I shivered as Damian's fingers worked their way to my scalp. They paused there, a gentle pull on my hair, as his voice grew quieter and then, silenced. He sighed, and I looked back at him over my shoulder. His eyes were distant, caught in memory. Shadowed with pain. I longed to reach out to him, to touch him, to offer some...comfort. If anything could even ease the pain of seeing your own mother turn against you.
"Damian," I began, but did not know where to end. What could I say? I was familiar with pain, and for any comforting words of understanding there was only emptiness that followed. Words, in the face of such trauma, were mere grains of sand.
"She was already gone," he said. "It had been feeding on her for weeks, the being that crept inside. A woman as wise as she should have seen it, should have recognized the danger. But the pills they gave her kept her numb. They clouded her mind. It gave them the time they needed to infest her." Slowly, he began to rinse my hair again. "It wasn't she that wielded the knife. Not truly. It took all that she was and destroyed it. It used her body to stand over me, laugh at me. I recognized it for what it was, even at that age. My grandmother had taught me well: I knew the signs of possession. Dizzy and sick as I was, I called it out." He laughed, bitterly. "I had no power in me to stop it, but I still tried. I demanded its name."
"There is power in their names, isn't there?" I said, as he began to massage the soap onto my scalp.
"To know a demon's name is to know how to command it. They will still fight you, but it is like putting a gun in your hands when previously you only had your fists. That is why I was able to cast Krahia from you - part of why, at least. It gave us a fighting chance. I can't imagine your other tormentors have been so bold as to tell you their names?"
"Sadly not," I said. It was easy to forget, in that peaceful moment, that there were still "others" within me. They were silent, and I wondered if they were merely resting or if they were still watching, ready to punish me with a vengeance the moment they had the chance. "That man...James...the doctor, I assume..."
"Does he sound like your Carnickey?" I nodded. "I suspected as much. Would that I could better remember his face, but the moment you made mention of him I thought of James..." He sighed. "They called it Legion: her infestation, the army, the host of demonic entities that swarmed into her."
"Like the Book of Mark," I murmured. "We are Legion, for we are many." I shuddered. I had heard that name before - in reference to myself. "You've spoken of Legion before...about me..."
He paused. "I thought you were asleep during that conversation. Here, tip your head back."
I scooted forward in the tub, and let him ease my head down into the water. Thus submerged, his fingers massaged the filth from my scalp as I gazed up at him. The care with which he handled me matched the expression I beheld upon his face. I tried not to look at him too long. Just seeing the gentleness in his eyes sent my mind into a flurry. How was I supposed to react to kindness? To care? I barely knew how to conduct myself and it made my belly light with embarrassment.
The record had reached its end, emitting only a scratchy static from the gramophone. Damian helped me sit back up, then moved across the room to bring me a fluffy towel from a hook upon the wall.
"What is Legion?" I said, as I pulled the tubs plug and my warm water began to swirl away. "Why is it that I'm the second woman to be infested with it? Why are these people-"
"Stand up please," Damian held open the towel for me, so when I stepped from the tub he draped it around my body and I was immediately engulfed in warm, fluffy goodness. "This has become an even longer conversation than I anticipated. Though I suppose it needs telling after everything..." His tiredness had returned, but it was the sleepiness of a relaxed man, not the exhaustion of one utterly depleted. It seemed our little session had done us both good. He motioned to the gray cushioned stool beside the gramophone. "Sit please, if you would, with your back to me. I'll tell you what I know."
I sat uncertainly. With a second small towel he began to dry my hair, surprising me yet again. "You don't have to do all this," I said. He paused, then resumed his work.
"Working with my hands eases my mind," he said. "These are not easy conversations, Samara. I don't like to remember what I've told you. I've spent...years...trying to understand what happened to my mother. Trying to understand why. There are still many answers I don't have. But you're right: they are called Legion, for they are many. And Legion is within you. It is incredibly rare, something an exorcist would never expect to encounter."
"Why is it rare? If one demon can...infect...a host, why couldn't many?"
"There is a boundary between our world, our dimension, and the world beyond. It is treacherous and near impenetrable: an amalgamation of energy and matter. It is incredibly difficult for one being to cross over, let alone dozens or hundreds. For a feat such as that to occur, a gateway must be opened: an easy path by which they can enter our world. I do not say this to frighten you, but when a host of demons infests a human, it is almost always to their death. The fact that you are alive, and aware, and in control, is nothing short of utterly stunning." He paused, and his voice softened. "They overwhelmed my mother utterly. The moment they had her completely in their clutches, she was consumed. Her body became but a shell for them to maneuver."
I pulled the towel tighter about myself, shivering. "Why hasn't that happened to me?"
"That is one of the answers I do not have. But I intend to find out."
"How did you escape, Damian? They had you trapped..."
"One could say it was to my good fortune that demons are wildly vicious, particularly when having just made the crossing between our world and theirs. When my mother charged at me with the knife, and I managed to slip past her, she did not hesitate to start in on the first warm body she encountered: those of the very people who meant to worship her. It is so strange to remember...I didn't look back. The alcohol in my system - and whatever else they had drugged me with - came in waves where one moment my mind seemed to have perfect clarity and the next, all was swimming again. There was chaos. With the demon freed and now armed, it could do as it pleased. Although the end goal, of course, was to finish the job: to kill me, so the ritual would be completed."
"And what was this ritual?" I said. I felt so cold despite the towel. Everything he described was all too familiar - it was nearly identical. Save my place had not been the same as his: my place had been that of his mother's.
Damian sighed, and paused his speech to collect his thoughts. His hands felt like heaven on my head, working the towel slowly. He hardly even seemed to be thinking of it anymore, the drying of my hair becoming like a ritual as he delved into memory.
"They were attempting to create - to open - a gateway through the divide between our world and the next. They wanted to release an army of demons amongst humans. To what end...I still do not truly know. My suspicion is that they regard them as gods, something to be worshiped perhaps...but I have found no evidence of such a religion or cult. There are no books, no passages that allude to it. Whatever it is, whatever belief they follow, it is tight-knit and fed to them by one of their own. Someone they follow and trust."
"Carnickey," I said firmly. "It has to him. It has to be. He would lead them to do this."
"It very well may be," Damian said. "Where was I...let me see...I had made my escape from the cellar while the "guests" faced the wrath of a hungry demon. I can still hear them screaming. To this day it sends shudders through me. I didn't know what to do, where to go. In my drunken state I kept thinking my Amma would save me, that surely she would come. But how could she know? I knew not even how to get to her, only that she was likely still in the little house on the outskirts of the city. Then, at the top of the stairs, I ran face-first into yet another stranger: a red-haired man."
I sucked in my breath, whipped around and stared at him accusingly. "He is real! I knew he was!"
"He's real enough," Damian replied with a wry smile. "Up until now, only myself and my grandmother has known that, so you must forgive me for denying you in front of Alex. The less people know of him, the better."
"But who is he?" I said. "What is he?"
"His name is Kiiji. He is a reaper. My reaper."
"Like...the Grim Reaper?"
"More like the Aggravating Reaper, but aye, like that. A being who collects the souls of the dead, although, it is not exactly like humans have portrayed it in fairytales. A reaper does not collect the souls of every human to leave this earth: they collect the ones they can catch. Or, the ones they are sold."
"Your soul was sold to him?" I exhaled a shuddering breath.
"It was. He was there to collect upon his reward, but problematically, I was not actually dead yet." He chuckled suddenly. "I'll never forget the look on his face, terrified as I was. He looked horrified. Utterly horrified. He stared at me like a cockroach under his shoe, but then...with pity. And he said simply: "Are you dying?" Of course I ran from him. I trusted no one, saw no friendly face. I hid somewhere, a closet I think. The house seemed so terribly large, and even having been living there for a time, I had never been allowed to explore its every hall. I was so frightened, I couldn't find my way to the front door. But I remember cowering among boots and coats, shivering, seeing the my own blood on my hands, feeling waves of pain from the cuts they'd made in me. And suddenly Kiiji was there, in the closet, crouched beside me. "Don't be frightened," he told me. "Dying isn't all bad. It's very peaceful, I promise." And I sobbed at him that I wasn't dying, I wasn't going to die, but couldn't he please help my mother. I was babbling. I couldn't truly put a thought together. I begged him to tell my grandmother I needed help. Begged him..." He trailed off. He tossed the soaked towel aside and said, "May I braid your hair?"
"Of...course..." I was too stunned to say much else. I was overwhelmed with emotion: for him and his pain, and for myself and the terrifying realities slowly being unveiled. He pulled my damp hair behind my shoulders and began to separate it, working slowly.
"It took me years to finally realize the gravity of what he did next," he said. "There are rules that reapers must follow, something called the First Millenia Treatise on Relations with Transdimensional Beings. I haven't a clue what all is in it. It's one of the many things he isn't allowed to tell me. But what he did that day...I don't know much about transdimensional law and punishment, but from what he's suggested his actions could cost him his existence if ever found out."
"What did he do?" I said, though I already had an idea.
"He asked for my grandmother's name. I told him...and he vanished before my eyes. My Amma told me later that she had been knitting in her chair before the fire and saw a face in the flames. The being stepped out, and crouched there before her, and he was made of coal and embers and his hair was fire. He said nothing, but a vision came to her of where I was. How fast that woman must have ridden to get to me I can scarcely imagine...because soon enough the screaming from the cellar quieted and I heard my mother stalking through the house, calling my name. I wanted to believe she was back so badly that I came out of hiding. I crept out into the open and saw my mother standing there, covered in the blood of her victim's, with the knife in her hand...and she called to me so sweetly, like she always did, and opened her arms to me..."
His voice caught. I began to turn to look at him, but he rested his hand quickly and gently against the side of my face, keeping me turned away. "Don't," he said softly. "Please." Quietly, I stared at the wall as his breathing shuddered, and he said, "There was a bang...a loud...bang...and the smell of gunpowder. I think Amma knew that if she hesitated...for even a moment...it might be too late. A dark hole opened in my mother's head and even...even with its body dying...the demon within her tried to crawl...it kept slashing the knife...there was so much blood..." He was shaking. Without thinking, I rested my palm against the hand he had laid on my face. "I thought of it all again when I saw your scars that night, Samara. I never meant to frighten you as I did. But when I saw them...I could see my mother crawling towards me again, and that demon screaming within her, and all the blood and life going out of her..."
"I'm sorry, Damian," I whispered. "I'm so sorry." I knew he did not want me to see him, so I kept my face turned to the wall and grasped his hand. It took him a moment, but he grasped mine back and wept in silence.