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
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!”