The Name of the Demon

The vision that had begun in the mountains carried him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠onward.

And yet the world around him was no mountain at all.

It was a familiar room. The kind of place where Shin Yo-sep and Oh Ju-yeong would be together—the room in the retreat center building that Kang Hyeong-seok himself had entered for the exorcism rite.

Wee-ooo. Wee-ooo. Wee-ooo. Somewhere far off, an ambulance siren was wailing, its peculiar lights streaking bright across the night, sweeping through the window into the pitch-dark room.

It was in that room that Father Leo wiped the sweat from Oh Gyeong-ju's skin with his bare hand—shedding more tears than the sweat that flowed from a body already going cold and stiff.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

As he gazed down at Oh Gyeong-ju's unconscious face, tear-thinned spittle ran from the corner of Father Leo's trembling lips.

Kang Hyeong-seok's lips parted and closed again as he watched the man—soaked through with a guilt greater than any the world had ever known, even though he had given that rite everything he had.

The exorcism had succeeded. The demon had gone where such things must go.

"You were in pain, and I couldn't take that pain away... I am so truly sorry."

Leo pulled Oh Gyeong-ju into his arms.

This was a showing from his Momjusin—his Body-Governing Patron Deity—and so Kang Hyeong-seok could know far more than what met the eye.

You did all a man could do.

The rite had lasted a full week. Not once in all that time had Father Leo managed a proper meal, or even a sip of water taken in peace. He had prayed without end, held out against a demon that devoured the mind, and done everything a human being possibly could.

And still the outcome had been a cruel one. Oh Gyeong-ju had died in the middle of the exorcism.

"Hnngh! Hnnnngh!"

Leo's lips moved, contorted and soaked with weeping. No sound came from them, but Kang Hyeong-seok knew exactly what he was saying.

You did everything. You truly did everything. And I could do nothing at all.

Pressing his lips firmly shut against emotions that came flooding in as if they were his own, Kang Hyeong-seok moved his eyes to the space at Father Leo's side.

A spirit stood there.

Oh Gyeong-ju.

A woman about the age Oh Ju-yeong was now. No—if anything, a girl several years younger still. She stood at Father Leo's side with her hand laid upon his shoulder, and he, knowing nothing of her presence, only wept and wept.

His heart twisted at the sight. Why was it Shin Yo-sep's words that rose to mind now? He had said that the possessed appeared in great numbers, and that a considerable share of them were women—or the poor and outcast, or children.

Demons do not set their sights on the wicked. They set them on the weak. And so, now and then, scenes like this one came to pass.

How many tears must Shin Yo-sep have swallowed in his time?

BANG! The door burst open, and the paramedics who came charging in wedged themselves bodily between Father Leo and Oh Gyeong-ju. Then, shoving the sobbing priest up against the wall as though he were the criminal, they checked her vitals.

Clatter! Snap! A stretcher rolled into the room, and Oh Gyeong-ju was lifted onto it. Then a white cloth settled over her face.

Her body was carried away on that stretcher. Her soul stayed behind.

Kang Hyeong-seok watched her standing there, beside Father Leo as he slid down the wall and crumpled—and silently shaped the words with his lips.

You knew. All this time, you knew.

How desperately Father Leo had prayed. How the demon had departed, cursing Leo with every fiber of its hatred. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that someday, it would come back.

That is why you never left.

The demon had never worn Oh Gyeong-ju as a shell. It had not held her hostage, either. She was the one holding it captive.

Oh Gyeong-ju had not remained in this world out of han—not out of bitter, unfinished resentment. She had stayed to protect others, even in death. It had not been her purpose to shield her own cousin, Oh Ju-yeong—and yet shield Oh Ju-yeong was exactly what she had done.

For fifteen long years, on this mountain where no one ever came, she had stood alone through all that time—guarding every other soul from a demon that would one day return.

You wanted to give back to the world what Father Leo had given you.

Love and mercy. She had held fast to the very values the Christian faith proclaims.

"...You have suffered so long, and so much."

He said it to a soul that should have gone home to heaven long, long ago—and Oh Gyeong-ju's gaze turned toward him.

It might have been coincidence. But Kang Hyeong-seok believed, without a shred of doubt, that it was a miracle—that her heart had crossed beyond time and space and heard him.

"We will see to everything that comes after. So please—go in peace now. Do not worry yourself over Oh Ju-yeong. Leave freely, lightly, without a single regret."

Ssssssss. As though a light were guttering out, the world around him began to slip back into its true shape.

A young man was staring at him, face frozen in astonishment, and the chirring of insects in the grass and the deep green of the mountainside came closing in around him again.

"Hooaaah." Breathing out at last, Kang Hyeong-seok watched the moon climbing slowly higher.

Then he swung the bells in one great arc, as though a long strip of white cloth were streaming from his hand.

Wraaang—! Clearer than it had ever sounded, the Mudang Bang-ul—the sacred shaman bells—swept the energies around them clean.

Loading his voice with the cadence of sacred scripture, Kang Hyeong-seok waved the hand gripping the bells as though he were tracing the steps of a slow, measured dance.

The opening verse of the Sutra for the Departed—the prayer that would guide Oh Gyeong-ju to the world beyond—flowed from his lips.

The smell of sulfur filled the air. It was not the Malodor—the demon's stench that seeps from the breath of the possessed.

Shin Yo-sep, frozen stiff, looked beneath the bed where Oh Ju-yeong sat hunched. A red light was moving down there, rippling and shifting like something alive.

Fire. Flames whose origin no one could name were spreading, little by little.

Flick. Flick. Flick. The bulb shrieked on and off, on and off—and with every burst of light, Oh Ju-yeong's figure warped into something wrong.

The black silhouette that flashed into view was larger than she was. And green eyes that not even the darkness could bury were glistening with a hatred deep as a well.

"Ignatius."

The demon roosting inside Oh Ju-yeong called to him in a voice thick with murk.

"You, who deserve to be cast down into hell. What business have you here?"

FWOOSH! Like flame climbing a wall, Oh Ju-yeong's hand rose and pointed at Shin Yo-sep.

"I have already prepared your place."

Shin Yo-sep's eyes dropped to the demon's palm. A hole had been punched through it like a stigmata, and discharge and pus dripped from it in heavy beads.

"You, who can never be saved."

FWOOSH! The fire that had crawled up the walls stretched all the way to the ceiling. Heat packed the room to bursting, and the bulb exploded, showering glass down like a squall of rain.

Shielding his head with both arms, Shin Yo-sep looked at Oh Ju-yeong through the gap between them.

His mind knew the truth. This isn't real. None of it is real. And yet it was too vivid.

Demons are masters of the lie—do not believe what you see. It was the first lesson ever given to him, on the day he resolved to walk the road of an exorcist.

But was all of this really a lie? The heat that seemed ready to sear his lungs with every breath, the flames blazing bright enough to blind him—they were too real.

"Yosep."

And then there was Father Leo's voice, calling his name. So real that denying it took everything he had.

"Jesus, forgive us our sins, and save us from the fires of hell."

Even as Shin Yo-sep raised the prayer, the demon's voice went on and on.

"And care for the souls in purgatory."

Shin Yo-sep swallowed hard enough to lurch his throat. Then he spoke the last line of the prayer.

"Care for the most abandoned of all souls."

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠words were still ringing when it happened. WHAM! Struck as though by a speeding truck, Shin Yo-sep's body was flung off the ground and slammed into the wall.

Stunned, he crumpled to the floor and looked for Oh Ju-yeong. She was no longer on the bed.

"...My Lord."

Oh Ju-yeong was floating in midair. Her arms were spread wide as if nailed to a cross, and from the holes in both palms, discharge and blood came pouring down.

CLATTER! A crucifix hit the floor with a loud ring, dragging Shin Yo-sep's eyes toward it.

That cross, scorched black and burning—was it, too, an illusion the demon had conjured for him? And if so, what could it possibly want?

Drawing ragged breaths through his hanging jaw, Shin Yo-sep clenched his teeth hard. ...I understand now. What it is you want.

What the demon wanted was Shin Yo-sep's defeat. It wanted him to turn his back and run. A demon that had once been beaten by Leo meant now to break the man Leo had taught.

Pushing the floor away with both palms, Shin Yo-sep brought himself up to his feet.

"I'm not running."

No matter how the demon drove him forward with fear, no matter how it shrouded reality in lies, Shin Yo-sep could not run from the thing that had latched itself onto Oh Ju-yeong.

Clink. Closing his right hand around the silver crucifix that hung at his neck, he lifted it toward the demon and opened his mouth.

"I've been living in hell all along."

It was the truth, and that was why his voice shook. Even the fine silver chain tied to the crucifix in his hand quivered faintly—and still he took one slow step after another.

Shin Yo-sep carried a past: once, in the middle of an exorcism, he had run. Leo had died because of it, and from that day on, every day of Shin Yo-sep's life had been hell.

And so he had sworn.

That he could never run again. That even into hellfire itself he would gladly walk, if someone there needed saving.

Thud. Thud. As Shin Yo-sep drew near Oh Ju-yeong, breath fouled with sulfur burst from the demon's mouth.

FWOOSH! As if to bar his way, the flames surged wilder. And still Shin Yo-sep walked on toward the demon, crucifix clutched tight.

Grrrrowwl! A beast's cry ripped out of Oh Ju-yeong's mouth, and Shin Yo-sep closed the distance with her, step by step.

And then—

Oh Ju-yeong's body lurched violently. It looked as though someone had struck her a savage blow—or as though something tearing itself loose from her had thrown her off balance.

What...?

The instant the question spread through Shin Yo-sep's eyes—

"Father."

A woman's voice, one he did not know, sounded just beside his ear. The voice of Oh Gyeong-ju—set free from the demon by Kang Hyeong-seok.

"I will tell you that thing's name."

In that instant, the whole world held its breath. And into that dead silence, Oh Gyeong-ju slowly, slowly spoke the demon's name.