When I pass through into the house Nakia isn’t there. But Caleb is, and he has company. An older woman stands in the living room with him, one arm around his shoulders. She’s slightly shorter than him, a round woman with a fierce face who keeps her blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun. His mother. In front of them, talking to both of them is a man in a black suit. I recognize the high white collar he wears. They’ve called in a priest.

            I could go back to Sam at the river, but I don’t. I stay because I’m curious. What effect will a priest have on me? Does he have any kind of power at all? I drift around him, examining him closely. Watery blue eyes peer out from behind glasses, and a wide unattractive mouth makes any expression seem comical. That, combined with the overabundance of red hair that springs up from his head in violent curly clumps, makes it hard to take him seriously. He speaks through his nose, and looks down it at Caleb and his mother. “Now, where has the spirit been most predominant?”

            “Uh,” Caleb stammers. “I guess…I dunno. Once in the kitchen, once in my bedroom and twice in the living room now.”

            “And what sort of thing has the spirit been doing?”

            Caleb looks at his mother, as if asking if he’ll look crazy when he says it out loud. She nods slightly. “Um, banging in the walls, lights flickering, stuff being knocked over.” He shivers, his face twisting in disgust and horror. “And last night it showed up in my doorway. Just a…black outline of a person.”

            His mother rubs his arm in a comforting gesture, and I watch them in fascination. So, he just saw me silhouetted in the light from the hallway. No features. Only a vague, black shadow. Interesting to imagine how I’d looked to him.

            The priest asks, “Do you have any idea who the spirit might be? Any idea who the former tenants may have been or if they experienced anything similar?”

            Caleb shifts uncomfortably, he chews on his lip and shakes his head. “No idea.” The lie slides out easily enough, but his mother can probably tell when her son is lying, because she glances sideways at him, and for just a split second, her lip twitches. My breath catches, no – he can’t possibly have told her, can he? Would she cover for him?

This is confirmed when the priest turns away for a minute, examining the walls of the living room, and I catch a sharp nervous look between mother and son. Rage washes through me. I’m practically shaking with it. How can she possibly go along with it? How is she evil enough to cover for a murder?

            I grit my teeth. Really, why am I surprised? The woman raised a monster. Why wouldn’t she have monster DNA as well? I narrow my eyes, setting my sights on the woman.

            Now I know where he gets it from.

            The priest does a circle of the living room, then he stops in the middle of the floor and sets down a leather brief case that I hadn’t noticed until now. I hold my breath, wondering what sort of deadly things are going to come out of there. The priest cracks open the metal clasps on the front, throwing the case open he pulls out a metal flask.

            “Holy water,” he explains to Caleb, who raises a critical eyebrow at him and says, “Isn’t that for vampires?”

            “No such thing,” The priest says seriously, and sets the flask down on the floor. Next he takes out a leather bible and proceeds to sit down cross- legged in the middle of the floor. “And in fact, I don’t believe what you have here is a ghost. There’s no basis for it. The house is fairly new, and there’s no history that any of us are aware of. So I believe you may have a demon.”

Caleb shuffles his feet and says, “Uh, are you sure? Well, can’t you do an…exorcism or whatever…for both?”

            “It will work either way,” the priest says.

            I snort with laughter, watching him flip through the bible before settling on a certain page. This should be good. He clears his throat and reads in a solemn deep voice.

            “Volo vecstri viaticus. Ego sum a fraus artifex. Ego diligo viticus summopere. Iam tribuo mihi totus vestr viaticus.”

            Latin. I have no idea what he’s saying, but Caleb and his mother look impressed. The priest dips one finger into the open flask and climbs to his feet, clutching his bible to his chest. Making his way over to the door he traces his finger in a cross over the top of the frame.

            “Ego diligo viaticus summopere,” he says loudly.

 I look down at myself, wondering if anything is supposed to be happening yet. I’m not dissolving or blowing up or being sucked out the door or anything. I don’t even feel a tingling sensation.

            Next the priest crosses to the window and repeats the process on the window frame, calling out, “volo vecstri viaticus!” And again on the second window. “Iam tribuo mihi totus vestr viaticus!” He crosses the living room and into the kitchen, and I drift behind him curiously. Caleb and his mother follow behind me. In the kitchen the priest marks the top of the stairs leading down into the basement, and both the windows, chanting as he does so. He turns to Caleb suddenly and says, “Ah yes, I feel it now. It’s begging me, pleading with me not to send its soul to hell.”

            Caleb’s eyes light up and he nods eagerly. I stare at the priest in disbelief as he suddenly cries, “Back foul spirit! Away from me!” And makes wild gestures in the air. I dart a look around the room, wondering if I’ve been sharing the house with some other spirit I didn’t know about. No one is there, no one moves but the priest, who has shut his eyes tight and appears to be murmuring feverishly in Latin. Suddenly his eyes fly open and he claws at his throat, making strained choking sounds, his body slams against the wall, and he pushes up on his tip toes. It’s convincing, and even I believe for a second that some huge evil spirit has him in a choke hold.

            Caleb shouts and backs up, running into the kitchen counter, and his mother screams and covers her eyes. I almost like the priest then, because of the pure terror on Caleb’s face. He looks as though he’s about to wet his pants. I can’t keep myself from laughing, because of how scared Caleb is, because the priest’s fake choking is comical, and because he’s a total fraud here to rip Caleb and his evil mother off.

            At last the priest croaks out a few Latin phrases and then slumps down the wall and sits on the kitchen floor, breathing heavily. I smile and clap at the performance, “Bravo,” I say. “That was something. Fantastic.” No one hears me of course.

            The priest says, “It’s gone. It won’t bother you again.”

            Relief is plain on Caleb’s face, and I snicker in disbelief. They’re really going to buy that? Apparently they do, because Caleb’s mother hands the fake priest a wad of twenties, which he pockets eagerly with much blessing of her and her “child”. He leaves very serious instructions to pray once a night, before bed.

            Yeah right, like Caleb is going to start praying.

            He finally leaves, and Caleb shuts the door and leans against it, smiling wearily at his mother. “Geeze, that was scary, huh?”

            She nods, her face stern. “It was terrifying. And so it should be. The forces of evil are no joke, son. Now, you’ve got to clean up your life, you hear me? If something else like this ever happens again, don’t come calling me. I can’t save you every time.”

            Caleb just nods and she continues to lecture him. “You shouldn’t hang out with those boys anymore. I know they deal drugs, Caleb, I’m not stupid.”

            “Mom,” he starts to say, but she holds up one hand and shakes her head. “I don’t want to hear it. Just know that things like this don’t go away, Caleb. I’ll do what you asked me to. I’ll go tomorrow even. But I better not ever hear about this sort of thing again. Even if no one ever finds out, you still have it on your conscience. Always.”

            I watch her leave, waddling her way down the driveway towards her shiny car at the bottom, her blonde held head high, staring severely straight ahead.  There’s only one problem with that statement. Caleb doesn’t have a conscience. 

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