Angelus Perditionis

As I said before, bagging demons is a depressing job. Meg or not, some things are just too awful to deal with. Certainly, I would’ve been worse off without her at the moment, but I’m still going to take a break from the business for a bit. It’s been a couple of months since my last gig and I don’t feel like picking up anything just yet. Even though I don’t want her to stop working because of me, I’m sort of glad she’s sticking around. I don’t have anyone besides her at the moment.

Also, she found your comments about her disability to be hilarious. She never takes herself too seriously. I mean, what kind of self-respecting person would allow themselves to be called a demonic grand witch? That said, she does her job very well, and she’s got a brilliant personality to boot.

Nothing beats watching a woman in a wheelchair slaughter a demonic horde, to the sheer astonishment of kids who nearly got themselves killed trying to do the same. Especially after said kids called her useless. Years ago, I did the same, but when I did it, I had many infernal hides under my belt - these had but a few.

But as I said, this job is depressing. One kid ended up shooting himself. He couldn’t handle seeing his girl being handled by a parasite. She got over it; he didn’t. Ended up blasting his brains out right in front of her. They knew they shouldn’t be dating others from the same line of work, but they never listen. They never listen until they get burned. It’s always the same, isn’t it?

I wish I had that girl’s mental aptitude. Everything she’s been through and she’s still kicking and bagging demons like nothing. Girl’s got spirit, that’s for sure.

That leads me to what led me to where I am now. The last gig we took was pretty standard. An old couple found a parasite hanging out on their ranch. Contacted the church because they were sure it had to be a possessed person. The church passed it on to us. Meg and I jumped on the job and headed out. Considering the last run we had with rookies, nobody even seems to have considered tagging us along with the new crop of “hunters.”

We got there, and the old couple explained they had found a strange old man who was aggressive and looked like a corpse in their barn. That description fit the bill just right. It was a parasite. We let them know they should go back home and stay inside until we let them know the exorcism is complete and they’re safe. We got our tools and headed straight into the barn. Slowly opening the door and pushing my rifle first, I was hoping the thing would jump right at me, but it didn’t. Everything was quiet. No movement, no noise, nothing suspicious even.

I pushed the door slightly more, creating an entrance for me and Meg, and we swiftly made our way inside. Nothing. Scanning the area, I couldn’t see anything. Meghan registered nothing, either. After a few moments of tense searching, I finally found it. Laying in the hay inactive – asleep. Even though demons don’t really sleep, I suppose the entity didn’t take full control of the body when we got to it. Unsurprisingly, really.

I gestured to my partner to stay still before I tip-toed my way to the demonic parasite. Standing over the oblivious entity, I pulled my pike and slammed it as hard as I could into its ear, pinning it to the floorboards below.

The parasite awoke and started wailing and shrieking in its disgusting language as its body writhed and twisted itself, pitifully attempting to free itself from the floor. I stood proudly over my “catch” and prepare to blow it to bits with my rifle, but once it twisted its head into the right angle for me to glimpse its host’s face, a flying brick, hit me in the stomach with full force.

Figuratively speaking anyway, a terrible sense of dread washed over me and I fell, feeling the life slowly drain out of me. A nauseating and suffocating pain started burning in my chest as I watched myself grow old and weak, falling into a pit of darkness without an end where endless demons used my weakness and infested my body. I felt myself being broken and rearranged from the inside, every bit of me consumed by this inhuman sensation. A complete loss of connection with space-time. A terrible trip through a nightmarish astral plane.

Paralyzed and drowning in despair. Meghan once again saved me. I’m so glad she noticed me freezing and just blasted the demon until she got annoyed with me and pretended her gun was jammed. She yelled out to me like she was about to murder me and ordered me to leave a few rounds in the thing.

Her voice shook me out of my trance and I ended up unloading my entire magazine into that thing. Tore it to shreds and even chucked the rifle at its unmoving remains out of sheer frustration. We left without saying much, called the church to tell them the deed was done, and notified the elderly couple of a priest's arrival to arrange a funeral for the "poor soul that lost its battle against the forces of Satan." They were pretty sympathetic about it.

As we were on the road back home, after a long time of absolute silence, Meg finally asked me, “It is someone you knew?”

I was still in my head when I heard her voice trail off, “huh?”

“Someone you knew back there? This wasn’t unlike you to just freeze in a panic…”

“Yeah…”

“Figured as much… well, what can you do, Johan? That’s what our world is like. Once you get sucked into this line of work, you rarely get to retire. You, of all people, know this much.”

“Yeah, but Mike was different. He was supposed to be different, on a level of his own. I looked up to him. That’s the guy who taught me everything I know; he loved doing that thing I did with the pike. We used to call him Piking Mike for that.” Meg sat there and listened to my story about my deceased mentor. “He’s been in the business for a long time. Retired recently after a demon left a meat suit before he could gun it down. Mike ended up killing the person and felt like he’s gone too dull…”

“These parasites aren’t stupid, they remember us…”

“Yeah, we also thought they never left a host.”

“With us around, they won’t be leaving any hosts, Johan. Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine.”

“I just don’t want to end up like that, Meg, fight them off my entire life only to end up as a meat suit when I’m retired and old, trying to make something off of my last years on this god damned planet!”

She just placed her hand on mine and told me to get some time off as we drove into the night. All these years of traveling and raising hell together and she still amazes me. I guess I’m taking her advice, and I’m glad I got her around. Otherwise, I’m not sure I’d be alive today. As much as I dislike admitting that, I’m glad I can have someone who understands me completely.

A guardian angel of sorts.