Damian
Time had seemed to halt from the first cut Samara made. Watching her blood spill, her resolve unwavering even as her strength faded, had turned Damian’s world on its axis. He was losing her again, watching her go and helpless to stop it. All he could do was maintain the exorcism. Throw out her tormentors. Send them back to hell where they belonged.
When the final seal broke, and Samara’s head fell limp, he felt the air in the room change. The light, shining dimly down the stairway from above, seemed a little brighter. He could smell the rain and the damp earth. The oppressive thickness in every breath was gone.
But Samara’s eyes were closed.
He rushed to her, held her. Amma was shouting commands behind him, but he couldn’t comprehend her words. Samara’s face was pale, her body as limp and fragile as a tiny bird, as if all her bones might break in his arms. But it was her face again, those familiar soft features, not the tormented face of her demons. She’d lost so much blood...too much…
“Move, Damian!”
The sheer shock of hearing Octavio speak with such command snapped him to attention. The young man had cloth in his hands, long strips of it…
“I need to stop her bleeding,” Octavio said firmly. “Or she’ll die here and now.”
Damian laid her down gently, clinging to her hand as Octavio pressed cotton tightly against the deep, bleeding gashes across her chest. There was a strange black mark on the back of her hand that he swore had not been there before, and when he traced his finger over it the skin felt rough.
“Please, Samara...please…” He wished he could go wherever she was, drag her back, go in her place, anything...just to see her eyes open again, to see her look at him again…
“We need to get her to a hospital,” Alex said urgently. “I have the car, we need to drive now.”
Octavio tied the bandages, and Damian gathered her up. But there, at the base of the stairs, was Lijiali. And Damian was not the only one who could see her.
“What in the name of Good Mother Mary…” Alex stopped abruptly, and Octavio behind him. It was Amma who stepped forward, putting herself between the others and the reaper without hesitation.
The two women faced each other with calm, calculated gazes.
“Belthazha,” the reaper said coldly.
“Reaper,” Amma nodded. “You know me, I am not surprised. But you need to make way. No one is dying here this day.”
Lijiali cocked her head, gazing at Samara’s limp form. “The demons in her are trying to save her. Curious. You know they will never leave her. Not all of them. It would be a kindness to let her go.”
“No,” Damian said. “She didn’t stop fighting. She wants to live.”
Lijiali nodded slowly. “Then it would seem my interference is no longer needed. The world’s balance is no longer threatened, so to kill her now would violate the Treaty. Although…” She gazed over, at her brother in chains, smiling cockily beside her. “It was only through the interference of another that you had success.”
“Oh stop posturing,” Kiiji said. “You’re going to kill me, so get on with it. I did what I needed to do. Perhaps you should thank me, sister. I set the world right, didn’t I?”
Lijiali’s eyes grew dark, and even Amma took a step back. She stepped up to her brother, and grasped a hand around his throat, bringing him to his knees. “Get on with it, you say?”
“Kiiji…” Damian’s chest tightened, his breath quickening. That reaper...that nuisance...that abominable presence in his life...damned Kiiji...his friend. His oldest and most faithful friend.
“Don’t get all sappy on me,” Kiiji said roughly. “And yes, I said get on with it. Make way for them, the girl is dying.”
Lijiali smiled, and her gaze flickered over the humans standing worriedly beside them. “Very well.”
Damian’s heart plummeted. He clung to Samara all the tighter, reassured by her slow breathing in his arms. Could he fight a reaper? Could he possibly hope to stop her…
Amma laid a hand on his arm. “Be silent, Damian. Do not interfere in the affairs of reapers.”
“Kiiji,” Lijiali’s grip tightened on his throat, crushing into him. “You are sentenced to a torturous death for violation of the First Millenia Treatise on Relations with Transdimensional Beings. You have interfered in the affairs of humans and brought risk to all our worlds. For this, your sentence will be carried out at once.” She leaned down, and though she lowered her voice, Damian still caught her words. “Before you die, brother, you will suffer. You will suffer for many, many long years.”
Kiiji’s eyes widened, and Damian saw fear in them. Then the breath went out of the reaper and his body began to shudder. Damian’s heart was in his throat as Kiiji’s eyes began to close and he gasped desperately. He wanted to thank him, to apologize, anything...but words did not seem like enough.
Lijiali held him but a moment longer before she let him go. Kiiji shuddered on the ground, curled up, groaning, and Damian frowned. He had expected them to vanish, he had expected Kiiji to be dragged away to whatever torments awaitted him in the Upper Echelons…
Lijiali gave him a grim smile. “He’s your problem now. Good luck; he’s going to dying for a long time, just like the lot of you.” And with a final shake of her head, she vanished.
But Kiiji remained, growning, shaking on the ground.
“For God’s sake, someone help the man!” Octavio rushed forward, shoving past them all, to get an arm around Kiiji and pull him to his feet. Damian shook his head in confusion. Octavio could touch him...but how...how did Kiiji look so…
Human?
“Damn that vile bitch,” Kiiji groaned. “Ahhh, dammit it all, Lijiali! Just kill me! All this drama just to make me...ahhh...everything is so...damned...heavy…damned human body...fuck...”
“Stop delaying!” Octavio shouted at them all. “We need to get them to a hospital at once!”
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Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |
Paranormal| 18+ | Damian looked so different with his shirt off and a crop in his hand. He felt more real: no longer wearing the mask of the good doctor, he was the Exorcist, the master over my wildest fears, the stones on the shore over which my ocean of ma...
