Father, Father

FATHER FATHER
©bbc

XI

        "You're mistaken about that, Cara," Kevin said. "Yes, there would be a terrific scandal if there was even the smallest hint that I had fathered children – even if I had fathered them before I entered the priesthood. I might be reprimanded and relocated, perhaps even re-educated, but I wouldn't have to give up being a priest."
       "Apparently, I'm still not making myself plain," she said irritably. "You will not be thrown out of the priesthood. You will abandon it. Of your own accord."
       "Why would I do that?" he said, working hard to keep his own irritation from showing.
       "You'll do it for the children, of course. I think you would do anything to help them – even if they weren't ours. That's the kind of man you are. But, Kevin, you can be very sure about this: they are yours. And mine."
       Kevin picked up the picture of Violet. "Cara, if you're really the mother of this child, how can you honestly expect anyone would believe I'm her father? And even if someone did believe it, why would he want to harm her? It's not reasonable."
       "I don't think of myself as a mother, love. I'm more of a…." She laughed softly. "A vessel, I guess you could say. And that is exactly why someone would care enough to kill her – and the others."
       He was unconvinced. If the woman really believed what she said, then she was paranoid as well as delusional. And Kevin was not yet prepared to accept that possibility. Cara had an agenda, certainly. An agenda important enough for her to break and enter and threaten violence, but he felt sure it was all a bluff. Or perhaps it was more of a hoax than a bluff. Time for consideration and further probing would be required for him to fathom her bizarre motives.
       "Assuming any of this were true, it still doesn't make the slightest bit of sense," he said, "how could you go out of your way to endanger your own children? Don’t you care about them at all?"
       "Well, of course, I do, but I care about you more, Kevin. You belonged to me once. You belong to me still."
       "No." Kevin said evenly, secure in the truth of his words. "I never belonged to you."
       "Never?" Cara gazed steadily at him, her expression serenely confident. "Maybe you never meant to, but don't delude yourself. I remember three years of very passionate – belonging."
       Kevin met her gaze. "I was a child, foolishly deceived," he said. "I thought you were a guilty dream, but I was wrong. You were worse. You were a lie."
       "Deception is what I am, darling. Deception is my purpose. Well, one of them anyway."
       "Can't you understand? I belong to God," he said gently. "To God, to the church, and to myself."
       "Possibly," she said. "But back then, you gave yourself to me - to the dream, to the lie – with your whole heart." Cara laughed. "With far more than your heart, actually."
       "I didn't know," he said. "I didn't understand. Perhaps I should have."
       She lifted her hand as if to caress his face, but let it drift back down to her side before it reached him. "Your beloved Rudy, he'd understand perfectly, but you…. Honestly Kevin, I think you're still miles away from comprehension. I begin to despair of you."
       "I told Rudy all about you. He never suggested that you were anything other than a dream."
       "True, you betrayed me to him in the end. And I have to admit your betrayal was quite a blow. Why do you think I stopped coming to your bed? The good Father might have worried himself into some interesting ideas if your sexual escapades had continued after you cleared your conscience. At least you took your time about it. I take some solace in that." She laughed her light laugh. "Three years is a long time, Kevin. Can you imagine how many babies we created in that time?"
       "Cara," he said in a final attempt at reason, "Considering the time span, considering your body never appeared pregnant – considering everything, how many could there be?"
       Her laugh rang through the rectory. "Poor Kevin! You haven't considered everything at all. Far from it. Why don't you direct that question to your precious mentor? He's been doing quite a bit of research on the subject just lately."
       With one flowing motion, she bent from the waist, the neckline of her loose blouse falling away to expose a goodly amount of bare breast, and scooped up her sandals from the floor. "On second thought, you better wait on that. I care for you, Kevin. Really I do. More than I should. So I'm going to give you until tomorrow noon to consider my offer. Choose me and the children will continue on the paths set for them. Choose God and copies of those pictures along with names and addresses will be delivered to that fat old man. And then you'll lose everything. Even his friendship."
       "That could never happen, Cara."
       "And again you say 'never' to me. You fling that word around as if it meant nothing." She sighed. "You can reach me here when you're ready to talk," she said, producing another small paper from the pocket of her skirt. "There are things you don't know about your Father Otero. The two of you are more different than you can imagine. He already suspects the existence of our offspring and once his suspicions are confirmed, he won't let anything stand in his way. Not even you."

XII
       Exhausted from the strain of prolonged self-possession, Kevin collapsed into the wing chair immediately following Cara's departure. In just a moment, he told himself, he would pick up the telephone and make a call to Jerry Smith, police detective and husband of Erin (she of the mystery potato salad). Perhaps Cara had a police record, a past history of emotional extortion. It would be easy enough to lift her fingerprints from the photos or the whiskey glass or a dozen other places in the rectory. Taking proper action, talking to Jerry would certainly bring a certain amount of normalcy – of sanity – back to this absurd situation. Parish gossip be damned. He would look up the number and make the call. It was the right thing to do. It was the smart thing to do.
       He covered his face with his hands, enhancing his isolation with darkness. He would call Jerry in just another moment or two.
       "Boy, that was harsh!" said a voice from the adjoining study.
       "Sean," Kevin said, without looking up. The single word fell like a boulder, landing heavily on his chest. So much for solitude.
       In the three weeks since his arrival, the young man had shown himself to be intelligent, efficient, energetic, and enthusiastic – just as advertised. He was well on his way to charming the entire parish. Sometimes, though, Kevin found the boy's unflagging ebullience just a little tiring.
       And what the hell was he doing sneaking around the rectory in the middle of the night?
       "What the hell are you doing here?"
       "Overhearing some pretty serious stuff, mostly." Sean stepped lightly into the room. "Are you all right, Father?"
       "Yes, I'm fine. Just a little tired is all."
       "Because you look like you've been in a train wreck or something."
       Kevin peered at the boy through latticed fingers. "I'd say that was an apt metaphor."
       "Thanks. But listen Father, I don't know who Father Otero is, but if he's thinking what I'm thinking, I can see how he might want those kids off the planet." He bent to inspect the pictures that lay on the coffee table.
       "What is it that you're thinking?" Kevin said wearily.
       "I'm thinking Incubus, Father."
       Bypassing his habitual nose rubbing, Kevin pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, moving them in barely perceptible circles. "For heaven sake, Sean. You can't really think that Cara is a demon, can you?"
       "Sure. Don't you?"
       "Of course not. I think she's an obsessive who's trying to blackmail me for sexual favors or money – or both."
       "You mean you think she's just a nut."
       "Mmmm." Kevin shifted his hands and began to apply pressure to the area just above his eyebrows.
       "She's a blackmailer all right, but I'm sticking with my Incubus theory, Father."
       "We shouldn't be having this conversation. It's too personal. And very inappropriate."
       "But," Sean said with a look of patient reason – much the same look that Kevin had earlier given Cara. "I'm not a kid anymore, Father, and I can't unknow what I know. I think you should let me help you if I can."
       "What I should do is call the police. Glad as I am to have you as a witness, you still haven't told me what you were doing in my study in the middle of the night."
       "I'll be happy to be a witness, if you want to drag the police into this. But please hear me out before you do anything, Father. I think this inappropriate conversation is important."
       Kevin dropped his hands and straightened in his chair. He felt his energy returning and wondered if it could possibly be from proximity to a bottomless source. The phone call to Jerry could wait a bit. Cara had given him an eight-hour deadline. There was plenty of time. And, besides, it was all a bluff. "All right, Sean," he said, "we can talk for a few more minutes. But…isn't the female sex demon a Succubus?"
       "Same thing, Father."
       "I see."
       Sean laughed. "You think I'm as big a nut as she is, don't you?"
       Kevin smiled. "I think you're young, Sean."
       "Well, okay. But just for a minute, let's pretend we agree that she is a demon. It would explain an awful lot."
       "Like what?"
       "It explains how you could think she was a dream every night for three years. It explains how this boy…" Sean pointed to the picture of Rick. "…looks exactly like a younger, light-haired version of you. Sorry Father, but he does. It explains how you might have had scads of kids in a short amount of time." Sean frowned. "Excluding multiple births, I mean."
       "By all means." Kevin laughed, surrendering himself to the Reilly charm. "Please exclude those."
       Sean hunkered on the floor at Kevin's knee. "So let's look at the rest of the evidence. She doesn't consider herself a mother, she said. She thinks of herself as a vessel. That's because a demon wouldn't be the birth mother of its kids."
       "I see," Kevin said again. "Evidence."
       "No, really, Father. You said she never appeared pregnant, didn't you?"
       "Sean, I really think we should…"
       "That's because she never was pregnant."
       "You make less sense than she did."
       "I make sense once you understand that this particular demon is both male and female," he said. "In the female form, the Succubus seduces a human male. See?"
       "Yes, I'm clear on that aspect."
       "Well, there's a theory that says, once the human male has succumbed, the demon shifts to male form and seduces a human female. The Incubus stores the man's seed and then uses it to fertilize the woman. See?"
       "Sure."
       "If the demon visited a different woman after every night it spent with you…"
       "Oh dear God," Kevin moaned. "Stop right there."
       Obediently, Sean went silent.
       "How do you know so much about demonology?" Kevin asked.
       "Mom always had a lot of books about angels and demons and – well, all the religious mysteries - around the house when I was growing up. Most of them were pretty interesting." He grinned with mischief. "Especially the pictures. It's a weird coincidence, but the reason I know so much about the fornication demon is that I did a paper on it my junior year in high school."
       Kevin was shocked. "They let you do that?"
       "Sure, why not? The question I posed in the paper was whether or not the children should be considered fully human. I mean the seed and the egg would both come from human parents. Does the demon add something of itself to the child? Or does it just act as a vessel like Cara said? Like a supernatural test tube?"
       "What did you conclude?"
       "That all babies are born innocent. Isn't that what you think too?"
       It was a relief to know they agreed on something. "Yes, Sean. I do believe that."
       "But maybe Father Otero doesn't. Maybe he thinks anything from a demon has to be evil. That would make him a very big threat to those children."
       "I suppose it would, if that were true. And if she could make him believe that she was a demon."
       "From what she said, Father, he already thinks so. And I'll tell you something else."
       "What's that?"
       "The demon already knew you wouldn't choose to go with her. She'll carry out her threat all right, but she's stacking the deck in your favor."
       "Stacking the deck?"
       "Look at this." Sean dug into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a note written on Our Lady of the Palms stationery.
       Kevin took the note and unfolded it. In his own handwriting it said:
Sean,
Please meet me at the Rectory around three 'o'clock. There are some things we need to discuss and I won't be home until then. If you get there before I do, use the key in your top left hand drawer and wait for me in the study. Sorry about the short notice. I'll explain when I see you.
       "I didn't write this," Kevin said.
       "Yeah, I figured. I think she sent it herself, don't you? She wanted me to eavesdrop. Maybe she thought you wouldn't believe or even guess she was a demon. But if she wanted you to have an advantage, she would find you an ally who would – believe, I mean."
       "Okay, Sean, just for a moment, let's say I suspend my disbelief. Let's say that Cara is what you say she is and the children really do exist, but she doesn't plan to do any actual violence herself. Let's say that Rudy believes in demons."
       "Okay, Father."
       "If she doesn't want Rudy to harm the children in the first place, why tell him about them at all?"
       "I don't know." Sean shrugged. "Maybe she has to. Maybe she answers to a higher power just like we do – only her master isn't a loving father, just a demanding one. Maybe if she can't take your soul by seducing you from God, she'll settle for what she can get. Or maybe…"
       "Yes? Or maybe what?"
       "Or maybe there are other players in this game."

XIII
       "I'd hardly call it a game, Sean."
       Kevin waited for a rebuttal, but Sean's attention was wholly focused on the photograph he still held in his hand. The hand trembled and suddenly dropped the picture as if it were burning him.
       "Sean! What is it? What's the matter?"
       When Sean continued to stare silently at the fallen picture, Kevin reached for it.
       "No, Father, don't! Don't touch it!" Sean cried.
       "Take it easy, son. It'll be all right." Kevin slid off the chair, kneeling next to the trembling boy, thinking only to give comfort, to lead him away from whatever had so suddenly frightened him. And then his eyes fell on the graduation photograph of the boy Cara had called Rick. It had fallen face down on the rug. Although Kevin was certain that the backs of all three pictures had been blank, this one now had the name 'Richard Singleton' written there. Below the name was a telephone number and the street address of an affluent Boston suburb.
       Ignoring Sean's protests, Kevin touched the picture long enough to flip it over. Rick still smiled up at them, but the smile was no longer a healthy and confident expression. Instead, it was a rigid, blue lipped grin set in a pale and waxy face. A face utterly without life. The hazel eyes were open, staring dully, seeing nothing.
       Kevin snatched the other two pictures from the coffee table and inspected them closely. The girls were unchanged. Violet still ran happily with the dog and Mary continued to scowl at the whole world. There was nothing written on the back of either picture.
       "I don't understand," Sean said. "She said she would give you until tomorrow to decide."
       "She also said she was deception," Kevin said grimly as he helped the unsteady Sean to his feet. "Are you going to be all right?"
       "I'm not going to be sick all over the rug or anything like that, but … Father Kevin, I think I just watched a boy die and I couldn't do anything about it. If I can't help the others, I … We have to help the others, Father."
       Kevin led Sean into the kitchen. "Sit down," he said. Sean ignored the kitchen chairs and the tall stools and hoisted himself up onto the yellow counter top, his dark head resting against the corner cabinets, long legs dangling, sneakered feet not quite reaching the floor.
       Staring blindly into the refrigerator, Kevin pondered this new complication. Sean was the poster boy for youthful enthusiasm. He had inherited his mother's devotion to God and, apparently, his Aunt Emma's more personal devotion to her priest. Now that he knew all about Cara, how would it be possible to keep him out of this mess? Especially now that he had the fantastic idea that Kevin needed protection against demonic plots. Sweet reason. And if that didn't work, he would have to rely on stern authority. "I could use a little help here," Kevin prayed silently. "Emma will kill me if anything happens to him."
       He removed two bottles of spring water from the top shelf and handed one to Sean, pushing the refrigerator door closed with his foot. "I admit that the picture changed," he said, "but that doesn't mean that anything happened to the boy in it. It certainly doesn't mean he's dead."
       Sean held the cold bottle to his forehead. "How do you explain the picture changing then?"
       "I can't explain that, but a magician probably could, probably even a cheesy magician. Special inks or paper or something like that." Kevin went back to the refrigerator and opened the small freezer compartment. "Don’t you think that makes more sense than something supernatural?" he said as he wrapped a bag of frozen peas around the back of Sean's neck. "Hold that on there for a few minutes. It should help with the nausea."
       "Thanks, Father. How did you know?"
       "Just from looking at you," said Kevin, smiling in an attempt to lighten the mood. "You're distinctly greener than usual."
       "Better than blue," Sean said, looking even greener.
       "Blue?"
       "Like Rick. In the picture."
       Kevin didn't reply. He took a long drink from the cold bottle, closing his eyes against the memory of the grinning death's head. It didn’t help. The picture was branded into the backs of his eyelids. How much worse would it be for Sean who had actually seen the transformation? Kevin prayed that the scarring would be temporary – for both of them.
       "Anyway, Father, even though we'd rather believe some cheap trick made the picture change like that, I don't think we should ignore the alternatives and do nothing, do you? The easy thing isn't always the right thing."
       "Sean…"
       "As a matter of fact," Sean went on, sounding more like his Aunt Emma than his usual self, "I seem to remember in last week's Homily something about the easy thing hardly ever being the right thing."
       A puff of exasperation blew its way out of Kevin's lungs. Hoist by his own Homily. "All right," he said, giving sternness a fair shot. "Even without admitting the demonic interference, I agree that this is all very disturbing. And I agree that I, not we, should take action. And… oh this is ridiculous." Kevin put down his water bottle with a resounding thump and walked out of the kitchen. So much for Plan B.
       Sean tossed the bag of slightly less frozen peas into the sink, hopped off the counter and trailed the priest through the living room into the study. "What are we doing?"
       Pausing long enough to deliver up his most annoyed look, Kevin began an in-depth search of his desk drawers. "We aren't doing anything. I'm doing what I was going to do before you materialized in my living room – I'm going to find my address book and call Jerry Smith and tell him about Cara and the blackmail and…"
       Sean dropped lightly into the chair that faced the desk. "And about the children?" he asked with a gentle concern that made him sound much older than his nineteen years. "Even if they aren't yours… Is this what you're looking for?" Sean picked up a slim black leather notebook that had been lying in plain sight on the desktop.
       "They aren't mine. We've already been through this. I wouldn't deny my responsibility if I thought any of those kids could be mine, but, Sean, there's no reasonable way they can be. And, yes." Kevin took the address book and began leafing through yellowed pages. "It is. Thank you."
       "The truth won't matter – whatever it is, Father. If you call Detective Smith, the rumors will be all over the parish by lunchtime tomorrow."
       That was probably true. Kevin loved his peaceful life, serving God, caring for his parishioners. And all of it might be over and done with in a matter of hours. Fond remembrances of Cara's body – of shared intimacies – were dwarfed next to the Kevin's towering frustration and need to accept the inevitable. He was still in the dark about the woman's motives, about whether she should be condemned or merely medicated. That was for others to decide though. Beyond the frustration, Kevin was inclined to feel pity rather than anger for her. Pity for her plight. Pity for her desperation. "That can't be helped, Sean," he sighed, flirting with the idea of self-pity. "Whether she's a criminal or a poor deranged thing, she has to be stopped. Before she hurts someone. Or herself."
       "But what if she's neither?"
       Kevin wheeled out his desk chair and sat down, heavy with resignation. The boy was a terrier. He'd fixated on an absurd notion – a notion probably fostered since childhood – and he would not let it go. No matter how Kevin tried to tempt him with reason, Sean preferred the mystic bone. "What do I have to do prove to you that you're wrong about all this demon stuff?"
       There was no hesitation before Sean answered. Apparently, he had his plan all thought out. "Call Father Otero, " he said. "Sound him out. See if Cara's been to see him. See if he knows anything about Richard Singleton. That kind of thing."
       Glancing at the heavy brass clock on the desk, Kevin said, "I'd already planned to talk to Father Otero about all this. But I can't disturb him at this now. It's not even 4:30 in the morning."
       Sean twisted his lips, showing his own frustration for the first time. "It's going to be just as early to your policeman friend, Father. He'll be just as disturbed. Why don't you wait a few hours before bringing him into this?"
       Kevin furrowed his brow and stared into eyes that were just as deep a blue as his own. "And do what in the meantime?"
       "She left you a number to contact her, didn't she?"
       "Cara?"
       "Yes. I think we should find out why Richard Singleton died ahead of schedule."
       "Ahead of … Sean, we don't know that the boy is dead. We don't know that he ever existed."
       "Just a sec." Sean dashed into the living room, returning, as promised, only a few seconds later. In his hand, he held the pictures of Rick, Mary, and Violet. "These two," he said, laying the pictures of the girls on the desk, "are still the same. He flipped them over. "See? Nothing written on the back." The third picture he held away from him, carefully placing it face down on the desk. "This one has a name on it."
       "Yes, I know."
       "And a telephone number."
       "Sean, I can't…"
       Sean sat back in his chair. "I'm not asking you to call him. I'll do it myself," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "And don't bother rubbing your nose at me, Father. I've memorized the number. Even if you don't let me use your phone, I'll just go to Aunt Emma's and call from there."
       Kevin dropped the hand, which actually had been on its way to do some serious nose fretting. More and more he realized that Emma had swapped herself out for a younger and slightly more polite male version of herself. Heaven help him.
       "I'll make you a deal, Sean. We'll call the number on the back of that picture. If it turns out to be nothing – nothing out of the ordinary – you go home, forget you were ever here tonight. I'll call the police and report a crime and let them handle it in the usual way."
       "You'll still need me as a witness."
       "Maybe not. I think Jerry Smith will accept my word alone that I've been threatened. If it turns out that Cara has a record, I don't think he'll ask for corroboration."
       "And what if I'm right and everything's out of the ordinary?"
       "Then we'll talk to Cara and Father Otero and see what they have to say. Okay?"
       "You're going to call the police no matter what, aren't you?"
       "Very likely."
       "I think it's a rotten deal."
       "Maybe, but it's the only one I'm offering."
       Sean nodded once and reached for the telephone on the desk.
       "Wait," Kevin said, "You can make the call, Sean. But please let it wait a bit. You don't want to go around waking strangers up in the middle of the night. Especially if there's nothing wrong."
       "Great," Sean said, re-crossing his arms, showing Kevin that he thought this was anything but great. "I'll sit tight, but I don't have to like it." A moment later he sat forward in the chair, his face alight once more. "Hey you know what? Those peas on my neck did the trick. You don't have any peanut butter in the rectory, do you? I'm starving."

XIV
       Three eggs, four peanutbutter toasts, and far too many cups of coffee later, the priest and his young administrative assistant wound up back at square one - in the study, waiting for daylight. Ignatius had joined them and, having assisted Sean in finishing up those pesky leftover egg bits and peanutbutter crusts, he was wisely passing the time by napping, washing, and lap hopping, alternating at fairly regular intervals.
       Sufficiently clean and too keyed up to nap, Sean looked at his watch and wondered if it was too soon to begin some low key wheedling. "It's six-fifteen," he said tentatively.
       Kevin, with the purring cat sprawled in his lap, had been scrutinizing the Polaroid of Mary. "Still too early," he said without looking up.
       "I know, but all this doing nothing is killing me."
       The waiting wasn't doing much for Kevin either. The look of utter misery on Mary's face – a face that so closely resembled his mother's – was dreadful to see. And yet, it was difficult to stop staring at it. If he'd been alone, he might have cranked up the stereo, loosening the knot of trepidation, but Motown wasn't a universal soother and, under the circumstances, Sean would probably think it was frivolous and cavalier. Or, at the very least, strange.
       "I'm usually out running this time of the morning," Kevin said.
       "Too full to run, Father."
       "Mmm. Me too. Is there any more coffee?"
       "No, but I'll go make some more. It'll give me something to do for five minutes."
       "Mmm."
       Within minutes, Sean reappeared in the doorway. "I think you better see this, Father." A moment earlier, the young man had virtually crackled with unspent energy. Now he had all the verve of an old deflated tire. Kevin couldn't imagine how ten minutes in the kitchen could have accomplished this.
       Sean didn't stay long enough to make an explanation or hear a reply. He turned back to the living room and switched on the television.
       Ignatius resisted dislodgment, clinging to denim with claws and feline determination. "Get down, you," Kevin whispered as he tugged at the orange torso, hoping to avoid serious damage to his jeans. "Quit fooling around. I've got to go see what's wrong with Sean." In the spirit of compromise, Iggy climbed up Kevin's torso, clinging tenaciously to the loosely knit sweater.
       When Kevin came into the living room, both hands balancing the large cat on his shoulder, he saw Sean squatting in front of the ancient television. He seemed to be mesmerized by its flickering light. "What is it?"
       "He's on the news," Sean said dully, never moving his eyes from the TV. A tear trickled off his nose and plopped onto the rug.
       This single tear frightened Kevin more than anything else that had happened in the past few hours. He moved to see what was on the screen, placing a gentling hand on the boy's shoulder. "Who is? I don't understand what's upsetting you."
       "I wanted to be right," Sean continued as though speaking to himself, "but I'm such a jerk. I didn't get it. I didn't know this would have to happen for me to be right."
       "Sean, you have to tell me what you're talking about."
       "Hang on," Sean muttered. "You'll see. It was on a few minutes ago. I had the little TV on in the kitchen while I was making the coffee. This station is just headlines, you know? They repeat the stories over and over."
       Kevin deposited the cat onto the wing chair and went to sit next to Sean on the floor. "What story? Who's on the news?"
       "The boy in the picture. Richard Singleton. There," he said, reaching to turn up the volume. "There it is."
       In the upper corner of the screen, next to the head of the well tended anchorwoman, appeared a picture of a sandy haired teenage boy. It wasn't the same picture that Cara had left behind, but it was certainly the same face. "Eighteen year old Richard Singleton," the anchorwoman said to the camera, "student at Boston University and heir to the Diet Essentials pet food fortune was found dead early this morning. He had been reported missing four days ago. Police sources say that Singleton was murdered, but are withholding any further information at this time. On Wall Street yesterday…." The picture changed to a grid showing the S&P and Dow Jones Averages. Kevin switched off the television.
       A breathtaking stillness filled the house.
       Until the telephone shrilled.
       "It wasn't me," she said.
       Kevin nearly lost his grip on the receiver when he heard her voice. "Cara," he gasped.
       "I know you think I did, but I had nothing to do with this."
       Iggy hopped onto the desktop, curling up on his usual corner. He seemed to be greatly fascinated by his roommate this morning, staying close by at all times. Now he lay motionless, watching Kevin's every move with huge, unblinking green eyes.
       "You don't know anything about what I think, Cara."
       She sighed. "I know you don't believe anything I say, Kevin."
       "Why should I? Your purpose is deception. Isn't that what you said? I believe that well enough."
       "Look," she said, "I don't have time for cat and mouse. I'm calling to say I didn't mean for this to happen. I don't know who did this to Richard, I didn't even know he was missing." She paused and when she spoke again, her voice was fearful and uncertain. "I should have known, but I didn't."
       "I see."
       "No," she said sadly. "I still don't think you do see, but maybe that doesn't matter. Listen, I never spoke to the old man. I don't know if he's the one who tortured and killed Richard. If it was Otero who did this, then someone else told him where to find Richard. It wasn't me."
       "Tortured? The boy was tortured?" Kevin shuddered and, again, nearly dropped the phone. "Rudy couldn't do a thing like that."
       "It was a ritual killing, Kevin," she said, ignoring his protestations. "It lasted a long time."
       "It wasn't Rudy. He…"
       "Whether it was done to cleanse the boy or merely as some kind of punishment for me, I don't know."
       "There's a lot you don't know, Cara."
       "You don't believe that, Kevin, even though it's true."
       "Why would someone kill an innocent child to punish you?"
       She sighed again. "I thought they'd just cut me off, leave me to twist in the wind, but… Look, there isn't time to explain and you know you wouldn't believe anything I told you anyway."
       "You're dead right about that."
       "I don't know what's going to happen now, but you probably won't ever hear from me again. There's something I've left for you. It's just outside your front door. Keep it safe, Kevin. It's all I can do to help and it's irreplaceable."
       "I don't know what you're talking about."
       "I know you don't, love. You can trust Sean. He's a good boy – a good man, really. More sensible than you think. His instincts are amazing. It's almost as if she trained him for this."
       "She?"
       "I have to go now. Try to resist your impulse to call the police. It'll only make things more complicated. Kevin, I …"
       "What?"
       There was a light click in his ear as she disconnected. As Kevin put the receiver down, Sean came into the study carrying large cardboard file box.
       "There was a sort of thumping noise outside the front door," he said. "I thought it might be the newspaper, but... This was on the doormat." The box contained several hundred manila file folders. Each of the dozen or so folders they checked at random contained a single photograph of a child. Nothing more.
       "So many," Sean breathed in wonder. "I knew it was possible in theory, but this – this is hard to fathom."
       "What are you talking about?"
       "These. I think these must all belong to you, Father."

XV
       The pair of them drove the seventy-eight miles to Twelve Apostles Seminary in somber silence. Kevin had had enough of communication by telephone, he needed to speak to his mentor face to face. Sean had elected to come along and Kevin hadn't protested. Although he was reluctant to say so aloud, the company would be something of a relief, might help him keep his temper and his imagination in check. At six forty-five a.m., there was no appreciable traffic on the road and they arrived at their destination in less than an hour.
       Rudolpho Otero no longer taught at the Seminary on a full time basis. He acted as a student advisor, occasionally filling in for absent or ailing instructors. He also continued to say Mass and hear confession once or twice a week. Rudy was well loved by the community as well as the Seminarians and, despite his diminished official duties, he was kept busy presiding over weddings, funerals, and christenings. He lived in one of the tiny cottages clustered near the school and, so, was only a short walk away from his office, the chapel, the classrooms, and the TAS dining room where he took most of his meals.
       At the cottage, there was no answer to Kevin's urgent knocking. When he tried the door, he found it locked and deadbolted.
       "Could he still be sleeping?" Sean asked, nurturing a frail hope that they would find the old priest snugged safe and warm among a pile of blankets and pillows, all the while knowing that they would not. Last night the idea of facing down a demon and a zealot had been thrilling. It had been spectacular. The repercussions had gotten lost in Sean's own zeal to instruct Father Kevin and convince him that they were, in fact, battling wickedness of Biblical proportion. Until a few hours ago Sean's enthusiasm had distanced him from the obscenities that, if his theories were correct, must occur. And then, as if he had needed it, had wished it, Richard Singleton had been tortured and murdered, delivering both validation and horror into Sean's hands. The guilt was as staggering as it was unfounded.
       Not likely," Kevin replied. "He's usually in his office by eight. I was hoping to catch him here before he left. He could be in the dining room or at the office or anywhere in-between."
       "Now what?"
       "Since we've gotten so good at it, why don't we just go to his office and wait?"

XVI
       The girl was young, sixteen or so, but her youth didn't interfere with her strong air of authority. Indeed, it probably accounted for it. "He's not here," she said again, the corners of frosted pink lips coolly turning up. "I can take a message, tell him you were here, if you want. Or you can wait about twenty minutes and see Father Vinelli instead. That's the best I can do. Father Otero doesn't have any appointments scheduled for this morning so I don't know exactly when he'll be in."
       She was stonewalling them and Sean realized that Father Kevin, for all his polite and priestly urgency, hadn't a prayer of getting past this blonde ponytailed general. Sean stepped closer to her desk, glancing at the small brass nameplate situated between the telephone and the pink tissue box. "Hi Miriam," he said with a smile that, for Miriam, all but eclipsed Kevin's existence. "I'm Sean Reilly."
       "Hi Sean," she said. Her eyes glowed with a sweet rush of pleasure.
       "I know we don't have an appointment, Miriam, but we were told that Father Otero always came in around this time."
       "Not always," she said, her voice a little less firm than before.
       Sean placed his palms on the desk and leaned closer. "Oh," he said, shaking his head in disappointment. "We really do need talk to him. Isn't there anything you can do to help us out?"
       "I'm sorry, Sean, unless he calls in, I don't have any way of knowing where he is."
       "Wait a minute," Kevin said, "didn’t he tell me that his assistants gave him a beeper a few months back? Even if you don't know where he is, you can still contact him, can't you?"
       A spot on Miriam's pale throat had pinked lightly the moment Sean had spoken her name. Now it flushed to a brilliant and dangerous looking crimson. "I'm sorry Father. I can't help you. Really. I’m not supposed to…" She exhaled harshly and looked to the ceiling as if she might find some guidance there.
       "Not supposed to what?" Kevin asked gently.
       When Miriam turned her gaze on him, her gray eyes were filled with tears. "I'm not even supposed to say what I'm not supposed to say," she said with a sad little laugh.
       Sean circled the desk to stand beside her. "He's disappeared, hasn't he, Miriam."
       When she nodded, her ponytail bobbed jauntily, as if to mock her misery.
       "How long?"
       "Six days," she said, a single tear rolling down her cheek.
       "Have you called the hospitals?"
       She shook her head. "When Father Otero didn't come in and didn't answer his pages, I called the cottage. When he didn't answer there either, I was afraid he might be hurt or sick or something, so I told Father Vinelli. He said he'd take care of it. I guess he called the hospitals himself. I don't know if he told the police or not. He had a bunch of phone conversations with the Bishop. I'm pretty sure some of them were about Father Otero." Miriam reached for a pink tissue and blew her nose. "After one really long phone call, two - no - three days ago, he came out of his office, looking like a zombie or something." She pointed to one of three closed doors. "That's his office there. He told me that Father Otero was away on a long trip. I asked him how he knew, but he wouldn't tell me anything. Just that I shouldn't talk to anybody about it." Her face reddened and more tears flowed. "And now I have."
       Kevin reached across the desk to touch her lightly on the shoulder. "It's all right, Miriam," he said. "Father Vinelli and I have met a few times. I'm sure he's only trying to protect Father Otero. But he doesn't need protection from us." He gave her his older and wiser version of Sean's disarming smile so she could see just how harmless he was. "I'm a priest and Sean is my assistant. We won't tell anyone else what you've said. If he asks, you can tell Father Vinelli that we're going to look for Father Otero to make sure he's all right."
       She brightened. "You are?"

XVII
       Thirty minutes later, they were in the car, headed home. The traffic was heavier now and Kevin was observing a sedate seven-miles-over-the-speed-limit pace.
       "You surprised me," Sean said.
       Lost in fantastic forebodings, it took Kevin a moment to respond. "How? By letting you talk me in to breaking and entering Rudy's cottage?"
       "No. Not that. We had to go in. We had to see if there was anything there to help us find him."
       "But there wasn't anything there."
       "I guess he took everything away with him," Sean said.
       "Or Father Vinelli did."
       "What do you mean? Why would he do that?"
       Kevin took his eyes off the road to look his young companion. Sean was loosely holding the pictures of Mary and Violet in his lap, head turned, staring out at passing motorists or possibly at the scrub pines that kept the hillside from falling onto the highway. Sean knew so much about the supernatural, believed so unwaveringly in demons and magic – and God. How was it that he could know so little of the real world? If one could equate the Catholic Church to the real world. Kevin turned his attention back to the traffic. Sean was young. Sometimes it was hard to remember how young.
       "I don't know whether or not Father Vinelli reported Rudy's disappearance to the police. Probably not. But you can be sure that he did tell Bishop Morley. I'm still not convinced that Rudy is involved with or succubae or murder or anything – diabolical. But, if the Bishop suspects there's even the slightest possibility that Rudy is out in the world hunting demons, there's no possible way the he'll allow that suspicion to get into the public's collective mind. He'll send out an internal alert and the hierarchy will do whatever is necessary to prevent that from happening." Kevin took a long slow breath. "They'll be out looking for him themselves."
       "Who will? The Catholic Church has a demon hunter squad? No wait, it'd have to be a demon hunter hunter squad."
       "Nothing so dramatic as that, Sean. Think of them as discreet investigators. If they can find Rudy, they'll want to evaluate the situation…"
       "Discreetly," Sean interjected.
       "Right."
       "And then what?"
       "And then, if Rudy needs help, they'll give it to him."
       "Help?" Sean asked, his voice filled with doubt. "You mean like doctors? That kind of help?"
       "Like doctors or counselors or a nice long rest – whatever he needs."
       "What if he needs punishment?"
       Kevin sped up to pass a ramshackle truck that was spewing black smoke in their direction. "What he needs is to be found. So," he said, abruptly switching gears, "what did I do that surprised you?"
       "You lied to Miriam."
       Kevin was more astonished at the offhanded delivery of the remark than at the remark itself. "What do you mean?" he said, his fine dark brows perilously close to eliminating the gap between them. "I didn't lie to her. I said we won't tell anyone what she told us and we won't."
       "You also said he didn't need protection from us."
       "That was true, Sean. I'd never anything to harm Rudy."
       Now it was Sean's turn to wonder at such naivete. Father Kevin did say 'never' an awful lot. Cara had been right on the money about that.
       "Anyway," Kevin continued, "we don't have any idea where he's gone."
       "Yeah we do," Sean said softly.
       Again Kevin turned to stare at his assistant.
       Sean still held the pictures of Mary and Violet. "This one," he said, waving the picture of Mary, "is still the same as before, but this one," he held out Violet's laughing face, "is different."
       Kevin twitched, inadvertently tromping harder on the accelerator. He overcompensated by tapping the brake, causing the car to jerk violently. "How different?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the blare of several angry horns.
       "The picture's okay, Father, so try and cool your jets.
       "My jets?"
       "Sure. If the picture's the same, we have to assume she's still alive."
       It seemed like an assumptive broad jump to Kevin. Still, the knowledge that the laughing, lovely face had not been replaced with a horror allowed him to resume regular breathing, not to mention driving. More or less.
       Sean went on. "On the back, though, there's a name and an address." He flipped the picture over. "Her name is Violet Main," he read. "She's in Charlotte North Carolina."
       Kevin sped up the car. "Then let's get home and call her."
       "And say what, Father? Your child might be half demon, please keep her away from elderly gentlemen wearing clerical collars?"
       "We can't do nothing."
       "Not nothing. We have to go there, of course. When we find Violet, we'll find Father Otero."
       "Sean," Kevin said, his throat aching with tension, "I can't leave the parish without permission. That will take a little time."
       "We don't have time," Sean pressed. "Violet doesn't have time. But – I'll tell you what, Father. You don't have to make the trip. Aunt Emma left me her van. I'll drive to North Carolina myself."
       "And do what?" Kevin echoed Sean's tone as well as his question.
       "Whatever it takes."
       The last half of the trip home was made in a silence far more vibrant than the trip out. When Kevin pulled into the driveway, he said, "Taking this any further into our own hands would be a mistake, Sean. Driving all the way to Charlotte – it's unnecessary. Don't you see?"
       Sean didn't attempt to get out of the car. He didn't unbuckle his seat belt. Apparently, he wasn't so far removed from adolescence that he couldn't summon up a petulant glower. "You said we'd look for Father Otero," he said after stewing a minute.
       Kevin reached for his nose, noticed the gesture, and dropped his hand onto the steering wheel. "I know I did. And we will, if it comes to that, but I think the best thing to do is what I wanted to do in the first place. I've got to call Jerry Smith. He can contact the Charlotte police, ask them to keep an eye out. It makes more sense for the police to take care of things."
       "I thought you said the Bishop wouldn't want –" Sean broke off, glancing through the rear windshield of the car. "Looks like somebody saved you a dime," he said.
       A blue and white police car swung into the driveway behind them. Kevin and Sean watched as a male uniformed officer emerged from it.
       "Father," Sean said darkly, "you promised Miriam. Anyway, you can't stop me from going on my own, you know." He narrowed his angry dark blue eyes. "Not legally."
       Kevin sighed the sigh of a bruised and beleaguered parent. Attempting to process too much information, innuendo, and bleak imaginings had exhausted him and his generous store of patience. "Sean," he snapped, "I'm going to try like Hell not to slip all over my great big feet of clay, okay? Why don't you try and cool your own jets? At least wait ten minutes before you go tearing down the interstate." He flipped the door handle and got out of the car, leaving Sean to simmer in his own heat. Kevin approached the short and slightly paunchy blue clad stranger, saying, "Good morning officer. Is there something I can do for you?"
       Sean needed air. Besides, it might look odd if he continued to sit alone in the car. Also, staying inside the car would make it harder to hear what was going on. He got out, but kept his distance, leaning on the passenger side door, watching what he was sure would be an egregious error. Possibly even a cataclysmic one.
       "You're Father Kevin O'Neil?" the officer asked.
       "Yes, that's right," Kevin said. "What is it? Is something wrong?"
       "One of our detectives, Smith his name is," the officer said. "He asked me to drop by." He rested his hand comfortably on the gun holstered at his right hip. "He wants to have a few words with you. He asked me to stay around until he could get here."
       Kevin, noticing the gesture and utterly failing to connect it with menace, said, "Good. I've been meaning to have a word with Jerry myself."
       "Funny how that works out," the officer said in a tone so nearly rude that it made Kevin start.
       "Officer – I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name…"
       "I didn't toss it." The cop smirked, seeming very pleased at his own pith. "It's Stokes."
       "Well, Officer Stokes, we don't need to wait for Jerry in the driveway, do we?"
       Stokes looked over his shoulder before answering. "I guess not."
       "Great. Why don't you come into the rectory? I can give you something to drink - coffee or a soda or something."
       "All right."
       The two men started up the cobbled path to the front door, but after a few steps, Stokes halted and rapped a knuckle in the middle of Kevin's back. "Hey," he said, "is that Sean Reilly over there by the car?"
       "Yes it is. Why?"
       "Detective Smith wants to have a word with him too. Might as well invite him in. We can all wait together."

XVIII
       For possibly the fifth time that morning, the professional grade Bunn coffeemaker presented to Kevin three or four Christmases ago by his mother was burbling away, a stream of very black no-nonsense non-decaf rapidly filling the pot.
       Sean, who had assigned himself the task of locating and setting out coffee accoutrements, managed, after several failed attempts, to catch Kevin's eye. He lifted an inquiring brow at the priest. Kevin saw the brow and raised it a nearly imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. Unless this was about the search of Rudy's cottage, he was completely in the dark as to the presence and surly attitude of the cop now occupying his kitchen.
       Officer Stokes had ignored Kevin's suggestion to make himself comfortable in the living room while he, Kevin, rounded up some refreshment. The heavyset man followed Kevin and Sean into the kitchen and posted himself at the back door as if to keep his charges from bolting through it.
       Kevin supposed this could all be about the B and E (a term he had learned from watching Law and Order) after all, but that had only happened an hour and a half ago. Would the local authorities know about it already? He and Sean had gotten in through an unlocked window and, in the end, had taken nothing away with them. So technically, Kevin thought, it had only been an E without the B. And, besides, checking out the home of a missing friend didn't seem serious enough to warrant Stokes' vigilant guarding of the door, not to mention the continual patting of his weapon. Did it?
       "Apparently," Kevin said in an attempt to ease his mind away from the thought of the gun, "none of the cooks in this parish approve of Saran Wrap or Zip-Loc bags. I never know what's in there." He'd been rummaging through the refrigerator for some strawberry cheese Danish, a nearly forgotten gift – leftovers from Louise Flaherty's mothers-of-twins tea party – and had at last emerged with a half dozen or so aluminum-foil wrapped packages. He spread them out on the counter and gingerly lifted the corner of the first plate. "Beef stroganoff," he announced sadly. "Three weeks old, if it’s a day."
       "You could label and date everything, you know," Stokes commented. "That's what my wife does. She keeps a little book of everything she puts in the freezer too. Then when she takes something out, she makes a little mark next to it in the book, see, so she always knows what she has."
       Almost as one, Sean and Kevin stopped what they were doing and stared at the police officer. This pronouncement was the longest and certainly most friendly thing he had said since entering the rectory. Until the subject had turned to food storage – and, Kevin guessed, the opportunity to publicly praise his wife – Stokes had responded to all queries and attempts at conversation with words of one syllable. He had even grunted a time or two.
       "She sounds – very organized," Sean began.
       "You're a lucky man, Officer," Kevin interrupted. "I confess keeping such meticulous track of… Oh here they are!" The third covered plate had proved to be the not-too-badly dried out pastries. "I was sure there were in there somewhere. Anyway," he went on as he thrust the rest of the plates, including the spoiled stroganoff, back into the fridge, "maintaining that level of organization would be beyond me. That's why I have Sean."
       Sean, who was setting out steaming cups of coffee and plates of Danish, said: "No way am I organizing your refrigerator, Father. Keeping track of your schedule is more than plenty."
       "Please sit down, Officer Stokes," Kevin said. "You don't want to eat standing up over there, do you?"
       Stokes smiled at his hostage hosts, at least, Kevin thought it was supposed to be a smile. "I guess not," Stokes said. Apparently, he was not completely won over because before he left his post, he engaged the door's security chain and checked the deadbolt lock. "Thanks," he said, hauling his bulk onto one of the tall counter stools. "This'll hit the spot. My wife doesn't keep pastry in the house. Says it's bad for my cholesterol. Hey, you got any Sweet 'n' Low?"
       Kevin placed a bowl of blue packets on the counter. "This okay?"
       "Sure."
       "You know, Officer Stokes," Kevin said, pulling up a stool to sit opposite his guardian guest, "Sean and I really don't know what this is all about."
       The policeman grunted through a mouthful of Danish, indicating that he'd answer as soon as he could swallow some down. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to speak or swallow. In the doorway behind Stokes appeared a man that neither Sean nor Kevin had ever seen before. He was quite tall, possibly as tall as six foot five, very trim and muscularly built. His hair was thick and blonde and hung nearly to his shoulders. His face was grim, but his green eyes glittered with excitement. In his hands he held a baseball bat which he swiftly raised and brought down hard over the head of Officer Stokes. Stokes slipped off the stool and crashed to the floor.
       "What? Wait!" Kevin cried a fraction of a moment too late. He raced around the counter to attend to the fallen man. "You've killed him!"
       "I don't think so, Kevin," the stranger said, mildly.
       "Father, no! Get back from there!" Sean didn’t see any butcher knives lying conveniently at hand, so he snatched up a cup of coffee and threw the scalding brew followed by the empty cup into the face of the blonde stranger. The cup landed with a solid thunk before bouncing off the stranger's chin, landing on the counter top and rolling onto the floor.
       If Sean was hoping that his sudden assault would cause the stranger to drop the baseball bat, he was sorely disappointed. "Do anything that stupid again, Sean," the stranger said, his voice still low and calm, "and I'll beat the life out of this fat cop. Do you understand me?"
       Sean nodded miserably.
       "Hand me a towel, would you please, Kevin? I'm dripping all over your linoleum." When Kevin didn't move away from the side of the unconscious policeman, the stranger continued in a slightly more annoyed tone. "You can get one for him too, if you want. Although really, you're making too much of his injury. He's a little bruised and bloody, but I promise you, Stokes is in far more danger of dying from his blocked arteries than from that little tap on the head."
       Sean tossed a dry kitchen towel to the blonde stranger and dampened another. He brought it to Kevin who was kneeling by Stokes' unmoving body, trying to clear all traces of partially chewed strawberry cheese Danish from the cop's mouth.
       "Thanks." The stranger wiped his face with the towel and dropped it onto the counter. "Listen you two," he said in a more urgent tone. "I came here to warn you about your so called friend, Detective Jerry Smith. He's planning to arrest you both. You have to get out of here. Now."
       Kevin rose to his feet, bloody towel in hand. "What do you mean?" He said.
       "Who the Hell are you?" Sean said at the same time.
       "Not now," the stranger said. "There isn't time. Can't you just trust me and take my word that I'm here to help?"
       "Trust you?" Kevin said. "You've just assaulted a policeman in my kitchen."
       "Yeah, he threatened to kill him too," Sean added. "I don't think it's us they'll be arresting."
       The tall man sighed. "Some people have to do everything the hard way." He shook his head. "I don't know why I expected anything different from you, Kevin. You," he said, looking at Sean, "I thought you might be a little more practical." He went over to the back door and unlocked it. "There isn't time to chat now. You have to get out of here. I'll explain everything in the car."
       "We're not going anywhere with or without you," Kevin said. "You've badly injured this man. We have to get him to a doctor. We certainly can't abandon him or run away from a crime scene."
       The blonde man rolled his green eyes in exasperation. "You've already done that, you idiot. That's why you have to… Oh, and Sean, don't forget to bring that file box."
       Kevin picked up the telephone, intending to dial 911. "Wait a minute, Father," Sean said tightly. I think we should listen to what she has to say."
       "She?"
       The figure at the door shimmered and shifted into something smaller and darker and far more feminine. "You had me worried for a minute, Sean. I was afraid I'd underestimated you," Cara said with a smile.
       "Oh Jesus Lord!" Kevin whispered. His knees sagged and he had to grab onto a stool for support.
       "Get the box," Cara ordered Sean. "I'll drag this big lug to the car."
       "The car's blocked in," Sean objected.
       "My car," she said. "I've got it parked around the corner. Get moving! Now!"
       With that, she shimmered back into Incubus form, dropped the blood spattered bat, took Kevin's arm, and hauled him out the door, through neighboring back yards until they reached the cross street. Sean, carrying the white file box containing the children's pictures, was no more than ten steps behind them.
       "Get in," the blonde man commanded.
       "Cara, listen," Kevin began, "this is crazy. We haven't done anything wrong."
       "Strictly speaking, Father," Sean began, "we did break into…"
       "Get in. "We'll go a block or two, then you get down on the floor. Do it now!" The Incubus took the box from Sean and stowed it in the trunk.
       Sean looked at Kevin expectantly. Kevin didn’t like the idea of running. He liked the idea of violence even less. But, he thought, Cara had – what had they called it on Star Trek? Shape shifted? He could not imagine that what he had just witnessed was some kind of party trick. She had really changed from a man to a woman and back to a man again. And with his acceptance of that, Kevin's entire world had shifted too.
       He nodded abruptly. "Get in," he said to Sean, opening the front passenger door. "I want to hear what Cara has to say."
       Sean settled into the back as the blonde man got into the driver's seat and started the car. "Buckle up, everybody. It's the law," the blonde man said without a trace of humor in his voice. "By the way, in this form, I'm called Will. Now, if you will both kindly keep quiet, I'll try to explain what's going on."
       "Go ahead," Sean said.
       "Wait. Stop at the first pay phone," Kevin said. "We have to call an ambulance for Officer Stokes."
       "No," Will replied. "He's going to be fine, Kevin, I keep telling you. And anyway, your buddy Jerry will be there in a couple of minutes. He'll take care of the ambulance."
       Kevin blew out a harsh puff of air. Would God consider abandoning an injured man in favor of a car ride with an imperious Incubus worthy of damnation? He certainly hoped not. After all, there were extenuating circumstances.
       "First," Will continued, "let me tell you that your little excursion this morning has cost you big. And not only you. That little Miriam girl – you remember fat old Rudy's assistant? She's dead. Murdered."
       Kevin's body went very cold and a strange tingling sensation radiated from his belly, up his chest, down his arms, and into his clenched fingers. "Because we talked to her? What happened?" he said, his voice barely audible.
       Will ignored the question. "I'm sorry, Sean," he said. "I know you had your eye on the girl. I had an eye on her myself, if you want to know the truth. She was a little young yet, but in a few years, she'd have made an excellent birth mother."
       "Maybe she's better off dead then," Sean said bitterly.
       "Don't get snippy with me, young man. Anyway, it's too late for both of us now. Shortly after her little talk with you two, she had another little talk."
       "With Father Vinelli," Kevin said.
       "That's right, with Father Vinelli. And shortly after that, she was found at her desk. Strangled."
       Kevin made the sign of the cross and whispered the appropriate words to his Maker.
       Will tapped the steering wheel and waited impatiently until the prayer was finished. Then he said: "After Vinelli managed to calm down the poor seminary student who found her, he called the police."
       "Of course he did. What else could he do?"
       "While he was talking to the police, he mentioned your names – several times. He told them you were looking for Father Otero and you wouldn't say why. He told them that Miriam had thought you were both acting in a suspicious manner. That she had told you about Father Otero being away on an extended leave and that you didn't seem to believe her."
       "He what?" Sean said angrily. "That is so not true. Why would he say that?"
       "I can think of a number of reasons why he might want to point a finger in your direction," Will said.
       "Especially if he really thinks we murdered Miriam," Kevin added.
       "Mmm. Well, there's more so shut up and listen." Will paused for interruption and, getting none, went on. "When the police arrived, Vinelli further obliged by walking them down to the rear of Father Otero's cottage where he pointed out a broken window. Apparently, he discovered it after he made his telephone call. You two weren't stupid enough to break a window and leave finger prints all over the place, were you?"
       "The window was open," Sean said. "We didn't have to break it. I guess we did leave fingerprints though. We didn't think it would matter."
       "It does though, doesn't it?" Will said. "I suppose Detective Smith was planning to arrest you for murder based on the prints in the cottage."
       "Oh come on, the police can't think we killed Miriam."
       "That's exactly what they do think, Kevin. That's exactly what they were supposed to think. Well, maybe not Smith. He's still loyal to you – or he will be until he sees Officer Stokes' head."
       "Great," Sean muttered.
       "Get down now and stay down until I tell you it's okay."
       Kevin turned and watched Sean obediently get down on the floor. He shook his head in disgust and, wondering if he weren't the biggest dupe on God's green Earth, moved his seat back as far as it would go and levered himself down under the dashboard. "You'll have to pry me out of here with a crowbar," he groaned.
       From the backseat came Sean's muffled voice. "Hey, Will? How do we know you're not lying to us? About Miriam, I mean?"
       The same thought had occurred to Kevin. Will was a demon. Wasn't it his job to make trouble? Hadn't he just koshed in the head of a cop in the rectory kitchen? Didn't that make everything worse – especially now that they'd run away? And if Miriam was as fresh and fine as she'd been when they'd seen her last, then they were running away for nothing. Well, no, that wasn't completely true. Kevin had agreed to go with Will in order to get more information. But… the information was, as it turned out, about Miriam's murder. And if the Incubus was lying, if Miriam hadn't been murdered…Kevin groaned again. How had everything gotten out of control so fast?
       "I suppose you won't know for sure until the evening paper comes out. I think there will be some kind of coverage of the murder, don't you? And stop groaning down there, Kevin," Will chided. "Without your actual fingers to print, the police can't be positive it was you two who broke into Otero's cottage."
       "But they'll match them to prints in the rectory," Sean pointed out.
       "That's true. Very good, Sean," Will said, seeming to be honestly pleased with the young man's acumen. "It's nice to know that you have more than your Irish good looks to fall back on. But don't worry too much about fingerprints. The cops will have to notice that none of the prints in the cottage or in the rectory match the ones on the bat - eventually." The Incubus chuckled merrily. "They'll be very very confused."
       "Won't that just piss them off?" Sean asked.
       "He's hoping that the police will think we've been kidnapped or something. That we're victims of whoever attacked Officer Stokes," Kevin said, his voice muffled due to the knees that were pressed up against his face.
       "Right again. Both of you. No more talking now. We're crawling through downtown traffic and it's no good if people see me talking to myself in here." And to ensure the end of conversation, Will snapped on the radio, cranking up the volume.
       For the next forty-five minutes, they listened to a Beatles retrospective, sprinkled liberally with commercial messages, but no news reports about murdered teenage girls or, for that matter, about anything else. Radio had changed radically in the past thirty years. Apparently, there was no profit in the half-hourly reports Kevin remembered from his childhood. The three men traveled on, untroubled by serious information.

XIX
       "Okay," Cara said. "Upsey daisey, boys." The demon had shimmered into female form moments after the car had entered the underground parking structure.
       Sean bounced back onto the seat, but it took Kevin several minutes to unfold his longer body from the smaller space to which it had been confined. "Why are we stopping here?" Sean wanted to know.
       "Three reasons. One, I just shrank about a foot and I can't reach the pedals anymore." Accordingly, she adjusted the driver's seat, pulling it forward. Two, we've reached our destination. Three… Well, nevermind about three."
       "This is our destination?" Kevin looked around at the dimly lit concrete structure. There were very few cars parked in it at the moment, but the underground garage had the capacity to hold several hundred vehicles, he thought. Probably it was attached to a museum or theatre building – someplace that wouldn't see much traffic on a weekday morning.
       "This is where we part company, yes. I'm in pretty big trouble, as I've already told you. That's one of the reasons I can't take care of this little problem myself – I certainly can't go with you on this journey."
       "Journey?"
       "Quest then. Cross country car trip – call it whatever you want."
       "Cara, despite your twisted machinations, it's still not too late," Kevin said. "Sean and I could still go back and sort everything out. How do you know we won't do that instead of blindly following your plans?"
       "Machinations?" Cara's silvery laugh tickled Kevin's spine and several memories that were best forgotten. "I just love it when you hit the nail on the head and get all melodramatic at the same time. It's just so – you." She squeezed his hand, but, retreated quickly so he couldn't draw away from her first. "Maybe it's not too late for you two, but if you do go back and try to untangle this mess, it'll be far too late for Violet and, even if you could get permission to leave your parish, probably too late for Mary. Although, to be perfectly honest, Mary's been kind of a disappointment to me. She's turned out to be so dreary. Still, I'd hate to lose her to that nut case, Otero."
       "How do you know all this?" Sean asked.
       "All what?"
       "Well, putting your motives aside, let's assume Father Kevin and I can believe anything you say."
       "All right." She turned her lovely eyes on Sean and smiled. "Lets."
       "How do you know that it was Father Otero who killed Richard Singleton? And how do you know that whoever killed Richard will go for Violet next when there are so many others to choose from?"
       "Yes, the others," she said. A look of regret washed over her delicate features. "We haven't had a chance to talk about any of the others." She closed her eyes with a look of such pain that Kevin expected to see tears, but none came.
       Perhaps, he thought, demons don't have tears.
       "Listen you two," Cara went on. "There are a lot of things I know. And there are a lot more things I should know that I don't. Everything's so – sketchy. That's how I know I'm in trouble. That, and the fact that the current situation exists at all. Somebody's interfering with my designs – or machinations, if you will. That should never have been allowed to happen. I've always had autonomy before."
       "I don't understand why you'd be in trouble," Kevin said. "On the telephone you said you thought you were being punished. Why is that? It seems to me you've more than filled your quota of mischief…"
       "And children…"
       Kevin ignored that. "Two children have died. Doesn't that count in your favor? So why punishment?"
       "You know, Kevin, you really can be cruel sometimes. The truth is, They don't care about the children – whether they live or die. They care about you."
       "Why me?"
       Sean cleared his throat. "You're a priest," he said in a tone he might have used to instruct a six year old. "That makes you prime."
       "Yes. Prime. Big Game. All that. They care that I was unable to lure you away from your commitment to your God. Losses, however rare for Will and me, are expected to happen from time to time. Their big concern is that I'm not exactly a disinterested demon anymore. They knew that I'd never have followed through on my threats to harm the kids. That's why they went ahead and did it for me." She sighed. "I don't know what's going to happen to me now. It's a miracle that whatever it is hasn't happened already. Funny that I should choose that word to describe anything associated with me, isn't it? But it's the only one that seems to fit. So – enough about me. See that?" She pointed to a dark green van parked in a nearby slot. "That's yours." She pulled a ring with two keys on it from the pocket of her skirt. "Here," she said, handing them to Kevin.
       "What's wrong with this car?"
       "This car is a little small for an extended trip. Not to mention the fact that you might have been seen getting in to it – and, besides, this one's not available, technically…"
       "Not available? You mean it's stolen? You stole this car?"
       "I'm a Succubus, Kevin. Ownership of large metal boxes isn't something that concerns me overmuch. Besides, we haven't hurt this car. We hardly even used up much gas. I'll have it cleaned and returned to its owner unscathed."
       "What about the van? Is that stolen too?"
       "No. That one's yours – free and clear. The registration says Kevin Williams – I know that's not what it says on your driver's license, so I suggest you stick to the speed limit. When you find Mary, if you find her before Rudy does, she'll be able to help you with fake ID. Sean," Again Cara turned her bright eyes on the young man. "You know where you can get some traveling money, don't you?"
       "Mom," he answered immediately. "She'll wire us money, no questions asked."
       "Tell her everything, if you want to, kiddo. She'll understand. She's probably the only one who will. Just do her a favor and don't wait too long to call. And, whatever you do, don't call collect."
       Sean laughed and gave Cara the thumbs up sign. She took the van keys from Kevin, handed them to Sean and popped the trunk. Sean got out of the car and walked around to the back.
       When he opened the trunk to retrieve the file box, Sean found a surprise passenger nestled in next to it. Wordlessly, he lifted Ignatius out of the trunk and carried him to the green van where he was unceremoniously deposited on a dark green floor mat. "No litter box, pal," Sean said softly. "Hitchhikers have to fend for themselves."
       The Succubus turned her attentions on Kevin. "I blame you," she said. "I'm probably going to lose everything and it's all your fault."
       "Change sides," he said easily. "You can do that, can't you?"'
       "I hardly think so, love. Things don't work as simply as you might think."
       He shrugged lightly, smiling his charming Irish smile. "Maybe they do and you just don't know it. Anyway, if you've had a falling out with Evil, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to summon up too much remorse about it."
       She placed a gentle finger against his lips. "We'll probably never meet again, Kevin. I'm trusting you to take care of this – of the children – without me. You know if you don't go back to the Church now, you'll never be able to go back at all. And I know that you won't go back if there's even the slightest chance that you can stop Rudy."
       "If he's doing this, he needs help, Cara."
       "He thinks he's doing God's work, Kevin. He's getting help, information, from something. Something that he thinks is heavenly or angelic or…"
       "Yes, it would have to be that way. If he's the one… You think he killed Miriam, don't you?"
       She shook her head. "I don't know what to think about that, Love. Honestly, I don't think he'd have killed her if he didn't think she was demon spawn."
       "And she wasn't?"
       "Absolutely not."
       "I guess we're really going."
       "Yes."
       Dropping his head, Kevin stroked the bridge of his nose. Cara smiled fondly as she saw the familiar gesture. "They'll come looking for me you know. The Church, I mean."
       "Yes."
       "I can't stop, Cara. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I won't stop being a priest."
       "Yes," she said for the third time. "That's what this is all about."
       They sat in companionable silence for a few moments before she said: "It's time for you to go, Kevin."
       "I…" he began, but when he looked up, Kevin found himself looking into Will's brilliant green eyes.
       "Time to go, man," Will said. "If you're going to get out of here, you have to do it now."
       Kevin barely had time to close the car door before the car sped away, tires squealing as they took the corner for the exit.

XX
       From her vantagepoint on the top level of the structure, she watched the green van pull out of the garage and turn left onto the nearly deserted street. As they gained some distance, she was able to see into the rear windshield, see the two dark haired men – Kevin pale and silent, Sean chattering excitedly, the large orange cat draped across his shoulder.
       She had managed to yank Kevin from his moorings, but he remained tenacious of his convictions and of his soul. Both had won. Both had lost. A silent sob racked her slender body and a single tear slid down her ivory cheek.
       And as the tear fell, striking the empty passenger seat next to her, she heard a great roar in her ears, saw a huge white blast. The top two levels of the car park were completely decimated in the subsequent explosion.
       The stolen car would never be returned to its rightful owner.

THE END