Chapter 6
The sun began to set. Father Kieran Kilkenny watched that wonderful source of light and warmth, the Lord’s love and strength made material, start the long process of nestling into the horizon for a well-deserved rest.
Another night of the troubles was about to start.
As it had for a few weeks now, sunset heralded a flurry of activity in Crucifix; huddled folk emptied their homes, the tavern and the other places of work quickly, though there were precious few employers in Crucifix. They made their way to the chapel, the only safe place in town of a night. Most were old; the town’s young tended to leave when they hit their teens to find work and fortunes elsewhere, braving the Badlands in hope of a better life. A few children walked among the fleeing people, remnants and reminders of innocence. Pale, scared, Crucifix moved as quickly as they could to their tall wooden haven. None wanted to be outside it when the sun eventually set. Though it was a horrible scene, Father Kilkenny couldn’t help but think there was something right about people coming to the Lord when they needed protection.
The Father watched this exodus from atop the town chapel, one arm draped round the rough wooden crucifix above its entrance. The chapel roof was his thinking place and where he felt he did his best praying. After all, it was the part of Crucifix closest to God. Of course the townspeople had found this preference unusual at first but they had become so used to his being there that they didn’t even look up any more.
The exodus wasn’ta great one. Crucifix was tiny, had only one road and that ended at the chapel. They had only the tavern for entertainment – a place whose hospitality Father Kilkenny wanted to enjoy but knew he couldn’t – and a trading post and a bank for honest work. A dozen homes sat between and around these but that was all there. His flock were penned in by poverty and demons.
Before the recent troubles, the townspeople had subsisted by farming the few fields that the Father had been able to make safe and drinking heavily at night. It wasn’t much of a life. But it was a life Father Kilkenny was determined to preserve, even if he had to do so alone. It didn’t seem like anyone else would be coming to help.
Crucifix wasn’t usually so isolated; the telegraph line in the bank, which went south-west and north-east to places that truly mattered to this country, kept them in touch with the world. But the line hadn’t been working lately, which cut them off entirely. A fact which seemed too coincidental with all that’d been happening.
Father Kilkenny looked along the dipping telegraph line, followed it to the horizon, then looked back at the sun. They had maybe an hour until darkness would come over them, which meant only an hour and a half before the troubles would start again. There was still a lot to be done; the chapel needed reinforcing, to be prepared for the draining night ahead.
The thought made him feel tired. Perhaps it was too much for one man to protect a town against the forces of Hell, even a man of God; every morning for the past month, he’d gone to bed with the voice of the Devil asking him why he didn’t just pack up and go somewhere safer. Not that the thought lasted long. The Lord didn’t have a lot of time for what was easy for those who dedicated their lives to Him. But He did care a lot about what needed to be done to for His followers; His son learned that the hard way. And as the Father had given his life to God, he would do whatever He expected. So he would prepare Crucifix for another night, stand firm in the face of evil.
But not quite yet. For now Father Kilkenny wanted to watch his flock. Seeing them, seeing their clear need, reminded him why he became a Father. These people looked to him for guidance and protection, spiritual and otherwise. So he indulged himself a moment longer before getting to his feet.
Tall and broad by birth, Father Kilkenny knew he looked every inch an Irish immigrant; a mess of untameable red hair atop a freckle-covered and work-worn face, rough hands and a drinker’s eye. If not for his dark preacher’s uniform and knowledge of the Bible, he’d be mistaken for another Mick ranch hand or railroad worker.
He climbed down from the roof using a ladder he’d made himself; if Jesus had seen fit to be a carpenter then any Father should at least have a taste of the trade himself. Old Hamish, a Crucifix local of Scottish heritage, had shown him how a few years back. In return, the Father’d said prayers over the old man when the demon drink finally gutted him. Thanks to Old Hamish, the ladder was firm and good. It barely creaked under his bulk as he descended.
No-one talked to him as he entered his chapel. There was little his flock could say now; sheltering in the chapel had become routine and their probing questions had been worn to indifferent nubs over the weeks. They weren’t quite at the stage where they might gossip during the night but they were getting close to it. Even the children, those Walter boys and the Finn and Christian girls, had become so settled that they could sleep through the night. Crucifix had adapted and was becoming accustomed to the troubles. Father Kilkenny supposed that was good as it meant they did not suffer as badly. But he couldn’t get used to it, not when they needed him to be on his guard.
His chapel was like him; high, wide and built for God’s work. A shingled roof stood over them like the Lord Himself. Tall, thick glass windows admitted the last of the day’s light, which fell mostly on a small stage that stood opposite the entrance. A crucifix was suspended above the stage so Jesus could look down lovingly on his worshippers. Below the Lord’s son was a lectern which held his Bible, this copy still new enough to creak when opened, and a small pewter chalice.
Normally pews would be laid out in neat rows between the entrance and the stage but they’d been cleared away to let people sleep on the floor. That’d been the intention anyway; as the troubles progressed, the pews had been chopped up and used to keep a fire burning all night. So instead of his pews he had a great pile of bedding on his chapel floor. Bedding and chamberpots.
It befouled the chapel, having people do their business inside its walls, but what else could they do? Father Kilkenny hoped the Lord wouldn’t mind. Not when it was keeping folk safe.
The chapel was also like the Father insofar as it had precious little privacy from his flock; all it had was the right of the stage was the walled-off section he called a bedroom. It was only large enough for his bed, his bookshelf, a stove and his chamberpot but it served him well enough. He didn’t have much to hide.
His flock continued to settle when he stepped into his chapel. Stragglers flowed around him to their spots on the floor.
The Father grimaced. It irked him that, even in this mess, people had established a social order; everyone wanted to be near the crucifix and none wanted to sleep near the chamberpots. Those who considered themselves important, like Jimmy who owned the tavern, had made sure they would be in a prime position. The meek were left to suffer. Father Kilkenny had tried to force the likes of Jimmy to sleep near the chamberpots by introducing rotation but, shortly after he did, those of a lesser standing bargained their places on the floor away for drink or the removal of debts.
With brains like that, they surely would inherit the Earth.
Father Kilkenny shook his head and got to work, starting with checking the protective measures he’d put in place against-
Just then, someone screamed. The Father jumped and looked around, terrified that they were being attacked early. His mind raced. It was impossible. Surely it was impossible… But no, the scream had come from inside the chapel. He couldn’t see who was so scared. Had one of them found their way inside during the day and…
Whoever had screamed shouted again “There’s a scorpion in my bed!”
It was Grammy Ridgewell, matriarch of the Ridgewells. A false alarm. By the Lord, she had a pair of lungs on her.
Father Kilkenny closed his eyes as the Ridgewell clan dealt with the scorpion. All his calm and control had abandoned him for a moment. He needed to retain them. He was a Father, a member of the Catholic Church.
And the Church didn’t panic.
The Dixie Problem had surprised the United States government but the Catholic Church had long been aware that something like it might happen; it was secret knowledge and part of a shameful history but many cults had arisen within the Vatican over its long history and some had brought knowledge of the so-called Old Gods of the Triangle into the Church along with their sickening taint.
Old Gods… Devils and demons, that’s all they were. It was blasphemous to name them anything other than True Demons.
The Church had worked hard to uncover these cults ever since after a scandal in the fifteenth century. Within a few decades, they succeeded in weeding them all out. It was not a point of pride but torture and punishment had drawn information on the True Demons from the heretics found by this Inquisition.
As a result of the Inquisition, there were several canonical books on the subject of how to fight True Demons, not in wide publication but ratified by the Vatican during centuries of combat against the Triangle.
So when the Dixie Problem had arisen and a Bishop had proved that the United States were facing True Demons, the Catholic Church hadn’t panicked. Copies of these canonised books had been distributed to every American clergymen and it was recommended that some Fathers in affected areas got special training.
Father Kilkenny had thankfully been one of them.
‘A Treatise on the Subject of True Demons’, ‘The Prayers and Holy Symbols that Protect the Soul’ and ‘Assorted Scrolls of Rome’ and the ability to use them were in his possession. Each one had contributed something to the defence of Crucifix. He had studied them intently during his training and had learned his lessons well. In a few more months, he’d know them as well as he knew the Bible.
Father Kilkenny took a deep breath, regained his composure, and went about ensuring that the chapel was protected by this holy knowledge:
Under each of his windows, he’d nailed a prayer written in Latin. Father Kilkenny’s Latin was appalling but he didn’t need to understand more than the basics; copied verbatim, the prayer protected the glass from demons. He checked that each was in tact and moved on;
Along the perimeter of the chapel’s patched-up walls, he’d spread enough salt to kill a man as salt kept the weaker demons at bay. The line had not been broken during the night so it would hold again that night;
Inside the large door and across the wooden slat that would soon bar it he had carved images of Christ and scrawled prayers around Him to increase the potency of His image. None had bubbled under the pressure of constant assault. None required reinforcement;
Finally, he’d painted Aramaic symbols along the chapel’s bullet-riddled walls, both inside and outside. Father Kilkenny couldn’t deny that the looked odd; at first, people had rejected him for amending his chapel so. At least, those whose crops weren’t guarded by the Lord’s favour had. And Father Kilkenny could understand why. But when the real troubles began, they’d turned back to him and the Lord. The symbols were still whole, still warm to the touch, and so still ready to hold back the evil when it came.
The chapel was ready. Well, ready as it could be.
When he was done, he checked again. It would not hurt to be certain. As he did so, he wondered which demons or devils would come that night. He hoped it wouldn’t be the ones that had once been children… They upset the flock greatly, mostly because some folk could still pick out which ones had been their children. Even leathery and twisted, with great bone wings, they were clearly someone’s child.
But they weren’t even the worst things they might face. No, Father Kilkenny thought the harriers posed the greatest threat, they with the real weapons to match their devilish powers. It was they who shot at the chapel; at first they’d tried to shoot the glass but the Father’s prayers easily protected against that. Recently, they’d taken to shooting at his chapel in the hope of killing him. So far the thick wood had done its job but Father Kilkenny didn’t know how long the Lord would protect him for.
He would just have to trust that He thought the Father was doing the right thing…
That reminded him; he needed to reinforce the walls. After rechecking the outer walls, he went back into the chapel and opened a panel in his stage. Inside were his tools, hidden so the children wouldn’t play with them. The Father grabbed his hammer, some nails and wood; he didn’t have much of the last two left but there was enough for now.
In the last hour or so before full dark, he made good. The sunlight faded as he worked and the whole town was under his roof and ready by the time he was done. He did a quick count and confirmed they were all present before barring the door. With any luck, no-one would be leaving until the morning.
Then he walked over to his stage, climbed up and stood behind the lectern. “Evening all,” he said, as he’d said every night.
“Good evening Father,” they parroted back.
He gave them a smile. “Tonight, I thought I’d give the demons a reading from Leviticus again. Do ya have any objections to that?”
“Nay,” they replied.
Father Kilkenny opened his Bible to Leviticus. The last but most important part of protecting his flock was reading aloud from the Bible; the prayers and salt and symbols were only as good as the man who wrote them and it was his strength, his faith, that tied it all together. For it was only a man’s love for His God that could keep the demons at bay. And Father Kilkenny was never more certain of the majesty and strength of the Lord than when he was reading from His book.
“Alright then. Try to get some rest and don’t you be looking at the windows all night. I’m talking to you in particular there, Mary; you’ve got work in the morning.”
His flock laughed; Mary had fainted at some point during the night almost every night so far. At first there’d been sympathy for the woman and embarrassment from her but by now it had become something of a joke. It eased the tension to make light of such things.
Mary, about as old as Father Kilkenny at thirty eight, waved a hand at him. He smiled back.
The people of Crucifix settled down as the sun already had. All was darkness. They did not even light candles in the chapel for fear it would attract more demons than already came after them. All they had was one length of wood from the pews soaked in oil so it would burn all night, provide just enough light to see by.
Father Kilkenny lit the length of wood and resed it on the lectern. Then he began to speak the Lord’s words. For the first few hours, he’d recite Leviticus from memory but he would have to turn to the Bible as he tired.
“And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying…”
That was when the scratching began. The demons were already at the door, already coming for them. Father Kilkenny couldn’t help but smile as he recited; they would not be getting in, not whilst he still drew breath.