Junior Inquisitor

By Lincoln S. Farish

Brother Sebastian is halfway up a mountain in Vermont, hell-bent on interrogating an old woman in a shack, when he gets the order to abandon his quest for personal vengeance. He has to find a missing Inquisitor, or, more likely, his remains. He’s reluctant, to say the least. Not only will he have to stop chasing the best potential lead he’s had in years, this job—his first solo mission—will mean setting foot in the grubby black hole of Providence, Rhode Island. And, somehow, it only gets worse...
If he’d known he would end up ass deep in witches, werewolves, and ogres, and that this mission would jeopardize not only his sanity but also his immortal soul, he never would’ve answered the damn phone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lincoln S. Farish
• Release date: Mar 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311399533

Lincoln S. Farish

A story teller that wove the real with the fantastic since he was a child, Lincoln is an Army Reservist who has had the pleasure of visiting the Middle East five times so far. He currently resides in the Commonwealth of Virginia with his lovely wife, and little girl. When not doing obscure jobs for the Government or shadowy corporations he works at honing his craft and defeating the neighborhood ninjas.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Revenge was simple. Pure. You had purpose and clarity. Phone calls…they complicated life. Had I known what was going to happen, I’d never have answered the damn thing.

I was driving up a ridge in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Now that the morning mist had finally burned away, the mountains towered over me. Leafy green rose up to meet wispy clouds and an eye-scorching blue sky. The early morning chill was gone, and I’d rolled down the windows. For a moment, just a second, I forgot and got ready to stop and admire the view, maybe take a picture for—

The familiar ache gnawed at my stomach. Sarah. Would I ever get used to not being able to share things with her?

My car chugged up a twisted, poorly-maintained dirt and gravel forestry road the width of a fat donkey. Quickly built back in the 1930s as a make-work program, it had long since been abandoned and mostly led to make-out spots for local teenagers. Still, the twists and turns were no problem for my undercover car, a mud-brown Volvo station wagon, fairly ubiquitous in this part of the world. I was headed, mostly in second gear, to an old shack where a crazy woman lived—the end to my current quest.

I’d heard about a particular bit of strangeness going on in the mountains when I was in Burlington. My mission there had turned nasty—two team members were still recovering from burns. We’d been chasing a witch, Cheryl, for weeks and finally caught her while she was too busy sacrificing a fawn to pay attention. Her guards, a pair of magicked cats, were silently dispatched and unable to warn her. The first she knew of our presence was when flashbang grenades sailed into the barn where she was performing her haruspicy. Cheryl had kept the poor creature alive while she gutted it and pulled out its entrails in an attempt to find out what her future held. When she was down and bound, she was interrogated, and ratted out one of her former coven mates. They had parted ways just before we arrived. When it was done, the team disbanded, and I went on the hunt.

It was no one thing Cheryl had said, but the tone, and a few subtle clues, that made me think I’d finally located the bitch who’d destroyed my life. She gave me the general area and a poor physical description, but that was about it. I needed more information, a precise location, and some proof. Years ago, I could’ve gone to the town paper and dug up dirt on the locals and anyone or anything peculiar. These days, serious journalists didn’t report on aberrant behavior unless there were bodies involved, or children. The internet was a great research tool, if you had a specific query or a week to cull all the extraneous information. There were also limits with an internet search—not everything was online. There were lots of important historical records rotting away in basements and warehouses all over the country. Unable to quickly find what I needed, I’d gone to the oldest source of information known to man: the local bar.

Like all natives speaking to a stranger, they were hesitant at first. They didn’t know me, didn’t know what I really wanted. I might’ve been a developer ready to buy up land and invite hordes of New Yorkers to despoil their tranquil village. Worse, I could’ve been a criminal, preparing to steal the town’s prize-winning cheddar wheel—which actually happened in 1964.

Getting the information took guile, cunning, and a hundred dollar bar tab. I told them I was hunting down ghost stories and haunted locations for a college class. My cover wasn’t questioned after the free beer started flowing.

Several pitchers later, I’d learned that the crazy woman had come into town on foot about nine months ago. She’d bought a gallon of iced tea in the local store, drank it in about three gulps, and walked out of town, glaring at anyone who even dared look her way. The natives’ instinct for self-preservation had kicked in, and she was left alone.

The next thing anyone knew, she’d moved into a formerly abandoned cabin up in forestry land. She was trespassing, but no one complained, so the sheriff let her be. About a month later, hunters and hikers started to report weird stuff around her cabin. The deputy who went up to look found nothing, and most everyone ignored it, figuring the hunters had too much beer while waiting for deer. Still, the stories kept coming. The cabin was near an old cemetery where a large family that had died out in the 1850s was buried, which only added to the aura of spookiness.

Of course, with the beer flowing and the tendency of locals to tell tourists tall tales, I gathered up several unnecessary stories—about hunting and fishing, the time the town hall burned down, the great cheese wheel theft, and a few carefully couched stories about hunters and hikers either not returning or hearing strange noises on the mountain. I wasn’t convinced the woman was to blame, but it was the best lead I’d had in five months. And if there was the slightest chance it would get me my vengeance, I had to take it.

I was halfway up the mountain, ready to get my answers, when I got the call that ruined my day.

Sebastian, I need you to go to Providence, Brother Otto said when I answered my phone.

I probably should’ve turned the damn thing off. Still, I’d made the bargain, said the vows, and had a job to do. As much as I hate it, as much as parts of what I do gnaw at my soul, I do believe it’s right, both in my eyes and God’s. I save lives. Sometimes.

What’s up? I asked, trying to sound upbeat while thinking, Crap. I hate Providence, and my mentor knows that. It’s a small town full of small people, bitter because they don’t live in New Jersey.

Brother James, the field Inquisitor for Providence, has missed his last two check-ins. A field Inquisitor in residence is supposed to check in twice a month unless attached to a monastery or in a priory. When on assignment, they need to check in weekly—supposedly to allow for the possibility of rescue if problems arise. Really, the best they can hope for is a retribution strike and decent burial. When things go wrong for Inquisitors, they tend to die, or wish they had.

Crap, I said. Can anyone else do it? I’m in Vermont, working on my side project. I’ve got an interesting lead.

Sebastian, it’s been three years since she died, he said, his voice tinged with sadness.

I’ve got to know. I…I need to... My voice broke. Dammit, I needed this. I had to make her pay for what she did to my wife. Then I could move on, find a new way.

His voice came back stern. I know, but one of the Brethren is missing. He could be hurt, or hiding, or dead. Your private vendetta comes in a distant second.

He was right, of course, but I hated to stop what I was doing. Especially to go to my least favorite town in New England.

I’m on my way, I said, trying not to sound like I was whining.

Good. Give me everything you’ve found so far, and I’ll have Simon check it out. And before you ask, no, he can’t go to Providence instead.

Simon? What happened to Ralph? I thought he was the roamer for this area. I’d worked with Brother Ralph Q. a few times in the past. He’d come to New England from our Missouri monastery. A short guy with light brown eyes and male-pattern baldness, he had a knack for mimicking any accent he heard. The only issues I had with him were that he didn’t like baseball and he always won at poker.

There was silence on the other end.

Damn, I said. Where?

He was in Bangor, said Brother Otto, running down a lead. The Pack, an outlaw motorcycle club, killed him. Gunned him down in broad daylight, but they were wearing helmets so everyone knows who did it, but no one can ID the shooters. Maybe they thought he was checking on their club, or maybe they were just high and felt like killing. They run a lot of meth in that area.

So what are we going to do about it? I asked.

"We aren’t going to do anything. You are going to Providence. Focus on the task at hand."

Yes, Brother. His tone made it clear there wasn’t going to be any debate on this.

I was pretty sure The Pack was going to regret its actions in the not-too-distant-future. We wouldn’t storm the club, guns blazing, and mow down everyone inside, but there were a lot of other ways to end them. Maybe use a couple of cloned cellphones to threaten a few Federal judges in their name or tip off the DEA to their next drug run. The subtle way really was better, but, personally, I’d have preferred them to know who they’d messed with and why their actions were fatal.

Those details? Brother Otto prompted. I’ll have Simon check them out. Promise.

I relayed everything I’d learned.

Otto digested this for a minute. Kinda thin, don’t you think? Sounds like a scrub, and that’s not the kind that murdered your wife.

My knuckles on the hand gripping the steering wheel popped and the plastic of my phone creaked. Well, what else am I going to do? Forget about it?

He met my anger with a cold, direct tone. "No. What you’re going to do is your duty. There’s a reason God’s against vengeance. It eats a man up, makes him do stupid things, forsake his friends and family. Get bitter. Can you afford to make stupid mistakes? Can you turn away from the Brethren?"

A cold wash of reason flooded my body. If the Brethren hadn’t taken me in and trained me, I would’ve still been rotting in prison or dead, never knowing why.

Otto continued, God willing, we’ll find her, and you’ll be able to put this behind you, but only if He’s willing, and now is not the time or place. He paused for a moment. Sebastian, I’ll have Simon check it out, but you’ve got to get your head right. If you let it distract you, it’ll kill you.

I was silent for a long time, trying to calm down. I knew he was concerned, and what he’d said was true, but dammit, I couldn’t let go. Not yet. I was close. This time I was sure. A part of me wanted to chuck the phone and keep going. I shook my head and tamped down my rage.

Everything will be revealed to you in the fullness of time. You know that.

I know, Brother Otto. It’s just…I miss her so much. It was different when I was training. I didn’t have to face it, but now… My eyes burned with frustration.

Sebastian, you have to take adversity and learn from it, become stronger. If you let your feelings control you, your enemies have won. They dictate your actions. You give up free will, and you’ll spiral down.

I know, I said, not really wanting to listen. Hanging up was tempting, but not really an option.

You have her music, you have your memories, and you know she loved you and still does. Keep that. Treasure it. Don’t let them take away your love in a blind desire for vengeance.

I was half-convinced. What he said was right—I was becoming obsessed. But part of me wanted blood. And this conversation hurt. I’m sorry. Give me the details.

You’ll be meeting a guy named Nikolay. Mid-fifties. Big. Russian, and he looks it. Code word is ‘Sanctus.’ He gave me the address and a few simple directions then offered to pray for me. Check in with me or the service once you get settled. And be careful, something’s not right.

With my head bent, I hung up the phone and looked for a spot to turn around. It took me another thirty minutes—moving toward answers, where the darker side beckoned—to find a place to reverse course. Duty and desire warred within me, but in the end, duty won out, and I headed south, bitching every mile of the way.

Clouds replaced the sunshine, and the sky grew leaden. The drive was long and monotonous, so naturally I took the opportunity to torment myself with the past. I pictured my wife playing her cello, her long red hair framing her impish grin. The swell of her belly as our child grew inside her. I remembered enjoying my job as a research chemist. The fun I had looking for old alchemy books. The thrill of trying to crack codes and understand experiments. Did they have a modern application, or were they just the ramblings of a mercury-poisoned mind? It had been a good life, a happy one, destroyed for a freaking book.

Chapter 2

I couldn’t keep myself from grimacing as I hit the city limits. I have no idea why I hate Providence. Maybe it’s the time I got sick from eating too much ice cream at the Newport Creamery. Maybe it’s the whole squalid look of the town, like it’s perpetually stuck in poverty and the people like it that way. Perhaps it’s the residents and that cloud of sloppy inferiority they bring with them everywhere they go. I don’t know, and I really didn’t care. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and back on her trail.

A little after sundown, I drove past the auto repair garage where our safe house was located. I’d never been to the garage before, but I’d heard a few stories about it, none of which described the area as pleasant. Any time you go somewhere new, you want to do an initial recon. Where are the escape routes, where can you hide? Get a feel for the place and the neighborhood, get that all-important first impression so you can distinguish something normal from something strange. Admittedly, it was a gut-level thing, but my instructors had taught me that good observation would save you blood.

After circling a few blocks, I picked an open parking spot out of sight of the shop and far enough away that no one could connect me with the garage. It was a fair distance to walk, but I could get a better sense of the neighborhood on foot, and scout out locations to use for hiding or escaping in case things went bad right away. I eased out of the car, closing the door quietly, and scanned the area around me. When I saw it was clear, I grabbed my backpack and duffel—really, everything I owned—and headed back to the garage. Unless someone was really paying close attention, I would be forgotten with a glance. A cop might realize that everything I wore was dark and would blend easily into the shadows, but in this neighborhood, cops would be few and far between. There would be the occasional cruiser drive by, a so-called presence patrol, and if they saw a corpse or a house on fire they’d stop—other than that, they wouldn’t risk leaving the car or waste time fixing the perpetually broken.

I was in recon mode on the way to the garage, taking my time but trying not to be obvious about it. I looked hard at parked cars and up into the windows of nearby houses, but I didn’t see anything suspicious, like a stakeout or observation post. The neighborhood appeared to be working poor—two-story row houses with few people around now that the sun had gone down. I didn’t even see the usual trash and teenagers hanging out by the corner store, killing time and waiting for their big break to materialize. As I walked along, I could hear the occasional TV or conversation, but other than that, this part of town was quiet. That was both good and bad, but I took it as an omen. Something wasn’t right.

It had cooled off from this morning, almost to the point where a jacket was needed, and the dark sky threatened rain. A half-moon couldn’t break through the cloud cover and few streetlights worked, adding to the darkness and helping to hide some of the shabbiness and decay. Here and there were tags—gang graffiti—proclaiming this place or another owned or protected by groups of feral youth. Most windows and doors had bars, and businesses were locked up tight—the owners long gone before the wild things came out to play. The neighborhood was like an old, wounded animal trying to stay alive a little longer.

From across the street, nestled in the gloom, I studied Stephan’s Garage. It was built in the 1950s in the post-war boom when things were brighter. Like the rest of the community, it had not aged well. It was a two-story cinderblock construction with a small back lot encircled by a chain-link fence. Currently, Stephan’s Garage was owned by a local mobster named Boris, a Russian émigré who used it occasionally to strip stolen cars. He only hired other Russians, of course, distant relatives and other trustworthy people who had no objection to bending or breaking the law.

The garage was always open, which meant a variety of people came and went, even in the middle of the night. This made it much easier to blend in and keep the odd hours normal for an Inquisitor. In front of the garage, an old style streetlamp lit the small parking lot with a sickly yellow light. Three service bays were all occupied by cars and a gaggle of mechanics busy chatting and poking things under the hood or underneath cars up on lifts. A sound system blared some kind of foreign music.

I walked out of the shadows, stopping just within the light. After one last look around, I crossed, weaving between some cars, and walked through the door, checking corners rapidly. A man with a hard, pockmarked face and hands too clean to be a real mechanic sat slumped behind the counter. A foul-smelling cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.

His gaze flicked to me. "Da?" he snarled through a mouth of brownish teeth. He sized me up and clearly decided I wasn’t an ordinary customer worried about his car. He snaked a hand below the counter.

Nikolay. I lowered my bags to the floor and scanned the room, checking for exits, furniture I could duck behind, and things that would trip me up if I had to move quickly. I wasn’t in friendly territory, and there were lots of scenarios where Nikolay wouldn’t be happy to see me.

He heaved himself up and went through a door into the back.

I surreptitiously checked the Glock in my shoulder holster, undoing the retaining strap. The suppressor was attached, two spare magazines were on the opposite side to balance the weight, and the pistol was ready to go at a moment’s notice. Just a precaution, in case things went really bad. I crossed my arms, ready to draw or shake hands.

The door opened, and the Russian version of Lurch stepped in. His hand, which he offered to me, had strong, thick fingers—the knuckles were large and had been broken several times in the past. He was probably exactly what he appeared to be: an aging bruiser.

His grip was tight, the handshake short. Yes? he said, in a heavy accent.

Sanctus, I replied as he let go.

He nodded. And the other, who was here?

I’m looking for him. When did you last see him? I watched his face and hands.

With no sign of hesitation or evasiveness, he said, Thursday.

That was just four days ago. James hadn’t called in for a month. I kept my face blank. Has there been any trouble?

No, it has been quiet, he said.

Has he been gone a lot recently?

Yes. Before Thursday, I have not seen him for several days. He came back for few hours and leave again.

That didn’t necessarily mean anything. James could’ve been out on a mission, or any number of errands. Still, something wasn’t right. Why was he missing check-ins?

I questioned Nikolay for several more minutes, but there was no pattern, no red flags, nothing to suggest a problem—aside from him abandoning protocol.

When I had exhausted my questions, Nikolay stood there patiently.

Out of ideas, I said, Show me the room.

I picked up my gear and went with him upstairs. The second story had two entrances—an outside stairway and one inside, in the back of the shop. The room itself was large and clean but poorly maintained, and not quiet. I could hear the mechanics and their music below. I thanked Nikolay, sent him away, secured the door, and began searching the place for clues.

There was a sad-looking bed tucked in one corner, a bare mattress and box spring, and a couple of abused pillows. On the back wall, a single window gave a view of the junkyard and two large Rottweilers playing tug of war with an old rope. In the small kitchen nook, I checked the fridge, but it was empty—not even a leftover beer or half-eaten banana. Same with the bathroom. There were no clothes, no toiletries, just some cleaning supplies and a couple