Divine Temptation (21 page)

“Don’t touch it!” Tommy shrieked, causing Grace to flinch.

Ken gripped the remote and pried it from his son’s hand. Tommy slumped back onto the couch and crossed his arms, scowling, while Sarto kneeled down in front of him and placed the ends of the purple alb onto each of the boy’s shoulders. The priest tipped the bottle of holy water onto his finger tips and crossed himself before reaching out and tracing a small cross on Tommy’s forehead.

Tommy stayed silent and watched the priest. His lower lip began to quiver. Monsignor Sarto kept his hand at Tommy’s forehead and rested his palm upon it as he spoke words in Latin. A prayer. When he finished, Sarto’s hand remained where it was, and he closed his eyes, the corners crinkling. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“You know why,” Tommy said in a voice that sounded like his, but there was something more mature in the tone.

“Why have you entered this boy? How can he possibly help your ends?”

“He’s a vehicle.”

“To…?” Sarto prompted.

“Her.” The word came out in a guttural hiss, and Maggie’s fear crept back in. A year ago she would’ve suspected this was all an elaborate ruse, but now she didn’t question it. The boy was possessed.

“Why do you stay so long?” Sarto asked the demon. “Have you given up on your objective? Lost sight of it?” Sarto asked.

Tommy clamped his mouth shut and set his jaw stubbornly. Sarto began chanting, again in Latin. He moved both hands to the boy’s shoulders on top of the purple cloth and continued his incantation, his voice becoming lower and lower until it was a barely audible hum.

At last, Tommy spoke, and his voice had resumed its childlike quality. “He doesn’t want to talk to you anymore. He’s afraid.”

“Will you talk to me, Tommy?” The priest likewise modified his tone to something more soothing. “Why is he with you?”

“Because I was bad. And he tricked me. He told me no one would ever find out and I could have whatever I wanted if I let him in. I wish I just would’ve told Mom and Dad that I made the scratch on their car.” He clenched his eyes shut and tears leaked out. “But he said he wouldn’t stay. He doesn’t want to stay, and he’s going to get in real big trouble if he doesn’t get out soon.”

“Why don’t you let him out?”

Tommy opened his watery eyes to look at the priest. “H-He’s so mean. I want him out but—” Tommy swallowed hard and flinched. Then he groaned and started to whimper. “I can’t. Every time he tries to leave…I get sick.”

Maggie’s stomach lurched, and Tommy began to sob. His shoulders shook, and Sarto gripped them, attempting to hold the boy still. “Let him out, Tommy. It’s okay. Just relax and release him.”

Tommy took several deep breaths. And then he screamed. His father’s arm flew around his shoulders, and Grace ran to him, but Sarto shouted for them to stand back and not touch the boy. “Pray your rosaries—both of you. Now!”

The priest resumed chanting his incantation while he closed his eyes and held Tommy firm. Both Grace and Ken gripped the beads in their hands and seemed to do their best to recite prayers while their eyes burned on their shaking son. Maggie, meanwhile, stood helplessly by watching Tommy struggle with the demon. He suddenly looked so small, so very small as his body trembled and his eyes rolled back, revealing only the white.

Strings of vomit spilled out the sides of his mouth. The demon was trying to get out. A flash of fear ripped through Maggie, and then eased. Everything was going to be okay. She could take the pain from this child. She had the ability. All she needed to do was open up to accept the spirit into herself instead. She’d be a savior. As an adult, she’d be much better able to handle the gifts this being would bestow upon her. Of course a stupid child had failed to deliver. But she wouldn’t. She was so much more worthy than this sniveling creature and his insipid parents clutching their trinkets. As if those could ever save them.

Maggie gasped. These thoughts weren’t hers. She shot her gaze desperately at Sarto and saw that his eyes were opened, watching her with an odd expression of expectation. She stumbled to the air hockey table and reached into the priest’s bag, pulling out the first thing she touched. A wooden crucifix. She put it to her chest and attempted to recite the Our Father or the Hail Mary, anything, but no verses came to her.

Her knees slammed onto the concrete floor of the basement as she murmured, “Help me Father, help me, help me.” They were the only words she could muster.

She was still whimpering on the ground when Grace shouted her son’s name. Maggie slowly opened her eyes. The sensation that had gripped her was gone, and her thoughts were her own. Lifting her head, she saw Tommy slumped into Ken’s embrace with Grace hovering over them.

“He’s fine,” Monsignor Sarto told them. “He’ll probably sleep for a long while, but he’s out of danger. I’ll leave you with the rosaries—blessed by the Holy See himself—and this vial of holy water. Bless him with the sign of the cross every night and every morning. I recommend the whole family fast for the next three days. Only a small breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no eating in between. For Thomas, I leave this.” He pulled a pewter charm on a chain out of his pocket. “It’s the medal of St. Benedict. He should keep it on his person going forward. I’ll be by at least once a day for the next week to check on him and to pray over your other children. It appears the demon has fled, but one must proceed with caution in these matters. If you notice any odd behavior, call me at once.”

The Wilsons were shaken, but expressed their gratitude. After the monsignor packed his bag, they all went upstairs, with Ken carrying his sleeping child, and said their goodbyes at the front door. During the entire exchange, Sarto never once made eye contact with Maggie, not even when he pulled his crucifix from her hand.

Maggie sat awkwardly next to Sarto in the small vehicle. He didn’t appear inclined to speak, but she had to ask. “Did I do something wrong in there? You seem so angry with me.”

He stared out through the glossy black window, and for a moment, Maggie thought he was going to ignore the question.

“I didn’t tell you to take the crucifix,” he finally said. “You don’t understand the rite of exorcism and it wasn’t your place to interfere.”

“I understand, Monsignor. But the spirit—it seemed like it was trying to enter me as it left Tommy. I felt the same sort of euphoria, or promises, that I did at the urn. It’s hard to explain. But isn’t that what you sensed when you were looking at me so intently?”

“It had formed a root in the boy. It needed a strong enough incentive to be able to release its grip.”

“And I was the incentive? Is that why you brought me there?” Sarto kept his eyes on the road, and Maggie exhaled sharply, zoning her gaze onto the beams of the car’s headlights as they shot into darkness. Folding her arms over her chest, she murmured, “I can’t believe this.”

“My methods may veer from the norm, but you can’t deny they were effective.”

“Were they? You seem disappointed I was able to escape with my soul fully intact. Shouldn’t you be glad I grabbed the crucifix?”

She glanced sideways at him and saw his thin lips press together before he said, “That cross is formed around a splinter of wood from his cross at Calvary. It was an excellent choice of weapon.” Maggie narrowed her eyes while he kept his stiffly trained on the road with not so much as a flicker in her direction. “At any rate, you have nothing to worry about. The extraction was too simple—meaning it was a lesser demon and not one that can do much damage on its own. It merely weakens the host’s resolve against larger evil.”

That new knowledge didn’t exactly comfort Maggie. “What happened to it? Is it still out there?”

Sarto inhaled. “The energy is out there, but weakened. If weakened enough it may dissipate entirely. It hardly matters now. I hope you realize the importance of keeping the details of tonight’s events to yourself, out of respect for the family’s privacy.”

“Of course.”

They stayed mute for the rest of the drive while Maggie tried to concoct a plausible story with which to appease Brenda. A fabricated account would probably strike the office manager as more realistic than what had actually happened anyhow. When Maggie walked into her dark home with only the dim light above the kitchen sink providing bleak illumination, her first thought was to rush upstairs and kiss both of her children, but she didn’t want to wake them. The evening had been so completely surreal that Maggie had felt almost as if she’d been walking through a movie, or a very dark dream. It was only when moving along the familiarity of her hallway that the reality of it hit her.

She jumped when the phone rang and rushed to it, her first thought being that it would disturb the children, her second being that she needed to talk to someone—anyone more communicative and less morose than the monsignor. The caller ID told her it was Sharon.

“Hi!” she said, letting herself take a full breath for the first time in what felt like a while.

“Are you working out? This late?” Sharon asked.

“No, no, I just…” Maggie’s throat clenched. Everything that had happened that evening rushed at her and she couldn’t even begin to explain.

“Oh no, did I wake you up? I’m sorry; this was the first chance I had to sit on my ass all day.” While Sharon rambled on, Evan appeared across from Maggie on the opposite side of the kitchen island. She covered the receiver so Sharon wouldn’t hear the tiny gasps that she suddenly didn’t seem able to control. Evan watched her through cautious eyes, with the corners of his mouth curved into a compassionate frown.

Maggie jerked herself back into control, and when she was able to steady her voice, interrupted her friend. “Hey, Sharon, I’m sorry. I should’ve just let you leave a message. I’m actually not feeling very well. Could we talk another time?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. You okay?”

“I will be. Thanks.”

The second after she clicked off the phone, Evan was at her side, holding her while she buried her face in his shoulder and released her sobs. He stroked her hair and scooped his arms behind her knees, lifting her. She clung to him, feeling as if she were emptying herself—all her fear, confusion, anxiety, and conflict. She needed someone to take it from her, at least for a little while. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.

He pulled her closer and carried her upstairs, where he laid her on the bed, then climbed in behind and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her in his peace.

Chapter 15

T
HE
B
LURRED
, R
ED
N
UMBERS
told Maggie her alarm would go off in twenty minutes. She’d slept solid the whole night through and had never felt the need to pull on her sleep mask. Closing her eyes again, she reflected on what had happened the night before. It was all still so eerie, but no longer overwhelming.

She flipped to her other side, keeping her eyes shut, and inhaled Evan’s mellow and enticing scent. When she lifted her lids, he was only inches away, with his head on the pillow and his crystalline eyes wide open and crisp, not dull and puffy like Maggie was sure hers must be.

“Have you been here all night? Watching me?” she asked.

He reached up to push her hair from her cheek. “I was with you, but not watching you.”

“You slept too?”

“No.” His fingers stayed on her face, lightly tracing over her forehead, lulling her eyes back closed.

Stifling a yawn, she murmured, “You didn’t watch me, but you were with me, and you didn’t sleep. What did you do?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said and tweaked her nose before bringing his hand to rest on her hip, molding over it.

“It’s a little early in the day to be torturing me with your cryptic answers, isn’t it?” she said as she nuzzled into the pillow.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“Isn’t that something you can sense?”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Maggie opened her eyes. “I’m still a little freaked out, but I’m feeling better. Is it still out there? The thing that was in Tommy?”

“Most likely. Men of the cloth have certain powers and rights entrusted to them, but obliterating any of God’s creatures from existence isn’t one of them.”

“One of God’s creatures? It sounds so strange to call it that.”

“If you believe he’s the Great Creator of all things, then yes, even spirits turned evil were initially created by him.”

Maggie gave a small nod. “Before it left Tommy, it felt like…like it wanted to enter me.”

“I know, Maggie. I know everything about what happened last night. You don’t need to talk about it unless you want to.”

“Do you know that the thing, the demon, may have made an earlier attempt to get to me? When Tommy was here playing with Liam, after his family had visited Somme, he got sick—he vomited, which is what he said happened whenever the demon tried to leave him.”

“I’m sure it tried to leave many times. That doesn’t mean it was targeting you. But either way, there have been enough close calls that I’m going to stay closer to you from now on. I won’t interfere, and I promise to stay in the background. But you’ll have to be careful about blocking me again, Maggie.”

She pulled her hand from under the covers to rest it along the side of his face. “I wouldn’t have made it through last night without you. I want you close. I won’t block you again.”