The First Exorcism

For many hours, the monks kept up the fight.

By dusk, the female spirit had capitulated, tearing herself from Adam's body, spewing forth a noxious cloud of smoke so purple that it ate up the light of the dying sun.

She swirled in a black gaseous mass of chaos and dissipated into the evening sky.

Adam shrieked with excruciating agony from the separation, slumping into a dead faint.

As the nun reached out to steady Adam's body, Su Dai Tu Liem drew a flourished symbol into the air, casting the puff of black smoke into a nearby blue statue of a dancing nymph standing by the water lily pond.

For a moment, the eyes of the statue twinkled, as if alive by some alien force. Her skin softened, alive with a golden glow. But after a few seconds, the light dimmed, settling into the dusty most in the corners of the nymph's eyes.

As the last rays of the sun disappeared into the horizon, the water nymph lost its special magic and became just another greenish blueish statue among the multitude of statuettes frolicking among the gliding orange koi fish and the pink blooms of the drifting lotus blossoms.

The monks, wearied form the fight, began to shift from their positions. As they rose from their perfect rows, Jasmine saw a flurry of mahogany birds on the wing, shifting and melding into an amalgamation of orderly chaos.

Several monks had produced a hand-carried stretcher , and with an economy of movements, had loaded Adam's still unconscious form onto its canvas surface.

"Hey! Wait a minute! Where are they taking him?" John turned from the activity to Jasmine and back again.

"Peace." A voice called out from across the darkening courtyard. It was the nun in black with the gold sash around her sari.

"Your friend will be taken to Su Dai Tu Liem's personal bower. There, he will rest and be prepared for a gentle request of absolvency from the pain of life."

"What?" John scratched his head. "You're gonna kill him?"

Jasmine sighed. John could be so dense sometimes.

"She just means that they are going to try and wheedle the other soul out of Adam with promises of relief from the shadow-life that it is living in right now."

"I don't understand." John scratched his head.

How could she possibly boil down an entire belief system into something a person like John could comprehend? Jasmine shook her head and tried to condense it as much as she could.

"According to their beliefs, there are many dimensions of life, one of which is our reality." Jasmine sighed. "That poor tortured soul that's inside Adam is partly stuck in between two realities and can't go through the next cycle of reincarnation until it consciously decides to abandon this one."

"And pray tell, how does it decide to do this?" John folded his arms across his generous gut, demanding an answer.

The nun bowed to him.

"Buddha's portals are eternally open to those who possess the aspiration for an elevated expansion of consciousness."

"Huh?" Slack-jawed, John stared at the nun, no longer pretending to even understand what she was trying to say to him.

"Never mind John." Jasmine pulled at his arm to get his attention.

"You don't need to understand the philosophy of the Buddhist religion to know that once that soul leaves Adam's body, everything will be okay."

She turned back to then in and bowed deeply.

"Thank you for all you have done for me and my friends. I'm just worried that once Mr. Stuart awakens, he will be in danger from the voice remaining in his head."

"He is in no immediate danger." She closed her eyes.

"The danger lies in the lack of awareness of the cycles of life, and the inability to recall former lives to gain mastery from past mistakes."

"The danger is having to relearn old mistakes, continually, never escaping the vicious circle of rebirth."

"But will he be driven to suicide by that—that ghoul?" John asked with agitation. He was starting to become impatient with the nun's round-about way of talking.

"The monks have him under hypnosis, John." Jasmine soothed him. "They will keep an eye out for him."

She turned back to the nun as if for validation of her words. "They will, won't they?"

The nun bowed again, in confirmation and turned away, shuffling towards an arched entrance guarded by two stone dragons flanked by large marigold blooms.

During their brief conversation, the courtyard had emptied leaving behind a faint scent of sandalwood incense wafting in the dusky air.

The silence of the empty courtyard echoed in odd discord against the cacophony of the tumultuous battle of that afternoon.

Already, the bamboo lanterns hung in neat rows above their heads had automatically begun to glow. Once the darkness gathered, their light sensitive sensors triggered casting a warm gentle radiance over the plants and stone statues.

Jasmine's eyes strayed over to the pond's edge and singled out the water sprite that held the soul of the exorcised ghoul.

The knowledge that all these beautiful stone sculptures were most likely used for the expressed purpose of containing exorcised lost souls chilled Jasmine's blood and made her hair stand on end.

"Are you looking at that statue, Jasmine?" John's voice called out.

"Yeah. Scary huh?"

"Not half as scary as what's still roaming around inside Adam. Damn!" He swore under his breath.

"I wish I knew how to deal with this type of shit. I've seen a lot of weird stuff doing what I do every day, but this is the weirdest by far."

"So now what do we do?"

"Head back for town, I guess." John frowned as he contemplated the situation. "I don't think you should go back to your apartment alone. Do you have a friend you could stay with for the night?"

"No."

"Then I suggest you find someone who can stay with you or spend the night at the station. Those thugs weren't kidding around."

"What are you going to do now, John?"

"I have to get back to the station and run some follow-up inquiries on that guy who left his calling card on your Rolex. It's about time we show them what the California Police Department is capable of doing."

"Can I come with you?"

John Greer laughed with reluctant acquiescence. "I'm going to be at the station but you can rest on the couch while I work. It's not glamorous but at least you won't be by yourself."