to light and guard

chapter forty

By the time they reached the parking lot of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Mary Eunice had fallen asleep with her head in Lana's lap—or something like sleep, something like the haze she'd been in when she first entered Lana's house, moaning and mumbling and semi-aware but not enough for her to communicate. "It's okay, Mary Eunice." Lana kept her hand in her hair, stroking it, combing through it. More than once, she had nearly run off the road while glancing down at her girlfriend's gnarled, pained face, all of the pink wrinkles it gained and how they shifted with each bump in the road. "It's okay. It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay." If she said it enough, maybe she could bring herself to believe it. I never thought it could happen again. I never thought it would happen again.

At some point, those months ago, Mary Eunice had asked her how she believed in demons if she didn't believe in God. Lana hadn't given much thought to it after she blew off the question at the time. But now, she realized some part of her hadn't believed Mary Eunice, not completely. Some secret, latent part deep inside of her chest hadn't believed the horror stories about the demon, had passed it off as some act of psychology which robbed her of her memory with no supernatural influence. She didn't know what she had believed—no part of her had ever faulted Mary Eunice for anything that had happened, not since they became friends—but now she knew she'd been wrong. The power had smothered her. It could have snapped her neck. It could have stripped her of all of her strength and left her weak and feeble.

Instead, Mary Eunice wielded it, and she used it so gently. She had closed Lana's eyes and held her against the wall and taken the gun from her. That evil wasn't meant to meet a soul as pure as hers. Lana didn't understand it. But she knew she needed a priest, and she sure as shit didn't trust the Monsignor, not anymore. We left Jude there. With Pepper. She wondered if anyone else had recognized them, besides Dr. Arden. She prayed not. "Mary Eunice. Hey, Mary Eunice." She nudged her girlfriend. Mary Eunice grunted, face screwing up in pain. Lana opened the car door and scooted out of it sideways. She patted Mary Eunice's cheek. "My lord, you're burning up." Mary Eunice quivered like a dog left out in the snow. "Hold onto me." I'm not strong enough to lift her. She would be damned if she didn't try. "Sister, listen to me, I need you to hold onto me. I'm going to carry you into the church."

One shaking arm looped around her neck, and as Lana stooped over, scooping her up under her shoulders and her legs, the other hand fixed to the front of her shirt. "Good girl. Good. You hold on tight." Fire licked through all of Lana's wearied muscles and bones. She kicked the car door shut and staggered, almost kissing the pavement, before she righted herself and dragged to the front doors of the church. Each painful step ate into her bones with agony. She grunted and kept her face tight, forcing her arms to remain tense and firm. Mary Eunice clutched her tight, eyes shut, face buried into her chest. Lana bumped the door knob with her elbow.

It wouldn't turn. It's locked. "Fuck this," she muttered under her breath. "Father Joseph!" she screamed at the heavy mahogany door. "Father Joseph! We need help! Father Joseph!" Her knees began to cave. I'm going to collapse. She had the warning, just a second's notice, to bow over and soften Mary Eunice's fall. Mary Eunice cried out. "God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." Lana swept her hair back out of her eyes, kneeling over her, clinging to her, a baby monkey clinging to its mother. "Father Joseph!" she shrieked again. "Help us, please!" Where else can we go? No one else would understand. No one else knew of Mary Eunice's case. They couldn't trust anyone else not to report them to the police, or at the very least, judge them harshly and reject them outright. "Father Joseph!"

Mary Eunice lolled her head back, face tilted up at Lana, up into the gray sun, though she didn't open her eyes. Lana caressed her cheek with one cold hand. "I'm so sorry, Mary Eunice, I'm so sorry." She kissed the crown of her head. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. I promise. I won't ever let anything hurt you. You're going to be fine. It's all going to be alright." Lana didn't know how many of her own words she believed. She would take her dying breath to protect Mary Eunice. But I'm powerless against something like that. Lana wasn't a praying woman, and even that seemed minuscule compared to the evil which had managed to crawl into Mary Eunice's body. If her prayers can't keep her safe, mine sure as hell won't help. She buried her nose into her hair, right at the scalp. "I love you so much."