Staring through the demons (unholyverse )

2

"I think her name is Lucy Thomas," Gerard said when they were all settled around the bed. "She's the only person on record to have died on the premises. She died at home from influenza."

"She was a Catholic," Ray put in. "And she did have a Catholic burial, but when she was dying, although a priest was called, the Last Rites - "

"The Anointing of the Sick," Gerard sighed.

" - were never given," Ray finished.

Bob frowned. "Why not?"

"Her husband, James, wasn't a Catholic," Gerard said. "Apparently he wouldn't allow the priest to see her."

Frank made a disgusted noise. "What a douchebag."

"Well, people behave strangely when they're faced with loss," Gerard said.

Gerard and Ray had brought back a copy of a picture of Lucy Thomas; Mikey picked it up and looked at it. She was smiling, and her hat had flowers in it. Her husband looked tall and stern, and he was wearing a really stupid jacket. His facial hair was pretty amazing, though, big muttonchop sideburns joined up with a handlebar over his top lip.

"The douchebag has an awesome mustache," Mikey said. Frank leaned over to see.

Brian was frowning at the record of her death. "So, all you have to do is perform the La - uh, Anointing of the Sick, on Lucy, and she can go free?"

Ray nodded. "Assuming we're right about who it is, I guess?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Gerard said. "There's a lot of different parts to the sacrament, it's not all chanting and candles. I'd need to anoint her with holy oils, I should hear her Confession first, and there's also the Viaticum to consider."

Bob frowned. "What's that?"

"It means 'provisions for the journey'," Gerard explained. "It's the last Communion a Catholic takes in their life, it's - it's to make sure they die with Christ instead of dying alone."

"What the fuck kind of husband was this guy that he said no to that?" Frank was all tense next to Mikey, his fingers twisted hard around the rosary beads.

Gerard looked up at him. "It's most likely he didn't understand it. It's hard to explain things to non-believers sometimes."

"You do it just fine," Frank said shortly.

"Well, your wife isn't dying," Gerard said gently. "And if he didn't attend church, the priest would have been a total stranger to him. He probably wanted to spend his last few moments with his wife alone."

"Yeah, well, now she's spent the last few decades trapped between planes of existence," Bob said. "I'm with Frank on this one."

Brian cleared his throat. "Putting aside their marital problems for a moment, can I ask a question? How are you going to give Communion to someone who's already dead?"

"Oh, God." Mikey looked at Gerard. "She's not, like - I mean, she doesn't have a body, right? She's not gonna be all decomposed or anything?"

"She's a lost soul, Mikey," Gerard said in a duh voice. "Not a zombie."

"Be easier to get rid of if she was a zombie," Mikey said under his breath. Frank laughed and bumped Mikey's elbow.

"As far as Brian and I could tell, she's in spirit-form," Bob said. "Craig hasn't seen any ghosts, and there weren't any fingerprints on those pictures that keep getting moved around."

"And therein lies the problem, because I can't anoint someone who isn't there," Gerard said. "Ray?"

Ray pushed his hair back from his face. "Okay, we really have two options. There's something we haven't tried before, which is an incantation to give a spirit corporeal form. It's really complicated, and pretty dangerous because we don't know how she'd react, how aware she would be of what's going on."