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Soon enough he found himself back at the door to the barn, Mill’s little leather-bound bible in one hand, the bottle of water—now blessed and made holy by the preacher’s prayer—in the other. The sour tang of whiskey lingered on his tongue. He pushed the big door open and stepped inside.
“Myra watches while we have our way with mama,” the devil in Daniel Scott said, then flicked his tongue and grinned.
This ain’t gonna work. State I’m in, I can’t bless a thing.
But I gotta know.
The preacher put the bible under one arm, doused one hand in the blessed water like a spate of cologne, and flicked it toward the demon. The water hissed when it touched its haunted flesh, raising blisters in an instant. The demon squealed like a bleeding pig.
The preacher was so surprised, he almost forgot to follow the attack with a prayer. “In Jesus’ name,” he blurted, “I still your tongue, and beg the Lord’s grace in binding you!”
“Lick bung,” the demon snarled through gnashed teeth.
Keep at him, the preacher thought, and anointed the demon again. With an ear-peeling cry, the demon writhed under the blistering weight of the blessed water. Silently, the preacher thanked God that his blessings carried any weight at all—but he kept wetting his hands, dousing his adversary, raising blisters as the demon hissed and spat and thrashed. Soon there were pink-green globs of phlegm all over the hay and the blanket knotted at the demon’s feet, where it kept kicking, trying to retreat and failing, its bindings holding fast.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” the preacher said, “I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, leadeth me beside still waters—”
“He delivereth thy whore and thy issue into the jaws of the Beast, and revels in their pleas for mercy and their unanswered prayers for aid,” the demon answered, then turned its narrow hips toward the preacher and pissed at him with its adolescent pecker.
Delphi doused the thing with a handful of the holy water, then struck it flat across the cheek with the little leather bible. For good measure, he struck its other cheek as well, then held the book out flat before its face. “What’s your name?”
“Myra Delphi,” the demon snarled, then spat on the bible’s cover.
Delphi struck it again, leaving its own phlegm on its face. “What is your name? In Jesus’ name, I command you, name yourself!”
“Lilly Delphi, whore of Babylon!” the demon snarled.
Delphi stepped into the stall and straddled the boy. He drank a deep draught of the holy water, then spat it back in the demon’s face. The spray sizzled where it landed, and the beast opened its mouth and cried holy hell, its foul breath and throaty issue blasting back into the reverend’s face. Nonetheless, the preacher beat down his fear, his rage, his guilt, his surety that he was not the man for the job before him, and took another mouthful of the holy water. While the beast screamed, he spat the water down its throat.
“What is your name?” the preacher demanded.
The beast arched beneath him, choking on the holy water sprayed down its gullet. It belched smoked, then suddenly shat the hay—a viscous, yellow sewage that instantly made Delphi wretch and filled the room with a deadly, sulphurous stink.
“What is your name?” the preacher demanded again.
“Malik bar-Ashmedai bar-Litu bar-Cahin,” the beast croaked weakly, then followed its proclamation with a saddened, desperate howl, a lost lamb bleating for its mother in the wild. The preacher waited, expecting a punchline, or another curse, but the beast only squealed, and squeezed out bloody tears and bucked and fought beneath him, sickened by its own submission.
The preacher dismounted. He turned his back on the demon in the horse-stall and paced the barn for a moment, regaining himself.
Delphi closed his eyes and prayed. It was the first prayer he’d dared in nearly nine days, and he had no idea where it flew to or if it was heard, but when the prayer was done, he knew all that he needed to know to continue. He turned and faced the demon in the stall, now looking more than ever like a scared boy with an old man’s tired eyes. The blisters, lacerations, and festering sores on the skin stood out in sharp relief, and the preacher saw, in that moment, that the beast in Daniel Scott was a blight on the world—a blight on innocence and youth—and that he’d been called here to banish it.
Whether he wanted to or not.
The preacher put the bible under his arm again, held the bottle of dwindling holy water in one hand, and reached into his hip pocket to draw out a coin. He held the coin tightly in his fist and approached the stall.
He could see in the demon’s eyes, and in the play of its lips, that it wanted to speak, but could barely manage the strength to do so. It was tired, and it was sickened by its own failure to stand firm against him.
“Answer me when I address you, Malik bar-Ashmedai,” the preacher said. “Do you know a man named Barabbas? Word has it, he’s one of your kind.”
The demon stared for a moment, puzzled by the question, then its cracked lips lifted into a little grin. “Sure,” it said, “we all know Barabbas.”
The preacher showed the coin. It was a silver shekel, impossibly old, though still smooth and shiny as though it were minted the day before. The writing on it was Hebrew, and the demon recognized it instantly. “You know where this came from?” the preacher asked.
The demon nodded. “He carries those.”
The preacher neared and bent low, eye to eye with the beast, close enough to feel its hellish breath on his sweat-beaded face. The preacher spoke in a low voice.
“Tell Barabbas I know his name. Tell Barabbas I know it was him burnt my church, my congregation and my wife. Tell him I know that he knows where to find my little girl. And when you’ve told him all that, you tell Barabbas I’m coming for him, and there ain’t no gun, no pig-sticker, no fire, no noose that can stop me.”
And without waiting for reply, the preacher drank another draught of the holy water and went to work.