Chapter Twelve
Exorcism
"Now wait a minute!" Siobhan's outrage is high.
"We really don't have a minute, Mother," Kendra Little counters, not as a Criminal Attorney but as High Priestess of Rising Star Wicca Coven.
"Are you mad?" the Episcopal Priest demands. Her brogue, sharper when she's stressed, is like a razor.
"Angry, frustrated and outraged, but not mad. Angry that something would abuse my Goddess-sister in so horrendous a manner as to destroy her life and future, frustrated that I didn't sense it sooner so I could have done something about it and outraged that we must now do so."
"You can't be planning on performing an exorcism in a Hospital Maternity Ward!"
"Not an ideal situation, I grant you, but–"
"Ideal situation? It's ludicrous!"
Siobhan's suddenly more outraged to have her view blocked by Leroy Gibbs' back. The man is rude daily, perhaps hourly, but–
"What's involved?"
"Agent Gibbs, I'd taken you for a disbeliever."
x
He's seen a year's worth of weirdness coming from his agent but "I don't believe any of this, but if you can make her think you're stopping her, maybe we can keep those kids alive."
He's seen enough tense situations defused because of what someone believed, whether it was true or not. Even though today will end with Michelle Palmer in a straight jacket, he'll face one crisis at a time. He hadn't turned his back on the Elf Lord and he won't on the Witch.
"We'll do more than make her think we're stopping her, but we need your help."
"How?"
"Powerful as we are, we can't work with the distractions Metro Police will force. We have to get them out of that room."
"She's holding a scalpel to nine babies. They're not about to pull back while you do a - whatever."
"I'm not going to tell them that. But my staff and I," she glances back to take in the assembled - whatevers, "need some confidential time to confer with our client."
Gibbs considers the chance of this working to be almost zero, but decides he might be able to gain them five minutes. "All right." A blur of blue, white and red flashes around his right side and confronts him, the red more in her face than her hair.
"I can't believe you're agreeing to this!"
"I'm ready to hear your suggestion."
She pulls from the right pocket of her knee-length black skirt, the slit of which is barely visible, a small vial. "I brought this oil for James, a Healing Ceremony. With Faith it should – it will – work for Michelle. But an Exorcism, you need special–" She rallies to a decision. "I can't allow it."
"We don't need your permission, lady," one of the men tells her curtly. "We'll be calling upon Names of Power and Jesus is a powerful one, so we could use your help but not your interruptions or interference."
Siobhan whirls to confront the owner of that voice but doesn't get the chance.
x
"It's a matter of Faith and yours is great," Kendra declares, as much to end a fight by bringing her Coven back under the command of their Priestess.
"Of course it is. But it's backed by God, not imaginary gods and goddesses."
"Your church just can't stand reality!" one of the women declares.
"Exorcism is not a game!"
"I know. We've done it. Have you?"
"We'll debate this another time," Kendra declares, glancing pointedly at her watch. "We're going to work together on this. There will be no bickering!"
x
Siobhan looks to the six before her. Outnumbered. She looks to Gibbs. Unsupported. The entire concept of these people calling on 'names of power', of which they magnanimously include Jesus, galls and frustrates her, but she can refuse to help and be shut out or she can participate and have the opportunity to do real good.
"Together, then."
The words taste like excrement soaked in vinegar.
x
"What will you do?" Gibbs asks sharply, anxious to get back inside the Ward before a disaster.
"It will take three stages," Little says. "First we must drain - steal - her strength. Second, Bind whatever is infesting her. Finally, that thing must be exorcized."
"Three stages?" Mother McGee demands. "Leroy can buy five minutes - tops."
"How long will all that take?" Gibbs asks, feeling like he's asked it too late. This doesn't sound good. Maybe he should have backed the Priest.
Little looks to her group, then meets his eyes. "It won't go quickly. "
xxx
What doesn't go quickly is his effort to have Lt. Cotto and his officers withdraw from a hostage standoff in favor of the perp's lawyer and a phalanx of assistants. Only the fact that he hasn't made any progress with the apparently mad woman convinces him 'to allow the Navy Fed to try this'.
Gibbs doesn't believe he'll have more than five minutes. He wouldn't allow five seconds. But neither does he care about Cotto's motive or attitude, just so he withdraws his men after giving over the number of the phone on the counter behind Palmer.
Inside the room the babies have grown quiet and Michelle doesn't try to shock or terrify them again, apparently more interested in watching the exchange outside her keep. Gibbs, David and the McGees stay, though Gibbs notices his agent and the priest engage in an intense conversation that grows more fervent the quieter it gets.
Little and her associates for their part line up facing the window, and all they seem to do is stare.
"Call her, Agent Gibbs," Little directs. "Talk to her."
Inside the ward, Michelle brings the gleaming blade to the throat of one of the boys. Gibbs presses the buttons on his cell as quickly as he can.
x
/What do you WANT?/ Palmer demands after the twenty third ring.
"To talk."
/LIAR!/ Her shriek makes the half cried out infants jump and begin their screaming again. He had to yank the phone away, barely in time. /GET THEM OUT OF HERE!/
"You called for her," he reminds her.
/GET THEM OUT OF HERE OR I'LL KILL EVERY ONE OF THESE BASTARDS!/
But he can see she's straining, as though fighting sleep. He knows she hasn't slept since yesterday morning - if even then after her failure to save DiNozzo - but her coordination is definitely affected. She tries to step to another baby but her balance is erratic.
Still the four women and two men lined along the window do not move. They do nothing at all, simply seem to remain staring at her, but whatever they're doing seems to be having an effect. Michelle tries to step to the side, perhaps balance herself better, but she stumbles.
/Get them away! Get them away or I'll kill them./ She clutches the scalpel tighter, but she's definitely weakening. It's what Little had predicted, but the supposed witches are doing nothing, just standing at the window, staring at her as she grows more uncoordinated, apparently more tired.
"You were going to kill them before your friends came. You asked for them."
/NO!/ she shrieks, clutching the blade so tightly her arm shakes. /NOOOOO!/
She reverses the weapon, raises her arms high, scalpel clutched tight in her fists, rage incised into her face.
x
Gibbs doesn't believe he's ever moved so fast. It's like the world appears in a series of still images spread over a half-second span of eternity as he slams the far right door aside and runs half the length of the ward along the long line of bassinets.
Michelle doesn't move, a tableau of frozen murder. Her arms are high over her head as though locked in conflict. Her muscles strain, each countering the other.
He tackles her and time turns on.
They slam to the floor. Her arms had been upraised and their hands clutch the blade, fight for control. She may have been 'weakened' - somehow - but she has the strength of ten crazed terrorists.
But the battle cannot endure four more hands added to the contest. Michelle, bucking wildly under him, screeches as Tim rips the blade from her grasp.
Gibbs, confident that he and his two agents can handle her, is astonished to be shoved upward, upright and still backward, barely caught by two of Little's people. He almost brings the three of them to the floor.
McGee and David take her on, both agents have her under them and they're losing. Michelle grabs McGee's head and pulls, her mouth wide, teeth getting closer to his throat as the battle turns from restraint to resistance.
Siobhan is between then, fighting to break Michelle's grip on her husband.
The raging agent's body is then obscured by ten struggling agents and witches and the battle is even. For a moment it seems Michelle might actually win the uneven contest until she screams a shriek more of insensate rage than pain and her body goes limp.
x
One by one the mob picks themselves off her until Michelle lays on her back, motionless, only her face animate. The fury and hatred on her face, in her eyes, is so horrible none of them can deny a chill of fear. Gibbs, looking down on the immobile woman, believes that if she could move - and why can't she? - she would tear each of them into bloody stumps with her bare hands.
The motionless of the vampiric costumed woman is chilling. A moment ago she was on the verge of winning the lopsided battle, now she's still as a mannequin.
Siobhan works a thin gold chain up from below her blue shirt and past the stiff white collar, lets a small golden crucifix fall to her chest, clutches it tightly in her right hand, her lips moving silently as she stares down at the motionless Vampirella.
"What did you do to her?" Ziva demands of the collective Wiccans as they stand over her helpless body. Her own hand is close to the silver Star below her throat.
"I slipped a talisman onto her body," one of the women says, pointing to where an ovoid shape is tucked under a scarlet strap, held in place above her left breast. Altogether it's amazing after that struggle that the straps still hide what they'd barely been designed to obscure, but focus is on the why. "As long as it stays in contact with her flesh, she's not moving."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Lieutenant Robert Cotto demands from the Ward room doorway.
x
Distracted as the men and women were by the uneven battle and the capture, no one noticed the MPDC Lieutenant enter in response to the prisoner's insensate screams. The seven Officers are in the corridor beyond the long glass.
"Okay people, I don't know how you did it," Cotto says, entering while drawing a clattering pair of handcuffs from his rear trouser pocket, "but she's under arrest."
"We're not finished," the younger witch says.
"You're finished, step aside."
But Gibbs steps in front to halt the officer's advance. "She's our prisoner."
"She works for you."
Michelle throws back her head, her body arches as she screams.
x
"I thought you said she couldn't move!" Gibbs demands.
"She can't!" one of the women confirms, and Michelle's scream calls the lie.
"Oh dear Goddess," Little breathes, the horror pulling everyone's attention to her. "Judy, Grace, secure that Rynn Stone!"
Both women hurry to obey, one holding her hand over Michelle's breast, the other trying to hold her still. Ziva and Tim kneel on Michelle's other side, adding their efforts to control the writhing woman. She's not fighting as she'd been when she nearly overwhelmed them all. This time she's writhing upon the floor, seemingly responding to horrendous tortures, but no one is abusing her.
Siobhan kneels beside her husband, pulls the chain over her head, her fiery hair flying with the move, and presses the crucifix between Michelle's breasts. Her body arches, her screech is nearly deafening.
"What is happening?" Ziva demands.
"Release me or I'll kill her!" Michelle cries viciously. Her eyes lock on Ziva's and the insensate fury, the vicious hate, chills the Mossad Officer who'd believed she'd inured herself against such fear.
"Who are you?" Little demands, but Michelle screams, her body bucks against the grips of those who struggle to save her. She fights the dislodge the stone from upon her breast, the crucifix from over her heart, both held in place.
"Who are you?" Little demands again.
The screams mount in pitch, her bucking grows wilder and two of the men must come in to help hold her. The nine babies take up their own wailing cries, the total a thought numbing din.
"In the Names of the Goddess and Consort, I command you to tell me your name!"
"Little!" Gibbs demands, his parade ground voice battering the other noise aside - for an instant.
The Lawyer / Priestess looks back to him. "It's all going wrong! We got distracted and couldn't perform a proper Binding!"
Gibbs grabs her arm to turn her to him as Michelle's shrieks drown out the wailing of nine babies. "What the hell–?"
"Exactly! Hell. Something has control of Michelle; that's what I tried to tell you. It can't move against the Rynn Stone, but its power isn't Bound, so it's tearing her apart to get the stone off."
Michelle bucks against the hands that struggle to pin her to the floor. Her screams are no longer of frustrated rage, they're pure agony.
"It's killing her?"
"Of course it's killing her!" She shoves him back. "Now get everyone away from here so we can work!"
x
Nine men and women kneel huddled about Michelle's writhing body in an uneven contest to hold her still as Gibbs moves Cotto back. The uniformed Officers in the hallway on the other side of the glass wall have no orders, so they won't interfere unless their superior calls.
"You can't be buying this garbage," Cotto says, barely heard from a foot away over Michelle's agonized shrieks and the ear-shattering cries of nine terrified infants. "Your girl's got enough for an Insanity dodge without the play acting."
"No, I don't believe this. Now stand back before I cuff you."
Having several choices, Cotto decides it will be more satisfying to wait for an Executive ax to fall. He takes a step back from the chaotic work, planning a report to his Captain.
x
"Who are you?" Little demands again, standing over the bucking, screaming woman while her Coven holds Michelle down, pinning arms and legs and torso more in an attempt to keep whatever is torturing Michelle from hurting her by anything outside her own body.
The effort hardly seems useful. Whatever is happening to the young woman is all internal and not to be helped by restraints.
One woman kneels above Michelle's head, cradling her head in her lap, but quickly has to restrain her head when Michelle snaps at her like a raging beast.
"Who are you? By the Maiden, by the Mother and by the Crone I command you to tell me your name!"
What Michelle tells her instead shocks everyone who knows her.
x
"Tell me!" Little persists.
Michelle fights, screaming her agony and writhing so violently she breaks free several times and has to be wrestled down again. But finally, after many demands, the word is ripped from her in a guttural confession: "Sharadakar!"
"Sharadakar, I bind you in the names of the Seven Sisters. By Astarte, Athena, Aphrodite…." As Little runs through names, seemingly intent to call upon a mega-Pantheon, Michelle's struggles grow more violent, her pain spiked screams increasing.
x
"It's not working," Siobhan, restraining Michelle's right shoulder, other hand holding the crucifix in place, protests.
"Don't break the concentration!" one of the men holding Michelle's hips commands. "If you distract–"
"This is wrong! You cannot force a demon to flee by reciting names of imaginary–!"
"IMAGINARY!"
Siobhan can stand this no longer. Releasing her grip on Michelle, she stands up and pulls from the pocket of her skirt the vial of Healing Oil she'd brought to anoint Jimmy with this morning.
"Shav," Tim says, not sure just whose side he should be supporting in this madness, "what are you doing?"
"What I should have done the first second." She uncaps the vial. "In the Name of Jesus Christ,"
"NO!" one of the men cries as Siobhan flings a vertical and horizontal stream upon Michelle.
"I bind, abjure and cast you out!"
Michelle draws a lung-bursting breath and screeches.