A Boy and His Corpse (16 page)

              “Shhh, don’t make a move,” a voice whispered right beside his ear.

              “Who…who are you?” Mr. Rovas asked.

              “A friend. You work with me every day.”

              Mr. Rovas stared dead-eyed at the television. His favorite show,
Westminster Abbey
played on the screen. One of the characters, a priest had been summoned to perform an exorcism. As Mr. Rovas listened to the voice beside his ear, he saw devil horns sprout up on the priest. When the priest turned toward the screen, a forked tongue poked out of his mouth.

              “Are you…” Mr. Rovas began.

              “Shhhh, yes,” Lucifer replied. At that moment, Mr. Rovas felt the sinking feeling that he had a giant bullseye on his forehead. His body felt frigid and he saw his own breath. Even though there were no hands on his shoulders, he felt them there, as well as a strong presence behind him. The Devil was using him as a human shield. It wasn’t until his body was invaded that he learned that angels can’t kill humans. God wouldn’t allow it.

             
If only I had turned him away,
Mr. Rovas thought as he pawed the side of the wall while he walked up the stairs.
If I had just moved a single inch away from him, he would have been struck down by St. Michael. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

              “Just hear me out,” Lucifer had told him. The plan Lucifer laid out was simple. If he let Lucifer inhabit his body for a little while, he would get the necromancer he always wanted out of Alan and all problems would be solved.

“Trust me,” the Devil had said, but Mr. Rovas was no fool.

Why should I trust you?
Mr. Rovas mentally asked.
If you’re so powerful, why can’t you just
give
Alan the power he needs? Why do we have to go around it this way?

The Devil explained it quickly.

“I had no idea that giving Herbert powers would transfer over to his son. I was desperate when I met him.”
In his mind, Mr. Rovas saw Herbert dying in the desert and the chance encounter he had with Satan. Seeing the Archangel Michael come down out of the Heavens in that enormous, golden vortex sent a shiver down Mr. Rovas’ spine. He stared at the ceiling.

“
Don’t worry. We’re safe as long as I’m behind you.”

Mr. Rovas gulped.
Say I do help you. How are you going to get inside Alan?

             
“If you let me inside your body, we’ll do it together. But first, we have to wait for the President to get here.”

             
“What do you mean?” Mr. Rovas had asked. Why is the President coming here?”

              “
Because he’s scared.”

             
“Scared of what? He wouldn’t be around these parts unless he—” Mr. Rovas slapped his forehead.

              “
Let me inside your body and we’ll fix everything. I’ll even let you be in control. Deal?

             
The rest was history.

By the fourth step, Mr. Rovas leaned fully against the wall.

             
“
Hard,” Lorraine said out of nowhere, and suddenly, she started screaming. “Oh, my God! I can talk again! I can talk!” 

              Mr. Rovas looked back and saw her pulling the skin from her lips like a lizard shedding its skin.

              “That’s not good,” he said.

              “Hey! Screw you!”

              “No.”
How little she knows.
“It’s not good because that means Lucifer must have forgotten about you now.”

              Lucifer had forgotten about him, too. He felt it the moment the Devil left his body and drifted into Alan.

              “And why is it a bad thing?” Lorraine asked, drawing back.

              “Because that means he must have more important things on his mind now. Help me up.”

Lorraine went underneath his arm to help him up the rest of the stairs and down the corridor. The short journey should have taken no more than three minutes, but at his slow pace, it was a full fifteen minutes before they reached the surface hatch. When they got to the surface, the frigid air rattled his tired bones.

              “Put me down here,” he said.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“Please, just put me down.”

She lay him down in the darkness, and he stared up through the trees at the waning moonlight.

In the back of his mind, he thought about the hidden plane Lucifer must have taken to get this operation moving. Every thought he had resided with Lucifer now, and it made him feel dirty. Whatever happened next was all his fault.

              “What’s happening to you?” Lorraine asked.

He caught her key concern. “I don’t know if this is happening to Alan, too. All I know is…is that I’m falling apart. So you have to listen to me,” he said before coughing violently. He felt like he had nails in his throat, and when he stopped coughing, he tasted blood. “Taylor Gint.—” more coughing brought along more blood. “You must…talk to him.”

              “Who’s that?”

“You must…stop…”

Dammit, I can’t get the words out.

              “What about Alan?” Lorraine asked him with wide, full eyes.

              “Nothing…you can do,” Mr. Rovas said, lowering his eye lids and feeling a chill creep up through his body, penetrating the muscles and sinking into his bones. “….about.” He shut his eyes completely.

              “Mr. Rovas,” he heard her scream before he sunk into darkness, “Mr. Rovas!”

              And then, he heard nothing at all.

President Rosewater

              President Rosewater saw his head advisor, Tom Mitchum, out the corner of his eye as he rushed inside his office.

              “Hey!” Tom Mitchum said, outstretching his hand.

              Rosewater closed the door.

              On the plane ride back, the calls had been consistent and annoying. First, there was a call from Secretary of Defense, Brian Salge.

“Sir, we’re still waiting commands on when we can send in drone strikes to Pakistan.”

“We’re still going to wait until we hear from the U.N.”

The concern and doubt in Secretary Salge’s, “Yes, sir,” was palpable.

Yeah, well screw you, too
, Rosewater thought as he hung up the phone.

              His wife called next.

              “Where
are
you?” She asked him, her voice thick with her New York upraising. When she was in good spirits, her Bronx accent was endearing, but when she was upset, it was like nails on a chalkboard.

              “Busy. Personal business.”

              “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? Are you having an affair, Roger?”

              “No, Millie,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I just didn’t have time to call. Things are a real mess right now with this Pakistan debacle.”

              “Well, I’m going to be gone for the next few days visiting homeless shelters in Detroit. Unlike
somebody
, I let my husband know where I’m going.”

              Rosewater rolled his eyes.

              “Have fun,” he told her.

              Dozens of other calls kept him busy and as the plane made its final approach to Andrews AFB, he got the one call he had expected.

              When he had looked at the number, his eyes bulged. It was the President of Israel, Eli Lampel. He hadn’t talked to him since their conversation a few days ago. He wondered how the man got his personal number.

             
Mr. Rovas
.

He stared at the ringing phone and considered letting the call go to voice mail, but clenched his fist. He had to stop avoiding conflict like this. He had to step up and be a man!

              “Hello, Eli,” Rosewater said as calmly as possible.

              “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Rovas!”

              The panic in Mr. Lampel’s voice made Rosewater tremble. He turned to the window and lowered his voice. Secret servicemen were just a couple seats in front of him; most notably Hernandez who had been so adamantly against leaving him before.

              “What do you mean, where is he?” Rosewater whispered. “I have a better question. How do you even know him?”

              “I need to talk to him right
now
. He’s not picking up his phone.”

              “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m not the man’s keeper,” Rosewater growled. “Whatever you settled with him, that’s on you.”

              “I don’t have time for this. Do you know where Mr. Rovas is or not?”

              “I was just with him a couple of hours ago. He said he was going to talk to you.”

              “Well, he didn’t. I talked to some kid instead. He said Mr. Rovas was dead. I didn’t believe it.”

              “Dead?” Rosewater said, staring wide-eyed at the back of the seat in front of him. He exhaled and nearly dropped the phone.

              “Hello?” Mr. Lampell said. “Hello? Are you there?”

              The President shook his head to sweep out the shock. “What did this kid sound like?”

              “He had a rough edge to his voice.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. You have to do something about this. He asked me to clear the airspace over Afghanistan.”

              “And did you?”

              “I can’t.”

              “Well, if he asked you to do it, then you better do it.” He looked over the seat and Hernandez leaned out into the aisle, looking back at him.  Rosewater lowered himself deeper into his seat.

              “But I can’t just set planes out there without having a reason. There’s a lot of red tape involved. You know that.” He softened his voice. “But I might be able to do something about it if I can say that you’re sending out planes, too.”

              Rosewater mulled it over and bit his thumbnail.
Dammit, Mr. Rovas.
I thought you had this covered.
“Fine. Tell them whatever you want, but I’m not making any promises. And don’t let this get out to the public. I’ll reach out to Jim.”

              “Who?”

              “I mean, Mr. Rovas. Get back to me if there are any new developments.”

              Rosewater hung up and fished out his other phone. He dialed the six digit number, but nobody answered. He hung up and sighed.

              When his car pulled into the White House drive, his watch read one in the morning, he didn’t want to talk to anybody and longed for his bed in the hopes that the past two days had been a dream.

              The door to the Oval Office flew open.

              “Tom!” Rosewater exclaimed.

              “What are we going to do about this?”

              “Not now, Tom.”

              “
Not now
?! But what about the footage?”

              “What footage?”

              “
The
footage!”

              When Rosewater stared at him with his mouth hung open like a Neanderthal, his advisor gave him a worried look.

              “Wait, do you really not know?”

              “What happened?” Rosewater said, standing up.

             
Oh, God. What have they done now?

Alan

              “Shock and awe,” Alan’s lips said even though they weren’t his words. “Shock and awe.”

              His father shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no, if we’re going to do this, we have to use stealth.”