Chapter 18: A Knock on the Door Late at Night
Night. Inside the museum.
"Something's off."
Father Amos leaned forward in his display case, squinting at Rango with a furrowed brow. He turned his head one way, then the other, examining the younger man like a doctor sizing up a patient. "Didn't you say you dealt with all the earthbound spirits in your house? So why do you look like you haven't slept in a week?"
Rango let out a short laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. The old man wasn't wrong. Sixty hours without sleep had already been pushing it. Then, right before his shift, he'd spent the better part of forty minutes playing a very specific role — and not just with one ghost, either. Two, simultaneously.
It would've been strange if he wasn't running on fumes.
He waved off the question, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a premium cigar — the good kind, Cuban, the sort of thing he'd specifically picked up on the way to work. He clipped the end with a small cutter, lit it, and handed it over through the open display case.
After their last few conversations, Rango had figured out something interesting about Father Amos: the man — or the model of the man — had a smoking habit that was borderline supernatural in its own right. Last night alone, he'd burned through two full packs of Rango's cigarettes without so much as pausing to breathe between them.
Lung cancer, Rango thought, watching Amos accept the cigar with the kind of reverence most people reserved for sacred objects. Guy's already dead and he's still worried about lung cancer.
Amos drew a long, slow drag and let the smoke curl out of his nose with deep, visible satisfaction. His eyes half-closed. For a moment, he looked almost peaceful.
Then Rango spoke up, his tone shifting to something more purposeful. "I brought you what you wanted. But I'm here to collect on what you promised me."
Amos cracked one eye open, smoke still drifting from his lips. He regarded Rango for a beat, then sat up straighter and cleared his throat with exaggerated dignity. "Right, right. The box. Have you opened it? Did you get everything out?"
"I did."
Rango nodded. He'd opened the wooden box on the drive back from Boston — parked on the side of the highway, Ted asleep in the back, M3GAN standing watch by the car like a very well-dressed security system.
There hadn't been much inside. Five items, total. And two of them were already in use.
The first was the brass knuckle duster — black leather, a Holy Cross engraved deep into the metal surface in gold. The practical effect had been staggering. With it on his hand, putting down ordinary earthbound spirits had been like swatting flies. Every punch landed with devastating, permanent force.
The second was a small metal canister of concentrated holy water. Following Amos's instructions from the night before, Rango had carefully drawn two drops and let them fall directly into his eyes.
The effect had been immediate — a sharp, burning clarity that let him see the spirits hiding in the dark, even when they didn't want to be seen. The holy water he'd brushed onto the basement walls had been diluted first — way less than a twentieth of the canister's contents — but even that had been more than enough. Any spirit that touched the walls dissolved on contact. No fight required.
The remaining three items, Rango laid out one by one on the museum's front desk, lined up neatly under the lamplight.
A silver cross. Old, but well-maintained, radiating a faint, almost imperceptible glow — the kind of light that you might mistake for a trick of the eye if you weren't looking for it.
An old-fashioned revolver. A Colt, engraved from barrel to grip with intricate, strange patterns — symbols and scripture that Rango didn't recognize but that felt heavy somehow, even just holding it. The cylinder was full. Six rounds. Golden bullets, each one stamped with a small black cross on the tip.
And a Bible. Leather-bound, the cover cracked and yellowed with age, the pages soft and worn from decades — maybe centuries — of use.
As Rango set each item down, Amos's reaction shifted. The cigar lowered from his lips. The casual, smoke-addled ease drained out of his posture, replaced by something quieter. Something reverent.
He reached out — carefully, like he was handling something fragile — and lifted the Bible.
His fingers traced the spine. The worn leather cover. The edges of the pages, soft as cloth. And his expression... changed. The sharpness and the humor and the gruff impatience that usually lived in his face all receded, and what was left underneath was something raw and old.
"In my life," Amos said, his voice lower than Rango had ever heard it, "I presided over more than a hundred and sixty thousand exorcism rituals.
Many of them were dangerous. Some of them should have killed me." He held the Bible close to his chest, almost unconsciously. "But as long as I had this in my hands — as long as I could read the scripture out loud — God's power would come. And it would push the darkness back."
He paused. Something flickered across his face — a memory, maybe, or the ghost of one.
"Your grandfather, though... he contributed more than people realized." A strange, complicated smile crossed his lips. "There was one night — I had one foot in Hell, kid. Literally. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything.
And it was Anderson who pulled me out. Wearing that knuckle duster. Holding that revolver." He nodded toward the items on the desk. "Fists and bullets. That was his style. Saved my life with both."
He went quiet for a moment, turning the Bible gently in his hands.
"It's a shame he was manipulated by that demon. Tricked into leaving the Church. Into getting married, having a family..." Amos shook his head slowly. "If he'd stayed... he'd be in Heaven with me right now. Both of us, resting easy."
Rango listened without interrupting. When Amos finally set the Bible down — gently, like it was made of glass — Rango nodded.
The picture was clear now. The holy water, the cross, the Bible — all of those had been Amos's tools. The knuckle duster and the revolver had been his grandfather Anderson's.
Even his exorcism style was brutal, Rango thought, and felt something warm and unfamiliar settle in his chest. Not quite pride. Something adjacent to it.
He picked up the silver revolver, turned it in his hand, and gave the cylinder a casual spin — two full rotations before it clicked back into place. Then he looked at Amos.
"This thing. How does it work against spirits? The cylinder's full, but there aren't any spare rounds anywhere in the box. I haven't fired it."
Amos's eyebrows shot up, and he actually laughed — a short, relieved bark of laughter that made him slap his knee.
"It's a good thing you didn't," he said, shaking his head with evident relief. "Lord have mercy, kid. If you'd wasted even one of those bullets on a run-of-the-mill earthbound spirit, your grandfather would've crawled out of the grave just to kick your ass."
He reached out and took the revolver from Rango's hand — gently, but with clear reverence. His thumb ran along the engraved patterns on the grip, tracing them from memory.
"This gun," he said, quietly, "is beyond anything you're imagining right now. Trust me."
He opened the cylinder, and the golden bullets caught the light — each one gleaming, the black crosses on their tips sharp and precise.
"These rounds were forged from holy relics," Amos continued, his tone shifting into something almost ceremonial. "Artifacts that had been kept and venerated in Vatican vaults for over a hundred years. After the forging, they were blessed personally by the Pope." He closed the cylinder with a soft click. "Bullets like these are extraordinarily rare. Most demons don't even qualify to be hit by them."
Rango took the revolver back when Amos offered it. He held it for a moment, feeling the weight of it — not just the physical weight, but everything behind it. The history. The craftsmanship. The intent.
This was for the big ones, he understood. Not for the small fry. For the things that actually mattered.
Like the Yellow-Eyed Demon.
He tucked the revolver carefully into his belt, adjusting his jacket over it, and picked up the canister of holy water. Then he looked at Amos.
"Alright, old man. Your turn. I held up my end — cigars, delivered. Now you hold up yours."
"Old man?"
Amos's face scrunched up in theatrical offense. "Kid, if we're talking about seniority here, you should be calling me Grandpa."
He grumbled something under his breath, took one last, long drag of the cigar, and stubbed it out against the edge of his display case with a decisive tap.
Then his posture changed.
It was subtle at first — a straightening of the spine, a settling of the shoulders. Then Amos reached for the silver cross and lifted it over his head, letting it hang against his chest where it belonged. He took the Bible — the old, worn, yellowed Bible — and held it in both hands, cradling it against his front.
And something shifted.
The man in front of Rango was no longer a museum exhibit having a smoke and a chat. The cassock hung differently on him now — the black fabric deep and formal, the purple vestments catching light that didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular.
The cross on his chest glowed — faintly, steadily, like a heartbeat made visible. And his face — lined, weathered, creased with age — looked kind in a way it hadn't before. Peaceful. Ancient. The kind of face you trusted without knowing why.
Rango blinked. He'd seen a lot of things in his life — things that would make most people question their sanity. But this was different. This wasn't a ghost or a trick or an illusion.
This was presence. Real, undeniable, sacred presence.
A museum model shouldn't be able to do this, some part of his brain noted. The resurrected exhibits are supposed to be copies. Partial memories. Rough approximations.
But the man standing in front of him didn't look like an approximation of anything.
Amos made the sign of the cross over his own chest — slow, deliberate, each movement precise. And then he began to speak.
The words weren't English. They weren't anything Rango could have identified, exactly — Latin, maybe, or something older. But the sound of them filled the space like water filling a vessel. Low. Resonant. Solemn. A prayer, clearly — one for God's grace and guidance, though Rango only caught fragments of meaning.
He stood still. Clasped his hands in front of him. Bowed his head slightly. Not out of deep personal faith — Rango had never been religious, and he wasn't about to start now — but out of a basic respect for the moment. And for the man creating it.
Time passed. The prayer continued. Rango's eyelids started to droop — the sixty hours of exhaustion catching up to him in the quiet, warm stillness of the moment — and he almost swayed on his feet before catching himself.
Then Amos's hand moved.
He dipped his fingers into the canister of holy water — a small, practiced motion — and stepped forward. His lips were still moving, still reciting the scripture, the words flowing without pause. He reached out and pressed his wet fingertips gently against Rango's eyelids — first the left, then the right — applying the holy water with careful, precise pressure.
Then he made the sign of the cross on Rango's forehead.
And finally, he lifted the cross from his chest and held it out — steady, glowing, warm.
Rango knew what was supposed to happen next. Amos had walked him through the ritual beforehand. He felt a little ridiculous about it — but he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the cross.
The moment he did, a searing burn erupted behind his eyes — sharp, sudden, almost blinding. He flinched, a hiss escaping through his teeth—
And then it was gone. Replaced by a rush of cool, clean clarity that swept through his skull like ice water after a fever.
He blinked. Hard. Once, twice. Opened his eyes fully and looked around.
Amos had already moved on. The Bible was back on the desk. The cross was back around his neck. The cigar was back in his hand, freshly lit, smoke curling lazily upward. He looked completely relaxed — as if the last five minutes hadn't happened at all. As if blessing someone's eyes was just another Tuesday.
Rango turned his head slowly, scanning the museum around him. The second floor. The display cases. The hallways stretching off in either direction.
Nothing looked different.
"That's it?" he asked, frowning. "You're not messing with me, right? I don't see anything new."
"That's because there's nothing new to see," Amos said, not looking up from his cigar. He shook his head. "Ghosts and undead spirits aren't something you trip over on the street. And demons? They only show up when they want to. You're not going to see one just because you're looking."
He took a drag, exhaled, and settled back into his display case like a man settling into a very comfortable chair.
"The blessing worked. It's there. When the time comes — when there's actually something in front of you worth seeing — you'll see it. Clear as day. Clearer than anything you've ever seen."
Rango considered this for a moment. Then shrugged. Fair enough.
He gathered up the items — the Bible, the cross, the holy water, all of it — and placed them carefully back in the wooden box. He wasn't religious. Probably never would be. But every single item in this box was a weapon, and Rango knew better than to leave weapons lying around.
After reminding Amos to get back into his display case once the smoke was done, he headed back downstairs to the lobby.
First floor. Same as always.
Ted was sprawled across the front desk, one arm dangling off the edge, snoring with the kind of commitment that suggested he'd been at it for a while. M3GAN was somewhere deeper in the building — Rango could hear the faint sound of Stan the T-Rex barking happily at something, probably the bone she kept throwing for him.
Rango grabbed a chair, dragged it up to the desk, dropped into it, and put his feet up on the table. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and let the quiet of the museum wash over him.
Sleep came fast. Faster than he expected.
But it didn't last long.
His eyes snapped open — sharp, alert, fully awake in an instant — and his gaze locked onto the front doors of the museum.
A second later, a rapid, insistent knocking echoed through the lobby.
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