The Vatican file sent over to him had provided him with some basic information on the subject. He found it odd that the file never bothered to mention that she was a nun, but he imagined it wasn’t important to his superiors. Evil was evil no matter where it festered. His job was to excise the threat whether it be in the body of a child, or a woman of the faith, or an old man.
The rite had gone exactly as expected, the beginning steps in the ancient ritual causing the demonic entity to act out: shrieking obscenities, spitting, ranting and raving in some unintelligible demon tongue, and vomiting.
Lots and lots of vomiting.
In a matter of hours, the old woman appeared clear, showing no sign of the demonic entity that had possessed her. Elijah had believed that the evil entity had been vanquished by the holy words of the exorcism ritual, what remained of the monstrous spirit dispersing in the ether never to bother another living soul.
And that was where his arrogance—his assumptions had gotten the better of him.
The old woman had been moaning from the aftereffects of the exorcism, and before allowing her fellow sisters to come into the room to administer to her, Elijah had gone to the bed to untie her and assure her that everything was now fine and that the evil that had taken control of her was gone.
As he had comforted the woman, she suddenly became hysterical, correcting him, explaining through the tears that the entity that was inside her was still there with them.
Was still in the room.
Instead of instantly reacting, he had paused to explain to the nun that she was mistaken.
And with that arrogant pause he had set himself up for attack, and eventual failure.
The demon excised from the body of Sister Bernadette Michael had not been destroyed, dissipated to the ether by the rite of exorcism, but had in fact remained alive, awaiting an opportunity to infest a new and unsuspecting host.
Elijah came awake with a start, his forehead slamming against the window as the vehicle passed over a rut in the road. His team were staring at him, their eyes all showing concern.
“Are you all right, sir?” one of them asked. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, the memories unleashed by his exhaustion still prevalent in his mind. He couldn’t stop them now if he’d wanted to, turning back to the window to seemingly watch the scenery go by, but instead reliving the terror of that night.
With his guard down, the demon had taken him, worming into his body—his soul.
Elijah still remembered the feeling, a lingering sensory nightmare that he would have done anything to forget. It was the experience of all the sadness and anger of the world shoved down into his soul, and just when he thought he could never survive, he did. And it just continued to go from bad to worse for what seemed like an eternity.
He had wanted to die more than anything.
But the evil had said no.
The evil hadn’t finished with him.
The old nun was the first to be murdered, her fragile throat collapsing as the Vatican exorcist’s priestly hands wrapped around her thin neck and squeezed with all his supernaturally enhanced strength.
Elijah still saw the woman’s dark brown eyes as they bulged wider and wider still. Eyes that watched the holy man who was supposed to save her to take her life instead.
The other sisters were next. The demon had allowed him to leave Sister Bernadette’s bedroom to find the others. They were gathered in the convent’s kitchen, huddled around a coffee urn, and they all looked to him, their eyes filled with hope, as he entered. The demon inside him had to hold back a chuckle as it informed them that there was nothing that could be done, and that their sister in Christ had succumbed to the evil that had taken her, and that her soul was now experiencing the eternal torments of Hell.
Elijah remembered how the sisters had cried and prayed—the demonic entity feeding off their pain and misery. Growing stronger from their sorrow, as well as his own helplessness.
The demon let them cry for quite some time before putting the blame of their sister’s possession squarely on them, telling them that they were all sinners and would be damned like Sister Bernadette Michael.
It was the mother superior who finally confronted him, scolding him in her fury and demanding that he leave at once.
The demon inside him did not care to be spoken to in that way, and Elijah was forced to watch from a prison of his own flesh as his hand grabbed a knife from a strainer by the kitchen sink and cut the old woman’s throat from ear to ear. And before the others could react, he attacked them as well, the demonic entity taking even more pleasure from strangling the nuns with their rosary beads and bludgeoning them with a heavy wooden crucifix that had been hanging on the wall.
Oh how the demon had laughed as he killed them, and while the foul spirit was wrapped up in its monstrous glee, Elijah had made his move, regaining partial control over his body. He began to pray, believing that his Lord and savior would give him the strength to fight the evil that had invaded his body.
He truly had believed that, until the monster inside him painfully proved him wrong.
The demon took back control with ease and turned the wooden crucifix that he still clutched in his hand against him. The demon wanted to show him how little this symbol of good meant to one such as it, taking great joy at the amount of damage the crucifix could do to his face.
The demon allowed him to feel the pain, each stab and gouge and strike as the crucifix was repeatedly slammed against the side of his face. Over and over the corners of the cross struck, ripping the skin, breaking the bone, damaging one of his eyes beyond repair.
And once the demonic entity was finished with its bloody and brutal task, it took his torture even further by allowing him to live.
The demon left him there amongst the murdered sisters, the side of his face reduced to pulverized bone and ragged meat.
Left him there to suffer for his failure—for his arrogance.
The left side of Elijah’s face began to painfully throb with the recollection of what the demon had forced him to do to himself, and to the nuns he had been sent to save.
It was something impossible to forget, something that set him on a totally new path.
The Vatican had protected one of its own, removing him from the bloody scene and painting him as one of the victims of the crime that had claimed the lives of the Fall River Order. He was flown back to the Vatican, where he physically recovered under the care of their doctors. Plastic surgery was offered to repair his damaged appearance, but Elijah refused, wanting to wear the scars as a reminder of evil’s rising power in the world, as well as a show of what his arrogance was responsible for.
The Land Rover came to a stop, and Elijah realized that they had at last reached their destination. The sounds of seat belts being unsnapped filled the inside of the vehicle as the team that he’d brought for the special job prepared to exit.
He felt as though he knew each and every one of them, specifically selecting them based on their talents. Similar to what the Vatican had done with him when he was released from the hospital. He could no longer be a priest, the taint of the evil he’d carried having poisoned his soul, but he could most definitely help in the battle against the encroaching darkness. They had offered him the position as director of an organization that worked outside the constraints of the church to combat threats of a supernatural nature.
There was no other choice but for him to accept, as it was for the team that he’d selected for this operation.
Elijah was the first to exit the vehicle and stood in front of the entrance to the mansion. He noticed the lights, inside and out, had started to flicker. The others, now getting out of the vehicle, took notice as well.
“What’s up with the lights?” Griffin Royce asked as he climbed from the driver’s seat.
The front door opened and John Fogg stepped out to greet them.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, hand outstretched as he descended the st
eps.
Elijah accepted the man’s handshake, which was firm, but clammy, evidence of Fogg’s nervousness over what would be attempted this evening.
“You’re most welcome, John,” Elijah said. “But let’s save our thanks until after we know if our endeavors were successful.”
The team had come around to the front of the Rover, standing there.
“Obviously this is your team,” John said.
“I won’t bother to introduce you,” Elijah said, starting up the stairs. “They know why they are here, and that quite possibly they will not survive the night. Any connection made between you and them would be a waste.”
Elijah was halfway up the steps to the house when the lights started to flicker again. He looked to John. “Your wife?”
“She’s awake,” he said. “It’s as if she knew that you’d arrived.”
“I’m sure she does,” Elijah answered, continuing up to the door, where he let himself in.
There was a thin blond-haired man standing in the lobby, arms crossed defensively.
“This is my personal assistant,” John said, coming in behind him with the others. “Stephan Vasjak.”
“Mr. Vasjak,” Elijah said with a slight nod as the lights continued to go on and off.
“You’re going to help her?” Vasjak asked, stepping closer to them. “You’re all here to help her?”
“We are here to attempt something that may indeed prove beneficial to Ms. Knight, yes,” Elijah answered.
“Do anything and everything that you can to help her,” Vasjak said with grim seriousness. “But if you hurt her in any way . . .”
The threat hung thickly in the air of the lobby.
Elijah moved in close to the wispy man, fixing him in his good eye. “I’m sorry to say, there is nothing that we could do that would be worse than what she is already experiencing.”
That silenced the young man long enough for Elijah to turn toward his host.
“If you would please take us to your wife,” he said to John. “There are some things we need to prepare before we begin the ritual.”
John followed Elijah and his team up the stairs to the level that housed his wife.
Dr. Franklin Cho was waiting just outside her door.
“This is Dr. Cho.” John introduced Elijah as they reached the landing. The men shook hands.
“How is she physically, Doctor?” Elijah asked.
“She’s weak,” the doctor responded. “The constant battle to not allow these . . .” He was having a hard time finding the right words.
“It must be difficult for you, Doctor,” Elijah said. “A man of science having to confront the existence of dark forces that have been here since creation . . . and perhaps before.”
“It’s been—interesting,” Cho acknowledged. “But John and Theodora have helped to open my eyes.”
“I’m sure they have,” Elijah said, what could have been an attempt at a smile tugging at the scarred corner of his mouth.
The lights pulsed on and off.
“She’s becoming impatient,” the Coalition leader said, turning to address his team. “We’ll need to be quick and precise if we’re going to have even the slightest chance of success.”
The seven-member team nodded in unison, ready to do what needed to be done.
John stepped forward. “Is there anything that I can do to help?” he asked.
“Ah yes,” Elijah said. “There is. You’ll be going in with us.”
Cho watched them, wondering.
“Dr. Cho, I believe you can sit this one out.”
“Are you sure?” Cho asked.
“We’re good,” Elijah said, then turned back to his people. “Are we ready?”
Elijah moved toward the door.
“What should I be doing?” John asked him.
“You are to wait until I tell you what to do,” Elijah said, turning the doorknob and pushing the door open into the room.
Theodora was bound to the bed using soft restraints, her head and neck bent in such a way that looked nearly impossible, and quite painful.
“Theodora Knight,” Elijah’s voice boomed as he entered the room, his people flowing in around him to encircle the bed. “My name is Elijah, and I and my people have come to offer you assistance.”
“John . . . ,” Theo cried, pulling on her bonds. “John, who are these people?”
John started to answer, but Elijah gave him a glare with his good eye that kept him silent.
“Begin,” the old man instructed.
One of the team, a heavyset man with a shock of curly red hair and a large Viking beard, stepped toward the bed as he reached into the leather satchel that he carried. In one swift movement he’d removed a silver vial and dipped his finger inside it. As the finger came out, John could see that it was covered in something gray and powdery—ash, he believed. The bearded man proceeded to draw a strange symbol on his wife’s forehead.
She immediately began to scream, the intensity of her wails actually pushing the man backward, where he bumped violently against the room’s wall and slid down to the floor.
“Next,” Elijah said, unfazed, as a woman on the other side stepped forward.
“Don’t you dare come near me, bitch!” Theo—or the things inside her—began to threaten.
Ignoring the outburst, the woman began to recite something that might have been Sumerian, but John couldn’t be sure.
“Shut up!” Theo screamed, her neck stretching abnormally long.
The woman had just finished the verse when she began to choke, and the insects—cockroaches, it appeared—began to spill from her mouth. She, too, stepped back, then dropped to her knees, and John heard her begin to pray aloud.
Elijah watched unflinchingly, nodding to the next of them.
Another woman darted toward the bed, laying a gloved hand upon John’s wife’s stomach and reciting the next verse of this Sumerian rite. As she spoke, she removed the glove to reveal a hand covered in a strange, swirling-patterned tattoo that seemed to move as if alive as it hovered above his Theo’s stomach.
Theo’s body went completely rigid, as if her limbs were being pulled taut by invisible ropes. Her shrieks intensified as she fought against the forces that were being worked upon her.
The woman’s tattooed hand suddenly burst into flame, and she stifled a scream as one of her other teammates ran forward to suffocate the orange fire with a towel.
Elijah then nodded to another of them, a thin-faced man with twitchy, nervous mannerisms who quickly stepped to the bed and extended both hands above their subject, reciting even more of their rite.
Theodora began to roar.
It was as if there was an entire zoo inside her, the shrieks, wails, screams, and howls coming from her vibrating the very air of the room.
The animal sounds eventually began to dim, followed only by the pathetic sobs of a woman in obvious pain.
“Theo?” John asked, looking first to Elijah before moving.
The old man nodded to him, and John sat down on the bed next to his wife.
“Something’s happened,” Theo said, eyes drooping from exhaustion. “The demons . . . they’re . . . they’re trapped . . . locked away.”
“Is this true?” John asked, stroking his wife’s sweaty hair and enflamed cheeks.
“It is,” Elijah said. One of his people came over to him with a black leather medical bag, and he took it.
“How long?” John asked, knowing that this was only temporary.
“Long enough to do what is next required,” Elijah said as he removed a long protective case from within the bag.
“Which is?” John asked.
“Which is your job,” the old man said as he opened the case to reveal a syringe filled with a golden liquid.
“What’s that?” he asked cautiously.
“When you are told, this is what you will inject into your wife,” he said.
“Okay. And what will I be injecting into my wife?”
/> Elijah approached, offering him the syringe.
“It’s a fast-acting poison that basically shuts down the entire nervous system,” the old man explained.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious, Mr. Fogg,” Elijah said. “With your wife being technically dead, we can then turn our full attentions to the demonic entities inside her, without concern.”
“You . . . you’re going to kill her?”
“Only temporarily,” he said. “As soon as we’re done with the demons, we’ll administer the antidote and then—”
“I can’t do this,” John said. “I’m not going to kill my wife.”
“Then your wife will die anyway,” Elijah said. “You heard your friend Dr. Cho. She is growing weak. The entities are becoming stronger with every passing day. Theodora only has so much time left before the demons totally dominate her, and at that stage your wife will no longer exist.”
Elijah shoved the syringe at him.
“Take it,” the old man said. “Do your part, and then we will do ours.”
He couldn’t believe he was doing it, but John took the syringe in his hand. Theodora was delirious, her temporary relief from battling the demonic forces inside her having taken its toll.
“Time is of the essence, John Fogg,” Elijah informed him.
“Don’t you dare rush me,” John yelled. “What you’re asking me to do . . . I . . .”
“I am asking you to trust us,” Elijah said. “Without this . . .” The old man went silent, and John knew that this was likely his wife’s only chance at surviving her affliction.
Without any further words, or thought, John removed the plastic cover from the tip of the needle and prepared to do what was asked of him.
“Damn you to hell if this doesn’t work,” John said through gritted teeth, bringing the needle to his wife’s throat.
“There’s a very good chance we’ll all be dammed if we’re not successful,” Elijah responded.
The tip of the needle punctured the pale flesh of her neck, a crimson bead welling up at the point of entry. John then applied pressure to the plunger, slowly injecting the poison into his wife’s already depleted system.