Chapter 48: FATHER CALLAHAN
The attacks began at midnight.
Five daughters. Five bedrooms. Five simultaneous assaults.
Andrea screamed first—a sound of pure terror that echoed through the farmhouse and brought me running. I found her on the floor beside her bed, being dragged toward the door by invisible hands wrapped around her ankles. Her fingernails left grooves in the wooden floor as she fought to hold on to anything, everything.
"In the name of Christ, I command you—STOP!"
The crucifix in my hand blazed with light. The grip on Andrea's ankles released. She scrambled backward, pressing herself against the wall, her eyes wide with shock.
"Stay here," I told her. "Pray. Don't stop praying."
I was already moving toward the next scream.
Nancy in the hallway, her hair being pulled by something that wasn't there, her body lifted off the ground by her scalp alone. Christine at the top of the stairs, staring at her closet where a figure made of shadow and hatred was slowly emerging. Cindy walking toward the basement door in a trance, her feet moving mechanically, her eyes rolled back to show only whites.
And April.
April screaming that "the angry lady" was in her room, that she was coming through the walls, that she wanted to take Mommy away.
Ed and Lorraine reached the children before I could get to all of them. We worked as a team—prayers and crucifixes and blessed water, driving back the simultaneous assault with concentrated faith. Roger gathered his daughters in the living room, forming a protective circle around Carolyn, whose eyes had gone wrong again, whose body trembled with the effort of fighting off possession.
For twenty minutes, chaos reigned.
Then the front door opened.
Father Callahan stepped inside.
He was younger than I'd expected—early forties, with the fit build of someone who took physical training seriously. His collar was immaculate, his expression composed, his eyes taking in the scene with professional assessment.
"Father Callahan," Ed said, stepping forward. "You're earlier than we expected."
"The diocese felt urgency was warranted." Callahan's gaze moved around the room, cataloging the terrified family, the blessed objects arranged on every surface, the frost still forming on the windows despite the heating system running at maximum. "I can see why."
A chair flew across the room.
It launched from the dining area with no visible propulsion, hurtling toward Callahan's head with lethal velocity. He didn't flinch—simply raised one hand, spoke a word of Latin, and the chair veered aside, crashing into the wall inches from his shoulder.
"That confirms it," he said calmly. "You have my attention, Bathsheba Sherman."
The temperature dropped another ten degrees. Laughter echoed through the walls—high, cruel, triumphant.
"The priest comes at last," Bathsheba's voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere. "Another fool with his Latin and his faith. How many have tried before you? How many have I broken?"
"None that I know of." Callahan produced a small vial from his coat, uncapped it, and scattered holy water in a wide arc. Where the droplets fell, the floor steamed. "But I'm the first one the Vatican has sent directly. I have... special training for cases like yours."
Something slammed against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. A picture fell, its glass shattering. But Callahan didn't react, didn't show any sign of fear or concern.
"I've seen enough," he said. "Tell Rome we need authorization immediately. Full exorcism rite, multiple clergy, complete Church backing." He looked at Ed. "This isn't a haunting. It's not even a simple possession. This is a curse that's been feeding on itself for two centuries, and it's going to take everything we have to break it."
We established the safe zone after Callahan's confirmation.
The living room became our fortress—salt lines at every entrance, blessed objects on every surface, a rotation of continuous prayer that never stopped, day or night. Ed took the first shift. Lorraine took the second. I took the midnight hours, when the entity was strongest, when faith was most needed.
The family huddled together on mattresses we'd dragged from the bedrooms. Carolyn sat in the center, surrounded by her daughters, her husband beside her, all of them pressed together like survivors of a shipwreck clinging to the same piece of driftwood.
Father Callahan prayed with us for the first few hours, adding his trained voice to our amateur efforts. His faith was different from Ed's—sharper, more focused, honed by Vatican training I could only imagine. When he prayed, the room felt warmer. The darkness pressed less heavily against the windows.
But even he had to rest eventually.
"I need to contact Rome," he said around 1 AM. "The local rectory has secure communication. I'll be back by morning with confirmation."
"Is it safe to leave?" Ed asked.
"Safer than waiting. The sooner we get authorization, the sooner we can end this." Callahan gathered his things, paused at the door. "Keep them safe. Whatever happens tonight—keep them safe."
He left. The car's headlights swept across the yard, and then he was gone, swallowed by the darkness beyond the wards.
I settled into my prayer position and began the words I'd memorized years ago, in another life, in another world where demons were just stories.
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle..."
April found me at 2 AM.
She'd woken from a nightmare, slipped away from her sleeping sisters, and made her way to where I sat by the window, watching the darkness for signs of movement.
"Can't sleep?" I asked quietly.
She shook her head. Her eyes were too old for a five-year-old, carrying knowledge no child should have to bear.
"The angry lady is outside," she whispered. "She's waiting for us to stop praying. She says the prayers hurt."
"Then we keep praying."
"What if we get tired?"
"Then we rest and pray again. Faith isn't about being perfect, April. It's about not giving up."
She considered this with the seriousness only children can manage.
"Is the angry lady going to kill Mommy?"
The question hit harder than Bathsheba's attacks. This little girl, this innocent child, asking if her mother was going to die. Asking me to make promises I might not be able to keep.
"No," I said. "I won't let her."
"You promise really hard?"
I thought about all the preparations I'd made. The years of training. The system tracking my progress. The foreknowledge that had brought me to this moment, to this family, to this exact situation where I might—might—be able to make a difference.
"I promise really, really hard."
April hugged me. Her small arms wrapped around my neck, her face pressed against my shoulder, and for a moment she was just a child seeking comfort, not a victim of supernatural horror.
"I believe you," she said. "You saved Sadie. You'll save Mommy too."
I held her until she fell asleep in my arms, then carried her back to her family and tucked her in beside her sisters.
The safe zone held through the night.
At 3:07 AM, every light in the house flickered—a reminder that Bathsheba was watching, waiting, planning. Her laughter echoed through the walls, cruel and patient.
But she didn't attack. Didn't breach the protections we'd established. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe she was saving her strength for what was to come.
Either way, we'd survived another night.
Father Callahan returned at dawn.
He looked tired—the kind of tired that came from serious conversations with serious people about serious matters—but there was triumph in his expression.
"Authorization approved," he said. "Father Gorman will lead the exorcism. Rome is sending additional materials, blessed by the Holy Father himself. They're treating this as a priority case."
"When?"
"Two days for the materials to arrive. One more day for preparation. We begin in three days."
Three days. Seventy-two hours to keep Carolyn alive and unpossessed. To protect the children from an entity that had been killing for two centuries. To maintain the safe zone against attacks that would only grow more desperate as Bathsheba realized her time was running out.
"Can we hold that long?" Roger asked.
"We have to." Ed's voice was steady. "We've held this long. Three more days is manageable."
But I saw the exhaustion in everyone's faces. The way Carolyn's hands trembled constantly now. The dark circles under the children's eyes. The toll this siege was taking on everyone—investigators and family alike.
[CANONICAL EVENT TRACKER: EXORCISM IMMINENT]
[TIME TO AUTHORIZATION: 72 HOURS]
[WARNING: ENTITY ACTIVITY EXPECTED TO INCREASE]
The system confirmed what I already knew. Bathsheba wouldn't wait passively for her destruction. She'd fight back. She'd escalate. She'd do everything in her power to break us before the exorcism could begin.
Three days.
I looked at April, sleeping peacefully beside her sisters, her hand still clutching the rosary I'd given her.
Three days to keep my promise.
Whatever it took, whatever it cost—I would keep it.
you forgot the traker file
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