After a brief and restless night's sleep, he awoke to the sound of someone crying hysterically. Another voice chattered incessantly, rising and falling with the volume of the long, broken wails. A third voice was speaking urgently. "Goren? Goren, get up. Goren, wake up. Goren?"
He opened his eyes and swore softly, shielding his eyes with one hand against the bright light. His eyes watered and throbbed as he fumbled around with the covers, his fingers numb with sleep and lingering exhaustion. "What... Deakins?"
A face, fuzzy in his blurry vision, hovered above him. "He's awake..." The face drifted out of range, addressing a couple of low words to someone standing by, and then floated back over to him. "Goren, quickly, get dressed. We need to talk to you."
"Why's everybody here?" Goren mumbled, slowly lifting his head. Deakins was herding stray people out of the room and issuing brisk orders he couldn't quite make out. Shapes were beginning to take form, colours clearing in his mind, and he stared about the room as he slowly stood up.
The hotel room had been devastated. Destroyed. The curtains and bedsheets had been slashed to shreds, there were huge gashes in the thick carpeting, and all the windows and mirrors were shattered. Huge chunks of plaster and paint were gouged out of the walls. The bucket of ice in the bathroom had been split all over the floor; the pipes were twisted, bent, and gushing sprays of water.
The small nightstand beside his bed had been flipped upside down; the lamp lay crushed underfoot, a crackle of electricity snapping along the torn wires.
Goren swayed on his feet, white and soundless, then composed himself with what strength he had left. He paced carefully among the glittering array of broken glass and found his suitcase; it had been hurled halfway across the room and was wedged underneath the overturned desk.
His mind was gone--completely vanished. Nothing registered: no sound, no sight... no shock, no fear. He could neither think nor feel.
In this state, he barely noticed a slip, a sharp sting, and a red flower blossoming on the carpet. Before long, his swollen feet were soaked in blood, and he stared at them in a daze as he held his shoes in one hand.
"Goren, are you decent?" Deakins had reappeared and was standing in the door. "Holy--your feet!"
"My feet," Goren repeated numbly.
"Sit down, on the bed--right now! I'm calling an ambulance!" Deakins shoved him roughly onto the bed and hurried back out, shouting at the top of his lungs for a cell phone. Goren looked silently at the lamp, the window, the nightstand... and suddenly he knew.
He slid on his socks and shoes, shrugged into his jacket, and pocketed his wallet. He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. And while Deakins was talking with the hotel staff, calling the police squad, and waiting for the ambulance, Goren slipped out the back door and left.
"Bobby?"
Paul rose to his feet. He'd been sitting at a table, discussing politics and the latest Knicks game with a fellow university student, when out of nowhere Bobby had appeared. The detective was staring at him now with a gaze that was both intense and eerily vacant--as if he were concentrating very hard on seeing right through him.
When Bobby spoke, there was a low note in his voice that Paul had never heard before. "Paul. You said I had a poltergeist in my apartment."
"Uh...well..." Bewildered, Paul could only shake his head. "Yeah... um... that's what it sounded like..."
"A poltergeist?" The other student--a small, vivacious brunette with sparkling brown eyes--burst out laughing. "A ghost? Come on, Paul, you on some kind of--"
Bobby silenced them both. "How do I get rid of it?"
"Get rid of it?" Paul blinked at him, baffled.
"Get rid of it. Make it go away. Make it leave." Bobby drew closer, and Paul backed away slightly, casting about frantically for an answer amid his rising fear.
"I don't know, I... go see a priest, I think."
"A priest?"
"Yeah, they perform exorcisms and stuff... yeah, they'll be able to do something." Paul felt confidence slowly drain back into him, stood up straighter. The brunette was giving them both wide-eyed stares.
Bobby regarded him in silence, for a moment longer. Then the haunted, glaring look left his eyes, and Paul saw the lines of fatigue and terror etched across his face as it crumpled. He turned away from them and walked back up the street, his stride slow and unsteady.
"Who was that?" the student asked in a hushed tone.
Father John Devougne of the Catholic Church was a quiet man--the deliberate kind, not the shy and tremulous kind--calm, composed, and careful. He lived a quiet life with his wife and grown children, performing his religious duties, ministering to a small and closely-knit congregation of elderly people. He visited hospitals, tended his garden, played golf in his spare time. Nothing about him was strange or unpredictable.
He was lighting the candles on the altar, murmuring a blessing as each new golden flame was born. They gave off a soft glow, a warm and soothing light that filled his soul with peace. This was one of his favourite chores before the service--a simple task, but well worth the small effort.
Done all too soon, he bowed to the cross and descended the steps; it was then that he saw the man standing in the aisle.
Father John's surprise grew as he approached the silent, unmoving stranger. The man looked rakish and haggard, his eyes wild and his clothes creased with several wrinkles. "Welcome," he said aloud in his even voice. "I don't think I've seen you here before."
"You haven't." The man's voice was soft and husky. "I don't normally go here. I need your help--I have two favours to ask of you."
"All you have to do is ask." Father John fiddled with his long sleeves and waited.
The stranger sat down in a pew and unfolded his story, a strange and chilling tale that made the priest shiver as he heard it. He had heard of these things happening before, but never before had he been confronted like this. As the man spoke, the light in the church seemed to dim slightly.
"I understand," said Father John softly when he had finished. "I know what to do. Follow me to the altar, please."
The stranger rose stiffly and they made their way up the steps. The candles flickered wildly as the unknown man knelt and Father John gathered up his things, and a small breeze whistled piercingly in the rafters. It was very cold in the church all of a sudden.
The ritual invocations were intoned quietly, without fanfare; the visitor was blessed, purified of his sins, given the holy rites. All the while, Father John could not stop sudden chills running up and down his spine-- involuntary, spastic fits of shuddering that deeply alarmed him. He gritted his teeth, ignored it, and quickly finished the last prayers.
There was a long silence when he was done. The stranger tilted his head upwards to stare at him with eyes full of longing and fear, lit by the pale sunlight falling through the windows. "Is it done?" he murmured.
"Yes," affirmed Father John, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder, "it's over. You have nothing to worry about now." And as if on cue, the iciness that had spread throughout the church dissipated, leaving a relaxing and cheerful warmth behind.
The man breathed easier--so did Father John--and they both got up. The stranger reached out to clasp the old priest's hands in both of his. "Thank you, Father," he said, his voice suddenly broken and rough.
"It was nothing," the priest assured him, a wide smile on his face. "You said you had two favours to ask of me?"
Alexandra Eames breathed a sigh of relief as she trundled through the crowds, dragging her bags behind her. At last, fresh air and a steady ground beneath her feet. The flight home had been cramped and uncomfortable, an attack of turbulence jostling everyone into queasy sickness in the last hour. She had lost count of the number of people who threw up all over themselves or rushed to the bathroom, only to trip into the aisle and retch there.
The clusters of people were thinning out, and the double doors ahead were swinging open. A short taxi ride, and then home--and, after far too long a trip, Bobby. Her smile grew wider and cracked into a grin as she hurried towards the exit.
Her cell phone rung, the shrill sound muffled amid her luggage. She rummaged around for it and whisked it out. "Eames here."
"Eames?" It was Deakins' voice, and his anger and anxiety were snapping sharply across the static. "Where are you?"
She wrinkled her brow in confusion, stopping in her tracks. "The airport, sir, I just arrived in New York. Is anything wrong?"
Deakins took a deep breath. "It's Goren. He's missing. He left the hotel today, and we can't find him--"
"Bobby's missing?" Eames blurted out before she stopped to think. Then, when Deakins didn't answer, "What do you mean, the hotel?"
"It's a long and really weird story. Get over to the Hotel Metropolitan on Lexington Avenue as soon as you can."
One more chapter to go... almost done *g*