“What are you doing all the way down here, boy?” said Renfrew.
“Some rent-a-cop started following me,” said Sturgie. “Persistent bugger. Chased me all the way from the church. There were two of them, but I think one stayed behind.”
“So what do we do now?” said Jessica.
“We continue as planned,” said Karla. “You and Ren attend mass. Once you’re situated, Jess will get up and go to the vestibule. If anyone stops you, just tell them you’re going to the loo down in the basement. Once you’re there, you will find an exit leading directly up to the street. Open it. Hopefully, by then, Sturgie and I will be lurking somewhere in the vicinity.”
Sturgie’s phone chirped, heralding a message that had just come in.
“Alright! The cavalry is on its way, guys.”
“Cavalry?” said Renfrew, cocking a bushy eyebrow.
“My friends just texted me back. They’re on their way … to help.”
Jessica scrunched her eyes. “Who—?”
“Anonymous Rex. They’re the remnants of Linnie’s old band. I’ve been managing them. They’d do anything for Linnie. They were devastated when he moved to Glasgow. Not easy, replacing a voice like his.”
“The more the merrier I suppose,” said Karla. “So? Are we ready?”
“Wait a second,” said Renfrew. “There’s still a piece missing from your little plan. Once Jess gets into the basement, I’m still stuck upstairs on some fucking pew. Remember, I’m the one packing all the persuasion.” He patted the bulge in his coat pocket that was his Browning semi-automatic pistol.
“Just find a way to get your bloody arse downstairs,” said Jessica. “Just don’t make a big scene about it.”
Karla sighed. “So … shall we?”
“Hang on,” said Jessica. “Looks like Morrison’s just opened. Let me run in and get some snacks for the road,” said Jessica.
“Now?”
“Well, it’s a long ride back to Brynmawr, and I don’t suppose we’ll want to be stopping for supper with a posse of Sedevacantists on our tail.”
“Sounds good, love,” said Renfrew. “Linnie and James might like a beer to celebrate their freedom.”
***
Jessica returned to the car with a bulging sack of groceries. “I’ve got cheese, buns, strawberries and a pint of bitters for everyone.”
“Lovely,” said Karla, who had been hyperventilating the entire time Jessica had been in the store. “Now, can we please go?”
They glanced at each other nervously. Sturgie nodded first. Jess and Ren followed suit.
“I should take the wheel,” said Renfrew.
Jessica snickered. “Of course, daddykins. After all, driving is a man’s job.” She strode around to the passenger side.
Renfrew hopped in and started the car. They wound their way back to the river and made the turn onto Bank Street.
“Drop us there, behind the Salvation Army,” said Karla. “Then you two go on. Park as close to the church as you can.”
“Any last words of advice?” said Renfrew as he pulled into the lot.
“No worries,” said Karla, stepping out. “Just smile a lot and you’ll be fine. I’m sure they’ll be welcoming. Papa’s always looking to expand his flock. Just tell them you’re from Wales and searching for a new parish and you liked the look of this church. That rings true. It’s a pretty church, on the outside. And you don’t have to pretend you’re a Sedevacantist, just say that like the idea of something more traditional. That’s how most people get involved.”
Jessica’s face was flushed. It looked like she had put on a little too much blush. “When’s your cavalry coming, Sturg?”
“Any minute now,” he said. “Just got another text. I told ‘em to hang tight in their van until we need them.”
“Cavalry, my arse,” huffed Renfrew. “Bunch of poofters. We’ll be lucky if they can keep out of our way.”
“Don’t knock ‘em till you know them, Unc. Tough lot, these blokes. They’ve been through a lot together. It’s not easy being gay and colored in the Highlands.”
Renfrew shook his head. “Whatever made you think we needed a rock band? What are they going to do? Sing in the choir?”
Sturgie shrugged. “Backup. In case things go wrong.”
Renfrew scowled and straightened his tie. “Alrighty, then. Off we go. Wish us luck.”
Karla slammed the door. She and Sturgie stood in the lot and watched the little blue Ford pull away and turn the corner. Sturgie started after them, but Karla tugged his sleeve.
“Let’s give them a minute to park,” she said.
She tucked her hair up under a knit cap and took his hand. This seemed to unsettle Sturgie a bit. He tossed her a puzzled and maybe even slightly hopeful glance.
“Pretend we’re a couple,” she said. “We will look less suspicious.”
“Oh. Right,” he said, enveloping her slender, bony fingers in his fleshy and clammy mitts.
Karla marveled at the lack of conceit and ambition behind his eyes. Such an earnest and innocent soul he was, compared to most. He almost reminded her of a cherub.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Backs to the estuary and the stiff breeze that whipped it into whitecaps, they sauntered casually down the lane, acting as if they had no place to go and all day to get there.
As they came around the corner and turned towards St. Aynsley’s they spotted Renfrew and Jessica already on foot ahead of them. Renfrew’s distinctive, syncopated and mechanical stride mesmerized her, a quick step with his good leg and then a wide swing of his prosthetic. She wondered how he managed not to kick anyone in tight quarters.
In front of the church steps, a security guard looked on as a girl in a flowery ankle-length skirt escorted an old woman slowly down the pavement. Ren and Jess were about half a block behind them.
“There goes Ondine with her grandmum,” said Karla. “I’ve always liked her. She’s one of the few girls who would even talk to me at the socials.”
Sturgie hesitated.
“That rent-a-cop who chased me. He’s back. That’s him, at the top of the steps.”
A large, black car pulled up and discharged a group of men in dark suits. Karla gasped and swung Sturgie around, using his bulky frame to screen her. She dug her bony chin into his chest and peered over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he said, holding her awkwardly, afraid to touch, as if she were a hot potato.
“Those men … they’re the elders. The tall one. He’s my Papa.”
She watched Edmund lead the group up the steps, his long, lumbering strides taking two at a time. Joshua Crampton and his son Mark followed on his heels with Father Tomaso, the rogue Sicilian priest they had imported from the island of Lipari, after his excommunication for dabbling in arcane rituals banned by the Vatican.
From afar, Papa had the look of a time traveler from an earlier century. With a top hat, he could have passed for a Victorian undertaker, or Abraham Lincoln’s evil brother. His beard had grown longer, the white stripe thicker in the few months she had been away.
As they entered the church, Renfrew and Jessica reached the steps, Jessica taking Ren’s arm to brace him as he climbed.
“They’re going up,” said Karla. “They’re in!”
An engine sputtered behind them and a dirty white van with a slanting nose and a dented fender pulled up to the curb. Three of the scruffiest young men Karla had ever seen outside of a homeless shelter leered out of the cab. They were an amalgam of freckles, dreadlocks, piercings and flannel that somehow seemed to go together. They could have been extras in a low budget pirate movie.
If they thought their style made them look rugged, but Karla saw behind the veneer. These were just boys playing dress-up. They seemed a different species entirely from Sturgie’s nerdy hacker/slacker vibe, but she could see Linval fitting right in with them.
“Sturgie’s got a girlfriend!” sang the freckled one from the passenger window.
/>
“You guys! I told you not to come till I messaged you.”
“Well we saw you snogging, and things looked cool so….”
“We were not snogging, you idiot. We were trying to stay incognito. Now get a move on.”
Down the block, both rent-a-cops had now stationed themselves just outside the doors at the top of the stairs.
“Hang on,” said Karla, as the van started to pull away. “I think I know how you gentlemen can make yourselves useful.”
She bustled over and leaned into the window of the van.
***
She had them park around the corner. They emerged, vests and waist coats bristling with pry bars, homemade nunchuks and lengths of chromed metal tubing of the sort that supported cymbals and microphones.
They marched towards the church full of bluster and swagger. Karla had told them to pretend they were hooligans, stoned or drunk. If the red rims and soft focus of their eyes was any indication, she wasn’t sure they had to pretend.
The ruse made an immediate impression on the security guards. Night sticks out, they charged down the steps like vicious lap dogs, and barked at the boys to move along.
Meanwhile, she and Sturgie strolled calmly towards the church, pausing now and then to feign fascination with the odd hydrangea or geranium growing in someone’s front garden patch.
The band faced off against the guards, hooting and taunting as they continued in a wide arc into the street that fronted St. Aynsley’s. The guards shooed them along. Something clanged against the pavement. One of the boys had dropped his pry bar, setting off a chase when one of the guards pulled a canister of pepper spray from his belt.
Karla and Sturgie took advantage of the distraction to slip into a stairwell leading down to the church basement. The rough brick of the walls blended with the red stone blocks of the original pre-Jacobite foundation.
She tried the door and found it firmly locked.
“Jess should be here by now,” said Sturgie, shuffling his feet. “Something’s wrong.”
“Hush!” said Karla. “Maybe she’s just taking her time, playing it cool like I coached her.”
A window shattered and glass tinkled to the ground. Someone screamed in pain.
“What the heck is going on up there?” said Sturgie, craning for a look. “What do you suppose we do?”
“We wait. And pray.”
The chords of the opening hymn thundered forth from the old organ, much restored and in better tune from the wheezy squeeze box tones she remembered from her early days here. Mass was underway.
Sturgie pried at the security bars protecting a casement window above the exit. Some of them wiggled in the loose mortar.
“Hey. Maybe we can just—”
The exit pushed open and smacked him in the belly. Jessica peered out; her cheeks flushed bright red, beads of sweat dotting her forehead like moonstone appliqués.
“You should have seen the stink eyes I drew, leaving the pew.”
“Where’s Ren?” said Sturgie.
“He should be down in a minute,” said Jessica. “I told him to pretend to be looking after his wayward daughter—me.”
“They should be used to that here,” said Karla. She propped the exit open with a book she grabbed from a shelf. “Quick. Follow me.”
She went straight for the board room, the place where she had spent many an hour before inquisitions of a committee of elders aiming to correct her spiritual deficiencies.
Its windowless entry was made of sound-proofed steel with tolerances so snug, a sheet of paper could not be slid beneath it. She knew, because she had tried sending SOS’s during some of her longer confinements. She was pretty sure as well, that no scream of hers had ever made it out of that room either.
Not unexpectedly, she found the door locked. She looked about for something to attack the hinges with. Perhaps if they pried off the wood trim, they would have better access to the hardware. She kicked herself for not borrowing one of the band member’s wrecking bar. It would have been perfect for the job.
The opening hymn ended and the mass went into Father Tomaso’s monotonous recitation of the Latin psalms. Karla had to suppress to urge to chant ‘Kyrie, eleison’ in response.
The door atop the staircase squealed open. Everyone froze in place.
“It’s probably Unc,” whispered Sturgie. “Maybe we can use his gun on the lock.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t shoot a gun off in here,” said Karla.
“Hullo? Who’s down there?” It was a young voice, the deep, but squeaky croak of a boy trapped in the midst of adolescence.
Treads squeaked. Scuffed brown shoes. Khakis frayed at the cuffs. The contoured blade of a cricket bat.
A pimply, crew-cut kid in a tweed jacket and bow tie appeared at the base of the stairs. Karla stepped out of the shadows.
“You!”
“You don’t say.”
“Who are these people?” he said, whirling around, trying impossibly to face everyone at once.
“Friends.”
Mark raised the bat over his shoulder. “Out! All of you! No one’s allowed to be down here.” He lunged and grabbed onto Karla’s arm. “But you stay put.”
Sturgie stepped up and slapped his arm away. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”
A door creaked open above, and the sound of the mass grew louder for an instant.
“Dad? That you?” said Mark.
Sturgie seized his bat by the blade. Mark kept his grip and wrestled it away. He slapped the sharper edge against Sturgie’s brow. Sturgie crumpled to his knees. Blood ran down his cheek.
Renfrew came thudding down the stairs and clubbed over the head with his pistol. But the glancing blow had less than the intended effect. The boy grunted and swore as he clapped a hand over his ear.
“You bastard!”
He crouched and raked his bat in a wide arc at knee height, toppling Renfrew and dislodging his prosthesis. He tumbled forward into Mark, bowling him over against the stairs. The pistol clattered free against the stone floor.
Jessica scrambled to recover the gun and trained it on Mark.
“One word out of you and—”
Mark screamed, voice cracking: “Daaaaaad!” Renfrew grabbed his fake leg and whacked him square in the temple. The boy’s eyes lost their focus. He toppled over, unconscious.
Karla sneered down at him and had to restrain herself from giving him a kick for good measure. He had always been a cruel git, never passing up a chance to torment someone weaker, and to harass younger girls with vulgar insults and opportunistic feels. Though often admonished, he was never punished and thus never felt the need to correct his behavior.
“We have to move quick people. They sense something’s up. A couple of blokes up there were giving me the evil eye. Had to tell the lady beside me on the pew that I had bladder issues.”
Jessica dropped beside Mark and examined the bump on his head. “Boy, Ren. You got him good. I’m surprised you didn’t crack his skull.”
“That’s oak and titanium for you. Helen wanted me trade this leg in for a lighter model. A lot of good that carbon fiber shite would have done.
“Check his pockets,” said Karla, kicking aside the cricket bat. “I bet he’s got keys.”
“Hoho!” said Jessica, “He sure does. Lots of them,” said Jessica, tossing the ring to Karla.
She caught it in mid-air and went straight for the long skeleton key she knew too well. How many times had she looked on in horror as this same key into the slot, opening the venue of her humiliation and punishment.
She pushed in the key. The cylinder turned freely. She pushed open the door the room was dark and empty. A single, vacant wooden chair with handcuffs dangling from each armrest occupied the center of the room. An imposing desk on a riser, much like a judge’s bench, occupied the far corner of the room.
In the opposite corner was a dark shrine unlike any that would be allowed in the public spaces of a church. On a table formed of
a slab of burled maple is heaped with candles black on one side, white on the other floating in a glacier of wax inches thick.
Sturgie peered over Karla’s shoulder.
“She’s not here.”
Karla strode over to the small window that looked out onto the ventilation shaft that separated the old church from the newer rectory. She pulled open a heavy drape.
She was horrified to find Isobel, dressed in an off-white gown, strapped to a slanting railroad tie, head clamped back to force her eyes heavenward at a small, rectangular patch of sky atop the ventilation shaft. A gag pressed into her mouth.
Her long, pearly dress of beads and sequins trailing down was sodden with rain and stained with blood from a trickle curling down her face and neck.
“Help me get her down!”
Sturgie climbed through the window and rushed over with his switchblade. He sliced through the nylon cords bindings her and untied the gag. She gasped, trembling as he lifted her off the tie.
Karla smothered her sister in her arms and kissed her forehead.
“You alright, Iz? Did they hurt you?”
“I got slapped around a bit. But I got a good lick or two in myself.”
“Did you pass into Root? Did you see James?”
“Nah. I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“Funny, I would have thought—”
“I guess I wasn’t desperate enough,” said Isobel, beaming through her chattering teeth. “I knew you guys would come for me. I just knew it.”
Karla held her close. “My goodness. You feel like an icicle.”
Renfrew hobbled into the room, hopping on one leg, his prosthesis tucked under his arm. “Oh thank goodness. You found her.”
“Take her and go!” said Karla. “I’ll see after James and Linval.”
“Nonsense,” said Jessica. “Let us help you.”
“But … Izzie.”
“I’m fine, La,” said Izzie. “Let’s go save them!”
As Karla bustled out of the board room, the door to the street opened and one of Sturgie’s friends stumbled down the stone steps, breathless.
“Alfie! Where are the others?” said Sturgie. “And what about the rent-a-cops?”
“They took Roger and Robbie down. Zipcuffed ‘em. I managed to slip away. I don’t think they saw me circle back.”
The door atop the wooden stairs creaked open. Latin mutterings spilled into the basement. Everyone froze but the semi-conscious Mark, who had started to fidget and moan.