The Devil's Labyrinth

He stepped out of the shadows and into the path of the drunk. The man slowed and looked puzzled for a moment. His bleary eyes focused on the knife, then shifted to Kip’s face.

Even in the dim glow of light from the streetlamp at the corner, Kip could see the blood drain from the man’s face. Seeming to sober in an instant, the man wheeled around, shambled down the sidewalk, and disappeared back into the bar.

Kip peered down at the knife, still glistening with his own blood. Clutching it tighter, he turned and started the other way. Toward the end of the block, light flooded the sidewalk as someone emerged from one of the brownstones. Then the light was gone, and a figure came down the steps from the house’s stoop.

Kip slipped into the shadows, sweat flowing from his face.

The figure turned and began to walk away from him. A woman with a small dog on a leash.

Kip stepped out of the shadows and started after her, his footfalls silent in the night.

Somewhere on the edges of his consciousness he heard a sound, a soft wailing.

Like the sound the woman might make when he plunged the knife deep into her belly.

His step quickened, and, as the wailing grew louder and he closed in on the lone figure ahead of him, his fingers tightened around the handle of the knife.

The woman paused as the dog stopped to lift his leg on a fire hydrant, and suddenly sensed that she wasn’t alone on the street. She turned, looking full into his face. Kip saw her eyes widen, and the blood drain from her face as it had from the drunk only a few minutes ago. Then, as the wailing grew into the screams of sirens, the woman backed away, then turned to flee.

Too late.

Kip caught up with her, his left arm snaking out, his fingers closing in on her hair. He yanked her backward and she fell against his body.

Now there was a strange red and blue glow pulsing in the darkness, and the sirens continued screaming.

A moment later, voices were howling at him, and Kip froze.

The dog’s barking rose out of the melee around him, and the woman, too, began to scream.

Pulling her head back even farther, Kip’s right hand rose as if from its own volition and then the blade was ripping across the woman’s throat. In an instant her screams died away to nothing more than a wheezing gurgle and blood spewed from the gaping wound the blade had opened. Her knees buckled and as she sank to the sidewalk, Kip sank with her. He was on his knees now, crouching above the woman. She lay on her back, her glazing eyes staring up at him.

The sirens fell silent.

He heard the sound of car doors slamming.

Voices — real voices — shouted into the night.

Kip heard nothing as the demons in his head urged him on. He raised the knife and plunged it deep into the woman’s chest.

Her body shuddered reflexively.

Kip raised the knife again.

He felt something slam into his back, and heard a loud popping sound.

The knife arced down again, sinking into the woman’s belly. As the blade sliced through her stomach and intestines, another bullet slammed into Kip.

This time, though, it wasn’t his back the bullet hit.

This time it was his head, and in the instant it shattered his skull and entered his brain, blackness descended over him.

He pitched forward, surrendering his soul to the demons inside him, and his body dropped on top of the woman he’d just killed.

The street — and the demons inside Kip — fell silent.

CHAPTER 9

HE WAS BACK on the floor of the boys’ restroom at Dickinson, curled up in a fetal position, bracing himself for the next kick. Only it wasn’t just Stan Wojniak and Bennie Locke this time. Frankie Alito was there, too, along with three other guys, and all of them were kicking him, their shoes thudding into his sides and smashing his face. Even the walls seemed to be closing in on him, and there was no place to hide, and more guys were around him, and then he saw the knives.

First in Alito’s hand, and then in Locke’s, and then they all had knives, and they were closing in on him, and his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it, and he opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out and—

— and Ryan jerked awake in the darkened hospital room. Its silence broken only by the pounding of his own heart, and the groan that escaped his lips as the pain of his convulsive awakening broke through the narcotics and threatened to tear his chest apart.

He lay perfectly still, willing the spasm of pain to break. The beating was over — he was safe. Safe in the hospital, and tomorrow he would go home.

Tomorrow or Sunday.

The wave of pain finally began to recede, and he turned over onto his good side, wincing at the new pang of protest from his cracked ribs. He held still again and closed his eyes, but after the nightmare he didn’t really want to go back to sleep again, at least not until the last remnants of the dream were completely gone.

Besides, he wasn’t sleepy, and what he really wanted was someone to talk to. But not his mother, who would only start crying, and certainly not Tom Kelly. And he didn’t want to call any of the nurses, either. They’d just give him some more pills.

The person he really wanted to talk to was his father.

His father would know what to do, would tell him how to handle Frankie Alito and all his friends when he went back to school on Monday. But his father couldn’t help him, because his father was dead, and wasn’t coming back, and Ryan was just going to have to figure out what to do by himself.

A single tear rolled out the corner of his eye and he quickly wiped it away. Then there was a soft knock on the door. As Ryan fumbled with the controller and found the light switch, the door opened and a dark-haired man stepped inside.

A dark-haired man who was neither a nurse nor an orderly.

Ryan gazed at him uncertainly.

“Ryan?” the man asked. “Ryan McIntyre?”

Ryan nodded.

The man stepped fully into the room and let the door close quietly behind him, and without the brighter lights of the hallway behind him, Ryan could finally see the clerical collar the man wore.

A priest.

“I’m Father Sebastian Sloane,” the priest said, lowering himself onto the chair closest to the bed.

Ryan frowned. What was a priest doing here? Had his mother sent him? But maybe he was just the chaplain at the hospital or something. Before he could ask, though, the priest spoke again. “I think you know a friend of mine. Tom Kelly?”

Ryan’s expression darkened. “Why’d he send you here?” he asked, making no attempt to keep the hostility out of his voice. “Is he hoping I’m going to die and wanted you to give me last rites?”

The priest didn’t even flinch at the harsh words; instead he chuckled. “Not too fond of him, hunh?”

Ryan shook his head. “Why should I be?”

Father Sebastian spread his hands dismissively. “No reason that I can think of. Knowing Tom, he’s probably trying to act like your father. Anyway, he sure sounded like it when he called me an hour ago.” He leaned forward slightly and dropped his voice. “So how bad is he?”

Ryan shrugged. “He just keeps acting like he knows what’s best for my mother and me. Like we can’t take