From Satan with Love (bxb)

Chapter 15 Guardian Angel

Angel blinked several times, and his lips curled into a toothy grin. "Are you saying I'm your weakness?"

"What?! That's not..."Leon was about to defend himself when the elevator arrived at the lobby. The door opened, revealing Chloe, Abby and Luke standing there, waiting for them. Before Leon and Angel could leave the elevator car, Chloe pushed them back in and said, "No, no, no, not a good idea."

"What's not a good idea?" Leon asked in bewilderment.

"So we anonymously uploaded some edited clips of the footage Angel took from the cultists this morning, and...as you can imagine, it was frigging explosive." Luke grinned proudly, possibly because he was the one who uploaded the clip, "A lot of people are asking about you, Angel, because, for some reason, the recording was corrupted after the cult leader shot at you two, and people were wondering if you are still alive."

"They arrested the sheriff right away. You two are now heroes!" Abby said excitedly.

"Reporters have surrounded the hotel. You two cannot go anywhere alone for the rest of the stay here." Chloe said peremptorily as she pressed her floor on the panel, "Let's go to my room and discuss our shooting schedule. Leon, when do you think you can perform the exorcism? Have you gathered enough information and evidence?"

"This demon is...stronger and older than anything we've dealt with during season one. Luckily, I have the demon's name. But we will need to locate a relic to exorcise her."

"What relic?"

"Isaac's remain, probably his bone."

"Isaac who?" Chloe asked confoundedly.

Angel said, "Is this the Isaac from Genesis? The one that almost got sacrificed?"

"Yes."

Abby and Luke gaped at Leon, and Chloe remarked sarcastically, "Of course it's a relic of thousands of years old...Where do we find that? It's not on Amazon, I presume?"

"I may need to make some phone calls or even go back to the Vatican and ask around in the Bureau..."

"We don't have that much time, Leon!"

"I will handle it."Angel chimed in. "My dad has an antique dealer. He can pretty much find anything, sometimes through less...legitimate ways. But if this thing exists, he will find it."

Chloe looked at Angel as if she wanted to kiss him, "You are a veritable angel, my dear!"

Leon glanced at Angel skeptically but didn't object.

They spent the rest of the day discussing the shooting schedule. Since The Mother was attached to almost everyone in town, selecting a location for the rite became tricky. The best location was Martinez farm, but police had sealed the place up as it was a crime scene. So, the next best location was the church built on the wreckage of the burnt-down house from ten years ago, and The Mother was likely summoned into this world through the ritual.

That very night, after his evening prayer, Leon decided to revisit the church during the adoration hours by himself and talk to Father Morgan. By then, the reporters were mostly gone, and Leon managed to evade the rest of them with a little disguise.

Like other parish priests in North America, Father Morgan had received a direct order from the Holy See to assist Leon as much as they could, and he was eager to help. Leon gave Father Morgan a quick rundown of the rite and the demon's nature and identity, though he only referred to her as "The Mother" and kept her actual name a secret, as Father De Rossi suggested.

"My theory is the Martinez family kidnapped and sacrificed Mary Collins's mother, Catherine Taylor, ten years ago to summon The Mother, and once it succeeded, The Mother stayed dormant for a decade, possibly to gather strength, as historically she had only shown up three times, I imagine she must have been locked away and possibly starving during the past few centuries. I'm guessing that when the demon consumed Catherine Taylor's soul, she was somehow heavily affected by the victim's memory and emotions, and that was why she didn't try to possess Mary. I also suspect the looping behaviours were caused by the mother testing her hold on her subjects. Her eventual goal may be to dominate people's thoughts and behaviour completely. Eventually, all the people in Hawthorne Valley would be consumed, leaving an empty town behind."