Little Flame of the Lion
Hoooooonk.
The bus pulled away from the retreat grounds. It carried the children, along with the deacons supervising them and a handful of the young adult members. It was late — for now they would return to the church, and the children would be handed back to their parents only after sunrise.
By the time the bus slipped from view, the pastor was calling to the deaconess standing beside him, his voice coming out like a groan.
"…Deaconess."
"Please pray, Pastor."
At her words the pastor nodded heavily, then called the remaining members of the young adults' group to him.
"O God our Father in heaven. Your little lamb is suffering, and so…"
While they began to pray, Shin Yo-sep worked with Kang Hyeong-seok to bind Oh Ju-yeong's arms and legs to the frame of the bed.
Zzip!
The cable ties cinching her wrists and ankles were ones Shin Yo-sep had brought along.
Clunk.
He hung the crucifix on the wall, readied the holy water and the Bible, then let his gaze slide over to Kang Hyeong-seok.
"What do you see?"
The question wasn't about Oh Ju-yeong. It asked whether anything else showed itself to Hyeong-seok's Yeongan — his spiritual eye.
Jrrrring!
Hyeong-seok shook the sacred shaman bells and, eyes fixed on Ju-yeong, began to recite the sutra of summoning spirits.
⟨ SUTRA OF SUMMONING SPIRITS ⟩
"By the Sutra of Summoning Spirits, I set forth my vow:
Divine General of the Six Paths, Divine General of the Six Jia,
Divine General of the Mystical Gate, Divine General of the Eight Gates,
Divine Generals of the Five Directions and the Five Spirits,
Warden of the Art of War of the Six Paths,
Divine General of Samak — and Gayu, of the Original Fate."
And then—
"HRAAAAAAGH!"
Oh Ju-yeong flung her jaws wide and roared at Kang Hyeong-seok like a beast of prey. Glistening eyes rolling white. A mouth stretched so far the fangs beneath showed. And tears streaming down her cheeks.
Jring.
Hyeong-seok paused for the space of a breath, then shook the bells again and carried the verse onward.
"When the Divine Generals of the Emperor's Terrace array their formations to the four directions —
in the East: the Eight Gates, and the Golden Warden Formation."
Shin Yo-sep, likewise unable to stand idle, made the sign of the cross and recited his prayer.
"In the South: the Single-Line General's Formation. In the West: the Formation of Six Harmonies.
In the North: the Eight Banners, the Eight Gates, the Golden Warden Formation.
And beyond the Single-Line General's Formation, I humbly array the Gates of Life and Death."
A prayer and a chant. Two voices that should never have been able to coexist — and yet the hearts driving them were, unmistakably, one. A life had to be saved.
Yo-sep's prayer had ended, but Hyeong-seok's verse ran on a little longer. Only when the last line of the summoning sutra had faded did he push out a slow breath and shake his head.
"This one's vicious."
"How many?" Yo-sep asked, drawing his notebook from his pocket.
"One."
Having jotted down a memo, Yo-sep mouthed something silently, lips barely moving. Judging by his face, it was nothing kind.
"Can you resolve it?"
"There's some deep emotion tangled up in this one. I don't think it'll be easy."
How had it come to this? The yeong-ga's mouth, its eyes, its ears — all sealed shut. Sealed by the demon.
"…Is this kind of thing common?"
"Bumaja — the possessed — are by no means rare."
"What?"
The question had leapt out of him in surprise, but Yo-sep only wiped the tears from Ju-yeong's face, perfectly calm.
"HAAAAAAAGH!"
In an instant Ju-yeong lunged to bite his finger clean through — but Yo-sep, with the ease of a man long used to this, pressed down hard on her forehead. Then he drew his hand back and wiped the tears from his fingers.
"In Italy alone, half a million a year."
"What the—"
Kang Hyeong-seok's face had gone rigid at the absurd figure.
"A fair number of those are baseless fear, granted — but bumaja arise all the same, steadily. Ninety percent are women and minors. It's a common thing. And a tragic one."
Perhaps it was because the numbers had been laid out so plainly. The thought struck Hyeong-seok all at once: right now, somewhere on this earth, this very thing was happening. Were they, too, receiving someone's help? Was there anyone beside them, willing to reach out a hand?
"Demons are fine actors. So don't be fooled."
"I know."
Jrrrring!
He shook the bells again — and just then the door shuddered under a heavy pounding.
"Haah."
Hyeong-seok gestured for Yo-sep to watch Ju-yeong, then twisted the handle and opened the door. Beyond it stood the deaconess and a broad-shouldered male student in a tracksuit.
"Um…"
Before the deaconess could get another word out, Hyeong-seok stepped into the corridor and shut the door behind him. However fast he moved, the young man's gaze stayed snagged on Ju-yeong through the narrowing gap.
"What is it?"
Hyeong-seok asked in a low voice, and the deaconess trembled, hands clasped tight at her chest as though in prayer.
"I-is sh-she going to be all right?"
After all that, just to ask that? His brow creased for an instant, but Hyeong-seok gave a short shake of his head. He had meant only to clear his mind — but the student and the deaconess, taking it the wrong way, went gray-faced at once.
"No. I just felt dizzy for a moment, that's all."
"Oh… oh, I see."
"More to the point — let's talk for a moment."
The deaconess nodded deeply and, with the student in tow, moved off toward the back entrance rather than the front. A thirst had crept up on him, and a vending machine stood there, but somehow a large moth lay dead inside the glass, and his hand never made it to the buttons.
"And the pastor?"
"He's still praying over by the front doors."
Lips pressed into a firm line, Hyeong-seok nodded, then turned his eyes to the student.
"Are you acquainted with that student?"
"H-he's a friend from our church."
The guileless answer made it plain — this was a boy who had only just crossed into adulthood.
"If you want an explanation, I can give you one. But I have no interest in a religious argument."
The student answered first, with a nod, and the deaconess's quiet "Yes" trailed after it.
"A ghost and a demon. Both of them are clinging to her."
"Oh… oh dear, oh dear God."
The deaconess's face turned chalk-white. The student's simply froze — the look of a man who could not make himself believe this was real.
What is this? That reaction…
Hearing words like these, most people would look like the student. But the deaconess seemed to take it straight, as simple fact — and Hyeong-seok's attention swung to her, his gaze following.
"…!"
Meeting the deaconess's widened eyes, Hyeong-seok swallowed a silent sigh. As he'd thought — this woman knew something.
"What happened back then?"
"Well, it's… it's…"
"You have to tell me."
Neither the yeong-ga nor Ju-yeong could speak. In moments like this, information could only be wrung from someone who knew what had happened. Only then could he settle the yeong-ga's grievance and deal with the demon. Only then could Yo-sep save Ju-yeong.
"Sh-she was my older cousin."
"…Pardon?"
Hyeong-seok's gaze snapped to her. The retreat center — a place with no connection to him whatsoever — suddenly felt as though it had reached across fifteen years to take hold of him.
"Her name… maybe, maybe it was…"
Just as the deaconess clutched her head, groping for the old memory—
"Oh Gyeong-ju."
Hyeong-seok spoke the name that had flashed through his mind.
"Th-that's right! That's it!"
Under the deaconess's stunned, wide-eyed stare, Hyeong-seok went on, his gaze resting on the room where Yo-sep and Ju-yeong were.
"What happened to her? To Oh Gyeong-ju?"
"It's… it's just…"
"Please tell me."
Though his eyes were elsewhere, he put real force into his voice, so that his heart would reach her all the same.
"Nnngh!"
The deaconess snatched in a breath and screwed her eyes shut — then wrung out a low, sunken voice.
"She died."
"…Haah."
So she had been her older cousin. The yeong-ga seized by the demon.
"She couldn't get help?"
"N-no! There was someone helping back then too. But—but all he would say was that it was too late. Only that, over and over."
When Hyeong-seok turned his gaze on her, the deaconess was shivering as though caught out in midwinter, her hands trembling without pause. Her emotions heaved so pitiably that he held his words for a moment before speaking.
"You said you contacted a nun you know, didn't you?"
"…Yes."
That nun was acquainted with Shin Yo-sep.
"And so that priest came."
"Yes."
Something was clicking into place, piece by piece. The church. The deaconess and the nun. Yo-sep and the demon. Ju-yeong and Gyeong-ju. All of it had felt like coincidence — but it occurred to him now that it might be nothing of the sort.
Inevitability.
"Back then, there was… the priest who helped us…"
Hyeong-seok had a fair idea who that priest was. Even so, he waited for the deaconess to speak the name.
"They called him Father Leo."
Shin Yo-sep's senior. The priest who had died because Yo-sep fled in the middle of the exorcism.
Scratch-scratch.
While Hyeong-seok was gone, Shin Yo-sep studied Ju-yeong with deliberate caution and kept his notes. In the rite of exorcism, a written record was always vital — and it became a lighthouse too, holding the mind steady when it began to sway.
Scratch-scratch.
[ Malodor — Symptoms Confirmed ]
A rotting-meat stench threading through the air. One of the surest symptoms of a bumaja.
[ Dilated Pupils ]
Pupils blown so wide the whites have vanished. Uncommon — but documented.
[ A Beast's—
His nib stopped dead.
One of the chief reasons for keeping records, after all, was to tell a bumaja apart from the mentally ill. The cries of a beast were the symptom most easily mistaken for madness — and yet Yo-sep set his stalled nib moving again.
[ A Beast's Cry ]
He was just turning the page—
"Grrrrr."
A beast's growl rolled out of Ju-yeong's throat. Yo-sep's head snapped toward her at once, and his eyes met hers. In pupils that had held no focus only moments before, a sharp awareness had taken up residence.
But that thing was not Ju-yeong. It could not be human. No human could wear a gaze like that.
Clack.
Notebook closed, Yo-sep addressed Ju-yeong.
"Tell me your name."
"Grrrrrrr."
"Demon. Your presence has been discovered by a human being."
Yo-sep repeated the words once more in Italian, then made the sign of the cross. He dipped his thumb in holy water and reached out toward Ju-yeong.
The instant he did, the corners of Ju-yeong's lips began to crawl slowly upward toward her ears.
"Ignatius."
Shin Yo-sep's baptismal name. From the mouth that had spoken it, an unpleasant laugh and a voice as thick as any man's came slithering out like a serpent.
With those words, Ju-yeong's mouth gaped wide open — so far the corners split, until beads of blood welled up. Yo-sep felt his whole body turn to ice.
Across the roof of Ju-yeong's mouth, a mark was surfacing as clear as though it had been seared in with a branding iron.
It was the demon's number.