Shade of Pale Read online

  “Mr. Loomis, have you been taking your medication?”

  “Yeah. But all it does is slow me down.”

  “You still feel as if you’re being followed?”

  Loomis shook his head. “Doc, I told you. I don’t feel anything; I am being followed. Except, now, she’s starting to call to me, drawing me to her. And I can’t resist. It’s like I’m swimming against the tide.”

  Jukes got out his notebook and prepared to take notes again.

  When Loomis spoke, his voice was dry and exasperated. “Is that all you headshrinkers do? Just write things down in your damn little notebooks?”

  “All the answers are inside you, Mr. Loomis. All I try to do is help you dig them out.”

  “Dig them out? Christ, you’d be better off helping me dig my grave.”

  “Let’s avoid talk like that, OK? How do you expect me to treat you successfully with an attitude like that?”

  “I don’t expect successful treatment. I told you; I’m going to die.”

  Jukes changed the subject. “Have you been able to sleep?”

  Loomis rubbed his red eyes and sighed. The weight of his madness lay heavy on his shoulders. He ignored the question.

  “I bought one of those disposable cameras. I figured I could take a picture of her to show you, so you wouldn’t think I’m making this up.

  “I started taking it with me everywhere. I saw her on the train platform, across the tracks from me. She was only fifteen yards away. I pulled the camera out of my pocket and started snappin’ away. I must have got ten good pictures. She just stood there and stared. Then the train arrived and I couldn’t see her anymore.

  “When I got the pictures developed, there was nothing on the film. Just the train platform and the other people, but not her.”

  Jukes crossed his legs.

  “I know that you’re gonna say it’s just another weird coincidence, right? Like the film lab fucked up, or I aimed the camera wrong, or she was never there to begin with.… But I know what I saw.”

  Loomis coughed and felt his pockets for a cigarette. “I’ve done some research, Doc. You want to hear?”

  Jukes nodded.

  “The Banshee, or more correctly the Bean Si or Bean Nighe, is the Irish death spirit. She wails for the members of the old families. She’s a female spirit, you know, and her coming always foretells death to one of the males in the family.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed. Jukes raised a hand. “Let’s talk about your childhood, Mr. Loomis.”

  Loomis acted as if he couldn’t hear Jukes as he continued with his previous thought. “The wail of the Banshee is mournful beyond all other sounds on earth.… Believe me, I know. I’ve heard it. That’s the final stage, hearing her song. Once she’s marked you for death, there is no escape.

  “When the Banshee cries, Declan dies,” Loomis said poetically, a rueful grin cracked across his weathered face.

  Jukes shook his head. He’s getting worse, he thought. Maybe the Valium was a bad idea.

  “Mr. Loomis, why do you torture yourself like this? Let’s think it out together. OK? There are no ghosts; there are no Banshees. What you are feeling is a manifestation of guilt, guilt over something that must have happened years ago.” He paused, hoping the words were sinking in. “It can’t hurt you.”

  “Stop it!” Loomis cried. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re looking for some kind of rational twentieth-century explanation for this. What’s happening to me defies explanation; can’t you see that? I’m talking about a curse, the bloody curse of the Banshee. It’s happened countless times before. All your books and therapies don’t mean shit.

  “The fact of the matter is … the Banshee exists! And she’s coming for me. When she starts singing … I’m going to die.”

  Loomis stopped talking. He sat there fidgeting nervously on the clinging leather couch.

  “If you really believe that, why did you come to me?” Jukes asked. “I’m a psychiatrist, not a witch doctor.”

  Loomis frowned. “Where else am I gonna go? You really want to know why I came to you? I came because I thought maybe you could help me to accept my own death.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve painted yourself into a corner, Mr. Loomis. You need help. There is a therapy that I haven’t mentioned, something very effective at getting to parts of the mind which are normally closed off. It’s something that I have been trained in, and it’s not painful or dangerous in any way. I need to access your memories, Mr. Loomis. I need to open up the closet and look at all the skeletons. Would you be willing?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hypnotherapy.”

  “Subject: Declan Loomis, September 12, 1997, 2:37 P.M., initial interrogation. Mr. Loomis, can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  Jukes spoke clearly and distinctly into his cassette recorder. Loomis was in a deep hypnotic trance.

  “Good. You will listen only to my voice and answer only the questions I ask. When I give you a suggestion, you will carry it out quickly and without hesitation. No harm will come to you and you will feel no pain. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you feel any guilt right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “Think. Go back in time. What painful memory have you suppressed that might cause you to feel guilty?”

  Loomis didn’t answer right away; he seemed to be searching his memory, sighing now and then and breathing in slow, even drafts. At last he said, “Francis.”

  “Francis? Who is Francis?”

  Loomis sighed again, deeply and with great significance. He was drawing nearer to the root, the base problem, and Jukes could sense it. A tear welled up in Loomis’s eye, grew fat, and escaped down the side of his face.

  “Francis … my daughter.”

  “Did you do something to her, something you’re ashamed of?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what you did to Francis, Mr. Loomis. Tell me and let the guilt and repression flow out as you say the words.”

  “I … I touched her … I—”

  “Don’t be afraid; nothing can hurt you. Just say it.”

  “I played with her!” Loomis suddenly shouted and began to cry; the dam had burst. “I couldn’t help myself. I pulled her little panties down and I touched her.”

  There it was, lying just below the surface, something that would have caused more Banshees then the poor bastard could’ve counted if left to fester like this. Nothing ghostly about it, a pure case of guilt by denial. He’s got a pressure cooker going inside.

  Jukes immediately began to assuage Declan Loomis’s fears. “Relax. No one is going to hurt you, Mr. Loomis. Where is your daughter now?”

  “She’s grown-up. She’s a lawyer now. She lives in Manhattan, but she won’t have anything to do with me.”

  Then Jukes’s questioning took on a slightly different tack. “Do you think that’s why you saw the Banshee, Mr. Loomis?”

  Loomis snorted. “No, of course not. The Banshee has her own agenda. I don’t know exactly why she wants me; I only know she does. Maybe it’s because of Francis, maybe not. The Banshee has been haunting my family for generations.”

  “I want you to forget about the Banshee, Mr. Loomis. It does not exist.”

  There was no answer.

  “The Banshee does not exist,” Jukes repeated.

  Loomis shook his head. “But it does!”

  “If I say it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. I want you to understand, Mr. Loomis. The Banshee is an invention of your own mind, a suggestion from the past. You created a monster from the repressed guilt of what you did to Francis.”

  “But I’ve seen it.”

  “Of course you have, but only in your mind’s eye. That’s why there was no image on the film, because it was never there. It only existed in your imagination. Now, I want you to say it, to say that the Banshee does not exist, and a
s you say these words, I want you to let the guilt over Francis flow away, and with it … the Banshee.

  “Now that you’ve admitted the root of the problem, you’ve already taken the first step. You need to verbalize these thoughts, to get them out. Now take a deep breath and repeat after me. The Banshee …”

  Loomis’s voice was cracking, shaky. He seemed more afraid than ever. “The B-B-Banshee …”

  “Does not exist. I want you to complete the sentence, Mr. Loomis. It’s important that you say the words,” said Jukes.

  There was another moment of silence; then Loomis whispered, “Does not exist.”

  Jukes breathed deeply and let the words sink in. Loomis began to cry again, this time uncontrollably, and Jukes was forced to bring him out of the hypnotic state.

  “When you awake you will remember nothing, except the realization of the fact that the Banshee does not exist. You will feel refreshed, rested, and invigorated. When I count to three you will open your eyes. One, two …”

  Loomis shuddered and whimpered again.

  “Three.”

  Loomis returned to the waking world with tears still wet on his face, unaware of what he had revealed.

  Jukes smiled. “Mr. Loomis, I think we can begin our therapy as soon as tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

  Loomis left the office and went down into the street. He began to walk, aimlessly at first, then in the general direction of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

  If I’m going to die soon, he thought, I’d better make my peace. In the holy house of God the Banshee can’t possibly enter. I’ll be safe there, if only for a little while.

  The church stood open and, except for a few worshipers, seemed nearly deserted. The echoes of whispered prayers reverberated around him in the close and holy shadows. He stood for a moment facing the altar, muttering his own pathetic invocation.

  He entered the confessional and waited for the priest to speak. His heart pounded.

  “Yes, my son?”

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  “What is the nature of your sin, my son?”

  He paused, gathering what strength he could. “Ah, uhm, Father, it’s hard for me to say this.…”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “I …” Loomis swallowed a dry, forced lump. His voice dropped to a sandpaper whisper. “I sexually abused my only daughter many years ago … when she was young. God help me.”

  The priest exhaled softly. “This is a very serious matter, my son. I must ask you to seek professional help, some counseling perhaps. You can make your peace with God, but you’ll have to make your own peace with your daughter, if you can.”

  Loomis wiped the sweat off his brow and tried to even out his ragged breathing. His voice trembled as he spoke. “I think … I’m going … to die.”

  “Why do you think that, my son?”

  Loomis began to sob softly. “Because the Banshee stalks me, Father.”

  Loomis couldn’t see the priest quickly making the sign of the cross and sitting up in his seat. He did hear the words, however, and the tone was unmistakable: “It is forbidden to speak blasphemy in the house of the Lord. You must pray, my son, pray for forgiveness. Pray for salvation. And may God have mercy on your soul.”

  He left the church sweating profusely. Intending at first to go directly home, he now felt restless and began walking again. He stopped into a bar for three quick shots of Johnnie Walker Red, then left before he could order more.

  Better to keep moving.

  He stumbled down the street like a madman, his bladder full and his heart galloping.

  Then he saw her.

  She was standing at the mouth of an alley half a block away, combing her hair. Somehow that simple act set his soul burning with dread. Loomis knew his time had come; he knew it with every tissue of his being.

  Her eyes met his and she opened her mouth and began to wail. The sound rose up from the street and surrounded him, pressing in on his soul.

  It began as an unearthly opera singer’s glissando, then kept modulating higher and louder, until it became a deafening shriek that blotted out all else.

  Loomis began to shake uncontrollably and lost control of his swollen, whiskeyed bladder. Warm fluid spread down his pants, but he was unaware of it. Declan Loomis had gone beyond caring.

  He was shaking so violently that he scarcely realized he was taking step after halting step toward her, leaving urinous footprints on the dirty concrete.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Belfast, Northern Ireland

  “Brendan Killian was a flake, if you ask me,” said Padraic O’Connor as he tipped back a glass of whiskey. An ex-IRA Provisional Wing commando, a Provo, had no time for such nonsense as poetry. “Young Brendan spent far too much time writing poetry and not enough time on his cause, misguided as it might have been. He didn’t watch his ass. And it killed him.”

  Sean Dolan refilled O’Connor’s glass as soon as it hit the bar. “Yeah, maybe so, but don’t turn your back on our Irish literary heritage, Paddy. You’d be doin’ a great injustice,” he said in tired, measured tones.

  “Not near the injustice that’s been done us,” O’Connor answered. He was a big man, over six feet tall and muscled like the forty-nine-year-old urban guerrilla he chose to be.

  Dolan, the same age but a much smaller man, thin and wiry, with beard and mustache, snorted. “Agreed. But the lad was a damn good poet; let’s not take that away from him.” Dolan raised his own glass.

  “You act as if the boy were just another customer at the bar,” O’Connor hissed. “He was our bloody enemy, Sean, or have you forgotten? A damn Ulster Volunteer.” He glared at Dolan, the whiskey putting a shine in his eye. “A UVF, a Protestant, what the hell more proof do you need? I can’t believe we’re standin’ here talkin’ about the little shit.”

  “Because he’s dead. And I knew his family.”

  “You don’t see me sheddin’ no tears,” Padraic snapped. “You were at Ballymacarret. You saw what they did. Christ, Sean, how many good men have to die?”

  “Killian wasn’t even out of diapers yet.”

  “Maybe so, but that don’t change anything. The boy was one of them. The enemy. I, for one, am glad he’s dead. I’ll piss on his grave next chance I get.”

  “You’re a hard man, Padraic O’Connor.”

  “Hard, am I? Take a look outside. It’s a war zone, man,” O’Connor replied.

  Dolan squinted through the small, grimy window, past the heavy wire mesh screen, into the dirty snow. “That’s exactly what it is, Padraic. Northern Ireland is nothing but a bombed-out shell. Sweet Jesus, I can’t remember when it was anything but.”

  “It’s a sad thing,” the big man said. O’Connor’s eyes swept the dimly lit pub, deserted but for the two of them. At one time, in this drinking establishment, one of the oldest in Belfast, would have been filled elbow to elbow with his compatriots.

  They were the proud and dangerous members of Northern Ireland’s most radical terrorist group, the Black Rain, an outlaw ultra-violent splinter group of the Irish Republican Army Provisional Wing. Now there were only the two of them left, the rest killed, in jail, or in hiding. O’Connor and Dolan, the last of a dying breed.

  “Curfew again tonight, better drink up,” Dolan said, tapping O’Connor’s shot glass on the bar. Padraic nodded.

  Dolan poured an Irish double.

  “Of course,” O’Connor continued, “we’ll have to start recruitin’ again. We can’t let the organization die. The trouble is these wild-eyed youths today lack discipline.”

  “Killian was a gifted poet, Padraic. He published some books over in the States. That’s a great achievement, you know.”

  O’Connor considered Dolan’s words for a second, then shrugged them off. “Well, the Black Rain has no time for poetry, not when our boys are being shot down in the street. I’m surprised the UVF let him publish anything, even if it was on Yankee soil. It just shows the conf
usion that must be runnin’ ragged in their ranks.

  “Make no mistake. The UVF are just as angry as a nest of hornets, and if you disturb ’em they’ll come out in a swarm. Don’t underestimate ’em for a minute. For Morrison to call this meeting tonight, it must be something big, bigger than the both of us. After all, he’s UVF and we’re Black Rain, enemies to the bloody end.”

  O’Connor pointed. “Don’t be forgettin’ that Morrison gave the orders to kill Gerry Paisley and Brian Fitt, and I’ve not had my revenge for that.”

  Like all of the members of Ireland’s most radical secret society, living or dead, Padraic believed vengeance worth fighting, and dying, for.

  “Surely you don’t intend to kill him tonight?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” O’Connor said with cruel smile. “But no, I’ll let the bastard walk away from this meeting free and clear. I’ll not raise a hand to him, unless this whole thing’s a trick.”

  “It’s no trick. Morrison risks a lot.”

  O’Connor’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll face each other again, me and him, on the field of high consequence; you can be sure of that. Besides, I want to hear what he has to say. There’s money involved.”

  Dolan lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “He’s here about Killian.”

  “Ah, fuck Killian and the horse he rode in on.”

  Dolan forced smoke through his nostrils. “But have you even read the lad’s poetry?”

  “Who has time to read? For Christ sake, Sean, you sound like all those students and intellectuals we used to make fun of. This is war.”

  Dolan poured himself a shot while he listened, then tossed it back casually. He wiped the bar with a towel and looked across the deserted pub.

  “Personal feelings aside, Paddy, this must be a matter of the gravest importance,” Dolan said.

  “It must be for a man like Morrison to meet with me.”

  O’Connor eyed his empty glass with a stare that commanded Dolan to fill it again quickly. “It’s very dangerous,” he murmured.

  Dolan began to pour. “It is that. If any of their cronies found out that a UVF field commander was meeting with the likes of us, it’d be certain death. And the bloody Provos, I’m sure they’d do the same to a couple of old freedom fighters like you and me.”