—†— CHAPTER FOURTEEN —⸸—
The Spirit And The Priest
Father Marcus sat alone in the rectory, his hands wrapped around a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. The small room adjacent to the sacristy served as a modest study. A worn armchair, a writing desk cluttered with correspondence, and a single lamp casting warm light against the darkness pressing at the windows.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept properly. Three days, perhaps. Maybe four. The days had begun to blur together since the spirit had grown restless.
For thirty-seven years, the Relic had been silent. A dormant piece of something older than Heaven itself, sealed away in the hidden chamber beneath the cathedral’s foundation. The Keepers had protected such objects for centuries, scattered across parishes and monasteries throughout the world, guarded by men and women who understood only fragments of what they preserved. They didn’t need to understand. They only needed to keep them hidden.
Hidden from the Church. Hidden from Rome. Hidden from forces that would tear creation apart to possess them.
And so the Keepers used the only tool they had. The Binding Ward, an ancient rite that called forth a spirit and chained it to the artifact, compelling it to conceal the object from all sight and sense. The spirit couldn’t leave or rest. It could only wait, hide, and watch.
The spirits themselves were Nephilim. Or had been, once. Powerful wielders of Arcane gifts whose souls had been captured and bound as punishment for crimes Marcus could only guess at. Imprisonment without end, forced to guard the very relics they might have once sought to claim. Most of them went bitter and mad over the centuries. A few went quiet, resigned to their fate.
This one had never been quiet. It had been bound to the Relic for over three hundred years, moved from church to church, monastery to monastery across Europe before finally being brought to America. When St. Marys was built in 1864, the Keepers had seen an opportunity. A new church in a remote frontier town, far from Rome’s prying eyes. They’d sealed the Relic in a chamber beneath the foundation before the first stone was laid.
Fifty-six years it had rested here. And lately, the spirit had become insufferable.
A shadow flickered at the edge of Marcus’s vision. Too quick, too deliberate. He didn’t bother turning. He’d learned that trick years ago.
“I know you’re there,” he said to the empty room. “I’m not in the mood.”
A soft laugh echoed from somewhere behind the walls. Not quite a voice. More like the memory of one.
“Keeper,” the spirit said, its tone dripping with mockery. “You look tired. Having trouble sleeping? I wonder why that could be.”
“You know exactly why,” Marcus replied.
“Do I?” The shadow stretched across the ceiling, pooling in the corner like spilled ink. “Perhaps you should enlighten me. I’ve been trapped under your churches for three hundred years. I miss so much.”
Marcus took a sip of cold tea and grimaced. He was too exhausted for this. Outside, the wind rattled the windows. Well past midnight, and Sarah had not returned.
She’d left that morning with such determination in her eyes. The Weber children needed help, she’d said. Their father was missing, and the police had given up. She’d heard about the new private investigator setting up shop on Fifth Street. She wanted to hire the man.
Marcus had almost stopped her. Almost told her the truth about what she was, like he had wanted to do so many times before. But he’d held his tongue, as he had for twenty-four years.
He still remembered the first time he’d seen her. A newborn, barely days old. Marcus had been visiting from Rome, reviewing the security of the Relic. When the sisters brought the infant to him, he’d felt it immediately. That same resonance that hummed from the artifacts he’d spent his life protecting. The same ancient power, sleeping in the blood of a child who couldn’t have been more than a few days old.
A Nephilim. The first he’d ever encountered.
The Keepers’ sacred duty was to hide and protect the artifacts of the old world, preserving them for those they were meant for. If a Nephilim was meant to find them, meant to claim them, then surely the Keepers’ duty extended to the Nephilim themselves.
So he’d stayed. Requested a transfer to this frozen corner of Minnesota. Watched over her from a distance as she grew, waiting for the day her power might awaken and dreading it in equal measure.
Now that day had come. And she was out there somewhere, alone, with no idea what hunted her.
“She’s changing,” the spirit said, as if reading his thoughts. “I can feel it from here. Something woke her up tonight. Something delicious.”
“What do you know?”
“More than you, Keeper,” it said. “I always know more than you.” The shadow slid down the wall, pooling on the floor near his feet. “Two of them now. Two who carry the old blood. And something else—something sharp. Something that cuts between worlds.” The spirit’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The Blade. Someone’s found one of the Blades.”
Marcus’s blood ran cold. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it? You’ve spent so long hiding things, you’ve forgotten they were meant to be found.” The shadow stretched toward the door. “She’s coming into her power, Keeper. The Relic knows it. I know it. Soon, everyone will know it.”
The door to the rectory burst open.
Father Emil Richter stood in the doorway, his weathered face pale beneath his white hair. The old German priest had served St. Marys for forty years. Baptized half the parish, buried the other half. He’d only learned the truth about what lay beneath the cathedral three weeks ago, when Marcus could no longer hide the spirit’s increasingly erratic behavior.
“Father Marcus,” Emil’s accent thickened with fear. “Kommen Sie. The young one. Father Hoffman. Something has happened.”
Marcus was already on his feet. He pushed past Emil into the corridor, his old legs moving faster than they had in years.
“Where is he?”
“The chamber. He went down to check on things, as you asked. I heard him screaming.”
They hurried through the sacristy and past the altar where a single candle guttered and nearly died as they passed, then down the narrow stone stairs hidden behind a false panel that had fooled parishioners and visiting clergy alike since the cathedral was built.
Marcus remembered when Johann had first found this staircase. The young priest had come to him white-faced and shaking, babbling about a figure he’d seen disappearing down steps that shouldn’t exist. A shadow that had beckoned him to follow.
The spirit, playing its games. Bored after centuries of isolation, amusing itself by terrifying the clergy. That was when Marcus knew he couldn’t keep the secret alone anymore. He’d had to bring Johann and Emil into the fold—Not members of the Keepers, but local men who could help him maintain appearances while the spirit grew more and more active.
He’d warned them both. Stay away from the chamber unless absolutely necessary. Never engage with the spirit. Never let it provoke you.
Johann hadn’t listened.
The chamber below was small—barely ten feet across, carved from the bedrock beneath the cathedral’s foundation. In the center sat a stone pedestal, and upon it rested the Relic: a flat piece of dark stone no larger than a man’s palm, covered in flowing script that seemed to writhe when viewed directly.
Father Johann Hoffman sat slumped against the far wall, his knees pulled to his chest, his face buried in his hands. The young priest was barely twenty-five, born and raised in St. Cloud, the son of a local farmer. His shoulders shook with silent sobs.
The spirit stood over him.
It had taken a shape this time. Vaguely human, made of shadow and suggestion. Its face was a blank darkness, featureless, yet somehow Marcus could feel it watching him. Enjoying itself immensely.
“Keeper,” the spirit said, turning what might have been a head toward Marcus. “Your little helper came to visit. I was just telling him about what I’ve seen tonight. He didn’t take it well.”
“Get away from him.”
“Or what?” The spirit drifted closer to Johann, one shadowy appendage reaching toward the young priest’s head. “You’ll bind me again? Chain me tighter? You’ve already taken everything from me, Keeper. My freedom. My purpose. Three hundred years bound to this stone, dragged from one church to another, one hiding place to the next, and now fifty-six years in this frozen hole, waiting for someone worthy to claim what I guard.” The shadow’s voice hardened. “And instead I get you. Frightened old men who don’t even understand what they’re protecting.”
“I said get away from him.”
The spirit laughed, a sound like wind through dead leaves.
“Fine, he’s boring anyway,” it said, withdrawing from Johann and drifting toward the Relic. It circled the pedestal like a shark. “Broke too easily. But you should know, Keeper, I’m done waiting. Something’s happening out there, and I felt it. Two Nephilim, alive and awake in this miserable little town, and one of them is yours. The girl you’ve been hiding.”
“Sarah has nothing to do with this.”
“Sarah has everything to do with this,” the spirit replied, its form flickering with agitation. “She’s the reason I’ve been so restless. Every year she’s grown, I’ve felt her power growing with her, sleeping and waiting. And tonight, something finally woke her up. Her and another one. I don’t know who the second is, but they’re strong, stronger than her even, and they’re wielding Arcane power. Real power, the kind I haven’t felt since before they bound me.”
The spirit turned to face Marcus fully, its eyeless gaze somehow finding his.
“Do you understand what that means, Keeper? Someone out there is using the old gifts, not just carrying dormant blood but actually using it.” The shadow stretched toward the ceiling, growing larger and more agitated. “I’ve waited three hundred years to be free, three hundred years, dozens of churches, countless Keepers, all for a Nephilim to finally claim this Relic and release me from this prison. And now there are two of them right here in this pathetic frozen town, and one of them is already awake and wielding power.”
“You’ll stay bound until—”
“Until what?” The spirit’s voice rose to a shriek. “Until I rot? Until this church crumbles to dust? The Relics weren’t meant to be hidden forever, you fool. They were meant to be found. Meant to be claimed. Meant to give power to those who could use it.” The shadow pressed against the edges of the chamber, straining against invisible walls. “I could help them. Both of them. But instead I’m trapped here, playing nursemaid to a stone while you fumble in the dark.”
Johann whimpered from the floor.
Marcus moved to the young priest and knelt beside him. “Johann. Can you hear me?”
“He showed me things,” Johann whispered. “Visions. What’s coming. What they’ll do when they find out what we’ve been hiding.” He looked up at Marcus with hollow eyes. “They’re going to kill us, Father. All of us. The angels and the demons both. We’re in their way.”
“We need to get him upstairs,” Marcus told Emil, who had remained frozen on the stairs. “Now. Don’t let him back down here.”
The older German priest descended just far enough to grab Johann’s arm and haul him to his feet. The young man went limp, allowing himself to be pulled, still murmuring about fire and wings and blades that cut through worlds.
When they were gone, Marcus turned to face the spirit.
“You had no right to show him those things.”
“I had every right. You’ve kept me caged for three centuries. A little entertainment is the least you owe me.” The spirit’s form had calmed somewhat, shrinking back to a vague humanoid shape. “But I wasn’t lying, Keeper. Something is coming. The balance is shifting. Heaven and Hell are both moving pieces into position, and your little Sarah is caught in the middle.”
“Then tell me how to protect her.”
The spirit was quiet for a long moment before it finally answered. “You can’t. Not anymore. She’s past protection now, she’s awakening.” The shadow drifted toward the stairs, passing through Marcus like a cold wind. “But the other one, the one wielding Arcane power, find them quickly, before the angels do. Before my brothers and sisters catch their scent.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Did you think I was the only one the Keepers ever bound?” The laugh echoed through the chamber. “There are dozens of us, hundreds maybe. Nephilim souls chained to artifacts all over the world, waiting for release, waiting for someone to finally set us free.” The shadow’s voice turned bitter. “And if I can sense what’s happening here, so can they, and so can the things that hunt them.”
The spirit faded, leaving Marcus alone in the chamber with the Relic.
He stared at the small stone on its pedestal. The script along its surface had stilled, but he could feel the power thrumming beneath—ancient, patient, waiting for a hand worthy enough to claim it.
He thought of the letter that had arrived yesterday. Two cardinals from the Vatican, arriving within the fortnight. An unannounced visit to assess the spiritual health of the parish. Someone had sensed something. Caught a whisper of what St. Marys had hidden for generations.
And now the spirit itself was practically broadcasting their location to anything with the senses to hear.
That’s why they’d closed the cathedral. Why they’d turned away parishioners with excuses about repairs and private ceremonies. The spirit had grown too active. Too visible. It had started appearing to people during mass. Shadows moving wrong, whispers in empty confessionals. They couldn’t risk exposure.
But they couldn’t hide forever either.
Marcus climbed the stairs slowly, his bones aching. At the top, he found Emil waiting for him, Johann slumped in a nearby pew.
“Father Emil, I need you to go to the police station. Find out if Sister Sarah was seen there today. Find out where she went afterward.”
“At this hour?” Emil asked. “Marcus, what is happening?”
“I don’t know, but she should have been back hours ago.” Marcus’s voice hardened. “Find her, Emil, whatever it takes. And don’t tell anyone else what you’ve seen tonight.”
Emil nodded slowly, fear and duty warring in his weathered face. He guided Johann toward the rectory where the young priest could rest, then headed for the cathedral doors.
Marcus remained at the altar, staring at the single candle that had somehow stayed lit through everything.
For thirty-seven years, he’d kept the Relic hidden. Kept Sarah hidden. Built walls of faith and silence around secrets that could shatter everything the Church believed about itself.
Now those walls were crumbling.
He lowered himself to his knees on the cold stone floor, clasped his hands together, and began to pray. Not to the God of scripture and sermon, but to whatever force had created the stone below. Whatever hand had shaped the world before Heaven and Hell tore it in two.
“Keep her safe,” he whispered. “Whatever she is, whatever she’s becoming, keep her safe.”
In the chamber below, the spirit stirred.
And for the first time in three hundred years, it began to hope.