by DarkMark
"The fookin' thing's gettin' bigger, ain't it?"
"I ain't goin' back there ta look at it, Charlie. Now shut yer gob."
"Dennis?"
"Jeezissake, what, man?"
"When is the man s'posed ta get here?"
"An' a fookin' plane schedule I'm supposed to be? His plane comes to Dublin. His plane lands in the airport, an' 'e takes a cab, an' 'e gets here. That's that."
"You're sure 'e'll come right here?"
"Yes, Charlie, I'm sure 'e'll come here. Did not the father say that 'e would?"
"What the father says an' what happens can be two diff'rent things, Dennis, they can."
"Wouldja try to be encouragin', fa once? I've a mind ta shove ya back there!"
"I'd kill ya before ya did, Dennis. Ya've got a stone an' more on me, but I'd kill ya just the same."
"An' it might be a blessin', lad. It might be a blessin', at that."
"Dennis, tell me the man's name again who's comin' here."
"Thought I'd already told you three times already."
"I wants to hear his name again!"
"All right. 'Tis a good name for a man in his sort of profession. I'm just hopin' the man turns out to be as good as the name."
"Say it!"
"Hellstrom. Daimon bloody Hellstrom."
*****
In the 20th Century, Dublin had been through enough sorts of hell that it didn't need much of any other kind. At least that was what Father McCarthy thought. But there always seemed a new aspect of Hell that had to be spot-tested, and that must have been what Dublin was made for.
He sat in a black hat and overcoat with his clerical collar poking visibly up from the top of it and looked from his plastic seat out the window of the airport at the incoming flights. He had a small white cardboard sign stuffed between his seat and the next and a Bible on his knees and a briefcase between his ankles and a can of Mace in his pocket for any yobbo who'd try snatching either one from him. Even priests had to be careful, these days.
Father McCarthy didn't want to think about how careful he was going to have to be tonight.
What he wanted to do was get back to the parish and work on the weekend sermon and sort things out with S'ter about the choir practice and how much was to be alloted for God-help-us still another set of songbooks and listen to some kids confess about banging each other in the old man's car. What he wanted to be was stern, sympathetic, wise, charitable, firm, and understanding, each in its turn, putting on each mask as it was required. In truth, Father McCarthy was good at that, and had been since he donned his collar twenty-three years ago.
At least it was not a rainy night, nor a cloudy one, and he did not think God would be so cruel as to have the plane he awaited fall victim to wind shear.
Another big tube with wings was descending from the sky. When it got close enough for descent and taxiing, Father McCarthy studied its markings and knew it for an American airliner. That could, possibly, be the flight he expected.
He wondered why the man they needed would turn out to be a Yank. Then again, that might be a more proper way to do it. Whether he was Catholic or Protestant, he was a Yank, and would be seen as one. Therefore, if the people took offense, they would take offense at his Yankness, and not his religion.
Despite himself, Father McCarthy stood, took his Bible in hand, and yawned. The plane had almost finished its taxi job, and the ground crew was about to hook the passageway to it. The taped voice announced that it was a flight from New York, that boarding would be underway in fifteen minutes, and have a nice flight out with American Airlines.
"Holy Mary, mother of grace, let this be the right flight, let this Yank on it be the right man for the job, and get us through this night safe and sound and strengthen our arms in your duty," he said. "Amen," he said, as an afterthought.
He took the sign from between the seats and took his briefcase in the other hand and clasped the Bible under his right armpit. He went and stood not far from the doors through which the passengers would be deplaning. There was a name on his sign and he held it up before his chest with his free hand.
A stream of foreigners and some returning native folk burst through the doors, all relieved talk and laughter and wondering where the bathrooms and the luggage carousel were. The father had seen a color photograph of the man he sought and wondered if he would recognize him in the flesh.
As it turned out, he did.
The man was wearing a maroon suit and red tie over a white shirt and had an overcoat slung over one arm and a suitcase in the other. He was tall, not quite a basketballer but of an imposing enough size. His hair was red and combed back in a rather strange way, almost to form two fangs of hair running back from the front of his head. His eyes appeared to be green and he looked nothing if not serious.
He saw the sign in Father McCarthy's hands as soon as he stepped through the door. He walked over as soon as the press of the passengers would permit it. "Father McCarthy?" he said, stretching out a hand.
"The same," said the priest, and stuck out his hand, automatically, wondering if he really should take the offered hand.
The American shook it, and the grip was reassuring, and nothing bad happened. "I'm Hellstrom," he said. "I understand you've got a situation here."
"We have," said McCarthy. "It's said to be in your line. I'll be riding backup. Let me get us a cab."
Hellstrom looked at him.
"You're sure you want to ride backup on this thing?"
"'Tis my job, sir."
"I'll give you several chances to back out between here and there," said Hellstrom. "It might be safer if I did this alone."
"My Boss might not think so highly if I let you, Mr. Hellstrom."
"You might get the chance to ask Him faster than you think."
"Just so," said the priest. "Let's get the cab."
*****
On the way there, Father McCarthy passed him the Bible to see if he could hold it and read it. Hellstrom looked at him with some pique, but took it and leafed through it with no apparent ill-effects. "Do I pass your test, Father?" he said. "Or should I read something aloud from it?"
"Whatever you wish, Mr. Hellstrom." The priest shifted his legs a bit. "Might I ask you a few querstions about your background, sir?"
Hellstrom stiffened a bit for a second, but pasted on a slight smile. "Ask away, Father. I warn you, though, I'm notoriously poor about job interviews."
Ah, Lord, thought McCarthy. It's enigmatic the young fool thinks himself to be. "You were raised in the Church, or so the bit I've read about you testified. For three years you studied to take up the collar. Why did you drop out?"
The American was paging through the Book of Acts. "I became aware of a certain inheritance of mine at age 21, Father. A mansion near Fire Lake, in New England. Plus a few other things. I did not believe I would be welcome in the priesthood after that. But I became adept at my current profession."
"Which is what priests are called in for, at times," said McCarthy.
"Yes."
"Mr. Hellstrom, how is it that you can perform outcastings, yet you are not an ordained priest?"
McCarthy was looking straight at Hellstrom with a gaze which he had developed to scare the wayward youth in his congregation. If there was anything fake in this man, he believed he could tell it.
Hellstrom gave it right back. "I've been known to get results, Father. I earn my fee. Even if I have to work for free, sometimes. I think you'll find my methods effective."
"I pray both of our methods will be such, Mr. Hellstrom," said McCarthy. "Do you consider yourself a Christian?"
For a moment or two, McCarthy perceived some sadness in the man.
"I believe in God's existence, and I beg His mercy," said Hellstrom. "I have never formally left the Church. Nor do I intend to."
"Have you taken Communion, Mr. Hellstrom?"
"Not in a number of years, Father."
"How long has it been since your last confession?"
"Not so long. But before a priest...a number of years."
McCarthy didn't like to say what he had to next. "Mr. Hellstrom, such things, in the case of a man who has studied for the priesthood, lead me to believe that yours is a case of lapsed faith. Such a thing could be damnably dangerous in the situation at hand. I mean that literally."
Hellstrom turned to the priest with an expression of fury that took him aback. Then the fires in the man's eyes subsided.
"I have not lost my faith, Father," he said, quietly. "It may have a different shape than yours. But in this matter, we are of one purpose. I have been in many different churches, learned many different faiths. In my own field, they call me an expert. But I think of myself as a troubleshooter."
"Mr. Hellstrom, I am loath to let a man into this thing unless I know he is of the faith of Jesus Christ."
"I believe," said Hellstrom. "I have seen too much not to believe, Father."
"Do you serve the Devil, Mr. Hellstrom?"
"No," said the man, without hesitation. "Despite many inducements." He turned his gaze to the Bible, caught sight of what he was looking for. He began to read.
"'Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, 'We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.' And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?'
"'And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.'"
Neither one of them said anything for a long moment.
"It's never a no-risk proposition," said Hellstrom.
"Never," agreed Father McCarthy.
******
The American was, thankfully, not inclined to ask for a James Joyce tour of the city. He had eaten on the plane, and he was ready to get down to business. Father McCarthy had the cabbie take them to within five blocks of their destination. The cabbie had looked back at them. "You're going in there, Father?"
McCarthy nodded.
"God help you," he said. "I don't know if any'a the rumors are true, but--ah, just God help ya."
"Thank you, my son," said the priest, and made the sign of the cross.
Hellstrom said nothing, but he was giving the area before them a good hard look through the direction of the windshield. McCarthy paid the cabbie and both got out. Neither one of them quite noticed as the driver took off. A few locals on the streets noticed the priest and began talking to each other, furtively but animatedly.
Father McCarthy glanced about them briefly and disdained their rubbernecking. Hellstrom was facing directly towards the area in question. He seemed to be sniffing the air. Decidedly, he was not smiling.
"Are you smelling anything, Mr. Hellstrom?"
"I know where the situation is, Father. Tell me something about it."
"I'll tell you as we walk."
Hellstrom's face swung towards him, and he could have sworn he saw the man's eyes change color for an instant. "For your sake, Father, I'd just as soon do this one alone."
McCarthy said, "And how's a priest to be a priest if he doesn't do the things he's supposed to?"
"There are matters even priests are best off not knowing, Father. Believe me."
"I'm going, Mr. Hellstrom."
"You won't like it. If you break, you might get in the way. It could be very, very dangerous for you, Father."
"Goes with the territory, Mr. Hellstrom."
"All right, then," said Hellstrom. Though he wasn't smiling, he seemed a bit more at peace with himself. "All right, Father. Perhaps the bit of business tonight won't be a lonely one. Tell me something of the problem as we're going there."
A middle-aged woman in a kerchief trundled up to them. "Beggin' your pardon, Father, but is it the warehouse you'd be going to?"
McCarthy said, "It is, madam."
She rummaged in her purse and drew forth a crucifix. "I was thinkin' ya might need one of these," she said. "Just in case you'd possibly lost or forgotten one on the way."
He smiled, tiredly. "Thank you, daughter, but I've an ample supply of these. We must be going."
Her gaze shifted to Hellstrom. "Then perhaps you might have need of one, sir. Let me give ya one."
Hellstrom looked uneasy. "Thank you, ma'am, but we're a bit busy right now. It might be better off in your hands. You never know when you might need the protection."
"Pooh," she said, and pressed the crucifix into Hellstrom's hand. "Take this. God help ye both. And goodbye. I'm leavin' town." She quickly walked off down the way.
McCarthy looked at Hellstrom looking curiously at the figure of the crucified Christ in metal. Hellstrom put it in his coat pocket.
"Let's go," he said.
*****
"This is the way of it," said the priest. "The warehouse we're walkin' to, it's a converted one. Not in the sense of faith, but it's now a pub and a theatre. Both at once, you understand. Liam Griggs, who owns it, is a local boy. He went off to school, studied the theatre, came back with friends, were of a mind to do it in the city. Not that there isn't competition."
Hellstrom smiled, walking beside him. "In a city with the literary tradition of Dublin, Father, I'd be disappointed if there wasn't any."
McCarthy almost smiled himself. The beggar's a bit human, he thought, though he wasn't certain of the percentage. "They would serve drinks and they would present plays, on a stage they'd constructed themselves, with some help from the relations' money. New one every six weeks to a month. Some was straight down the line, some of it the awfullest avant-garde crap one could imagine. Going by my tastes, you understand."
"Yes, your letter and what reports I've read said the situation arose from a play. What was it?"
"It was Macbeth."
Hellstrom looked at him.
McCarthy went on, "Here's what I can piece together. You know the superstitions associated with the play, because of the characters of the witches and the rituals they use?"
"I've heard somewhat of it," said the American. "Not a lot, but I'm given to think that sometimes, it's just referred by players to as 'the Scottish play', rather than by its title, because of mishaps surrounding some performances."
"Just so," said McCarthy. "I'm not one to put a load of stock in that, because there's been a lot of productions with a lot more evil in them, including God forbid I should mention the name of that movie with the turns-her-head-around girl. And not much has happened in those cases, that I know of. Except parishioners who come to me in the booth and wish to God they'd never seen the things."
"So what about this production?" asked Hellstrom.
McCarthy stopped. They were a block away from the warehouse, and the police barriers. He was going to have to tell the man before they got there, and it would take some little time.
"Well, in this production, one of the crew, the director, one Peter Sheyne, was reportedly het upon doin' the thing up proper. In modern dress, with modern accoutrements, and everything real except cuttin' the people to ribbons in the swordfights. Even then, they were using blood bags and fake guts, from what I hear. Not a thing I'd want to be sitting in front of.
"At any rate, Mr. Sheyne decides he wants to have real witches in the parts of the three ladies. So he sets out to find some, and even here, you'd be surprised how many of such you could find said to be practicin' the Craft."
"No, I wouldn't," said Hellstrom. "Though little of it is practiced very effectively."
"And we may thank God again for that. Now, not many of the witch-girls, or alleged witch-girls, were quite what he wanted. Some couldn't act, others were as homely as the back door of an unpainted barn. One did work, and he cast her as one of the ladies. So they did the thing with the cauldron, the 'Double, double, toil and trouble', and most of the rehearsers seemed to think it was coming off all right. But not our Mr. Sheyne."
Hellstrom didn't say anything.
"First, he modifies the script a bit, to have them do some incantations beforehand. In addition to the ones Shakespeare wrote, you understand. And the girls did them, and most of the cast thought they were perfect. Again, not Mr. Sheyne. He's onto the witchy one, saying, 'Isn't there something more you can do? Something to truly chill the shite out of the guts of the back row boys?' She says to 'im, 'Not without you doin' somethin' like sacrificing a dog. And wouldn't the police be slappin' a cruelty-to-animals charge on us for that?' He had to admit, she had a point.
"But he says, 'Is there anything darker you can use? Something more wicked, perhaps, than what you've ever used before?'
"From what the barkeep told me, she took a while before replying. She said, 'Mr. Sheyne, I'm not sure for what you're lookin'. But for me to look for such a thing would cost decent money.' And she named a figure, which made the others gasp, 'cause they're a shoestring company.
"He was appearin' shocked himself, Mr. Hellstrom. But he took her into the back office, and they weren't seen for awhile. When they came back, he said, 'The other two girls can carry on. Millie here will be back in a bit.' So they continued, and Miss Millie left, and wasn't back till the next day."
"What did she bring back?"
"A sheet of parchment, so I'm told, which was laminated betwixt two sheets of sticky plastic and covered up in a great black bag," said McCarthy. "I wish I'd known of this beforehand. I've no knowledge of this specific book, but I would have done my best to keep them away from such stuff. They're damnably foolish to trifle with such stuff. There is stuff to be feared more than death, Mr. Hellstrom."
"I know," he said, quietly. "Did the barkeep tell you what book the page was from?"
"I believe he said it was something like the Dark Hole. Does that make any sense?"
Hellstrom's eyes widened a bit. McCarthy estimated that he had scored a palpable hit with that name.
"The Darkhold," said Hellstrom. "How did this Millie woman get it?"
"It's said, she got it by giving herself to the holder," said McCarthy, grimly. "And it was only a loan, at that."
"And they performed a ritual from that, in rehearsal?"
"They did."
"Something happened, as a result."
"It did."
Hellstrom said, "I assume you attempted an exorcism."
"I did, yes," said McCarthy. "But, ah, you wouldn't believe it, but in my twenty-plus years in this job, it was my first. It was partially effective. But there was so much of it, sir...such a great mass of it...it was like trying to scoop the sand from the beach with a pail and shovel."
"Is it expanding?"
"It is attempting to, I believe. So far, it has been confined within the warehouse. Dennis the barkeep and his man Charlie will show us to it. Are you prepared for it, Mr. Hellstrom?"
Daimon Hellstrom looked at the ground a moment, then at McCarthy. "I have to be, Father."
McCarthy nodded. "So do I. Perhaps two of us, with God's help, may work where one of us faltered."
"One more thing, Father."
McCarthy waited.
"There's another name that's adhered to me, over the years," said Hellstrom. "Under normal circumstances, you have nothing to fear from me. I will attempt to maintain control at all times, in this operation. However. If I should warn you to leave my presence, do so. Believe me. This is one rule I must insist on."
"What is your other name, Mr. Hellstrom?"
The American looked at the priest with a touch of sadness.
"They call me the Son of Satan," he said. "And the title, I assure you, is not metaphoric. Let's go."
*****
The two men standing outside the warehouse pub, under the FIRST STAGE sign, noticed the father and the stranger speaking to a couple of cops at the barricades. "Think it's them?" said Charlie. "You think it's them, Dennis?"
"One's the Father, so it'd have to be, wouldn't you say?"
The two newcomers approached them. One was a Yank, by the looks of him. Dennis hoped he wasn't too weak for Irish ghosts.
"Dennis, Charles, this is Mr. Hellstrom, from America," said the priest.
Dennis shook hands with them both. Charles didn't attempt to shake hands at all. "You are the Yank ghostbuster?" said Dennis, evenly.
"Usually, I don't deal in ghosts," said Hellstrom. "Can you let us in?"
The barkeep produced a key from his pocket. "Leave the key in the lock," he warned. "If you need out, bang the door and yell."
Hellstrom said, "I'll be coming out when it's done, I think. Father, remember, I can work alone just as easily."
"No, you can't, Mr. Hellstrom," he said. "And I never work alone."
"Neither does whoever's in there," said Hellstrom. He went to the door. Father McCarthy followed him. He noticed that the father was muttering prayers, and was glad.
He also noted, as he fitted the key to the lock, that a crucifix was suspended from the doorknob on a chain.
Hellstrom unlocked the door. He went in, and McCarthy came after him. The priest shut the door behind them.
They looked into the dimness.
A great mass of something was visible. And, Hellstrom presumed, they were visible to it.
This was confirmed several seconds later.
The great mass addressed him by name.
II
DAIMON...HELLSTROM, it said. DAIMON HELLSTROM.
It was...
It was a great mass of something. Part of that was flesh. Part of that was bone and blood. Part of it was something, well, something different. It was large enough to fill almost one entire end of the room, and the 32 members of the cast were part of it now. Plus some stagehands and a director and maybe even a hapless member of the audience or two. Or three.
But it was partly pink and partly purplish, the colors shifting, the surface pulsating, and there were eyes in it to be sure, but they opened and closed and shifted from one part of the mass's body to another, as if they travelled within it. There were also mouths and holes through which it took air, nostrils. It was breathing.
The two men thought they could see a foot beneath it, every now and then, and a hand would manifest itself from the mass, gesture or writhe, and fade back inside it.
Even a stray sexual organ or anus appeared, now and then, and vanished back within itself.
What happened to the people's brains?, thought the Father. What happened to their souls?
He was trembling and wetting his dry mouth with a laboring tongue and didn't really care who knew it, and he clutched the valise with the Host and holy water in it and hoped--no, prayed to God--that this and what faith he had would be sufficient.
And that Mr. Hellstrom would be worth the price of the plane ticket.
He looked at Hellstrom, and was glad to have the chance to look away from what they faced.
Hellstrom looked a bit more grim, but was in control of himself. "Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?" he said, calmly.
I AM...WE ARE...SERVANT...SERVANTS, the thing said to them.
"Call them legion, for they are many," paraphrased the priest, and he did not smile as he said it.
WE ARE NOT THAT, said the mass, seeming to bulge a bit towards them and, he could almost swear, flatulating a bit. WE ARE...INCOR...
"Incorporator?" said Hellstrom, standing his ground.
YES. WE ARE THAT, said the mass. THANK YOU.
"You know this thing," said McCarthy, as a statement.
"I know of it," confirmed Hellstrom. "Tell me what happened when you attempted exorcism before."
The mass answered for him. THAT ONE TRIED HURTING US. WITH WATER. WITH SUBSTANCE. BANISHED PART OF US. OTHERS CAME. IN THEIR STEAD. WE WILL STAY.
Daimon Hellstrom nodded, slightly. "You're a gateway being," he said. "A multiple entity. When part of you is banished, others take the place of the exiled."
YOU UNDERSTAND, it said. WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN, IN THUNDER, LIGHTNING, OR IN RAIN?
McCarthy's jaw dropped. "Shakespeare. It's quoting Shakespeare. Macbeth."
The American replied, "When the hurlyburly's done. When the battle's lost and won."
Then he did a queer thing.
The man raised both of his arms in the air, and bent his pinkies and thumbs together till they touched, and pointed the three remaining fingers of both hands in the air.
Before McCarthy's eyes, fire of a sort beyond any earthly source sprang from below Hellstrom's feet. It was green and it was yellow and it was red and it was blue and it had all colors known to man and a few perhaps man could not perceive. Hellstrom stood there, his arms upraised like a Yank making a particularly strange victory sign, like someone who didn't quite know how to make Mr. Churchill's V-for-victory sign quite properly, and was quite enveloped in the flame. It reached past his head and reached past his upthrust fingers and reached as far as the ceiling and perhaps beyond that.
For a second's time, McCarthy was sure the man had been destroyed.
And in the next second, the fire whisked down to the floor like a fireman sliding down a pole and was gone.
Hellstrom stood there. But he had undergone a change. And Father McCarthy did not like it.
He was bare-chested now, and on the chest was a horrendous birthmark, a sorcerous star within a circle. A great golden belt was buckled about his waist, and he wore skin-tight red pants and yellow boots with flared tops. Two gold metal wristbands were on his arms, and a long red cape with a flared collar, held about his neck by a gold chain.
And in his hand he held a gold metal trident, which reminded Father McCarthy, as he suspected it was intended to, of those old comic drawings that showed the Devil with a pitchfork. For a moment he even thought of a diapered devil who wielded a similar trifle that had appeared in a Casper comic he read when he was a boy.
"You are--"
"The Son of Satan," said Hellstrom. "Yes." Even the timbre of his voice was changed. Even the color of his eyes seemed to fluctuate, as if a bit of red was trying to force its way into the irises.
"Jesus help us," said the priest, and then said it louder. "Jesus Christ help us."
The mass seemed to shrink back a bit, then surged forth again.
WE WILL EAT YOU, it said. ALIVE.
It began rolling towards them.
Hellstrom sprinted forward and met its charge. His hands held the trident before him, pointed straight at the thing.
From its points burst forth a triple-stream of fire, which was like unto the flame that had enveloped Hellstrom and changed him mere moments ago. It struck the mass squarely, and a horrible roar of rage and pain came up from the being.
McCarthy was certain he heard people screaming along with it. More than one person's voice.
He unlatched the valise and took one of the vials of holy water and held it before him.
"Dear Lord," he said. "Blessed Mother."
Then he began to run forward as well.
The great mass was hurting, but it was curving its bulk around Hellstrom. He was spraying the fire from his trident against it, moving it in a circle, trying to keep it away from him. To a certain extent, he was successful. But there was a lot of the mass, and only so much Hellstrom. McCarthy saw the bulk, like a great inflatable wall, balooning around him, closing over the top of him, and perhaps oozing under his feet as well.
The mass was joining around him, its two edges at that point coming together and the seam between them beginning to disappear.
He uncorked the vial of holy water and threw it at the joining line.
The mass screamed. YOU, it said. YOU SOULLING. YOU PAIN US ANEW. WE WILL EAT YOU. DIGEST YOU. MAKE YOU ONE. OF BODY.
He uncorked another vial and threw it at the joining-place. Another roar of pain. The joining was sagging apart, and looking a bit soggier.
The thing shot out an impossibly long arm, with an unbelievable amount of joints and a hand with a very large span of fingers. It grabbed his outstretched arm before he could take a third vial from the valise. Another arm grasped his other wrist. A third arm grabbed him around the waist. All the way around the waist, like a curling python.
A fourth arm grabbed his mouth.
The priest's eyes were wide with terror and wordless mental prayers to God went up from his brain.
The thing was drawing him towards it rapidly, and it had manifested a mouth...
Then a phosphorescent burst of flame pierced through the edges of the joining, and it burst apart along the seam.
The trident's points worked their way through the seam and up and down it, flinging parts of meat off like rotted hamburger. Then two hands were visible, straining at the seam of joining, like Milo the Greek wrestler trying to pull a split tree trunk apart with his bare hands in the old Roman legend.
The roar that Father McCarthy heard next was not from the mass. It was from the man within, who tore the thing-seam asunder and surged forth from it.
Daimon Hellstrom. Still carrying the trident, clasped under his armpit. Daimon Hellstrom. Whose irises were unmistakably red, whose canine teeth were long and pointed, like a vampire's.
They had not been like that before. Not even when he first changed.
Hellstrom stood forth from the thing and took his trident in hand again. He looked wet, as if a tremendous garden slug had given him a good going-over. He took his weapon, held it before him, and sent a blast of fire--of hellfire, McCarthy guessed--at the improvised limbs of the creature holding him. The arms of the monster withered, burned, died, fell away. He opened his mouth and breathed in again, breathed out again, looked at his hand and saw the valise in it.
The Son of Satan grabbed McCarthy's arm with more than human strength. "Come," he yelled.
"Come where?" McCarthy asked, wildly.
The mass was shifting. It rolled along one wall, shifting its bulk like an obscene amoeba (a concept which challenged even the priest's consciousness), until it blocked the front of the room, and the doorway, from them with its outermost edge. McCarthy looked, and saw that its other extremity was barring the back door from them.
There was a stairway. It led to an office on the second floor, which was the warehouse's highest. "Up there," said Hellstrom. His voice sounded harsher, more resonant, deeper. Altogether, more frightening.
But the priest didn't question him.
They made the stairs and got up them a second before the great mass covered that section of floor.
Then they made it inside the office and slammed the door, and locked it.
The mass waited, bulking itself about the bottom of the wooden stairs.
It drew upon the knowledge of those it had assimilated, and spoke to the two above it.
AND, LIKE A RAT WITHOUT A TAIL, it said, I'LL DO, I'LL DO, AND I'LL DO.
III
The mayor of Dublin didn't know what the hell was going on inside that damned warehouse, but he was going to have to do something about it quickly if he didn't want the whole government and maybe even the ruddy Queen on his back. Some of the damned Yankee news organizations had caught wind of it now, and they were setting up shop in the various hotels and staking their territories just outside of the barricades.
As if they didn't get enough of that when the idiots were throwing their bombs and shooting each other over religion. Maybe, for once, something of this sort would bring them together.
Certainly, it would. Long enough for each side to point a finger at the other and accuse each other of creating the mess in the first place.
Well, whatever that mess was in there, he wasn't sure that some parish priest and Yank spookbuster were the way to deal with it. He wasn't taught to deal with crises in that way. If the problem was material, whatever it was, it could be shot, it could be blasted, it could be killed.
He had a SWAT team ready to move in. Eighteen good men and true, with their shields and clubs and guns and a few grenades for good measure, which he had authorized.
The men had also insisted on wearing crucifixes, and he had authorized that as well. In this mess, he assumed that a hand from Above was definitely in order, if it could be arranged.
The mayor was going to give those two another hour to get done what they needed to do. If they hadn't done anything by the end of that, then his men were going to do it for them.
He hoped they'd both be in decent shape after the deed was done. The mayor didn't give a damn about the Yank, but he'd met the priest, and McCarthy was a decent sort. But the newsies might not like it if the Yank got killed.
Anyway, it was a great chance for a photo-op. The mayor smiled, despite himself.
Send the boys in, clean this thing up, get on camera with the good news, and go home and watch himself on the cable news. The worldwide cable news.
Watch the opposition bastards squirm during the next election.
The mayor filled his pipe, lit it, and puffed it a bit. He smiled widely, and looked at the clock on the wall.
Fifty minutes to go.
IV
The two men sat in the smallish office of the pub manager beneath a Navy Rum calendar with a bikini-clad girl on it and an air conditioner that still worked. Hellstrom had taken the swivel chair at the smallish desk with the light on it. Father McCarthy had sat in a metal folding chair, panting, then got up and went to the window in which there was no air conditioning unit. He looked out at what he could see of the Dublin night.
"You can get out that way, you know," said Hellstrom. "Nobody would blame you if you did. Least of all, me."
McCarthy drew in a long breath. "Mr. Hellstrom," he said, "don't tempt me. God knows, I'm tempting myself enough already."
"You're a very brave man, Father."
"I'm a man who's about to shite his drawers, Mr. Hellstrom."
Hellstrom smiled slightly. "Many brave men have done so. Doesn't stop them. They just change their underwear afterward."
The priest snorted. "Christ forgive me, Hellstrom. What are you?"
The American leaned back in the seat, putting the soles of his gold boots against the edge of the desk. His trident was propped beside him, against the wall. "You didn't believe me the first time I told you. Did you?"
"The Son of Satan? Am I supposed to believe that?"
"You believe in another Son," said Hellstrom. "So do I, as a matter of fact."
McCarthy turned on him. "What are you supposed to be, Mr. Hellstrom? The Anti--"
"No," Hellstrom said, cutting him off a bit too quickly. "I don't believe so, at any rate. Nor, Father, am I quite certain about my father's identity. I am not certain he is the Devil spoken of in the Bible. But...he is sufficient."
"If he's the cause of that thing below us, I'd say he's sufficient. Sufficient as he--" He stopped himself. Then he looked at the man with the circled star on his chest. "I ask again, Mr. Hellstrom: what are you?"
The man with the trident considered his answer, then spoke, not looking at the other.
"Until my 13th year, I was the all-American boy," he said. "I had a mother named Victoria and a sister named Tanna and a father named Stanley. At least, that was the name he used around us. He sold insurance. Made a decent living. Served with Mother on the P.T.A. I played touch football with the gang, read anything I could get my hands on, especially Robert Heinlein. And no, I didn't go to horror movies. My father didn't want me to. You can laugh if you want, Father."
"I'm not laughing," said McCarthy. "What happened then?"
"In my thirteenth year my mother saw something my father and my sister were doing and it drove her mad. My father vanished and my sister and I were sent to separate orphanages. Mine was run by the Church and I became quite affected by the ritual and dogma. Yes, I was a believer. But not a serious one until then. I resolved to study for the priesthood, got good grades, and went to college on a scholarship."
"What about the mark on your chest?" said the priest, quietly. "Can't believe you never went around without taking off your shirt."
"It's a birthmark," he said. "The schools made me wear a T-shirt, even to swim. They said someday I should have something done about it, have it removed or skin grafted over it or something. But it wasn't hurting me, as far as I knew. Some kids liked to razz me about it at P.E. during the shower. I had to bloody a few noses, got my own broken a few times, but they accepted me. They accepted me," he repeated.
"What about the fork? What about the changing?" The father wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answers.
"All part of the reason why I left my study for the priesthood," said Hellstrom. "I don't like to talk about it. You're just as well off not hearing of it. Suffice it to say, Father, my faith, as a result, is not set by what I believe. It's set by what I know."
He looked at McCarthy dead on, and the priest wondered, numbly, what he could learn from this man if they both made it through this thing in any shape to talk. Or if he would dare learn it.
"You say you know something about that thing down there," suggested the priest.
Hellstrom took his feet off the desk and set them against the floor. "Incorporator is as good a name for it as anything. It's basically an entity which holds many separate entities, as kind of a conglomerate. A bunch in a bag, so to speak. Its mass is formed to a great deal from the matter of the people it has assimilated."
"Eaten?"
"In a sense. It's kind of a physical merging. It will shortly go after more food. More people. Once it reaches a certain point, it will divide, like an amoeba, and whatever number of Incorporators that result will go their merry ways, in search of more food."
"More food," said McCarthy. "Which is to say, more people."
"Exactly."
"With more things in the bag, following it."
"Exactly."
"Can it be stopped?"
Hellstrom said, "Physical force would have some effect. But there is a non-physical component to it, of course. Blast it apart, I'm not certain that the fragments wouldn't go on their own ways and be about their business. Send men against it, it'll chew them up like hamburgers."
The priest sat down in the chair again. "What was this thing designed to do?"
Hellstrom said, "It's kind of a troop carrier. If the army within it manages to prevail, doesn't meet an effective counterforce, it takes more and more territory. In the end, all could be conquered. It's probable it could be stopped or resisted before then. But it's only one weapon."
"I don't care to ask about the others."
"Good idea. Part of its purpose, I think, is to discover whether or not the territory can be taken. If its mission is successful...other forces will be brought to bear."
McCarthy didn't say anything.
Hellstrom said, "Why did you become a priest, Father?"
"As part of a duty I made to God back in school days," said McCarthy. "To reel out whole masses of Latin and perform weddings and preach funerals and, when I had to, to hand out a box of spiritual Band-Aids. I did not, I assure you, take the cloth with the intention of accompanying bare-chested boyos in red pants with pitchforks into battle 'gainst...whatever the hell that is." He smiled. "But it's like any other job. They don't tell you about everything, 'fore you're in it."
Hellstrom smiled. His eyes were not quite so red. "No, they don't, Father. About any job."
The priest shook his head. "We've got to do something, Mr. Hellstrom. Either that, or get out of the way and let that thing have its way with my town. And I don't want to do that."
"You are a brave man, Father McCarthy," said Hellstrom. "God help you, you are."
"And you." McCarthy said. "Hellstrom, you know something? Before this, there was always a trap door in my faith. A part of it which said, 'If this doesn't turn out to be right, or even has a small margin for error in it, it's not so bad. It may not be anything like you think, even if you must preach it that way.' Now...well, the trap door's closed. I don't have the option of not believing, even if I wished. It's frightening, in a way. I know the span of our mind is blessedly unable to comprehend all that is out there. But in another way, it's a comfort, and a justification, to know that, well, Someone is out there." He smiled. "And perhaps I've told you more trade secrets than I should."
"It's all right, Father," said Hellstrom. "Yes, Someone is out there. But something else--" He gestured with his trident. "--is out there."
McCarthy said, "So what the hell are we doing up here?"
Hellstrom looked at him again.
"Indeed," he said.
He got up and went to the door, trident in hand. McCarthy followed, holding his valise.
If the trap door's closed for me, it's closed for You as well, he thought. This time...we must perform.
Hellstrom unlocked the door and prodded it open with his trident.
The mass was halfway up the stairs. "Slow," said Hellstrom, and let fire fly from his fork.
It blasted the thing, which withdrew, step by step, until it was away from the steps. But not far away from them.
WE WILL HAVE YOU, HELLSTROM, it said. WE ARE HUNGRY.
"Come and get it," said Hellstrom, and started down the stairs.
*****
The special squad was assembled and, after a bit of checking in with the officer in charge at the scene, was allowed inside the barricades. Eighteen of them, and none of the crowd seemed to disapprove of the things which they had hung about their necks. Some of them were even Protestants, but had raised no objection.
"Really think there's something in there?" said Callahan, a 22-year-old not long in the group.
"Oh, aye, somethin's in there," answered Brown, a sergeant with 15 years on the lad. "They don't put all this shite up outside if there isn't somethin' in there. As ta what it is, Cal, you're askin' the wrong 'un."
A third man, Flannery, said, "I'm not sure what it is we're s'posed to be doin'. They've let out that it might be a hostage situation, but won't tell us who's the hostagin'. All o' this on account'a some play?"
"Macbeth, I think," said Callahan, glad he could add information to the mix. "They tell me it was Macbeth."
"If somethin' like this had ta happen, let's be glad it happened during a damn English play." Brown laughed, and Callahan felt himself obliged to laugh a bit in sympathy. "If an Irishman's play had to be interrupted because of a hostage takin', that'd be quite a different thing."
"They're sayin' it ain't IRA, nor anythin' in that line," Callahan said. "What the hell's in a play that makes someone want to take over a buildin'?"
Flannery shrugged. "Well, there's people. That means people available for hostages. Maybe it's one of those Spanish terrorists what likes ta make speeches 'n' such. Frustrated actor, more like."
"Think he's talkin' 'em to death in there?" said Callahan.
"You two, shut it," said Brown. "Ain't no damn terrorists in there. They sent in a priest and a Yank in some specialty. Whatever it is, it ain't no asshole with some fookin' Russian gun. 'S different from that."
Callahan paused, and then said, "Well, Sarge, then...what do y'think it is inside there?"
Brown took his time answering. "I'm not in a position to know, lad. But my advice is, if it's movin', and it don't have no priest collar nor uniform on, shoot the damn thing."
"Even if it's the Yank?"
"Especially if it's the Yank!"
*****
Hellstrom and the priest advanced on the mass. It stayed enough out of reach of the trident, but it was elongating itself around them. As they moved away from the stairs, McCarthy saw the mass uniting behind them.
"It's all around us," he said.
Hellstrom nodded. He sent a blast of fire from the prongs of his weapon. It left a burned spot on the surface of the thing. It screamed, or seemed to. McCarthy took a wafer of Host, said, "In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost," and threw it at the spot Hellstrom had seared.
A hole opened up, widely, and let the wafer fall through. The thing was getting smarter. It reformed itself once the Host was past. The presence of the wafer at that range might still weaken it, McCarthy thought, but there was so much of it. So damnably much.
Hellstrom sprayed the mass again, swinging the trident in an arc, directing it upward when a section of it came over and threatened to plop onto their heads. It was keeping the being back. But that was all.
McCarthy clutched another vial of holy water. Besides this, he had only five more. He had a feeling he could direct a whole hoseful on this thing, and it might not be enough. For every one that was cast out of it, there was another, and another, and another.
He prayed for understanding, but didn't know that he had any.
The Son of Satan directed a circle of fire about their feet and formed a temporary barrier. He raised the trident above his head with both hands.
"I cast thee up among the ashes and wastes of mortal bodies, unless thou dost depart at once from thy human host."
A scream was heard from the mass. McCarthy's head swiveled in its direction.
He could have sworn, later, he saw something escaping from it. Something a bit black, and perhaps translucent. But it was there and gone faster than a breath, and the seeing of it was more subliminal than not. Which, perhaps, was a blessing.
"I cast thee up," said Hellstrom, to another part of the mass. Another scream went up.
But the mass didn't seem to be losing bulk. Indeed, its definition was growing. McCarthy uttered another prayer, threw a vial of holy water. It hit the mass, sizzled, pained the thing. It yowled and shot out an arm towards him. He lurched backwards. Hellstrom wheeled, blasted the arm with the fire of his trident. It withdrew.
"I cast thee up," said Hellstrom, and another scream was heard.
YOU CAN DO THIS ALL NIGHT, HELLSTROM, said the mass. YOU CAN DO THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR PITABLE EPHEMERAL LIFE, AND ANOTHER WILL STEP INTO THE HOLE THAT HAS BEEN CREATED. GIVE UP, AND LET US EAT YOU.
"No," said Hellstrom. "I cast thee up." Another scream, but still no lessening of the mass.
McCarthy took another vial from the valise. His hand was sweating. It was true that he was fearful. So would any man be, if he faced what the priest faced at that moment.
Another mouth formed. It was large and toothy and meant to scare him. He felt like smashing the vial into its maw and smashing it again and again with the valise. Which would do about as much good as pissing on a house afire.
"God, give me the way," prayed McCarthy.
LET US EAT YOU, said the mass. YOU WILL LIVE INSIDE US. GIVE UP. WE ARE HUNGRY. OTHERS WAIT WITHOUT. OTHERS TO FEED US. GIVE UP AND LET US EAT.
"Others?" Hellstrom looked at the priest.
McCarthy looked back at him. "The idiots. They must be about to send in cops. Just more food for this!"
MORE FOOD, agreed the mass. GOOD FOOD.
"Ah, God," breathed McCarthy. "Tell me I'm not destined in this life just to be some beastie's haggis!"
"What did you say?"
McCarthy said, "I was talking to God. Do you mind?"
"No, about the haggis. That's stuffed stomach or something, isn't it?"
"This is a hell of a time to discuss culinary matters, Hellstrom!"
"No," said Hellstrom. "No, I think it might be just the time. If I don't come out...follow me."
"I'm coming with you, whatever you do," said McCarthy.
Hellstrom made for the mass, running directly at it. His trident was pointed upward, and was not directed towards the thing he faced.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, McCarthy fell into step right beside him.
The mass opened a great maw, not bothering to show a lot of teeth. Mostly it seemed tongue and gullet. That seemed fine, for the moment.
The two men jumped within it.
******
"It's time, meboys," said Brown a second after they heard the whistle. They picked up their shields with the eyeslit portions and readied their weapons. Then the eighteen men began their march. It was not a long march, true, just a couple of blocks in length.
Still, most of them felt, for some reason or another, as queasy as if they were facing a Russian tank squadron.
The crucifixes bounced up and down on their chests and were one of the few reassuring things about the night. There were altogether too many rubberneckers outside the barricades for anyone's liking. Even if something from Hell burst up from the First Stage Pub, there were a whole lot of people who wanted to be able to say to the rest of the office the next morning that they'd seen it with their own eyes.
Callahan stepped in time with the rest and thought about his father, who had been a soldier, telling of going into battle singing something to keep his mind off what he was about to do and keep him going forward. He ran through a mental jukebox and thought something from U2 would be right and proper. He liked Lynyrd Skynyrd's old stuff best of all, but it wouldn't do to have your last song be an American tune.
"But I still...haven't found...what I'm lookin' for," he sang, softly.
"Oh, you'll find it, a'right," snapped Brown, beside him. "More likely, it'll find you. Now shut it, Callahan!"
The eighteen men marched on.
****
There was nothing but fear and pressure and darkness.
That was what Father McCarthy felt. The walls of the thing within. They were closing about him. He knew that he would not be able to breathe much longer, and yet, perhaps, he would not have to. There were sections of wetness and tissue beginning to encircle him. He could feel that. He was becoming more and more immobile.
An orifice of some sort was coming down over his head. It swallowed him up to his neck. He could feel it.
His mass was rapidly becoming part of its mass.
Somewhere, he sensed the existences of about forty other persons. He felt them. They, he presumed, felt him. There was no communication possible, other than the feeling of their realities, somewhere within the midst of this obscene thing.
He heard sounds. Then something was going into his ears. Something wet and burrowing.
He wanted to scream. He didn't dare open his mouth.
Something was at his eyes, trying to prise open the lids.
Something was in his nostrils.
He flailed with his fingers, and the fingers of one hand were being covered by tissue. It wasn't quite immobilizing that hand, but it would not be long.
He was being fed oxygen, or at least did not think he needed to breathe of his own volition. My own volition, he thought. Dear God, I wont have any volition before long.
But there was still one thing which remained to be done. Using what remained of his strength, and advantaging him of what little space he had, he wrenched his free hand over to what felt like--yes, there it was--the valise. The valise he had carried with him.
He could not speak to utter a prayer of exorcism. His prayers would be mental. If Hellstrom wasn't able to coordinate his efforts with him, he didn't know if any of it would work.
But that, of course, meant Hellstrom was depending on him, too. So he bit down on the thing within his mouth.
It bit him back. It hurt quite a bit. He opened his mouth for a scream, and the thing went fardown inside of him.
While it was doing that, he fumbled the latch at the valise, opened it, and, with the hand that held it, shook it as much as he could. There was little purchase for shaking. But he did what he could, through the pain, through the...burrowing...through the sucking and invading and whatever this idiot thing was doing.
He felt something falling from the valise. Then another thing, and another.
They felt as though they landed on his right foot. He strove, raised his left foot, and brought it down.
Glass broke.
Pain.
Not in his foot, but from the thing within him, transmitted to him. The pain was blinding, astonishing, as though someone had dunked his head in carbolic acid while sticking his hands in two separate beehives. If this is what they feel, he thought, no wonder they don't like it.
There was a strange tone, just barely perceptible, which he heard or felt through his bones. Something foreign to the mass. Something from outside...yet inside.
There was also something else, different from the tone. A burning sensation. Burning and blackening and cleansing.
Hellstrom at work, guessed the priest. But...probably something else.
Someone else. Perhaps.
The burrowing things forgot to burrow.
The thing snaking into his guts retracted like a fisherman's line when it hasn't hooked anything.
He wasn't sure whose pain he felt, or how much it was his. But he knew that, whatever it was, it had to be kicking this thing right where it hurts.
There was a sensation and a perception of white force, one which the priest was unable to deny or understand.
There was also an explosion directed away from himself, and a wet thing, suddenly dry, retracting from his head and body.
He didn't open his eyes.
The pressure about his body rapidly lessened and what felt like dry, dusty substance fell away from him. (What about Hellstrom?) There was less and less support about his body. (What about the people?)
At the end of it, it left him standing at a rather precarious angle, and he took a pratfall.
The priest yelped. Instinctively, he opened his eyes.
There were about 40 or so people around, lying about, on the stage, in front of the bar, by the door, even a couple piled on top of each other on the stairs. They all looked tired and scared, and the priest assumed that he did, too.
Then there was Hellstrom. He only looked tired. Very tired. But he was still holding that damned trident thing of his. It seemed to have a glow of power, but that, too, was fading. He looked in Father McCarthy's direction and smiled.
McCarthy nodded, closed his eyes, and fainted.
The broken vials of holy water and the scattered wafers of host lie near the opened valise, at his feet.
There was brown dusty crap all over the floor and the people, and the squad who burst in were quick to notice that.
They also noticed the man without a shirt, wearing the red pants and carrying a big gold fork.
"Who the 'kinhell is that?" said Flannery, pointing at him.
"Don't know," said Callahan. "Could be an actor, or maybe the Yank."
"Got ta be the Yank," said Brown, moving in, gun at the ready. "Nobody Irish'd be dumbshite enough to dress like that on a day what wasn't Halloween."
*****
The Father was insistent on being alone with Hellstrom for the hour in which they awaited the plane's arrival to take him back to America.
"Miss Milly was all about the place this week, Daimon," grinned McCarthy. "She wanted to bring up all her books and accoutrements and such of witching, and I said, 'Don't bring those things in here, Milly, just burn 'em.' So she did, and she's been to confession nearly every day since. I think we've worked our way through most of the big stuff now. She's down to telling me how she slept with directors to get beyond walk-ons now."
Hellstrom chuckled, and McCarthy was glad the man could do that. "The Darkhold page, of course, has been burned. I saw to that."
"What about the man who held it?" asked McCarthy.
"Oh," said Daimon, "I found him and showed him the error of his ways. I think he'll be visiting a priest before too much longer."
McCarthy considered it. "Daimon," he said. "You didn't..."
"I'd rather not say did or didn't, Father," said Daimon. "Let's just say that he doesn't want to go the same way as the Darkhold page now."
"Just so," said the priest. "And the players are gettin' over it, can't hardly remember what they went through, God be praised. Mayor got his time on TV, the pub may do better businesss once the clientele come slinkin' back in, for curiousness and beer."
"And Shakespeare."
"That, too. But I'm told that it'll be awhile before they do Macbeth. And when they do, they'll stick to the original lines."
Hellstrom laughed.
"Now, then," said McCarthy. Is there something I can be doing in the way for you? We've not a great load of time before the plane gets here. But if there's a big bit of confession you've on you, we might just hit the high points."
Hellstrom considered it.
"No," he said, finally. "What I've done, I've confessed to God. My father also knows what I've done. The rest is best known to as few people as possible. Though, if it makes you feel any better, Father, you'd be the first priest I'd confess it to, if I did."
McCarthy smiled. "Daimon, tell me something. What did the fathers and nuns in that orphanage do when they saw that birthmark on your chest?"
"Well, actually, they put a bunch of holy water on it, and some Host, and when I didn't burn up, and they determined it wasn't a tattoo, they said they'd do their best for me if I'd do my best for them, and for the Lord. So we went on from there."
"And from here, where do you go on to?"
"I've got a house in Fire Lake, and a book to get back to. That is, if someone else doesn't give me a call."
"You do a lot of this sort of thing?"
Hellstrom said, "A lot more than I wish I had to. A lot more than a man should ever have to."
Finally, McCarthy said, "Daimon, it's this one last thing I'm asking. There was two powers involved in that last thing. One, from my side, the other from yours. Two powers, with quite different sources. How could that be?"
The American said, "There are certain powers which have been entrusted to me, Father, to use at my discretion. They're like a birthright, in a way. I use them the way I see fit...but they have a price. Maybe you should think of it as Russia and America fighting the Nazis. That's a terrible analogy, but the only one which springs to mind. Will that do?"
"It'll do for the time being," said McCarthy. "I think I'll go back to the spiritual band-aids for awhile. But, Daimon, I'm thinking that might not be enough."
"Oh?"
"Yes, it might not. I've a few books that've been burning within me of late, which I haven't seemed to take the time to put pen to. I believe that's going to change. Father Greeley, watch out! I'm comin' after ya."
"I think he can stand the competition."
"I'm also thinkin' about the hierarchy," he said. "Perhaps, in time, there'd be a place for me elsewhere in the church. Sorry if I seem too damned ambitious, Daimon, but...well, comin' through that, it just makes me realize so much more that I'm alive. And that there's only a bit more time left to be alive in, so that what must be done, must be done quickly. Am I makin' sense?"
"As much sense as I've heard from anyone since I got here."
McCarthy said, "I didn't know what to make of you when they pointed me in your direction. I thought I was a fool for asking and getting permission to summon you. But, all things considered, Daimon...I'm quite glad I did. Your hand, sir."
Daimon gave it, and the priest shook it.
McCarthy glanced out the window at a shape in the sky. "That might just be yours, son."
"I believe it is, Father," said Hellstrom. "You take care."
"I'm tempted to say, 'May you be in Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead,'" said McCarthy. "Instead, I think I'll just say God protect, Daimon. Will that do?"
Hellstrom stood, and took his folded coat and suitcase with him. "If it doesn't, Father...I don't know what will. Goodbye, and good luck."
McCarthy walked him to the entranceway after they called for passengers and waved to him as he walked down the passage.
Then he turned and began walking back through the airport. On the way, a man stopped him. "Excuse me, Father, are you in a bit of a hurry?"
"I am, sir," he said. "What's your problem?"
"I'm about to board, sir, in an hour. I'm in a bit of worry about it. Is it possible to do a confession?"
"Does it have anything to do with strange books, weirdling monsters, or Shakespearean plays about Scotsmen?"
"Why, no, Father." The man looked confused. "Just about alcohol, tobacco, and, well, perhaps a lustful thought or two, I mean, I am human, and..."
"Go ye, and sin no more, and God bless," said McCarthy. "And I'll see you when you get back, my son."
The priest walked on unhurriedly to the taxi stand.
****
Daimon Hellstrom is property of Marvel Comics. No money is being made from this story, no infringement is intended.
This one's for Father Ned Byrne, and Steve Gerber, neither of whom will probably read it.
DarkMark
6 / 14 / 99