Sister of Darkness

by R. H. Stavis

  I slept for ten hours straight. I’d done one hell of a tough job. Hellavator was now safe for as many seasons as it was destined to run, and there would be no freak accidents, screaming cats, leaky pipes, or nooses. The Collector was gone, and many, many souls had been freed to pass back into Spirit. One more little pocket of the universe was entity-free.

  With every ounce of my being, I hope something similar happens during the next large-scale exorcism I might undertake.

  CHAPTER 12

  Exorcising the Cecil

  If the stars—and the red tape that rules Hollywood—align, I may soon face the most difficult, intense, and possibly life-threatening exorcism of my life. Almost all my interactions with Realm Walkers have centered around the people they’ve possessed, but this one is different. This incredibly malevolent entity has attached to one of the most infamous buildings in Los Angeles—and I’ve been tapped to do something about it.

  In downtown LA there’s a hotel formerly called the Cecil that’s notorious for a string of unsolved murders and violent crimes that have occurred there. From the location, this is not surprising. The Cecil is just west of Skid Row, where about five to ten thousand homeless people live at any given time. In less than five square miles, the homeless are packed on the streets in sleeping bags, cardboard boxes, and tents. These poor people aren’t drifters, either; they come to Skid Row, and they stay. The local government has done a lot of things over the years to try to clean up the area, including tearing down abandoned buildings where the homeless are squatting, issuing tickets, or even arresting people, but none of these methods have proven very successful.

  About 20–25 percent of homeless people are estimated to be mentally ill, and entities prey upon them. Why? Because the mentally ill are often low frequency. These unfortunate souls don’t have the mind set to view the world in a high-minded way. They’re trapped in a prison of their own brains, constantly fighting against themselves, unable to make the rational or spiritual decisions that could better their lives. They’re energetically open sores: the perfect target for entities. So if you see a homeless person standing on a street corner screaming to no one in particular, swatting at his head, or trying to speak with someone who’s not there, it’s likely that there is something there. It’s an entity.

  Over its almost one-hundred-year history, the Cecil has never risen above the Skid Row fray. Sadly, it would be difficult for the hotel to do so; it’s right on Main Street, in the center of everything, so even though the lobby is an art deco masterpiece, the Cecil’s always been a favorite of cash-strapped people who manage to pull together enough change for a cheap bed. At first, around the time of the Great Depression, it was a place where transients could stay while they looked for work. Years later, it became a single-room-occupancy hotel, and prostitutes and drug addicts moved in.

  Unfortunately, being so low frequency, the Cecil’s also attracted much worse.

  In the 1950s and ’60s, several people jumped from the hotel’s highest floors to commit suicide. One landed on the hotel’s marquee. Another fell on a pedestrian walking down the sidewalk, killing him instantly. In 1964, a retired telephone operator known for feeding the neighborhood pigeons was raped, stabbed, and strangled in her room. Then, in the 1980s, Richard Ramirez, the “Night Stalker,” lived on the top floor during the time he terrorized Los Angeles by breaking into homes and killing thirteen women. In 1991, a man named Jack Unterweger lived in the Cecil and murdered three prostitutes.

  The hotel was sold and renovated in 2007, and some of the floors were converted to a standard hotel, while others became a hostel, but that didn’t stop the terrible acts from happening. In 2013, events reached a gruesome climax when the body of Elisa Lam, a twenty-one-year-old student from Canada, was found in the water tank on the top of the building. Elisa had been missing for nineteen days, and hotel employees only discovered her body when guests began complaining about brown, foul-tasting water coming out of their bathroom taps.

  Elisa’s death was eventually ruled an accidental drowning, but many unanswered questions remain. Elisa would have only been able to get to the roof via the fire escape or through a locked door that would have tripped an alarm when opened. She was also so tiny that there was no way she could have lifted the incredibly heavy cover lid of the water tank without help. Elisa was known to be bipolar, but she’d been taking her medication, and there were no other drugs in her system at the time of her death. She didn’t leave a note, either, so it seems unlikely that she committed suicide. Finally, there was no sign of trauma on her body, so even if she was murdered, how could the killer have lifted the tank lid and forced her below the water without signs of a struggle on her body? The facts of the case are puzzling, to say the least.

  But I think the biggest mystery comes from the last images of Elisa on the hotel’s elevator camera. In the footage she seems to be hiding from someone or something and then arguing with them as she waves her hands in the air. Yet that person never shows up on the screen. Who—or what—was it?

  I know the answer. I can see the truth from a mile away. The Cecil is, without a doubt, dominated by a Realm Walker.

  How do I know this? Those who are aware of my work as an exorcist send me information about “unsolved mysteries” all of the time—like photographs, links to articles, and video footage. Time and time again the question will be asked: “Is this person possessed?” When the video of Elisa Lam’s last moments on the elevator went public, a friend of mine sent it my way. Now, my friend wasn’t the only person in the world to think that something was off about that video. If you google “Elisa Lam Cecil” and watch the footage, I’m pretty sure you’ll think it’s strange, too.

  I sensed something very, very dark, deep down in my bones, the second I looked at the video. I could see a shadow on the film. Part of me thought it was a Collector, but since that’s such a rare entity, I decided to sleep on it and take another look in the morning. Sure enough, when I woke up and logged on to my computer to watch the clip a second time, I could only draw one conclusion. The video of Elisa’s last moments showed something bigger and more malevolent than a Collector. It was most definitely a Realm Walker.

  How can I be sure it’s not a Collector? Again, because Collectors only work on those who enter the space. A Realm Walker has a long range, and it can pull people in from outside a location. That’s the main difference. They are much stronger, much smarter, and know how to lure.

  I am now certain that every horrible thing that’s happened at the Cecil since 1925, including the death of Elisa Lam, has been caused by a massive entity who has its grips on the building itself. I’ve now looked at hundreds of photos of the Cecil, and in each and every one, I can see a giant, dark cloud covering it. Even from an image online, I can sense the most malevolent energy I’ve ever felt in my life.

  During all the years I’ve lived in LA, I’ve never been into the Cecil. My reasons have nothing to do with the neighborhood because Downtown has started to revitalize and is now a mecca for hipsters. The Cecil is doing its best to keep up, and it’s once again undergoing what the management describes as a “seismic upgrade.” But I won’t be hanging out there. It’s not that I don’t think they’ll do a wonderful job; it’s just that I have no desire to experience the nastiness that dwells within.

  Well, that’s not the whole truth. . . . I haven’t been to the Cecil because the Realm Walker that’s in control of it knows who I am and what I do—and I am certain he wants me to stay the fuck away.

  In late 2016, the Soska twins approached me about working on a documentary about the Cecil. I’d discussed with them my belief that there was an enormous entity there, and that for years I’d been considering approaching the management about exorcising it.

  “What’s stopping you?” the sisters asked. “In fact, we’ll get permission for you. You exorcise the Cecil, and we’ll film the whole thing.”

  I thought about it for a long time. Would people think I was doing this just for
publicity? I wasn’t. That hotel is dangerous, and it needs to be dealt with. Also, if I wanted publicity so badly, why have I been doing this job for years in secret? Instant fame is so easy these days. Just go on the Internet, post a picture of yourself half-naked, and you’re a celebrity. That’s not me. I’ve been offered reality series and have turned them down. I don’t give a shit about fame. I have a higher calling.

  I finally said yes to the Soskas, and that’s when things really started to amp up.

  Just a few days after I took them up on their offer, I was driving my car in LA—nowhere near the Cecil—and a white dove just fell from the sky. I wasn’t on a busy street, so I decided to pull over and take a look at this bird. Other than the fact that it was dead, it looked young and normal, with no obvious signs of illness, blood, or injury. Even stranger, there were no trees nearby. The dove had just plummeted out of the clear blue sky, lifeless.

  Yet it had an unmistakable energy signature—something I’d felt before. It matched the expansive, almost unbearable malevolence I sensed every time I saw photos of the Cecil. I felt hollow and cold, as if all the energy in the air around me were being sucked away. I knew right away the Realm Walker had killed the poor bird, and he was warning me to stay away—or he’d try to kill me, too.

  The behavior of the homeless people near my home, the coffee shops I like to go to, and the large corporate office buildings where I sometimes take meetings for my day job has also started to change. As I’ve become invested in the documentary and the history of the Cecil, the transients I’ve always passed on the street have become increasingly more agitated. And there are more of them, and they’re acting out. Just after Thanksgiving, I walked past a homeless man near my house. I went into a store, came out a few minutes later, and passed him again. Then I realized I’d left something behind, so I doubled back past him a third time. Suddenly, he jumped up from the ground, rushed toward me, got into my face, and started shrieking, “Fuck you! Fuck you!” He went from blasé to threatening in a matter of seconds, as if he’d been taken over by something. In fact, I knew he had. When he was near me, his energy matched what I’d felt when the dove landed in front of my car. He was plagued by the Realm Walker, and it wanted to scare me.

  When word started to spread about our documentary, the same kinds of things began happening to the Soska twins. They were accosted by several homeless people who hurled insults at them—specifically about projects these people should have known nothing about, like our film. One man spat at them and yelled, “Don’t go near that hotel!” When they tried to rush past him he lunged at them and screamed, “I’ll kill you if you do!”

  You’re probably thinking, Wait. If the Realm Walker lives in the Cecil, how the heck is he traveling across Los Angeles, killing innocent birds and attaching to homeless people? That’s what’s so terrifying. What I’ve realized is that this ugly beast can possess several people at once. It can leave its chosen location—the Cecil—and migrate from one person to another in an effort to damage everything in its path and stop me from doing my job.

  This entity is smarter and more sophisticated than any I’ve ever come across. I know I need to be more prepared for this exorcism than any I’ve done before. I’ve thought about visiting the Cecil to gather information, but I fear it would be too dangerous. I don’t want the entity to learn too much about me because if he does, he could destroy me. I know I’ll become too familiar to him, and he’ll try to play on my weaknesses.

  When I finally do enter the building, I need to be fully armed with my Spirit Guides, my blends, and a team of psychic warriors such as mediums and oracles, who’ll help keep me from being distracted. If I don’t have to tune in to, say, the dead people in the Cecil, I can concentrate solely on the entity.

  All I can do is prepare myself for what lies ahead, whether my battle is tomorrow or years from now. I know I need to be as healthy and strong, both physically and mentally, as I’ve ever been in my life. I’m already doing the work: exercising, eating clean, sleeping well, meditating. My mind and body will need to be armed for battle, and I’m going to do everything I can to wage it as forcefully as I can.

  Honestly, I have no clue what to expect other than the hardest day, or days, of my life. I don’t know how, or if, it’s going to change me—physically and spiritually—forever. Chances are good that the Realm Walker will cause me and my team physical harm. Some of us may become gravely ill and land in the hospital. We’ll hear screams and insults, and have to duck from objects being thrown at us from all sides. It’s even possible the whole building will come crashing down just from the sheer amount of energy rushing through the space.

  I’ve come up with what I hope is a foolproof plan, though. I’ll move through the building twice, starting on the roof and making my way down to the basement. On my first go-through, I’ll work on pulling the entity out of the building, and on my second trip from top to bottom, I’ll close up bad energy in the space by burning high-frequency herbs. At the end of an exorcism, a building is no different than a person; when you remove such a powerful entity, what’s left behind is raw, open energy. It’s space that’s ripe for another entity to come back in, or, worse, for someone inside to get hurt, sick, or killed. The entity might inflict structural damage, so anything from broken pipes to live wires could crop up. Therefore, I have to close the building completely, even more carefully than I did after exorcising the Slaughterhouse Collector.

  I plan to take an all-female camera crew with me. Why? Because I know the Realm Walker absolutely hates women. Most of his victims have been female, and his particular skill is taking over men so that they can harm women. Having women with me will make the entity even more agitated. I’ll prep my team beforehand, sitting down with them every night for at least two weeks, teaching them how to raise their frequency so they can walk into the building ready for battle, too. I also suspect that the homeless people who live around the hotel will try to attack us when we enter, so we’ll sneak in via the service entrance, hopefully undetected.

  Since I haven’t been in the Cecil, I know there are a lot of things I’ll discover when I enter: just how the entity operates, what its weaknesses are, and how it will try to destroy me once I begin the exorcism.

  Thankfully, I already know I’ll win, because I understand how it originated. Sure, the Realm Walker comes from Spirit, like me, you, and every high and low being out there, but its origins are bigger and more complex. I’ve broken my rule of not doing research before an exorcism and studied hundreds of pictures of the Cecil online. In each one, I can sense, plain as day, that there’s a massive vortex on the land where the hotel was built. I can’t actually see it with my own two eyes, but I can feel its dark energy just by looking at photos. It’s the most negative emptiness I’ve ever experienced; staring into it, it’s like I’m floating in the darkest kind of negative space, gasping for my last breath.

  It’s clear that the vortex is sucking so much low-frequency energy into itself that it’s become a sort of on-land black hole. It’s a stationary hurricane, with the Cecil as its eye. In fact, I suspect that the hotel was built specifically to serve the purposes of the vortex. It wanted to draw vulnerable people toward it, make them stay, and destroy them.

  The Realm Walker has sprung from this, and it’s drawn negative energy from it for almost ninety years. It doesn’t give a shit about who or what it’s attached to and then fed off of; all it cares about is that it can control hundreds, even thousands of people, and then murder them rapidly. It killed Elisa Lam, it murdered the Night Stalker’s victims, and it wants, more than anything, to destroy me.

  I’m ready—or at least I think I am. I know how to kill the Cecil Realm Walker, and I’ve never failed in any other exorcism. Spirit’s on my side.

  CHAPTER 13

  Bad Moons, Lost Souls, and Making Sense of Everything

  My unique window into Spirit has exposed me to a lot that’s ugly and downright scary. That’s been true my whole life. I’ve learne
d to deal with it, though, so now I never tune out what’s fearful. Never for a minute do I regret the gift I’ve been given. I process it and use it, and I haven’t just learned important lessons, but I’ve also made the lives of my clients better.

  Over the years, my psychic awareness has grown, and this has allowed me more access to the spiritual world. I haven’t just seen more entities, but other beings as well. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to make sense of patterns, and what to do in situations beyond the normal exorcisms. Maybe you think this all sounds overwhelming, but I think it’s the most exciting challenge I could face.

  What Goes Bump in the Night

  Sometimes, there’s absolutely no pattern associated with how entities behave or when they appear. When I was a child, and well into my twenties, I was bombarded by entities at all hours, with no rhyme or reason. Sometimes, I suspected they did it simply to scare me. Other times, they wanted to attach to me.

  I’m now a lot smarter, and much more experienced, and I’ve come to understand the patterns that entities follow with their visitations. For example, I’ve learned that entities are more active at night. Spirit has never told me why, and I certainly don’t have any scientific explanation for it, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because of lunar cycles. Think about it: if more women go into labor during the full moon, more people commit suicide then, and tidal patterns change as the moon waxes and wanes, doesn’t it make sense that the Spirit world might open up with the moon, too? There’s just something about night energy and the way the full moon makes you feel; it’s full of wonder, and it opens you up, causing all your strengths, weaknesses, fears, and joys to bubble to the surface. You’re more receptive and alive, and that’s when entities spot you and try to come in. Again, this is all just my hunch and based entirely on my own personal experience and my work with clients, but I have noticed a pattern.