“I’m much better,” Alexander said. “Not that there’s no room for improvement.”
His attempt at lightening the mood lay on the floor. Chapin’s smile was sharp and cold.
“Come, my boy. Let me look at you.”
Like a pawn pushed down the chessboard, Alexander stepped from my side of the room to Chapin’s. This was all being done to belittle me, to show that Chapin and his cabal had the power, and I didn’t. I felt my jaw slide forward a few millimeters. Chapin clapped his hands on Alexander’s shoulders.
“I’m glad to see you,” Chapin said. “We were concerned.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Alexander said. “When she came to me, I thought it would be better to go with her.”
“Brave, but foolish,” Chapin said. “But it does not matter now. All is well that ends well, yes?”
“Didn’t know we were ended,I said. My voice was stronger than I’d meant it to be, but the anxiety in my gut was shifting rapidly toward pissed. Tamblen and Carsey exchanged a look.
“Yes,” Chapin said, turning his attention to me again. “Xavier has told me of this astonishing news. A hidden devil in the heart of the Church. It is not the first time such a subterfuge has been used to divert our attention from the true matter at hand. What you suggest is, of course, impossible.”
“Father Chapin,” Alexander said. “It’s not. I was there. The two sisters were both possessed, and the spirits in them came to attack Jayné.”
“Perhaps,” Chapin said, “and perhaps not. Ask yourself: Is it more likely that we have had a devil in our midst for all this time and with no sign, or that the devil’s work is subtle and his agents legion? Alexander, I will agree that these poor girls have suffered again at Satan’s hands. But can you tell me what evidence you have that the new assault on them came from us?”
“The girl said so,” Alexander said. Chapin’s gaze was fixed on me, and Alexander looked at the other, his hands out as if in appeal. “Dolores said that it happened during the exorcism.”
“And yet when she left here, she was not possessed,” Chapin said.
“No,” Alexander said, “but that was because Jayné … I mean the rider inside of Jayné—”
Chapin raised his hand.
“Xavier,” he said. “Will you come to me, please.”
“You brought this woman among us,” Chapin said. “You asked our aid. When she escaped, you were as dedicated as any of us to her recovery. What is your opinion of this accusation?”
Ex was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was shaking with an emotion I couldn’t identify. Anger or fear or sorrow.
“We know the cost of making assumptions,” he said. “Jayné came here in good faith the first time, and now she’s come back. She took Alexander, and I don’t see any evidence that he was hurt or corrupted. I think we have to take her accusations seriously.”
“Do you?” Chapin said. “You think it plausible that I am the victim of the devil’s cunning. You have brought a woman to me who is now using the aid we have offered her to tear apart the trust and camaraderie that we rely upon. Are you certain that you are not the one who is wrong? Ah?”
“I’m not certain,” Ex said “It’s possible the Black Sun put the whole thing together from the start to undermine you and this group. I don’t think that’s what happened, but no, I can’t be sure.”
The sense of betrayal, of loss, was like getting punched in the gut. The air actually went out of me.
“Ex,” I said, and Chogyi Jake put his hand on mshoulder.
“I am a little confused by all this, though,” Ex said, waving at the room. “This is something we can test. Akaname are subtle, but they’re not perfect. Now that we know what to look for, it won’t be that hard to figure out whether it’s true or not.”
Chapin folded his arms. His face was flushing red.
“You would do her bidding, then?” Chapin said. “Take the weeks or months it would require to cleanse us all and in the meantime let the devil rule the countryside?”
“Won’t take weeks,” Ex said. “We can get this done in ten minutes.”
Ex drew a small velvet box from his pocket. For a second, I pictured him going down on one knee in front of Chapin. Ex opened the box and casually withdrew something wrapped in a bit of white cloth. I looked over my shoulder, but Chogyi Jake shook his head. He didn’t know what Ex was up to either.
“I have the Mark of Taiqing,” Ex said. “I got it a few years back when I was tracking a noppera-bo. I didn’t wind up using it then. So …”
He held up a bright silver disk. Chapin shook his head sadly.
“There is no holy magic save that which is given us by Christ,” Chapin said.
“It won’t do anything more than identify the presence of a bakemono. It’s folk work, but it will do for what we need now. If nothing comes from it, then we can stop screwing around with it.”
Chapin shook his head in disgust, but held out his arm, as if daring Ex to touch the little silver disk to his skin. Ex shook his head.
“Not you, Father,” he said. “Just Tomás.”
All eyes turned to Tomás. His thick shoulders, his well-worn face, the brown of his eyes. After the oil- black eyes and filthy tongues of the Akaname that had possessed Dolores and Soledad, the pistol in his hand seemed weirdly prosaic.
“Umm,” Carsey said. “Tomás, my dear, you seem to be pointing a gun at us?”
“My old friends,” Tomás said, his voice rough and sweet as salt and honey. “You will step aside. Now.”
Chapin’s expression was disappointment and disdain.
“I will not let you leave, demon,” he said. “I have been humbled enough for one day. In the name of God, and of his Son and the Holy—“
Tomás raised the gun almost casually. The report was louder than I’d expected. Father Chapin doubled over, clutching at his belly as the rest of us jumped into motion. I ran toward Tomás as Miguel threw himself onto the shooting arm, dragging the gun down. The second shot dug a hole in the brick floor. Ex and Tamblen got to the rider a half second before I did.
“The gun! Get the gun!” Carsey shouted from someplace behind me as I plowed into Tomás like a linebacker trying to knock down a fence. I felt the bones creaking in my shoulder, and the rider stumbled back, the four of us weighing it down. And then the Black Sun took over, and I dropped to my knees. Ex had Tomás’s gun hand now, helping Miguel push it down. Tamblen was behind Tomás, wrapping him in a bear hug. From where I knelt, my fists went out in a flurry of straight punches to Tomás’s groin, ending with a furious uppercut. Something under my knuckle went soft in a way that felt painful even to me. Tomás staggered, his mouth gaping open and his eyes closed like a caricature of agony. I shifted back, rose to my feet, and sank my right heel just below his rib cage. The gun went off again, but my gaze didn’t leave the rider. When his eyes opened again, they were a perfect black.
With a roar, the Akaname lifted its arms, tossing Ex and Miguel backward to the floor. The stench of sewage rolled through the room in a nauseating wave. Tamblen, behind the thing, had his arms around its neck. Faster than a snake, the black tongue flickered out of Tomás, wiping across Tamblen’s lips and forcing its way into his mouth. He fell back gagging, and the rider lifted its arm toward me.
It still had the gun.
“I forbid this,” my voice said without me.
“You forbid me nothing,” Tomás said, his voice lisping, slushy around the inhuman tongue.
I felt something behind me, soft and warm, like someone had turned on a heat lamp. Like knowing someone from the sound of his cough or a single footstep, I recognized Chogyi Jake’s gathering will. The rider’s dark eyes flickered away from me. It was all the chance we needed.
I kicked hard, the front of my foot hitting squarely on the butt of the gun. The pistol went off again, the bullet hissing past my ear, but the rider lost its grip. The gun spun through the air, landing with a clatter by the far wall. Dark blood poured from Tomás’s hand, and his index finger bent at an improbable angle. The rider howled in pain, the raw power of the sound staggering us. In my peripheral vision, I saw Chapin trying to sit up, Carsey at his
