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Well, last night was memorable. The men upstairs decided that it needed to be Braham and myself that would show Elliot how things work out in the field. The mission read out routine enough on paper, some hospital was haunted and there was a possibility of demonic involvement. Honestly, if all was as the incident report said then they would have just had to dispatch Braham and old Father Gabriel to take care of the problem and the most I would hear about it would be the next time we broke bread together in the cafeteria. Unfortunately the powers that be decided that the possession subject was intriguing enough to warrant a retrieval for further study, so this mission was determined to be the perfect training run for our new recruit with myself acting as the card-carrying retrieval agent while Braham was the senior member of the force there to observe and provide guidance to our eager young cadet.

The ride to the hospital was long and slow, the mood serious and somber for the most part. I thought it might be a good idea to try and lighten the mood before we arrived at our destination so I heckled Braham a bit about being over dressed. He has always loved to wear smart suits, even when on the field, sharply contrasting my "Weathered Cowboy" look I seem to be so stuck having, and far more civilized looking than Elliot's "I hurt people for money" look. Braham merely let out a light chuckle, his mouth barely bringing out a smile before it settled back into its usual stern look. We rode the rest of the way with little or no words shared between us, only the slightest of details on the mission being shared and only then because it was
important to ensure that Elliot was not confused about how to perform his duties properly.

I don't think I'll ever truly get over just how much things have changed in my time walking back and forth on this Earth, and the huge building that we arrived at for our mission was a stark reminder. From the outside it seemed... Sterile. I suppose that's a good thing for a building meant to hold the sick, but it always made me uncomfortable to be around them. Makes them more... Obvious, I guess. Anyway, we got out of our vehicle and I quickly made my way over to the local police officers who had put up a line around the area. I lit a cigarette as I walked over. (Don't judge me. I can't get cancer and I get no pleasure from it, but I find the action to be therapeutic.) The men seemed a bit tense at my approach, prepared to caution me away from the scene before I offered them the small badge from my pocket. I slipped a small smile as I quietly said, "Cleaners. Where's the mess?"
To clarify, these men are what we call Familiari. They are human agents who are in various walks of life that can aid in the temporary containing or cordoning of threats that our organization can be called in to deal with. Almost all police officers are inducted as Familiari, at least in the countries that we have jurisdiction in... And these men were no exception. The shorter man, who wore the bars of a superior, spoke first. "We're not entirely sure but it seems that a woman, the only name we could get from any staff or records was 'Mrs. Robinson', has been the victim of a full demonic possession. She went crazy and started cutting open patients and..." He visibly blanched as he tried to get the net words out... "She started eating parts of them." The taller officer stated with a stone face, obviously putting his mind far away from the situation at hand.

I shook my head and quietly stepped over the line, motioning my two companions to follow me over. The two officers simply turned away and went about their business. They'd have to come up with a story to tell the general public... Maybe an Ebola outbreak or something... Sorry, bad joke. Anyway, we made out way into the front door of the building and my nose crinkled in disgust. It doesn't matter how long you've been a blood-sucker, you never get used to the heightened sense of smell. I could smell the stench of blood mixing in with other bodily fluids as we made our way inside. I won't go into detail on the surroundings, as the thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. Suffice it to say, there was blood and other assorted body... parts littering the walls and floor. I shook the sick feeling off and reached down to pull my favorite gun from its secret pocket just under my coat. It's a .357 magnum revolver, plated with silver with a few holy symbols on the outside. It lets me fire normal bullets with a bit of a holy bite, the only weapon a good paranormal defender should need.

I let Braham take point once we made it into the hallway, his smart shoes squelching slightly when he stepped on the occasional viscera that littered the floor, his cane making a sharp clicking sound and it tapped the tiles to his right. Elliot walked in the middle and he wore a stern look on his face, almost like he was trying to block out the disturbing things that were around us. I was guarding the rear, watching all the doors as we walked past them, occasionally sticking my head through the threshold to make sure that nothing could surprise us from behind. We walked through without incident until we made it to the third floor of the building, when we heard a sound that we could only assume was the tearing of flesh. Braham stopped moving immediately and picked his cane up off the floor, turning and pressing a finger to his lips to ensure that we grasped the obvious need for quiet. It seemed like Braham's shoes no longer made any noise at all when he walked, even the sound of the squishing flesh was absent as he moved towards the door that he determined the sound to be coming from. He motioned for us to follow and I made my over to the other side of the doorway from where he was standing. I motioned to Elliot to hold his ground so that if the thing managed to get past me, he could keep it from escaping down the hallway towards the stairs.

Once we were all in position I reached out and slowly turned the doorknob, trying my best to keep it from making any excess noise that might cause the creature to become alert to my presence. The sounds of tearing flesh and gnashing of jaws did not cease as I turned the knob and only seemed to increase in volume as I slowly swung the door open. The hospital was a fairly new building and the messy state it was currently in did no justice to how clean and well repaired the place had been before... To clarify, the door hinges made no sound as I slowly drew the door open. Once i had enough room for my body to go through I quickly whipped into the room, relying on my supernatural reflexes to flow me through the opening while still making a minimum of noise. No matter how long I have been the way I am, no matter how long I have found my tongue enjoying the taste of human blood, I have never found myself become used to the sight of an open wound. This... Thing was standing over what used to be a patient in the hospital room. The body was torn asunder, one limb held in the creature's hand as its grotesque mouth gnawed on the broken appendage.

If I had not been told that this creature had once been a human, I would never have even recognized it as having been one. Its arms were unnaturally long and thin and the bones seemed to stretch out past the ends of the fingers to serve as claws. It was hunched over but I could tell that this beast would be taller than I was if it were to stand up to its full height. Its skull was misshapen and animal-like, its mouth stretching farther than it logically should have. Its legs were in much the same shape as its arms, only they were folded underneath and harder for me to see. I thank God above that somehow it had managed to keep the hospital gown on over its misshapen torso so that I would not be forced to look upon any more of the thing. I raised my gun and pulled back the hammer until it set in place silently, just as I had designed it to. I will be the first to admit that in some regards I am an idiot. I found myself unable to simply pull the trigger and kill the beast where it was and completely violate my orders, Braham would back me up if hell was rained down and I should have known that the thing that could paint the halls in such a way was nothing good for experimenting or otherwise, but instead I found myself opening my mouth and asking quietly and quizzically, "Mrs Robinson?"

The thing quickly stood, as hunched as it was, and turned towards me in less than a second. It was at this point that I realized that its legs had been bent backwards underneath itself like some unholy bird, but it had no kneecap on either side of the leg which would lend it to bending the joint in either direction. My eyes work a bit more quickly and efficiently than human eyes do, so I had ample time to take in all of these details and fire off a shot towards the thing's leg. It shrieked as the bullet passed through its flesh, but it didn't seem to slow the beast down whatsoever. It jumped from the bed much quicker than I had anticipated and it grasped me with its bony fingers and flung me away from the door. It did not bother to stop and attack me further, I imagine because it was not used to its prey fighting back. Unfortunately for the creature, trying to make its way through the door only resulted in a loud metallic ring from Braham smacking the thing in the head with his cane. The thing shrieked again and tore its way down the hallway at an unnervingly fast pace. I managed to gain my footing and run out into the hallway just in time to see Elliot grab the thing with his bare hands and throw it unceremoniously to the ground. It kicked and screeched, but that only seemed to fuel the fire in my new protege's eyes as he proceeded to rain blow after blow upon the twisted creature. I was about to step forward and tell the kid to lay off before there was nothing left to bring back to H.Q. when the beast seemed to sense the perfect moment to wrestle free from his grip and crawl down the hallway at an astonishing speed. Braham and I ran down the hallway after it, Elliot joining in with us as we passed him. We managed to get through the doorway to the stairwell just behind the thing and we saw it leap up the stairs as quickly as it could. I let off one more shot at the thing before it got completely out of sight and smiled slightly as I heard it screech in pain before it slammed through another door.

I turned my head and looked at Braham who had closed his eyes in a look of concentration. "How high up would you say it went?" I asked him, dropping the pretense of silence for the moment. He frowned and turned to me. "Top floor, just before the roof." He said, his thick Scottish accent and deep voice providing a sort of calming effect. "Good. I wish I could have a werewolf on my team all the time." I quipped as I began running up the stairs.

Elliot merely shook his head as he proceeded up after me. "Shouldn't we worry about having to deal with this thing out in the open?" He asked, speaking directly to me for what seemed like the first time. "Nah, not really. We put up mandatory no-fly zones over places where fighting on rooftop might become a necessity. Honestly, going out there would be a death-wish for that thing. I operate best in open spaces." I laughed slightly, never losing my pace on the stairs. I could practically feel Braham shaking his head at my attitude, but that only served to heighten my excitement at the thought of filling that thing with a few more bullets to make up for the slight pain it gave me in my shoulder.

It didn't take us long at all to reach our destination, having unnaturally extended stamina tends to do that for a person, and we found ourselves barging through the door that led to the top floor barely three minutes after that thing had disappeared. We made our way through the hallway at a brisk pace, keeping our ears open as we quickly checked every door that we came across, but it seemed that the thing did our job for us. As we approached the end of the first hallway we heard a sound that seemed like a woman crying. I was not fooled by the fairly obvious ploy, so I motioned to Braham and Elliot to join me as I quickly and quietly made my way through the already open door.

I saw the creature sitting down, huddled in the corner across the room from me, doing its best to hide its true nature from view of the door. I could sense that it was waiting for one of us to walk over and ask what was wrong, so that it could lunge out and hopefully overpower us. I chose to disappoint the creature and I took aim and quickly delivered a bullet into each of its shoulders, producing a familiar inhuman screech of pain as it seemed to instantly stand up to its full height and lunge in my direction. I would likely have been seriously hurt had Braham not acted in the way that he tends to act. I do not know if he had drawn the sword from his cane before we had entered the room or if he had pulled it at the exact moment the creature had lunged at me. Either way, my eyes were greeted with the sight of the beast's arms falling to the ground on either side of the beast before the man in the suit turned and drove his silver sword deep into the creature's chest, ending its unholy perversion of life.

Braham wiped the blood from his sword and placed it back into his cane quickly before he produced a Bible from his pocket and began reading prayers over the broken body of the thing on the ground, ensuring that it would not be able to try and get up after what we had done. Assuming that Braham had the rest covered, I stepped out of the room and lit another cigarette in the hall. Elliot stepped out next to me and leaned on a relatively clean section of wall. We didn't share any words, but it was understood at this point that he was going to be my new partner. It was the sort of unspoken connection that two unnatural men share when they both spilled the blood of a freakish nightmare creature on their first outing as allies. Or that's how I like to think of it, at least.

Anyway, I think I'll end this entry here for now. Agent S has been hounding me to finish the paperwork on the mission and I just get tired of finding his cryptic notes everywhere whenever he wants something from me. Maybe next time I'll detail some of my work under him in the surveillance branch. Stay safe.