The Demon Pool (33 page)

Pedro finished loading the magazines, inserted a
magazine into the AK-47 clone, and jacked one cartridge into the chamber. Going
back into the footlocker, he searched until he found a small, cloth wrapped
item tied up with common twine. He untied it, exposing a beautiful rosary
necklace. Polished beads of coco wood led to a Miraculous Mary followed by a
silver crucifix. His mother had given it to him just before he left for
Vietnam. Breaking with tradition, he hung it around his neck.

He repacked the footlocker, returning it to its
place in the back of the closet. Standing, he picked up the rifle and spare
magazines, and carried them to the living room. He leaned the rifle against his
chair and placed the spare magazines on the side table. If, no,
when
they came for him, he would be ready. He then went to the small, combination
secretary and bookcase that sat against the wall, next to the kitchen.

A genuine antique, the secretary had been his
father’s, one of the few items salvaged by the family from the estate. Pedro
opened the glass door of the attached bookcase, reached behind a row of
hardback editions, and retrieved a thin chapbook. Gold embossed letters
proclaimed the author’s name and the small book’s title. Unlike many
contemporary bookstore chapbooks, no art decorated the cover. Pedro read the
short title.
Poesias de Nuestra Vida
. Poems of Our Life.

Poems filled the small book, written by his late
wife before depression and, ultimately, suicide, took her away from him. After
Pedro had carefully typed each handwritten poem,
he had found an old
Cuban bookbinder in Ybor City to bind them into the book. It had been a labor
of love, and Pedro had thought it would help cleanse him of his unresolved
guilt and grief. It had not.

Pedro opened the chapbook and found a letter, six
pages folded together, tucked inside. It had permanent creases along with some
minor damage around the edges, but, overall, it was still in good condition.

The date of the letter, written above the
greeting, was sixteen twenty-one, one hundred years after the death of the
famous explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon. The letter was from a priest, Father
Dominic de Molina, and summarized an investigation into the death of another
Catholic priest, referred to in the letter only as Father Miguel, spiritual
advisor to the conquistador Hernán Cortez.

Father Miguel had accused one of Cortez’s
captains of being demon possessed. By the time the church investigated the
incident, all of the witnesses were long dead, except the accused demoniac,
Captain Juan Carlos de la Viña, who was on a ship returning to La Florida from
Mexico.

Father Dominic met up with the ship in Cuba and
spent hours with the captain, rumored to be more than one hundred fifty-years
old. If Father de Molina were a betting man, he would have guessed that Captain
de la Viña was at the most, sixty-five or seventy, and while Captain de la Viña
no longer had the strapping physique of a Spanish Conquistador, he was still
mobile and coherent.

In the opening paragraph of the letter, Father de
Molina stated his qualifications and his extensive experience with demonic
possession. He also summarized his purification process in preparation for the
investigation, explaining the impossibility of confronting, let alone
defeating, the agents of Satan’s demonic army without personal purity. The
investigation concluded that Father Miguel had most likely ignored this element
in his service to God and Spain, and had apparently paid for his mistake with
his life.

Pedro had read the letter once before, shortly
after his father had passed it to him. His father had described the letter as
“religious superstition,” yet he had had the age and originality of the letter
authenticated. A rare book dealer in Tampa had offered him five-hundred dollars
for the letter. As much as his father needed the money to continue his fight
against the government, he did not sell it. It was one of the few valuable
things that he had passed on to Pedro.

Pedro went to his kitchen, found a clean glass,
and helped himself to a generous portion of whiskey. While he believed he
needed to be vigilant, the previous night’s darkness did not seem to have
followed him home.

Returning to the living room with the whiskey and
the letter, he retrieved a cigar from its box and sat in his chair. He placed
the letter on the table and trimmed the cigar. He took out a Zippo lighter,
emblazoned with a 1
^st
Cavalry Division crest, and lit the cigar. He
placed the lighter, crest side up, on the table next to his chair. He inhaled
deeply from the cigar, savoring the rich Cuban tobacco. He sipped the whiskey
and smoked the cigar until he felt calm, wrapped in his own personal, cigar-and-whiskey
Zen moment. Finally, he picked up the letter and started reading.

It is with great regard to both the truth and the
holiness of the Mother Church that I write this regrettable epistle. Some men,
in their lust for power and coin, pierce themselves with many sorrows and open
a path to Satan and his dark hoard. Such seems to be the case with the late
Captain de la Viña.

He read slowly, his parochial school Latin
studies allowing him to pick through Father de Molina’s script.

While we had few conversations during our
journey to La Florida, I became convinced that the captain exhibited many of
the traits of a demoniac. Once on shore, I pressed the captain, borrowing many
of the rhetorical techniques of an inquisitor. However, the captain’s responses
rarely went beyond superficial disagreeableness and occasional outbursts of
vile verbal vitriol, punctuated by mumblings of ‘no more time.’

Captain de la Viña often walked alone into the
land’s interior. One day, I decided to follow. De la Viña, by this time none
too steady, managed to walk several miles east of the camp. He gave no
indication that he was aware that I followed behind.

It was late in the afternoon when, with some
difficulty, the Captain pushed his way through a heavy wall of brush. Since I
had no escort and could not be sure of my safety, I hesitated for a moment
before deciding to follow. I pushed my way through the same brush wall and
found myself standing in a small oasis of grass.

A pool of water occupied the center of the oasis
and at the edge of the pool stood Captain de la Viña, now naked. Momentary
surprise turned to trepidation when Captain de la Viña turned his head and
looked directly at me. He raised both of his arms and shook his fists at the
bright Florida sky and thrice shouted ‘no more time.’ Then he walked into the
water until he disappeared beneath its shimmering surface.

I am not a man inclined to allow even a reprobate
soldier to commit suicide. Every man should have his final opportunity to
repent. I discarded my robe and ran toward the water. I am a strong swimmer,
having grown up on the coast near Malaga, Spain; so the small pool offered no
great challenge. At least that was what I thought when I first splashed into
the water.

It had been many years since Pedro had read the letter
detailing Father de Molina’s investigation. He remembered thinking how sad it
must have been to allow religious superstition to rule one’s existence. In
light of his own recent experience, Pedro felt he owed Father de Molina an
apology. He continued to read.

In the pool, I somehow became disoriented,
despite its small size and the brightness of the sun shining across its
surface. The water went from warm to ice-cold after only inches, and I found
myself surrounded by darkness, even though I had not traveled more than a few
feet below the surface, seeking de la Viña.

I thrashed around, not sure if my flogging arms
moved me up toward the surface or down into deeper water. Even with my eyes
wide open, I could see nothing, my sole sensory experience being the freezing
cold water and the burning in my lungs. That is, until I saw the eyes.

For a moment, they froze my soul. The pupils
were large, shiny, black pearls surrounded by glowing, reddish-pink irises. The
scleras, the whites of the eyes, were as white as the bright whiteness of the
ghost beetles that Marco Polo had brought back from the Malay Archipelago as
I’d seen during one of my many trips to the Vatican. Cunning, intelligence, and
unrestrained evil lurked in those eyes, and I knew that I had met the devil.

For a moment, I forgot that my lungs were
burning as the cold of the water sucked out the final vestiges of heat and life
from my body. I only knew that I had to resist the devil and flee to survive.

In that crisis, I knew that only God could
provide my escape. I knew that the mechanism of that escape could only come
through prayer, so I prayed. I prayed like a man who knew he would surely die
unless the Divine intervened.

As I prayed, I ordered my arms and legs to move.
Soon I swam again, not knowing what direction my efforts would take me. At the
point where I could no longer resist the demands of my lungs, I broke the
surface of the water. Hot sun warmed my face as precious air rushed into my
lungs. Sweet, life-giving air.

However, I did not take time to relish the air’s
sweetness or the sun’s warmth. My arms stroked the water until I found myself
face to face with Captain de la Viña.

His eyes were open, his face changed, painted
now with great age. Shriveled, transparent, skin covered his skull, creating a
hideous caricature of a once handsome and powerful man. A repulsive,
water-soaked portrait that saw nothing as it stared vacantly into my eyes.

I backpedaled away from the corpse and used my
remaining strength to swim around the macabre mass of rotting flesh. I swam
harder than I had ever swum before. Harder than when I was a boy outswimming
all of my schoolmates when one of them had suddenly yelled “shark.” That time
the terror had been a joke. Not so today.

Finally, I felt the bottom of the pool beneath
my feet. My legs found their footing. I staggered up on to the bank and
collapsed onto my back. I sucked in the air with great ragged breaths as I
supported myself on my elbows.

I glanced back at the pool and saw a faint
ripple that grew as it moved toward me. I watched something bump the still
floating corpse of Captain de la Viña, causing the captain’s body to sink
beneath the surface. Ten feet from the bank, the eyes of a great beast broke
the surface. It moved faster than I could have ever expected.

I did not wait for el lagarto to reach the
shore. I scrambled away from the edge and, still breathing hard, jumped to my
feet. I grabbed my robe and sandals and fled naked through the wall of brush,
ignoring the pain as my bare feet crashed down on dried branches and sharp palm
fronds raked my body. I ran, fell, got up, and ran again until my lungs burned
white-hot and I could go no further. I fell and sat listening, exerting no
small effort in trying to quiet the gasping and whooshing sounds coming from my
nose and mouth.

I listened but heard nothing more than the
hurricane sounds of my own breath. I used my robe to wipe the blood from my
feet, before putting on my sandals. Otherwise still naked, I remained still,
like one who was dead. My breathing slowed as I listened. Nothing followed.

Getting to my feet, I realized I had faced the
devil, prayed for God’s mercy and escaped by God’s grace. I ignored the pain in
my feet, put on my robe, and crossed myself. I said a short prayer of thanks
and began the long, and now painful, walk back to the camp. I was sure that it
was only my faith in God that had kept me from the devil. However, a question
remained. As I write this letter, who would believe me?

***

Almost four hundred years later, sitting in his chair
in his little house, Pedro de la Garza believed. It all made sense. The stories
and rumors about his great-grandfather. Especially, the reported condition of
his body when they found it in the pool. Father de Molina had seen Captain de
la Viña in the same condition.

In his report, Father de Molina had concluded that
a demon had possessed Captain de la Viña. Once the Father returned to Spain, he
had been able to locate the captain’s birth record.  According to the
records, Captain de la Viña had been more than one hundred fifty years old when
he died.

For Pedro, Father de Molina’s letter completed
the picture begun by the events of the past several days. It even helped to
explain the legend of Tank, the alligator.

Pedro put the letter aside and picked up his cell
phone. He dialed Jim Demore’s number. Jim answered on the first ring.

“Señior Demore, I have something you need to
see.”

“Can it wait?” Jim sounded interested, but
distracted.

“In all truth, señior, no,” Pedro replied. “It
cannot wait.”

“I don’t have much time, Señior de la Garza. Are
you at home?”

“Sí, señior. But first, let me read something to
you. It is a letter, a report actually, that is in Latin, but I will
translate.”

Urgency sprinkled with anxiety clouded Jim’s
voice.

“I really don’t have much time, Señior de la
Garza.”

“It is but a few pages, Señior Demore. You will
not regret hearing this. It will help you understand.”

After a brief pause, Jim replied, “I understand that
I’m the only one who has any chance of saving Carl Johns. Hurry up. Tell me
what you know.”

Jim Demore drove his patrol car south on State Route
29. Back at Saffi’s apartment, before leaving for de la Garza’a house near the
‘glades, Jim had put his cell phone on speaker, and he and Saffi had listened
while Pedro de la Garza read Father de Molina’s report, translating it into
English for Jim and Saffi.

For Jim, it was an amazing story. For all of his
resistance to the supernatural, Jim had to admit the possibility of a
relationship between Captain de la Viña, more than four hundred years ago,
Pedro’s great-grandfather three hundred years later, and what was happening
today.

Lots of people believed in demons, and angels,
and ghosts, and little green men from Mars. But not Jim. At least not until now
and certainly not demons that lived in water and could empower a person to live
well beyond what was considered a normal lifespan. That was crazy. But, so was
his relationship with Linda. So was getting his house blown up. So was Briggs
and Kimberly getting decapitated in Briggs’ Corvette. So was “Trooper Gone
Wild.” The whole damn last couple of weeks was crazy bumping into insane.

But if some crazy demonic force had caused the
death of Briggs and the subsequent events surrounding the crash, where exactly
did that force reside now? Or, crazy enough, in whom did it reside?

Jim was not sure he wanted to know. Yet, even if
something supernatural, something demonic, lurked behind the Briggs’ case, the
underlying force worked through human beings and human beings had weaknesses.
He could investigate human beings. Arrest them. See them tried and convicted.
If he had to drag a demon along for the ride, so be it.

Jim turned off the paved highway, north of the
Tamiami Trail, and followed the shell path that substituted for a driveway for
a quarter of a mile. Once again, he pulled up in front of de la Garza’s house.

Painted yellow with brown trim, the house had
storm shutters that framed the windows, giving the front of the house a
face-like appearance. From the outside, in the bright daylight, the house
looked well-kept, except for the broken front window.
Don’t remember seeing
that.

The sun floated down toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Quiet surrounded the house like a thick, soft blanket. Jim had been inside de
la Garza’s house and had seen nothing more frightening than the cheap whiskey
de la Garza drank with his not-so-cheap Cuban cigars, along with a few sad
reminders of the man’s painful memories. Not exactly the Amityville horror
house. Yet, it appeared that some dark power or influence had worked its way
into de la Garza’s life. Just one more bit of crazy.

He killed the Charger’s engine, stepped out of
his car and surveyed the area around the house. The more comfortable
temperatures of fall pushed against summer’s blistering heat, struggling to
gain a toehold. Still, an unexplained heaviness hung in the air. Something more
than residual summer heat and humidity. Some lingering thing that clung to the space
around de la Garza’s house, bathing the air in a toxic miasma that was odorless
and colorless, but made itself felt nonetheless.

Jim scanned the landscape one more time. Nothing
looked out of place, other than the broken window; yet, he noticed his heart
racing and his palms sweating. The hairs on his arms stood at attention on top
of little mountains of goose flesh, his body reacting to some perceived threat.
What some called a sixth sense. Cops called it ‘cop sense.’ Jim had always
believed it was the result of millions of years of evolutionary survival.             Unfortunately,
nothing he had studied or experienced in college, in the military, or at the
Highway Patrol Academy had prepared him for what he now felt. Maybe he should
have paid more attention in church, or listened more closely to crazy Uncle
Jack.

Walking up the steps to the tiny home’s porch,
Jim glanced at the broken window and then back toward the dirt drive. Nothing
moved. Nothing made a sound. The enormity of the silence disturbed him. After all,
Florida had bugs. Tons of big, noisy bugs, along with the birds and other
creatures that fed on them. The eerie silence seemed to have weight and mass,
pressing down, forcing an unnatural stillness on the ‘glades. Jim reached down
and touched his weapon. Reassurance.

Turning back toward the house, he stepped around
broken glass and banged on de la Garza’s front door. The echo of fist against
wood faded. More silence. Jim knocked again. No answer. Jim checked his watch.
Right
on time. Where’s my witness?

Jim tried the doorknob and it turned. He pushed the
door, and as it creaked opened, drew his weapon. Stepping inside, Jim saw why
de la Garza did not answer.