Legion

Legion - Chapter 5

Concealed within the thickly clustered limbs of the adjoining branches above her, the demon peered down upon its quarry. It marveled at her small size. So slight of frame. So frail of physical composition. And yet even beneath the protective fortification of the skin within which it resided, it could feel the power of her will, the magnitude of the Risen Lamb, the Mighty One of God, that filled her, that shone from within her, that moved through her like an unstoppable ocean of retribution. It found itself enthralled by the contradiction of the insubstantial physical form housing the leviathan faith in the Divine Trinity into which she entrusted the defense of her person as much as her soul. So enchanted was it by this unique and inestimable foe that it failed to pay heed to her companions, both of whom it had dismissed out of hand as adversaries of lesser consequence. It could not have known its ignorance of their individual and collective authority would be its eventual undoing.
         It channeled its every attention upon the woman and its mouth drew up in a grisly mockery of a smile, a mirthless expression of satisfaction steeped in malice and guile. It had battled the One Who is to Come when He had come in the world as a man. No single soul - not even an army composed of every soul, living or dead, ever to have walked the earth - could contest its will.

Roma raised a hand as she proceeded ahead, silently urging caution. As she moved through the trees, the structure became more evident. As seasoned a warrior as she was, even Roma blanched at the sight of the monstrous edifice. Were the image of Satan known to Man, she mused, this would be its most striking likeness. It exuded a maliciousness unlike any she had ever experienced and instilled dread into even her most stalwart heart. It did not escape her attention that the trees into which the towering structure soared had peeled away in a great fan, repulsed by the presence of so heinous a perversion.
         The altar itself, situated in a clearing, was a thing of grim magnificence and truly terrifying. It reeked a sulphurous stench. The images burned into the surface were horrifying to any reckoning. The script, though indecipherable, testified to such profanity that even the alien symbols themselves projected an alarmingly lifelike intensity of evil, as though the words themselves were vested with a conscious malevolence.
         Roland stumbled and Michael caught his arm, his steely gaze sober.
         "Don't look down, my friend," he whispered as he held the waxen priest's gaze and drew him several feet away. When Michael nodded slightly, Roland turned to look towards the obstacle he had tripped upon. He caught the coachman's arm once again to steady himself. Just a few feet away lay a pile of bones and disintegrated fabric. Dozens of flesh sluiced skeletons lay piled upon one another in a hastily created mound. Instinctively, he made the sign of the cross and spirited a swift prayer towards the heavens. He turned back to Michael. The staunch coachman registered no shock or terror at the sight but neither was his expression one of merriment. He was the very picture of imperturbability. Roma was utterly engrossed in the altar and edifice and, though having seen the bone pile, was absorbed entirely in the structure. She turned to her companions, her expression one of keen trepidation. They knew in an instant that things were ostensibly worse than any of them could have anticipated.
         "What is it?" Roland asked, noting that Michael's keen gaze swept their surroundings. In his experience as a woodsman, the absence of a beast from its lair lent itself to one of only two things - it was either hunting in the region or it was very close by, observing at a distance any potential prey that might wander into its den. The fist of apprehension in his throat told him this particular predator was doing both.
         "This is worse than I expected," Roma admitted, "This is far more than I should have found were this merely a demonic possession," her hand swept out in a broad arc to encompass the edifice and altar, "No one person could do this. Not even one puppeteered by a demon, because demons are at least constrained to some extent by the physical limitations of the human form. Look at this thing. No bolts. No struts. No cross beams. It is a free standing structure whose form could not possibly hold without support, and even with buttress or scaffold it is highly doubtful it would stand. And yet here it is, erect and completely immovable," she emphasized her point by throwing her weight against the narrow base of the edifice. It did not so much as even sway. Were it within the realm of physical possibility that the construction could even balance in such a manner, her exertion would surely have sent it toppling like a house of cards.
         "What are you saying?" Michael asked, unsure he wanted to ascertain an answer.
         "I thought that a demon had come to Lymington," Roma explained, "There have been disappearances, many of which remain unaccounted for to this day. In 398 the fourth Council of Carthage established the Office of Exorcist and since then the Vatican has kept detailed records of virtually every authenticated demonic possession since the time of Christ. I have read them all and in none of them is anything on this scale mentioned. Customarily, when a demon enslaves a human host, it demonstrates a greatly exaggerated capacity for violence and even inhuman strength. Demons are known in some cases to resort to living in caves or in the open, to act on occasions in an almost animalistic fashion. They throw their captive to the ground repeatedly, forcing their victim's body into unnatural contortions of fixed rigidity for hours, even days, at a time. Demons often act wildly and most who have been possessed in the past have been mistakenly thought insane but for one thing. Lucidity fails the maniac and cogency eludes those bereft of their faculties. Demons are compos mentis - they can communicate with logic and perspicuity. But as clever and as resourceful as they are, they are bound, at least physically, by the restrictions of the human body," she returned her gaze to the horrific monument behind her, "No human being has the physical wherewithal to build such a structure and certainly not the command of the preternatural world exercised here to hold it together."
         "Which begs the questions - what are we dealing with?" Roland put forth.
         No one answered, for there was no time.
         A wild slashing in the canopy branches several dozen feet away drew their collective attention high into the air. Michael lunged forward and grabbed Roma's arm, hauling her with savage force away from the altar. A movement so swift it barely registered in their sight shot from the treetops to the altar in less than a blink of an eye. It struck the emblazoned stone surface with so great an impact that it sent a shock wave thundering beneath their feet in a great ripple out into the forest. It shook trees and rent the earth almost to the outer perimeter of the forest.
         Crouched upon the raised plinth hunkered an entity of leviathan size. It was humanoid in form but beyond that it could not be likened to anything remotely resembling humanity. Its head was angular and elongated. In its gleaming amber eyes shone a terrible intelligence. It was conservatively four feet across the shoulder and even at a crouch betrayed its more than ten feet of vertical height. Its waist was so lean that its skeletal structure protruded painfully, straining against its taut flesh. Its brute strength of force was not betrayed by musculature alone but more patently in its sang-froid poise and lithe alertness. Its posture conveyed the same nimble preparedness of a lion perched to lunge. It regarded them with macabre covetousness and showed no fear.
         "What do you want with us, Herald?" it demanded and the companions fought the urge to cover their ears, for it was not possessed of a single voice but many - many thousands. They were a cacophony of such deafening clamor as to make a roaring waterfall seem little louder than a bubbling brook. The pain of so noisome a dissonance drove them all to their knees as their expressions distorted in agony, "You will never again leave this place, Herald?" it boomed.
         None answered, for its spoke a language unknown to them. Or so they believed. Michael stood, his hand upon Roma's shoulder to stabilize the unsteady woman.
         "Who are you?" Michael replied in the creature's own tongue. Roma and Roland stared up at him in undisguised astonishment.
         "Give us the Herald?" the obscenity demanded, its voices like the demolition of a mountain. The ground shook when it spoke and the forest trembled. It was like suffering unto the mighty shout that had razed the walls of Jericho.
         "Answer me," Michael commanded in the vernacular alien to his companions. The authority of his tone had the opposite effect upon his surroundings. It countermanded the governance of the beast's awesome power and stilled the forest to tranquility. The creature flinched ever so imperceptibly in the face of his prevailing ascendancy. It held his gaze but a moment before releasing a howl of rage that shook the very foundations beneath their feet and savaged the woods around them. Trees were uprooted and the earth rose in undulating waves around them, casting about deracinated rocks and foliage.
         "We are they who have come before," the creature answered cryptically.
         Roma shot a desperate glance at Roland and he read her expression as plainly as words upon parchment.
         "Mass is conducted in Latin. It sounds familiar but it is unknown to me," he replied to her unasked question.
         "It's Hebrew," Michael replied calmly, his gaze never once diverting from the monstrosity upon the altar face. They looked up at him in shock.
         "You speak Hebrew?" Roland asked, exasperated. He had known the coachman for ten years and Michael's former inability to read and write was no secret. How could he possibly be conversant in so complex a language as ancient Hebrew, he marveled, in the face of his illiteracy?
         "Give us the Herald and you will live," the creature addressed Michael directly. Michael gestured with his hand for Roma and Roland to move back without taking his eyes from the crouching beast. It had begun to creep forward to step off the altar. Only when it had raised itself to its full height did the true extent of its mammoth size and appalling power become evident. It dwarfed the bulk and might of a bear and its eyes glimmered with the frightful acuity of an unspeakable intellect.
         It took a step forward and even Michael appeared uncertain as to his next course of action.
         "Stay where you are," Roland commanded in a voice irrefutably authoritative though measured and calm. The creature balked.
         It's eyes shot to the robed priest and salacious revilement glinted from deep within its amber orbs.
"It understands me," the canny priest murmured quietly, his eyes affixed to the monstrosity before them.
         "Give the Herald to us," the creature demanded, advancing another step towards Roma. She did not retreat but Michael placed himself in front of her regardless. Roland stepped forward.
         "I compel you by the Blood of Christ, stand fast!" he insisted, the power in his voice veritably setting the air about them to crackling. The beast again screamed with fury but in spite of itself was unable to lift its leviathan leg to step forward.
         "You, we shall crush to powder beyond the Maker's skill to re-forge," it hissed. Michael translated.
         "Speak as you will," Roland assented, "I already know you understand me, just as I know you speak all languages, even those unknown to the experience of Man. But you will do as I command," he ordered, his manner composed, his expression impassive.
         It was then that Roland noticed the birthmark upon the creature's shoulder. It was stretched and distorted somewhat but it was unmistakable. His lips parted, the only indication that the revelation had moved him.
         "Give us th-," the creature spoke and Roland cut it off.
         "Silence!" he thundered and a deep, threatening growl of primal origin emanated from the throat of the creature. Frustrated in its physical efforts to claim its prize, it swayed from side to side, its weight shifting from one bony hip to the other like a caged animal, "You will speak only when addressed," Roland stipulated. Roma touched his arm.
         "Remember Carthage, Roland," Roma cautioned under her breath, "Do not question it. It lies," she reminded him.
         "We don't even know what it is. Even in lies, hidden truths reside," he replied. She fell silent. Roland had respected unquestioningly her primacy in the arena of investigating and revealing evil in the world. She in turn thence repaid his trust by deferring to his preeminence in exorcising the evil she had unearthed.
         The creature regarded them each in turn; silently evaluating, quietly calculating.
         "Tell me your name," Roland commanded. Its eyes narrowed as it considered the enemy before it. It had not anticipated the priest would possess any grit, much less authority, and it seethed loathing.
         "We are they who have come before," it replied, its own equanimity superseding its rage. Michael did not translate. Roland recognized the phrase from its prior utterance.
         "By the blood of He in whose shadow you are unfit to dwell, give me your name," Roland elaborated. A directive given in the name of the Christ caused the beast to recoil. It resisted the compulsion by which it was bound but eventually relented beneath the inexorable duress of the priest's authority.
         "I am Legion," it acquiesced unwillingly, the words seemingly ripped from its mouth, "I am Legion, for we are many," the discordant choir of myriad voices shrieked, causing the forest to tremble once more, "You cannot bind us, priest, for we are indwelt no longer. We are among you in spirit and in flesh. We are no longer confined to the frailty of the inhabited vessel but walk amidst you clad in the bloodless flesh of the monarch's breath," it added. Michael translated. Roma paled. It was far worse than she had ever even imagined.
         She touched Roland's arm.
         "We must leave at once. Bind it to this place. I must talk with you," she implored, her tone as bleak as the ominously dim woods surrounding them. It communicated a greater urgency than her words alone conveyed.
         "The flesh in which you clothe yourself was once a beloved son of God. In circumventing the living vessel, though frail, you forfeit the protection it provides. You dwell in my world now, demon. You will know not only defeat but terrible pain before you die," Roland warned with such formidable conviction that the small hairs on the back of Roma's arms stood on end, "In the name of the Temple who was torn down and raised again on the third day, I bid thee here in this place remain."
         When the demon smiled, it engendered a penetrating chill of forbidding deep within the marrow of each of the companions. Roland stood his ground as the beast strained against its physical imprisonment, fixed in rigidity by the indomitable decree of the priest.
         "Incarcerate this flesh, faithless Iscariot, for I have already sent my selves out into the world. We are numberless. We have gone into the beasts of the forest, we have pursued the children into their safe places, we have assailed the dreams of the innocent, we have afflicted the Word, we have drawn the blood of the impertinent and stolen their peace, and we have brutalized your titans," it presaged with grim pleasure, "Our work is only just begun," it turned its macabre gaze upon Roma, "And for you we fashioned a consort to whom you shall remain bound unto the end of your days." Michael translated the demon's dire warning and Roland turned his back to the creature as much to end the exchange as to pointedly convey to the demon a total absence of fear.
         The demon's indignation manifested itself in the startling response of the forest surrounding them. A deeply gratified, humorless laugh in a thousand voices filled the air all around them. Every tree, shrub and bush shuddered violently as though monstrous subterranean hands gripped every earth locked root and shook them mercilessly. In an unexpected response to so ferocious an assault, all plant life instantaneously shed their leaves. In a heartbeat the forest floor lay blanketed in two feet of discarded foliage. Neither bough nor branch, not even the slightest twig, bore leaf nor bud. A moment later the temperature plummeted and a soup thick fog descended. All eyes lifted to the leaf stripped canopy above to take in the shocking vision of a grey, exposed sky before the mist obscured all but the few feet surrounding them. A whooshing sound preceded the swift flight of a crow above them. Astonishingly it flew backwards, its wings flapping in a motion contrary to its natural flight pattern. The sickening sound of splintering, breaking bones accompanied its path through the air. Its trajectory dropped suddenly before it fell from the air in a limp heap of shattered bones and disheveled feathers. No sooner had they witnessed the appalling death of the bird than the water lying in shallow pools on the ground from the overnight rain beaded into individual droplets and began to ‘fall' skyward, each drip traveling into the air in a perfectly straight course as though the sky were the earth and the ground were the clouds. Around them the growth of a dozen small plants and several large trees reverted. Old and withered limbs sloughed dry bark and flushed plump with moisture and health, branches began to shrink back towards the trunk. Trunks regenerated and roots receded as they aged in reverse until they were mere saplings which in turn regressed to shoots before disappearing beneath the leaf strewn ground.
         All about them nature repealed its own laws to act in conflict with itself. The icy air surrounding the companions went unnoticed. The chill in their veins erased every memory of warmth they had ever known.
         Unfaltering in resolve, the priest did not look back, but continued to walk away from the interned beast, whispered prayers of faith and trust spilling from his lips. When fog swallowed the distance between the beast and the retreating party, its rage found voice in one last horrifying revelation. It chose for this most profound disclosure to speak in their own tongue so that all might understand and know fear.
         "I am the First, who tempted the Holy One of God in the desert, and made my dwelling in Iscariot, who betrayed the Son," a terrible, powerful voice rang throughout the mist shrouded wood.
         "I am the one who dwelt in Caligula," a high pitched wail penetrated the thick fog.
         "It was I who dwelled within Nosferatu, the Wallacian prince, known as Vladimir," a deep, booming voice thundered throughout the naked forest.
         "I am the one that there in the Hun, Attila, did dwell," a whispered voice curled through the swirling fogs around them like the hiss of a snake.
         "I am the indwelt one of Genghis, known as Khan," a rasping scream pealed through the close air.
         A lapse into silence preceded the most shocking of the creature's claims.
         "Nine came before but in the tenth I did dwell," an emotionless, hollow voice saturated the air, filling Roma with a deep and unexplained dread even before it concluded its demoralizing allegation, "I was Leo, known as Pope," it asserted and Roma froze in her stride. Michael and Roland turned to her to find her expression appalled, her complexion waxen as though she faced a ghost they could not see; the voice continued, "I baptized thee, daughter of Giulio, and stained thee with the stink that now the Rotted One pursues to track thee. The Living Water has not cleansed thee, your salvation is forfeit."
         Roma's lips parted and a fist of disbelief knotted in the centre of her throat. Roland blanched. He had never seen her affected so. But then he had not just been delivered the most dire of all revelations. Her gaze was fixed in the distance and haunted.
         "You are not he," she murmured. It was more of a thought unknowingly voiced than a reply.
         The voice spoke one last time.
         " ‘It has served us well, this myth of Christ' " the voice had changed - it was one unerringly familiar and caused every hair on her body to prickle in response. Just by looking at her, Michael could tell that this last voice stunned her more than any other and that within its last statement lay a confirmation of something unknown to him but utterly catastrophic to Roma.
         "Whatever it just told you, remember that it lies," Michael reminded her, placing himself in the path of her gaze and forcing her to engage his eyes. When she looked deep into his pale blue eyes and he saw disillusionment there, he understood that the revelation had crushed something within her.
         "Not about this," she answered in a soft, disenchanted voice before brushing past him.

         The demon faded into silence, swallowed by the mist - the first chapter in its centuries-old, carefully construed plan had come to almost perfect fruition.

         The companions waded through the waist-high vegetation and slipped silently into the fog.

         Even as they made their way back to the village, every stripped, skeletal tree and shrub in the forest spontaneously shot into leaf, once again shrouding the demon's lair...

Book 3









The party returned to the rectory in silence. Roma remained dazed and remote for the duration of their trek. A bleak, windy day greeted them when they broke free of the fog engulfed forest, echoing the austerity of their mood. Michael's only and disturbingly weak indication of his impermeable bond with Roma was the slight but reassuring squeeze of her hand in his. He left her to her disorientation. He would learn the source of it soon enough. For the time being, she was processing something in the demon's disclosure that predated their meeting, something that profoundly perturbed her.
         When they reached the rectory, Roma entered first, making directly for the meeting room. There she opened a small cupboard and retrieved a wooden box from which she removed and lit a long, strong cigarette. Both men looked on in shock. Michael had no idea she even partook of tobacco and Roland was astonished she had discovered his private reserve. She drew several times upon the elegant stem before removing from the same cupboard an ornate, hand blown glass bottle of cognac and a glass. She poured herself a generous amount and threw it back, the fiery liquid stilling an uncontrollable trembling that beset her from deep within.
         Taking a shuddered breath, she turned to her companions.
         "We are going to be here for a while," she advised solemnly, "You might want to make yourselves comfortable."
         Roland and Michael, too disquieted by her uncharacteristic behavior to either comment or criticize her actions, quietly settled themselves in the remaining armchairs in the cozy den. Michael slowly began to realize that only an extreme jolt to her sensibilities could have warranted conduct so aberrant to her archetypal unflappability.
         "I've seen every aberration vomited up from Satan's most lurid cesspit of creativity," she commenced, her tone stiff and edgy, "That is like nothing I have ever come across," her gaze shot to Roland, "Ever," she repeated to emphasise the magnitude of her assertion.
         "Why don't we start with what the demon told you that has affected you so," Michael suggested, dipping his head almost imperceptibly towards the curling plume of smoke that rose from the smoldering tip of the cigarette. Roma's lips parted as if to speak and then she balked. She had intended to dismiss his inquiry to a later discussion in light of more pressing questions that required answers. Instead she chose to address it, realizing that she was unlikely to retain his unabridged attention if his thoughts were applied to unraveling the mystery of her astonishing reaction to the demon's last declaration.
         She sat back and took a deep breath. She addressed only Michael, for Roland knew fully the details of her disclosure.
         "You know who I am," she began, engaging Michael's gaze without blinking, "You, Roland, my Abbess and our Supreme Pontiff in Rome," she elaborated, "but there was another who knew me. Knew me well. In whom I confided. In whom I placed my trust and reserved my judgment in spite of his...vices. He was Pope up until his death two years ago - Pope Leo the Tenth. He was Cardinal when I was born and presided over my christening. He acted as overseer of my education, spiritual and secular, and it was he who set me upon my present path, that of investigating preternatural phenomena in the world. On his deathbed he called for me and I came. I had been engaged in my vocation a little over a year. It was his express wish that I come to his chamber unaccompanied. Later I was to learn that it would be so that none could corroborate my horrible discovery. When I saw him, his face changed, as though the serene, composed expression of his office had been a cleverly applied mask that only then had he doffed in favor of his...truer... face. It was ghastly. Like every physical representation of malice, greed, avarice and cruelty melded into a single glance," she drew deeply on the cigarette, her gaze following the rising column of smoke as it drifted towards the ceiling, "He then told me that the voices had first begun to torment him in early adulthood, that he had resisted and fought them, even entered the priesthood in the hope that a life dedicated to Christ would expunge him of the spiritual pox that had perforated his soul. To reduce an incredible and horrendous story to its essence, he surrendered to the demons that dominated him in the early days of his vocation. More grievously, he entered and held the Office of Supreme Pontiff whilst utterly subjugated by the demons within," she concluded.
         "But what was it the demon said that brutalized you so?" Michael delved.
         "Until a few hours ago, I thought the Pope had died insane, relieved of his faculties, that his last days, filled with pain and opiates to dull that pain, had driven him to address his guilt. He was a slave to many vices, most of which are inappropriate for the common man to indulge, much less the Pope. It was inconceivable for me to reconcile a demon possessed Pontiff. This office touches the very vault of Heaven. It reigns over the entire world in every sphere of human experience - religion, art, literature, science, progress. I chose to believe instead that the pain and the cocktail of drugs coursing through his system to stem that pain had given him a kind of backward clarity to confront his demons - for want of a better term. I mistakenly believed that the demons he spoke of which had beleaguered him from an early age were the manifestations he had given his many sins. And let me be clear here, there is a very distinct difference between enslavement to sin and imprisonment by means of demonic captivity. I was naïve and I was wrong. Without going into unnecessary detail, it is now appallingly clear to me that he christened me whilst in captivity of the indwelt demons - my baptism is void. You can imagine my shock when he spoke his last words to me and those words were ‘It has served us well, this myth of Christ'."
         Michael's furrowed brow reflected her failure to clarify her discovery.
         "The Pope requested an unchaperoned deathbed visitation," she explained, "There was no one else present to hear the words he spoke to me and I have divulged them to no one other than Roland, the Abbess and our Holy Father on the Throne of Saint Peter. The demon in the forest could not have quoted the Pope's deathbed confession unless it had itself spoken those very words through the Pontiff, thus validating His Holiness' deathbed claim of almost lifelong demonic domination. The voice you heard was the Pope's own. That thing, whatever it is, out in the forest, had the power to render a Pope - the highest spiritual office in all Mankind - subservient to its will. We know exactly who it is, however what it is poses something of a more problematic conundrum, and one we need to identify and clarify before we proceed."
         She finished the cigarette and stubbed the butt in her empty glass. It hissed and lit the alcohol dregs briefly before she blew it out. Roland leant forward. Ever the strategist, he was ready to guide his companions through his hypotheses and suggest possible paths of resistance against their aggressor. His mind spun with myriad, converging thought streams drawn from an unparalleled knowledge of tactical spiritual warfare and historical record documenting preternatural assault delving as far back as the oldest of archaic reasoning on the subjects of divinity and demonology. Roma's aptitude lay in the investigating and unearthing of evil at work in the world. Roland's expertise resided in formulating the strategies required to rout it.
         "Let us start with what we know," he began, his tone calm and thoughtful, "and then we can move on to what we don't," he noted that Roma shot Michael a reassuring glance to assuage his concern, "Firstly, to quote Jesus as chronicled in the Gospel of John, ‘I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life'. So, yes, whilst your baptism as presided over by Pope Leo is void, your salvation is assured because you live for your love of Christ and are prepared to die for Him. I will perform a new baptism this very day and it will be sanctified, but you need to understand and believe that were you to die this minute, you would find yourself at His side at the very moment of your passing."
         Following his stout declaration, one that provided Roma with untold comfort, the sagacious priest addressed both his companions.
         "Let's start with the obvious - manipulation of nature," he began.
         "More than that," Roma added, "The Legion who confronted Christ begged to be allowed to enter the herd of pigs in preference to being consigned to the Abyss. It sent the herd over a cliff. It certainly did not show itself capable of building unsupported complex structures, perverting nature and controlling the elements."
         "But then it was in the presence of Christ," Michael interjected, "The Bible mentions several times that those of great faith who touched the hem of his robe and believed in his divinity and healing power received it, that Jesus had felt His power ‘had gone out from Him'. Such being the case, perhaps the physical presence of Christ exercised a kind of binding power over the demon, limiting or stunting the extent of its powers." Roland cocked an eyebrow. It was not an idea he had ever entertained but it held plausible merit, even if there was no way to verify it since the Bible did not elaborate on such an hypothesis.
         "Today was a demonstration of power," Roland cautioned, "It may attempt to use its control over nature against us in the course of the exorcism. Anything that can revert a centuries old tree to a sapling can certainly uproot it and throw it at us."
         "Why did it call you the Herald?" Michael inquired.
         "I cannot say," she replied.
         "Because that's precisely what you are," Roland testified, "Your work on earth is to follow the trail of supernatural events back to their source and thus their originator. Once you expose and bind it, you relate this information back to the Vatican who sends its ‘specialists' in to deal with it. So in point of fact you herald the beginning of the end for each particular evil you bring to light. You are a herald. You locate it and betray it to those skilled to expunge it."
         "What does it want with you?" Michael pursued further this line of inquiry.
         "What they all want with me," she added impassively, "It wants me dead." Michael's brow furrowed.
         "If a demonic entity perceives a threat and knows its adversary cannot be tempted or turned to evil, it seeks to swiftly dispatch its enemy," Roland replied with the same dispassionate detachedness as Roma. Michael was taken aback. They spoke of such remarkable and momentous things as though casually discussing the weather. In the same instance he realized that what he had witnessed that morning had been one fleeting insight into Roma's years of similar - perhaps worse - experiences with evil in its every form. Such frequent and unshielded exposure to iniquity, he mused, must surely yield a certain desensitization to the horror of it over time.
         Roland regarded Michael with undisguised curiosity.
         "With neither the ability to read or write until recently, how is it you speak perfect Hebrew?" he queried, astonishment and admiration abundant in both tone and expression.
         It was the first time Roma had perceived Michael to be hiding something from her. Though relaxed and reclined in his armchair, his gaze dropped briefly to his lap before returning to the priest. A intuitive interpreter of body language, Roma at once dismissed the assumption that he was keeping something from her in favor of the more lenient supposition that there was something she did not yet know about him that involved keeping faith with a third party. She knew this because at the mention of his impressive demonstration of Hebrew he did not look guilty, merely conflicted. Obviously he was bound either by oath or fealty not to disclose too much information lest it betray a greater confidence.
         "An old friend of my father taught me," he explained without elaboration.
         "So, this ‘friend' of your father taught you not to fish, not to hunt or grow produce but rather to speak ancient Hebrew?" Roland probed with uncharacteristic skepticism. He too felt strongly that there was a great deal more to the coachman's simple response that warranted explanation but was frustrated in his efforts to glean deeper insight.
         "Whilst it is interesting to say the least," Roma interpolated, "it is of lesser consequence than other issues that need addressing." Roland's inquisitiveness was both frustrated and inflamed.
         "We know it speaks at least two languages," Michael redirected their discussion back to a summation of the facts they had to date.
         "It speaks all languages," Roma corrected unobtrusively, "Possession has occurred all over the world and since demons have been among us since the dawn of civilization - indeed Cain himself was in captivity when he struck his brother - then there is no language unknown to it and countless others incomprehensible to Man in which it is unsettlingly articulate."
         "It can be constricted by the invocation of the power of Christ," Roland added.
         "We now know that it sent the Smiling Man in pursuit of you," Michael confirmed.
         "How about things less obvious," Roma suggested, "Things that don't involve what we perceive with our eyes," she was met with curious glances.
         "Things like what?" Roland asked.
         "How about the fact that it did not once lie," she put forth, "Lying is to a demon as breathing is to you or I. And we know who this demon is, not because we should believe it when it identifies itself but because we compelled it by the blood of Christ. And yet every other word it spoke was truth. It went so far as to boast of others it had inhabited that it knew we would recognize by reputation alone - Judas Iscariot, the deranged Roman Emperor Caligula, Vlad the Impaler, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and the late Pope Leo X. The absence of deceit disturbs me more than the presence of it. It is supposed to lie, it is anathema to its very nature not to. I think it is more powerful than even we suspect. Rather than sifting through lies for hidden truths, we should instead look for greater truths within any honesty it demonstrates. The lies of a demon are like poison - so much the more toxic when it speaks with candor."
         "You saw something," Michael addressed Roland, "I saw you recognize something about the demon when you spoke to it. Then you spoke cryptically about it both inhabiting and circumventing ‘the living vessel'." It was prompt enough. The priest swallowed hard. He had made a devastating discovery when they had come upon the demon and until then had pushed it aside.
         Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he made known his finding.
         "It was the birthmark on the demon's shoulder," he divulged, "I've seen it before. But not as distorted or stretched. Tobin Abernathy bore that mark."
         "You can't be serious," Michael replied, "You saw that thing - it was ten feet in height. And it looks nothing like Tobin. Nothing in the Bible ever mentioned that possession disfigured the physical self."
Roma had never seen the savant boy for he had vanished before her arrival in Lymington, but his disappearance had sent a ripple of dread throughout the community at large. A startling thought occurred to her, originating with the priest's own choice of words in the forest.
         "You said the flesh in which you clothe yourself was once a beloved son of God'," she murmured, "It is not possessing the boy, it is wearing him," she concurred and the sobriety of his expression confirmed her conjecture.
         "What?" Michael asked, horrified.
         "The origin of the word ‘demon' resides in two meanings. The first is literal - fallen. The second is figurative, meaning ‘disembodied spirit'. Thus the necessity for possession of a host - a demon is an intelligence, an intellect, a consciousness without form. It requires a victim to action its will in the world," Roland related, pausing, "until now."
         "Are you suggesting that thing..." Michael struggled to articulate the horror of the revelation.
         "All that is left of young Tobin is his skin which the demon is wearing like," Roland balked, "...like a skin." He swallowed hard, forcing himself to push aside speculation as to what became of the rest of the savant boy. His stomach lurched at the recollection of the bone pile he had stepped on and his thoughts strayed with morbid curiosity to ponder whether he had indeed encountered that which remained of Tobin Abernathy in the mound.
         "That leaves us with the question of why," Roma added, thumbing her chin, her gaze lost to a landscape known only to her mind's eye. When Michael and Roland regarded her with blank looks, she elaborated, "Obviously it has the power to grant itself form - in and of itself a disturbing development since the very essence and ultimately downfall of a demon is its disembodied state. Perhaps it is of a substance unable to tolerate this world. Perhaps it wears the skin as a kind of shield against the hostility of the natural order."
         "That doesn't make any sense," Michael proposed, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, "The skin itself is of the natural world. If its physical presence is repelled by the natural order, it stands to reason that it cannot shield itself from the natural world by cloaking itself in something of that world."
         "Not unless is reacts to the natural world in degrees," Roland suggested, his eyes aglow with the innumerable possibilities his analytical mind presented, "Think of it like this," he put forth, taking a deep breath as he gathered his thoughts, "Imagine a man allergic to wool caught in a house fire. He finds himself trapped inside his home with the blaze all around him. If the fire closes in on him, he will be incinerated. He grabs a blanket and wraps himself in it to shield himself from the fire as he makes his escape through the inferno to safety. He is allergic to wool - it causes his skin to react with a severe and painful inflammation. But in a house fire, better to emerge from it with an inflammation than to be burned to a cinder," he spread his hands, "Perhaps the degree of irritation caused by the skin is substantially less than the conflagration of the natural world. Let us not forget that something powerful enough to evolve into form, though anathema to the natural world, is likely brilliant enough to at least circumvent some of the forces at work against it. This entity - all six thousand of its selves - has been around since the dawn of Man, probably longer, a lot longer. It would not have devised a means of creating for itself a physical self without granting equal regard for how it might sustain itself once it breached the barrier separating it from our sphere of existence, one consisting of both the spirit and the flesh."
         "Why do you say ‘all six thousand of its selves'? Where did you get such a figure?" Michael asked.
         "It is a composite demon - a multiplicity of intelligences all bound up into a single entity," Roma explained, "It called itself Legion because at the point in history when it was forced to identify itself - when confronted by Jesus - it gave itself a name representing the full complement of its singular intellects. In the time of Christ, a Roman legion consisted of six thousand soldiers. The historical record reflects that the nature of a demon's dialect and dialogue falls into step with the era in which it emerges in order to make itself understood. A land-bound demon does not speak in maritime terminology. Similarly, the indwelt demon of a twelfth century English speaking goat herder would not speak in the Illyrian tongue of a third century Balkan royal official else it would not be understood. A demon adapts itself to the era into which its victim is located. To give itself a name of Roman origin in a time of Roman occupation served two purposes, to makes itself readily identifiable to those it chooses to - or is compelled to - reveal itself to, and to communicate its enormity. It is a demon of immense and so far unparalleled magnitude."
         Michael lapsed into silence. Ever since he and Roma had encountered the Smiling Man in the butterfly glade, he had been adjusting to life with his altered sight. It was a task in itself and one that he had and would continue to deal with alone. It had initially caused him incredible optical and spiritual disorientation, for his ‘sight' now granted him a four-dimensional field of view. He still viewed the world as he always had, perceiving the physical forms of all things around him. However, he perceived an added dimension when he looked upon people. He saw clearly their opaque, physical form - flesh, clothing, hair - but juxtaposed over their cleanly defined tangible self was another image, translucent, colorless, largely indistinct. It was the manifestation of their true self, the spirit represented as a second, less tangible self. It was at times startling and disquieting for it was often at odds with the image of the physical self as presented to the eye.
         He had once crossed paths with an old fisherman of grizzled appearance, unwashed and unkempt, a loner by disposition, ghosted by a dramatically different representation of himself, one of blinding incandescence revealing his purity of heart. His vaporous, reflected self bore the mark of the crucifix upon his brow, indicating his allegiance to his Lord and Savior. In his hand he carried an upended coin bag bearing the image of a scapula from which coins fell in a steady stream, representing a lifetime spent selflessly giving alms to the poor. His stature was not stooped by decades of a grueling life lived in servitude to the sea like that of his corporeal form, but straight and strong. His spirit self did not walk with the limp his physical form struggled with, but with a steady and unhindered gait. Gladness and contentment were reflected in his serene expression though his physical self bore a scowl and a grimace chiseled into his features by long years of squinting against the glare of the sea and the sky. About him there was a nobility, decency and graciousness that was as apparent to Michael as the sun and the moon. The fisherman seemed, by appearances alone, a tough, rugged sea dog of sour disposition but was in fact a kind hearted man of great faith and a clean heart with regard for the needy.
         Alternately he had once looked upon an immaculately manicured and coiffeured estate district lady - a grand dame at that - bedecked in her finest jewels and bearing a countenance of polished refinery only to be stunned utterly by the hideousness of her reflected self. Her juxtaposed, aqueous form was gnarled and disfigured, representing the ugliness of her spirit. She was bald and hunched, she snarled like an animal and her tongue was forked, denoting her greedy and duplicitous nature. From her brow large nodules, like the blunt tips of emerging horns, had split the skin and oozed a blackish blood. Her clothes were rags, representing the futility of reliance on fleeting physical beauty, for not even the finest fabric or rarest gem could clothe and completely conceal an egregiously hollow and foully diseased heart.
         Michael had forced himself to swiftly adjust to his altered view of the world, training his reactions to static unreadability, that none might know they were exposed in their entirety to him. He spoke to it of no one for he did not know why he had been granted so advanced a vision of the world and to what purpose. It was a question he chose to reserve for a future encounter with his mentor.
         Presently the images of Roland and Roma before him were almost diametrically opposed. Roland's physical form was almost obliterated by a luminosity he had not yet encountered in another human being. His renewal of spirit, the revival of his flagging faith and his zealous conviction beamed out from within him like the core of a star, banishing all darkness and illuminating the vigor of his heart. His reflected self wore an impervious suit of armor. In his left hand he carried a blazing sword and in his right there lay an open Bible from which Michael could make out the verses of Psalm 15, a Psalm of King David espousing the guidelines and virtues of living a blameless life. He was every inch the warrior for God. Michael pondered that were he to have had wings, he would have taken on the appearance of an archangel. He was certainly not the wan, buckled spirit, all but broken and debilitated only a week ago.
         Roma presented quite a different image. Her true self was hazy as to be almost indistinct, and dark. Her discovery of the demon and the extent of its influence in her life had left her deeply troubled and withdrawn. Though she actively participated in the current discourse, a large part of her had retreated to a place inside that excluded everyone and everything. In her right hand she carried a palm frond signifying that her soul remained in a perpetual state of openness to the Holy Spirit and its guidance, just like the faithful who had ushered Christ into Jerusalem on the donkey by laying palms before him fifteen hundred years earlier. From her left hand swung a pendulum about which hung an air of impending doom representing a deep seated fear that a terrible and crushing fate awaited her in spite of her tireless work for Christ. Upon her head she wore a crown of fire not only a representation of the Holy Spirit but of the flame of righteousness she wielded in her indefatigable fight against evil. Her robes were thread bare and patched, her sandals worn almost through to her heels to indicate a life constantly afoot, traveling from shore to shore in the service of Christ. But her face was almost entirely hidden indicating a confusion of identity. This troubled Michael but he understood it, perhaps even better than Roma.
Until recently she had been merely a servant of Christ, setting aside any agenda she might have harbored for her own destiny to follow a vocation of service to her Lord. Now her energies and efforts had splintered into myriad callings. She remained a servant of Christ. But she had become so much more to so many people. To Michael she was a lover and soul mate. To Roland, a beacon and an exemplar of spiritual resilience. To Mother and the bordello whores, a daughter, friend and humanitarian. To Ichabod Hannan, a confidant and treasured companion. To the Lymington estate district elite, a threat and an enemy. However, in spite of the faintness of her reflected form, a light, strong and pure shone from within the deepest part of her, deeper even than the sanctuary to which she had fled. It was her faith, it was the light that would lead her wounded heart back to him.
         A change in the tone of the dialogue jolted him back into the conversation. Roma and Roland were at odds and they voiced their respective arguments with increasing contention.
         "You cannot evict this demon through the rite of Exorcism," Roma insisted, her voice raised in exacerbation, "It is physically here. It is not merely a force of will exercising its influence over a captive soul. It is flesh and spirit amalgamated. You can no more exorcise it than you could me - its body is its own, not a stolen host."
         "And yet it is compelled and bound by the very mention of the Living Christ in precisely the same way an indwelt spirit is oppressed," Roland countered vigorously.
         "Bound, yes," Roma conceded, "But for how long? And then what? What do you propose to do with it? You do not even know for how long it can be bound since the human limitations that apply to an indwelt demon no longer apply. Certainly not indefinitely. Do not forget, it continued to exercise some measure of its will even after you had commanded it to both silence and immobility. What do you propose to do with it? You can't allow it to remain in the forest - someone is going to come across it sooner or later. Are you planning to relocate it? And if so, how? You heard it - in spite of remaining largely within its nesting site, it has the ability to send its selves out into the world. We have already seen the fruits of its diligent mischief - the Pacematcher, the unseen assailant that attacked Tom Borland, Ichabod Hannan's dead manservant, the dog that pursued Wally Barlen through the woods, the doll that terrorized your niece and nephew. And let's not forget that it is capable of entering your church, rendering your Bibles immovable and throwing me to the ground," Roma stressed urgently, monumentally frustrated by her inability to convince him of the folly of his proposition, "The physical presence of a demon in the natural world is so far flung from everything in the human experience that formulaic rituals and prescribed ceremonies will be as impotent as dousing a forest fire with a glass of water. This thing cannot be expelled because it exists in this plane in its own right. It must be dealt with on both a physical and spiritual basis."
         "I may have my issues with the Church but my faith in many of its institutions remains, and every aspect of demonic activity, supernatural malevolence and spiritual warfare has been contained and expunged expediently without exception by the Office of Exorcist, whether by rite of exorcism or other holy intervention," Roland asserted confidently, taking a deep breath before announcing his decision, "In the morning I am going to send word to Cardinal Norfold of our discovery. I will entrust the matter to the Office that for more than a thousand years has been battling every manifestation of wickedness in the scope of human experience."
         Roma sat back in her chair, her penetrating gaze so still and so level that to be the object of so piercing a consideration was to be laid bare. Roland met her gaze with matching conviction. Michael mused that were a mountain to exist twixt their regard for one another, it would have been reduced to rubble beneath the weight of their combined doggedness.
         Roland leant forward and placed his hand on Roma's knee.
         "Don't let our divergent ideas on the handling of this matter drive a rift between us," he gently urged, his tone diffused of passion and suffused instead with fraternal affection, "Trust me as I have trusted you. I'm going to my office now to pen my address to the Cardinal but I want you to meet me back here at dusk. I will perform the sacrament of Baptism and this time it will be valid and binding in the eyes of God, even though He already esteems you above even your wildest hopes."
         His sincerity and supplication stole the wind from Roma's sails and her rigidly braced shoulders dropped. She exhaled audibly and delivered him a weary smile, her hand covering his. She nodded. The affable priest stood, kissed the top of her head, and exited the room. Michael remained silent, granting Roma the luxury of emerging from her reflection in her own time. She looked over to him.
         "His heart is pure and it is in the right place," she said, "but he is entirely wrong in thinking this evil can be addressed by the usual methods employed by the Church."
         "He is as convinced of his decision as you are opposed to it," Michael related objectively.
         "A demon is like the Trojan horse. When you expel the Trojans, you render the horse innocuous. You've another matter entirely on your hands when the horse itself comes to life and can think and move of its own accord," she explained with magnificent clarity, "That's the problem we're facing. We have always banished demons back to a state of disembodied incapacity in order to free a captive soul. This time there is no host and we cannot simply spout Scripture and ritual superfluities at it to make it go away. It has to first and foremost be considered in its very physical reality," she fell silent for several long moments, "I have a very strong feeling that falling back on conventional methods of handling this particular demon can only end badly."
         "How so?" Michael ventured.
         "It's smarter than us," she replied frankly, "It is a consciousness reaching further back into existence than you or I can comprehend and it has amassed at least two thousand years of human experience in many times and as many lands. It has a knowledge of things both within the confines of time and history and beyond our understanding of what lies beyond life and reality as we know it, a knowledge that dwarfs even the greatest intellects, bar Christ Himself, ever to have walked the earth. It is resourceful, powerful, influential. It is a physical entity and yet it retains all of the abilities of a disembodied demon - most notably the ability to send out any number of its individual selves to wreak havoc in distant locations, to animate and maneuver my personal tormentor and to exercise considerable control over its environment and surroundings," she exhaled, audibly dumbstruck, "I would not know where to begin to devise a method of combating so wily a foe, but I know that a new kind of warfare is required, new and dramatically different from all that we have known because this is an entirely new and frighteningly dangerous enemy."
         "You're worried Roland hasn't comprehensively grasped the breadth of this danger," Michael prompted.
         "Worried that such a gross underestimation might end up costing him his life," she confessed, "All our lives," she added.

         Several hours later as a corn yellow sun hung low in the sky, Roma sank to her knees upon the top step of the church altar, her head veiled and bent in reverent prayer. Roland solemnly began the rite of Baptism with Michael standing beside the kneeling woman, her chosen sponsor and spiritual counselor for the ceremony. An atmosphere of stillness and serenity blanketed the dim church, suffusing its occupants with a much needed respite of tranquility and harmony. In the valley district nestled between the congested village proper and the elite estate district, events of a more sinister nature had begun to unfold.









Daniel Milsop cursed and spat as was his wont when his mule shook its head and balked at the crest of the hill. He walked alongside the heavily laden animal.
         "Get on with you, wretched animal!" he admonished, slapping the weary beast of burden sharply upon its rump. The mule snorted indignantly and shook its head obstinately. The young farmer raised his wicker stick to motivate the mule but succeeded only in urging it a few yards further up to the hillcrest.
         "For crying out loud, you daft ass, the next leg of the trip is downhill!" he exclaimed, exasperated. The mule froze deathly still and its ears slowly flattened, its eyes fixed ahead on a target unseen. This was Daniel Milsop's first indication that something was awry. The beast was ornery but it had never once been spooked. It looked fit to perish from fright.
         Shielding his eyes from the low lying sun, he gazed down into the valley. Nothing moved. This was not in itself unusual. Twilight had a way of hushing the countryside, as though settling the very earth itself for the long and deep slumber ahead. And yet this did not feel like the languorous and comfortable slide into evening that dusk ushered in. The silence seemed leaden, the product of an evacuation of all living things rather than the stilling of birdsong and cricket chirrup. The air veritably crackled, as though charged and agitated.
         Looking out across the valley, Daniel Milsop perceived no hazard ahead, even though the fine hairs on his arms bristled in warning. Cursing and dismissing his wariness as undue influence by the startled mule, he took up the animal's lead and confidently strode forth.
         His very first step down the slope betrayed the origin of the mule's hesitation. He was forced to lean forward against the incline, to physically push himself down the hill. The mule followed with great reluctance. Each step proved harder work than the last. By the time he had reached the valley floor his breath was labored and perspiration beaded his brow. Removing his hat and drawing the back of his sleeve across his forehead, he looked back up the rise down which he had descended in astonishment. He had toiled to reach the valley floor as though he had just walked up the rise, not down. Looking about, he located a small rock. Picking it up, he placed it at the base of the hill and felt his pulse quicken when the fist sized stone slowly began to roll up the hill, picking up speed as it progressed until it rolled out of sight at the hillcrest.
         Taking a shuddered breath and tightening his grip upon the uneasy mule's lead, he turned to the rise ahead. Hesitating at first, his urge to flee the blighted landscape prevailed in the face of uncertainty. Remarkably, as difficult as the descent had proven, the ascent proved effortless. He felt as though he were being drawn up the hill. His breathing did not increase and this time he felt himself having to lean back slightly to counterbalance the upward momentum of his ‘climb'. Several times he slowed his progress when the upward propulsion of his ascent caused him almost to jog. He looked to his frightened mule, agog to find that the saddle pack ties did not hang down but forward as though pulled by an unseen force. The small clods and stones the animal's shod hooves dislodged did not trickle down the slope as would be expected but rather ran in impossible cascades up the hillside, impelled by the same contrary upward motion that drew both man and beast towards the crest above.
         When Daniel Milsop reached the crest of the hill and stepped upon level ground he felt the natural force of downward thrust equalize and realized that he had exited the afflicted zone. Looking about, he could not locate a rock and so removed an apple from his saddle pack. He tossed it down the hill only to watch it roll to a stop a dozen yards ahead and slowly begin to roll back up the hill.
         Lingering not a moment longer in idle curiosity, Daniel Milsop turned away from the affected site and fled. His mule needed no encouragement to follow suit.

         Only a few miles away, Daniel Milsop's neighbor and friend Abraham Devlin fell victim to a more dire and baffling occurrence.









"You girls stay away from that well, you hear," Abraham Devlin called back towards the farmstead from within his fallow field. Their infectious giggling brought a smile to his face as he waded through the waist high grass. His gaze was drawn towards the distant lowing of Harriet Deckart's cows in the far corner of the field. He had offered her grazing rights on his fallow land in exchange for the girls' schooling and a small measure of fresh milk.
         He ran his hands over the feathery tops of pussywillows as he made his way towards the adjoining fallow field in which the grass stood a full head taller. He decided to inspect the soil to determine if it retained greater fertility than in other parts or if the vegetation had merely experienced a runaway growth surge due to a decrease in salinity as would be the case if it lay atop the fringe of a water table.
         The delighted shrieks and chatter of his girls again drew the corners of the old farmer's mouth into a smile once more. He heard the papery swish of cotton brushing against the dry grass stalks as their spirited game of tag entered the fallow field.
         Abraham Devlin jolted to a halt.
         "Well, I'll be," his voice trailed off as he scratched his forehead and contemplated the peculiarity before him.
         He stood at the edge of a perfectly concentric circle of flattened grass. The circle itself was no more than a few yards in diameter but the definition of the edge of the circle and the implausible exactness of its curve - like a great stone slab had fallen from the sky and flattened it before disappearing - left him dumbfounded.
         How on earth had it been achieved? By whom and to what purpose? he pondered. He was still contemplating the sheer contradiction of his finding when he stepped into the clearing...and disappeared.

         Geraldine Devlin darted ahead of her sister, mindful not to trip on runners in the long grass and not only find herself tagged but in good stead for a proper roasting from her M'mah. She spotted her father ahead and dashed towards him. She was only a few feet from him when she watched him step into a clearing in the grass and vanish from sight.
         Stopping short, her eyes widened. Disbelief swallowed her and a fierce knot began to form deep in her stomach. A wash of dread flooded her and in less than a heartbeat her mind revisited every whispered schoolyard tale of strange happenings in the shire - large lifeless dogs, shadowy figures chasing the younglings in the woods, dead bodies in trees, and ghost witches in mirrors.
         Her younger sister, a precocious twelve year old, caught up to her, breathless and grinning. She veered around the older girl hoping to tag her as she kept on running towards their father. Strange, she thought, that she had lost sight of him from one second to the next. He had probably moved back into the tall grass when her eyes had flickered towards Geraldine, she mused.
         Instinct propelled the older girl to thrust her arm out to block her sister's passage.
         "Ow," the younger Miriam Devlin protested, "That hurt, Gerry!" she whined in annoyance. She did not notice that her sister was not moving and that her rigid gaze was fixed in horror some distance ahead.
         "Go back to the house and fetch M'mah," Geraldine Devlin instructed in a dull, toneless voice.
         "What?" the younger girl griped.
         "Just do it!" Geraldine Devlin thundered with uncharacteristic insistence. Something in the underlying fragility and terror of her sister's forceful command propelled the younger girl into silence and instant compliance.
         As her sister's footsteps retreated rapidly behind her, Geraldine Devlin inched tentatively forward. She heard something, like a voice but it sounded strange, synthetic, and it phased in and out of audibility as though right next to her ear in one moment and hundreds of yards away in the next. It continued to phase in and out of hearing range as she approached the clearing which she could now clearly see was merely a round plot of flattened grass. A terrible apprehension seized her like a fist slowly clenching around her chest, and when she came to within a few feet of the clearing, she advanced no further.
         It was with nauseating realization that she recognized the detached voice. It came from within the clearing and continued to crescendo and deplete in audibility, although it also seemed to have been made malleable. At times the words spilled out in such rapid succession as to be indistinguishable before slowing to such an extent as to drop several octaves and be rendered unintelligible, each word drawn out and prolonged as if time itself had been stretched and slowed almost to a standstill.
         Straining to make sense of her father's altered speech, Geraldine Devlin's eyes widened in horror when at last she was able to perceive a small fragment of a single, coherent and sickeningly panicked plea.
         "...help me, the darkness is driving into me," he shrieked suddenly, "What was that? Oh my God! It's burning! Something's got my legs! Something's got-".
         The rest was lost to distortion.
         Geraldine Devlin's stricken scream could be heard clear across every surrounding homestead in the valley country.

         It was the last time Abraham Devlin was to be seen or heard from ever again.









Mother hummed a haunting tune to herself as she ferociously plucked at tenacious weeds in the picturesque front garden of Camilla Rhys-Huntington's cottage homestead. She had patiently endured the convalescing woman's incessant complaints about Roma and her supposed inappropriate and undue influence over Michael for more than an hour. Only thoughts of her flourishing courtship with Zachary Mutumba stayed her tongue. His manner and observance of European social protocol blended seamlessly with his strong cultural roots and melted Mother's defeated heart, for he gave her the two things she had so desperately longed for throughout life - respect and identity. She had not known how cavernous the vacuum in her life had grown until she had been shown unconditional love, esteem and a sense of herself and her heritage that had been lost to years of brutal hardship.
         "And another thing," Camilla ranted from her sun chair, her fists wringing the blanket in her lap, "I cannot abide this sinful nest of iniquity she and Michael languor in. And she - a former nun! I cannot begin to describe the wickedness of it! She works in the service of the Church but her life flouts every belief she claims to espouse. She's little better than a common-" she cut her tirade short, seeming to snap out of her unrelenting diatribe of loathing and back into the reality of her surroundings and, more pointedly, present company.
         "Whore?" Mother cocked a bemused eyebrow in Camilla's direction before brushing her hands on her apron and turning to address her antagonist. Camilla opened her mouth to speak, her fury suddenly and completely diffused but Mother raised a hand to halt her recommencement, "Oh, I've heard quite enough from you," she elucidated sternly, "I have just listened to you babble yourself silly with reproach after repudiation after criticism after downright character assassination over a woman you have never even met. Now that I've listened to your thoughts on the Roma you think you know, you're going to learn a few things about the girl I know. Six months ago she came into my house with a bag full of coin and a heart filled with kindness. Her only consideration was to improve the lives of the women and children under my roof, to give us dignity, to restore our self-respect, to validate our worth as human beings under the one God. She prays with us. She eats with us. She confides in us. She comforts us. She is our voice amongst your good selves - the respectable folk. She treats us with equality," Mother swallowed hard; this admonition had been a long time in coming and she wanted to ensure that she chose her words carefully to guarantee she drove her point home, "So before you fling another acidic barb at her reputation, here are a few things you conveniently failed to consider. Your son loves her. He loves her like the world and all in it would fall away into a void if he were ever to lose her. She makes him happy and whole in a way no other human being in this world can. Do not judge her for dividing this parish. She has merely exposed the hypocrisy of certain of its members who have gone skulking back to their lairs and rattled the sensibilities of their weak-spirited, indentured bishops. Because she believes so strongly in the equality of all parishioners in the eyes of God regardless of means, old women with withered limbs now sit in the pews, farmers wearied by years of toiling in a cruel climate enjoy a single hour of respite in their grueling lives, the homeless and dispossessed are spared a little discomfort from a life lived in the elements and are blessed with the comforting solace of the Word. She gives courage to the frightened, dignity to the downtrodden, hope to the discouraged. You know so little of what she does for the folk of this town because she is no braggart. She does not labor for acclamation and validation by advertising her good works to the general population," she shook her head in admiration, "That child is an angel of mercy and I won't hear another scathing word from your mouth about her. You have wrung yourself into knots over Michael's decision to make a home and a life with her, about the ‘iniquity' of it all, when what you really despise is the fact that they are in love. That boy cared for you for most of his childhood and his entire adult life and you are going to begrudge him a relationship that, given the restrictions caring for an invalid mother placed upon him, was as likely as a butterfly surviving a squall? You chose your bitterness. Don't try to force it upon him. And don't you dare blame her for taking him away from you because we both know that you drove him away."
         Mother stood and wiped her hands. Camilla's expression was one of ashamed astonishment, not for the manner in which she had been addressed, but for the penetration of Mother's words. Never had so compelling an argument been laid out before her, and the sincerity of Mother's conviction flayed and consumed in a soul slaking fire the thorns of her unfounded derision.
         Mother made to pass by her and return inside to fetch the convalescing woman refreshments to replenish her easily depleted energies when Camilla took her hand.
         "I'm sorry that I have offended you," she repented with uncharacteristic penitence, "While I don't agree with her conduct with my son, you have my word that you will not hear another word of condemnation from me." She released her hand and gazed off towards the distant hills. Mother's countenance relaxed and she patted the proud woman's shoulder in unspoken gratitude.
         As Mother diluted the freshly squeezed lemons with ladles of minted water and sweetened it with sugar, she regarded her highbrow charge from the kitchen window with mixed emotions. Confusion, admiration, empathy and compassion. In spite of the cruelties the world had heaped upon Mother during her years in bondage and then in prostitution, no thrashing of her physical self had ever been as brutal as the beating Camilla Rhys-Huntington inflicted upon herself every minute of every day. Her self-loathing, insecurity, sense of displacement, and resentment ensnared her soul in briars of self-perpetuating deprecation. The very thing she showed the greatest antipathy towards - Michael and Roma's powerful love for one another - was the very thing she herself desired. And feared. She had loved once before - fiercely, deeply, insatiably - and that love had been betrayed, humiliated and devalued repeatedly. She adored Tom Borland, of that much Mother was convinced. It was the way she looked at him. Pure longing. Tortured adoration. It left her anguished and conflicted, emotions that manifested in the form of aggression, frustration and hostility. The only force at work in her life greater than her love for him was her fear of owning it. It left her vulnerable to infidelity once again. It was this Camilla - the frightened and disillusioned young woman who had loved a man that had repaid that love with perfidy - that Mother was just beginning to catch glimpses of.
         Since her arrival at the cottage, Mother's relationship with Camilla had undergone a remarkable transformation. Camilla's rage, indignation and loathing had set the benchmark for their introduction. Over the passage of time, however, the former socialite had tempered her fury when it had been pointed out to her by several of those whose counsel she esteemed that Mother was the only factor enabling her to remain in her home. Without care, the ailing woman would have been forced to move to a boarding house catering to the needs of the ill and infirm in the village proper. She suspected Michael had left partly to be alone with his new love and partly to force her to face the demons of her past head on and accept with humility some of the many kindnesses others were prepared to offer her, kindnesses she had in the past spurned.
         The initial horror of Camilla's reaction to Mother's arrival turned to grudging tolerance as, in spite of her endless insults and denigration, she realized that the African born madam provided her with a level of care unsurpassed in her experience. Mother worked tirelessly cleaning house, tending gardens, preparing meals, and undertaking the myriad minor chores in need of daily attendance. And all in spite of the ceaseless tirade of disparagement and abuse under which she labored.
         Recently they had formed something of an uneasy alliance where the worst that Mother was forced to endure was to listen to her endless recriminations about everyone and everything. Her concession to cease slandering Roma's name had ushered in a new development in their extraordinary arrangement - respect.
         Mother smiled as she poured the troubled woman a glass of fresh lemonade. What had begun as a volatile meeting of formidable forces was slowly transfiguring into an unlikely companionship. Perhaps the makings of a friendship, she mused, although that was a far flung eventuality.
         Mother missed Roma. Her home at the bordello had afforded her almost daily visits from her young friend. She longed for their late night discussions over mulled wine. She wondered where she was and what she was doing, but more than this, she hoped she was happy, as happy as she had made so many others.






To His Eminence, Cardinal Norfold, holy father and trusted counsel,

It is with great concern that I write to you of a terrible wickedness that has become a blight upon this land. As you are aware, your Office discharged the services of the Principal in the New Year to investigate the disturbing incidents of preternatural activity in the New Hampshire shire, most specifically Lymington county. As ever, her exceptional skills have uprooted an infestation most diabolical, indeed unprecedented in recorded history, a demonic manifestation capable of evading the previously requisite parasitical intrusion upon an unwilling host. It is has cast for itself a fleshly form, created a nest, and has demonstrated an unparalleled ability to manipulate the natural elements and send its selves out across the land at large whilst its physical form remains secreted in a forest on the village outskirts. It has identified itself as Legion, hence the urgency of my address to you. Having assumed a physical form has necessitated a disturbing reliance upon fleshly nourishment. It has killed twice already to my knowledge, the remains of at least one victim showing clear evidence that he was fed upon. The demon is bound but for how long lies beyond my most educated estimation, for the bounds of human possession have clearly been controverted given the entity's circumvention of host reliance to breach the natural order. It has identified the Principal by another name, the Herald. Please advise. The activity of the Smiling Man has increased. Formerly a tormentor, it now demonstrates an alarming intent to cause bodily harm with a view to elimination. Please provide counsel on one Michael Rhys-Huntington (see notes attached). Provided also are reports on every incident of demonic intrusion starting with the disappearance and death of Tobin Abernathy, a young local idiot savant, the dermis of which the demon has utilized to clothe itself. I am referring the matter to the Holy Office of Exorcist and request an envoy be dispatched post haste to contain the contamination and avoid the inevitable hysteria that would ensue amongst the local populace were this demon's presence to become known beyond the sanctity of the investigative team.

Faithfully, your servant, Father Roland Bernard









Roma arrived at Roland's private residence the following morning earlier than usual. She had parted ways with Michael to follow through with her conviction that an attempted exorcism of the demon was a futile, impotent course of action. What she discovered was an enlightening and infuriating intrusion into her private life.
         Entering through the side door, Roma was met with the serene silence of a house undisturbed by the commencement of human activity. She made her way to Roland's study with the intention of settling herself into the plush comforter there with her missal to pray and offer up her morning devotions whilst she awaited the priest's arrival.
         Her coal dark eyes swept the surface of his desk as she passed it and she would ordinarily have disregarded the mountainous paper stack atop the oiled fir desktop but for recognition of a single word.
         Norfold.
         A name she despised.
         Cardinal Norfold was a man after the late Pope Leo X's own heart. A slave to visceral salaciousness, carnal licentiousness and Satan's own currency - power. He had lost considerable ground with the change of pontiff when Pope Hadrian VI took the throne of Saint Peter but his tendrils were far reaching, beyond the spiritual powerhouse of the Vatican and deep into the secular world and its finances, in particular the extremely deep pockets of many of Rome's wealthiest and most influential families. Roma considered him to be as much a man for and of God as the Smiling Man. They had engaged one another in heated dialogue on several occasions over his undisguised opposition to Roma's appointment to Principal Investigator by the Vatican in its newly founded, covert and unofficial post - the Office of Inquiry. Much to the Cardinal's chagrin, Roma's counter-arguments and her full papal support had proved so compelling that his every objection was overruled. His sway was such, however, that he was ultimately able to worm his way into the Office of Exorcist, the very body under whose jurisdiction Roma operated. He had made it something of an extracurricular pastime to attempt to hinder, obstruct and impede Roma's every effort in the fight against evil, not with the intent to give evil a free reign to run rampant in the world, but merely to thwart and frustrate her considerable authority in the Church. And all via appropriate protocols and through approved channels within the Office of Exorcist, a cunning and canny ploy that would escape detection in the face of the immense machinery that was the Vatican.
         She balked. Instinctively she had reached out to take the very top sheet of parchment in the stack, but her recognition of the official seal of the Church identified the leaf as Roland's letter of request to Rome. Ordinarily one to respect the privacy of others, Roma experienced acute internal conflict even as her curiosity got the better of her.
         She pored over the letter with her keen analytical, investigative eye. She cocked an eyebrow at the request for counsel on the matter of the demon's identification of her as ‘Herald'. Roland had glibly dismissed this line of inquiry with what seemed a perfectly rational explanation. Obviously this had masked a greater and deliberately undisclosed undercurrent of concern.
         When she read of a request for the instigation of an investigation into Michael, she ignored the remainder of the letter and leafed through the accompanying documents until she located a comprehensive profile of the man she loved.








Subject:          Michael Rhys-Huntington
Age:                    33
Occupation:          Coachman
Background:          Born into Lymington high society, his family lost their fortune and holdings shortly after his thirteenth birthday. His father, a self-made millionaire and former shipping magnate, Ephron Rhys-Huntington, plummeted the family into destitution upon his death 20 years ago following a series of poor business decisions. His posthumous debts claimed his wife's inherited wealth, her premarital affluence reaching back several generations into Lymington genealogy. Michael was denied formal education and literacy by his mother. From the age of thirteen until recently he earned a living as a coach driver and is currently engaged in active service of the Church in the investigation of the newly discovered phenomenon.
Notes: At his first meeting with the Principal, Michael was able to plainly see the Smiling Man (see likeness attached, rendered by his own hand). He has demonstrated an ability to exercise a significant level of influence over the Smiling Man and in his most recent encounter successfully repelled a near fatal attack upon the Principal. The Principal and the Subject have developed a deep bond. In spite of a lack of formal education, Michael demonstrates a height of intelligence and acuity of intellect indicative of a clandestine training of the mind by a third party. He learned the art of literacy in mere weeks and was recently exposed by the phenomenon as having a fluent understanding and working knowledge of Hebrew, a rare skill even amongst highly educated scholars, rarer, nay impossible, for the ignorant to acquire. When pressed for the source of this bilingualism, he demonstrated a reluctance to divulge the identity of his mentor, suffice to name him as an old friend of his father. I suspect his abilities extend far beyond the small glimpses I have witnessed. It should be noted that Michael is a man of extraordinary spiritual fortitude and powerful faith. There is about him a manner suggesting he answers to a higher power, higher than the Church, higher even than any element of earthly origin. His humility in prayer is as imperturbable as his steadfastness in the face of tremendous evil. The phenomenon, when attempting to access the Principal, was blocked by the Subject and would advance no further, without binding by either vocal or physical interaction. Michael is gifted with penetrating insight. I have reason to suspect him to be the Chimera of the prophetic Idumean texts. If I am correct, it is imperative that he is brought to the Holy See and tested extensively.

         That was all, there was no more, and for every insight it granted, it generated tenfold questions. Roma would have continued in her perusal of the papers before her were it not for the interruption of a large orange cat.
         And his minder.









"What is God's name do you think you are doing?" Roland demanded, shocked and angered to find Roma poring over his papers. He blanched at the look of fury in her eyes when she turned to regard him. There was something stony and unforgiving there.
         "I could ask you the same question," she replied in too disturbingly calm a tone. She turned to him and for the first time he deliberated that this was the expression, the very last image, that an entity of preternatural origin saw before being consumed by the flame of pious rectitude she brandished in the commission of her vocation.
         "Those documents are not meant for your eyes," Roland firmly stood his ground though he understood that his righteous indignation was as nothing in the face of her ferocity.
         "How dare you petition the Holy See for a spy to delve into Michael's life and his past," she answered, her tone cool and alarmingly soft. It was like a blanket of cotton cast atop a barely concealed trench of bubbling magma. If the molten rock of her rage were to incinerate the thin, frayed veil of her self discipline, he doubted their relationship would survive. He chose the path of supplication. Taking her hands he led her to a large divan where they sat as he enthusiastically lobbied his case.
         "Roma, I think he is the one," Roland's ire dissolved to a form of zealous hope, "We have both read the Idumean texts and we both know that a man of profound portent is coming. I have every reason to suspect Michael," he asserted eagerly. Roma's brow furrowed. She knew Michael better than any and she had witnessed nothing to lead her to such wild and outrageous allegations.
         "What are you talking about? Name one thing that the texts mention that would lead you to such a conclusion," she challenged, irritated; Roland sighed and reclined back into the divan, rubbing the bridge of his nose, a habit Roma had come to identify as a child was his trademark reaction to frustration or exasperation.
         "It's not that simple," he replied, his voice suffused with vexation, "He hasn't demonstrated blatantly any of the milestones described in the texts," he admitted but when Roma made to vocalize her objections, he raised his hands in a gesture of entreaty, "Just hear me out before you say anything. For someone who, until recently, couldn't read or write a single word, Michael has not only conquered his illiteracy, he now writes with the eloquence of the orators of old," Roland returned to his desk and retrieved several pages that were not part of his report. He brought them to Roma to peruse, "These are the most recent reports the two of you have compiled regarding the Devlin and Milsop paranormal disturbances. Just read them. You'll see what I'm getting at."
         Roma took the leaves handed to her and skimmed them. A deep well began to form in the pit of her stomach.
         "So he is able to write well," she conceded, "He is perhaps even gifted with the quill. But that is a far cry from what you are suggesting." He cocked an eyebrow.
         "Are you sure?" he probed, "The eloquence and clarity of his work in and of themselves are merely impressive, but it is what they represent that is of interest to me. His every word exudes a very keen and uncharted intelligence, they are a window into an intellect that, frankly, leaves our own floundering like fish on a drained lake bed. He has to actively work to conceal the depth of his acumen. He is or has been trained by someone of unimaginable knowledge and wisdom."
         This claim Roma was not so quick to refute. And she recalled the instance of their first meeting when to merely look upon him thronged with the infallible truth of looking upon greatness incarnate. She took several measured breaths.
         "Go on," she replied softly, the brimming pool of her outrage receding as the well of dread within her stomach grew at a frightening rate.
         "I think he sees things you and I cannot," he ventured, this time a little more tentative in his admission, "Has Michael been experiencing headaches lately?".
         Roma's hopes were sinking.
         "Yes," she replied, "They were bad at first but are manageable now."
         "The Idumean texts speak of a kind of adjusted sight, an ability to see things not merely of our world but of others that exist within and overlapping our own that others are unable to perceive. The strain, both ocular and spiritual, that this would place upon a human being would be inconceivable. If he has an ability to see things beyond our sensitivities, the world would be visually a very busy place for him. Not only would he be seeing what is, but also what is hidden, not only within the hearts of men but those things that do not belong or else dwell surreptitiously and under the veil of secrecy within our plane of existence. Can you imagine the pressure that would place not only on the eyes but on the mind - to know what others cannot, to see what is concealed from them, to witness miracles both wondrous and heinous?".
         "You are proposing an ability not only to see into the hearts of men but to perceive the presence of angels and their enemies as well," Roma reminded him gravely.
         "Not into the hearts of men," Roland corrected, "That gift is solely the province of God. But he would have insight into their character. What clothing, social rank, reputation, occupation and material possessions can conceal about a man's character would be laid bare before him. We deal mostly in a combination of our own perceptions of a person in conjunction with the constructed image they themselves present to us. If Michael truly can See, nothing would be concealed from him. That in itself is an inhospitable burden, a terrible cross to bear," he explained, empathy and admiration evident in his voice, "Did you not see how intently he examined us both yesterday when we returned to the rectory after encountering the demon? It was as though he was seeing so much it took considerable effort to separate and assimilate all of the information, and even taxing to conceal this troublesome untangling of overlapping images."
         "Still, this is conjecture at best," Roma replied. Michael's headaches had concerned her but he seemed to have brought them under control, a fact she knew Roland would put down to a final adjustment to his new gift. The Idumean texts recorded that following a period of adaptation, accompanied by terrible headaches and disorientation, the enhanced vision would equalize as the bearer began to regulate and modify their manner of perceiving the world, in short developing the necessary ocular mechanisms to cope with the overwhelming excess of information they received.
         "And then there is the matter of secret knowledge," Roland mentioned, his voice assuming a more serious timbre.
         "The Hebrew," Roma confirmed. He nodded.
         "The texts, though non specific as to the nature of that knowledge, are unambiguous in their assertion that the Chimera will know things unknowable to man, things known only to the Highest Office," he paused, "Things Michael could not possible know."
         "Hebrew is not unknown to man," Roma pointed out.
         "Be that as it may, how on earth could he possibly have learned it? He has never spoken one word of Hebrew to another human being in the ten years I have been here. Believe me, if he had done something so extraordinary, I would have been the first to hear of it. And who is this ‘old friend' of his father's? And how could he have studied it? He had not the faculties to read or write until recently - how could he have studied it? Not one person within two hundred miles of this village speaks Hebrew and Michael has had an ill mother to support which has seen him working from dawn to dusk every day of his life. Suppose he had the means to learn the language - where would he have found the time? The way he remained so composed in the presence of the demon and filtered its words back to us - it was as though the demon's address to us in Hebrew came as no surprise to him. And if this discourse with the demon was the entire purpose of learning the language then he knew it and has known it for some time. Like it was an inevitability he had finally seen fulfilled."
         "Getting back to the texts," Roma redirected the conversation away from speculation and back to fact, "they spoke of things unknowable to man, things the Apostle John wrote that the Disciples witnessed as revealed by the resurrected Christ that were not recorded in the Bible. Things Simon Peter - the very first Pontiff of a virgin Church establishment passed onto his successor who passed on to his successor who passed on to his successor and so on and so forth. You and I are oblivious to this sacred knowledge as it was never written down but passed on by word of mouth so we cannot ruminate on what it could possibly be. You're making an enormous leap from fluency in an ancient language to knowledge of unknowable things."
         "Like I said, everything I suspect about Michael is just that - speculation," Roland confessed, "But what little I have gleaned I believe is a fleeting glimpse of greater things, greater than I could possibly imagine. If it is not impossible for Michael to learn to perfection another language - an ancient one at that - given the insurmountable odds he has faced all his life, it is not such a far cry to wonder just how much more he knows of which we are unaware."
         Roma's brow furrowed. She absently stroked her plump ginger cat where he had curled up on the recliner cushion beside her, troubled deeply by the ramifications of Roland's conjecture should it prove correct.
         "He said nothing to me last night of the Hebrew," she shook her head in confusion, "as though it were so completely normal a form of bilingualism as not to warrant a second thought."
         "I know I'm unbalancing your perceptions of how intimately you have come to known Michael," Roland apologized, "but try to remember, that as the texts have foretold, if he is the one, he doesn't know it yet. He is simply struggling to make sense of seemingly unrelated developments in his life. Like all prophesy, truth takes time and understanding arrives only as the last of a pre-prescribed series of events unfurls. I'm almost certain he is not keeping anything from you, merely attempting to understand what is happening to him and why before he discloses these unusual gifts."
         Roma's complexion paled.
         "The texts have recorded that these changes, if not properly schooled, if not accompanied by a leviathan faith, can relieve a man of his faculties," Roma's voice had faded to a whisper, her gaze lost to an unfixed point on the floor, "and drive him mad."
         "Precisely why I believe Michael to be our candidate," Roland replied excitedly, to Roma's bewilderment, "When I look at Michael, I see a man closer to God than any other I have ever encountered, a man of a faith the caliber of which moves mountains, to quote Mark, Chapter 11, Verse 23, ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him'. I'm telling you, Roma, if anyone could command a mountain to hurl itself into the ocean, I'd put my money on Michael, and I'm not even a betting man."
         "How long have you harbored your suspicions?" Roma asked.
         "Not long," Roland replied, "But then the developments that have led me to draw these conclusions have only begun to domino of late," he noted the conflict in her expression, "I'm the last person to want to see you hurt, but you have to know that if he is the one, the Powers That Be right up to the highest authority are going to attempt every measure in their power to compel him into the service of the Holy See."
         "I know," she responded flatly. He offered her a hopeful smile.
         "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he echoed her earlier sentiment empathetically, "After all, I'm only operating under the auspices of instinct at this point. Albeit, very strong instinct backed by an extraordinary chain of events.  I wouldn't be requesting an inquiry if I were utterly convinced that Michael was the Chimera. And I have absolutely no proof, merely the strongest of presentiment that I'm right."
         Roma looked up.
         "The same presentiment that led you to the conclusion that exorcising the demon is an appropriate course of action?" she queried. He understood then what had brought her to his home so early.
         "We cannot be vigilantes in this, Roma. If we want the support and the assistance of the Church to expunge this beast, we need to work within their guidelines," Roland defended his position on the matter calmly.
         "Just because we have no precedent for this kind of spatial intrusion, and therefore no guidelines for eliminating it, doesn't necessitate falling back on protocols entirely irrelevant and ineffectual to the current state of affairs," she pleaded, "Roland, you cannot exorcise a flesh and blood demon. Can it even be identified by such an appellation anymore? The very essence of a demon is that it is a disembodied spirit, not a flesh and bone organism. Please hear me, I believe that setting into motion the institution of an exorcism will only bring more people into its hunting ground and expose them to potential harm - or worse," she implored, "We need to learn more about this abomination, whatever it may be, and then decide upon a suitable course of action."
         "Increased exposure to this demon will likely end in disaster," Roland countered.
         "And complete ignorance of it surely will," Roma refuted heatedly. She stood, kissed her cat's fuzzy head, scratched his chin, and made to depart, "We're obviously not going to reach even a remote agreement on this matter. Send your report to the Holy See, but my investigation continues."
         "Now is not the time to take the stance of the renegade," Roland advised.
         "I swore an oath of fealty to the Church and to the sanctity of the Blessed Holy See to execute my duties faithfully, with conviction and in service to my Lord and Savior," she rejoined coolly, the bubbling magma of her anger rising again, "In service to my Lord and Savior, Roland. I serve Christ, not man. The Church is my anchor, source of counsel and arbiter of my actions, but I am ultimately answerable to my Lord. I won't bend or reshape my conviction just so a few politically motivated, spiritually destitute cardinals are spared the indignity of slighted authority. We are scrambling for purchase on this phenomenon so far outside of anything remotely resembling a strategy that we cannot afford to factor Church politics, observance of hierarchical deference and disingenuous platitudes into our reasoning. This is warfare and we are at a desperate loss to even categorize the nature of this beast much less devise a battle plan. I am not faithfully and prudently discharging my obligations to the Church or to God if I turned a blind eye to what I know I must do."
         "And what is it you must do?" Roland asked pensively, unsure he wanted to learn the answer.
         "This investigation is still open. Discovering and locating the source of this town's affliction is only the beginning. Michael agrees with me," she added. Roland was dismayed. Any opposition on Michael's part to Church protocol at this point would only taint any future association he might have with it with the stigma of dissent.
         "I'm pleading with you not to follow this course," Roland urged, "Your actions will be interpreted as a deliberate disregard for the Church and your vocation, even in the event that your discoveries and proposed tactics result in the desired outcome."
         "Be that as it may," she stated, resigned to follow her instincts, "I will at least accept those consequences with a heart that remained true to my convictions and strong in faith, not oppressed under the yoke of political intimidation and bureaucracy. Conduct your investigation into Michael. Nothing you discover will threaten or subvert our love. Not even the enormous mechanism of the Church can drive us apart if it is God's will that we remain together, as one."
         With that she was gone. Roland extended a hand to the flaccid orange feline that had languorously stretched its ample frame across the plush divan cushion. A deep, contented rumble thrummed from within the throat of the relaxed cat. The harmony and tranquility its purring imparted served only to heighten Roland's concerns that events were about to escalate to a level not even he could contain. He could not have known how terribly wrong his best intentions would prove to be until it was too late and that ultimately he, Michael and Roma would stand united against not only the enemy among them but the full might of the Church in all its wrath.

         Outside, the fresh morning air suddenly turned frigid. An inhospitable wind slowly began to push a thick, dark cloud bank bunched to the north-east towards the small port town. Within minutes a murky blanket of low hanging haze loomed overhead. It was August, the height of summer, and it began to snow...









It was an ill wind that chilled Ichabod Hannan to his core in spite of his thick Tweed smoking jacket and the blazing fire that crackled energetically within his study hearth. Although he tried to concentrate on the latest medical periodical to grace his desk, his eyes continued to flicker towards the window. Evening had descended earlier than usual with the sun-diffusing clouds blocking its waning light. Darkness engulfed the land and the only movement beyond the thick pane were wind swept snow flakes mercilessly dashed against the glass.
         He sipped his tea and took a small bite from his butter biscuit. His supper was tasteless but in spite of a dulled appetite, his every other sense seemed heightened, alert.
         When first he heard it, he dismissed it for fanciful reverie. Moments later he heard it again, louder and more distinct this time, but rendered hollow and muffled by the raging snowstorm outside. His cup dropped to his saucer with a clang.
         "Doctor Hannan? Doctor Hannan, please, are you there?" the voice of a small child echoed up to him, "Please Doctor Hannan, M'mah is sick," came the plaintive cry. The retired physician moved with startling speed in spite of his advancing years and threw the study window open.
         A gust of snow-littered wind blasted him, sending papers flying and delicately trimmed curtain cords streaming. Peering down into the courtyard below and across to the manor entrance he gasped. A young girl, no more than eight or nine, in a flimsy white sleeveless, knee-length dress stood shivering in the flickering light of the manor steps. One foot shielded the other, for she wore no shoes.
         "Stay there!" he called down, hoping to make himself heard above the shrieking winds, "I'm coming down!"
         Ichabod Hannan tore through the manor like a man possessed, stopping only to accost a maidservant for several blankets. When he burst through the grand manor doors, there stood little Penelope Abernathy hunkered against the sleet and snow.
         "Gracious, child, you'll catch your death of cold," he exclaimed, throwing his smoking jacket about her shoulders, "Come inside, you'll catch your death of cold." He gently took the little girl's arm but she resisted.
         "No, Doctor Hannan, you must come. M'mah is sick. Please, you must come," she implored. Her skin was deathly pale and her sapphire eyes shone from within alabaster lids. Ichabod Hannan nodded.
         "Jones!" he shouted back into the lobby, "Fetch my medical kit and have Daniel ready my coach!" He turned back to the little girl.
         "Come out of the wind, child, the coach will be here shortly," he coaxed the reluctant girl into the wind sheltered lobby. Her eyes continued to flick back into the darkness beyond in what Ichabod Hannan knew to be the direction of her derelict home, "Tell me now while we wait, what has been troubling your mother?"
         Several minutes later the horse drawn coach was thundering down snow cloaked roads. The gentle physician had swaddled the scantily clad child in several blankets, tightly wrapping one about her bare feet to prevent frostbite. He placed a caring arm about her and she huddled into him, her shivering slowly abating as the blankets insulating her began to feed warmth back into her icy bones. The slating wind buffeted against them but the stalwart doctor did not spare the horses as he raced to the aid of the stricken woman. All symptoms described by the young girl indicated early onset pneumonia. The Abernathys endured pitiless hardship as it was. Illness would mark devastation for what remained of the family. They had never found Tobin and though slow, the lad had toiled tirelessly to maintain their subsistence farm. Since his disappearance, the small plot had slowly fallen into decline. The freak snowstorm would have caught the entire community off guard, with most bereft of surplus firewood at this time of the year, but the small shack the Abernathys called home was a leaking, porous mass of sticks that would do nothing to keep the cold at bay.
         When they reached the dilapidated shack, the girl sprang from her warm cocoon and dashed into the darkened single room shack. Ichabod Hannan followed, burdened with his medical kit, several plush, heavy blankets and a single lantern.
         Entering the shack to the shallow bark of a hacking cough, he quickly lit the lantern and placed it upon the floor beside the bed-ridden Molly Abernathy. She lay upon a patched, rat chewed thin pallet with no pillow and only a threadbare shawl to cover her. Rolling a small blanket, he gently lifted the sick woman's head and slid it underneath. He then piled four thick heavy blankets over the shivering woman, reserving a warm, goosedown filled duvet for Penelope who had sensibly moved into the corner of the room so as not to be underfoot when the aging physician administered treatment to her mother. She gratefully wrapped it around her rake thin frame.
         "Now, Molly," Ichabod Hannan said gently, "It would seem you've gotten yourself into quite the dilly of a pickle. Not to worry. I've tonics and medicines to relieve that racking cough and help expel the fluids from your lungs." Molly Abernathy, seemingly unaware of his presence before he spoke, rallied somewhat to discover him in her home. Futilely, she swept back an errant wisp of hair from her face in a pointless attempt to tidy herself.
         "Why, Doctor Hannan, what are you doing here?" she asked, confused, a cough ruthlessly thundering through her frail body. She attempted to sit up only to realize that a number of exotic and magnificently warm blankets prevented her from rising.
         "You've quite the little guardian angel watching over you this frightful night, Molly," Ichabod Hannan replied, casting the fearless little girl in the corner a smile of open admiration as he checked her mother's pulse and blood pressure.
         "I don't understand, how did you know to come?" she asked, evidently bewildered. Ichabod Hannan mistook this for the disorientation of her feverish state.
         "Hush now, there will be time for questions when my work is done," he replied soothingly.
         Over the next hour Ichabod Hannan applied salves to the many bedsores that had pocked the invalid woman's withered skin, measured and administered medicinal tonics before stocking her single shelf pantry with the medications she would need to continue taking over the following week. He painstakingly explained which remedies were to be taken a what times and stressed the importance of continuing her course of drug therapy even after her health began to rapidly improve over the following few days. Once done, he removed a small glass jar from his coat pocket and, taking a tiny spoon, no longer than the length of his thumb and as thin as a reed, he removed a few grams of the brownish grey powder within. He held it to Molly Abernathy's mouth.
         "Opiates, for your discomfort," he explained. Her eyes widened in disbelief.
         "I cannot afford so expensive a-" she protested, pushing the substance away. He shook his head, smiling.
         "Your treatment is free of charge," he assured her.
         "But I couldn't," she whispered, choked with gratitude.
         "Do you recall the basket of eggs you gave me when I tended that laceration on Tobin's knee last winter?" he asked and she nodded, "Best omelet I ever had in almost seventy two years," he grinned, winking, "I still dream about it occasionally. In fact, I should charge you. Food has never tasted as good since," he jested warmly, "In fact, if you really want to do something for me, how about some more of those incredible eggs your blessed chickens produce when I come to give you a check-up in a week," he suggested to placate her rising distress. She smiled and relaxed back into the warmth of the blankets.
         "I promise I will launder them before I return them," she wheezed before another convulsive cough tore through her body. Ichabod Hannan laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder and smiled warmly.
         "Please accept them as a gift," he beseeched, "This freak storm will pass but there is a fierce winter coming in the months ahead. You would put an old man's mind at ease to know that you were sheltered from the cold," he explained, "Now, let's see to this remarkable little girl of yours, shall we? You know, she braved quite the snow squall to fetch me tonight. I don't want the same affliction besieging her as has beset your good self. Not after so heroic a journey," he added, respect and approbation lightening his tone.
         Molly Abernathy's complexion drained, leaving her skin white and waxen. Her eyes assumed the hollow glow of the haunted.
         "Doctor Hannan, what you are suggesting is not possible," she whispered, her voice thin and feeble, "Penny died a fortnight ago. She took a fall from a rock outcrop she was playing on. She fell only a short distance but landed awkwardly. She broke her neck," the distraught woman relayed before a torrent of tears stole further elaboration.
         "There must be some mistake," Ichabod Hannan collapsed, dumbstruck, into a rickety chair nearby, "She came to me and brought me here. I felt her, she was flesh and bone." His eyes flickered to the corner where the young girl had huddled. The blanket lay slumped on the ground. The child was nowhere in sight.
         Molly Abernathy had in this time regained some of her composure.
         "Perhaps it was as you said - a guardian angel," she suggested kindly, evidently heartened by the thought that somehow her perished child had come to aid her in her time of need.
         "Indeed," Ichabod Hannan concurred for the sake of her emotional fragility. He patted her hand gently," Hush now, I'll stay with you until sleep arrests your weariness."
         "God bless you, Doctor Hannan," the infirm woman whispered, her eyelids heavy as the opiates mercifully sent her into a deep and regenerative sleep. Ichabod Hannan did not mind the wait, it allowed him to process the ambiguity of the evening's events. Never one to consider dotage as a potential cause for perplexing experiences, he thought first of Roma. She was unseasonably erudite in matters of other worldly acclaim with an instinct for sourcing the origins of such unusual occurrences. What he could not make sense of, she most certainly would unravel in time.
         He turned to look upon the ailing woman and found her sleeping soundly. Feeling every one of his seventy two years, Ichabod Hannan rose from his seat and retrieved the blanket from the corner. On his way out of the dilapidated hut he gingerly cast the remaining blanket over the slumbering woman, looking upon her with compassion and deep admiration. He had never known hardship in his life, had never experienced the deprivation of the simple human necessities of warmth, shelter and food. Digging around in his pockets he was relieved to find a half dozen ducats. He left them atop the kitchen table nearby, next to the medication he has left for Molly Abernathy. The following morning he would send his estate carpenter to attend to the many repairs the home required, including boarding up holes and breaches where the elements could enter and installing a small ceramic self contained hearth inside the shack to provide heat for the grueling winter months.
         As Ichabod Hannan reentered the swirling snow storm outside, a small object within a rapidly disappearing flower grove caught his eye. It was a small, unadorned headstone. It read:

                                       Penelope Ann Abernathy
                                                 1515-1523
                                       Beloved daughter and sister









The dream visited his sleep again. It was the first time it had come to him since the renewal of his faith.
         Again the field of misguided believers.
         Again the grotto, the girl and the fabricated visitation.
         Again the lost city, the mountain and the angel.
         Again the immense building in which his centuries long preserved arm lay encased in glass within a roped off sector of the edifice, unending lines of pilgrims filing past to glimpse the miracle of the hand that had clasped the angel.
         Again the fingers began to unfurl, slowly. Painfully slowly. One twitch at a time. The crumpled parchment within its grasp began to flower open. Roland found himself straining, striving to will the fingers open further. They relented a little more.
         Know that I-

         Roland awoke with a start, again beleaguered by shivering and perspiration that dampened his bedclothes. His sudden movement jolted an inquisitive chirrup of inquiry from the sleepy orange cat at the foot of his bed. This was followed by an eruption of purring when he realized that the priest had awoken and would potentially either stroke or feed him as was his habit when waking unexpectedly during the night. Slinking up to the recovering priest, the large ginger cat molded itself to his torso, his luxuriant fur coat radiating warmth. Roland absently stroked the amiable feline as he pondered the most recent development.
         The dream felt but a whisper away from completion but in the light of his revived vigor for Christ and his work, it had taken on a new meaning. Instead of a life raft to which he desperately clung, it had become a revelation in motion, one he knew would sweep aside any lingering doubts, any residual fears and clarify his vision and purpose with unquestionable lucidity.
         He could never have imagined that the message the dream would eventually present to him would prove as powerful as it was simple and obvious.









Ichabod Hannan had only finished relating his tale of the deceased girl who had arrived in the snowstorm to Roma on the clear, warm night following the freak blizzard, when an urgent rapping at the rectory door interrupted their discussion.
         Roland answered the door to find a disheveled Llewyn Cabbott, a local tanner, standing in the warm twilight beyond. His appearance and manner - hair mussed, clothes unkempt, hands fidgeting - were those of a man who had not slept in days.
         "Father, forgive me for the intrusion, but I need your help. I only left my wife long enough to make the trip here. I need you to come. There's something in my house," he conveyed nervously, his eyes shifting constantly, his senses on heightened alert.
         "Of course," Roland replied, his compliance eliciting a reaction of relief from the tanner, "Give me a moment."
         Roland ducked inside to collect his coat.
         "I've been called away to investigate Llewyn Cabbott's home," he explained briefly, "The man looks like he has seen a ghost." Ichabod Hannan raised a curious eyebrow.
         "Do give him my regards," he offered cordially, "As one man visited upon by a specter to another," he added humorously.
         "Doctor, thank you for your time," Roland replied gratefully, "Roma," he stated simply, that singular expression of her name loaded with an unspoken request to conclude the inquiry into Ichabod Hannan's most recent supernatural encounter without branching out on her own. She shot him an apologetic look. He left, disappointed but hardly surprised.
         Her inability to comply with his request was soon to be the furthest thing from his mind.
         As they steadily made their way in Llewyn Cabbott's horse drawn cart to his  home on the outskirts of the village, the clearly spooked tanner outlined his dilemma to the patient priest.
         "We had a tenant, Adam Barrett, who resided in our back room," he balked, "until yesterday," he took a deep breath and continued, "At first it was just headaches. He woke up every other morning with one. Then he started having nightmares. He'd wake up screaming," he shook his head in disbelief, "Father, I've never seen or heard anything like it. The sound was like a man being dragged slowly into Hell. None of us were getting any sleep, especially the baby. He said in one dream he opened his wardrobe door and a disfigured body fell out. Then he started to hear noises in the night, like something trying to claw its way into the room. We thought he was imagining things. These young folk, you know the wild imaginations they have. And with the nightmares and all, we thought his fancies had just run away with him. And then things got much, much worse. He started experiencing something manhandling him in bed at night, turning him out of his bed and onto the floor. Then something would try to drag him under the bed. And then he saw...her," the tanner's gaze was lost to a terrible memory.
         "Go on," Roland prompted him after some time.
         "The woman. She appears in the doorway with her back to you. She wears a blue dress. She has long, grey hair," Llewyn Cabbott's voice rung with fear, "She makes you want to approach her, to turn her to face you, and at the same time makes you dread what you will see. And her voice is strange, wrong, a kind of hissing. She says ‘Come here. Come here'. And you come even though you don't want to. If you scream, every light in the house is doused in that instant," he delivered his account with grim precision.
         "You spent a night in the back room, didn't you," Roland deduced. He nodded erratically, lost to the horror of reliving his experience.
         "When I screamed again I was outside the room and at the opposite hallway. I turned back but the light in the room behind her threw a shadow across her face. She stood in a strange way, on her tip toes with her head hanging to one side. She would have looked like a hanged person if there had been a noose about her neck. The she let out a terrible wail. Father, I can still hear it. It was like sorrow and fear given voice. It made my hair stand up. And then came the smell, an awful, sickening stench, like rotting flesh. And the door of the back room banged closed over and over." His tale concluded as abruptly as it had begun, "When Adam fled the house yesterday I decided to spend the night in the back room. Therese is packing. We're leaving in the morning to stay with her mother. We're never going back to that house."
         Since Roland was aware of the source of the home invasion, he took the action least anticipated by his adversary. Immersion.
         "Rest easy, son," he patted the young tanner's shoulder, "I've no plans for the evening. I'll stay with you and Therese tonight."
         "Thank you, Father," the tanner replied, enormously reassured, "The good Lord knows your presence will put my family at ease tonight. Especially after last night when that godless wind brought the snow."
         The weathered cart had seen better days but rambled faithfully towards their destination.
         Upon reaching the Cabbott home, Roland was gratefully received by Therese Cabbott who immediately set another place at the table and served a rabbit and wild mushroom stew, the quality of which could only be matched by the superb cuisine found at the Seaspray. The young couple relaxed considerably, the presence of the priest setting to rest their rising fear. Even their small baby cooed and gurgled contentedly for the first time in weeks. The night wore on and Roland sensed their tangible reluctance to wrap up their evening's discussion and retire to bed.
         Broaching the subject the Cabbotts themselves were too fearful to address, Roland assured them that he took the righteous shield of Christ to his slumber and that in spite of the terrible things he might encounter, he would endure and strive to repel the wickedness from their home.
         He bade the Cabbotts goodnight and made his way to the back room, noting that nothing about it forewarned or exuded any kind of menace whatsoever. It was a plain room, like any other room in the house, neatly kept, spartanly furnished, even cozy.
         Removing a small Bible from the heavy coat he tossed across the end of the bed, he read the entire Book of Acts before quietly closing his eyes and dipping his head in prayer. He emerged from his communion with the Holy Spirit to experience a peacefulness and stillness within his soul that had for so long eluded him. Kissing the small crucifix about his neck, he removed his shoes, climbed into the surprisingly comfortable bed and soon fell fast asleep.
         Nothing disrupted his efforts to drift into a drowsy and relaxed slumber.
         This was not to remain the case.
         Roland jolted awake. His abrupt emergence into awareness was not unlike the sudden rousing that signified the end of his triptych dream. On this occasion, however, the darkened room was so cold that Roland did not need to see his condensed breath to know that it formed a steam in the icy air about him.
         Almost immediately he felt apprehensive. Apprehension turned quickly to uneasiness. It was not the frigidity of the temperature that seized him with fear, but the sense - the surety - that he was not alone in the small room.
         He lay on his side, the thick coverlets over him providing little warmth in the prevailing cold. He found himself shocked and furious that his fear was beginning to evolve into terror. He had seen nothing, heard nothing. And yet he trembled in the face of an unconfirmed yet certain presence in the room, a presence he was only beginning to realize could affect him beyond his revitalized, reinforced faith. He attempted to pray. The thoughts froze in his mind, muddied by the fear of facing the menace within the small, confined room; dissolved by a feeling of imminent peril. He was gripped by an overwhelming dread that should he peel back the covers, a terrible wrath would fall upon him. And yet he was fully aware that they offered only the illusion of protection.
         He attempted to pray aloud. The words stuck in his throat like a ball of thorns. He was astonished when his attempts to speak plainly succeeded where his efforts to pray had failed.
         "I know you, demon," he spoke softly as he gently turned the bedcovers aside and sat up. Illumination filled the room. He looked to the oil lamp upon the bedside table. Its wick sat cold and black. The light came from everywhere and nowhere, from no fixed source. He saw her. She stood in the doorway with her back to him, her long grey hair tumbling over the shoulders of her blue dress. She stood on the tips of her toes, her body limp, her head hanging awkwardly to one side.
         "What you know would not cover the head of a pin," the woman replied, her voice a low, hissing rasp, "What I know would fill the world and all that lies beyond."
         The unquestioned surety of the assertion filled Roland with horror. He felt suddenly inadequate to the task before him. He was the team strategist. This required knowledge, a vast and inexhaustible wealth of knowledge. By human standards he had acquired this in spades, and then some. He realized all too late that human standards were the farthest thing from the benchmark by which he might calculate the intelligence of his intruder.
         "Knowledge is not wisdom. Of that you are barren," he replied, making no attempt to approach the manifestation in the room even as he fought the irresistible urge to do so.
         "You think wisdom will save you, priest? Faith, perhaps?" the harsh whisper replied. The head twitched, the body did not move.
         Roland's head flung back violently. Images appeared in his mind, dark and appalling, sharp shards of another reality. One of a terror so thick as to be almost liquid. One so atrocious and startlingly explicit in its primal barbarity that Roland spontaneously vomited at the things he witnessed.
         His head thrashed from side to side in a frantic attempt to dislodge the horrors he beheld.
         The screaming penetrated him like no other sound ever had. It punctured and passed through him, leaving upon him an indelible imprint of the hysterical panic of the damned. Flashes of movement, savage and primeval, entered his bombarded field of view. Movement within shadows, flickerings too quick for the naked eye and barely perceptible to the mind's eye, sped this way and that. Blood and other matter indescribable to the human experience washed across his perception of himself, causing another wave of wretching. Every nerve in his body at once cauterized and froze as image upon image of unspeakable vileness flooded his consciousness, expanding and distorting the boundaries of what his mind could cope with before the threat of madness ensued.
         His head snapped forward suddenly and he was back in the small room.
         "Seen enough?" the hideous voice inquired in a pitilessly mocking tone.
         "What wa..." Roland's voice trailed off. He looked to his hands. The experience of the outer place he had been transported to within his mind had taken a heavy toll upon his body. Blood pooled at his fingernails and his eyes and ears had hemorrhaged.
         "Home," it hissed with a deranged fondness and longing of pitch.
         Roland was still unable to coherently form speech as his mind railed against the miasma of viscous images that had entangled his logic and reason, reeling to realign itself to the world of Man.
         "You have been to the lair of the Beast," the hissing rasp, like metal grating against glass, revealed, "And you have seen what becomes of those who are spared the more violent end that meets the truly craven at the doorstep of death. And all of this is what is before the Day of Reckoning when what lies within the Lake of Fire will cause even our great sovereign to quake and beg mercy."
         Roland realized the true portent of his visions. He had been shown the realm of the Fallen before the return of Jesus to judge the Living, the Dead and the Cast Down. Hell - the Lake of Fire as related in Scripture - would not come into being until Judgment and it was a place of such fear and finality that the Damned would thrash and wail alongside Satan and his Fallen. The place to which Roland had been conveyed was the domain of the demon caste, the ambit of the disembodied spirit where they gnashed and rent displaced souls who refused to receive Christ as Lord before their passing. It was a hunting ground. The predators, unfettered by the constrictions of the human plane, stalked and dismembered their faithless prey languidly and efficiently, only to bring them to the edge of intolerable pain and fear before realigning the tattered shreds of their humanity in a distorted coagulation of their former self - just to torment them again.
         "You think you are so strong in your faith," the horrid whisper spat out its confirmation of his allegiance to the One as though ridding its mouth of a bad taste, "You cannot imagine what a human being will compromise - faith, family, fealty - to escape the pain. Popes and icons of pious renown have renounced Him even before the first wave of pain. It is fear - dark, engulfing, cavernous fear - that rules a man. Your fear will sear through every noble conviction, every dearly held belief, every oath and ideal of fealty to your beloved Christ. You will see," the sneer on the unseen face was evident in the mocking tone of derision that scorned him, "you would even turn on yourself."
         "I have no doubt that everything you have shown me is true and real," Roland replied calmly, "Just as I have no doubt that I will never see it at my passing. My sins are already forgiven. So you see, you cannot frighten me or make me doubt my God. His mercy is greater than the very worst of your iniquities."
         The woman at the doorway shuddered. It was not the controlled shivering brought on by a sudden wash of cold air. It was an involuntary paroxysm of sickening brutality, as though a powerful hand had gripped her about the neck and shaken her cruelly.
         "Come here. Come here," the rasping whisper took on a hypnotic timbre. Immediately Roland felt beguilingly compelled to stand. Shock and confusion registered even as his foot moved forward. An imminent sense of peril followed, as strong as the urge to approach and yet flee the unworldly woman. His other foot lurched forward. His movements were stiff, wooden, like those of a marionette. He fought his physical compulsion but felt himself pushed forward, as though a multitude of invisible hands behind his knees, his ankles, his back, his neck, every part of him, pushed him towards the woman. The closer her drew to her, the stronger the sense that he approached the very essence of danger.
         He was but inches from her when he arrested back the briefest semblance of control. His hand reached for the crucifix about his neck.
         "Jesus, hear me!" he pleaded. His words at once broke the enchantment that gripped him and he almost fell backwards for the strain he had applied against the hands that forced him ahead. A terrible gust of wind, like a blast from the maws of an arctic shelf, threw him to the ground. When he came to, he was momentarily disorientated.
         He was not lying on the floor of the small room. He stood just beyond it, in the hallway outside. The house was fully lit, the woman was gone, and an unspeakable stench began to spill from the room behind him. It took him several seconds to realize that the Cabbotts stood at the far end of the hall, their expressions haunted and agog.
         Roland took a deep breath, steadying himself against the wall.
         "It's alright," he assured them, assuming his bloodied appearance had stunned them, "I am unharmed." When their waxen expressions did not wane, he knew something was amiss.
         "You'd better come with us, Father," Therese Cabbott came forward and took the young priest's arm. She led him to the family room once again and directed him to stand before the framed mirror over the hearth mantle.
         A sharp intake of breath was the priest's only articulation of astonishment. His expression remained stoic.
         His formerly dark hair was almost white, with flecks of charcoal deep tones through to silver accentuations at the temples and his widows peak. It was disheveled, giving him the appearance of a man who had literally had the pigment shocked from his every follicle. He raised a hand to touch it and balked.
         He took another deep breath.
         "You were right to leave this house," his tone was flat, distant, "Therese, would you be so kind as to put on a pot of tea? And wake the baby. When you are both fit for travel, I want you to leave immediately for your mother's home. Llewynn, let's get the rest of this house packed up. No one is to go to sleep tonight in this house. I want this house boarded up by dawn. Let's get to work."
         "What did you see, Father?" Llewynn Cabbot ventured nervously.
         Roland shook his head, partly in wonderment at the physical transformation his experience had caused, partly at a loss for words to describe that same experience.
         "Gehenna," he whispered, his voice thin and insubstantial.









"Let's go back," Sophia begged as the forest around them began to change. They had left the lightly wooded, sun dappled open ground of the mapped trails and cut through several clustered clumps of dense, vine tangled brush. Here the forest was much darker, the meshed canopy overhead steadily locking out more light. The comforting sounds of scampering woodland creatures, insect chirrups and bird song had long since receded. The terrain became more inhospitable with every step they took.
         "Don't be such a baby, Soph," Dairmid cajoled enthusiastically, seeming to come alive as their surroundings became more forbidding. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Boys. It was any wonder, she mused, that any of them ever made it to adulthood, what with all the reckless risks and irresponsible impulses to which they were enslaved, "You heard them," he urged, "There's a monster in the forest. I've never seen a monster."
         "You say that like you've found a mislaid bag of candy," she replied dourly. He took her arm and helped her through a snarl of interlocked thorny brambles, "And what were you doing listening to their conversation outside the window anyway? If they find out, you're probably going to have to say a hundred novenas and wind up cleaning the church for a year."
         "I don't care. I've never seen a monster. I wonder if it's anything like the beasts of the sea the old farers talk about when they come back from those long voyages out to the deep waters," he pondered, his excitement swelling with every wild thought that hurtled through his imagination.
         "I don't know, Dairm," Sophia cautioned as she was unceremoniously pulled through meshed nettles, "You said they looked pretty worried."
         "Uncle Rol always looks worried," the portly boy dismissed.
         "But what about Miss Ruffalo and Michael?" she added, "You said that when the Bibles were too heavy to move and you were scared, she didn't show even the slightest fear. And I once saw Michael tackle a rabid dog that had set upon a little girl - he's not afraid of anything. You said they sounded worried, that they argued, that the monster was so wicked they didn't know what to do with it," she elaborated, her voice filled with trepidation.
         "I didn't say I wanted to do anything about it. I just want to see it," Dairmid contended fervently, "From a distance. I promise, we'll stay far enough away that it won't see us, and downwind so that it can't pick up our scent." His plan seemed thin and poorly conceived at best, Sophia mused.
         "I don't know, Dairm," Sophia sighed uneasily, her eyes drifting to the slowly converging canopy overhead, "Look around, the forest is getting darker and thicker. Are you sure you even know how to get us back home?" she ventured, her senses wary and alerted to the desertion of all animal and insect sound in this tangle of the woods.
         "Come on," the chubby lad urged, forging on ahead.
         They broke into a clearing unexpectedly and both staggered to their knees. When they looked up, their eyes widened in disbelief at what they had stumbled upon.