Vicious Grace

dinner had tried to dispel was seeping back. Every time I closed my eyes, images popped up like a slideshow— Grace Memorial glowering out at the street through the huge compound eye of its windows, the face of the red- haired man who’d attacked me, the coffin opening. And every time I opened my eyes, the darkness pressing in at the bed made me think about being buried alive. The interment ceremony. Some poor bastard having the unreal force of a rider driven into him, and then the coffin closed. I told myself that I couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be, but the truth was I could almost feel it: the painful, electric rush of the spirit entering my flesh; the constriction of the coffin; the air growing thick even before the sound of earth being shoveled over it had faded. I stared at the distant, dark ceiling above me and wondered how long Declan Souder had been alive. A normal person, it might have been hours. With the support of a rider, anything was possible. For all I knew, the man was still alive, down there in the darkness.

Aubrey muttered in his sleep, turning his back to me and pulling a pillow over his head. His back rose and fell with slow, soft breath. My hand tapped at my leg, and I noticed that I was humming a song. It was a kid’s gospel song I’d sung in church group about a million times. I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart. But the voice I heard singing in my head was a man’s and the words had changed themselves.I’ve got the boy, boy, boy, boy down in the dark

Down in the dark

Down in the dark

I’ve got the boy, boy, boy, boy down in the dark

Down in the dark he’ll stay

My skin felt like it wanted to crawl off. I sat up. It didn’t matter how tired I was, I wasn’t sleeping. Even if it was only because I didn’t want to know what kind of dreams bubbled up out of a mind that was writing songs like that for itself. I got up, fumbled into my bathrobe as quietly as I could, and stepped out of the bedroom. The glow of light from the living room was a relief.

Ex was still on the couch, hunched over Der Körper und der Geist, one hand holding back his long, pale hair, one on the page. He was smiling like a wolf that’s just scented a rabbit. The west wall had been stripped of art. Instead, it had about twenty wide, yellow Post-it notes with bits of information on them, and half a dozen pictures stuck to the wall with thumbtacks. A picture of David taken from Eric’s big box o’ surveillance was posted by the door just under an image of his grandfather that I recognized from the Wikipedia article. One of the Post-it notes written in Chogyi Jake’s hand read CCU/fMRI suite—ley line connection? Another one beside it said CIVIL DEFENSE WARD in block letters I didn’t recognize and assumed were Kim’s. The whole thing reminded me of a homicide board out of a murder mystery.

“You all right?” Ex asked without looking up.

“Can’t sleep,” I said. “Creeped myself out. I’ll try crashing again in a little bit. Did Kim take off?”

“No. She’s in the new guest room. I loaned her a T-shirt and a towel. I assume that’s all right?”

“Sure, of course. How’s she holding up?”

“She’s a professional,” Ex said. His tone made it a high compliment. I wanted to follow up, dig more. How did she seem when I wasn’t in the room? Did she talk about Aubrey at all, and what did she say? I couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t seem weird and petty. I let it drop.

“Hey,” I said, “I didn’t ask how things went with the chaplain. Did you meet up with him?”

“Did,” Ex said. “Nice guy. Totally out of his depth. He’s aware that something’s happening at the hospital, but he’s spending his time and energy ministering to the patients and praying for guidance.”

“Doesn’t sound like you have much use for that,” I said. “I thought you were a big prayer kind of guy.”

Ex sat back. His eyes were narrow and intense. With his unbound hair spilling down his face, he looked softer, but it was deceptive. From the first time I’d met him, Ex had never seemed anything less than driven. Wrongheaded sometimes, condescending and paternalistic. Frightened sometimes. Even brokenhearted. But never soft. For a moment it seemed significant that he and I were the only ones awake.

“I am a big prayer kind of guy,” he said. “But I have a more nuanced idea of prayer than Father Gilmore. For him, it’s a way to not take responsibility. When he gives a problem over to God, he thinks he’s done, you know? Yesterday, he wanted guidance. Today, I showed up. Tomorrow, he’s still going to be asking for guidance. I don’t have a lot of patience with that.”

“Sounds like you didn’t think much of him,” I said. A stack of files sat, ignored, at Ex’s side. I picked them up just to have room to sit.

“I love everybody,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like them. What about you?”

“Me?”

“You’re the one being mobbed and shot at,” Ex said. “Might throw some people off stride.”

“No. I’m fine,” I said. And then, “I guess maybe it’s a little weird that I’m fine, but I am. It’s just business, you know?”

“And you can handle yourself.”

“What? Skeptical?”

His smile started and stopped in the corners of his eyes.

“No, I think you can handle yourself. This is good, by the way,” he said, holding up the German book. “This is very good. And it’s big. I think you may have gotten the key to the whole thing, right here.”

“Yeah? What are we looking at?”

“Well, we know it’s something that affects people without having actually possessed them individually. We know it had to be driven into someone for the interment. And we know it’s powerful enough that even that didn’t entirely silence it. It’s looking like some kind of haugsvarmr. Given the subtitle, probably a leyiathan.”

“Taxonomy’s always a bitch,” I said. “And what exactly is a hog-swarmer?”

“Haugsvarmr.”

“Whatever.”

Ex waved an impatient hand, his hair drooping down over his eyes. While he talked, I paged through the files on my lap. One was labeled as security personnel for Grace Memorial as of three years before. Another had a list of the contractors who’d bid for the new emergency room five years ago, and records of their workman’s comp filings.

“It’s a level up,” Ex said. “It’s . . . Okay. Look. Riders possess people. That’s how they work. Someone who’s being ridden doesn’t have the demon in their finger or their liver or even their brain. When a rider takes over, it takes over the whole human system. It controls the hands and the feet and the muscles. It can use them in ways a normal, unpossessed person can’t. But it isn’t those parts.”

“A possessed guy isn’t a guy with a possessed gall bladder. It’s the whole guy. Got it,” I said.

I spotted a file with Kim’s name on it. I shot a look at Ex. I was pretty sure he wasn’t paying attention, so I shifted it into the pile set aside for her to look at. Better that the boys not find out about Kim and Eric’s affair that way. Hell, better they never found out at all.

“The haugsvarmr are riders that possess larger structures,” Ex said.

“So like haunted houses?” I asked, thinking of Declan Souder’s architectural dissections. Ex shook his head.

“Social structures. Like political parties or nations.”

I stopped looking through the files. I could feel my eyes getting wide, and I fought a sense of growing vertigo.

“Hold on. What?” I said.

“It hasn’t happened often, but it’s not unheard of,” Ex said. “Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal are probably the first recorded examples. Hitler’s Germany was the most recent.”

“Okay, time-out,” I said. “World War Two was about riders? Germany was possessed?”

“Well, the apparatus of the Nazi Party was. And maybe the nation as a whole. Why does that seem weird?”

“I just . . . I mean . . .”

Ex cocked his head. The expression on his face left me feeling dim and obvious, like I’d just blurted out my amazement that Britney Spears lip-synchs her concerts. A little burn of resentment lit in my chest.