Brother Odd

Although ghosts and bodachs were not included in the doctrines of their faith, they were men who had given their lives to an absolute conviction that the universe was God-created and that it had a vertical sacred order. Having found a way to understand the existence of the monster in the storm-by defining it as a demon- they would not now be cast into spiritual or intellectual turmoil merely by being asked to believe that a nobody smart-ass fry cook was visited by the restless dead and tried to bring them justice as best he could.
        They were emotional at the news that Brother Constantine had not committed suicide. But the faceless figure of Death in the bell tower intrigued more than frightened them, and they were in agreement that if a traditional exorcism would be effective with either of these two recent apparitions, it would be more likely to work on the tower phantom than on an uberskeleton that could overturn an SUV.
        I couldn't tell whether Brother Leopold and Rodion Romanovich believed me, but I didn't owe those two any evidence beyond the sincerity of my story.
        To Leopold, I said, "I don't believe that an exorcism will work in either case-do you?"
        The novice lowered his gaze to the place on the floor where the cubes had been. He nervously licked his lips.
        The Russian spared his comrade the need to answer: "Mr. Thomas, I am fully prepared to believe that you live on a ledge between this world and the next, that you see what we cannot. And now you have seen apparitions previously unknown to you."
        "Are they previously unknown to you?" I asked.
        "I am merely a librarian, Mr. Thomas, with no sixth sense. But I am a man of faith, whether you believe that or not, and now that I have heard your story, I am worried about the children as much as you are. How much time do we have? Whatever will happen, when will it happen?"
        I shook my head. "I only saw seven bodachs this morning. There would be more if the violence was imminent."
        "That was this morning. Do you think we should have a look now-past one-thirty in the afternoon?"
        "Bring all your tools and the… weapons," Abbot Bernard advised his brothers.
        The snow had melted off my boots. I wiped them on the mat at the door between the garage and the basement of the school, while the other men, who were all veterans of winter and all more considerate than I, shucked off their zippered rubber boots and left them behind.
        With lunch finished, most of the kids were in the rehabilitation and recreation rooms, each of which I visited with the abbot, a few brothers, and Romanovich.
        Sooty shadows, cast by nothing in this world, slid through these rooms and along the hallway, quivering with anticipation, wolfish and eager, seeming to thrill to the sight of so many innocent children who they somehow knew would in time be screaming in terror and agony. I counted seventy-two bodachs and knew that others would be prowling the corridors on the second floor.
        "Soon," I told the abbot. "It's coming soon."

CHAPTER 41
        
        WHILE THE SIXTEEN WARRIOR MONKS AND the one duplicitous novice determined how to fortify the two stairwells that served the second floor of the school, Sister Angela was present to ensure that her nuns were prepared to offer any assistance that might be wanted.
        As I headed toward the northwest nurses' station, she fell in beside me. "Oddie, I hear something happened on the trip back from the abbey."
        "Yes, ma'am. Sure did. I don't have time to go into it now, but your insurance carrier is going to have a lot of questions."
        "Do we have bodachs here?"
        I looked left and right into the rooms we passed. "The place is crawling with them, Sister."
        Rodion Romanovich followed us with the authoritarian air of one of those librarians who rules the stacks with an intimidating scowl, whispers quiet sharply enough to lacerate the tender inner tissues of the ear, and will pursue an overdue-book fine with the ferocity of a rabid ferret.
        "How is Mr. Romanovich assisting here?" Sister Angela asked.
        "He isn't assisting, ma'am."
        "Then what's he doing?"
        "Scheming, most likely."
        "Shall I throw him out?" she asked.
        Through my mind flickered a short film of the mother superior wrenching the Russian's arm up hard behind his back in some clever tae kwon do move,