Paranormal Research Club Ch. 06

Naomi had made homemade biscuits, buttermilk pancakes, locally produced sausage, and eggs from the neighbor's hens. Two jars of locally produced maple syrup sat on the table. A light-colored mason jar with a simple, homemade label indicating "Grade A syrup" in magic marker sat beside Naomi. Lisa was drenching her pancakes with darker Grade B maple syrup, which she insisted was far richer and more flavorful despite not looking as pretty. The merry breakfast-table conversation quickly evolved into a lively debate on the merits of various sources and types of syrup. I had to confess that it was an issue to which I had never previously devoted any real thought, and several of the occupants responded to my confession with gleefully feigned horror. Maple syrup was serious business in this family.

Erin seemed hesitant to meet my gaze during the conversation, which left me wondering if she was aware that I knew that she had been willing to give me her virginity in our dreams the night before. If she was aware of my knowledge, it was impossible to tell how she felt about it. Perhaps she felt embarrassed by how close she had come to surrendering her virginity the night before. Regardless, I cared enough about her as a friend that I felt confident that we would work through whatever was going on between us.

I noticed that Father David's place at the table was empty aside from a glass of water. Skagematuck had mentioned that he was in the midst of performing an exorcism, and it was likely that he was fasting. I didn't know what time he had gotten in the night before, but he had clearly showered and put on clean clothes. He couldn't have possibly gotten more than three hours of sleep. And the lack of food would make him physically even weaker. Here he was fasting while surrounded by the enticing aromas of Naomi's scrumptious home-cooked breakfast, and he was even weighing in on the debate regarding his favorite type of syrup! The man had to have some very significant spiritual discipline.

"So, how did you sleep, John?" he asked, his voice kind and friendly.

I had placed a pair of pancakes on my plate, and Lisa was helping me scoop some eggs onto it while attempting to win me over to her side of the great syrup debate.

"I slept pretty well," I responded blandly to Father David. I could sense his eyes on me as I poured a cup of coffee.

"I'm glad to hear it. Listen, I'm sorry to ask you to rush your breakfast because I know you're hungry, but I have to leave for work soon and I need to talk to you for a few minutes before I go. I wish that I didn't have to head off so quickly, and I hope that you don't think less of my manners for it, but my parishioners need me. Would you mind fixing a plate and bringing it with you while we talk for a moment in the living room?"

I walked with him through the living room, carrying a plate laden with food and a steaming cup of strong coffee. I was surprised to see a quiet and contemplative old man sitting in the couch, eating a biscuit and sipping a cup of black coffee. Looking at the couch brought back memories from the night before involving Lisa, Naomi, and my sister Kim. I pushed the memories from my mind as quickly as I could. The kind-looking, grandfatherly old man's dark, intelligent eyes seemed to miss nothing. I suspected that he was good enough at reading body language that it would not serve me well to dwell on the memories of deflowering my little sister.

The kind-looking old man was wearing the red-trimmed black garments of a Roman Catholic cardinal. Beneath his crimson skullcap were wiry white curls of hair that naturally complemented the dark, wrinkled and spotted skin of an old African that had spent many decades doing the Lord's work beneath a hot tropical sun. Behind his polished wire-rimmed glasses, his gentle old eyes were wise and mysterious. Laugh lines creased his elderly face as he smiled at me.

"So. Here is the monster killer, eh?" he said in a thick Kenyan accent. He stood and offered a bony hand that looked so frail that I made certain to be gentle as I shook it. I was surprised at how firm his grip was. He was clearly far more sturdy than he looked.

The old African gentleman chuckled merrily, his entire demeanor warm and grandfatherly. He leaned on a beautifully carved and polished walking stick of some dark and exotic wood, but despite his obviously advanced age he didn't look like he really needed it for support..

Father David smiled and introduced the older man. "John, this is an old friend of mine. His name is Cardinal Imamu, and he is one of the finest human beings you are ever likely to meet. You could say that he and I share some common interests."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," I said to the venerable old man before he returned to his seat.

"It is a pleasure to meet you as well," the Cardinal said. "Here, sit down beside me and eat your breakfast before you starve. Naomi is quite the cook, isn't she?" His voice made me feel warm and at peace, his accent sounding like the sun of his homeland.

As I sat down, Cardinal Imamu spoke to Father David. "Dave, I know that this is your jurisdiction, and you have known me long enough to know that I will respect that. You did say that John was raised Lutheran, right? But these... occurrences, let us say, happen very rarely. And it's rarer still for the human involved to be a Christian man who is friendly and willing to cooperate with us. If you and John have no objections, I would like very much if I could sit in on the interview. Would either of you mind?"

Despite his obvious humility, as a Roman Catholic cardinal, Cardinal Imamu's position dictated that he was considered a prince in the Roman Catholic church. He was a very important man. There was something moving in his act of asking for permission to sit in on a meeting between Father David and I.

I shrugged. "I wouldn't mind you staying."

"I wouldn't mind at all. In fact, I would be grateful," said Father David. He sounded relieved. "My supervisor, Bishop Frank, couldn't make it. Frankly, I'm very worried about him. Nobody seems to have been able to get in touch with him in almost a week, and that's just not like him. It is always good to have these things recorded by two people, and Bishop Frank and most of my colleagues have a lot of respect for you. What you say will have a lot of weight with most of the Episcopalian hierarchy, even though you are from outside of our church. I think that what happened yesterday was something that nobody could have predicted, and I doubt that my position is at stake, but it's always important to have someone else that knows what happened."

Father David took out a small, expensive, and well-made audio recording device and set it on the coffee table beside my plate. Some top-notch ghost hunters used that model of recorder when looking for EVPs, but my little club couldn't afford to get that fancy. "Do you mind if we record this conversation?" he asked.

I didn't mind. For the next several minutes, Father David and Cardinal Imamu asked me to relate the story of what had happened over the course of the last few days. It was difficult for me to relate everything because I tried to avoid any mention of the sexual aspect of my adventures before the two holy men. I could sense that both of the ministers could detect my omissions, but neither said anything or interrupted me. Their eyes grew wide when I mentioned Acratophorus and the magical knife, and both of them were eager to inspect it. I showed the plain-looking tactical lock-blade knife to them, and was a bit unnerved by the ease and familiarity with which the men of God handled the blade before returning it to me.

"That explains a lot," said Father David as he handed the blade back to me. "We were wondering how on earth you managed to kill something like that."

Despite my omissions, I suspected that they still guessed much of what I was leaving out of the story. I told them about finding the armband and putting it on. I could still clearly see it on my arm, but I doubted that it could be visible to any normal mortal aside from Heather. I glossed over how Heather had gained that ability.

"Would you be surprised to know that I can see your armband?" asked Cardinal Imamu, his question catching me entirely by surprise. His voice was hesitant and pensive. Slowly he reached for me, and with a long dark finger he traced the lines of the armband. He looked up at me sadly. "You know that you are not the first person to wear it. The most recent person to wear it was an English nobleman. His name was John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester. He died of syphilis in 1680, while he was still in his early thirties. He couldn't control the armband's power, so it controlled him. We have rituals that could easily and painlessly remove the armband from unbelievers without harming them, but we cannot use our rituals on you. You are every bit as much of a Christian as I am, and therefore you are sacred. But make sure that you wear the armband and that it does not wear you. This should help." He reached into a pocket and handed me a well-worn antique silver rosary and a small vial of water. "I blessed this rosary just for you this morning when Father David told me what happened, and this bottle is holy water. If the armband is getting out of control, focus on these. It should help. Are there any other gods or goddesses aside from Bacchus that you are dealing with?"

I slipped the bottle of holy water and the rosary into a cargo pocket, and they clinked against the musket-ball. Father David and Cardinal Imamu were good people that seemed to know more about what was going on than I did, and so I told them the rest of the story. With Acratophorus drained of his power, I needed all the help I could get. I told them that my soul was bound to Rachelle, Cherise, and now my cousin Heather, although I omitted the sexual nature of how our souls had been combined. The two men of God nodded knowingly and without judgment.

I pulled the musket-ball from my pocket. My face was red with shame as I described how Eris had forced herself upon me the night before, and how I had been unable to protect brave Rachelle and sweet Cherise from being roughly mistreated by the goddess. I told them everything, staring sadly at my nearly full plate. Even in the presence of Naomi's mouth-watering homemade breakfast, I was no longer hungry.

The two priests looked at me earnestly, the warm smile fading from Cardinal Imamu's face and Father David's face looking ashen. Father David was a brave man who had seen many terrible things in his life. As I told him of what Eris had said about deeming the extinction of the human race a necessary evil, he stared at me with a tight lipped frown and sad eyes.

Father David took a deep breath before he spoke. "John, I am sorry that I put you in this position. I never intended for any of this to happen. I knew that the wendigo was keeping innocent human souls trapped under the church, and I have spent many years trying to convince my superiors that it needed to be destroyed so that the innocent souls could enter the afterlife. At the same time, the bishop in charge of me was hesitant to authorize the use of force against it and possibly risk exposing the armlet you're wearing. The last priest that worked at this parish betrayed his oath of protecting the armband, and was killed and eaten by the wendigo while trying to destroy it and claim the armband for himself. Bishop Frank didn't want to risk anything similar happening to me."

Father David continued. "All I really wanted was an impartial outside source to document the presence of innocent ghosts so that I could get permission to destroy the monster and have the armband encased in concrete and entombed beneath the Smithsonian Institution for protection. I was supposed to be here for everything, to make absolutely certain that you wouldn't disturb the wendigo's chamber! But then..." he shook his head. He was trying hard not to discuss the exorcism, which he clearly didn't know that I was aware of. "Something came up and I couldn't come home. And because of my failures, the entire world is now at stake."

Cardinal Imamu's dark, leathery face regarded both Father David and I with calm compassion and level-headed acceptance of our situation. After a long, thoughtful silence, he spoke. "None of this is either of your faults. Forces more powerful than either of you have created these circumstances, and those same forces will either fix them or they will not. All we can do is pray, and do our small part as human beings to make this world a better place."

An irrational anger welled up in my chest. "Pray to whom?" I asked. "You just called me a Christian, but the only gods I've seen lately are Acratophorus, who you just called Bacchus, and some crazy goddess that raped me, Rachelle, and Cherise! Your God is the only one I haven't been seeing around here lately! Everyone keeps talking about him, even the other gods! But he doesn't seem to be doing much, now does he?"

The old African cardinal looked at me with a sad smile. He clearly wasn't offended by my outburst. "The world hasn't ended, and we are all still here. That means that our God hasn't given up on us, and we shouldn't give up on Him. In your heart, you still believe in God. You just know that there is more to this universe than you were taught in Sunday School as a child."

I suspected that the old man was simply trying to bring me some peace of mind and calm me down. Surprisingly, it worked. He was very sincere, and an inner peace and spirituality seemed to radiate from the wise old man.

Cardinal Imamu reached over and patted the back of my hand. "In the meanwhile, John, what would you say if, after Father David and I got back from our work today, we performed a quick little marriage ceremony for you and Heather?"

I was shocked by his suggestion, but pleasantly so. He read the surprise in my eyes, and chuckled.

"I haven't always been a priest. My soulmate was my wife. She got sick and died nearly 40 years ago, but I can still feel her spirit near me every day, and in my dreams I still see her. His Holiness the Pope knows of this. If what you say is true, and your soul is already bonded to Heather, then you should go ahead and marry her. It's a sacred commitment, but still a relatively small one compared to what you already have," the old man said. "For now, wait here. The holy water and rosary should help you control the armband until we return. We have some important business to attend to that you can't come along on."

"Is this about exorcising a demon? I've been told that it is very important for me to come along today, and that I'm supposed to tell you about the... oh, what was it called? Knights of Canterbury or something? Something about the Spear of Lugh, the Apple of Eris, The Fist of Hiawatha, and the Necklace of something unpronounceable that started with the letter T?" I struggled to remember what Skagematuck had told me.

Father David's face grew pale. He closed his tired, bloodshot eyes and tipped his head back towards the ceiling while taking a deep breath. He was clearly exhausted, and his fast was making him physically even weaker. He took another deep breath, burying his ashen face in his hands for a moment. He looked like he was either silently praying or trying hard to keep his composure. Perhaps he was doing both. "I have a feeling that this is going to be a very rough day," he eventually breathed.

Cardinal Imamu smiled, but the look in his eyes left me suspecting that I had spoken of things more terrible than I could imagine. Somehow I knew that I had unwittingly referenced some ancient horrors that were best kept nameless; things which I had no business knowing about or discussing, and things best kept secret for my own good.

"I can see that we need no secrets among friends." The Cardnial said. It was intended as a lighthearted statement, but his voice sounded grave and strained.

Father David sighed and straightened himself. "John, it is of more importance than I am capable of expressing that you never discuss anything you are about to hear outside of this room. Never! Not with anyone! Not with your friends, not with your family. Nobody! Not even my own wife knows what I really am doing here, and we need to keep it that way. Do you understand that?"

He looked sternly at me for a long moment until I nodded. "Good. Objects like your armband are powerful sacred relics that have existed for a very long time. We don't need to concern ourselves with their complicated ancient histories. Suffice it to say that, throughout the Christian world for most of the time since Christ, there has been a small group of elite Papal Guards entrusted with protecting them, keeping them safe and secret from the rest of the world. Not even His Holiness the Pope could know of these objects' existence and risk the temptations that they might pose. Rumors about our sacred relics have persisted, of course, and eventually the stories of the powerful objects we protected evolved into what we now know as the veneration of relics and icons in some religious traditions. Some stories about monsters guarding treasure might have had their roots in our common practice of using pre-existing beasts, like the wendigo you met, to help protect the sacred relics in case the human priests failed at their job. Similar organizations to ours, with identical purposes to our own, are known to have existed in the Islamic world and throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Even in Australia, there is an ancient Aboriginal group with a mission that has always been roughly parallel to our own."

"When the Church of England split off of the Roman Catholic church in 1534, there were relics in the British Isles that were endangered when the Catholic monks, priests, and nuns were killed or driven from the country. I'm assuming that you know enough history to guess what King Henry VIII would have been like if he had discovered powerful magical relics like your armband. He couldn't behave himself under even the best of circumstances, and by now I am certain that you know of the temptations your armband presents."

"The Holy Order of the Knights of Canterbury was formed as a secret society of former knights and soldiers turned clergymen. They worked secretly, risking their reputations and their lives to work as double-agents with both the newly formed Church of England and the ancient Roman Catholic Papal Guard to ensure that these powerful relics remained secret and safe, and were never discovered or abused. It was a dangerous time in England, with neither Catholics nor Protestants being safe from persecution in a violent and rapidly changing political climate. Today, both the Holy order of the Knights of Canterbury and our Roman Catholic equivalent remain as secret societies. We are all former military men that have become clergy, and we still work closely with holy men from other faiths with similar missions to our own."

"The objects you just tried to describe- and it is of the utmost importance that you must never under any circumstances mention any of them again! -are some of the most powerful relics we guard, and they are far too dangerous to be safely kept on display or in the back rooms of well-guarded museums. The Spear of Lugh was perhaps the world's first weapon of mass destruction. Once removed from its opiate-filled container and thrown, it simply flies from person to person entirely under its own power, indiscriminately killing the people that had been targeted by its user. It has even been recorded as smashing through thick stone walls when it needs to do so to reach its target, and it always emerges undamaged. It can't be destroyed. Trust me, our Order has tried many times over the ages. That is the only item in the British Isles that my Order is not storing in the most secret and secure location in the Tower of London, although there are rumors that the Roman Catholic church has several hidden in Ireland."