THE NUN
Valerion has been a constant presence at the convent every time we have a case of demonic possession.
Yet in all the years I’ve known him, he has never changed.
No wrinkles or new lines on his face. No grey hairs.
Nothing. He still has the youthful appearance of a twenty-something-year-old even though, by my calculations, he should be over fifty—at least as far as I’ve known him.
But given his experience and the ease with which he deals with those demons, I have come to wonder whether he is at all human.
Perhaps he is an angel sent from above to help us fight this plight that’s taken over the land.
Over the years, the cases of possession have multiplied. Whereas before most of them would turn out to be hoaxes, now almost every case is real. And Valerion appears, doing his duty of getting rid of that evil.
Tonight, however, is unlike any case we’ve had before. Perhaps because it did not start as a case at all.
When an entourage of three Franciscan friars showed up on our doorstep, all the sisters were curious. It was a first, and while we’ve heard of the existence of some in nearby towns, they’d never come to our convent before.
Immediately, Sister Prudence arranged for a rich meal, and we all welcomed them to the dining hall as best we could.
Franciscans are known for their repudiation of all material goods, and they live solely from the charity and goodwill of others. The other sisters and I were very curious about the tales they could tell us.
Yet what started as a rather normal dinner with plenty of stories and anecdotes soon turned into something far more sinister.
“Sister Prudence, was it not?” Frey Antonio intones as he gazes at the assortment of food she’d laid out on the table for him.
“Yes.” She smiles. She busies herself, moving a bread basket closer to him. But just as she lays it by his plate, his hand brushes over hers ever so gently. She’s startled. He merely looks intently at her.
“Your mother is ill, yes?” he asks in a low voice.
Silence descends in the dining hall. All the nuns turn to stare at the exchange. The other two friars don’t seem very surprised. In fact, each one turns to the nun next to them and engages in conversation.
What’s a little uncomfortable is the way they do it. They all lightly touch the nuns’ hands.
Perhaps I am reading far too much into it, but surely that touch is not required, nor is it something a friar would do?
“H-how did you know?” Sister Prudence asks.
He smiles softly. “I know a great many things.”
“Oh.”
“Sit. Tell me about her,” he advises.
Surprised, but not at all displeased, Sister Prudence takes a seat next to Frey Antonio and proceeds to tell him about her mother.
I watch stupefied as she recounts details no one else has heard in the convent—with an unnatural ease and lack of discomfort. As if Frey Antonio were not a stranger who does not need to know this about her.
I turn to the other friars and note similar conversations happening around the table.
Frey Miguel engages Sister Mary about the difficult birth of her niece just a few months ago. The little girl has been sickly since birth, and the midwife does not believe she will make it through the winter.
Tears flow down Sister Mary’s cheeks as she tells him the many times she’s tried to pray to God, to appeal to him to save the little girl, but instead her situation has just gotten worse.
In this short exchange between the two of them, the friar has managed to get Sister Mary to admit to having doubts about God, about her faith, and even about her calling as a nun.
On the other side of the table, Frey Pedro probes at Sister Celine’s insecurities, too, getting her to confess she misses her family and that she might have made a wrong choice in taking the veil. Sister Celine is young, only twenty-two, so it makes sense why she would have doubts.
But the way Frey Pedro coaxes the confession out of her is . . . odd.
“Why did you take the veil, Sister Celine?” Frey Pedro asks, his hand atop hers.
She’s staring into his eyes, almost hypnotized. She doesn’t blink as she responds, “I married at eighteen. But my husband turned out to be a bigamist. He had another family before he married me. Our marriage was annulled, and his wife made it her mission to destroy my reputation back home.”
“Do you still love that man?”
She releases a low sob. “Yes.”
“If he had not been already married, a bigamist, you would not have taken your vows, would you?”
“No,” she chokes out.
“Would you like him back? Would you like him to be yours and only yours?”
“Frey Pedro, I do not think this is a proper conversation,” I interject.
“No one asked you,” he counters in a rough voice before turning to Sister Celine and being all smiles.
My mouth opens in shock. He continues to press her with the questions until he has what he wants.
“Yes, I would like him back if only he were mine and mine alone . . .”
“What would you do to make that a reality?” he asks smoothly.
“Anything,” she whispers. “I would do anything.”
“Even give up your soul?”
There’s a split second of silence as I think she’s not going to answer that. But then she does.
“Yes.”
One word. The air becomes thick and suffocating. Frey Pedro’s lips curl in a malicious smile.
“As you wish,” he mentions. Using a knife, he makes a cut diagonally on his palm. He hands it to Sister Celine to do the same, and she does, without question.
As Frey Pedro extends his hand toward her, I get a strong feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach.
“Sister Celine,” I say as I reach for her. But she shies away from me.
She has her back to me, her attention wholly focused on Frey Pedro. And slowly, she shakes his hand, their blood mingling together.
And they are not the only ones.
Around the table, the other two friars do the same with Sister Mary and Sister Prudence before smiling sweetly and engaging the other sisters in conversation.
“What is going on here?” I demand, shooting to my feet.
Frey Antonio’s expression changes from a pleasant one to one filled with malice. He gets up from his place at the dinner table and comes to my side, taking a seat next to me.
“Sister Agatha, was it not?” There is a strange lull to his voice. The words are suspicious—the same questions have been posed to the other nuns before they gave in to this madness.
And yet, I cannot stop myself from replying.
“Yes, it is.”
“Lovely convent you have here,” he continues, and with each spoken word, my body relaxes more. My mind, too, stops questioning why this is wrong.
“Yes, very lovely,” I reply mechanically.
My mind is screaming at me that it is not lovely, that I should leave, but I cannot seem to do so.
“Ah, I see. You lost someone.”
I blink. H-how does he know?
“Yes,” I reply—once more without truly meaning to.
“Your child and your . . .” he pauses, “lover.”
“Yes.”
“You can get them back, you know.”
Fighting this maddening pull he has on me, I manage to say something that goes against what I should say, what he wants me to say.
“But they’re dead. I cannot get them back.”
He narrows his eyes.
“I can bring them back for you.”
“W-what? Impossible.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “Nothing is impossible for me. They—” he motions toward the other two friars—“can solve matters of the heart, cure illnesses, but only I can bring the dead back.”
“Surely that is against Christian doctrine.”
“Na?ve child,” he laughs. “Did the Bible not speak of resurrection? I am merely precipitating the timeline.”
Something inside me tells me to shut this conversation down, to tell him I am not interested, that he and his strange friends need to go. But even as I open my mouth to demand that they leave, no sound comes out.
I keep staring at him, and suddenly, my head is inundated with images. Me, Elroy, our child. I can see us caring for the baby, loving him. I can see Plum growing up . . .
I gulp down. What is this? What is happening?
“We can make a deal,” the friar continues. “And all those dreams will come true.”
He grabs the knife from my side and makes an incision across his palm. Belatedly, I note that the previous wound had healed—unnaturally fast.
He gives me the knife to do the same.
“Do it. Say yes. Your soul for your dreams,” he murmurs in a low, seductive voice.
I feel the pull of his words. The yearning inside of me rises to the surface with such an astounding force it becomes my reigning emotion. There’s nothing else but this deep longing—for my beloved, for our child, for the life we never had.
I can no longer think rationally. I am driven only by feeling.
Grabbing the knife, I press the blade into my flesh until blood pools to the surface.
Frey Antonio stares at me expectantly, silently willing me to continue.
“Say the word,” he murmurs. “Say it.”
I open my mouth to speak just as I extend my hand forward to clasp his. But before our hands can touch, before our blood can mingle, someone grabs my arm and wrenches it back.
The jolt is enough to bring some sense into me. I glance back and note it’s Valerion.
When had he come here?
“Do not,” he states in a harsh voice. “He will consume your soul.”
I stare at him. I can hear the words, but I have a hard time registering the meaning behind them.
“I need it,” I whisper. “I need Elroy and Plum back.”
“Sister Agatha, if you take the deal, your soul will forever be obliterated. It will become a part of this demon.”
“What are you doing here?” Frey Antonio asks as he stares Valerion down. “This is not your territory.”
Valerion cursorily glances at the friar, an icy gaze that instantly shuts him up.
“He cannot bring your fiancé and baby back. Their souls are already in the afterlife. The only way for you to meet them again is in another incarnation.”
“Another incarnation . . . ?” I whisper.
He nods. “When you die, your soul will be measured based on your deeds, good and bad, and you will serve time accordingly in the afterlife before the Fates decide if you’re worthy of another incarnation.”
“But how would I meet Elroy and Plum again then? What if we never get reincarnated at the same time? What if they don’t remember me? What if—” The question dies on my tongue as I glance back at Frey Antonio.
Wrenching my arm from Valerion’s hold, I tentatively reach forward toward the friar.
“Sister Agatha,” Valerion calls my name.
“You cannot stop her, Vitry. You know as well as I do that even we cannot interfere with free will. It is her decision to make.” The friar smiles triumphantly.
“Perhaps I cannot do anything now, but I can still ensure you won’t see another day,” Valerion declares.
I gulp down, thoroughly confused by what’s happening. I don’t know what I should do. I only know that there’s this gaping hole inside my chest, that my entire being yearns to be reunited with my loved ones.
“I will ensure you are reunited with your beloved in the next life,” Valerion suddenly says. “I will ensure he remembers you.”
“But you will still require something in exchange for your help, so is this not the same?” the friar drawls. “At least I can bring back your beloved now, not in any future life.”
“I will not require your soul in exchange for it, Sister Agatha. If you agree to his deal, you will be forever damned. This way, your soul will be saved, and you will meet your beloved again. I vow it,” Valerion intervenes.
I glance between the two of them.
One promises immediate results in exchange for my soul.
The other promises future results, but in exchange for what?
“And what will you require of me?” I ask in a soft voice.
“Yes, Vitry. Tell the nun what you’ll require of her,” Frey Antonio says with a laugh.
Valerion takes a deep breath. “Five evil souls of your choosing. Deliver them to me, and our deal will be fulfilled.”
Frey Antonio snorts. “Five souls. I’m asking for one.”
He’s right. What Valerion is saying . . . he’s asking me to kill people, isn’t he? I don’t think I am capable of that.
I’m about to shake Frey Antonio’s hand when Valerion speaks again.
“He is asking for one soul. Yours. And if you give it to him now, what will you give your beloved? He will be all alone in the universe, going through incarnation after incarnation without ever finding his person. Is that what you want for him?”
My lashes flutter in surprise. Something within me resonates with his words, and before I can make a conscious decision, I pivot and grasp Valerion’s hand.
“I accept the terms.”
He closes his eyes, pressing his lips together as if in pain.
“So be it. A deal is a deal.”
“You cannot do this!” Frey Antonio bursts out. The other friars join him as they confront Valerion. “You cannot steal our prey just like that.”
“Free will, is it not, Desmond?” Valerion raises a brow at him.
Pulling me behind him, he creates a sword from dark particles of energy. Before the other friars can attack him, he cuts each of them in two.
Right in front of my eyes, the friars disintegrate, their bodies becoming beacons of dark energy that funnel straight into Valerion’s palm. As he looks around the room, he snaps his fingers, and the other nuns enter a deep sleep.
I exhale loudly, a sense of relief overwhelming me. My mind instantly clears. My feelings are no longer in control, but I fear it is too late.
I glance warily at Valerion as I realize what I should have known all along. He is not human. He is a demon, too?
I just made a deal with a demon.
“I am sorry for everything, Sister Agatha. I should have known they would wander in here,” he says gravely.
“W-what were they?”
“Mid-level demons. They have their own physical form and different gifts. These three in particular had the gift of uncovering a person’s deepest desire, and they used that to exploit it and buy themselves souls.”
“But if they’re demons, what are you?”
He smiles sadly. “I did not want to introduce myself this way. I am not human, you are correct. But I am not a demon either.”
My eyes widen. He’s reading my mind?
“Correct.” He chuckles. “I go by different names. Some people call me a demon, others a god. My mother comes from a long line of purebred demons, but my father is a primordial god of nether. In a way, you could say I am neutral.”
“And we made a . . . deal?”
“Yes,” he answers grimly. “I do not usually engage in these types of deals, but I like you, Sister Agatha. I would have hated to see your soul consumed by a puny demon. As per our terms, you will meet Elroy and Plum again in another life. Elroy will remember you, too. I will make sure of it.”
“I just have to give you five evil souls?”
He nods.
“But how?”