The Hammer Commission Page 10

  "Huh," Mark said.

  "What?"

  "I'm impressed."

  "Finally!" Judith said with a smile.

  Finally indeed, Mark thought to himself.

  They breezed through customs rather quickly. Mark had put the cash Rafael had given him in the diplomatic pouch so no one would see it. Not that he got searched anyway, but it was best to be safe. The first thing he did was drive to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont and asked to see Bishop Santos.

  "Mark! It is good to see you again!"

  Mark bowed and kissed his ring, "This is my new partner Judith," he said introducing her while she curtsied and kissed the ring. Obviously she hadn't ignored everything in Sunday school.

  "It is a pleasure to meet you Judith."

  "Thank you your Eminence," she responded.

  "Actually eminence is for cardinals, we Bishops have to make due with 'your Excellency'." Bishop Santos told her, and then laughed when she blushed. "We're not all old and stodgy like the movies portray us."

  "Yes your Excellency," she mumbled still embarrassed.

  "So Mark, while it is good to see you again, and in much better health than when you were last here, I suspect this is not a social visit?"

  "No Father. I was hoping to find out who the tip came from so that I might interview them."

  "Hmmm, I see." Bishop Santos said pondering a moment. "There has been some concern over the woman who made the report. Apparently she is rather distraught over the whole affair."

  "Girlfriend?"

  "No, a neighbor. She lived in the flat next to his."

  "I would really appreciate being able to talk to her about this Father. None of this adds up."

  "Yes, I had noticed that as well. Cardinal Richards is still in quite a state over the whole affair, as well as what happened in Poland." Bishop Santos paused a moment in thought again.

  "I will send her confessor with you, he's a good priest, he's been with the church almost as long as I have. I will have him ask her to talk with you. Perhaps if she sees how important all of this is, she will stop feeling guilty about her choice."

  "Why should she feel guilty?" Judith asked. "He was summoning devils, wasn't he?"

  "Sadly Judith, while those of us in the Church, and those like you who work for the Church still understand the difference between good and evil, right and wrong; many in society today only see the world in 'shades of gray' as they like to say.

  "They have been swayed by the words of people who either don't believe in evil, or who are evil themselves or seek to use the culture of today to lead other people astray."

  "It is a sad truth Father," Mark said nodding.

  "So, go visit your with your friend, and I will summon Father Otto."

  Mark looked up surprised, "Jake's buried here?"

  "We felt it best to inter him on holy ground. He's in the vaults below the Cathedral, there is an entrance in the sacristy."

  "Thank you your Excellency!" Mark said bowing and kissed the ring again surprising Bishop Santos, "I was afraid that Jake would not be laid to rest in Paris, this was always his home and I know he wanted to be buried here."

  "Ah, I see. Well go in peace while I attend to this."

  "Umm, is this safe?" Judith asked as they descended into the tombs under the Cathedral.

  "Of course it is, we're still on Holy ground," Mark said.

  When they got to the bottom of the stairs he found a light switch and turned the lights on. There were a series of halls with placards on the walls, which were made up of three foot by two foot stone panels with inscriptions on them.

  "This isn't what I expected," Judith said looking around.

  "Most people think it's like the catacombs down here. That place definitely gives most people the creeps. Now, let's find Jake."

  Mark went to the little altar and sure enough there was a book next to it, listing who was interred here. Finding Jake's resting place turned out to be fairly easy.

  "Jake, this is Judith, your replacement." Mark said when they came to his stone in the crypt. "Though I suspect you already know that. Assuming you're even paying attention to me anymore!"

  Judith looked at him a little strangely.

  "What?"

  "He's dead. Why are you talking to his body?"

  "Because I sure as hell can't talk to him. Well I can talk to him, but he can't talk back."

  "Is he really in Heaven?"

  Mark nodded, "Yes, one of the perks of the job. As long as you keep your faith and never turn away or join the other side, you go to Heaven."

  "Nice to know."

  "Now if you don't mind I'd like a little private time. You can wait by the altar back there, or go up in the Sacristy."

  Judith nodded and left him there.

  Mark sighed and looked at the marker carved into the stone that sealed his former partner in. "You know I have half a mind to drag your body out of there and dump your bones in London just to get even with you for dying on me. I'd ask if you have any idea at all how screwed I am, but I suspect you already do." He shook his head, "Still trying to figure out if I should be jealous that you died first. Oh, and sorry for never telling you the full truth about me, or about my wives.

  "Anyway, I am completely lost here and to be honest I'm terrified that I'm going to be joining you a lot sooner than later. So here's what I know: That guy didn't summon that devil. Someone else did. Someone who can summon devils into an airplane that is actually moving. And it's only our people being hit, well at least right now.

  "Father Flores still hates me, I think his choice for my new partner makes that clear. Rafael had no clues and he was rather upset about your death. I think he had a crush on you or something. Probably that suave French accent.

  "So my plan is, interview the person who turned the kid in. Fly to Poland; get whatever information I can there. After that, maybe look up the infamous Mr. Smith, if I can find him, if he's even still alive. Then I'm out of ideas. So I'd really appreciate it if you could like, bribe an angel or something to give me a clue, I'm lost here Jake. Throw me a bone or something, okay?"

  Mark made the sign of the cross then, kissed his fingers and patted the marker. "Keep a spot open at the bar for me, I miss you bud." Then he went and found Judith, she was up in the Sacristy waiting for him with a priest he'd never met before.

  "This is Father Otto," She said introducing him.

  Mark shook hands, "If I may ask a question Father?"

  "No, I don't know how an Irishman got a German surname."

  "Well now that that's settled, shall we?"

  "You have a car?"

  "Of course."

  "That's good. Can't walk like I used ta'. Gettin' old I guess."

  Mark nodded and led them back to where the car was parked, Father Otto was rather talkative. He also seemed to know the history of every house, pub, and shop that they passed.

  "Been here long?" Judith asked at one point.

  "Nah, only ten years now. But back in the fifties I was assigned here as a young priest. They were still cleaning up after the big one of course. So we priests spent a lot of time in the neighborhoods working with the parishioners and helping them out. Took people a long time to heal from that one. Everyone was so grateful to be alive that mass was always packed. But they were so poor that every spare coin we priests had ended up in the poor box."

  "Sounds rough."

  "For them it was. We didn't mind not having money, the Church takes care of us, so we can take care of the people. Used to stay up half the night praying for other people's sins because they were working themselves into exhaustion and couldn't pray themselves."

  "Praying for other people's sins?"

  "It's an old practice in the Church, I don't think most people even know about it anymore. Back from the time when the rich could buy indulgences from the Church."

  "How does it work?" Mark was curious, he'd never heard of this one before.

  "That house there," Father Otto pointed out. "The Priest
would pray in the name of the parishioner, or whoever made the contribution, for forgiveness of their sins, or for whatever boon they were seeking from the Lord. It wasn't banned when indulgences were, so we spent a lot of time praying for their health and welfare, or anything that they asked for help with."

  "Do you think it helped?" Judith asked as Mark found a space to park.

  "Well it was a smaller world then, so we all figured we would try."

  Mark thought about that as they all walked over to the door of the flat they were going to. Priests like Father Otto were the salt of the earth and the backbone of the Church. He had to be close to eighty, but here he was still tending the flock. Just like Father Gregory had been.

  Father Otto knocked on the door and after a few minutes a young woman who Mark would have guessed was in her late twenties answered the door.

  "Why Father Otto! What brings you here?"

  "Allison, this is Mark and Judith, they're lay members of one of our orders that investigates problems such as the one that poor young man was involved in. Could you spare a few minutes to speak to them please?"

  "Father, I don't know."

  "Miss Allison," Mark said carefully, being tactful wasn't his strong suit, "I understand that you may feel responsible for what happened. Sadly this incident was too far along for any of us to have stopped, that poor young man had already passed before we were able to help him. However there may be others who can still be saved and we must hold out hope for their lives and their souls. Anything you can tell us could help us to save someone else from such a terrible fate."

  "He was dead when they got there?" Allison said looking surprised.

  "Yes, what he was trying did not work. So now we are looking to see if there are others who need saving."

  Mark watched as Allison sighed and slowly nodded, "Yes, you are right. Come in, please. I will tell you what I know."

  Mark and Judith sat on a couch in the living room as Allison and Father Otto each sat in one of the two overstuffed chairs in the room. Mark gave the room a cursory look over as Allison settled herself and asked if anyone wanted any tea or coffee.

  It was a nice room, fairly tidy, nothing too expensive, but nothing cheap either. Apparently Allison did okay, and had nice taste in art and furniture. Pretty average over all.

  “So Allison,” Mark started. “How long had you known,” Mark looked at his notes, “Pierre?”

  “Actually he went by the name Peter, he hated Pierre.” Allison said.

  “Really?” Mark said and wrote that down.

  Allison nodded, “I’d known him for, I guess ten years? His sister and I were friends in school. Which was how we met.”

  “I see, are you still friends with his sister then?”

  Allison nodded, “Yes, but she lives Madrid now, her company transferred her last year.”

  Mark nodded, “So what was your relationship with Peter? That is if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Allison blushed Mark noticed, “He had a crush on me, used to come by once every week or so. We’d meet for lunch sometimes, Francis, his sister, was very worried about him. She appreciated my taking time to keep an eye on her little brother.”

  “Worried?” Judith asked, “Or was she just trying to set you up with him?”

  Allison shook her head, “No, Peter had a girlfriend, or did up until last year. He’d been getting involved in, well involved in things obviously that were bad for him. At first we, Francis and I, thought he’d just gotten involved in that whole ‘Goth’ thing they do in the States. But it was worse than that.”

  “How so?” Mark asked.

  “He stopped going out, stopped talking to all of his friends, started staying home when he wasn’t working, sleeping days and up all night. From what he told me he was spending all his time on the internet.”

  “Doing?” Mark prompted when she paused.

  “Researching demons, devils, all of that kind of thing. He was wearing occult symbols and was getting more and more pulled into it. At first I thought he was just being silly or trying to impress someone. But after a while I realized he was serious. That was when I talked to Father Otto here about him.”

  She started to cry a little then, Father Otto got out of his chair and kneeled down in front of her chair and took her hands in his and started to comfort her.

  “I’m sorry Allison,” Mark apologized.

  “It’s.... It’s okay,” She said between soft sobs as she composed herself. “I just don’t know what caused him to change so, so suddenly. He never really came out and said anything about it, but I think he met someone on the internet, someone who convinced him to do this.”

  “Is there anything at all you can think of that happened when he started to change? Was he in an accident? Did he go on vacation? Something traumatic in his life?”

  Allison took a moment before responding, “I think he broke up with his girlfriend then. Also that was about the time his sister was transferred.”

  Mark nodded and wrote that down. He let Judith ask a couple more questions while he thought about what Allison had said. All in all it just sounded like another case of teenaged angst gone bad.

  Mark looked at Judith and she shook her head, so he stood, “Well we thank you for your time Allison, we all know this has been hard and you have our sympathies.”

  “I just wish I’d spoken up earlier,” Allison said looking up at them. Her misery was clear on her face.

  “You didn’t cause any of this, someone else did,” Mark said. “I promise you that we will do every thing that we can to find the person responsible for it.”

  “Do you think you can?” She said looking hopeful.

  “Of course we will,” Judith said smiling, “It’s what we do.”

  They bid her farewell and then waited by the door for a minute as Father Otto talked to her quietly before he got up and joined them outside.

  "That's a good woman in there," Father Otto said as they drove back to the Church.

  "Too bad she didn't know anything that would have helped us," Mark said. "Oh, I forgot to ask you," he said looking at Judith. "Do you speak French?"

  "No, but she wasn't, so no biggie."

  Father Otto started to laugh rather loudly.

  "What?"

  "She was speaking French." Mark said smirking.

  "Looks like somebody got the gift of tongues!" Father Otto said still laughing.

  "What?!" Judith said looking from one to the other.

  "Looks like you just got promoted," Mark said flooring the car and running a red light. "Good thing too. Father, what kind of a devil is that behind us?"

  Father Otto turned around in the back seat to look out the rear window. "Well I'll be. Haven't seen one of those since we blessed the catacombs back in fifty-three. It's a subterranean devil. Fast little stinkers. Nasty claws too."

  Mark took the next corner hard, sideswiping a taxi in the process as he leaned on the horn. "Is it a minion or a lesser?"

  "It’s a lesser devil." Father Otto said pulling a bible out of his robes and taking his cross into his hands.

  "It's gaining on us!" Judith warned.

  "Turn left onto Rue De Rivoli!" Father Otto said from the backseat. "Tour St. Jacques will be a good place to confront it."

  "I don't know where that is Father!" Mark said, sliding the car around another corner as he made the left turn Father Otto told him about.

  "Big tower on your right with a park around it. Can't miss it."

  Mark nodded and weaved around another taxi, dodged a bus and sideswiped a UPS truck.

  "There!" Judith said pointing.

  "Okay, I'll lure it off," Mark said. "Judith, you get the holy water and crosses out of the trunk. Father, can you dismiss that thing?"

  "I can build a ward to trap it, but it will take a minute or two. Not a young man anymore."

  "Brace yourselves!" Mark said and turning up onto the curb drove into the park. Jamming the car in park as he locked the breaks he opened the
door and jumped from the car as it came to a stop.

  "Yo! Pigface!" He yelled running at the devil and pulling out the small cross he kept in his pocket.

  Sure enough it turned right for him.

  "Begone devil! Back to the pits of Hell with you!" and he thrust the cross at it.

  Unsurprisingly the cross burst into flames, it wasn't one with any serious power and he hadn't expected it to hold. But it did piss the devil off and it followed him as he turned and ran.

  He could hear the sirens as he ran around the tower, running straight for a tree. It grabbed his jacket, and he shed it without a thought then jumped as the tree came near and hitting it feet first rebounded from it. The devil however ran right into it with a loud 'smack'. It took a moment to gather its wits and then with a roar chased after him again.

  Mark was able to do that three more times until it learned what he was doing. The fourth time it ran into him and sent him sprawling.

  "I will eat your flesh human!" It said snarling at him as he scrambled to his feet.

  "That's what you all say," he grunted then charged it, ducking under its arms as it tried to grab him and tried to hip check it as he went by.

  It was like hitting a brick wall, but he did budge it some. However it raked his back with a clawed hand, shredding his shirt. Four lines of fiery pain scored down his back as he started to run back towards the car.

  It hit him again when he was about halfway there. He could see Father Otto was still busy scuffing lines in the dirt as he kneeled there using his shoe which he had taken off as Judith watched in fear.

  "Get the artifact!" He yelled as he rolled to his feet and faced the devil.

  "Your blood smells strange," the devil said snarling.

  "You should talk, short and stupid."

  It took another swipe at him and he dodged, taking a step back. He blocked the next one with an arm, and he was sure he felt the bone crack. He slipped a few more attacks before it landed another solid one across his chest, the pain of it making him gasp. But he jumped back and then turned and ran as fast as he could.