Sacrifices

by Alan D Jones

  Chapter 9 - Slipping Away

  September, 1963

  Some are born to be shepherds of peace, while others couriers of chaos. And, yet, for all our protests, it is disorder that gives purpose to order. And, it is in the midst of the process that we are most like God.

  On a cool September morning, Hosea received the call that he needed to be in Paris by evening of the next day. A courier would bring him his plane tickets later that morning. The teenage son of an influential French politician had been confirmed as a victim of possession. The local priests had done their best and failed to terminate the possession. Hosea hated to leave his girls, but with Elisa in town and Rob arriving that evening, he knew that his daughters would be in good hands. Not to mention that mother hen Elizabeth would be there each evening. In truth, he knew that his girls were safer with those three than with just him. Still, he was apprehensive about leaving.

  Hosea arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport at five p.m. local time. A driver waited for him at the gate, holding a sign that read “Mr. Hosea Johnson.” Seeing the sign, he walked briskly to the black-suited driver. The driver took the larger of his two bags and greeted him, “Good evening, Monsieur Johnson.”

  Hosea followed the driver through the lightly falling rain to a black stretch limo located outside on the curb. Such audacious trappings always troubled Hosea’s spirit given the nature of his work. He preferred the more humble locales and, yet, he always went where he was called. The limo stopped at a white brick building on Rue 16. Three of the local priests stood on the front steps like sentries, their long flowing black robes flickering as the street lights reflected off the beads of water on them. These events were always unique, but the energy that day felt more disturbing to Hosea than it ever had been since the first time he participated in an exorcism.

  The senior priest extended his hand and greeted Hosea in a heavy French accent, “So, you are the one to whom God listens? I certainly hope so.”

  Hosea wanted to say how God had seemed so far away as of late, but looking at the weary priests, he didn’t have the heart to burden them further. He had tried to sleep on the flight, but he couldn’t. Here he was again before people who were full of expectations.

  Hosea asked, “Where?”

  The priest took him to a stone-lined room on the first floor. Immediately Hosea noticed the condensation on the outside wall of the room. The door to the room was soaked and beginning to rot. Hosea paused for a moment before the spirit within him told him to send the other priests away. He did although it was odd. Ordinarily, he would request that someone accompany him into the room.

  After the priests left, Hosea knelt down and prayed, “Lord, it’s me again. My God, oh, how you have blessed me time and time again. Even before the foundations of the Earth were set you were mindful of me. And words cannot express my gratitude unto thee. Lord, you know the troubles of my heart, you know my joy and my pain, you know my dreams and my fears, and you know my waking up and my lying down. Today, I accept your peace and I let go of all these earthly things. Lord, and yet you know that in the next breath that my girls are steady on my mind. Still, I release them freely into your loving hands and pray that I give this life fully unto thee.”

  With that, Hosea stood and pushed open the door. The room was dark and ice cold. The only light in the room was provided by the four candles that circled the bed. On that bed was a young man of about eighteen. His body lurched and heaved mightily against the constraints. Hosea called out, “Who are you?”

  The straps holding the boy down grew taut as he pulled against them to raise his head, “Does it matter, Hosea, the fading star? My, how you’ve gotten old. You’re not nearly the man you used to be. The end is near now.”

  “Your lips move, demon, but, as always, your words are void. You know well, this life is of no concern to me.” Hosea said paying little attention to the beast as he opened his Bible.

  In that moment the boy sprung from the bed snapping the bands that had held him. In an instant, he was across the room pressing his left hand into Hosea’s neck and pushing him back against the nearly frozen wall. “The light has gone out of your eyes. Yes, we see it for ourselves now.”

  Hosea whispered “Submitto.” The boy released him but began to growl. First, his eyes became jaundiced; then, his body began to transform. In the candlelight, the beast took on its true form. The demon, wings stretched wide and talons exposed, hovered over Hosea.

  As it approached him again, Hosea whispered a second time, “Concesso” and the beast was suspended in mid-air. Then after adjusting his collar, as Hosea was prone to do even when not having been choked, Hosea pointed towards the limbs of the beast and said repeatedly “Ligare!”

  Hosea pulled a bottle of water from his pocket and dampened his fingers from it. Then, he dabbed the pillow at the head of the bed. Hosea looked again at the struggling beast and steeled himself for the hard part.

  “Separata! Separata! Separata!” Hosea called over and over again.

  At long last in the flickering light, a shade of the boy began to appear alongside the demon.

  Still Hosea called, “Separata! Separata! Separata!”

  When the boy was fully separated from the beast, Hosea called out once, “Descendere.”

  At once, the boy’s form descended to the bed. When his head touched the pillow below, his form condensed fully into human flesh. Hosea placed his hand upon the boy’s forehead and said a quick prayer.

  Then Hosea turned back towards the demon and commanded, “In the name of the Lord, God, potest albeit!”

  The creature departed immediately into the wall and back to Hell.

  Hosea picked up his Bible and pulled the door open to exit the room. He put his Bible into a small box and placed the box on a table just outside the door. Hosea attempted to have a seat next to it, but, instead, stumbled over the table and into the chair bringing the whole assembly crashing to the ground as he collapsed onto the cold floor.