“You mean dispel it?” Barb asked, raising her hands. “Didn’t you say they were hard to catch?”
“Just complicated,” Sharice corrected. “But, no, I mean turn off your Sight. You’ve Seen it. Now don’t See it. Suppress, as you did with your aura reading.”
Try as Barbara might, she could not get the drakni to disappear. She tried concentrating on it going away, which worked with auras. Nothing. Then she tried the Zen state which was required to read auras. Still the thing obstinately remained. And it appeared to find the whole thing very amusing, making occasional whistles of derision. It was getting annoying.
“Okay,” Sharice said, patiently. “Try this. This guy really is a total nothing. If he got loose there’d be one more seriously obese person in the US, which is already awash. He’s a total loser. Demons are like very stupid artificial intelligences. They have a simple program they follow. Dispel one of these guys and it’s like stamping on an ant. He’s nothing. Not worth your notice…”
“That worked,” Barb said as the demon slowly faded from view. She could feel the change in her brain. Concentrating on the demon again, he faded into view. Ignoring him caused him to disappear. “That works. But what if I’m in ignore mode and there’s something really deadly around?”
“Ever get one of those feelings where you just don’t like being somewhere?” Sharice asked. “The vibe is wrong?”
“Yes.”
“If you’d had Sight and opened it up, you’d have probably seen demons,” Sharice explained. “Probably a lot and probably more powerful than this fellow. But you could still sense them vaguely. If you get that feeling again, open up and check out your surroundings. I’ll give you a hint and we’ll practice it later. If you open up your Sight but keep suppressing your aura, which we worked on the last time, you can stay under their radar. Don’t look directly at them, don’t open up your power or use anything but Sight, and you can pick them out without them realizing it. If you want to challenge, just look straight at one and open up your power. But be warned, if there is more than one, they’re all going to get onto you. They can’t hurt you, but they’re annoying as hell.”
“Yeah, dealt with that already,” Barb admitted. “And if I attack one?”
“You?” Sharice said with a chuckle. “You’ll blow it apart. But once they’re attached, they sink a mystical barb into their target. If you blow one off of the person, they’ll just grow back. The only way to get rid of them is to have the person be willing to be exorcised. They’ve got to believe they’re there and they have to want to get rid of them. Note, really want and really believe. Otherwise it’s pointless.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Barb said, frowning. “That’s not the world of my God. You don’t mind if I experiment a bit, do you?”
“Feel free,” Sharice said. “Who knows. You might be able to blast one out of a person’s soul, with all the power you draw. Not sure what it would do to the person, mind you. And unless they had a change of heart, they’d be a ripe target for the next drakni of the same type they run across.”
“Where do they come from?” Barb asked. “I mean, from hell, obviously…”
“Hell might not be a there, but we’ll go with it,” Sharice said, smiling. “Besides, your own Holy Book clearly states that the earth was given over to Satan. But here on this plane, they get generated by lesser Mothers, minor versions of Tiamat, in other words. There aren’t a lot of those, comparatively, but getting rid of them is even harder than getting rid of drakni. They generally attach to a family, being handed down generation by generation. Each produces specific drakni.
“There is actually something of a sovereign remedy for drakni Mothers, drakia, in certain Christian beliefs,” Sharice said, frowning. “Let me see…Saints, saints.”
In the antechamber to the prison was a small bookcase. Sharice pulled a book down and flipped through the pages, looking for something.
“Alas, I don’t think it would help you, though,” she said, flipping back and forth. “Most of the saints whose patronage is possession aren’t recognized by the Episcopalian church.”
“We don’t do saints quite the same way Catholicism does it,” Barbara said. “But any port in a storm. Well, any reasonably Christian port in a storm.”
“Your best bet, if it works for your theology, is Saint Dymphna. She’s a Catholic saint for the possessed and anyone suffering from mental illness. Strange story. Her mother died, and her dad looked high and low for a woman who was as beautiful as his wife. Finding none, he noticed that his daughter was as beautiful.”
“Ick,” Barb said.
“Ick indeed. Story goes on, including fleeing to a far land and being tracked down by the father. Martyred herself to escape his attentions. The interesting aspect to it is that it was believed her father was possessed by a demon of lust.”
“And with what you’ve just told me, that’s distinctly possible,” Barbara said. “But he’d have had to be a pretty sick puppy to begin with.”
“So Dymphna, despite being an otherwise quite inoffensive creature, is reputed to have a real case of the butt with demons, especially drakni and drakni Mothers. I’d suspect the deep story is that it was a drakia who possessed him, and it may have been generational.”
“So I’m supposed to pray to St. Dymphna if I’m dealing with drakni?” Barbara asked. “That’s not really how Episcopalians handle things. More of a Catholic approach.”
“Not…exactly,” Sharice said, biting her lip. “I’m afraid to tread on your theology if I go further. My simple answer that should be inintrusive. Christian theology is a bit opaque to me sometimes.”
“Try me understanding Wicca,” Barb said.
“Point. Here’s the thing. And it’s simply the real and skinny. Your White God allegedly gave over the world to Satan, which means Satan’s troops, within limits, have free reign.”
“Because we have free will,” Barb said. “We can choose to resist.”
“Accepted,” Sharice said. “However, there are indicators that just as demons can possess, so can higher spirits. Angels and saints. There is historical basis for the latter.”
“If you’re saying you want me to call on St. Dymphna, who, if I get this right, was a teenage girl, to possess me, to help me fight drakni…”
“It’s more likely that she would possess someone similar to her,” Sharice said. “And it’s very hard to arrange. Extraordinarily rare. It would require someone who is pure of soul, about the right age, preferably has the right look, and who is in mortal danger from a demon. Preferably a similar one to the one that possessed Dymphna’s father. And it would probably require some type of…free pass? I’m trying to put this in Christian terminology. In pagan terms, it would require that the door be opened from both sides of the planes, that another entity opened the door for her to pass through. Not to mention a nod from the White God and acceptance of His Gift upon the part of the possessee. And you don’t have to have help to fight drakni. Or even drakni Mothers. But Dymphna would probably be able to wipe out a whole Legion of drakni Mothers. Or at least dispel them. Cast them back into the infernal realms. Of course some idiot would probably just summon them again, but it’s a point on our side. If a person became possessed of Dymphna and we found out about it, trust me, we’ll recruit her in a heartbeat.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Barb said. “Especially if I can stop seeing these things all over the place.”
“Now, this is just a gluttony demon. That’s not too bad. But there are others. All the usual sins, of course. Then there are anger demons, hate demons, lust, as in Dymphna’s father, and the worst, murder drakni.”
“Serial killers?” Barb asked.
“As far as I know, universally,” Sharice said. “Even the ones the FBI considers ‘common.’ Ted Bundy, a Legion, at least sixteen separate types including several flavors of murder drakni; Charles Manson, Son of Sam. I don’t actually know of one that wasn’t infested. But the point to remember is that they had to have an opening. The demons might have pushed them over the edge, but they had the desires and the interest. As you said, there is free will. The person has to be willing to take the demon into their soul. Whether they realize that willingness or not. And they have to choose to carry out the agenda of the demon.”
“So we don’t chase these?” Barb asked, incredulously. “They cause mayhem and death and they’re just off our radar screen?”
“Not always,” Sharice said. “But mostly. We just don’t have the time, Barb. You’ve been taking family time over the last few months. I’m not meaning to guilt you, but the rest of us have been stretched. We could have used a Level Three at least five times while you’ve been playing Suzy Homemaker down in Mississippi. A Level One can dispel a drakni if the possessee is willing. A priest that’s not even particularly holy can get rid of one. Drakni are training demons, mostly for sight and hearing as we’re doing here. Now, a drakni Mother might require a Level
