Dark Debts (26 page)

“Doesn't take long in a room with it to make you a believer, does it?” Bob asked.

Michael shook his head. “I just—”

“What?”

“I know I believe something right now that I didn't believe when I woke up this morning. I just don't know
what
it is I believe.”

“Tell me what you're sure of.”

Michael waited a moment before he spoke. “There was
something
in that room.” He said it quietly, as if voicing it aloud would make things worse. He didn't even like admitting it to himself, but there was no way around it.

Bob nodded.

“It's in Danny,” Michael continued. “It can take him over.”

I can't believe it, and it makes no sense to me, but I saw it. I heard it. And besides . . .

Bob waited.

“Everything he said about me is true,” Michael said quietly. He hadn't known he was going to say it until it was out.

Are you crazy? You could have told him it was a lie and he would have believed you.

“Don't let it get to you,” Bob said. “That's what he wants.”

Michael stared at Bob, amazed.

“But . . .”

“No but. Beating yourself up right now isn't going to help Danny.”

Bob leaned forward, closer to Michael, unwilling to let him escape. “Tell me how I can help you,” he said, in a tone far gentler than anything Michael had heard from him yet.

Michael sighed. “Make it make sense,” he said.

Bob nodded, undaunted by what seemed, to Michael, an impossible request. He thought for a moment before he spoke.

“Obviously you believe in the concept of spirit,” he said. “You believe in God.”

“Yes.” That was the only thing he still felt sure of.

“So tell me. If you believe in a
benevolent
spirit, why do you have trouble believing in an
evil
spirit? There's just as much evidence in the universe to support its existence as there is to support the existence of God. The cynic in me thinks there's more.”

“I don't know,” Michael said, shaking his head. “I mean, I throw words around like everyone else: Satan, Lucifer, Christ casting out demons—but I've always thought of those words as symbols. Metaphors.”

Bob started to speak; Michael cut him off.

“Don't crank up your anti-Jesuit spiel. Historically, we've been as into the mystic as anyone else.”

“Historically, yeah. Have you looked at a copy of your own magazine lately? It's about as spiritual as an ACLU newsletter.”

“Spirituality takes on a lot of forms.”

“Yeah, well—when we go back in there tomorrow, try some aromatherapy on it and see how far you get.”

Michael didn't know where Bob thought he'd gotten with the
Roman Ritual
, but he let it go.

“All right, you tell me,” Michael said. “You really believe in the Devil?”

“I don't believe in a little red guy with horns and a pitchfork.”

“What, then?”

“I think it's all very complex, interwoven. I believe there's more than one level of evil. At least two that I'm sure of: the evil of man himself, and something larger. I think of it as capital-
E
Evil. I think it parallels the hierarchy of Heaven. God, saints, angels—Satan, demons, lesser demons—they are all beings. I know that. Whether there's any logic—any
human
logic—in it or not, my experience has reinforced that belief time and again. I don't know what form it all takes. I don't know what Satan looks like any more than I know what God looks like. What I
do
know is that when big-
E
Evil finds a doorway into the human realm and can communicate on a level we understand, it's not some vague, nebulous force. It's right there, in the room, in your face. It's individual. Personal. I swear to you, these things have
personalities
.”

He gave Michael a second to digest this, then continued.

“It's like most of life, Michael. You hit a point where it stops making sense, and there's no place left to look for answers.”

Michael thought about it. He had no argument for that.

“What did you believe before this morning?” Bob asked. “How did you think of evil?”

“I told you, it was all very abstract,” Michael said. “This . . . stuff . . . floating out there, like radioactivity. We could get off course and veer into it; it could corrupt our thinking, pull us farther out, like an undertow. We lose ourselves. We lose God.”

“And where did this
stuff
come from?”

Michael shrugged. “Original sin?”

Whatever that means . . .

“Maybe our wrongdoings create some universal cesspool of negative energy.”

“Like nuclear waste?”

Michael nodded.

“And why would an all-powerful and benevolent God let that happen?” Bob asked.

“If He gives us free will, He has no choice. There's no way life can be as wonderful as it is unless the ability to
destroy
life is as horrible as
it
is, and if we have free will, we're going to have that ability.”

“Natural disaster?”

“God's way of reminding us not to put our hearts and souls into material possessions,” Michael said. “Although I doubt He ever accomplishes much more than making people update their homeowners' policies.”

“So you had it all figured out. Now what?”

“You know what. Whatever was in that room today . . .” Michael shook his head. “It wasn't some cloud of New Age negative energy. It was . . .”

“What?”

“Old Age Hell,” Michael answered, shivering. He wrapped his arms around himself and wished for a stadium blanket. He was freezing.

Bob nodded. “We rational modern people don't like to think about anything we can't understand. Floods and famines and plagues. We think we can
explain
everything, and if we can't, it's because we haven't isolated the right gene just yet; but a little more money, a little more research . . .”

Bob stopped. He seemed to be waiting for Michael to speak, but Michael couldn't make his head stop spinning long enough. Bob went on.

“Now, what's a rational, modern Jesuit to do with the thought that when Jesus talked about demons, He
meant
demons?”

“I don't know,” Michael answered. “I don't know how to make myself suddenly believe things I don't believe.”

“You mean you don't know how to allow yourself to believe things you don't
like.
You can't deny what you saw and heard in that room today. You know what it was. Evil. Individual, personal, intelligent Evil.”

Michael put his face in his hands.
God, help me. I believe it. How can I believe it? What does it mean?

“The good news,” Bob said, “is that the minute you believe that, you become a lot safer. The best thing Satan has going for him is people's refusal to believe in him. You don't arm yourself against something you don't think is there.”

Michael looked at Bob. There was something in his eyes. A milder version of something that had been there all day. A vague uncertainty. No. More than that. What, then?

Fear?

A horror of a thought was creeping into the back of Michael's mind. “Safer?” he asked.

Bob nodded.

“But not
safe
?” It wasn't really a question. Michael could already see the answer in Bob's face.

“What are you telling me?” Michael asked. It took everything he had to speak at all. “When I walk into that room,
God
can't protect me?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't
know
?”

“People have died during exorcism.
Priests
have died.” He sighed. “I've known a few who may as well have. Others don't seem too much worse for wear. I don't know what makes the difference.”

“But you're okay.”

“So far. Though I wouldn't say I've been the same. No one can go one-on-one with that kind of Evil and come out of it unchanged. I feel it.”

“Feel what?”

Bob took a moment, then spoke softly. “It takes something out of you. I can't tell you what that's like. You'll find out soon enough.” Bob's voice was filled with pain.

“Why do it, then?” Michael asked.

Bob smiled sadly. “Back when you guys were ‘into the mystic,' you would have known the answer to that.”

“
What
would I have known?”

“It's all about who you work for,” Bob said, ignoring Michael's tone. “God or Satan. Good or Evil. If you love one, you have to hate the other. If you love one, you have to do battle with the other. It doesn't get any simpler than that.”

Michael didn't answer. Nothing felt simple to him right now.

B
ack in his room, Michael got undressed and set the alarm clock for five a.m. He wanted plenty of time to pray before leaving for Long Island. He was so tired he knew he wouldn't be able to focus for very long tonight.

He got into bed and pulled the blanket around him as if he were four years old and trying to protect himself from the under-the-bed monsters. He could see Danny's face as if it were still in front of him. Not the real face. The other one. The evil one. Contorted. Hideous. Utterly inhuman.

He turned off the light; the room was dark.

Dear God . . .

Dear God, what?

Dear God, why would You create something so vile?

If there really is a Devil, one of two things has to be true: (1) God is not all-powerful, or (2) God is not all-good.

The first thought was merely deeply disturbing. The second thought was too frightening to even go near. Not so much because it was blasphemous, but because it scared the ever-living hell out of him.

Dear God, please give me the—

His head was suddenly full of voices. He couldn't make out any words, but the din kept him from being able to hear his own thoughts. In his mind, he could still see Danny's face, and all the voices seemed to be coming from it. He tried to continue praying, but no words would come to his chaotic mind. He tried again.

Our Father—

More chatter. Louder. Voices. Laughter. He couldn't think. He couldn't remember the words. A line, then. Anything!

Deliver us from evil . . .

He could feel himself trembling. He pulled the blanket closer, but he knew it was useless.

Deliver us from evil . . .

He closed his eyes tightly, but it didn't make Danny's face go away.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL!

“Danny” started to laugh—a depraved cackle, rising above all the voices, so loud in Michael's head he couldn't believe he was doing it to himself. Then Danny stopped laughing and the sounds ended abruptly. Perfect silence. Then:

If He can . . .

Howling laughter.

IF HE CAN!

Rain had begun to fall; Michael could hear it on the fire escape outside his window. Thunder rumbled, somewhere far away.

For the rest of the night, the insane laughter rang in his head.

Michael picked Bob up at seven o'clock the next morning. The traffic wasn't overly miserable, and they made it to Plandome in an hour and fifteen minutes.

When he turned the car onto the Ingrams' street, Michael immediately stopped. The street was filled with police cars. The Ingrams' house was cordoned off by yellow tape and uniformed officers. Two ambulances were parked in front, but their lights were off and no one seemed to be in a hurry. There was a station wagon from the coroner's office.

Bob and Michael looked at each other. They knew.

It took them about five minutes to find an Irish cop who was happy to supply the details. Around five o'clock in the morning, Danny had taken a shotgun he'd stolen from a neighbor's house and shot his parents and brother while they slept. Neighbors had heard the shots and called the police. The Ingrams had been found in their beds, lying in pools of blood, all dead.

When the cops had arrived, Danny was sitting on the front porch, waiting, with a smile on his face. He laughed the whole time they were reading him his rights.

For Michael, the circus was only beginning. Danny's court-appointed attorneys found out about the Ingrams' belief that their son was possessed, and they decided it was as good a defense as they were going to come by. They contacted Bob and Michael, who both agreed to testify. They were both ill (not to mention furious) over what had happened, and they wanted to help any way they could. Bob could corroborate facts, but he wasn't going to be an impeccable witness. He'd performed too many exorcisms; the jury would figure he was obsessed with demons and saw them everywhere he looked. Michael, on the other hand, was a highly educated, levelheaded magazine editor who hadn't even believed in possession until Danny Ingram had made him a believer. He was the defense team's star witness.

When Danny's attorneys made their strategy known, the story became instant national news. The press launched into their feeding-frenzy mode, and Michael couldn't walk out the front door of the residence without tripping over reporters. He waved them off with “No comment” until he felt as if someone should be briefing him on foreign policy.

A week before the trial began, Michael received a call to meet with his provincial. Michael had expected it; he knew those on high would want him to be careful about the way he worded certain things. But he had not been expecting what happened. Frank Worland informed him that he was not to testify at the trial. He was to maintain complete confidentiality about the Church's involvement in the Danny Ingram affair. Michael couldn't believe what he was hearing.