Deliver Us from Evil Read Online Free PDF Page A

mirror, or upside down. Their writing is often crooked, as if a right-handed person were using her left hand. Strange writings, sometimes using obscenities, profanities about God, or phrases from obscure languages are also a hallmark of oppression. In this case, the demon’s deliberately ambiguous scrawl was a symbolic way of blowing more smoke and increasing Gabby’s confusion.
    The housewife, who clearly was still enthralled with Virginia, eagerly offered to show Joe the marked-up map so he could try to divine whatever hidden meaning it held. My partner shook his head: He wasn’t there to decode demonic messages or give the evil power in this house any unnecessary recognition.
    It was time to clue these people in. “Gabby, let’s get one thing straight. We’re not going to call this spirit ‘Virginia’ anymore, because it doesn’t deserve a human name. This isn’t a human spirit or ghost—it’s a demon.” After Joe explained the nature of these spirits, he began to debunk the demon’s tale. “This wedding story is a lot of crap to snare you through empathy and make a psychic connection with your lives. From now on, when we talk about anything this spirit provoked, we’ll say ‘The demon did it.’”
    Dominick’s meek, bewildered expression changed to a sly, triumphant look that shouted “See, I told you so!”
    Gabby didn’t need much convincing either. Instead, she described what the demon did on Halloween, right after Dominick called a priest, Father Williams, for help. “Virginia—I mean the demon—told me she wasn’t evil.” Once the parish priest was brought in, the demon knew it was only a matter of time before it was exposed for what it truly was. Therefore, it accelerated its plans for possession.
    On that same day the spirit tried to lure Gabby to its lair, the basement. She added, “She said she wouldn’t hurt me. I didn’t want to go there, then she said, ‘I’ve dealt with Father Hayes before—and this time I’ll win the battle!’” Even Gabby had to admit that it was more than a little strange for the spirit to claim it didn’t want to hurt anyone—and had only the most benign intentions—then announce that it was all set to kick ass against a man of God. But what was odder still was which priest the spirit named—not the one Dominick had contacted, but an out-of-state exorcist the family didn’t even know had been called.
    In its stuttering voice, the spirit delivered one final ultimatum: “H-h-holy ones must not come!”
    I should have been warned, but I wasn’t. Seeing that Joe didn’t need my help in conducting the interview, I decided to do the same thing I do in every case: Walk around the house and form my impression of the place. I can tell a lot about a family just by looking around. I check for signs of the occult, what religious articles are present, how the home is kept, what kind of books the people read, evidence of drug use, and any signs that might indicate there’s something wrong with their lifestyle. If I see anything that bothers me, I ask them about it later in the interview.
    With my tour of the house, I can sometimes pick up vibrations about the situation. I’m not psychic, so I can’t rely on my intuitions 100 percent, but every human is born with some degree of a sixth sense, as a gift from God. My big mistake, in this case, was walking through the house alone. I started with the upstairs, where there was a recently vacated apartment the family had been renting out. As I walked into the apartment, a doorknob in one of the rooms started rattling. I’ve run across this kind of low-level bullshit from the demonic in other homes, so I noted the location for further investigation.
    The rooms inside were unnaturally dark. When I found the light switch, I saw why: Everything was painted a deep, vivid