row of skyscrapers. He arrived at the parsonage beside Saint Luke’s Church on the Lower East Side. Ringing the bell, he lowered his hat to prevent a gust of wind from whisking it from his head.
An old woman, her gray hair wrapped in a tight bun, answered the door. She brought a pair of glasses held by a chain around her neck to the bridge of her nose.
“Yes, can I help you?” she said with a warm smile, eyeing Father Michael’s white collar.
“I’ve come to see Monsignor Stanton,” he replied, working hard to keep the bass level of his voice from hitting the fringes of its usual disquieting timbre.
The old woman, most likely a volunteer, pulled him in by the elbow. “Do come in. It feels like snow’s about to fall any minute now.” The air inside was warm, almost balmy. A desk cluttered with Mass cards sat to the left of the entranceway. “Do you have an appointment to see the monsignor?”
“I hadn’t expected to be in New York,” Father Michael said.
“That won’t be a problem, Father—”
“Michael.”
“Yes. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
The old woman walked down a narrow hallway and up a flight of wooden stairs.
Monsignor Stanton was one of the few members of the cloth aware of Father Michael’s existence. It had been agreed in the early part of the twentieth century that selected clergymen from major cities in America be informed of Father Michael and his special purpose in defending the church. This new land of so many freedoms had become a lodestar for the evil in the world. Without a secret network of informed clergy, chaos would easily destroy what had become the strongest nation on the planet.
As a young priest, Monsignor Stanton had performed an exorcism on a Bronx woman fifteen years into his priesthood and then another on a teenage boy. The Vatican selected him due to his outstanding service and ability to keep such matters silent, and elevated him to monsignor, moving him to Saint Luke’s Church, his childhood parish. He had been offered the title of bishop many times over the years but had refused, preferring to stay close to his parish.
Father Michael had met the monsignor in the 1960s to seek out a serial killer who had left certain clues where only a select few in the world could divine that the madman was, in fact, a demon. The evil entity in this case was actually a demon named Melcinor that the monsignor had exorcised years earlier from a young man who, because of boredom and a general lack of religious education, had joined a satanic cult that performed dark Masses in the Inwood section of Manhattan. After losing a member of his parish to the beast and deciphering the clues intentionally left by the unholy spirit (it had scrawled his name, as well as its own name, in the victim’s blood, which the police thought was some sort of code, but for what they could only guess), Monsignor Stanton had an urgent meeting with New York’s cardinal, who then called upon the Vatican to meet Father Michael and employ his services. The series of events that unfolded in the weeks after his arrival nearly killed the monsignor. Father Michael had insisted he stay locked away in his church, but he had refused. He felt responsible for pulling the demon from the man’s body, leaving it to find purchase in our world.
The demon, lying in wait and deformed beyond description, had ambushed him near an abandoned apartment building on the Lower East Side. If not for Father Michael, it would have torn his throat out, or worse, dragged his soul to the rot of hell. The demon was subdued in the end, a bloody clash between two immovable objects, though the official police report still states that the murderer was never found. Father Michael’s magic-fire powder had erased all traces of the beast and he carried the wounded holy man fifteen blocks to the emergency room.
“Father Michael, it’s been a long time,” a raspy, withered voice cried out.
Emerging from the darkness of the
An old woman, her gray hair wrapped in a tight bun, answered the door. She brought a pair of glasses held by a chain around her neck to the bridge of her nose.
“Yes, can I help you?” she said with a warm smile, eyeing Father Michael’s white collar.
“I’ve come to see Monsignor Stanton,” he replied, working hard to keep the bass level of his voice from hitting the fringes of its usual disquieting timbre.
The old woman, most likely a volunteer, pulled him in by the elbow. “Do come in. It feels like snow’s about to fall any minute now.” The air inside was warm, almost balmy. A desk cluttered with Mass cards sat to the left of the entranceway. “Do you have an appointment to see the monsignor?”
“I hadn’t expected to be in New York,” Father Michael said.
“That won’t be a problem, Father—”
“Michael.”
“Yes. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
The old woman walked down a narrow hallway and up a flight of wooden stairs.
Monsignor Stanton was one of the few members of the cloth aware of Father Michael’s existence. It had been agreed in the early part of the twentieth century that selected clergymen from major cities in America be informed of Father Michael and his special purpose in defending the church. This new land of so many freedoms had become a lodestar for the evil in the world. Without a secret network of informed clergy, chaos would easily destroy what had become the strongest nation on the planet.
As a young priest, Monsignor Stanton had performed an exorcism on a Bronx woman fifteen years into his priesthood and then another on a teenage boy. The Vatican selected him due to his outstanding service and ability to keep such matters silent, and elevated him to monsignor, moving him to Saint Luke’s Church, his childhood parish. He had been offered the title of bishop many times over the years but had refused, preferring to stay close to his parish.
Father Michael had met the monsignor in the 1960s to seek out a serial killer who had left certain clues where only a select few in the world could divine that the madman was, in fact, a demon. The evil entity in this case was actually a demon named Melcinor that the monsignor had exorcised years earlier from a young man who, because of boredom and a general lack of religious education, had joined a satanic cult that performed dark Masses in the Inwood section of Manhattan. After losing a member of his parish to the beast and deciphering the clues intentionally left by the unholy spirit (it had scrawled his name, as well as its own name, in the victim’s blood, which the police thought was some sort of code, but for what they could only guess), Monsignor Stanton had an urgent meeting with New York’s cardinal, who then called upon the Vatican to meet Father Michael and employ his services. The series of events that unfolded in the weeks after his arrival nearly killed the monsignor. Father Michael had insisted he stay locked away in his church, but he had refused. He felt responsible for pulling the demon from the man’s body, leaving it to find purchase in our world.
The demon, lying in wait and deformed beyond description, had ambushed him near an abandoned apartment building on the Lower East Side. If not for Father Michael, it would have torn his throat out, or worse, dragged his soul to the rot of hell. The demon was subdued in the end, a bloody clash between two immovable objects, though the official police report still states that the murderer was never found. Father Michael’s magic-fire powder had erased all traces of the beast and he carried the wounded holy man fifteen blocks to the emergency room.
“Father Michael, it’s been a long time,” a raspy, withered voice cried out.
Emerging from the darkness of the
Similar Books
