Demon Moon (Prof Croft Book 1) (13 page)

He left the door open a crack behind me, allowing a slipstream of fresh air into the monastic space.

“I’m well,” I replied. “Busy. Teaching at Midtown College and now consulting for the NYPD.” I intentionally left out that I was doing the second to get six months whacked off my probation—all in the hopes of saving the first. I didn’t need to share the wizarding bit, either.

Father Vick moved a pile of prayer books from the seat of a wooden armchair and gestured for me to sit.

“So you’re back in the city?” He placed the books on a small desk beneath his lone window and beside what appeared to be a draped handkerchief, then turned his desk chair so he could face me.

I nodded a little uneasily, sensing the question in his raised eyebrows.

“Well, I hope you know you’re always welcome back at St. Martin’s,” he said.

I was pretty sure the threshold would beg to differ, as well as higher-ups in the denomination who hadn’t much cared for my published thesis on the
First Saints
manuscript.

“That means a lot,” I said. “Thank you.”

He studied me for a moment, hand on his cinnamon beard, before breaking into a pleasant chuckle. “I remember when you were in my beginning Sunday school class. You couldn’t have been more than five or six. The biblical stories fascinated you, but you never liked to hear about anyone getting hurt.” He chuckled again. “At the time, I thought, ‘Now here’s someone destined for the ministry.’ I sense, though, that you help people in other ways?”

“I do my best,” I said noncommittally.

His pale blue eyes studied me again until I felt my body wanting to shift.

“Before we get to your questions,” he said, “is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

As a shadow exorcist, he could perceive a person’s light/dark conflicts—a skill honed through faith and enhanced by the ley energy that coursed up through the cathedral’s foundation. By the subtle shift in his tone, I could tell Father Vick had seen something in me. Whether it had to do with my magical bloodline or my darker Thelonious nature, I couldn’t say.

“Thank you, Father, but I’m not here for myself.”

“Very well,” Father Vick said. He set his clasped hands on his lap to signal he was ready to begin.

“Would you mind going over what happened the, uh—” I fumbled for my pocket notebook. “—the night of Father Richard’s murder, leading up to the discovery of his body the next morning?”

“Following Wednesday night’s Mass, the four of us who live here—the groundskeeper, an acolyte in residence, Father Richard, and myself—we had a late dinner and then retired to our rooms, around ten. Father Richard must have gotten up at some point to go to the sacristy.”

“Would that be unusual?” I patted my pockets for something to write with.

Father Vick handed me a ballpoint pen from his desk. “No, he would often spend time there when he couldn’t sleep. An hour or so organizing the cupboards, polishing the chalices, preparing for the next day’s service.”

“Did everyone know about this?”

“Those of us here, yes. Though maybe not the acolyte. Malachi has only been with us for a couple of months. I don’t know if Father Richard’s habit was ever mentioned in his presence. In any case, nothing was heard that night. The next morning, Cyrus, our groundskeeper, found him…” Father Vick frowned severely as though to prevent tears from forming in his eyes. “Found him on the floor. Just as you probably saw him the other day.”

I gave the moment its solemn due before continuing. “Is the cathedral locked at night?”

Father Vick composed himself, then nodded. “It’s Cyrus’s duty to secure all of the doors and windows, and he’s very regimental about it. Our locks are security grade, reinforced by the power of the church. No one’s ever broken in, and there were no signs anyone had.”

“Was everything locked the next morning, as well?”

“Yes. Cyrus checked.”

I finished writing, then tapped the pen against my chin. That seemed to rule out someone slipping in with the day crowd, hiding until he could take care of the rector, and then stealing back out. But it didn’t rule out lock picking.

“In the last few weeks, did you notice anyone watching the church, staking it out, anything like that?”

“I stay so busy, Everson. I can’t say that I did.”

He seemed to be apologizing for his lapse in vigilance, which sent a fresh wave of guilt through me. Here I was, posing as a police investigator, interrogating my bereaved former youth minister, all so I might keep my day job. Despite what I’d told Father Vick earlier, I
was
here for myself.

“Had the rector received any recent threats?”

“Several from the White Hand in Chinatown. The church’s commitment to human rights had been butting up against their business interests. The police are supposed to be pursuing that angle.”

I nodded. Maybe I’d leave that one to Detective Vega. I still doubted a Chinatown hit man would have left an obscure message in pre-Latin. Why not the White Hand insignia, meant to inspire fear? I decided to go bolder.

“How about threats from less … mundane quarters?”

Father Vick looked at me thoughtfully before gazing out the window. The drizzle had become a steady rain, splashing over the courtyard’s dark-red flagstones.

“Father Richard came from a more conservative tradition,” he said after a moment, “one that believed all magic was the work of Satan or one of his horde. Even sacred magic could open one up to evil forces, he insisted. I tried to help him see otherwise, but he was very rigid in his mindset.”

I thought of the violence at the crime scene. “Were his views well known?”

“Well, he didn’t seem to think the city was doing enough about the ‘occult problem,’ as he called it.” When Father Vick turned from the window to face me again, it was with a look of apology. He sensed my magic. “He had been preparing to meet with city commissioners and police officials. He wanted them to start cracking down on the ‘openly-practicing’—another one of his terms.”

I doubted this was something Father Vick had shared with the investigators. If the druid cult had gotten wind of the rector’s campaign, maybe they had decided to preempt it. “Have you ever heard of a group called Black Earth?” I asked.

Father Vick frowned steeply in thought. “I’m aware that esoteric groups exist in the city, but my work takes me into the lives of individuals. Those who have lapsed beyond doubt into darkness, aligned with the shadows that dwell there. I’ve never believed the church’s role should be castigation, Everson. We should offer sanctuary and, when possible, healing. Like that young boy in my Sunday school class, I don’t like to see people hurt.”

He hadn’t answered my question, but before I could try again, a sharp pain stole my breath away. Father Vick had raised two fingers, and a force was stabbing through me.

I stared back at him.
What in the hell…?

But he wasn’t causing the pain, I realized, not directly.

Thelonious had been caught off guard and was now burrowing into my energy like a giant tick. Father Vick’s powers of exorcism were strong, but not strong enough to dislodge a determined incubus. I raised a hand to show him I was okay. The force and pain relented.

I searched for words to paper over the awkward moment, but Father Vick’s pale eyes were gazing past me. I turned and jumped a little to discover someone standing just outside the cracked-open door—a young woman in a white robe, from the segment I could see.

“Come in, Malachi,” Father Vick said.

Malachi?
The door opened wider, and I saw the person was, in fact, a dude. Though he must have been twenty or so, his nervous, narrow face remained in smooth adolescence. His hair had also thrown me, brown hair long enough to have been gathered into a ponytail in back.

“Malachi is our resident acolyte,” Father Vick informed me as way of introduction. “He’s interested in St. Martin’s history and has been going through our vast archives. Some fascinating items in there.”

I stood and shook the boy’s pliant hand. “Everson Croft.”

The young man mumbled something that was barely audible, his smallish eyes flitting around my gaze.

“Did you have something to tell me?” Father Vick asked him.

“Um, the police are here. They want to see you again.”

I knew there was a chance of that happening, but crap.

“Have them wait for me in the nave. We shouldn’t be more than another minute.”

As the door closed behind Malachi, Father Vick gave me an ironic smile. “It looks like your colleagues have more questions.” He shrugged as he stood. “Given the circumstances, who can blame them? By all appearances, the murder was committed by someone inside these old walls.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Besides no one having any grievances against Brother Richard? Cyrus is too old to have carried out so violent an attack, and Malachi too gentle. There is no malice in either of them.”

Father Vick
did
have that perceptual ability, but I noticed he’d left himself out.

“I have to ask,” I said, already wincing inwardly at what I was about to say. “Did the two of you have any conflicts? I mean, you seem to have been divided on the issue of magic.”

“A fair question,” he replied, holding my gaze. “And yes, we did argue about the matter. But you don’t have to see eye to eye on every issue to be close.” Grief clouded his face. “If you had siblings, you would understand.”

I nodded and lowered my gaze.
Congratulations, Everson, you’ve just leveled up in shittiness.

Father Vick placed his hands warmly on my shoulders. “It
has
been good to see you, Everson. And I meant what I said. You’re welcome at St. Martin’s anytime. You’re not the exile you seem to believe yourself to be.”

“Good to see you too, Father.”

With a final smile, he stepped past me. “Well, I suppose I need to get to another meeting. And if I read your earlier reaction correctly, you need a back door to depart through.”

“I guess investigators have their own conflicts,” I said sheepishly.

“Say no more. You can leave through the graveyard.” He led me out to the covered walk that ran around the courtyard. I noticed he took care to lock the door behind him. “I’ll have Cyrus let you out.”

I glimpsed something dark and shining in his ear.

“Father, you’re bleeding.” I pointed to my right ear.

He touched his hair-thatched canal, then inspected the blood on the tip of his finger. “Yes, that happens sometimes.” He reached out and washed his finger beneath a string of water falling from the eave of the courtyard. “We are mortals channeling forces far beyond us, after all.”

25

I saw what Father Vick meant about Cyrus. The stooped and palsied groundskeeper could hardly heft his ring of keys, much less bring a chalice down on a man’s head with enough force to smite him. And I sensed no magic around him.

I followed Cyrus out a back door and along a path beaten in the grass. We were in an older part of the graveyard behind the church. Dark, weathered tombstones rose like crooked teeth. Raised sarcophagi leaned here and there, a particularly mossy one in a solitary corner, beneath a knotted willow. Though the rain had passed, the chill air was stippled with moisture. A good day for a blazing fire.

Cyrus unlocked a door in the iron gate that ran along Washington Street. I thanked him and stepped through the curtain of energy that protected the sanctuary. Definitely weaker, I noted.

My plan was to get home and prepare some spells for a trip to Central Park that night. Yeah, yeah, magic
verboten
. But I’d already worked it out—I was going to play the dumb card:
Ohhh, I thought you meant no magic in relation to the shrieker case.
Cue smacking of forehead.

Would the Order buy it? Who knew, but this was bigger than saving my job. I was thinking about Father Vick now, a man whose paternal concern was still palpable twenty years later. And the way he’d looked when I made him talk about the rector’s death and even suggested he might have had a motive in his slaying?

So yeah, screw the Order. I’d deal with the fallout later. The more immediate challenge was going to be putting Detective Vega off for another day. At least until I could—

“Croft!”

—point her in the right direction.

I wheeled to find the one-woman Homicide squad striding up behind me, a black umbrella glistening above her stretched-back hair. She was wearing the same style of suit she seemed to favor, black jacket and pants, blouse opened at the neck. It was a good look for her, and if it ain’t broke…

“What in the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Besides enjoying the weather?”

“Were you just inside the church?” When she arrived in front of me, the challenge in her dark eyes told me she already knew the answer.

“Well, I wasn’t not in the church, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I don’t have time for this, Croft. Yes or no.”

“Si.”

“You have no business being in there.”

“Look,” I said, holding up my hands in a no-harm, no-foul gesture, “my grandmother and I attended St. Martin’s when I was growing up. Father Vick was my youth minister. Thursday was the first time I’d seen him in almost twenty years. He invited me to come back and visit him.” All technically true. “I had some time this morning, so…”

“Father Victor is a suspect in a homicide investigation—one you’re consulting on, I should remind you. You’re not to fraternize with him until we’ve wrapped up. I thought I made that clear.”

I was starting to get a little sick of being told what I could and couldn’t do.

“Oh, c’mon, it’s not like—”

“I’m dead serious, Croft.”

“You don’t honestly believe Father Vick had anything to do with the murder. Or are you just aiming for ‘good enough’ again?”

When her eyes glowered, I realized I’d gone too far. “For your information,” she hissed, drawing up until her umbrella was dripping water in front of my face, “his trace evidence is all over the crime scene.”

“Yeah, and maybe that’s because he lives and works there.”

“So you’re an investigator now?”