Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 76 -

The shock of the pain brought me plummeting back to earth, screaming. Blood poured from the wound over my chest, sinking into the ragged remains of my dress. My scream jerked Damian from his chanting, his eyes growing wide as he struggled to get to me.

“Samara...Samara!” But Alex held him back. “Samara keep fighting! Don’t...don’t…”

“She doesn’t have a choice lad!” Alex shook him as my vision spun and faded. “If those seals aren’t destroyed there’s no hope for us!”

The other seal...I had to...I clenched my teeth. Set the cleaver in again. My skin seemed to come apart easily...too easily...shock made the pain almost feel pleasurable, or perhaps that was only the rush of my beating heart, flooding the very blood that kept me alive out of my body.

You’ll kill yourself, Samara. Foolish girl. Stupid, cowardly girl. You should have just been quiet!

They were trying to drag me back. I had a glimpse of that gray dream world again, of the Pale One standing over me, gripping my throat. Everywhere his hands touched my skin seemed to age. The White One stood back, beautiful in body but her face...a mess of blood, her carefully constructed visage gone.

“Samara! Work quickly!” It was Octavio who called to me, pulling me half-back to earth. “I can stave off the bleeding but you must work quickly!”

They couldn’t approach me until the exorcism was done, until the Four were cast out; it was too damgeroud. The Sight of my own blood everywhere made me dizzy. I tried to find the other seal, and had to push down my dress. There, in the soft skin of my belly…

Amma had not ceased her chanting. “Jeg ringer på Krahia! Jeg ringer på Peina! Jeg ringer på Nikao! Jeg ringer på Thanatos! Du har ikke annet valg enn å adlyde mine kommandoer.”

Krahia...Peina...the names...but Amma couldn’t know Peina’s name...unless…

They had the names.

Clarity crashed into me. They had the names! The Four were desperate, frantic, they knew the end was coming for them! So they had made me hopeless, strove to make me give up. If my strength had not been fading so quickly I would have laughed. We had them right on the edge, so close to defeat. But still…

The seals had to be broken.

The cleaver burned, fiery in my skin until my body absorbed the shock and my head swam. I had flashes of the two worlds: the Pale One fighting me, Damian watching me, both calling to me. The world that was that dark old cellar, and the world that was my gray memories. How fitting that this was to end in a cellar again, I thought vaguely. I should have died in one before. Perhaps I’d die in one now.

In the gray world, the White One began to scream. Her form was fragmenting, tearing away. She wasn’t bound to me anymore. Still the Pale One clung to me. He flung me across the old bedroom, lunged for me again. My flesh had become shrivelled and destroyed from his every touch. I was aware of the pain - there, here, it did not truly matter. The tip of my cleaver found the next seal, the final seal. His seal, the Pale One. He lurched over me, face as rotten and hideous as a corpse, and rasped, “You can’t defeat Death. It will come for you, I will come for you again!”

“No, you won’t,” I whispered. “You can’t come back. The seals are broken, you’re bound again. Bound as you were for eons, bound as Lijiali intended you to be.” I knew it to be true. The balance was shifting back. I began to slice the cleaver deep across that final seal. My vision in the earthly world was gone, faded to blackness. But I knew I’d done it. I’d succeeded. The seals were broken. It felt like a weight lifting from me, stones thrown off my back. Still the Pale One clung to me, but he was rotting before my very eyes.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I said softly, as he turned to dust and the house around me did too. It billowed away, fading out of existence, leaving me in darkness. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

There was silence.

Long, deep, and blessed silence.

I could have stayed there, I suppose. Perhaps that was death, for a moment there in the darkness, but not the death the Pale One threatened. It was peace, soft, the absence of pain. I drifted and could have slept.

But I didn’t want to sleep yet.

There was a figure in the dark. Then another, and another. Misty forms, bright eyes. The Legion gathered around.

You’re dying.

“That’s alright, I suppose,” I said sleepily. “I’m tired.”

Murmurs spread among them. Some shook their heads, some vanished, leaving me. But those who stayed lingered near.

You don’t have to go. They’re trying to save you.

“They”...yes...yes, of course they were. I knew Damian’s hands, I knew his touch even if I couldn’t see him. I knew he was holding me tight against his chest. I could hear his heart beating. I could feel hands and cotton bandages pressing against my chest, against my wounds.

You’ve lost a lot of blood. Humans need that.

I might have laughed. I wasn’t sure. “Can you help me?”

If you would ask it of us. The Four are gone, but we would like to stay.

“You’re just like them…” I muttered. But they weren’t, were they? These demons that remained...soft spoken, perhaps some were cruel. But they awaited my command.

The Four were gone, the commanders fled. So Legion answered to me.

“I don’t want to die yet,” I said. “I haven’t told Damian...I haven’t…”

Then you won’t. You’ll heal. Borrow our strength as you need it.

They vanished, and the darkness began to fade to light. But I wasn’t drifting anymore. I could feel the weight of the world again, and it was bearable now.