Or unlikeable amiright?
George told me that part of his job as a police chaplain is helping people who go undercover to not go crazy and murder their families from despair. He didn’t say it like that, he said it nice, those are my words. Living a lie all the time, the constant threat of death, befriending people so you can snitch on them and send them to prison, turns out this is not good for your mental health.
As you might guess.
In this capacity George had worked with Andrea’s sister’s husband, who I will now start calling Ash, a little while he was doing his undercover cult stuff. Not as much as he wanted. I think he’s carrying a lot of regret over how that all turned out.
You and me both brother.
He felt that something was messing with Ash more than the usual undercover stuff. Something not of this world. George could never get him to open up about what it might be. I told him if Ash never said anything about whatever it was then he couldn’t help me.
I wasn’t trying to be a bitch but that’s probably how it sounded to him.
I’ve come to understand that people want to tell me about their experience. They see some crazy magic shit and they lock it up tight because they know talking about it will make them seem insane. They want someone to believe them. They want someone they can talk to about whatever happened to them.
I don’t really understand it because I’ve never had a real secret. I understand it from the other side because for so long I was desperate for anyone to tell me about magic. Still am honestly.
George said that when started to see some weird shit he thought he had PTSD. Then one of his parishioners asked him if demons were real and they figured out they were seeing the same thing. They had both seen a woman in church who, in the right light, looked to them like she had a devil-tail. Sometimes she had other monster features too but she always had that tail.
They formed a Hardy Boys Bible study group to snoop around, follow her, and pray to God on what they should do about this devil woman. She was very active in the community, prayer groups and church functions and soup kitchens and the like. Somehow even though he did a lot of the same things George had never bumped into her before.
As they stalked her it became clear that on the sly she was encouraging people’s vices with the sex and the drugs and the booze. She had a whole women need to be subservient to men religious angle she worked that encouraged men to smack their wives and girlfriends around. They claimed that multiple times they saw her swallowing live frogs. They also said that it became obvious that she knew they were watching her and that fact amused her, that some of her most provocative behavior was for their benefit.
Clearly this demon was a test from God, like a jealous insecure girlfriend God is big on fucking with people, but they couldn’t figure out what to do about it.
Salvation, as it does, came from an unlikely source. That’s kind of a corny line. I stand by it.
