HELLSING
Ilooked at my reflection in the mirror. The old bathroom lights cast a dim, harsh glow over my scarred skin. It felt like a lifetime ago, and yet, the memories still cut deep. I turned slightly, reaching over my shoulder to trace the ragged lines of old scars that ran across my back. They’d turned twisted and rough from years of whippings. And occasionally I’d feel the ghostly sting of when they were first inflicted.
My mother’s face flickered across my mind. I wish I could tell you she was physically ugly, that she was terrifying, but she wasn’t. She was a beautiful dark angel, fanatical and intense in her beliefs. Constantly talking about the “Lord” and “Salvation,” the liturgy had been my soundtrack growing up. Her voice used to echo through the small, claustrophobic rooms of our house. But there was never any love in her words, just obsession and cruelty all wrapped up in the guise of what you may call faith. Wasn’t that always the case with the Bible thumpers of the world?
And when she wasn’t praying, she was beating on me. It was her own twisted form of punishment, leaving marks on my skin that would never truly fade. Nothing I did was ever goodenough for her. I was considered a sin, marked by the brutal raping that was inflicted on her by my own grandfather and later by my father at only sixteen. My father was a revivalist, a traveling preacher, who basically lied his way through life. A true showman, especially with the women who worshipped, and my mother sadly fell for his charms, only to quickly be introduced to the darker side of who he was. I didn’t remember him, because according to my momma, I was five when he left. I’m pretty sure he was never around in the first place. This was the only thought that grounded me in understanding my mother. Her upbringing had been lonely and full of abuse, so she hid behind God the best way she knew how. ButI…I was an abomination. A baby born out of hatred and neglect. A demon, in her eyes.
Throughout the years, I did my best to care for her. Taking her punishments, showing only love. By the time I became seventeen, I thought maybe joining the church would get me away from her. I didn’t want to be a priest, not for a single damn second, but I figured it’d give me an escape from her abuse, a way to breathe in air that wasn’t tainted with her growing insanity. And deep down, way back, I thought, maybe she’d be proud of me. Maybe she’d love me if she saw I was devoted to God. It was all a lie I told myself because the church couldn’t save me. It just offered more rules, more shackles in place of the ones I’d worn at home.
I became obsessed with the occult, and I quickly learned I had options in the church. I learned that the Vatican required that each diocese have a specially trained priest who was able to diagnose demonic possession and perform exorcisms when necessary. I was too young to go to classes, although one priest, Father Dulaney, did allow me to sit in on a class studying angels. He thought that he might help guide me in the opposite direction of where I was headed, but he was wrong. My obsession only grew as I learned about fallen angels andthe Nephilim, the offspring of a demon and a human. I thought maybe I was one of them, a hybrid. I was probably closer to them than I was to God at that moment.
I was naive, searching for an answer to my existence that simply wasn’t available to me. That’s when I was introduced to Virgil Desdemone. I had spotted him coming out of some bar off the beaten path on the outskirts of New Orleans. It was the kind of place where people went to be forgotten. He had a quiet yet dangerous demeanor, and there seemed to be a storm brewing within him, one that threatened to implode if he wasn’t careful. He didn’t see that I was watching him, but Father Dulaney, whom I was with that night, knew him.
“What in the world is he doing back in town?” He muttered beneath his breath.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Father Dulaney looked down at me and frowned. “Not anyone you want to be acquainted with, Son.”
“Is he an evildoer?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, sadly, he is not. But he does walk with demons, and in these past few years they seem to be dragging him down.”
“Maybe he needs help.”
“Trust me, I’ve already tried. For years, I tried to get him to see reason, to come back into the light. But he’s chosen a dark path, and unfortunately, the Church lost him a long time ago and I lost a dear friend. If he’s not careful, he’s going to allow his soul to be taken by the Devil.”
I thought about his words for a moment, and slowly I realized what the priest was hinting at. “Is he an Exorcist, Father?”
Father Dulaney hesitated but didn’t lie. “Unfortunately.”
“I want to meet him, Father.”
I stared at him, and he immediately knew what I was asking. “No, you do not.”
“Please, Father.”
“Son, I honestly don’t think you realize how broken that man truly is. I doubt you will be able to learn anything from him. And I fear that if you’re not strong enough, you may turn into him. A shell of a man.”
“Father, you of all people know who I am. You know I can do this. Please.”
He frowned at me, his eyebrows scrunching with concern. “Are you sure this is the path you want to take?”
I nodded. “Yes. Ineedto do this.”
Father Dulaney gazed out at the street, watching the man stagger drunkenly across it. When he spoke again, his voice carried a quiet resolve.
“You have a calling, Peter, and who am I to stop it? Maybe teaching you might actually do Virgil some good as well.”
The following night, Father Dulaney took me deep down a winding dirt road barely wide enough for his old truck. Spanish moss hung low from the cypress trees, swaying like slow-moving ghosts in the thick evening air. The headlights cut through the fog, illuminating flashes of dark murky swamp water and twisted roots. The sound of frogs croaking and insects humming carried strangely over the bayou. A warning of the darkness that lay beyond the Weeping Willows.
Out there, in that silence broken only by the groan of the old truck and the occasional crack of branches in the woods, I realized this wasn’t just some bayou road. This was a test of my calling. And part of me knew the deeper we went, the more I’d have to face things I wasn’t ready for.
We pulled up to a crooked wooden house set back from the road, its porch sagging and half-swallowed by the overgrowth. The house looked as if it had been put together by hand and then forgotten, left to decay beneath the constant drizzle and humidity of the Bayou. The shutters clung crookedly to thewindows, one barely hanging by a hinge. A rusted animal trap sat abandoned on the steps, its teeth gaping, ready to clamp onto the next predator that wandered nearby. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the porch, a dog barked once, then fell silent, as if it, too, was afraid to wake whatever lingered inside.
Father Dulaney killed the engine and sighed, resting both hands on the wheel as he gathered himself. I could tell he wasn’t sure how this was going to go.
“He stays out here by choice,” the priest said. “Says it keeps the wrong demons out and the right people in.”
