by David Paul
Years ago, there was an ancient monastery that was the home to all of the exorcised demons that the Knights had trapped. During a violent earthquake in the early 1100’s, this monastery collapsed, breaking an unknown amount these similar crystals and countless numbers of demons were released back into the world. Centuries of work were lost because of a natural disaster. Some wonder which side was responsible. Was it Lucifer? Or was it God himself testing his followers? Or was it dumb luck?
Either way, hundreds of demonic possessions occurred almost immediately, and some scholars and religious figures feared it was a sign of the world ending. Eventually, good had prevailed over evil, and the natural balance was restored. The freed demons were hunted down and exorcised again. Some were completely banished. Some were trapped in crystals, mirrors, jewels, and others simply left the dimension to go elsewhere.
Fast forward toward today or even tonight. Yet another demon is inside an unfortunate human, and the demon is holding a soul captive. Negative energy charges the room like dark static electricity, and it is making spines tingle. The flickering of the candles cast ever-changing shadows. The light thrown from the flames feels dirty. An ominous feeling is inside this house.
All eyes are on Carver. No one is speaking, but everyone is waiting for him to say or do something. This is a demon in his finest hour, creating fear and anticipation. Absolutely nothing can ready someone to face a demon. Small crackling and creaking from within the house seems loud in the silent room. With every noise, one expects a major reaction from the doctor. Nothing happens. A tense half hour goes by with no contact with the demon.
“I wish that we could just shoot Carver and go home,” the detective blurted out unexpectedly. His voice is almost shocking to Rawley, and David looks at him strangely.
“I’m afraid,” the detective said. The murky drink that Rawley gave the detective must be wearing off.
“Afraid of what?” The vampire asked.
“C’mon,” Detangelo said, “this shit is really freaking me out.”
“Then go wait in the truck with Kaye,” the vampire said angrily.
“No!” Rawley screamed.
It was too late.
Detangelo takes a step out the protective circle that he had been standing in. Both Rawley and David look on as Detangelo’s face shows a look of confusion, followed by pain. Carver’s body is rising above the bed as high as the slack in the restraining ropes will allow. The doctor’s body bends like an arch. Detangelo is showing obvious, but unknown difficulties. The detective is floored and in fetal position, just lying there on the dirty old floorboards. Detangelo is crying.
“Don’t listen to Devin!” The vampire screamed.
“Shut your fucking mouth, nightwalker,” the doctor growled in an inhuman tone. Rawley reads passages from the Bible and sprays more Holy Water on Carver with the same blistering results.
“You abandoned your wife and children,” Carver said. The doctor torments the emotionally vulnerable detective. “Your life is worthless, and you may as well be dead.”
“Jack,” David said. “Fight him!” David attempts to help the detective who is an emotional train-wreck. Rawley reads more from his text. “Do not let him inside!”
“Your wife is now married to a real man who is there for her,” Carver said, “and he fucks her every night until her cunt is sore.”
“Don’t listen to Carver!” David screamed. “He is trying to crack into your mind.”
“I have already cracked into his pathetic mind, nightwalker, and I am twisting his soul.” The possessed doctor has a truly disturbing voice that penetrates the detective’s mind.
Detangelo draws his snub-nosed, .38 service revolver and puts it to his head.
“Pull the trigger and end all of the pain,” the doctor suggested.
“I don’t want to kill myself,” Detangelo said. The detective is in tears.
“Then kill Xavier Rawley!” Carver said. The detective’s hand is shaking, and it is obvious that he is in the middle of a struggle. Detangelo points the gun at Rawley.
“You’d better put that fucking shit down,” Rawley warned the detective.
“Do it,” the doctor said. “Su-nioj,” the demon spoke in backwards English. “Su-nioj.”
The demon pressed.
Rawley has his hand on one of his pistols and could cut down Detangelo before he was able to even flinch. The vampire gets in between Rawley and Detangelo. The barrel of the detective’s gun is pointed at David’s chest. The battle of wills ensues. A thunderous bang goes off, and the detective fires a bullet into David’s chest. The vampire is unaffected. Carver vomits all over himself and spits it everywhere with frightening similarity to Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist.
Detangelo is still shaken and puts the smoking gun to his temple again.
“Ti-od,” Carver said. The demon taunts the detective in more backwards English. David grabs the gun swiftly from the broken detective and takes a smoldering bullet through the hand. The vampire returns the detective to the protective circle that Rawley had drawn. The vampire puts the .38 in his waistband. Detangelo shouldn’t have it on him right now.
“I saw everything,” the detective mumbled. Detangelo is in a state of shock that is slowly wearing off while being protected in the circle.
“I am simply toying with all of your fragile minds,” Carver said in backwards Latin. Both Rawley and the vampire understand what he is saying, but Detangelo is oblivious.
“Dear Lord,” Rawley said, “we have a deceiver amongst us, and his earthly name is Devin Schilld. Help me deliver the world from evil. May your grace and omnipotence banish this unclean soul from our world.” The exorcist spoke in Latin as he made the sign of the cross over the still floating body of Carver. Carver laughs and laughs. He has a huge smile on his pasty face.
“Rawley, you are so pathetic and weak!” The demon screamed. Carver laughs some more and vomits all over himself again. The bed is filled with steaming filth because of the coldness of the room.
“In the name of Christ,” Rawley said, “you will surrender this man’s soul.”
Carver laughs at Rawley some more. The demonic laugh is beginning to enrage both Rawley and the vampire. This is, of course, done by design. The more the demon can fire up emotions, the better it is for the demon. If their focus is set on controlling their own anger, then that gives Devin an edge. That gives the demon something to play on and something to feed into. Demons work on the human mind much like water trying to find its way into a dry basement. The water begins to trickle in until the basement becomes flooded. Once the demon has gotten inside someone’s mind, it is easy to take over.
They are masters of trickery and deceit. The victims convince themselves to do things out of sheer weakness. Devin is winning so far. Detangelo is a mess, and the others are already becoming agitated and frustrated. It is a battle of wills. Devin will try to break their spirit with incessant bantering, fearsome words, and shocking actions. The sly demon will use anything possible to achieve victory. If Rawley snapped and put a bullet in Dr. Carver’s head, Devin would still win because an innocent died unjustly. The demon would find such an action quite comical. The demons get off on twisting the actions and thoughts of humans.
Performing an exorcism is mentally and physically exhausting on the exorcist. The exorcist will often take breaks to stay sharp. The slightest misstep could be disastrous. The last thing the world needs is for Rawley to fall under the demon’s spell. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, Lucifer and Devin are hoping for that as well. It would be a huge bonus for them.
David’s anger burns inside of him, and Rawley can sense it.
“Maybe we should take a break for a bit,” Rawley suggested. David lights up a cigarette and breathes the fiery smoke into his dead lungs.
“It is your show, Xavier, and I am here to assist.”
“I don’t want to leave Jack here alone,” Rawley said, “so step outside and check on Kaye.”
Rawley recites more passages from the Bible. The vampire is in an odd situation. The readings are painful to him as well as Carver. A beast of the night doesn’t take kindly to Bible readings.
Detangelo is still somewhat a mess, trapped inside the protective circle. The vampire walks outside on the porch and attempts to gather his thoughts. The fire is still burning fiercely outside, and it is almost picturesque in a postcard from Hell type of sense. The stench of the burning remains still fills the damp air. The cold hand of death has touched this dark place. Kaye Miller is safe and sound in the backseat of Rawley’s battle-wagon. Inside the house, the modern-day exorcism continues. Seeing the vampire upset brought Rawley’s own brewing anger to his attention. In that sense, the vampire actually helped Rawley.
The exorcist reads more passages from the Bible. Rawley is taking the textbook approach to the ritual. First, he will soften up the demon with some Scripture and maybe even Psalms. This is torturous to the demon. In an exorcism, both sides torment each other until someone breaks. A demon is either banished or imprisoned. An exorcist will either succeed, die, or become possessed by the demon that was being battled. It is one large game. Presently, Devin has the upper hand. After putting the possessive entity to the test, Rawley will attempt to actually extract the demon from Carver’s body.
“Do you think that you can break me, Rawley?” Carver asked. Xavier doesn’t answer him. “Cat got your tongue, faggot? I know you heard me, you cock sucker.” The demon persistently torments Rawley. The exorcist resumes reading righteous passages without stopping. Dr. Carver vomits again, but this time on Rawley. Somehow, Rawley keeps his composure. The doctor’s body begins to convulse wildly, practically shaking the quiet house. Detangelo watches helplessly like a child witnessing an atrocity.
“You remember your wife Gloria, don’t you? Carver asked. The rotten demon laughs some more. “She had sweet flesh.” Rawley says nothing. The demon spews in backwards Latin, “I know you remember her. It is hard to forget your only love.”
Rawley never got too in depth with his past encounters with Devin, and he deliberately left out many details when telling the vampire. David has no idea that Devin possessed Rawley’s wife, Gloria, many years ago. She died while Rawley attempted to exorcise her. He tried to save her soul, and she passed away after an epic struggle. Nothing that Xavier could do helped her survive. Rawley was many years younger, and his experience was far less than what it is now.
Devin took a liking to Gloria, and he had raped her many times in her dreams. Finally, he decided to possess her. The demon approached her in a meadow. He was controlling the mind and body of a vagrant when he locked eyes with her. Gloria looked deep into the devil’s eyes and fell under his spell of evil. He took advantage of her in that meadow. Once he had possession of her soul, Devin also made her sleep with dozens of men and made her act like a filthy whore, just to toy with Rawley. She admitted all of her deeds in graphic detail to her husbands face. Other deeds she performed before his eyes.
At first, he had no idea what was suddenly wrong with his wife. Originally, Xavier thought she was operating on her own free will. He had noticed many changes in her personality and her general aura. He sensed a great evil inside her, but he was unaware of its origin. After a few months, he realized that she was under the influence of a devil or evil spirit. Her life ended badly, and this scarred her husband for the rest of his immortal life.
Rawley hasn’t had a wife or partner in centuries because of this, and he is now a lonely man sworn to his duty. That was his true love that Devin destroyed so viciously. The exorcist has met Devin on several occasions, yet he had no idea who he really was. Xavier had faced Devin several times before the demon took away his beloved wife.
The prophecy has many similarities, ironies, and bizarre twists. Those involved in this prophecy are all linked in one-way or another. Devin is now attempting to conquer Rawley’s mind.
“Do you remember her pussy so sweet?” Carver asked. “I remember it well. I remember the smell and how good it was to eat.” The demon rhymed the wicked poetry of the Beast. At this point Rawley is beside himself with rage, and he plays into the demons hands. It is hard to block out all of your emotions. The demons pray on your strongest emotions.
“Do you remember Mason Crow?” Rawley asked. Rawley’s broke his own rule. Never converse with a demon. “Well, I cut off his head and bowled it down the cobble-stoned streets of Paris.”
Mason Crow was a devout worshiper of Lucifer who praised Devin. Mason orchestrated the mass killings of priests in the Champlain Monastery in France many years ago. Rawley had almost forgotten because it had been so long ago. Crow was a self proclaimed necromancer and evil prophet. Unfortunately for Crow, he never predicted that Rawley would find him. Xavier publicly beat him to a bloody mess and then decapitated him in front of a live audience. The town-folk tore his body to shreds right in the streets. Those were different times when religion meant something to the masses.
“Good ole Crow,” Carver said. The demon laughs, and Rawley feels a furious howling wind inside the house.
“His soul burns in Hell…so will yours.”
One of the candles flickers out. An odd unnatural shadow of a horned figure dances on the wall. The dark demon dances to the beat of the flickering flames.
“I’m sure that you must recall your lover, Valda,” Rawley said sarcastically. Valda was part human and part demon. A man possessed by the demon Asimodeus forcibly took her mother. This also made Valda a half sister of Devin. Valda was brought into this world with her demonic powers dormant. She was a beautiful and wicked woman that Devin was quite fond of. Devin courted her in a cemetery. She later became one of Devin’s many lovers, but she was his favorite.
Their twisted relationship was the closest thing to love that could be had between two hellspawn. Valda had trademark long hair that was blacker than the night itself. She would lure men into her bed, have her way with them, and then take their lives in a painful and gruesome fashion. Many times she would remove their genitals while they were still alive. It was rumored that she also ate there manhood. Rawley caught up with her, and he took her life.
“Now you are the quiet one,” Rawley said. Rawley laughed a madman’s laugh. “I’m sure you remember when I stuck my blade so deeply into her lungs, and she gasped for air while choking on her own blood. She promised me untold pleasures of the flesh in return for her life. The filthy whore begged me like a helpless child. Maybe you need to be reminded of when I hacked off her head and burned it in her own fire-pit. I love walking down memory lane.”
Dr. Carver’s body contorts even more, and his eyes cry thick red blood. Devin is in fact angered, and he will take out his aggression on the doctor. Carver’s skin begins to discolor as if he has bruises all over his body. Thousands of tiny blood vessels are broken under his skin. More vile filth flies from his gaping jaw.
“I must have touched a nerve,” Rawley said. Rawley has a satisfied look on his face.
The body is still shaking to the point that the bed or the ropes may actually break. The body then settles calmly on the bed top. There is a brief moment of silence filled with hollow anticipation. Rawley is expecting a huge outburst.
“Xavier,” a sweet voice called. Rawley has a bewildered look on his face. “Xavier, look at me,” the voice said. Rawley looks toward the direction of this sweet and familiar voice.
“Gloria?” Rawley asked. Rawley looks at Carver, and the doctor is no longer there. His beloved Gloria is sitting on the bed in a silken white robe, and she looks magnificent. A glistening aura surrounds her and it brightens up the room. “Gloria is that you?”
“How could you have let the monster take me away from you?” She asked. “Didn’t you love me enough to save me?”
“I loved you with all of my being,” Rawley said. He looks as if he is almost about to weep. Seeing his long lost wife is tearing him apart. “You had all of my heart and soul.”
“Why did you let him t
ake me?” She asked. Tears stream down her face. “Why?”
“I did all I could, Gloria,” Rawley said, “but he wouldn’t let go of your soul.”
“I called for you to save me in my dreams, but you never came. He touched me and violated me over and over. You never came to my aid.”
Gloria cries loudly.
“I still love you to this day, and my heart aches,” Rawley said. The exorcist actually produces some tears.
“How could you let him come between us?” She asked.
Rawley has made his first mistake. He wandered into the devil’s playground. Gloria’s sobbing continues. Detangelo is completely confused. The detective hears the sweet voice, but only sees Carver speaking. The detective breaks down and cries incoherently. This is a scene straight from an insane asylum.
“I’m so sorry,” Rawley said. Rawley breaks down further. Gloria has wide outstretched arms beckoning Rawley to embrace her. Rawley slowly approaches her with his arms open. The temperature in the room becomes even colder. Detangelo regains his composure somewhat and witnesses the demon’s ploy.
“Rawley!” Detangelo tried to scream. No sound was produced from the detective’s mouth. The detective is trying to stop Rawley from embracing the possessed Carver, but he cannot utter a single word. His voice is mute, and his words are trapped inside his throat. Detangelo screams at the top of his lungs, but no sound can escape from his lips. His words reverberate inside his mind, yet he cannot speak. David is still outside watching the fire and regrouping.
“Come to me,” the sweet voice commanded.
“I will, my love.”