by Michael Todd
Max wrinkled his nose. “That’s really disgusting.”
He smiled. “I know, right? But for a second, you were thinking about that and not the job. But seriously, you’ll do fine. They wouldn’t have sent you here if they thought you weren’t capable of doing the job. Just remember that everything that you’re seeing is manifested by a spirit to scare you. If you remember who you work for and you remember how devout you are, you will coast right through it. I promise.”
Max exhaled a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks for that, Damian. I feel better. I think once I get through my first couple and really have a sense of what to expect or at least a general idea, I’ll be better. Right now, it’s walking in blind.”
“Yes, but you aren’t. You have me, and I have seen almost everything there is to see in this world. Nothing shocks me anymore. Besides, this is an easy one. We’ll be in and out in no time, and then on our way to grab some food.” He kept his eyes on the road.
His companion smiled and glanced out the window. Damian reached over and tapped his leg. “I did forget one thing.”
“What’s that?” Max asked curiously.
“Just don’t die,” he said pointedly, hiding a laugh.
The trainee filled his lungs and swallowed hard, that comment not comforting in the least. This was his cherry he was popping. It was his demon-killing cherry, and he wanted to survive it.
Chapter Five
The sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires was the only noise around them as they pulled up in front of the old hotel and parked. Damian turned the vehicle off and looked at his companion, nodding his head. Max took a deep breath and gathered his courage before opening the door and stepping out into the deteriorated parking lot.
The older priest immediately went to the back and opened the door, grabbing his personal duffel bag. He reached into the pockets of his trench coat and donned his leather gloves, tugging on the worn-out leather and snapping the buttons at his wrists. After flexing his hands to stretch the material, he reached into the bag. He shuffled around inside, finally grasping his special metal cross and holding it in front of him.
Max stood at the front of the SUV, staring at the hotel. “It never fails that nighttime makes everything look like something out of a B-rated horror flick.”
Damian smiled to himself as he glanced over to make sure the trainee wasn’t paying attention to him. He set his bible and his cross on the floor of the SUV and pulled out his pistols, checking the magazines before slipping them into the empty holsters at his sides. Then he put the cross Katie had given him cross in the large leather pocket he’d had sewn into his trench coat and picked up his bible, pressing his lips to the cover.
He shut the SUV door and walked up next to Max, who seemed slightly frozen in place. “You ready to go inside?”
His companion blinked. “Is that a question I can answer ‘no’ to?”
Damian clapped him on the shoulder. “Sure, but you’re still going in. You’ll be fine. Remember, don’t freak out. Just watch. Neither the church nor I would have you roll into something we knew one hundred percent you wouldn’t survive.”
“What percentage am I sitting at right now?”
He shrugged. “Meh, fifty.”
Max nodded, knowing he was messing with him. “I can handle fifty. That’s better than lottery odds.”
Damian raised an eyebrow at him. “No gambling.”
As he started forward toward the door, the trainee grabbed his arm. “Just tell me this. Why did someone paint the windows red on the inside?”
He smirked. “It’s not paint. The walls are bleeding.”
Max went ghost-white. He looked at him, looked at the windows, then back at him. Slowly, he lifted his hand and pointed at the hotel. “Are you shitting me?”
Damian gave him a half smile. “Language! And no, the bleeding walls are the real deal.” He paused. “Also, why aren’t you saying something British? Your file says you’ve lived in England for quite a while.”
The young man shifted his eyes toward him and relaxed his jaw. “Too many American movies in my youth. I blame Hollywood.”
He nodded his head toward the door. “Let’s get this shit over with so I can have a glass of whiskey and get back to reading.”
The two priests headed up the walk to the large, red front door. As soon as they stepped onto the stoop, the door creaked open slowly and then slammed back against the wall. They stared into the dark, tilting their heads to the side. Max narrowed his eyes as he tried to make out the sound coming through the open doorway. “Is that…wait…is that—”
Damian listened harder and nodded. “Yep, the hotel is breathing on its own. Good thing it doesn’t have bad breath. Otherwise, this whole thing would be a lot more miserable than it already is.”
Max took a step back from the doorway and shook his head. “Um, I don’t think I’m ready for this. I mean, I need to learn, but this building is breathing, and its windows are covered in blood. Don’t you have something maybe a bit less scary to start with? Maybe we can exorcise a baby lamb or something.”
Damian’s face went serious, and he stared at him for a moment. Before the young priest could freeze up, he grabbed him by the back of his neck and tossed him through the door into the entryway of the hotel. With a sigh, he gripped his bible and headed in after him.
He looked around the dark and dreary room. “See? It’s not that bad once you are in here.”
Just then, the door slammed shut behind them, shaking the blood-stained windows. Max stared angrily at him. “Not too bad? The hotel just locked us in. And let me repeat that. I didn’t say that you locked us in. I said the hotel locked us in.”
Damian shrugged. “True, but the door’s made of wood. We could hack our way out if we need to.”
Max blinked at him and turned away. “As much as I think I should be pissing myself right now, I’m not actually as freaked out as I thought I would be.”
He slapped him on the back. “Good. See? I told you. Just focus on the objective and not the—”
The trainee pointed up toward the ceiling. “Black goo seeping slowly across the ceiling? Or maybe the gleaming red eyes in the dark corners? How about the sound of loud screaming coming from somewhere in that general vicinity? Nope, just focusing on the task at hand.”
Damian stared at the black goo and wrinkled his nose. “Well, at least you know that when we exorcise this bastard, all this will go away. You’ll be amazed at how different the place looks.”
“Oh, yeah, it’ll be back to graffiti, and the sign of Lucifer spray-painted on all the floors.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes…but it won’t be blood or goo. And there won’t be some creepy devil-mouth-breather beating our eardrums with every damn breath.”
Max clapped his hands together, feeling himself losing his nerve. “Okay, boss, what’s next? How do we find this demon and exorcise it?”
Damian put up one finger and pulled out his phone. “The Secretary sent me the details, so I just gotta find that specific information.”
The young priest put his hands on his hips and tried not to look around the dark room. He badly wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of it then leave the place as fast as he could.
His mentor skimmed his finger through the info. “Sightings…no. Dangers within the walls…no. Bodies that went missing…no. Ah, here it is. From the information sent over, the heart of the haunting is on the third floor, room 1313.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? The room number is 1313?”
Damian clicked off his phone. “Yeah, why?”
The young priest’s mouth dropped open. “It’s only the second scariest numbered room they could find!”
He smirked. “Okay, Master of Horror, what is the number one scariest room number? And I also want to point out that you are physically finding fear in the numerical ordering of a room.”
The trainee gave him a narrowed look. “It’s the symbolism of the number, not the number
itself. The number one slot goes to 666, of course. What else?”
Damian looked around for a moment, then grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the stairs. “Well, at least we are rolling into number two. Maybe the poltergeist will be a runner-up as well. Keep your eyes peeled, let me know if you see something strange, and don’t touch anything.”
They climbed the stairs and turned to go up the next flight. Max stopped on the platform to the first floor and cleared his throat. “Um, Damian, does that fall under something strange?”
Damian came back and stared with a blank expression down the hallway. Blood dripped down the walls and over the floor, rising like a flood. He looked at his companion and shook his head. “No, that’s relatively normal for this type of haunting. Come on. Two more floors.”
He went ahead, stopped on the second floor, and tilted his head to the side. “Now, that’s a little strange. I won’t lie.”
“What?” Max hopped up next to him and stared down at dozens of apparitions moaning and weeping as they floated through the empty hallway. The younger man wrinkled his nose as they floated by, their translucent heads barely hanging onto their bodies. “I think they lost their heads.”
Damian shook his head and rubbed his face. “Not even close to a good joke.”
“What? I am trying with the humor thing, and personally, I found it funny.” Max followed him up to the completely empty and un-haunted-looking third floor. “Look, this hallway looks perfectly normal.”
His mentor grunted. “Don’t let looks deceive you. There is something in this hallway that is ready to jump out like poltergeists do. Keep your eyes peeled and your hands at your sides. I don’t trust how quiet and serene this floor is in the least.”
Damian took the lead and headed down the hall while Max trailed behind. He looked at the floor, finding nothing more than old holey carpet and stains. He felt a lot less nervous since there didn’t seem to be any weird ghosts, bodily fluids, or creepy breathing noises coming from their current level. “Everything seems fine up here. In fact, I can almost imagine this hotel in its heyday.”
He glanced at a painting as he followed, then stopped and stared at it. The background of the picture swirled wildly like one of those paintings in Hogwarts. He had never seen anything like that before, but the light colors and peaceful brush strokes made it seem non-threatening.
Slowly, he reached his finger toward the picture. “Hey, Damian, come check this out. It’s literally a living piece of art. You can see the paint swirling. The color is so vibrant it looks like it was painted today.”
Damian looked back nonchalantly, and his eyes immediately opened wide. He lunged toward Max and yanked his hand back. Just as the young man’s fingers slid away, a demon popped out of the painting, its sharp, pointed fangs nearly chomping his fingers off. The trainee froze with his mouth hanging open as he watched the demon growl and snarl before fading back into the tranquility of the tricky painting.
He grabbed Max by the shoulders and turned him around. “I told you, don’t touch anything! You could have lost your fingers right there. Then you would have been that cliché priest who fought the devil, and the devil won. How will you defend yourself, flip through a book, or even pick your damn nose if you don’t have any fucking fingers?”
The young man’s face was ghost-white again, and he whispered something through chattering teeth.
Damian narrowed his eyes and stepped closer. “What? I can’t hear you.”
Max leaned forward and whispered louder. “Language!”
He threw his hands up in the air and turned, heading for room 1313. Max glanced at the painting again, the demon appearing for only a moment before disappearing back into the swirls. He ran forward, catching up with his mentor, and walked so close to him that Damian could feel him breathing.
He stopped abruptly, letting him run right into the back of him. “Two steps back. Just give me two extra steps’ worth of space. You’re fine. Stop doing what I told you not to…freaking out.”
Max nodded and clutched his bible to his chest with both hands. “Of course. I am calm. I can be calm.”
He took several deep breaths and began to gather his courage again. Slowly, his shoulders relaxed, and he dropped his hands to his sides. Damian looked into his eyes and bit the inside of his lip. “You okay now? I don’t blame you for being freaked out. This is definitely a scary one. The good news is that we are almost there. Just hold on a bit longer and be brave.”
The young priest nodded, and the two of them turned toward the door to 1313. Damian rolled his shoulders and removed his right glove carefully. He prepared himself mentally and reached out his hand. He tapped the door handle several times before grasping it fully.
Max looked confused. “Why are you doing that?”
He let go of the door handle and flipped his hand over, palm up. The skin of his palm and fingers was rugged and scarred. It was old damage.
Damian licked his lips. “So, it was my third exorcism, a situation similar to this one. I was with the mercs but out on my own, simply doing a little extra hunting. I followed the ghost through the hotel, going in and out of rooms for hours. Finally, we got to the room where the heart was. I could tell it was the heart because the floor was as calm as the eye of a hurricane. There was chaos everywhere else but there. Anyway, the ghost disappeared into the room, and without looking, I grabbed the door handle. It was hotter than anything I had ever felt before and instantly gave me third-degree burns on my palm.”
Max grimaced. “Holy shit.”
He laughed. “More like unholy fire. After that, I never grabbed a door handle again without checking first. I even check my own door handles now. It was a lesson that I had to learn, and it sucked, but that is one mistake I will never make again. It was an eye-opener for me in the world of exorcisms. That’s why I want you to observe but not touch. You aren’t ready for these hard lessons yet.”
“I appreciate that because I don’t want to learn those yet. And preferably, I’d like to learn from your mistakes if it’s all the same to you.”
Damian couldn’t help but smile. The kid was funny, and no matter how pale he got, he had been braver than anyone else—besides Katie—whom he had taken into an exorcism like this. He wouldn’t tell him and raise his cockiness, but he kept it in mind.
He reached for the doorknob and turned his head toward Max. “You ready to go in and kick this asshole back to where it came from?”
The trainee nodded his head. “Yes, I absolutely am. And I’d like to give a special kick in the testicles to the demon that tried to bite my fingers off. He doesn’t deserve a nice peaceful rest.”
Quickly, Damian turned the doorknob and pushed the door wide open. Wind whipped around the two of them as they stood there in the doorway, both staring straight into the heart of the poltergeist’s haunting. Max pulled his bible back to his chest.
Damian rubbed his goatee with his hand and furrowed his brow. “Well, that’s not good.”
All Max could do was let out a small whimper.
Chapter Six
The wind whipped so hard, they had to hold on to the door frame so they weren’t sucked into the center of the room. It roared like a freight train, rattling the floors and walls around them. Max held on with one hand while covering his face with the other as debris blasted through the space. Damian held his hat down with one hand, surveying the scene.
Small pieces of old furniture whizzed past, dangerous debris crossing back and forth only feet from where the two stood. Max tried to make the best of the situation. “Well, a little wind isn’t that bad!” Just then, a deep bellowing laugh echoed from the walls, making the hair on his arms stand up. “Okay, that’s a little stranger. I won’t lie.”
Damian lifted an eyebrow as blood dripped fluidly over the windows and the lone crucifix that hung on the wall burst into flames. “You want to revisit that statement?”
Max followed his gaze to the chaos and opened his mouth, but nothing c
ame out. He nodded frantically as his mentor reached over and grabbed his arm. Damian’s lips curled into a grin as he took a step over the threshold. “Stay close to me, and for God’s sake, hold on to your balls. This shit is about to get crazy.”
The younger priest blew out a breath and lifted his eyebrows. “Why do I feel like that is one of those statements that, in the future, will foreshadow some serious shit?”
After the two men stepped into the room, the door shut violently behind them. Max looked back at it, then to each side, not really sure where to go at that point. A large encyclopedia rushed toward his head, and he ducked, hearing it slam into the wall behind him. Slowly, he stood and flashed his mentor a fearful gaze. “This is a bit more than I imagined. I think I just pissed my pants.”
Damian put both his hands on Max’s shoulders. “This is what it’s all about, Max. You are in the center of it, and you will learn that panic doesn’t do anything but make it worse. Take a deep breath in and let it out slowly and know that we are almost there. We’ve found the heart.”
He did as he was told, sucking air in quickly through his nose and letting it calmly out of his mouth. Then, he turned back to the room and narrowed his eyes, yelling over the sound of the wind. “Why is this considered the heart of the hotel?”
Damian pressed his lips together, finding his words. “Think of it this way: everything in life has a center point—a point in which it can be traced back to its own creation. Every haunted place has one room or one area where the power of the demon or poltergeist centers. It is where the veil is thin enough, where they can draw the most power from, whether because of tragedy or because it is being fed to them. Usually, in a place like this, it has something to do with a tragic event that happened here.”
Max understood. “Do the notes say anything about a tragic event here?”
He was already flipping through the notes on his phone. “Yes, and not too long ago, actually. This place had already closed down. There was a cult following that came here to give sacrifice to Lucifer himself. Many cultists follow a lesser demon like Moloch or T’Chezz because they are more likely to come when called or summoned. It takes a very specific sacrifice to get the Demon King’s attention. In this case, it was a young woman, barely twenty and a virgin. She was strung up in the center of this room, and during the course of the sacrifice, her soul was taken to hell to be presented to Lucifer. She died a terrible death here, only to go on to an afterlife she did not deserve.”