“It’s impressive that you’re taking this on. You could leave it to the cops and feds to figure this out for themselves.”
“DC’s not like NY, Fonsi. Doesn’t have the same history, with spiritual practitioners from all over the world who set up shop practically in your face. When it comes to mystical shit, the district is a quieter town. A few conjuring folks from the South, sure, but quieter nonetheless. Everyone’s been holding their breath after the ghost invasion up north, telling themselves that something like that couldn’t happen here. There’re all sorts of quacks floating around trying to make some cash, saying they’re in theknow. But this is my world.” She shook her head. “Apologies, our world. I may no longer be a Guardián… I honestly don’t think I ever actually was, but I get it. I have a gift… I gotta try and help, however I can.”
“You’ll always be a Guardián, Linda,” Fonsi replied. “What you’ve set up for yourself is tremendous.” Fonsi tried to sound as genuine as possible though he felt like he was talking too much.
“Hmm.” She reached her car, got in. “Appreciate that. I’ll drop you off at your hotel and then I gotta get back to the agency. I’m also going to send you my assistant’s number in case you ever need to reach me and I’m not available. And FYI, I’ll be returning with you to New York in the morning. I have business to handle.”
CHAPTER TEN
JEREMIAH
He opened his eyes and whispered his full name. What Jeremiah did every time he woke up. He looked at the time: 7:16 a.m. April 24. He was in a hospital, in a clean, tidy room. The environment was sterile, silent in a way that made him feel like the place lacked true life. Still, no complaints. He was thankful, considering where he’d seen some of the hospitals that his parishioners from Ebenezer had to lie up in when he paid them a visit.
Considering how spotty his memory had become, his morning ritual was to go over everything he recalled, including debriefings from the nice doctor with the glasses and gentle eyes who was handsome. Shapiro. Yes, right, his name was Shapiro. They were still trying to determine the source of what had happened to him, to keep him as comfortable as possible. Jeremiah replied as best he could, though it became increasingly difficult to speak. To even swallow at times. The raggedness in his throat, unending torture.
The staff were polite and professional and tried to play if off like they weren’t dismayed. But he could see they were frightened, having to treat a man with eyes from hell. He’d overheard the mutterings. Someproclaimed that they should be clad in PPE, or at least wear masks, which a few did. Most of the nurses were kind, even though he could see the anxiety etched in the lines of their face as they took his temperature or placed a cooling pad on his chest or bathed him. One had gently patted his shoulder and said, “I’m praying for you, Pastor.” Bless her.
His congregation—were they frightened, too? Did they even know what had happened to him? Is that why he hadn’t received any visitors? Did they know where he was? He kept on forgetting to ask Dr. Shapiro. Jeremiah could barely remember where he was hospitalized, though he was sure he’d been told several times. Some army base in DC or Virginia whose name eluded him.
There were a couple of clergymen who’d visited, one a Catholic priest who read sacraments for who knows how long and then splashed Jeremiah with holy water from an aspergillum. The sprinkles of water felt so good, so cool to Jeremiah’s skin that he smiled and croaked out, “Oh, do that again.” Which clearly wasn’t the right thing to say based on how the priest frowned and jetted out of the room after a few more tries. The expectation, that splashes of holy water would cause whatever evil spirit was riding Jeremiah to retreat, the spiritual cleansing too much.
The other man of the cloth who visited was a Baptist preacher, Jeremiah relieved to see a brother trying to help him out. Why hadn’t Pastor Morgan come to see him? Why hadn’t he brought any of the congregation?
I know why, Jeremiah thought during one of his more lucid moments.’Cause that motherfucka has long wished I would drop dead. Probably thinks his prayers were answered.
Jeremiah chuckled. He remembered enough to know that he didn’t like to cuss even in his thoughts, much less out loud. Douglas would’ve been proud. Pastor Morgan, despite his public persona as caretaker of his flock, was a nasty, rigid coot who Jeremiah surmised must’ve not beengetting any loving from his dry-ass wife. The meanness that permeated that fool’s soul behind hidden doors would’ve shocked their parishioners.
Over the years, the more Pastor Morgan began to suspect the true nature of Jeremiah’s orientation, the more distant he became, as if homosexuality was an infection to be avoided at all costs. His warnings around fornication and “deviant expressions of the body” appeared more regularly in his exhortations to congregants to live a godly life. Didn’t matter how bad Jeremiah’s memory was, those foul words he’d remember to the day he died.
He was sure the good pastor would’ve fired him long ago except he knew that plenty of worshippers would follow Jeremiah to whatever church community he moved to if he stayed in the DMV. How his sermons about being able to find the wonders of God and Spirit and Jesus in the smallest details of life drew praise far and wide, even going viral online, which tickled him to no end.
It was one of the loves of Jeremiah’s life to be able to offer his sermons under the vaulted arches of Ebenezer. Like Mount Zion in Georgetown, Ebenezer had been founded in the early nineteenth century by African Americans who wanted their own place of worship, whose needs and vision weren’t recognized by white churchgoers. With two freedmen who were architects among their membership, the large sanctuary was renowned for its vaulted ceilings with crisscrossed latticework influenced by Moorish designs. And then in the twentieth century, congregants had decided to incorporate stained glass into the sanctuary’s window frames, detailing everything from the first biblical garden to when Ebenezer had served as an important stop on the Underground Railroad, to the March on Washington. To this day, artists were being commissioned to create new window art detailing milestones in Black life. Right by the pulpit, a depiction of Jesus was the church’s artistic cornerstone, the radiant Savior with beautiful midnight skin and thick locs that flowed down bare shoulders.
All these things were what made Jeremiah sure, when he first felt the stirrings that he might be called to serve behind the pulpit, that Ebenezer would be the place for him. Years later, he would wonder what his life might’ve been like if he hadn’t felt so connected to the church, if he had chosen to share the Gospel elsewhere.
His time sitting in the pews by himself when he was twenty-two after a noon service was still one of his fondest memories, the church staff just letting him linger for as long as he liked and take in the wonder of the space. Young Jeremiah was revitalized by the colors of the windows, by how the openness of the ceilings brought him closer to the Creator.
These were the comforts that floated in Jeremiah’s mind as he lay in the hospital, that brought him a modicum of relief. Sometimes his remembrances blended into his dreams as he slept. His sense of reality, a warped, distorted thing, though the bleep and blip of hospital machines brought him back to the here and now. And so it was no contest to let himself drift back to his time with Ebenezer, to solace and safety.
Yet this was also his big mistake, to linger too long with what was precious. The shadow thing would inevitably arrive. He’d seen the wisps of darkness before, when he dreamed about sitting in his county library back in Alabama for hours reading books likeThe First Book of JazzorThe Snowy Day. Or when he sat with his neighbor Carlton when they were twelve out by a field of sunflowers, Jeremiah wondering if the other boy might actually let him hold his hand. The shadow, lurking in the corner of his dreams. But it was when he was sitting in Ebenezer, the happy place to which he constantly returned, that he realized he’d sat with a cherished memory for too long. That’s when he noticed the shadow thing lurking in the corner of the sanctuary, eating away at the latticework, at the burgundy cushions that made up the pews and footrests. Beginning to consume the flesh of worshippers and ushers, of Jeremiah himself.
In panic, he moved to another memory. He lay on his side in a sea ofsoft yellow. The fabric felt like satin, a decadent sort of thing that he never would’ve imagined for himself. Someone was next to him. Jeremiah’s bare behind grazed Douglas’s furry stomach. His soft hand, pressed against Jeremiah’s heart.
There was a bright light hanging overhead in a concrete room, an easel to the side. A shadow formed overhead that gradually grew in size and thickness, two red eyes at its center.
Jeremiah lay still, as if the darkness with its eerie eyes was a wild animal that would move on if he made no sudden movement. He slowly turned his head to look at Douglas, to warn him, only to see that Douglas was looking up at the thing with a sense of curiosity. Yes, Douglas was far more into the macabre than Jeremiah, found delight in the mysterious. Wondrous, magnificent things happened in shadow, this Jeremiah knew as well. But the thing that lingered above them… something in Jeremiah’s soul knew that it couldn’t be trusted. That it was dangerous.
He remained motionless, hoping that the swirling mass would move on to some other place. Didn’t matter how cautious he was. Within seconds, the shadow lunged for them.
Those precious memories, the most beautiful memories… Jeremiah needed them to go on, to survive. But if anything delightful lingered in his mind, shadow arrived.
“The thing—it’s taking everything I have,” Jeremiah croaked out the next time Dr. Shapiro came to his room. He abruptly sat up and grabbed the physician by his sleeve. Dr. Shapiro grimaced and nodded, nervous. He was repulsed by his patient touching him, his emotions written on his face even as he tried to maintain his composure. Jeremiah had to get the man to understand.
“It feasts on what’s precious,” he said with burning throat, barely able to eke out the words. “The shadow… itfeasts.”
FIRST INTERLUDE
Devouring the pious man was sheer delight. When was the last time the shadow had been so satiated?
