Part 8

In darkness, the house looked like the stuff of legends. No doubt, children dared each other to approach the doorstep. This one building in a neighborhood meant for families and retirees would be dark as sin on Halloween. There would be dares and broken windows and visits from the police on that night. The overgrown hedges, said the neighborhood kids, were planted to conceal the bodies of children who had gone missing in the neighborhood. The man inside talked to the devil. And the man inside was crazy and evil and hated Christmas.

Father Clancy, Hector knew, was not evil. But he was crazy and hated Christmas.

Hector stalked up the cracked driveway and onto the creaking porch. When a spider web caught his face, he wiped it away quickly, then stood stock-still as he categorized his sense of drive and perseverance. Convinced, finally, that it was not a Spider-Ass web, he knocked. The sound rolled through the house like an old man’s cough.

The lock clicked, the knob turned, and the door opened an inch. A single pale blue eye stared at Hector for a long moment. “The fuck do you want?”

Hector smiled charmingly. “Heya, Clancy. In a bit of trouble.”

“The hell do I care,” came the voice. And the door shut.

“Clancy! Shit.” Hector rubbed at his forehead and tried to ignore the itching throb that came from his bleeding shoulder. “Jesus, Clancy. I’ve been shot.”

The voice pushed its way through the thick wood of the door. “Doesn’t look serious.”

“I’m bleeding, chief.”

Silence.

Hector sneered and shut his eyes tight, then opened them wide. “Mike says to give him a call.”

“Talk to Mike, did you?”

“Yeah.” He put a hand to his shoulder, pressing, wincing at the pain and at his stupidity for not having done it earlier. “His guy Roy’s missing.”

Silence again.

“I was the last person to see him.”

The door opened again, this time revealing a worn, old face with wrinkles that looked like they’d been carved there by the Creator’s own hand. A pair of the stark blue eyes leveled on Hector. Then the door opened all the way. Clancy was naked from the waist up – leathered and flabby – and wore a pair of pajama pants older than Hector. “Get in, damn you.”

Hector smirked and stepped inside a dark, Spartan house. The front room sported only a fake leather easy chair and a short coffee table. The walls were bare. The floorboards groaned. “Finally moved in, I see.”

A crooked, jabbing finger pointed into Hector’s face and wavered like the edge of a sword. “You shut your meat hole, you swine. And stop bleeding on my floors.”

Hector narrowed his eyes. “Bandages.”

“Bathroom.”

Hector clopped his way into the hall, easily finding a tiled room in the small house.

“And bring me a beer when you come back.” He heard the creak of fake leather and old joints.

Hector found the bandages, wondered if they’d been used to patch Allied troops in WWII, snatched a bottle of peroxide, then grabbed two beers from the squat refrigerator. He walked back into the front room to find an old man glaring at him.

“I say you could have one?”

“Padre, c’mon.” And the room went cold. Hector winced. “I’m sorry.”

Clancy lowered his face, eyes driving roofing nails into Hector’s forehead from beneath bushy white eyebrows. “Put it back, you Philistine. Be grateful for the bandages and try not to get yourself killed while you’re here.”

Hector opened his mouth to speak.

Clancy pulled a revolver from the seat of the easy chair.

Hector put the beer back, returned, and sat on the floorboards to disinfect and wrap his shoulder.

“Where’d you see Roy?”

Hector cringed as he doused his shoulder in peroxide, eyes watering up fiercely. “Alley. The Dark Man had him up against a wall.”

Clancy scratched his stubble. “You follow the Dark Man?”

Hector, only now realizing he had the sweatshirt on wrong, pulled it off himself. He poked gingerly at his shoulder and hissed in pain. “Few blocks, yeah. East. Maybe southeast. Then I lost him.”

Clancy tried not to search through the darkness to see the teeth on Hector’s chest. He tried not to imagine that maniac grin where there should be only breastbone. “What alley did you find Ray in?”

“Not sure,” Hector said as he slowly began binding the wound in the ancient mummy wraps. “Wasn’t really in my head at the time, you know? Fed Guido earlier that night.”

“Don’t you say that thing’s name like it’s a person, you idolating cretin.” Clancy leaned forward, framed in slits of moonlight, sneering like his face was coming off his skull. “That thing is not a person. That thing does not deserve a name. And you’re a stupid, stupid fool for treating it like a God-damned pet.”

Hector wrapped his shoulder again, then looked sidelong at Clancy. “It’s kept me alive.”

“Why, you ignorant bastard? Why? Because it’s only looking out for itself. That hellmouth is probably waiting for you to go into heat so it can germinate!”

“What?”

“Hellmouth, you unlearnéd Chaldean!”

“What? No. It’s not going to germinate.” And he sounded almost convinced.

“Then what point does it serve? Get your head out of your ass and ask what the point is.” Clancy gulped his beer. “If it’s some kind of sterile, disposable soldier then it’ll take to killing like you take to being an idiot.”

“It’s not going to kill anyone!”

“And just how do you know that?”

Hector grit his teeth. “Because it won’t eat anything bigger than a cat.”

Particles of dust lazed their way through the moonlight. Clancy sat back in his chair. He took another gulp of beer. “Cats now?”

Hector went back to wrapping his shoulder.

“Cats, you stupid Hittite? Because the last I heard, you were scrounging for rats out in the west end. That curséd thing is growing, you swine, and it’s a matter of time before there’s nothing of you left.” He drank. “And that’s a shit job you’re doing.”

Hector rolled his eyes and proffered the remaining bandages. “Care to help, old man?”

“May your spit turn to blood in your mouth.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ then.”

“You find the Dark Man. And this time you help the poor, dumb bastard he’s got. You follow him to wherever he goes.”

“And what are you going to do?” Hector tied off the bandage. “Drink to my success?”

“I’d expect someone with a Trojan name to say something like that.”

“I’m not Trojan.”

“’Course not. The Trojans died with dignity. You get to be a demon’s meat-puppet.”

Hector sneered. “You could always help.”

Clancy leaned forward slowly, acid in his voice. “Help? Help you, you bastard?” He retrieved the revolver and gestured with it, causing Hector to throw his hands up in front of his face. “Now why in God’s green fuckup would I do that? You started this!”

“I didn’t start anything, Padre!”

“You opened my eyes, you swine! You fell ass-first into an ocean of evil shit stains and decided misery does, in fact, love company. You opened my God-damned eyes when I didn’t ask you to and you took everything from me!”

“You were supposed to help!” Hector stood, feeling the blood rushing behind his eyes and through his ears. “You were supposed to do something!”

“What was I supposed to do?!” And Clancy stood as well, still gesturing wildly with the gun. “Exorcize them? All of them? All the filthy, rotten monsters in this brave new world you’ve shown me? There isn’t enough holy water in the River Jordan!” He stepped forward, shoving Hector hard in the chest, inadvertently putting his hand on rigid teeth. As Hector leaned against the wall, Clancy stared at his hand, remembering that sensation, knowing full well what it was. “You were a genetic hiccup, Hector. Your biochemical processes were out of whack and you were born crazy. You only got by in this world by luck and the kindness of others.” He looked into Hector’s eyes, those eyes he’d stared into for hours and hours on end, so many years ago. “And that… thing… is also a mistake. Neither of you have a chance in hell.”

“We’ve done alright so far.”

“Then you don’t fucking need me, do you? And if you think I’m going to up and volunteer, like I have some obligation, like I have some… some destiny… then you’re just as crazy as you always were.”

Hector heard the words. He heard them in Father Clancy’s voice. His eyes got hot and wet and his throat burned and clenched like he had just thrown up. He heard Father Clancy say those words and his heart seized and shook. On autopilot, he walked to the door, opened it, and walked out into the night. He heard the door slam behind him. He strolled out onto the driveway, then the sidewalk when he heard the door open again. Probably just Clancy getting one last grateful look of goodbye. His shoulder – that same tortured shoulder – lit up in bright, staggering pain and Hector dropped onto the sidewalk, groaning in agony. A beer can sputtered nearby as it rolled past him on the concrete. Hector lay there, in a growing pool of frothy beer, fresh blood and an alcohol spray marring his clean white bandage, and he wept.