Mystery Man

“Exorcisms are completely safe for everyone involved, most of the time.”

M. Silver smoothed her already-flat eyebrow. “You are, of course, sanctioned by the church of Soul?”

“No,” he said. He washed his hands with blessed water from his holy canteen, plain cylindrical metal stamped with the god’s sign. He set it down beside his large black travel case. “I am a friend of the church. They bless me and send me tasks. But I am not an officially sanctioned exorcist or priest of Soul.”

M. Silver pursed her lips, frowned, and spun her wedding ring on her finger, but in the end, she nodded. Somehow, admitting he was an unsanctioned exorcist convinced the desperate he was trustworthy.

“Please, take me to him,” the exorcist said.

She led him to the attic, where M. Silver had tied her husband while he slept. The exorcist struggled to haul his case up steep, narrow stairs.

“Every night for the past week, after he goes to sleep,” she explained again, “He takes himself to the worst bar in town. He drinks, he flirts with pretty men, he gets aggressive. At some point he stops and goes white like he saw a ghost and he starts a fight. He comes back to himself in jail, terrified, injured, drunk and exhausted, confused.” Her fingers trembled. “It’s a demon doing this. I’m certain.”

The exorcist nodded sympathy, not agreement. Most “possessions” were mental illness seen through the lens of either ignorance or desperation for a simple solution. The exorcist could count the true demons he’d faced on three fingers.

M. Silver told her story over the radio when she’d called, but having visited the dive bar and done his research, the exorcist had only one question.

“Does he win?”