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“Behold, the cross of the Lord!” he cried out. “Begone, all evil powers!”
Unfortunately, nothing happened, except the racket inside the walls continued.
“Don’t be discouraged,” Father Neil said over his shoulder. “It’s very rare that the demons are expelled during a first encounter. Releasing their grip on a place — or a person — generally takes time.”
I nodded. “Yeah, they weren’t too put off by my moon water.”
A small smile touched his lips. “No, probably not.” Again he reached into a pocket, this one inside the left breast of his black coat. He pulled out a small plastic vial.
“Holy water?” I asked.
“Yes, sometimes it can be more effective than the sign of the cross.”
He unscrewed the lid and started flinging the water in all directions, murmuring something in Latin the entire time. A bit of the holy water splashed me as well; I had no doubt that some of the more conservative members of the Globe community would have been surprised to see that the blessed water had no effect on me at all, except maybe to make me glad that it was the middle of summer and I wouldn’t have to worry much about going outside with slightly damp hair.
Father Neil was putting on quite a show, but as far as I could tell, the holy water and the Latin chanting weren’t having any kind of an effect at all. True, he’d said that it often took a good while to start to wear the demons down, and yet I had to wonder how long he was prepared to keep up the effort.
After about ten minutes or so, the ruckus abruptly stopped. He half swiveled on his black polished shoes and shot me a questioning glance.
“That’s how it always seems to work,” I told him. “They go on and on…until they stop. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to it.”
“Ah.” That was all he said, although I saw how his eyes narrowed, as if he was mentally reviewing the phenomena of the last few minutes and trying to see if they tallied with his previous experiences. Then he tucked the empty bottle that had contained the holy water back in his pocket and asked, “Tell me, Selena — what do you feel from this house? Sasha told me you’re a psychic.”
I gave a helpless little shrug. “I don’t feel anything. Or at least, I feel nervous when I walk in here because of what I know I’m facing, but in terms of vibrations or whatever else you want to call them…nothing. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Interesting.” Father Neil paused there for a moment, as though deliberating on what he wanted to say next. “I’m having the same experience. Not that I claim to be psychic in the same way you are, but still, in general when there’s a demonic infestation taking place, I can still feel it — a sense of oppression, of dread. There doesn’t seem to be anything like that here. And yet….”
“And yet we both heard those noises,” I finished for him. “And smelled the stink, even though it’s not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I honestly don’t know what to make of it.”
Neither did he, apparently. I probably had gotten my hopes up too much in wishing that Father Neil could just fling some holy water around and solve the problem then and there, but still, I really wished we had something to show for our little trip out here.
“Don’t despair,” he said. “As I said before, these things take time. It might be a good idea to come back at midnight and see what the activity is like then. That’s when Brant lost his life, wasn’t it?”
“A little after one in the morning,” I told the priest. I supposed his idea had some merit, although coming back to the Bigelow mansion in the wee hours of the morning definitely wasn’t high on my list of fun things to do with my time. “It could be dangerous, though.”
“I’m prepared to face any danger, if necessary,” Father Neil said. “And I understand if you don’t want to come along. You could give me a key.”
That didn’t sound like a very good idea at all. Not that I didn’t trust him, but I could only imagine my mother’s reaction if I let a near-stranger go wandering around in the house without escort. It wasn’t so much that she would be worried about property damage or whatnot, just the personal liability if something should happen to the priest while he was here alone.
It wasn’t like that sort of thing hadn’t happened before.
“No, that’s all right,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind coming back tonight.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Father Neil didn’t look completely convinced, but neither did he try to argue with me. After agreeing that there wasn’t much else to see, we headed downstairs and out to my car.
“Where are you staying?” I asked as we were fastening our seat belts.
“The Best Western.”
Naturally. He didn’t seem like the type to be staying at the Dew Drop Inn, the shabby little motel on Globe’s far western border.
“But I left my car on the street by your shop.”
Right. I supposed I should have thought of that. I nodded, and pointed the VW toward downtown. A few minutes later, I parked out front rather than in the parking lot at the back. I didn’t know exactly why, except something felt weird about leading Father Neil through the storeroom and into the shop. This way, we were able to say our goodbyes on the sidewalk, and then he headed off toward an older-model Buick parked a few yards away, and I got out my keys and unlocked the shop and let myself in.
