Vincent stood in the middle of the floor with no walls, surrounded by tall furniture with exaggerated, carved features. The backs of the sofa chairs positioned haphazardly around him were taller than any standing man, creating blind spots in his vision. Their tops were decorated with miniature gargoyles, like the damn things were the pillars of a Gothic cathedral — cast in the same yellow light of the moon outside, as it filtered between the tattered remains of the heavy draped curtains. Scattered between the chairs were other miscellaneous furniture, including, but not limited to, tall wooden bookcases with feet carved into lion paws, that towered high up into the the parts of the ceiling that vaulted to the very roof. On the sofa chairs, and piled up on the bookshelves — on every shelf — were dolls. Freaky, wide-eyed, porcelain dolls with stains across their lips and tangles in their dirty curls. His visor scanned their faces, tried to link them to known identities, and pinged him to let him know of its miserable failure.
Every inch of the surface between the dolls was covered with mirrors — mirrors that faced each other at angles that would allow sight of the entire room at once if one positioned himself at exactly the right point in the room.
The Radix.
Something a demon of the Minor Circles of hell might use to facilitate the possession of a body that did not give it permission to enter. The mirrors served as his container — and the Radix was his door.
Vincent scrunched his nose. He was certainly right to leave the soulbind-absent police squad on the outside of the room. They made too easy of a target. On the flip side, it meant he had to navigate this mirror maze without any back-up. Not since Brother Lucian decided to create a “second point of entry” by scaling the side of the mansion.
Vincent hoped there actually was some way inside.
There was a whisper of breeze — warm breeze, that sifted through the maze of the room. Almost like the room was — breathing.
“A’ight, you can come the fuck out like, any minute. I ain’t got all day.” Vincent hoped his voice didn’t contain any trace of the sweat that rolled down the back of his neck.
There was a laughter — low and full — that ricocheted between the chairs and bookcases.
“Welcome, exorcist.” The voice sounded like it came from behind him, too low for a female voice, too high-pitched for a male. Vincent held fast and shifted into a combat stance, his folded staff in front of him, still facing in the same direction. Disembodied demons always sounded like they spoke from somewhere behind you — right behind the base of your skull, whispering into your nape. That rarely indicated their actual position, and there’s no way in hell this asshole wasn’t currently perched inside a mirror where he could observe Vincent’s face.
“Thanks, bro — appreciate the sentiment. I won’t infringe on your hospitality too long, hand over heart.” His fingers gripped his staff so tight, the little ridges that allowed the staff to collapse began biting into his skin. Where was the Radix?
Finding it was his only way to locating the mirror the demon currently occupied, since he’d be able to see all of the reflections all at once. There was no way for Vincent way to exorcise a cognizant demon without knowing his real name, and Vincent didn’t exactly have the time for that kind of research. But if he figured out the mirror, he could shatter it, and lock the demon inside long enough to get someone more — uh, experienced — to handle the exorcism.
“You’re wondering what my name is.” The demon said, with a chuckle - but it wasn’t a question.
Yes, you keep thinking that.
Demons couldn’t read minds, not really. But they had a preternatural knack for knowing what a human desired — and the more powerful and experienced the demon, the harder it was to conceal those wants. This one was not yet calibrated to this world; his taunting of Vincent was clearly just an educated guess.
And all Vincent needed to do was keep him guessing long enough to give himself time to casually slip around the room.
“Nah, I’m actually wondering how you’re gonna explain this mess to your momma when she gets back. She gonna spank your ass for moving all this furniture? This ain’t how you ‘play house’, Jimmy.”
One of the mirrors had caught a single stray ray of light from the moon. Vincent could keep that as his marker, shifting on his feet and pretending to be afraid. Or pretending to be not afraid. Whichever one was the lie. At the Radix, the ray of light would be visible again — reflected from the mirror hidden behind the wall of book cases.
“You have a fascinating way of speaking, for a… choir boy.”
Vincent shifted another step. The mirror with the moon-ray was now out of his sight, behind one of the bookshelves.
“Yeah well, they don’t care what words you use at the Brotherhood, so long as you got a good voice to sing ‘em.”
The demon’s laugh rumbled somewhere inside of his neck.
“And do you?”
Vincent stopped, stood a little straighter.
“What?”
“Do you have a pretty singing voice?”
He slouched, took a couple steps back, flicking his eyes as inconspicuously as he could towards the distant mirror. With any luck, to the demon it just looked like an eye-roll.
“What do you think, dickhead?”
Another step back.
Something gold sparkled in the side of his eye.
The moon ray. He turned his head towards the mirror, and a million of his own reflections grinned back at him manically, teeth sharp, his normally umber eyes filled with blood.
“I think you’re going to sing for me, exorcist!” It proclaimed, voice crawling like ants inside of Vincent’s ears. He felt it, then — the energy clawing at the hair on his nape, zapping along like ionized air across his skin.
He found the Radix.
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