Orgy of Souls

Samuel had known why those old men whispered. He knew it was for the same reason he pushed those stories to the back of his mind. There came a point where faith shouldn’t confront, no, be confirmed by, reality. There needed to be a buffer between the spiritual and the physical. He needed the platitudes of “God moves in mysterious ways” and “life is full of mystery” to explain the reality he was comfortable with. He needed the protecting shade of mystery from the reality of demons, of spiritual forces.

He wondered what he must look like to the passers-by, a black priest fighting two metrosexual male fashion models. They couldn’t see the evil and sinful corruption in his two attackers or else their terror would have mirrored his.

“You can’t save him. He’s ours!”

“What do you want with my brother?”

“He has something that belongs to us.”

“What? I’ll pay it back for him!”

“Yes. You’ll pay. And so will he.”

Their fingers squeezed the soft meat of his throat. Samuel saw the delight in their eyes at his slow torture, enjoying the dance of fear in his eyes. The crushing pressure would soon rob him of his voice. The final darkness called to him, but before he gave into its embrace a whisper nudged the desperate bid of an exorcism.

“I bind you in the name of Jesus Christ.”

The creatures paused as if contemplating a joke they didn’t quite get. In every book he’d read, for a true exorcism he had to speak to the possessed person directly. But he didn’t know anything about the two strangers. No ground had been prepared nor was he sure he could depend on any formulas, even for such obviously minor demons. He wasn’t even sure these two were possessed. They might have just been demons disguised as humans. He wasn’t sure what to do and his options were running out. If he didn’t figure something out quick he’d be in Jesus’ loving arms sooner than he ever imagined. In the moments his prayer command bought him, he wondered “What would Jesus do?”

Samuel kicked one of his attackers in the balls.

The creature, all too flesh and blood, released him. Samuel kicked his companion as well. They both curled up into fetal positions, moaning and cursing. Samuel had a moment to wonder if he might be able to exorcise them both with a few more well-placed kicks. Instead, he ran. Abandoned on the sidewalk, spat back into what passed for reality, Samuel wandered through the concrete intestines of the city. The wind sighed a mournful dirge to an intermittent rain, like a woman fighting back her tears. The buildings loomed and canted, reflecting the hypocrisy around them in the metallic sheen of their dark windows. The night lights burned bright, blurring, like the exaggerated makeup of a whore. Women with no modesty offered up their bodies. Teens staggered about, mollified by drugs. The homeless begged for change, chased away from the club doors. Samuel staggered in an out of focus haze, cold biting deep into his heart.

On the verge of collapsing, a renewed vigor washed over him when he spied the dull lights of a sign.

Requiem.

Dropping Samson’s name to the bouncers, Samuel entered with ease though he felt every bit the alien. This wasn’t his world: the drugs, the music, the dancing, the awkwardness of approaching the dance floor. The rest of the night club remained shrouded in darkness, the neon and black light giving the patrons the appearance of glow-in-the-dark zombies. Locked in masks of drugs and tortured beauty, passing off sex as need or a bartered commodity, the clubbers were sad clowns on preening display for one another. They smelled of pot, sweat, and melancholy desperation. A woman with a spider web tattooed on her face ran up and kissed him.

A maroon light flickered and swathed the DJ in flashing crimson shadows as he spun records that blurred into industrial white noise. The effect disoriented Samuel as he lost his equilibrium in a sudden vertigo of sensory overload.

The cloying incense barely covered the body odor. There was an allure to the scene, though his spirit recoiled at the idea. All the designer clothes and high fashion makeup, the couples openly groping each other as they tottered on the edge of the stage, visibly intoxicated. Amidst the madness, a woman wearing a wedding dress with a black sweater and black gloves danced toward him, her arms out in a helicopter twirl. She called to him with a siren’s seductive voice.

“I am entropy, the ending chaos that consumes all.”

It sounded like a line from a Gothic novel he ought to remember but couldn’t, something with angst-ridden vampires contemplating their existence. She grasped his head between her hands, pulling it close to her. Her hot breath steamed across his neck, her tongue caressed him beneath his ear, before tracing a circle into his neck. He felt his manhood swell. She kissed him on the lips before dismissing him.