Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

THE KINGDOM :: 29
“Unfortunately, that’s the way it has to be,” Terry nodded.
“We handle most of the Archdiocese’s exorcism work—and
every other diocese, Catholic and Episcopal in Northern
California. But unofficially, of course. Very few clergy specialize
in this sort of thing anymore. We’ve actually been
busier than you might think.”
“Father, if anyone believes, I believe.” Her eyes were huge.
“Can we see him—Mr. Dane?” Terry asked.
She led them to the sliding glass door and opened it,
revealing a dimly lit room. About three times the size of a
normal hospital room, it had all of the same accoutrements,
yet so spaciously arranged it did not detract from the atmosphere
of calm elegance.
For all of its beauty, however, the room was heavy with the
stench of bile and disinfectant. Worse than that was a malevolent
energy that hit the friars full in the face the moment
they entered. Richard cringed at the feel of it, and he glanced
at Terry, the most spiritually sensitive of all of them. He
could see Terry’s face tighten. If forced to describe the feeling,
Richard would have simply said it was wrong. Very, very
wrong. The friars looked at one another briefly and wordlessly
registered the feeling between them. It was clear that
they all felt it. They were in the presence of sentient, discarnate
evil.
At the epicenter of the wrongness a withered skeleton of a
man lay in a hospital bed, flanked by heart monitors and IV
bags.
“It’s been a tough day,” Nurse Stahl said as they gathered
around the hospital bed. “The morphine isn’t quite cutting
it, today. And it—” she was, Richard gathered, referring to
the demon, “—if I could sue it for sexual harassment, I
would.”
Richard nodded, and his eyes softened momentarily. “I’m
sorry about that. Tell us about his son.”