The priest watched as the little girl’s body rose from the floor, levitating above the hardwood floors, then crashing down with a sickening thud. The girl’s parents watched from the doorway, the mother screaming and the father doing his best to hold her back. The priest was young, barely into his twenties, and he was not going to lie, he was scared. The senior priest had left the city to attend a conference in another city and she would not be back for another two days. He was summoned by the family because their daughter had been sick for a long time and they believed the power of God would be able to pull her through. The child, who was 13, had been taken to various doctors for treatment but they could not find anything wrong with her. They said she was in perfect health, and that there wasn’t anything wrong with her.
As soon as she returned home, she had fainted, crashing hard to the floor. That’s when they summoned for the priest and they were surprised when the young man stepped through the threshold and into their house.
The young man could feel the change in the atmosphere when he stepped into the house; it was dark and oppressive, something was here and it was really powerful. It was so powerful that someone as inexperienced as him could sense it. He was alone, with no help arriving anytime soon and he could not wait. The dark that he sensed intended to claim the child.
He went to the child, finding her on the floor of her room. She had screamed, the sound was ear-splitting, it was impossible that it had come from the body of a little girl. And that’s when she rose off the ground, as if held in place by an invisible bed.
As she settled back onto the floor, he went to her parents. “I can save her. I just need some time.”
The mother stood silently, her eyes had dark bags under them and she seemed to have aged years in the space of a few hours. She stared silently at the priest, her eyes glassy, uncomprehending. He looked at the girl’s father. The man looked back at him, his dark hair dishevelled and his clothes were creased and crumpled. The face of a man who had seen too much too soon but he was awake.
“Is it the devil?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper, shaky and broken.
The priest looked at the man and said, “I’m not sure, but it is strong but I can save your daughter.”
The father looked at the priest, “Save my child.” His eyes gleamed with tears.
The priest nodded, and then stepped back into the room.
There was a new smell, slight but it was nevertheless there. He could not quite place the new scent. The priest wore a heavy silver chain with a thick cross pendent and now he placed it on the child’s forehead.
That’s when the screaming started.
It was unholy, piercing and sharp. If it were tangible, it could cut through diamond. The girl’s vocal chords seemed as if they might shatter and the muscles in her neck seemed to stand out, as if she were lifting an impossible weight. The scent seemed to increase tenfold, now almost overpowering. It was thick and seemed to fill the room. The priest tried not to gag on the smell of rotten eggs. Sulphur, he thought as the scent clicked in his mind. The air of Hell. Suddenly as if someone muted her speakers, the screaming stopped. The sudden silence was infinitely more terrifying than the horrifying screaming. The priest took a step back, the power filling the room was so intense. He stood on the balls of his feet, ready to move at the slightest hint of movement.
The sudden burst of sulphur was so strong that the priest almost fell to his knees, he could hear the parents screaming in the hallway.
He was almost through to the girl.
She rose suddenly, hovering above the floor, her eyes black and her face twisted and terrifying, her feet a good few inches above the wood.
“YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME?” it screamed in a deep, unearthly voice.
The priest bit his lip to keep from screaming, and the blood poured onto his white shirt.
“I dare,” he said, his voice cracking. “Are you afraid to face me? A mere human.”
The demon laughed, loud and booming, the sound made his bones vibrate and the hair on his hands stand out.
The girl collapsed again, but this time bonelessly, like a puppet who had its strings cut. The priest stepped back, his hands were sweaty, the silver chain slippery in his fingers. Suddenly a creature that could only be from Hell itself was in front of him. It was his height, a good two metres tall and lean. It was humanoid in shape. It was completely black, as if made from shadows. On its back were burnt and skeletal wings, twisted and broken. But that’s not part that was scary and terrifying. It was its eyes. There were grey and silver and they seemed to swirl. They were filled with despair, with hopelessness, with hate, with evil. They seemed to drag you in and trap you. The priest, this time, screamed, long and hard. The demon grabbed his throat, leaving burn marks that would never fade, the smell of burning flesh filling the room, competing with the sulphur.
The priest screamed again, the pain excruciating. But through gritted teeth, he threaded the silver chain, which he somehow kept a hold off, through the demon’s hands and he spoke, his voice barely a whisper, “I bind you to me, for eternity. I claim you, demon, in the name of God.”
The demon screamed, cursing and fighting the bindings but bindings in silver were made to last.
It screamed, a howl of despair and hate and vanished.
The pain was so excruciating that the priest had gone unconscious, but before the black claimed him, the door crashed open and two figures emerged. There were dressed in all black, armed with guns and knives and what seemed to be heavy body armour.
“The b*****d claimed a demon,” said one of the figures, sounding almost impressed.
“We can discuss this later, let’s get him out of here.”
Then the black claimed the priest.
