(Oct) Prompt #2 - Ghastly

[~N~]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second prompt of October is the word, Ghastly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you have any questions about how to participate in this event,
please visit the rules (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=63004) thread or PM Kiki (http://role-player.net/forum/member.php?u=42034).

Happy writing!

[m139]

It was a beautiful night. The sun had set, and the stars had all come out to shine. They shone on the trees in the garden, they shone on the carriages and horses in the yard, and they shown on the grand building right in the center of it all. In fact, it may be said they shone on everything they could, for they shone through the open windows and doors. But the central ballroom was separated by hallways from the outside, and so, it was illuminated not by starlight, but by the light of a thousand candles.

And the flickering flames fluttered around the room, here alighting on the musicians with their violins and violas, there resting on the servants, as they whisked about the room, and, always pausing for a moment on the young guests, as they whirled and twirled the night away.

Pretty soon, however, the stars found themselves able to shine on one young couple. In the back of the house, far away from the festivities, two youths were on a rather large balcony. They had gone through a few of dimly lit hallways, and now found themselves alone in the starlight. They were close enough to hear the music, but since the ballroom had an unusual position inside the house, there was not much other illumination. The young lady was a guest, and the only child of a rich land holder and he, the third son of the host family.

"It's beautiful tonight," the young lady said, going to the edge of the balcony. "All the stars, the moonlight, the everything."

"Indeed it is, Clarissa." said the young man, and he walked up beside her, arms behind his back. "Indeed it is."

She continued to look out. "It is beautiful... And you can even still hear the music here...."

"May I?" he said from beside her.

She turned. He was holding out his hand. She smiled, nodded and took it.

It was a slow song, so slowly they waltzed together.

"I don't think I've ever had this chance before." the young man murmured, gazing into her eyes.

"What do you mean, Daniel?" This is not the first time we've danced." she responded, it the same low tone.

"Ah, but then we were surrounded by the hundreds of others. And while it is true none of them compare to a beauty like you, it is only here, alone, where I can truly see you in all your gloriousness."

Clarissa blushed, and turned her head shyly. "Thank you." she murmered.

"Ah, you need not be ashamed. You are all that."

The song ended, and he released his grip on her waist and moved both his hands to her left. She was still looking down, and beginning to pull back. But he held her with a gentle grip, and so she did not persist.

"You are all that." he continued. "All that and more. Clarissa..."

She raised her eyes from off the floor to look at him, but did not find him standing beside her as she expected. Instead, he was on one knee in front of her.

"Will you.." he began, slightly nervous, "Will you marry me?"

With her free right hand, she covered her mouth. Sure, she had been expecting this for a while, but it was still a surprise. She had known its eventuality, but had never imagined the actuality. "Yes." she finally managed to say, "Yes. I'll be yours till the day I die."

He slipped the ring on her finger, and the single diamond sparkled in the starlight. He lept up, and kissed her. "We'll tell everyone soon," he said holding both her hands, "but first, one dance!"

The music had started up again, this time a quick, fast paced song. Together, they twirled and whirled, both in great ecstasy. And when the song ended, they were both happy, and both excited about the future they would share together.

"Let's go tell everyone." Daniel said, and they both rushed inside together.

They found his father talking to Stuart, Daniels' brother just above him in age. Both father and son turned as the two flushed faced youths approached them.

"Father," Daniel began, "I... I would like you to meet my bride."

His father looked at the two of them and smiled. He, like pretty much everyone, had been expecting this for a long time. "Welcome, daughter." He said, embracing Clarissa. I am happy to have you as part of the family. Oh, but how faint you look! Must be from all that dancing. I think your to be husband had best set about providing you with drink right now."

Daniel blushed, and handed Clarissa the glass he somehow found himself holding. "For you." He said, holding the cup up to her and bowing.

She took it smiling, and drank. And then she finished, and Daniel could wait no longer. He flung her arms around her as the Father announced the engagement to the guests. And the night continued to pass, all in a whir of happy emotions.
The candles were low in height when the musicians announced the last dance. Daniel turned to Clarissa, who had been leaning on his shoulder as they sat on the chairs. "Shall we?" he asked smiling.

"Sure." She returned the smile, and he stood up up and extended his hand. She took it, and stood, but the next moment she found herself falling back into her seat.

She looked at Daniel. "Actually, why don't we sit this one out I'm not feeling very well all of a sudden." She coughed into her handkerchief.

Daniel sat next to her with a look of concern. And the look of concern only grew when she took the handkerchief away from her mouth. "Doctor! Doctor!" he stood up and cried.

Pretty soon, the entire ballroom was again one of rush and flurry, but this time, not of a happy sort, but instead of frenzied panic. There were hushed whispers, as all feared for the poor lady's life.

That is, all but one.

Hiding in the corner, the second son calmly sipped from a glass filled with of pure water, a ghastly smile on his face. It had been so easy to slip the poisoned glass of water into his brother's hand. Sure, his brother had not drank it, but either way, his plan had mostly worked. After all, it was not suiting for the younger to be married before the elder.

[~N~]

The ghastly visage hissed back at Father Tarcino as he flung droplets of holy water at it, this proud, strong woman reduced to a humiliating, disfigured fingerpuppet for the demonic entity that housed itself within Mal's body. With desperate resolve, the priest repeated his mantra over and over in a voice of power and authority.

"In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti! In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti!"

Father Giuseppe Tarcino had only ever performed one other exorcism ritual in his lifetime; upon a young boy in Southern California who had supposedly been possessed through his dealings with a witch there. No one believed anything was wrong for a month, but when he started walking backwards on all fours down a staircase, the parallels with the film by the same name were too many to ignore. Against everyone's wishes, the young priest (he was only twenty-six at the time) had been called in. Three weeks later, the boy was dead, and a trial had followed. In the end, Father Tarcino swore he would never perform another exorcism again--he had paid his dues in full.

But sometimes fate can be cruel, and God had called him back into that hellish service that he vowed never to return to. Even now, against the abomination before him, with every part of his rational mind clawing at him from the inside, desperate to be anywhere else, he proceeded like a shepherd against the wolves.

"Tell me your name!" he commanded, summoning up wild courage in his being. "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, TELL ME YOUR NAME, DEMON!"

"We are beyond you, fool! We come from a place that would make each of your entrails writhe like serpents, while your blood fell with the screams of the damned splashing down with each drop! You would be torn apart, you pitiful mortal! Your sins would be our slaves, and do our bidding upon your helpless, frail spirit! YOU CANNOT CHALLENGE US!" she cried out with a dozen demonic voices at once, grabbing hold of Father Tarcino and throwing him against the wall with unholy strength. Advancing upon him immediately like a spider on all fours, she was nearly ready to sink her dripping fangs in when six shots rang out in the hallway alcove, jolting her body and knocking her off balance as the bullets tore through her flesh.

Shrieking out with a rattling, hissing cry, she righted herself upside down, contorted in such a way as to leave no question that she was no longer human. Her chest faced the ceiling, her head twisted around and faced Agents Cohen and Lee with unmitigated malevolence in her pale, pupiless eyes.

"I think we got... her... its attention," Agent Cohen muttered, standing in the elevator doorway as it tried to close on him repeatedly.

"Now what..." Agent Lee muttered beside him, backing up instinctively.

Just as the possessed Director Richards was about to launch herself at the two agents once more, Father Tarcino pressed the cross to the side of her gruesome face, causing the flesh to bubble and smoke as an unearthly wail went up into the building, shaking the entire structure with dimensional power. The agents fell back into the elevator, which promptly closed and descended, for Agent Walker was pressing the button frantically now, trying to call it down. This left the priest alone with his adversary, but as her cry ended, she collapsed to the floor in a heap, her mouth forced open, jaw crooked and distended, pressed to the floor, as her pupils and eyes slid slightly forward. Whatever power the demon had over Lynn Richards' body had dried up and retreated, leaving her body a vacant gray husk.

"Rest in peace," Father Tarcino muttered over her corpse, giving her the blessing of last rites before struggling to his feet.

He had no time to recover however. At the end of the corridor, as if in a scene out of a Stanley Kubrick film, stood the possessed host of Belial, radiating pure darkness like a black star that reached out to slither around his spirit and mind. Again, Father Giuseppe Tarcino steadied himself and drew forth his Bible, opening to the exorcism ritual, while holding forth his cross:

"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by His power, we cast you out, unclean spirit, devilish power, infernal adversary!" he proclaimed in a strong, unwavering voice, advancing towards the possessed Mal Evenhart, who likewise advanced towards him. With black, slithering tendrils rising out from behind him, they shot forward, latching themselves like tentacles upon the floor and walls, sucking and feeling and slithering their way towards Father Tarcino.

"Begone and stay far from the Church of God, from all who are made in the image of God and redeemed by the precious blood of the divine Lamb. Never again dare, you cunning spirit, to deceive and undo the human race, to persecute those whom you would possess, nor to strike the chosen of God and to sift them as wheat. For it is the Most High God who commands you!"

Mal stopped, covering his ears and screaming, shutting his tar black eyes, the tendrils of darkness whipping about, as though in agony and confusion.

Imprisoned within his mortal shell, Mal's spirit felt the foundations of Belial's hold shudder and shift, like an earthquake rattling the demon from the inside out. Seeing his opportunity, he shook the cage he was suspended in back and forth, hoping to break free.

"YOUR SOUL WILL BURN IN THE BELLIES OF A THOUSAND DEMONS, PRIEST!" the possessed form of Mal Evenhart cried out in syllables that cut right into the soul of Belial's adversary. The priest literally felt the demon's acidic words burning him from the inside out, and it nearly dropped him right there. Staggering, he struggled on...

"He who desires that all men might be saved and come to the knowledge of truth. God the Father commands you! God the Son commands you! God the Holy Spirit commands you! The majesty of Christ, the eternal Word of God made flesh commands you!" Father Tarcino did not relent. Holding his shaking cross before him, his fingers covered in the blood that now oozed forth from it, he pressed on, forcing the darkness of this entity back with pronunciations of holy power. The body and mind of Mal Evenhart wavered and swung back and forth in multiple echoes and images of itself, crumbling and howling with a hundred damned voices, yelling blasphemies and sins and curses of every language upon the haggard priest. Belial redoubled his assault, bringing his dark tendrils of power back under his command and launching them forth for another psycho-spiritual attack.

"SILENCE, PRIEST! WE WILL FILL YOUR MOUTH WITH FILTH UNTIL BILE IS ALL THAT ERUPTS FROM YOUR LIPS FOR ALL ETERNITY!" Father Tarcino now felt like his chest was wrapped in bands of iron, closing in around his lung and crushing his ribs. He cried out in anguish, unable to utter the speak the words of power that he depended upon for his battle against this demonic opponent. With his strength being drained from him, he crumbled to his knees, and slumped forward. The tendrils rose up, ready to enwrap and swallow their prey in darkness.

*BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*

A hail of shots blasted through them, several of them piercing the standing body of Mal himself, ripping into his flesh and forcing him on stumbling steps backwards like some kind of zombie. Falling forward, Father Tarcino gasped, his lungs free to take in air and utter the verses once more.

"Get up Father. We'll help keep him off you," Agent Walker said, giving the priest a hand. "Cover me, Stanton and Branson!"

"We got you, sir!" they replied.

Struggling to his feet once more, the shaky priest managed a smile at the agent, and opened his book once more, slowly raising his cross.

"NO!!" the demonic Belial cried out in rage.

"The sacred mystery of the cross commands you, as well as the power of all the mysteries of Christian faith! The exalted Virgin Mary, Mother of God commands you, who in her lowliness crushed your proud heads from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception. The faith of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and the other apostles commands you. The blood of the martyrs and the devout intercession of all holy men and women commands you!"

Once more wracked with waves of holy power, called down upon his dimensional being by the priest, Belial writhed and reeled beneath this theological, divine assault.

"By God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we command you to tell us your one true Name!"

"I AM BELIAL!!" Mal's body roared with the power of a thousand tongues and voices, exploding forth in a black wave of pure agony and vile corruption, ripping through the ranks of the agents, throwing two them through the glass of the windows and hurtling the rest, including Agent Walker up against the walls.

But Father Tarcino stood firm. "Then, accursed dragon and diabolical presence, we adjure you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by the God who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have life everlasting; cease your desecration of this body with the poison of everlasting damnation; desist from harming him and fettering his freedom. Begone, Belial and leave this body and spirit in peace! Begone, foul demon, who calls himself by that name, back to the place from whence you came! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we adjure and banish you, Belial, to Hell!"

And with those words of power, such a shrieking went up as threatened to bring down the entire structure, shaking the very foundations, the support pillars and all within with unholy, dimensional power. In an instant, like a vortex, the blackness was sucked forth from the convulsing body of Mal Evenhart, and enveloped in a dimensional rift that swallowed it back into its abyssal existence.

Inside, Mal's cage disintegrated, and his spirit reinhabited his body, which crumpled promptly to the floor, along with those of the agents who were held suspended by the neck against the walls. Only Father Tarcino was left standing, and even he staggered back against the wall, unable to catch his breath or rid himself of the tremors that wracked his body...