Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

104 :: JOHN R. MABRY
wouldn’t need to liberate another child again, not for several
weeks. But he had been so shaken by the exorcism that the
itch had started early, and started big.
He despaired that there was so little he could do. Saving
one child hardly seemed worth the risk and effort when he
thought about the statistics—about the millions of children
every year that suffer from abuse. If only I could save them
all, he thought. He shook his head and sighed. If only....
The little girl got up and smoothed out her dress. It was
olive green, accenting the color of her skin in a most appealing
way, hanging almost long enough to reach her ankles.
She turned and stuck her tongue out at the door of her
house, and began to pound defiantly down the street away
from Dane’s car.
Dane tapped on the glass separating himself from his driver.
“When she gets to the corner, pull up and keep her in
sight.”
He did enjoy the hunt, though. There was always the possibility
of detection, of getting caught. It added spice to what
was already a very satisfying dish.
His cell phone rang, a sprightly reggae version of
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” He glanced at the screen—
Sweeney. He flipped it open.
“Dane here,” he said.
“I got something, here, Mr. Dane.”
He had called Sweeney less than an hour after the aborted
attempt to exorcise his father. He had been surprised by
those priests, and he was damned if he were going to let it
happen again. “What did you find?”
“They’re real priests, all right. But they’re not Roman
Catholic.” Sweeney’s voice betrayed his New York origins,
rough from years of cigarettes and Giants games. “They’re
called the Old Catholic Order of St. Raphael. Even have a
web page. They do exorcisms and shit for a living.”