Precious Blood

  “He believes that he’s on a mission.”

  “Mission? Is he some kind of whacked-out vet with PTSD?”

  “Preparing the way,” Frey said.

  “What way? For who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “No. Way,” Jesse stammered, as Frey’s meaning became clearer.

  “He believes . . . ”

  “Believes what?”

  “He believes he is a saint.”

  Agnes was draped over Sebastian’s arms, the last to be carried up by him. The staircase was steep and his legs and arms were tired. He placed her down gently on the red velvet steps of the chancel, the same as he already had done for Cecilia and Lucy. She was luminous and looked as if she were sleeping atop a bed of roses. She came to slowly. He was the first thing she saw. She mustered a smile.

  The three of them were scattered, strewn about the altar, amid the tornado-tossed debris, like sacrifices, as if they’d just crash-landed on an alien planet. Sebastian attended to them. He had a chalice filled with water. He held each girl’s head up and brought the cup to their lips slowly. He dried their wounds and wiped them clean.

  Things were different somehow. It was quiet for one; the thunder and lightning had subsided. The air was less thick with humidity and mildew. Clearer.

  “Where were you?” Agnes moaned groggily. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I’ll never leave you again,” he said. “Drink.”

  “You okay?” Lucy mouthed to Cecilia through cracked lips.

  Cecilia nodded.

  She examined her hands.

  They were wrapped in linen.

  She clenched and unclenched her fingers. They still worked.

  They looked and saw Sebastian. A sight for sore eyes. And then noticed Agnes, who was struggling to get to her feet. She tried to get to her knees but collapsed back down to the floor each time she attempted to right herself, like a child first learning to walk. Sebastian held her under her arms and raised her up.

  “Thank you,” she whispered weakly to him.

  “Thanks? For what?” Lucy interjected. “Why didn’t you help us?”

  “What was that?” Cecilia asked, still weak from what had just happened. “The underground chapel. The bones. This place is possessed.”

  The fog in their minds was lifting, like the storm, and suspicion was returning.

  “I couldn’t tell you before,” Sebastian said.

  “I think it’s time you told us now,” Lucy answered.

  “This church,” he began, “is special.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Cecilia said.

  “My grandmother told me about it when I was a boy,” Sebastian offered. “Precious Blood is not just intended to be a holy place. It marks a holy spot.”

  “Tell that to the developers,” Lucy said.

  “Men died here. Sandhogs, digging the subway tunnels nearly a century ago.”

  “So it’s haunted,” Lucy shot back.

  Sebastian’s expression turned deadly serious, the tale he began to tell as terrifying as any ghost story.

  “Not haunted, Lucy,” Sebastian corrected. “Hallowed.

  “These were special men. Descendants from a line of caretakers entrusted with the ancient legacy of certain female saints. Girls, about our age, who changed their world by their example and their sacrifice.”

  The girls listened intently.

  “They dug that chapel with their bare hands. With picks and axes out of rock and sand. An altar and kneelers built from leftover lumber used to keep the tunnel up. Adorned with statues from the old country. It was a place of worship in the truest sense. Built by people with faith, literally from nothing.”

  “You could feel something alive, electric down there,” Cecilia said. “I’ve felt it onstage. A power all around you. Even in an empty room.”

  “What you felt in the chapel was their presence,” he said. “I’ve felt it too.”

  “Ghosts?” Lucy asked.

  “Spirits,” Agnes corrected. “Souls.”

  “It took them a long time to dig the three men out, but the community and the men’s families kept a vigil. They prayed day and night. First for their rescue and then for the recovery of their bodies. It took weeks.”

  “What a horrible way to die,” Agnes sympathized.

  “When they finally got to them, they were collapsed over the kneelers in front of the altar they’d hammered together.”

  “They were praying?” Lucy said cynically. “Maybe they should have been digging, trying to get out instead.”

  “They were,” Sebastian answered. “Trying to get out.”

  “But they gave up?” Cecilia asked.

  “No, they gave in,” Sebastian said. “People came for years afterward, climbing down into the subway tunnel to see the underground chapel, to remember the men, to pray, hoping for miracles.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Agnes said.

  “It was, and after a while, they raised the money to the build this church over it.”

  “And those bones?” Cecilia asked.

  “I’m not sure I want to know,” Agnes said.

  “The bones are their bones. And the bones of those who believed in what they were doing. Holy, some say.”

  “A cult?” Cecilia asked.

  “Not the way we think of it,” Sebastian explained. “A cult of saints.”

  “Couldn’t this just be a story your grandmother told you?” Lucy said nervously. “Like an old wives’ tale.”

  “What we felt down there was real,” Agnes interrupted. “You know it.”

  Sebastian was suddenly agitated. Frustrated that he might not be getting his point across.

  “She was a benedetta,” he said defensively, pacing in front of them. “A healer of bodies and souls. A woman of faith. She never lied to me.”

  Sebastian’s discomfort brought the conversation to a halt.

  “It just seems really strange that they kept it open after such a tragic accident,” Agnes said.

  Sebastian looked at her skeptically. “I didn’t say it was an accident.”

  “They were killed? Why?” Cecilia asked incredulously.

  “To stop them.”

  “From?”

  “Fulfilling their purpose.”

  Between the events in the chapel and Sebastian’s story, it was all too much, especially for Lucy. “What does this have to do with you or us?”

  “The saints whose legacies the subway workers were charged with perpetuating were Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes.”

  Jesse raced back to his apartment from the hospital, infused with a sense of power. The kind of power that only comes with secret knowledge. His mind bubbled up with potential, like the hot thin soup in the final moments before the first single-celled organisms clumped up and set life on the road to infinity. For him, this was that big.

  He slipped the manila envelope the doctor had given him under his arm, turned the key, and opened the door, looking quickly over his shoulder before slamming it shut behind him. He’d been trusted with secrets before, all the important stuff in blogger world. Who’s dating, who’s cheating, who’s stealing, who’s bi, who’s Botoxing, who’s broke. Not being a real journalist, he didn’t feel the least bit compelled to fact check, to seek out multiple sources, to remain neutral.

  BYTE was his very own digitized high school diary, a pixelated revenge fantasy fueled by his wild mood swings, thin-skinned defensiveness, and tech savvy that had set him on the profitable path to mainstream seminotoriety. His business plan was simple: Who can resist obsessing over the pettiness and venality of a bunch of spoiled, privileged, and backstabbing New York City kids? Wisely, he didn’t rely on the public deciding on the breakout star; he chose one for them, Lucy, and cast himself as auteur—director, writer, and producer—of her life. And she played the role perfectly, until recently. She thought she could steal the whole damn show.

  Jesse reviewed his notes and the girls’ files. There were a lot of holes, h
e thought, which led to a lot of questions. So much about it didn’t make sense. Lucy wasn’t anyone’s dupe, not even his. Why would she allow herself to be taken in by some schizo psychopath?

  He uploaded a grainy headshot from their high school yearbook and began to write the item.

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? the caption began, in boldface letters beneath the JPEG.

  LULU Lost!

  LUcky LUcy Ambrose is missing. The party princess has not been seen or heard from for three days and BYTE hears that the NYPD has been notified. Rumors of a kidnapping or worse are swirling, as an unnamed mental patient escaped from Perpetual Help Hospital on the same night Lucy was admitted and remains on the loose. In addition to Lucy, two other Brooklyn girls, who coincidentally were also admitted to the ER last weekend, have also been reported missing. The tornado rescue operation and cleanup has put a strain on the police. The Perpetual Help Hospital board has managed to keep the escape and possible kidnappings under wraps until now.

  Jesse read and reread what he’d written several times and paused his finger above the enter key, debating for a moment about whether to post the story and share it with the world. He omitted CeCe’s and Agnes’s names for fear of being sued, knowing damn well that those details would probably get out eventually anyway.

  “Send,” he said, pressing the key. “And wait.”

  He kicked back and watched the commenters comment. Likes, shares, tweets, retweets, texts. It was a virtual feeding frenzy. His laptop pinged away with each new mailbox notification. The thread growing, branching out like a spiderweb.

  She’s been lost for a while now, said one ambivalently.

  Guess that’s the end of her “Lucky” streak, jibed another.

  Dibs on her shoes and jewelry if she’s dead, posted LucyBFF.

  Don’t bother, it’s all loaners, responded LULUToo crassly.

  At least there weren’t any Die, bitch! posts, he thought, but then again, it was early. Every snide thought was being vented, a veritable dam break of vitriol spewing forth into the electric ether. In the battle between sympathy and schadenfreude, sympathy was running a distant second.

  Funny thing, Jesse noted, is that this was coming from the very same people who’d kiss her ass if they saw her at a club, begging to ride her wake through the velvet ropes for a free drink and entrée to the VIP section. All hypocrites. Just like her. Just like him.

  Then the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Jesse Arens?”

  “Go.”

  “This is Richard Jensen from the Amalgamated Press city desk. I’m calling about your item.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve just gotten off the phone with the Seventy-Sixth Precinct and they wouldn’t confirm a thing.”

  “So?”

  “Can you verify any of this information or point me to someone who can?”

  “I don’t reveal sources.”

  Frustrated, the newsman pressed on.

  “Then how do I know if what you’re reporting is true?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Listen, kid, you need to give me something. How do you know these girls are tied to this guy?”

  Jesse hung up on him. He thought about the chaplets and the fact that he’d intentionally left them out of his post along with the names. It wasn’t a detail he was ready to share. He was keeping the clue to himself and for himself. There might be more to be milked out of this story if it popped. Like money.

  He was very comfortable playing God. Deciding who suffered indignity and who was saved from prying eyes with every stroke of his keyboard and leaving these old media types, who regularly ignored or berated him, twisting was fun to say the least. The call meant the story was out there, and he wasn’t about to do their homework for them.

  The reporter’s question however was a good one. All he had to go on was the doctor’s story, and who knew what his agenda was. These girls didn’t know one another, hadn’t crossed paths as far as he could tell, lived in different worlds entirely. The only connection, as far as he knew, that could be made to Sebastian was the bracelets. He knew Lucy could be superficial, but what could be so compelling about a bracelet, or about a guy, that would get her to bail on her life, on him? No, it couldn’t be voluntary.

  He spent a good long while studying the last picture of the fight in the club. He used the touch screen to magnify every bit of the image, including Lucy’s body, something he had been in the habit of doing anyway. He stared long and hard at the chaplet and charm trying to unlock whatever fascination it might have held for her. There was something vaguely familiar about it to him, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just remembering it from the other night.

  The phone rang again, but this time it was his landline, which he rarely used. Jesse let it go to voice mail.

  “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus,” his outgoing demanded.

  “Mr. Arens. This is Captain Murphy from the Seventy-Sixth Precinct.”

  Jesse hit talk.

  “That was quick.”

  “We’d like to have a word with you regarding your story. I’ll expect you down at the station tomorrow morning. If that’s not convenient, I’m sure I can arrange to meet you at your apartment. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  Psychiatrists, reporters, investigators. This was all getting a little heavy. He took a look out the window and noticed the weather improving, despite the shitstorm he’d just kicked off. Jesse grabbed his phone and his keys and hit the street to clear his head and his conscience. And to look around.

  3 Martha stood gazing out Agnes’s bedroom window and into the small backyard. She’d barely moved from it in the time since Agnes had gone. For her, waiting meant Agnes was coming back. If someone is waiting for you, expecting you, then you just had to be coming back at some point. It was just two nights, but it felt like forever.

  A loud knock at her front door rattled her back to reality. Martha raced to the door hoping it might be her headstrong child returning home. Opening it, the grim expression on the neighbor who’d come calling made her wish she hadn’t.

  “Did you see it?”

  “See what?”

  The neighbor was having trouble making eye contact.

  “The story on the news right now. I just wondered if you might have heard anything. . . . ”

  Martha grabbed the remote and entered one of the local channels. She had already stopped listening to everything as the cheery CGI bumper for the program belied the seriousness of the top story. Her heart sank. She felt as if she’d just fallen from a tall building.

  “This just in,” the well-coiffed presenter read with the appropriate mix of urgency and seriousness.

  Martha watched dumbfounded as video rolled. Three girls and a dangerous, charismatic madman, possibly a murderer. All missing. Unnamed except for Lucy Ambrose. Probably together. A kidnapping? Not so fast. Already it was being turned into a cult thing, stock footage of the Manson girls rolling on the screen. All the details were sketchy but reported as fact.

  “I’m sure the police would have notified you if . . . ”

  Martha’s eyes were blank. Fixed on the breaking news report.

  “If there’s anything I can do . . . ,” the neighbor offered as she backed toward the door. Martha was in shock. She couldn’t even muster a thank-you. She reached for the phone, calmly, robotically, and dialed the police.

  Sunday morning.

  Day of reflection. And repair.

  It was still dark inside, but first light was climbing slowly up the outer walls and through the shattered windows.

  Outside the church, the buzz of chain saws and men’s voices replaced the rumble of thunder. The sirens of police cars and fire engines could be heard in the distance, making their way down flooded side streets choked with fallen trees.

  The storm was finally over.

  Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes sat silently, contemplating what Sebastian had just revealed.

  None of them knew what to thi
nk.

  How to feel.

  There was a sound of crunching glass coming from the side chapel. The windows had been blown out, making a way in for an intruder.

  A small box-shaped bluish-white glow appeared, the size of a smartphone screen, throwing light, and the sound of tentative footsteps echoed through the space.

  “Lucy?” a quavering voice called out nervously but loudly. “Lucy, are you here?”

  The voice was familiar to her and most unwelcome. She walked quickly toward the rectangular light.

  “Jesse,” she whispered harshly, grabbing him tightly by the arm.

  Jesse recoiled, wide-eyed until the look of recognition settled in. The girl looked familiar, but different to him than she had just a few days earlier.

  “I knew it,” he said, less surprised than pleased with himself.

  “Knew what?”

  “That you’d be here.”

  “What? Why would you even bother to look for me?”

  “Believe me, I’m not the only one looking.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “It was the bracelet,” Jesse said. “I knew I’d seen the two-eyed emblem on it someplace before. It was from an item I did on the press conference for the condo conversion. I remembered the sculpture on the building. Almost like it led me here.”

  The sound of a match striking and sulfur fumes filled the still air, followed by a spark of light from the altar candle. Jesse saw the powerful outline of the imposing figure on the altar and shook as if he’d seen a ghost. It was the guy in the picture.

  “Sebastian,” he mused, the way he had over celebrities he’d written about but never actually seen in person.

  Lucy backed away from him, toward the altar, and joined Agnes and Cecilia flanking Sebastian.

  “What do you want from us?” Sebastian called out to him.

  “Let them go,” Jesse said.

  The girls looked puzzled and Cecilia began to laugh derisively at the pale, frail teen down the aisle.

  “Let who go?” Agnes asked. “We’re not hostages.”

  It was the first time any of them had used such a word, though they were beginning to feel like it. Not hostages in the criminal sense, but cuffed and bound by their heartstrings.