Authors: Enrique Laso
"We've had a miraculous escape," said Andrés, who'd just sworn to himself never to set foot in that house ever again as long as he lived.
Rodrigo let out a guttural scream that attracted the attention of the few people that were out at that time.
"Yes! Fuck! Yes! I've shat in my pants but it was well worth it to have an experience like that."
"Well, at least we know who's the smart guy that'll pick up all the equipment from that bloody hellhole," murmured Andrés.
Suddenly, both men turned their attention to the woman. She looked confused, as if in a trance. She seemed to be repeating something quietly, over and over, but it was impossible to make out what she was saying.
"Elena, are you ok?" asked Rodrigo, scared but at the same time worried about her.
"We're out to get you. We're out to get you. We're out to get you" replied the parapsychologist, clearly this time.
E
steban and Father Salas were in the church, by the side of the main altar. There they had laid out various items that had belonged to Carlos and Laura, on a stand.
"Will this be enough?" asked Esteban, who wished with all his soul that the ritual and every effort they were making would end up achieving something.
"I think so. This is the first time in my life that I've done this kind of exorcism. To be honest, I feel very insecure and lost, but God gives me confidence."
The priest was wearing the same white chasuble and the purple stole that he'd worn in Mexico, in his long gone days as an exorcist. It had not been easy for him to don those protective garments again.
"What am I supposed to do now?"
Father Salas gave Esteban a book open at a particular page.
"Pray. You must repeat these psalms over and over while I do the rest of the work."
"I will."
"Please, start reading. The exorcism has just begun."
Esteban was nervous and restless. His broken voice would hardly fill the temple, which was absolutely empty. Meanwhile, Father Salas began sprinkling Carlos's and Laura's belongings, whilst tightly holding a medal of Saint Benedict.
After two hours, both men were drained, but they kept going on. Evening had fallen over the city of Madrid and inside the church there was very little light, and yet neither of them moved to light a candle or turn on a light.
"When's something going to happen?" asked Esteban, who noticed that his tiredness was beginning to wear down his resistance.
"I don't know. We could spend days, even weeks like this, without anything visible happening. But believe me, the battle has already started."
"But how will we know that we've won?"
"We will. It's hard to explain, but I hope you'll be able to understand it too. I also hope that Elena and her friends can give us a hand."
Father Salas put a silver crucifix, set in a cube of solid wood, near the belongings, and at that precise moment a sort of thunder came from outside and startled both men. All of a sudden, thousands of insects began hitting against the glass windows of the small church.
"What's that?" asked Esteban gripped with fear.
"Flies. Those are flies, Esteban, my friend."
" What? What does that mean?"
" It means we are on the right track."
E
lena had been able to sleep for a couple of hours. She felt much better, less dazed. Her good friend, Andrés, was sitting at the edge of her bed and was watching her.
"What happened?" the parapsychologist asked, still a bit confused.
"You really don't remember anything?"
"No, not really. There are blurred images that are going around in my mind..."
"You found it, dammit, you found what we were looking for."
Andrés gave her the little black book with the golden pentagram on the cover.
"It's all coming back to me now."
"You went a bit mad. You were repeating incoherent phrases, until we somehow brought you home and you finally fell asleep."
"I was very, very scared."
"To be honest, you didn't seem to be. The ones going out of our minds with fear were Rodrigo and me."
"I think I was as terrified as you, but I was also enraged, I wanted to defeat evil, to take revenge after so much suffering."
"Well, here's your prize."
Andrés pointed at the book, smiling. He too needed to get some sleep, but he knew he couldn't while Elena was still rambling. For a moment, both Rodrigo and him had feared that the
entity
that entered her body.
"Oh my God, I must get to the church as soon as I can. Father Salas will have started the exorcism already, and he'll need this information."
"Please give yourself a few more minutes. After all this, a few more minutes won't make any difference. I think he'll actually be surprised that we've found this damned book so easily."
Elena lay down again and felt her head still spinning, as if she'd drank too much the night before.
"You're right. I'll rest a little more. But we'll definitely go to the church tonight."
"Definitely. Promise."
Andrés left the room, leaving his friend alone again. He would now indulge in some sleep, even if only for two or three hours. He really needed it.
Elena closed her eyes, but she immediately thought of the book. She opened it at the page that had been marked, the same page where she'd discovered that what was written there was a ritual to do a deal with the Devil. As soon as she started to read the first paragraph, the page lit up with a strange reddish glow that frightened her.
«This can't be... What's going on? Am I dreaming again?».
Before her bewildered eyes the image of Ana appeared, which then turned into the horrible being she'd seen reflected in her flat's window. That skull was laughing like mad, as if the situation was deeply amusing. And then, an even more terrible creature appeared among flames: a horrendous beast, with several heads and hideous insects' legs, and enormous bat-like wings flapping on its back. The thing then went towards the image of the architect and, with a brutal blow of its indescribable limbs, destroyed its skull. And then, the disgusting beast turned around and stared at her. Elena was paralyzed by an even deeper terror than she'd been gripped by at Carlos's flat. One of the beast's heads was like that of an enormous, misshaped fly. The head suddenly began to mutate, and from among the filth appeared, little by little, the kind, trustworthy face of Father Salas. At that point, Elena couldn't help letting out a scream of pain, anxiety and infinite repugnance.
F
ather Salas was now alone in the temple. He missed Esteban, but Elena had insisted that he returned to her once he'd delivered the book with the satanic rites, and the priest had not objected. He'd asked Esteban why she had not come to the church herself, and her only excuse had been her total exhaustion.
«She might have somehow realised that there are dangers I should best face alone», the priest said to himself.
He opened the little black book and read the page that had been marked. He understood that Alicia had indeed sealed a deal with the Evil One to give him her daughter. But he also understood why Elena had chosen to stay away, not just from the temple, but in fact, from him: she'd discovered the evil, the dark being that was roaming inside him.
«I cannot reproach that woman in any way. Least of all, that she wishes to stay prudently away from myself. There are plenty of good reasons to do so».
After studying the book for hours, Father Salas realised what he was facing. He now knew what he had to do, how to save the souls of Carlos and Laura. The satanic manual and the wise advise of Father Gabriele had finally shown him the path to follow.
He knelt in front of the altar and recited several prayers to prepare himself for the hard task ahead. He knew he was about to commit true sacrilege, that he was going to expose himself like he'd never done before, and he hoped God would understand his actions and forgive the insubordinate attitude of his servant. He trusted His endless goodness and he left his future in the hands of His supreme will.
He didn't take off the chasuble, but he did remove the stole from his shoulders, and he carefully placed the Saint Benedict medal on the floor. He lifted his eyes to the crucified Christ that presided over the church and he silently recited a last psalm. After that, his face changed completely and his expression became hard.
"Baal, I summon thee!" Salas shouted at the top of his lungs.
He waited in deep silence. He knew it wasn't likely that the Evil One, his acolytes and their various forms dared to manifest themselves in the house of the Lord. To try and make things easier, he walked away from the altar and stood in the middle of the aisle between the wooden benches for the parishioners.
"Baal, I summon thee!" he exclaimed again.
This time he only had to wait for a few seconds. And then, millions of flies burst through the temple's back windows and thundered in. The swarm gathered right in front of the priest, in a dark, buzzing mass. Slowly, that mass changed, and became more defined before the Mexican priest's terrified eyes. And then, what seconds earlier had been millions of flies huddling together became an immense beast with several heads, wings and dozens of horrendous limbs.
"What do you want, human?" asked the beast with a deafening, guttural voice that made the walls of the church tremble.
"You already know what I have summoned you for" mused Father Salas in a trance.
The beast moved one of its heads until it was right in front of the priest's face. It looked like a ram's head with the jaws of a wild cat. Its fetid, acid smell was slowly burning the Mexican's larynx and lungs.
"Are you sure of your offering?" asked the fiend, showing unexpected consideration towards him.
"Absolutely," Salas whispered.
"In that case, I will do as you wish."
Tiny black snakes sprung from the fiend's limbs and soon they were crawling all over the priest's body. They rushed to his eyes and mouth, and then unceremoniously entered Father Salas's body, who for a few seconds could feel how, like hundreds of blades, the tiny reptiles got under his skin. He could barely groan. And then, he stopped feeling. His eyes were blinded, but before his mind went out for ever, he could see an image: an endless wasteland devoured by flames and he thought his destiny had been sealed forever and ever, and he wished that his sacrifice would at least serve in saving two innocent souls.
I
t was a glorious day. Esteban felt the pleasant warmth of the sun on his face and slowly regained consciousness. He was lying on a couch in Elena's living room, not far from Andrés, who was asleep on another couch. He'd stayed there because the parapsychologist had insisted that he did so. She was terrified and she assured him that his presence there had a calming effect on her.
«But now,» he said to himself, as he silently picked up his stuff, «I must go to the church as soon as I can, and help Father Salas with the exorcism. I can't just leave him there alone.» Before he left the flat, he wrote a note saying that they'd find him either in the church or on his mobile phone. He left the note on the coffee table.
As soon as he got in his car, Esteban had a bad feeling. Without thinking twice, he sped up to get to the church as soon as possible, where Father Salas was performing his unique exorcism. As he drove, his nerves became more and more frayed and his imagination came up with all sorts of ideas, each one bleaker than the previous one.
He got to the church in just half an hour. The altar was intact, but the rest was covered in dust, and then he discovered that the back windows had been smashed. He grew scared: all this was unusual, enigmatic, as if some kind of riddle was hidden behind that chaos.
In the middle of the aisle formed by the benches, he found the stole, the chasuble and the Saint Benedict medal that Father Salas had kept in his hand since he started the exorcism ritual.
«Something truly terrible must have happened here last night,» Esteban thought, greatly worried for his friend.
The chasuble seemed to be holding something in it, since there was a strange lump in the middle of it. Esteban knelt and touched the lump under the white fabric: it was soft and it yielded to his touch. Very carefully, he lifted the bottom of the chasuble to see what it was. Stunned, he realised that it was just a handful of black ashes, as if a log had been burned under the tunic during the night.
«This doesn't make any sense,» he thought.
Then he looked at the altar and saw Christ's face up there, on the cross, and his intuition guessed what had happened. He knelt and, as he cried, he began to pray. He spent over three quarters of an hour in that position, until he could finally muster the strength needed to call the parapsychologist.
"Elena, Elena" said Esteban, sobbing, as soon as he realised the phone had been picked up.
"Esteban? "What's up?"
"We've lost Father Salas! Last night you kept me away from him because you knew what he was going to do. I hope his soul met those of my son and my granddaughter, and all three are now in God's hands..."
E
lena was exhausted and her nerves were in tatters. She felt she was missing something, that she could maybe have done more for Father Salas and that now she was utterly lost and hopeless. Esteban's words had only made matters worse.
She was trying to relax by taking a walk in the park, in the centre of the capital of Spain. It was a splendid morning. The rays of sunlight, filtered by the treetops, formed beautiful beams of light, like those that are used in religious or self-help books to represent heaven. How could she now find out what had happened to the priest, to Carlos and to Laura? She wouldn't have minded staying and living in that particular instant for the rest of her life.
She walked for a good while, taking short steps, while her brain worked restlessly. She thought that the best she could do now was to get away, maybe even spend some time at her parents, leaving everything else behind, to clear her mind.