“Understood,” she said.
I knelt at the edge of the circle.
Grace sat in the chair, head bowed, hands loose in her lap. The mark on her skin pulsed faintly under her shirt, a steady dull glow that made the air taste sour.
“Bael,” I said. “You wanted my attention. You got it. You talk to me now. You do not cower behind her silence.”
Her head lifted and her eyes met mine. Her irises were a dark, flat black, the color swallowing what should have been a deep rich brown. Her lips curled in that twisted smile looking creepy on her pretty features.
“You do not give orders here,” he said through her mouth. “You crawl around this little city with your beads and your water, and you think that changes anything.”
“It is about to,” I said.
I drew a small knife from my belt and sliced my left palm, shallow but enough to draw a line of blood. I let it drip into the water that still pooled in the bowl I had set back upright. From my bag, I added salt. I added ash. I added a pinch of dust from an old church floor in Baton Roug that was sacred, e and a sliver of bone from a graveyard outside Lafayette.
I stirred it with my finger and whispered the names I had collected over the years. Demons I had bound. Spirits I had sent on. Every success. Every failure. Every lesson.
I dipped my thumb into the mix and drew a sigil on Grace’s forehead, right over Seraphine’s handprint.
She hissed. The sound came from deep in her chest. Her head jerked back. The mark sizzled against her skin, faint but real.
“This is how it starts,” I said quietly. “I call your name. I call His name. I call her name. I strip away every lie you wrappedaround her. I remind her of who she is and who you are. You do not own her.”
Bael laughed. “She is already mine,” he said. “You touch her and you touch me. You cross that line and I will crush your witch’s mind first so you can hear the sound she makes as you lose everything.”
Seraphine stepped to the other side of the chair, laying both hands on Grace’s shoulders. The wards on her skin flared under her dress in a faint red line.
“Come and try,” she said.
“You forget,” I said. “I’ve been inside your mind, demon. Just as much as you’ve been in mine. I remember your weaknesses, Bael. And I do not give a fuck about your pain.”
Taking out the book of rites,The Roman Ritual, and I began the exorcism. I spoke the old words, the ones the Church gave me, Every line was a command. Every word was a nail in his coffin.
I did not shout. I did not plead. I simply told the demon exactly what was going to happen to it.
“You are not welcome in this flesh,” I said. “You are not welcome in this world. You will be bound. You will be cast out. You will be chained. By the authority above you and the will in front of you, you will let this child go.”
Grace’s body tensed against the chair. Her fingers curled. The wood creaked under her grip. Her head snapped from side to side as if something inside her twisted and pulled.
Seraphine grunted and from my peripheral I could see she was having a reaction. Her jaw clenched, her eyes slid shut, and she braced her feet against the floor. The wards on her collarbone burned brighter, pushing back against the pressure that slammed into her mind.
I saw the power hit. Her nose started to bleed, and a thin line of red rolled over her lips, her breath sharpening.
“Stay with me, Sera,” I said without breaking the flow of the words. “You said you could hold.”
“I can,” she said, teeth clenched. “He…hits…hard.”
Bael snarled through Grace’s mouth.
“You dare shield her from me?” he said. “You dare block my view? I will peel your wards off your bones.”
I kept going. The candles burned lower. Wax puddled on the counter. The air grew hot and close. The sigils in the circle glowed faintly.
The pressure in the room climbed. It hit my ears, my eyes, and the back of my skull. It pressed on my chest.
Grace suddenly jerked upright, eyes wide, back arched against the chair.
Her voice came out deeper, layered.
