Lords of Salem (23 page)

With all that, she felt more tired than she had when she’d gone to sleep. It was like each night was worse, like every night whittled away another thin sliver of her sanity. She’d been doing well over the last year, been holding it together. But she needed something to relax her, mellow her out a little, or there was no way that she was going to make it through the day. She wasn’t going to do something
extreme—she wasn’t going to call her dealer up. And she definitely wasn’t going to get some gear. No, just something to relax, something harmless. Relatively so, anyway.

She stumbled her way to the dresser. She began digging through the top drawer, piling underwear and socks on top of the dresser until the drawer was empty. Shit, it wasn’t there. She’d been sure it would be there, remembered putting it there just as backup, just in case. But it wasn’t there now. Maybe she had the wrong drawer? She bent lower and opened the next drawer down and this time she simply pulled the whole thing out and dumped it on the bed. Her hands quickly pawed their way through the contents, searching, tossing clothing left and right. She was just about to give up when…

Ah, there it was. She knew she had one. It was the butt of a joint, half smoked or so, really dry shit, something like a year old and likely to be more than a little harsh by now, but what the hell? It’d still have some kick.

She stepped back. Steve was there, lying on the floor, staring at her.

“What?” she said to him. He kept staring at her, ears flattened a little. “I just need a little something to steady my nerves today,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’m not getting into all that shit again.”
What, now I have to justify myself to a dog?

She took the lighter off the counter and flicked the flame on, sucked on the joint. She drew the smoke deep into her lungs, held it. Ah, it felt good. Too good.
Gateway drug
, she thought. The NA guys definitely wouldn’t approve. Though they wouldn’t approve of the wine either, so what difference did this make? Anyway, this wasn’t what she’d been addicted to so it didn’t matter. Steve was still staring at her, probably thinking much the same thing that the NA guys would have, she reckoned.

She let the smoke out slowly. She ashed the joint and shook it at Steve. It was already short enough that she could feel the heat coming off it against her thumb. “Now, don’t you start judging me,” she said to Steve. “That’s the last thing I need.”

Yeah, it wasn’t bad. She felt pretty good. Part of her was already feeling guilty about it—doing shit like this opened a kind of hunger in her, just made some monstrous part of her stretch and begin to wake up and start craving what she’d had before. But no, she couldn’t get into that again. Last time, it had gotten bad enough that she was lucky she came out of it alive. Griff hadn’t, after all. Did she feel guilty about that? Guilty about surviving?

But maybe
, something in her said hopefully,
maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe it won’t be any trouble for me at all.

No, no next time.
But the thoughts were already getting fuzzy. She was losing track of them, letting them slip away from her. Which, she told herself, was what she wanted—to not worry, to relax a little, to be able in some way or another to face her day.

Time slipped a little. It got slow, as if it wasn’t passing at all and it seemed like each moment was being stretched further and further. Maybe she slept a little. And then suddenly it sped up again and Steve was there, whining, licking her arm.

“What is it, Steve?” she asked him, and when he kept whining she hauled herself to her feet and stood. Wow, she was dizzy. She leaned against the wall for balance and navigated her way into the kitchen, poured Steve some food.

He immediately wolfed it down, clearly hungry. Had she remembered to feed him the night before? She wasn’t sure. Maybe, maybe not. God, she was terrible, starting to really fall apart.

No,
she told herself,
don’t think like that. You’re doing okay. You just have had a couple of bad days. Talk to your friends and they’ll help you.

Shit, the joint had made her moody and paranoid instead of relaxing her. Go fucking figure.

The bowl was empty but Steve was still whining, staring at her. Her head hurt a little. What did he want now?

It took him going over to the front door and pressing his nose against it before she figured out what she should have guessed immediately: he hadn’t been out yet.

“All right,” she said. Feeling like she was wading through knee-deep water, she found his leash and attached it to his collar and then led him out the door. She headed toward the stairs, but as she moved around the railing and started down she caught a glimpse of something and couldn’t help but stop.

No
, she told herself.
Don’t look.

But she couldn’t stop herself from turning around and looking down the corridor at apartment number five.

The door was open. And despite the fact that it was daytime, it remained dark, almost black, within the apartment. It was impossible to see anything.

Fuck me
, she thought. For a moment she thought about going down the hall and looking in, see if there wasn’t someone there after all.

But no, she’d had so many nightmares about apartment number five that she knew it’d be a mistake. And she was stoned. Even if there was nothing in there, she still might get freaked out.

So she forced herself to turn back around and start slowly down the stairs.

But all the time, with every step she took, she could feel the room there, behind her, looming as if waiting for her. And about halfway down she thought she heard a strange rubbing sound, like bare feet sweeping along the hall’s wood floor. In her head, she saw unnaturally pale and unnaturally thin legs, the feet at the bottom of them slightly twisted, the nails blackened, following her. In her head they were just that: disembodied legs with a strange darkness surmounting them, hiding whatever was above.

And then she heard a creaking that sounded just a little too much like a high, tittering laugh. She bolted, taking the rest of the steps two at a time, making a run for the door.

Once she was outside, she felt a little better. She could breathe again anyway, could relax a little, and even though she was stoned it was okay now since she was out and walking. She took the usual route for a while until Steve did his business, and then decided to take the scenic route.

She headed down a long set of stone steps that looked as if they’d been there for hundreds of years. They were cracked here and there, covered with moss on the edges. They led to a bridge with wrought-iron sides that passed over a pond. On the other side was the heart of Greenlawn Cemetery. She crossed the first of several rolling hills, she and Steve slowly following the winding cemetery roads and gravel paths. The graves were well-kempt, the stones often ostentatious with many family plots that offered a central monument with smaller graves circled around them.

Her father’s grave was in the front part of the cemetery, among the newer stones. Usually she avoided it, but today, well, something drew her there. It was a modest stone, but long. The grave had her mother’s name on it as well, even though her mother was still alive; it was just waiting for someone to carve in the date of her death. Her mother sometimes spoke about that, said there was a “bed” waiting for her in the cemetery. Kind of creepy, Heidi thought, but also kind of romantic. Her mom and dad had really gotten along, really cared for each other, which had made her dad’s death all the harder.

And here she was, stoned to the gills, not sleeping, staring at her father’s grave. She’d had all sorts of advantages in life: parents who loved her, education at a good school, good friends. So why was it that she was where she was today? Where had she gone wrong? How had she slipped off course? How could she get back to being the person she wanted to be?

She moved away, into other parts of the cemetery. If you knew where to look, you’d find the older graves, some of them with stones so old and eaten away by time and the elements you could no longer
read them. There, the stones were often not straight, sinking into the earth at odd angles as time had settled the ground below them.

She walked her way through the graveyard and out the edge of it, going a few blocks down to Saint Peter’s church. She had started past the old stone building and was near the huge red doors at the front of it when Steve stopped to sniff around a little. A little religion might not hurt, she told herself, though she also promised herself to take off if those two creepy nuns appeared.

Chapter Thirty-four

She found a small sapling and tied Steve’s leash off to it. He sat with his ears perked up, watching her leave. One of the red doors was slightly ajar and she pushed it open enough to slip in. She moved through the vestibule and into the main hall.

The church looked much different than it had at night, with a rich amber light now pouring through the stained-glass windows and making the air dance with motes of dust. An ornate crucifix hung over the altar, either gold-plated or bronze. Inside, the church was completely empty. She found a pew in the back that was warm from the sunlight, and she sat down, trying to take the atmosphere in, trying to relax. Did she want to try to pray? No, that seemed false—she could come share the comfort of a place like this, but she could hardly pass herself off as a believer. She hadn’t been to church in years. Still, she closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of all bad thoughts.

When she opened her eyes, it was because she heard the sound of a door somewhere. She glanced up and saw that a smallish door to the right of the altar was ajar. As Heidi watched, a priest passed through it. Slowly, he began to walk down the central aisle, his footsteps ringing against the stone.

He had his hands behind his back and seemed lost in thought, his face half frowning. He didn’t seem to notice her.

He was almost past Heidi when she said hello and smiled at him. The priest stopped, startled at first. Slowly, he focused his gaze on her, squinting, almost as if he had difficulty seeing her.

“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice low and hoarse.

“Why am I here?” she asked. Good question, actually, if this was the kind of reception she was going to get. “I don’t know,” she said, straightening a little in the pew. “I was walking by with my dog and I thought I would just come in and sit for a moment. Is that okay? Are you closed?”

“You brought your dog into a house of worship?”

“No, of course not,” said Heidi. “He’s tied up outside.”

The priest nodded in curt acknowledgment. “No, we’re not closed,” he said. “The Lord’s house never closes. God is always open and ready to listen.”

“That’s good to know,” said Heidi. “I’ve been having some problems lately and thought…” She looked up. Something about the way the priest was looking at her bothered her.
Fuck it
, she thought. “I don’t know what I thought,” she said. “I guess I just needed to sit.”

“Sit,” said the priest. “Hell, don’t mind if I do.” And with that he sat down next to her, close enough that their shoulders rubbed against one another.

Not very priestly language,
thought Heidi. She felt crowded and was tempted to move away, but she was worried about offending the man.

“Yes, it is a nice place to just come and sit,” said the priest. He had turned his head toward her and she could feel his breath as he spoke. There was a strange smell to it, like spiced meat. As she watched, she thought she saw a fly slip out of his mouth.
I’m still stoned
, she told herself.
I’m hallucinating. There was no fly.

He reached out and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. Very gently he began to massage her there.

“You’re very tense, my child,” he said.

Another fly slipped out of him, from his nostril this time.
I definitely saw that
, Heidi thought. It crawled along his lip and over his cheekbone and then burrowed into his ear. The massage was less gentle now. Slowly, he slid his hand up behind her neck.
What the hell?
she thought.

“Um, yeah,” she said. “I feel better now. I think I should be going.”

His hand paused momentarily on the back of her neck and then gripped it hard. Just when she was about to cry out, he let go. She started to stand but when she did he wound his fingers into her hair and tugged hard, dragged her back down. When she tried to pull away, he sunk his fingers deeper and pulled harder so that her head was being cranked backward over the back edge of the pew, leaving her throat bare and exposed.

“Ow, what the fuck?” she said.

“What the fuck indeed,” said the priest, seemingly unperturbed. He reached out and kissed her on the throat, and then opened his mouth and clamped it around her windpipe. She could feel his teeth exerting pressure, constricting her breathing just slightly. She struggled, but he had, she suddenly realized, shifted his body to pin one of her arms and when she tried to strike him with the other arm he first batted the arm away and then caught her wrist in one thick hand and squeezed. She cried out in pain, and when she did he bit her hard on the throat, hard enough that when his mouth came away there was blood on his lips. He let go of her wrist and began fondling her breasts, knocking her hand back effortlessly when she tried to push him away.

“You have a lot to learn,” he said. “And I’m going to teach it to you.”

“Let go of me!” she yelled.

But he did not let go. Instead, he brought himself a little closer, looming over her. When he spoke, his voice was strangely flat and calm, perfectly cold, which frightened her more than if he’d been shrieking at her. “You have to understand there is a war waging in Heaven,” he said. “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon
and his serpents. But God does not spare angels when they sin. He sends them to Hell.”

She heard the sound of him unzipping his fly. Suddenly the hand that had been pulling her head back pushed it forward hard, nearly bending her double and forcing her facedown into the priest’s lap. She felt his cock slide against her cheek, warm and semitumescent and smelling of standing water and oil.