Zooey was many things, but she was also a chronically efficient mage, she always got the job done.
Just like the first, this particular object in question was something that was not totally uncommon in the bags most women carried around. It was a small, round, black mirror with a long glass handle.
"Alright demon, time to see if you were lying about your name. If it turns out that you did in fact lie, trust me, I'm going to have some fun with you before I fry you out of this body!"
It was crazy just how excited she sounded. It was almost like she was actually hoping the demon was lying.
With a focused look that bordered right on the edge of crazy, she lifted up the mirror and pointed it towards Catherine. Her voice low, and inaudible, she began to chant in progressive, rising tones. Then finally, she issued her command;
"Khosla James, I command you to leave this boud right now!"
Catherine's face turned pale immediately, and Alex leaned in to take in the drama. If not for the perfume, the demon on Catherine would have been hysteric by now. The power that flowed from Zooey's mouth was undeniable. It flowed from her tongue, reached across the room, found its way directly to the essence of the demon, and bound him.
If any regular mortal were to be in the room, their eyes would have only showed them a partial modulation of the truth. They would have seen a thick black smoke coming out of the mouth of a relatively healthy, living human body. This was what their brains would have interpreted the sight to be.
But those with a link to the divine would have seen the real truth.
The truth that a very powerful horned demon, bound in chains, and writhing in agony, was being forcefully evicted from a very comfortable body that it called home. It wailed with the chilling notes of a banshee as the chains from Zooey's spell dragged it towards the seemingly small mirror. The pain of separating two souls that had been conjoined together was too much stress for Catherine's body bear. She fainted.
But, fortunately, she landed on the bed. But a slight crack was heard as her elbow came in contact with the dresser on the side of the bed.
While Catherine laid on the bed, totally unconscious, the demon found himself being sucked into a mirror by the hands of the same girl he had rained destructive curses on earlier on. As he screamed, and fruitlessly tried to escape his judgment, he never considered just how lucky he was the girl's partner had not gotten involved.
Slowly, the cries began to fade out as the last of the demon finally got sucked into the mirror.
As soon as the last part of it disappeared into Zooey's strange artifact. Alex broke into a stride and arrived at the bedside of Catherine's unconscious form. Taking her cold hand in his, he placed his fingers near her wrist to take her pulse. He also touched her forehead to determine the how hot or cold she was. Like a hawk, his eye of god roved all over her unconscious form, scanning for any residual soul particles.
He found none.
Her insides had been purified, and her physical body seemed to be in great shape.
"Relax," Zooey assured him; "You worry too much. It's been taken care off! All my artifacts are one hundred percent.! There's little to no margin of error here. trust me."
Alex still said nothing.
He did not have to. She was indeed right. There was no single thing that remained in her to show that she had been possessed. The danger had been averted, and he could almost sense the gratitude lurking beneath the waters of her subconsciousness.
But nonetheless, that did not allay his own doubts at all.
There were still so many holes in this situation; for starters, how is it that a demon of this rank had somehow managed to completely take over, and suppress Catherine's body and mind respectively? Theoritically, demons could latch themselves on to a human, and live off their negative energies while feed on their very life essence. Even at the most extreme cases, the demon/human living situation was more like a parasite/host situation.
But his seed within her should have been more than enough to not only protect her, but to actively keep them away from her! This was really uncommon, especially when he knew that he had personally 'baptized' her body. Though he had done it only once, that would have been enough for her.
While he stood over her body with his hand on her forehead, and lost in his own train of thoughts, the parents entered the room.
Both the father and the mother had had countless priests, doctors and shamans over here in the past couple of weeks. So, they had an idea of what an exorcism was supposed to sound and feel like. But none of the none of the usual violence and drama was heard. Instead, in its place was an ensuing silence. So, their curiosity prevailed in the end.
As soon as they stepped into the room, their eyes went straight to the suspiciously still body of their daughter on the bed. The young man who was standing next to her and checking her pulse did not help their already growing fears.
"Oh no, no, no! Catherine!!!"
Expecting the worst, the mother rushed towards the bed, already preparing to bewail the loss of her child.
Zooey had a little bit of a sadistic streak. There and then, she could have easily tempered their feverishly wild imaginations and told them the truth. But part of her wanted to punish the couple for breaching the agreement, by barging in uninvited. Things could have gone really wrong.
Alex shot her a questioning look, and she caved in after a few moments;
"Relax ma'am, your daughter's okay. In fact, she's more than okay, she's back to normal now."
The woman, who was already straddling her daughter's head, jerked up at the news.
"SHE'S CURED??? COMPLETELY???"
Zooey simply nodded.
Looks of pure joy streaked across their faces as both husband and wife reached for each other, and together, they both smiled victoriously at the body of their unconscious daughter. The father hurriedly began to began to undo the chains, while the woman rushed towards Zooey to catch her in an embrace, thanking her wholeheartedly;
"Oh thank you!! thank you thank you thank you!! My Catherine's safe!! You don't know what you've done for us!!"
Everyone in the room had often heard that the worst calamities often stemmed from the best intentions. But no one had the slightest idea that that was literally about to be their truth right now.
The woman was plump and huge, so Zooey's relatively slimmer frame was lost in the womans plumpness. Her thick arms surrounded poor Zooey's almost crushing her in the embrace. But her her huge frame was about to be the source of their problems.
As the woman hugged Zooey, Alex noticed something was wrong. It was not the woman herself, it was Zooey. She looked like she was about to say something, but the woman was suffocating her. There was something very wrong about the scene. One moment later, he saw that not only was Zooey was trying to say something, she was also trying to get away from the woman!
But the sudden realization behind that came too late.
Alex watched in slow motion as the mirror slipped from Zooey's hand. From her hand to the floor was barely a second. But to Alex, it seemed much longer than that. The glass hit the ground with a thud, and then the cracking sound of glass shattering echoed. It was only then that the woman released the poor mage.
But even then, it was already too late.
"You simpleton!!" Zooey snapped angrily; "Do you have any idea what you have just done!!"
The mother genuinely looked surprised. But that did not in anyway underplay the gravity of the blunder she had helped to commit under excitement. And she was about to find out!
Zooey's outburst completely changed the course of the atmosphere in the room. It carried with it, an unimpeachable rage, followed closely by subtle hints of lingering fear in the background. Alarmed, Alex's eyes trailed her, hoping to find some kind of clue.