The Rites of Harry Leitner
by Sydney Sackett
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Harry Leitner, the man spirits feared. That was the story that served him for publicity. And it wasn’t a lie–his success record was nearly twice Father Kelly’s, the runner-up, and Kelly had been in business sixty years running. Harry was pushing forty. Not one haunt had left a scratch on him yet.
“You gotta tell us,” seasoned exorcists prodded in dim, dusty corners of the bars that catered to their kind. “The kid who came with me last time, a spook cost him an eye. Boiled down his face like egg whites.”
Or, “Lost a little girl the other week to one of those big demonic suckers. Flushed it out, but it came kicking, broke all her ribs on the way.”
Or merely a long glare from across the room, and Harry could tell what it meant. The same question the rest of them asked, always. What was his secret?
He didn’t have an answer. Spirits just cowered before him shrieking gibberish, as if they hadn’t been puppeteering their hosts across ceilings and spewing profanity until he arrived. Sometimes he didn’t even need to unpack his toolkit before they cringed. It’d been happening faster, too. Harry supposed reputations could spread even amongst the damned.
Here, now, with one hand clamped to a writhing teen’s forehead and the other thrusting forth a wooden cross, he was almost surprised he’d needed to get this far. The spirit was a heavyweight. Head throbbing from the screams, Harry continued intoning.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti–”
“Don’t!” the possessor screeched, spittle flying as it thrashed inside Luke Renner’s pinioned limbs. His wrists threatened to snap the leather straps. “Don’t let it eat me! DON’T DO IT, PLEASE!”
“Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur–” Harry faltered. It was a trick, of course–the dead lied. They would say anything to save themselves from expulsion, but the desperation was remarkable. “What do you fear, spirit? Whose consumption?”
The screech reached a higher pitch. Fractures webbed the bedroom window with a crackle like ice underfoot. The boy’s jaw stretched like a dark, cavernous well descending to nowhere, and sweat steamed from his skin. “HERE! HERE! HERE! IT’S–”
All the fervor left Luke’s eyes. He collapsed to his bed, panting, color returning to his cheeks. “Ow,” he muttered. “What–what happened?”
“You’re all right now,” Harry soothed, though his mind was distant as he moved through the typical formalities. “Mrs. Renner, you can come in. It’s safe. Yes, everything should be fine. Cash or check, either works. You have my address.”
That final cry had seemed genuine. But then they all feared him, ever since his first fumbling days splashing holy water for the senior practitioners. In turn he’d been invited as a hands-off witness for trainee trials. Those spirits laughed and spat at the youths, gibed and drew blood.
Until they saw Harry and wailed.
He returned to his apartment in a strange mood. Harry rarely felt like dining after the brimstone stench of an exorcism, but he forced down takeout as he paged through lore books. What did the dead have to fear other than being cast back into the gray realm that harbored them?
Don’t let it eat me.
Harry felt the corners of his mouth twitch and forced them down. The stress got to everyone in the job, even him. Maybe it was time for an extended break.
But something urged him to go on. He couldn’t really quit while he was ahead, could he?
There were always more ghosts.
Two more calls came in that week. A low-level poltergeist in a dentist’s office and a possessed housewife who’d given Father Tucker a run for his money. Both resolved about as expected.
The poltergeist burst all the fluorescent lights on its way out, squealing. The housewife howled “Not you!” the second she laid eyes on Harry, spasmed hard enough to bite off the end of her tongue, and by the time he reached for his crucifix, the entity had fled of its own volition.
“Going to put the rest of us out of a job,” Tucker half-joked.
Harry couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t sleep much that night, either, staring into the mirror. He met his own shadowed eyes like a stranger’s. What was it they all had to fear?
He jumped violently when he glanced down and caught himself with someone else’s smile.
In the end, he visited Kelly’s abbey, where the Father lived in semi-retirement. Kelly didn’t pick up the phone anymore, but when Harry arrived at the gate, the old man let him in without a word.
They sat alone in the chapel while rain washed down the eaves.
“I need you to take a look at me,” Harry said.
Kelly lit a stout ivory candle etched with the Commandments. “You dying?”
“No.”
“You possessed?”
“I… don’t know.”
With a raised brow, Kelly passed the candle through the air, muttering scripture in a steady tone. The shadows lengthened around them. Kelly’s hand trembled slightly. The flame stretched sideways, tugged toward Harry as if coaxed by a wind neither of them could feel.
Kelly moved the candle closer. It flickered harder, surging like something in torment, bent almost horizontally as he arrested it before Harry’s heart.
For a second, it flared black, and then it blew out.
Kelly winced, shaking burnt fingers. “I don’t like it,” he muttered.
“What do you think?”
“You’ve got a hitchhiker. Something riding you. Not inside, but hanging on. Would explain why it’s slipped under notice until now.”
“How long has it been here?”
Kelly didn’t answer immediately, eyes cool and narrow. “How long have the dead been running from you, son?”
Harry didn’t have to think, even as the dawning dread crept up his spine. “Since the beginning. My first solo exorcism, the spirit was stuck deeper than Sister Tabitha could pull it out. I wasn’t supposed to get it done. Try my best, see how far I got. But it came free. Screamed, and then simply… gone.”
The priest gave a short, bitter chuckle. “And you thought it was a gift, did you? Personal magnetism? You’re a trap for them. You’ve been handing them over to your shadow.”
Harry swallowed. His throat felt hoarse, nearly strangled. “It’s kept me safe the whole time so I could…feed it?”
“A spider keeps its web clean, doesn’t it? Two of you made a pair, hunter and lure. Could’ve guessed it earlier. Should’ve, maybe. Little late for that. You’ve noticed your power growing, haven’t you?” Off Harry’s weak nod, Kelly opened his palms. “It’s gotten stronger all this time.”
“I didn’t know.” His skin itched all over. “Father, I didn’t ask for this.”
“But you didn’t question it. Didn’t stop.”
Maybe that was him saying yes. Letting the predator do the work for him like it was easy, flaunting it. Taking the money. Taking the fame. He just hadn’t said no.
The rain had thickened outside, dimming the light. Thunder crackled at a distance. Harry’s eyes moved toward the chapel’s high mirror-pane window, and he saw the other thing’s smile splitting his face.
“Can you help me?” Harry whispered.
Kelly shook his head. “Too big now. Too old. Kill me if I tried, I’d guess. You want it gone, you’ll have to starve it out.” He paused. “Or take it with you.”
“Are you going to–”
“Tell the rest, bring them down on you? No. I told you I don’t like it, Harry. But what you’ve done to those spirits doesn’t change the good you’ve done pulling them out.” The weary lines in the priest’s face seemed deeper, carved like runed stone. “Is it too much of a sin to doom those already damned? Worse than leaving the living to suffer? That’s what you’ll have to answer for yourself.”
He drove home dazed, with the windows open even though the rain roared down on him and the gray seats. He couldn’t stand the idea of being closed inside with the thing.
He didn’t switch on the lights in his apartment as he wandered in, soaking the carpet with his boots. He left the door unlocked.
Harry sat on the edge of his bed. “You’re there, aren’t you?” he muttered.
The air felt cooler, his breath fogging. He turned toward the mirror, his faint image brought out by the streetlamps.
Acknowledged, finally, it was with him as it had always been. An eyeless misty parasite clinging to his back, long fingers like ropes, smiling like the waxing moon. It felt heavy. It felt natural. A weight he’d grown comfortable with.
“You’ve been using me,” Harry said.
“I’ve been protecting you,” Harry said. He clapped a hand over his mouth. It laughed through him.
“I could stop,” Harry said.
The figure’s head tilted, and so did Harry’s, his smile sweetening. “You won’t. You like what I’ve made you, my dear. The fear. The love. The applause. You made your name off all the ones I hollowed out. We’re a team, you and I.”
He wanted to tell it no.
But when his phone started to ring, he picked it up, and with his own voice, he answered, “Harry Leitner.” He was calm. “The man spirits fear.”
The shadow behind him grinned, insubstantial drool stringing down its chin.
And Harry knew what would sate them both.
| EXHIBIT FOUR: Return to the Introduction and Guide | Proceed to the next Gallery One: Barnacles attraction, “Christmas Angel“ |