We all agreed to have me go in with Ethan while everyone else stayed in the car to keep control of Isaac and Hades. I jerked the door open. We rushed through the foyer and stepped into a large chapel. No one. It was empty. Faces looked down from the ceiling. They were probably saints or something. Down the aisle was a simple altar with a white cloth draped over it. I noticed a door off to the left side of the altar and started striding towards it.
A door on the right side opened. A man in his sixties came out, dressed as a priest. He had nicely trimmed salt and pepper hair, a pleasant face, wrinkled with age, but still likeable. That chill ran down my neck. I cursed. There was a ghost here. I saw her a second later. She walked through the door after the priest. She was older. She had to have been in her eighties when she passed. She wore a long, old-fashioned, flowered dress and a cardigan with a hummingbird brooch. Her hair was short and thick, falling into a bob just below her ears. She had nice eyes and a happy smile. She stayed with the priest, keeping pace.
He looked up and smiled welcomingly. The priest limped over to meet us at the first row of pews.
“Welcome to Saint Joseph’s.” His voice was just as pleasant as his face. He had the same eyes as the ghost. His mother? A sister? She had stayed back, so I didn’t know. Her hands clasped in front of her as she watched us, happy, waiting. I’d never seen a ghost like her before. “Is there something I can help you with?” The priest brought my attention back to him.
“We’re looking for Father Francis,” Ethan answered, his voice respectfully low in the church.
He smiled bigger. “I’m Father Francis, how can I help you?”
“I’m Lexie,” I told him bluntly. I had no time for subtlety. No, Isaac had no time for subtlety. His eyes ran over me before meeting mine.
“Ah, yes.” He gestured for us to sit. I didn’t budge. “I understand you believe you’re a Necromancer.” Huh?
“I am,” I told him. That didn’t matter right now. “Isaac’s in the car with the others. Where do you want him?”
Father Francis smiled gently and sat down in the first pew. “I’m sure you believe you have abilities. And I’m sure you also believe your friend is possessed. However…”
He didn’t believe me. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! We did NOT have time for this shit! I looked at the ghost, slipped my beads off and took several steps closer. For the first time in my life I didn’t fight as her memories slid into my mind. She was his mother. He hadn’t called her back; she never left. She never would, not till he passed himself. She was there to protect and watch over him, not to haunt. I felt the love she had for her son. It was enormous and selfless. It was a mother’s love. I felt wetness on my face when I opened my eyes again. I turned to meet his eyes, tears falling, my heart bursting with his mother’s emotions.
“Elise is right here,” I told him, my voice shaking. “She’s wearing the hummingbird brooch that you and your dad picked out when you were seven.” I shook my head, my throat tight.
“She never went anywhere. She’s been here with you all this time.” Father Francis’s eyes shone as his jaw clenched. He looked away from me. I couldn’t take any more. Her emotions were still pouring into me gently, softly. I had never felt anything like it.
I backed away, slipping on my beads and wiping my face until I backed into Ethan. He wrapped his arm around me and squeezed. The pain began to fade. Whether it was Ethan or the distance I didn’t care.
It wasn’t long before Father Francis was looking at me again. He didn’t seem surprised to hear anything I said. “No one has ever mentioned the brooch before,” he announced, his eyes bright. “Okay, you’re telling the truth. Why do you think your friend is possessed?”
Seriously? I repeated everything that I told him on the phone, then added, “Oh, yeah. And on the way here, it made our plane do a nosedive.”
Father Francis listened to everything. Then he pulled out his phone and started texting someone. “What kind of car are your friends in?”
“The only black SUV in the lot,” Ethan answered.
He hit send, put his phone back in his pocket and looked up. “Some of our people will bring them in and get your friend into a room,” he said, “We will examine him and determine if he is possessed or mentally ill. True possession is rare.”
“He almost killed himself,” I reminded him.
He nodded with a patient look on his face. “Which is why we will take every precaution.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Ethan asked, his voice lost. I grabbed his hand on my shoulder and held it tight.
Father Francis sighed. “If he’s mentally ill, there are treatments. If he’s possessed…”
“Then what?” I demanded.
Father Francis looked at the two of us. “Depending on the stage, it’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll survive.” It was like a blade was driven into my heart. It became hard to breathe. Ethan gripped my hand tighter. Father Francis continued. “It all depends on the person and how long they’ve been dealing with it.”
“It’s been… a few days.” I told him.
Francis nodded, his eyes understanding. “Then there's still hope for him.”
The door opened. A tall, bald, muscled man strode into the church. He had a distinctive face with sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw. He was wearing black military pants and a black T-shirt. But what held my gaze were his tattoos. Down the outside of his neck were black and bronze scrolling letters in a single line. They ran down his neck and disappeared into his shirt only to reappear on the outside of his arms and continued to his wrists. They were the same as the tattoos my True Self had… What the fuck? The guy moved to the priest before he bent down and whispered in his ear. Father Francis brow drew down. The man pulled back as the priest got to his feet and turned back to us. “Come with us.”
We followed Father Francis as the man led us through the door into a back room. “This is Craig. He’s the leader of this unit of Templars.”
“Templars?” I asked as we were led outside and across a large garden courtyard to an even bigger building behind the church.
"Yes, the Templars are the world's first line of defense,” the priest explained as Craig opened the door and led us out into a large hallway. "Templars all have the same full body tattoo you can see on Craig here. Anyone wearing these tattoos is a Templar." Craig opened a large door across from the front door. We started down the wide stone steps. The air temperature dropped twenty degrees; it seemed like we were going into a basement. The walls were blocks of rock. Lights hung from the ceiling.
“What do the tattoos do?” I asked carefully. “There has to be a reason.”
“It’s a spell tattooed into the skin for the Sight and also protection against possession from ghosts and demons,” Craig explained, “which is why it’s so large.” They could do that? My mind raced with possibilities. I shoved them away. We had bigger problems right now.
When we reached the basement, there was another long hall branching off to the left and right. We turned right and were led to a door with a crowd of people standing around it. All of them were in black and bearing the same tattoos. I needed to ask about it, but right now Isaac was what mattered.
“Make a hole,” Craig barked. People began walking out of the door. There had to have been twelve people in that room. All of them said some form of ‘sorry, Captain’ or ‘sorry, sir.’ I put it out of my mind for later and followed them into the room.
It was a medium sized bedroom; there was a desk, a chair, even a bookcase. Isaac was there, in a hospital bed against the middle of the far wall. There were two more of those tattooed guys inside, standing like guards beside Isaac’s bed. Dr. Zimmer, Zeke and Asher were standing near the right wall, next to the bookcase. Father Francis moved to the left side of the bed, past the desk. Ethan moved to the foot of the bed next to Miles and Hades, while I stayed where I was in the doorway. There wasn’t much more room.
Isaac came into sight. His eyes were glowing red, the shadow slithered over his face.
“Uh, does anyone else see that?” I asked the room.