The Ameritat - Contest edit

Chapter 1

Tendrils of smoke wove their way upward as a small orange flame pierced the shroud of a dank night. The match’s illumination revealed the symmetry and proportion of a well-bred face. His cigar’s ember grew to a surging beacon as a cloud grew and billowed round the outsider’s hard, pallid countenance. His striking eyes shifted heavenward and drank in the gothic monument before him. St. Patrick’s Cathedral once invoked a sense of awe and reflection in many who gazed upon it. But he viewed it with disenchanted eyes and any inspiration was fleeting.

The cathedral’s spires once dominated the skyline, reaching toward heaven, pointing to an awesome and enabling god. Now their cold stone facades impudently compete with temples erected to a more gratifying dominus. Massive, dark monstrosities, in smooth glass and impenetrable steel, tower overhead with unseen spires pointing not upward, but inward, magnifying a more insidious deity.

Lucius avoided entry at the front door, and stole toward the shadows of the cathedral’s west side. He crept backward into the darkness and sought cover from the drizzle that now assailed the city. With the cool masonry at his back, he kept a keen eye on the Fifth Avenue traffic and waited patiently for his quarry to exit the monolith.

Cars crept past, apparitions sloshing along in the evening’s pallor. He watched them file by like rats with noses thrust in the air on the scent of some acrid carcass. Their pilots, driven by instinct, longed to gorge themselves upon the misfortune of some wretched soul.

As he mused, footfalls in the antechamber pricked unnatural senses and inclined his regard to Patrick’s heavy door. After all of this time, the search was finally over.

Father McCree pushed past the door out onto Fifth and shuddered under the autumn night’s breath. McCree felt the oppressiveness envelope him in its uncaring embrace prompting him to draw his overcoat round his ample body. A shock of white hair was quickly capped with a weary fedora. His face was bright, but shadowed by a veiny, bulbous nose. Obtrusive as it was, it threatened no detraction from his active, overgrown brows. Many years past his prime, he was still quick of wit and quite perceptive. The air of a heavy burden pursued McCree out of the doorway. In spite of his discernment, he would have missed those piercing amber eyes glinting in the veiled corner of the entryway, if not for the pungent cigar smoke.

McCree looked over and gasped as an impressive figure emerged from the blackness. He peered up over his nose at the looming creature swathed in an Oxford gray suit made of silk.

Lucius freed the cigar clamped between his teeth with his thumb and middle finger and released a billow of white smoke that strayed out of his mouth and rose past his nose. It undulated up over angular cheeks and danced around raven strands of long, wavy hair.

“I’m sorry if I alarmed you, Father,” Lucius nodded his head in nominal respect.

McCree fumbled for words. “Indeed, you gave me quite the start. No matter though, no harm done,” voice rough after years of rousing homilies.

“I regret troubling you at this hour, but I’m in dire need of your assistance.”

The priest was transfixed by the stranger’s presence. Lucius’s voice was more a presence in his mind than a tickle in his ear. Its tone and caliber sang to him like an orchestral movement.

McCree felt himself assenting though his intuition screamed from the back of his consciousness defying this siren’s song. His impulses demanded that he plug his hairy ears with his fingers and run screaming. Yet his reason, assuring his safety, won over doubt, and the outsider’s voice allayed his fear. Even if it were the young hours of the morning; he felt compelled to acquiesce to the stranger’s appeal.

“My son, I have sworn duty to the cross and to the church and I will hear your confession,” he said, straightening his posture as he turned hoping to retreat back within the refuge of Patrick’s walls.

“Yes, well, I don’t believe we’ll have any of that tonight, thank you,” Lucius sneered.

“My purpose is merely to have a piece of your mind.” His eyes sparkled and McCree shuddered again. “My name,” he said presenting his hand “is Lucius.”

McCree finally relented, and apprehensively extended his own appendage. A well-manicured hand extended from a French cuff and clutched the priest’s.

“A pleasure, I assure you.” McCree offered in feigned confidence, failing to reciprocate with his own name.

He squirmed in the Lucius’s hard, sinewy grip. McCree tried to halt the gesture, only to be disappointed by a prodigious strength that steadfastly held him in place, then altered his course.

“Why don’t we take a little stroll?” Lucius smiled wryly, and he led the priest down Fifth Avenue to 51st Street. They crossed Fifth Avenue at the intersection and started toward the Hudson River. All around them, buildings loomed, blocking the starry night while casting ominous shadows. And as the evening waned, the mist grew to a dense fog that lurked in the alleys, creeping out to the streets gaining boldness as it grew.

Lucius led the priest by half a stride. Vigorously and in silence they strode past Broadway and then Eighth Avenue. In a rare display, the city had grown dormant. Even the dependable deluge of traffic had subsided. The night pressed in on them, stalking them like a hunter. The street lights hummed a mournful liturgy, their radiance dulled under the oppression of a fog that evolved from the drizzle. The priest’s footsteps were the only sound; they echoed in his ears and filled the vacant street.

Though neither spoke, McCree still heard the stranger’s silvery voice and felt that presence in his mind. It proved a powerful opiate, and he continued to follow.

“McCree isn’t it?” Lucius inquired as he turned to face him.

“I arrived in New York only hours ago. How could you possibly know my name?” The priest’s mind raced, searching a lifetime of faces until finally he came to an alarming conclusion. “Who sent you?” He demanded.

“Sorry, I work under my own auspices. Let’s just say that I have a personal interest in you,” Lucius said resuming their walk.

“I have never known an instance when that was favorable for the quarry,” McCree replied, unwittingly following Lucius’s lead. His nerves dug at his bowels.

They emerged from the dark forest of hulking buildings into the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. The surroundings were veiled by a spectrum of nocturnal hues: malignant swatches of black, indifferent grays, and cold blues. McCree evaluated tenant buildings weary with age and abuse - their black tarred roofs were gaping maws pleading with the night for retribution. Pinpoints of light in windows probed the shadows that nightly reenacted the atrocities committed in narrow alleys and hidden corners.

The pier was a dark extension of the city, jutting into nature’s last bastion in the concrete jungle, the Hudson River. The long narrow structure bore the finality of a dead-end where the pier dropped off into the hostile water. Only once they traversed its length did Lucius turn to face McCree.

“Pardon my cryptic behavior.” Lucius’s tongue inspected his bottom as he calculated his words. “I had to be sure that we could speak . . . privately.”

“No, pardon me, what I think you mean is isolated.” McCree shot back, not knowing where this was leading. He winced and looked up at Lucius awaiting the verdict.

“I do believe you have me on that one. I have required an audience with you for quite some time now, and it is unfortunate that I was not able to track you down until now,” he eyed the priest, “London, Madrid, Jerusalem, Prague, get around don’t we?”

“Well, we’re here, and now we’re alone. I am too damn old for all of this cat and mouse, so get on with it - what do you want?”

Lucius laughed hollowly. When things took a turn for the worse, the good father would run given the choice. McCree always hated direct confrontation.

McCree’s eyes, frightened creatures scurrying below those immense brows, darted searching for a route of escape. Behind him was an open path back down the pier into the city. He glanced over his shoulder and grimly calculated the distance. There was no way he could outrun Lucius. The other possibility led him into the Hudson.

Intuition had never failed him and in an instant he had made up his mind. He reckoned with himself, and knew his actions may be rash. Nonetheless, the weather and city were now playing heavily on his nerves. A deep sigh escaped the aging clergyman as he resigned himself to his task. He resented that things had escalated so far. He reverently touched his forehead then crossed his heart.

“I have unnerved you. I thought your profession would require nerves of steel, cool conduct and all that.” Lucius stepped menacingly forward, eyes ablaze. “What happened to all of that ‘Good Father’ business back at the cathedral? Mind you, ‘riddling confession finds but riddling shrift,’ and contrary priests may find themselves at the bottom of a river.”

“I’ll not stand for an affront on the priesthood or threats against my person.”

McCree willed himself to action and peeled back his overcoat - patting vigorously, then desperately for the pistol he kept concealed under his jacket.

“I hope you aren’t hunting about for this,” Lucius said
dourly.

McCree watched the polished steel of his revolver, falling from the stranger’s hand, vanish as it plummeted through the fog and plunked into the Hudson.

“Imagine my surprise when I found that upon inspection of your person during a friendly handshake. Tsk, tsk, an armed priest is a bit unseemly.”

McCree fought to free himself from Lucius’s stare, but failed. Lucius’s eyes were hard and malevolent now, and froze him with fear.
He was unsure about it at the cathedral, but he could not deny it now. The outsider’s eyes glinted and shimmered in the night reflecting light like a cat’s. He trembled, searching them for intent.

For only a moment, McCree discerned in Lucius’s face a weariness, a world-worn experience he was accustomed to seeing solely in friends aged even beyond his own years. Beyond that, he suddenly discovered a presence that he knew, as one knows an old haunt from childhood. Worse yet, it knew him.

Lucius struck like a viper and latched onto McCree’s throat. The priest weakened under the immense strength of the stranger as he labored against the vice around his neck. He shook violently like a feral animal fighting a leash. Guttural pleas and hissing whimpers struggled to escape his collapsing airway.

With the ease of unencumbered movement, the outsider lifted the priest up off the ground, then up to his feet, and up still until they dangled. McCree braced himself on Lucius’s arm, desperately seeking relief. His eyes bulged, bloodshot. The loose skin around his neck and chin bunched around his face forming abundant jowls spattered with flecks of spittle that bubbled out past his bluing lips. His neck complained under the stress of his full weight, threatening to give under the pressure.
McCree stared down into the face of the stranger. Lucius’s eyes blazed back upward, burning with hatred. His vision blurred and his intuition faltered. The stars and the pier tumbled over each other in a sickening cycle. Instinct was all that remained. He forced his eyes closed, pinching his brow and great nose together.

A terrible revelation awaited when he finally opened them again. The phantom that materialized in his streaky, blurred vision made his heart stop. A hellish countenance deformed Lucius’s face, eyes sunken and dark. His lips were thinly stretched around a gaping maw that framed ghoulish teeth, horrible, jagged protrusions that only grew the longer the priest dared look upon them.

McCree fumbled at his chest. Retrieving a silver crucifix that hung from his neck, and, invoking the power of the cross, he slammed his fist into those infernal jaws. The exertion taxed him and caused his vision to go black. His pulse throbbed in his ears, and he felt weightless - then silence.

Chapter 2

McCree was self-aware, but out of touch. His only noteworthy feeling was relief. Relief that he would not be fleeing New York. Relief that the stranger was no longer clouding his mind, or choking the life from him.The presence behind Lucius’s face still taunted him. He turned it over and over.

The first, most horrific detail to come to his senses was the distinct aroma of a fine cigar. Spicy waves of pepper layered over woody notes and sweet vanilla assaulted his psyche as much as his nose. He fought to sit up. It was useless, a weight pressed heavily upon his torso, pinning him down. He heard the steady flow of the Hudson and felt the bitter night air biting at his skin. A pulsing, driving ache in his throat asserted itself. Mournful tears welled in his eyes, afraid of what awaited if he opened them.

McCree had to know, so slowly he rubbed the corners of both eyes; and opened them. His heart fell. There was Lucius, sitting on his chest, glowering over him like a schoolyard bully. A cigar hung askew in the corner of his mouth.

“Excellent. I feared I had killed you,” Lucius broke the silence, “Now, down to business.” Unceremoniously, he flicked ash into McCree’s face. “I’ll ask the questions, you answer them.” His tone was urbane, betraying the brutality of what had just transpired.
McCree was still regaining mastery of his senses, carefully weighing Lucius’s words.

“I understand,” McCree said, “What do you want to know?”

Hot ash pelted the priest’s lips. “You’re already breaking the rules. I ask the questions, remember?”

Lucius stared at McCree expectantly until the priest assented with a reluctant nod.

“Do you know why I need to talk to you?”

“No,” McCree clenched his teeth in a defiant gesture.

Lucius sighed heavily, “McCree, if you were such a colossal icon of ignorance, then you would not still be alive. At the very least you have intuition, so I suggest you use it.”

“To venture a guess,” the clergyman began, “ I would say that you know my itinerary well enough to know where I have been and to know that I would be in New York tonight. You plead chance in our meeting at the cathedral, when in fact you followed me there.” His words were slow and labored. He rested a moment before finishing. “You have already trapped me, must you continue to bait me?”

A sharp blow to the face stunned McCree and left his jaw smarting. “Yet again, you insist on asking questions. Continue to challenge me with such audacity and see what happens.”

“You assume too much in thinking that you may dictate the terms of interaction and enforce rules of thought and conduct on me,” McCree said.
With passion and hate in his eyes, Lucius stood, jerking the priest off the pier and to his feet. He pulled McCree close, jacket clenched in his fist. His voice boomed in the priests ears. The force of it came in waves that repelled the fog and made the shadows cower like servile beasts.

“You will find, Father, that the rules are mine to make. I determine everything, your fate is in my hands!”

“Your mouth is bleeding.”

McCree noticed the trickle of blood trailing from the stranger’s busted lip. His ridicule was met with cool indifference.

“Let’s talk about your Vatican appointment shall we? What is the nature of your investigation?”

“Again, you betray yourself. You ask me to elaborate a point on which you supposedly have no knowledge. Yet, you know enough to ask...”

Lucius just stared at him, ever nursing the cigar between his teeth, rolling it in his fingers and occasionally removing it from his mouth to admire its band. He seemed content to wait for McCree to concede and answer the question.

McCree groaned with discomfort, leaning his elbows against the pier’s cold, wet railing. He looked out across the Hudson and answered, “I began my service to the Lord as a Jesuit Priest, and for all intents and purposes have always identified myself with that brotherhood. I am an exorcist, and have a papal commission to investigate any concerns too sensitive for public scrutiny.”

Lucius caught the clergyman’s eye and winked, “I would never have thought you a scholar after seeing all of the hardware, Jesuit.”

“The pistol was a last resort, demon,” McCree turned to face the river. “An unfortunate necessity considering the intrinsic danger in exorcism.”

“Let’s not resort to name calling. You have no substantiation for such an imprecation.”

“I have seen enough, spawn. I know your kind. As far as you are personally concerned, I have seen nastier things controlling little girls in Haiti.”

McCree turned to face the outsider, cross in hand once more. Lucius howled with amusement. Smiling, he stepped forward and slapped the crucifix out of the priest’s hand. It flew over the railing and joined its snub-nosed predecessor. With a snarl, he shoved McCree against the railing.

“Unfortunately, the devil is in the details, and my history should concern you. Now, tell me about your most recent investigation. I believe it began with a trip to Rome.”

McCree attempted to resist, but was overcome by the stranger’s presence. Lucius seemed to know enough about him to be able to sort truth from elaboration. While he weighed his options and the details of their conversation, the feeling that he knew the outsider from somewhere in his past again gnawed at his mind. He tried to dismiss it as deja vu, but it was not so easily overcome.

“As an exorcist, I am sent to investigate the most outrageous or potentially harmful situations that warrant the Vatican’s attention. I was sent to Rome to establish the validity of a claim that there exists a secret society quietly influencing worldwide governmental interests and policies. It was an investigation that has been initiated and ‘lost’ a half dozen times. Apparently, priests that investigate this order don’t live to report their findings. Which, I assume, brings you and me to New York.”

“You sound like a man resigned to his own death.”

“I have long suspected the evil that must drive and sustain such an organization. Given the very history of this doomed investigation, it is clear that the church and humanity along with it faces a terrible adversary. An adversary not easily overcome.”

Lucius shot smoke from his nostrils and turned to stand side by side with the priest on the railing. “You say these things like I’m some great evil sent to destroy.”

“I have no proof as to your substance, but I have all the evidence I need in your intent. You are evil, because you serve evil.” McCree straightened himself and faced Lucius, chest out and chin thrust forward defiantly.

“I see your training has failed you, then. You know as well as I do there is no such thing as a being that is the embodiment of evil. It does not exist for me to serve. There is only the self, and therein lies the problem with humanity. Humanitarians, war heros, philosophers all point inward to some inherent good in mankind. They invoke ego, altruism, or devotion to a god based on whim; but one thing is universal, if it is good, then it must’ve come from within. Now, ask anyone to identify what leads those men astray. What perverts their pure hearts and makes them follow their own lusts? What is their answer? It is always the same; it is the result of evil. It’s an outside force that oppresses and influences.” Lucius remained motionless for a moment. Then, calmly and with calculation added, “However, there is only humanity. For all of the good and the bad, there is only self.”

“You cannot deny the presence of evil in this world, fiend.”

“That is precisely where your species lacks the longevity to understand the ramifications of such thinking. I don’t try to deny the existence of evil, I merely recognize its source. Evil is not a presence or sovereign exercising right and rule. It has no will or agenda. It is merely the byproduct of a free will. Along with that free will, the notion of what evil is and does changes through the ages. Humanity’s understanding and evaluation of evil is always changing, because the human mind and will are always changing.” Lucius eyed the priest triumphantly.

“Rationalize yourself however you like. The Father is the standard by which all evil will be judged and you will not stand in the way of his purposes. I defy you and your intentions. This investigation will be reported to the Vatican, and the Almighty will see his work completed.” McCree moved to rush past Lucius.

The outsider’s wicked grasp once again entangled the clergyman.

“You underestimate the power of free agency. I have been given the choice to submit or to rebel. Your god has no power to break his own rules, he is bound by his nature. He will not violate my free will to cater to your whim. You are adrift in an ocean of supplications and pleading. Your god has abandoned you there. You will sink to the bottom of it before he hears.”

“I have heard enough of your blasphemy!”

The stranger’s tone chilled the priest’s blood. “Like every addict who has bargained for lost time, every child who has cried out for daddy to stop, every woman who has demanded retribution for stolen virtue, every nation that has fled genocide at the hand of a madman, you will be ignored.” Lucius’s chest heaved with the impassioned display. “I am finished with the lesson, now tell me what you have discovered!”

McCree was incapable of always separating his own thoughts and desires from Lucius’s intrusion in his mind. He was being manipulated and an awful idea came to him. What if Lucius could not only influence his thoughts, but read them as well? He second guessed himself and decided to give Lucius what he wanted, fearing he would know if he didn’t.

"The charge for the Jesuits was simple. Find out the purported existence and nature of this organization, and determine any validity to claims the group was a direct threat to church authority.”

Lucius released the priest from his grasp. He noticed McCree was slowly shuffling around him so that he would have a clear path back up the pier.

“The investigation was headed by Father Moreno, a priest who entered the Jesuit order via a troubled stint in seminary. Sources allude he became very acquainted with this secret order and uncovered monumental information. It was a pity that he was the first to be lost. Of even greater disappointment is the fact that all of his research notes were lost with him. He was a faithful journalist, though. A series of personal diaries contained cursory information on his hardships and successes, thereby providing me with enough information to retrace his work.”

“Interesting that you only have a surname, to go by.”

“Interesting that would matter to you; but, yes, that is all I uncovered, except for a couple of obscure references found in a nun’s prayer log of all places. The detail of entries and faithful supplication on his behalf, I believe, alluded to a romantic inclination. Initially, she referred to him as Father Moreno; and later, in more personal entries, used his initials, L.M. I uncovered this early in my own investigation. Must’ve been fifteen years ago. At any rate, I found an entry her final writings. Apparently, she let down her guard and called him...” McCree choked on his words. Initially, the recitation of the events came so much by rote instruction that he did not immediately recognize their significance, but now his skin tingled and the hair on his neck stood on end.

“Well, what did she call him?” Lucius folded his arms across his chest with a smug look.

McCree’s face stiffened, the paralysis of a horrifying realization setting into his features.

“Impossible! that was over 400 years ago,” he blurted.

“Is it?”

The presence he felt in the stranger all this time was no premonition. Rather, it was a recollection. He knew the mind of Lucius like that of an old friend, for it was the research of Father Lucius Moreno’s investigation that consumed the first years of his own inquiry.

“Stupid old fool,” McCree berated himself under his breath, while struggling to stand.

“And the truth shall set you free,” Lucius laughed.

“No one really believes that such things could be true. We wake up every morning taking all of life for granted,” said McCree.

“That is, until the anomaly occurs and reality crashes down. You really are a pitiful lot.”

“Shh,” Lucius silenced McCree, placing a long finger over his mouth. “Some things are best left unsaid. You’ll not have to carry the burden of your knowledge long.”

McCree trembled under the force of his revelation. Prior to this evening the priest could only postulate weak theories about the nature of his inquiry, a secret organization that was only seldom referred to as the Kudret.
“If what you say is true, then this search was once your own, why do you need to know my progress?” McCree asked, shrinking back at Lucius’s cadaverous touch.

“I have already taken a great risk in affirming the Kudret’s existence to you. I have to protect its secrets.”

“I have a higher calling; I won’t let God or humanity down.”

Lucius moved slowly toward McCree. His hand gently cupped a round cheek and patted reassuringly.

“You haven’t let anyone down. You have faithfully traveled down your path. You have been led to me, your search is over. Surely, you can appreciate the honor in such a journey. Surely, you can see the hand of God in this,” Lucius said.

The good Father was a wreck. The stranger’s soft touch and soothing voice drew him to submission. He couldn’t fight Lucius’s presence any longer. He wanted to comply. He longed to be released into oblivion. He relented and looked up into Lucius’s face like a sick child imploring his mother for relief. As McCree caught the iridescent glint of those golden-red eyes he jerked back from Lucius’s touch.

“If you will not willingly give me what I want, then I’ll have to let someone else lead me to it.”

“As a friend to all that is holy, no! I defy you! You shall never have my research. It will be published to the Vatican and the Kudret, in light of my new revelation, will be exposed and dealt with properly,” McCree said.

“Assaulting me with more of your ill-conceived postulations? At the moment you are a friend to no one, let alone God. A peasant doesn’t recline at the table of the king and address him by a childhood nickname. You have supposed too much in your intimation. Find comfort in your last moments anyway you like, please don’t lie to yourself.”

“He has promised that not only will I recline at his table, but that I will reside in his house. He is the friend that stays closer than a brother. Send me to my reward, demon. I’m ready,” McCree said with a resigned look.

“Sadly, you’ll be surprised to find what awaits you. Your attitude reflects a casual disrespect that has replaced what a healthy fear would save you from. Go to your friend then, and tell him who sent you.”

Lucius’s strike was swift and lethally effective. The priest’s neck snapped and his large frame slumped to the pier.

* * *

Operator: “911...What’s your emergency?

(crying) “Oh! My God! You have to send help!

Operator: “Miss I need you to calm down and tell me what has happened.”

“He’s dead.” (crying)“I have to go! I have to go!

Operator: “Please, stay on the line. What’s your location?”

“I saw it all, that monster just stepped on his
head and walked over him like it was nothing!”

Operator: “Please, I need your location so that I can send help.”

“I am on the pier... (screaming and sobbing) He
walked right by me and smiled - he smiled at me!”

Operator: “Which pier are you at, Miss? I need to know which pier you are at.”