Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 17 -

Damian

"You're a fool for this, Damian. Bringing it right into your own home? Would you also like to chop yourself up on a platter with a bit of butter and rosemary?"

Kiiji was laughing as Damian carried Samara into the guest room. The room was nestled down the hall from his own, the only room in the house that was fitted with a lock on the outside of the door. It had been that way when he first purchased the house in New Orleans' beautiful Garden District. He suspected it had previously been used as a nursery, with the lock intended to contain unruly children.

Now it would hopefully contain one very unruly woman.

"What else was I to do, Kiiji? Hm? She's losing control, she had to be stopped." Damian laid her upon the bed, her small body folding into the sheets. She had to have been exhausted for how deeply she was sleeping, and the thought worried him. True possession was utterly draining for the victim. Every time the demon enacted control, it would feed off of the host like a parasite. Too much of it, and the human energy within would be sapped until nothing of it was left.

"Aye, but I would have thought your idea of stopping her would be a bit more effective," Kiiji mused. He was sitting cross-legged atop the chest of drawers against the far wall, picking his teeth. "Killing her, for example. You never seemed to have a problem with that before."

Rage rose up in Damian before he could stop it. "The others were already gone!" he cried. "Their souls had fled, there was nothing human left in those bodies!" He sighed heavily, struggling to contain himself. The reaper was nonplussed by his rage, but did look slightly apologetic. Damian went on, if only to reassure himself he had indeed done the right thing. "Samara...Samara came back. She's still in there, Kiiji. She can't help what's happened to her, any more than I could!"

Kiiji fell silent, watching as Damian carefully unlaced and unbuttoned Samara's clothing. He felt sinister for doing it, but he did not know what weapons she might have had contained within the numerous layers of cloth. He struggled not to look at her, not to let his gaze linger. But as her scars were laid bare, he could not keep his gaze from going over them. His fingers brushed lightly, curiously, over the string of runes that curved over her delicate ribs. Why were they there...who had done this to her...

Kiiji's bitter laughter jerked him back to reality. "Don't you see it?"the reaper said, shaking his head "It was no mere chance the two of you met. Did you think it merely a miraculous connection to find yourself so drawn to her?" Frustration contorted the reaper's face, his black-clawed hands gripping so tightly into the drawers that he left scratches in the wood. "Legion is starving. Things didn't go as It planned, and It will sooner rip this poor girl's mind to shreds than not have its way-"

Damian went cold. "Legion?" he murmured. He turned back to Kiiji, hardly daring to believe what he had heard. "So she really is-"

"Shit. I wasn't supposed to tell you that," Kiiji sucked in his breath, then pounded his fist upon the wood. "Shit."

"It doesn't matter now, we'll discuss it later," Damian's heart was racing. Kiiji's slip-up was exactly the information he had been hoping for...yet also dreading. "The woman is a fighter, otherwise she would not have survived this long with any sanity intact. Those scars are well-healed, it's been months, at least, since she was marked."

Kiiji clicked his tongue against his teeth, his legs now dangling over the dresser as he rested his head back. "You think you're capable of defeating them?" he said.

Damian did not answer at once. He looked at Samara, whose naked form he had covered with the blankets, and watched as her face twitched as if with some nightmare. He recalled the voice that had come out of her: dark, masculine. Evil. He recalled her words, "we know your name."

We.

"No," he said at last. "I don't."

"Then what will you do? Keep her as your captive here until death and madness take her, and you with them?" Kiiji threw up his hands. "You are wrong if you assume she will grow weaker. The woman herself will soon be gone, her body merely a host for the others. "

"I'm sending for Belthazha."

Kiiji just blinked for a moment, as if in disbelief, before he laughed as if Damian had told the finest joked of the day. "Your grandmother?" he scoffed. "I thought she was still in London...It will take her weeks to even get your letter, let alone arrive in the States! She'll share my thoughts, Damian, she'll think you mad for not killing her from the start-"

"If you won't help, Kiiji, don't question me for at least trying!" Damian snapped. "Just leave me be."

Kiiji slid down from the drawers, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets. "Fine. Just leave it to the reaper to be the sane one. Keep your little pet demon whore."

Damian had another retort he was ready to hurl, but by the time he turned Kiiji had vanished from the room. He let his rage simmer, but only for a few moments. There was not time for this, no time for frustration and fear. He finished what had to be done, restraining Samara to the bed by means of leather cuffs. Then a final precaution: he took a black pencil of thick coal and made a mark on the pale wall above the guest room door.

A central circular point from which radiated eight, trident-like arms. The first sigil his grandmother had ever taught him. "Ægishjálm er ég ber milli brúna mér," he murmured as he marked each arm. "Ægishjálm er ég ber milli brúna mér..."

It was a mark of protection, like armor. He hoped it would be enough.

A/N: The language Damian is speaking here is Old Norse, and the Sigil is traditionally the Helm of Awe, meant to provide protection.

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