The Devil's Labyrinth

His father’s eyes met his, and Ryan sobbed again. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “So—”

“My gift.”

The two words struck Ryan as clearly as if he’d been standing right next to his father, not fifteen feet away on the other side of a heavy glass door. And now, as he watched, he saw his father touch the silver crucifix that hung around his neck.

Ryan stared at it. The crucifix! The one his mother had tried to give him, but that he’d refused. He rubbed the last of the tears from his cheeks and eyes, and looked again.

His father was gone.

But Ryan knew what he had to do.

† † †

The thing inside Ryan began to stir as soon as he rose to his feet to get off the subway train at the stop nearest his house. It was as if it understood that he was going home, and it didn’t want him there, and even as the train slowed and he moved toward the door, he felt an urge to stay on the train, ride it all the way back in to the city, and go back to St. Isaac’s.

Back to where whatever evil or madness that was growing inside him had begun. As the train came to a stop, Ryan knew that if he gave in to the desires of the being inside him, he would never be himself again. Slowly, inexorably, the person that was Ryan McIntyre would disappear, leaving only the strange dark force that seemed to be steadily invading his mind and body. Focusing his mind only on the vision of his father standing quietly next to the hospital bed, and the silver crucifix around his father’s neck, Ryan forced himself to move toward the opening doors of the subway train.

“You’re dreaming,” the thing inside him whispered. “Your father is dead.”

Ryan knew his father was dead, but he also knew what he’d seen.

“You saw nothing,” the evil being insisted. “You wanted to see him, but he’s dead.”

Ignoring the voice, Ryan focused all his attention on putting one foot in front of the other and stepped off the train onto the platform. As he climbed the steps to the street and started toward home, the voice kept whispering.

“You’re hallucinating.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“They’ll lock you up!”

Doubt began to creep into his resolve, and the evil knew it. Its power reached from his mind into his body, and suddenly he was turning away, starting back toward the subway.

The subway, and St. Isaac’s.

Concentrating hard, deafening himself to the insistent voice, Ryan forced himself to turn back again toward home. His whole body was twitching now, and he balled his hands into fists and stuck them into the pockets of his jacket. His arms jerked spasmodically, but he held them still against his sides. His head began bobbing and his legs seemed about to betray him, but he stiffened his neck, and forced himself to keep going.

He was doing the right thing — doing what his father wanted him to do — and he would not be stopped.

He would not be distracted by the voices in his head or the betrayal of his body or anything else.

The fury inside him suddenly surged, its wailing and howling built until Ryan could hear nothing else. It felt as if his head were about to explode, and then, as he stepped from the street onto the front lawn of his house, it was as if something had kicked his legs out from under him. He crashed to the pavement, his hip smashing against the curb as the asphalt of the street tore through his pants and into his skin.

Ignoring the pain, he got up again, and closed his mind not only to the demonic rage in his head but to the pain in his body. He walked up the front steps to the darkened house.

Yellow police tape was still stretched across the front door, but he tore it down. He picked up the little ceramic duck from the porch and retrieved the key that had been hidden inside it for as long as he could remember, then opened the front door.

The voice in his head screamed louder, but Ryan shut it out, his own rage growing as he stared at the dark blood on the hearth and carpet.

His mother’s blood.

His own anger drowning out the fury of the being inside him, he charged up the stairs, tugged open the attic door, and turned on the single light bulb that was suspended from the main beam of the roof.

His mother had brought him up here, had shown him the cross that was hidden in his father’s footlocker, and above the cacophony of the raging being inside him, he heard the echo of the words she’d spoken: “Your father said this always helped him do the right thing.”

Struggling to control legs that were no longer under his own control, Ryan stumbled over to the old trunk and lifted the lid. On top, wrapped in tissue, was his father’s dress uniform — the one he’d been wearing when Ryan had seen him in the hospital only a short while ago. He wanted to pick it up, wanted to press his cheek to it, just to feel the closeness to his father, but he didn’t dare. If he paused even for a moment, he might never regain control of himself.

He lifted the upper tray out of the trunk and set it aside.

The screaming voices residing within him rose, and as he reached inside the trunk to open the lid of the secret compartment hidden in its depths, first his fingers, then his hands, then his whole body began trembling as every nerve seemed to catch on fire. Ignoring the pain, he found the lid, and lifted it.

The rosewood box lay exactly where it had before, and as he reached down to touch it, he began to feel the evil within him weakening.

Power flowed into his hands, up his arms and into his heart as he lifted the box from the trunk and opened it.

The thing inside his head lost its grip on his body and its howling rage faded into whimpered obscenities.

Ryan, still kneeling on the floor, opened the box and closed his fingers around the silver crucifix that lay within. “What’s happening to me?” he whispered. “Dad? Tell me what’s happening to me. Tell me what to do.” He closed his eyes, certain he would hear his father’s voice, but all he could hear were muttered curses in his head; all he could feel was something still struggling to control his body.

He held the silver cross with both hands and curled up against the trunk, breathing in the scent of the wool uniform. Tears fell from his eyes and ran down his cheeks as the battle continued to rage inside his mind and his body and his soul, and it wasn’t until the darkest hour of the night that he finally emerged from the house and started back to St. Isaac’s.

But the battle inside him was not yet over.

CHAPTER 58

FATHER LAUGHLIN STOOD at the foot of Spruce Street. Across Beacon Street, the Common was a beehive of activity. Aside from the hundreds of people sprawled on the lawn to soak up the sunshine of the perfect spring afternoon, there were workmen everywhere. A platform was being built, upon which would stand the altar where His Holiness would celebrate the Mass that would be his only public appearance in the city. Even though the stage itself was as yet far from complete, sound technicians were untangling what looked to Laughlin like a hopeless snarl of cables, while a second crew was unloading and setting up truckload after truckload of folding chairs, which would be claimed by the earliest arrivals. Only a small section in front would be reserved for himself, the mayor, Archbishop Rand and the faculty of St. Isaac’s school. The Vatican had been very clear on that: even the governor would have to find his own seat, should he choose to attend. Faced with no reserved seat, that dignitary had already pleaded an immutable scheduling conflict, as had nearly everyone else who felt they deserved