I felt Rafe’s hand gathering mine in his as he felt my unbidden thoughts and the emotional pain that came with it. Rafe’s own emotions were soothing and understanding. Taking a breath, I released the emotion with my exhale. My memories of my grandfather were mostly of joy and love. I wouldn’t sully his memory with grieving so many years after his passing.
We followed the Monsignor and Beverly down a hallway toward the back of the rectory. At the end of the hall, past a kitchen and a small den, was a stout oaken door, stained dark, with a carved crucifix mounted at eye level. Beverly opened the door, flicked on lights, and aided the old priest across the room to a leather, wheeled, chair on the far side.
Rafe preceded us into the room and the three of us stopped at the entrance. The room wasn’t like anything I’d seen in my short life. Religious symbols adorned the walls, the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim ones I could recognize, but there were at least a half dozen more that I’d never seen before. Heavy curtains covered what must have been windows, or maybe doors. Both the floor and ceiling were inscribed with what I’d learned was a pentacle, not something I expected to see in a priest’s residence. Around the pentacle in the floor was a thick circle of inlaid wood.
Besides the Monsignor’s chair, there were a dozen, straight-back wooden chairs arranged evenly against the wall.
Beverly, after seeing that her charge was seated, made a half bow to him, walked past us, out of the room, and closed the door behind her.
The Monsignor cleared his throat noisily as though clearing congestion and said, “Now, Raphael, if you will take a seat in the center of the pentacle, I’ll see what I can do to help you.”
Rafe nodded, walked to the center of the room, and sat cross-legged on the bare floor.
“What about Cris and me?” I asked.
The old man nodded and said, “You may take any chair you’d like. Just remember that once I start you are not to leave your chair and especially not to enter the circle.”
“Yes, sir,” Cris said.
At a glance, Cris and I went to the two chairs nearest the priest and sat down.
I realized Rafe was watching me and I noticed his emotions had become worrisome. He was nervous, something I rarely felt in him.
*It’ll be all right, Boss,* I thought. *The Monsignor must know what he’s doing.*
I felt Rafe trying to relax. The Monsignor said something I didn’t understand and my connection to Rafe was cut off.
Alarmed, I activated my senses tat and immediately realized the old man had created a circle in the center of the room. In my enhanced vision, the dome of energy shimmered with a white light. At the same time, I saw that Rafe was grimacing in pain.
“Rafe, are you all right?” Cris asked, having also noticed his pain.
Rafe nodded. “I’m okay.”
“It’s a reaction between the night magic that has infected him and the power of the circle. Evil cannot survive inside this circle, but it’s not going to be vanquished easily,” the Monsignor said.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” I asked.
The old man gazed at me and I saw that his previously rheumy eyes had cleared.
“If you are religious, you might try praying,” he said.
“Ah, yes sir.” I hadn’t prayed much over the last few years. There were a few times in Afghanistan, and then the two times I thought Rafe was dead for good. I’d rarely thought of asking God for help. I felt that a deity had better things to do than to concern himself with my everyday life and I tried to save prayer for the truly desperate times. I studied Rafe and understood that the Monsignor thought that this was one of those times.
I kept my eyes on Rafe, while I began to pray.
On the opposite side of the Monsignor, I saw that Cris’s lips were moving in a silent prayer of her own.
The old man began chanting, in that same language he’d used to activate the circle. At first, I didn’t notice anything happening, but then I saw that the glow of the circle’s dome was brightening.
Rafe moaned and bent over.
I felt sweat running down my sides beneath my leathers.
The circle’s glow increased steadily over the next few minutes until I finally cancelled my senses tat and found that I could still see the glow. Without the tat active, I could no longer see Rafe beneath the energy dome. Alarmed, I triggered the tat again and could once more see my mentor beneath the shield of energy. He was still bent over and in obvious pain.
I gritted my teeth in empathy and wondered whether Rafe would survive the Monsignor’s treatment.
Suddenly, Rafe’s head snapped back and his mouth opened in a silent scream. A blackness oozed from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. It rose out of him and merged into a single black ovoid that floated above him. Hanging in space, it quivered as though alive.
The Monsignor said something else I didn’t understand. There was a pulsing in the circle’s glow, followed immediately by an analogous pulsing in the black orb.
Rafe’s head dropped almost to
