She opens the door for me, but she won’t step inside. Her trembling body makes the air vibrate as I walk past her, and the door slams shut before I’m clear of it.
“Welcome, my child.”
She stands at the altar down the long row of pews, but her heavy voice carries across the sanctuary.
“Mother Mary Agnus, I presume.”
“Indeed. Have you come to rid this blessed place of demons, my child?”
“I have.”
“Hmm… You are not what I was expecting.”
“If I am to be honest, I’m not interested in your expectations. Where is it?”
“Impatient.”
“If ridding yourself of the demon you have locked in the closet isn’t a priority to you, then we can continue socializing. But, again, if I’m to be honest, I’m not interested in being your friend.”
“Very well then. This way.”
She doesn’t wait for me before she disappears through a door leading to the back of the cathedral. I don’t rush to follow her up several flights of stairs. She pauses at a door marked with a painted white cross.
“We keep the devil up here.”
“For how long?”
“It’s been up there for six months.”
“With nothing to sustain it?”
“I assume it eats the rats that scurry in through the cracks.”
“Are you sure it yet lives?”
“Indeed it does. It howls like a banshee when the church bells ring.”
She opens the door and it leads to another staircase.
ASH 9/17 
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