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MAN, DID I HATE churches. The extravagant stained glass windows, the statues, and the constant need for absolution were more than I could handle. Not to mention, they always depicted me as a wingless man.
That thought made my hand inch to touch my shoulder where one of the scars on my back ended. The sound of screams and laughter permeated my mind causing me to wince. It had been years since I’d lost my wings, but the very thought of it still caused the old scars to ache. I shook my head clear of the images before I fell into the memory completely. Now wasn’t the time for self-pity.
“Miss Wiles?”
I jerked my head up, my attention focusing on the priest. From where I sat in the church pew I had to twist around to look at him. Father Patrick was a normal enough looking guy, with dark brown hair and matching eyes. He wasn’t remarkable by any account, but in his field of work, I supposed looks weren’t everything.
“Please call me, Mary,” I quickly removed my booted feet from where I’d rested it on the kneeling ledge in front of me to stand.
“Very well, Mary. Father Dominic will see you now,” the priest nodded to me and gestured for me to follow him. I moved out of the pew and trailed along next to the father.
Saint Paul’s was one of many Catholic churches in Los Angeles. It also wasn’t the first church I’d been to on a case in the last month. Hell, in the last week. For a city named after holy creatures, it sure had its fair share of supernatural crap, which is probably why I had been drawn to it in the first place.
“You know, Mary,” Father Patrick started, keeping his voice low and his eyes on alert, “when I had first heard about your service I had to say I was a bit skeptical. Is it usual for a private detective to take on such cases?”
“I assure you, Father, this is right up my alley. It is kind of my area of expertise.” I smirked. The good father didn’t know just how much it was my area.
My business card said ‘Private Investigator for Hire’, but what it should say is ‘Supernatural Expert’. I handled anything from cheating spouses to exorcisms. Unfortunately, I received more jobs requiring photographing cheating husbands than finding demons. Lately the number of cases coming in for demon exorcisms and hauntings weren’t as rare as I would like.
Father Patrick stopped before an office door where a nameplate read ‘Father Dominic’. He didn’t open the door. Instead he rubbed his hands together in a nervous gesture.
“You must understand our worries, Miss Wiles,” his eyes darted around them, his voice as low as possible though still audible, “We’re priests. It’s in our job description to deal with forces of darkness such as this, but with Father Dominic . . .” he sighed and ran a hand over his face, “it is a delicate situation that my brothers and I have found ourselves in . . . being unable to confidently say we can handle this ourselves.”
“It’s all right, Father,” I patted him on the shoulder, knowing the touch would help put him at ease, “Like I said, this is what I do.”
The older man nodded and stepped aside leaving me to open the door. Taking a deep breath, I adjusted my leather coat and knocked. When a faint voice said ‘Enter’, I twisted the handle and prepared for the worst.
Now, most of my cases usually just involved lower-level demons—those who couldn’t do more than influence the host—but sometimes there were ones who could take over the host’s body completely. Those were a bit trickier.
Father Dominic’s possession had been described as a textbook. He had started off fine, going about his duties as normal, and had gradually become moody and unfocused. Then it had warped into distant and secretive.
Many would just say he was going through a crisis and it was a cry for help. But when Father Patrick had called me about one of their parishioners stealing money from the church, I had a feeling it could be related to the Father’s possession.
Now, as I stood in front of Father Dominic and felt his dark aura seeping out of him and into the room, I had no doubt that I’d been right.
“Miss Wiles,” the father called out to me, his deep timber filling the room. He stood with his back to the door, his shoulders hunched down, the graying hair on his head the only feature standing out. “How can I help you?”
Kicking the door closed behind me, I plopped down on one of the wooden chairs, propping my feet on top of his desk. I rocked back and forth on the back legs and waited. I didn’t answer his question because that was what he wanted. Childish? Maybe, but demons were all about getting what they wanted, and the moment you refused to do so was when they showed their true colors.
It wasn’t surprising when it took no more than a few moments of silence before Father Dominic’s hunched shoulders straightened out and a slight shudder passed through him. The dark aura that had been more of a glow became a void that filled the entire room. If a human had been in the room, the very feel of the aura pressing down on them would cause a violent physical reaction—emptying the contents of their stomach contents onto the floor would be one.
But I wasn’t human. Not really, anyway. I might walk, talk, and act like a human, but I wasn’t any more human than the demon currently wiggling its way to the top of Father Dominic’s consciousness.
“Muriel,” the name hissed out of the father’s throat, no doubt burning his esophagus in the process. Father Dominic, or what was once him—I had little doubt he was dead now—took slow, agonizing steps around his desk until he stood beside me. I didn’t know what his eye color had been before, but the eyes that looked down at me now were filmed over—though, sightless they were not.
I rocked back and forth in my chair once more before setting it down on its four legs. My lips quirked up at the sides as I angled my head toward him. To an observer, it would appear that I was interested in him sexually, but in fact, I was zeroing in on the demon inside who was fighting the father for control over the body.
The souls of many who are possessed are usually cast out almost instantaneously, and even those who hang on only do so for a day or two. Father Dominic must have a strong soul indeed if he’d been able to stay alive this long. Bad news for the demon, but also for me too. It made my job that much more complicated.
“What are you doing hanging around here? Don’t you have a sink-hole to furnish?” I crossed my arms over my chest. The interrogation part of the process was always the most fun.
The demon wearing Father Dominic’s face watched me for a moment before throwing its head back and laughing. It felt like worms wiggling inside my ears. It shortened my patience and made it a lot less fun.
“I don’t see what’s so funny about my question. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you, Fallen One.” It chuckled once more, its eyes roving over me.
Blech. Demons were such lechers.
“I’m not fallen,” I snapped, dropping my feet from the desk. My five-foot-nine height barely reached the Father’s eyes. “Falling implies you had a choice.”
“Choice or not, you are still stuck here like the rest of us. Why don’t you leave us be? You could do with some of us on your side.” He tried to sound persuasive, but he didn’t know he was barking up the wrong angel.
“I wouldn’t want you on my side even if it was the only side.” As nonchalant as possible, I reached into my pocket and drew out a necklace. On the necklace, wrapped in a piece of an olive branch, was a feather. One of the only remaining feathers from my once beautiful and immaculate wings. A gypsy priestess had made the talisman for me as a way to harness what was left of my holy powers.
On my own, I could remove a demon, sure, but it was a dirty and brutal process that required the use of my holy aura to overpower the demon. The process, while effective, would destroy the host’s soul, and I preferred not to do that if I could help it. Thus, the talisman helped to give a nudge gentler than the Jaws of Life.
“We could help you, you know,” it continued, not paying any mind to the way I wrapped the chain of the necklace around my hand with the talisman laying in my palm.
“Oh really?” I pretended to sound intrigued to keep the demon talking so he’d be off his guard. It made it so much easier when they didn’t know it was coming.
“Yes,” its white-filmed eyes leered at me. That’s right buddy give me your full attention. “We can help you get your revenge. To find—your friend."
My hand paused mid-wrap. Did they really know where he was? It wasn’t a secret I was looking for him, so the demon could easily be lying to save himself. Then again, if he wasn’t lying, then I would have destroyed a perfectly good chance to get the information I needed.
Still, the demon hadn’t said his name. The demon probably only heard I was looking for him and was trying to trick me.
Ramiel, my best friend and commanding officer when I had resided in heaven. I still remember the day I’d heard he had been captured. It was the first time I had felt any emotion other than utter devotion to our cause.
Devastated, I had let the overwhelming feeling get the better of me and had gone against orders to wait for an extraction team. I had raced out of heaven, bound and determined to save him. But I hadn’t been strong enough.
The scars on my back pulsated, a constant reminder of my failure to save him, and of my own weakness. I’d vowed it wouldn’t happen again. I would never be at the mercy of demons.
“You know, you make a compelling argument,” I watched as the demon let Father Dominic’s shoulders sag, and I almost smiled before taking a step toward him, “But the problem is. I just don’t trust demons.”
Before the demon realized what I was doing, I shoved the talisman to his forehead and forced my aura to its focal point. Each piece of me seeped into the father’s body, pushing the demon out. It screamed and clawed at me, causing little rips and tears in my aura. It hurt enough that it forced me to back off a bit, and that was all the invitation the demon needed. It beat at me with renewed strength; pushing me back out the way I’d come and with my aura, it spilled out of Father Dominic and into me.
If you’ve ever experienced claustrophobia, having another being inside you at the same time was like that. Except a million times worse.
If I had been human I would have been in trouble, but since I was only pretending to be human once the demon found its way in, he couldn’t find a way out. I doubled over, gripping my stomach where the demon was bouncing about, wild and frantic. Now that he was out of the good father’s body, I didn’t have to be so nice, but it was still going to hurt like hell.
Steadying myself on the floor, I drew my entire aura into myself, pushing my holy powers to their limits to purge my body of the intruder. It wouldn’t kill him because demons without a corporeal body couldn’t really ever be killed, which made them a lot like roaches. I could push holy power onto it until judgment day came, but they’d keep coming back. I just had to remember to be ready for them next time.
When the demon finally gave up the fight and was forced out of me and back to the hell fire where it belonged, an overwhelming need to pass out filled me. I glanced up at the petrified Father Dominic, whose eyes were a lovely shade of cerulean blue.
“Well, that sucked,” were the only words I could get out before I collapsed on the office floor of a dumbfounded Father Dominic.