Sympathy for the Devil (28 page)

The look she gave him was pitying - or would have been, were she capable of pity. "Peters, we're both damned souls, each in our own way. Redemption just isn't an option for us, sweetie. Get it out of your head. That train left the fucking station for both of us, a long time ago - years for you, millennia for me, but the fact is that it's
gone
."

"Maybe the thing that puts it out of reach is our belief that it's no longer possible. You ever think about that?"

She rubbed her forehead with the fingertips of one hand. "I never thought that there was a human, alive or dead, who could confuse me. But I think you may have just managed it."

"Then let's break it down to the essential facts. One: I'm gonna kill Stark, because that's what I was sent here to do. Two: If I can help it, I'm not gonna kill anybody else - and I'm pretty sure I can help it."

She looked at him with open curiosity. "You are one piece of work, I'll say that - although what precise kind I'm not really sure. I don't know if I want to break your neck, or give you a blowjob."

"How about you forgo the first one, postpone the second and instead help me figure out a couple of things."

"Such as?"

"Where I can get the kind of rifle I think I might need - and a silencer to go with it."

"A rifle - now you're talking," Ashley said. "Did I ever tell you that I met Lee Harvey Oswald in Hell?"

"No you didn't," Peters said. "But I can't say that I'm surprised."

Chapter 26

"What then, Bat?" Quincey Morris asked. "That's the question before this house."

"House? What fucking house're you talking about?"

"Just an expression. Assume everything you've told me is God's gospel truth. Let's posit that all your suspicions, your worst fears, are all as true as the fact that the sun's gonna rise tomorrow. What do you want me to do about it?"

"Jesus, Quincey, I..." Masterson ran his hand through his hair, something, Morris knew, that he did when frustrated. Morris understood, even sympathized. But that didn't change anything.

"I understand your concern. I know you from the old days, podner, and I'm well aware you're not given to flights of fancy. And in your situation, I'd be pretty worried, too."

"They why are you giving me a bunch of shit, all of a sudden?"

"I'm giving you shit, if you want to call it that, because I'm thinking ahead. That's something my dad taught me, and that he learned from
his
old man. I never knew my granddad - we Morrises tend not to live to a ripe old age. But either one of them would tell me that when you're dealing with what may be supernatural forces, it pays to think ahead, and plan ahead."

"That's just good sense in any job, including mine," Masterson said.

"Maybe, but in my profession the stakes can be real high - higher even than the ones in yours. So, if some fella tells me he thinks he's got vampires in his basement, I don't just drop by his place some night with a flashlight and a crucifix and ask where the basement door is. There's a word for occult investigators who do stuff like that, and the word is 'deceased'. If not worse."

"Christ, what's worse than 'deceased?'"

"'Undead', for one. 'Damned' might be another."

"I'm not
asking
you to do anything reckless, goddammit. I'm just saying that something pretty fucking weird is going on, and investigating weird shit is what you do - as I have reason to know."

"Okay, look - let's take the worst-case scenario. You've got a guy who sometimes talks in a voice that doesn't sound human, whose eyes change color when he's pissed off, who apparently received a burn from physical contact with a Catholic priest, a burn that then healed faster than any burn is supposed to, and let's not forget what happened to that poor priest."

"That's Stark, all right."

"At the risk of a stupid question, I'll ask you this: Stark's been seen in sunlight, right? With no ill effects?"

Masterson shrugged. "Sure - lots of times. Why?"

"I was hoping against hope that it was something simple, like vampirism, but it's hard to believe that a Presidential candidate could conceal that for very long."

"No, this bastard's no bloodsucker," Masterson said. "I'd have staked him myself if he was."

"Thing is, absent vampirism, there's only one other plausible explanation, and I bet you were thinking of it long before you got here: demonic possession, or some other kind of demonic manifestation."

"Yeah," Masterson said after a moment. "I haven't been able to say it out loud up 'til now, but - yeah."

"So - and I hate to keep coming back to this, Bat - what is it you want me to do?"

Masterson wiped a hand across his face. "Confirm it for me. Prove that the voice wasn't really a horror movie, that the burn wasn't just a skin condition, and that some former altar boy with a grudge didn't do all that awful shit to Father Bowles."

The workmen down the hall had apparently called it quits for the day - there was no noise in the house now. The ticking of the battery-powered clock in Morris's office seemed loud in the silence.

"Say I manage to confirm it - me, or a friend of mine named Libby, who's good at this stuff. So, next week, or the week after, I sit you down and say, 'You were right, my friend. The Presidential candidate you're guarding is actually a demon from Hell
.'
Then what?"

"Then maybe I get the chance to make up for some stuff in my past," he said bleakly. "I've done a lot of bad shit in my time, Quincey. You don't need to know about it. And I'm not sure if anybody up there is keeping score, but it seems to me that I probably could - what's the word -
atone
for quite a few of my many sins by drawing my weapon and putting two rounds into the head of Howard W. Stark - or whoever the fuck he really is."

Libby Chastain lay on the hotel bed watching a movie in which Hugh Jackman was supposed to be a guy named Van Helsing, but he was behaving a heck of a lot more like Indiana Jones.
At least they called him Gabriel, not Abraham, so maybe the old man isn't turning over in his grave - much.

She was about to change the channel when the theme from
Bewitched
began playing. Libby clicked off the TV and picked up her phone. The caller ID showed that it was Colleen again.

"Hey, girlfriend."

"Hey, Libby. I talked to Rachel, and she'll pay Quincey's
per diem
and expenses to look into this black magic thing. Assuming you guys are going to work together again, she says she'll also pay your expenses. Your
pro bono
services, she says, will earn the Sisterhood's gratitude."

"The Sisterhood helped save my life not all that long ago," Libby said. "So how about I do this job, and we call it even? I'm kidding, of course - I'd need to do a lot more than this to pay off that particular debt."

"It's not a debt, Libby. The Sisterhood takes care of its own."

"I know - but I still welcome the opportunity to do something useful. Speaking of which, I better ask you the question that I know Quincey is going to ask me."

"Ask away."

"What exactly is it you want us to do? Quincey likes to be precise about these things, and I can't say that I blame him."

"As it happens, I asked Rachel the same question."

"Now there's a
smart
little FBI agent."

"Rachel says she wants you to identify the source of the black magic that was lingering at the death scene. I assume none of us is naïve enough to think the two are unrelated."

"You assume correctly, kiddo. I don't figure whoever left the traces in that bathroom just stopped by to admire the wallpaper."

"So, okay: locate the source. If you're able to determine a motive, all the better - but it's not absolutely required."

"Well, that certainly seems clear enough. But what's Rachel going to do about it, assuming we're successful?"

"She didn't say, and I didn't ask. But the Sisterhood can't just stand by and let somebody get away with murder - not murder by black magic, anyway."

"No, I suppose not."

"You'll recognize this particular strain if you get close to it, won't you?"

"Oh, sure. It's in my sense memory. I'll know it if I smell it again."

"So, how do you plan to proceed? Rachel didn't tell me to ask - I'm just nosy."

"If you left it up to me, I wouldn't know where to begin. Fortunately, Quincey does this kind of stuff all the time. I'm sure he'll have some ideas."

"Then we'd both better hope he's not busy doing something else."

Malachi Peters, hair still damp from his recent shower, was on the Internet trying to determine the right kind of gun for his task.

"It's got to be a rifle," he'd told Ashley. "Even though Astaroth thoughtfully supplied me with a 9 mm Berretta and a silencer, getting close enough to do the job with a pistol would be suicide."

"If I had to guess," she said, "I'd say he provided them as props, to remind you of your former profession. He doesn't care how you kill Stark, as long as it gets done."

"The right kind of hunting rifle will probably do the job," Peters said. "I shouldn't have to work so far out that only a sniper rifle would have the range. Stark's Secret Service detail isn't that big, yet. Their perimeter won't extend more than a block or two."

"So we're going shopping? Oh, good - I hear that women
love
shopping."

"I don't think they're usually looking for lethal weapons when they go," he said.

"More fools, they," Ashley said.

"The hard part is going to be getting a silencer for the rifle."

"Is that essential?"

"I think so. We might get lucky enough to fire from someplace where there are no people close by, but I wouldn't count on it. And if I fire off an unsilenced rifle inside a building, everybody else in there is going to know about it. Getting away would be hard; getting away without a whole bunch of witnesses would be practically impossible."

She shrugged. "Then buy a silencer."

"Hard to do. They're much more tightly controlled than rifles. I've been researching it online - you need a Federal Firearms License, which costs five hundred bucks, takes forever to process, and requires a
very
detailed background check."

"I begin to see the problem."

"Yeah. The money's easy, but we haven't got months to wait - and as for the background check..."

"'This dude's been dead for almost thirty years.' Might cause them to look at you kind of funny."

"Yeah, right before they call the cops. It's a pity I can't just ask the CIA..."

Peters had stopped talking, and was staring into space. After watching him for a few seconds Ashley softly asked, "Something?"

Peters ran one of his big hands over his face, as if washing it.

"Maybe. There was a guy I used to know in the Company, Charlie Dedrich. We called him 'the Armorer.' Anything special we needed for a mission, he'd get it for us."

"At the risk of pointing out the obvious..."

"Yeah, I know - I'm not with CIA any longer. But I bet Charlie isn't, either."

"No," she said, "he's probably dead by now."

"Maybe not. He was a young guy back then, mid-thirties. And here's the thing: he always talked about taking early retirement and going back home to open his own gun store. Doesn't sound like a big deal to me, but it was his dream, for some reason."

Ashley was watching him closely. "And where was home for this young firearms fiend?"

"I can't remember the town. I've been trying these last couple minutes, but it's a complete blank."

She threw up her hands in exasperation. "Then what the fuck
good
-"

"But I do remember the state," Peters said, grinning at her. "It was Virginia."

Chapter 27

Stark had come in third in Maine, despite the distractions stemming from the candidate's encounter with Rev. Joseph Bowles, now lamentably deceased. Then, two weeks later, he had to face Super Tuesday.

The media had come up with the name years earlier - manifesting, as usual, its collective obsession with the 'horse race' aspects of the campaign and virtually ignoring anything that had to do with the issues. A candidate's views on health care, gun control or taxation were often complex and therefore dull, of interest to only a few 'hot button' voters. But who was ahead, who was behind, who had just made an embarrassing gaffe that could cost him victory -
that
was understandable and hence interesting.

Thus the designation Super Tuesday, referring to the day when a large number of state primaries took place simultaneously. For the Democrats, it was a day of immense importance; twenty-one states, ranging from Alaska to Utah were holding either binding elections or caucuses. Republicans seeking the Presidency faced a challenge that was less imposing, but only slightly less so, with fourteen states on the line. For both sides, California was the big prize, with 370 delegates on the line for Democrats (causing some political pros to call it 'the Big Enchilada' or 'the Widowmaker') and 173 for the GOP (which had prompted no cutsey nicknames whatsoever).

On the night of Super Tuesday, once all the votes had been cast and counted, Senator Howard Stark spoke to supporters gathered in the ballroom of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, his words carried live to smaller crowds at Stark campaign headquarters in the other thirteen states that had been in play for his party that day.

Stark stood at the podium, gently motioning the crowd of volunteers, campaign staff, and hangers-on to quiet down. Over his left shoulder could be seen Mary Margaret Doyle, her severe Mother Superior face split in a grin that was rarely seen there in public.

Those assembled in the packed ballroom - excited, exhausted, and, in many cases, at least half-drunk -did not quiet down fully, despite their leader's calming gestures. Stark began speaking anyway, reasoning that silence would quickly follow. He was right.

"First of all, I want to thank all of those good people, in California and in other states across this great country, for taking time out of their busy lives to come out and vote today."
Pause two beats, then continue, deadpan.
"I especially want to thank all those who had the kindness."
Pause one beat
. "And the good sense"
Pause for laughter
. "to vote for me!"
Pause for sustained applause, looking both happy and humbled, if possible.