“But what’re we going to do with it?” Adam asked.
Scott grinned. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll think of something.”
On the way home, he could not help wondering about that little space halfway up the cliff: how it had gotten there and who had made it. Dan was right. Even if the cave and the flat little section of ground behind the sandstone wall were natural, the path was not. It had been made by somebody, worn by the passage of feet, and for some reason that made him nervous. Why was it there? What was the purpose?
The shallow cave had reminded him of a shrine. There was something primitive and ritualistic about it, but since Dan had not mentioned anything, he assumed its origins weren’t Indian.
Was it older than that?
Younger?
Either way, the idea was creepy, and he could just as easily imagine a group of identically dressed townspeople trudging up the path to perform some sort of human sacrifice as he could a primitive tribe.
Dan was wrong. It wasn’t like something out of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn.
It was like something out of a horror movie.
Suddenly the place didn’t seem quite so cool.
And Adam thought of the banya.
Before they’d parted ways at the foot of Ore Road, Scott had brought up the bathhouse again. He’d been harping on the subject for over a week, and he honestly seemed to think that they would be able to sell a photo of the banya to one of the tabloids and make a fortune. Although Dan had remained silently disapproving, Adam had finally agreed to let Scott go in there and take pictures.
“But I get half the cash if you sell them,” he said.
“Fair deal,” Scott told him.
Dan had said nothing but shot him a look of warning, shaking his head, and while Adam had not responded, the Indian boy’s reaction concerned him. He believed Dan, cared about what he thought, and despite his facade of California cool, he trusted Dan’s instincts far more than his own—and ten thousand times more than Scott’s.
Maybe it was a mistake.
He himself had not gone back to the banya since he’d shown it to his friends, though he’d felt the lure, felt the pull. He’d dreamed once of the femur bone, and in the dream he’d taken the femur and polished it and kept it on his dresser for a good-luck charm. It had seemed so real that when he awoke, he’d checked the top of his dresser to make sure the bone wasn’t there.
And he’d wanted to go out to the banya and make sure it was there.
But he’d managed to resist the temptation.
At least he hadn’t agreed to go with Scott. He’d half thought that that would dissuade his friend from going through with it, but Scott had acted as if he hadn’t even heard that provision, and he told Adam that he’d be by on the weekend.
“We’re gonna be rich,” he said.
Adam merely nodded as Dan walked on ahead.
The van was gone when he arrived home, and he assumed his dad was off somewhere, but it was his mom who was gone, and the house was totally silent when he walked inside. His dad was in the living room, reading a magazine.
“Hey, sport,” he said.
Adam nodded.
“Have a seat. Come and visit with me.”
He’d been intending to go straight to his room, but he recognized that tone in his dad’s voice and knew the suggestion was more mandatory than the words made it sound.
He sat down on the couch. “Where’s Teo?” he asked.
His father shrugged.
Adam frowned. His dad didn’t know? There was something strange about that. Both of his parents had always kept very close tabs on their movements. Too close a lot of times. He and Sasha—Sasha in particular—had often been embarrassed in front of their friends by the strictness of their parents’ monitoring.
Of course, it was just as strange for him to be inquiring about Teo. His sister was usually a pest and he was more likely to want her to leave him alone than to seek out her company, but he felt awkward being by himself with his dad, uncomfortable, and he thought it might be a little less tense to have Teo around.
Awkward? Uncomfortable? Tense? He had never felt that way about his father before, and he was not sure why he felt that way now, but he did, and it bothered him.
He sat there for several moments in silence, staring at the wall, before finally picking up a TV Guide.
“This is nice, isn’t it?” His dad smiled, looking over his magazine. “Just us men?”
Adam nodded, forced himself to smile back. “Yeah,” he lied. “Yeah, it is.”
2
They performed the Cleansing on a Monday, the Lord’s first workday, and the ten of them prayed in unison as they marched through the church, each carrying and clutching his or her own Bible.
Agafia would not have believed a house of God could be this tainted, particularly not one so small, but evil hung thick and heavy over the building, the scent of corruption so strong they could practically taste it. A cathedral she could understand. One of those old medieval churches with labyrinthine chambers and endless corridors. But their plain little house of worship did not seem as though it had room for such powerful and concentrated energy.
It was here, nevertheless, and as they walked in unison over the dusty floorboards, over the dried blood spots that marked the location where Jim Ivanovitch had been murdered, Agafia felt the pressure of its presence. Her sadness and anger at the loss of her old friend had been entirely supplanted by fear.
Was the specific spirit responsible for the minister’s murder still here? It was impossible to tell. Something was here, but whether that something was the actual entity that had killed him or whether it was merely related to that being remained to be seen.
It was Nikolai who had chosen the ritual to be performed, and it was he who had chosen the ten to participate. The entire congregation had met yesterday morning in the park for an abbreviated service, and Nikolai had finally preached his first sermon. He was not a great speaker, but he led them in the hymns, led them in the prayers, and there was even some jumping as a couple of the devout were overtaken by the Holy Spirit. A crowd had gathered, and there’d been laughter from some of the people in the audience. She was reminded of the old days, but she forced herself to ignore the onlookers, like the rest of them, and they conducted their service as if they were alone and in church. Afterward, at the time they should really have been eating, Nikolai called out the names of the chosen ten and had them all gather around the bench table on which he stood.
He had picked them, he said, to help him perform Vi Ha Nyuch Neh Chizni Doohc.
The Cleansing.
They had all been selected for logical reasons, and the reasons sounded good, but she was not sure that logic had anything to do with this. She glanced over at Vera Afonin, but Vera didn’t seem to have any problems with the selection, and that made her feel a little better.
The minister had decided upon the Cleansing ritual used to dispatch and exorcise murderous spirits, and they all felt that that was appropriate.
They’d met at Nikolai’s house this morning in order to practice and prepare. The ceremony was unfamiliar to all of them, but none had any trouble memorizing what they were to say. It was as though the words the minister had written out merely served to remind them of something they already knew, and she took that as a good sign. Nikolai had chosen correctly, and God was with them.
They reached the front of the church, stopping before the chest of drawers Jim had used to store his Bible and his papers.