Florian hadn’t come across a case like this in many years. Usually the people the Vatican threw at him were nut jobs, people who needed a psychiatrist and not an exorcist. People who turned to faith when they found nothing else to lean on.

Not that it was a problem. He was always glad people found God in some way.

But this was a true test to his faith. And it took a great deal of composure to stand with a straight face against the demon— the poltergeist that currently inhabited the girl before him’s body. It’s like the devil himself had wound itself into her mind, making her do wicked things.

But Florian wasn’t scared— not at all. He was good, and his faith was unwavering. He knew he’d prosper against such evil.

. . .

The girl’s body twisted and contorted, the chains that bound her wrists and ankles clanking in a nerve-wracking way as she convulsed. Tears wracking her plump cheeks as she cried out.

“Ecce do vobis potestatem calcandi supra serpentes et scorpios et super omnem virtutem inimici; et nihil vobis nocebit.” Florian spoke in Latin, reading calmly from his Bible. A silver rosary clung in his palm as his vacant silver eyes cast upon the woman before him. Watching as the demon contorted her body in a grotesque manner.

The woman let out a cry at his words, her back arching from the bed as a shroud of black mist began to force itself from her lips.

The priests eyes narrowed. His vocations were working, he was provoking the demon into leaving the vessel. Not that it would have the chance— he always found the power to get them to release.

After a few more rounds of scripture, coaxing over and over again, the room seemed to still. The woman collapsing back into her bed.

All was silent.

“To afraid to show one’s self?” Florian taunted, knowing he had succeeded. Idly flipping the page to his Bible, his nerves calm.