Dougal was getting ready for bed.
It had been an odd evening; Mrs Doyle spent fifteen minutes pounding a steak until you could just about call it tender and then added a splash of juice from a tray of minced beef that she had bought a little more recently than last year. Even so, Father O'Dowd had proclaimed it 'delicious', just as he had proclaimed the dead spider coffee to be delicious. All that fuss he made about 'last moos' and everything. Perhaps vampire Satanists didn't have taste buds.
O'Dowd's mere presence in the room was enough to unsettle Dougal. But Mrs. Doyle let him stay up late to watch his Toy Story video and he felt a lot better now. Buzz and Woody always cheered him up. He glanced at Ted's empty bed as he pulled on his 'It's a Priest Thing You Wouldn't Understand' t-shirt and tucked it into his plaid pyjama bottoms.
He wondered where Ted was right now. He hoped his best friend wasn't enjoying himself so much that he'd never want to come home. Dougal wasn't the sharpest tool in the box but he knew that Ted had been restless and dissatisfied for a long time, and had pinned all his hopes on America. You couldn't have such a huge disappointment in life and get over it quickly. Ted would be away looking for thrills and excitement. He'd be going to funfairs and circuses and birthday parties and the Zoo and having all kinds of shenanigans. He'd be eating crisps like a mad eejit and watching sci fi movies and telling all his new friends how glad he was to be off Craggy Island because it was so boring and nothing ever happened.
Dougal pulled back the blankets and almost got into bed. At the last minute he changed his mind and sat down on the edge of Ted's bed. It was a different bed to the one Ted had before, because they'd had to buy all new furniture again. But it was in the same place, in the same room, and it felt the same, and even- Dougal pressed one of the pillows to his face, smelled the same. Like aftershave and pontifical incense. A bit like the inside of a church cupboard.
Suddenly Dougal felt sad, a sadness even Buzz Lightyear couldn't fix. He replaced the pillow and lay back on it, stretching himself out in a star shape to reach as many points of the bed as possible. Maybe the essence of Ted would soak into him and make him smart. Ted was smart all right- the smartest man Dougal knew. If only he were here now.
Of course if Ted were here now, then Father O'Dowd wouldn't be here at all. Dougal's mood changed. Now he was angry at Ted. He clenched his fists and pouted at the ceiling.
"This is all your fault Ted, you big fool!"
"Interesting. What, pray tell, is all Ted's fault?"
Dougal nearly lifted six inches off the bed. At first he thought he'd gone mad and was hearing voices. Then he realised O'Dowd was in the room and he hadn't even heard the man come in. His heart thudded, blood pounding in his ears. Immediately he scurried back to his own bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.
"Wh-why are you in m-me and T-Ted's room?" He fought hard to keep his voice steady, without much success.
O'Dowd advanced towards Dougal, who shrank back even further. The tall priest was wearing black satin pyjamas, the furthest from very very very very very very very dark blue that Dougal had ever seen. They shimmered like his hair. He was like a pool of oil slithering along, consuming everything in its path.
"I've decided not to sleep in the guest room after all. It is to be used for prayer only. I'm certainly not going to sleep in the same room as that snoring drunkard, Hackett, or downstairs with the hired help, even if she makes the finest steak I've ever eaten. No, I've decided I am going to sleep in here, with you." O'Dowd smiled wolfishly and pretended to yawn and stretch.
"Why me?" It came out like a desperate, high pitched squeak.
"Because I like you, McGuire. And I'd like to get to know you better."
Dougal's already wide eyes turned into saucers, the pale blue irises completely surrounded by white.
"I- I can tell you all about myself," he stammered. "It'll only take a minute. Then you can go back to your own room." He imagined O'Dowd hanging upside down from the rail inside the wardrobe like a bat.
O'Dowd pulled back the blanket on Ted's bed and slid between the sheets. The sheets didn't even rustle.
"Don't be modest, McGuire. You fascinate me. Your youth, your softness, your pale, almost translucent skin. Your innocence and naïveté... "
"What's nifety?"
O'Dowd's catlike eyes grew narrower. "Ni-eeveh-tee. It means lack of sophistication, experience, or worldliness. You are a newborn lamb, McGuire. Frolicking in the field without a care in the world."
"Oh, right," said Dougal. "Like the Lamb of God." He felt pleased making a religious reference because he normally wasn't bothered about stuff like that.
O'Dowd looked delighted. "Exactly like the Lamb of God," he purred in agreement. "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi. 'Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world'."
"Er.. Our Father who art in Heaven, Harold be thy name."
"Go on," said O'Dowd, expectantly.
Dougal's confusion returned- not that it had gone very far. "Ted usually helps me with the rest."
"This Ted sounds a wily fellow."
"Ah, he's grand." All of Dougal's conflicting feelings went away as he began to talk about Ted. "He's the best priest ever. In fact he loves being a priest so much that he never stops being one."
"Once a priest, always a priest," said O'Dowd with a cool smile. "You're a priest too, are you not?"
"Aye but I'm not as good as Ted. I tend to get things wrong, you know. They won't let me do funerals any more because of all the accidents and I always forget the words at Mass. It's weird, but- I don't feel God the same way as Ted."
"Interesting. Please elucidate." O'Dowd's eyes glittered in the lamp light. "Explain," he added, when Dougal's face went blank.
"Well, if God is supposed to be all mighty and all knowing and all seeing, then why doesn't He do more to help people? Like, if He saw someone drowning in a pond, would a big arm come down out of the sky and pull them out? Or if a bus full of old ladies drove off a cliff. Or if a big hole opened up and swallowed a children's hospital. Or if snakes got loose from the Zoo and started biting people all over the place, or a herd of elephants stampeded through a poor African village. Or if there was a terrible wind that blew away a load of houses or if a lorry turned over on the motorway and skidded into a line of cars and they all exploded and people ran around on fire screaming, "Help me Oh God help me.. " Would God even help? Or would He just sit there and wait for the fire brigade and the ambulances like everyone else?"
"Perhaps He would make it rain."
"Even if it was in the summer? In a drought? During a hosepipe ban? Without a cloud in the sky?"
"He made it rain for forty days and forty nights, didn't He?"
"Only because He wanted to kill everyone."
O'Dowd chuckled. "You do make God seem rather cruel."
"Is He not though? Smiting everyone and turning them into pillars of salt. You can't even look at another god because He gets mad jealous and storms off in a huff and you have to go and talk to Him or He sulks for weeks. It's like a full time job."
"Being a priest is a full time job."
Dougal folded his arms and scowled. "Achh. I wish I could have a nervous breakdown like Ted and go on holiday."
O'Dowd shook his head, his hair gleaming like raven's wings. "Now now, McGuire. You mustn't allow Ted's weaknesses to rub off on you. You're a fine young man and it's good to ask questions. There's nothing worse than blind faith- that's why I pray so often. I am constantly battling with the forces of good and evil. I can't let my guard down for a second."
"So- you believe in Heaven and Hell and Everlasting Life and all that b... Bible stuff?" Dougal stopped himself from saying 'bollocks' just in time.
"Of course I do. And so should you. Every single word in that Book is the gospel Truth. We may not agree with all of it, but we can't dispute it's veracity. The Lord is our Shepherd, and we are shepherds of our own little flocks- our congregations. Be a leader, McGuire. Not a follower. Be a wolf, not a sheep."
Dougal studied the man's lean face and sharp features. He looked even more like Dracula in the gloom. Dougal didn't want to go to sleep in case he fluttered over in the night and sank his fangs into Dougal's neck.
"I can see the wheels turning in your head," O'Dowd said with his odd smirk. "You're thinking, 'how do I change who I am'? But I'm not asking you to change. I'm asking you to be the man you were born to be."
No, I was thinking about you drinking all my blood and turning me into a vampire meself, thought Dougal. Although that might be pretty cool because then I could live forever. But then I couldn't go out in daylight. But I could turn into a bat and fly. But bats aren't all that great. And I'd have to drink blood. I'd have to bite poor Mrs. Doyle. And then Mrs. Doyle would be a vampire. And then we'd have to bite Jack, except his blood might taste like Toilet Duck which would be horrible.
O'Dowd raised his voice, snapping Dougal out of his meanderings.
"Are you listening to me, McGuire? I said, "I want you to pray with me tomorrow."
"Oh. Right. Before lunch or after? Only me and Ted don't normally get up before 11."
O'Dowd reached for the alarm clock and began to alter the settings. "All of that is about to change," he purred. "You and I are going to be up at 7. Breakfast at 7:30, and at 8 we shall commence our Day of Prayer. I am sure- no, I am certain, that you shall find it very enlightening."
Dougal's mouth fell open in protest. "Seven? Sure, God doesn't mind what time we get up as long as we're good for the rest of the day!"
O'Dowd placed the clock back on the night stand. "Don't whine. It's set for seven. And if you're not up, I will get you up. It's time for a bit of discipline in this house!"
The saturnine priest reached up inside the lampshade and clicked off the light. The bedroom was plunged into darkness save for a thin sliver of paler darkness at the window. Dougal pushed himself up against the wall and huddled into his blankets. He pulled a pillow over his head and shoulders and held it in place with his arm.
Woody, Buzz and Ted might not be here to save him, but no vampire priest was going to bite him in the neck if he could help it.