They Got Into Saint Mary's

We need an old priest... And me

They Got Into Saint Mary's

  "The NICU is cleared," I said quietly. My hand was steady around around the phone, but my voice shook a little. Cases with kids make me nervous, and without my assistant, I felt like I was missing an arm. "It's clean." I only half heard the priest's response; I was waiting for a sign. Looking for something I hoped not to see, and listening for something I wouldn't hear with my ears. The NICU was clear, but that was all I'd done in over an hour. People were moving like molasses in January. I'd only been walking for that hour, and still, my chest was tight. I wanted people to move their asses. Fire alarms can clear a hospital in minutes. Demon invasions somehow don't have the same effect. But we had to move these people quietly. Without panic, without tipping off our quarry. It sounds sick, to allow a hospital to become bait. But what else could we do? Some of the people couldn't even be moved. We had women laboring and delivering babies, there were people in the ER being seen for head traumas. What should I have done, sent them home and wished them luck??

Sorry. I guess I still feel a little guilty.

So there we were. I knew demons were coming, I knew people might die, and I had parts of the hospital operating as usual. Desperate times, you know? We were lucky, in our own way. In a Catholic hospital like Saint Mary's, if you say demons, someone \*might\* listen.

Deghan's phone call had bought us time, but we were down to only minutes, and precious few of them. I got his call when I was 2 hours away, and this kind of thing isn't really something I like to explain on the phone. "Hi, hospital? I have a demon snitch who tells me stuff, and he says some other demons are gonna raid your-- Hello? Hello??"

All my jobs are tough, but this one was a Perfect Storm of SUCK. Most of my jobs are private, and I don't take cases with a heavy focus on children. I don't \*like\* kid cases. I know a couple people who take them, and if Deghan hadn't needed me specifically, I really would have sent someone else to do this job. A hospital? In Florida? That's pretty public. Ever since Arlington, I've been trying to lay low. So much for that.

I stood at the desk of the nurses' station, watching the remaining people move much too slowly even as they hurried. Through the phone I could hear the chaplain's shoes clopping as he ran, shouting orders, but even his footsteps sounded, slow, slow, slow. My task was no simple one: Hide a hospital of people from a horde of demons by moving the people to safe rooms we'd blessed, while we splashed holy water behind them and over doors. Then exorcise said demons with the hospital's chaplain, a priest in his late 60's. If they got in, they were going to make it look like a shooting. There would even be bodies, and guns. If you could see, really see, you would know what actually happened. You'd be able to see wounds that came from claws and teeth. You'd smell sulfur. Most people can't. They just see bullet holes. But I have a demon snitch; I'm not most people.

*Right*.

I had no idea if this was going to work, but there wasn't time to form a better plan. At this point most of the people were safely hidden away, but there was still a lot of work to do.

I closed my eyes as the sudden pressure hit me like a heat wave, dragging the air out of my chest. "They're here," I told the chaplain. I sucked in a breath and rubbed my sternum with the heel of my hand and really, really wished I had If with me.

"How many?" he asked, shushing someone near him.

I couldn't tell, but it had to be a big crowd. My only consolation was that they'd feel me, too, and being near one another hurts us all equally. I clutched the bottle of holy water tighter when I realized I was alone. The hall was finally empty. Small blessings. "I don't know. Several. What now?" I asked. My skin prickled and stung as the pressure increased, telling me they were getting closer.