Free In Tongues of the Dead by Brad Kelln

talking about? How did I get here?” Father McCallum felt a surge of panic. He wanted to stay calm and focused.
Just take a deep breath
, he told himself. He stood, using the communion rail to pull himself up. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He was definitely in a church, a familiar church. Then he recognized it.
    It was the church he had been baptized in. Our Lady of Grace, in West Babylon, New York. Why was he here?
    â€œThou hast brought shame to the order of things. The balance is lost,” the voice said.
    The voice seemed louder, more commanding. He couldn’t place it.
    â€œAnd behold I bring a flood of waters upon this holy place to destroy thy flesh. I will take thine own breath of life and thou wilt be lost. I will destroy all that I have created. The mistakes of an unholy union will be hidden.”
    â€œWhat?” Father McCallum asked. He didn’t have time to say more. There was an enormous crack, as though the church had been struck by lightning. He turned toward the doors to the sanctuary and felt a current of air strike him.
    Then, without warning, he felt a surge of water flow around his legs. He yelped. The water was cold and dark, and was rising quickly. His back was to the massive crucifix on the wall. He had no place to go.
    â€œHelp!” he screamed, although he knew it was futile. He was going to die here.
    The water swirled past his hips.
    â€œDie!” the voice boomed. “Die!”
    â€œNo!” Father McCallum begged. He saw a door and tried to swim toward it. But the water rose faster and the swells grew more violent. They pushed at him, slamming him against the pulpit, the back wall, the crucifix.
    He strained and strained, but the water lifted him and tossed him around like a rag doll.
    A swell brushed over his head, and he fought to find the surface, then broke free and gasped for air. Before he could take a breath another swell forced him down.
    I’m going to die
, he thought.
    â€œRonnie?”
    I’m going to die
.
    â€œRonnie,” a pleasant voice called again, “are you up there?”
    He opened his eyes. The voice was different — a female voice.
    His face was slick with sweat, and as he rolled over he realized the bed was also soaked in sweat.
    My bed! I’m in my bed. It was just a dream
.
    He listened.
    â€œRonnie?” It was Evelyn, calling from downstairs.
    â€œYes,” he answered.
    â€œYou have a visitor,” she sang up the stairs.
    Father McCallum shook the dream from his mind and tried to focus on the present.
The Vatican is here about the Voynich!
“I’ll be right down.”

XX
    â€œRemind me again why we’re staying in a shit motel,” Jeremy said. It was Friday morning and he was lying on one of the double beds in a small room in the Roadside Motel. The yellow wallpaper and its bright flower border smelled of years of smoke and dirt. The twenty-inch jvc was securely bolted to an aged dresser, and Jeremy had almost given up trying to get the remote to work.
    Maury pulled the heavy drapes closed on the second small window and turned to his brother. “We’re staying here because this shit motel is a short drive from Yale and the Beinecke Library. We’re staying here because it’s right on the highway. And we’re staying here because shit motels like this let you pay in cash. Places like these never care about anything.”
    Jeremy seemed unconvinced. “You’d think the Vatican would have a better system. Can’t they get fake credit cards or set up some hideouts around the country?”
    Maury flipped open his suitcase. “Maybe the church doesn’t want to waste any money on a dead ass like you.”
    Jeremy laughed and tried the remote again. He desperately wanted to get something out of the piece-of-crap television — something to keep his mind occupied. He pressed the buttons carefully. He’d lost almost all feeling in his fingers,