With effort he managed to stagger out of the apartment, past where the malignant force now lapped hungrily at the doorsill, to the tiled floor beyond where cool, clean air flowed. He fell to his knees there, and the vomit surged up in him, his stomach spasming as if somehow such activity might exorcise the terrible unclean presence from his flesh. For a few gut-wrenching minutes he was not aware of the landlady standing beside him, or of any other normal feature of the building. Then her voice brought him back to reality.
“It’ll take more than a few coins to clean up this mess,” she said acidly.
Shuddering, he looked up at her; his eyes would hardly focus. “Shut the door,” he gasped. When she didn’t move, he squeezed his eyes shut in the hopes that forcing tears would clear them. “Shut the door!” She took one step toward the small apartment, and then he heard her gasp. Even without a Knowing she could sense what was in there, and despite the urgency in his voice she clearly wasn’t willing to risk contact with it. At last, half-blinded by the tears he had forced, he lunged forward toward the door. Malevolence stabbed into him as he braced himself with one hand on the floor, grabbing at the door with the other. He narrowly missing smashing his fingers in the door frame as he slammed it shut. For a moment he feared that the presence inside the room would flow under and around that simple barrier, but whatever wards Tarrant had put on the apartment were clearly enough to keep it enclosed now that the door was shut. Thank God for that.
Shuddering, he struggled to his feet. There was fluid on his shirt, and a hot bitterness in his throat. Numbly he wiped a shirtsleeve across his mouth, drying it. His whole body was shaking, and for a moment he could barely catch his breath, much less speak.
At last he looked up at the landlady. If she was afraid of the presence she had sensed in the room, that emotion was swamped by a far greater one: rage.
“I want you out of here,” she growled. “You and your friend both, right away. I’ll keep your deposit to pay for damages, and for cleaning. You get out of here tonight, and don’t come back! I don’t ever want to see you here again, not you or that—”
“You’ll have to break open the windows,” he interrupted. “From the outside. Let the sunlight in. That’ll do most of the work, and then you can bring in mirrors—”
“I know how to do an exposing,” she snapped. “Damn you to hells for making it necessary!” She looked down at the pool of vomit, then at him, in disgust. “Now get your things and get out of here. And gods help you if you ever cross this threshold again.”
Legs shaking, he forced himself up the stairs. Got to find Tarrant, he thought. Got to. But even if he did, then what? Could he help him? Did he have the kind of power it took to stand up to a demon who left such malignance as its calling card?
Have to try, he thought grimly. Not questioning his own motives, for once. Not asking himself whether it wouldn’t be better to let the Hunter stew in Hell at last while the world went on in innocence, a better place for his absence. Because Damien needed him. The Church needed him. And therefore-though most didn’t know it, and would probably deny it if asked—the very world that he had haunted so ruthlessly needed him.
We’re fighting for man’s survival, he thought.
Remembering Calesta’s work in the east, and its loathsome harvest. We’re fighting for humankind’s soul.
Pulling on a clean shirt as hurriedly as he could, sweeping up what little cash he had left and forcing it into his pockets, he hurried out into the night in search of his dark companion.
It was a warm night, a sticky night, and half the walls in the Temple of Pleasure had been rolled up in hopes of admitting a cooling breeze. On the broad steps which surrounded the temple some singles and couples sprawled languidly, and it was impossible to tell if the sweat which glistened on their skin resulted from their “worship"-which ranged from half-naked petting to the delights contained in wine bottles and water pipes-or from the night itself.
There was a circle delineated by the temple light, and Damien stood just beyond it. He could feel its presence before him almost as a physical barrier, and for a moment he lacked the courage to cross it. If the Patriarch knew of his search, if somehow he knew that a priest had come here ... well, his reaction wouldn’t be a pretty one, that was sure. And it damned well might prove the last straw between them, one transgression too many for the Holy Father to tolerate.
He was trying not to think about that. He was trying not to think about what he would do with himself if the Patriarch really did cast him out of the Church. Such considerations belonged to the future, and right now the future itself was in jeopardy. Would he want to remain a priest if he knew that the cost was the sacrifice of everything he believed in? Could he value the robes he wore and the ritual sword he carried if he knew that the price of maintaining them was the submission of this world to Calesta’s hunger? And yet ... stepping into that circle of light was a commitment such as he had never made before, to a mode of operation he had hitherto rejected. Only sorcerers bargained with demons. Only the damned. Never the Chureh, whose very existence was dedicated to making such bargains impossible. Never, never one of the Church’s priests.
Trembling, he shut his eyes. So the Patriarch does find out, he told himself. So what? Which do you value more, this avocation you’ve grown so accustomed to, or the chance to do something to help save your world? Is one man’s comfort such a great sacrifice for God to require, in order that His people might be defended?
But despite all his internal arguments he felt sick as he stepped into the light, and as he approached the temple he could feel his heart pounding in his chest with such power that it seemed to make his whole body shake.
He hadn’t been inside a pagan temple since his childhood, since the day when his mother had taken him to Yoshti’s house of worship in the hope that it would appeal to him. Even then he had found it uncomfortable, though it would be many years before he could articulate the reasons. Now all that discomfort was back again, and more. He looked at the intertwined couples, at the sweaty groups who sprawled on rugs and couches and wherever the inclination struck them, and thought, This is not worship. He watched an old man blissfully accepting a wad of gummy substance from a priest and stuffing it into his water pipe, and he thought, There is no god in this place. He walked stiffly through what seemed like chaos, dozens of men and women who had nothing in common but a hunger for immediate gratification, and he reminded himself, This is a Iezu they worship. They feed him with their lusts, and he gives them illusions of ecstasy. A simple contract, easily comprehended, readily fulfilled. It’s really a wonder that men follow the One God at all, with such relationships available.