The Map, the Star and the Monster Preview

The Map, the Star, and the Monster

Book One of the Reidy Chronicles

Jude Michael Connors

Published by Libbaeus Publishing, LLC

Tucson, Arizona

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012 by Jude Michael Connors

Cover design by Jude Michael Connors

ISBN 978-0-9882702-1-3

www.judespage.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my father, who believed in me even when I didn’t.

.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my editors, Jennifer Connors, Darren Connors, and John Steele Urban.  They deserve a round of applause for the amount of work they performed. 

Next I would like to thank my family whose support is invaluable: Dad, Bill, Katie, Chris, Pat, Julie, Dan, Larissa, Darren and Jen.

ONE

The car rolled to a stop on the dirty road, crushing pebbles, Styrofoam cups and discarded snack wrappers under its wheels.  The driver killed the engine of the beige sedan and looked out his window at the old, abandoned warehouse.  This had to be the place.  Reidy, the driver, had been searching night after night for the past week and at last he found it.  The warehouse, like many of the buildings that surrounded it in this run-down industrial sector, had been abandoned years before.  The rows of derelict buildings were the type of place that candidates running for local offices would promise to revitalize with new industry and jobs, only to forget about them moments after they were elected. 

The roof of the warehouse the man was interested in sagged.  The wooden boards covering the windows and doors had rotted in the elements.  The building should’ve been condemned and torn down a long time ago.  No one in their right mind would venture into the decaying deathtrap of a warehouse.  It was the perfect place for the vampires to hide.

Reidy opened the door of the car and climbed out.  The stench from the warehouse very nearly made him gag.  It wasn’t just the smell of rotting wood and mildew covered cement, it was the reek of death, of decaying flesh.

He had been tracking the vampires for a week now, following reports and sightings.  The night before, Reidy had searched a home three miles away.  It had been in shambles and he hoped the vampires had nested there.  He was wrong.  The house, save for a few homeless people who were squatting there, was empty.  This warehouse, though, had to be their lair.  From eyewitness accounts, he knew he was dealing with Class Four vamps.  The fetor of rotting flesh was a telltale sign of that breed of vampire.

He walked to the trunk of the car and opened it, revealing several boxes therein.  As he opened the boxes, he briefly contemplated whether he should follow procedure.  From what he was able to tell from eyewitnesses and survivors, there were three to four vampires in this nest.  According to Order rules and regulations, any group of monsters in excess of three should be handled by Order Hunters.  If he were to obey this rule, he would have to call Father Anthony and tell him what he found.  Then Reidy, Anthony and the other members of their team would set up a reconnaissance detail and watch the warehouse to obtain physical evidence that there were, in fact, vampires present.  Once they had proven his speculation, they would have to call Order Headquarters in the Vatican and request a Hunter Team be sent to dispatch the threat.  It was all a very lengthy and time consuming ordeal.  Or he could just skip the procedures and take care of the problem himself.  This internal debate was finished by the time he opened the third container.  Reidy had concluded in a matter of a second that he could just bypass all that bureaucracy and handle the vampires himself.  After all, there were only four vampires at the most.  It was hardly worth the hassle of having a team of Hunters come all the way from Rome.

Inside the boxes were a number of weapons.  There was still a chance this wasn’t the vampires’ hideout.  The smell may have come from something like a broken sewer pipe.  Reidy wasn’t about to walk in there without being prepared.  He pulled out a curved machete and slid the sheathed blade under his belt at the small of his back.  From another box, he retrieved an odd weapon—it looked like something out of a science-fiction movie and not a real submachine gun.  He screwed a long silencer onto the barrel of the unique looking weapon.  The third box contained a number of magazine clips.  Each clip was marked and identified with a short piece of colored tape.  Reidy selected three magazines with red tape.  He pushed two of the clips under his belt for quick retrieval and loaded the third into the weapon.  He pulled out a pair of night-vision goggles from the final box and slipped them over his head.

With the goggles in place and submachine gun in hand, he cautiously approached the warehouse.  He walked, crouching in flowing strides.  The noxiousness stench grew in intensity with each step.  Any doubt whether or not this was the vamps’ lair began to dissipate.

When he was within twenty feet of the building, he saw the boards covering one of the windows appeared loose.  Upon closer inspection, he could see these boards had been pried off of the window frame many times.  The wood planks barely hung onto the nails embedded in the frame.  This had to be where the monsters entered and exited the building.  With great care as to not make any noise, Reidy pulled off the boards and climbed through the shattered.

As bad as the odor was outside the abandoned building, it had not prepared Reidy for the stench inside.  The smell turned his stomach and brought images of wet, festering flesh to his mind.  He sealed his mouth shut tightly.  As rancid as the smell was, he did not dare open his mouth or even part his lips for fear of tasting it.  He would rather endure the noxious odor than taste the disgusting air.

There was one positive side-effect to the foul smell; it would mask Reidy’s own scent.  Other breeds of vampires would have been able to smell him and he would have needed to take steps to mask his scent.  But Class Four vampires, due to their nesting habits, had a notoriously bad sense of smell.

Slowly, Reidy slinked into the warehouse.  He had entered through the office section of the building.  Rooms lined either side of the halls.  The light from the streetlamps outside was lost a few feet in.  He turned on his goggles and it looked as if the hall was washed in an eerie green light.

The type of fear that gripped his guts and threatened to void his bowels almost seized him.  His hands shook slightly and dozens of tiny beads of sweat dripped down his face.  It felt like a hand had reached down into his belly and its fingers were twisting and digging into his stomach.  The voice of reason begged him to turn around and wait for daylight.  The vampires would be resting and vulnerable when the sun rose.  He’d be able to pick them off easily.  There was something however, that drove him past his fear and reason.  It tried to push down his fear and forced him to move forward, toward the dangerous beasts.  It was hatred, a consuming, burning loathing.  He wanted to hear them scream.  It burned inside of him.  It was a compulsion.  He didn’t just need to kill the vampires.  If that was the case, he would’ve waited for the sun to come up in a few hours.  He wanted them to fear like he feared.  He wanted to hunt them, not kill them in their sleep.  That was why he risked his life—to fulfill this dark desire.  It came from a pit in his chest, a hole that felt like it surrounded his heart. 

There was a pathway in the thick layer of dirt on the floor.  Something had been dragged through this hall recently.  The vampires had dragged their latest victim through this hallway.  Reidy followed the path.  It would lead him straight to the monsters.

He wound his way through the halls, passing empty rooms and storage closets.  One such closet was at the end of a long and narrow corridor.  Reidy memorized its location.  Once he found the vampires, he could lure them to this hall while he hunkered down in the closet.  He would be able to take them out, one by one, as they ran down the narrow hallway.

Suddenly, a creak sounded to his left.  Reidy froze.  Was it just the sound of one of the old studs in the walls sagging?  Or was the creak caused by one of the vampires walking down a hall parallel to the one he travelled.  Could one of the monsters be patrolling the building?

Reidy held his breath, crouched down even lower, and waited.  He strained his ears, trying to pick up any sound.  After several seconds where the only thing he heard was his own heartbeat, he was satisfied the creak was nothing more than the old building sagging. 

Finally, after minutes of snaking through the winding halls, he heard them.  Voices reached his ears as nothing more than muffled murmurs and grunts.  He was close.  Holding his breath, Reidy turned down a corridor.  The sounds grew louder and clearer.  He could make out a few words here and there.  Peering around a corner, he saw them.  The fiends were huddled around a corpse, tearing off hunks of flesh.

Out of all the vampire breeds he had seen and read about, Class Four were the most foul in Reidy’s opinion.  Not only did they suck their victims dry, afterwards they tore the poor souls apart, ripping out their organs in order to literally squeeze every last drop of blood out of them.  That wasn’t the extent of their repulsive actions.  The monsters had an even more disturbing habit.  They used the mutilated corpses of their victims as a gory nest.  It was in their nature to spend the daylight hours resting under a pile of decomposing flesh.  This breed was so much like vermin, their faces mutated and changed from their normal human appearance into something rodent-like when they became vampires.

Still peaking around the corner, Reidy did a head-count.  There were four vampires, which put them at the high end of the estimate.  Two were men—one was dressed in an old, tattered Hawaiian shirt caked with dried blood and filth.  The other wore a similarly grimy tank-top.  One of the females wore a long sun dress that had been ruined with bloodstains and tears while the second woman wore a filthy bathrobe.  All four had elongated features, which gave their faces a snout and made them resemble something akin to a rat.  Behind the monsters, he could see a few of their nests—small hills made of the decaying arms, legs, heads and chests of their victims. 

He would’ve preferred if there were only three of them, but it didn’t matter how many there were.  He had to take them down.  The hole in his chest gnawed at him.  It demanded he push passed his fear and kill the monsters.

It was possible that he could attack them there, while their attention was on their feast.  But this room was large.  The ceiling was no less than two stories tall and he estimated it was at least fifty to sixty feet wide.  It was either a storeroom or the main work area of the warehouse.  The vampires could scatter in every direction as well as hide behind a number of thick posts and pillars when the shooting started.  No, Reidy would stick to his original plan of luring them to the one narrow hallway.

Taking a step backward, he started to head back to the small closet he had chosen.  Once there, he could lure them with something as simple as him shouting out “over here!”  The monsters would come at him and fall directly into his trap.

Plans, even simple ones, rarely go the way people hope.

Just as Reidy took that step backward, he almost butted heads with a fifth vamp.  It would seem the eyewitnesses had been wrong about how many monsters there were.  He was a hairsbreadth away from the beast’s elongated, ratlike face.  The smell of death saturated the vampire.  The vamp, a male in a tattered leather jacket, looked at Reidy with surprise in his inky black eyes.  Had Reidy made a sound when he entered and this one had gone to investigate?  Was the sound he heard earlier this vampire’s footfalls?  Or was the vampire just out for a stroll.  The reasons for this one being away from his brethren was unimportant, for the vamp began to open its maw either to cry out to his nest mates or in an attempt to sink his fangs into Reidy’s neck. 

He didn’t give the monster the chance.  In a flash, he brought up his submachine gun and slammed the butt into his nose.  The folding stock of the Kriss Vector submachine gun was not designed for such a use.  He didn’t have time to turn the weapon around and fire.  Even though his depth perception was hindered by the night-vision goggles, he tried to aim his blow well behind the vampire’s nose in order to deliver as much force to the strike as he could.  Thankfully, his aim was true and the butt smashed into the monster’s face.  The weapon shook with the impact.  Reidy heard a small snapping sound coming from the folding joint of the weapon’s stock and knew he had damaged it.  The vamp’s head cracked back.  A fountain of blood launched from his shattered nose. 

Reidy was spinning the Kriss’ barrel toward the monster when he heard the others roaring and rushing at the sound of the scuffle.  He had no time; the vamps, with their preternatural speed, would be on him in a second if he did not move immediately.  Jumping past the vamp with the broken nose, he dashed down the hall and threw himself into the first room he came across and slammed the door behind him.  Even though the door would only stop them for a moment, he’d take any time given to him.  He ran to the far corner of the room and crouched down.  The old scar tissue in his bad knee stretched and his joint creaked painfully.  He gritted his teeth and aimed his weapon at the door.  That was when he saw another door wide open on an opposing wall.  This was not good.  The vamps would break down the door he had come through in a fraction of a second and this other door gave the monsters another point of entry.  He had to defend two doors against five vampires.

He tore off his goggles.  This was no time to deal with depth perception problems.  He turned on the flashlight built into the barrel of the Kriss. 

A fist smashed through the closed door.  The vamp shoved his elbow through, breaking the door in half.  It was the one whose nose Reidy broke.  The vampire snarled and roared at him, spraying his own blood with his bellow.  Reidy trained the weapon on the beast’s chest as he kicked what remained of the door into splinters.  He squeezed the trigger, firing three rounds.  The tracer slugs, with their phosphorous coating, left bright red trails as they rocketed through the air.  The .45 caliber bullets punched into the vampire’s chest.  The force knocked him back and made him stagger.  If it had been a human and not an undead abomination, he would’ve been knocked to the ground.  The vamp looked down to his chest in shock and agony.  The phosphorous burned and ate away at his flesh, ribs and lungs.  Three trails of grey smoke rose up from the open wounds.  If the vampire had not just fed and fresh blood was not coursing through his veins, the specially coated rounds would’ve caused him to ignite and burn like kindling.  The fresh blood in his veins, however, was not enough to completely fend off the burning chemicals lining the gunshot wounds in his torso.  The vamp fell to his knees, his face contorted in pain.

The second vampire, the female in the bathrobe, shoved her injured comrade to the side and began to lunge at Reidy.  At the same time, the vamp in the tank-top came running through the second door. 

Reidy fired one shot.  Years of training and practice placed the slug directly into the female vamp’s forehead.  Most of her brain was punched out of her skull through the fist-size hole that was blown out the back of her head.  The remainder of the monster’s gray-matter burned as the phosphorous ate at her brain.  She crashed to her knees and toppled over like a sack of meat.

The tank-top vampire was almost on top of Reidy.  Whipping the weapon around, he fired off several rounds at the third vamp.  A few slugs went wide and blew chunks out of the wall.  The other two rounds ripped through the vampire’s neck and chest.  With smoke surging out of his wounds, he dropped to the ground a few feet in front of Reidy, screaming in agony.

Two more, he thought to himself.  Reidy could hear more footfalls from out in the hall. These ones were smarter and didn’t run blindly into the room.  The male vampires he had shot were lying on the floor, groaning and twitching in pain with their wounds smoldering while the female lay still and unmoving.

Then, the vampire in the sundress rushed into the room.  She was scurrying across the floor, low, and propelling herself on her fingers and toes like some mockery of a spider.  Reidy fired a number of rounds again.  This time the vamp anticipated the attack and rolled out of the way.  The slugs buried themselves into the concrete floor.  He reacquired the vamp, fired another volley, and the monster tumbled out of the way.  The vampire was slowed by her dodging, but she would soon be on top of her prey.  Reidy mashed the trigger of the Kriss, firing round after round.  The special mechanism of the weapon diverted most of the recoil away from his shoulder.  The muzzle flash combined with the glowing red trails of the tracer rounds to create an odd strobe effect.  Still the vampire avoided the bullets.  Yellow and red lights flashed and she rolled out of the slugs’ path.  Finally Reidy hit the vampire.  The bullet ripped into her upper thigh.  She screamed.  Momentum carried her forward and she slid across the floor, coming to a stop just before Reidy’s feet.  At this close range, he could not simply shoot the vampire a few times and hope she would be incapacitated.  If she got her hands on him, she could tear him apart.  So he unloaded the remaining rounds of the clip into the vampire’s head and chest.  Six rounds slammed into the back of the monster’s skull and ripped through her ribcage and spine before the Kriss made a loud clank, indicating the magazine was empty.

There was still another one—the one in the Hawaiian shirt.  He was out there and Reidy had to reload.  As quickly as he could, he ejected the spent clip and pulled a fresh one from his belt.  An ungodly roar sounded from out in the hall and something flew at Reidy.  The vampire was jumping at him, with his fingers flexed and mouth wide open, ready to rip into him with his claws and fangs the moment he landed on him.

Reidy slammed the magazine in place just as the vamp collided with him.  The beast’s claws dug into the flesh of his shoulders, drawing blood.  The weapon barked and the muzzle flashed.  Two slugs drilled through the vamp’s lower abdomen and exploded out of the small of his back.  Another three rounds marched up his belly.  Reidy continued to pull the barrel up to his attacker’s chest, mashing the trigger constantly.  The monster jerked and screamed in pain as slug after slug tore through his chest.  So far, Reidy had shot the monster clinging onto his shoulders more than any of the other vamps and he wasn’t about to stop.  He could feel the vamp’s snapping teeth by his ear, trying desperately to tear out his throat.  It was imperative that Reidy take this vamp out quickly.  If he stopped firing before the vampire was incapacitated, he could sink his fangs into his jugular.  Reidy continued to shoot out of mortal fear.  The accumulated phosphorous of two dozen tracer rounds raged through the vampire’s body and soon he caught on fire.  Little tongues of flame ignited out of the bullet wounds.  The flames connected and grew, consuming inches of the vamp’s flesh.  Finally, the Kriss made a clanking noise once again.  All thirty rounds had ripped through the vampire.  Reidy kicked the monster off of him.  The vamp’s legs and arms thrashed as fire destroyed his chest and abdomen.  Under the screams, Reidy could hear the monster’s bones crackling and popping like firewood.

Standing, with his bad knee groaning and shaking, Reidy ejected the spent magazine and pulled the final clip from his belt.  He was about to walk around the room and shoot the fallen vampires several more times when he heard something above him.

Instantly, he tumbled forward.  He sensed something dense and strong rocketing behind his head.  The thing hit the floor with a loud crack and Reidy felt the reverberation of the blow through the cement.  Two hands shoved him in his back and he went flying, head over heels.  The weapon and ammo clip slipped from his hands moments before he crashed to the ground and skidded across the floor in opposite directions.

The light from the Kriss, lying five feet away from Reidy, and the still burning vampire illuminated the room.  A sixth vampire slowly stood.  He realized the beast must have been in a corner when he had spied the rest feasting on the corpse.  This one had to have snuck into the room, clinging along the ceiling, as he fought with the monster’s brethren.  It was different from the rest.  It still bore an elongated face and beady eyes like the others of its kind.  Yet this one was twisted, bent and hunched over like an old, dying tree.  It was a travesty of a human form.  There was no way for Reidy to tell whether it was a male or female.  Muck and blood covered it from head to toe.  It was also old: much older than the others.  Reidy could feel it in his bones, as if something primal in him sensed the monster had lived for centuries. 

There was no time to grab the submachine gun and load the clip in it.  Hell, there wasn’t enough time for Reidy to pull the Kukri machete from his back.  The ancient vampire would be on him in a second.  His right hand shot up to his shirt collar just as the vampire tackled him, pinning him where he fell.  Reidy’s left hand darted out and grabbed the monster by its neck and locked his elbow.  It would only buy him a second before the vamp broke his arm and lunged at his throat.  In that second, he tugged out a two-inch silver cross from under his shirt.  The vampire hissed at the sight of the holy object.  In one swift motion, Reidy tugged the cross up, snapping the thin chain around his neck, and plunged the cross into the monster’s eye.  Black fluid erupted from the vamp’s ruined eye and smoke began to pour out from around the cross.  The monster reared back, howling in pain and Reidy kicked at it with all of his might, causing it to fall backward.

Instantly, Reidy rolled up and pulled the Kukri from its sheath.  Letting a growl escape his throat, he jumped on the ancient vampire and brought the long knife down, hacking into the thing’s shoulder.  He pulled it out and slashed it across the vamp’s neck.  Again and again, he hacked and slashed at the monster, cleaving off chunks of flesh and muscle.  At one point, the monster held out its hands in a feeble attempt to fend off the machete.  Its fingers were hacked off and strips of its forearms were sliced for its efforts.  Its blood exploded with each blow.  The blade, coated with blood, sent rivulets spraying across the room in wide arcs.  Reidy couldn’t risk letting the vampire up again.  It was the strongest of the bunch and, if given the chance, it would kill him.  This sense of self-preservation wasn’t only one of the reasons why he continued to attack it like a berserk madman.  Tiny bits of flesh and gore were flung from the swinging blade.  The gooey pieces slapped against the walls and ceiling before they slowly slid and tumbled to the ground.  In a few moments, the thing was a mangled, mutilated mess.  It groaned weakly and ceased fighting back.  Reidy stood and grabbed the monster by its slimy, dirty hair.  He chopped at the thing’s exposed neck and did not stop until its head was separated from its shoulders.  He threw the decapitated head to the far side of the room where it bounced off the wall and rolled on the floor for a few feet before it came to a stop. 

Reidy’s knife fell from his hand and clanked on the ground.  Shaking violently, he fell to his hands and knees.  The metal brace protecting his knee made a dull thud when it hit the concrete.  His belly contorted painfully and he retched, vomiting on the floor.  The fear that had built up during the entire attack and had crested when the old vampire pinned him finally overtook the man.  Again, bile exploded from his mouth as he threw up a second time.  He gritted his teeth and willed himself past his fear.  Still shaking, he slowly stood.  The black blood that coated the walls dripped from his face as well as his chest and arms.  Nausea nearly overwhelmed him and he almost threw up a third time.  

“That could’ve gone better,” he panted.

Even with the fear still racing through his veins and the disgusting gore clinging to his body, he felt satisfied.  His brutality and all the repercussions were necessary.  Not only in order to stop these vampires from killing more people, but to satiate his own desire.  The hole in his chest seemed to subside a little.  With bitterness, he knew this was only temporary.  The hole would grow and it would make him hunt again.

Breathing heavily, Reidy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cell phone.  He mashed the call button and waited for someone to pick up on the other line.

“Tony, it’s me,” he said once he heard someone answering.  “I need two cleanup vans.”  He quickly gave directions to the old abandoned warehouse.

“How many this time, Tom?” the voice on the other end asked, sounding disappointed and upset.

“There were enough.  Bring gasoline, too.  They were Class Four vamps.”  Reidy did not wait for a response.  He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Stepping over the headless body, he retrieved his submachine gun.  Once he loaded the final magazine, he went around the room and systematically emptied the clip, putting five more rounds into the chest and head of all of the vampires.  He did this even with the ancient one and the vamp that was still on fire.  He had to ensure the monsters were fully incapacitated.  Even with the tracer rounds burning the vampires, it wasn’t enough to completely kill them.  There were too many breeds of vampires that were resilient and incredibly difficult to kill.  He would have to dismember them like he had done with the old, twisted one.  Even then the process wasn’t finished.

Thirty minutes after Reidy made the call, two flat panel vans pulled up in front of the warehouse.  Two men and one woman got out of the vehicles and began unloading several large duffel bags and a large plastic container.  The older man of the trio led his companions through the same entrance Reidy had used.  When they entered the tiny room where Reidy had massacred the vampires, the woman shined her flashlight over the bullet riddled and smoldering bodies. She made a sound of disgust.  “I think I’m going to throw up.”  She then pointed the flashlight at Reidy and saw the blood and chunks of flesh clinging to his jacket and face.  “Jesus Christ, Tommy!”

The older man quickly chastised his female companion.  “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, Sister Giselle.”

“Sorry, Father Anthony.”

“Six, Tom?” asked Father Anthony disbelievingly.  He frowned, accentuating the pock marks on his face.  “Six?”

“They were about to move to another location,” he lied, effortlessly, “I had to act before they left.”

“Father Luke is going to be very irate,” warned Anthony.

Reidy asked, dismissing Anthony’s warning, “Did you bring plenty of body bags?”

To answer his question, Giselle unzipped her duffle bag, turned it over and dumped out a number of folded, plastic body bags. 

Father Anthony turned to the young man standing behind him and said, “Matthew, go ahead and put down the box.  Then get back to the van and grab the gasoline.”

Matthew, who normally had a doe-eye expression, was a sickly green color.  He set the box down on the floor and practically sprinted out of the room.

“Poor new guy,” emphasized Reidy, “he’s still not used to this.”

Sister Giselle said, “I’ve been doing this for seven years and I’m still not used to it.  I don’t think getting used to it is even possible.”

Father Anthony copied Giselle’s action of dumping the contents of his duffel bag, letting the body bags fall to the ground.  Along with the body bags, four disposable coveralls, heavy rubber gloves, goggles and paper masks dropped out as well.  Each item was individually wrapped in plastic bags.  Giselle and Anthony tore open two packages and pulled out the paper bodysuits.  Giselle handed Reidy one unopened package.  He refused.  “I’m already covered in muck. It’s kind of pointless to wear it now.”

After donning the thick rubber gloves and putting on the goggles and facemask, Reidy went over to the plastic container to open it.  He pulled out a large battery operated reciprocating saw as well as a circular saw.  He handed the circular saw to Giselle and they began to work on the vampires.  Reidy knelt down next to one monster and Giselle took her place beside another.  They then began to mutilate the monsters’ bodies.  Reidy sawed through the vampire’s neck while Giselle cut open the other one’s chest, exposing its heart and lungs.  Once Reidy had completely cut through the neck and its head rolled free, Anthony reached down, scooped it up and placed the decapitated head in one of the body bags.

Giselle looked up at Reidy and joked, “I thought you said you were going to show us a fun time tonight?”

“One, I never said that,” he returned.  “And two, I’ll take you guys out bowling sometime.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Tommy.”

Just as Reidy started working on decapitating the second vampire, Father Matthew returned carrying four plastic gas cans in his hands and wedged under his arms.  Giselle looked up and said to the young man, “Go and grab the knife from the bin.  It’s your turn to cut out their hearts.”

For the next half hour, the four methodically went through the room and mutilated the bodies of the vampires.  The monsters’ severed heads were placed in one body bag while their hearts were placed in a second.  Then Reidy and the other Georgies, as they affectionately referred to themselves, placed each headless and heartless corpse into their own separate bag.  Next, they worked in pairs, trucking the body bags out to the waiting vans.  Once the bags with their gory contents had been stored in the vehicles, the four ventured back into the heart of the warehouse where the vampires had set up their nests.  The Georgies shined their lights across the large room.

“Oh, Christ!” exclaimed Giselle.  This time, Father Anthony did not scold her.  He was too shocked to do so.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of body parts scattered throughout the room.  Piles of heads, arms, legs, and torsos were mounted up into tiny little hills.  Reidy would not have been surprised if there were the torn and scattered remains of a hundred different bodies in this room.  The sight of the pieces in their varying stages of decomposition was sickening.  Reidy nearly threw up again.

“Let’s get this over with,” said Anthony, looking peaked.

Even though he was wearing the disposable paper mask, Father Matthew held a handkerchief to his mouth in an attempt to block out the disgusting smell.  “Won’t this arouse suspicion?” he asked.  “Won’t the police start asking questions when they find piles of burnt body parts?”

“If the world was perfect, yes, they would,” said Reidy.  “It’s not perfect, though, is it?”

“Unfortunately, the police and fire department will come to the conclusion that a number of homeless people were living in here when a fire broke out,” Anthony explained.  “They’ll just chalk it up as a tragic accident and leave it at that.  I doubt they’ll even take the time to catalogue the body parts to get an accurate number.”

Giselle was the first to open her plastic tank and begin splashing it on the pile of bodies.  The men quickly joined her.  They walked around the six nests, splashing them with the flammable liquid.  The Georgies poured every last drop out of the tanks.  They needed to make sure the piles of body parts burned.  With any luck, the fire would spread throughout the old warehouse and cause it to collapse, burying this gory scene.

The room the nests were located in was truly large.  It had many dark corners tucked away from sight.  If Reidy or his companions searched the extent of this room and all of its nooks and crannies, they might have come upon a seventh nest.

Before they left the large room and made their way out of the warehouse, Father Anthony said a prayer over the piles of corpses.

“Absolve, Domine, animas omnium fidelium…”

The full extent of Reidy’s knowledge of Latin was tempus fugit, carpe diem and Semper Fidelis.  The only reason why he knew the last phrase was due to his service in the Marine Corps.  Even though he didn’t understand what Anthony was intoning, he still bowed his head and did not lift it until the priest said “Amen.”

When the prayer was completed, the Georgies made their way out of the warehouse.  Standing next to one of the vans, Anthony turned to Reidy and said, “Matthew and I will take the bodies to Landmann’s Crematorium.  You and Giselle go to Elk Family and Quincy Funeral Homes.”

As Fathers Anthony and Matthew drove off in one of the vans. Giselle turned to Reidy and said, “You ready to take off, Tommy?”

Reidy looked down at his clothes.  The blood, now cold, had saturated the fabric and clung to his chest and legs.  As if she knew what he was about to ask, Giselle handed him the disposable paper suit.  “Go ahead and get changed in the van.  It won’t help much, but there’s a package of handy wipes under the driver seat.”

He took the package, saying, “Thanks.”

In the back of the van, Reidy peeled off the soiled clothes. One look at his clothing and he realized he would never be able to wash them clean.  He rolled the shirt and pants into a ball, opened the body bag containing the vampires’ heads and stuffed the clothes in it.  Then he retrieved the box of handy wipes from under the seat and tore out a bunch of cloths.  He wiped off as much as he could.  He then put on the paper suit and joined Giselle outside the van.

“Let’s get this done and get out of here,” she said, handing him a box of matches.  Reidy took them and marched back into the warehouse.  A moment later a bright light emanated from deep within the abandoned building and Reidy came crawling out of the window. He jumped into his car while Giselle climbed into the driver seat of the van.  By the time they reached the end of the street, tongues of flame could already be seen coming out of the broken windows of the building.

A short while later, the pair pulled up to the back entrance of The Elk Family Funeral Home.  Giselle knocked on the door while Reidy grabbed one of the two body bags from the back of the van.  A short, balding man wearing a bathrobe and looking like he had been roused from bed at an ungodly hour—which he had been—opened the door.  He looked around over Giselle and Reidy’s heads nervously before quickly ushering them in and slamming the door shut.

“Thank you, Mr. Elk.”  Giselle flashed the man a smile.

Mr. Elk scratched the back of his head and grinned.  Giselle’s smile was infectious.  “I’ll get the fire started.”

As Giselle and Reidy walked down the empty hallway leading toward the crematorium room, she asked, “Did you do that just to piss off Father Luke?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Ditching procedure like that and taking on six vamps by yourself,” she clarified.  “And don’t give me the same bullshit line you fed Tony.”

“What bullshit line?”

“Those vampires were not about to leave.”

Reidy knew exactly what had given him away—the nests.  It was evident by how large their nests had become the vampires had found a good, long-time building to hide in.  There were no signs whatsoever that they were about to leave.  

“I had to act.  I couldn’t waste time following procedures.”

“Listen, I hate procedures as much as you do,” said Giselle.  “But they are there to protect us.  You could have died.”

“If I wasted time following procedure more people would have died,” he countered.  “We would’ve had to set up a surveillance team to observe the vampires and get solid evidence that they were really there.  Then we have to contact the Vatican and request they send a Hunter team.  At best that would take two or three nights—one night to confirm the vamps were there and a night or two waiting for the Hunters to get here.  And in those nights the vampires would’ve killed more people.  Those monsters would’ve murdered at least one innocent person every night.”

“What would’ve happened if you have got yourself killed?” she asked.  “What would’ve happened if you stormed in without any help or backup and you died?  We wouldn’t have known about the vampires and they would’ve been free and clear to kill as many people as they wanted from now until Judgment Day.

“Yes, following procedure does put people’s lives at risk,” she continued.  “But it’s there to save us and to help people.  It’s not perfect.  Jesus Christ, I for one know for a fact it’s not perfect.  But it’s the best thing we’ve got.”

Reidy nodded his head.  He did not agree with Giselle’s assessment.  He knew, however, he could not argue with her.  She was persistent and very stubborn—even more so than he was.

“I know you, Tommy, and I know you’re just agreeing with me to shut me up.  But will you at least promise me that you’ll call us and get some effing backup next time you come across any more monsters.”

“Who’s going to give me backup?”

“Me, for one, you dumbass.”

He chuckled.

“I know how to handle myself in a fight,” she defended.

“You’ve fired a couple rounds off at a shooting range.  That’s not the same as a real fire-fight.”

The cremation machine roared to life.  Reidy dumped the bag onto a conveyor belt.

“I’ve been in some firefights, Tommy.”

“When?”

“It was about six years ago,” she said.  “Tony and I were on the surveillance gig when the ghouls we were watching spotted us.  They came crashing through the window and we had to fight them off.”

“How many of them did you kill?”

Giselle did not answer. Instead she opened the gate for the cremation machine.

He repeated, “How many did you kill?”

“None. I didn’t kill any of them.  We fired off a bunch of rounds and ran away, okay.”

Reidy shoved the bag down the conveyor belt and into the fire.

“That’s not the point though,” Giselle continued.  “I’ve been in tough situations and I can help you, for Christ’s sake.”

Reidy laughed.

“C’mon, I’m serious!” she snapped.

“No, no.  That’s not what I’m laughing about,” he said.  “I was laughing because you are the most vulgar, third commandment breaking nun I have ever met.”

Her cheeks brightened a little in a blush.  “I’m not your usual type of nun.”

Reidy looked at her in silence and couldn’t agree more.  If Giselle had been in some other profession, he would’ve described her as gorgeous.  Such an intimate term, with its sexual connotation, seemed like it would be insulting to Giselle and the vows she had taken.  So he had to constantly remind himself to think of her as a nun, as an untouchable and unattainable person.  However, here in a crematorium with vampire heads burning into ashes, he had a difficult time not thinking of her as gorgeous with her long, black hair, heart shaped face and full, pouty lips.  Behind his back, his hand balled into a fist, forcing his fingernails into his palm, punishing himself for his dirty thoughts.  He couldn’t think of her in such a manner.  It was wrong on many different levels.  He turned his head away from Giselle and focused on the various switches and levers on the contraption in front of him.

A feeling of loneliness crept out of the hole in his chest.

“Regardless of how much I curse,” said Giselle, “I still don’t want you going off halfcocked chasing down any effing monster you come across.  I want you to call us so we can give you backup.”

“I won’t call you,” he said with finality.  “I’m not going to put your lives at risk.”

“Well I’m not willing to let you put your life at risk.”  She crossed her arms over her chest.  “So either you’re going to call us for backup whenever you want to go off and kill monsters or you’re going to follow procedure and none of us will put our lives at risk.”

Once again, Reidy realized there was no way he was going to win this argument.  Giselle was too stubborn to drop it.  Instead of dragging this argument on, he looked into her brown eyes and said, “All right, I’ll give you a call.”

It was a lie.  He would never put Giselle’s life in danger and he wouldn’t change, either.

The machine made a ding noise, indicating the cycle was finished and the remains had been burnt into ash.  Normally, these ashes would sit in the machine for a few hours to cool down.  But Reidy and Giselle were running on a time constraint.  They dumped the ashes into an insulated tin container and sealed it tightly.  

With the container in hand they bid Mr. Elk good night as they returned to their van.  The pair pulled out of the parking space and headed to the next crematorium.

They would copy this same process at Quincy Funeral Home with the body bag full of hearts.  In the morning, they would ship the ashes to different parts of the world.  The ashes of the six vampires’ bodies would be mixed and then divided into four boxes.  Those boxes would be sent all over the world and scattered separately.  The cremated remains of the heads and hearts would be shipped to two different factories where the ashes would be put into a high pressure press machine and injected with resin to form small, tight cubes.  These cubes would then be stored in depleted mines in China and Chile.  None of the ashes of the heads would mix with the cremated remains of the hearts or the bodies.  The Order of St. George, the secret organization Reidy and the other Georgies worked for did this with every vampire they killed to insure they could not raise again.

TWO

Walking through the halls and corridors in the basement beneath St. Andrew’s church, Father Anthony suppressed a yawn.  After being up all night dismembering vampires, he’d much rather be asleep.  However, when Father Luke, the leader of this branch of the Order of St. George, heard of the previous night’s activities, he demanded Anthony make his report in person.  He knocked on Father Luke’s office door.

“Come in.”

Luke was sitting behind his desk, reading through a stack of papers as Father Anthony entered the office.  The office itself was very tiny; it was barely large enough for Luke’s desk and the three chairs.  Without looking up, Luke gestured to a chair in front of his desk.  Anthony took his seat.  The stark, bright light from the desk lamp caused the jagged scar on Luke’s face to stand out even more than it normally did.  Even though Anthony had become accustomed to seeing the scar, he couldn’t help looking at it now.  It started above Father Luke’s right eye and, in a twisted and jagged line, went down past his temple, down his cheek to his jaw where it turned and followed his jawline past his chin.  This scar was just one of Luke’s many war wounds from his years as an Order Hunter.  The cane leaning against the wall behind him was another such reminder.

After he signed a paper, Luke finally looked up and addressed Anthony.  “What happened last night?”

“I received a call from Tom Reidy around 1:15 AM.  He said he had stumbled across a nest of Class Four vampires and needed a cleanup crew.  My team went to the location and disposed of the bodies.  We had to burn down the warehouse in order to destroy the vampires’ nests.”

Luke fixed his cold blue eyes on Anthony.  The yellow film of developing cataracts tinted the whites of his eyes.  “How many vampires?”

Anthony hesitated for a moment, fearing his answer would get Reidy into hot water.  Regardless of his fears, there was no way around it.  He confessed, “There were six vampires.”

Luke’s lips pressed into a thin line and rubbed his hands over his swollen knuckles.  Anthony knew Luke’s arthritis always flared up whenever he was frustrated or upset. 

“Six vampires?” he said and angrily repeated, “Six vampires?  That is a job for Order Hunters.  Not for a Protector.”

Anthony nodded his head in agreement.  It was the only thing he could do.  He couldn’t argue or debate, nor could he even defend Reidy’s actions to Luke.  Not only had he heard this exact same argument so many times in the past that he could practically repeat it verbatim, he agreed with the older priest.  Reidy should not have taken on those monsters by himself. 

Pointing a gnarled finger at Anthony, Luke continued with his reprimand.  “I never liked that you recruit people from the secular world.  I think we should only recruit people who have taken their vows before they join the organization.”  He was so upset he was practically spitting out the words.  “That way they know about sacrifice and commitment.  They have respect for our rules and way of life.  Giselle acts like she’s a nun in name only.  But at least she follows Order rules.  Tom’s worse than her.  He doesn’t fulfill any of his duties to the church and he constantly goes against Order regulations.  I told you recruiting him was a bad idea.  I knew his past history with vampires would lead to problems.”

“Giselle had an experience with a werewolf before she joined the Order,” Anthony pointed out.  Reidy had overstepped his duties, but he was a good man and Anthony wanted to defend him.  “You didn’t object to her history with werewolves when she joined.”

“She didn’t lose her family,” the elderly priest contended. 

Still trying to defend his friend, however rash and imprudent his actions were, Anthony pressed on, “Tom’s a damn good Protector, Luke, even though he goes against procedure.  In fact, I think he’d make a good Hunter.”

“Hunters are a very organized and disciplined group,” Luke countered.  “Do you honestly think someone like Tom, a man who can’t even follow the simplest orders, could even survive as a Hunter?  Would he even be able to handle the rigid structured life of a Hunter?”

“He was a Marine,” Anthony pointed out.

“You and I both know a lot has happened in Tom’s life since his days in the Corps.  He scoffs at procedures and guidelines.  He tracks and hunts monsters alone.  What’s worse is that I’m starting to think he has a death wish.”

Anthony became silent.  He shared in this assessment of Reidy’s behavior.  It worried him that his friend appeared willing and eager to throw his life away.

Luke took a calming breath.  “If he does this again, if he bypasses procedure, I will not hesitate to kick him out of the Order of St. George.  I’ll throw him to the streets and let God handle him.”

*     *     *

Thick clouds of steam continued to flow out of the small bathroom attached to Reidy’s tiny quarters in the building adjacent to St. Andrew’s church.  He had taken the hottest shower he could stand and scrubbed himself clean four full times.  Even after all of that, he still felt dirty and unclean.  It was as if the vampires’ blood had seeped into his pores and he had been unable to get it out.  Judging by how red his whole body had become due to the vigorous scrubbing, he had washed away everything including a layer of skin.

He tossed the damp towel into a hamper and quickly dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a plain white T-shirt.

There was a knock on his door.  He opened it to find Giselle holding her habit in her hand.  He could tell by her damp hair that she had just taken a shower much like he had.

“Hey,” she said, “are we going bowling tonight or was that just a joke?”

“Well, it was a joke,” he said, “but now it sounds kind of cool.  What time would you like to go?”

“Oh God, probably seven o’clock or so.  I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted and I’m going to take a nap.”

“See you around seven.” 

As he closed the door he heard Giselle say, “Sweet dreams.”

Reidy sat at the end of his bed, rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.  Adrenaline had kept him up for most the night.  Now his body was drained and exhausted.  Yet he couldn’t sleep.  Thoughts were buzzing about wildly in his head, dredging up old bitter memories of a life gone by.  He thought back to a time, a few years ago, before he knew monsters were real.  Life at the time seemed complex, difficult and oftentimes harsh.  Now as he looked back at those years, he wished his life was that simple.  He looked at the mirror on top of the tiny dresser.  He appeared to have aged so much since joining the Georgies.  His features were now hard and chiseled.  The muscles in his strong jawline were highly defined as if they were constantly tensed.  Deep lines framed his eyes and mouth, giving him a rugged expression.  Flecks of premature gray were scattered throughout his closely cropped and thinning hair.  He still had a sparkle in his eyes, but there was also coldness to them.

His body begged for sleep.  Still his mind raced.  Reidy picked up the rosary draped over the corner of the mirror  and lay back on the bed, on top of the sheets.  He began to pray, willing his thoughts to concentrate not on the words but on the rhythm and cadence of the prayers.  He made it through the rosary two times before finally falling asleep.  As he drifted off to sleep, as he often did, he involuntarily uttered two words.

“Karen, why?”

*     *     *

He had enough time to squeeze in his workout before he went bowling.  So Reidy drove to the local YMCA and began his grueling workout.  First he jogged on one of the treadmills.  Then he proceeded with his weight training before moving onto the heavy punching bag.

Reidy’s fists flew, slamming into the punching bag.  He grunted with each blow.  Sweat dripped from his chin and nose.  He threw a kick and then another two punches in rapid succession.  His muscles burned from the exertion.  Nevertheless, he continued to throw punches and kicks at the vinyl hide of the punching bag.

His knee ached.  He could feel it swelling and pressing against his knee brace.  The fight he had with the vampires the night before and the jog had done a number on his bad joint.  The old injury flared up.  He ignored the pain and pressed on in his workout.

This portion of Reidy’s workout was not intended to hone his hand-to-hand combat.  It was strictly for exercise.  The notion of using his kicks and punches in a fight with a demon or monster was ludicrous.  Most of the monsters he faced were at least five times stronger than he was.  He had been lucky the night before when he held back the vamp.  If he had hesitated before plunging the cross into the monster’s eye, even for a moment, the vampire would’ve broken his arm like a dried twig. 

As his fists and feet slammed into the punching bag, a part of Reidy wished it was possible for him to take on a vampire with his bare hands.  He wanted to smash their faces in, feel their nose and teeth break under his knuckles.  The impossible thought of beating a vampire, of pummeling it to a pulp, thrilled him.  This notion of taking on a vampire with no weapons, as absurd as it was, made his blood course rapidly through his veins.  Reidy’s fists flew faster and harder as he entertained this fantasy.  He was no longer punching a vinyl bag but a vampire’s face—a very specific vampire with cold blue eyes and a Romanesque nose.  The odd sensation of a pit in his chest grew.  Reidy did not realize he had started growling loudly.  The other people around him in the gym began to stare at the odd man pummeling the heavy bag.

The alarm on his watch sounded, indicating his workout was over.  He continued to throw punches, kicks and elbows at the bag for another minute.  Panting, he let his arms fall to his side.  His arms felt like jelly and his legs felt even weaker.

He was still panting while he walked with shaky legs to the showers.  After opening his locker, he retrieved a water bottle and some painkillers from his bag.  He swallowed the pills and drank the bottle in a few long gulps. 

Once he had showered he dressed.  Reidy made his way out of the gym and just as he was leaving, he held the door open for a pair of young women as they entered.  When the pair walked passed him, one of them, a pretty black woman with green eyes, flashed an attractive smile and said, “Thank you.”  While the door closed behind Reidy, he heard the woman add another “Thank you.”  He noted her tone sounded significantly more appreciative.  He turned his head back and saw the woman smiling and looking at his backside.

*     *     *

The bowling ball made a low, deep rumble as it rolled across the polished wood of the alley.  Then it made a loud thumping noise as it rolled and fell into the gutter.

“Good one, Tommy!” cheered Giselle.

“Those are the breaks, Tom,” said Brother Edwin.  The rosy bloom to his cheeks accentuated his happy smile.  The portly, older man walked up to the line and effortlessly rolled a strike.

Reidy sat down on a bench next to Giselle and Father Matthew.  A man carrying a tray of nachos and beers paused as he walked by the group.  He looked between Reidy, who was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, to Father Matthew in his frock and Sister Giselle in her habit and to Edwin who was wearing a bowling shirt with the logo “Bowling for Jesus” printed on the back.  “Are you guys going to a costume party or something?”

Giselle answered with an edge to her tone, “Clergy bowl.  I know it’s weird.  But we do.”

As the man walked away, Reidy said, “Easy girl, he didn’t mean any harm.”

“I’m just sick of people thinking we don’t do normal stuff,” she said.  She tucked a loose strand of hair back under her habit.  “They walk on eggshells around us whenever we’re in public.  It drives me bonkers.”

“Pardon, Sister,” Matthew began nervously.  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Shoot,” she said.

“You don’t seem like a… Seem like…” He stammered, trying to find the best way to ask his question.  Fresh out of the seminary, Matthew was very young.  Hemming and hawing through his question awkwardly, he appeared even younger than he actually was.  He looked like a little boy.  “You don’t seem… how do I put this?”

Reidy finished for him. “She doesn’t seem like a nun.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Oh, Giselle’s our special girl,” said Brother Edwin, plopping down between Reidy and the nun.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the way you act, Sister,” said Matthew.  “It’s just that most nuns I’ve met are… um… more…”

“Go ahead and say it,” Giselle rolled her eyes.  “Most nuns are more compassionate and pious.”

“Yes,” Matthew returned.

“And they curse a hell of a lot less,” added Reidy.

Brother Edwin leaned toward Matthew.  “You see, you and I took our vows before we became Georgies.  We chose to devote our lives to God and the church long before we discovered that the things that go bump in the night are real.  While Giselle and Thomas, here, joined our team after they learned the nasty truth about the world.  They’re given a little more leeway than you and me.”

“Besides,” interjected Giselle, “I like to think of myself as a special kind of nun.”

Edwin slapped Matthew on his knee and told him it was his turn to bowl.  As the young priest walked to the lane, Reidy asked his companions, “How badly do you think Tony got chewed out because of me?”

“Well, when I asked him to come with us tonight,” began Edwin, “he seemed… upset.”

“You see, you see, Tom.  Your actions affect all of us,” chastised Giselle.  “Not only are you risking your life, but you have to understand it affects us all.  Tony’s in trouble now because of you.”

“I know.”  Regardless of her logic, Reidy didn’t let Giselle’s words deter him.  It would not change the way he acted.

“Yes!” shouted Matthew jubilantly as he knocked down nine of the ten pins.  He turned and said, “It’s your turn, Sister Giselle.”

Standing, she boasted, “Prepare to be amazed.”

“You have to be amazing, because your partner,” Edwin said, pointing to Reidy, “can’t bowl to save his life.”

“Why is it that you always suggest we go bowling when you’re so bad at it?” asked Matthew.

Reidy replied, “Because I like it.”

“But you’re awful at it.”  Giselle felt the need to reiterate his lack of skill.

“You do seem to have more than your fair share of gutter balls,” added Edwin.  “In fact, I think you have all of our fair shares.”

“So,” he shot back, smiling, “it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.”

Later, during their second set and after Edwin scored his third strike in a row and Reidy threw four consecutive gutter balls, Matthew broached another topic.  “Are you guys okay with keeping what’s happening a secret?”

“What do you mean?” asked Giselle.

“What we do.”  He leaned towards the nun and Reidy, whispering, “You know… monsters.  Don’t you think it’d be better if the world knew about the danger it faced?”

The group in the lane next to the Georgies erupted in cheers.  A group of middle-aged men jumped up and began slapping each other’s hands in a round of high-fives.

“Good God, no,” Reidy responded.  Giselle and Edwin’s heads bobbed in agreement.

“Why not?” the young priest contested, adding to his argument, “Wouldn’t things be better if we didn’t have to hide in the shadows?  Don’t you think the government could help stop the monsters?”

“I have three words for you, Father Matthew,” began Edwin, “Salem Witch Trials.  Countless people were persecuted and murdered out of blind fear.  If people knew the monsters from myth and lore were real, they’d panic outright. 

“Here’s an example,” Edwind offered.  “Let’s say your neighbor is a little eccentric.  He’s got bars and shutters on his windows and doesn’t talk much.  If you were to learn that vampires and ghouls were real, then that neighbor would no longer be eccentric.  You’d find yourself wondering if he put up bars and shutters because he was afraid of sunlight and not because he was protecting his expansive collection of Hummel figurines.  And if some crime happened in that neighborhood, you might find yourself in a group marching on that once eccentric neighbor with pitchforks and torches.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“I don’t,” Reidy replied.  “I’m pretty sure that would be the least of people’s reactions.”

“I think you lack faith in humanity, Tom.  The Salem Witch Trials were over three hundred years ago.  We’ve progressed and advanced a great deal.”

“No, I have great faith that humanity.  Faith that they will panic.  People will act stupid and dangerously,” Reidy declared.  “History’s full of people doing stupid and dangerous things.  Especially when they’re afraid.”

Matthew leaned back.  Smiling, he said, “I think people would understand.  If they knew the truth, they’d come to accept it.”

“Well whatever we say here is all a moot point,” Edwin said, slapping Matthew on the back.  “The Vatican says it must remain a secret.  Which means our lips are sealed.”

“Enough with chit-chat,” Giselle stood and walked to the lane, stating, “Let’s bowl!”