Chapter 8

Mark had been to the psychiatric clinic three times. Twice for work. Once to visit a distant relative at someone’s request. The place had never made much of an impression on him. A mental hospital was a mental hospital. He had met more colorful characters on the job.

Silas nodded to a young, pretty nurse at the reception desk. She beamed back at him, then looked Mark over with open curiosity.

“Good afternoon, Lina. We need room four-oh-six.”

The nurse dropped her eyes and started clicking at her computer.

Mark frowned. He had just met this priest a couple of days ago. Silas had said he had only just arrived in the city. And yet — he knew the nurse’s name. He said it like he had known her for years.

What the hell?

“Oh. They gave him an injection about ten minutes ago,” Lina said. “He will be asleep for another four hours at least.”

“That is fine.” Silas smiled. “I just want to look in on him. I promise — no trouble.”

The nurse opened her mouth, then nodded. “All right. Go ahead. I will let the floor know to let you through.”

“Thank you, Lina. You are wonderful.”

She just smiled.

They walked toward the stairs. Silas ignored the elevator — for some reason — and pushed open the stairwell door. Mark followed, his suspicion growing.

“Good at persuasion,” he muttered. “And you have been in town what — two days? You know the nurse by name. Everyone loves you. What is your secret?”

Silas glanced back at him. Then leaned closer, lowering his voice.

“I have been here before,” he said quietly. “More than once. So do not start with the suspicions. It is not helping.”

The fourth floor was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed against your eardrums and made you hear your own heartbeat.

A burly orderly — a giant of a man who looked like he had been misplaced from a construction site — nodded to Silas like an old acquaintance. He pulled open the heavy security door and let them into a brightly lit corridor. The lights were fluorescent, buzzing faintly, casting everything in that sickly green-white glow that made even healthy skin look pale.

Silas pulled a thick ring of keys from his jacket pocket and unlocked the door to Peter’s room.

Peter lay on a narrow bed. The pale hospital pajamas made his face look even whiter — bloodless, almost translucent. He did not look like the raving madman who had taken colleagues hostage in the precinct. He looked like a tired man who needed a week of sleep.

Mark smiled sadly.

“Step back, please,” Silas said, locking the door behind them.

“What are you going to do?”

“Get out the big guns.”

Silas stepped back from the bed for a moment. He shook out his hands — a quick, sharp motion — then pressed his palms together like a cup, holding them close to his chest. His lips moved soundlessly over the joined fingertips. A preparation. A gathering of intention.

He pushed the curly hair back from his forehead with one hand, then rolled up his sleeves to the elbow.

Then he leaned over Peter and placed his palm on the man’s forehead. He spoke a short phrase — not Latin, that much Mark could tell. Something else. Melodic, resonant, completely unfamiliar. The air in the room shifted.

Mark stepped back. His skin prickled.

The sleeping man stirred. He took a deep breath — slow, like rising from deep water — and sat up.

His eyes were open, but they were not looking at anything. Empty. Focused on something far away — or nothing at all.

“Can you hear me?” Silas took Peter’s hand, his thumb pressing against the pulse point.

“Yes.” Peter’s voice was calm. Measured. Completely relaxed. Hollow. Like a recording played back at half speed.

“Remember yesterday.”

Peter’s face twitched. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “He told me to forget.”

Mark’s ears perked up. He stepped closer, careful not to touch the bed, not to touch the floor where the shadows seemed to be gathering.

Silas glanced at him, eyebrows raised, then turned back to Peter.

“I command you to remember.”

Peter’s body jerked. His face twisted in pain. Silas pressed his palm back against the man’s forehead.

“Listen to me. Remember.”

“Silas!” Mark stumbled back from the wall.

Thick, dark red drops were seeping through the pale green paint. They appeared from nowhere — pushing out of the plaster like sweat, gathering into tiny mercury-like beads, rolling down the wall and pooling on the floor. Each drop left a trail of symbols behind it. The scratches spread across the surface, branching like veins.

The air grew cold. Heavy.

“Stay close to me,” Silas said, his voice faster now. “We do not have much time. Do not step in the blood. Do not touch it. Do not try to read the symbols.” He glanced at Mark. “If you know a prayer — any prayer — say it to yourself. Silently.”

“I’m a detective, not a janitor,” Mark muttered.

“Then don’t make my job harder.”

Mark frantically dug through the rubble of his memory. Sunday school. Christmas mass. His grandmother’s lips moving over a rosary. But everything was jumbled — pieces of Latin, fragments of Russian, half-remembered words that did not fit together. His head began to pound. Needles of pain shot from his temples to his eyes.

He braced himself against the bed, careful not to touch Peter, and stood there breathing — deep and fast — trying to push the pain down.

“Remember,” Silas commanded again. “Who told you to forget?”

“He did not give me a name.”

“Describe him.”

“Tall. Light eyes.” Peter’s voice was distant, dreamlike. “He smelled like wood and sweets.”

Silas reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a battered notebook and a stub of a pencil. He placed them next to Peter’s hand.

“Draw him for me.”

“He will punish me,” Peter said, his voice flat. Empty.

“You are no longer under his power. You are protected now. The Hounds will shield you from the shadow of darkness. Do not be afraid. Show me his face.”

Peter’s fingers found the pencil blindly. He did not look at the paper — just started scratching, his hand moving in sharp, jerky strokes.

Mark forced himself to look away from the drawing. His eyes drifted to the walls instead.

The blood drops were moving.

Tiny mercury-like beads rolled toward each other, merged, grew larger. One wall was already covered in symbols — a dense, crawling script that seemed to pulse and flicker in the fluorescent light. For a second — just a second — Mark thought he could almost read them. The shapes almost made sense. Words, just out of reach.

A hand grabbed his shoulder. Hard. Shook him.

“Do not look.” Silas’s voice was sharp. “I cannot shield you yet. Do not look at them.”

Mark blinked, shaking off the trance. The symbols stopped making sense. Just scratches again.

Peter suddenly threw the pencil aside. His body went rigid, then started convulsing — violent, uncontrolled spasms that shook the narrow bed. The light overhead flickered. The blood beads stopped merging and began popping, one after another, each burst sending up a small hissing fountain of red spray.

“He is here — he is angry!” Peter’s hands flew to his throat, squeezing. His face was turning blue, his eyes bulging.

Silas shook his wrist — hard — and a set of rosary beads slid down from under his sleeve. The string unwound in his hand, and he started singing. Latin. Loud. Clear. Not speaking — singing.

He looped the beads around Peter’s neck, just as the man started choking, coughing up foam and spit.

Peter’s body arched backward — a wet, sickening crack coming from somewhere in his spine. He was bending the wrong way, his back bowing like a drawn bowstring.

Mark lunged forward. He grabbed Peter’s shoulders, holding him down, keeping him from snapping his own spine. The body under his hands was burning hot — too hot — and writhing like a trapped animal.

Silas kept singing. But with every word, it got harder. Sweat ran down his forehead, dripping off his chin. Deep grooves appeared around his mouth and eyes — not wrinkles of age, but of exhaustion. Strain.

Peter thrashed like a fish caught in a net. His eyes had rolled back, showing only white. Foam and saliva ran down his chin, dripped onto his chest. He was babbling — words that were not words, sounds that were not human.

A fountain of blood burst from the wall beside them. Mark’s hand slipped on Peter’s wrist, losing its grip.

Peter swung his free arm. His fist caught Silas across the face — a full-force blow that sent the priest stumbling backward. Before Silas could recover, Peter kicked him in the gut. The priest folded, flying back against the wall — right into the thick of the symbols and the blood.

His head cracked against the plaster. He slid down, limp as a sack.

Mark froze.

His left arm was on fire. The pain in his head was unbearable — sharp spikes behind his eyes, drilling into his skull. The symbols on his skin felt like they were burning through to the bone.

“Enough!” he roared. “Peter! Wake up!”

He grabbed Peter by the shoulders and shook him — as hard as he could.

Something inside Mark’s head burst — a loud, crystalline snap. The lights went out. Sparks rained down from the ceiling.

Then silence.