Chapter 2: The Demon That Knows Him
(devil's Sentence)
Gabriel didn’t answer right away. The woman’s words still hung in the air between them, a slow-burning fuse ready to ignite something long buried.
"The demon knows you."
For a long moment, he simply stared at her.
He should have slammed the door. Should have walked away like he always did.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he stepped back.
A silent invitation.
The woman hesitated only for a second before hurrying inside, the door closing behind her with a soft click.
Her breathing was uneven, her fingers still locked around the rosary like it was the only thing keeping her standing.
Gabriel gestured toward the rickety wooden chair across from his desk.
"Sit."
She did, eyes darting around the room.
They all did that, the ones who came looking for him. As if expecting to find something supernatural crawling between the cracks in the walls.
But the real horror was never in the places they looked.
It was in what they couldn’t see.
Gabriel sat across from her, reaching for the half-empty bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a drink, took a slow sip, then leveled his gaze at her.
"Start from the beginning."
The woman swallowed.
"My name is Isabelle Laurent. My daughter’s name is Evelyn. She’s nine years old." Her voice cracked slightly, but she kept talking. "It started three weeks ago."
Gabriel exhaled through his nose.
Three weeks. Long enough for whatever was inside Evelyn to settle in. Long enough for it to start changing her.
"What were the signs?" he asked.
"At first, it was small things," Isabelle murmured. "She started talking in her sleep. Having night terrors. But then…" She hesitated.
Gabriel waited.
Finally, she whispered, "She started speaking in a voice that wasn’t hers."
That got his full attention.
"A voice?"
Isabelle nodded.
"A man’s voice. Deep. Wrong."The things it said…" She trailed off, eyes glistening. "No child should know those things."
Gabriel didn’t push. He had heard enough horrors spill from the mouths of the possessed to know the worst ones were the things no one could repeat.
"And the priest?" he asked.
Her fingers tightened around the rosary.
"Father Luca. He came to bless the house." Her voice dropped. "He didn’t last the night."
Gabriel’s stomach tensed, but his face remained unreadable.
"What happened?"
Isabelle shook her head. "We don’t know. We found him in Evelyn’s room the next morning. He was…" She took a shaky breath. "His eyes were gone."
A muscle in Gabriel’s jaw twitched.
"And your daughter?"
Isabelle looked up at him.
"She was laughing."
Silence stretched between them.
Gabriel reached for his cigarette pack, pulling one out. He tapped it against the desk once, twice.
"And no one else would come after that?"
Isabelle shook her head.
"They said she was beyond help.
That it wasn’t possession, but something worse." Her eyes locked onto his. "But I don’t believe that. I won’t believe that. She’s still in there. I know she is."
Gabriel took a long drag from his cigarette.
Then, he asked the one question that mattered.
"Why me?"
Isabelle hesitated.
Then, she said, "Because it said your name, Mr. Cross. Over and over. Like it was waiting for you."
Gabriel exhaled slowly, smoke curling toward the ceiling.
So that was it.
This wasn’t just another exorcism.
This was personal.
And the demon had been waiting for him.
2 A.M., The Hour When God Looks Away
The streets of Rome were dead.
Not silent, dead.
The city still breathed, but it was the breath of something rotting beneath the surface, twitching in its final hours. The wind slithered through the alleyways, thick with the scent of burnt wax and something metallic, something wrong.
Gabriel felt it settling against his skin as he and Isabelle approached the house.
A presence.
Watching.
Waiting.
The house itself loomed in the darkness, three stories of ancient stone, its edges softened by creeping ivy that had been left to wither. Every window was black. Not dark,black. Like something on the other side was pressing against the glass, blocking out the world.
Gabriel hesitated at the threshold.
He had been in places like this before.
Houses that had already been claimed.
Isabelle fumbled with her keys, her hands shaking so violently that it took her three tries to unlock the door.
She pushed it open.
And the house breathed.
Not a draft. Not a gust of wind.
Something deeper.
Something alive.
Gabriel stepped inside.
And the world shifted.
Inside the Maw of the House
The air was thick, too thick, too heavy, like it had been filled with unseen bodies.
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The dim hallway stretched in both directions, the wooden floor creaking beneath his boots. The walls, once pale, were now stained with long, dark streaks, twisting toward the ceiling like veins.
Somewhere deeper in the house, a floorboard groaned.
Gabriel said nothing. He only moved forward.
The scent hit him next.
It wasn’t just stale incense and damp rot.
It was the scent of something burning.
Not wood.
Flesh.
A familiar, rancid perfume that sent a slow coil of nausea winding through his gut.
His fingers brushed the silver chain beneath his coat. The metal was ice-cold against his skin.
The door to Evelyn’s room stood slightly ajar at the end of the hall.
The sliver of darkness beyond it felt too deep.
Gabriel’s breath slowed.
Then, a whisper.
Right behind him.
"Gabriel."
He turned sharply, but there was nothing there.
The hall was empty. Isabelle was still standing near the door, frozen in place, her back pressed against the wall like she was afraid to move.
The whisper had come from closer than that.
It had been right at his ear.
Gabriel exhaled through his nose and pushed the door open.
Evelyn’s Room, A Place No Longer Meant for the Living
The first thing he saw was the crosses.
They hung from the walls, from the ceiling, from the bedposts, hundreds of them, twisted and inverted, their wood blackened as if charred from within.
The shadows crawled, stretching too long, moving when nothing else did.
And then, his eyes found her.
Evelyn.
She was small, barely nine, her knees pulled up to her chest as she sat at the edge of the bed. Her nightgown was too white against the filth of the room, a sharp contrast against the things that had started growing along the walls.
Her hair, long, dark, tangled, partially obscured her face.
But she was smiling.
Not a child’s smile.
Something else.
Something wrong.
Gabriel took a step forward.
"Evelyn?" Isabelle whispered behind him, her voice barely audible.
The girl’s head tilted.
Then, a flicker of movement.
Not her body. Her shadow.
It twitched against the wall behind her, stretching unnaturally, its edges jagged and wrong, like a puppet with broken strings.
Then, Evelyn spoke.
"That’s not my name anymore."
Gabriel’s stomach tensed. The words crawled under his skin.
Her voice had layers.
Beneath the child’s soft tone, something else spoke with her.
A voice that did not belong in this world.
Gabriel took another step closer. His hand hovered over the relic beneath his coat.
"Then what is your name?"
Evelyn tilted her head further.
Her lips barely moved.
"You already know."
The room lurched.
The crosses rattled.
The shadows convulsed.
And then, a new voice emerged.
Not Evelyn’s.
Not the entity’s.
A voice from Gabriel’s past.
"Gabriel… please," His breath hitched.
He knew that voice.
He had buried that voice.
The child he had failed.
Gabriel took an instinctive step back, his grip tightening on the chain beneath his coat.
Evelyn’s smile widened, too much, stretching past the limits of human expression.
The candle beside her bed burst into flame, the wax running red like blood.
And then, Gabriel was thrown.
The force hit him like a wrecking ball, his spine slamming against the far wall, ribs screaming as he collapsed to the floor.
The wind left his lungs in a ragged gasp.
Above him, Evelyn floated.
Her small feet dangled above the floor, her body rigid, her hands limp at her sides.
Something was holding her up.
Something unseen.
And then, in every voice he had ever feared, "You were never meant to survive, Gabriel."
The candlelight twisted into something black, swallowing the room whole.
And then
Gabriel was thrown.
The force hit him like a wrecking ball, **his spine slamming against the far wall, ribs screaming as he collapsed to the floor.
The wind left his lungs in a ragged gasp.
Above him, Evelyn floated.
Her small feet dangled above the floor, her body rigid, her hands limp at her sides.
Something was holding her up.
Something unseen.
And then, in every voice he had ever feared "You were never meant to survive, Gabriel."
The candlelight twisted into something black, swallowing the room whole.
And then Nothing.
