Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 26 -

Damian

Smoke filled the old chapel, white tendrils carrying the scents of sage, rosemary, and juniper. Damian had removed his shirt and sat cross-legged before the flames, allowing the smoke to waft into his face. He inhaled deeply, every breath burning deep within his lungs. He held his ritual knife over the flames, letting the fire cleanse it so that the blade glowed like the summer sun. The plants he burned had been used for cleansing and spiritual protection for centuries. Like Alex's Bible and verses, they were Damian's shield.

Alexander was inpatient to start, as usual, but he was respectful of Damian's preparations. The man paced up and down the nave, puffing his cigarette, unaware of the reaper who stood just behind Damian, picking his teeth with black fingernails.

"Will I die today?" Damian asked, so softly that Alex could not hear. But Kiiji did. Kiiji always heard his words.

"I hope so," replied the reaper, irritation in his voice. "It's taken you long enough."

Damian smiled. It had become one of his life's greatest joys to irritate Kiiji just as much as the reaper irritated him. Not dying, as it turned out, was the chief means to accomplish this. As the fire guttered, Damian stood and used his boot to crush the blackened plant matter into powdery coal. With two fingers he spread it in lines over his face, smudged it on the old leather cover of his Black Book, and marked a sigil of protection over his scars. Not a day passed that he did not remember their making. Even if the memories were only there in bits and flashes of pain and fire. He could remember his mother's face, the horror and regret etched into her expression. Whatever mistakes she had made, he did not hate her for it. In those moments - those final moments when her child had been marked for this life and beyond - she had felt regret. That was enough.

Damian could not bring himself to fault the dead.

"I wonder sometimes if the whole of the Upper Echelon knows of ye'," Alexander mused, as Damian scattered the remaining embers. "This one spoke of ye'. Others too. Try to use it to wheedle into my head, ye' know."

Damian did know. When attempts were made to force them from their host, a demon would use any and all means to throw the exorcist off their guard. He had been taunted with memories, with regrets, with threats. It could often to be taken for a clue toward the demon's power. The deeper the secret they could rend from one's soul, the more ancient and powerful the being.

Samara's demons had known the name of his mother and grandmother as surely as they had known the weather, and without even being under the duress of an exorcism. The thought made him shudder in the chapel's warm, humid air. How was he to help her...would he even have the strength...

Now was not the time. Becoming distracted could get him killed. He wasn't about to give Kiiji the pleasure of collecting his soul.

"Are we ready?" Damian said, going to stand beside Alex. His scars burned beneath the ash, a sensation he had grown accustomed to. Alexander gave the marks his customary long look of contempt. It was not contempt for Damian himself - the two of them were far past that. Instead, it was contempt for the sacrifice that had been made in exchange for lies. Alex knew the story. He was one of very few who did.

"May Our Holy Father in Heaven protect us," he said. "Blessed Mother Mary watch over us." He made the mark of the cross before Damian's face. The movement sent tingles through him, yet another barrier to combine with the sigil he had drawn upon himself. Above all else, even above protecting the souls of victims, an exorcist could not allow himself to become host to the very demon he was attempting to exorcise. Such an event would be catastrophic. Protection was key. His grandmother had drilled it into Damian's head from a young age.