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MillionNovel > Dowsing Rods Don't Work > Chapter 35: Miserable at Best

Chapter 35: Miserable at Best

    We went to bed fairly early, but it took me forever to get to sleep. I couldn’t keep thoughts out of my mind, and every time I thought too deeply about what was going on, I woke up.


    It was still hard for me to believe that we were dealing with a demon. I’d never been much of a religious person - there was something about actually being able to see the afterlife that removed a lot of the questioning about where we would all end up after we die. Good or evil, we all went to the same place. Unless we got stuck here, that was, but that wasn’t the fault of a divine being.


    But now, I was being confronted by something that I didn’t understand; something that I didn’t even believe in. And through it all, there was something that didn’t sit right with me about it.


    But the proof was undeniable - if it was a ghost that I couldn’t see, then clearly it was already something that was outside of my realm of expertise. At that point, it might as well be a figure from religious fiction.


    All in all, I woke up the next morning having lightly slept, but it didn’t seem like I was the only one. Despite Circe’s warning the night before, when we met up for a late breakfast, she was the only one who didn’t have dark circles underneath her eyes. Liam gave a low whistle at me when I walked into the hallway to meet up with the rest of them. “Didn’t sleep well, huh?”


    “Yeah, there’s nothing quite like questioning the whole of everything you’ve ever believed to keep you up at night,” I joked.


    “Honestly, same,” he said, knocking my arm lightly with my elbow. “I mean, if one of us was going to be possessed by a demon, I always thought it would be me,” he joked.


    “You shouldn’t laugh at the demon,” Circe warned. “We’re working on getting it out of Luke’s body. If it’s angry, you’re just empowering it.”


    “Right, sorry,” Liam said, and he was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of breakfast. So was Luke, but at least his quietness was understandable to me. Caitlin and Circe seemed completely unphased by the whole of the situation, and both chatted on about other things in their life until eventually, we had eaten our fill.


    “Well, shall we?” Circe asked, getting up from the table as soon as Caitlin had paid for the meal. “Demons are less sensitive to the light than ghosts are, but they still prefer the night to the daytime, so I would say that an exorcism in the afternoon is the most likely to work.”


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    Liam looked over at me questioning as Circe talked. When I met his eyes, he cocked one brow, as if to ask if I was going to correct her thinking about ghosts not liking the daylight, but I shook my head. While that one part was bullshit for ghosts, who knows if it was also bullshit for demons? Either way, I wasn’t planning on pissing Circe off again before she had a chance to even try another exorcism.


    We went back to the hotel, this time all meeting in Circe’s room, where she’d already created a pentagram within a circle on the floor of the room with masking tape. In the middle of the circle sat a lone chair, which Circe pointed to. “Get in it,” she said, and Luke followed her instruction immediately. “You’re going to want to stay inside the circle at all times. The point of the circle is to help keep the demon restrained when it exits your body. That way, its only choice will be to head back to hell where it belongs. If you step outside of the circle, though, then there’s no restraint on the demon.”


    Luke nodded, immediately pulling in his feet so that he was nowhere near the outside of the circle. “And it can’t just stay in the circle and possess me again, can it?”


    Circe shrugged, taking a glass bottle of water and pouring it into a cup. “Theoretically it could, but the point of an exorcism is not necessarily to kick the demon out of your body, but to make your body so uncomfortable that the demon decides to leave without too much aggravation from us. Much safer that way.”  She handed Luke the cup, then pulled out a sage stick and a lighter and started the sage on fire. She walked around him in a circle as he drank, wafting smoke toward him.


    “Want me to open a window?” Liam said, adjusting a setting on one of the cameras pointed toward the two of them. “It might kill the mood a bit if the sprinklers go off.”


    “Do as you must. It shouldn’t affect this.”  Circe set the burning sage down on one of the plates from the kitchenette. “I need you to touch your rosary while we do this,” she said, pulling out a crinkled, old-looking paper from her back pocket. “Keep all of your thoughts on God, or at least away from the demon itself. You don’t want to do anything that would keep it coming back to you.” She grabbed another small bottle of liquid and flicked it toward Luke. The water dotted his pants, but he didn’t appear to notice. He squeezed his eyes closed, as though he was pretending to be far away from that hotel, as he clenched the rosary in his hands.


    “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we call to St. Michael, the Archangel of Heaven, to rid thy demons from this man,” Circe nearly yelled, splashing the liquid at Luke again. “We call on him to banish thy demon from this body, and to remove it from this plain, bringing it back to the hell which is belongs!”


    As she spoke, I couldn’t stop my eyes from glazing over slightly, as though my vision was quickly losing focus. I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my eyes, and it worked for a second, but as Circe once again asked St Michael for help, the room started to spin. I grasped a nearby chair to keep my balance, but my arms felt weak. They felt like I had just woken up from a long sleep, and didn’t quite remember where I was, which made no sense. Maybe I just needed water, I thought.


    Slowly, as so not to disturb the scene behind me, and also to keep my balance as best as I could, I turned and walked back to the sink. There were no more cups after Circe had used them for the ritual, so instead I just turned on the water and lowered my face to drink. Some of the cool water entered my mouth, but more of it ran in rivulets along my face. I hadn’t realized I was so warm, but the water felt so nice…


    “Andi?” Liam said from behind me. It would have made me jump had I had the coordination to do so at that time. “Are you alright? You don’t look very good.”


    I tried to answer him, but I found that my vocal cords weren’t working. I stood up, fully intending at least mouth the words to him, but as I stood up, I saw my vision narrow to pinpoints, and suddenly, I wasn’t sure whether I could stand up anymore. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to stand up anymore.


    “Andi!” yelled Liam, grabbing onto me as I felt my feet give way under me. “Somebody, go get help!”


    But I was fine. As fine as I’d ever been.
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