Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 18 -

Damian

The night was not over. Damian had kidnapped a woman under the guise of being her doctor. He could only imagine Samara's rage whenever she woke, but he would deal with that when it came. In the meantime, he at least needed the law on his side.

As Jacobi drove the carriage back onto the crowded streets, Damian could not shake how ill at ease he felt. Every day, he encountered those who spoke with multiple personalities, who heard voices, who saw visions. They were ill, not possessed, and the line between the two could be difficult to discern at best. Even with all his training, his studying, he still had his doubts every time.

But Samara had spoken his name, his mother's name, his father's name, even...even his grandmother's. Such things she simply could not know. We, she had said. The simple term shook him deeply. Then Kiiji's slip of the tongue, yet another word that carried such a sinister implication.

We, Legion.

Our name is Legion, for we are many. The verse echoed in his head. The old story in the Book of Mark was brief, but one that could inspire fear in many an exorcist. To encounter Legion, an army of demons within a single host, was usually to encounter one's death.

If that were true, and it was an army within her, than the Gateway drawn on her skin had surely only served one purpose: it was a door, an access point. Someone had opened a path, intentionally, to infest her with beings of such power and malevolence that their very presence on earth could be disastrous.

The streets of Storyville were so thickly populated with revelers that Jacobi could not find a way through with the horse. Damian had him stop, and continued on foot. Women leered at him from the many pleasure houses, inviting him to unimaginable ecstasy. With the amount of stress building up within him, he would need a brave woman indeed to ease it. He had always been hesitant to put his desires upon another. It seemed unfair, to ask so much.

Yet Samara had risen to the occasion with such ease.

Cursing himself as a damned perverted fool for even having such a thought, Damian caught sight of the Doll House. A few masked women sat drinking upon the porch railing, giggling and kissing. Their faces dropped at once when they saw him. Once upon a time, he had frequented that house. Most of them knew him, if only as the man they had been warned about.

"Is the Madame in?" he said, lingering before the porch. Both women glanced at one another, then nodded silently. He proceeded inside, immediately enveloped by the smell of tobacco and women's perfume. The crackling sounds of a record player carried through the house, playing Dominique. He could hear moans of pleasure carrying down from upstairs, and slightly loosened the neck of his shirt.

"What in hell do you want, Hearst?"

He turned. Madame Mary Jeffries sat in an office crowded with newspapers, the shelves behind her massive purple chair covered in porcelain figurines of cats and cherubs. She clutched a pipe in her fingers, the end of which was clamped between her darkly-painted lips. Her eyes were narrowed, her expression anything but pleased.

"Madame Jeffries," Damian went to the doorway, but the woman quickly held up her hand.

"Don't sully my office with those muddy boots of yours," she said curtly. "You have a lot of nerve showing your face here after what you did."

Damian frowned. "Begging your pardon?"

"Sending my Samara home in the dark of night, in the rain and cold!" the woman sniffed, shaking her head in disgust. "You think you can treat one of my girls like some common trash to be thrown out and then come back for more? Ha!"