Corruption Ch. 02

Cleaning and cooking, wiping noses and bottoms and washing clothes, endlessly it had seemed, picking up and carrying the little ones and the constant noise, the constant demands ... she'd felt her life was being used up too fast, that she would soon be as old and grey-looking as her mother.

She'd never asked, she thought, staring down at the floor. Never once asked why. Perhaps that was the arrogance of youth, that she'd believed she'd known and had no need to ask. She wished, briefly and fiercely, that she could ask now. If her mother had been seduced by touches like those with which Father Martin had caressed her body the previous evening ...

The service concluded and she stood with the others, shuffling from the chapel automatically toward the rooms that Sister Amelia had for her herbal work. She would put those thoughts aside, she thought, lifting her chin and straightening her back. She would study and work hard and this evening when it came time to see Father Martin again ... her thoughts faltered and the restless heat between her thighs stirring a little uncomfortably.

She would learn more then, she told herself. What else could she do?

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Gage stared at the man's hands, bound tightly to the thick iron arms of the carver-styled chair, clenched and trickling blood along the creases as he spoke the Invocato of the Rituale Romanum, his personal prayer to the archangel, Michael.

"Priinceps gloriosissime cælestis militiæ, sancte Michaël Archangele, defende nos in prælio et colluctatione, quæ nobis adversus principes et potestates, adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum ..."

His voice was deep and measured, the Latin flowing and punctuated with passion as he asked the angel for his strength and purity.

In the chair, the villager, Henry, snarled and spat at him, his eyes red-tinted and filled with shadow as he tried to force the exorcist to look at him.

"Our Lord is here," he said, sending a spray of spittle across the floor. "You can banish me, you can tear me limb from limb, but you cannot touch him, no, no, no, he is all-powerful, all-mighty, and he will crush you, all of you!"

Gage ignored the outburst as he'd been ignoring the others before it. He repeated the prayer to Michael, and lifted his head, his eyes almost closed as he called out the psalm.

"Qui habitat in protectione Altissimi, sub umbra Omnipotentis commorabitur. Dicet Domino: Susceptor meus es, et refugium meum: Deus meus, sperabo in eum. Quoniam ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium –"

The words thundered into the small church's crypt, rebounding from the stone walls and floor, filling the space completely.

Henry swung his head from side to side, the veins in his forehead bulging and sweating pattering to the floor as he strained against the bonds of the iron and the chair and the Hebrew trap that encircled him.

"– et a verbo aspero. Scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi, et sub pennas eius confugies; scutum et lorica veritas eius," Gage continued, his awareness focussed onto compelling the help of the divine in this struggle, shutting out the demon's antics.

"You enjoy the sins of the flesh, I can see it in your memories, churchman! Give me your cock," Henry screamed. "I'll suck you to Paradise and back, down this wide, wide throat and you'll come for an hour, more satisfied than any bitch on the earth has ever made you!"

The hunter paused, cocking a brow at the blackened ceiling. "That's quite a boast, demon, considering you don't know how well satisfied I've been," he said flippantly, his mouth lifting at one corner as he heard the demon thrashing in the chair.

"Non timebis a timore nocturno; neque a sagitta volat interdiu, Quam magnificata sunt opera tua, Domine vastat in meridie, et in interitum. Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis; ad ..."

"I know you," Henry whispered, his voice hoarse and bubbling. "I know what scars lie inside you, churchman, what you have done to your soul."

Gage's jaw tightened and he forced himself to remain still, to keep his gaze fixed on the low ceiling above him. Demons could prise secrets from men's minds. He continued the psalm and visualised the walls that surrounded his weaknesses thickening and growing, and he heard the demon's laughter behind him.

"Te autem non appropinquabit tibi. Verumtamen oculis tuis considerabis et retributionem peccatorum videbis."

"And now for the fun part," he added, swinging around to take the purple stole from Webster and the bottle of holy water. "You shall depart this man, leave his soul intact and return to the pit from whence you came," he said, flicking the bottle's end at the man bound to the chair.

The water fell in an arc of droplets over Henry, and where each hit, a spot of the man's flesh blackened and sizzled, thin tendrils of smoke rising. The demon screamed, and blood burst from Henry's throat as the blood vessels burst with the pressure on them, coating his chin and shirt front in brilliant red.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare," Gage said, his voice deepening as the ritual seemed to shake the air in the room and the demon in front of him squirmed and writhed. He shook the holy water over it again, clamping down on the thin thread of satisfaction he took at watching it burn. It didn't pay to enjoy the job too much.

"Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis. Humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt."

"Your mother lies in her grave, the worms working their way through her and she knows who put her there, Gage!" the demon shrieked.

"Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire te rogamus, audi nos. Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos!"

"I'll give it to you, I'll fuck you stupid, you begging for more of my fat, hard cock in your mouth and up your ass," Henry roared, arching up against the bonds around wrists and ankles as the holy water spattered over his face and his skin boiled and began to slough free, dropping to the floor with moist splats. "You long to be punished, hunter, long for the fire and the pain! Long to be held down and degraded and humiliated in payment for WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!"

"Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo. Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi Suae. Benedictus deus. Gloria patri," Gage thundered at the demon, the stole in one hand, the bottle discarded and an iron cross, encrusted in blessed salt, in the other. He strode forward into the trap and held the cross to the man's forehead, teeth gritting together as the demon forced a rising scream from the man's throat, more capillaries exploding under the strain and sending another gout of blood from Henry's mouth.

Against his skin the cross was burning in, deeper and deeper, the smell of roasting meat nauseatingly mixed with charring bone as the cross pressed harder and the skull began to smoulder.

"LEAVE THIS MAN!"

"Fuck ME!" the demon roared back at him.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," Gage bellowed, leaning further over the possessed man. "LEAVE THIS MAN!"

Under Henry's skin and bone, a light flickered, brightening unbearably to a searing corona of vermillion that throbbed uncomfortably just out of time with their hearts, then disappeared. Henry slumped forward and Gage removed the cross, passing it to his left hand as he reached forward to touch the man's neck, feeling along the side for the artery. Under his fingers, there was a pulse, beating slowly but steadily and he let out his breath, stepping back out of the trap carefully and turning to look at Webster.

"He's alive."

"Only just," Webster said, looking at the blood and burns over the man, then turning his gaze to his friend. "Are you alright?"

Gage's gaze cut away as he shrugged. "I'm fine." He glanced at the door to the crypt. "Only another three to go."

Webster's face screwed up a little at the prospect. "I'll get Donato. He can take care of the wounded."

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The inn was beginning to fill and Donato led them to the back room, an office behind the kitchen. Walking in behind the burly man, Gage glanced around. It held a large desk and a couple of armchairs in front of a fire lit on the small hearth. Shelving hid the remainder of the walls of the room, filled with books and artefacts, manuscripts and journals and loose sheaves of papers, all thrust any which way into whatever gaps were available. It looked like the Monseigneur's office, he thought tiredly.

"They need protection or we'll be doing this all week," Donato said without preamble as Webster pulled the door closed behind them.

"You know the wards," Gage said, dropping into the armchair by the fire and rubbing both hands over his face. He stunk of blood and bile and the herbs they burned to keep the demons contained, grimacing internally with distaste. He wanted a bath. Long. Hot. Alone. "Paint the houses."

"I will not put my family at risk, Gage," Donato said to him, walking behind the desk and sitting in the big carver there as Webster took the other armchair.

"Then hire a few peasants," Gage snapped back at him, too tired to care. "Or watch more of your people die in the night when the mist rises. Your choice."

The older man's face darkened and Webster cut in hurriedly, "Donato, we need six people, young, fit. And we need them now, we have only a couple of hours until sunset and there is no time to find the source and seal it up tonight."

"Aye," Donato said unwillingly. "Rafe will find you your helpers, Webster." He turned his gaze back to the hunter slumped in the other chair. "I'm sorry. What you did today, both of you, I couldn't have done it any more and I know what it took."

"Forget it."

"I'm trying to make amends –"

Gage lifted his head and looked at him. "None are needed. If we can protect the village tonight, tomorrow we'll check out the marsh and find that mothering gate and seal it for good. We still have no idea of the demon called or its strength."

"Whichever one it is, it's no small fry," Donato said, leaning back in the chair and reaching for a bottle on the shelf behind him. "Just its summoning was enough to crack the area around the gate, and at least two of those you sent back to the pit today were powerful in their own right, you said?" He looked at Webster who nodded.

"There's no doubt that it's one of the higher level hellspawn," Gage told him, leaning forward to take the proffered glass. "The question is – which one? And how high?"

Webster and Donato exchanged a glance.

"We could trap a demon, in the mist, tonight," Webster suggested. "I have the Flagellum with us."

"Not tonight," Gage said. "That will take both of us, at full strength. Which neither of us are right now."

"But –"

"The village will be protected," Gage cut his partner off. "Tomorrow, we'll see the convent and find the gate. If we haven't gotten any further than that, we'll trap one tomorrow evening."

He tossed back the fiery amber liquid the glass held and looked down at himself. "I will leave the wards and guards to you two," he told them, getting to his feet. "I could use a bath."

Turning away, he walked to the door without looking back. In the office, Donato looked across at Webster, brows raised.

"What's that all about then?"

"The exorcisms were not easy, my friend," Webster said, his expression uneasy. "He didn't give in to the demons but they got to him, I think."

The older man ducked his head, and poured another measure into his glass, leaning over the desk to refill Webster's as well. "Perhaps he has served long enough."

"Perhaps," Webster agreed. He didn't think Gage would ever voluntarily retire. Demons lied. But not always. When the truth was a more effective weapon, they told it, and drank the pain the cuts delivered. Today, the first demon had managed to draw Gage's blood before it'd been sent down. The others had drunk their fill from the pain the hunter hadn't been able to contain.

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Angeline smiled as Gage came through the door of the room, the candlelight that filled the room gleaming softly on her skin and hair as she waved a hand toward the high-sided copper tub standing by the hearth. Steam rose fragrantly from the surface of the hot water and she walked toward him, reaching out for his coat.

"Not tonight," he told her, attempting to make the dismissal sound gentle. "Go and tend to someone else this evening."

"What's wrong?" she asked, her plump lips puckering into a pout as she set her hands on her hips.

"I don't feel like company," he said, taking off his coat and leather vest and dropping them onto the bed. "That's all, no need to make a song and dance over it."

"You look tired," she said, switching tactics and he looked down at the floor, huffing out an exhale in frustration.

"I am tired," he agreed, catching her wrist as she sidled closer. "And tonight I will sleep. Alone. So off you go."

For a moment, he thought she was going to argue further and he was all too aware that his small store of patience was almost depleted. But she swung around, pulling her arm free of his grip and flounced from the room, the roll of her hips speaking volumes, the slam of the bedroom door adding an exclamation to her state of mind.

He pulled his boots off and let them fall to the floor, then unbuckled his belt and pants, dragging them off and leaving them in a pile on top of his boots. Getting up, he unbuttoned his shirt as he walked to the tub, testing the water's warmth with his fingertips. The shirt dropped where he stood and he climbed into the tub, the heat savage against his skin for a long moment, then becoming bearable as he got used to it. Settling himself against the high back, he closed his eyes and tried to keep his mind blank as the water worked its magic against the ache of his body.

There was nothing he could do about his past. It could not be undone, not a single action nor thought nor word. He could only try to make amends, to restore a balance of good over evil.

It wasn't enough, he thought, his throat closing a little. It would never be enough.

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