The Devil You Know (33 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It
was after eleven before they were dressed again and going out the door. Fog had
rolled in once more from the sea, already leaving a thin sheet of condensation
on the hood and roof of Marie’s car. When she stepped out her door and felt the
bite of the cool night air, she wanted nothing more than to turn around, go
back into the house, and take Tom into her bed. But she knew that was
impossible.

After
making love, they had remained on the sofa for a long time, talking on and off.
Finally, their conversation had turned back to the incubi and what had
transpired earlier. Julian Piedmont and his crew had wanted to scare Tom at his
house, but they had wanted Marie completely incapacitated. Using the incubus to
achieve that was an insulting method, and one that had not been effective. Now,
Tom reasoned, Piedmont and his followers might try a more human and more deadly
way of keeping Marie away.

“We
can’t wait for them to come back,” Marie had said, still lying with him on the
sofa.

“What
do we do?” he had asked.

She
had sat up and pulled an afghan over her shoulders. “We have to go there. Go
after them before they come back at us again. They know we’re the ones who’ve
been killing the demons. They won’t give up until they’ve gotten rid of us one
way or another.”

“So
what are you saying?” He had sat up beside her. “We can’t kill Piedmont and his
boys the way we’re killing his demons.”

“No.
But we go up there. We find a way to stop them. We say the prayer, exorcise the
last one. Bless the house. I don’t know. Colin said that Julian was starting to
act strangely. Maybe we can take advantage of that.”

After
talking a bit more, they had decided it would be best to start by going to St.
Lucy’s. Marie knew that Father Joe kept holy water in a storage room next to
the vestry, along with candles and prayer books. If those things were imbued
with any kind of power, Marie thought, it could only add to their advantage
over the remaining demon; at the very least, they might intimidate an already
disturbed Julian Piedmont. When she got dressed, the first thing she slipped on
was Jasper’s little wooden cross, telling herself that if nothing from the
church helped with the last incubus, the St. Lucy cross had already proved its
potency.

Now,
arm in arm, they walked out the door, and Marie locked it behind them. She was
glad to let Tom drive her car, the old Dodge still seeming a bit unreliable for
their errand. Once they were on their way, Tom grew quiet, and when Marie asked
what was on his mind, he responded, “Krebs. If things had gone any different,
you’d have been in a bad way, thanks to him.”

She
nodded in the dark. “I know, Tom. But I don’t want you to hurt him. Promise?”

After
a silence, he said, “All right. But it won’t be easy to hold back if he’s
there.”

“I’m
worried about him. I think in a way he’s as far gone as all the women those
things have gotten to. He’s sick, Tom. They’re all sick. That book and what it
can do, it’s twisted Julian Piedmont and all his followers into monsters
themselves.”

“But
don’t you think they had to be just a little twisted beforehand to be
susceptible to it?”

“I do.”

As
they drove, she thought about the characters who had met bad ends in
Weird Tales
and all the other pulps she
read. Almost always, they were flawed in some way—either too curious, or
too greedy, unable to control their impulses and led down a dark path that was
satisfying in a dangerous way but ultimately destructive. Piedmont’s men must
all be like that to a degree, she told herself, and in other ways Elise and her
fellow victims could say the same. But what about herself, she wondered, and
Tom, and Jasper? Was it really righteousness that spurred them, the need for
revenge, the knowledge that they could right wrongs and prevent further misery?
Or was it simple curiosity?

She
put her hand on Tom’s forearm as he turned onto the next street. St. Lucy’s was
just around the corner. “Tom,” she said, “should we just go to the police? Is
this crazy what we’re doing?”

He
slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the street. There were no other cars
about, and no one seemed to be out around any of the nearby houses. “We can go
to the police if you want. But what are they going to say? They’ll keep us
there till dawn and maybe send a squad car around to your place and mine. At
mine, they won’t find a thing. At yours, they’ll find an empty suit of clothes
on your bedroom floor with what looks like ashes around it. And they might
figure they’re human ashes; they’re going to keep us for a good while. The more
we tell them what’s been going on, the more likely they are to order psychological
tests. And maybe, just maybe, they let us out—or at least you. I’m likely
getting kept for observation with my history, once they find it out. And what’s
been accomplished? Julian Piedmont gets another whole night and day to recover
from the damage we’ve done.”

“You’re
right,” Marie said with a sigh. “There’s no other way. I was just…worried that
maybe we hadn’t thought all of this through yet, that maybe we’re doing it for
the wrong reasons. Maybe being a little foolhardy and overconfident. You know,
riding in on a white horse and all to save the day?”

“I
got no horse, Marie. Just you. And I want to keep you. We can run from them, or
we can fight. I’ll run with you if that’s what you want, but I don’t think you
can stand to have that on your conscience.”

She
shook her head. “I’m not running. Let’s go.”

The
church parking lot was empty, and Tom quickly killed the Chevy’s lights lest
anyone in the neighboring homes be compelled to report suspicious activity.
Marie left her purse in the car and took only her keys, tucking them into the
pocket of her coat. The fog had only grown thicker since they had left her
house, and the area was almost completely silent. As they walked the short
distance to the main building, all they could hear were crickets in the bushes
and the distant sounds of faraway cars.

Marie
didn’t have a key to the main doors, so they walked around the far side to a
single door that only the church staff and altar boys used before services. The
grounds were completely darkened, with no lights on in any of the buildings, so
it took her a few seconds to find the right key on her ring and slip it into
the lock. When she did, it clicked more loudly than she had expected, and she
cringed. Neither of them moved for a second; then she turned to Tom, who nodded
to her in the dark, and she pushed down on the handle to open the door.

Once
Tom was in behind her and the door was closed, she felt along the wall for the
light switch. When it clicked on, Marie gasped. Someone had been here before
them. They were standing in a small chamber near the altar; a door to their
right opened onto the main floor of the church while another led into the
vestry. The room also held a portable baptismal font as well as shelves with
bottles of holy water, candles, unblessed wine, collection baskets, and other
supplies, but Marie had no intention of taking anything from those shelves. The
door to the vestry was open, and she could see that the priest’s robes and
vestments had been scattered across the floor. They looked torn, and the red
stains all over the clothes and floor could only be from spilled sacramental
wine.

“Oh
my God,” Marie gasped.

Tom
hushed her quickly, putting his finger to his lips. His eyes shifted to the
other door that opened onto the main chapel. With one hand, he pulled Marie
away from the door, and with the other he pulled out the Luger. Then he nodded
toward the light switch Marie had first flicked on. She understood what he
meant and moved to turn the lights off on his signal. Clearly, Tom did not want
to open a door into the darkened church with light blazing behind him, thereby
making himself an easy target if the vandals were still there. He put his hand
on the faded brass doorknob and nodded to Marie. As soon as she turned off the
lights, she heard him open the door, and gritted her teeth in anticipation.

Nothing
happened. There were no gunshots or sounds of a struggle. She heard Tom say,
“I’m armed, and I’ll shoot if you force me to. We know what you’ve done, and
we’ve already called the police, so don’t give me any trouble.” There was no
response, and after a few seconds she heard him say, “I think they’re gone. I
don’t hear anything. Are the lights at this end?”

“Yes.”
She followed him into the church and felt along the wall beside the altar for
one of the light switches. Dim light came through the stained glass windows,
not enough for her to be able to make out anything clearly, but just enough for
her to tell that the main part of the church had not been spared. When the
lights came on a few seconds later, she was shocked. Missals and hymnals had
been torn to pieces, the pages tossed across the tile floor of the nave. Some
of the Stations of the Cross had been knocked down from the walls, the
bas-relief sculptures smashed among the pews. Other statues, including one of
the Virgin and another of St. Lucy, had been knocked to the floor.

But
it was the walls around the altar and the raised area of the chancel that
shocked Marie the most. Someone had used lurid red paint to write words across the
walls in letters almost three feet high. “Defiled” said one, and “Unclean”
another. Painted right across the base of the crucifix was the word “Unholy.”

When
she had turned on the lights, Tom was still standing slightly crouched with his
gun pointed into the nave, ready for any unseen attackers. Now he stood up and
surveyed the damage before making a quick walk around the perimeter of the
pews, waving the gun in front of him as he made each turn, as though he was
sweeping the air with it. Marie could easily imagine him having done the same
thing in empty buildings in the French countryside. Satisfied that they were
alone in the church, he relaxed his posture and lowered the gun, saying, “This
is terrible,” as he walked back toward the front of the church where Marie
waited. “Who would have done this?”

Marie
shook her head and quietly said, “Colin Krebs.”

Tom
raised an eyebrow. “Why him?”

“He’s
lost his mind,” she said. “He’s been in fear for his soul since this whole
thing started. I told him to confess to Father Joe, and he did, but I think he
expected it to cleanse him, to save him.”

“Isn’t
it supposed to?”

“Not
if he isn’t truly repentant.”

“Or
if he doesn’t think Father Joe really absolved him.”

Marie
turned to him questioningly. “Why would he think that?”

Tom
shrugged. “I spent some time around some really sad cases at the VA. When
everything’s falling apart, sometimes you need someone to blame outside
yourself. Maybe Colin’s scapegoating the priest and the church.”

“And
damning himself even further.”

“He
probably sees no hope for himself.”

Marie
certainly didn’t see any hope for Colin now, either. “Now what?” she asked.
“Call the police?”

Tom
shook his head. “They’ll know about it soon enough. We don’t want to get
tangled up in this. If they get the call now or in the morning, it won’t make
any difference.”

Tom
had a handkerchief in his coat pocket, and he used it now to wipe down the
light switches and door handles as they worked their way into the parking lot
again. “We didn’t get any holy water,” Marie said as they walked quickly back
to the car.

“We
may not need it.”

“Why?”

“If
Colin’s crazy enough to do this to the church, maybe he’s set his sights on
Piedmont next. If we’re lucky, he’s already doing our work for us.”

* * * * * * * *

As
they drove into the hills, they worked their way above the fog. At first, it
grew thinner, and then it ceased, and the Chevrolet emerged as though passing
through a door and coming out the other side into a completely different night,
this one fully lit by moonlight with every house and hill and street sign
looking crisp and clear in the headlights as they passed. At one point, a
coyote walked calmly onto the road in front of them, looked for a moment at the
approaching car, and then disappeared into the chaparral on the other side of
the road. It was easy for Marie to navigate for Tom, the absence of fog helping
her remember how all of this had looked the day she and Jasper had come the
same way.

When
they reached the estate, they found the gates locked, so Tom pulled off of the
road and parked the Chevrolet as close to the wall as he could. They both got
out of the car on the driver’s side and walked to the gate for a moment. The
house looked completely darkened, but in the moonlight, they could make out a
few cars parked on the circular driveway before the main entrance. Tom could
not be certain, but he felt confident that one of them was the car he had seen
parked in front of Marie’s house.

“You
scared?” Tom asked her.

She
was silent for a moment. “A little,” she said. “Just a little.” For years, she
had read stories about old dark houses with unspeakable things inside them, and
hapless heroes who braved the dark and the evil in hope of bringing it to light—almost
always failing, or succeeding at great cost. The stories had given her
delicious thrills, goose bumps, and the occasional exhilarating nightmare. As a
teenager, she had imagined what it would be like to be on such an adventure,
and now that she was actually faced with entering a dark mansion with real monsters
in it, she felt no chills, no thrills, only enough fear to keep her other
emotions in check. She was more determined than afraid, but the fear that she
did feel kept her cautious.