The Order of Brigid's Cross - The Wild Hunt (Book 1): The Wild Hunt (6 page)

Sean studied Gillian for a long moment. “That’s an unusual
response,” he said. “Is there something you’d like to share?”

“Aye, there is,” she replied decisively. “But first I’d like
to hear about the crime you’re investigating.”

Sean walked over to his computer and opened a new
window.
 
“The crime scene photos have
been uploaded,” he said. “These will tell you more about the scene than I can.
But, I have to warn you, they’re pretty grisly.”

Gillian pulled out the chair in front of the computer and
nodded. “I can take it,” she said, sliding into the seat. “And it’s important
that I see them.”

Sean glanced over to Ian, who shrugged his shoulders in
bewilderment. “Okay,” Sean said. “Let’s take a look.”

After entering the settings for a slide show, all three
watched as the horrific scene was displayed before their eyes.
 
Even with his years of police work, Sean’s
stomach twisted as he viewed the mutilated corpses strewn throughout the park.
Many of the dead were headless, their decapitated, sightless heads lying
several feet from their bodies as if they were separated with violent force.
Pools of blood darkened the background of the photos, with macabre crimson-splattered
grass and bushes surrounding the remains.

“Whoever or whatever killed these people, there were a lot
of them,” Ian said as they neared the end of the photos.

“Why do you say that?” Sean asked.

“Look at the circumference of the crime scene. No one was
running,” Ian pointed out. “Whatever it was descended quickly and was able to
not only catch them all off guard but also deal with them swiftly enough that
they didn’t have time to retreat.”

“But there are easily one hundred bodies here,” Sean said,
clicking back to the overview photo. “How could anything, even an army, do so
much damage so quickly?”

“It would take very sharp implements and an extremely long
reach,” Ian said.

“Aye,” Gillian agreed and she glanced up at Sean. “And the
boy who saw this, he said he saw the Elk King?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” Sean said. “He described some crazy
fantasy creature with tree-like limbs who was wearing a deer skull for a hat. Then
I called Ian, and he said it could have been the Elk King.”

“And do you believe the young man?” she asked.

Sean shrugged. “As impossible as it seems, yeah, I believe
him,” Sean said. “He didn’t seem to be high, and he was scared to death.”

“Where is he now?” Ian asked.

“He’s still at the hospital,” Sean said. “They’re keeping
him there under observation for a couple more hours. They’ll hold him until I
give them the okay.”

“So, we have a few hours?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?”
Sean asked.

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” she said. “He might
help answer your questions. But then again, he might just give you a whole new
bunch to worry about. I need a moment of privacy to call and set things up.”

“Does this have anything to do with your blood-mingling
comment?” Sean asked.

She nodded and a small smile spread across her lips. “You
are a clever one, aren’t you?” she said. “Aye, it might answer a few questions
in that area, too.”

“Then I’m all for it,” he replied.

Gillian pushed the hanging cast iron pan to the side and
slipped out the door to the hallway.

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Sean asked Ian.

Shaking his head, Ian stared at the closed door for a moment
and then turned back to Sean. “Not as much as I want to know,” he admitted. “I
know she works for the Catholic Church and researches ancient church
artifacts.
 
She’s done some work at
Trinity College in Dublin, and the church approached her for this job in
Chicago.”

“It sounds a little strange,” Sean said. “Why would the
church know anything about the Elk King?”

“I have to admit, I’m a little curious myself,” Ian replied.

Gillian poked her head back into the apartment. “He can meet
with us directly,” she said. “He’s very eager to meet both of you.”

“The plot thickens,” Sean whispered to Ian.

“Aye, and into the dragon’s lair we go,” Ian replied. “Grab
your coat, Sean, I’ll drive.”

“Thanks, but I’d better take my own car,” Sean said. “I’ll
need to head over to Cook County Hospital once we’re done.”

The boarded-up Catholic cathedral sat as a lonely,
monolithic reminder of its neighborhood’s past. The stone building, more like a
castle from a fairy tale than a public building, had been built in the
Romanesque style of architecture with thick walls, curving arches and small
windows in the narrow towers that stood as sentinels to the several-storied
main building.
 
The land around the church
was derelict and deserted. As if from an urban version of Sleeping Beauty, the
church lay in wait for someone to break the solitary spell.

“Boy, this place has changed. I remember coming here when I
was a kid,” Sean said after he parked his car next to Ian’s in the dilapidated
parking lot.
 
“It was for a funeral for
one of my dad’s friends. He was shot on the job.”

“I understand it was closed in the early nineties,” Gillian
remarked, climbing out of Ian’s car. “There weren’t enough parishioners to
support it.”

Shaking his head, Sean looked up to the verdigris-covered
copper of the octagonal spire and then let his gaze skim down the side of the
building.
 
Enormous sheets of plywood covered
what Sean knew had been marvelous stained-glass windows. Other smaller windows
as well as all entrances into the church had been also boarded over. “But why
this one?” he wondered. “There were so many other smaller churches that could
have been closed up.
 
Why did they choose
this one?”

Gillian slipped her arm through both Ian’s and Sean’s arms
and led them towards the back of the church. “That’s a very good question,” she
said. “And once we’re inside, I hope our explanation will answer it.”

“Inside?”
Sean asked, stopping in
his tracks. “Are you sure it’s safe?
 
This place has been vacant for more than twenty years.”

“Aye, so we’d hope you’d believe,” she said with a telling
smile and pulled him forward. “Come on now, we’ve someone to meet, and we’ve
not time to waste.”

The back entrance to the church was surrounded in stonework,
slightly lighter in color than the rest of the church façade. It formed a ten-inch
wide arch around the solid oak door, which was ornately curved with a Celtic
cross on the top and an inner arch in the center, surrounded by an engraved
Celtic chain.
 
The door, well over twelve
feet tall, was solidly barred from any intruders.
 
Gillian slipped her arms from the men’s arms
and walked up to the door.

“And how do we get through that?” Sean asked.

Gillian looked over her shoulder at Ian and sighed. “Is he
always this impatient?”

Ian nodded. “
Aye,
and this is him
being easy-going.”

She chuckled, glanced around quickly, and then pressed the
flat of her palm against one of the archwork stones that was positioned at her
shoulder height. She lifted her hand quickly away. The stone piece slid forward,
exposing a small control box.

“What the hell?” Sean exclaimed softly.

Gillian took hold of the box and angled it up so her eye was
in line with a small, square, glass window and pressed a small button on the
side.

Sean saw the beam of light glow against the top of her eye
and scan to the bottom. “A retinal scanner?” he stammered.

Gillian backed away from the box, tilted it back into its
original position and slid it back into place, a sharp click of an internal
mechanism confirming its position. Suddenly, the center arch portion of the
giant oak door moved back and slid to the side, allowing an entrance to the
church that was wide enough to fit them one at a time. “I’ll go first,” Gillian
stated, “but be quick in following. We can’t have the door open for too long.”

She slipped inside the opening and Sean turned to Ian. “Do
you trust her?” he asked.

Nodding his head, Ian turned to Sean. “With my life,” he replied
solemnly.

“We don’t know what’s in there.”

“
Aye,
and we won’t until we go
inside,” Ian said, slipping past Sean and entering the church.

“Why the hell do I even bother?” Sean muttered, stepping
forward and following Ian.

The door closed behind him with a suction sound like they
had been hermetically sealed inside the building, and he glanced back quickly.

“No need to worry, Sean,” Gillian grinned. “This is not a
web, and I am no spider.”

She turned to her right and opened a small, metal panel on
the wall. Inside were a number of small breaker switches that she flipped
on.
 
The interior of the building was
suddenly illuminated, and instead of the dilapidated ruin Sean expected, he was
met with an interior that looked much more like a modern research center with
white walls, stainless steel accoutrements, tile floors and LED lighting.
 
He slowly looked around his surroundings and
shook his head. “Okay, this is getting dammed weird, if you ask me,” he said.
“And too much like a creepy science fiction movie. What? Are we going to meet
the crazy monks now?”

A short, rotund man dressed in black cleric clothing with a
white collar stepped out from behind a door ahead of them and smiled. “Well,
eccentric perhaps.
But crazy?
I don’t think so,” the
priest said as he walked towards them.

Sean guessed the man to be in his late fifties or early
sixties.
 
His hair had receded to the
point of near non-existence, but his blue eyes were clear and intelligent.
 

“And, sorry to disappoint, but I am merely a priest, not a
monk,” the priest continued. “Although I’ve heard that I do bear a striking
resemblance to Friar Tuck. Hello, Gillian, my dear, good to have you back.”

“Hello, Father Jack,” she replied. “Here’s the company I
phoned you about. This is my fiancé, Professor Ian MacDougal.” She turned to
Ian and motioned with her head in the priest’s direction.

“Oh, sorry, yes,” Ian muttered, coming forward with an
extended hand. “I apologize.
 
I must say
I’m a bit overwhelmed by your facility.”

Father Jack took his hand, shook it with a surprisingly
strong grasp and chuckled. “Well, as we don’t generally have many visitors,” he
said, “I can’t really say if that’s a normal reaction, but it is
understandable.”

He looked past Ian to Sean. “And who is this?”

Sean stepped forward. “I’m Detective Sean O’Reilly of the
Chicago Police Department,” he replied, not allowing himself to be charmed by
the engaging priest.

“Sean O’Reilly,” the priest mused for a moment, and then his
smiled widened. “You wouldn’t perhaps be related to Timothy O’Reilly, would
you?”

“Yes, sir, he’s my father,” Sean said, looking slowly around
the hall. “What is this, a mind-meld and you’re peeking into my thoughts?”

The chuckle turned into an outright belly laugh, and wiping
his eyes after a few moments, the priest leaned against the wall for support.
“I’d say you are your father’s son,” he choked. “Timmy wanted solid proof,
evidence, before he’d believe anything.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Sean replied.

“Well, there’s that thing called faith,” Father Jack said.
“And it can’t be seen or touched.”

“And it can’t solve crimes either,” Sean said. “Or be used
as evidence in a trial.
 
The judges have
a real hard time with police officers saying, ‘Trust me. I know he’s guilty.’”

Acknowledging the accuracy of his statement, Father Jack
nodded. “That’s very true,” he replied. “But you see
,
I’m not in the trial by jury business. I’m in the confession business.”

“I’ve had more than a few men confess when they’re looking
down the barrel of my gun, Father,” Sean replied. “And I’m not just interested
in making a collar. I’m looking for truth.”

The priest studied Sean for a moment and then nodded his
head slowly. “Then you’re in the right place, Sean O’Reilly,” he said
seriously. “And we have need of a man with your talents.”

Gillian, Sean and Ian followed Father Jack down the narrow
hall to the other end of the church building. The hall seemed to be
endless.
 
Finally, Father Jack opened a
large door. “Welcome to the chapel,” he said. “Although, it’s nothing like what
it used to be.”

The room was nearly vacant, the scars of past furnishings
still present on the old, wooden floor.
 
The air still held the scent of decades of burning candles and incense,
and some of the walls in the small enclaves, where Sean imagined the candles
used to be housed,
were
dark from the years of smoke.
 
The tall, plastered walls that encompassed the
room were dingy grey, but Sean could see lighter places where the edges of the
pews had protected them from becoming discolored.
 
It was an interesting sight, row after row of
lighter, chair-like shapes facing the altar as if a ghostly congregation was
waiting for a sermon.
 
Down the middle of
the room, the wood floor was shiny and unblemished, probably where the carpeted
runner had
lain
Sean thought.

Turning to the front of the chapel, Sean could see that it was
also empty, and except for the raised dais at the front of the room, there was
no evidence of it being a former altar.

“What happened to all the stuff?” Sean asked.

“They were sent to churches all over the world,” Father Jack
said. “The pews went to a church in Lithuania. The statuary went to churches
all over the country, except for those donated by prominent families; they were
returned to them for their own use.”

“So some local hotshot has a Virgin Mary standing in his foyer?”
Sean asked.

Biting back a smile, the priest nodded.

“I don’t see any problem with that,” Ian commented, stepping
up next to Sean. “I’ve got religious artifacts in my home.”

“Ian, you live in a freaking castle,” Sean said. “You’re
supposed to have that kind of stuff there, right next to the suits of armor.
But it’s a little weird to have a saint looking over your shoulder while you’re
sitting on someone’s plastic-covered sofa in the living room.”

“I agree that is odd,” Ian replied.

Sean nodded with satisfaction. Finally, someone was agreeing
with him.
 
“Yes, it is,” he said with a
pleased nod.

“People actually have sofas covered with plastic?” Ian asked
incredulously.
 
“What’s the use?”

Sean groaned and Father Jack laughed.

“Well, back to the reason I brought you here,” Gillian
interrupted, rolling her eyes in frustration. “There are some things you need
to see before we talk about the Elk King.”

Immediately alert, Father Jack turned to Gillian. “The Elk
King?” he asked softly. “Here…in Chicago?”

“Aye, it looks like the Wild Hunt paid a visit to a local
park and interrupted a gang fight,” she informed him.

The priest closed his eyes and crossed himself, then looked
up with sorrow on his face.
“How many?”

With a sad shake of her head, she replied.
“At least a hundred.
They haven’t given Sean the full body
count yet.”

Sean watched the interplay between the priest and the young
woman.
 
The grief on the old man’s face
was too raw, too personal. There was more going on here than mere
interest.
 
He decided to push the
envelope and see what kind of reaction he’d get.

“They’re still piecing bodies together to determine the
count,” Sean stated baldly, watching the priest’s face. “There
are
body parts scattered all over the park.”

Father Jack’s face blanched and he swayed slightly.
 
Gillian rushed to his side, sending Sean an
angry look as she helped the priest to a chair. “You had no right—” she began.

 
But Sean wasn’t ready
to back away yet. “Did you know this could happen? Could you have done
something to prevent it?” he demanded.

With a shaky sigh, the priest slowly nodded his head. “Yes,”
he whispered. “Yes, I knew something like this could happen.”

He knew?
 
Sean felt the rage grow inside him.
He knew this was going to happen, and he
never called the police?

Following him over to the chair, Sean was ready to berate
him when Gillian stepped between them. “He knew…we both knew… there was always
a possibility,” she said. “But we didn’t really believe this could happen.
 
They had always observed the conditions of
the contract.”

“A contract?”
Ian asked. “What contract
would have stopped this kind of massacre?”

Father Jack lifted his head and with a determined nod, met
Gillian’s eyes.
 
Sean could see the
change in his demeanor. The casual, friendly man of the cloth was gone, leaving
a more resolute man in his place. “If it’s already begun, we can’t waste a
moment,” he said, shaking his head decisively. “You both deserve to hear the
truth. Gillian, would you please remove the screens?”

The men watched as Gillian walked to the wall near the
entrance and opened yet another metal panel. She flipped a switch, and the soft
rumble of mechanized equipment echoed throughout the large room.
 
Around the two-story room, at eight-foot
intervals, large, white, thirty-foot screens had been positioned over what Sean
knew to be windows that used to house stained-glass.
 
Slowly, the screens were rolling upwards,
revealing the windows Sean recognized.

“These are amazing,” he said, walking to the center of the
room and looking up at the tall, majestic panes.

He turned slowly. Each window was unique, although all had
the influence of Celtic drawings he’d seen on his visits to Ireland.
 
All kinds of creatures, from reptiles to
mammals, were drawn into the complicated, intricate designs that glowed with
color, even without the benefit of sunlight.
 
Snakes, drawn as Celtic knots, intertwined with other snakes within a
golden border on one of the windows; in the center was the image of a saint
holding a book in his hand.
 
Around him were
swirls and lines, all interconnecting and filling in the background.
 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like them in any
other church I’ve been to,” he added.

Gillian walked back from the panel and joined Ian and Father
Jack at the chair. “That’s because they are nothing like any other
stained-glass windows,” Gillian said. “These are taken from the Book of Kells.”

“The Book of Kells,” Ian repeated. “Weren’t you working on
those at Trinity?”

“I was. Yes,” Gillian replied. “The original book, or what
we have of the original book, is housed there on display. I was doing some
research on the origin of the book.”

“Who brought them here?” Ian asked.

“The answer to that question is a little complicated,”
Father Jack replied. “And before I share it with you, I must have your solemn
oath that you will not share this information with anyone else.”

Sean turned his attention from the windows back to the
priest. “You know I can’t make a promise like that if this has anything to do
with an ongoing investigation,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with your investigation,” the priest
said. Then he paused and added, “And everything to do with your investigation.”

“So, it’s a mystery,” Sean replied cynically. “Sorry, Father.
That might have worked when I was in Catechism, but I need real answers now.”

The priest met Sean’s eyes, studied them for a moment.
 
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a word alone
with Gillian,” he said.

Sean nodded. “Take your time.”

He stood, less shaky now, and together with Gillian walked
back to the door, both silent until they had firmly closed the door behind
themselves.

After Father Jack and Gillian left the room, Ian joined Sean
in the middle of the room, studying the windows. “So, you’re the brains here,”
Sean said softly, glancing over to the closed door. “What’s the Book of Kells?”

“I’ve not done a lot of research into the book,” he said.
“But I do know that no one knows where it was created, who created it, and why
it was created such as it is.”

“Well, you’ve been very helpful,” Sean mocked.

Ian chuckled softly. “Aye, but I can tell you some of the
figures in the drawings predate Christianity and are powerful, pagan symbols.”

“Pagan symbols?” Sean
asked,
a note
of skepticism in his voice. “I don’t see any pentacles or ankhs.”

Shaking his head, Ian softly groaned. “You are so American,”
he replied. “I keep forgetting that. Actually, the snake is a pagan symbol. The
legend of St. Patrick running the snakes from Ireland did not refer to
reptiles; it referred to pagans being run out by Christianity.”

Ian stepped closer to the windows. “This is a very odd
combination,” he mused.
“Very odd indeed.
I’d like to
see what Gillian found in her research.”

“And so you shall,” Gillian said from the doorway.

The men turned to see Gillian and Father Jack reentering the
room. The priest came up to Sean and took a deep breath. “I’ve never done this
before, but, knowing your father as I did, and knowing a little more about you,
I’ve decided to risk sharing my information with you, without an oath.”

“I appreciate that, Father,” Sean said. “I can promise that I
will be as circumspect as I can with it.”

The older man smiled. “Well, as you don’t yet know what
you’re getting into,” he said, “don’t make any promises you might not be able
to keep.”

He turned to Ian. “And you, young man,” he said.

“I have no problem promising your secrets will be safe with
me,” Ian said, interrupting the priest. “I’ve secrets of my own and understand
the importance of discretion.”

Nodding, the priest smiled at the two men. “Then come with us,”
he said, “to my living quarters. We’ll be more comfortable there as we discuss
what we must.”