Chapter IV

This church was dark and quiet, with just a hint of past burned candles lingering in the air.

“BLOODY CHURCHES,” DEEGAN said to himself as his journey came to an abrupt end. If you’ve been in one Cathedral, you’ve been in all of them. Similar smells and themes, carvings, sculptures. The Virgin Mary over here, an angry looking Jesus over there. Some clouds, some brass work, lots of dark wooden furnishings.

And that damned smell.

It was so overbearing that Deegan thought he might want to fumigate these places . . . with a little torch-work. Yeah, that’d be nice. See how cooperative Heaven’s Angels would be when he starting burning down every cathedral he jumped to.

Deegan took a deep breath and cracked his neck on both sides. He yawned and then cleared his throat. “Brazil, huh?” He walked forward, through the dimly lit cathedral. He was used to the dark, but this was really dark. It was also quiet. What bloody time was it, he wondered. He’d know soon enough.

It was time to take to the street. He felt around in his pockets. His single possession of value was still tucked away in his back pocket. He then decided to move it to the breast pocket of his jacket. If he was going to be walking the streets of Rio, he didn’t need some crafty pickpocket taking his credit card and running up a few million dollars on it. No, that he was a penny pincher or anything like that, but with interest rates the way they were these days . . . it just wouldn’t be economically prudent.

“So, Mr. Mavet,” Deegan said to himself as he made his way between several rows of wooden pews. “Will you be as illusive as everybody claims?”

He headed toward the front doors and as he got within ten or fifteen feet one of them opened. Silhouetted by the streetlights was an older couple being guided by a priest. He was much younger than the couple, and seemed to be consoling them.

“Please try and think about all of the good times that you and your children shared . . . before all of the changes,” The priest said as he put his hand on the elderly man’s shoulder.

Deegan rolled his eyes. Why is it that the church is always good at dealing with problems after the fact, yet they never seemed to be able to stop the bad karma in the first place? Like having to go to prison to find God. Or being an atheist until you are stuck in a dark jungle with all the creepy things slithering their way towards you.

Then it’s God is the way,

or I’m ready to be saved, now.

For these humans, God was a convenience that they would call upon when their lives got sticky, and just as quickly they would cast religion to the side if their luck changed. Lottery winners don’t thank God, no they figure they had it coming. Like it was owed to them.

But then, where’s God?

“You must not blame yourselves for this. All you can do is call on Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin . . .” The priest’s words faded to silence as Deegan approached. Who in the lord’s name was this strange man? It was too dark to see very well. It seemed like this man was definitely a foreigner, the priest thought as he studied him. The priest nodded, trying to make some pleasant eye contact.

Deegan asked in a relaxed tone, “Gavaryosh pa Ruski?”

You speak Russian?

Neither the priest, nor his solemn couple, understood what Deegan had said, so he continued with a smile. Anytime there is a sufficient language barrier, the basic tactic is to keep smiling.

“Did you know that, everything you’re being told is a lie. In fact, you are closer to hell, in Here . . . right now, than you have ever been in your entire lives. My friends are probably going to give you a nice place to live in our town when the love that you seek never comes . . . because he couldn’t care less about you. He isn’t here.”

The priest, at a loss for words, was turning his head, uncomprehending . . . not quite sure how to answer Deegan. He kindly pointed to the street while the disheveled couple took a few more steps into the cathedral. The priest didn’t know what to say, but he seemed to be trying his hardest to come up with the right combination of Portuguese to fill the language gap. When that wasn’t working he tried Spanish, and finally English.

“You are looking for somebody?”

Deegan smiled, “Yes, father. I’m looking for an archangel that may be trying to kill the Pope. I mean, he’s killing lots of people, but I figure the Pope is on his list. He’s really quite a nuisance if you’re a man of the cloth. Maybe you’re on his list, maybe not. It’s so difficult to tell who will be next. Anyway . . . do you know where I might look for one of those.”

The priest’s face contorted as he tried to sort out the words. Obviously, English was not a language he was accustomed to. All he seemed to get out of it was Pope?

Slowly, the priest tried to answer, “Yes . . . ahh, the . . . Pope. He is to give speech tomorrow.”

Deegan smiled even wider, glancing over at the old couple. The woman, probably in her early seventies, was eyeing him oddly. He locked eyes with her and she almost stopped breathing.

Hmmm?

He made a mental note to be careful around the elderly. They might be able to see something that younger humans couldn’t.

Then again, at whatever hour it was, maybe a man clad in a black trench coat, walking out of an empty cathedral, who looked anything but local would kind of stick out.

Maybe just a bit.

Suddenly, a fleeting thought crossed his mind.

No, I can’t do that, he thought to himself. Not right now.

Besides, he wasn’t that hungry yet, and his journey had only just begun. Maybe it was just all of this nauseating church smell. Deegan found himself thinking about things, and having urges he had not had in a long time. Perhaps somebody would get out of line, and deserve what they got. If only he should be so lucky, he thought.

He decided to play things close to the book for a while. See what came up.

“Yes,” the priest echoed, “. . . speech tomorrow.”

“The Pope will be giving a speech tomorrow. This is excellent. Do . . . you . . . know . . . where?” Deegan asked as he turned back to the priest.

The priest looked up and squinted. “Will be at the . . . ah . . . Hotel Americana.” He held up his hand, squinting as he recounted the details and converted them to English. He then nodded, “Tomorrow, is at, ah eleven . . . in the morning. Yes. Eleven.”

Deegan extended his hands and the priest shook them. “Thank you father. You have helped me so very much.” The priest kind of nodded and nervously smiled as if he wasn’t quite sure that he’d said the right thing, but was glad that the stranger was still smiling.

Deegan nodded to the old couple, and winked at the woman, who was still breathing in short gasps. He then turned and headed out the door.

As he made his way down the wide, shallow steps that descended to the sidewalk, the door to the cathedral closed. Well, it wouldn’t do to go around looking like a stranger. Deegan looked around for anyone else out on the street who might have seen him leave the church. The closest person was a

homeless man fifty or sixty yards away.

Deegan placed his hands together in front of his face, and as he walked he slowly obscured his entire face with both hands. As he opened them across his face what was left was a dark, formless blob. Like a painting of a man where the eyes, nose, and mouth hadn’t been drawn yet.

It was a murky, oozing, black shape. As he brought his hands to the back of this strange blob, he reversed the movements of his hands and when he finished he had taken the face of the priest he had just been speaking to.

Deegan took a couple of quick breaths with his new face and noticed that his clothes were a bit looser than they had been. Clothes don’t shift like the body. No. Those are simple molecules without a soul, and cannot be shape-shifted like Deegan could. It was his form of camouflage. His evolutionary gift.

Creatures adapt.

Monsters adapt.

Deegan continued to walk as he sung quietly to himself, “Just one touch and you’re on my mind.”