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tinyfandomflashTitle: For Sorrow and Tempests That Fall
Author:![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
timegoesby
Fandom: The Exorcist (TV)
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen
Relationship(s): Marcus Keane & Tomás Ortega, Mouse & Tomás Ortega
Character(s): Marcus Keane, Tomás Ortega, Mouse, Minor Original Characters
Word Count: 10,464
Spoiler: Post-Canon
Notes/Warnings: Contains canon-typical depictions of demons and exorcisms.
Summary: Out in the dark and stormy sea, Marcus sails away without looking back.
Inside a cold and dreary house, Tomás chases mysterious visions.
Though they have gone their separate paths, their fates are still as intertwined as before.
“Better get back inside, the storm’s not too far out.”
Marcus turned around at the sound of the warning and nodded, “In a second.”
“Don’t dawdle,” the man put a heavy hand on his shoulder in half-hearted admonishment. “We’re locking down up here.” Then, with the brisk pace of someone with several places to be, he left.
Marcus watched him head to the other side of the ship, then turned back to the sea he’d been staring at moments ago.
The water was dark blue, almost black, spots of white foam breaking up its endless expanse with each crashing wave that rocked the large fishing boat. Around him the wind was starting to pick up, trying to rip the hood of his raincoat off his head and allowing the cold drops of rain to find their way inside his collar, dampening the fabric and sending a shiver down his spine.
Clouds had been gathering overhead for the better part of the day, forming a dark grey mass that blotted out the sun, making it feel like evening even though it should have been the middle of the day, and by the time rain started to fall it seemed as though the ocean was locked in perpetual twilight. There was no land around as far as his eyes could see, making it feel like the ship was sailing in the middle of a stormy purgatory, with no certainty that they would ever dock again—though that prospect honestly didn’t sound all that terrible to him.
He breathed in the wet sea air and closed his eyes, feeling the rain pelting against his face, running in rivulets down his chin and neck, listening to the whistle of the wind against the fabric of his hood, finding that it was the only thing he could hear despite the commotion he was sure was taking place on the deck behind him.
It had been a few months of this; the blessed quiet of the sea, the easy, transitory company of fellow fishermen, the sure satisfaction of putting effort into a job and knowing it would be enough at the end of the day, and the security that he would do the same thing over again the next, come rain or shine. Marcus was starting to get used to it, starting to look forward to waking up, even.
Behind him, men scrambled to secure the last of the things that would be left on deck, and someone called for him to help holding down a tarp, the sound of his name barely cutting through the howling of the wind.
Marcus opened his eyes and turned to follow, shaking the rain off his face with a hand, glad for the straightforward tasks that occupied his mind and left his body tired enough at night to fall asleep the moment his head hit his slightly lumpy pillow.
He needed this, needed the break from those hellish horrors, needed the chance to stop and catch his breath, to look around and realise that the path he’d been walking on since he was a child was not the only path available to him—he didn’t even have to walk any path at all, it turned out. No, he could simply hop on a boat and sail the open sea for weeks on end, free as the gulls that circled their boat when the wind was just right.
A part of him still thought about what he’d left behind, of course. Of who he’d left behind. But he knew deep down he would have been more of a burden than any actual help. He'd been sinking back then, struggling to keep his head above water, why insist on dragging down with him someone who was just learning how to swim?
The Marcus of now was shivering with cold, his hands red and raw even under his gloves from holding down the indomitable nylon tarp, and he was pretty sure he'd have to buy a new raincoat considering how much of the rain was soaking through to his woollen sweater, but, more than anything, he was at peace.
He needed this.
“Take a break, alright? Get your head on straight.” Mouse touched the side of his face briefly, making eye contact, no doubt seeing her own fatigue reflected back at her.
Tomás nodded, “Thank you.”
She let her hand drop back to her side, nodding, then walked back through the door they'd just come through and closed it behind her without a look back.
Tomás knew this was her trying to be more patient, and he was grateful for it, but sometimes he couldn’t tell if he preferred the Mouse that insisted on pushing him past his limits or the one that hid her frustration at his shortcomings by getting him out of the way the moment she sensed he'd be more trouble trying to help than he was worth.
He stared at the closed door for a moment, so incredibly tired he didn't even contemplate the idea of going back inside and trying again, then turned around and made his way down the corridor, swallowing the tiny knot of shame he felt at acknowledging relief that flooded his wired nerves once the sturdy wood had blocked out the cries from within the room.
The house was old and in disrepair, the floor creaked with every step Tomás took, making it feel as though the aged wood was on the verge of collapsing from his weight alone; the peeling wallpaper fluttered with an ever-present draft that came in through some unseen gap, rendering the overworked heating system almost useless as the snow outside continued to fall; and the constant sounds from the shifting foundation or the frozen pipes almost served to mask the sporadic, muffled thumps and barely-audible screaming from the exorcism being performed inside what had once been the master bedroom.
They’d been at it for three days and two nights already —this being the middle of the third night— not too long in the grand scheme of things, but it was looking like the demon wanted to drag it on for as long as possible, probably banking on the elderly man’s body giving out before they ever had a chance to succeed. Truth be told, it was nothing short of a miracle that the man had managed to hold on for this long already.
Tomás reached the living room and sat down on a couch that stank of dust and mildew, the relief his aching limbs felt at finally having some rest vastly overshadowing the uncomfortable smell, and he did his best to lay down on the hard cushions to at least try to get some sleep, staring up at the odd shadows cast on the ceiling by the cold light of the moon outside.
Outside, snow continued piling up on the ground, falling silently, each snowflake a fat clump that clung to any surface available, gradually accumulating on the corners of each window pane and blocking out the already meagre view Tomás had of the old man’s overgrown garden.
From what little they’d been able to glean about the man they knew that he’d been living in a retirement home since the death of his wife three years prior, then moved himself back into this house a few months ago, presumably around the time the possession began. It was his eldest daughter who noticed the changes in her father and called them for help—she was the current owner of the property, but had been sitting on it while she made up her mind on whether or not the nostalgia she held for her childhood home would be worth the price of the repairs necessary to make it a place she could move her family into.
Aside from that, Tomás had learnt a lot more about the old man and his family from his as-of-yet unsuccessful attempts to use his ability to force the demon out from the inside. He was a lonely man who missed his wife and wished his kids would visit more, and his consciousness liked hiding out in the sunroom next to the kitchen where he used to start his day with a cup of black coffee and the morning’s newspaper. He was estranged from his youngest son for having been the unfortunately sad stereotype of an emotionally absent father, spending far too much time at work and not enough with his family —something which his two older daughters had since mostly come to forgive him for, spurred on by his wife’s passing— and he was far too proud a man to admit he deeply regretted having missed those silly baseball games back in the day. The demon, when it approached with the intent to complete the integration, came to him not in the shape of his dearly departed wife, but of this disaffected son, promising a reconciliation he wasn’t likely to get out there in the real world.
For three days Tomás had tried to get the old man to leave his sunroom and confront the demonic intruder, but he was too set in his avoidant ways, and the demon seemed all too happy to take advantage of that fact.
Mouse didn’t understand why he was having such a hard time with this exorcism, given that they had successfully completed a handful of more complicated cases so far, and all Tomás could offer in response was that every demon was different, and putting his immortal soul at risk in the name of liberating the possessed was not exactly a walk in the park regardless of how many times he’d done it before.
What he didn’t tell her, however, was about that strange vision he’d had during one of his first attempts, the sight of which knocked him so strangely off-kilter that he was having a hard time moving past it even two days later.
It was almost too cold for Tomás to sleep, yet even as his body shivered with both cold and exhaustion he tried to fight the heavy pull of his eyelids in an almost instinctual struggle against the unconsciousness that threatened to engulf him. He knew he needed sleep, but he also knew that visions, dreams and memories would blur together into a dangerous combination once he did so, the intensity of which would only be heightened by the recency of his latest foray into the demon’s territory.
Still, he had no choice but to succumb to the pull if he wished to have enough energy to try the exorcism again, and he didn’t want to make Mouse wait too long by herself.
So he finally closed his eyes, drifting off to the sight of a familiar sunroom bathed in golden light.
“Albert, listen to me, you have to fight this,” Tomás’s voice came out in an exasperated plea. “That’s not your son outside, it’s a demon. It’s trying to kill you.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” the old man turned the page on the newspaper and shook his head. “Let the boy try if he wants.”
“Please, I’m here to help you, just listen to me…”
As his words continued falling on deaf ears, Tomás found himself watching the events from the large windows just outside the sunroom, both subject and spectator of this scene in a manner that suggested this was not the ‘real’ world.
Events transpired pretty much the same way as he remembered them. He talked to the old man some more, trying to convince him to shake off his fear and apathy, yet the man wanted nothing more than to keep languishing in indecision, truly unable to make a choice between fighting the demon or giving in to its demands.
“Your daughter wanted us to help you.” He’d even tried bringing his remaining family into it to spur some sort of reaction.
“She didn’t come to visit,” the old man frowned. “Not for Thanksgiving, and she won’t be here for Christmas either. Neither of them will.”
A little taken aback by the reaction, Tomás paused for a second before trying again. “There’s still time. After this, you can go to your daughters, spend Christmas together, there’s still time.”
Albert cast a glance his way at that, but looked away just as quickly with no response.
“Albert—”
It was then, just like the first time, that a forceful knock came to the sunroom’s door, and a young boy’s voice called out to those inside.
“Dad? Are you in there? Can you come out for a sec?”
The man stared firmly at the newspaper, his gaze fixed on a page he wasn’t even reading anymore.
“Dad? Dad! Can I talk to you about something?”
The man remained silent, and clouds began to gather overhead, dimming the bright golden sunlight and washing the sunroom in a drab, lifeless colour.
“Dad!” The door rattled even harder, shaking the walls around its hinges. “DAD!”
Finally, Albert found his voice, “Not now, son.”
The shaking stopped, and there was a brief pause before the voice responded, “Oh, okay, I’ll come back later.”
Almost immediately after, the clouds began to part, though Tomás could swear the light of the sun that greeted them once more was not as warm as it had been moments ago.
“He’ll come back,” Tomás wasted no time in cautioning. “Let me help you.”
“There’s no helping me now,” the old man punctuated his sentence with a shake of his head. “No point trying.”
When this had happened outside of his dream, Tomás had only spent a minute or so in an exhausting back-and-forth with the man before deciding to go into the house and look for the demon himself—not because he believed he would be able to deal with it on his own, but rather he felt that seeing the creature for what it truly was would help give the old man the push he needed to gather himself and make a stand against it.
So Tomás, standing outside of the sun room, watched himself give a badly-supressed sigh and turn around towards the door leading back to the kitchen, then walk through it with one last look back at the man still rooted to the same spot as always.
He tried craning his neck to see if he could catch the moment just before the door closed behind him, when the cracked kitchen tile would turn to metal under his feet and the sounds of animated conversation would drift from somewhere just ahead in the cramped space. He couldn’t see any of it, of course, but he could still remember it so clearly.
Back then, in his attempt to chase down the demon, Tomás had been suddenly transported somewhere else entirely. The place had been unfamiliar, small and noisy, with the floor shifting under his feet in a nauseating rhythm, but above the din of what seemed to be the whirring of machinery, Tomás had heard an all too familiar voice.
“It’s been great,” the words were said with a joyful laugh Tomás hadn’t heard in a long time.
He’d walked forward to follow, through a tiny kitchen, and peeked into a small room with a table and a group of men sat on benches around them, and, among them, there he was.
“You’re looking a lot better nowadays.” Someone else spoke just as he’d arrived, and Marcus’s eyes crinkled with a smile as he responded to the compliment.
It was true, Tomás noticed it even before the remark had been made. He hated to admit it, but the last time they’d seen each other Marcus had looked almost lifeless, beaten down by the world and exhausted from it all, but now he looked at ease, like the spark had returned to his eyes and the weight had been lifted from his shoulders as he talked and ate in the little dining room without a care in the world.
Tomás had been so stunned by the scene he almost didn’t notice when Marcus and another man had gotten up to leave, only catching up to them in time to hear the tail-end of a conversation he now wished he’d missed entirely.
“You’re not going back?” The man had looked at Marcus with concern in his eyes. “Surely someone out there must be waiting for you.”
Tomás’s ears had perked at that as he rounded the corner, and a thought occurred to him, was he seeing this because he was meant to find Marcus again, just like that first time?
But that moment of hope had been shattered almost immediately.
“No, there’s nothing for me to go back to.” Marcus had said it so easily, like he really believed it.
“I’m glad being away from it has brought you peace,” the man put his hand on Marcus’s shoulder.
“You’re right,” Marcus brought his hand up to meet the man’s, and at that point Tomás had turned away, not wanting to witness anything else.
Back during the day, Tomás had walked away from the scene and wondered through the tiny, cramped corridors for only a few minutes before his consciousness was forced back into his body, but now that he was in a dream Tomás could only watch that closed door from behind the window of the sunroom and repeat the scene over and over in his head, like a twisted dream-within-a-dream that he couldn’t shake off.
Had it been a real vision, or was the demon trying to get to him? It had felt far too real to be a fabrication, far too mundane to be a nightmare conjured up from his innermost fears. Besides, wasn’t it a good thing? If what he’d seen was real it meant Marcus had found what he was looking for, in that case, Tomás should feel happy for him, not…
Clouds gathered overhead again, almost as if in response to his mood, and it wasn’t long before fat drops of rain began falling down, soaking into his shoulders and falling with a loud pitter patter onto the large window of the sunroom, covering the area with a shade so all-encompassing it might as well have turned day into night.
Tomás stood under the rain for a while, letting the water wash over him and inhaling the smell of petrichor deep into his lungs, trying to find his footing again amidst the snares of doubt that had tripped him up earlier.
Just because Marcus had found his peace in walking away from it all didn’t mean he had to stop trying. The old man still needed his help, even though he didn’t want it. Walking away was not an option for everybody.
Tomás was just about to start trying to find a way to wake back up when a hair-raising sound came from the woods beyond the garden behind him.
A young boy’s mocking laughter. The demon was near.
With a quick glance back, Tomás determined that the old man hadn’t heard anything, so he took off running in the direction of the laugh. The demon seemed to grow more distant with each step he took, so he redoubled his pace, squinting past the heavy curtain of water that seemed almost determined to drown him as it pelted down onto his nose and mouth.
He ran through muddy grass, jumped over small shrubs, and ducked between tall trees as he followed a lilting laugh and, occasionally, a small dark figure that flitted in and out of his vision, though by that point everything around him was so dark he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just his imagination. So focused was he on the escaping figure in front of him that he almost failed to notice when the woods opened up into a clearing, but managed to stop himself just as he felt his foot sink not into a shallow puddle or a patch of mud but rather water that rose all the way to his shin.
Pausing for a second, he looked around and realised that what he’d assumed was a field of grass reflecting what little light remained in the sky was actually a vast, choppy body of water, its waves constantly being raised by the wind that had picked up considerably since he’d started running only to be battered down again by the sheets of water that kept falling from the sky.
And beyond the water, far enough away that Tomás wouldn’t be able to swim the distance in the storm but close enough that he could still see the figure clearly, was a familiar man standing on the deck of a ship.
“Marcus?” he found himself saying the words before his brain fully registered the thought.
He didn’t quite believe it at first, but it was Marcus. He wore a bright orange raincoat with the hood pulled up, but the wind kept blowing it out of the way so that Tomás could still recognise his face. On top of that, Marcus seemed to be leaning on the railing of the deck, staring out straight ahead into the distance, and for a moment Tomás swore it felt like he was looking right aft him.
Then someone stepped out from behind him, and Marcus turned away to speak to them.
“Wait,” after a moment of hesitation, Tomás couldn’t help but call out as he took one more step into the water. “Wait, Marcus!” He didn’t know if his voice would be heard beyond the howling wind.
Impossibly, Marcus turned back around and fixed his gaze on what Tomás swore was his direction. Was that just a coincidence? Was it real?
“Marcus!” he yelled once more at the top of his lungs, waving his arms to attract his attention. Did Marcus tilt his head in response, or did he imagine it?
“Where are you?!” he couldn’t think of anything else to ask, this situation was bizarre enough already.
Marcus brought his hands up to his face, though whether it was to pull his hood tighter around him or to cup around his mouth to yell a response Tomás couldn’t quite tell, but before the motion could be completed something behind Marcus grabbed his attention once more and he turned his head away.
“Wait, Marcus, don’t go!” Tomás took another step into the water, but it was too late.
Marcus fully turned his back and walked into the ship, out of sight, leaving again.
Not one second after, a large wave crested the shore seemingly out of nowhere, crashing down on Tomás with the force of a truck and knocking the wind out of him as everything seemed to fade.
Tomás woke up on that musty old couch, drenched in cold sweat, gasping for breath.
“Hell of a storm out there, huh? You’re soaked.” The observation greeted Marcus as soon as he stepped inside the crowded dining area next to the galley.
“Yeah,” he nodded, running a hand through his wet hair. “Good thing a little rain never killed anybody.”
“Careful what you say,” the fisherman wagged his pointer finger. “Don’t want to tempt the ocean, s’got a real temper she does.”
In response, Marcus shrugged apologetically and squeezed into a seat, just in time for someone to pass him a plate with dinner.
Barely a few moments after he’d dug into his food, the fisherman that greeted him earlier spoke up again.
“How is she treating you, by the way? You’re liking the job?”
Marcus gave a single earnest nod as he finished swallowing, then spoke, “Yeah, yes. Been great, I’m liking it well enough—I’ll like it more when it stops raining.”
The man smiled at his answer, the ever-present laugh lines by the corners of his eyes deepening with the gesture. “That’s good. You’re looking a lot better nowadays,” he turned to another younger man across the table. “Isn’t he looking a lot better these days?”
“He looks the same as he always does, man,” came the brief and clearly uninterested response.
“Don’t listen to him, you are looking a lot better.”
“Thanks, Jakob,” Marcus laughed. “You can take credit for that, if you like.”
After all, he’d been the one to get Marcus a job on the boats in the first place—a real leap of faith considering Marcus had no job experience he could realistically put on a résumé.
“No way,” Jakob shook his head. “It was all the sea, I didn’t do shit.”
“Either way, thank you.”
The conversation between the two of them lulled as hunger from the day’s work overrode their desire to make idle chatter, but, around the table, snippets of chitchat floated across like someone changing channels on a radio.
“…reaching shore in three days… got planned? Maybe we…”
“I’m finally gonna see my… weeks already!”
“…take a break, how long… for?”
“…leave again in a week’s time… still season.”
“I heard there’s a crab boat hiring crew… Alaska…”
“…pay? Not bad, considering… four months.”
Suddenly, Jakob was standing next to him, trying to squeeze his way out of the dining area, pointing to his plate, “Do you want me to take that?”
Marcus looked down, realising he’d already finished his meal, and shook his head. “It’s fine, I was getting up myself anyway.”
They shuffled their way back into the galley, cleaned their plates, and stepped out into the small hallway as the muffled conversation continued behind them. Jakob searched his pockets for a moment, then pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marcus.
“You want to go smoke out in the rain?” he asked as he turned down the pack.
“Oh, crap,” Jakob clicked his tongue and put the cigarettes away once more, though not before fishing one out and sticking it between his teeth.
“It’s for the best, those things are terrible for you, I hear,” Marcus offered him a smile.
The man made a noncommittal hum and bit down harder on the unlit cigarette. “The ocean’ll do me in before smoking does.”
Marcus simply shook his head and, when the pause seemed long enough, he spoke again, “Well, it’ll be a long day tomorrow—”
“Where are you off to, after this?” Jakob interrupted.
“I was thinking my cabin.”
“No, after that, when we reach shore.”
Marcus paused for a second, trying to gage the intent behind the question. “A motel, for a couple of days, then back on the boat.”
“You’re not going back?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Back?”
“To whatever it is you’re running from.”
“Ah,” Marcus gave a single nod of acknowledgement. “That.”
He wasn’t actually surprised that Jakob had figured him out so well. The man seemed to have a knack for understanding those around him, his jovial nature belying an intuition as sharply-honed as the edge of a fishing hook, and though he wasn’t much older than Marcus himself something about the attention he doled felt almost paternal, like he truly cared for the personal wellbeing of every member of the crew, his presence as reassuring as the calm blue seas outside the boat on sunny days.
“You’ve been hanging around like a suckerfish for almost three months,” Jakob joked. “Surely someone out there must be waiting for ya.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Not really.” Missing, yes, perhaps for a bit when he first left, but Marcus wasn’t so arrogant as to believe anyone would still be waiting for him after all this time.
“No?” Jakob turned to Marcus, clearly not fully buying the response. “Shame.”
“Why?” Marcus probed, trying to keep his tone light. “You weren’t thinking of kicking me off the crew, were you?”
“Not much fishing to be done ‘round these parts in winter,” he shrugged.
“Surely someone out there must still be in need of men?” Marcus echoed the question back.
Jakob laughed before responding, “Snow crab season doesn’t end until Spring, but it would be a longer-term placement.”
“Alaska?” he remembered that overheard conversation from dinner.
“You heard? Yeah, four months on the ice.” Jakob looked at him carefully, assessing his reaction.
“Were you worried I’d quit on you halfway?” Marcus smiled, trying to ease the mood.
“More like I was worried you’d jump at the chance without even thinking about it,” he grumbled. “I wanted to give you a chance to think better of it.”
“I’m not going back, Jakob,” he shook his head, a light smile still on his face. “There’s nothing for me to go back to. Let me take the job, you said it yourself, the sea’s been good for me.”
“Think about it while we’re back on shore,” Jakob ignored his answer. “Maybe having your feet on solid ground for a day or two will help unscramble your brain.”
“Jakob…”
“Look, I know I’m not the boss of you, Marcus, and I don’t actually know what’s going on with you.” Jakob looked at him, a frown pulling his features into seldom-seen severity. “But you’re carrying something heavy with you, man, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re out here trying to outrun whatever that is.”
Marcus just stood, silent, smile gone as the man in front of him continued on.
“I’m glad being away from it has brought you peace or whatever, but it won’t last. Sooner or later you have to face the music.” He placed a solid hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “Go back to where you need to be.”
Suddenly, the hand on his shoulder wasn’t the strong grip of a fisherman, but rather the warm embrace of a friend as he’d choked back emotion in what they both knew would most likely be a final goodbye despite them promising otherwise. Marcus had still walked away then, so sure he was doing the right thing for all of them —for himself, really— and he wasn’t about to let a near-complete stranger sway his decision in a way the person who was probably the closest thing he had to family couldn’t.
“You’re right,” Marcus put a hand over Jakob’s wrist, then firmly but politely removed it from his shoulder. “You don’t know what’s going on, but it’s alright, I can’t expect you to.” He took a step back, that light smile back on his expression. “You said you’ll give me a few days to think about it?”
Jakob didn’t attempt to convince him further, he merely nodded.
“I’ll let you know.” He waved goodbye and walked off without a second glance back.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Mouse’s tone was more frustrated than concerned, but she still made an attempt to curb her response. “You barely slept an hour.”
“I’m fine,” Tomás shrugged her off. “The sooner we take care of this, the sooner we can both sleep.”
“I’m serious, Tomás.” Mouse stared at him, blocking his way to the door of the master bedroom. “Don’t even think about stepping inside if you’re not one-hundred-percent, I don’t need you hurting yourself in some stupid attempt at male bravado.”
He sighed, but still nodded. “I know. I’m ready.”
A few seconds of silence stretched between them as Mouse scrutinised him with a pointed gaze, but in the end she merely clicked her tongue and stepped aside. “Fine, it’s not like things can get much worse.”
“Thank you,” Tomás smiled somewhat tiredly and entered the room behind her.
Stepping inside the space felt a bit like entering some sort of hellish cave. The room felt somehow colder than the rest of the house despite the thick padding of mattresses and miscellaneous cushions that lined the walls and windows around them, the air stank like piss and sweat and rot, and a few plastic torches arranged on the floor illuminated an emaciated, writhing figure chained to the floor via a haphazardly-placed ring screw that had surely ruined the hardwood underneath.
The figure itself looked like a shadow of the person Tomás saw in his dreams, somewhere between human and corpse. His hair hung onto his scalp in sparse chunks, his bloodshot eyes drifted aimlessly around the room, deeply sunken into purpling sockets, and his skin was mostly covered in oozing pustules and weeping sores. One of his legs stuck out at a weird angle, and Tomás noted with great discomfort that he must have dislocated it with the demon’s wild thrashing.
“You alright?” Mouse noticed him wincing.
“Yes, I just—” he motioned to the man on the floor, then brought a hand up to press on his temple. “We have to help him.”
“Yes we do,” she nodded. “You ready, Father?”
Tomás pulled his lips into a thin smile of grim determination. “Ready.”
Mouse grabbed a plastic bottle filled with holy water and sprayed the man, drawing his scattered attention, and began praying, “God of heaven, God of earth, God of angels…”
The man winced and hissed when the water touched him, writhing against his bonds, contorting his body in ways human limbs were not meant to move as Tomás approached him, speaking alongside Mouse, “God who has power to give life after death, Creator of all things, deliver us from all the tyranny of the infernal spirits, from their snares, their lies, and their wickedness…”
Tomás reached the man’s side and knelt next to him, taking his face into his hands and staring into those eyes that now cried tears of blood.
“From the snares of the devil—” Mouse raised her voice and flung more holy water.
“Deliver us, Lord!” Tomás responded, holding down the man who thrashed and screamed and tried to move his head to bite him.
“From the tyranny of hell—” Mouse took a step closer, surveying the scene and making sure it was safe to proceed.
“Protect us, Lord!” The man kicked out and caught Tomás in the shin, but he shook off the sting of pain and continued.
“That You may crush the enemies of Your Church—” Mouse stood next to him now and helped pin the man down more securely, then turned to him and nodded. His cue to start.
“Hear us, Lord!” And with those words, Tomás looked into the eyes of the man before him and stared into his soul.
Tomás was back in the sunroom, but now the sky overhead was grey and lifeless, and the rain pelting down on the windows created a fog that made it impossible to see what lay out in the garden. The inside of the room seemed empty, a chair had been jammed underneath the brass handle of the door leading to the kitchen and another lay broken next to the dining table, bits of shredded newspaper scattered all around the area alongside the shattered fragments of a ceramic mug.
It took Tomás a few nerve-wracking seconds of looking around to locate the old man hiding crouched underneath the dining table, head buried in his drawn-up knees like a child hiding from a storm.
“Albert? What happened?” Tomás strode to kneel next to the sturdy wooden table.
“That’s not my son,” the old man shook his head as if trying to physically shake something off his mind.
“I know,” Tomás put a hand on his arm. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“He—it, it tried coming into the room,” Albert's explanation came in the form of frantic muttering. “I told it to come back later, but it forced the door and—oh God that wasn't my son at the door I didn't know what to do I threw a chair and it did nothing it just stood there staring with red eyes and it tried to grab hold of me—” a strangled gasp escaped his throat.
“It's okay,” Tomás tried making his voice as calm as possible. “It's okay, Albert. I'm here to help you.”
“Is this a nightmare?” the man turned to Tomás for the first time and looked him in the eyes. “Am I in hell?”
“Not quite,” he responded as he guided Albert to stand up from underneath the table. “But your soul is in danger, and I'm here to make sure we drive the demon out.”
Outside, a flash of lightning arched down from the sky, briefly illuminating the room and capturing the horror of understanding dawning on the old man's face like the flash on a camera, closely followed by the strident boom of thunder that shook the glass of the large windows and deafened them for a few seconds.
After their ears stopped ringing, Albert spoke up, “I… I don't know if I can do it.”
“You have to,” Tomás swallowed the nervous knot that had started tying itself at the back of his throat. “I'll help you, but you have to do it.”
“What if we fail?” The question fell on Tomás like a ton of bricks.
He didn't like thinking about failure, the possibility of it was suffocating, and the reality of it weighted him down like bricks tied to his limbs, each one with a name and a face he wouldn’t soon forget.
The truth of the job as an exorcist was that there were always people he couldn’t save, and it was those faces that haunted him in the nightmares he'd long since stopped talking about due to their sheer frequency. Not to mention that losing someone whose soul he'd touched felt somehow even more devastating than usual. It wasn't that he didn't mourn those he failed to help when he was doing exorcisms the regular way, but there was something about seeing the torment of their physical bodies in real time that made their deaths feel almost like a mercy.
In contrast, ever since he started using his power to delve inside the mind of the possessed to battle the demons from the inside, those failures seemed to eat away at him in a way they hadn't before, like an almost physical corrosion of his soul rather than the metaphorical chipping away that usually happened due to his natural human empathy. Seeing their inner selves, whole and conscious and scared, talking to them, promising he was going to help in a way he couldn't before—failing in those circumstances felt like he'd thrown them a lifeline when they needed it most and then let go when his own boat seemed about to tip over. It felt nothing short of selfish, cowardly even.
Unworthy.
“We have to try.” What else could he say?
The old man stared at him for what felt like an eternity, brows pulled into a contemplative frown. Then, he sighed, “Promise me one thing, son.”
“What is it?”
“If we don’t succeed…” he looked around as if taking in his beloved sunroom. “Don’t let that thing take my soul.”
“Albert, don’t—” Tomás was interrupted almost as soon as he opened his mouth to protest.
“I’ve lived a long life, can’t say it was all good, but it was better than most ever get,” Albert knelt down to pick up the shards of the ceramic mug with slightly trembling hands. “If it looks like we won’t make it, I’d rather die than let that thing keep having its way. Do you understand?” He looked at Tomás, then placed the shards on the table with care.
Tomás hesitated only for a moment. “Okay.” He would do everything in his power to make sure it didn’t come to it, but the least he could do now was ease his worries.
“Okay,” the old man nodded, a sliver of relief momentarily relaxing the fear on his face. “What do I have to do?”
“We don’t have much time,” Tomás began a rushed explanation. “When the demon comes—”
In that moment, the door shook so hard it seemed about to pop right out of its hinges, and the distorted voice of a child called out, “Are you in there daddy? I want to play a game.”
Albert froze, glancing towards Tomás in a desperate plea for guidance.
“This is your body—your temple,” Tomás whispered. “You need to drive the demon out, at least to the surface so my colleague can finish exorcising it from the outside.”
“Da-ad, is someone in there with you?” The door continued shaking, the handle twisting so hard it let out an audible crack.
“How do I do that?” he glanced back and forth between Tomás and the door.
“Only you know how.”
“That doesn’t help!”
The door handle finally gave out and fell limply to the ground, bouncing off the chair that had been placed below it and hitting the ground with a metallic thud.
“Focus on your son—your real son!” Tomás took a step forward, positioning himself between Albert and the door. “Focus on seeing your family again!”
A glowing red eye peeked at them from the hole left behind by the missing door handle, and a booming voice cried out, “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR YOU SON OF A BITCH.”
Then the door was flung open with a tremendous force, sending the chair flying forward and knocking Tomás right off his feet.
Albert might have screamed, but between the ringing in his hears from smacking the back of his head against the floor and the disorientation of having the wind knocked out of his lungs Tomás wasn’t quite sure if he heard right. All he heard as he scrambled back up to his feet was the demon’s bellowing.
“JUST DO THE RIGHT THING FOR ONCE IN YOUR MISERABLE LIFE, OLD MAN.” A child-sized figure staggered forward, but its skin was thick and rugged like bark, falling off in chunks from its body to reveal pitch black muscle, its glowing red eyes illuminating protruding sockets as it stared at Albert. “YOUR KIDS HATE YOU, YOUR WIFE DIED JUST TO BE RID OF YOU, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THAT SACRIFICE? YOU’RE THE SAME USELESS BASTARD YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN.”
Tomás steadied himself against the dizziness the blow had caused and swallowed down the bile that rose to his throat as he began praying in a quick burst of words, “Alma de Cristo, santifícame. Cuerpo de Cristo, sálvame. Sangre de Cristo, embriágame—”
“AND YOU,” the demon’s head snapped, turning towards him at an unnatural angle as it continued moving towards the other man. “YOU THINK HELPING THIS SACK OF SHIT WILL PROVE YOU’RE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR PRIEST PAPI TO COME BACK FOR YOU? HA! I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU, HE’S NOT—HE’D RATHER SLEEP WITH THE FISHES THAN PUT UP WITH YOUR WHINING. SO WHY DON’T YOU DO EVERYONE A FAVOUR AND FUCK OFF FOREVER?”
“Stop it!” It was Albert who spoke up, torn between backing away from the encroaching creature and trying to stand his ground, leaving him stumbling one step forward and three steps back as the shambling thing closed in on him.
The demon turned to him once again, extending its small arms in what seemed like a grotesque invitation for a hug, “MAYBE IF YOU’D BEAT YOUR KIDS THE WAY YOUR POPS BEAT YOU THEY’D FEEL SOMETHING FOR YOU APART FROM INDIFFERENCE. THE WAY THINGS STAND, THEY WON’T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO ATTEND YOUR FUNERAL.”
“Jesús, óyeme!” Tomás raised his voice, knowing it was annoying the demon and hoping the sound of it would help Albert remember what he had to do. “No permitas que me aparte de ti. Del enemigo maligno, defiéndeme. En la hora de mi muerte, llámame y mándame ir a ti—”
“I CAN FIX EVERYTHING, ALBERT. ONLY I CAN FIX YOUR SORRY EXCUSE FOR A LIFE,” the demon stepped forward, arms fully open, until it had cornered Albert against the large window of the sunroom, seeming like a much larger, insurmountable presence than its child-sized body should have been. “STOP MAKING THE SAME MISTAKES YOU ALWAYS MAKE AND LISTEN TO YOUR SON FOR ONCE.”
Seeing it get so close to the man, Tomás scrabbled forward to try and create an opening, but just as he got close enough to reach out he saw Albert raise his clenched fist, a line of dark-coloured liquid dripping down his wrist.
“You’re. Not. My. Son!” with those words he lunged forward, an impossibly sharp ceramic shard clutched in his hand, and headed straight for the demon’s throat.
“YOU FUCKING—”
A blinding flash of lightning struck and washed everything with light, a peal of thunder crashed down onto the sunroom with such force the windows shattered in a split second.
Everything else stopped existing.
Marcus was lucky that his cabinmate still wasn’t back by the time he gave up on wandering the halls of the ship and decided to turn in for the night.
Outside, the storm continued raging on, jostling the boat from side to side in a vain attempt to tip it over, and the heavy rain battered the small porthole of the cabin with the strength of a million tiny projectiles.
Marcus lay on his bunk and closed his eyes, trying to focus on the white noise created by the rain and the rumbling of the ship rather than the thoughts that had been racing to catch up to him since that conversation earlier.
It wasn’t that he never thought about going back—on the contrary. At first, it was a struggle not to think about turning around and shoving his doubts to the side, he had to fight with himself every day just to maintain his determination to stay away, but the more time went on and he realised just how freeing it was to not be battling demons or thinking about them for every waking moment, the more the struggle became managing the gut punch of shame he felt when he thought about going back and felt nothing but dread.
Just the thought of being adrift once more, trying to follow the divine guidance of a voice he no longer heard, fearing everyday for the wellbeing of those around him while constantly exposed to the horrors brought about by true evil, was enough to keep propelling him forward, farther and farther away, into the middle of the ocean where he couldn’t turn back even if he’d wanted to.
He’d been an exorcist all his life —no, exorcism had been his life ever since he could remember— and all it did for him was chew him up and spit him out, leaving him spent and aching and tired. Didn’t he deserve to rest?
Perhaps his feelings would shift again in due time. Perhaps one day he would find enough peace within himself to bring back with him, forgiveness for the sins he had committed, or a purpose strong enough to lean on when more challenges came his way. Right now he had none of that, and the atonement he’d left in search of in the first place seemed as distant as before.
In that sense, Marcus thought, Tomás was a very lucky man. His sense of purpose was so strong and he was so sure of what he’d been called to do that he didn’t hesitate to throw his life and success away for a chance to bum it out with an excommunicated exorcist to pursue his path. When Marcus had left him, he’d truly believed Tomás didn’t need his help anymore —especially not with the way he’d been growing and the interest Mouse had shown in tagging along— and it was that certainty that ultimately drove him to his decision. What use would he be with the way he was now? If one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, tossed to and fro by the wind, Marcus was afraid that in his stumbling he would crash down on the others and sweep them away into his sea of uncertainty, dragging them down to its depths with him.
To not be needed was a frightening idea, but to be a burden? An active hindrance? Marcus wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he were to reach that point.
A flash of thunder outside briefly illuminated the underside of his eyelids, and Marcus opened his eyes to stare at his surroundings.
That was why he had started running in the first place, but even though he tried telling himself that this was his way to stop and rest, he hadn’t actually settled down.
The peace he so treasured was really nothing but the calm at the eye of the storm. Marcus was still surrounded by raging winds and thunderstorms on all sides, and he had to keep running if he wanted to stay away from the edges of the tempest.
He hadn’t turned on any lights, so the cabin was completely dark, and the rumbling of the ship’s engine and the pattering of the rain on the porthole only served to accentuate the silence Marcus was surrounded by. This silence, the glaring quiet that he’d grown used to over the last few months, was more deafening now than when he’d first noticed it, stifling in its lack, disquieting in its pervasiveness, an ever-present and all encompassing absence when all he needed was a still small voice telling him he was on the right track.
Unless something were to unexpectedly change, Marcus would return to shore in a couple of days, rest for a while, and inform Jakob of his decision to take on that job. He didn’t need to think more on it than he already had—he still hadn’t found what he was looking for.
He owed it to himself to keep looking, owed it to the others, too, since he wouldn’t be any use if he were to go back if he couldn’t even help himself.
Maybe one day in the future he’d look back at this moment as nothing more than an unpleasant memory. On that day he would have a nice house with a garden somewhere, and he would invite his renowned exorcist friend over for tea to reminisce about the past, and at the end of the day they would hug goodbye and he would set off on another world-saving adventure while Marcus himself leaned back in a rocking chair on his porch to watch the sun set with an ice cold beer in his hand, and everything would be well.
Until that day, he supposed he would have to keep looking for his own little miracle to show him what on earth this had all been for.
The cold glare of the winter sun felt almost radiant in contrast with the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital, but Tomás was certain neither sources of light made him look any less haggard than he felt.
Still, a full night’s rest and a warm meal had done wonders for his body, and he felt almost ten times lighter as he walked out of the hospital and hopped into the running car where Mouse was waiting for him.
“What did the family say?” she spoke while trying to warm her hands with the hot air sputtering out of the AC.
“They send their thanks,” Tomás settled into the passenger seat. “He has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but doctors think he’ll be fine.”
“Good,” Mouse rubbed her hands together one last time and brought them to the steering wheel. “That means we can get going already.”
“So soon?”
“I got news of another lead while you were dealing with the family,” she smiled somewhat sympathetically. “Guess demons have no consideration for the poor exorcists that have to clean up their mess.”
Tomás sighed, but still nodded. “Okay, let’s go then.”
“Yes, sir!” she gave a short laugh and drove out of the hospital’s car park.
As they crossed the exit gate, Tomás gave one last look back at the concrete hospital building, its ledges and windows sprinkled with fresh white snow. “I hope he makes things right with his kids.”
“If this doesn’t give him the kick he needs, he’s truly a lost cause,” Mouse agreed. “Either way, good thing our job here is done, right? Don’t worry about what happens after, Tomás, that’s got nothing to do with us.”
“Right,” he nodded, looking out of the window as the scenery of the town whizzed by.
Tomás had to admit he had a tendency to get attached to those they helped, it was a little hard not to considering all the work an exorcism entailed. Still, he supposed Mouse was right, they’d done everything they could for these people, the rest was up to them now—moving on sooner rather than later just meant he’d be ready to give his all to whomever came after without anything getting in the way.
They left the town behind in around an hour, though it probably would have taken much less time had they not had to worry about navigating over black ice on the tiny road, and headed south towards this new lead.
It was while they were driving through the vast white nothing of the highway, when the broadcaster on the radio said something about the aftermath of hurricane Florence, that Tomás remembered the thing he had wanted to tell Mouse after everything was done.
“I saw Marcus in a vision,” he began, staring forward at the endless road ahead. “At least, I’m pretty sure it was a vision.”
“What?” Mouse turned her head from the road only for a split second as if to make sure she’d heard right. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Tomás nodded. ”He was on a boat—I think he’s a fisherman now.”
“Marcus, a fisherman?” her voice was equal parts incredulity and amusement.
“Yeah, bright orange raincoat and everything.” Tomás laughed, recognising how silly that description might sound without further context.
“Unbelievable,” she shook her head, a laugh playing at the edge of her words. “To think he’d take a retirement hobby that far.”
“He was on a proper large boat,” Tomás tried defending him a little. “People fish for a living, you know?”
“Sure, sure,” Mouse rolled her eyes before getting back on track. “What else did you see? Why do you think you were shown it?”
“Uh,” he hesitated for a second. “I’m not sure, actually. There was a storm but the boat seemed fine, and I heard him say that he was doing well, so…”
Mouse let out a vague sound as she considered his words. “Do you think it might have been just… to let you know how he was doing?”
“I mean,” Tomás frowned at that, bafflement apparent in his voice. “But why? Don’t you think it’s something else?”
“I’m not the one with the divine visions, Tomás,” she shrugged. “Have you been thinking about him a lot lately?”
“What? No, I—why—” Tomás sputtered, realising he was getting a little too worked up over what was probably meant to be a joke. “It’s just that we haven’t heard from him in so long and I was a little worried, that’s all. There’s a conspiracy out there trying to kill all exorcists, you can’t blame me for worrying.”
“I never said that,” Mouse glanced at him again. “But if there seemed to be no other purpose for showing you he was fine other than to ease your mind…”
“You think God was just letting me check in on him so I’d stop wondering whether he was dead or not?” Saying it out loud made it sound even more ridiculous than before, and he regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.
Mouse shrugged again, clearly not invested enough in the answer to chip in either way.
Tomás leaned back in his seat, not fully satisfied with the conjecture. If the vision had been meant as a way to set his mind at ease, then why had it left him feeling so vaguely… unsettled? Perhaps it wasn’t a vision at all? But that supposition only raised more questions than it answered.
The person on the radio said a few more things that filled the brief, contemplative pause the question had caused, but neither of them seemed to be paying much attention at that point.
Then, Mouse spoke up again. “So… that’s what was on your mind back in the house?”
“Partly,” he confessed, letting out a long breath. “I suppose it was unexpected enough to throw me off. I mean, the first time I had a vision about Marcus he seemed to be in a tough spot, and finding him started all of this—” he gestured to their general vicinity, ”—so I was just wondering if maybe I was being called to look for him again.”
“But you don’t think that’s what’s happening now,” her statement was inflected a little like a question.
He turned to the window, facing away from her peripheral line of sight, watching as the cloudy layer of condensation on the glass from the warmth of those inside the car grew and decreased alongside his own breath. “I’m not sure. I don’t think he wants to be found… I don’t know if maybe that’s the problem.”
A silence fell over them again, though this one a little more uncertain than the last, stretching like the frosted highway under the wheels of the battered rental they’d procured for cash two towns ago after their truck finally kicked the bucket.
Then, Mouse broke it once more, “Tomás, you need to let him go.”
“What?” he turned to look at her, so caught off by the matter-of-factness of her tone that for a second he believed he’d misheard.
“Let him go,” she continued her casual statement, emphasising it with a quick shrug of her shoulders. “Forget about Marcus, move on.”
“What do you mean? I wasn’t saying I was going to go look for him, I was just wondering—”
“I can tell, you know?” finally Mouse turned to look at him fully, tearing her gaze from the road for only a brief moment that seemed to extend out into minutes as she stared into his eyes. “As the other member of the abandoned-by-Marcus-Keane club, I can tell.”
Tomás sucked in a breath, unsure why he felt like he’d been slapped all of a sudden. “He didn’t abandon me,” his words felt small, a paltry dismissal in the face of such an accusation.
“No?” though her gaze was back on the road, Tomás could still feel its sharp scrutiny from her words. “Then what do you call what he did when he ran away and pawned you off to me?”
“He didn’t—he was just—” words refused to come fast enough. He knew Marcus had his reasons, most of which he understood to an extent, but in that moment none of those things seemed enough to stand against the claim Mouse was making, sounding more like excuses than actual justifications.
“He abandoned you, Tomás—but it’s alright, it wasn’t your fault,” her voice softened for that last part, shifting from its previous cutting judgement to a resignation that seemed to have dulled that edge years ago. “It’s just what he does. He runs away from himself and anyone who gets too close.”
His first instinct was to say that they were different, that the circumstances between Mouse’s experience and his own couldn’t be compared fairly, but he stopped himself in time before blurting anything out. When he thought about it, though, it held true. From the scattered pieces he knew about their past he was aware Marcus had left her due to a mixture of shame and fear, a mishandled attempt at protecting her by keeping her ‘safe’ away from him, so it was obvious why she would feel the way she did. When it came to him, though, the main reason Tomás didn’t think the word ‘abandonment’ was appropriate was because he’d been the one to insert himself in Marcus’s life completely unasked for. They had developed a close camaraderie, sure, and Tomás had certainly looked up to Marcus as a mentor and close friend, but the only thing Marcus had agreed to was teaching him to become an exorcist. Tomás was an exorcist now, and Marcus was hurt and tired of it all, so who was he to blame Marcus for wanting to part ways? As much as it had hurt initially, no one had abandoned anyone; their paths were simply no longer headed in the same direction.
As for the getting too close part, he didn’t think it was applicable the same way it’d been with Mouse. He was aware Marcus had plenty of walls up, plenty of truths he kept guarded even from himself, but Tomás threatened none of them, at least not in the same way it’d been back when Mouse and Marcus had first encountered each other. Marcus wasn’t afraid of letting him get too close —he’d killed a man to save his soul, for God’s sake— but he did seem afraid of the person the years had turned him into. Tomás couldn’t fault him for wanting to take time to sort a few things out.
“He wasn’t running, I don’t blame him for needing to step away.” In the end, this simple conclusion was all he could say. “He’s happy now, I think.”
“Well, good for him,” her response was flat, devoid of both sarcasm and sincerity, probably intended to be the most neutral tone she could manage.
Tomás didn’t see the point in dragging the discussion on any longer either, so he shifted his attention to fiddling with the channel on the radio and finding something less dry than the news report they’d been listening to. After settling on a station playing some combination of top hits from the last few years, he leaned back in his seat and continued staring out at the road outside.
The thin cover of grey-white clouds overhead seemed to mirror the ground below with its blanket of overnight snow, the white expanse only occasionally interrupted when another car whizzed by next to them, creating a strangely hypnotic rhythm that had Tomás’s head tilting to the side before he even noticed it.
“Take a nap if you’re tired,” Mouse’s voice drifted over to him with the same nondistinctive hum as the music. “It should be a few hours until our next stop.”
Normally he would protest, insist on staying up to keep her company, but he couldn’t even open his mouth to respond and the weight of his head seemed to be pulling him deeper and deeper into the backrest of his seat, so he simply hummed in acknowledgement and finally closed his eyes.
As he did so, he plunged into a deep, dark sea, its water enveloping him fully, dragging him down,
away from the light of the surface into the blissful nothingness of a dreamless, visionless sleep, where he could rest away from the doubts and the worries that clung to him while awake.
Above that sea, a storm gradually abated, and a lone fishing vessel glided over its surface on its way to shore.
Author:
Fandom: The Exorcist (TV)
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen
Relationship(s): Marcus Keane & Tomás Ortega, Mouse & Tomás Ortega
Character(s): Marcus Keane, Tomás Ortega, Mouse, Minor Original Characters
Word Count: 10,464
Spoiler: Post-Canon
Notes/Warnings: Contains canon-typical depictions of demons and exorcisms.
Summary: Out in the dark and stormy sea, Marcus sails away without looking back.
Inside a cold and dreary house, Tomás chases mysterious visions.
Though they have gone their separate paths, their fates are still as intertwined as before.
“Better get back inside, the storm’s not too far out.”
Marcus turned around at the sound of the warning and nodded, “In a second.”
“Don’t dawdle,” the man put a heavy hand on his shoulder in half-hearted admonishment. “We’re locking down up here.” Then, with the brisk pace of someone with several places to be, he left.
Marcus watched him head to the other side of the ship, then turned back to the sea he’d been staring at moments ago.
The water was dark blue, almost black, spots of white foam breaking up its endless expanse with each crashing wave that rocked the large fishing boat. Around him the wind was starting to pick up, trying to rip the hood of his raincoat off his head and allowing the cold drops of rain to find their way inside his collar, dampening the fabric and sending a shiver down his spine.
Clouds had been gathering overhead for the better part of the day, forming a dark grey mass that blotted out the sun, making it feel like evening even though it should have been the middle of the day, and by the time rain started to fall it seemed as though the ocean was locked in perpetual twilight. There was no land around as far as his eyes could see, making it feel like the ship was sailing in the middle of a stormy purgatory, with no certainty that they would ever dock again—though that prospect honestly didn’t sound all that terrible to him.
He breathed in the wet sea air and closed his eyes, feeling the rain pelting against his face, running in rivulets down his chin and neck, listening to the whistle of the wind against the fabric of his hood, finding that it was the only thing he could hear despite the commotion he was sure was taking place on the deck behind him.
It had been a few months of this; the blessed quiet of the sea, the easy, transitory company of fellow fishermen, the sure satisfaction of putting effort into a job and knowing it would be enough at the end of the day, and the security that he would do the same thing over again the next, come rain or shine. Marcus was starting to get used to it, starting to look forward to waking up, even.
Behind him, men scrambled to secure the last of the things that would be left on deck, and someone called for him to help holding down a tarp, the sound of his name barely cutting through the howling of the wind.
Marcus opened his eyes and turned to follow, shaking the rain off his face with a hand, glad for the straightforward tasks that occupied his mind and left his body tired enough at night to fall asleep the moment his head hit his slightly lumpy pillow.
He needed this, needed the break from those hellish horrors, needed the chance to stop and catch his breath, to look around and realise that the path he’d been walking on since he was a child was not the only path available to him—he didn’t even have to walk any path at all, it turned out. No, he could simply hop on a boat and sail the open sea for weeks on end, free as the gulls that circled their boat when the wind was just right.
A part of him still thought about what he’d left behind, of course. Of who he’d left behind. But he knew deep down he would have been more of a burden than any actual help. He'd been sinking back then, struggling to keep his head above water, why insist on dragging down with him someone who was just learning how to swim?
The Marcus of now was shivering with cold, his hands red and raw even under his gloves from holding down the indomitable nylon tarp, and he was pretty sure he'd have to buy a new raincoat considering how much of the rain was soaking through to his woollen sweater, but, more than anything, he was at peace.
He needed this.
“Take a break, alright? Get your head on straight.” Mouse touched the side of his face briefly, making eye contact, no doubt seeing her own fatigue reflected back at her.
Tomás nodded, “Thank you.”
She let her hand drop back to her side, nodding, then walked back through the door they'd just come through and closed it behind her without a look back.
Tomás knew this was her trying to be more patient, and he was grateful for it, but sometimes he couldn’t tell if he preferred the Mouse that insisted on pushing him past his limits or the one that hid her frustration at his shortcomings by getting him out of the way the moment she sensed he'd be more trouble trying to help than he was worth.
He stared at the closed door for a moment, so incredibly tired he didn't even contemplate the idea of going back inside and trying again, then turned around and made his way down the corridor, swallowing the tiny knot of shame he felt at acknowledging relief that flooded his wired nerves once the sturdy wood had blocked out the cries from within the room.
The house was old and in disrepair, the floor creaked with every step Tomás took, making it feel as though the aged wood was on the verge of collapsing from his weight alone; the peeling wallpaper fluttered with an ever-present draft that came in through some unseen gap, rendering the overworked heating system almost useless as the snow outside continued to fall; and the constant sounds from the shifting foundation or the frozen pipes almost served to mask the sporadic, muffled thumps and barely-audible screaming from the exorcism being performed inside what had once been the master bedroom.
They’d been at it for three days and two nights already —this being the middle of the third night— not too long in the grand scheme of things, but it was looking like the demon wanted to drag it on for as long as possible, probably banking on the elderly man’s body giving out before they ever had a chance to succeed. Truth be told, it was nothing short of a miracle that the man had managed to hold on for this long already.
Tomás reached the living room and sat down on a couch that stank of dust and mildew, the relief his aching limbs felt at finally having some rest vastly overshadowing the uncomfortable smell, and he did his best to lay down on the hard cushions to at least try to get some sleep, staring up at the odd shadows cast on the ceiling by the cold light of the moon outside.
Outside, snow continued piling up on the ground, falling silently, each snowflake a fat clump that clung to any surface available, gradually accumulating on the corners of each window pane and blocking out the already meagre view Tomás had of the old man’s overgrown garden.
From what little they’d been able to glean about the man they knew that he’d been living in a retirement home since the death of his wife three years prior, then moved himself back into this house a few months ago, presumably around the time the possession began. It was his eldest daughter who noticed the changes in her father and called them for help—she was the current owner of the property, but had been sitting on it while she made up her mind on whether or not the nostalgia she held for her childhood home would be worth the price of the repairs necessary to make it a place she could move her family into.
Aside from that, Tomás had learnt a lot more about the old man and his family from his as-of-yet unsuccessful attempts to use his ability to force the demon out from the inside. He was a lonely man who missed his wife and wished his kids would visit more, and his consciousness liked hiding out in the sunroom next to the kitchen where he used to start his day with a cup of black coffee and the morning’s newspaper. He was estranged from his youngest son for having been the unfortunately sad stereotype of an emotionally absent father, spending far too much time at work and not enough with his family —something which his two older daughters had since mostly come to forgive him for, spurred on by his wife’s passing— and he was far too proud a man to admit he deeply regretted having missed those silly baseball games back in the day. The demon, when it approached with the intent to complete the integration, came to him not in the shape of his dearly departed wife, but of this disaffected son, promising a reconciliation he wasn’t likely to get out there in the real world.
For three days Tomás had tried to get the old man to leave his sunroom and confront the demonic intruder, but he was too set in his avoidant ways, and the demon seemed all too happy to take advantage of that fact.
Mouse didn’t understand why he was having such a hard time with this exorcism, given that they had successfully completed a handful of more complicated cases so far, and all Tomás could offer in response was that every demon was different, and putting his immortal soul at risk in the name of liberating the possessed was not exactly a walk in the park regardless of how many times he’d done it before.
What he didn’t tell her, however, was about that strange vision he’d had during one of his first attempts, the sight of which knocked him so strangely off-kilter that he was having a hard time moving past it even two days later.
It was almost too cold for Tomás to sleep, yet even as his body shivered with both cold and exhaustion he tried to fight the heavy pull of his eyelids in an almost instinctual struggle against the unconsciousness that threatened to engulf him. He knew he needed sleep, but he also knew that visions, dreams and memories would blur together into a dangerous combination once he did so, the intensity of which would only be heightened by the recency of his latest foray into the demon’s territory.
Still, he had no choice but to succumb to the pull if he wished to have enough energy to try the exorcism again, and he didn’t want to make Mouse wait too long by herself.
So he finally closed his eyes, drifting off to the sight of a familiar sunroom bathed in golden light.
“Albert, listen to me, you have to fight this,” Tomás’s voice came out in an exasperated plea. “That’s not your son outside, it’s a demon. It’s trying to kill you.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” the old man turned the page on the newspaper and shook his head. “Let the boy try if he wants.”
“Please, I’m here to help you, just listen to me…”
As his words continued falling on deaf ears, Tomás found himself watching the events from the large windows just outside the sunroom, both subject and spectator of this scene in a manner that suggested this was not the ‘real’ world.
Events transpired pretty much the same way as he remembered them. He talked to the old man some more, trying to convince him to shake off his fear and apathy, yet the man wanted nothing more than to keep languishing in indecision, truly unable to make a choice between fighting the demon or giving in to its demands.
“Your daughter wanted us to help you.” He’d even tried bringing his remaining family into it to spur some sort of reaction.
“She didn’t come to visit,” the old man frowned. “Not for Thanksgiving, and she won’t be here for Christmas either. Neither of them will.”
A little taken aback by the reaction, Tomás paused for a second before trying again. “There’s still time. After this, you can go to your daughters, spend Christmas together, there’s still time.”
Albert cast a glance his way at that, but looked away just as quickly with no response.
“Albert—”
It was then, just like the first time, that a forceful knock came to the sunroom’s door, and a young boy’s voice called out to those inside.
“Dad? Are you in there? Can you come out for a sec?”
The man stared firmly at the newspaper, his gaze fixed on a page he wasn’t even reading anymore.
“Dad? Dad! Can I talk to you about something?”
The man remained silent, and clouds began to gather overhead, dimming the bright golden sunlight and washing the sunroom in a drab, lifeless colour.
“Dad!” The door rattled even harder, shaking the walls around its hinges. “DAD!”
Finally, Albert found his voice, “Not now, son.”
The shaking stopped, and there was a brief pause before the voice responded, “Oh, okay, I’ll come back later.”
Almost immediately after, the clouds began to part, though Tomás could swear the light of the sun that greeted them once more was not as warm as it had been moments ago.
“He’ll come back,” Tomás wasted no time in cautioning. “Let me help you.”
“There’s no helping me now,” the old man punctuated his sentence with a shake of his head. “No point trying.”
When this had happened outside of his dream, Tomás had only spent a minute or so in an exhausting back-and-forth with the man before deciding to go into the house and look for the demon himself—not because he believed he would be able to deal with it on his own, but rather he felt that seeing the creature for what it truly was would help give the old man the push he needed to gather himself and make a stand against it.
So Tomás, standing outside of the sun room, watched himself give a badly-supressed sigh and turn around towards the door leading back to the kitchen, then walk through it with one last look back at the man still rooted to the same spot as always.
He tried craning his neck to see if he could catch the moment just before the door closed behind him, when the cracked kitchen tile would turn to metal under his feet and the sounds of animated conversation would drift from somewhere just ahead in the cramped space. He couldn’t see any of it, of course, but he could still remember it so clearly.
Back then, in his attempt to chase down the demon, Tomás had been suddenly transported somewhere else entirely. The place had been unfamiliar, small and noisy, with the floor shifting under his feet in a nauseating rhythm, but above the din of what seemed to be the whirring of machinery, Tomás had heard an all too familiar voice.
“It’s been great,” the words were said with a joyful laugh Tomás hadn’t heard in a long time.
He’d walked forward to follow, through a tiny kitchen, and peeked into a small room with a table and a group of men sat on benches around them, and, among them, there he was.
“You’re looking a lot better nowadays.” Someone else spoke just as he’d arrived, and Marcus’s eyes crinkled with a smile as he responded to the compliment.
It was true, Tomás noticed it even before the remark had been made. He hated to admit it, but the last time they’d seen each other Marcus had looked almost lifeless, beaten down by the world and exhausted from it all, but now he looked at ease, like the spark had returned to his eyes and the weight had been lifted from his shoulders as he talked and ate in the little dining room without a care in the world.
Tomás had been so stunned by the scene he almost didn’t notice when Marcus and another man had gotten up to leave, only catching up to them in time to hear the tail-end of a conversation he now wished he’d missed entirely.
“You’re not going back?” The man had looked at Marcus with concern in his eyes. “Surely someone out there must be waiting for you.”
Tomás’s ears had perked at that as he rounded the corner, and a thought occurred to him, was he seeing this because he was meant to find Marcus again, just like that first time?
But that moment of hope had been shattered almost immediately.
“No, there’s nothing for me to go back to.” Marcus had said it so easily, like he really believed it.
“I’m glad being away from it has brought you peace,” the man put his hand on Marcus’s shoulder.
“You’re right,” Marcus brought his hand up to meet the man’s, and at that point Tomás had turned away, not wanting to witness anything else.
Back during the day, Tomás had walked away from the scene and wondered through the tiny, cramped corridors for only a few minutes before his consciousness was forced back into his body, but now that he was in a dream Tomás could only watch that closed door from behind the window of the sunroom and repeat the scene over and over in his head, like a twisted dream-within-a-dream that he couldn’t shake off.
Had it been a real vision, or was the demon trying to get to him? It had felt far too real to be a fabrication, far too mundane to be a nightmare conjured up from his innermost fears. Besides, wasn’t it a good thing? If what he’d seen was real it meant Marcus had found what he was looking for, in that case, Tomás should feel happy for him, not…
Clouds gathered overhead again, almost as if in response to his mood, and it wasn’t long before fat drops of rain began falling down, soaking into his shoulders and falling with a loud pitter patter onto the large window of the sunroom, covering the area with a shade so all-encompassing it might as well have turned day into night.
Tomás stood under the rain for a while, letting the water wash over him and inhaling the smell of petrichor deep into his lungs, trying to find his footing again amidst the snares of doubt that had tripped him up earlier.
Just because Marcus had found his peace in walking away from it all didn’t mean he had to stop trying. The old man still needed his help, even though he didn’t want it. Walking away was not an option for everybody.
Tomás was just about to start trying to find a way to wake back up when a hair-raising sound came from the woods beyond the garden behind him.
A young boy’s mocking laughter. The demon was near.
With a quick glance back, Tomás determined that the old man hadn’t heard anything, so he took off running in the direction of the laugh. The demon seemed to grow more distant with each step he took, so he redoubled his pace, squinting past the heavy curtain of water that seemed almost determined to drown him as it pelted down onto his nose and mouth.
He ran through muddy grass, jumped over small shrubs, and ducked between tall trees as he followed a lilting laugh and, occasionally, a small dark figure that flitted in and out of his vision, though by that point everything around him was so dark he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just his imagination. So focused was he on the escaping figure in front of him that he almost failed to notice when the woods opened up into a clearing, but managed to stop himself just as he felt his foot sink not into a shallow puddle or a patch of mud but rather water that rose all the way to his shin.
Pausing for a second, he looked around and realised that what he’d assumed was a field of grass reflecting what little light remained in the sky was actually a vast, choppy body of water, its waves constantly being raised by the wind that had picked up considerably since he’d started running only to be battered down again by the sheets of water that kept falling from the sky.
And beyond the water, far enough away that Tomás wouldn’t be able to swim the distance in the storm but close enough that he could still see the figure clearly, was a familiar man standing on the deck of a ship.
“Marcus?” he found himself saying the words before his brain fully registered the thought.
He didn’t quite believe it at first, but it was Marcus. He wore a bright orange raincoat with the hood pulled up, but the wind kept blowing it out of the way so that Tomás could still recognise his face. On top of that, Marcus seemed to be leaning on the railing of the deck, staring out straight ahead into the distance, and for a moment Tomás swore it felt like he was looking right aft him.
Then someone stepped out from behind him, and Marcus turned away to speak to them.
“Wait,” after a moment of hesitation, Tomás couldn’t help but call out as he took one more step into the water. “Wait, Marcus!” He didn’t know if his voice would be heard beyond the howling wind.
Impossibly, Marcus turned back around and fixed his gaze on what Tomás swore was his direction. Was that just a coincidence? Was it real?
“Marcus!” he yelled once more at the top of his lungs, waving his arms to attract his attention. Did Marcus tilt his head in response, or did he imagine it?
“Where are you?!” he couldn’t think of anything else to ask, this situation was bizarre enough already.
Marcus brought his hands up to his face, though whether it was to pull his hood tighter around him or to cup around his mouth to yell a response Tomás couldn’t quite tell, but before the motion could be completed something behind Marcus grabbed his attention once more and he turned his head away.
“Wait, Marcus, don’t go!” Tomás took another step into the water, but it was too late.
Marcus fully turned his back and walked into the ship, out of sight, leaving again.
Not one second after, a large wave crested the shore seemingly out of nowhere, crashing down on Tomás with the force of a truck and knocking the wind out of him as everything seemed to fade.
Tomás woke up on that musty old couch, drenched in cold sweat, gasping for breath.
“Hell of a storm out there, huh? You’re soaked.” The observation greeted Marcus as soon as he stepped inside the crowded dining area next to the galley.
“Yeah,” he nodded, running a hand through his wet hair. “Good thing a little rain never killed anybody.”
“Careful what you say,” the fisherman wagged his pointer finger. “Don’t want to tempt the ocean, s’got a real temper she does.”
In response, Marcus shrugged apologetically and squeezed into a seat, just in time for someone to pass him a plate with dinner.
Barely a few moments after he’d dug into his food, the fisherman that greeted him earlier spoke up again.
“How is she treating you, by the way? You’re liking the job?”
Marcus gave a single earnest nod as he finished swallowing, then spoke, “Yeah, yes. Been great, I’m liking it well enough—I’ll like it more when it stops raining.”
The man smiled at his answer, the ever-present laugh lines by the corners of his eyes deepening with the gesture. “That’s good. You’re looking a lot better nowadays,” he turned to another younger man across the table. “Isn’t he looking a lot better these days?”
“He looks the same as he always does, man,” came the brief and clearly uninterested response.
“Don’t listen to him, you are looking a lot better.”
“Thanks, Jakob,” Marcus laughed. “You can take credit for that, if you like.”
After all, he’d been the one to get Marcus a job on the boats in the first place—a real leap of faith considering Marcus had no job experience he could realistically put on a résumé.
“No way,” Jakob shook his head. “It was all the sea, I didn’t do shit.”
“Either way, thank you.”
The conversation between the two of them lulled as hunger from the day’s work overrode their desire to make idle chatter, but, around the table, snippets of chitchat floated across like someone changing channels on a radio.
“…reaching shore in three days… got planned? Maybe we…”
“I’m finally gonna see my… weeks already!”
“…take a break, how long… for?”
“…leave again in a week’s time… still season.”
“I heard there’s a crab boat hiring crew… Alaska…”
“…pay? Not bad, considering… four months.”
Suddenly, Jakob was standing next to him, trying to squeeze his way out of the dining area, pointing to his plate, “Do you want me to take that?”
Marcus looked down, realising he’d already finished his meal, and shook his head. “It’s fine, I was getting up myself anyway.”
They shuffled their way back into the galley, cleaned their plates, and stepped out into the small hallway as the muffled conversation continued behind them. Jakob searched his pockets for a moment, then pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marcus.
“You want to go smoke out in the rain?” he asked as he turned down the pack.
“Oh, crap,” Jakob clicked his tongue and put the cigarettes away once more, though not before fishing one out and sticking it between his teeth.
“It’s for the best, those things are terrible for you, I hear,” Marcus offered him a smile.
The man made a noncommittal hum and bit down harder on the unlit cigarette. “The ocean’ll do me in before smoking does.”
Marcus simply shook his head and, when the pause seemed long enough, he spoke again, “Well, it’ll be a long day tomorrow—”
“Where are you off to, after this?” Jakob interrupted.
“I was thinking my cabin.”
“No, after that, when we reach shore.”
Marcus paused for a second, trying to gage the intent behind the question. “A motel, for a couple of days, then back on the boat.”
“You’re not going back?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Back?”
“To whatever it is you’re running from.”
“Ah,” Marcus gave a single nod of acknowledgement. “That.”
He wasn’t actually surprised that Jakob had figured him out so well. The man seemed to have a knack for understanding those around him, his jovial nature belying an intuition as sharply-honed as the edge of a fishing hook, and though he wasn’t much older than Marcus himself something about the attention he doled felt almost paternal, like he truly cared for the personal wellbeing of every member of the crew, his presence as reassuring as the calm blue seas outside the boat on sunny days.
“You’ve been hanging around like a suckerfish for almost three months,” Jakob joked. “Surely someone out there must be waiting for ya.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Not really.” Missing, yes, perhaps for a bit when he first left, but Marcus wasn’t so arrogant as to believe anyone would still be waiting for him after all this time.
“No?” Jakob turned to Marcus, clearly not fully buying the response. “Shame.”
“Why?” Marcus probed, trying to keep his tone light. “You weren’t thinking of kicking me off the crew, were you?”
“Not much fishing to be done ‘round these parts in winter,” he shrugged.
“Surely someone out there must still be in need of men?” Marcus echoed the question back.
Jakob laughed before responding, “Snow crab season doesn’t end until Spring, but it would be a longer-term placement.”
“Alaska?” he remembered that overheard conversation from dinner.
“You heard? Yeah, four months on the ice.” Jakob looked at him carefully, assessing his reaction.
“Were you worried I’d quit on you halfway?” Marcus smiled, trying to ease the mood.
“More like I was worried you’d jump at the chance without even thinking about it,” he grumbled. “I wanted to give you a chance to think better of it.”
“I’m not going back, Jakob,” he shook his head, a light smile still on his face. “There’s nothing for me to go back to. Let me take the job, you said it yourself, the sea’s been good for me.”
“Think about it while we’re back on shore,” Jakob ignored his answer. “Maybe having your feet on solid ground for a day or two will help unscramble your brain.”
“Jakob…”
“Look, I know I’m not the boss of you, Marcus, and I don’t actually know what’s going on with you.” Jakob looked at him, a frown pulling his features into seldom-seen severity. “But you’re carrying something heavy with you, man, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re out here trying to outrun whatever that is.”
Marcus just stood, silent, smile gone as the man in front of him continued on.
“I’m glad being away from it has brought you peace or whatever, but it won’t last. Sooner or later you have to face the music.” He placed a solid hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “Go back to where you need to be.”
Suddenly, the hand on his shoulder wasn’t the strong grip of a fisherman, but rather the warm embrace of a friend as he’d choked back emotion in what they both knew would most likely be a final goodbye despite them promising otherwise. Marcus had still walked away then, so sure he was doing the right thing for all of them —for himself, really— and he wasn’t about to let a near-complete stranger sway his decision in a way the person who was probably the closest thing he had to family couldn’t.
“You’re right,” Marcus put a hand over Jakob’s wrist, then firmly but politely removed it from his shoulder. “You don’t know what’s going on, but it’s alright, I can’t expect you to.” He took a step back, that light smile back on his expression. “You said you’ll give me a few days to think about it?”
Jakob didn’t attempt to convince him further, he merely nodded.
“I’ll let you know.” He waved goodbye and walked off without a second glance back.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Mouse’s tone was more frustrated than concerned, but she still made an attempt to curb her response. “You barely slept an hour.”
“I’m fine,” Tomás shrugged her off. “The sooner we take care of this, the sooner we can both sleep.”
“I’m serious, Tomás.” Mouse stared at him, blocking his way to the door of the master bedroom. “Don’t even think about stepping inside if you’re not one-hundred-percent, I don’t need you hurting yourself in some stupid attempt at male bravado.”
He sighed, but still nodded. “I know. I’m ready.”
A few seconds of silence stretched between them as Mouse scrutinised him with a pointed gaze, but in the end she merely clicked her tongue and stepped aside. “Fine, it’s not like things can get much worse.”
“Thank you,” Tomás smiled somewhat tiredly and entered the room behind her.
Stepping inside the space felt a bit like entering some sort of hellish cave. The room felt somehow colder than the rest of the house despite the thick padding of mattresses and miscellaneous cushions that lined the walls and windows around them, the air stank like piss and sweat and rot, and a few plastic torches arranged on the floor illuminated an emaciated, writhing figure chained to the floor via a haphazardly-placed ring screw that had surely ruined the hardwood underneath.
The figure itself looked like a shadow of the person Tomás saw in his dreams, somewhere between human and corpse. His hair hung onto his scalp in sparse chunks, his bloodshot eyes drifted aimlessly around the room, deeply sunken into purpling sockets, and his skin was mostly covered in oozing pustules and weeping sores. One of his legs stuck out at a weird angle, and Tomás noted with great discomfort that he must have dislocated it with the demon’s wild thrashing.
“You alright?” Mouse noticed him wincing.
“Yes, I just—” he motioned to the man on the floor, then brought a hand up to press on his temple. “We have to help him.”
“Yes we do,” she nodded. “You ready, Father?”
Tomás pulled his lips into a thin smile of grim determination. “Ready.”
Mouse grabbed a plastic bottle filled with holy water and sprayed the man, drawing his scattered attention, and began praying, “God of heaven, God of earth, God of angels…”
The man winced and hissed when the water touched him, writhing against his bonds, contorting his body in ways human limbs were not meant to move as Tomás approached him, speaking alongside Mouse, “God who has power to give life after death, Creator of all things, deliver us from all the tyranny of the infernal spirits, from their snares, their lies, and their wickedness…”
Tomás reached the man’s side and knelt next to him, taking his face into his hands and staring into those eyes that now cried tears of blood.
“From the snares of the devil—” Mouse raised her voice and flung more holy water.
“Deliver us, Lord!” Tomás responded, holding down the man who thrashed and screamed and tried to move his head to bite him.
“From the tyranny of hell—” Mouse took a step closer, surveying the scene and making sure it was safe to proceed.
“Protect us, Lord!” The man kicked out and caught Tomás in the shin, but he shook off the sting of pain and continued.
“That You may crush the enemies of Your Church—” Mouse stood next to him now and helped pin the man down more securely, then turned to him and nodded. His cue to start.
“Hear us, Lord!” And with those words, Tomás looked into the eyes of the man before him and stared into his soul.
Tomás was back in the sunroom, but now the sky overhead was grey and lifeless, and the rain pelting down on the windows created a fog that made it impossible to see what lay out in the garden. The inside of the room seemed empty, a chair had been jammed underneath the brass handle of the door leading to the kitchen and another lay broken next to the dining table, bits of shredded newspaper scattered all around the area alongside the shattered fragments of a ceramic mug.
It took Tomás a few nerve-wracking seconds of looking around to locate the old man hiding crouched underneath the dining table, head buried in his drawn-up knees like a child hiding from a storm.
“Albert? What happened?” Tomás strode to kneel next to the sturdy wooden table.
“That’s not my son,” the old man shook his head as if trying to physically shake something off his mind.
“I know,” Tomás put a hand on his arm. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“He—it, it tried coming into the room,” Albert's explanation came in the form of frantic muttering. “I told it to come back later, but it forced the door and—oh God that wasn't my son at the door I didn't know what to do I threw a chair and it did nothing it just stood there staring with red eyes and it tried to grab hold of me—” a strangled gasp escaped his throat.
“It's okay,” Tomás tried making his voice as calm as possible. “It's okay, Albert. I'm here to help you.”
“Is this a nightmare?” the man turned to Tomás for the first time and looked him in the eyes. “Am I in hell?”
“Not quite,” he responded as he guided Albert to stand up from underneath the table. “But your soul is in danger, and I'm here to make sure we drive the demon out.”
Outside, a flash of lightning arched down from the sky, briefly illuminating the room and capturing the horror of understanding dawning on the old man's face like the flash on a camera, closely followed by the strident boom of thunder that shook the glass of the large windows and deafened them for a few seconds.
After their ears stopped ringing, Albert spoke up, “I… I don't know if I can do it.”
“You have to,” Tomás swallowed the nervous knot that had started tying itself at the back of his throat. “I'll help you, but you have to do it.”
“What if we fail?” The question fell on Tomás like a ton of bricks.
He didn't like thinking about failure, the possibility of it was suffocating, and the reality of it weighted him down like bricks tied to his limbs, each one with a name and a face he wouldn’t soon forget.
The truth of the job as an exorcist was that there were always people he couldn’t save, and it was those faces that haunted him in the nightmares he'd long since stopped talking about due to their sheer frequency. Not to mention that losing someone whose soul he'd touched felt somehow even more devastating than usual. It wasn't that he didn't mourn those he failed to help when he was doing exorcisms the regular way, but there was something about seeing the torment of their physical bodies in real time that made their deaths feel almost like a mercy.
In contrast, ever since he started using his power to delve inside the mind of the possessed to battle the demons from the inside, those failures seemed to eat away at him in a way they hadn't before, like an almost physical corrosion of his soul rather than the metaphorical chipping away that usually happened due to his natural human empathy. Seeing their inner selves, whole and conscious and scared, talking to them, promising he was going to help in a way he couldn't before—failing in those circumstances felt like he'd thrown them a lifeline when they needed it most and then let go when his own boat seemed about to tip over. It felt nothing short of selfish, cowardly even.
Unworthy.
“We have to try.” What else could he say?
The old man stared at him for what felt like an eternity, brows pulled into a contemplative frown. Then, he sighed, “Promise me one thing, son.”
“What is it?”
“If we don’t succeed…” he looked around as if taking in his beloved sunroom. “Don’t let that thing take my soul.”
“Albert, don’t—” Tomás was interrupted almost as soon as he opened his mouth to protest.
“I’ve lived a long life, can’t say it was all good, but it was better than most ever get,” Albert knelt down to pick up the shards of the ceramic mug with slightly trembling hands. “If it looks like we won’t make it, I’d rather die than let that thing keep having its way. Do you understand?” He looked at Tomás, then placed the shards on the table with care.
Tomás hesitated only for a moment. “Okay.” He would do everything in his power to make sure it didn’t come to it, but the least he could do now was ease his worries.
“Okay,” the old man nodded, a sliver of relief momentarily relaxing the fear on his face. “What do I have to do?”
“We don’t have much time,” Tomás began a rushed explanation. “When the demon comes—”
In that moment, the door shook so hard it seemed about to pop right out of its hinges, and the distorted voice of a child called out, “Are you in there daddy? I want to play a game.”
Albert froze, glancing towards Tomás in a desperate plea for guidance.
“This is your body—your temple,” Tomás whispered. “You need to drive the demon out, at least to the surface so my colleague can finish exorcising it from the outside.”
“Da-ad, is someone in there with you?” The door continued shaking, the handle twisting so hard it let out an audible crack.
“How do I do that?” he glanced back and forth between Tomás and the door.
“Only you know how.”
“That doesn’t help!”
The door handle finally gave out and fell limply to the ground, bouncing off the chair that had been placed below it and hitting the ground with a metallic thud.
“Focus on your son—your real son!” Tomás took a step forward, positioning himself between Albert and the door. “Focus on seeing your family again!”
A glowing red eye peeked at them from the hole left behind by the missing door handle, and a booming voice cried out, “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR YOU SON OF A BITCH.”
Then the door was flung open with a tremendous force, sending the chair flying forward and knocking Tomás right off his feet.
Albert might have screamed, but between the ringing in his hears from smacking the back of his head against the floor and the disorientation of having the wind knocked out of his lungs Tomás wasn’t quite sure if he heard right. All he heard as he scrambled back up to his feet was the demon’s bellowing.
“JUST DO THE RIGHT THING FOR ONCE IN YOUR MISERABLE LIFE, OLD MAN.” A child-sized figure staggered forward, but its skin was thick and rugged like bark, falling off in chunks from its body to reveal pitch black muscle, its glowing red eyes illuminating protruding sockets as it stared at Albert. “YOUR KIDS HATE YOU, YOUR WIFE DIED JUST TO BE RID OF YOU, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THAT SACRIFICE? YOU’RE THE SAME USELESS BASTARD YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN.”
Tomás steadied himself against the dizziness the blow had caused and swallowed down the bile that rose to his throat as he began praying in a quick burst of words, “Alma de Cristo, santifícame. Cuerpo de Cristo, sálvame. Sangre de Cristo, embriágame—”
“AND YOU,” the demon’s head snapped, turning towards him at an unnatural angle as it continued moving towards the other man. “YOU THINK HELPING THIS SACK OF SHIT WILL PROVE YOU’RE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR PRIEST PAPI TO COME BACK FOR YOU? HA! I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU, HE’S NOT—HE’D RATHER SLEEP WITH THE FISHES THAN PUT UP WITH YOUR WHINING. SO WHY DON’T YOU DO EVERYONE A FAVOUR AND FUCK OFF FOREVER?”
“Stop it!” It was Albert who spoke up, torn between backing away from the encroaching creature and trying to stand his ground, leaving him stumbling one step forward and three steps back as the shambling thing closed in on him.
The demon turned to him once again, extending its small arms in what seemed like a grotesque invitation for a hug, “MAYBE IF YOU’D BEAT YOUR KIDS THE WAY YOUR POPS BEAT YOU THEY’D FEEL SOMETHING FOR YOU APART FROM INDIFFERENCE. THE WAY THINGS STAND, THEY WON’T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO ATTEND YOUR FUNERAL.”
“Jesús, óyeme!” Tomás raised his voice, knowing it was annoying the demon and hoping the sound of it would help Albert remember what he had to do. “No permitas que me aparte de ti. Del enemigo maligno, defiéndeme. En la hora de mi muerte, llámame y mándame ir a ti—”
“I CAN FIX EVERYTHING, ALBERT. ONLY I CAN FIX YOUR SORRY EXCUSE FOR A LIFE,” the demon stepped forward, arms fully open, until it had cornered Albert against the large window of the sunroom, seeming like a much larger, insurmountable presence than its child-sized body should have been. “STOP MAKING THE SAME MISTAKES YOU ALWAYS MAKE AND LISTEN TO YOUR SON FOR ONCE.”
Seeing it get so close to the man, Tomás scrabbled forward to try and create an opening, but just as he got close enough to reach out he saw Albert raise his clenched fist, a line of dark-coloured liquid dripping down his wrist.
“You’re. Not. My. Son!” with those words he lunged forward, an impossibly sharp ceramic shard clutched in his hand, and headed straight for the demon’s throat.
“YOU FUCKING—”
A blinding flash of lightning struck and washed everything with light, a peal of thunder crashed down onto the sunroom with such force the windows shattered in a split second.
Everything else stopped existing.
Marcus was lucky that his cabinmate still wasn’t back by the time he gave up on wandering the halls of the ship and decided to turn in for the night.
Outside, the storm continued raging on, jostling the boat from side to side in a vain attempt to tip it over, and the heavy rain battered the small porthole of the cabin with the strength of a million tiny projectiles.
Marcus lay on his bunk and closed his eyes, trying to focus on the white noise created by the rain and the rumbling of the ship rather than the thoughts that had been racing to catch up to him since that conversation earlier.
It wasn’t that he never thought about going back—on the contrary. At first, it was a struggle not to think about turning around and shoving his doubts to the side, he had to fight with himself every day just to maintain his determination to stay away, but the more time went on and he realised just how freeing it was to not be battling demons or thinking about them for every waking moment, the more the struggle became managing the gut punch of shame he felt when he thought about going back and felt nothing but dread.
Just the thought of being adrift once more, trying to follow the divine guidance of a voice he no longer heard, fearing everyday for the wellbeing of those around him while constantly exposed to the horrors brought about by true evil, was enough to keep propelling him forward, farther and farther away, into the middle of the ocean where he couldn’t turn back even if he’d wanted to.
He’d been an exorcist all his life —no, exorcism had been his life ever since he could remember— and all it did for him was chew him up and spit him out, leaving him spent and aching and tired. Didn’t he deserve to rest?
Perhaps his feelings would shift again in due time. Perhaps one day he would find enough peace within himself to bring back with him, forgiveness for the sins he had committed, or a purpose strong enough to lean on when more challenges came his way. Right now he had none of that, and the atonement he’d left in search of in the first place seemed as distant as before.
In that sense, Marcus thought, Tomás was a very lucky man. His sense of purpose was so strong and he was so sure of what he’d been called to do that he didn’t hesitate to throw his life and success away for a chance to bum it out with an excommunicated exorcist to pursue his path. When Marcus had left him, he’d truly believed Tomás didn’t need his help anymore —especially not with the way he’d been growing and the interest Mouse had shown in tagging along— and it was that certainty that ultimately drove him to his decision. What use would he be with the way he was now? If one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, tossed to and fro by the wind, Marcus was afraid that in his stumbling he would crash down on the others and sweep them away into his sea of uncertainty, dragging them down to its depths with him.
To not be needed was a frightening idea, but to be a burden? An active hindrance? Marcus wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he were to reach that point.
A flash of thunder outside briefly illuminated the underside of his eyelids, and Marcus opened his eyes to stare at his surroundings.
That was why he had started running in the first place, but even though he tried telling himself that this was his way to stop and rest, he hadn’t actually settled down.
The peace he so treasured was really nothing but the calm at the eye of the storm. Marcus was still surrounded by raging winds and thunderstorms on all sides, and he had to keep running if he wanted to stay away from the edges of the tempest.
He hadn’t turned on any lights, so the cabin was completely dark, and the rumbling of the ship’s engine and the pattering of the rain on the porthole only served to accentuate the silence Marcus was surrounded by. This silence, the glaring quiet that he’d grown used to over the last few months, was more deafening now than when he’d first noticed it, stifling in its lack, disquieting in its pervasiveness, an ever-present and all encompassing absence when all he needed was a still small voice telling him he was on the right track.
Unless something were to unexpectedly change, Marcus would return to shore in a couple of days, rest for a while, and inform Jakob of his decision to take on that job. He didn’t need to think more on it than he already had—he still hadn’t found what he was looking for.
He owed it to himself to keep looking, owed it to the others, too, since he wouldn’t be any use if he were to go back if he couldn’t even help himself.
Maybe one day in the future he’d look back at this moment as nothing more than an unpleasant memory. On that day he would have a nice house with a garden somewhere, and he would invite his renowned exorcist friend over for tea to reminisce about the past, and at the end of the day they would hug goodbye and he would set off on another world-saving adventure while Marcus himself leaned back in a rocking chair on his porch to watch the sun set with an ice cold beer in his hand, and everything would be well.
Until that day, he supposed he would have to keep looking for his own little miracle to show him what on earth this had all been for.
The cold glare of the winter sun felt almost radiant in contrast with the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital, but Tomás was certain neither sources of light made him look any less haggard than he felt.
Still, a full night’s rest and a warm meal had done wonders for his body, and he felt almost ten times lighter as he walked out of the hospital and hopped into the running car where Mouse was waiting for him.
“What did the family say?” she spoke while trying to warm her hands with the hot air sputtering out of the AC.
“They send their thanks,” Tomás settled into the passenger seat. “He has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but doctors think he’ll be fine.”
“Good,” Mouse rubbed her hands together one last time and brought them to the steering wheel. “That means we can get going already.”
“So soon?”
“I got news of another lead while you were dealing with the family,” she smiled somewhat sympathetically. “Guess demons have no consideration for the poor exorcists that have to clean up their mess.”
Tomás sighed, but still nodded. “Okay, let’s go then.”
“Yes, sir!” she gave a short laugh and drove out of the hospital’s car park.
As they crossed the exit gate, Tomás gave one last look back at the concrete hospital building, its ledges and windows sprinkled with fresh white snow. “I hope he makes things right with his kids.”
“If this doesn’t give him the kick he needs, he’s truly a lost cause,” Mouse agreed. “Either way, good thing our job here is done, right? Don’t worry about what happens after, Tomás, that’s got nothing to do with us.”
“Right,” he nodded, looking out of the window as the scenery of the town whizzed by.
Tomás had to admit he had a tendency to get attached to those they helped, it was a little hard not to considering all the work an exorcism entailed. Still, he supposed Mouse was right, they’d done everything they could for these people, the rest was up to them now—moving on sooner rather than later just meant he’d be ready to give his all to whomever came after without anything getting in the way.
They left the town behind in around an hour, though it probably would have taken much less time had they not had to worry about navigating over black ice on the tiny road, and headed south towards this new lead.
It was while they were driving through the vast white nothing of the highway, when the broadcaster on the radio said something about the aftermath of hurricane Florence, that Tomás remembered the thing he had wanted to tell Mouse after everything was done.
“I saw Marcus in a vision,” he began, staring forward at the endless road ahead. “At least, I’m pretty sure it was a vision.”
“What?” Mouse turned her head from the road only for a split second as if to make sure she’d heard right. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Tomás nodded. ”He was on a boat—I think he’s a fisherman now.”
“Marcus, a fisherman?” her voice was equal parts incredulity and amusement.
“Yeah, bright orange raincoat and everything.” Tomás laughed, recognising how silly that description might sound without further context.
“Unbelievable,” she shook her head, a laugh playing at the edge of her words. “To think he’d take a retirement hobby that far.”
“He was on a proper large boat,” Tomás tried defending him a little. “People fish for a living, you know?”
“Sure, sure,” Mouse rolled her eyes before getting back on track. “What else did you see? Why do you think you were shown it?”
“Uh,” he hesitated for a second. “I’m not sure, actually. There was a storm but the boat seemed fine, and I heard him say that he was doing well, so…”
Mouse let out a vague sound as she considered his words. “Do you think it might have been just… to let you know how he was doing?”
“I mean,” Tomás frowned at that, bafflement apparent in his voice. “But why? Don’t you think it’s something else?”
“I’m not the one with the divine visions, Tomás,” she shrugged. “Have you been thinking about him a lot lately?”
“What? No, I—why—” Tomás sputtered, realising he was getting a little too worked up over what was probably meant to be a joke. “It’s just that we haven’t heard from him in so long and I was a little worried, that’s all. There’s a conspiracy out there trying to kill all exorcists, you can’t blame me for worrying.”
“I never said that,” Mouse glanced at him again. “But if there seemed to be no other purpose for showing you he was fine other than to ease your mind…”
“You think God was just letting me check in on him so I’d stop wondering whether he was dead or not?” Saying it out loud made it sound even more ridiculous than before, and he regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.
Mouse shrugged again, clearly not invested enough in the answer to chip in either way.
Tomás leaned back in his seat, not fully satisfied with the conjecture. If the vision had been meant as a way to set his mind at ease, then why had it left him feeling so vaguely… unsettled? Perhaps it wasn’t a vision at all? But that supposition only raised more questions than it answered.
The person on the radio said a few more things that filled the brief, contemplative pause the question had caused, but neither of them seemed to be paying much attention at that point.
Then, Mouse spoke up again. “So… that’s what was on your mind back in the house?”
“Partly,” he confessed, letting out a long breath. “I suppose it was unexpected enough to throw me off. I mean, the first time I had a vision about Marcus he seemed to be in a tough spot, and finding him started all of this—” he gestured to their general vicinity, ”—so I was just wondering if maybe I was being called to look for him again.”
“But you don’t think that’s what’s happening now,” her statement was inflected a little like a question.
He turned to the window, facing away from her peripheral line of sight, watching as the cloudy layer of condensation on the glass from the warmth of those inside the car grew and decreased alongside his own breath. “I’m not sure. I don’t think he wants to be found… I don’t know if maybe that’s the problem.”
A silence fell over them again, though this one a little more uncertain than the last, stretching like the frosted highway under the wheels of the battered rental they’d procured for cash two towns ago after their truck finally kicked the bucket.
Then, Mouse broke it once more, “Tomás, you need to let him go.”
“What?” he turned to look at her, so caught off by the matter-of-factness of her tone that for a second he believed he’d misheard.
“Let him go,” she continued her casual statement, emphasising it with a quick shrug of her shoulders. “Forget about Marcus, move on.”
“What do you mean? I wasn’t saying I was going to go look for him, I was just wondering—”
“I can tell, you know?” finally Mouse turned to look at him fully, tearing her gaze from the road for only a brief moment that seemed to extend out into minutes as she stared into his eyes. “As the other member of the abandoned-by-Marcus-Keane club, I can tell.”
Tomás sucked in a breath, unsure why he felt like he’d been slapped all of a sudden. “He didn’t abandon me,” his words felt small, a paltry dismissal in the face of such an accusation.
“No?” though her gaze was back on the road, Tomás could still feel its sharp scrutiny from her words. “Then what do you call what he did when he ran away and pawned you off to me?”
“He didn’t—he was just—” words refused to come fast enough. He knew Marcus had his reasons, most of which he understood to an extent, but in that moment none of those things seemed enough to stand against the claim Mouse was making, sounding more like excuses than actual justifications.
“He abandoned you, Tomás—but it’s alright, it wasn’t your fault,” her voice softened for that last part, shifting from its previous cutting judgement to a resignation that seemed to have dulled that edge years ago. “It’s just what he does. He runs away from himself and anyone who gets too close.”
His first instinct was to say that they were different, that the circumstances between Mouse’s experience and his own couldn’t be compared fairly, but he stopped himself in time before blurting anything out. When he thought about it, though, it held true. From the scattered pieces he knew about their past he was aware Marcus had left her due to a mixture of shame and fear, a mishandled attempt at protecting her by keeping her ‘safe’ away from him, so it was obvious why she would feel the way she did. When it came to him, though, the main reason Tomás didn’t think the word ‘abandonment’ was appropriate was because he’d been the one to insert himself in Marcus’s life completely unasked for. They had developed a close camaraderie, sure, and Tomás had certainly looked up to Marcus as a mentor and close friend, but the only thing Marcus had agreed to was teaching him to become an exorcist. Tomás was an exorcist now, and Marcus was hurt and tired of it all, so who was he to blame Marcus for wanting to part ways? As much as it had hurt initially, no one had abandoned anyone; their paths were simply no longer headed in the same direction.
As for the getting too close part, he didn’t think it was applicable the same way it’d been with Mouse. He was aware Marcus had plenty of walls up, plenty of truths he kept guarded even from himself, but Tomás threatened none of them, at least not in the same way it’d been back when Mouse and Marcus had first encountered each other. Marcus wasn’t afraid of letting him get too close —he’d killed a man to save his soul, for God’s sake— but he did seem afraid of the person the years had turned him into. Tomás couldn’t fault him for wanting to take time to sort a few things out.
“He wasn’t running, I don’t blame him for needing to step away.” In the end, this simple conclusion was all he could say. “He’s happy now, I think.”
“Well, good for him,” her response was flat, devoid of both sarcasm and sincerity, probably intended to be the most neutral tone she could manage.
Tomás didn’t see the point in dragging the discussion on any longer either, so he shifted his attention to fiddling with the channel on the radio and finding something less dry than the news report they’d been listening to. After settling on a station playing some combination of top hits from the last few years, he leaned back in his seat and continued staring out at the road outside.
The thin cover of grey-white clouds overhead seemed to mirror the ground below with its blanket of overnight snow, the white expanse only occasionally interrupted when another car whizzed by next to them, creating a strangely hypnotic rhythm that had Tomás’s head tilting to the side before he even noticed it.
“Take a nap if you’re tired,” Mouse’s voice drifted over to him with the same nondistinctive hum as the music. “It should be a few hours until our next stop.”
Normally he would protest, insist on staying up to keep her company, but he couldn’t even open his mouth to respond and the weight of his head seemed to be pulling him deeper and deeper into the backrest of his seat, so he simply hummed in acknowledgement and finally closed his eyes.
As he did so, he plunged into a deep, dark sea, its water enveloping him fully, dragging him down,
down,
down
away from the light of the surface into the blissful nothingness of a dreamless, visionless sleep, where he could rest away from the doubts and the worries that clung to him while awake.
Above that sea, a storm gradually abated, and a lone fishing vessel glided over its surface on its way to shore.
