Rebellion Reborn, page 10
The two heavily padded orderlies immediately ran over and grabbed Taylon by the shoulders in an attempt to hold him down. Brother Enoch held up a battered hand, waving them off as he got up and walked around the table to stand next to Taylon. The closer Enoch got to him, the more the thrashing became a concerted effort to pull away from him, and Taylon began shouting wildly at the exorcist, though what he was saying was beyond me.
“Perhaps we should give Mr. Jones another small sedative and wait a few more minutes,” the metallic intercom voice said. “This type of violent behavior has been his norm since we got him. Though the gibberish is new.”
I turned back to the mirror and shook my head slowly twice.
“Very well, but, Mr. Enoch, please keep your distance from him,” the tinny voice replied. “And if he doesn’t settle down, we’ll have to cut this short. We cannot allow him to hurt himself.”
Ignoring the order, Enoch put his hands on Taylon’s shoulders, and the restrained man went rigid, stopped speaking, and began howling. The white flecks of spittle and drool coming through the mask became crimson with blood.
The exorcist bent down and began whispering into Taylon’s ear. I couldn’t hear a word of what he said, but Taylon began shrieking and thrashing again. He kicked so violently several times that something I assumed was his leg snapped like a two-by-four cracking. Another vicious kick hit the table so hard that the metal leg bent, canting the tabletop at an odd angle, but the violent behavior didn’t slow.
“Mr. Enoch, please step back from the patient immediately,” the intercom voice said. The two orderlies, oddly, stayed where they were, either unwilling or afraid to move.
What came next was frightening to witness: the temperature in the room began to drop significantly, and our breath became visible. Once again, the exorcist whispered into Taylon’s ear, and this time, the hideous faceless form that enveloped the possessed man began to writhe and twist, causing Taylon to struggle even more. The demonic spirit was resisting being ripped free from its host, but it was failing. The more it fought, the more Taylon jerked and bayed. The image of the demonic entity fighting exorcism juxtaposed over the violently flailing body was surreal. Finally, the entity, which had become little more than a squirming mass of formless greasy energy, tore free from Taylon and tried to bolt for one of the shocked orderlies.
“No,” Brother Enoch said, stopping the mass as if it were at the end of a leash. “Go, there,” Enoch said calmly and clearly, pointing to the one-way glass partition—a mirror—and I understood his plan. Mirrors could act as portals to different dimensions, and we could safely banish the demon if we could get him to enter it then break it.
As the mass of energy shot past me into the mirror, I stood and yanked the chair next to me free from its bolts on the floor.
“Sarah, move! Now!” I screamed then smashed the chair into the bulletproof glass. The heavy impact of the steel chair combined with my strength put the seat through a gaping hole in the mirror and all but destroyed the glass, though its protective coating kept it from completely shattering. In the darkened room on the other side of the ruined mirror, the only figure I could see through the breach was Ezekiel, fastidiously writing in a book while seated at a table. He brushed chunks of glass off his ledger with one arm and kept writing. I doubted anyone but the two members of Pugnus Dei and I had witnessed anything more than a man thrashing violently followed by me throwing a chair through mirrored glass. It was probably better that way.
Several long seconds passed before Dukes and Skinner began pounding on the door into our room. By that time, Taylon’s form was quiet, his breathing ragged. His head lolled back, and his legs were splayed out in front of him. A bone protruded through one of his pants legs, and blood and urine were puddling on the floor beneath him. Taylon’s once-white straitjacket was covered with foamy bloody drool. Enoch calmly walked over and leaned against the door, arms nonchalantly crossed over his chest. The energy he had emitted was gone, and I saw no sign of possession in the bedraggled Jones.
I quickly poked my head through the hole in the shattered mirror and found Sarah shielding the poor attorney on the floor. Both were covered in chunks of safety glass, dazed but otherwise okay. The orderlies were completely dumbfounded, and none of the hospital staff on hand knew quite what to do.
Once I was sure everyone was okay, I walked over to Taylon. I had questions I needed answers to now that he was theoretically back in control of himself, and I had only seconds before they took him away.
“Taylon, what happened to you? Where did you find the Sons of Belial?” I asked in a quiet, soothing tone. The only answer I got was a moan as his head flopped over to gaze at me with bloodshot eyes. With the doctors pounding on the door, I didn’t have time for patience. “Taylon,” I growled through clenched teeth, shaking him slightly, “where did this happen to you, dammit? Did the Sons of Belial do this?” He nodded almost imperceptibly but still said nothing. His breathing was heavy and irregular.
The two doctors in the hall began screaming at us, but I paid them no attention. I didn’t even know what Enoch was doing to keep them at bay at this point.
“The Sons of Belial did this to you—where? I need to know,” I said, pleading, hoping his mind wasn’t too damaged to remember.
“Co... kite... us... but not... the only... one. Many ...” he said just before the doctors managed to shove the door open and storm past Enoch, who then calmly walked over to stand behind Taylon.
Cocytus—one of the five rivers of Hades. Great, this guy really is gone. But if he really wasn’t the only one they’d done this to, then I had to figure out why, and fast.
No one said anything as we all stared at each other and the doctors panted like dogs to catch their breath. Finally, after a good minute, Brother Ezekiel spoke up in a cheerful tone from the observation room.
“Well, I guess we’re done here,” he said, beaming at us through the hole in the mirror.
Dr. Dukes just scowled at us with his mouth agape and his jowls reddening. Then the incoherent, overlapping shouting began from both doctors and Taylon’s lawyer. Over the screaming protests, I could see Taylon trying to say something again, but I couldn’t make out what until Enoch leaned down and patted his shoulder gently.
“You are welcome, son, but you should be thanking God, not me,” he said in a reassuring tone, then he faced the still-uncomprehending and motionless orderlies. “This man needs medical attention, right away.”
“What did you say to him?” Dukes shouted over the others.
“Actually, I said nothing to Mr. Jones at all,” Brother Enoch replied dismissively.
“We all saw you say something to him. We probably have it on video...” Dukes waved at the cameras.
Two additional armed security guards showed up, and one of the orderlies ran down the hall, presumably to get help for Jones.
“You,” Dr. Dukes said, pointing at me. “What were you just asking him? What did he say?”
I ignored him as I forearmed the broken mirror until the whole thing came loose from its frame. On the other side, Sarah and the attorney were a little dazed, though Sarah a little less so. The lawyer’s protests, directed at no one in particular, were loud but feeble and incoherent. The chair I’d thrown was imbedded in the wall at the back of the observation room. Ezekiel gathered his ledger and pens into his briefcase and stood in the hall, waiting for us to leave.
Sarah scowled at me but said nothing as she tended to the shaken attorney. She didn’t need to say anything—I knew she wanted to know what had just happened. The attorney was having a hard time gathering himself, though.
“I promise you I said nothing to Mr. Jones,” Brother Enoch said to Dukes as the orderly showed up with two medical attendants wheeling a stretcher.
Unsure of what they should be doing, the two armed guards helped secure the now-passive Taylon to the gurney. As the orderlies, attendants, and guards began to wheel Taylon out, Dr. Dukes grabbed one of the guards.
“You stay with me until we sort this out,” Dukes told the man, his voice trembling and unsure as he tried to regain some composure. “Okay, I want all of you back in the waiting area until I can figure out what to do next.”
Brothers Enoch and Ezekiel walked calmly down the hall in front of us as I helped Sarah with the shaken attorney. We followed the two doctors and the guard back to the waiting room with the lockers. Outside the door, Dukes told the guard to keep us inside until his return.
“What exactly did you say to Jones?” Sarah asked Brother Enoch.
“As I told Dr. Dukes, I said absolutely nothing to Mr. Jones,” he replied.
“We all saw you say something just before he went ballistic and Mr. Dore, there, pulled the chair up and went all berserk,” the attorney managed to say.
“I told the sifter demon possessing Mr. Jones to leave immediately,” Brother Enoch said matter-of-factly. “And then I sent it to the only safe place.”
“The mirror,” I said, “and then I smashed it to trap it.” I had no idea what a sifter demon was.
Brother Enoch motioned at me in support of what I’d said. A glimmer of understanding flashed across Sarah’s face. The attorney, on the other hand, went ashen, and his jowls sagged as his eyes tracked aimlessly across the room as if searching for something he could identify as real.
“I’m just a public defender,” he mumbled, his hand shaking as he reached for his handkerchief and mopped at his sweaty forehead. “They don’t pay me enough for this crap.”
“At the risk of sounding stupid, what’s a sifter demon?” I finally asked.
Enoch grunted, and Ezekiel watched him for a few seconds.
“Heinrich Agrippa, a lector of our Order from the fifteenth and sixteenth century, classified the lesser demons below the three major hierarchies,” Ezekiel said. “Sifters are one of nine—”
“Say no more, Brother Lector,” Brother Enoch said sternly, slapping his hand down on the table without raising his head.
Sarah and I gave each other sideways glances, and the ensuing silence was awkward.
Chapter 17
After Brother Enoch’s slight outburst, no one wanted to say anything. To make matters worse, we waited for a solid hour before Dr. Dukes returned.
“Well, even though the injuries he sustained are severe, Taylon is going to be okay, and for the first time since we received him here, he’s actually calm and resting, but he is heavily medicated,” Dr. Dukes said. “Albeit it’s the first time the medication has actually worked. Now, I must insist that you two explain yourselves.” He fixed Brother Enoch and me with his attempt at a withering gaze.
I just sat back in my chair and put my hands behind my head. Brother Enoch made a lopsided facial expression that was probably meant to be a smile but was more of a grimace, revealing a few too many teeth on one side of his ruined mouth and disturbingly distorting the skin around his dead eye. The attorney and Dr. Dukes both jerked back slightly in reaction to the expression.
“To put it simply, Dr. Dukes, I did nothing more than exorcise Mr. Jones’s demon, freeing his soul. Mr. Dore here was helping me make my case.”
“I have been a forensic psychiatrist for several decades, Mr. Enoch, and I have never seen an inmate react like that,” Dukes said. “Nor have I ever witnessed anyone pull free a chair bolted to the floor and then throw it through a pane of bulletproof safety glass, Mr. Dore.”
“Well, that was some freaky stuff going on in there, and I got scared and thought Taylon might get free,” I said, lying like a bad rug. “I panicked. You know, the adrenaline and all.”
Sarah glared at me, her gray eyes the color of storm clouds. Cowen just shook his head, ready to be done with this whole mess.
“Agent Wright, I will be writing a report to your offices regarding what happened here today. You are lucky Mr. Jones will be okay,” Dukes said, trying to sound threatening. “I should never have agreed to this in the first place. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from Mr. Cowen’s offices as well.”
Cowen lowered his head farther, shrinking in stature a bit, and said nothing.
Sarah just sighed, shook her head, and pursed her lips.
“You would all be in much more serious trouble if the video cameras hadn’t malfunctioned. And since no one is quite sure what they witnessed before Mr. Dore freaked out,” Dukes said, throwing air quotes around the last part, “we will be chalking it up to a severely agitated state induced by an overly aggressive interaction, Mr. Enoch. Thankfully, no one besides Jones was hurt, and I think it’s obvious his injuries came from his own thrashing and not directly from either of you two. I shudder to think what might have happened if we hadn’t restrained the inmate first.”
I snorted, and Sarah scowled again, scrunching up her nose at me.
“Mr. Jones should be much more cooperative and calm now,” Brother Ezekiel said, “Though I doubt he will ever regain all of his sanity. I think it’s fair to say his mind is permanently broken.”
“I believe I am the only one qualified to make that assessment, Mr. Ezekiel. Now if you will all please leave. And be advised that if any of our footage is recoverable and I can identify what exactly you did to incite Mr. Jones, I will find a way to bring charges against you all for endangering a patient under my care,” Dukes said, red faced, veins bulging in his neck and forehead.
“Not to mention violating Mr. Jones’s rights... I think,” Cowen said, croaking uncertainly.
Dukes shook his head. “If this hinders the state’s case against him, so help me... Mr. Jones is a very dangerous man—both to himself and to others—and I will not have him released on a technicality,” Dukes said mostly to Cowen, who was unable to focus at all.
Two security guards accompanied us through the security checkpoints and out the front gate. In the parking lot, Sarah glared at me in a way that made me stop in my tracks and recoil slightly.
I put up my hands in surrender. “Hey, I told you I wanted you nowhere near this thing and that this was only the beginning.”
“I could lose my job over this”—she gestured wildly with her arm back toward the building we’d just come out of—“freakin’ mess!”
“No, you won’t. The Metis Foundation will help with that,” I said confidently and slightly sarcastically.
“What did you learn?” Brother Enoch asked.
“Not really sure,” I replied, leaning on the roof of the car, cautious about what I should tell him, given that his earlier outburst about demons had revealed he wasn’t too keen on sharing. I decided to push him a bit. “What was he yelling at you?”
“The sifter was regaling me with threats of their great plan,” Enoch replied.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure he gave me nothing,” I said, thinking maybe if I told him what I knew, Enoch would be more forthcoming with anything he learned. “The guy’s mind is definitely broken. He indicated that this was done to him—and possibly others—somewhere near, well... Cocytus.” It was so crazy to think a mortal could have gotten there that I almost hated repeating it. “Given that... piece of information, the only thing I have to go on is I believe a group called the Sons of Belial might have been involved,” I said with a shrug.
“Wait...” Sarah said. “The Cocytus? The infamous underground S&M club in New York?”
My brain stopped for a second. “Uh, all I know is that he said Cocytus.” I shrugged again, shaking my head. “But if he meant some kind of club, it makes a bit more sense than him escaping from the Underworld. Wait... how do you...” I squinted at Sarah, confused.
Brother Ezekiel pulled a computer tablet out of his satchel and began poking furiously at the screen. Brother Enoch and I continued to stare at Sarah.
“Oh ho,” Ezekiel said in a chipper tone. “According to the Order’s records, it has been a continuing den of debauchery for over one hundred years in Manhattan, but we have no real information on it, nor any definite links to the Sons of Belial. But... apparently, it has had ties to various cults throughout its history.”
“Well, it’s difficult to track since their meeting places are known only to members,” Sarah said.
“How did I never hear about this place? And what do you mean by that?” I asked Sarah.
“Well, its location changes on a regular basis,” she said, her voice suddenly a little husky. “You have to be invited or be a member to find it and get in. Memberships are like a hundred grand a year or something.” She cleared her throat a few times as we all stared at her.
“What do you guys have on the Sons of Belial?” I asked Ezekiel finally, after a very pregnant pause, trying not to think about why Sarah knew about a sex club.
“Not much recently,” he said. “Most of our information comes from fifty or more years ago. As the surviving offspring of the Nephilim, the group is small, perhaps a few dozen actual members, but they organize rituals and conscript or recruit additional participants as needed. They are dedicated to freeing those they deemed to have brought all true knowledge to humankind.”
“The Watchers,” I said to no one in particular. “So it’s true.”
“We believe they may be responsible, yes,” Brother Enoch replied.
“Responsible for what?” Sarah asked.
I got lost in the implications and stared off into space, thinking about the Axeman, until Brother Enoch’s gravelly voice brought me back.
“It is possible that some ritual, maybe performed by the Sons of Belial—the Sons of the Most Worthless—actually succeeded in freeing one of the Watchers nearly a century ago. Possibly Ramiel himself. The very creature you, Diomedes, fought in New Orleans along with our brethren so many years ago,” Brother Enoch said.
“But we have no conclusive proof of this,” Brother Ezekiel interjected, “only supposition based on hearsay and random information, though it makes some sense. We have heard nothing definitive of either the Sons of Belial or Ramiel in decades.”
