Chapter 25
Aiden spent days wondering east, making his way around the peaks of the southern Penines. Having spent his life in the dingy solitude of the monastery, the land he traveled was completely foreign to him. In fact, his horse seemed to have a better sense of direction than he did. Once he was on the other side of the peaks, Aiden began to journey north, camping behind tree lines, near streams and when he happened upon them, ancient ruins. He would try to stay clear of occupied land, so as not to offend whoever ruled it. To more quickly bypass these areas, Aiden would occasionally bring his horse to a gallop, flying across the wafting grasslands, tossed over the rolling hills of the English countryside, beneath a quiet leaden sky. It was only now that he came to see the beauty of the English landscape and passing some of its many standing stones, came to appreciate its ancient past as well.
After his encounter with the now deceased highwaymen near Ryle, Aiden thought it best to stay at the rivers and moors. He had reached the conclusion that because of peoples superstitions, these places were not often visited and as long as he kept a small fire, he would be largely unseen. But, there was another reason why he traveled with such discretion. Aiden spent his life isolated from the world. He spent years studying the word of God and the nature of evil. Now, on some level, his mind was creating an addendum to what he had learned; that evil was not simply represented as the embodiment of the devil, but perhaps an attribute as well, common to something far more familiar. He was not yet aware of it, but in time, it's realization would smash through the door of his conscious mind, threatening everything he believed.
After a few days of skirting the Penines, the town of Sheffield lay within sight to the north. It was a small settlement, developed well after the Roman occupation of the fifth century. With the Peak of Derby towering behind it like a stony sentinel, Sheffield was appropriately placed at the headwaters of the River Don. As with many villages, water was essential as the lifeblood of its existence.
By this time, Aiden had reassured himself that the killing of the three highwaymen near Ryle was well behind him. He no longer believed he would be pursued for what was clearly an act of self-defense, but had, however, spent many hours trying to answer one question: could it have ended any other way? Eventually, he reached the conclusion that desperation cannot be reasoned with and that a desperate person is usually a dangerous person, simply because they have little, if anything, to live for.
Aiden slowed his horse to walk as he made his way down the road to Sheffield. The wind came in from the Penines eastern slopes, cold and sharp, driving even the hardiest of creatures to shelter. Thus far, he had survived not only by his wits but through the kindness of charity. People don't usually give to the needy. But when the one in need is a man of the cloth, people often give, simply because they fear for their souls, should he pass empty-handed. But, as Aiden neared the town, he saw a child running towards him. Dressed in ragged clothing, a young boy stopped at Aiden's side and looked up at him with panicked eyes.
"I saw you from the church," he began. "Are you a priest?"
Aiden continued the slow pace of his horse, prompting the boy to keep up. "No," he replied. "I am just a monk." Without missing a step, the small boy followed his question up with another. "But you are holy men, yes?"
Aiden stopped his horse and studied the boy's face. His fearful expression raised not only his curiosity but his concern as well.
"Please," the boy continued. "You have to help us!"
The boy's tone was urgent.
"And what could be so terrible that a boy would be sent for help?" Aiden asked.
He was certain the boy had been frightened by something, but what is monstrous to a child is often little more than discomfort for an adult.
"There is a woman," the boy answered. "She is with the devil."
The boy's words were clear enough, but it was their meaning Aiden found vague. "What do you mean, 'with the devil'?"
He listened closely as the boy struggled for a concise response.
"There is a woman," he repeated. "She screams and speaks in strange words." Aiden's expression turned to grave concern as he stretched a hand down. "Take my hand," he said.
The boy put his hand up as Aiden took him by the arm.
"Now jump."
Within moments, the child sat in front of Aiden, his legs astride the shoulders of the pale horse and with a small kick in its flanks, Aiden urged the horse to a trot as the boy pointed the way to the far edge of town.
Once they arrived, Aiden was met with the sight of dozens of angry townspeople as they crowded around a single tree. Making his way through, the crowd divided itself, allowing him to move in for a close examination. For years, Aiden had prepared himself to do battle with evil incarnate, but he was entirely unprepared for what he found trapped among the people of Sheffield. Somehow, they had managed to both apprehend and restrain a young woman who, for all appearances, had gone insane. She had been tied securely to a tree and townspeople had already judged and sentenced her, issuing their chosen punishment. Stoning. Getting off his horse, he helped the boy to the ground and handing him the reins, stepped through the angry crowd. His presence immediately commanded the people's silence.
"Drop your stones!" he demanded.
A multitude of rocks were heard striking the ground, each with a dull thud as Aiden, having easily moved through the crowd, finally came face-to-face with the living apparition of something so foul that those of weaker fortitude were left dazed on the ground.
She was young, with long dark hair, matted stiff with weeks of sweat and filth. Her body, riddled with wounds, leaned off to one side, tightly tied to a tree. Aiden knew the signs of both witchcraft and demonic possession, yet he had never seen them before. Until now. The young woman raised her head and looked up at him with a grin. Her face had been misshapen into a swollen fiery mass. Her eyes forced into opposing directions from the impact of numerous rocks, thrown by the angry people of Sheffield. She giggled slightly as her face ran with blood.
"Hello monk," she said.
Her tone suggested that whatever had taken control seemed to have expected his arrival. A shiver ran over his skin as he mustered his courage and faith. Pulling back his hood, Aiden exposed the monastic mark of what had once been the Urielin brotherhood. Seeing the brand on his forehead, the occupant of the young woman laughed again, as though pleased with what it saw.
"Come to cast me out, aye?" it said. "You bear the mark of the devil on your brow." The woman's mouth stretched into a broad twisted smile, exposing a number of broken teeth as heavy clots of blood dripped from her lips. Aiden stood tall, his face stoic, his tone resolute.
"It is the mark of that which I am sworn to fight," he replied.
The woman continued to giggle while shaking her head violently. Suddenly, she took a deep breath and stood up with her back against the tree. She stared into him, as though looking deep into his soul.
"So, your brothers...your Abbot...all dead, by your hand alone," she began. Whatever has substituted itself for the young woman's soul had begun taunting him, partly as a manipulation to break his faith and partly for pleasure.
"And you think yourself a godly man." Aiden refused to be moved by such taunting.
"I am not here to play games," he replied. He turned and walked back to his horse as what he now knew to be a demon continued its teasing grin, growling quietly.
"Well then," it began. "What game shall we play?"
Hearing this, Aiden quickly grabbed the small copy of the rite of exorcism and walk back, determined to extricate the malicious presence from the young woman's body. Hopefully, leaving her alive.
Facing the demon once again, Aiden opened the book and prepared himself for what could be a lengthy battle. The young woman leaned towards him as the evil within her spoke again.
"So, you don't want to play?"
Looking over to one side, it singled out a young woman who appeared to be just days from giving birth. Angry smile scrawled its way across the face of the possessed woman as the demon's thoughts tore their way into the soul of the expectant woman. Aiden's concentration was suddenly broken by what he perceived to be a feeling, something vague, yet dark and sinister. Seeing the direction of the demon's gaze, Aiden attempted to intervene. He quickly picked up a fist-sized rock and struck the possessed woman across the face. It was not his intention to kill her, but to distract the living malignancy within her, to prevent it from harming others.
"Stop!" Aiden yelled.
The only thing he had accomplished by this was to invite the demon's rage. Now, the woman's head snapped back towards him and as her eyes widened with anger, the beast inside her roared out its wrath. Panting like a mad dog, the woman drooled a mix of blood and saliva onto the ground, growling with every breath. The demon's attention, again, focused on the expectant mother, who immediately began to feel an indescribable sensation, deep in her abdomen.
The sensation quickly grew into fiery pain as she clutched her hands around her unborn child. A few of the town's older women rushed to her side as she fought to stay on her feet. She looked up at the demon's gaze in terror as the roundness of her abdomen began to churn. The demon's gaze continued to pierce her soul while her body began to shudder. It all took place within a few moments and the demons deed was done before Aiden could intervene. Her face began to pale as she let out a painful, panicked scream. Aiden's attention was away from the pages of the Roman ritual, his eyes pulled toward the distressed woman. Tucking the small book into his robe, he ran the woman's aid and glancing toward the ground beneath her, Aiden noticed a black, tarry substance running down the inside of her ankle. She continued screaming, her hands tightening their grip around her turbulent abdomen. Aiden was completely unfamiliar with such matters as childbirth and looked at the older women for help. With modesty thrown to the wind, they raised her skirt to find the source of the now heavily flowing brackish fluid to be where the child itself resided. As the viscous ooze puddled onto the ground between her feet, and odor of decay rose up, turning the stomachs of those close by, forcing them to a distance, pushing them to their knees, choking and retching.
Aiden was as helpless as those he stood amongst and breaking away from what would certainly end in tragedy, he stormed back to the young woman, still tightly bound to the tree. Furious, Aiden drew his sword firmly held its edge to her throat. In his mind, he was addressing not the attractive young woman, whose body now acted as a vessel of evil, but the evil itself. And with the edge of his blade pressed against her throat, he had to remind himself that his task was to destroy evil without destroying life. Hopefully, he would not take her life in order to dispatch the darkness that had invaded it.
"Stop this!" he shouted.
The young woman's face grinned tauntingly as Aiden felt the urge to remove the demon through the force of his blade. Knowing he could not take the life of the woman it possessed, the demon giggled slightly and dared Aiden to make use of his sword. He continued to press his blade against the woman's throat, hard enough to draw a small amount of blood.
Somehow, through the roiling cacophony of his anger, he heard the expectant woman's continued shrieks of pain. He rushed to her aid again as she fell to her knees. The elder women continued with their examination, fully exposing her in their attempt to stop whatever was boiling within her body. She let out another scream as she fell back on the ground. One of the older women quickly positioned herself between her open knees. The dark gelatinous fluid sprayed out onto the ground with each contraction while the demon looked on, grinning with delightful anticipation.
The woman's abdomen suddenly twisted itself into a rolling, misshapen mass as what had previously lived within her pushed its way toward the outside world. And with her hands ready to catch what would otherwise have been a healthy child, the old woman was stricken into the dense pallor of shock as what emerged was far from human. The child that had, for months, grown within the woman's body, dissolved away into a tarry mass and now lay steaming on the ground between her legs. Staring upon it in horror, the woman took a shocked gasp, paled and fainted, as did several others in the surrounding crowd.
It was not long resting on the ground when it's membrane rupture in scattering droplets on the clothes and faces of those closest, rendered itself a large pool of heavy lifeless fluid. Between its consistency and its pustulant aroma, those who had gathered round in curiosity withdrew like ants from a burning forest. But, the demon was not yet finished and looking on at what it saw as recreation, spoke quietly to the woman.
"Wake up dear."
Her eyes snapped open; her body lurching itself into a sitting position; the expression on her face indicating the flickering images of a waking nightmare. She looked down at the ground beneath her and burying her hands in the thick pool of what was, only minutes ago, her unborn child, brought them back up, clutching the black ooze in her fists. The stream of hysterical tears flowed immediately as the demon looked on with an overjoyed giggle.
Enraged, Aiden rushed back to the restrained woman, whose evil occupant continued twisting her face into a toothy smile. Still, with the obligation to spare the woman's life, he opened the small book again and began what could be a prolonged process. And holding the book in his left hand, Aiden made the sign of the cross with his right.
"In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."
The grip of his sword bore the hammered image of the cross. It had not been blessed, but Aiden could still make use of it as the divine gift he carried used itself into the forged sharpened steel. Holding it up to the demon, he continued the rite, bringing the will of God to every word. The demon laughed at his expense.
"Do you think you have any power over me, monk?" it asked.
In spite of what Aiden was about to do next, the demon was still trying to manipulate him, forcing him to play its game. Looking Aiden in the eyes, it focused his thoughts, not on him, but on the woman who sat in the viscous pool of noxious filth, still weeping over the loss of her child.
"You are only a monk," the demon continued. "You are not ordained. You have no authority. No power."
Its tone was direct; it's words intended to cast doubt into Aiden's mind and weaken his faith. But, the ritual was suddenly interrupted by the violent sound of sickness as the previously expectant woman, again, clutched her stomach and began retching painfully.
"Poor woman," the demon said. "She suffers so needlessly."
In an attempt to stop the demon's influence, Aiden raised his sword and pressed the cross on his grip against the woman's neck. The malicious creature within her screamed in pain and anger as the image burned itself into her flesh. Drawing it back, Aiden sheathes his sword.
"Do I have your attention now!?" he asked.
For the first time, the demon showed signs of weakening. But only for a few moments. However, in spite of its temporary lapse, the demon was not yet finished with its attack and bringing its head back against the tree, launched a final assault. In the time it took for one heartbeat to pass to the next, the demon forced a search up through the throat of the grief-stricken woman. She leaned forward and painfully vomited the same greasy bile that had pushed its way out through her other parts.
Unable to take a breath, the woman soon began choking as the continued outpouring of black acidic liquid started filling her lungs, the overflow quickly gushing out onto the ground. The horrific scene forced Aiden to pause as he looked on with both disgust and deep sympathy. The woman's mouth and clothes had become covered in the black oily mess that now left her suffocating. Her body wilted as her face paled to the color of chalk. Moments later, her soul surrendered itself and she slumped over onto the ground, dead. Aiden had become flooded with anger and as he, again, looked eye to eye with the creature, it grinned menacingly.
"She was so pretty, wasn't she?" it asked. "Oh, but you've never been with a woman, no have you?"
Speaking from within the young woman's body, it let out a quiet, almost casually chuckle.
"I could see it...in your eyes. But, I couldn't possibly let her live, could I?" It's patronizing tone infuriated Aiden and holding the book up, continued with the exorcism, again making the sign of the cross. As he spoke from the ritual, the demon continued giggling, as though amused with Aiden's attempt to remove it.
"Do you think your words can affect me?" it asked. "They're just words. Go back to church, monk. Read you are pretty words to your God."
Now, Aiden was even more determined to extricate the demon and decided that there was only one other weapon available to him.
Tucking the book back into his robe, he prepared himself in taking a modest step back, raised his hand. He could feel the surrounding air warm as the space surrounding his hand began to ripple. But because of his heightened emotional state, the energy began tearing its way through the air had become visible. The people who had gathered around for the supernatural spectacle let out a collective gasp as the demon screamed in agony, struggling to free itself from its restraints. More than that, it fought to escape the divine influence being imposed on it. He ordered that the ropes be tightened, stopping only when a tear ran down the young girl's face.
With the visible glow continuing to emanate from Aiden's open hand, he stepped forward and forcefully repeated the beginning words of the rite, in the holy tongue of Latin:
“In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."
He spoke them over and over again as his hand grew nearer. The demons painful screams became loud enough that some of those in attendance were suddenly deafened, collapsing to the ground with blood slowly trickling from their ears. For a few, those screams would be the last sound they would ever hear again. Their bodies would be buried before nightfall.
The demon's tantrum continued to escalate as the glow from Aiden's hand began to move in waves, occasionally produce a low audible pulse. The throng of people who'd gathered around had never witnessed such an event. Some found it fascinating, while most found it terrifying. The words he had been repeating took on a strange muffled sound as the glow suddenly exploded into a brilliant light, engulfing both Aiden and the young woman. Panic spread through the crowd of onlookers as they retreated away. Some ran in fear of their lives, while others slowly retreated to a safe distance. Another loud thud let loose a shock wave that set the ground in motion, throwing the remaining crowd several feet backward. The demons shrieks became masked by the howl of an oncoming storm. But, it was not the horizon that brought chaos to Sheffield. It had already arrived, spinning like a whirlwind on the sea. There was, however, no threat posed to the town.
From within the storm of blinding light, Aiden was the only one who could see the direction the exorcism was taking. The demon continued in its rage, fighting to remain in control, to remain in possession of the young woman's body. But from the beginning, it was a losing battle and the demon's grip was rapidly slipping to the power wielded by Aiden's mind. In the violence of what was taking place, Aiden saw the dark shapeless form of the demon beginning to peel away from the young woman's body as though caught up by the winds of an ocean storm. With one last fading scream, the divine power that had taken so many years to cultivate pushed the malevolent creature from the young woman. The glaring light that had frightened so many of the townspeople faded, leaving behind a few flashes in the clouds overhead. The young woman opened her eyes as the wounds, heavily scattered over her body, rapidly healed on their own, the result of what remained of God's light still within her.
Aiden's senses reeled from physical and emotional exhaustion. Confident that the woman had regained possession of her soul, he took a few clumsy steps back. Stopping just ahead of his horse, he was suddenly jolted by an impact to the side of his head. He reached his hand up and slowly brought it away with a palm full blood. The pain ripped through his skull in prolonged waves as he bent down and grabbed his knees, steadying himself against collapse. As Aiden tried to shake off the resulting dizziness and throbbing, he heard a voice screaming from only a few feet away.
"Witch! Burn him!"
Having witnessed what had just transpired, a young boy, picking up a rock, had run toward Aiden and thrown it with all the strength could muster. Between the pain and dizziness, Aiden's senses had become chaotic. He looked over in the boy's direction without clearly seeing him and in his continued emotional state, reacted in a way no one could have predicted. On a reflex, Aiden drew his sword and charged blindly at the boy, screaming as though in battle. Before he realized what was taking place, Aiden's sword had found its way through the boy's chest, penetrating deeply enough to exit his spine. As he held the grip of his sword, Aiden's vision cleared just enough to see the boys face grow limp and pale, a single tear trailing down his cheek. His body crumpled to the ground while he was an expression twisted itself into a grimace of emotional pain. As the boy's body fell, Aiden's blade slipped quietly from his chest. His blood ran bright red over the ground like a swiftly moving stream. It all happened within the briefest blur of time. But, things were about to get far worse as the boy's mother ran out after him. Screaming his name repeatedly, she fell to her knees in front of his lifeless body. He took a few steps back as his eyes became flooded with tears. His hand still gripped his sword, now dripping with the blood of what had, moments ago, been the innocent life of a child. The grieving woman looked up at Aiden while cradling her dead son's cold lifeless body. Her voice, a mix of anguish, rage, and confusion.
"Is this what God would do!?" she screamed. "You save a soul, then murder my son! He was all I had!"
She stood up and stepped forward, confronting Aiden. "Now I have nothing to live for!" she continued. "Why don't you kill me as well, holy man!"
The pain of remorse had quickly given way to shock as the woman's words passed through him. It wasn't as though he chose not to listen. Aiden was simply unable to hear her.
As she continued in her rage, the woman soon lost control of her actions and raising a hand, struck Aiden across the face. This was followed by repeated blows as her grief quickly transformed into hysteria. But, Aiden would not retaliate. Something inside him saw the necessity of the woman's assault, as well as the necessity to receive it. But now, those who had previously retreated away were advancing. The bore anger on their faces and rocks in their hands. He backed away towards his horse as the woman continued her tirade. By the time he had thrown himself atop his horse, the townspeople were rapidly closing in. Even with his head still spinning, Aiden realized what their intentions were and giving his horse an urgent kick, fled the town. It didn't matter where he went, so long as he was able to get as far from Sheffield as possible.