There were days he was thankful for his habits, then there were days he absolutely hated them. Today was such a day. He only had roughly four hours of sleep, but his body already woke him up at seven. He knew it was pointless to try and go back to sleep so he got up.
Thankfully, he had another habit – coffee. He yawned as he waited for the coffeemaker to finish, thoughts scattered. As if on command, his thoughts started to gather as he got a whiff of the strong aroma. With his trusty mug on hand and filled to the brim, Cain Delamain entered his to study to make good on his promise to the goodly priest. Today, he was going to finish his report on the outcome of the last venture the church sent him to investigate.
A four by six meter room is by no means small, but in his case, it felt like so. He had a desk flanked by stacks of folders tied off with ribbons or elastic bands. The desk itself hosted a six year old computer. The walls on two sides were lined with shelves of books on a myriad of topics. The wall behind his chair was filled with frames of certificates and various accomplishments. Cain Delamain’s study was cramped.
Though he did not put much stock into it, he was a special man, at least to the Roman Catholic Church. Though his reputation was well known in the circles he moved in, Cain never planned to move or set up shop somewhere. To him, Burkburnett was home. It did not matter what assignment the church gave him; he always came back once it was done. He also did not need to worry about travel expenses as the church took care of it. Just one of perks of being a modern day exorcist.
Cain did not plan on being an exorcist. He did not know of anyone who planned to. He did have a tendency to gravitate towards the occult and metaphysical when he was a teen but that was more about curiosity than preference.
It was his empathy that eventually led him to the church. As Jon would put it, it was to a freakishly freakish degree. Growing up, the subject was not even explored yet for people who were even less sensitive than him so, it always was a pain point. And it just grew over time. Without guidance, Cain was literally lost.
He was called names, branded many different things, and even lost friends. He was filled with anger then. He could not understand why others could not see what he could plainly tell. When the things he said came to pass, instead of coming to him, they avoided him instead.
Cain, in an effort to numb his feelings, turned to drugs. It dulled everything but most of all, it dulled his senses. Whenever high, he noticed he wasn’t at all in tune with anything. A release, a rest. But it never lasted. And so he experimented more, to the horror of his devout parents.
His drug habit went out of control quickly. Before long, his parents were dragging him to church, forcing him to confess every time they felt like he was out of control. He hated this activity and lied to the priests most times just to get out of it. Ten hail Mary’s in exchange for a week or two of being left alone seemed to be a good trade-off.
Until Father Anton Ramirez came into the picture. No holier-than-thou attitude, no formalities, no let’s-just-get this-going demeanor. He listened and probed with just the right questions that Cain found himself actually relating the real reason he turned to drugs. Before long, he found himself going to church just to talk with the priest.
He had Cain participate in some church activities at first, mostly Sunday service. Cain’s parents were overjoyed to say the least. The priest, unbeknownst to him, was putting his talent to the test. A member of the International Association of Exorcists himself, the priest was interested in what Cain could add to the table. In a year, Cain was accompanying the priest in investigating cases.
The offer came. The church would send him to school in exchange for showing up when called upon. Cain took it. His aptitude naturally made him lean towards psychology. Theology and religious things were informally taught to him by the priest. A few years later, he was the first full-pledged Auxiliary member of the IAE.
After several sips, Cain put down his coffee and took a folder from the right side of the desk and began entering details into it. The records of his last investigation. Then, he took out the recorder and began relating the incident.
The Browns expressed their fear of entities retaliating if the exorcism wasn’t successful. We have established early on, the history of the house. Despite being an old house, there was surprisingly no reports of violent acts or incidents reported to the police as far as police records went. Combing through the historical records in the local library yielded another story. The original owners, were in fact rumored to be violent and although many complaints were filed, kidnapping among them, the authorities that time were not able to find any evidence enough to charge the family.
Cain paused for a moment to write some details down on the form and continued.
The house itself stands in a decent neighborhood with easy access to main roads and standard modern services. It is well maintained and painted with bright colors on the outside. Inside, the feel is different. I was immediately struck with a feeling of anger, or rage. I myself was tempted to be angry, irritable, without reason. Howie Brown was the only one present. The entire family had left to stay with relatives because of fear.
Howie, being the only person who had resided continuously in the house since they moved in at that point, looked haggard. It was obvious he was not sleeping well. I picked up confusion from him, and the drive to just barrel through whatever it was that was bothering the family.
I started by asking about the reasons why he sought the help of the church and specifically asking for an exorcist instead of other means. Howie’s story was consistent with the background investigation and the information he relayed over the phone some days before I went to visit. After he relayed all his experiences, his stories, I decided to check the entire house.
Cain stopped recording to add some more entries into the form.
He gave me a succinct description for each part of the house where everybody in the house has had an encounter of two. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the door to the basement with the light bulb on. I asked Howie about this, and he related that the light always turned on by itself. The moment one closes the door, or turns their back, the switch would flick by itself, the light would then turn on.
As if it just escaped him, after some questioning, it came to light that this was the very first sign of an activity to ever happen in the house and it was his wife who noticed it.
I stepped in and down the stairs and, two steps down, the difference in temperature became noticeable. Outside and in the house, the temperature was high. The basement was cold. I did not proceed downstairs as my goal was to test the lightbulb. I pulled on the switch to turn it off, walked up and shut the door. I heard a click and when I opened the door the light was on.
Four more tries and we had the same result. On the fifth, the owner of the house fainted. My first thought was to connect it to the goings-on in the house but as I dragged him back to the living room I reconsidered and thought it was from sheer exhaustion. In extreme cases, this can be the same thing.
On the way to the sofa, the sofa just flipped. It flipped over that the bottom was now pointing up. I had to adjust my hold on Howie to take care not to injure him while being wary of my surroundings. I felt a hostility towards me. While I was looking for a safe place to drop Howie, the-
Cain’s recording was interrupted with his house phone ringing. He waited for it to die down. Cain did not like being interrupted, especially that he was overdue with the report. He could only name a few who had his number as it wasn’t listed. If it was important, they’d leave a message. If it wasn’t, they might or might not leave a message. All the same to him. He sipped his coffee while waiting for the ringing to end.
Cain eyed the handset as he sipped, daring it to ring again. He almost cursed when it did. Whoever was calling, they were not intent in leaving a message. He sighed and picked the phone up.