What Must Be Done

Part 3 - Confession

"Matthias."

Leanne's face was still distorted into a blackened mess. Her limbs elongated, and her skin rippled as the demon flexed under her skin. Every movement was accompanied by a chorus of piano and trumpet, a macabre and haunting melody. She jumped to a crash of ivory and pinned him to the floor. Stinking saliva dripped from her mouth as she shrieked, making his soul shiver.

Enough talking.

Using his powerful legs, he pushed her off, aided by tempered kinetic energy. She disappeared into that darkness carrying the orchestra with her. He felt himself weaken; his power was ebbing, and his faith unstable. He'd used so much taking out the others, and now he was running on fumes. He needed to end it. Now.

Rick reached behind his stab vest and pulled out a pocket bible. But unlike any other bible, this one had a symbol embossed into each page. He flicked frantically through the chapters, stopping at Isaiah and ripping out a passage. It was necessary for the banishment, and his heart would ache every time he'd done it, but not this time. He shook his head; the witch had cast her magics, a spell of words designed to worm into him and find the weakness in his foundations. He couldn't let the doubt fester. But even as he tried to steel his resolve, he felt it falter at the chorus.

A trip to pray in the Sanctum, a new tattoo to renew his faith, that is what he needed, but the thought of it made him shiver, his heart race in protest. He hadn't the time now to dwell. This bitch had fucked with his head enough, so like a woman to try and manipulate her prey. He could not let her win, because if any of that blasphemy was true— he stopped the thought, no even considering it as such was akin to sacrilege too.

He pulled down the bookcase beside him, the literature of false promises scattered across the laminate. He wet the amputated page with his saliva and pressed it against the plaster.

Without the church, what would he have? What would it make him, after everything?

"Dear Lord, shine down your light to illuminate your word, as it does so on my flesh. Write your commands in fire, impress upon them their sins, and offer up your mercy. With your scripture, make them blind, so they might see. Amen."

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end; Mattias was behind him, masquerading under flesh willingly given.

Leanne grabbed him by the collar and yanked him backwards; he crashed into the coffee table. She was above him, clutching at his throat and lifting him off his feet; she had barely used the strength of her demon, but now she tapped into it. She was more than a mere girl. He clawed at her hands as the air in his lungs turned poisonous.

"Sorry for interrupting your prayer session," Leanne mocked, her tone a masculine bass. "Not that it will help. You still don't get it, do you?" She brought him close to her, whispering in his ear. "God's not here for you." She wretched the bible out of his hands and threw it into the engulfing darkness that had seeped even more into the room, a solid wall of void energy. With his vision fading, Leanne's face blurring into the nothingness, and his chest on fire, he had no choice but to slam another phial of holy water across her face. He had only one phial left and still had a demon to slay.

Leanne released him, but she did not flee like before. She held her face as her pained roar turned into a cackling cackle. Rick coughed and spluttered on the floor, crawling away from her. He saw it, glinting against the wall like a beacon from God. Dogma.

"We are alone; we always have been," Leanne said, "We should know, Brother, we've seen the other side." The demon speaks to the holy spirit in Rick, and to his despair, he can feel it answer, his skin crawling as he fights for control of his own body.