Drew.

  "I'm not sure, son. You say it is making people go into comas, but the victims only survive a few days?"

  "Yeah, five tops. Family members of the two victims who woke up claim to have been getting calls. One of them told us that the guy claimed to have taken their souls."

  "A raptor," answered Father Donovan gravely. "A raptor at our doorstep."

  "A raptor?" asked Sam. "Like a dinosaur?" None of this made any sense and it seemed to be getting worse.

  "No, not a dinosaur, although it is old, very old," he explained. "A raptor is a thief but does not come quietly into the night, to coin a phrase. No, what he does is violent. He rips the soul from the being, pillages it, then devours it. It is rape in the deadliest form. Sometimes he will hold onto it for years, torturing it, before getting bored and feasting. I haven't battled one for centuries. The last one that I fought, a demon each of us have had dealings with at one time or another, is an old acquaintance of mine. We have had a mutual understanding for the most part, but do not ever underestimate a raptor's cunning. If it can find a way to disable you, it will."

  "Can it be killed?" Sam showed the first true glimmer of belief since he had walked into the sanctuary.