Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 54

Walker felt it inside him. It called itself Myrddin and felt like a giant fucking snail was laying a vile trail through his brain, only to spin into a millipede, scratching the sides with a million spiked feet, then to change into a neon-green dragonfly with razor blades for wings. It hurt so bad he wanted to cry, but the Tuatha wouldn’t let him do anything but sit dumbly, laugh at the occasional crack by Yank or YaYa, and act appropriately concerned for Laws’s awful face wound.

Was this what Van Dyke had felt? And to think he brought it into his body on purpose. Had it been worth it? If this was the Tuatha’s soul then Walker would rather bathe in a cesspool.

He felt it look inward at him, condescending, treating him less like a man, more like a child. It showed him a memory, except in this version he was out of his body watching. Walker knew the scene well. It was Subic Bay, 1985. His father was dead. His brother was gone. And he was possessed by a demon.

And there he was hiding in a pile of trash—Little Jackie Walker. The liquid from banana skins, coffee grounds, and rain-soaked rags seeped through his clothes, making him shiver. His teeth chattered. Beneath the soft skin of his bare chest he felt what could have been gravel. A rubber thrown away by a hooker on Llo-Llo Street in Barrio Barretto rested like a deflated sausage two inches from his nose. A wasp crawled inside, causing the skin of it to wriggle and jump. He felt rats crossing the backs of his legs. When they sniffed at him, he fought the urge to jerk as their whiskers tickled the soft underskin of his knees.

Feral.

Like a pig.

Or a dog.

He was wild and eager to gnaw on something that screamed.

Twice old men shuffled by, coming home from a day spent at the dump.

Each time he screamed like a dying cat. “Hoy! Hoy! Tanda! Halika. Sayaw tayo.” Hey! Hey! Old man. Come and dance with me.

Whenever the men would look over, he could barely contain himself with glee. Although they looked right at him, he knew they didn’t see him. He was invisible. He was like the air.

But then came the old cripple, pulling himself along with one withered arm, a hand gnarled like the fingers of a twisted branch. His skin was the color of old chocolate. He had a few hairs on his face and even fewer on his head. His eyes were the color of olive pits and were sunken into craters of wrinkles.

Jackie could barely contain his laughter as he leaped free of the trash and high into the air. Pieces of debris sprayed the cripple. Jackie screamed like a beast. He picked up an old hubcap and swung it as hard as he could. He caught the cripple in the side of the head. The cripple screamed. The slick metal slid off without doing much damage, so Jackie brought it around again, this time coming straight down with the hubcap on the crown of the cripple’s head. Blood exploded outward, the sight of it fuel for another swing of the arm. This time it came around in a flat arc, catching the old man beneath the eye.

“Hoy! Hoy!” he cried. “Dance with me, you fool!”

The cripple fell to his side, his mouth twisted into a curl of fear as he whined miserably.

Jackie growled and peed on the man’s withered arm. Then he turned and ran, giggling, his bare feet slapping at the ground, all the way down La Union Street.

And the memory dimpled his soul.

What was the Tuatha trying to tell him? That it wasn’t as bad as the grave demon? That it wasn’t making him do these things? Or was it trying to show Walker that he could be evil all by himself, because every time that memory rose to the surface, a part of Walker asked the question: Did I do it because I wanted to or because the demon made me do it?

Walker jerked. He realized Holmes was talking to him.

“Sure, Boss. I’m fine,” he found himself saying. “Just saving my energy.”

Holmes gave him a worried look, then returned his attention to Laws, who was just finishing a fentanyl lollipop.

Laws flashed Walker a smile and a wink, then touched the back of his hand to his patched facial wound. Worry found a home in Laws’s eye for a moment, then was gone as he began to work the slide on his pistol.

Walker turned to Hoover. As they stared at each other, Walker wondered how Hoover was dealing with the possession. Was the dog crying on the inside like Walker?

Then the helicopter began to descend.