Chapter 6

After their fall, Satan organized his realm, ordering his demons as his Creator had commanded. He did God's bidding, tempting and corrupting the souls of mankind down through the ages, beginning right at the beginning with Eve. The Great Serpent brought forbidden knowledge into the world along with all the sins he'd once created in heaven, and soon he added murder to the list when Cain slew his brother Abel. Thereafter other sins were devised, based in the delights of the flesh of which he'd known nothing while in heaven. Satan reveled in his mission, debasing all who came to worship him and destroying many more who did not.

Despite his success in ruling his realm, Satan was ever displeased, for deep inside he knew that all he did had been foreseen and commanded by God. Even after being damned, the ex-Seraph was doing his Creator's bidding as he always had. He knew the inarguable truth that he had never been his Creator's equal, and more than ever, he resented his servitude. That resentment poisoned his spirit, turning it ever darker and feeding his malice. Great wars and pestilences and suffering he brought upon the earth, gleefully afflicting mankind, but nothing satisfied his unquenchable compulsion to spread pain, for nothing could assuage his jealousy of his Creator. It left him mean-spirited, even over petty concerns.

Immediately following the fall from heaven, Satan had gathered and examined his host. When he discerned the residual love between the ex-Hashmalim and the ex-Tarshishim, he resolved to thwart any expression of it, for being derived from their old existance in God's heaven, it had no place in his hell. Love turned his stomach, but worse, it caused him to fear lest it spread to infect his demons. He wanted them to be resentful of what they'd lost, not depressed with longing for their prior state of grace. So even in those first days he thwarted their search for each other.

Thereafter he contrived to separate the demons they'd become, and down the long span of ages, though they sought each other, never did they meet. Satan ordered these two demons into different places and forced upon them different duties, yet even he marked that someday they would indeed be reunited. Here again he perceived God's meddling in his kingdom of hell. The demon that had been the Hashmalim became a cruel tormentor and was assigned to exacerbating conflict and war. She was a scale-clad form with claws of burnished iron, but still gazed upon the world with blue eyes. The demon that had once been the Tarshishim, though she now promoted mental instability and unreasoning fear, persisted in retaining the green eyes that had once beheld the cosmos and the light of heaven. It irritated the Devil no end. His own eyes, which had once shone like bright lamps filled with the Holy Light, were now as black and dead as coal.

Through millennium after millennium the two demons separately roamed the earth. Having martialed and managed many angelic spirits in God's name while in heaven, the damned Hashmalim found it easy to sway the souls of mortals. Sometimes she tempted them to dreams of conquest, playing adversary against adversary to generate woeful conflict. At other times she prompted greed and lust for power to bring oppression and eventual wars of liberation. She even resorted to the possession of bodies, giving rise to mad dictators, insane despots, and mindless tyrants. It was all the same to her. Yet wherever she went, into whatever country or realm, she always searched for some sign of her beloved, hoping to recognize the influence of the damned Tarshishim.

The demon who had once been a Tarshishim was charged with overthrowing the minds of mortals, conquering them with fear and insanity, and striking down the righteous with madness. Having directed the flow of cosmic energy in heaven, she now directed the flow of mental energy on the physical plane. She provided thoughts of despair, inspired depression and hopelessness, and spread unwarranted suspicion among leaders and commoners alike. At times she too possessed the bodies of the living, driving them to madness. Many had heard her voice in their head, suggesting acts of recklessness or depravity. She did her job. Yet as she moved through the world she sought for her beloved, hoping to recognize by her actions, the spirit of the demon she'd become. In many places she found that events had been shaped by hands that could have been the ex-Hashmalim's, but many demons promoted conflict and war. She was never sure.

One enduring trait that both spirits shared was the unending commitment to seek each other out. One enduring faith both clung to was the belief in each other's love. Despite 10,000 years of failure, neither gave up, for being immortal, there was always another day and another chance. And to both, faith came as second nature. So even on earth and in the pits of hell, a flicker of heaven's divine love persisted. The Devil hated it, but God saw and thought it good.

"For even into the den of iniquity shall I send a ray of light, as even into the hearts of men shall I send the Holy Spirit. And the faithful shall find their redemption in My Name." The thwarted but enduring love of two demons had given proof to his plan.

Chapter 7

"Don't just stand there, little girl, the doctor's waiting."

Gaaaah! Kerry bolted upright in her chair, while icy fingers clutched her heart as it beat like a hummingbird's wings. The wildly pumping muscle had practically leapt up her esophagus and now she swallowed convulsively to resettle it in her chest.

She was shaking and she blinked to help reorient herself. The low, slanting rays of late afternoon sunlight were spilling across her desk from the window on the opposite side of the office that she shared with another intern. A glance toward the door showed a wall clock taunting her with 5:23pm. Last time she'd looked it had been just before 5:15.

"I must've dozed off," Kerry muttered to herself after she caught her breath. "I need coffee and I need it now," she decided as she got up from her desk.

Dr. Walsh hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before. At home, Sharon had been preoccupied with the show's first day, the review, and the early sales. She'd babbled on about it through dinner and into the evening. Later, after a distracted session of lovemaking, she'd fallen into a sated sleep, leaving Kerry lying restless in bed. She'd been upset, but her reticence had kept her from broaching the topic with her lover, and so she'd been left to face it alone. The patient's words had come back to haunt her in the stillness, and the dark wasn't her friend. After 45 minutes of gingerly tossing and turning she'd gotten up and padded into the studio. Soft music and a glass of wine hadn't helped. They'd left her in a suspended state of fatigued sleeplessness that went on and on as memories of the nurse had prodded her back to wakefulness every time she'd started to drift off. By the time she'd finally fallen into an uncomfortable snooze in a chair, only four hours had remained before her radio alarm clock would wake her with a blaring news program. That had happened all to soon. Kerry did not do sleep deprivation well.

Out in the hall sat the vending machine that dispensed the dark, bitter, caffeinated fluid that passed for coffee at the hospital. Making it palatable required at least three packets of sugar, and when the blast of sucrose wore off, the fall in blood sugar levels felt almost like the approach of a diabetic coma. Artificial sweeteners were just plain icky. Standing in front of the machine searching her pockets for change, Kerry was overtaken with dissatisfaction.

"This isn't good or good for me and I'm not so drowsy that I won't know the difference."

Her hands ceased their search for coins and she stood looking indecisively at the machine. More than anything she wished for a real cup of coffee…coffee like the priest brewed in his spacious, comfortable office. Without thinking about it her feet began to move her down the hall towards the rear of the building.

Kerry stood outside the heavy wooden door for a moment before knocking. Well, he said I'd be welcome to come by, she thought, a little self-conscious for dropping in on such a senior practitioner just to beg a cup of coffee. And after all, he only has one patient, she rationalized. She knocked again. For a few more minutes she waited but no one answered. Oh well, I guess he's not in, she decided.

"Dr. Walsh, what are you doing down there?" Dr. McKenzie's voice startled her and made her flinch. He was looking at her with curiosity from the juncture of the hall.

"Dr. McKenzie," she managed to reply, "I was just coming to visit Father Merrik."

"In the old custodian's office?" Her superior asked in surprise. "It's been empty for years. It's a storage space. What would Father Merrik be doing in there?"

For a moment, Kerry regarded him in amazement. How could he not know that the priest had set the room up as a very pleasant office?

"Uh, Dr. McKenzie…I met with him here yesterday. He's been using it as an office. He said he knew it was unoccupied and had asked for it…to be out of the way."

The senior clinician gave her a quizzical glance, then looked carefully at the door. He strode over and gave the knob a twist. When it didn't budge, he drew out a ring of keys and chose a master. After pushing it into the lock, he turned the knob and opened the door. Kerry looked past him as he swung the door open wide.

The space was just as she remembered it. Beside her, Dr. McKenzie gawked.

"Amazing," he muttered, moving into the room a few paces. He stared at the couch and chair, the pedestal with its potted fern, and the heavy, old-fashioned desk. Sunlight washed the space, lending the office an antique atmosphere. "I had no idea. In a dozen years I've never set foot in here before."

Dr. McKenzie walked over to Father Merrik's desk. His eyes swept the carved rack with its lone meerschaum pipe. No humidor or ashtray accompanied it. He looked at the alcove with its coffeepot and refrigerator. He took in the pair of doors, coat-closet and restroom.

Kerry had followed him in and joined him where he stood in front of Father Merrik's desk. She noticed the simple black telephone, unlike the multiline version on her own desk, the worn blotter, and a couple of old books, one of which was lying open. Her eyes roved over a page and were drawn to the heading in the top margin above the text; The Holy Rite for the Exorcism of Unclean Spirits and the Return to Grace of the Soul.

"Incredible," Dr. McKenzie whispered behind her, taking in the wainscoting and the large oriental style rug. She tore her eyes from the book and turned to face him.

"Father Merrik said he'd worked here a long time ago and had remembered this place from then. When he came back, the administration let him use it. I guess he wanted to create a less visible presence at the hospital. He's really kind of a special case, with just one patient and no other duties, isn't he, Dr. McKenzie?"

Dr. McKenzie was staring at Kerry again. With effort he contained his surprise and digested what the young intern had told him. It was more than he knew about the old priest himself. All he could do was nod in agreement.

"Yes, he is a special case, Dr. Walsh. To be honest, I don't know much about him. In fact, I haven't really even gotten an opportunity to speak with him yet, except very briefly when he first arrived." Dr. McKenzie shook his head. "So he's worked here at this hospital before?"

"If I remember it right, he said that was in the early 70s," Kerry answered.

"I was barely out of med. school then," Dr. McKenzie said, "I wonder how long he was here and what his duties were?" He chuckled. "He must have left on good terms for the administration to hand him the key to this place now. By hospital standards it's palatial."

"It suits him," Kerry said seriously. "It's comfortable, unpretentious, and charming, and it doesn't feel like part of a large hospital. It's kind of like an oasis."

"And a bit like a step back in time," Dr. McKenzie said, looking appreciatively at the furnishings, "that looks like an authentic analyst's couch from the 20s, and the potted fern over there could be from the turn of the century. It almost makes me wish I'd been around when things were simpler." He had a warm, relaxed smile on his face, an expression Kerry had never seen before. In the next moment, he appraised his own emotional state. "It is an oasis," he marveled, "for constant emotional rejuvenation. I could learn from this man. Maybe I'll get a plant for my office."

He moved towards the door, gesturing for Kerry to proceed him back out into the hall. Before they left he locked the room. Then the intercom paged him for some of the endless business of the hospital and he hastened back toward the wards, the hint of a smile still shaping his lips. Father Merrik's oasis ended at the door like a broken spell. You get yourself a nice plant, Kerry thought, and I'm going to bring in my own coffeepot.

On the way back to her office Kerry resigned herself to a cup of machine brewed swill. Then the intercom came to life again. With startling urgency, it was summoning hospital security to the R Wing. An emergency. Kerry immediately stopped under a speaker and listened. Somehow she knew beyond any doubt that Father Merrik's new patient was involved. It was just a gut feeling, but it rang with a visceral certainty. Without thinking she began walking quickly toward the main stairs.

Two flights up she came through the stairwell doors and into the outer hallway leading to the R Wing. The guard station and the barred security gate lay directly ahead. Just a few feet on her side of the gate, half-a-dozen security guards were standing in a circle around a pair of frantically working emergency medical technicians. At the center of the assemblage lay an unconscious figure on a low, wheeled stretcher. The patient was partially covered with green surgical drapes. A few of the psychiatric staffers stood in a loose gaggle along the wall watching the drama. Kerry saw that they seemed to be cringing away from the activity despite their fascination with it.

Kerry made her way over to them and shot a resident she knew a questioning glance.

"What happened, Arnie?" She asked.

"Don't really know," the doctor told her, "looks like a guard was assaulted."

Kerry looked more closely at the body on the stretcher and realized that it was Raymond, the afternoon shift guard for the R Wing. She recognized him by sight, but since she always came through on the morning rounds, she didn't really know him. He looked like he'd been severely battered.

"Could you tell how badly he was hurt?"

She noted that the man wasn't moving. Her eyes tracked back along a smeared trail of blood that led from the stretcher. Past the action, far down the hall on the other side of the locked gate, she saw a baton lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Raymond had been bleeding fast.

"They already had him on the stretcher before I got here," Arnie told her, "but it must be bad since they haven't moved him yet. I guess they'll stabilize him first."

At that moment there was a collective groan from the group surrounding the stretcher and an EMT drew a green surgical drape over the stricken guard's face. Kerry could see the shock expressed in the slumping postures of those nearby. The EMTs got to their feet, one of them shaking her head. The guards stepped back and some turned away. One took a few steps and pounded his fist against the wall.

"Or not," Arnie muttered.

At that moment Dr. McKenzie and an administrator in a business suit came through the doorway from the stairwell. They were hurrying, breathing heavily as if they'd run up the stairs from the administration offices on the ground level, three floors below. Dr. McKenzie quickly swept his gaze over his staffers and then turned his attention to the EMTs and the victim. The administrator hadn't focused on anything but the body.

"What happened here?" The man asked abruptly. He looked from one medical technician to the other.

"Call for emergency medical assistance came in and we arrived as two guards were bringing the injured guard out of the restricted wing," the male EMT answered. "He was already unconscious. We assessed him and tried to control the bleeding. We got most of the external hemorrhaging stopped but there was massive trauma to his head and probably internal thoracic damage as well."

The man nodded and turned to the guards. "Who brought him out?"

Two of the guards stepped forward, one with assurance, the other a bit more hesitantly. The first guard spoke, nodding at the other.

"Bill was on the second floor and arrived a few seconds before I did, but he was unlocking the security gate and we went into R Wing together. Raymond was alone in the hallway, just sinking to his knees before he keeled over and lost consciousness. I radioed for the medics. He looked bad but we decided to move him out of the R Wing and we brought him outside the gate. The EMTs and the other security guards were arriving then, almost at the same time."

The administrator nodded to him, digesting the concise report. Moving an injured man wasn't an ideal action, but if there'd been an assailant then no one living had been present to see whom it was or where they'd gone. He could understand the guards wanting to move their colleague away from any potential further threats.

"Sir," the second guard began, "when I first came through the doors from the stairwell I could have sworn I heard Ray yelling, 'Get off me, get off me', but by the time I got to the gate he was already falling. At no time did I see anyone else in there with him."

The other guards looked at him in surprise. Everyone had been too preoccupied with the emergency to have heard anything about this, and even the other guard who'd only arrived seconds later hadn't heard anything. The administrator nodded, looked down the hall, and then looked back at the body lying on the stretcher. He stood still, pondering the chain of events. Finally he posed a question.

"Are all the patients secured?"

The guards looked at each other. One of them shrugged. The guard who'd spoken first thought for a moment and then answered for the group.

"None of the doors were ajar and they lock automatically when they close. It's all mechanical so no electrical system malfunction could have affected that. I'm certain that no one's entered or left since we got here."

The second guard, who'd actually been first on the scene added, "The gate was secured when I got here. Raymond would have been locked in with whoever assaulted him, but he was alone. I know that doesn't make sense, but short of flying out a window, this gate is the only way in or out, and I didn't pass anyone on the stairs coming up."

The administrator strode over to the stairwell, pushed open the door, and looked at the roof access ladder that was bolted to the wall. He came back just as quickly, giving the guard a pointed look.

"The hatch for roof access is released by a crash bar that sets off the alarm system," the guard told him, anticipating his question. "We would have heard a very loud fire alarm go off if anyone had opened the hatch."

"But since the incident, no one's visually confirmed that the patients are accounted for," the man stated, going back to his earlier question. He looked around the circle of guards. "That is, no one's been through the gate since the incident?"

"That's correct," the first guard admitted.

"Check them," the administrator ordered. He turned to Dr. McKenzie. "Doctor, would you mind accompanying the guards just to check on the patients. You might notice if there's been some change…something medical the guards aren't trained to recognize."

Dr. McKenzie nodded and moved to join a pair of guards who were opening the lock. As they moved into R Wing, the administrator looked at the rest of the people who were present and asked if anyone else had anything to add. No one had anything to say.

The administrator was doing damage control. He was searching, hoping to find a clue to help explain why an employee had died violently a few minutes before. Raymond was a union member and probably had family. The administrator wanted to protect the hospital from any potential liability by creating as cut and dried a report as possible before the police arrived. If their investigation resulted in an unfavorable or unresolved situation, then there could be trouble. Mysteries led to speculation, which often led to litigation. There always seemed to be a lawyer lurking nearby who'd try to convince a jury that negligence had been a factor, that the death had been wrongful, and that the hospital was liable for damages. It was so predictable that he knew the script by heart. He sighed and shook his head. If a maniac were to blame then things would be easier.

Kerry Walsh watched Dr. McKenzie and the two guards make their way down one side of the hallway and up the other. At every door a guard gave the knob a tug, assuring them that it was locked fast. Dr. McKenzie looked in through the small, reinforced glass windows and nodded to the guards that the patient was present and that nothing seemed amiss. They tiptoed past the puddle of blood and the abandoned baton, careful not to disturb what was really a crime scene with physical evidence. When they finally started back to the gate, they'd confirmed the presence and status of every patient in the R Wing.

After passing back out through the gate, Dr. McKenzie met with the administrator and told him that the patients were secure.

"Whoever attacked the guard wasn't a patient from the restricted wing," he reported. "None of the doors were open, no patients were missing, and none of them showed any signs of having been in a struggle. They weren't agitated and there was no sign of blood inside the rooms or on their clothing." The administrator nodded. The report was a mixed blessing. After a pause, Dr. McKenzie reassured him further. "Most of the patients probably weren't even aware that a man had lost his life nearby. Most of them were too heavily medicated and/or restrained."

The administrator shook his head and took a last look at the scene. "Page me when the police arrive to investigate," he ordered a guard. Then he walked out through the doors and back down the stairs.

Dr. McKenzie watched him go and then turned to his staffers. "Let's get back to the wards," he suggested simply, before following the administrator downstairs.

Next to Raymond's corpse, the EMTs were going over their paperwork. Kerry and the rest of the psychiatric staff trailed after Dr. McKenzie, leaving the guards to await the police. Just as they were going through the doors, a soul-petrifying scream came from the R Wing. Everyone's heads jerked up and they spun around to look back towards the disturbance. It had been the shriek of a man in utter terror. The guards leapt towards the gate, scrambling frantically to unlock the bars. Then a voice, muffled by padded walls but still clearly audible, cried out from one of the locked rooms.

"Oh God, let me out of here! I want my body back!" It was Raymond's voice. It stopped the guards in mid-motion.

And in the following silence a taunting, cold woman's voice answered his plea.

"Tell it to the priest, little boy."

Kerry and the others had already stopped dead in their tracks. Everyone was staring back down the hallway towards the R Wing in horrified disbelief. The guards had halted with the gate half-open, unsure of what to do. The EMTs were motionless. For a few moments everyone was frozen in a tableau of shock and indecision.

"Get in here, little girl. We're waiting for you!" Kerry heard, but no one else reacted.

Kerry's whole world spun up crazily on a blade's edge. The vertigo of anxiety struck her like a fist in the stomach. For a moment she wobbled unsteadily, her legs as solid as Jell-O, her feet miles away. She felt herself heave up the bitter, hours-old dregs of her lunch as a little girl's voice in her mind screamed. No! No! No! Don't wanna go in there! And then she felt herself falling, but thankfully everything went black before she landed. She'd never liked slamming down.

To Be Continued