"Thanks for coming, chaps," said the lieutenant in crisp battle dress uniform as he saluted Colonel Fisk, the Fort’s senior chaplain. "My apologies, sir, but this is a restricted area. You'll need to leave your electronics here at the desk. I'll lock them up."

 

Fisk complied. "Good to see you, Lieutenant Juarez. How's that new baby doing? She sleeping through the night?" 

 

"No, sir. But my wife is amazing." He locked the colonel's watch and phone in one of several cubbies behind the desk. 

 

"You take good care of them. Remember, if mama's not happy, nobody's happy."

 

The lieutenant nodded and smiled. "Yes sir. I know that's right. Follow me."

 

The young officer used a badge on a retractable lanyard to open the door behind him. He gestured for the colonel to do the same. "Top secret stuff behind this door."

 

"Secrets are my specialty."

 

The two officers entered a well-lit corridor with beige, windowless doors. An elevator then took them below ground level to an identical corridor. They stopped at a door with a placard that read, "Special Activities."

 

The lieutenant opened the door with his badge and held it open for his superior.

 

The room held several haggard men in rumpled uniforms and a smaller glass room against one wall. Another man in uniform sat inside the chamber, looking blankly at the ground. A sophisticated camera was pointed at him and a bank of computers lined one wall.

 

"Chaplain Fisk, thank you for coming. We have a situation here." 

 

Something about the room felt wrong. The hair on Chaplain Fisk's arms stood up and he had a prickly feeling on the back of his neck. Out of habit, he made the sign of the cross. "What kind of problem, Captain?"

 

"We're an intelligence unit that has some special... capabilities. We work with non-human intelligences."

 

"You mean AI?" asked Fisk.

 

Captain Warren sported a day's growth of non-regulation facial hair and looked like he'd been up all night. He glanced at the 2nd Lieutenant on his left. "Pull up the imaging." He turned back to the chaplain. "Not AI. The intelligences that we deal with are pure energy. Non-corporeal. Some are very helpful. Others are less so. Like this one."

 

The 2nd Lieutenant banged on his keyboard and images popped up on the screens. The man seated on the chair was visible as a dark shadow. Around him flared a bright aura of coruscating fractal patterns. While being almost completely abstract, it conveyed a dark malevolence. The chaplain immediately recognized it as the source of his unease.

 

"Demons. You're talking about demons. That's a picture of a demon, live," Fisk blurted out.

 

The captain smiled condescendingly. "Yes. And no. Primitive cultures might have called these angels or demons. Or fairies. Or kami. We've learned that they've been around for a long time. They are interested in human events and have played a more significant role in history than you'd ever guess."

 

"Primitive. Huh. It sounds like you have this all under control. Why do you need me?"

 

The captain looked down, embarrassed. "Something happened to Corporal Blevins." He pointed at the man in the chamber. "He's been sitting like that since 1400 yesterday. Nothing that we've done has broken him out of the trance. I tried all of the standard procedures, but nothing worked. Catholic priests are listed in the ops manual as the call of last resort. I've been here eight years and never called you."

 

Chaplain Fisk took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He shook his head slowly. "You play with snakes, you're gonna get bitten." He crossed his arms and stood quietly for a minute. 

 

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Captain Warren asked. 

 

"What do you want me to do? He invited this creature into his soul, right?" The chaplain scowled.

 

"Yes, well, this normally doesn't happen. It's not his first session. He's one of our best operators."

 

The chaplain snorted. He murmured a quiet prayer under his breath. A minute of awkward silence passed before he turned to the lieutenant behind him. 

 

"Juarez, do you have the holy card from Maribelle’s baptism?"

 

Juarez reached for his wallet. "Yes, sir." He pulled the card out and handed it to the chaplain.

 

Fisk glared at the captain. "Open the door."

 

"Sir, that's against protocol."

 

"You're in over your head. Open that door. That's an order."

 

The chaplain walked into the enclosure and placed the card in Blevin's hand, facing up. 

 

An alert sounded from the monitoring equipment. The image on the screen started to change. Brilliant white streaks shot through the form of the creature perched on Blevins' head. The outlines of the figure, so pointed and distinct before, started to lose cohesion. 

 

"Blevins, I need you to come back to us. I want to speak to Corporal Blevins."

 

The image jerked fiercely, and the creature vanished from view. Blevins jumped up and toppled backward over the chair. His blood-curdling screams continued for several minutes. The chaplain soothed him and slowly the corporal calmed down. He took the younger man by the arm and walked him into the main room. 

 

"I was able to help today, but there's no guarantee next time. Demons don't play around." 

 

The captain scoffed but was shaken. "He's a big boy. This one was just nastier than normal. Others are perfect angels."

 

"No, never angels. God forbids this. Angels obey His law. You only ever get demons." He turned to the corporal. "Unless you want to live in the hell you just escaped, I want to see you at Church on Sunday." The corporal nodded, and Chaplain Fisk turned to leave.

 

The captain called after him, "Colonel Fisk, what was on that card?"

 

"'A woman clothed in the sun with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.' Demons hate her. The feeling‘s mutual."