Drip. Drip. Drip.

The loud dripping of water from a busted pipe echoes throughout a dark hallway, its steady rhythm filling the heavy silence. The sound feels almost oppressive, cutting through the stagnant air like a slow clock. 

A man with unkempt hair beneath a fine, slightly dirty and worn top hat tails a police officer. The officer, a burly man with a stiff gait, walks with the steady jingle of keys at his side, each metallic clink reverberating through the silence. With every sharp jingle, the man behind him flinches, almost imperceptibly as if the sound itself claws at his nerves.

The man—or rather, boy—is slim, his scrawny frame swallowed by his worn vintage attire. His black, double-breasted frock coat, though once elegant, is now frayed at the cuffs, the fabric dulled by time and neglect. The pale collar of his shirt is slightly crumpled, and a thin tie is loosely tied around his neck, barely concealing the sharp angle of his collarbone. The trousers he wears are pinstriped, hugging his legs awkwardly, almost too long, brushing the tops of his scuffed, dusty boots. An old, worn leather satchel was strewn across his shoulder, the straps slightly corroded and hanging on for dear life.

"Not what you expected, Father Gabriel?"

Gabriel blinked and glanced up at the officer, his pale face catching the dim light. His eyes, glowing faintly with their all-white irises, flickered with uncertainty.

"N-No," Gabriel stuttered, quickly biting back the tremor in his voice. His gaze shifted to the officer's broad back, the jingling keys swinging at his side. Gabriel cleared his throat, steadying himself. "Ahem, no. This place is rather…"

The officer chuckled, low and dismissive, without breaking his stride. "A shithole, you mean?" His tone was casual, as if the decay around them was as mundane as the weather. "It's been like this for years; you get used to it after a while." He waved his hand lazily at the crumbling walls, indifferent to their condition. "The pipes leak, the walls peel, and the lights flicker—ain't exactly the Vatican, but it gets the job done."

Gabriel didn't respond, his lips pressing into a thin line. His eyes wandered, cautiously scanning the cells as he broke back out into a nervous strut. 

From one cell, a man sat hunched on a small, rusted bed, his knees drawn to his chest. His lips moved rapidly, muttering a stream of disjointed words—prayers mixed with nonsensical babble. His hands trembled uncontrollably, tapping against his legs in an endless rhythm. Gabriel couldn't make out the words, but the tone was frantic, as if he was in a rush to tell someone something.

A woman in another cell rocked back and forth, her eyes wide. She didn't blink, not once, just staring at something invisible beyond the bars. "They're watching… always watching… can't hide…"

The officer slowed his pace, glancing back at Gabriel as they passed another row of cells. "You know," he started, his voice casual, almost amused, "we've had a real flux of crazies in here lately. These people—most of 'em—were normal not too long ago. Just snapped, outta nowhere. One minute they're fine, the next they're freaking out, screaming, raving. No warning at all."

He paused beside a particularly grimy cell, peering inside where a man sat trembling, his face pale and gaunt, eyes wild and in constant motion. The officer chuckled, "I figure it's a bad batch of drugs or something. They're all junkies anyway, right? No other explanation that makes sense."

He laughed, the sound sharp and hallow in the narrow hallway. Gabriel followed in silence, his eyes narrowing slightly at the officer's words. 

The officer stopped in front of a door, unlocking it with a loud, rusty click "Here we are," he said, pulling the door open to reveal a small, dimly lit interrogation room. The light flickered from a single bulb overhead, casting shadows that danced across the concrete walls. 

As the officer swung the door wide, Gabriel walked up beside him, hesitating for a moment before entering. He turned and stared at the officer dead in the eye. "Do you believe in the lord, officer?" 

His voice was steady but stern. The officer blinked, quite surprised by the randomness of the question. "No. Why?"

Gabriel's gaze dropped to the floor for a brief second, his fingers tightening around the strap of his satchel. "You will," he said, stepping past the officer and into the room.

A man sat hunched over a small metal table. His fingers clawed obsessively at the surface, scraping away at the cold steel with a fervor that had long since gone beyond madness. The table bore the evidence of his efforts—deep gouges and scratches marred the surface, some fresh, others older, stained with dried blood. His fingers were raw and bleeding, trembling as they continued to dig into the metal, almost involuntarily.

His head shot up at the sound of footsteps, and his eyes—wild, sunken—gleamed in the low light as he locked onto Gabriel. His mouth curled into a strange, manic smile.

"Father Gabriel!" he exclaimed, his voice raspy yet animated. 

Gabriel, pausing just inside the door, offered the man a calm smirk, stepping closer. "Father Matthias! How are you?"

Matthias chuckled darkly, shaking his head as his eyes darted around the small room. "As well as you can be in a place like this, my boy. It's not exactly a saint's retreat, if you know what I mean." His voice was rough, yet far more casual than one might expect from a man of the cloth. 

Gabriel took a seat opposite Matthias, resting his satchel on the table between them. His eyes briefly flicked down to the scratches, the blood, but he didn't comment. "I've seen worse places," he said lightly.

Matthias leaned back in his chair, his posture far contrasting the grim environment they found themselves in. "Oh, I bet you have. You've been in the thick of it, haven't you?" he said with a twisted grin. 

Gabriel's response was immediate but not without hesitation. His hand instinctively went to his collar, tugging at it nervously. "Y-Yes," he stammered, quickly catching himself and nodding. "Yes, I have." His eyes darted to the ground for a second. 

Matthias let out a low chuckle. "Ah, the thick of it... that's where the faith either breaks or bends, huh? It's where you find how much of a holy man you really are."

Gabriel's eyes flicked up to meet Matthias's, studying the man for a moment. The casual tone, the smirk, the vulgar humor—it was all so far removed from the priest Matthias had once been. This man had been stripped of his piety.

"So, what brings you here? Just checking on an old, washed-up priest?" Matthias said as his fingers twitched, momentarily returning to their compulsive clawing.

Gabriel reached into his satchel with deliberate ease, putting his smile back on. "Well, I was wondering if you could tell me about your more recent exorcism… if that is okay with you."

Matthias gave him a look— no, a stare. Just a deep, unsettling stare. He said nothing.

"Yes." 

His bloodied fingers flexed slightly, leaving streaks of red on the table. "Of course, Gabriel. I'll tell you about it."

Matthias leaned forward, "It all started when I first heard about the case. Months before I even set foot in that cursed place, I had already begun my research. I knew something was off about this one—could feel it in my bones. You know what I mean, don't you, Gabriel?" He smirked, his tone condescending but almost playful.

Gabriel's brow furrowed slightly, but he said nothing, allowing Matthias to continue.

"You see," Matthias went on, his fingers tapping against the table rhythmically, "I wasn't walking into this blind. I knew it was a demon, but not just any demon. Oh no, no—this one was old, powerful. The kind that's been lurking in the shadows for centuries, waiting for the right vessel. So, naturally, I started digging. Researching. I had to know what I was dealing with. Had to get the upper hand. As you know, names possess the most power, don't they, Gabriel?"

Gabriel nodded slowly, his hand slipping into his satchel to pull out a small notebook. His heart quickened as he flipped it open, his pen poised above the paper. "Yes," he murmured, the urgency creeping into his voice, "they do."

Matthias grinned at that, a grin that twisted his face into something almost feral. "Exactly. The name, Gabriel. That's what I needed. Without a name, you're powerless. It can twist and writhe and hide behind every shadow, every word spoken in that room. But with its name…" He let the words hang in the air for a moment.

Gabriel, leaning forward now, began jotting down notes, his pen moving frantically across the page. "What clues did you find?" he asked, not looking up, his voice a little too eager. "What led you to it?"

Matthias's gaze turned inward, his fingers idly picking at the dried blood under his nails. "I found traces of it. In old texts, forgotten lore. It left a trail in history—possession cases that bore the same signs. The unnatural cold, the way it twisted its victims' bodies, how it spoke in languages no one had heard for millennia. But more than that, it was the fear. The way it corrupted the faith of everyone around it. That's how I knew it was the same one."

"Did you ever identify it's name?" he asked, his eyes flicking up to meet Matthias's.

Matthias's grin faded slightly. "I got close," he said softly, his voice strained. "So close I could feel it, taste it in the air. But in the end… I failed."

Gabriel nodded, his face serious, pen still poised above the paper.

Matthias leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily.

"The victim… was a young girl named Anne. Sweet girl, no more than twelve. She'd been sick for weeks, they said. But it wasn't sickness, Gabriel. You know that."

Gabriel's hand hesitated for a moment. 

"She was innocent enough at first glance. But when I saw her—really saw her—it was already too late. Her family noticed something was off early on, but they didn't want to believe it. At first, it was small things, you know? Fatigue, they thought. She wasn't eating, she was pale. You could brush it off as illness, maybe a fever."

His eyes drifted, as though lost in the memory. "But it wasn't long before they started to notice the real signs. Darkening around the eyes, not just like shadows, but like bruises, deep purples and blues that made her look like she'd been in a fight. Her skin… it turned this strange, sickly shade of gray, almost like death had already taken her but left her walking."

Gabriel's pen scratched furiously against the paper, his hand trembling slightly as he captured every word. Matthias's voice had a strange, mesmerizing quality to it, like the crackling cadence of an old radio broadcast—faintly distorted yet hypnotic, the kind of voice that would narrate a late-night boxing match in the 90s, pulling listeners in with each word.

"The worst part, though," Matthias continued, "was the way her body began to reject everything normal. Food, water, even sunlight. She'd scream when they tried to feed her, shrieking as if the very act of trying to eat caused her pain. Her limbs would stiffen unnaturally, twisting in ways no human body should. And her eyes, Gabriel… her eyes were the worst. They turned this yellowish hue, like old parchment, bloodshot with veins running through them. She'd glare at her parents like they were strangers, like they were beneath her."

Gabriel felt his throat tighten, a knot forming as he imagined the image of the poor girl.

"By the end of the first week," Matthias continued, his voice more distant, "the demon had complete control over her. She wasn't Anne anymore. Her voice… God, her voice wasn't even hers. It would change, deeper, mocking them, calling her parents by their worst fears, whispering things only they could know. The kind of things only a demon would dig out of someone's soul to torment them with."

He shook his head, his fingers twitching again on the table. "She'd convulse violently, slamming her body against the bed until her bones bruised. And her strength—God, Gabriel, the strength that tiny girl had was monstrous. It took four grown men to hold her down at one point, and even then, she nearly threw one of them off."

Gabriel's pen stilled. He leaned in slightly, his voice soft but insistent. "And her family? What did they do?"

Matthias shook his head. "At first, they tried to pray. But by the time I arrived, they had stopped. They couldn't bear to look at her. The sight of their daughter—this broken, twisted thing—had crushed their faith. They were terrified, Gabriel. They were hollow."

His eyes, now cold and distant, flicked back to Gabriel. "By then, it wasn't a girl lying in that bed. It was something ancient, something that wore her like a puppet."

"You see, Gabriel," Matthias began, his voice dipping and rising like the flicker of a weak signal. "The name. It's always about the name. Names are power, boy—names are strength. Say its name, and you hold power over it."

Gabriel sat back, resting his pencil on his notebook as he locked his eyes onto the older priest as though in a trance. 

"That's what I didn't have," Matthias said, his voice dropping lower, almost like a commentator in the final round of a fight. "The name. I knew what it was—I could feel its presence, smell the stench of its ancient evil. But I couldn't grasp it, couldn't speak it. And that's the thing, Gabriel. Without the name, you have no power. You don't control it. It controls you."

Matthias's fingers continued their soft drumming on the table. "I went into that room armed with the tools we were trained to use, Gabriel. The holy water, the crucifix, the words of the rite—I threw everything I had at it. The prayers spilled out of me, the incantations filled the room, the sacred words we've both memorized since seminary. And for a moment, I thought maybe—just maybe—it was working."

He paused, his eyes flickering with something close to bitterness. "But then, it started to change. I wasn't expelling it, Gabriel. No, the damn thing was mocking me, feeding off the very rites meant to cast it out. Every word I spoke became fuel for it. It twisted the prayers, made them hollow. But I knew, deep down, that the rite should have worked. The old ways still hold power, but this thing… it needed something more."

Gabriel frowned slightly, his eyes narrowing. "Something more? What do you mean?"

Matthias shook his head.

"The rites work, Gabriel, but not on their own. There's an older method—something lost, or rather, forgotten by the Church. It's something they won't teach you, but it's still out there. And I found it. I know it."

Gabriel grabbed his pen and it hovered idly over his notebook. 

"An older method? What is it?"

Matthias chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "That's the question, isn't it? You won't find it in the texts they give you. No, it's buried deeper. It's not something they'll let you use, not in today's Church. But it's there, and it's powerful. I… I wasn't ready. I didn't have the courage to use it then."

Gabriel leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. "So, you didn't use it?"

Matthias's eyes darkened, and his voice dropped lower. "No. I hesitated. I fell back on what we knew, what I thought would be enough. But I was wrong, Gabriel. I failed. And when I realized that I couldn't expel it through the usual rites—when I felt it slipping through my grasp, growing stronger—I did the only thing I could."

Gabriel's breath quickened. He already knew what Matthias was going to say. 

"I told it to take me," Matthias whispered, his voice filled with a hollow finality. "I thought if I offered myself, it might let her go. I was desperate, Gabriel. I thought I could offer my life to protect hers… and it accepted. The demon didn't even flinch. It took me."

Gabriel stared at him, his mind racing. "But if it took you… why didn't it kill you?"

Matthias smiled, that same crooked, humorless grin. "Kill me? No. That's much too vulgar a display of power, Father."

Gabriel froze, his pen still hovering over the notebook, but no longer writing. The change in Matthias's voice—it wasn't subtle. It wasn't Matthias anymore. The realization hit him like a cold wave, and slowly, deliberately, he lowered the pen and stopped looking at his notes. His wide, pale eyes locked onto the figure sitting across from him.

The thing wearing Matthias's body stared back, its eyes gleaming with malice. That twisted grin remained, a mockery of human expression, as if the face barely remembered how to wear it.

Gabriel's breath hitched in his throat, his mind racing through the stories, the teachings, the countless hours of study that told him how to deal with this exact moment. But all of it felt far away now, like it belonged to someone else. This wasn't an academic scenario anymore. This was real.

Gabriel glanced briefly down at his notes, his mind pulling together the fragments of what Matthias had revealed, the clues, the dread that had been building. His hand trembled as he looked back up, his lips parting to speak.

"I know who I'm speaking to," Gabriel said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Matthias—no, the demon—tilted its head, a look of sick amusement flashing in its eyes. "Do you, Father?" it hissed, leaning forward, as if inviting Gabriel to speak the truth. "Go on. Say it."

Gabriel's breath caught, his heart pounding in his chest. His voice faltered for a moment, but then he straightened in his seat, gripping the edges of the table as if holding on for dear life.

"It's you. You."

Malphas.