In celebration of the upcoming release of my supernatural/paranormal/religious-fiction-only-in-that-the-characters-are-made-up-but-the-theology-is-real book “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem”, I am proud to release the first chapter for your reading pleasure.  In Chapter 1, you’ll meet the three main characters: Jeremy Theinquist, Father Giulio Casari, and Patti Clark.  To say I worked hard to make sure each of these characters is balanced with flaws and brimming with their own personality would diminish the true meaning of the word “hard”…but to say anything else would sound like a bad hyperbole, so I’ll just leave it at this: read for yourself and tell me what you think.

 

Preorder “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem” here.  Don’t forget to share the good news with those you love!  Facebook shares make a difference!

Chapter 1

Pain exploded like shrapnel in Jeremy’s back.  He felt his head bounce as the steel-toed boot crashed into his spine and slammed him onto the damp concrete.  “No one here to save you now, is there?”  The taste of dirt and tar invaded his mouth.  Loose pebbles of asphalt ground against his teeth and mixed with blood from his split lip.  Levering himself up, he had no sooner tensed his legs for a sprint than a swift boot to the gut drove his breath from him and dropped him back to the ground.

He’d known they were there since he’d left the library, but he was completely out of options.  As always happened when he was deep into his work, time slipped by until he’d missed his scheduled bus.  With thirty minutes between rides and an impending storm, he knew he’d have to walk if there was any hope of getting home before dinner.  His usual shield of crowded streets failed him as the rain drove people inside, and it was only a matter of time before he was running from his tormenters and down into a blind alley.

“No one said you could get up, bitch!  Sit your ass down there and this might go easier on you.”  A chorus of snickers followed the warning even as shoe pinned his neck to the ground.  Jeremy thought there might be as many as six of them, but it only took one to put him down.  He could take the beating.  It wasn’t his first, and it wouldn’t be his last.  As long as they didn’t take….

“Gimmie his bag,” the voice said.  A lighter set of feet scampered off to get the bag Jeremy had dropped after the first kick.  “Make sure nothing’s broken.”  Jeremy fought the pain off long enough to pry his eyes open and see a shadowy figure snag his bag and run away.  The sound of a zipper being opened was barely audible over the gentle rainfall, but his attacker’s shout of triumph was easy enough to hear.

“How’s a poor orphan like you get such a fine piece of equipment?  Look at this thing.  I mean, just look at it!”  Jeremy couldn’t roll far enough to see what his attacker was looking at, but he knew it was his week-old laptop.  The attacker squatted down behind Jeremy’s head and whispered his next question.  “Alright, bitch, what’s the password?  Tell me and we’re done with you.”

Jeremy’s mind raced to think of one close enough to be true.  He must have taken too long, because a balled fist slammed into the side of his head.  “Stop thinking and tell me what it is!”

“It’s Enterprise,” Jeremy sobbed.  “Enterprise.”

“Freaking sci-fi geeks,” his attacker said as he plopped the laptop on Jeremy’s side and flipped it open.  “Why don’t you invent a way to make yourself invisible and save the world from seeing you?”  Tears rolled down Jeremy’s face as the words hit home.  The image of the space shuttle lifting off from Earth was always one of his favorites.  If something that massive could escape Earth, it gave him hope that he could escape his world too.  Now the image was gone, replaced with the searing pain in his back and head.  His hope died as the customized boot up sound of the TV show’s theme played in his assailant’s hands.

“It works,” his attacker said.  “Gimmie the pack.”

Jeremy gathered his strength and croaked, “Wait.”

His attacker stopped midway through stuffing the laptop into the bag. “What did you say?”

“Please, just please wait.”  He spat out the pebbles from his mouth and tried to ignore the copper taste of blood that continued to taint his tongue.  “My thumb drive.  Please.  It has my…ugh…research paper.  I need that to pass.”

The mob behind him chuckled, but the attacker’s growl of, “Shut it,” cut them off.  The voice became strangely sympathetic as it quietly said, “Where is it?”

“Front pocket, left side, down deep.”  He heard the zipper open followed by rustling.  The attacker pulled his hand out of the pouch holding the thumb drive between his thumb and forefinger.  His attacker ran his thumb over the tiny stick containing weeks of research and work.  The trimmed nails flicked off a speck of dirt that had somehow found its way onto the gray surface of the metal.

“What do you say?” the voice purred.

“Pretty please,” Jeremy replied.

“Wrong,” the voice said.  “Say bye-bye.”  Before Jeremy could react, the attacker pushed the thumb drive out into his fingers and stabbed it into the asphalt, splintering the drive into pieces as he ground it down like a cigarette.  The gang exploded in laughter as their leader finished zipping up the bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder.  “Thanks for telling me it was there,” he said.  “I might not have found it otherwise.  See you at school, bitch.”

Jeremy listened to the sound of the gang leaving, the footfalls merging into the splattering of the rain until he couldn’t tell them apart.  He had begged Mrs. Faegrun, the director of the Greater Good Orphanage, for his laptop.  He swore he would keep it safe.  He called in every favor he had, promised others he hadn’t had, scraped together every dollar he could find…and now everything was gone.  His one hope to get the attention of the scholarship committee lay glimmering in front of him, the precious metal mixed with the broken asphalt acting as a perfect symbol of his shattered dreams.

Minutes or hours later, he finally pulled himself off the ground and took stock.  He was alive, for starters.  Those other kids could have left him for dead, but they hadn’t.  As Ms. Faegrun was fond of saying, wasn’t that enough?

“No,” he said bitterly.

His left forefinger gently picked at his split lip, checking the damage with his calloused finger.  He’d had enough of these before to know that it would be swollen for days, which meant he couldn’t hide the fact that he’d been jumped.  Biting back a sigh, he bent down and scooped up the pieces of his thumb drive.  His secret hope that he could salvage some of the data faded when he saw the circuitry inside; the drive hadn’t just been shattered, it had been ground into dust.

A heavy fog descended onto Jeremy’s mind.  “What’s the point?” he asked aloud.  “I should have known better.  They wouldn’t have wanted me anyway.”  Even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t true, but they managed to dim the pain slightly.  Slipping the drive into his pocket, he turned to head back to the Greater Good Orphanage, but he just couldn’t make himself take the first step.  Images of a disappointed Ms. Faegrun floated before his eyes.  He knew what she’d say.  He knew how it would make him feel. Even imagining it was enough to take him to the edge of depression, so how could he stand to deal with the real thing?

The wind whispered by his ear and tickled his lobe as thoughts swirled inside his mind.  “It’s over,” he thought.  A vision of his future spilled out before him.  He was doomed to a life of misery, one of abject poverty and shame.  Fast food cashier, Big Box stocker, house painter…it all flashed in front of his eyes.  He saw himself steadily grow older, saw the horrible parent he would be, saw his children hate him and his wife leave him.  He saw the bars, the drugs, the fights.  Prison.  Living on the Streets.  Washing windows for change.  Despair gripped his heart and crushed it.

“What’s the point,” he thought.  “I’m going nowhere.  I reached too far.  I’m like Icarus.  I tried to fly too close to the sun.”   Hoping to clear his mind, he turned away from the path that led to the Orphanage and let his feet take him where they willed.  His mind raced while his feet dragged through the mud.  “What’s the point.  I’ll never be anything.”

Thunder rolled overhead as the rain staggered to a halt.  The constant drizzle had plastered his hair to his head and sent rivulets into his eyes.  His clothes dragged down more than his body; the numbing cold that hung heavily on his shoulders froze his soul as well.  The fog across his mind thickened even as steam started to rise from the asphalt and obscure his vision.  The crunchy sound of shoes on asphalt turned to the soft padding of rubber on concrete as he left the walking path and started ascending the foot bridge over the highway.

The cars below moved steadily along the road under his feet.  The red taillights passing through the links of the fence gave the illusion of riding on a train.  Low rumbles of thunder added an odd ‘click clack, click clack’ to the sight, and he felt as if he were being pulled along with the train.  “I wish I could go with you,” he whispered.  “I wish you could take me away from here.”

“We can,” the cars seemed to say in reply.  “Follow us.  We will take you far from here.”

“I wish I could,” Jeremy said.  He pushed a strand of his plastered dirty-blond hair away from his face and wrapped his fingers in the chain link surrounding the pathway.  “I’d give anything to get away from here.”

“Then come with us,” the stream of lights said.  “We go on forever.  We never end.  There is no pain with us, only escape.  Come escape with us.”

“I can’t,” Jeremy whispered.  His fingers shook the fence.  “I can’t.”

“You can.  Look to your left.”

Jeremy scanned the fence to his left and saw where several bolts had been undone.  Some careless worker must have changed out a portion of the fence and left before the job was completely done.  If he did it just right….  Jeremy reached out and tested the fence with a gentle tug.  He found it surprisingly easy to peel back.

“Escape.  Come with us.  The trip down is short, but the journey never ends.  Escape with us is peace.  No regrets.  No pain.  Only peace.”

Jeremy slid to his left and pulled the fence back.  Several rusted bolts popped, and suddenly the fence was hanging down.  The chain link hung limply to the side exposing a gap several feet wide.  With the links gone, the lights seemed more like a stream than a train.  The image of him floating serenely down the stream popped vividly into his mind even as the thunder changed from the ‘click clack’ of a train to the babbling of a brook.  Moving to get a better look, he grasped the solid fence in his right hand, wedged his right toe into a link, and pulled himself up.  The light breeze tickled his face as he leaned down.

“Freedom.  Peace.  Escape.  Come with us.”

Jeremy slid to the left and brushed back the limp links.  They moved as easily as vines in a breeze.  He imagined that he could swing off them into the cooling stream of lights below.  It would be easy.  It would be quick.  And then it would be over.

⁃†⁃†⁃†⁃

As Father Giulio Casari slipped the last of his lecture notes into his leather bag, he scanned the packed room one last time and asked, “Are there any more questions?”  If there were, he mused, he couldn’t hear them over the sounds of students stuffing their backpacks and briefcases in a scramble to head out and get home before the rain hit.  He couldn’t blame them.  He was about to say everyone’s favorite two words when he noticed the thin arm raised high in the air.  He should have guessed as much.

“Yes, Ms. Pollard.  You have a question?”

“More like an observation,” she replied.  “It seems to me that yesterday’s abnormality is today’s disorder, so how do we know what we’re learning today won’t be outdated by the time we graduate?”

“Truth doesn’t change, Ms. Pollard.  ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ yes?”

“Yes, but the fact remains…”

“Such a tricky word, fact.  Before you go any further, can you tell me the etymology of the word?”

“That’s not the point I was trying to make, Professor.”

“As often happens in the search for truth, Ms. Pollard, one can become so focused on the waypoints that they lose sight of the destination.  And it’s Father, not Professor.”  He flicked his collar like one flicked an empty wine glass and got the polite chuckle he was looking for.  Good.  Laughter always made the medicine he was about to deliver go down easier.

“New homework assignment, class.  Discover and discuss the etymology of the word ‘fact’.  One paragraph, no more, no less.  A polite reminder – the internet won’t give you answers to my final, so be sure you understand what you research.  Ms. Pollard, we’ll talk more on your question next class, I promise.  Speaking of which, class dismissed.  Everyone get home safe.”

The scramble for the door was less civilized than usual, but Fr. Casari wasn’t surprised.  The tired priest waited behind his table for a few extra minutes to exchange pleasantries with his regulars, the students he expected would one day soon be asking him for letters of recommendation for school or internships, and even their conversations were short and punctuated by glances at phones or the ever-rarer watch.  When only one student was left, he scooped his trench coat from off his chair back and snapped his bag shut.  “Care to walk me out, Ms. Clark?”

“Of course,” she said.  “Need a ride back to the seminary?  It’s getting awfully nasty out there.”

Fr. Casari was tempted, and not for the first time.  However, there were other considerations to take into account, considerations Ms. Clark had unfortunately deduced from their conversations.  “It’s rectory, and as always, no…but thank you again for the offer.”

“Any time, Father.  By the way, the etymology of the word fact is from the Latin facere or factum.  It means “to make”, yes?”

“Very good,” Fr. Casari replied as he held the door open and gestured for her to go first.  “Did you look it up already?”

“No, I knew it.”  He raised his eyebrow and she chuckled.  “Latin was a requirement in Catholic high school.”

“Ah, a Catholic and a student of Psychology – you must be feeling more conflicted than most.”

“It’s hard to be conflicted when you’ve already chosen a side,” she replied.  “I haven’t been to church in a decade, not since my husband left me.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Don’t be.  I’m better off without him.”

“Are you really?”  Fr. Casari stopped as he reached the glass side doors to the building.  A spattering of rain blurred the view outside and urged him to hurry home, but something in his student’s voice held him short.  “Separation of any kind is painful, so why inflict that pain on God just to get back at your husband?”

“It’s complicated, Father.  I…we met at church, so I can’t help but think of him any time I go in one.  I’m sorry, but it’s not worth the pain.”

Fr. Casari chewed on his lip for a moment before he said, “It’s interesting that you spoke of sides just now, Ms. Clark.  I contend that Church and Science aren’t as incompatible as others make them out to be.  To prove my point, you have a new homework assignment.  Describe for me in depth and detail the psychological process you go through when you think of going to a church but can’t.  Analyze the routine you perform when considering your options. Assume the role of therapist to determine the most effective route for counseling that would allow a person in such a condition to return to church in the shortest course.”

“That’s an awful lot of homework.”

“Consider it your term paper then,” Fr. Casari said.  “I’ll email you the requirements tonight.”

“It still sounds a bit out of my league.”

“Nonsense.  This is something any grad student could whip out in a day of lazy typing.”

Ms. Clark held her hands up as if surrendering.  “I’m not a grad student.”

“Not today you aren’t, but this isn’t my first time behind the professor’s lectern.  You’re planning on asking me for a letter of recommendation by the end of the semester, yes?  I’ll bet my umbrella on it.  Am I right?”  Fr. Casari held out his fluorescent orange umbrella and shook it playfully.

She grimaced and pretend to shade her eyes against the brightness of the umbrella.  “Put it down, put it down!  You’re close enough to keep your umbrella, so stop threatening me with it.  I haven’t decided to commit to grad school yet.  I can’t see how to make the money work.  If I could figure that out, I’d apply in an instant.”

Fr. Casari lowered his umbrella tip to the ground and leaned on the oversized handle.  “God provides, Ms. Clark.  Try praying for guidance and see what comes of it.”

“I’ll try, Father, but I don’t have a lot of faith in an activity that couldn’t save something so basic as my marriage.  Truth is, I don’t know what to make of prayer anymore.”

“Take this home with you and think on it then, Ms. Clark.  Truth isn’t something you should have to make.  Truth is.  Now get home before the weather really comes in.”

† † † † †

Jeremy’s right hand groped along the solid portion of the chain link fence until it found the edge.  His fingers slipped through the links and curled around the slick pieces of metal.  His left hand sought out the limp fence and latched on to it.  Leaning forward, he stretched his arms apart, and for a moment, he felt like an eagle drifting over a river in search of a meal.

“Fly down to us,” the voices whispered.  “Float free on the breeze.  End your pain.”

A warm tingle burst out from his spine and flowed through his arms to his fingertips.  He imagined what it would feel like to relax his fingertips just enough to fall peacefully down into the river of cars below.

“Peaceful.  Complete.”

He looked down at the stream of lights.  The breeze caressed his cheek before rushing through his hair and around his body as the image of the fall took hold in his mind.  Down, down, down, then…what?

A cold atom of doubt crystallized in his heart as he thought of the end.  What would happen when he hit the cars?  What would happen to those drivers?  What about the people that cared about him?

“They don’t have your pain.  They can’t feel your anguish.  Let go of everything.  Join us.”

The breeze solidified into a flash of frozen pain around his fingers.  Instinct alone caused him to tighten his grip instead of loosen it.  The breeze that had caressed him just moments ago as it passed his face turned violent as it swung around and drove into his back.  The rain slick concrete below turned oily and his sneakers began sliding towards the edge.

“Join us!” The voices changed from their gentle urging to a guttural growling.  “You belong to us now!”

As his toes slid off the concrete over to thin air, the reality of his pending death slammed home.  “Oh God, I don’t want to die!”  The first two fingers of his right hand popped free.  The gusty wind behind him turned into a gale and popped the chain link away from the support pole, nearly sending him over the edge.  Only his tenuous grip on the thin metal kept him from plummeting down into the traffic below.  He had no chance of regaining his footing.  It was only a matter of time now.

“Join us!”

⁃†⁃†⁃†⁃

“Sorry Father, can’t go that way today!”

“What’s going on, John?”  Fr. Casari pulled up short before his normal junction in the sidewalk and turned to see his old friend John Harbuch jogging up.  Besides his usual ‘uniform’ of school-colored checkered flannel and faded jeans, he was wearing his official day glow “Campus Safety Officer” vest and had his arm length Maglite running on high.  He had learned to filter through John’s heavy Bostonian accent years ago, but when the heavyset man was stressed, his accent came thick and true.

“Had a limb fall a few minutes ago and it’s blocking the drainage from upstream.  Pretty sure the tunnel’s going to start flooding right around when you get there.  Just isn’t worth the chance, not after the flash flood we had down there last year.”

Fr. Casari heaved an exaggerated sigh.  “Why is it the shortest route is rarely the easiest one to take?” he mused.  John’s earnest laugh lifted his spirit.

“What is it you like to say, Father?  ‘Truth may be the narrowest of paths…’ “

“ ‘but rarely is it the shortest’.  At least someone’s been listening to my homilies.”

“Say the same thing enough times, Father, and we can’t help but learn it.  You want to go hide back in your building and shelter there for a few hours?  It’s warm and dry, which is more than I can say for your long walk back to the rectory.”

“Thanks for the insight, but I have to get back and start working on some new closing lines,” Fr. Casari replied with a smile.  “It’ll make the back benchers listen harder for at least one Sunday.”

“All right, Father.  Get home safe.  Coffee in the morning?”

Try as he might, Fr. Casari could never filter John’s ‘kaafie’ into coffee.  “Not tomorrow.  Big meeting with the Bishop, and Friday morning is my bi-weekly prison visit.  Raincheck for Saturday?”

John gave him a thumbs up and turned back towards campus.  Father Casari said a quick prayer of thanks for his warning and turned back the way he came.  With the tunnel under the highway closed, he’d have to backtrack and take the long route home.  Popping his umbrella to ward off the increasing spattering of rain, he headed towards footbridge and started thinking of new closing lines for his sermons.

† † †

Patti’s car started on only the second try.  Breathing a sigh of relief, she pumped the clutch and jammed the gearstick into drive.  Fat raindrops splashed on her windshield and threatened to slip through the cracks in the glass as she steered her car through the grave-like emptiness of the parking lot.  “Just get me home, baby, that’s all I ask.”

As Patti steered her ancient 1998 Ford Taurus out of the pothole-packed lot and onto the street, her mind flashed onto what Father Casari had said about her going to graduate school.  It was something she had dreamed of since taking her first psychology class, but even when she and her husband had been together….

“What does he know,” she muttered aloud.  “Priests have it made, right?  Free food, free lodging, job security…he has no idea what it’s like out here in the real world.”  She pulled up to the intersection with the highway and waited as usual for a gap to appear.  The engine started to sputter, but with a practiced jab of the foot and shaking of the gear shift, it purred back to life.  “God, I don’t want to get stuck out here tonight.”

While she waited for her inevitable gap to appear, her thoughts again turned to Fr. Casari’s assignment and keyed in on the power of prayer.  Studies had shown how prayer helped people who didn’t even know they were being prayed over, so that seemed pretty promising.  She had checked out a few things on the science of the mind after reading the latest Dan Brown novel, and there seemed to be something to it.

Seeing the gap she was waiting for, she accelerated into the merging lane and maneuvered quickly towards the center.  The rain was coming harder now as the wind gusted and pushed the car first left, then right.  She merged into the left lane to keep her options open; after all, if she were going to get pushed far left, better into the relative softness of the grassy median instead of another car.

“How much longer is this going to last,” she muttered as she looked up through smeared windshield.  A flash of cloud to cloud lightning lit up the bridge ahead, and for just a moment she thought she saw….

“Oh shit!” she shouted as another flash clearly showed the figure of a person hanging out over the highway.  The chain link fence had pulled away from the posts and was hanging on by nothing more than a few inches.  A third burst showed a fluorescent orange umbrella bouncing towards the dangling figure.  “Father Casari?”

With little more than a glance over her shoulder, Patti jerked the steering wheel towards the right and angled the car towards the side of the road while her right hand fumbled for her cell phone.  Words she hadn’t thought of in years came back smoothly to mind as she split her attention between guiding her car to a stop and dialing 911.  Her thoughts were undivided, however, as the words spilt from her lips.  “Our Father who art in heaven…”

⁃†⁃†⁃†⁃

Father Casari knew something was wrong the second his foot hit the surface of the bridge.  The air seemed to wrap itself around him and keep him still.  It didn’t drive him backward, but if he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn it was trying to keep him from getting home.  Lowering his umbrella, he pushed against the wind and took several short steps forward.  “Maybe I should have taken that ride.”  Patti had offered several times, but ever mindful of the recent scandals in the Church, he chose safety over comfort every time.  Still, this wind….

Leaning forward against the pressure, he forced his way down the bridge.  Wondering how far he had to go, he lifted his umbrella just high enough to see the other end.  A micro burst shook the chain link fence and drove stinging drops of rain into his eyes.  As he lowered his umbrella, the sound of the fence came to him again and stopped him dead in his tracks.  There was something wrong with the sound.  Wind passing through a chain link fence almost whistled, but this sounded hollow, as if some part of the fence were missing.

Father Casari turned his gaze towards the fence just as a bolt of lightning lit the sky.  The image of a broken fence and the dangling body seared itself into his brain.  Priestly instinct kicked in before rational thought, and he found himself saying a prayer for strength to St John Vianney, patron saint of priests everywhere.  The grip the wind had held broke and he dashed forward.  A gust of wind pushed him back, but before he could even stumble, it turned upward and ripped the umbrella out of his hand.

As he dashed forward towards the figure, a third bolt flashed between clouds.  The light was just strong enough for him to make out the silhouette of a young boy, mouth wide open in what he hoped was fright and not something more dangerous.  “Hang on, son!” he shouted as he sprinted across the damp concrete.  He thought he heard a shout of, “help me” drift across the wind, but he couldn’t be sure.  It didn’t matter.  He was here.  He would help.

Skidding to a stop just shy of the edge, Father Casari’s sharp mind quickly saw that he wasn’t going to be able to just reach out and grab the boy’s hand.  The chain link had pulled too far away from the supporting pole for that, and if he tried to pull the fence forward, there was no guarantee his feet could keep a grip on the rain slick concrete.  Even as he watched, one of the remaining three rivets popped and sent a shudder down the fence.  One more good gust of wind and the fence would give for sure.

“Dear Lord,” he said.  “A little help right now would be a good thing.”

The wind calmed enough for him to hear the boy clearly now.  “I don’t want to die!” he shouted.  “Leave me alone, I don’t want to die!”

“I can’t leave,” he shouted back.  “I won’t let you die!”

Scanning the area, his eyes quickly came to rest on the boy’s feet.  If he could get to them and brace himself just right, he should be able to grab the boy’s belt and use his feet as a pivot to swing him back up onto the bridge.  Mind made up, he started to move forward only to feel a deep chill settle over his shoulders and around his chest.  A guttural voice like he had never before heard spoke out of the air before him.

“Leave us, collar bound,” it growled.  “He chose his path as we chose ours.  We do you a favor by taking him now.”

Understanding flashed through his mind.  This was who the boy wanted to leave, not him.  In all his years as a priest, he had never before met evil so naked and exposed, but he instantly knew it for what it was now that it was out of hiding.

Before him was the devil, and it had singled out this boy for death.

A feeling of calmness overtook him as insight rose out from his soul and the words flowed from his mouth.  “Sancte Micael Archangele, defende nos in proelio.  Contra nequitiam et insidias diabolic esto praesidium.”

“Vile creature, cease your prattle!”

The voice before him blared with anger as a fresh blast of hate washed over him, but he continued his Latin intonation and pressed forward towards the hanging boy.

“Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis…”

“He never ruled over us.  Never!”

“…satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude.  Amen!”

Darkness surrounded the pair, and he couldn’t see where to plant his feet or where to grab.  One lunge was all he was going to get, and if he missed, they could both tumble over the abyss and down into the stream of traffic.  Just as he was getting ready to make his leap of faith, the sky in front of him turned white and illuminated the boy in front of him.  He saw with absolute clarity a swirl of gauzy, shadowy figures swirling around the boy for several heartbeats before all but one completed a last orbit and drove into the boy’s chest.  The final shadow spread itself thin across the boy’s back and sunk in slowly.  Even as it did, the guttural voice returned.  The hatred and sneering was gone.  In its place was a cold, determined, knowing voice that spoke with knowledge and experience.

“He remains ours, collared one.  You will never free him from us.  He is ours…as you will be.”

Father Casari reached out and grabbed the waist of the boy’s pants and wrapped his fingers through the belt.  As quickly as the light had come it left, but it had served its purpose in showing the priest where to grab.  Planting his feet on the dry concrete, he flung himself backward with all his weight and pulled the boy onto the safety of the bridge.  The boy immediately fell into his arms and started sobbing uncontrollably.  Father Casari patted him on the back and consoled him even as he watched the swirling lights of the approaching police cars blast their way past traffic and pull to a halt just under the bridge.

“What was that you said back there?” the boy asked as he finally caught his breath.  “It sounded Greek.”

“Latin.  That was the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel,” he replied even as he waved to the orange-vested police running their way.  “It protects us from demons and spirits.”  Surprise washed through him as he saw Patti sprinting just behind the police.  “I’ll teach it to you.”

With tears streaming down his face, the boy nodded.  He scrubbed his face with his hands and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket before turning to stare straight into the priest’s eyes.  “I’d like that,” he said.  “I’d like that very much.”

The police arrived and questioned everyone for a few minutes before being satisfied with the Father’s explanation of coming across a boy who had been pushed into a fence by freak winds.  After confirming the statements and writing an incident report for the city, the officer in charge asked if anyone needed a ride home.

“I’ll stay with Fr. Casari,” the boy said, thankfully pronouncing his name correctly despite only having heard it a few moments prior.

“Weather’s getting worse, kid,” the officer said kindly.  “After a scare like that, you sure you wouldn’t want a ride home in a nice warm police car instead?  Come on…we’ll even hit the lights and siren for you, whadda ya say?”

“We have a car, thank you officer,” Fr. Casari replied.  Turning to Patti, he said, “Assuming your offer still stands, that is?”

“You just saved that kid from falling,” she replied breathlessly.  “I’d drive you to the Vatican if you wanted.  Come on, I’m just down the hill.”

* * * * *

I hope you enjoyed the preview of The Devil and Casari.  If you liked it enough to want to read more, remember to preorder for delivery on Halloween.  Start during the day, finish at night…if you can!