Unclean Spirit (17 page)

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

              An infant, one whom Marybeth intuited was Benjamin, was writhing atop the pulpit that sat in the middle of the basement floor. A man, whom Marybeth realized was Neill Davis, was attempting to drive nails into the baby's skull. 

              "Nooooo!" Marybeth screamed as she started down the basement steps. 

              Charlie grabbed at Marybeth's arm, but could not catch hold. 

              "Duck down! I'm gonna shoot the fucker!" 

              Marybeth did as she was told and soon heard the crack of Charlie's rifle. She waited to see Neill Davis fall, but he didn't. He couldn't. He and the baby had disappeared before her very eyes. 

              Patsy was roused from her somnolence by the reverberation of a gunshot somewhere in the house. She wanted to believe she had merely heard a car backfiring, but she knew better. Although the pain in her back was not as acute as it had been earlier, it still took quite an effort for her to struggle out of bed and hobble downstairs. 

              "Marybeth? Where are you? What's going on?" Patsy called out as she made her way toward the kitchen. 

              No reply. 

              "Marybeth? Charlie?" 

              Still no reply. 

              Not only was Patsy on the verge of panic, she was also so cold her teeth chattered. The frigidity of the air surrounding her was not natural; Patsy realized that and it terrified her. She felt something brush against her leg and was immediately relieved by Pen's presence. But when she looked down, it wasn't Penelope that Patsy saw--it was an ebony cat with glaring yellow eyes. 

              Marybeth and Charlie were so stunned by what they had "seen" that it took several minutes for them to collect themselves enough to walk back up to the kitchen. 

              "What the fuck was that?" Charlie asked as he poured two shots of Cuervo Gold. 

              "An apparition, an hallucination, ghosts? Your guess is as good as mine," Marybeth's hand shook as she tossed back her tequila. "But I recognized that 'man.'" 

              "scuse me?" 

              "Yeah, he was Neill Davis." And so Marybeth told Charlie about Patsy and Neill Davis and Benjamin. 

              "Sumabitch!" More Cuervo Gold. 

              While Charlie and Marybeth were trying to make some sense of what they had witnessed in the basement, Patsy was desperately trying to keep her wits about her. She was colder than she had ever been and a fine mist had begun to envelop her. The enigmatic sable feline had moved away from Patsy's legs and sat staring at her with a look that the frightened woman interpreted as pure loathing. 

              "Marybeth, please! Answer me! I'm scared!" 

              "Charlie, did you hear something?" Marybeth was on edge, but she could have sworn she had heard a muffled voice. 

              "No ma'am. Don't want to neither!" 

              "I better check on Patsy. I'll be right back. 

              "Uh, on second thought, will you come with me?" 

              "Damn tootin' I will! I ain't staying here alone!" 

              When Marybeth opened the bedroom door, she saw Patsy still sleeping soundly. And there was Penelope sitting alertly beside her. 

              "Sweet Jesus! What's happening here?" Patsy asked aloud as the mist thickened around her. And now there was a smell that made Patsy gag. It was the overpowering stench of excrement. 

              "God, I've got to get out of here!"

              `But as Patsy started toward the front door, she saw the kitchen door swing open. 

              "Marybeth! Thank goodness! I..." 

              But it wasn't Marybeth who came through the door. It was the specter of a grinning Neill Davis.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

              “Saul! Wake up! Must go to Forsythe ranch!" 

              "Mag? Jeez, it's the middle of the night! Go back to sleep." 

              "NOW, Saul! And bring medical bag." 

              Starr awoke with a start and realized that she was sopping wet. She then discovered that the air conditioner had been turned off and that the heater was running full-blast. 

              Tamara lay snoring in her bed. 

              Paul was talking in his sleep. "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate." 

              Paul was woefully unfamiliar with the language of Italy, but he was speaking Italian nonetheless: "All hope abandon ye who enter here." Paul Forsythe had never read Dante's
Inferno,
but he uttered the words therein that were inscribed on the entrance to hell!

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

              Too horrified to even scream, Patsy stood paralyzed as she watched the sinister black cat curl its tail around the legs of the visage of Neill Davis. Finally, overcome by the icy temperature that shrouded her body and the unbearable fear that cloaked her mind, Patsy collapsed. 

              As Saul and Mag drove up to the Forsythe place, they saw Cooter high-tailing it for the barn. The dog knew better than to hang around the house and Saul wished that he could follow the animal's lead, but when Charlie opened the door in response to Mag's loud knocking, he knew that Patsy needed his help. 

              Patsy was lying crumpled on the floor; Marybeth, her face the color of freshly fallen snow, was attempting to rouse her lifemate. Mag moved Marybeth gently away from Patsy so Saul could assess the woman's status. 

              "She's breathing and she has a pulse," Saul announced. "What happened. Did she fall?" 

              Charlie spoke up. "Don't know what happened. We, Miz Marybeth and me, was upstairs. Didn't know nothin' was wrong 'till we came down to let ya'all in." 

              "Dr. Feener," Marybeth managed between sobs, "what's wrong with her?" 

              "I'm not sure, perhaps she simply fainted," whereupon Saul cracked open an ancient, but hopefully functional, container of Spirits of Ammonia under Patsy's nose. The response was immediate: Patsy opened her eyes, coughed vigorously in response to the pungent odor of ammonia, and shoved Saul's hand away from her face. 

              Marybeth was instantly at Patsy's side, kissing her head and hugging her tightly. 

              "Okay, okay! Enough already!" Patsy exclaimed as her cough subsided and her mind began to clear. Patsy attempted to sit up, but Saul wanted to assess her limbs and back first and, as he did so, Marybeth quietly made her way back upstairs. Penelope greeted her at the bedroom door; Patsy, whom Marybeth knew had been lying in bed when knocks were heard on the front door, was no longer present. 

              "Holy shit!" was all Marybeth could say as she carried Pen downstairs with her.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

              "...and then I passed out." Patsy had finished telling the group what had happened. Her back hurt like hell and she shook as she spoke but she seemed otherwise unharmed-- physically, at least-- as a result of her experience. 

              "Believe it or not, I can top that story!" Marybeth proceeded to detail what she and Charlie had been through. "And I swear I saw you, Patsy, sleeping soundly in bed while you were down here on the floor!" 

              "Sumabitch! I need a drink!" 

              Charlie had tequila and everyone else had coffee. No one was going back to sleep tonight. 

              "Mag," Saul addressed his friend, "you've been unusually quiet. This is your area of expertise, where do we go from here?" 

              "We get help--fast!"

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

              Vincent Palmary was not the stereotypical octogenarian: He was neither arthritic nor senile; he was not preoccupied with his bowel patterns; he didn't pinch the derrieres of young girls; he was a practicing demonologist. Very early on in life, Vincent had learned that he possessed the gift of discernment, the ability to recognize the presence of evil spirits. Needless to say, this so-called "gift" had created great turmoil in Vincent's life, but he had eventually learned how to deal with his special endowment. It had, in fact, saved his life and the lives of others on more than one occasion.

              Seeing as how demonology wasn't an especially lucrative occupation, Vincent, prior to his retirement at age fifty-five, had worked as a police detective. More than once, Vincent had been interviewing a criminal suspect when he felt the impending eruption of hives on his back and buttocks; it never failed--the hives were Vincent's cue that an evil spirit was near and that he best be especially alert and cautious. Vincent's ex-partner, Ralph, often recounted the story of how Vincent had saved his life. They had gone to the home of a suspected serial rapist. The man didn't fit the profile of a rapist and Vincent and Ralph were beginning to think they had the wrong guy. As a result, Ralph had let his guard down and wasn't watching the man as closely as he should have been. Then, out of the blue, Vincent had knocked Ralph's chair over, with him in it! Before Ralph could say a word, he heard the man's maniacal laughter and saw the glint of a knife blade as it arced toward him. But Vincent was on the man like blue tint on an old lady's hair. When Ralph later asked Vincent how he knew what was coming down, Vincent had merely said, "My ass itched." 

              Vincent was not only capable of recognizing the presence of evil spirits, he could also frequently identify the actual name and/or nature of the spirit. Vincent was aware of the fact that inhuman spirits, a.k.a., demons, value their anonymity. Knowing a demon's appellation could afford Vincent a certain degree of power over the demon; on the other hand, if Vincent wasn't extremely careful, the power that comes with recognition could quickly shift to the corrupt spirit's side of the court. 

              Strictly speaking, Vincent was not an exorcist, as he was not Catholic. In point of fact, Vincent was not affiliated with any particular religion. That did not mean, however, that Vincent did not believe in God; on the contrary, Vincent Palmary
knew
that God existed and he trusted Him above all else. It was God, Vincent believed, Who invested him with the power of deliverance--the ability to cast out demons. 

              It had been many years since Vincent had been asked to pray for someone's deliverance, so he was surprised when he received the call from Magyar Gehrke.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

              "Did he remember you? Is he going to come?" Saul anxiously inquired of Mag. 

              "Yes and yes," Mag responded. 

              "Thank God!" Marybeth exclaimed as she served breakfast to the group seated around the kitchen table.  Mag and Saul had not bothered to go back home during the wee hours of the morning, essentially because they had been unable to coerce Charlie, Marybeth, and Patsy to leave the ranch. Charlie had proclaimed, "Ain't no Gawddamn dead fuckin' freak gonna chase me outta my home!" His sentiments had been echoed, although not quite as convincingly, by Patsy and Marybeth. Charlie's bravado, however, hadn't stopped him from locking the cellar door and running a thick layer of salt along its edge. According to Charlie, whose estranged wife had claimed to know about such things, evil spirits were repelled by salt. 

              "Dammit, Mag, don't keep us in suspense! What did this Palmary guy say?" Fear had a way of making Saul very impatient. 

              "Told you. He say he come." 

              "I know that! What did he say about what's going on around here?"

              The phone bill was going to be atrocious
--
Mag had spent well over an hour on the phone detailing everything that had transpired since the night of Paul's injury. 

              "Said, 'Sounds interesting'." 

              "Interestin'? A two-headed cow is interestin', a space alien is interestin'. What we got here ain't interestin', it's downright apocalyptic!" Charlie took note of the stunned looks on the faces that surrounded him. "What? I cain't use a big word now and agin?"

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Dr. Barker visited Paul first thing that morning.

              "Good news, Mr. Forsythe, your stress test was normal. That result, combined with the echo, the cardiac enzymes, and your ongoing heart tracings here in Telemetry, lead me to conclude that you have not suffered any permanent cardiac damage." 

              "Well, that's quite a relief!" Paul exclaimed. "But it does leave some unanswered questions." 

              "Yes, Mr. Forsythe, it does. I feel fairly certain that your cardiac arrest during surgery was secondary to the anesthesia; I'm not at all sure why you passed out and fell down your basement stairs to begin with. There is a condition known as paroxysmal atrial tachycardia, PAT, that causes the sudden onset of a very rapid heartbeat. Since the heart beats so fast, the actual volume of blood that reaches the brain may be limited, resulting in light-headedness. You became very tachycardiac in ICU; perhaps the same thing happened to you at home and you experienced a dizziness that was pronounced enough to cause your fall." 

              "So you think this PAT was the problem all along?" Paul asked. 

              "I don't know. You see, PAT is very difficult to diagnose unless a pattern of unexplained tachycardia can be established. Both the onset and cessation of PAT are quite sudden, making it difficult to track outside the hospital." 

              "Okay, but let's say I have or had PAT, what causes it?"

              "Well, we've essentially ruled out any abnormality in your heart's electrical conduction system so the most likely secondary antecedents to PAT would be: electrolyte imbalances, which you didn't have when you were admitted to the hospital; hypoxia, a lack of oxygen to the brain; drug effects, specifically from marijuana, stimulants, and digitalis; caffeine, and; stress.  When I initially interviewed you, you told me that you didn't consume caffeine in excess and didn't feel like you were under any particular stress. You also denied any drug use, so I'm hard-put to give you a definitive diagnosis of PAT."

              Paul hadn't told Dr. Barker that he smoked grass, and he was hesitant to do so now. After all, he reasoned, the last joint he'd smoked had been four or five months ago, so it could hardly be the culprit. Furthermore, Paul was convinced that his plummet down the basement steps was unrelated to his physiology. 

              "Mr. Forsythe?" Dr. Barker wondered why her patient had become so quiet. 

              "Sorry, I was digesting what you said. 

              “Dr. Barker, I should have told you this earlier but I smoked my fair-share of weed when I was a young man. Is it possible that my youthful indiscretions have caught up with me?" 

              Dr. Barker couldn't help but smile. 

              "Well, I don't know about the effects of any other of your 'youthful indiscretions,' but the tachycardia secondary to marijuana occurs immediately, not years later.  At any rate, perhaps the MRI that you'll have tomorrow after the staples are out will yield some more information relative to the cause of your fall. As far as your heart is concerned though, I've run all the tests I believe to be necessary at this time. Once you are discharged, I would like for you to see your local physician on a regular basis. If you'll give me his name and phone number I'll call him and let him know about my findings and suggestions for follow-up. Also, I would like to see you again in a month." 

              Starr and Tamara were a little late getting to the hospital that morning as they had spent considerable time on the phone with Marybeth. Patsy and Marybeth had debated whether or not to burden Tamara and Starr with what was going on at the ranch; they had finally decided that their experiences might have some bearing on what was plaguing Paul. 

              "An exorcist!? This Magyar Gehrke is calling in an exorcist?" Tamara was incredulous when Marybeth told her about Vincent Palmary.