…A few days later…
John was standing at the window in Jim's parish house kitchen, enjoying a steaming cup of coffee and listening to his sons eat breakfast at the table behind him. Mary, I wish you were here to see these two scamps of ours. Then he noticed a solitary figure in the backyard looking lonely.
Annie didn't physically hear John approach her from the house. But she did feel his presence come closer. He stopped a few feet from her and sat on the bench beneath the old maple tree she was leaning against.
"You're uncle's a good man." John got comfortable on the bench.
Annie moved over to the bench and sat down next to John. "I know. He is a good priest and has always been nice to me. He's my favorite uncle."
John chuckled. "I thought he was your only uncle?"
Annie smiled. "He is."
Silence reigned for a few minutes before either of them spoke again. "He is just trying to help you." John glanced over at the girl.
Annie looked down at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap. "I…" She cleared her throat. "I don't think he realizes what that may cause…"
"He knows that you can see things." John stretched out his right arm so that it was right behind Annie just in case she needed contact.
Annie looked over at John with tears flowing from her eyes. "Does he really know what I see? That I saw that thing…that I saw it eat my parents?"
John moved his hand so that it was on the back of Annie's neck. "Yes. Jim knows that you saw something that horrible. He's just trying to find a way to help you past that." John started to rub Annie's back. "And so you will remember the thing that killed Joey and Lucy." John shifted slightly so he was facing Annie. "So I can kill it."
Annie gasped, and raised her tear-filled gaze to look in John's eyes. "You kill things like that?"
"Yeah, ever since Mary was killed by a demon I've been hunting for that particular one. But I've killed a bunch of other supernatural bad guys along the way."
"And Uncle Jim wants me to remember this thing so you can kill it."
John continued to rub Annie's shoulder. "So you can get on with your life and not be haunted by this thing anymore."
"What about you? When are you not going to be haunted anymore?" Annie asked innocently.
John's face turned savage, scaring the girl a bit. "When I get that son-a-bitch that killed Mary, then we'll see."
Annie put her hand on top of John's that had stopped rubbing her shoulder. "I hope that it's soon."
…Later that night…
John came down the stairs after putting his sons to bed. He saw Annie sitting on the couch doing some homework and Jim was in his easy chair, working on Sunday's sermon. He moved toward the chair next to Jim's and sat down with a groan.
Jim chuckled. "So how are you feeling, old man?"
"A lot better than a few days ago. You must have some magic in that balm you used."
Jim laughed. "Nope, just good old horse liniment like Mom used to use on us."
John groaned. "It used to hurt when she put it on."
"Yeah, because she was smacking us upside the head for getting hurt in the first place!"
The two men were so caught up in their remember-whens that John jumped when the notebook landed in his lap. He looked up in time to see Annie settle back on the couch, and bury her head in a textbook. He looked at the top sheet in the notebook and saw a very scary-looking drawing of an old crone with stringy hair.
"Is this…."
Annie looked up from the book with a look of both terror and pain in her eyes. "Yes. That's the one."
Jim looked from his niece and friend, confused as to the content of the exchange. "What's going on?"
"This is the creature that killed Joey and Lucy." John explained to the priest.
"Annie, did you draw this?" Jim took the drawing that John was handing to him, and walked over to sit beside Annie on the couch.
Annie just nodded, unable to trust her voice.
Jim pulled her into his arms, rocked her like a baby, and kissed the top of her head and murmured comforting words to her.
John sat back in his chair and studied the drawing until Annie had calmed down. "You drew this from memory?"
Annie wiped her eyes and blew her nose before answering. "Yeah. I sat down and drew it this afternoon after we had that talk this morning."
"John, what did you talk to my niece about?" Jim was perturbed that John went behind his back.
"Jim, you wanted to find out the thing that killed Joey and Lucy. Annie and I had a talk this morning that if she would remember what it was, I would kill it for you both."
Jim opened and closed his mouth, like he had something to say and then changed his mind. "Thank you, John."
"Do you remember anything else about this thing?" John gently asked the girl.
Annie closed her eyes and tried to remember. "It likes married couples. It somehow feeds off their love." Her voice broke and she let out a sob. "And it's here in town somewhere. It followed me here."
John and Jim looked at each other, shocked that Annie still had a connection to this thing, months after her parents died. "Are you sure it's here in town?" Jim asked.
Annie looked up at her uncle and nodded. "I can feel it here. It's nearby. It is still hungry or it's hungry again. And it knows that I am here and that I know about it and that I can sense it." Annie had a horrifying look strain her features. "It's coming for me."
John vaulted up from his chair. "Do you have any protections on this house?"
Jim was off the couch and headed for the basement almost as fast as John. "I put protections and blessings on all possible points of entry after I moved in." He chuckled. "Of course, most of those haven't been sanctioned by the Catholic Church…." The men armed themselves and made their way back to the living room.
Just as they returned to the room, someone knocked at the front door. Annie let out a strangled sob as she curled up tighter on the couch.
I wish she never lost her innocence to this evil, thought Jim as he glanced at the niece he was unable to comfort at the moment.
The knock came again, this time more insistent.
"It's calling for me to open the door." Annie was looking as if she was in a trance.
"Resist it, sweetheart. It wants to hurt you." Jim warned his niece.
John restrained him. "Let her open the door so we can get it." John instructed his friend.
Annie moved toward the door as if in a haze. As she opened the door, her haze lifted, and she screamed when she realized who was at the door.
The crone tried to enter the house, but screamed in frustration at the metaphysical barriers at the door, preventing her entry.
"Yo, old lady, over here!" John yelled at the crone and aimed a rifle at her heart.
Annie heard the crone talk mind-to-mind. "That won't kill her, John. She is stronger than a mere bullet." Annie thought she was talking normally, but the men heard it as yelling.
Annie heard Jim start to chant in Latin. She heard the crone in her head again. "That won't help Uncle Jim. Words can't banish her!"
Annie felt something else brush her mind, something small and very innocent. Then she felt something hard in her hand.
The men both wouldn't be able to recall what happened next exactly. One minute Annie was standing at the door, held psychically by the crone, and then the next minute the crone was gone and Annie had an ancient athame in her hand.
Everyone stood for a few moments and caught their breath.
"How did you get that athame?" John asked as he walked toward Annie.
"I gave it to her." Dean gave the front door a gentle push to close it as he answered his father.
John knelt down on one knee and gathered his son in his arms. "You should have been upstairs in bed, my man."
Dean hung his head. "I was on the steps and heard you talking about that crone coming, and after Annie opened the door I heard her call for me to give her the athame."
"I don't remember calling to you, Dean." Annie knelt beside John and laid a hand on Dean's head. "But thank you for hearing me."
Jim dropped into a chair. "I think we should all sleep in tomorrow."
John laughed. "You think this is exhausting? Try getting beat up on top of that!"
Annie and Jim laughed as the party made their way upstairs and to their beds.
