ST. CATHERINE’S CATHEDRAL—OCTOBER 30th, 1992

  ?

  A vicious bellow caused the group to step back.

  Bishop Hargreeves wore an impish smile on his face, his wrinkles settling into place around his thin lips. “Gentlemen! There is nothing to fear, nothing whatsoever.”

  Cast-iron braziers and torches lit up the brownstone basement. Within the underground atrium were pillars and arches and the fixtures of ceremony and sanctity. Crucifixes lingered on walls and rosaries hung from the ceiling like the wooden fingers of ten-thousand angels, all still in the face of the depravity beneath them. Immediately behind the bishop was a looming figure that made him—an undeniable goliath of a man, nearing seven-feet in height—look small in comparison. He opened his hand up to the six men donned in priestly robes who feigned courage. Bishop Hargreeves could almost smell their trepidation.

  “Through no small effort, this demon you all bear witness to is practically harmless. It may shout, and hiss, and yes, almost certainly bark, but it will never quite bite,” Bishop Hargreeves stated, encircling it at a steady pace.

  His assistive crutch galloped against the stone floor, supporting the bishop’s crooked figure and enlarged features. Orange light casted by the surrounding torches flickered over his bald head, and the flames of holy sacrament reflected in his black and circular sunglasses. His dusty trench coat, adorned over his own priestly robes, dragged against the ground.

  “Vatican City will have taught you a great many things, of that I am sure, but as is the case with a great many new arrivals, my educated guess is that most of you are lacking in face-to-face encounters.”

  “Such is the duty of the wardens who dutifully serve the Order, bishop,” one of the pr said.

  Bishop Hargreeves lifted his cane off the ground ever so slightly, pointing to the man, a short and stalky fellow with a full beard and curly hair. “Correct! And it is we, the exorcists, who enjoy the reputation of being men of letters. Scholars and pious men. Fittingly, each of you should know precisely why the demon behind me poses no threat to us.”

  A silence loomed.

  “Oh please, not all at once,” Bishop Hargreeves mused, smiling to himself. “You there. Prospect Jonesburg. Tell me where I find my courage, and where I find the gall to limp so freely around such a ghastly thing.”

  Prospect Jonesburg, a lithe man with a long nose and narrow eyes, cleared his throat. “The Apostolic Seal, bishop, drawn carefully around the screeching blasphemy.”

  Bishop Hargreeves smiled. “Yes! And what else?”

  “Stakes of Drychus steel, hammered into its back and along its shoulders,” said Prospect Jonesburg.

  “Good, good, excellent,” Bishop Hargreeves said. “You. Prospect Sullivans.”

  Prospect Sullivans, a portly man of fluffish features and a receding hairline, nodded. “Drychus chains around its mouth, bishop.”

  Bishop Hargreeves nodded, and raised his brows at the other prospects. “And why oh why might we do such a thing?”

  Prospect Jonesburg stepped forward. “It is an inferni nominati, a—”

  “A true demon! Yes! A named one! To know their name is to touch their power—and to risk being known in return, wherein your soul, yes, oh yes, my good prospects, your sweet and fatty, succulent souls, might yet add weight to the power of this name which must not be allowed to be spoken. Gentlemen! In lieu of this awe-inspiring fact, I am still wholly unafraid. Why!?”

  Bishop Hargreeves, feigning surprise, looked at his large hand, and slowly turned his palm towards the group of prospects. With careful consideration, he stepped over the Apostolic Seal that contained the demon, mindful not to obscure its holy glyphs and symbols, and stepped close to the beast. It snapped its head forward, greeting him with a long and muzzled face with thorn-like protrusions erupting from its skin, its body like dead wood with leaves of nondescript organ tissue.

  Its movement, limited by the stakes of Drychus steel hammered into its body and the tight radius of the Apostolic Seal, kept it claustrophobic and tight, but it welcomed the bishop with a deep and thunderous bellow nonetheless, its tongue slathering and burning around the chain on wrapped around its face.

  Bishop Hargeeves raised its hand to it, and it immediately reeled back, screeching not in a fit of rage, or in a tantrum of hunger, but in a wail of fear that filled the bishop’s stomach with butterflies.

  For as long as he held his hand up, it cowered.

  “The Stigmata,” Prospect Jonesburg muttered.

  “Louder, Prospect!” Bishop Hargreeves yelled.

  “The Stigmata! It fears the scars of Christ which you wear on your palms, bishop!” Prospect Jonesburg yelled.

  “Yes! Yes indeed it does! It fears the touch of Christ himself, which I wield at my disposal like the blades of silver and the bullets of salt which the Order so readily employs in our endless war against all that which is foul,” Bishop Hargreeves said, keeping his hand raised as he slowly and methodically exited the Apostolic Seal. “And you may all yet earn your stigmata once you have been deemed worthy of the title of exorcist.”

  Bishop Hargreeves turned, and upon facing the prospects, continued. “But you must earn the brooch that I wear so proudly on my collar, same as I did, before you wield such power, and practice the sacred rituals and rites of which only the privileged few—such as yourselves—learned under the stewardship of greater, wiser minds in Vatican City.”

  “Yes, bishop!” announced each of the prospects in unison, making the Sign of the Cross along their heads and chests.

  Bishop Hargreeve’s lips curled into a contented expression, just shy of a smile, but not one that was pleasant to look at. His crutch-cane smacked against the ground as he trudged towards the far side of the atrium, where a row of five bodies—somewhere between dead and alive—hung by shackles in clothes that reeked of odor, stale feces and urine. Burlap sacks covered their heads.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The prospects followed after him, and formed a haphazard line in front of the display, their faces jointly crestfallen upon bearing witness to what lay before them. Some, it seemed, were not yet used to the smell, a pungent miasma which Bishop Hargreeves had long since gotten used to, his nose blind to the kaleidoscope of decay. Several among the prospects rushed to the nearest pillars, vomiting against the wall, whilst Bishop Hargreeves leaned idly on his crutch-cane, waiting dutifully for them to return.

  “Now, it is customary that we say a prayer for the unfortunate victims of this devious creature’s uninvited arrival, and the undeserved fate in which they shared. These tethers have served their purpose, but we will not allow these men and women, these children of God, to fully depart our vile and wicked world without granting them the dignity of redemption.”

  Bishop Hargreeves held his hand out in invitation towards the prospects, inviting one of them to take on a responsibility he had grown tired of taking upon himself after so many years. Prospect Jonesburg, ever the volunteer, stepped forward, and gripped the crucifix around his neck. Bishop Hargreeves lowered his head, and the remainder of the prospects followed.

  "Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven,” began Prospect Jonesburg.

  Behind them, the demon screamed and wailed, prompting each of them, save for Bishop Hargreeves, to flinch. The bishop opened a single, unbothered eye and urged Prospect Jonesburg to continue with a hurried nod of the head.

  Prospect Jonesburg cleared his throat. “Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

  Another demonic wail echoed outward, this one louder than the last.

  “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us—”

  “Louder, Prospect!” Bishop Hargreeves shouted.

  “But deliver but deliver us from evil!”

  Within the Apostolic Seal, the demon contorted and thrashed, skin sizzling and burning as the Drychus steel stakes and chains rubbed and writhed against its body, muting the Prospect Jonesburg’s voice.

  “Louder!” Bishop Hargreeves demanded.

  Prospect Jonesburg’s voice cracked and bellowed, his voice raw and dry. “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever! And ever! Amen! Amen! Amen!”

  From the inside of his trench coat, Bishop Hargreeves withdrew a pistol: an old and visually impressive hand cannon that would look far too large for anyone’s hands but the bishop’s. A Freedom Arms Model 83, engraved in crosses and the letters of Latin. He pointed it at one of the people strung along the wall and fired a bullet into the burlap sack. Whoever was beneath it went limp.

  He did the same for each person along the wall, and the sound of the final gunshot silenced the demon’s wailing. It stilled, and its fit of contortions lessened. Absent its tethers, there was nothing fueling the demon’s presence in the world—no slow, drip feeding of souls to keep it stabilized, no life essence that would trivialize the pain and regenerate the damage incurred by the Drychus steel that sustained its torment.

  Prospects stared at the display with eyes widened.

  Bishop Hargreeves tucked the gun back into his trench coat. “A moment of silence, prospects, for the dearly departed.”

  Each of them lowered their heads, and at the tail end of what seemed to be the briefest of moments, the silence was then broken by the gallop of Bishop Hargreeve’s crutch-cane. “Prospect Jonesburg, Prospect Sullivan! Come, come, step forth.”

  Prospect Jonesburg and Prospect Sullvian stepped out of the line, their faces laden with shock.

  “You were both exemplary today. Simply exemplary. So much so that I’ve decided to let you two put your acquired knowledge to the test, and to provide me with results that I suspect the entire Exorcist Association will be proud of.”

  “Yes, bishop,” they both recited.

  “Prospect Jonesburg, you will handle the harvesting—and do be mindful to discard any tissue affected by the Drychus metal. That, my prospects, is what we call bad meat. Rotten meat.”

  “Of course,” Prospect Jonesburg said, his voice low but affirmative.

  With a pleased smile, Bishop Hargreeves turned to face Prospect Sullivan. He reached a large hand forward and pressed it down onto his shoulder. “Prospect Sullvian. How comfortable are you with Canon 7:17?”

  “I…I have it down to memory, bishop,” Prospect Sullvian said with a nod.

  “In Latin, Prospect Sullivan?”

  “Yes, bishop,” Prospect Sullivan answered.

  Bishop Hargreeves raised his heavy hand off of Prospect Sullvian, and shook a single finger a few inches in front of his face. “The cadence must be perfect, your tone strong and assured, and once you begin, you must recite the verse in its entirety without a moment of pause. I am sure you have done this before for inferni minuti—lesser demons, the nameless—but know this. To pasteurize the wretched and black blood of a demon who has earned its name is another matter entirely, and will provide for us an elixir meant not for the general masses, oh no, but for those who guide us from the far reaches of Vatican City! For the most holy of men, Prospect Sullivan!”

  With the same hand, Bishop Hargreeves grabbed the back of Prospect Sullvian’s neck and pulled him close, lurching down from his massive height to press his large forehead into the prospect’s. “Your mouth will grow tired, your throat dry, and hunger will strike, but you mustn't stop until the blood has been christened green.”

  Prospect Sullivan’s mouth was agape, and no words left it.

  “Tell me, Prospect Sullvian, if you still believe you are up to such a task!”

  Prospect Sullvian slowly nodded. “Yes, bishop. I am. My studies in Vatican City were not in vain.”

  Bishop Hargreeves smiled, releasing him and standing upright. “Excellent. As for the rest of you, my prospects!”

  The others stiffened and directed their attention to Bishop Hargreeves, a fearful readiness to their features. Bishop Hargreeves glanced over his shoulder, lifting his crutch-cane ever so slightly up off the ground to point towards the collection of bodies still shackled to the wall. The burlap sacks that covered their faces had since soaked up the blood of their bullet wounds.

  “See to it that each of them are given a proper burial in Grove Cemetery.”

  “Yes, bishop,” they all said in tandem.

  With a slight nod, Bishop Hargreeves trudged along the stone floor of the atrium. His heavy footsteps disrupted the Apostolic Seal, smudging the intricate artistry of the chalk and robbing the containment circle of the all-encompassing power it once had over the felled demon. The punctuated gallop of his crutch-cane spoke louder than the whispers and murmurs of the perspectives behind him. He reached along the inside of his open trench coat, removed a set of sigilmarked keys, and twisted one of them into the locked door in front of him.

  BISHOP HARGREEVES

  Enjoying BRINEHAVEN? If so, please a review or a rating, it helps this story gain much needed visibility!