Faces of Beth, page 26
“Where is the demon now?” she asked.
Andrew understood she was talking about the Father Dennis
thing. He shrugged, forgetting for a second she couldn’t see his
gesture. “I don’t know,” he said. “He always disappears after he kills
one of her personalities. But he’ll be back. He wants her for himself. I
came here because I thought you might be able to help me stop
him.”
“You can’t stop him,” a deep, throaty growl came from Beth’s
body.
Andrew knew that voice. It was Gore. Finally, he’d come out.
“It’s about damn time you showed up,” Andrew said.
“Who’s here?” Sister Mary Francis asked.
“The last of Beth’s personalities. His name’s Gore. He’s—”
“I’m the one who caused this,” Gore growled. “You two idiots
know nothing. The priest was grooming Beth all those years ago. He
was preparing her for this moment. His dark bible called for the blood
of a child, one who’d grow into a human host for what you’re calling
a demon. The priest knew he’d die. He needed to die, but his plan
was to possess the child. He cut her palm and put her blood in the
book. Signed her soul away. She was to be his puppet. But we
stepped in. He couldn’t take over her body as long as we kept her
pure. Kept her from doing anything evil.”
“But you were evil, you fucking lunatic!” Andrew yelled. “You went
out at night and killed—”
“I fought evil,” Gore argued. “I saved lives. I stopped the innocent
from being hurt. Everyone I killed was under the charge of a demon.
They were murderers and rapists. Until the night you were with me,
and that young girl died on accident. She was innocent. That should
have never happened.”
“That let him in,” Andrew said, finally understanding.
“Beth,” Gore continued, “because of me, was no longer innocent.”
“So, if you hadn’t been out there trying to save the fucking world!”
Andrew yelled.
Gore lowered his head. “You saw the people I saved. You saw
them in that apartment. Imagine all the ones you did not see. I got
my first taste of blood when I saved Beth from the priest that day of
the fire. I beat him until my fists, Beth’s fists, were bloody.”
“That was you,” Sister Mary Francis said. “The one growling and
hissing and snarling. Like an animal.”
“That was the day I was born,” Gore said. “Beth snapped, and
she created me to protect her. The priest had no idea how strong
she was when he picked her. Her beauty was one thing, but her
strength was something else. Peter was smart, he could figure shit
out. Like in the games he played. Ruby was conniving, and a bit of a
tease. She could get us into situations the rest of us could not. Like
in a relationship with Andrew here who could help protect us.
Especially in that hospital.”
Andrew felt his heart sink. Was that all he was? Was he only
another level of protection?
“Are you saying Beth never loved me?” Andrew asked.
“Oh, fuck off,” Gore replied. “Of course, she did. You know she
did. Even Ruby loved you. We all – they all do.” Gore’s face lowered
in what appeared to be a moment of sadness. Of vulnerability. “They
all did. Alex was the one with the biggest heart. She had the childlike
wonder, the imagination. And me, I’m the strength.”
“Then why haven’t you been fighting?” Andrew asked. “You’re
hiding like a little bitch while everyone else is dying.”
He wasn’t sure if he should challenge Gore like this, but he
needed someone to fight, and so far, he was doing it alone. And he
was losing.
“Because he’s too strong,” Gore admitted. “With each one of us
he’s killed, the stronger he’s become, and now it’s only me. Then he
will have full control of Beth.”
“How do we stop him?” Andrew asked.
“I don’t know,” Gore said. “Maybe if we had his dark bible we
could—”
“We do have his dark bible,” Sister Mary Francis interrupted.
“You have it?” Andrew asked. “Where?”
“If you have it, that should help,” Gore said. “I’m leaving now.”
“Gore,” Andrew said, “we need your help. Beth needs your help.”
“I am sorry, Andrew,” he replied, “but I can’t win this one, and you
saw what happened to the others. If I come out, I’ll die.”
It was clear when he returned to his room because Beth’s
shoulders relaxed, and she fell back into her seat. Her eyes opened
groggily, and she rubbed at them, like she was coming out of a nap.
“Andrew,” she said when she saw him. “Baby, where are we?
And why is it so cold? I’m freezing.”
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Andrew
immediately took off his hoodie sweatshirt and helped her pull it over
her shoulders.
“Better?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “but I’m sure it’ll help.”
She looked around the room and her eyes came back to the nun.
“Where are we?”
Andrew took both her hands in his and rubbed her knuckles with
his thumbs. He had a lot of explaining to do. He didn’t know if she
could sense that Ruby and Alex were both gone. Either way, she
needed to understand what was happening. This was a fight she
needed to be involved in. Especially if Gore wasn’t going to be of any
help.
23
The dark bible was locked in a glass box with a cross, a rosary, and
a Holy Bible resting on top of it. Standing on each side of the box
was a bronze statue of an angel wearing armor and wielding a giant
sword. Andrew didn’t know enough about religion to know which
angels they were supposed to be, but he did recall God having
soldier angels.
The dark book itself looked similar to the Holy Bible, only it had
no text on it at all. The edges were torn and frayed, but it was in fairly
good condition considering it had been in a room engulfed in flames.
“It is protected here,” Sister Mary Francis informed them. “He
cannot enter here and even if he could, he cannot get through the
barriers protecting it. This is a holy place.”
“Isn’t this whole building a holy place?” Andrew asked. “Wasn’t it
a holy place when he took my wife up to his room and smeared her
blood in the book to begin with?”
Sister Mary Francis was silent.
“Wasn’t it a holy place when you nuns were forced to fend for
yourselves against a madman stalking the halls in search of little
girls?”
“Every day I think about this,” she replied, “in some way, shape,
or form. I ask God how HE could allow this to happen under HIS
roof. I have chosen to believe God allows small slivers of evil to be
seen in places deemed holy in order to remind us that it does in fact
exist. It is easy for us hiding behind these walls to pretend Satan’s
evildoings outside aren’t real or aren’t as bad as people make them
out to be. You’ve heard the saying ‘practice what you preach.’ Well,
maybe God sometimes forces us to practice instead of only
preaching. What happened to Bethany was horrible, but it did bring
the nuns together and showed us that true evil is out there and it’s
capable of taking even the most renowned priests, if given an ounce
of wiggle room. Do you understand?”
Andrew shook his head. “I don’t care what the lesson is, Sister. I
only want my wife to be safe. So, if this, all that’s happened to my
wife and me, is another way of showing you what true evil can do,
let’s remind Satan what good can do.”
Sister Mary Francis smiled. Beth did too.
“I want this to be over,” Beth said. “I’m tired. Like really tired.”
Andrew put an arm around her and held her close. “I know you
are, baby.” He looked down once more at the black book in the glass
case. “So, this is it, huh? This is what started it all?”
“It should have burned all those years ago,” Sister Mary Francis
said. “We found it outside on the ground, beneath Father Dennis’s
room’s small window. He’d tried to climb out himself, but he was too
big and couldn’t do it in time. He burned alive while barely half out of
the room. But he did manage to fling the book out ahead of himself.”
“And you said my blood is in there?” Beth asked. “That’s what
ties him to me?”
“That’s what Gore said,” Andrew replied.
“So, we burn the book,” Beth said. “If it burned when he did, none
of this would have happened. So, let’s burn it.”
Sister Mary Francis held her hands in prayer and touched her
fingers to the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know about this.”
“It’s clear he didn’t want this book to burn,” Andrew reminded her.
“He threw it out ahead of himself. So, let’s send the book back to
whatever hell he got it from.”
“I’m afraid this is something I must get permission for,” Sister
Mary Francis said. “I do not even have the key. It’s kept by Father—"
Andrew didn’t wait for her to finish. They’d been through enough
already. He grabbed one of the statues guarding the box and lifted it
above his head.
“Andrew!” Beth yelled, interrupting the nun.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Sister Mary Francis yelped and
flailed her hands, blindly reaching out to the box, swiping at the
contents atop it, and snatching up the rosary, cross, and Bible. “This
is guarded and sacred—”
Andrew waited for her to move and then brought the statue down
hard and smashed through the top of the box. Glass shattered and
rained down over the dark bible. He reached in carefully and
grabbed the book, bringing it close to his mouth to blow the dust and
tiny shards of glass off it.
“Andrew, you can’t—” the nun started.
“Where are his ashes?” Andrew asked.
“My God,” Beth said, staring numbly at the shattered box when
Andrew grabbed her by the hand and led her out of the room and
back into the main office.
“His ashes are where they fell,” Sister Mary Francis informed him.
“I mean the debris was carried away to tidy up the property. His
remains were dust along with the part of the building that went down
in flames. Most of it was carried away.”
“Show me where it happened,” Andrew demanded as he walked
to her desk, snatched up a book of matches used to light candles,
and walked out of her office and back into the corridor.
“You can’t just go anywhere you please in here,” she called out
after him. “Andrew, I’m a blind woman. You’re moving too quickly for
me to follow.”
“Do you remember where it happened?” Andrew asked Beth as
he continued out of the building.
“No,” she said. “I don’t remember any of it. Please, slow down.
You’re scaring me.”
He refused to move any slower. He was a man on a mission, and
he knew Father Dennis would be returning soon since he now held
the man’s prized dark bible under his arm. Any second now, he’d
pop up and fling Andrew through a fucking window or toss him
across the hall.
“Does Gore know?” he asked. “Ask Gore where it happened.”
“I… I don’t know how,” she said. “I don’t know how to do that.
Please. Andrew, you’re hurting my wrist.”
Fire burned inside him. He wanted to kill Father Dennis, or
whatever you did to demons, send him back to hell, maybe? Olivia,
Paloma, Peter, Ruby, and Alex all demanded it. They deserved
revenge for the way he slaughtered each of them. It seemed
everyone was terrified of the priest who came and went at will.
The priest who’d spied on his relationship with Beth all her time at
Myles-Bend.
The priest who’d occupied her body like one of her personalities.
The priest who’d visited their bedroom in the middle of the night
and who’d thrown Andrew against a wall. Out a fucking window, too.
“Andrew, go out the front door and turn right!” Sister Mary
Francis’s voice called out to him. “You’ll see the still-charred-earth
when you round the corner of the new building. That’s where it
happened!”
“What’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked from somewhere
behind him.
“Is everything okay out here?” another woman asked.
“Excuse me, do you know what time in the evening it is?” a man’s
voice called out. “Have some respect for people trying to get some
rest.”
Members of the church were coming out of their rooms to see
what all the shouting was about. Andrew didn’t have time to look
behind him to assure them everything was okay. Everything was not
okay.
“Sisters,” Sister Mary Francis said somewhere in the hallway
behind him. “Get dressed and meet me outside. All of you. The time
has come. Father Dennis is back, and I will need all of your help this
time.”
Andrew found his way to the front doors, unlocked them, and pushed
his way out and into the garden, half expecting to see Father Dennis
waiting for him outside. He flinched as he pushed his way through,
making sure Beth stayed behind him in case he was right, but there
was no demon priest waiting on the other side.
Wind blew through the trees, the fountain burbled, and the rest of
the world remained silent. He’d considered having Beth remain
inside the church, but he didn’t see how she’d be any safer there.
She’d been inside as a child, and nobody had been able to protect
her from the evil son of a bitch and what he’d done to her then.
She’d been inside when the attack on Alex occurred. It was clear she
wasn’t safe anywhere.
At least if she remained by his side, he knew he would die trying
to protect her. He couldn’t say the same for anybody else.
That’s an unfair thought. Sister Mary Francis lost her eyes and
nearly her life trying to rescue Beth.
If she’d done her job correctly, she wouldn’t have had to. The
priest should have never been able to get his hands on her in the
first place.
Perhaps he was being unfair still. What would he have done
differently? They’d locked the place down and denied any males
entrance to the school area where the children were housed. And
the sick son of a bitch had dressed like a nun to get his hands on
Beth. The mere thought of it gave him the chills. He’d seen the
priest, and he couldn’t imagine bumping into him dressed in a nun’s
habit.
Get out of your head. You’re not afraid of him. He should be
afraid of you. You have his book. You have matches. You’re going to
set this unholy fucking text on fire.
“Andrew, let’s go back inside,” Beth begged him. “I don’t want to
be out here. I don’t want to see him. Please, I don’t want to see him.
I think I remember what he looks like, and I don’t want to see him.”
She was practically dragging her feet the way a child would,
forcing him to pull her across the lawn.
He stopped and wrapped his arms around his wife. “I know you’re
scared, baby. I’m scared too, but he’s been in our home. He killed
Paloma.”
“Paloma?” Her mouth opened wide, and she blinked a few times,
shock taking over her face. She’d had no idea.
She’d been with him in the house after Peter’s death, but he
hadn’t told her about Paloma. She was like a member of the family.
Hearing of her death was like hearing of an aunt’s death or a
grandmother’s, someone who lived with them and took care of them
and spent all the holidays and special occasions with them.
Andrew nodded. “Yes. He killed Paloma. This has to stop.”
She batted her eyes, coming back to reality. If there had been
any other personalities left, one would have come out right now to
save her from the shock she was experiencing, but they were all
dead except one, and he wanted nothing to do with helping Beth
right now. It was time for her to learn to take care of herself. She
could no longer hide behind shutters. The windows were open. She
needed to see it all so she could fight and get past it.
“We have to do this,” he told her.
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then at least we fought together.”
She nodded.
Andrew pulled her in close again and kissed her forehead once
before planting a kiss on her lips. “I love you, Beth.”
