Tel, Greg and Lamont spent much of the afternoon and early evening going through Lamont’s papers and organizing them. Felicia helped at first but after they stopped for dinner she excused herself, saying she wanted to look for something in her studio. Leon suspected it was the sheer volume of paper that unnerved her. Mama had never been much of a reader.

Paper. Stuffed into drawers, shoved under the bed, crammed into boxes… Lamont apparently saved every draft of an article or letter, every note taken, every essay, every diary entry.

“There has to be a term for this,” Leon said at one point to Greg.

“A term for what?” asked Greg.

“All this writing. It just seems kind of monomaniacal to me. Is there a word for that?”

“Hypergraphia,” said Greg. “James Boswell had it. People are still going through his papers trying to catalogue them. They’ve been doing it for about twenty years. Every time they think they’ve found it all, someone opens a tea-chest and finds more papers.”

“There was nothing wrong with Lamont,” said Tel from his seat at Lamont’s desk. “He was a writer, that’s all. A professional writer.”

“And a good one,” added Greg. “So was Boswell. That’s not prevented rumors of at least one historian having a nervous breakdown trying to organize the Bosewll papers.”

There were no nervous breakdowns. By late in the evening they’d managed to organize a third of the papers they found into folders. The rest went into the file cabinets Leon carried from Papa’s study. Tel stood for a moment, looked around the room, sighed, and then walked out. They heard him go down the hall to his room and close the door.

Greg walked over to the window. Leon raised his head and sniffed slightly. That second-hand scent of women he’d noticed earlier in the room was slightly more intense, had a harsher, dryer edge to it. He followed it to the dresser and pulled open a drawer.

A lock of brown hair, tied with red ribbon. A gold bracelet. A small envelope with the name “Dodie” written on it. Leon breathed in and caught the dusty scent of old nail clippings.

“Artifacts,” said Greg, his back still twards Leon. “Totems. Charms. I found those in the drawer while you were getting the file cabinets. They were wrapped in tissue and buried under a bunch of other junk — watches, hair ribbons, bracelets, rings, keys… It’s all in a box now under the bed.” Greg sighed. “I remember Dodie Teach. Very pretty girl about Liana’s age. Died in ’18. Plainly our Lamont was a true Duday. He liked women.”

Leon closed the drawer. He looked around. “Using charms for seduction, eh? I wish I could remember this guy.”

“I wish I could too.”

“You talked to Artiste after dinner, uncle. What did he tell you about his talk with Father Quitol?”

When Artiste had arrived at St. Elmo’s he’d found Father Gervas Quitol on his knees and digging in the garden behind the rectory. The old man had looked up at Artiste and smiled. “Ah,” he’d said, rising to his feet and brushing grass and dirt from his knees. “An excuse to rest for a moment. Thank you Artiste.”

“I was hoping we could talk. It’s a bit urgent, or really, I wouldn’t interrupt you.”

“Sounds serious.” Quitol nodded towards the little metal table resing on some flagstones. “Should I ask Mrs. Halloran to bring us some lemonade?”

“Only if you want some. I’m not going to stay long.”

They sat at the little table. Quitol took off his sun hat, dabbed at his forehead with a kerchief. “Is this about Tel?” he asked. “I’ve been hearing some strange rumors about him being…well…disoriented. Has he had a stroke? Can I come over?”

“Something like that. We think he’ll be all right, but he’s not quite ready for visitors yet. This is about something else.”

All the way to St. Elmo’s, Artist had struggled with how he would frame his question. It was a delicate matter. The Dudays were still part of Father Quitol’s congregation. All of them, even Greg’s Liana, had been baptized at St. Elmo’s. How much Quitol had figured out or suspected about the Dudays was unclear, as was how he’d react if he knew the entire truth.

Artiste decided to take a chance and just throw out one name.

“I wanted to ask you about Father Perez.”

“Ah.” Quitol seemed unsurprised. “Yes. He has become good friends with your sister-in-law.”

“Can you tell me something about him?”

Quitol looked at Artiste quietly for a moment, still smiling, before asking, “Is this about Kristal, or is it about your present wife’s family?”

“It’s about both,” he admitted. “I just want to know… How much pull does this man have? I mean, within the church. Is he influential?”

Again, Quitol seemed to think, his eyes on Artiste as though trying to assess something.

“Do you know why I came here eight years ago?” he finally asked. “I did not choose Touperdu. I was sent here. And it was not because I’d pleased my superiors. It was considered a punishment.”

“I can’t imagine what you could have done to deserve punishment.”

“Oh can’t you?” Quitol laughed. “You have never struck me as a naive man, Artiste.”

“I won’t go into too much detail. Let’s just say I made myself unpopular by making what some considered to be an unseemly fuss about what was going on in my country of birth. I even traveled once to the Vatican. Talked to highly placed people. Germany is a Catholic country, after all. What the Pope said could make a difference.”

“So I tried to get the ear of the Holy Father himself. No go. I went home, then, two months later I got the letter transferring me from New York to Touperdu. I still don’t know exactly who it was I angered.”

“Maybe it was the priest in Rome who told me I was being melodramatic and shouldn’t listen to the Jews because ‘those people are always complaining anyway.’

Perhaps I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”

“Anyway, I was sent here to replace old Pere Francois, God rest his soul. Who knows whom he offended as a young priest? It might have just been the poor fellow’s winning personality.”

“So you’re saying…”

“The church does not send people here because they like them.”

“But I thought… I get the impression Perez is quite the Nationalist. Forgive me, but doesn’t the church support Franco?”

“Oh yes,” Father Quitol’s smile vanished. “But its position on heresy remains pretty firm, and the man is a heretic. And in my opinion, mentally disturbed.”

Artiste waited.

“Is this important?” asked Quitol.

“Yes.”

“What is Kristal Abbot up to? I know she hates the Dudays. Do they fear… persecution at her hands? Through Perez?”

“Yes.”

Quitol shook his head. “All I can tell you is the man is so cracked even Franco’s church wants nothing to do with him. Artiste, let me speak plainly here, just for a moment, as a Catholic priest.”

“Our position on sorcery is clear. No offense to a certain lady we both dearly love and respect, but according to the church, it is a delusion of Satan which confers no actual powers.”

“Ignacio thinks otherwise. Worse, he goes beyond believing merely that witches can cast effective spells and curses. He believes witches to be demons, non-humans, born damned and beyond redemption.”

“My understanding is that, during the civil war, he was a rising star in Spain. For all the worst reasons, of course, but I’m not going to go into that right now. He managed to recruit a handful of cassocked idiots within the church, hiding the true extent of his and their heresy.

Managed even to open his own little version of the Inquisition there, all under the guise of going after Franco’s opponents. His — and his associates’ — fall came when a fifteen-year-old boy almost died after what they claimed was an attempted ‘exorcism.’

“This boy’s stepfather happened to be one of Franco’s favorite officers, a man of absolutely unquestioned loyalty to the regime.”

Perez’ explanation? The boy wasn’t human. Nor was his late mother. They were demons disguised within human flesh, and Perez was determined to get the boy to denounce other presumed ‘nonhumans.’

If his stepfather hadn’t intervened and rescued him, the poor lad would have died. His hands were so maimed and infected they had to be amputated, and he almost choked to death on his own tongue.

The rumor is he came out of the ordeal so badly crippled in mind and body he will likely spend the rest of his life in an institution.”

“My God.”

“So no, Father Ignacio Perez does not currently wield much power in the church. He and those like him are considered an embarassment. That’s why he’s here. But if he were given the ability, yes, I think he has been and could be dangerous.”

“Honestly, though, all he seems to be doing lately is writing a lot of letters to Spain, to Rome, to anyone he hopes will pay attention to them.”

“He spends hours at the library, reading anything he can on the occult. The man is absolutely desperate to reinstate himself. I don’t like him, but I do feel a bit sorry for anyone that deluded. I think Kristal is exploiting someone who’s deeply sick. But then, she’s not well either, is she?”

“No. She is not.” Artiste said. “Thank you. And I… I’m sorry Gervas. I didn’t realize your coming here was an exile for you.”

“Exile?” Father Quitol grinned. “The church was wiser than it knew. I love this island. I belong here. It is my home. I plan to die and be buried here.”

“That won’t happen any time soon, I hope.”

“Sooner than you might think.” Father Quitol touched his chest. “My ticker. It’s not so good. Why do you think they sent a second priest here?”

“Now, Leon, I think it’s very important,” Greg said, “that we don’t overreact.”

“Overreact?”

“Uncle, you’ve just told me some 20th-century Torquemada is going to take over the parish after Father Quitol is gone — which may not be long at all — and is, by the way, good friends with that bag of snakes who’s going to be our next mayor, who practically kidnapped my wife, my pregnant wife…”

“We can’t go off half-cocked, Leon. We need to think about this for a bit. According to Father Quitol, the man is disgraced and doesn’t have the resources of the church at his disposal. I’m not saying he doesn’t pose a danger, but…”

“Jesus, what’s it going to take with you? This is going to be that Reckoner bastard all over again isn’t it? Everybody’s going to leave him alone, sit on their hands and hope he’ll do us all a favor by killing himself.”

Greg’s anger was startling.

“Don’t talk of things you know nothing about, boy! Kristal Abbot is not going to be mayor tomorrow, nor is Father Quitol likely to die that soon. Tomorrow we’ll talk about what’s to be done. We are all of us going to stay indoors tonight. That includes you.”

“Please.”

Please.

Please, he said.

The man was a fool. A coward. A weakling who had no idea how to talk to a werewolf.

At midnight Leon walked one quick circuit within the house, sniffing, listening, assessing…

Everyone was asleep. Greg snored in the guest room. Marion lay curled in their bed. Mama was pressed against Papa her arms around him. Leon could catch the faint scent of salt. She had fallen asleep weeping.

His mother was an ordinary, untalented woman, but she loved her husband, and in her own way she sensed what Leon did. When Leon was with his father now, he caught the faint, unmistakeable odor of decay. Of death. The time had come that always comes.

Uncle Greg was a coward. Laurette was soft. Papa was failing. Sad, yes, but that is the way of the world, and Leon could not help but feel a faint surge of animal triumph. Now was the time for him to step into his father’s place.

He effortlessly, almost joyfully, slid into his fur and set out into the night.