The Last Babysitter | Requiem

Into the Light, Pan's Labyrinth, and at her Mercy

Hatcher ran out of Captain West's office, past colleagues too busy in their own work to care how she looked, and into the elevator that would take her to ground level and the front door of the precinct.

"What the fuck was that?"

Hatcher was hyperventilating. She rested against the wall of the elevator and tried to calm herself, but she couldn't. That was impossible to do. Did she hear the captain right? Did he just say what she heard him say? What the actual fuck? Why would the captain say that?

The elevator doors opened and Hatcher blew through two uniformed officers, nearly knocking the coffees out of their hands.

"Whoa, watch it." One officer said.

"Fuck off!" Hatcher said, then exited the precinct.

Now outside, surrounded by a hundred strangers moving on in their lives to their next destination, Hatcher felt like she was going insane.

"Alright." She said. "What am I doing? Where am I going?"

"You can come with me."

A short, very old woman dressed in a nun's habit was standing there. Her cloak was white with a blue cape covering her shoulders, with a matching blue head dress.

"Did you hear me, dear?" The nun smiled. "You can come with me. You'll be safe, I give you my word. But we must leave, now."

* * * *

The old nun led Hatcher down the first alley and all the way through to the other side and turned left, down Duncan Avenue. The old lady jogged up a set of concrete steps and into an old church that Hatcher knew had been closed and condemned over ten years ago.

The nun turned to Hatcher before entering and smiled. "Come along. The only thing you have to fear inside is the dust and occasional rusted nail. But you have shoes on, unlike me." The nun lifted her cloak, revealing her bare, dirty feet.

Hatcher entered a dark room only illuminated by the light peeking through the cracks between the boards shuttering the windows.

"We can sit here." The nun pointed to one of the many pews before them.

"Okay." Hatcher sat down. "But this is...it seems crazy."

The nun sat down next to Hatcher and said, "crazier than a demon possessing your captain?"

"Just slow your role, uh, nun."

"I'm Sister Jade."

"Hello, Sister Jade. I'm Detective Marie Hatcher. What the fuck are we doing here? And what the fuck to everything else? Demon?"

"You're here only because you came with me. And you came with me because a part of you knows this to be true. A demon revealed himself to you. Search your feelings, child. You know it to be true."

Hatcher ran her fingers through her hair, then began searching her pockets for her cigarettes. Jade pulled out a pack of Newport menthols and handed them to her.

"This is my brand. How did you know?"

"We know a great deal, Marie. About you. About the demon that revealed himself to you. He never does that, by the way."

"We? I only see you."

Hatcher couldn't find her lighter, then the nun produced a lighter. Hatcher lit up and took a great long draw and blew out an enormous cloud of smoke.

"Better?" the nun said. "Good. I'm one of many. You only see me because that is how we operate. We ARE many, but that number is finite, so to protect our order, we work together, but separately."