Chapter 16 #2
Cain screams around the gag as the water touches his skin. He contorts on the table as though trying to escape, spine bending, fingers scrabbling against metal. One of his hands, locked in place by the restraint, turns an angry red where water splattered against it.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” I murmur to him, even as guilt makes my stomach clench, because I’m not sure if it’s the truth.
The priest doesn’t flinch at his reaction. He calmly sets the sprinkler aside and opens his Bible.
The priest looks frail in the way of the elderly, his skin wrinkled and his posture stooped, so I’m surprised by the strength of his voice as he begins to read.
It swells to fill the room in a way that takes me back to my childhood days in the church, the grinning face of the preacher at the front of the room.
Cain flinches on the table at the sudden boom of Latin streaming from the man’s mouth. I flinch, too, before stilling myself, jaw clenching.
I can’t understand the language, but the cadence of it is familiar. That unshakable confidence in the priest’s voice as he reads holy words.
It reminds me, uncomfortably, of a childhood memory—the preacher on the pulpit, swaying and shouting, zealous fury in his eyes. I shudder and ground myself in this moment. Cain cries out, bucking against his restraints, and I cling to his hand.
He strains against his bonds. His spine bends so dramatically I fear he’ll hurt himself. His eyes roll back in his head.
The table starts to shake. So does the rest of the furniture, rattling against the walls. A familiar buzz builds in the air, and my stomach feels heavy with dread. I look at Barnes, who is gritting his teeth, one hand to his head, but he doesn’t flee the room. Yet.
I look instead at the priest, trying to determine how much of this is normal.
But he’s impossible to read, his face set in determination as he continues to read from the Bible.
The tip of his finger trembles, only slightly, as he underlines the words.
There’s no falter in the cadence of his voice, rising and falling as effortless Latin flows from his tongue.
Cain groans. His eyes roll back, showing pure red, as his body starts to tremble. His face is a mask of pain.
Guilt hits me in the stomach so hard, it makes me nauseous.
But I remember the priest’s words. That the demon will do anything to cling to its host. I have to take this as a sign that this is working, that we’re right about a demon being rooted somewhere within him. I have to believe this can save him.
I grab Cain’s hand and squeeze it. “We have to keep going,” I tell him, though I don’t think he can hear me anymore. Maybe I’m talking to myself instead. “You can do this. You have to do this.”
The priest’s volume is growing, the steady chant of Latin reaching a crescendo. He steps forward and presses the crucifix against Cain’s arm.
Cain screams again. It’s a horrible sound, shockingly loud, unnaturally loud even through the gag.
I flinch back and clap my hands over my ears to blot it out.
Hunter falls to one knee, his face contorted.
The priest, somehow, keeps his feet. His words falter, but he keeps the crucifix steady on Cain’s arm.
As the scream dies away, I hear the equally horrifying sound of sizzling where the cross touches Cain’s skin. When Father Barrera pulls the crucifix away, it leaves a stark red imprint on his pale arm, skin blistered and burned where it made contact.
There’s a faint buzzing in my ears, a persistent hum, audible even when the priest resumes his chanting.
Barnes rises shakily to his feet and touches his ear; his fingers come back wet with blood.
“Should we stop?” I shout at him.
Barnes doesn’t respond, not even with a look; I don’t think he can hear me. I curse under my breath. The priest said we couldn’t interrupt the process once it had begun, but this feels wrong. So wrong. I think we’ve made a horrible mistake.
Father Barrera steps forward, moving to touch Cain with the crucifix again.
I brace in preparation—but before the cross can touch his skin, it flies out of the priest’s hand.
It moves upward, toward the ceiling, yanking the metal chain tight around the priest’s neck and cutting off his words.
Barrera chokes, reaching for it with one hand, the other still gripping the Bible. His fingers claw uselessly at his neck.
Shit. I lunge forward, reaching for the crucifix.
The metal is scalding hot to the touch and fights when I pull against it, an impossibly strong force resisting my attempts to pull it down.
I fumble for the clasp instead, and it snaps in my hands when I pull hard.
The priest sags to his knees, and the crucifix flies up to slam into the ceiling.
The lights flicker, and in the moment of darkness, all I can see is the crucifix burning red-hot on the ceiling, and Cain’s many red eyes darting all over the room.
The priest gasps and then resumes his chanting, his voice a raspy whisper. The lights return, and Cain writhes on the table. He’s slick with sweat, red seeping from one nostril, staining the corners of his mouth.
That buzzing sound grows louder. The room is stiflingly hot, pressure thickening the air. A light overhead pops, raining glass on us.
Cain is going into a full-fledged episode. Shit. This doesn’t feel right. I look at Barnes for guidance, but he’s swaying like a drunk man, blood streaming between his fingers as he clutches his nose.
I turn back to the priest, wondering if the swell of dark influence will prove too much to handle for him, too.
But though he’s damp with sweat and the Bible trembles in his hands, he’s still chanting.
As I watch, he shifts the Bible to one hand and reaches into his pocket with the other. He takes out the holy water again.
I’m cold with dread, hands trembling. I almost step forward to stop him. Almost. But he said we had to see this through to the end, didn’t he? I told myself I’d put my faith in him.
So I watch as he flicks the holy water at Cain.
He wails again. His skin sizzles where the holy water splashed, bubbling and red.
Red like the tears that stream down Cain’s face. Blood leaking from the corners of his eyes. His gaze meets mine, and he coughs, more red leaking around his gag. My chest is tight as I remember the trust he placed in me.
Barnes is trusting me too. Everyone has placed their faith in me. To see this through, to help Cain, but my gut is telling me I’ve made a mistake. Cain’s eyes are drooping, his struggles growing weaker. I’m terrified we might be killing him.
I can’t do this.
As the priest raises the holy water again, I rush forward and get between them, shielding Cain. The water splatters uselessly over my back. The priest’s words finally falter.
“Stop,” I say. “Stop. This isn’t working. We aren’t helping him. We’re hurting him.”
I fear it’s already done damage that can’t be undone.
Cain stares up at me, pale and sweaty, his eyes half-lidded and streaks of blood down both wan cheeks. His chest heaves as he gasps for air, and he looks like he’s barely clinging to consciousness.
I touch his cheek with a gentle hand, heedless of the slick blood under my fingers.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur. “You’re safe.”
His eyes flutter shut. The pressure in the room falls. The crucifix clatters to the floor behind me.
But that buzzing noise continues, like a constant itch in the back of my skull.
“This is a mistake,” Father Barrera says, his voice still raspy. “What we’re dealing with here is— Is—” He coughs. “A matter beyond what I—” He coughs again, a painful rattle of a sound.
I turn to face him, and he’s bent forward, one hand on his chest.
“Father?” I ask, concerned. “Are you okay?”
He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He lets out a low wheeze and starts to choke. I rush to him, wrapping my arms around him and getting in position to do the Heimlich maneuver. I thrust my hands into his abdomen once, twice—
And he coughs, spits, chokes. Coughs something out onto the tile. Both of us stare, for a moment, in bewildered horror at the small brown insect that’s emerged from his mouth.
Then his jaw opens horrifyingly wide, head tilting back, and he collapses in my arms as a swarm erupts from his mouth.
Hundreds upon hundreds of flying insects, that buzzing rising to a crescendo as more and more and more of them pour out of him.
A terrifying amount, an impossible amount, and there’s nothing I can do but lower him as gently as I can to the floor, staring in uncomprehending horror as the dark cloud of locusts fills the room.
Father Barrera awakens with a gasp on the cot in a medical room.
He struggles to sit up on the bed, and his hands tremble so much that Barnes has to lift a glass of water to his lips.
Perspiration beads on his forehead, and his breath is heavy.
But a few minutes after regaining consciousness, the old man finally steadies.
The MRF’s doctors assure us his vitals are steady, and it was shock that caused him to faint.
Cain is in a similar state. He lost consciousness shortly after the locust swarm but seems stable; I brought him back to his cell to sleep off the aftereffects, my gut twisting with guilt as I saw the burns the holy water left all over his pale skin.
I still don’t know what I regret more: stopping the exorcism before we could complete it or suggesting it in the first place.
“I’m sorry, Father, for interrupting you,” I say as the priest lowers the glass of water. “I thought… It seemed…” I shake my head, eyes lowering. “I was afraid it was going to kill him.”
He sighs. A heavy sound, and his shoulders slump with it, as if his body is deflating.
“You may have been right to fear that,” he says.
His voice sounds so much weaker now, his stooped shoulders so much narrower.
As though he shrank when the locusts left his body.
He coughs, and I suppress a grimace as I spot an insect’s leg stuck to his lip.
“I’ve never encountered anything of that magnitude before,” he says.
“I assumed we were dealing with a particularly strong demonic infestation. But…” His brow furrows.
“I think we—all of us—were mistaken about the nature of what we’re dealing with. ”
“Are you saying he’s not a demon?” I ask.
The priest is silent for a long moment. I want to ask again, but Barnes holds up a hand, and I bite my tongue.
“I believe we are dealing with a demonic presence,” he says. “Where we were mistaken, I believe, is in the nature of that presence. We assumed this was a case of possession. But I don’t think X-16 is possessed.”
“Then what?” I ask. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t believe there is a demonic presence within him,” the priest says. “I believe he is the demonic presence.”