by Michael Todd
“Are you going to ask if I want it?”
The Secretary paused before answering, “No. You are to take Max with you as well. A spirit is wreaking havoc, damaging graves and scaring off mourners who come to the cemetery. He is a nasty bastard, and has perfected the art of launching objects into the air.”
Damian groaned. “By objects do you mean rocks and stones, or are you talking about people? Dead or alive?”
She cleared her throat nervously. “Let’s say we’ve had a few opened graves, several broken headstones, and at least one mausoleum moved about three hundred yards. The point is, he is completely out of hand. At first, it was a whisper of a haunting. Now, no one leaves unscathed. A large funeral was held there a week ago, with about three hundred mourners in attendance. The ghost appeared, chased them away, and started throwing people. At least a dozen were injured, and one was hung upside-down in a tree. It was the talk of the town. As you know, we don’t smile on situations that turn into chatter amongst the townspeople.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do robots smile?”
The Secretary ignored him. “This cemetery is inside Castle Combe’s grounds in the Cotswolds. It’s one of England’s prized historical sites, and the cemetery is the final resting place of some of the most prestigious artists and writers in our history. It is important that we attempt to preserve as much as possible when we deal with this ghost.”
He snorted. “I like how you say ‘we.’ Where should I meet you to tackle this problem? I’m sure there is a charging station nearby for your battery.”
The Secretary went quiet, and Damian laughed and slapped his hands on his lap. “I accept your mission, Secretary. Don’t get any more uptight. You’ll short a circuit.”
“I suppose that might be better than getting my ass chewed by three old priests like you do on a regular basis simply by breathing,” she snapped back.
Damian put his hand to his mouth. “Oooh, she’s got jokes now. All right, bring it. Or should I say zero, one, one, zero, one, zero, one?”
The Secretary chuckled. “Let’s try to take care of this ghost without knocking out any priests, innocents, or furry animals, shall we? I have complaints regarding the vehicles we send you. The companies are tired of cleaning blood, fur, and slobber from the carpets.”
“Then you should probably groom a little better before you get into them.”
A smile hovered on the priest’s lips as her typing abruptly stopped. Finally, she said, “I’ll send you the details. Don’t fuck it up.”
With that, she hung up. Damian placed the phone on the bench beside him and laughed, shaking his head. Ravi giggled. One day, she will send us on a mission to the middle of Antarctica and leave us there.
He waved his hands. Nah, she likes us. I can tell. I think it’s my fancy bowties.
Just then, his phone buzzed again, and he squinted at the screen. The new text message from the Secretary wasn’t her normal info drop. He opened it and read it out loud. “I would have to say that new suit suits you better than the hobo outfit you’re wearing now.”
The priest looked at his brown pants and button-up shirt and shook his head. “We need to carry an umbrella everywhere we go.”
Ravi shrugged. Maybe she likes the peepshow, or she likes to torture herself.
Chapter Six
Damian leaned against the doorframe of the upstairs training room and watched as Max completed the last ten of his fifty push-ups. Sweat beaded on the young man’s forehead and his arms shook as he pushed his body up and lowered it to the floor. His face was the color of a tomato, but he was determined not to complain. “Forty-eight…forty-nine…fifty. Ugh.”
He dropped to the floor and laid his cheek on the mat beneath him, breathing heavily. After a moment, he pushed up to his knees. Damian clapped and stretched to help him to his feet.
“That was impressive,” his mentor said. “When you first came here, you could do six and a half.”
Max shook his arms and lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah, that was definitely a challenge. What’s next?”
Damian rubbed his hands together and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Let’s work on our hand-to-hand combat skills, shall we? I will take offense, and you defend yourself. Imagine that my fingers have long, sharp talons.”
The young priest squared his shoulders and stood eye to eye with his mentor. They circled one another, Damian’s smile challenging. He faked with his left hand and swatted his adversary on the side of his head with his right. Max shook his head and quickly stiffened his arms. Damian feinted but didn’t swing. Max lifted his hands and scowled because he’d fallen for it.
The older man chuckled. “The secret to defending yourself is anticipation.” He swatted at the trainee, but Max knocked his hand away this time.
“The other secret is assuming that your opponent is smarter than you,” Damian said.
He swept his foot, tripping Max, and knocked him twice on the back of the head. The trainee gritted his teeth and turned quickly, red flashing in his eyes. Damian immediately tapped him in the stomach and swatted his head again, chuckling.
“You can’t let your frustration take over or you will have one hell of a headache tomorrow,” he continued. “I know you’re used to fighting bushes and all, but imagine you’re fighting actual demons for a moment, okay?”
Damian threw his palms forward in a one-two combo. Max dodged clumsily and tripped over his own feet to fall on his ass with a grunt.
His mentor stopped and scrunched his forehead. “Maybe we should take a step back to not beating yourself up.”
Max stood and put his hands up, trying to ignore the smartass comments. Damian stood with his arms at his sides, watching him. Seconds later, he swung right and then left and boxed him in the ears without much effort.
Astaroth growled loudly. Come on, can’t you see him moving? You’re like one of those rag dolls. You’d be better off dancing around him like a fool. It’s all in reading the body. I’ve become somewhat of a pro at it. There! He’s going to slap with his right.
Max tried to shake the demon’s voice out of his head, wanting to do it alone. Before he knew it, he received another slap. Astaroth sighed. Now left. Damn. Now right. Come on, kid. Listen to me. You’ll have little birdies flying around you for the next three days if you don’t.
I don’t need help. I can do this.
Oh, sure. Go ahead then, Rambo. Show me what you got.
The young priest tried to dodge, but after a few more blows to his head, he began to see double. Damian didn’t hurt him physically, but his pride was slowly being pulverized.
Astaroth whistled. You had enough knocks to the dome? You ready to take my advice?
Max groaned. Fine.
The demon studied Damian’s moves and gave Max warning before each attack. Suddenly, Max was on a roll. He circled his opponent, dodging or blocking every blow. His mentor laughed loudly and picked up the pace. Still, with Astaroth in his ear, Max maintained his defense. He evaded the blows and slapped Damian’s hands away. After the last attempt, the trainee stepped to the right, tapped Damian gently on the back of the head and chuckled.
The priest clapped and gave Max a knowing look. “One thing about having a demon is, there’s no point in ignoring them. Sometimes they will save your life. Your moves are good, but you move your feet like Scooby Doo trying to run from a ghost. Make swift, short movements with your feet like you see in any boxing movie. It allows you to control your body better so if you face more than one foe, you can multitask. But let’s leave that for another day. I don’t need you to sprain an ankle.”
Max looked at his feet and shrugged. “Yeah, probably a good choice.”
Damian tossed him his towel and water bottle, and they caught their breath for a moment. They had worked out for almost two hours. It was something he’d promised would happen, not only for Max but for himself as well. He needed to stay nimble.
Max set his bottle down. “Did you guys train hard as mercs?”
“Every single day for hours and hours. We were badass. We had to be, though. It was what kept us alive. Come on, let’s throw a few knives, then finish with a jog.”
Max took his practice knives, looked at the dummy, and exhaled slowly. He reared back and threw, watching the weapon flip end over end. The blade struck the dummy’s forehead.
Damian nodded his head, impressed. “You’re getting that down. Now, work on speed. You want to throw at a second’s notice and still be incredibly accurate.”
The older priest turned abruptly and slapped the handle of a dagger on the table. He caught it deftly as it catapulted up and tossed it hard. The blade penetrated the head beside Max’s knife, the metals scratching as they rubbed together.
The trainee’s eyes widened, and he chuckled. “Well, that was pretty fucking cool.”
Damian laughed, but in an instant, his head snapped toward his companion. “Language.”
Max’s shoulders dropped, and he attempted the same thing Damian had done. He managed to catch the knife, but when he threw, it slammed sideways into the target and clanged to the floor.
His mentor raised an eyebrow. “Well, good to know that if we face any midget demons, you got it on lock. This isn’t one of those ‘go for the knees’ scenarios.”
Max rolled his eyes and scrunched his nose. “Yeah, I’ll leave you with the theatrics.”
Damian patted him on the shoulder. “Probably a good choice. Come on. Twenty minutes on the treadmill.”
Max hopped wearily onto one of the treadmills. They set the timers and adjusted the incline to fifty percent. As they began to run, he leaned his forearms on the railings and looked at his feet. “Any news on the home front?”
Damian nodded his head, breathing heavily. “Actually, I was about to tell you. The Secretary called, and we have a new mission. We head out after dinner. There is a spirit in the cemetery near Castle Combe. He’s apparently a real jerk, and we need to go in and exorcise him. Of course, we’ve been asked to do it with as little damage as possible.”
Max chuckled. “Right. Will there be any demons out there, or is this simply a haunting?”
“I don’t know,” Damian replied. “It’s probably only the ghost, but we’ll go prepared just in case. I hope it’s an easy spirit to vanquish, and we can grab some coffee and come home.”
The young priest wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “Well, that means there will probably be eleven ghosts and forty demons on site.”
Damian laughed. “You’re catching on, kid.”
They finished their run and headed to their rooms to shower and change. Max joined Damian in the kitchen, rubbing a towel over his hair. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving.”
The older man turned the stove off and served the pasta on two plates. “We had some leftover pasta from the other night, so I warmed that up, and there’s garlic bread and wine on the table.”
Max grabbed two glasses, and they sat opposite one another in the dining room. Damian set up his tablet and opened the map of the cemetery the Secretary had sent. He explained the plan of attack he’d formulated as they ate.
He pointed to the center of the cemetery. “So, because it’s outside, the heart is pretty much anywhere. This ghost likes to torment mourners. The plan is for you to go in dressed in street clothes and pick one of the headstones around this area. You make like you’re praying and wait for the ghost to manifest. From the video footage they sent over, this spirit doesn’t leave any mourner untouched. It shouldn’t take long for him to appear. Once he’s in the open, I’ll start the exorcism and you will join me.”
Max swallowed a mouthful of pasta and took a gulp of his wine. “This plan sounded good until I became the dangling meat.”
His mentor smirked. “Somebody’s gotta be the bait, brother. You are younger.”
“Great, and I may never see old age.”
Damian smiled and pointed to the entrance of the cemetery. “You’ll walk in through here as if to visit. I’ll scoot in from the side entrance and hide until he comes out. There are three large tombs here, and you want to stay far from those. Don’t give him an excuse to use them as weapons. To the left is the rubble pile the crew created from the destroyed headstones. We’ll keep our distance from that, too.”
Max’s eyes widened, and he nodded. “I definitely don’t want Noble Jones’s headstone becoming my own in the middle of a dark cemetery. I want to be cremated anyway.”
“Well, that happens from time to time for us Damned, even when we don’t plan for it.”
Max curled his lip, remembering the ash piles. “Oh, yeah. Maybe I’ll go with a mausoleum instead.”
After the meal, the trainee washed the dishes and put them away. He met Damian in the garage, and they packed their bags with guns, knives, bibles, and their crosses. Max pulled his sash out, but Damian put his hand up and shook his head. “You can’t wear your uniform. You gotta wear street clothes. You got any?”
“Yeah. Completely forgot. I’ll be right back.”
Damian pulled his gloves on and grasped his special metal cross. He had used it many times but hadn’t noticed how light it was until that moment. It weighed little more than a plastic one, and he wondered if it had always been that way.
It has, Ravi replied. You grip it so tightly that you don’t really notice.
He shrugged and slipped it into the inside leather pocket of his jacket. Nice. I might be able to use that as leverage for something.
The door creaking brought his attention to Max. Damian did a double-take, barely recognizing the young priest. He wore a pair of jeans, Chuck Taylors, a green t-shirt, and a blue V-neck sweater. His hands were stuffed nervously into his pockets as he stepped into the garage.
Ravi whistled loudly in Damian’s head. What the ever-loving fuck? How have I lived in the same house as this guy and not known how stinking hot he is? That youth is wasted on the uniform, I’m telling you. He is a fucking heartthrob. Jesus.
He handed Max his belt, trying to maintain his nonchalance. Can you please keep your howling and drooling to yourself? It’s really weird to have a voice in my head turned on by another guy, not to mention that he’s a priest.
The demon sighed. It’s not like there’s a ton of eye candy around here for me on a regular basis. I got you, which is a big no. And Rose, the old-ass woman across the street.
Damian zipped his bag with a frown. Are you telling me you swing both ways?
Ravi scoffed. I don’t discriminate. How about them apples, man of God? Not only do you have a demon in you, but she likes the Vajayjay and the Cock-a-doodle-doo. It’s like a triple sin in here.
He chuckled.
Max looked up and smiled. “What?”
Damian shook his head. “Nothing. Revelations are sprouting all over the place these days. I’m starting to think retirement is calling my name.”
The trainee closed the doors to the SUV. “Pfft. Yeah, right. You’ll be fucking demons up from your scooter when your legs give out. Your twenty-one-gun salute will be aimed at a portal spilling demons.”
His mentor laughed loudly. “Damn fucking straight.”
Chapter Seven
Castle Combe was one of the oldest towns in England, dating back to the twelfth century. The village took its name from the fortress that stood in ruin and rubble on the outskirts. The cemetery on the grounds was still used, and tombs of unknown villagers and noblemen sprawled on the hill overlooking the town below. Over time small tombs and mausoleums had been added, along with tall, looming angel statues guarding the interred dead.
Damian and Max waited to the right of the cemetery within the thin forest. The older priest studied the area but saw no movement in the moonlight. He turned to the trainee and slapped him on the chest. “All right, buddy. You ready for this?”
Max nodded somberly. “You know me—I walk right into the middle of the fire without a care in the world.”
Damian didn’t pay attention to his
sarcasm. “That’s my boy. I’ll have my eyes on you the whole time, so go get him. Hopefully, we can be in and out of here in a jiffy.”
Max took a deep breath, shoved his bible into the back of his pants, and pulled his sweater over it. “Here goes nothing.”
He took a deep breath, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked out onto the gravel road. At the gate, he paused, his eyes noting the specific tombs and statues that would lead him to the heart of the cemetery. He whistled as he walked past rows of tombstones adorned with flowers and wreaths. When he reached the center, his eyes focused on one of the newer stones. The name read Betty Alderson, and he dropped to one knee and ran his hand across the text. He bowed his head, pretending prayer, but remained alert for any sign of the ghost.
Several silent moments passed, disturbed only by the wind whipping through the trees. Suddenly, Max heard a low, deep laugh roll across the stones to his left. He lifted his head as the shadowy shape of an apparition darted forward and rose above the headstone before him. Max swallowed hard as the ghost took form. He was a tall, slender man in a dress coat and white shirt. His stovepipe hat seemed incongruous perched above a face of rotting flesh and bone.
The young priest took a step back, his heart beating fast in his chest. He slid his hand slowly behind him and beneath his sweater for his bible. Damian would be there soon, but he was prepared to exorcise the evil spirit if he needed to. The ghost twisted his head to the side and grinned from ear to ear. Most of his teeth were missing or chipped. Max mumbled under his breath, “Any time now, Damian.”
His mentor stepped from the shadows of the mausoleum, holding his cross in the air. His bible was open in front of him, but he didn’t need to look at the words. Max released a slow breath of relief. The ghost twisted, following his gaze. As soon as he saw Damian, he screeched loudly and formed his translucent bony hands into fists.
He was more than pissed. “You tricked me.”