Eldritch Exorcist

"A curse that acts like a possession? The last time I checked, those were very much different." I said, confused. Of all the things similar enough to be mistaken for one another, curses and possession were pretty far apart.

"Not in this case." Said the cat, still quite sure of himself.

"What do you mean, not in this case?"

"There are injuries, loss of mental faculties, and other symptoms typical of a curse meant to soften the target for mental manipulation, but the curse is not present. It attacks like a possessing ghost, returning after some time post-removal."

A curse attacking like a haunting spirit. Mistaking the symptoms of a curse for a possession is like mistaking injuries caused by a disease for injuries caused by a baseball bat. "Curses don't have minds of their own, no matter how complex they may be, unless an actual mind is attached. In that case, it is both a curse and a possession. Maybe that is your case?"

"This looks like both, but is neither. We checked for any intelligence attached."

"That's hard to believe," I frowned. "Any curse needs an anchor, and once it is removed, the spell is no more. It's as simple as that. So this has to be a possession if it keeps coming back."

"Nothing is possessing our priest. We can guarantee that."

"Did you try to use pure silk moth sheets to check for possession after you removed the curse?" I proposed.

"..."

"I take it you did not try," I said, about to start on a lecture-long explanation of the best way to identify what they were dealing with.

"So, you are interested in the case, as I take it?" said the cat, showing off some of his front fangs in a toothy grin.

Ah shit. I froze as I was about to open my mouth. That's why I did not like to negotiate. I can't lie, this was very interesting. If I ignore the fact that I was manipulated into taking the case, a quick look won't hurt.

Yep, I have time till tomorrow anyway. I justified to myself my need to satisfy my curiosity. "Fine, but afterward, you will not interfere with my business here."

"As long as there is no damage to our assets."

"Do you have anyone working with the local mafia?" I asked.

"No."

"Then we are good."

As I was about to shake the outstretched paw, the youngest member of the audience spoke up. "Y-You can't be serious. What if he just makes it worse!" He took a step forward.

"Nathan! I'm trying to be understanding. I let you witness the insides of the business just as Marco wanted, but I'm starting to regret following his request." Said the cat sternly, reminding me of a parent scolding a child.

The boy choked a bit but finally took a step back as the old priest sighed in relief.

With the deal made, the local broker rose to his paws and waited as the man picked him up. Then we went into one of the side doors I had seen previously on our way into the room. It turned out that the basement system was quite extensive, giving the feel of an old bunker belonging to some sort of cult from a horror story, with its grey concrete walls marked with holy symbols here and there.

Along the way, we were joined by a nun, a younger woman with an arcane focus in the form of a rosary, marking her as a spellcaster of some sort.

"So a cat, a priest, and a wizard. We look like the beginning of a joke. Are we about to walk into a bar?" I asked jokingly, and to my surprise, the priest chuckled. The cat stayed silent. The nun just gave me the side-eye. While the altar boy...

"It is not a time for humor. Why are we taking him there? We should put him on a plane back to the USA. I don't understand why he is allowed anywhere near Father Marco if he doesn't take it seriously. What if he just makes it worse?" The altar boy started whining.

Great, I should have just stayed silent.

"Please forgive the boy," said the nun, matching her pace with mine as we walked. "Father Marco took him from an orphanage, trained him in the art of exorcism. To Nathan, he is like a father."

"I'm not going to start flinging spells because a teenager called me names. Don't worry." I reassured the nun. "Although he seems to have some preexisting notions about me. How is that?"

I could see the nun become a bit awkward. "Well, we had to teach him about the politics of the Vatican and what follows the wider world."

I started laughing at that. "Do you teach about me next to the big bad wolf or something?"

"About you and your family. You are a big part of the history, like it or not."

"True," I just said, and continued walking.

After a couple of minutes of a not-so-pleasant stroll through the underground, with Nathan constantly buzzing with discontent, we made our way to what I assumed was the place where Father Marco was kept.

It was a cell with thick wooden doors. Holy symbols of God of the Bible, or God of the greater good, as they liked to call him, were written everywhere. To my surprise, a priest was powering them constantly. He was an old man sitting on a wooden chair before the doors. It was common practice to use old mages nearing death as a sort of human batteries. After all, no mana could go to waste.

The cat nodded at him. The man produced a ring of heavy keys and opened the doors.

The first thing that hit me was the heavy smell of incense, not the cheap kind, but actual alchemical-grade incense meant to strengthen the body and calm the mind. Then I peered inside over the priest's shoulder, who used one hand to make a cross sign and the other to lower the cat onto the floor.

The cell was around four by four meters. In the middle was a bed. Not one of those rickety horror movie beds meant to break at the worst moment. No, it was a proper exorcism bed with a steel frame and thick metal clasps for the restraints.

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A man who I assume was Father Marco was lying there in a loose white gown, wet with sweat. He was an older man with graying, short, unkempt hair. Musculature was visible under the gown, but the strength of a well-trained body did not seem present. He appeared feeble, even though he was likely some kind of close-quarter fighter.

He was restrained with thick leather cuffs, the chains long enough for him to move around on the bed but not enough to fully rise from it. He seemed to be in a half-sleep, half-trance-like state, murmuring something incomprehensible.

We walked into a room covered in seals and holy scripture, designed to be as unwelcoming as possible to demons.

"Do you have an exorcist kit I could borrow?"

"What kind of exorcist doesn't have his kit?" came an annoying quip.

"The kind that didn't come here originally to help random dipshits solve their curse-that-is-not-a-curse problem. So, if you would be so kind as to get me a kit. Pretty please." I said calmly and turned to the boy, with the fakest smile I could muster.

Just let me solve this and be on my way.

"Father Marco always said it's unprofessional..."

"Silence, let's finish this quickly." Finally, the cat hissed.

Shortly after, the nun passed me a leather case containing the basic exorcist kit. I was not used to it, as I usually ripped the spirit apart rather than remove it. As for curses, I was more used to casting them than lifting them.

But I knew my way around an exorcist kit. This one was as bare-bones as possible: a set of silver needles, a golden bell, a set of talismans for attack and defense, a crucifix, as the set was probably prepared for clerics in training. And finally, what I was looking for, a magic amulet with a mana crystal in the middle.

I checked the tools and got to work, forgetting about my audience.

First, his aura. It was terrible. He was dying, his body and mind barely holding together. The aura was like tar. I could not feel the origin of a curse at all. If the curse was attached to a given body part, that spot could be darker and feel more foul, but here, it was like trying to find the origin of a burn on someone doused in petrol and set on fire.

That's a no-go. First things first, check if it was even a curse. It would be like a disease originating in a body, mind, or soul. Judging by his state, I would assume it was a curse originating in the body that later spread to the mind once the body was weak enough. The saying 'a healthy mind lives in a healthy body' is not without meaning after all.

I took the amulet and focused on it. Its runes made it follow the flow of mana, and assuming it was tuned well enough, it should pick up on even the slightest change. The curse would be like cancer, radiating foul energy into the body. So, if the anchor was in the physical part of a person, this should find it.

Mind would be much tougher, but I doubt a mind curse would cause this kind of body deterioration. Let's just hope it is not in his soul.

I slowly led the amulet over the man, looking for movement, and finally, once over the abdomen, the amulet vibrated ever so gently.

I quickly moved back, checking the area thoroughly. The epicenter of vibrations seemed to be around the lower abdomen, a bit to the right. This looked like a typical curse. I had no idea what the whole fuss was about. It was a complex, multilayered curse designed to weaken and torment. A type of spell that would start with the body and affect the mind later on.

The placement was weird. The middle of the chest would be much better for something like that, but so far, it was standard.

I looked back at the cat questioningly, but it did not move. It was just observing my actions. What were they not telling me?

"The anchor is in the abdomen. I'm sure the church has many curse breakers that can deal with this," I said, confused.

"We have tried and had quite a success many times before. Never permanently. The curse always returned."

"So maybe it was cast repeatedly. If he were a donor, perhaps a batch of blood was stolen from a blood bank. That would allow for a few rituals."

"The curse wasn't cast multiple times. Why don't you try removing it and see for yourself?"

Sure, why not? There were two ways of removing curses. A brute force approach using a blessing to push it out, like dousing a fire with water.

The other way involved unraveling the curse, unmaking it from the inside. Both approaches had cons and pros, but since I could not cast a blessing if my life depended on it, I had only one way possible.

Unraveling the curse was much tougher. You'd begin by casting a curse of your own, anchoring it inside the existing one, and then trying to adjust it to match the way the original was cast. After you've got the spell symbols down more or less, you would match your mana's nature to the nature of the caster, and once you are in resonance, destroy your own spell, causing a chain reaction that takes out the original one.

Matching the original requires a lot of skill and understanding of the symbolism used for curses, but it is also a safer and more sure way of doing it.

I started the casting process. My fingers aligned in a specific shape like a performer in a shadow puppet theater. I formed my hands into a stick-like body, a simple symbol for my anchor.

Mana flowed out of me and answered, approaching the man. I concentrated on the abdomen, where the original anchor was. I could feel myself land, like stepping into a dark, smelly puddle. I was in the center of the curse.

It had several layers. I could feel multiple symbols used, so it was probably a ritual cast. There was clear withering, along with pain and decay to the body. The mind was trickier, some sort of nightmare, but also a delicate illusion, like seeing the face of a long-dead loved one for a second on a street, just to grab them and see someone barely similar.

It was impressive craftsmanship. Now I was curious about who cast it. Once I matched the mana, I could try to sense the author. Curses do not exist without the caster. Things like fire, air, death, and life exist without magic and ritual as parts of nature, but blessings and curses are unique in a way that there always has to be a caster. You had to leave a part of yourself in the spell to make it work, so the danger was that someone could recognize you by it.

I started to match my mana to the caster's, watching for any fail-safes that could backfire on me. Everyone has a frequency, a music of the soul. It was your unique signature in mana. You could try to cover it or fake it, but it would always be there in some form. An aggressive person would have an aggressive, erratic mana. A calm person, the opposite.

But here it was simple, too simple. I had never felt anything like it. If a normal person's mana vibrations were like an orchestra, then this one was a simple beat of a drum without even a change in tempo.

Weird, I checked to see if it was fake or a trick, but it seemed legit.

Slowly, I tried to make my way to the origin. I should be able to sense the owner's rough direction. I changed the rhythm of my own mana, adding another frequency between me and the curse. It made the control much harder to pull off, but I wanted to ensure I could sense the caster without him recognizing me. I copied the simple rhythm of the curse and tried to feel its author.

I got it.

I felt the connection. I could sense… nothing.

I opened my eyes in surprise. I could not sense the magic's owner. It was not that he tricked me or was dead. The technique worked, and I got the resonance. There was something on the other end, but it led nowhere. This should not happen. It's like trying to reel in a fish, feeling it try to break the fishing line just to pull out an empty hook.

"Everything okay?" asked the priest.

I just nodded and tried the technique again, but the result was the same. I could only feel the presence of the victim lying before me, but trying to get the caster was like following an infinite loop. Maybe some fail-safe using spatial magic? But that should be impossible. Spatial paradoxes were in the sixth circle and above. I knew I got something on the other end, but when I reached out, it was just the priest, only one side of the equation.

Could the priest have cast the curse himself? A thought entered. But I would immediately sense that the victim's and caster's mana were the same. Shit, I did not understand how was that happening.

First, the spawn, now this.

Then, a strange feeling entered my mind, like déjà vu. I was sure I read about something like that, but where? And why did I not remember it? I knew most books on magic by heart, and with 22 in intelligence, I could cite some of them. But this was like an old memory tossed into a corner of my mind.

It was bothering me.

"Okay, you got me," I said, now without humor, a business-like seriousness in my voice.

"Describe the whole thing to me in detail from the start. I need to know everything."