Possess

deal with, and whatever she was doing, it was working.
    Bridget held out her arm and pointed at Amaymon. It was just a shaft of light, and it penetrated the wavering smoke of his being. “I banish you, Amaymon. I banish you to Hell.”
    “Bridge?” It was Sammy’s voice. Bridget gasped; he sounded terrified. “Bridge, you’re hurting me.”
    “Sammy?” He was still there, beneath the wavering smoke figure of Amaymon, eyes closed, body rigid. Was it really him or just a trick? “Sammy, are you okay?”
    Sammy began to cry. “Bridge, you’re hurting me.”
    Father Santos rolled onto his knees. “Don’t listen to him, Bridget.”
    “Stop it,” Sammy wailed. “Stop it!”
    “It’s still Amaymon,” Father Santos said.
    “No!” Monsignor launched himself at Father Santos. “The Master will see you burn.”
    Bridget reached her arm of light toward the small, sleepwalking figure of Sammy buried deep within the shadow of Amaymon. She willed her fingers to curl around Sammy’s arm.
    “Let me go, Bridge!” Sammy was hysterical. “Let me go!”
    “Finish the exorcism, Bridget!” Father Santos yelled. “Finish the banishment.”
    Bridget set her jaw. It wasn’t Sammy. Sammy was only the vessel. If she didn’t get Amaymon out of his body, he’d be lost forever.
    Her grip on Sammy’s arm tightened. No, she wasn’t going to lose her brother now. He and the demon weren’t inseparable. Not yet. She turned her attention to Amaymon, focusing on his being, his essence, the aura of evil in the church. Separate from Sammy. Separate from her brother.
    “I banish you.”
    “No!” Sammy screamed. She tensed, keeping his arm in a death grip.
    “I banish you from this church, from this land, from this—”
    “No!” Amaymon’s voice this time, booming forth from her brother’s mouth.
    “I banish you from this world of men.”
    Bridget held on to Sammy’s arm with all her strength. There was a moment of strain as the demon king tried to wrest his human host away. Then Bridget felt the snap. Amaymon had given up, leaving Sammy’s limp body in Bridget’s arms.
    “Sammy?” she said. She lowered his body to the ground. His face was tinged with gray as if the life had been drained from him.
    He was dead. He was dead, and all this had been for nothing.
    “Master!” Monsignor stretched his hand in supplication, and Father Santos was on him in an instant. He wrenched the silver ring from Monsignor’s finger and threw it to the back of the church.
    Monsignor’s face blanched. “What have you done?”
    “Now, Bridget!” Father Santos said. “Finish it.”
    Amaymon’s form swelled, doubling in size. He was gathering his strength.
    “Bridget!” Father Santos called again. “What are you waiting for?”
    She looked down at Sammy’s motionless body. They’d taken her father. They’d taken her brother. It was time to take something in return.
    “By the power of the Watchers,” Bridget yelled as the tears streamed down her face. “Amaymon, king of the west, I BANISH YOU!”
    Amaymon whirled into a vortex of swirling blackness. The force of the tornado was so fierce it sucked the words right out of Bridget’s mouth. The swirling mass lifted up off the ground, and the floor beneath the circle crumbled away. As Amaymon sank into the hole, a tendril of smoke shot toward Monsignor and wrapped around his outstretched hand.
    “NO!” Monsignor screamed. He slid across the floor, pulled by the last gasp of strength from his master. He clawed at the broken ground at the mouth of the hole, trying to keep from falling in. “Help me, Bridget. Help me.”
    Bridget looked down at Monsignor. She should have reached out, kept him from falling, allowed him to face his fate for the murders of her father and brother. It would have been the good thing to do.
    But Bridget didn’t care. “Rule Number Two, Monsignor. Do not show pity.”
    His red-rimmed eyes grew wide. He tried to pull his way to her, his fingertips inching across the broken marble. He lost his grip, and with a terrified scream, Monsignor Renault was gone.

Thirty-Seven
    B EFORE M ONSIGNOR’S CRY DIED AWAY , a blast rocked the Church of St. Michael.
    The marble altar cracked right down the middle and enormous fissures formed in the floor, emanating outward from the hellhole in jagged lines. Chunks of the tile and stone nearest the hole rocked free and plummeted downward. The chasm doubled in size.
    Father Santos grabbed her hand and pulled her