Chapter 45: BATHSHEBA SPEAKS
The Latin whispers started at 3:04 AM.
I was stationed outside the master bedroom, rosary in hand, crucifix pressed against my chest. Lorraine had taken the first shift; I'd relieved her at midnight so she could rest. The house had been quiet for hours—too quiet, the kind of silence that meant something was gathering itself.
Then I heard Carolyn's voice.
Except it wasn't Carolyn's voice. The words were Latin—ancient, guttural, spoken in a cadence that predated modern language. I couldn't translate them, but I didn't need to. The sound alone was enough to tell me what was happening.
[ENTITY ACTIVITY: POSSESSION ATTEMPT IN PROGRESS]
[TARGET: CAROLYN PERRON]
[STATUS: PARTIAL MANIFESTATION]
I opened the door.
The master bedroom was cold—not the chill of a drafty house, but the supernatural cold I'd come to know intimately over three years of this work. Frost crept along the window glass. My breath fogged in front of my face. And in the center of the room, Carolyn floated.
Not much. An inch, maybe two. Enough to be impossible. Enough to be terrifying. Her body was rigid, her eyes rolled back to show only whites, her mouth moving continuously in that ancient Latin chant.
"Carolyn." I stepped into the room, crucifix raised. "Carolyn, if you can hear me—fight her. Fight."
The chanting stopped.
Carolyn's head turned toward me—a movement that should have required her neck to rotate, but instead happened smoothly, unnaturally, like a puppet controlled by invisible strings. Her eyes focused, but they weren't her eyes anymore. Something else looked out through them.
"The marked one." The voice that emerged was Carolyn's vocal cords, but the words belonged to something far older. "The wrong soul in borrowed flesh. I see you, traveler. I see what sent you."
My heart stopped.
She knew. Bathsheba knew. Whatever passed between demons, whatever network of information they shared, she'd learned about me—about what I really was.
"I see you too," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. "Bathsheba Sherman. Child-killer. Suicide. You're just a ghost with delusions of power."
The laugh that erupted from Carolyn's throat was nothing human.
"Ghost? I am more than ghost, little anomaly. I was promised eternity. I was given dominion over all who dwell in my land." Carolyn's body drifted closer, her feet still hovering above the floor. "And you—you do not belong here. Wrong soul. Wrong flesh. Wrong world. What are you, traveler? What sent you to interfere with powers beyond your comprehension?"
The crucifix in my hand burned with faith-light. I raised it higher, pushing against the darkness that radiated from Carolyn's possessed form.
"In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you—leave this woman!"
Bathsheba's laugh became a shriek.
Carolyn's body contorted, her back arching, her limbs twisting at angles that should have broken bone. But she didn't fall—the thing controlling her kept her suspended, kept her suffering on display like a trophy.
"Your faith is strong," the voice hissed. "Stronger than the others. But faith can be broken, traveler. Faith can be corrupted. I know secrets that would shatter your belief. I know what watches you, what hunts you, what waits in the darkness beyond your pitiful wards."
I stepped closer. The crucifix burned brighter.
"Whatever you know, whatever you think you've learned—it doesn't matter. I'm going to cast you out. I'm going to send you back to whatever hell you came from. And this family is going to survive."
"Will they?" Carolyn's face twisted into a smile that didn't belong there. "Will you save them the way you couldn't save the others? The Morrison basement. The Ashford boy. How many have suffered while you played at being a hero, pretending to belong in a world that isn't yours?"
The words cut deeper than any blade.
But I'd faced this before. Seraph had taunted me. The Moreau demon had tried the same tactics. Demons used truth as a weapon, twisted fact into psychological warfare. If I let them succeed, they won without ever having to fight.
I pressed the crucifix against Carolyn's forehead.
"Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde—"
The scream that tore from Carolyn's throat shattered the window glass. The cold intensified to the point of pain, ice forming on every surface. I felt Bathsheba's power crash against my Mental Walls, trying to breach my consciousness, trying to possess me as she possessed Carolyn.
The walls held.
"—in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis—"
Light exploded from the crucifix. Not the soft glow of prayer-strengthened faith, but a blazing radiance that filled the room, that drove back the shadows, that made the ancient evil inside Carolyn recoil in agony.
"This isn't over!" The voice was losing coherence, the possession weakening under the assault of concentrated faith. "I will have her! I will have them all! And you—wrong soul—I will tell them what you are! I will whisper your secrets to everyone you love!"
Carolyn's body dropped to the bed.
The cold retreated. The frost melted. The shattered window let in the first gray light of approaching dawn.
And Carolyn lay motionless, eyes closed, breathing shallow but steady.
Roger burst through the door moments later, followed by Lorraine. The commotion had woken the entire house—I could hear the girls crying in the hallway, could feel their fear like a weight in the air.
"What happened?" Roger demanded. "Carolyn—is she—"
"She's alive." I stepped back from the bed, the crucifix still warm in my hand. "Bathsheba tried to take control. I stopped it. But she'll try again."
Lorraine moved to Carolyn's side, taking her hands, reaching out with psychic senses to assess the damage. Her face went pale.
"New marks," she whispered. "On her neck."
I looked. Bruises bloomed across Carolyn's throat—finger marks, as if something had been strangling her. The claiming ritual advancing, moving closer to her heart with each failed possession attempt.
"How long do we have?" Roger asked, his voice breaking. "Before she—before it—"
"Days," I said. "Maybe less."
Carolyn's eyes fluttered open. She looked around the room, confused, frightened, clearly remembering nothing.
"She's inside me, isn't she?" Her voice was hoarse, damaged from the screaming. "That thing. She's really inside me."
I couldn't lie. Not now. Not after what had just happened.
"She's trying. She hasn't succeeded yet." I sat on the edge of the bed, took her hand. "And we won't let her win. I promise you, Carolyn—whatever it takes, we won't let her have you."
"How?" Tears streamed down her face. "How can you stop something like that?"
"Faith. Prayer. And the help of people who've dedicated their lives to fighting exactly this kind of evil." I squeezed her hand. "We're not going to abandon you. You're not facing this alone."
The family gathered in the living room until dawn.
No one could sleep. No one wanted to be alone. So we sat together—seven Perrons and two investigators—and we waited for the night to end.
April climbed into my lap without asking. Her small hands gripped my rosary, and she began reciting the prayer I'd taught her the day before.
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle..."
Christine joined in. Then Nancy. Then Cindy. Even Andrea, her teenage mask finally cracking, whispered the words under her breath.
And Carolyn—marked, exhausted, violated in ways that shouldn't be possible—closed her eyes and prayed with her daughters.
The house creaked around us. The darkness pressed against the windows. But nothing attacked. Nothing manifested. For these few hours, faith held back the ancient evil that wanted to destroy this family.
[FAITH RESONANCE: 120 (+5)]
[GROUP PRAYER BONUS: ACTIVE]
[ENTITY ACTIVITY: SUPPRESSED]
Ed returned at first light.
He found us still sitting together, still praying, still holding onto each other like survivors of a shipwreck. His face showed exhaustion, but also hope.
"The Church is reviewing the evidence," he said. "The bishop was impressed. Disturbed, but impressed. They're sending someone to observe—Father Callahan, a Vatican-trained exorcist. If he confirms what we've documented, we get full authorization."
"How long?"
"Two days. Maybe three."
Three days. Seventy-two hours to keep Carolyn alive and unpossessed. To keep the children safe from a witch's ghost with centuries of accumulated rage.
"We can do that," I said. "We have to."
But in the back of my mind, Bathsheba's words echoed.
"I see what sent you."
What did she know? What had the demons told each other about the "anomaly" that kept appearing in their cases? And more importantly—what would she do with that knowledge?
The system pulsed a warning in my peripheral vision:
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: INFORMATION COMPROMISE POSSIBLE]
[ENTITY BATHSHEBA: AWARE OF PAUL'S NATURE]
[RISK: REVELATION TO OTHERS]
I pushed the notification aside. Focused on what mattered—the family in front of me, the battle still to be fought, the promise I'd made to a five-year-old girl who believed I could make the monster go away.
Three days until authorization.
Three days to survive.
And somewhere in the depths of this cursed house, Bathsheba Sherman was planning her next move.
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