The Judas Child by Carol O'Connell Page B

atrocities.
    In the early days of confinement, when he had suffered the rapists, the shadow had emanated sorrow for him—and forgiveness for them. When Paul Marie had increased his size and beaten an assailant nearly to death, the shadow had absorbed the blows of the beaten man, felt all the pain, and thus allowed the priest to wield pipe and fist, to break the bones of faces and limbs without remorse, untroubled by empathy.
    In exchange for services rendered, the prisoner gave sanctuary to the thing under the bed. He sometimes suspected it of being a flawed and somewhat shopworn deity in search of redemption, and doing hard time as the surrogate soul of a priest. He knew he had either lost his mind or found his faith. One of these things must be true.
    But which?
    No matter. He would not take the thing back inside himself. It could die under the bed for all he cared. Yet he did nothing to harm it, made no attempt to kill it, though it would have been as simple as lifting up the mattress and exposing the shadow to the overhead light.
    Now Father Marie inclined his head in a prelude to conversation with the dark thing. “Are you hungry? What would you like best? Shall I throw you a bone—or a little girl?”
    He stood up and made a square tour of his small austere cell, ten feet by ten, trailing one hand along the bare wall and then the bars.
    So two more children are missing.
    Had something new been added to his delusion? He could hear the buzzing of flies, but there were none about. No flights of angels’ wings—only the buzz of fat black insects? A brain tumor perhaps. He would welcome that. Yes, perhaps the flies were inside him.
    But now one flew past him, and then another brushed his skin, and he recoiled.
    One more turn around the cell. He came to rest in front of the bed and knelt down to speak more intimately with the shadow. “About those little girls—you know how this will all turn out, don’t you?”
    The flies had stopped their buzzing. They had gone away and left him in deep silence, where the real madness was. Now the priest could hear his own heart beating, and then another heartbeat layered over this one, light and tripping, skipping beats, struck with fear—the wild heart of a child.
     
    Only Captain Costello was aware of David Shore. The small boy was not simply timid or nervous; he was clearly frightened, all but hugging the wall as he shrank back from the heavy foot traffic in the wide, noisy room of adults. Costello watched the youngster through a crack in the blinds covering the glass on his door. The child seemed fixated on the red-haired cop seated just outside the office.
    Shy David was springing off the toes of his running shoes, set to fly, anchored only by fascination for Officer Rouge Kendall. Now David ventured away from the wall with short, halting steps, and Costello was reminded of that first endless trek across a ballroom, heading for the sure rejection of an invitation to a dance.
    The child came to rest in front of the young cop, who was engrossed in a handful of papers. David bit down on his lower lip. His running shoes were undecided, stepping one foot forward and one foot back. A baseball card was clutched in his small hand. Captain Costello had to squint to make out the New York Yankees logo and a portrait of Rouge Kendall with his pitcher’s glove.
    Well, the trading card was hardly valuable, since the pitcher had washed out in his first season on the rookie league.
    The young cop looked up, surprised to see David hovering over him. Kendall stared at the boy’s card bearing the picture of himself as a twenty-year-old baseball player with his whole life in front of him.
    Captain Costello sucked in his breath.
    Please, Kendall, don’t blow this chance.
    So far, the little boy from St. Ursula’s Academy had spoken to no one but Mrs. Hofstra, his school housemother. Costello was convinced that David would have more to say if he could only speak for himself.
    Kendall took the