Once he got trained up, Mac did all the dirty work. All of it. That way Donnie kept his hands clean. On Sundays Mac was a Deacon and he was fine with that. He hadn’t yet found his voice for preaching. He did his thing in the basement and all of the building maintenance while Donnie handled all the ministerial duties: writing sermons, counseling the desperate, laundering money.
As usually happens when dealers become their own best customers, they pushed the drug operation too far. A sting operation nailed Mac while he was out on a delivery. Although both had been suspects, Mac took the fall. Donnie feigned shock and ignorance and somehow got away with it, aided in large part by Mac’s effusive confessions. Three years, Mac and spent in the penitentiary, with never a peep about Donnie’s involvement.
Now, Donnie was surrounded by the accoutrements of a successful career: a corner office with a view of the Oconee River, the lush campus of the University of Georgia, cherry wood cabinets, a top of the line Krell sound system with a SIRIUS receiver. Awards from the National Association of Evangelicals shingled the walls, including pictures of himself with the Rev. Billy Graham, testimonials of folks he and his little army of spiritual warriors had saved. Who better to save your soul than one who had been saved, one who had been up close enough to the devil to smell the brimstone on his breath, one who had wrestled with his minions?
Business had never been better for Last Hope Ministries. He had leased an entire floor of an office building in downtown Athens. He had field teams out on assignment in five different states.
Those who knew the profession considered LHM among the elite of spiritual warfare specialists, an exclusive but critical trade among the full palette of Christian counseling services available under Soul Survivors, a consortium of ministries dedicated to helping people solve personal and social ills through prayer.
Deliverance had emerged from the fringy, back door operation it had been relegated to since the 1970s to acquire a shiny, new corporate veneer. Casting of demons was growing in popularity as a cure for everything from bipolar disorder to fibromyalgia. They had even passed muster with several insurance companies that covered claims for their services as an approved therapy for mental disorders.
An agent had even approached him about the possibility of producing a pilot for a reality TV show to pitch to Sky Angel and other faith and family networks. They would have competition from Evex, a deliverance ministry based in Florida who had one up on him and Jerry when it came to photogenics and appeal. Jerry, his security chief, was a paunchy ex-Army Ranger with a scraggly beard and the complexion of a potato, and was a mite tongue-tied and taciturn for television. Jerry’s counterpart at Evex, Sue LeSarge was a leather clad biker chick who specialized in cases of incubi and succubi.
But Donnie had looks and charm enough to pull it off. He liked to think that he still had the look, with a sweep of smooth black hair, grey only at the sideburns. And he had the people skills that would compensate for Jerry’s antisocial nature. Odd couples made good video.
The reappearance of Mac in his life, however, complicated things. A criminal record like his wouldn’t play well on Christian cable. Sexual indiscretions could be forgiven, pushing drugs he wasn’t so sure. Mac’s resurrection might very well jeopardize their chances of getting a show.
Donnie called his assistant on the intercom. “Beryl, I want you to place that call I told you about. Jerry and I will take it in the board room, but give me a minute to find him.”
He creaked out of his chair and went around the corner to the only office overlooking both the elevator and stairwell. Jerry ‘Jericho’ Winston never sat inside a building in a place where he couldn’t keep an eye on every access and egress.
Jerry had stacked all his paperwork on the floor and had his shotgun all stripped down for cleaning.
“Dang it Jerry, do you really have to clean your weapon in the office?”
“Killin’ two birds, one stone,” said Jerry. “You said you wanted me up here for a call. So here I am.”
“C’mon,” said Donnie, leading him into a glassed-in conference room. Jerry took a seat across the table, facing the door. “The folks we’ll be talking to were referred to us by that guy I was telling you about. My old partner.”
“You considered paying him off?” said Jerry.
“That’s not what he’s after,” said Don. “Seems he actually wants a deliverance out of this. But you listen, and you tell me what you think.” Donnie pressed the intercom button. “We’re ready, Beryl.”
Donnie tapped his fingers on the wood, scanning his colleague’s visage, wondering how well he would clean up for TV if that agent could wrangle something. Maybe, they’d prefer to keep Jerry’s edges rough, and maybe even accentuate them, tease out his hair, make him look like a real wild man, while Donnie could provide a civilized, sophisticated foil.
He could already hear them go over Jerry’s background in the tease. Jericho Winston, God’s own mercenary, rumored Delta Force operative with action in Grenada, Somalia and Kuwait. Hopefully, they’d gloss over Donnie’s own background, mentioning just a dash about his criminal record for spice.
“What you lookin’ at?”
“Your hair,” said Donnie.
“My what?”
“They’re on the line,” squawked Beryl over the intercom.
Donnie cleared his throat.
“Hello, this is the Reverend Donald Beasley, CEO of Last Hope Ministries, a division of Soul Survivors. I’m here with my head of security, Mr. Jericho Winston.”
“Hi there! I’m Cindy Swain. We’re so excited that you called. Our pastor, Mac Hargrove has told us some wonderful things about your mission, isn’t that right John? My husband, John, he’s on the other line.”
The woman at the other end spoke with a small, quick voice. Donnie could tell she was a sharp one, pointy in more ways than one. A baby bawled in the background, a man’s voice barely audible across a room.
“John, get your ass on the phone!”
“Sorry,” said John, breathless. “Jason got stuck under the coffee table. Had to rescue him.”
“Alright, then,” said Donnie. “Let’s get on with the interview. I think we can just skip the preliminaries. Mac’s already filled me in on the basics. Am I correct in assuming that you need help with a case of satanic or demonic possession?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Cindy.
“Does it involve a family member?”
“Oh no. My family’s fine. This is about a neighbor.”
“I see,” said Don. “You realize ma’am that we have a policy of informed consent. Our subjects or their legal guardians must provide written consent before we can conduct any procedures.”
“I don’t think that would be possible in this case,” said John.
“And it doesn’t make any sense,” said Cindy. “You’re asking a possessed person for permission to be exorcised? What if Satan tells them no?”
“As I said … ‘or their legal guardians’. Most of our cases involve minors. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the forces that commandeer souls. Demonic possessions are most common in the years surrounding puberty, particularly the mid to late teens. Souls lured into in self-destructive behaviors: sex, drugs, anorexia, bulimia. We conduct a full program of spiritual warfare for afflicted souls. We counsel, pray, purify.”
“This is a man we’re talking about,” said Cindy. “A full-grown adult.”
“Well, then, that somewhat limits what we can do, unless you can convince him to consent to our interventions.”
“What about dogs?” said Jerry.
“Dogs?” said John.
“Animals are often the agents of possession,” said Donnie. “They act as familiars. If this man has a dog it offers an avenue of access that otherwise might not be available.”
“I don’t think this guy has any pets,” said Cindy.
“We exorcised a monkey once,” said Jerry. “Terrorized a whole family. Had to put it down with a silver b
ullet.”
Donnie coughed. “Alright, let’s get on with the interview. What is this affected person’s name, and would you happen to know his faith?”
“Um … Aaron, I think. Aaron something or other. And I doubt he goes to church. But I don’t think it’s the person that’s possessed here. I think it’s the house.”
Donnie put down their interview script, and snuck a glance at Jerry, who was winding strands of his beard around a pencil finger like a teenage girl plays with her hair. “Haunted house,” he mouthed to Jerry as a thrill welled up in him. Jerry gave him a thumbs up. He just loved hauntings. It had been their specialty early on, what had attracted Jerry to the trade in the first place.
“I call it the hell house,” said Cindy. “There are ungodly sounds coming out of it every other night. Not of this earth, I tell you. Un-human.”
“Heavy metal?” said Jerry. “Was it that shit they call death metal?”
“Oh no,” said Cindy. “It’s not rock and roll, not at all. It’s much more … demonic, I suppose … than that. I’d play you a tape that I made, but Pastor Mac has it stashed away under lead.”
“Under lead?” Donnie glanced at Jerry, raising an eyebrow.
Jerry nodded. “Standard containment.”
Donnie shrugged. “I don’t know. Takes more than weird music to make this a case of haunting.”
“You gotta hear it mister and you’ll know what I mean. The shrieks that happen in there. It’s like murder. And there are things that creep around the background. My husband, he came in one night, white in the face. He won’t even tell me what he saw.”
“We live in the woods,” said John. “I don’t even know what it was. I was startled, that’s all. Probably just a deer.”
“You said it spun. Like a tornado.”
“It was windy,” said John. “Probably just a dust devil.”
Don’s gaze snapped up and he looked at Jerry, whose face had gone hard. Jerry nodded.
“Folks. This thing in your yard, did it leave a black trail behind it?”
“Black trail?”
“A smudge. Like charcoal.”
“I didn’t notice … I mean it was dark and drizzly. I’m pretty sure it was a deer …or a bear.”
“Did it last a couple seconds, or did it persist?”
“Well … I have to say … it kinda … stuck around.”
“Did it follow you?” said Jerry.
“Follow me? I’m not sure. I just went to take the trash out. I didn’t stick around.”
“Could be a praf diavol, as they say in Romania,” said Don. “In Brazil they call it a saci pererê; it’s vumbi ibilisi in Africa.”
“Diablo de polvo,” said Jerry. “Mexico.”
“This thing, was it in any way associated with that music?”
“Well … yeah, there was music that night.”
“I had John go and close all the windows. Lock ‘em,” said Cindy. “You should have seen the look on his face when he came in. Had me freaked.”
“I was just … startled,” said John. “A raccoon would have done the same.”
“Well, as you know, Mac Hargrove is a very good friend of mine. I would go to the ends of the earth for him. I was gonna him one our teams irregardless of what you told us … just due diligence. But I tell you, this case … and I think Jerry agrees … this case is sounding very interesting. This is something we might want to take on ourselves.”
Jerry nodded.
“Really!” said Cindy. “That’d be awesome. God bless! We’d be so grateful. Pastor Mac says you take payment in installments?”
“We do,” said Don. “Let’s not worry about all that just yet. Let me get together with Jerry here and see when we can come up. We’ll be needing full access to your property. I mean, there’s a bunch of equipment and such we’ll need to set up … for monitoring purposes.”
“Not a problem. We’re glad to have you.”
“Got a fireplace?” said Jerry.
“You mean … for the Holy Fire?” said Cindy, voice trembling with excitement.
“That’s right,” said Jerry.
“Alright then,” said Don. “I suppose that’s all we need for now. You all take care now and we’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you so much!” said Cindy.
Donnie clicked off the phone. He smiled at Jerry, whose eyes had taken on the gleam it obtained when he was flirting with a pretty girl or getting ready to dig into a steak.
“God bless!” said Donnie. “We got ourselves a fucking praf diavol!”
“Hot damn!” said Jerry. “I’d better get some ropes knotted up.”
***
Cindy put down the phone and looked across the room to John who had just plopped down on the love seat by the living room window, baby Jason on his hip with a bottle of formula. A vigorous breeze blew in and ruffled the curtains.
“Well, that went well, don’t you think?” said Cindy, blinking and beaming.
“Yeah,” said John. “Went great. They sounded eager to help us.”
“You know could have been a little more sharing about your … little experience. That’s the kind of information they’re gonna need to do this right.”
“I didn’t know what to tell them,” said John. “I mean … there’s not much to say. They could have been deer.”
“Swirly deer,” said Cindy. “Right.”
Truth was, his memory of the incident, and what he told Cindy about it at the time, had been heavily fogged by Glenfiddich and beer. He had gotten sloshed after a rough and restless day, both kids with fevers, spewing hot vomit all day like little volcanoes. But the things he saw in the backyard were not deer.
“I’d better go check those pot pies,” said Cindy. “You got the dishes tonight. Right? Because I cooked?”
“Of course,” said John.
Cindy trotted off into the kitchen, lithe and nimble as a teenager, despite being thirty with two children. She seemed to be in an unusually good mood tonight. He felt a stirring down below. Maybe later, in bed, he’d try his luck.
He stared out the window, thinking back to the night of weirdness on the edge of the yard. It had been one of those drizzly nights, when the forecast called for patchy thunderstorms and they only caught the dribbly fringes. The grass was crunchy. They could have used a good downpour.
It was back in July. The kids were already in bed. Cindy had gotten home late. She stayed on the phone all during dinner: with the office, Pastor Mac and then her mom. John couldn’t get a word in edgewise to tell her how sick the kids had been, and she had no idea he was drunk.
He groaned when he realized that the next day was garbage day and he hadn’t taken out the trash. They had to contract a private service to come out their way and pick it all up in a panel truck. When this contract ran out, they were not going to renew. It would be cheaper just to drive their trash to the dump.
He had pushed up from the table and gone to collect all the trash from the bedrooms and bathrooms, packed with paper towels clumped with acrid toddler vomit. Consolidating it all into a single Hefty bag in the kitchen, he made his way through the garage and out into the backyard. Drizzle whipped his face as he stepped into the darkness to where he had staged the trash bins. Jason’s diapers rendered them too aromatic to keep in the garage.
The hell house was rollicking tonight, the shrill tones of fiddle and horn cutting through the susurration of wind and forest. Funny, how that music sounded so much better when he was smashed on Scotch. Lucky the windows were all latched and Cindy hadn’t noticed that the music had started up, or she would be freaking, checking all the crosses on the lintels, stashing bulbs of garlic in the kids rooms.
Something rustled in the woods. John flinched and stumbled, unsteady in his intoxication. He had run into a skunk a couple nights back there before. He stopped and squinted into the damp and dim. The creature didn’t even seem to be moving, yet it rattled the leaves around it, making a sound like sand striking paper. John shrugg
ed and continued with his task.
He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He had overdone it with the Glenfiddich. A single Bud hadn’t been enough to dull what needed dulling so he had taken a hefty swig straight from the bottle, a gift from some holiday party back when he was still working. The trash can creaked as he wheeled it down the concrete.
Their street had only a few working streetlamps, one of them like at the corner of their driveway and the curb. He left the trash can in the center of a pool of glistening light. The drizzle was so light the droplets danced in the wind, swooping and swirling as they fell.
A crackling sound across the street seized his attention. It came from the edge of a foundation hole of would have been their across-the-street neighbor’s house but now just bred mosquitoes. Was it that thing from the backyard? How did it get across the street without him noticing?
And then it moved into the edge of the pool of light, just for a second and back into shadow. The thing was large. Man-sized, with a grey, pulsing dome. Shreds and wisps peeled off of it like rags. John turned and ran back to the house.
He slipped on the slick concrete and skinned his knee, tumbling, smacking his forehead against a solar footlight. He re-gathered his legs and careened inside. Cindy was off the phone and cowering in the far corner of the dining room. She must have heard the music as she was clutching a crucifix to her bosom. One glance at John’s bloody face and she screamed.
***
That had happened weeks ago. He had put it from his mind. Skunks and deer and fisher cats had shown up since, nothing so bizarre as the thing or things he heard and saw that night. He made damn sure he was sober when he took out the garbage these days.
“What’s wrong?” said Cindy, coming up behind him, her fingers kneading into his shoulders. “What are you looking at?” John glanced up. Her eyes were narrow with concern.
“Nothing, hon. I’m just enjoying the breeze.”
“There’s nothing out there, is there?”
“Nah. Nothing. Just crickets.”
“Make sure you shut that window when you come to bed. ‘Kay?”
Chapter 9: Persuasion
The morning after the jam, an unlisted number popped on Aerie’s caller ID. She let it go to voice mail. On her way into work, she checked the number against the ad on the Guitar Works bulletin board. As she suspected, it was Aaron’s.