Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim 3)

She nods.

“I know. But that was Wells and this is me. There are no tricks here. No hidden agendas. Just a kid who needs your help.”

“I don’t think so. I think you’re the one who needs help. You sent the kid a demon jacker, but he blew it and the kid ended up worse than before. Now you want someone to clean up your mess.”

She picks up her coffee, takes a sip, and sets it back down. She doesn’t look at me when she starts talking.

“You’re right. Okay? There. I said it. I need you to fix up my screw-up.”

The muscles in her shoulders and the back of her neck are tight. Her breathing has gone a little shallow and rapid. Her heartbeat’s up. If I trusted her, I’d swear she’s telling the truth.

Sola shakes her head.

“I don’t know what happened and neither does Father Traven. Have you heard of him? The Vigil had him on retainer for freelance exorcisms. He’s the real deal. A genuine old-school demon ass-kicker. Only this time the demon kicked back harder.”

“Why come to me? Why not get another priest? Or a houngan or one of those old nyu wu witches in Chinatown? They love this kind of thing.”

“I tried to get another priest, but when word got out that I was working with Father Traven, none of them would talk to me.”

“Now you’ve finally said something interesting. What’s wrong with your snake handler?”

“He was excommunicated.”

I turn to Vidocq.

“Did you know about this? You were a nice Catholic boy. This is big-time stuff. Is there anything worse than an excommunicated priest?”

“Yes. One who’s not excommunicated.”

I get out a Malediction and light it. I look at Carlos. State law says I’m not supposed to smoke in here, but he gives me a don’t-sweat-it shake of his head.

“What did Traven do? Skim from the collection plate? Oil-wrestle altar boys?”

Julia shakes her head.

“Nothing like that. Father Traven is a praven ialeolinguist. He specializes in translating ancient religious texts and deciphering dead languages.”

“Let me guess. Instead of collecting stamps for a hobby, he translated a book the Church didn’t approve of and got nailed for it.”

“Something like that. It was one book in particular that got him into trouble, but he won’t talk about it. However, none of that has anything to do with the fact he’s an experienced and extremely successful exorcist.”

“So what went wrong with the kid?”

She sits down on one of the bar stools. Shakes her head and drops her hands to the bar.

“Your guess is as good as mine. The exorcism seemed to be going well, and Hunter—Hunter Sentenza, the possessed boy—was doing well. His color was coming back. The voices had stopped. There wasn’t a trace of fire.”

“Fire?”

“We didn’t actually see it, but there was a symbol burned into the ceiling over his bed. There weren’t any matches or lighters in his room. We think it was done by the demon possessing the boy. His hands and face were blistered.”

“What’s the symbol look like?”

“Old. I didn’t recognize it. Father Traven can tell you more about it.”

“What happened next?”

“It felt like we were reaching the end. Traven was sure that he had the demon under control and almost had it out. Before that, Hunter had been speaking in tongues. But then he seemed all right. He was calm and breathing normally. All of a sudden he grabbed Father Traven and tossed him across the room. Hunter levitated a few feet over the bed and shouted, ‘I won’t be locked in.’ After that, things got weird.”