Solomon's Grave

Nathan grimaced in embarrassment and tried to hide it behind another spoonful. He’d awoken, vaguely, soon after blacking out. Those moments—were they hours or minutes? he wondered now— were a mix of images and unreality. As if waking from a dream but not quite coming all the way to the surface. By the time the EMT began packing up his bag, Nathan had begun to feel better, but allowed his mother to lead him to the bed Hayden had pulled out from the upstairs couch. He’d slept the rest of the afternoon away. Nathan visibly cringed every time he wondered what the rest of the reception was like.

“Do I really need to go in for tests? I’m feeling a lot better, physically at least. I just needed to rest.”

The older man shrugged. “Your call. They wanted you to get tested for epilepsy, tumors...” He waved his hand across the table as a way of finishing the sentence.

Beverly gasped. Nathan winced at the pain of her grip on his arm. Hayden smiled. “I have a very strong feeling it is none of those. As it is, I agree with Nate. I assume you slaved all night on that sermon, Reverend? It was a good one, by the way.”

“Thanks.” He appreciated the change in subject. After another spoonful of soup—some chicken noodle left over from the botched fellowship dinner—he added, “Yeah, I was up pretty late.”

“That’s what I thought. I hate the dentist. Get all nerved up before going in. He makes me sit there for five minutes before I get out of the chair. Says patients like me get so worked up that when the appointment is finally over, they collapse in relieved exhaustion when they try to stand.” He looked at Nathan’s mother and pointed at his yellowed teeth. “Have I mentioned, Bev, that these are all the originals?”

Beverly allowed herself a relieved smile.

Nathan put the spoon down with a clink. He looked up pleadingly. “Even so, I’m afraid I made a pretty poor impression. New pastor collapses after his first service.”

Hayden nodded. “I won’t lie and say that’s not true. At least you have something to start next week’s sermon with.”

Nathan nodded. The man was never one to sugar-coat things. He remembered something that had bothered him since Hayden suggested he lead this morning’s service. “I assumed you would want to be lead minister next week, Pastor, seeing as it’s your last.”

Hayden looked down for a moment, then said, “Yes, well, I suppose I should, shouldn’t I?” He slapped his legs and slowly rose from the table. “I’d better start working on the sermon soon, then, so I’m not wearing myself out with worry the night before.” He looked sideways at Nathan, a half smile implying the comment was only half in jest. “But you will handle the announcements at the start of the service, and can say what you wish about the events of this morning.”

“I’d like that; thanks.” He didn’t like it, would rather visit Hayden’s dentist than face anyone after today.

His mother insisted he go back to bed. It was dark outside. He tried to calculate exactly how long he had actually slept since being brought upstairs. It was almost eight o’clock now and the sun was down. Hayden would be going to bed soon. Part of Nathan wanted to stay up, drive to the cemetery as he’d planned, but his body refused to cooperate. His mother busied herself downstairs straightening the kitchen and washing the few dishes while he changed, then came upstairs to make sure he was actually going to bed.

“Mom,” he said, already feeling sleep overtake him.

She stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around. “Yes?”

“How’s Dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he home?”

She looked away, down the hall, as if searching for his father. “No, probably not. But today’s Sunday and he still has work tomorrow. He won’t be out too late. You get some sleep, and don’t worry about him.”

She looked back, and saw that her son was already asleep. She turned off the light.

Chapter Fourteen

The rain began near midnight. It slashed against the narrow, painted-over windows of the storefront’s back room. Peter Quinn knelt before the altar—an area on the floor designated by flickering black and red candles. In the center stood a cross-legged statue of a man with the head of a bull. Its bronze skin shone in the firelight. A steady stream of aromatic smoke issued from its open mouth and through small holes at the end of long tapered horns. Human-shaped hands reached palm-up, as if waiting for an offering.

Long ago, the statue would have risen twenty feet into the air, the hands large enough to hold its squirming, sometimes screaming, sacrifice. Like this small representation before him, the idol’s body would be hollow and the furnace within would illuminate the open mouth like the entrance to hell itself. When the offering was placed in its palms, the arms would rise on gears and pulleys, dropping the child into its mouth to feed the dark god’s hunger.

Quinn’s resources, and his required discretion, prevented him from establishing a true temple for Molech, but soon he would have enough power to build a massive sacrificial statue wherever he desired.

Then the true sacrifices to his dark god would resume. Sacrifices to his master, the most powerful of demons, had always been—always would be—the first born of a chosen follower. Quinn thought of the report given to him by Paulson this afternoon, the incident with Dinneck’s son, the weak minister. His first day of official service, he had fainted like a schoolgirl.

He smiled. The good are weak, he thought. If a sacrifice would soon be needed, he wondered if he could make Art give up his first born. A Baptist minister as an offering. That sounded delightful. Its body bathed in candlelight, the small statue seemed to smile back in agreement.

All in all, it had been a productive day. Until this morning, Quinn had some doubts as to Vincent Tarretti’s role in this grand game of hide-and-seek. The caretaker played his cards very close to his chest. No amount of research into his life turned up much more than the obvious fact that Tarretti was an eternally dull man. But Quinn saw the fear in his eyes when he suggested his group lay those flowers down. Any lingering doubt that he was involved in some way, dissipated during the conversation.

Still, Peter had to remain cautious. The Elders would be reading his weekly reports with a deserved grain of salt. They would not stand for another Chicago incident. He would not survive another blunder. His uncle would make certain of that.

Peter had stopped at Greenwood Street Cemetery before visiting Tarretti. He’d wandered among the grave markers, moving circuitously deeper and deeper into the far section of the old graveyard. It was his third visit. He stared for a long time at the angels standing guard over the grave’s placard. The name Solomon so clearly engraved. As before, the elation had filled him, nearly causing Quinn to fall to the ground and dig with his bare hands.

He did not. If he was as close to the prize as he suspected, he needed to be careful. Instead, he walked around, moving leaves and dirt with the toe of his shoe, always kicking them randomly back into place so as not to reveal someone had been there. It was a crypt, no question. Crypts were used to store things, though usually just bodies. Peter was certain no human lay inside. It had been so long, for him and those who came before. Including his own uncle.

They were not destined, it seemed, for the great discovery. Only him.

Long ago, a young Peter Quinn had been slowly, methodically, taught the ways of the sect by his dear Uncle Roger, beginning as early as the boy’s tenth birthday. Peter’s internship into this holiest of priesthoods began with casual questions, odd remarks made at family gatherings at the Quinns’ home in Indiana. Comments designed to pique the boy’s interest in the unknown, in the darker side of the world outside Muncie. Uncle Roger was a large man, tall and nearly as wide. When he spoke, his voice came from somewhere deep in his belly.

When the man suddenly packed up the studio apartment he maintained two blocks from his brother’s family, and prepared to move to Chicago, he invited his twelve-year-old nephew to join him. Peter’s parents refused, wanting him in school and not trusting Roger to be strict enough with the boy. Max Quinn was a distracted man, working long hours in the tool shop and bringing home too few dollars to show for it. He made no bones about the odds of his son ever being able to go to college. But a high school diploma was one thing he could offer him, something he himself never earned. The night Uncle Roger left Muncie Indiana forever, he came to the house and had a quiet whispering conversation with his brother and sister-in-law. Peter waited anxiously in his room, already packed.