#⋮ ❛ the devil walks among us friends i know this is true . › ( v : the capitol )

[qverdia]

@deathprcud ( sella ! ) liked for a starter !

❛ how do you do it ? ❜

abilene's voice was quiet , but the world around them was so quiet that she felt as though she was shouting . she'd never seen the capitol like this the city was silent . she wondered how bizarre it was for them , for people who seemed to have never known what true silence was like . . . was it frightening for them ? were they looking over their shoulders every moment ?

abilene reached up to wipe at her cheek . her eyes were red and she kept her gaze on the floor of the rooftop dome . they weren't allowed on the rooftop of the tribute center anymore , save the dome beside the elevators , and only when they were under strict watch by peacekeepers . perhaps , with the lack of power after the dams were destroyed , there wasn't a forcefield to catch them and throw them back anymore .

❛ keep getting up every day like everything is normal ? ❜ her mind wandered to angus , but she couldn't let it linger on her younger brother or else she'd be inconsolable .

[kasagia]

Dancing with the devil IV

Pairing: Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x fem! royal!reader Summary: Unknowingly, you fall into a trap from which it will be difficult to get out. The only solution seems to be to make a pact with the devil himself. A devil who seems all too happy to finally get his hands on you. Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen's Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~Main Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~ PART III ~•♤♤♤•~ PART V ~•♤♤♤•~

“It's a refreshing change. Don't you think, Y/N?” Your friend inquires as you sit on the windowsill, gazing out at the landscape of Kaitain.

You hum, nodding your head, keeping your watchful gaze on the ramp where the next ships are landing. A shiver runs through you as you recognise the familiar black Harkonnen orb. Whoever designed their ships must have worked hard to even make them look... disquieting. Y/F/N notices what you are staring at.

"Don't worry." You comfort her and hold her hand. "I won't let you marry that brute. There is no worse fate than being Harkonnen's wife."

"It's not that… just if it was someone else. Na-Baron, for example." You tense slightly at her mention of Feyd. Your eyes follow hers, and you notice her staring at him longingly as he walks out, surrounded by his soldiers. You feel bile rising in your throat.

"Na-Baron?" You ask stupidly, trying to ignore the sudden, unexpected feeling of jealousy. Which, of course, was a pure act of stupidity on your part. Because how could you be jealous of Harkonnen? And yet, you felt like gouging out your friend's eyes for staring at your Feyd for too long.

"He... isn't that bad at all. Despite what they say about him. He cared about me there - on Giedi Prime. In their crazy way... but thanks to him, the stay there wasn't so... terrible." You tense up and roll your eyes at her words.

As if there could be angels on Giedi Prime. As if HE could be something more than the cunning devil who breaks hearts, takes the souls and lives of innocent people. As if he could be something more than a bloodthirsty sadist raised by the most disgusting man who ever lived.

"Believe me, it's just a facade. The moment you let your guard down, he will show you his true colors. And this is a far cry from the image of his personality he painted in your head. He wants you to consider him your ally. This way, it will be easier for him to use you for his own benefits. Spying on his brother or something like that, I'm not sure yet. Maybe he's also looking for sexual release after his harpies are dead?"

"Y/N!"

"What? I'm just thinking out loud." You reply with a shrug. Your gaze remains focused on Na-Baron. Princess Irulan welcomes him and his brother rather reluctantly. She behaved quite similarly towards you. Except for her special coldness and malice reserved for you, to which you had become accustomed by now.

"You must know him very well to see through his intentions so quickly. I also remember that as children you were often in the company of him, Paul Atreides and Princess Irulan."

You flinch when Na-Baron's gaze suddenly turns to the palace. But you know it's impossible for him to recognise your silhouette among the palace's many windows... or at least you hoped so. Regardless, you decide not to tempt fate and walk away from the window, turning around to face your friend.

"That was a long time ago."

"But you must know him very well. Or at least the child he was."

"Trust me, he was never a child." You reply, pouring yourself a glass of wine. You don't want to tell her anything else.

You don't want to explain to her exactly when Feyd lost his childhood, when he stopped being your friend and the boy you played with, when you lost him, when the place of the charming boy from Lankiveil was taken by the bloodthirsty, psychopathic, brutal Na-Baron of Giedi Prime. Because only you knew the Prince of Lankiveil. And the memory of him will follow you to your grave.

Because you knew there was no salvation for him, that the boy you gave your heart to was dead, and his murderer was none other than the Baron. And all you have left of him is a shell. The one he gave you and the shell of who he once was were a living and painful reminder of what you lost because of the Baron and Princess Irulan. And because of your own fear.

"I'm bored." You tell Feyd as you sit next to each other in the feast hall.

Your parents, his brother, and his uncle are celebrating with the other great families the birth of the Emperor's (another) daughter, and you and the rest of the children are forced to attend the event until your maids take you away.

And this has been going on for you for ages.

"Act like a lady and don't whine." Feyd responds to you, rolling his eyes at you slightly. You punch his arm, causing him to gasp and look at you indignantly.

"Act like a child and don't talk to me like you're my mother."

"What do you want to do?" He sighs, shaking his head at you.

If he had to list his weaknesses, you would definitely be the first of them on his list. He was always waiting for the moment where he could free himself from Giedi Prime and his uncle's gaze to spend a few minutes with you. You gave him... a sense of freedom. With you, he didn't have to worry about how he acted—whether he was too soft or too lenient.

He could have just been a child for a while—a boy from Lankiveil he had almost forgotten about. A boy you seemed to like quite a lot. And he tried his hardest to show you that he was still able to find in himself nooks and crannies that weren't polluted by the Baron. Mentally and physically.

"To sleep. But I don't have my teddy bear and blanket." Feyd tries his best not to laugh, but he allows his mouth to open slightly, making sure to keep it closed.

He didn't want to scare you with his black teeth—an addition recently introduced on Baron's orders. Feyd couldn't quite get used to them yet. He remembered breaking all the mirrors in his chambers the first day he saw his new row of black teeth. Over time, however, he got used to them, like everything else on Giedi Prime.

"What?" You ask as he stares at you for a few too many seconds or minutes. Feyd clears his throat and manages to lower the corner of his mouth.

"Nothing. I may be not as soft as your precious teddy bear and blanket, but I can keep you warm. And my cloak is... possibly the coziest thing I have." He answers awkwardly, already taking off his coat. He wraps it around you without waiting for your response, remaining in his black military armor.

He knows that the next day he will have scrapes and bruises from too tight armor. He should have gotten a bigger one a long time ago, but the Baron seemed to insist that Feyd keep his old clothes for as long as he could.

"You allow me to nuzzle up to you?" You ask, surprised, as he wraps his arm around you.

Feyd didn't particularly like physical contact; sometimes he flinched when someone's skin touched his—a reaction he tried to hide. However, apart from you, there was one other person who also noticed it. And while Feyd should have hated the Atreides, he would remain forever grateful to Letto Atreides, who had invited him to spend the summer with his son, you, and Princess Irulan shortly after Rabban and he had moved to Giedi Prime. It was the best summer of his life since leaving Lankivieil. A moment of respite.

However, with you, sometimes he could afford to feel your body a little closer to him. Most of all, he WANTED to feel your body press against his. Which, over the years spent on Giedi Prime, was a very rare, even unheard of feeling for him.

"I allow you to rest on me and take a nap. My mother... my mother did this a lot with my father when she was pregnant and had to sit in on these meetings." Feyd says he has vague memories of his mother being pregnant with her third child and how his father acted towards her—before all hell broke loose on Lankiveil, when he could still be... normal.

"But I am not pregnant. And we are not married." You point it out maliciously, but your head is already falling onto his shoulder. You wrap your hand around his waist and snuggle into him. Feyd suppresses a blush as you unconsciously nuzzle his neck and inhale his scent. You were too innocent to know what it did, and he was too tainted for his body not to react to it. Despite everything, he controls himself and holds you, making sure you don't fall out of your chair.

"But you are tired, aren't you?" He hums against your ear, fully aware that you're about to drift off into his arms. And that he would rather kill himself than let anyone take you away from him.

"I am. And I also never miss a chance to hug you, my grumpy Na-Baron." He furrows his hairless eyebrows, unconsciously tracing patterns on your arm with his finger. He relaxes, seeing that his uncle has left the party. So did the young servant who served him. A shiver runs through him, but he ignores it. His focus is on you. On your slow breathing, on your smell, on your warmth, on how perfect you feel next to him, as if you were his missing half. And Feyd allows himself to believe for a moment that this may be the case—that you are truly written in the stars for him.

"I am not grumpy." He says, rolling his eyes at your taunt and completely ignoring Princess Irulan's glare from across the room.

"You are. Like those funny green creature from Paul's book. You know, the old one with weird pictures."

If Feyd could, he would forbid you from meeting Atreides. Unfortunately, your parents seemed to insist on this special closeness to this family. And you loved reading. Same as Paul. Feyd's only consolation was that when Atreides didn't have a book in his hand, he lost any interest in you. Unlike him. He had your attention, regardless of what he was doing or what he might be giving you at that moment.

"Sleep." He mumbles and presses a kiss to your tample.

"Don't tell me what to do. I am not your wife." You mumble, half asleep, but you give in to him anyway and fall asleep on him. You press your cheek against his shoulder, and he begins to worry that his hard armour might accidentally leave a scratch on your cheek. He gently lifts your head and places his hand under your cheek to make sure you don't feel any sharp, protruding metal decorations.

"You are not... but you will be." He promises, fully convinced that you're already asleep and don't hear his little promise. He tightens his hand around you and listens to your calm breathing and heartbeat, wishing that he could listen to this beautiful music every day. Not only during boring balls that you both hate.

You sigh, wiping the sweat from your forehead. Your maid gives you a horrified look as you lunge at the mannequin in the training room. Stabbing the puppet several times with your blade, taking out your frustration and energy on him.

When you feel the air moving behind you and the added presence, you don't hesitate. You turn around, your blade colliding with Feyd's, and glare at him in response to his cocky smirk.

"I see that old habits die hard. Why don't you accept a real challenge instead of taking out your anger at this motionless pile of threads?"

"Why don't you do it instead of tormenting Atreides' drugged soldiers? At least I don't get dirty while playing with my motionless pile. Not like you." You say, stepping away from him. You let the hand with your dagger fall as you walk over to the table for a drink of water. You freeze, feeling the cool tip of his steel against your throat.

"How many times have I told you not to turn your back on your opponent? Besides..." He steps closer, his chest pressing against your back as he leans in to whisper in your ear. "Did you have the same fun with my harpies? Didn't you want to get dirty, and that's why you chose poison to kill them? And you accuse me of being a bloodthirsty, jealous beast... I guess we're more alike than you want to admit, my little, beautiful, dangerous, jealous swan."

"I… I have no idea what you're talking about." You whisper, tensing in his arms. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that you're alone in the room. He must have gotten your maid out of there somehow. You suddenly feel very vulnerable.

"You do not have? And that's funny. So why did I find a poison in your things the day after they died and just before your departure?" You frown and push his hand with the blade away from you. You turn to look him in the eye, too surprised by his accusation to do anything but say the truth.

"I have no idea. Whatever happened to them, it wasn't me. You know very well that I wouldn't kill anyone." This clearly catches him off guard, and you feel offended that he could be so sure that you took someone's life just because they had the opportunity to fuck him. You roll your eyes at him in annoyance and raise your blade in challenge. You might as well exercise a little while he does his investigation.

"Well… after all, swans don't like getting their beautiful feathers dirty with blood… but who else could do it?" He responds, dodging and blocking all your attacks.

You work harder, jumping away from him and trying to break through his protective shield. You sigh as you manage to get the blade close to his skin, but no telltale shield appears around him. The son of a bitch didn't even put his shield on when fighting you. No one could piss you off and humiliate you at the same time more than him.

"I don't know. I don't care." You growl, pushing against him and trying to draw his black blood at all costs.

You manage to kick him in the stomach, but when he falls, he drags you with him. You land on top of him, but he quickly changes your positions and pins you to the floor beneath him, keeping your wrists in a tight grip as he presses his blade to your neck.

"Do you? Doesn't it make you jealous just thinking that someone could be madly in love with me enough to get rid of the women who give me pleasure? What if you're next on my secret, deadly admirer's little list?" He whispers in your ear, and you shiver as he bites his lobe. He throws his blade aside, his other hand lazily exploring your body, abusing your breast as he squeezes it tightly and digs his fingers into it.

"We have no connections." You moan as his lips move to your jawline. He sucks gently, leaving no trace except a trail of his black saliva as it moves to your exposed neck.

"Not in public. But in the quiet of the night, in your gardens, of my corridors, of the halls of this palace—all these places remember many of our connections."

Unfortunately, he is just as stubborn, maybe even more stubborn than you, and he will do anything to prove that he is right. You gasp, biting your lip, as his hand goes under the fabric of your pants. Your traitorous pussy welcomes his fingers like a permanent resident. You tighten around him, and he chuckles lightly, feeling you already wet. You dig your knee into his stomach, trying to fight back, but he just positions himself between your legs, casually pushing your leg away as if it were just an intrusive, insignificant obstacle to getting what he wants.

"And yet you run from one man to another… but it's my fingers that fill you while you wait for someone to put a ring on your pretty feathers, my little swan." He mumbles against your neck.

You shiver as he pushes his fingers deeper into you, his cold metal Na-Baron signet teasing your warm, wet walls, only making you clench tighter around him.

His hips grind against you madly, his hard length pressing into your thigh as you moan softly, trying miserably to keep from making any grinding sound when all you want to do is feel him deep inside you, splitting you open for him.

"And you… you're pathetic for always looking for me and coming back." You respond, feeling your pleasure building within you. You grind away from him, angling his fingers just right, deciding that since you were already in this position, you might as well show him that you were using him and not him using you. After all, you were always the one who came, not him.

"I am." Surprisingly, he nods, caressing your clit with his thumb as the rest of his fingers penetrate you mercilessly. "And you come pathetically beautiful with my name on your swollen lips. We are both humiliating each other. And we both love it." And that's exactly when he pushes you over the edge. You lift up and connect your lips in a kiss to stop yourself from screaming his name, knowing full well that the guards are outside and could… really guess what happened between you behind closed doors.

You admit to yourself that you loved his plush, soft, full lips on yours, the way he caressed yours, the way his tongue slipped in unnoticed, you loved kissing him. His kisses made you more addicted to him than the orgasms he gave you. That's why you made sure you had them very rarely. Because no one else's mouth has ever given you as much pleasure as his.

In the frenzy of the kiss, he releases your wrist and cups his hand around your cheek. You sigh, biting his lower lip. This is the only warning you give him before you plunge your dagger into his back.

He screams as your blade pierces his skin. Your fingertips are sticky with his thick, black blood, but you don't care. You look him straight in the eyes and rip the dagger from his body, giving him another wave of pain.

"How many times have I told you to never let your guard down?" You ask, using the exact same tone he used as soon as he held the knife to your neck.

You push him away from you and stand up, straightening your clothes a little. He laughs hoarsely and shakes his head in disbelief, still looking at you and ignoring the burning pain in his back. He had wounds worse than a swan's bite.

He comes to you on his knees and takes your fingers into his mouth, sucking his black blood from them and never taking his eyes off you. You dig your fingers into the skin of his pale scalp and tilt his head back, breathing quickly as you melt into the gaze of his cold, oceanic irises and dilated pupils. You can't fucking believe he got so turned on by your stabbing. And that you, too, felt hot again.

"You are sick." You whisper as he lets your fingers pull out with a loud pop. His now gray saliva had replaced his black blood.

"Just like you."

Before you can deny it, the door to the training room creaks loudly. You pull Feyd up, forcing him to stand up, and you wipe his saliva off your fingers on your shirt.

"Michael. You always know when to come. Na-Baron and I were training and unfortunately he got injured."

"Yhm... very unfortunately." Feyd mumbles sarcastically. When you go to Michael, you step on Feyd's foot. You pretend it never happened and join the man's side. He smiles at you, his two-toned eyes hypnotising you for a moment, and a huge smile appears on your lips. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Feyd frowning. There is no better feeling than rubbing salt into someone's wound.

"Always here for you, my love." He says and places a kiss on your forehead. "You should go to the healers, Na-Baron. We wouldn't want such a small wound to do a serious harm to your health. After all, soon we will be celebrating... important events." Michael says this and wraps his arms around my waist, pressing me against him.

"Of course." Feyd growls and nods. He walks away, leaving the two of us alone in the training room, and closes the door loudly behind him.

"He insisted that I train with him. Believe me, I would never…"

"When you will be my wife I won't allow you to do such things." He interrupts your attempt to explain himself and takes your dagger, which is covered in Feyd's blood, from you. He throws it into a box of various weapons and turns back to you.

"Excuse me?" You ask, both surprised and annoyed by his condescending behavior.

"No worry, sweetheart. You are still learning." You feel like he slapped you. He treats you so condescendingly, as if you meant absolutely nothing, as if your opinion was not important to him at all. This sudden change surprises you and makes you even more nervous. However, you cannot understand the reason for his sudden rude behavior. Was it jealousy?

"You know usually women after such a... blunt statment doesn't marry the man who said it."

"Oh, you think you will have a choice?" He asks mockingly and plays with your hair, fixing your hairstyle to his liking. You push his hands away from you and glare at him furiously.

"Won't I?" You ask defiantly, raising an eyebrow at him.

"After my people attack your home planet? I don't think so."

"I beg you pardon?" You ask, completely shocked. He lazily, casually reaches for your chin and lifts it to look at you closely.

Your brain races like crazy, trying to ignore the fatigue in your muscles from fighting the Na-Baron as you wonder if he's just joking with you or if he really means what he said. A shiver passes through you when his fingertip brushes against your cheek.

"I told you. I want to achieve something. To prove myself in the eyes of the emperor. As we speak, my troops are boarding the ships on my home planet. Tomorrow morning, your father will receive notice of the start of war with my country. And you, darling, you will be a beautiful spoil of war. The proof of my greatness."

"You... all those meetings with me on my home planet... you didn't want to marry me; you wanted to explore and review our fortifications and the training of our soldiers. Test the ground before sending your men on my land."

"Your father's lands. You may be smart, honey, but you're only a woman. All you have is a title and a royal pussy. Although your mind and beauty are a dangerous combination. Maybe I should make you my wife instead of a concubine?"

"You… you can't… you won't." You shake your head, trying to deny what he just said. He couldn't just take everything from you, your whole life.

You try to control your emotions and not give him the satisfaction of completely destroying your world. He makes you feel so guilty; after all, you were actually the one who let him onto your planet and showed him around all the places he wanted. How could you be so stupid and naive? How could you not sense that he was more interested in your military and the weak points of your planet than in you?

"Oh, honey... don't insult your own intelligence now. You know very well that I can. You have nothing. No allies, no strong friend. I am your only serious admirer since Atreides. You're lucky I'm a gentleman. I will not touch you until your land, crown, and title are officially mine. And I will give you a good future. You could always end up in a brothel. Don't be a brat and appreciate it, my beautiful war booty."

His touch burns you in an unpleasant way. You want to bite off his hand, but you need to get more information from him to prepare some kind of action plan. You need to lower his guard just as he lowered yours.

"Why are you doing this? If you had married me, you would have had it anyway. Without any war."

"I told you. I want to prove my worth. To achieve something. In small steps. First, I will conquer one planet, then another. You have the honour of being my first conquest. And who knows? Maybe you'll even become empress by my side. Now smile nicely, darling. Your depressed face is ruining my mood."

So you smile. You put on a good face for a bad game and try to control your anger and despair. Because what can you do with them now? Nothing at all. You needed a different approach. Better. Smarter. You couldn't just give up your future without a fight; let him take over your country and do what he wanted to you. If you were going to be someone's property, wife, trophy, or whatever, you wanted to decide who it would be.

Michael was wrong. You had one secret ally who was much stronger than him. But you know very well that asking him for help will cost you a lot. Unfortunately, you were not in a good situation. You were in a hopeless position. So it required you to take desperate, risky, and embarrassing measures. This required making a pact with the devil himself.

" I need to talk with you." You say this as soon as the door opens for you, before you change your mind and run away. You tug at the sleeve of your silk robe and stare pleadingly into the ocean irises before you.

"At this time? What do I owe this pleasure to?" He mocks you, crossing his arms over his bare chest. You swallow, looking away from his muscles and back into his eyes.

"Feyd. Please." You say this seriously, looking around to make sure no one sees you at his door. He tenses a little, hearing the desperation in your voice. Wordlessly, he moves to the side, allowing you to step inside.

He closes the door behind you, and you shudder as you realise there's no going back. You close your eyes, taking a few deep breaths and trying to calm down. Feyd furrows his hairless eyebrows at your condition. He walks over to you and tentatively places a hand on your shoulder, not used to comforting... anyone. Not since the two of you were kids.

"Y/N. What happened?"

"I need your help." You reply and move away from him. Feyd sees you trying your hardest to control your emotions. The same way that even though he's happy about your late-night visit and the sight of you in that skimpy robe, you look terrified and disgusted that you have to be here.

"Y/N..."

"Michael wants to attack my home planet and dethrone my father. In the process, make me his whore or wife. He's not sure yet." You interrupt him and blurt it out before he says anything else.

This stuns Feyd for a moment as he takes in this new information. He would have smiled at the mockery and anger in your voice if his blood hadn't boiled at the thought that you could belong to anyone other than him. That anyone else would have the right to touch you like he did and has long dreamed of doing even more.

"Your duke that you've been parading around with and admiring for the last few months? The same one you hug and cling to at every recent party?"

"Yes."

"The one you gave the right to hold you and kiss you?"

"Yes."

"The one..."

"YES! This one!" You interrupt him, annoyed and embarrassed. You sigh, rubbing your eyes, and realise that screaming at him and venting your anger isn't the best idea right now if you want to ask for his favour. "Please, help me."

"And what I can do? You chose your fiancé. Or a lover. Whatever. What do you want me to do? Fight with him for your hand? And then get rejected by you? Thrown away when you don't need me anymore?" He mocks you, turning his back on you. He pours himself a glass of wine and sips it leisurely, making no move to turn towards you.

"Feyd. Please. I beg you. I... my people can't die just because of the whim of some man." You say, your voice cracking. Your throat burns from the dryness, and tears suddenly appear in your eyes. This is a very strange phenomenon considering that you have been crying for the last three hours in your chambers.

Your sniffling makes Feyd involuntarily turn back to you. This is a bad move. His heart clenches uncomfortably at the sight of your watery eyes and red nose. He wants to take you in his arms, run his hand through your hair tenderly, and sink into your touch.

"You know very well, little swan, that this is how most wars start. By the whim of one man." Feyd says, crossing his arms over his chest to somehow keep from touching you, from taking you in his arms and burying his face in your hair, whispering comforting words in your ear. He had to play this... unique opportunity well. If he won't have you willingly, he might as well have you by trick.

"I will do everything." He does everything not to smile, not to immediately make his demands. He has been waiting so long to have you that a few minutes more won't do a big difference to him.

"So get ready for the husband of your own choosing." He says icily, acting unfazed, as if the mere thought of someone else having you didn't make him want to murder every man who ever had the chance to touch you.

As if he didn't dream at night of having you by his side, of arguing with you every day, of having you with him forever on Giedi Prime, sitting on the throne next to him and being as terrifying as he is.

"Feyd..." You mumble and walk over to him. Feyd tenses, controlling all his muscles, stopping them from making the slightest movement towards you.

He watches your every move carefully as you approach him. The air between you is thick and full of tension. He swallows when you come within his reach and tries his best not to even touch you with his fingertip. However, all his control is put to the test when you stand directly in front of him and lean towards him.

Feyd clenches his fists tightly, so tightly that he feels the blood slowly seeping from where his nails dig into his abalaster skin. The familiar scent of you and your favourite perfume reaches his nostrils, and Feyd does the stupidest thing he can do at that moment. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply into your sweet, seductive scent.

"You can have me. Right now. Wherever you want. However you want. Wouldn't you like to? All you have to do is order some troops to my home planet and scare off Michael's army." You whisper into his ear, brushing your lips against his lobe. Feyd holds his breath as your lips trace his jawline and up to his neck, where you begin to kiss and suck his skin.

Feyd stands frozen, unable to move, allowing you to do whatever you want with him. He sighs as your two long, delicate hands slip under his black robe and caress his chest. His heart is racing as you play with his nipples, pinching them and twisting them in your fingers as you work tirelessly to leave as many marks on his neck as possible. He grunts, trying to stifle a groan as he feels his manhood respond to your caresses and begin to harden painfully.

He reaches for your hips and pulls you closer to him, and Feyd would probably give in to his desires if he didn't feel you tense up under his touch. He sighs and musters all his willpower to grab your arms and pull you away from him.

"You can't just... kiss me, come into my chambers dressed like that at this hour, and demand such things from me when all you show me is hatred and loathing. Don't act like a whore. I won't fall for it. I… not when I know you don't mean anything that you are doing right now." He says this without meeting your eyes, somehow unable to see your reaction. He lets go of you, as if touching you hurts him, and walks to the other side of his chamber, escaping to the balcony.

A cold breeze hits his skin. He sighs, gripping the railings tightly and holding on to them with all his might, as if crushing the marble in his hands would bring his full self-control back.

It doesn't take a minute for your scent to hit his nostrils again.

"And how I should act?! What do you think I can do?!" You shout after him, walking towards him. Feyd tenses, sensing your presence behind him, but makes no move to turn towards you. You sigh in defeat, and Feyd thinks you've given up when suddenly he hears your shaky voice and your pure panic as you try to convince him to help you one last time. "My people will die tomorrow morning, I… I'm begging you. Please, I will do anything, Feyd. Whatever you want."

"Then marry me." He replies, his back still turned to you as he stares into the distance at the Kaitain hills in front of him.

Even though he can't see your face, he can clearly hear the gasp of shock you let out. He imagines your beautiful, full lips falling open, your eyes widening, and you holding your breath as you process his words. He knew that this was the only way for now to ensure his right to you—to make a claim. He had too little time to try to change your opinion of him.

When you're finally "safely his", then Feyd can try to fight for your affections and prove that he is not the monster you think he is. For now, your anger will have to be enough for him. But he would eventually melt it. You loved him once; when you were kids, he might try to make you feel this way about him again.

"What?" You ask, shocked. Feyd slowly turns towards you, and this time he takes a step closer to you, making you both breathe the same air again.

"You have two options. You can agree to... your Michael's terms, marry him and be his property for the rest of your life... or you will marry me and I will protect you, your parents and your people from anyone's invasion." He replies calmly and unfazed, keeping his hands behind his back.

"And be yours property for the rest of my life?" You ask mockingly, almost furiously, with that gleam of mischief in your eyes that Feyd loved so much. This was his little swan. Finally.

It might have been nice to have your mouth and hands on him, but in your case, he didn't want forced submission. He wanted just that blazing fire that captivated him, where he could burn himself if he made one wrong move. He wanted it all... even if he had to gently steer you down the right path—down the altar to him and only him.

"Don't pretend to be so disgusted. We both know how you love some... aspects of being my property. A moment ago you were begging me, saying you would do whatever I wanted. Marry me then. What would you say?"

"I... you know I have no other optiom... neither time to assure I will have any other option. But we also know that I don't trust you and never will." He nods, knowing full well that trust will be the last thing he gets from you. But if Feyd valued anything in life, it was his honor.

"You have my word. I will protect your people as mine. Even better. My uncle or brother or I will never order to attack your home planet. You would became one of our closest ally and thus ensure your country the safety against anyone's invasion. It's a win win situation."

"And how you will win?"

"I will get you." He replies with a shrug, as if it were an obvious reward.

He sees the gears in your head turning as you silently consider all the consequences and benefits of marrying him. He knew clearly that this wasn't what you wanted, that your search for a husband was supposed to be completely different, that he was probably the last man you wanted as a husband, from whom you wanted a nice ring, whose planet you wanted to move to, but Feyd had been waiting for you for so long; he did so much to have you that the circumstances of your marriage didn't really matter to him anymore.

"You will get bored of me. You can't love or trust, not trully or neither can be loved or trusted by anyone else. You know that what's going on between us won't be sexy anymore when it will be no longer forbidden." Your words somehow hurt him more than the worst wound he received. He grunts, clenching his fists behind him, waiting for the unexpected, unpleasant lump in his throat to subside so he can somehow respond to your blasphemous words.

"That's how you see your future husband?" He finally asks, glad that he managed to keep his voice from shaking.

"I didn't say yes to anything yet."

"But we both know you will. You have tied hands. And we both know that you can't dance with them for a long, before you fall." His comment makes you even more furious. Feyd does his best not to smirk at your flushed cheeks and pursed lips. Oh, how he wanted to kiss those lips so much…

"Yes... but you can put chains on them instead of ropes and I will be even worse tied." You respond calmly, carefully analysing his words, looking for a trap—a hidden intention behind his actions beyond his obvious desire to marry you.

"I guess you have to take a risk." He replies calmly, shrugging his shoulders.

"Hmm. Such a convinient situation for you." You mutter, crossing your arms. His eyes automatically fall on the valley of your breasts, but he quickly tries to return his attention to your eyes. If everything goes his way, he'll soon be able to caress every inch of your body he wants.

"Very much. I got to call you my wife and all I have to do is to scare away some lord's family who shouldn't even touch you in the first place."

"I decide who touch me." You say, angry that he hasn't even put a ring on your finger yet, and he's already forbidding you from doing something.

"Not for long I guess."

He sees you biting your lip in anger. You take a step towards him, and Feyd thinks you're going to slap him, but you do something completely different. You cup his cheek in your hand and lean in to whisper in his ear:

"I hate you so much. With whole my heart. If you think this will somehow change my opinion of you, you are wrong. I feel exactly the same about you, and maybe even worse things than what I told you on Giedi Prime. You are the baron's spoiled nephew who only has to snap his fingers to get something. I hate you and I will hate you forever, no matter what you do, no matter how well you fuck me, how good or bad of a husband you are, my feelings towards you will remain the same as they are now." And with that, you press your lips to his, sealing your promise with a sudden, unexpected kiss.

Feyd moans into your mouth, feeling himself start to get hard again, which should be absurd in this situation, but he remembers times when he was aroused by… worse things.

"Is that a yes?" He asks, swallowing thickly as your lips leave his—too quickly for Feyd to enjoy the taste and softness of them.

"What the fuck do you think I can do in this situation?" You growl at him angrily, at which he smiles, unable to stop himself, showing you his row of black teeth. Surprisingly, you don't tremble in fear or disgust.

"I want to hear it."

"And I want a decent proposal." You reply in return, forever trying to argue with him.

You're surprised when he walks past you and goes back to his room. You stand alone on the balcony for a moment, taking a shaky breath and staring at the stars in the sky, wondering how the hell you ended up in this situation. Just a week ago, the idea of marrying Feyd would have seemed completely absurd to you.

You freeze in shock when he comes back with a small black box and actually kneels down in front of you.

"Y/N Y/L/N. The darkness of my life, the bane of my existence, the ghostly apparition that haunts my dreams, the heartless witch, the murderous siren, the deceptive nymph leading me to my death, will you do me an honour of beeing my wife and let me fuck our heirs into you?"

You would have smiled at this if his icy blue eyes weren't piercing through yours and carefully analysing your every little reaction. You don't even look at the ring he's offering you—a ring he clearly must be wearing somewhere close to himself. Your heart is racing, despite the fact that this isn't exactly the proposal you wanted. Despite everything, it is... in a strange and twisted way, a nice feeling.

"You could try better." You finally reply in a hoarse voice, suddenly aware of how dry your throat is.

"I am waiting for an answer." He growls, really waiting for your response.

If it weren't for the nature of the whole situation, you'd actually think it was cute. The way the most dangerous man in the world kneels before you, asking for your hand. You sigh, mentally preparing yourself before signing a pact with the devil.

"With great disgust and reluctance: yes."

"Yes what?"

"Haven't you already had your fun?" You ask, frowning furiously. He bites his tongue to keep from giggling, absolutely loving to tease you.

"I didn't even start, my little swan." You roll your eyes at him and look at him expectantly, sticking out your hand. But he makes no move to put the ring on it. You decide not to fight him on this one matter.

"Yes. I will marry you, Feyd-Rautha."

You can see from his face that he is remembering these words and that he is taking a mental picture of this moment. He takes the ring out of the box and, with unusual gentleness for him, takes your hand in his and slides the metal onto your finger.

The ring is nice. Made of white gold, its eyelet is a black onyx stone, which is held by engraved flowers on a metal ring. It was… astonishingly beautiful and thoughtful. And not as big as you assumed it would be. Y/F/N got a ring with a gemstone on half of her finger. You're surprised Feyd didn't give you something similar.

"There. Was that so hard?"

It's a tricky question. Because, as much as that ring weighed on your finger, you couldn't admit that you hated the whole idea of marrying him with all your heart. After all, you could do worse than him... right?

Taglist for Feyd: @avidreader73

Taglist for DWTD: @iloved1lfs0 @heartarianagran @hueanhdang @barnes70stark @forgedfromthestars

[supernaturalgirl20]

To be loved by the devil!

Pairings: the thief/the devil x reader

Warnings: Smut 18+, explicit, p in v sex, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving),fluff, jealousy, mentions of God and biblical stuff, cursing.

Summary: the devil has searched a lifetime for his soulmate, with no luck. A chance encounter at a lavish party changes everything.

A/N: I’m a little late to the party with the commercial, but hey I got there in the end. This is purely self indulgent.

{Comments and reblogs really appreciated}

You’d heard the stories, your grandmother spoke often about them. How the devil walks among us tricking people into giving him their soul for earthly treasures. That however was not his true intentions, no, he searched for something far more precious. His soulmate! You had laughed at your grandmother, “the devil does not have a soulmate, he’s the devil.”

“Laugh all you want girl, but every being on this earth has a soulmate. El Diablo has walked the earth searching for her for a lifetime.” You learned not to question her, to just let her tell her stories, for that was all they were, stories. El Diablo was not real.

Sarah had invited you to some lavish party at this huge historic home in the middle of nowhere. It was some art dealer or something that was hosting it and you were under strict instructions to wear something formal. If you were being honest you didn’t really want to go, but Sarah wasn’t the type of person you said no to.

As you finished off your make up, you look yourself over in the mirror. Not bad. You bought a new dress for tonight, a red backless dress with thin straps. It was form fitting with a slit up the side. It made you feel powerful, sexy. A car horn startled you and you grabbed your purse and made your way outside.

“Y/N, you look stunning. You need to come to these with me more often.”

“Thanks. Ready to go?”

“Oh you bet.”

The driver pulled out of the drive and away you went. You drove out of the city and away from civilisation. There were trees everywhere, it made you feel like you were in a different world entirely. The closer you got, the more your body tingled. You felt a weird sensation deep within you, like something or someone was calling your body, calling it home.

Arriving at the house, we’ll mansion really, you we’re in awe of its beauty. Whoever owned it was extremely wealthy. Upon entry you were both given masquerade masks. Yours was a beautiful black lace mask with small diamonds running through it. Sarah leaves you at the bar to talk to some work colleagues and while your sipping on your champagne, you feel a set of eyes on you. Turning around you look out into the crowd, but you don’t see anyone staring at you. Suddenly a figure looms over you, “what is a beautiful women like you doing all alone?”

“Oh I’m not, I’m with a friend.” He looks around dramatically, “I’d don’t see anyone.”

“She’s dancing.”

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Well there free, so I’m good.”

“Hey no need to be rude, I was being nice.”

“Look I’m sorry but I’m not interested. There are loads of beautiful women here, I’m sure one of them will let you get them a drink.” You can tell from his clenched fists that he’s annoyed. He turns to leave, muttering under his breath.

“Fucking bitch.”

You hated guys like him, ignorant assholes. Thinking if they get you a drink it’s a one way ticket into your knickers. Downing the glass you get another. This was going to be a long night.

“I’m so sorry, I’m back now. Wanna dance?”

“Ugh, do I have to?”

“Yes, now come on.” Sarah grabs your hand and pulls you behind her. You join some of her friends from work and you notice Jake is with them. You have had a huge crush on him since Sarah’s birthday party last year.

“Y/N, you came.”

“Yeah, we’ll I didn’t really have a choice. You know how Sarah is.”

“Yeah tough cookie.”

Suddenly the music shifts to a slow set and Jake pulls you into him.

“You don’t mind, do you? I promise I can dance.”

“No I don’t mind. Lead the way.” He was an amazing dancer and the feel of his arms around you sent butterflies to your stomach. Jake is telling you how beautiful you look but you can’t concentrate, you fee someone staring again. That feeling you got in the car comes back, growing more intense by the second until..

“Mind if I cut in?”

You turn towards the voice and all you can see are these beautiful brown eyes staring at you. It’s like there staring right into your soul.

“Uh..”

Jake doesn’t get to say a word, mystery man has you whisked away. The feel of his arm around your waist and the smell of his cologne has you dizzy.

“You are very beautiful, mi ángel.” You can feel the blush rise up onto your cheeks. You can’t help staring at his eyes, it’s like you’ve known him a lifetime and yet you just met.

“I have waited a lifetime for your mi amor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you not feel it deep within your soul? We are destined to be together, you are mine and I am yours.”

“I…I..”

He swings you around and lowers you back. His lips trail down your neck and it sends a spark straight to your core. When he pulls you back up, your no longer in the ballroom. Looking around it appears as if your in a bedroom. There is a huge four poster bed and the room is illuminated by the crackling fire. You can see him more clearly now, in his long house coat. He slowly removes the mask and it’s like something has taken your breath away. He’s so handsome, with those deep brown eyes you could get lost in, his curved nose that suits his face perfectly and that thick head of hair that has you wanting to run your fingers through it. He’s right in front of you and as he pulls you close, something about him feels like home.

“You do not know how long I have waited for you mi amor. No matter, I have you now, nothing will separate us again.”

“I don’t know..”

He places his hands on your cheeks and pulls you into a sweet kiss. Suddenly your head is spinning and images flash behind your eyes. Images of you and him, together, in love until god separated you both. As punishment, for Lucifer betraying him, you both were cast out, soulmates ripped apart. Your memories of him were wiped and he was bound to a lifetime searching for you. When he pulls away you have tears in your eyes, “Luc” you lean up and kiss him again, this time more passionately.

“You remember me?”

“Yes! I’m sorry I ever forgot.”

“It wasn’t your fault mi amor, I was to blame for all this, but no matter. We’re together again and I will not let you go this time.”

His hand caressed your shoulders and the straps of your dress fell. With one tug, it pooled around your feet. You stepped out of it and reached up to push his coat off his shoulders. He backed you up until the back of your legs hit the bed, he lay you back gently, kissing his way down your body. He nudges your thighs apart and begins kissing the inside of them, slowly inching towards your aching pussy. He pulls your hips closer and slants his mouth over your core. His tongue searches through your folds, before finding the little pearl of your clitoris. Your nerve endings tingle with pleasure as you writhe beneath him. His gorgeous face rises from between your legs, a devilish smirk on his face. You grasp the sheets desperately trying to anchor yourself as a wave of ecstasy washes over you. Luc entwines his hand in yours, holding you steady. He kisses his way over your hips, along your stomach, sweeps his tongue over the peak of your breasts, before settling his body against yours.

He kisses your lips passionately before slowly inching himself inside you.

“Fuck mi amor……I forgot how tight you were. I love you.”

The weight of him on top of you feels perfect. His movements are slow and languid and you need more.

“I need you to move faster Luc.” You lock your ankles behind his firm ass, pulling him closer and urging him to go hard. You can feel the tight knot in your stomach threatening to unravel.

“I’m close baby, want you to come with me.”

He reaches between you and presses his thumb over your clit, rubbing circles.

“Fuck yes!”

You cry out as fierce waves of pleasure crash over you, your whole body trembling with the force of your climax. He thrusts into you once more before he follows you over the edge, blowing his seed deep inside you. He pulls out of you and you feel empty without him. He disappears into the en-suite to grab a wash cloth, before coming back and gently cleaning you up. He throws it on the floor before climbing under the duvet with you. Pulling you close he kisses your forehead.

“Te amo, mi amor. I am never letting you go again mi ángel. He will not take you from me again.”

“I am with you now forever mi amor.”

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[darylandbethfanforever9]

Devil’s Backbone

Devil’s Backbone

Chapter 5 

Story Rating: Explicit, 18+

Warnings: Smut, violence, past flashbacks of sexual assault, descriptions o torture, racial hate and forced abortion. Not Tony Stark friendly.

Relationships: Bucky/OC, Steve/Natasha, Billy/Wanda/Grant, past Clint/Laura, eventual Clint/Yelena and Frank/Karen.

Summary: In the aftermath of the Blip, Bucky struggled to find his place among the world and the Avengers. However, when he is sent on a mission to Madripoor to investigate a young woman, he starts to realize that maybe his past isn’t too far behind him. Co-Written with WalkingPotterGirl14

Nat was acting weird. Clint usually was a very noticeable guy. He may be the man that never misses, but he was also the man that could read people like a book. And right now, Nat was acting very much not like herself, even with her usual stoic face.

He felt like she was hiding something from him and Laura, which made him conflicted. He knew Natasha's past with the Red Room was horrific, but she was keeping something secret, and had been on the phone to a woman last night. She usually never went on calls late at night. Sighing, he texted Laura to let her know that he was alright and that the kids were settling into school. After Tony had exposed their location to Thaddeus Ross, he'd had to move them to the outskirts of New York. He frowned when he saw Natasha in the conference room, running the facial recognition software. The tech had been created by Pym Industries and X-Con Security Consultants, as Stark Industries' facial recognition software was for more expensive and didn't always work. "What are you doing, Nat?" he asked quietly. Natasha ignored him as he entered the room. She was reading a file that was in Russian. "Trying to find out who this mysterious woman is, Clint. Steve isn't exactly talking to me right now, so I have to do this on my own," she answered harshly, causing him to grimace at her answer. Steve and Natasha's relationship had become strained after she had survived Voromir and revealed that she had been pregnant. Then she had suddenly broken up with Steve, devastating the man. He knew how much Steve loved Natasha. He'd been a shell of himself after Natasha had supposedly died. The man was far more guarded now and simply kept things civil with Natasha. "You should have told him, Nat. He loves you and it clearly shows in the way that he looks at you," he argued firmly, trying to understand why Natasha was acting this way. Natasha refused to acknowledge Clint's words. She knew Steve loved her, but she just didn't feel like she wanted children. She was upset that she had miscarried, but she hadn't been sad in the same manner as Steve had been.

Ana had gotten ready for Sharon's art gallery. She had decided to wear a red dress for tonight made with red satin and had a V-neck. It would partially show the faded burns on her chest, but no one would hardly notice them. She didn't like thinking about the burns, or the agony they had caused. It was better to just forget about it. She finished applying her makeup, adding some eyeliner and grabbed her handbag. She had put a knife in there, along with her cell phone and lipstick, before heading out. The car was waiting for her outside the building, and with a quiet smile, it drove her across High Town to where Sharon lived.

Bucky had left Sharon’s after a little but to head back and get ready for the real art show tonight. While he did, he had memorized everything for the mission, including his backstory and the reason as to why he was in Madripoor, looking at himself in the mirror. He'd showered, and let some slight stubble grow on his face for tonight. He was wearing a black blazer, black trousers, and a black shirt. He nodded to himself as he left the bedroom and said goodbye to Alpine. The cat meowed at him affectionately, before going to sit on the bottom of the cat bed. He'd made sure that no one would be able to break into the house, using the security system to its best advantage for heading out. He left his place after making sure he had everything that he needed, including his gun, a knife, and keys. He walked to the motorcycle, getting on, and quietly drove to Sharon's house.

The party was in full swing when Ana arrived at the house. She smiled at Conrad, who had already arrived and was with his girlfriend. He raised a glass to her from the corner as she approached. Sharon was showing a client some beautiful paintings as she wandered around, admiring the art gallery. She was about to ask Sharon about a Van Gough painting when a strange silence fell over the room as most eyes headed towards the door. Curiously, she turned around to see a young man with short dark brown hair, dressed in clothes that made it clear he was part of the Russian Mafia. Her brow raises in surprise. His eyes though were what caught her attention. They were a dark grey, like a wolf's eyes. She couldn't shake off the feeling…that they had met before but where? No, no way. She hadn't met anyone like that. Or at least…her memory sucked. "Everyone, this is one of my clients who has come from Moscow, Russian. His name is Yakov Surkov," Sharon said calmly, introducing the man, who nods. Ana got the sense that this man was dangerous. "He's a Russian mobster," Conrad whispers to her discreetly as they turned back around. "He doesn't do the usual Mafia stuff, but he sells weapons to resistance groups who fight dictators." She raised an eyebrow at his words, watching the man intently as he walked up to the bar to get a drink. She wasn't surprised when he ordered a Ruskova vodka to drink. The party returned to normal quickly after, with many people returning to what they had been doing. She excused herself from Conrad, whispering that one of the paintings he was looking at would be hers to which he laughed, and sat at the bar contently. She enjoys her glass of red wine, when she got the sense that someone was watching her. She glances up and feels herself smile when her eyes dance across the room at Yakov, who had been looking directly at her. Without breaking contact, he downs his drink before standing, walking over to her. Ah, a man of confidence, she could see. However, as he moved closer, a weird sense of peace settled over her. Conrad had told her who he was, what he did, but coming over to her, she didn't feel fear. In fact, his eyes almost felt familiar. It was such a strange sensation. But even so, she didn't let it show on her face. "You came over her nice and quick," she remarks, her brow raising. "Almost like you're on a mission." "What can I say? When I see something, I like, I know what I want." Okay, now that brought some colour to her cheeks. He was smooth. "For a Russian man, your English is very good." "I've been around them enough in the past for me to know. Takes some practice but you learn to work with it well." He reaches out and holds her hand, bringing it to his lips in a kiss. "Yakov Survok." Oof, he was pulling out all the stops. She couldn't remember the last time she had been treated with such respect from a single man. Surely not of this year, that's for sure. However, she still had her smarts ahead of her, and knew that it wouldn't be too brilliant if she gave out her regular name. So, she instead smiles and states back another name. "Maria Kapitonova. It's a pleasure to meet you." He lowers her hand again, smiling. "A pleasure to meet you as well." He glances around and gestures to this. "You been going to this for some time? I've never seen you around." "You've been here before?" "Couple of occasions," Yakov states quietly. "Usually for business reasons, but I've been to Sharon's a couple of times, trying to find the right piece for back home. However, I recently decided to move here all together." Ah, so he was in the area? Good to know. "To be honest, I haven't been here that often," she states lightly. "I only just recently showed up in the city…had some high friends in some good places so they got me into this big shindig. Sharon is a nice woman…smart one too." "That she is," he agrees before raising an eyebrow at her. "So, you're new to Madripoor?" "I am, yes." "Well, obviously you do know the city…isn't necessarily safe." Ana chuckles a bit. "Trust me, I know. But I think it was exactly what I needed. A change of scenery. Last place I was in was far too cold." The man snickers a bit. "I've heard that the summers in Madripoor are beautiful. I look forward to it." She looks back at him. "Then why did you move here?"

"As you said. A change of scenery," he agrees lightly. "It can be quite cold in Russia too." Ana smiles a bit and nods. "That is true…I've been there as well. All over the world. It's almost like people, in a way." At his furrowed brow, she continues. "Every person has warm and cold parts in a way. When you're close to someone, you get to see their warm parts, but if you anger them, the cold parts emerge, as vicious as ever. But even in the cold you can find warmth sometimes, and coldness withing the warmth – if that makes any sense." She found herself chuckling at the end. "I'm sorry. Maybe the wine is getting to me." Yakov chuckles before shaking his head. "No, I…I get it, really." He glances at the ground. "God knows I've had my fair share encounter with warm and cold places within me." Ana could see a bit of a fight in his eyes, glancing at the ground. He clearly had some sort of past, and for a moment, she forgets that they were practically strangers and reaches out, squeezing his arm. It causes him to look up. "We all do. That's the beauty of people. They're complex and wonderful in every way. If you're not willing to accept all parts of someone, then why even try?" That causes him to smile as well, although this one was smaller. "That is true…a beautiful statement for a beautiful woman." Ana rolls her eyes. "Now you're just saying that." "I mean it," he argues back, but there was a certain twinkling in his eyes that had her smiling. She takes the last sip of her wine, standing. "Well…thank you, Yakov." She clears her throat, remembering that she wasn't here to flirt with men. She needed to focus on actually getting the art she needed. "I have to use the restroom, but after that I plan to peruse the art here. Do you want to join me?" "I'd love to," he answers back with a smile. "Good," she responds back, offering her own grin before turning around, grabbing her purse, and heading to the restroom. Jeez, she hadn't felt something like that in…God knows how long. She wondered what Yakov had to offer her. Maybe being friends with a mafia man would benefit her greatly.

God-fucking-damn, she was gorgeous. As soon as Bucky had arrived back at Sharon's place for this whole party she was throwing for the art, she had directed him directly to where the mystery woman she knew was sitting at the bar. And while Bucky of course followed up on her and began to talk to her, trying to learn her name – Maria, of all things, but he knew that was most likely a front – and all about her for his own case, he couldn't deny the beauty that she had.

She had the most beautiful eyes that he had ever seen, a light grey that he compared to opals. She had wavy dark brown hair that was almost black but had a mahogany colour. She was tall, but barely reached his height. The red silk dress flattered her figure and emphasized the curves she had. He noticed a few men were watching her as she left for the restroom, her hair glowing in the disco lights. She was most certainly a looker, that was for sure. "Enjoying the party, Yakov?" a voice asked with amusement. He turned around to see Sharon had come over to the bar, and had ordered herself a Piña colada, eying the drink that he was drinking. "It's enjoyable, Miss Carter. And I just met the delightful Maria Kapitonova. She's a charming young woman," he answered smoothly as he saw a young woman with blonde curly hair enter the art gallery and go to the restroom. "That she is. She's friendly with Conrad Mack, the Smiling Tiger, Melissa Gold who is known as Songbird and two hackers called Polina Astakhova and Evan Drake. She's making a name for herself in this city - plus she's laid down some ground rules for everyone," Sharon said impressed. After a moment however, she turns him around, looking at him carefully. "Be careful, Bucky. She's not like most of the people who live here but she's dangerous. She's killed at least three folks who didn't abide by the new rules," she said warningly. Before he could reply, Maria returned from the restroom, her bag in her hands. "I'd love to see the new art collection you've acquired. Sharon, I heard from Conrad and Melissa that you have some art nouveau pieces?" Maria asked curiously. She'd loved the art nouveau art and architecture. Bucky takes her up on that. "I'd like to see this art collection as well, Sharon. I have a deep fondness for Art Deco, and Art Nouveau style," Bucky added, genuinely interested. Sharon smiled, as she showed them the collection upstairs, moving along gracefully through the halls until they arrived where it was. Bucky admired the paintings on the wall, knowing fully well that these paintings and sculptures were the real deal. Most of the paintings and sculptures in the museums and art galleries, including the Louvre, were elaborate fakes. "I'll take those and some of your Asian Art collection as well, Sharon," he answered smoothly, handing her a wad of cash in Russian ruble. She smiled at him as she took it. "You have great taste," she mutters to him, to which he chuckles. Both of them saw Maria admiring the one of the paintings on the wall, before she turns to Sharon. "I'd like to buy this and a few other pieces," she said softly. Sharon smiled and arranged to have them sent to her house, as well as Bucky's place.

The party continued going on in their absence. Bucky noticed that some people were smoking marijuana. He didn't have a problem with people taking it. He knew Leah smoked the painkiller to help relive her back pain she'd gotten from a car accident during the Decimation. It had nearly paralyzed her. He glanced up at the grandfather clock to see the time and was astonished to see it was 2:30 AM in the morning. He saw a young woman with silver hair that had pink highlights at the front, and she came over to greet Maria. So she was using an alias to keep her real identity a secret? On that he didn't blame her. If Thaddeus Ross found out that there was another survivor of the Red Room aside from Natasha and Yelena, then things would get ugly. He would check in with Steve, Sam, and Wanda along with the others tomorrow. He went to say goodbye to Sharon and Maria, and found them talking to Conrad Mack, his girlfriend Jeannette and Melissa. "You heading off, Yakov?" Conrad asked amused. The Russian mobster had a cat that he was fiercely protective of. God help the idiot who tried to hurt it. They'd have the White Wolf hunting them down, like John Wick. "Tired from the flight. The party was wonderful Sharon. And it was lovely to meet you, Maria," he said smoothly, kissing Sharon on the left cheek. She flushed, chuckling a bit. Deep down Bucky hoped Sam wouldn't get upset about that. He knew there was something brewing between the two. He smiled at Maria, shaking her hand. He could smell her perfume from where he was. It smelt of lilies, red roses, and cherry blossoms. "I hope to see you again, Yakov," Maria said softly. He smiled at her as he watched her go inside and got onto his bike before taking off.

Steve, Sam, Wanda, Clint and T'Challa were in the conference room with Fury looking over the photos. They had been taken by Bucky when he had been at Sharon's art gallery. "Ok, so I've identified most of the guests at the party. Conrad Mack also known as the Smiling Tiger, was there with his fiancé, Jeanette Deveraux. Now, believe it or not, his criminal record isn't that bad. He sells marijuana to people on low incomes, and he is an arms dealer, but he sells weapons to Algeria, where there is a civil war going on due to the former prime minister coming back and trying to make a dictatorship," Amy explained patiently. "What about the chick with the gorgeous breasts and pink highlights? Did our Manchurian Candidate I.D. her as well?" Tony asked rudely, causing most of the team to stare at him in disgust at his cruel jibe towards Bucky. "Stark, don't call Bucky that. It's insensitive and unkind," Sam said firmly, before Steve could speak in defense of his friend. Tony had becoming very unkind towards Bucky since he had joined the Avengers. Tony started laughing at Sam's words, an expression of disbelief, contempt and disgust on his face. "Oh I'm sorry, Wilson - or wait is it Captain America? You think I shouldn't be unkind and insensitive to the bastard who strangled my mother to death and is the reason the team broke up?!" he shouted angrily, slamming his fist on the table. The piece of furniture rattled violently, and Peter squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "It wasn't Bucky's fault, Mr. Stark. He is as much as a victim of HYDRA as were your parents," T'Challa said compassionately, but firmly to the man. "I don't care. He killed my goddamn mother! Because of Barnes and the man who I call father, I lost my mother, and Rogers had the nerve not to tell me!" Tony raged, his face turning red with anger. "When could I tell you, Tony?" Steve asks. "I didn't know if Zola was telling the truth at the bunker, and everything was a mess. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, sooner. Truly, I am. But you wouldn't answer my calls after retiring from the Avengers and the Accords happened," he reasoned calmly, trying to keep his temper. "Barnes should be rotting in the Raft or be fucking dead. He's a murdering, sociopathic bastard who ruined my life! He's the reason why Morgan doesn't have a grandmother!" Steve's hands turn to fists, but he refuses to yell. He wouldn't stoop so low as to lose his temper. So instead, he stands, aiming at him. "You don't think that Bucky feels that every day? You don't think he hasn't apologized and tried to make amends with every damn person he's hurt in the past? If anything, you don't even have the right to talk, because you've had so many people that you have hurt in the past as well. Do you deserve to be rotting away?" "You want to know everything I've done for this organization? For this country? I know that we've hurt others and we've tried to redeem that by singing the Accords and trying to make things right! Barnes was a literal psychopath that, just because we choose to believe what the Wakandans did, he's out there right now just living when he could snap at any moment!" T'Challa raises an eyebrow. "Are you questioning the power of Wakandan technology?"

Tony sighs and raises a hand to T'Challa. "I have nothing against you or your power, your highness. Your tech is great. My issue is with the current former assassin that is on the streets!"

"Will you two sit down!" Fury snaps angrily, causing the two of them to let out a puff of anger before doing so. "I know that you two don't get along but for the love of God get your damn selves together, because if don't figure out what is going on, then we might have another fucking breach." He angrily waves his hand. "Tony, the rest of your team head out and do a bit more research on Madripoor. Steve, called up Barnes and get more info. And when we get back, you two act like fucking adults."

"Yes, sir," was a collective muttered response.

Steve saw Tony glare at him before getting up, heading out with the others. Steve goes to talk to him but feels someone reach out to him, and he turns to see Wanda, shaking her head.

"It's not worth it," she says softly.

Steve sighs before running a hand along the back of his head, and turning around. "You're right." He looks to Sam and Wanda, who then he nods towards the meeting room. "Let's go call up Bucky."

[flvcr]

— ( harry styles, twenty-five, cismale, he/him ) did you see ETIENNE FLUOR walking down main street earlier? you know who i’m talking about, they’re a POTTER / HOCKEY PLAYER. everybody in town says that they’re IDEALISTIC & INTUITIVE, but have a tendency to be UNPREDICTABLE & DESTRUCTIVE too. ETIENNE has been in town for THREE years. c'mon, they’re always requesting RUNNIN’ WITH THE DEVIL BY VAN HALEN at karaoke nights. well, i’m sure you’ll see them soon! @westmerestarters​

hiya! i am kt &+ underneath the read more is a LOT of info about my bb, etienne. ** insert clown emoji but make ‘em yee-haw ** if you’d like to plot you can reach me on here or at space cowboy#8536 on discord !! <33 v excited to interact with y’all and your bbs !!

𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖈𝖘

name: etienne ‘ marcel ‘ fluor. 

nicknames: goes by marcel, only allowing very few people to call him etienne.

gender / pronouns : cismale / he, him.

age: twenty-five.

birthday: june 27th.

zodiac: cancer !!

orientation: pansexual / panromantic.

occupation: hockey player ( currently injured ) // potter ( for fun ) !!

languages spoken: french, english & italian.

𝖎𝖓𝖘𝖕𝖎𝖗𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

- PINTEREST - featuring his wardrobe, his home, his aesthetic, some character inspo and olive, his german shepard pup !!

- SPOTIFY PLAYLIST - what he is currently listening to !!

personality type: INFJ-T / THE ADVOCATE

moral alignment: chaotic good

style-wise: etienne is v stylish, but isn’t overly flashy by any means. he’s intuitive in the sense of what works and what doesn’t. willing to explore the latest wardrobe craze, but also just likes what he likes and likely won’t venture out unless pressed by another to do so. post coming soon for his wardrobe !!! they say that the cancer man’s clothing is selected to reflect “ sophistication over flash “ but kdgjn i’ll let ya’ll be the judge of that. he’s v much harry inspired clothing wardrobe, but also tones it down with some casual looks, especially when it comes to getting his hands dirty in creative aspects !! but can be a bit on the flashier side as well, especially w/ hockey press and what not !!

𝖇𝖆𝖈𝖐𝖌𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉

   etienne ‘ marcel ’ fluor was born in montpellier, france to two lovely parents, theodore and estelle fluor ( both born in england themselves ) . he is the youngest of his siblings, having one older brother and an older sister, all of them being roughly two years apart. at the age of eight, his family relocated to montreal, canada as a result of a promotion his mother received, which at such a young age, etienne had no qualms with, despite his siblings’ uneasiness.  upon moving to a new country at a young age, etienne truly found himself via escaping into various books and movies. often attempting to write his own and would force encourage his siblings to act his skits/plays out for his parents enjoyment. he continues to be very close with his parents and siblings - recently he taught his parents how to use facetime, so catch him face timing his family on sunday nights. 

   growing up, etienne also enjoyed playing all types of sports ( his parents signing him up hoping that he’d make friends as a result, which he did ). when it came down to it, athletic abilities-wise, there truly wasn’t anything that he wasn’t ‘ good ’ at, and that’s simply because he’s always been such a competitive individual / as well as a perfectionist. that competitive/perfectionist energy caused him to go home and practice a skill or trick for hours in order to be able to come back the next day and whoop everyone’s asses. overall, he’s very athletic, found alternating between various sports offered not only at school, but as well as through local clubs. ultimately, his love and appreciation for hockey swayed him and soon enough it became his sole focus. due to his perfectionist tendencies, etienne is very dedicated to his craft, he will spend hours practicing specific tricks and skills in order to be the best at what he does, which transcends past hockey and into, really, every aspect of his life. 

   throughout highschool ; etienne was a v dedicated student. although he’s a bit reckless and loved to goof off, he was always acing classes and applying himself. he genuinely cares for others, you could’ve seen his ass volunteering at a soup kitchen with his mom on sundays and what not, as well as take part in various clubs and sports ! just SOFT and sporty things. during this time, he joined the ontario hockey league and from there was eventually scouted out and recruited to the pittsburgh penguins as a defenseman at the age of eighteen - forgoing his parents desire for him to attend a university. although he enjoyed his time with pittsburgh, he was excited when the idea of being traded came up - eager to explore a new city and immerse himself in a new area. 

      trigger warning - injury, dislocation ( just in case !!!! ) however, he really didn’t enjoy new york ( hehe ), so he relocated to westmere soon after his initial arrival to nyc - finding a lot of comfort in living in a less populated area. he would commute during the hockey season to nyc, which to him wasn’t very far away, so this is where he’s been residing for the last three years !! however, in the last couple of weeks while training for the upcoming season my lil bb injured himself - not to get into tooooo much detail, i’ll just leave it at shoulder dislocation / joint separation due to a hard hit !! basically he’s out for this upcoming season, already having surgery completed, he’s currently healing for the next couple of months, allowing himself to fully experience that westmere fall !!!

   overall, etienne can come off as a bit reserved, and distant whether that be a result of his untrusting nature of others, or simply unfamiliarity. it takes a bit of time before he feels comfortable to share his true opinion / commentary / only doing so when he feels secure to do so. he’s not necessarily unfriendly, just a bit distant / lost in his thoughts. which varies, as with most ppl ofc, upon person to person and his level of comfortability among them. despite his often lack of conversation, he abhors an uncomfortable silence to settle and will fill it with nonsense to simply avoid the feeling altogether. so, if you ever want to catch him rambling, just making him uncomfortable dkjfngdf. he definitely approaches most things with a bit of ‘ tough love ‘ . he doesn’t mind getting into a quarrel or two if he knows its worth the outcome he’s envisioned. etienne will tell others when they are fucking up, and if they are throwing a punch as a result - catch him leaning into it, which explains his bout of reckless antics. he can come off as a know it all, when it comes to advice giving, but more so because he thinks he’s really good at analyzing others and situations they are in, not necessarily because he’s lived through them himself, he’s just rather intuitive and able to empathize quite easily with others despite his verbal admittance of it. when it comes down to this binches reckless bits, he just feels so intensely that he ends up numbing himself in the aftermath of it all ( especially bc he’s definitely not sharing those feelings with the people around him ), therefore he’s willing to put himself into harms way in order to get a bit of that - happiness / pain, it doesn’t matter to him as long as he no longer feels overwhelmed by numbness. so, if ya see him with some scrapes and stitches ~ mind ya business. but he’ll likely try to drag somebody else into it, and make it seem like it was their idea. but if he is truly comfortable with somebody, he walks a fine line of won’t stop talking, especially if it’s an interest of his, and comfortable silence.

_________________________

𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞 & 𝖍𝖆𝖇𝖎𝖙𝖘

he is a CANCER, therefore in this essay i will..... kidding but here’s some fun cancer info i saw that applies to my bb !! at first he appears to be wistful, sarcastic ( maybe a lil crabby ) , shy, distant and mysterious. this personality remains if he isn’t completely comfortable around somebody. but overall, that’s just his facade, his ‘smokescreen’ of sorts to scare off the world from his outwards persona. underneath that layer ( makes me think of shrek metaphor with onions // don’t mind me ), BUT he’s gentle, kind and affectionate ( if you manage to make it to that level * bell dings * ) !!! overall, etienne is a sensitive soul, a bit emotional although he’d rather d*e than show that to others. likely will internalize anything that can hurt his feelings / a low blow and will do something chaotic as a result later on bc of it. very polite, and a little worldly, he is truly the epitome of old-school gentlemanly manners. chivalry coming as a second nature to him !!

that was getting ramble-y, so continuing HERE. but when it comes to romance, as per the cancer man, the concept of love is a mystery, one that etienne is trying to attain. however, his shyness and innate distrust of others make it difficult for him to allow himself to fall in love. his guard is always up when it comes to his emotions, and it’ll take a bit of prodding before he’s willing to speak up on what’s desired from him. he’s v picky when it comes to finding the “ partner of his dreams “ - but he’s def willing to throw himself into the romance of the situation, i.e. buying flowers, riding white horses, and slaying metaphorical dragons. the traditional side means that he will shower his partner with thoughtful gifts, wine and dine them in the best restaurants, and try to grant their every wish. he will take the garbage out, fix that wobbly shelf, navigate on road trips, and kill more so trap and release bugs for his partner, and most important of all he will do it all without being asked. his loyalty and keen attention to the needs and wants of his potential partner. so basically, more so willing to showcase through actions than speak on it. it’s the little things, right ??!?!?! he def cherishes not just the act of being in a relationship, but what it means to become one with another person in mind, body, and soul.

prides himself on being able to make a mean cup of coffee, likely the worst person to watch a movie with bc he knows exactly how it’s going to end after only watching five minutes of it, he has a godawful sense of direction, will walk in circles for fifteen minutes before even raising a question about it/noticing ( but he refuses to acknowledge it. )

his house, car, workspace, junk drawer, closet….you name it - it’s organized, practically sparkling. often times arranged by color, and / or style. nothing is ever out of place, and if it is - there’s trouble brewing. but, more than anything, if he’s visiting somebody’s place and it’s messy, he will spend a solid thirty minutes picking everything up before doing whatever it is that was intended.

likes : reading, flowers, handwritten notes/letters, deep cleaning, baking, working on his pottery, watching the history channel and true crime docs and playing / watching hockey !!

dislikes : artichoke, clutter, sandals ( fkjgh ), unrealistic plotlines in movies &+ burnt coffee.

habits :  likely has a severe caffeine addiction, although he’s now normalized having six cups of coffee throughout his day. he’s an early riser, no matter how little the amount of sleep he’s received, he’s always the first to rise - for his early morning runs !!

strengths: creative, insightful, inspiring, convincing, determined and passionate, decisive, altruistic, intuitive !!

weaknesses: sensitive, extremely private, perfectionist, low-key always needs to have a cause / purpose, can burn out easily !!

overall : etienne truly strives to be kind, and genuinely wants for everyone to get along. treat people with kindness and the like. he has the best of intentions, but often times that can get a bit muddled with the way he goes about things due to his bit of chaotic energy / as well as his often points of getting lost in his thoughts. he won’t realize he’s been quiet for the last three hours unless it’s mentioned to him. he will do anything to lighten a dark mood, and will sacrifice / throw himself under the bus if its needed. however, he also is the type to cause the dark mood depending on the day. wahoo! his more reckless antics increase when he’s feeling a bit emotional !! but he’ll likely try and convince somebody to propose the idea so it’s not on him.

𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖔𝖒 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖔𝖓𝖘

he lives with sebastian !! with his commuting to nyc for the hockey season, he wanted somebody to be able to take care of his house / garden and what not, and thus, seb arrived.

he’s v into making ceramics, cups / bowls / vases / etc !! what began as a fun hobby to distract himself in the offseason became something that he truly enjoys. ( laughing about that scene in ghost BUT DKJFNG OKAY ) although he’s pretty low-key about it, you can catch him at the farmers market selling his creations !! some pictures of his work can be found on his pinterest board !!

he is a vegetarian ! he has been since his freshman year of high school and has no plans on eating seafood/meat ever again.

he loves fancy wine ~ he’s cultured. 

he can play the drums !!

he collects vintage matchbooks and the stickers off of various fruits ( he puts them in a little notebook - can be found on his bookshelf ).

saves handwritten notes and letters from pals.

he loves to garden !!!! he has a specified rose shearing hat.

HE WANTS TO JOIN A BOOKCLUB PLEASE !!!!!!!! or at least have some casual moments of silence with another reading. plz and tysm.

to make things a bit simple, he has all of harry’s tattoos !!  might add more along the way !! stay tuned, folks !!

𝖜𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘

i am so up for anything!! please accept this ramble of ideas thrown below.  if you have any other ideas, lmk !!!! <3333 :’-) down to start from scratch and PLOT PLOT PLOT !

( 2 / 2 ) - BFFZ : the z for an added emphasis dkfjgnd. somebody who likely has a key to etienne’s house, they can enjoy one anothers company as well as the bouts of comfortable silence. you know how best friends are but kdjfngd still !! whether they are likeminded or polar opposites that just flow ~~ down for anything !! even a trio of sorts ?!

( 1 / 1 ) - RIDE OR DIE / CHAOTIC COMPANION : it would be wrong to say one is the more likely the bad influence over the other, although etienne may just be. these two find themselves bounding into, well hell, ( i guess??? ) together. playing on one anothers impulsiveness and if one ends up in the back of a police car, the other is handcuffed to them. and yet despite the length of their potential injuries, they find themselves thinking of something crazier to subject them to the next time around.

( 1 / 1 ) - GUARDIAN ANGEL / GOOD INFLUENCE : with etienne being a bit chaotic in nature, he needs somebody that is likely going to steer him clear from all the ideas that’ll bring him to the brink of disaster. he’s impulsive and in that desperate attempt to feel again, he’s very likely to bring a bit of mayhem upon himself. so while they may be worrying and attempting to talk his ideas down, he’s trying to get them to go along with his plan. it may be rare that he actually takes their advice, but when he does it seems to be for the best.

( 1 / 1 ) - PARTY FRIEND : these two know how to have a good time together. despite the amount of alcohol they are throwing back and the shenanigans they find themselves in as a result, this is a time where they also find themselves confiding in one another. if you look at their camera rolls, it’s likely they have tons of embarrassing and unflattering videos and pics of one another, in between their sob-worthy confessionals and venting/rants. these two trust one another, and although they love getting wreckT together, they find themselves discussing very raw and personal details. likely the only person etienne confides in, simply bc he’s completely plastered.

( 1 / 1 ) - SIBLING-LIKE RELATIONSHIP : these two have a love/hate relationship, very sibling like filled with pranks, competition, teasing and playful banter. however, when it comes down to it they have so much love and respect for one another. they know that no matter what happens they will always have one anothers back and be supportive of the other. truly a pure content filled relationship.

okay quick mention, ENEMY PLOTS ?!?!?!?!?!? i would live for one. i can’t imagine etienne being hardcore nasty, but i’d like to see whatever version comes out for this. so let’s get it djfngjakdfg maybe they just hold different viewpoints on the world and what not and clash, anything really !!! v open !!

( 1 / 1 ) - MENTOR - etienne needs a bit of structured or unstructured guidance, all depending on what their deemed mentor is wanting to impart on him, a bit of wisdom or slight chaos. kdjfgn he’ll take anything !! 

RANDOM LITTLE IDEAS : maybe they’ve heard of one another in town, but haven’t quite met yet! or maybe they see each other around all the time, but have yet to introduce themselves to one another but low-key maybe in some online forum for the town together ?! who knows some fun things kdjnfg i AM OPEN !

ooh maybe a slowburn of sorts ?! something spicy to wreck HIS and my life with.  dkfjgn we can base this off of chemistry !!! :’-)

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 17: Regulation

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Seventeen: Regulation

Note: Sorry the upload was a little late today. I was out of town at Microcenter trying to get a GODDAMN GRAPHICS CARD!! Ahem… sorry about that. I think you might all like where this story is going to go from here. Oh boy, do I have some ideas… 

(-~-)

In truth, no one present was entirely sure what to make of the scene that they had just happened upon. While they had indeed just witnessed it, there was no easy way to actually explain it. The gigantic demonic minotaur had collapsed and was already beginning the process of becoming ash, something that they welcomed, especially considering the fact that none of them had been available to actually attempt to assist with stopping the creature’s rampage. But that was the very root of the issue.

How on earth had this intrepid stranger managed to actually do battle against such a large for on his own?

While the concept of another hunter being able to take on something beyond the classification of a lesser demon was not at all unfamiliar to them, this was something else entirely. At first glance, the quiet stranger that they had allowed to tag along on their trip with them didn't seem at all capable of doing what he had just done. If nothing else, they had assumed that he possessed some basic combat abilities. Perhaps enough to protect himself. But this… to be able to harness and wield that kind of strength… 

"This is curious. To my knowledge, the Ludwig Family doesn’t have any devil hunters among their ranks. And they never have." Vergil said as he stepped forward, an intrigued look on his face. While it was true that the Ludwig family were practitioners of a variety of combat types and had been for the entirety of their existence, he had never seen one use the type of power that the redhead had just utilized, and never to the degree that he could use it. Clearly, he was proficient at a level that exceeded that of the average user, and that was something that Vergil found both fascinating given his initial impressions of the young stranger, and alarming. Normally he was better at gauging the power level of his opponents. Sirrus had flown way below his radar.

“You’re not mistaken. They do not.” Sirrus said calmly, sheathing his gleaming blade once again. While it was unclear precisely where he’d actually drawn it from, what was clear was that it had come from within his coat, and he had just returned it to its rightful resting place. But how he had managed to walk around with a blade that easily equaled the length of Yamato on him without alerting anyone to its presence was beyond any of them. Did he have access to a pocket dimension of some sort? Was their lack of interest in his capabilities what had kept them from simply not noticing it? Because if so, they needed to keep their guard up a bit better than that in the future.

An almost questioning look passed across Dante’s face as he seemed to take in the response of their new companion. Suddenly he realized that he truly didn’t know very much about him, and he found it more than a little bit disconcerting that he hadn’t really put much thought into the possibility of him posing a threat to him. The last intrepid stranger who had happened upon him in such a manner had been V, and before a few other names came to mind. Trish, Lady, Lucia… hell, even Beryl fell into that category easily enough! How many times was he going to have to learn this lesson?

“If that’s the case, then how do you know how to do… whatever that just was? And where’d ya learn to do it in the first place?” Dante interjected, noting Vergil’s silence. One could only assume that he was considering something, but despite the fact that silence was a trademark of his stoic older twin’s personality, that didn’t mean that he had ever been particularly comfortable with it. Left alone to his own devices, Vergil’s mind was just as deadly a weapon as his blade or any other ability or armament that he possessed. And if he wasn’t plotting the demise of someone or something, he was probably lingering in a sort of stasis, fixating on some lingering regret or other toxic thought. It was best to not let him idle for very long, lest he come to regret it

The man in black adjusted his coat, sliding his arm back into the long sleeve that it had once occupied. It was best that he do so, lest he accidentally allow his favorite garment to drag along the ash-covered ground. It was so incredibly difficult to get demonic ash out of this kind of material. “A reasonable enough question. And one I shall answer. But can we do it while we head back to your friend’s house? The air here had become rather unpleasant, and I’d like to stop having to breathe it. Methane and sulfur and all that. It’s bad for our lungs.”

Nero considered scoffing at the statement for a brief moment before thinking better of himself. It was best not to antagonize him, at least not until he knew how to do it without ending up cut in half or impaled like that demon. A quick glance over at V was all that it took to see that he was not alone in this assessment. The taller summoner seemed to be deep in thought, not that he wasn’t in most instances. But something about the look on his face had changed in some subtle way, and he was sure now that he was not the only one with doubts and concerns. In truth, Sirrus was still smack dab in the middle of his “suspect as hell” list, but now he was starting to wonder if he was asking the wrong questions. That didn’t mean, however, that he couldn’t ask a simple question. After all, what harm could that do?

“Okay, that makes sense. But then who the hell are you?” Nero said calmly but with an obvious tinge of unamused irritation on his face. He wasn’t sure he knew what to think of him at this point, and while he didn’t exactly perceive him as a threat, the fact that he hadn’t informed them that he possessed that kind of power made him slightly uneasy. Or maybe in some small ways he had. After all, Sirrus’s calm demeanor in most threatening situations should have tipped him off as a possible indicator of this kind of power, but Nero had no way of knowing for sure. But he wouldn’t put it past him to play those sorts of games with them. He just seemed odd in that kind of way.

Sirrus shrugged nebulously at the comment as it if didn’t affect him much or he had been asked the question before enough times to have expected it. “Again, I have next to nothing against telling you, but not here. I simply don’t desire to linger here any longer than I must. It isn’t ideal.”

Life rarely was, as far as Vergil was concerned, but he was willing to accommodate his request if for no other reason than the fact that after such a long time in the underworld, the scent of sulfurous gas and the presence of ash in the air around them hit far to close to home. He had enjoyed a reprieve from such foul substances for a few weeks now, and he was not at all eager to reintroduce himself to them. Leaving would, in fact, be best for more than one reason.

Very well, then. That is agreeable.” The eldest Son of Sparda said as he turned in the direction that they had come from, somewhat unsurprised to find that he could still see the road from here. The fountain was going to make a wonderful mess of that plaza soon enough, but at least the piece of metal from the demon bull’s fallen weapon had dissipated. The less evidence of their presence here, the better. “But let’s make haste. Something is entirely off about this situation, and I do not desire to be at the mercy of its wrath any longer than I must be.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Sirrus said simply before following the white-haired half-devil in the blue coat. Thankfully they didn’t seem eager to put up much of a fuss about it, and there was a simple explanation for what he had done. Well, at least it was simple for him. Nothing was simple when it came to his life, and this was no exception, but at least it was one of the few questions that he could easily answer that wouldn’t have catastrophic consequences outside of his control.

(-~-)

The walk back had been uneventful and quick, so nothing of any particular note had even a scrap of hope of occurring. Before any of them could even begin to think of where to start or fire up the part of their brain that existed to do critical thinking, they had arrived back at Lucia and Matier’s shared home, and more importantly, at the shared realization that it would be easier to just have this conversation at the house instead of on the way to it.

“Alright then, we’re here. So what’s the deal, then? How are you able to do all that?” Dante asked as he reclined on the couch. Lucia’s place had some very comfortable furniture, and he was more than happy to capitalize on the opportunity to enjoy it. It was nice to sit back and relax a little bit sometimes. “I’m not that good with magic or whatever you’d call that, but I’ve never seen a human use that kind of power.”

Lucia stepped forward as she closed the front door to the living room, allowing the door to close before she spoke. The fewer interruptions, the better. At least as far as she was concerned. And while she knew next to nothing about this stranger, what was going on, it what was even going on in the first place, she did know what he was curious as to what he could do. And if he was willing to explain himself to them, then it was probably best to take him up on his offer and allow him to actually tell them what was going on.

“Perhaps we’re just asking the wrong questions.” She said politely as she entered the living room and found a place to sit. There were a lot more people here than she was used to, but she didn’t particularly mind given the circumstances. In fact, she was almost glad that everyone seemed to be so comfortable in her small home. It was a welcome change of pace. “Maybe it isn’t about how he did that, but more about what he did and what he’d have to be in order to do it.

A soft sigh escaped Sirrus’s lips as he glanced over at her. Yes, she was as smart as she was pretty, wasn’t she? That was good to know. For all he knew, her intellect and perceptive nature might come in handy in the near future. “Your quite right. I’m a member of the Ludwig family through marriage. Or more accurately, through a divorce. Two of them each, actually.” His facial expression changed slightly for a moment as though he were recalling an unpleasant memory. After a moment, he continued despite the fact that something about his demeanor had changed. He was so reserved in the first place that it was hard to pinpoint what had changed, but something had indeed done so. “But regardless, I do not possess the limitations that many of them do in regards to their power as a result. I do apologize for not volunteering to tell you what was going on sooner, but I think you can understand the desire to not expose yourself to those that you do not know, especially you’ve not yet had a reason. I think that everyone like us desires anonymity, privacy, and normality to some degree. I hope you can respect that.”

Dante exhaled and leaned back slightly. Yes. Yes, he did understand that feeling. It was all too familiar to him. While a part of him did in fact still yearn for the possibility of that being true, there was a part of him that knew it wasn’t something he could easily obtain, if at all. More than likely it was a false hope, but he still hoped nonetheless. “Yea, I get that. Makes sense. Keep going?”

Sirrus nodded. “My biological parents are much like yours in that they are two completely different beings that hale from wildly different backgrounds, but I do not feel at all comfortable explaining who either of them is, or saying anything beyond that.” He said, gesturing towards Dante and Vergil respectively, his casual demeanor hiding his underlying anxiety much better than either of them realized. “What I can say is that my power is a direct result of their union. It isn’t a learned skill like it is for the Ludwigs. They are born with an aptitude for learning magic. I was born with inborn gifts. Mine simply differs from yours due to parentage and the fact that I am not what you are, but the principle is still the same. I hope that makes some measure of sense.”

“I understand that in a way,” Lucia interjected, shrugging softly in discomfort as she remembered her origins. It was a difficult subject, and one that she didn’t touch on lightly. After all, she’d spent a while fulling coming to grips with the truth herself. “I can understand why you didn’t say anything. But I don’t think anyone here would have had a problem with that knowledge. I mean, at least I think not.”

Dante shrugged and Vergil made some sort of motion akin to a shrug, but didn’t say anything. Nero and Nico both shared a glance over at V before doing much the same, both of them slightly unnerved by his persistent silence. Was he being affected by the knife again? “Yea, none of us can really say anything. Nico is basically the only totally normal person here. That is, if you can call whatever the hell she has going on “normal.” But she’d human either way.”

Nico punched Nero playfully in the shoulder. “Yea, what this stupid jerk is sayin is pretty much spot on, aside from me being that weird. He’s done some pretty weird crap, so I guess he can say that about himself. But me, I’m just a regular old human who’s along for the ride. If you need any extra weirdness, you’d have to talk to basically anyone else in this room. Well, except Lucia. She seems pretty cool.”

Lucia held her hand up to her face to stifle the slight giggle that she felt coming on. Nico was quite the character from what she could tell. And that was just fine by her. But she still needed to find out what everyone was doing on the island in the first place. It wasn’t that she wasn’t glad to see Dante. What was most certainly not the case now, and she highly doubted that it ever would be. But if she had to guess, she’d be willing to say that he was here for a reason. 

Sirrus seemed amused by the young gunsmith’s response. “Your all quite right. I’m simply unaccustomed to being forthcoming about these sorts of things, especially towards people I’ve only recently met. But your kindness is most apreciated. Thank you.”

The lovely redhead nodded and turned towards the rest of the group, making herself comfortable. “Okay. Well, that’s a relief. Now that we’ve had that conversation and everything is sorted out a little better than it was before, I have to ask… what brings you to the island again so soon, Dante?! Last time you were gone quite a while longer than you were this time! I know that the circumstances are vastly different, but my point still stands. Did you just so happen to be in the area and thought you’d stop by to see me again?”

Dante laughed lightly, craning his head to one side. He had indeed missed Lucia in the time that they’d been away, there was no denying it. But unfortunately, there were not there as a lovely leisure retreat. They had work to do. He shook his head to indicate that he was saying no to her question, earning him a bashful but unabashed look from his longtime friend. Truly he washed that he was wrong, but he wasn’t.”

“Not as such. We’ve come to return something to you. At least from what I understand. Venturing all the way out here was Dante’s idea.” Vergil said flatly, not at all in the mood for this kind of friendly banter. When he’d returned after his prolonged absence, he’d nearly been shot down a flight of stairs by Magnolia. And that was to say nothing of his arrival back from the underworld. Dante had received quite the welcome wagon in comparison.

She gave him a curious look as he pointed to the box behind her. As the realization of what it contained kicked in, she gasped quietly, covering her face with her mouth. “That box… what’s supposed to be inside of it is… that’s not supposed to… please tell me it’s empty? Please.” A shake of the head from Nero was all that it took for an almost mournful look to cross her face. “Oh, please forgive me for the trouble! I hate to say it, but I had no idea that it was gone. Some Guardian I am… Either way, thank you for returning it safely back to where it belongs. Do you recall where you found it by any chance? I’d like to investigate. Something this sacred just vanishing without a trace and without my mother or myself noticing is worrisome, to say the least.”

V finally decided to speak up, snapping out of the state of quiet contemplation that he’d previously found himself in. “Oh, I remember precisely where they found that knife. If you look hard enough, I’m almost sure you’d still be able to find my blood on it. But at least it’s been returned to where it belongs now.”

Lucia gave him a sympathetic look as if she understood what he was alluding to. “I’m so sorry to hear that you were hurt. I am glad to see that you are alright. I would be remiss to hear that my inaction lead to your untimely death, much as I am to hear that you were harmed in the first place.” She looked back at the blade again for a moment just in time to miss V turning away to look out of the window, mildly embarrassed by her kind words. He wasn’t accustomed to such kindness. Lucia was truly wonderful. “I will return it to its rightful resting place as soon as I have a chance. And this time, I’ll make sure that all of the traps are turned back on. Not just some of them. But I get the feeling that that isn’t all you need help with?”

Dante shook his head. “No, sorry to say that it isn’t. You up to going on another little trip with me to help out again?

She gave the youngest of Sparda’s two sons a polite smile. “Yes, absolutely.”

(-~-)

I’m suddenly very sleepy, and it’s only 10:58 pm. Maybe it’s just the stormy weather. The entire plate of alfredo I’m about to eat isn’t going to do me any favors, either. Oh well, see you next week! And thanks for checking this chapter out! Now off to the comment section!

[monotonemanday]

Our Days Divided - Mystic Messenger University AU - Chapter 2 Mistah Trust Fund Kid

Chapter 2! Just so you guys know, soon I will be posting things on a schedule. That way I’m not posting both fics at the same time and that there is consistency! All make everything easier all around as soon as I am more settle in my personal business.

Enjoy!

Cypress University was more than just a campus. Basically, the small surrounding towns and the all-encompassing city was run and operated by the board of Cypress. That’s why it was easier for the scholarship students to fill their requirements of holding part/ full-time jobs. Most of the local shop owners understood the situation and were delighted to hire the students.

Kaeli was making her way down the stone pathway in the small villa right off campus. The sun was out but the weather was not pleasant. It was very brisk and even the warm rays from the sun weren't warming her chilled face. Kaeli hated the cold but she was in high spirits and nothing was going to bum her out.

The chime of a bell rang alerting the small café of a new presence. A small corner booth was the home of two girls in neatly pressed Cypress uniforms. Sipping a caramel latte was a girl with big hazel eyes and short brown hair. She normally wore glasses when they were on campus. Her eyesight wasn’t terrible but she worked so hard looking at screens and tiny print from her assignments that her eyes appreciated the assistance. Next to her was a small bag with an apron and a nametag that read Jaehee. She had just gotten off the early morning shift at the café. Sat across from her, nose deep in a book was a girl with sun-kissed tan skin and light rose gold hair. Soft and gentle brown eyes. A perky voice broke her from her book.

“What book is it this morning, Helena?”

“Oh, Kaeli! You’re here early this morning. Actually, I’m reading a script this morning. We think that we’ve pinpointed the first show of the season that the drama department will be doing.”

“Ah, so you wanted to see what kind of a role Zen will be partaking in?” Kaeli gave the girls a snide smirk. Jaehee and Helena were avid Zen fans and they weren't great at hiding it. “I’m surprised you aren’t indulging yourself Jaehee.”

“Oh, I already read it.” Jaehee said with a subtle amount of pride. She gathered her bag and stood up. “Sorry I have to rush ladies but Mr, Corporate Heir apparently has important matters for me to attend to as VP of the business club today.”

“You sound thrilled, Miss VP.” Kaeli and Helena were giggling at their friend's disdain.

“Right, VP. Basically I’m just a glorified assistant.“ She sighed. Jaehee was incredibly grateful that she was able to attend Cypress University. Like Yoosung, she was one of the two winners of the scholarship lottery. It put a lot of pressure on her and she worked extremely hard to prove herself but she often felt like the tuition kids still treated her like a filthy commoner. She didn’t like how the scholarships conducted themselves and aside from Zen, she didn’t care much for them. “Anyway, I better get going. I’ll see you girls later at the meeting?” The two girls nodded and she was off.

“So Kaeli, Yoosung told me about your little group you’re trying to form. He was handing out invitations yesterday wasn’t he?”

“He was. That’s actually why I came to the villa early today. I’m going to catch Sam on her way to campus and give her an invitation. Helena...do you think I’m making a mistake?”

Helena was surprised at Kaeli’s self-doubt. “Kaeli what are you talking about? You’re trying to mend an unhealthy behavior. Take down years of dumb discrimination. Why do you think it would be a mistake?”

Kaeli stared out the window trying to formulate her thoughts. “I’ve been friends with Sam since diapers, but I feel like I’ve gotten so distant from her. And it’s my fault. I didn’t have Yoosung deliver her invitation because it felt irresponsible on my part. I think...I think Sam is going to take it as me showing pity towards her and her friends and that’s not true!”

“I don’t think Samantha is going to take it that way at all! She accepted me right away when you introduced us. She doesn't act ill-willed toward Yoosung even though he kind of abandoned them and even though she doesn’ t know Jihyun and Jumin I’m sure she won’t have a problem with them as well! If anything I think it’s the others that are going to take offense.”

There was no response from Kaeli. Helena checked the time on her phone and started to gather her things. “Hey, how about we ask Yoosung how they all reacted when he delivered the invitations? My first class of the day is with Yoosung. We’ll come to the meeting together, alright?”

Kaeli saw Helena’s bright smile and knew she was doing her best to cheer her up. “Sounds good. I’ll meet up with Sam and give her the invitation and one for Saeran. Have a good first class, Lena!” The two parted ways at the door feeling light-hearted once again.

Jaehee was typing away on her laptop working on one of the 11 assignments she had due at the end of the week. Sitting on the windowsill of the classroom was a tall and slender mint haired looker. His hair was quaffed at the top and its mint color made his equally mint eyes seem brighter than the sun. He had a long lens hooked to his camera and was snapping away. Jihyun Kim. Coming from a wealthy and powerful family. His father was an incredibly cold businessman, and his mother a world-famous violinist although, she had sadly passed. Incredibly handsome and insanely kind to everyone. A prominent figure amongst the tuition kids. Some would say second most prominent. First prominent was standing at the whiteboard in the front of the room. Studying it in depth. Silently. Focused beyond reason. He had broad shoulders and midnight hair that lay in quaffed sweeps. His charcoal eyes soul-piercing. Only one man on campus surpassed his looks, but he wasn’t as sought after because he was an untouchable. This handsome devil, however, was top dog. Mr. Trust Fund Kid himself, Jumin Han. Big man on campus, and he was totally oblivious to it. He didn’t understand these weird social coos and quite frankly he thought them meaningless. However, they did fascinate him.

Yoosung and Helena were sat together going over notes and starting work from the class they just had. Jumin finally spoke.

“V...I have a question.” The mint haired Jihyun nicknamed V looked up from his camera.

“Yes, my friend?”

“What does it mean to call someone a ‘man dime’?”

Yoosung choked on his own spit and tried to stifle his laughter. Jaehee had stopped typing for just a moment, rolled her eyes, and went back to work. Helena was lightly smacking Yoosung, also trying to stifle giggles. V was tickled by his old friends question. Jumin and V were best friends. Childhood friends. V was never amazed at his friend's naivety. He found it endearing.

“Isn’t a dime a form of currency?” The man at the board was still questioning.

“Yes, Jumin. People often refer to someone good looking as a dime piece. It’s most commonly a term for women.”

“I’m not quite understanding. Could you use it in context?”

“Sure! Helena is intelligent and super cute, in fact, she is a dime!” Yoosung’s cheeks were bright red and Helena gave him another light smack.

“Jumin. They call people dimes because like the currency it amounts to 10. And when you are romanticizing someone you usually rate them on a scale from 1-10. 10 being a perfect score.” V was trying to break it down analytically, trying to play to Jumin’s mind.

“Ah, so a ‘dime’ must be rare since very little people have perfect looks.”

“Well Jumin, it’s based on personal preference and it doesn’t have to just deal with looks! It’s someone with your ideal personality, appearance, heart, intelligence. Basically, someone you think is the perfect package!” Helena gave her own explanation and Jumin returned to studying the board.

“Someone like Zen.” Helena and Jaehee had both said allowed. They gave each other a smirk.

Jumin was contemplating all the information he was given and came to a conclusion. “Ah, so someone like Kaeli, would be a ‘dime piece.’“

“Jumin Han!!” The whole room was startled by the high pitched voice. They turned to see Kaeli standing in the doorway. “Who taught you something like that?!”

“He had heard some girls in the hallway refer to him as a ‘man dime’ and he was just asking me what it had meant.” V was back to taking photographs already, not even looking at Kaeli as he responded.

Kaeli closed her eyes and shook her head. She always walked in on something like this. She stared at the whiteboard. “What on earth?”

“We begged him not to.” “We really did.” Yoosung and Helena rested their elbows on the table they were sitting at.

On the board, Kaeli observed what Jumin had been studying for what the group told her was the past 30 minutes.

An intricate map was pieced together on the whiteboard. Pictures of 5 individuals with different stats listed, all pieced together by different red lines.

“It’s his map on the untouchables.” Jaehee inserted without leaving her work.

“Well take it down! They aren’t criminals. Do you think they are spending their time tastelessly analyzing you guys?” Kaeli was furious. They were playing right into their own stereotype and she hated it.

“We don’t know if they aren’t criminals. His research wasn’t that in depth.”

“Jaehee, you seem really hostile towards this people. Well other than Zen. Is there any specific reason?” V’s voice was laced with concern as this was extremely out of character for Jaehee.

“I just...I don’t appreciate their attitudes. And I suppose it’s not necessarily these individuals. But they act so entitled! They think just because they have these talents they are gods among men. Just like these tuition students who think they can’t be bothered or criticized just because they’re wealthy and have powerful families! I’m not a tuition student but I also didn’t get in because I could play the piano or paint the next masterpiece. I work so hard and I still don’t belong anywhere!” Jaehee’s hands were balled into fists on the table. She was biting her lip and staring downward. She was embarrassed. She couldn’t believe she had acted like this in front of the group. She had just become so overwhelmed.

“Jaehee, let’s go for a walk.” Helena was gently rubbing Jaehee’s back and Yoosung was gathering her things for her. Three quietly left the classroom. Kaeli giving Jaehee a comforting squeeze of the bicep. She let out her breath and then once again channeled her anger.

“Jumin. Get rid of it.”

“Kaeli, I apologize if this has offended you it wasn’t my intention to be disrespectful.” Jumin had never sounded this ashamed in one of his little projects. He began to remove the things from the board when his old friend stopped him.

“To be fair to Jumin, I really think you should have him explain his research here Kaeli.”

“To me, V, it looks like a witch hunt.”

“Kaeli, please let him explain.” V pleaded with the small blonde and she nodded her head in agreement taking a seat and looking straight ahead as a signal for Jumin to start his presentation.

“Very well. Now Jaehee wasn’t entirely wrong in her sudden outburst. Many people can sing, dance, act, and say, use computers better than others. So I was wondering, what made these particular students so special. All of the scholarship students have to be exceptional in their fields to be accepted here at Cypress, but these students, are a cut above the rest. Just like ourselves. Tuition kids that contribute more than just money. My research was to pinpoint what is so impressive about them.”

“Just take a look at it. I know we didn’t get much done but we actually have to head out. We’ll see you tomorrow madam president.” Jumin and V made there way out of the room.

Kaeli walked up to the board and looked over the stats Jumin had listed. Among her scanning, she couldn’t help but giggle at Jumin’s personal footnotes he also added.

Hyun Ryu AKA Zen Most handsome man on campus (Jumin second most? V?) Talented actor, singer, dancer First Cypress student being paid to do professional theatre Second highest score in the school's history for literature (First belongs to Helena) Has published 12 screenplays that have been sold to theatre companies Won large amount of awards for BMX (Currently just rides a motorcycle - ladies enjoy this? Will ask Jaehee about this)

Liz Paradise Dancer and acrobat Multiple awards for dance competitions Cirque performer. Well versed in aerial silks, high wire, tumbling, aerial hoop, Spanish web, trapeze Top scorer in Foreign affairs Possible royalty??? (Needs further research) New discovery: Possibly a ‘dime’ (needs confirmation from others)

Saeyoung Choi Extremely above average intelligence Tied top score for all tech related exams Specializes in Hacking, Coding, and Programming Started Robotics Lab at Cypress Can seduce women as well as Zen. (Something about good looks but also a ‘quirky sense of humor’ Will speak with Yoosung) Second highest score in the school's history on the Cypress Physical trial

Saeran Choi Extremely above average intelligence Tied top score for all tech related exams Specializes in Hacking, Coding, and Programming Handles all tech and special effects for theatre Head snare drum in all Cypress ensembles President of the botany club (research in plants and medical science doing extremely well) Ladies like him because he is ‘cold’ and ‘mysterious’ (this is apparently not considered creepy???)

Samantha Dae First highest score in the school's history on the Cypress Physical trial (Beating out the redhead) Drum Major and student conductor for all Cypress ensembles Exceptional Piano player Well versed in multiple brass instruments Superb vocals (active in theatre, musical theatre, and vocal ensembles) Composed and sold 16 original orchestral pieces Performed at Carnegie Hall at the age of 13 New discovery: Another possible ‘dime’ (confirmed by my standards but will have to discuss with others)

Kaeli turned off the lights and locked the door of the classroom behind her.

“This...this is going to work.”

[dalyunministry]

Pastor. Johnraj Lamech

💗

Greetings in the matchless Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Topic: Faith Life : Part 03 “Consummation of Faith Life”

Rhema Word (1): Habakkuk 2:4(b) (NKJV) “The just shall live by his faith.”

Rhema Word (2): Hebrews 10:37-38 “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”.

Let’s pray. Our Gracious Loving Father, thank you for giving us an opportunity to meditate your Word today. Thank you Holy Spirit for helping us to understand your Words which are living and active. Please help us to live a life as per your Word Lord. Father, we give all the Glory and Honour to you. We pray in the mighty Name of your beloved Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Faith is the foundation of Christian life. The importance attached to this truth about faith is made obvious by its emphatic recurrence in three of the New Testament Epistles. There are three key verses, which enlighten the message this truth imparts.

(i) Romans 1:17 “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

(ii) Galatians 3:11 “But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”

(iii) Hebrews 10:38 “Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”

The Epistle to Romans talks about the Commencement of the Christian Faith Life. The Letter to the Galatians deals with the problems we face in the course of the Christian Life, and that to the Hebrews pictures the successful Completion of the Christian Life/Race. Yes, The COMMENCEMENT, the CONTINUATION and the CONSUMMATION of faith life!

Last two weeks, we meditated on the “Commencement of Faith Life” and “Continuation of the Faith Life”. Today, let us meditate upon the ”Consummation of Faith Life” with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The greatest incentive to our faith is the Second Coming of Christ. That will be a day of felicitation for the faithful saints. We began our study of the Faith Life with Habakkuk 2:4. The previous verse says, Habakkuk 2:3 “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.” The author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10:37 ”He who is coming will come and will not tarry.” The prophecy in Habakkuk and the expectation in Hebrews have a beautiful coincidence in their implication of the Return of our Lord. We all long to hear that “Well Done!” from our Master.

It is well said by Solomon in Ecc 7:8 ”The end of a thing is better than its beginning.” Yes, the end or the con-summation of our faith life is of greater importance than the beginning of it.

The purpose of the long list of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 is given in 12:1 ”Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” In a race there are participants as well as spectators. We are the participants today. “The cloud of witnesses” – they are the spectators of our performance. They have finished their course successfully and are anxiously looking at us. All the forerunners of faith have done their part superbly well and have trusted us with the finishing part! Shall we make it? The Church of Christ is living the last days of its history on earth. Oh that we realise our great responsibility!

We require the spiritual stamina to become triumphant winners of the faith race. As we mount higher up in the Christian life we encounter greater and great difficulties on the way. Sufferings, doubts and darkness, persecutions and oppositions become part of our everyday life.

Let us try to understand and how to handle the following challenges and be a victor, with the help of the Holy Spirit, today:

1] Sufferings

2] Doubts and Darkness

3] Persecutions and Oppositions

1] Sufferings

There is a great deal of suffering among God’s children. In the hour of soul’s deepest anguish even the strongest faith has wavered at times. Elijah sank down on the desert sand and asked that he might die!

i) Sufferings: Part of Christian Life:

Peter says in 1 Peter 4:12 ”Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you!” Is not our Saviour’s following statement clear enough? ”In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). Paul puts it this way: ”We must through many tribulations, enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Tribulations are but the pathway to our Heavenly Abode. That is why, Peter says in 1 Peter 5:7-9 ”Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”

That suffering is the experience of every true Christian in the world must bring us spiritual encouragement and help us stand fast in faith. The Cross led Christ to glory and it is so with those who seek to follow the Lamb wherever He goes. There is no such thing as a saint without scars.

ii) Physical Afflictions:

Jesus took on Himself our infirmities and bore our pains on the Cross. But it does not mean a complete eradication of physical affliction from a believer’s life altogether. I can quote from the Bible some great saints to prove that even the loftiest saint is no exception from physical pains. Yes, the heroes of faith received God’s sufficient grace amidst severe afflictions and glorified Him bringing honour to His Holy Name!

What gave Paul the strength to overcome his physical affliction? He knew that ”If our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So, we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:1-8)

Oh! the Blessed Hope that our body will one day perish, along with it the afflictions and pains, and that we will be given a glorified body! Let not your temporary physical tortures deprive you of your spiritual joy.

iii) Suffering Wrongfully:

Sometimes doing the right brings you into unforeseen difficulty. You may have sown the seeds of love and good but will reap nothing but disappointment, hatred and suffering. Yes, you may be misunderstood, misinterpreted, accused falsely and punished wrongfully! David, the man after God’s own heart, had such similar experiences: “All who hate me whisper together against me; against me they devise my hurt; Even my own familiar friend whom I trusted, … has lifted up his heel against me” (Psalm 41:7,9). Yes, we trust people who pretend to be faithful but when we are made to see their true identities we moan just as David did.

Do not become vengeful when you suffer wrongfully. Are we not called to unjust suffering? (1 Peter 2:19). We can endure physical tortures but cannot bear the shame when our reputation is damaged. Let us remember we are the followers of the One who suffered wrongfully in the hands of sinners. We make mistakes in trying to clear and vindicate ourselves. Defend not your cause but let it go. Why can’t we trust God with our reputation and let Him take care of it if we can trust Him with our eternal life? Of course, we can afford to stop defending and keep quiet, till the last Day, when the brick and the beam will take their turn to speak for us; when God will bring out our righteousness as the light and our judgement as the noonday; and when death and resurrection will prove to the whole world who is who.

That is why Peter says in 1 Peter 2:20-21 ”For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.”

iv) Trust Not in man!

The Bible warns us against trusting in any person other than God. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to pout confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8). Because, “every man is a liar” (Romans 3:4). May be your latest experience is to learn what it means to be betrayed by false friends. Turn to the Man of Sorrows for comfort. It was His own experience too!

You cannot trust even in the members of your own family. The prophet Micah says in Micah 7:5-7 ” Do not trust in a friend; do not put your confidence in a companion; Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonours father, daughter rises against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own household. Therefore, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me.”

Remember, men fail us. Even the best proves to be false. At the turn of events they change their colours and their promises fade away. Turn from the failure and forgetfulness of man to the constancy and faithfulness of God. He says, “You will not be forgotten by Me” (Isaiah 44:21).

v) Trust Not in yourself!

Friends are unreliable. Men are liars. My family cannot be trusted. Am I to stand on my own legs, then?

No, dear friend. Trust NOT IN YOURSELF also. It is not less than total foolishness to trust in one’s own self. Here, I tell you the secret of God: He will take from your heart anything you love most; He will have everything you trust to be removed from you; and finally He brings you to the point where He purges you of your self-trust too. Lend your ears to Apostle Paul’s account of his experience. He says in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us”

Believe not in your facilities. Disappointment is sure to sweep your face if you put your confidence in your strength and talents, in your possessions and positions. David says in Psalm 20:7 ”Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” He further says in Psalm 44:6-7 ” I will not trust in my bow, nor shall my sword save me. But You have saved us from our enemies, and have put to shame those who hated us.” Paul confidently says in 2 Timothy 2:13 ”If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”

vi) Trust in GOD!

We are too busy at times to God that He is forced to send us some difficulties in order to get our attention to Him. It is well worth to undergo some bitter experiences, to learn the new spiritual lesson that He does not want us to be ignorant of. If God has singled you out to be a special object of His grace you may expect Him to honour you with stricter discipline and greater suffering than many are called upon to ensure. Peter, whom God allowed to be “sifted as wheat” by Satan, explains it thus in 1 Peter 1:5-7 ”You are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honour, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Remember, faith needs to be tried by fiery trials. A faith that is not tested cannot be trusted. We pass through flooded rivers and burning furnaces. Neither the waters overflow us nor are we scorched by the fire, for the God of circumstances is in control (Isaiah 43:2). Though for a moment we are forsaken, with great mercies He gathers us to His bosom (Isaiah 54:7).

Sometimes we feel that God does not hear our cries of grief and the call for help. At such times we should simply trust Him and patiently wait for Him. Apostle James explains this in James 1:2-4 ”My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

Suffering is inevitable in the perfecting work of our faith. So let it not make us bitter and cynical but increase our faith in God. Think of the perseverance and patience of Job and take him as an example. He testified, ”Though He may slay me, yet will I trust Him”(Job 13:15).

The fear of death should be out of a believer’s vocabulary. Our time is in God’s hands and not in Satan’s. We shall not die before God’s appointed time. The ship in which Paul once sailed was caught up in a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon. Disaster and loss dismayed everyone and all gave up hope. But Paul trusted in the Lord to whom he belonged and declared: ”I believe God, that it will be just as it was told me” (Acts 27:25). He was the one who passed through perils of waters, perils of Gentiles, perils in the city and perils in the wilderness. But he was sure that nothing could kill him before God’s time.

Apostle Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ”Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Let not our suffering weaken our conviction, tame our fervent spirit and quench our first love. Take courage from the Scripture: ”If we endure, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Timothy 2:12).

Do not flinch from suffering. Bear it patiently. Be assured that it is God’s way of infusing iron into your spiritual make up, for He needs steel saints and not chocolate soldiers. Faith rejoices, for it sees afar the “triumph of Christ” and is willing to endure any hardship to share in it. The Captain of our Salvation was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 5:9), and it cannot be otherwise with us.

2] Doubts and Darkness:

Your life of faith had a buoyant beginning. But presently disappointment, sorrow, disaster and dismay overcloud the sky and blot out the sunny prospect. These will be times of inexplainable depression due to doubts and darkness upon the soul.

i) Discipline of Darkness:

The Bible says in Isaiah 50:10 ”Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God.”

Darkness creeps into the lives of even the obedient children of God. Is your life woven with dark shadows of sorrow? Are the best years of your life slipping away in silent tears? Do not sit down in solitude to deplore and moan your unhappy lot. Let not the experiences which have befallen you in earth’s darker cells drain on your spiritual resources. When your urgent prayers bring no response, when His mercies seem to be withdrawn and His face hidden, when the waves toss you up and down and things go from bad to worse, you throw your face into your empty palms and cry, ”God, don’t you want me anymore?”

Not so, dear friend. God your Father has turned down the lights of your life because He wants to show you how great His mercies are. The night is the time to see the stars! Remember, there never yet has been a night which was not sure to end in the dawning light of a glorious morning. Lay hold on God’s promises and rest your weary head on them.

ii) Walking by Faith:

To overcome the spiritual depression the truth that the just shall live by faith must be well understood. Every other effort made and help sought to scheme out your deliverance will only prove to be a failure and can never give you permanent relief.

The prolonged period of darkness may make your faith life dry and tasteless and to some degree you may become a burden to yourself. To maintain faith at such times is a real struggle. No wonder Paul called it a fight in 1 Timothy 6:12 ”Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Yes, the “joy of unspeakable” ceases to be your experience and you find none of the inward sweetness you had enjoyed before. It is at this time you will know better the definition of faith! ”Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Now, you will learn how to walk by faith and not by sight, and it is this that God has intended to teach you.

There is no light but faith gives evidence! There is no support but faith gives substance! At moments of discouragement, when you are exposed and most vulnerable Satan is on the attack. He haunts you with his doubts: “Does God really exist?” Yes, “Questions” become your frequent visitors! “What have I gained by my integrity?”

Do not leave any loophole for Satan. ”Resist him, steadfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:9).

iii) Remember God’s Fatherhood!

Some of our characters need to be taken to the dark dungeon where Joseph was once put so we can be emptied of our spiritual pride and other undesirable qualities. David relates this in Psalm 119:67,71 ”Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. …It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.”

Yes, the Son of God, ”learned obedience by the things He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). And if you are God’s child you are sure to be taught obedience the same way. Remember His Fatherhood when you suffer. He chastens you for He so loves you that He cannot allow you go astray. The Bible records this in Hebrews 12:5-7 ”“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?”

Remember, when God punishes us, He loves us as much as ever because there is not a shadow of change in His affection for us.

iv) Purposeful delay:

God’s delay in answering our prayers is always purposeful. Where faith is, there is no impatience. Patience is the mark of great faith. Remember, delay develops perseverance and patience in us. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick He stayed two more days in the place where He was. He delayed because He looked for a better opportunity to vitalise His disciples’ faith.

Had He gone atonce to Lazarus when he was sick it would have been only a matter of divine healing. But when He went four days after Lazarus’ burial He could demonstrate the power of resurrection. ”Jesus said to the plainly…I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, that you may believe” (John 11:14,15). Delay is not denial, but God’s means of developing our faith. Do not be feverish and in a hurry. ”Whoever believes will not act hastily” (Isaiah 28:16)

Remember, impatience stems from unbelief, and faith is not afraid to wait. Palmist David experienced this in his life and says in Psalm 27:14 ”Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!” Yes, there is no other way out. He says in verse 13 ”I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”. The delayed blessings will really be great!

v) Be not perplexed!

Sometimes the ministers of God to whom you go for counselling may add their share of confusions to your perplexities. Be watchful. Do not allow yourself to be made a puppet. No man is the master of your faith. Paul tells the believers in 2 Corinthians 1:24 ”Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand.”

Remember, prophets or preachers are given the authority for edification and not for breaking the bruised reed and quenching the smoking flax. That is why the Bible says in 2 Chronicles 20:20(b) ”Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.” If you believe in the prophets only, you may temporarily prosper, will never be established. God first, and then the prophets.

Remember, Satan often makes use of your past failures to discourage you and dis-illuminate your path. Let not your past falls make you feel frustrated. Only when we stumble we learn to walk better. Look up to your Redeemer! He will surely remove the stains from your life and the sting from your memory. Turn a deaf ear to Satan and answer him in these words: ”Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; When I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, The Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me forth to the light; I will see His righteousness.” As Paul puts it in Philippians 3:13(b) ”forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.”

Be not surprised when dark passages come in your way. God allows it, because unbroken sunshine would madden our brains. We must be sometimes deprived of feelings so we may acquire the art of walking by faith. Wait for the Lord for He is working out everything for your supreme good. Yes, the time is coming when you will bless the Lord for your times of sorrow and misfortune, because then you will understand that many of your disappointments were God’s own appointments, and that He sent failures in some sensitive areas only to save you from missing the best that He has in store for you.

It is very sweet, as life passes by, to be able to look back on dark and mysterious events and to trace the hand of God where we once saw only the malice and hypocrisy of man. And no doubt you will be able to speak gratefully of all the dark passages of your life.

3] Persecutions and Oppositions

FAITHFULLY to proclaim Jesus as the Saviour and Lord is bound to evoke antagonism and enmity. You are sure to face two kinds of people:

i) Opposers of the Gospel

ii) Twisters of the Gospel

i) Opposers of the Gospel:

The Epistle to the Hebrews was written at a time of great tribulation for the believers in Christ: ”You endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in Heaven” (Hebrews 10:32-34)”

In the work of God oppositions are not something unusual. Do not shake and shudder when oppositions and persecutions show their faces. Paul encouraged the believers of the Church at Philippi thus in Philippians 1:27-29 ”Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”

Yes, it has been granted to us the privilege to suffer for Christ’s gospel. Is there anyone who suffered so much for his faith in and love for the Lord Jesus as did the Apostle Paul? He was a man who hazarded his very life for the name of the Lord Jesus. He passed through trials and tortures. Nevertheless amidst these all he bore testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Paul was a man who knew the worth of his high calling and the immense responsibility involved in it. He says in 2 Timothy 1:11-12 ”To which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason, I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”

As a faithful servant of God, Paul was most unreasonably persecuted by the wicked men. He needed the prayer support of other believers to be saved from the opposers of the gospel: ”Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith” (2 Thess 3:1-2).

Once Paul was stoned almost to death and immediately moved on to preaching in Debre making many disciples there and then returning to Iconium and Antioch strengthening the souls of the disciples. What a tireless running for Christ!! The Bible recorded this incident in Acts 14:19-22 ”But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

Remember, when you are oppressed by the opposers of Christian faith nothing should you do except to pray. Avenge not yourself, for revenge is God’s. When you suffer for the sake of your Saviour, you are carrying His cross. There is only forgiveness in Christ’s cross and not revenge. Pray for the opposers that they too may be saved. Do not draw your sword to settle matters as Peter did!

Oppositions and persecutions are part of God’s ministry. Meet these with a spirit of submission and praise! As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, ”We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”

Persecutions feed faith! In the midst of persecutions, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:13 “Since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak!” Yes, the undaunted spirit of faith can never afford to keep quiet even amidst oppositions. It will obey Jesus’ command and keep on preaching the gospel, than to obey the persecutors who will not let it be done. No matter how great the opposition, no matter how difficult the time or how fierce the persecution, the good soldier of Christ Jesus can stand in the strength of the Holy Spirit and remain a victor on the battlefield.

ii) Twisters of the Gospel:

Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:1-2 ”Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” There is a definite prediction that in the last days people will depart from the pure faith of the gospel. Departure from faith can be seen in our Christian circles today with different names:

a) Legalism:

The principle of legalism advocates the adherence to the Law, even while living under the Spirit of grace. The Galatians were misled to believe such doctrines and so were flogged by the apostle Paul. He says in Galatians 4:30 “What does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” Yes, Ishmael and Isaac cannot dwell in one place. The bondwoman and her son are not to be given even a portion in the backyard. They are to be turned out and cast away completely.

What a glorious privilege to be under grace! The followers of the Law have fallen from grace. The Bible gives us a clear picture of the distinction between Law and Grace. That is why Paul says in Galatians 5:1,4,5 ”Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage…You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” Jesus also said in Luke 5:37-38(a) ”No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins’” I pray that our Lord may help us to discern this truth lest our faith be polluted by these poisonous winds.

There is yet another last day doctrine which the Bible warns us against in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 ”Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” This is the doctrine of the supposedly “holier” people. God saw it good to give Eve as a wife to Adam (Adam never asked for one!). But, these holiest people consider married men and women as second-class citizens of Heaven! Regarding food the New Testament teaching is: ”For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4-5).

b) Rationalism, Liberalism, etc.:

Apostle Paul cautions us in 1 Timothy 6:20-21 ”Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge— by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.” Apostle John also cautions in 2 John 7,10,11 ”For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist…If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.”

These are the agents of the antichrist who are sent to deceive even the “chosen” people of God. Much more is there to tell you about the twisters of the Gospel of Christ. The twisters indeed attract big crowds to themselves and have a lot of followers too. Paul cautions in Acts 20:29-30 ”For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” I plead the pastors to guard their sheep against these wolves.

Apostle Jude said in Jude 3 ”Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”. Remember, faith is “once for all” delivered into your hands. It means that the written Word of God alone is sufficient and there no necessity to look for any kind of new revelation. Because, there lies the danger of being deceived by the prophets of the antichrist. All that a sinner needs to be cleansed, purged, made perfect and fit for the Kingdom of God is revealed in the Bible. New Revelations ended with the Book of Revelation. Amen!

”When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” asked Jesus in Luke 18:8. Let us answer Him, ”Yes Lord, we are LIVING BY FAITH and You will see FAITH IN US!”

Let us introspect ourselves..

Shall we lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith?

Shall we endure all the sufferings so that we shall reign with our Lord Jesus Christ?

Shall we live by faith trusting God fully during the fiery trials as He is in control of every situation in our lives?

Shall we trust in God fully by removing all the doubts and darkness when we encounter disappointment, sorrow, disaster in our faith life?

Shall we stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel?

Shall we meet oppositions and persecutions with a spirit of submission and praise?

Shall we have the undaunted spirit of faith and stand in the strength of the Holy Spirit and remain a victor on the battlefield?

Shall we identify the agents of the antichrist, who are twisting the gospel and be more cautious while dealing with them in our faith life?

Shall we live by faith till the end of our faith life?

Let us Pray: Our Heavenly Gracious Father, we thank you for helping us to understand about the “Consummation of our Faith Life” while living in this world by having faith on you and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God wholeheartedly, run with endurance the race that is set before us by looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, enduring all the sufferings so that we shall reign with our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, please help us in trusting You fully during the fiery trials as we believe that You are in control of every situation in our lives, helping us in removing all the doubts and darkness when we encounter disappointment, sorrow, disaster besides standing fast in one spirit with one mind for the faith of the gospel. Father, please help us in meeting the oppositions and persecutions with a spirit of submission and praise, having an undaunted spirit of faith, stand in the strength of the Holy Spirit so as to remain a victor on the battlefield besides identifying the agents of the antichrist and be more cautious and living by FAITH till the end of our FAITH LIFE. Father, please help us to LIVE BY FAITH as without faith it is impossible to please You Master. We give all praise, glory and honour to Your Holy Name. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

God bless you all..

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[x-irememberyearsago-x]

What’s wrong with me?– Jeff Atkins x Reader

Request: Can I request a Jeff imagine me where he's been asking you out for a while now and you always turn him down? So one day you hear him talking to clay about how it's actually starting to hurt him a bit cuz what's wrong wit him? And his jock buddies give him shit and tease him about which upsets him so you shock all of them by going up and kissing him which leads to a hot makeout and ask him on a date.

Words: 2703

Enjoy it!

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I smiled looking at myself through the rearview mirror. I loved when my mom had the day off, that meant I could get the car to school, save me the monotonous and disgusting bus rides. It isn’t as if my mother went out to have fun, her days off from work, she is doing yoga in front of the TV, it wasn’t too much that the "coach" was too attractive. I shivered and concentrated on the road, until that point I was already entering the Liberty High parking lot. The disadvantage of bringing the car is that I mistrusted and was late, something that wouldn’t happen if I were traveling in the yellow device. Now finding a parking lot would be a challenge.

After a full turn, I finally find a decent place, not so far but not so close to the door, perfect. Before maneuvering to enter that space, a car closed the way and got into MY place. I stepped on the brakes and glared at the bold.  I knew the car perfectly. Instead of staying there, I found another place to two cars away, from that to stay grumbling. Yes, I was too lucky.

"Are you serious, Atkins?" I raised my voice after getting out of the car and hanging my backpack over my shoulder.

Jeff was walking toward me with a big smile and fiddling with the keys of his carriage. Asshole.

"This becomes a danger zone every morning, Y/L, you would know if you brought your car every day"

"Funny"

I started to walk with him to my side. We were in the same course, connected in our first year, we were good friends, maybe I could even consider him my best friend, it's not like I had many in high school. Most were either useless sportsmen, or just people who weren’t worth it.  He was taking me with a few, especially since Jeff was very close to them, almost entering his social circle. They were not bad guys, but somewhat immature for my taste. Sometimes they made me laugh.

"So I heard that this new movie will be on Saturday ... Let's go together?"

Yeah, we were good friends though Jeff was determined to change that. My friend was attractive, too much to admit, but my mind was somewhere else to focus on a boyfriend. In addition, our friendly relationship worked perfectly, we sometimes studied together, I was going to see him at his baseball games, and I even stayed after school with him and Clay for his tutorials. I could come and go as often as i wanted and he did that too. We were perfectly fine, why did we need a label? What if "being dating" didn’t work? All those years of friendship would go away. Just to think about my last months in this institute without the company of my best friend, to be avoiding it by the corridors and to meet us in uncomfortable looks, left me the sensation to be without air. No, I wouldn’t let him lose it for a silly etiquette.

"How on a date?" I remembered that I hadn’t answered him.

I turned to look at him and he smiled in embarrassment. Jeff Atkins was never embarrassed. He was the most honest and funny guy on the whole site. If I didn’t know Clay Jensen, I would sign with blood that Jeff was the only one. Everyone else behaved more like idiots.

"Yes?" His answer sounded more like a question. Well, he left the decision to me again.

I sighed and settled the backpack as a reflex act.

"You did a good swing, Atkins, but I'm sorry to say you got a strike"

He raised his eyebrows and I smiled, wanting to erase the rejection I had given him. It hadn’t been the first, but sometimes I felt like the bad in this relationship. Our "dates" were reduced to exits between friends, and that was because I was in charge of enlisting Sheri with us and him, usually Clay. At one time, we invited Hannah, but lately she was walking in her own world, feeling the tension only to approach her. Too bad, it turned out to be a really fun girl.

I increased my pace. We didn’t have to stay together in the hall, our first period was different, while he was killing himself in history, I had to endure the headache of algebra. I also needed help but no one threatened to get me out of a team simply because I didn’t belong to any. That was how it was.

"Are you serious?" The good thing about my best friend is that he took rejections with grace. "You are very rude to me, Y/N!"

"I see you at rest!" I shouted at him in response and unconsciously stepped up. I never let him see guilt in me after an Olympic rejection.

At lunchtime, we took our usual table; Clay kept his eyes on his task that ignored our mini meal fight between Jeff and me. He made me eat one of his fries, but they were too greasy for my liking. Thanks to that, we didn’t go unnoticed, neither by his companions as for the rest of the school. Suddenly, I noticed how his teammates were passing by and said things to Jeff that I couldn’t grasp, used as keys that I didn’t understand. I looked at Jeff who looked down for a few seconds before turning to see me and smiling as if nothing.

"What was that?"

"It's nothing." He grabbed his backpack and stood up. "See you after school, Jensen?"

For the first time, Clay looked up and nodded. Jeff said goodbye to both of us and left in the opposite direction to his companions, I frowned even confused; it was incredible how my friend's mood changed in a few seconds. I bit my lip and pushed aside my tray of food, strangely I was without appetite.

"What's wrong with Jeff?" I asked. Clay knew him as well as I did.

The boy shrugged and looked in the direction where our friend had disappeared. I said goodbye to Clay, especially since I had just seen Hannah Baker enter the cafeteria. Jeff and I had a plan, before we graduated, we had to get these two to have something. They were too shy to approach the one and the other that we decided to intervene, rather I joined the cause, because it was a kind of deal between the two men. However, it was difficult, I was going to take care of Hannah, but she was very distant, I couldn’t approach. I sighed and left the cafeteria. I'd waste my time in the locker.

I doubted if it would be a good idea to interfere with the tutoring hours of my friends, I don’t know what was different now, if I always did, but my best friend's behavior was too strange after the cafeteria. It made me panic to approach him. Among my doubts, I ended up in the school library, if I wandered around maybe in the end would encourage me to approach your table. I ended up on one of the closest shelves, Jeff and Clay seemed to be talking about something that didn’t look like tutorials since neither of them looked at their respective books. I went a little closer, covering my face with a book chosen at random. I pretended to read it.

"Jeff Atkins, asking me for advice on relationships?" I listened to Clay with humor. "The deal was supposed to be that you would help me with it, not the other way around." I lowered the book a little to notice my best friend with his eyes on Pencil playing between his fingers. I went back to cover "I was paying my salary in the Cresmont that you would never go through this"

I bit my lip, afraid to know now what they were talking about, or rather ... of whom. I repressed the book down again.

"I don’t know what else to do, dude." Jeff's voice broke my heart, but why? "She's not like the other girls I've dated, it's a challenge, but not that kind of challenge." I started to consider whether it was a good idea to stay or not to listen, but my feet were stuck.

"Don’t stop trying" Clay encouraged.

"I don’t do it. I invite her to go out and it is always the same result: No. “I fear that someday she will get tired and send me to the devil"

My blood ran cold. They had not yet pronounced my name but knew perfectly well that they were talking about me. My hands began to tremble.

"I don’t think so. You two make a good team. It's hard to see a Jeff without Y/N, or a Y/N without a Jeff" I glanced over and watched my friend smile. I did too. It was true; we could complement us in an incredible way.

I watched Jeff's profile, again thinking away from his friendship, made me feel short of breath. I couldn’t imagine my life without having met him; he managed to understand me, my problems, my follies and occasionally my pessimism. The random memory hit me on a Saturday that taught me to hit, I could feel his body on my back and his arms around mine, even his hands on mine to help me hold the bat well. It had felt good, I didn’t have the imperative need to get away like when Bryce Walker tried to get too close to me. That guy gave me a very bad spine. Instead, with Jeff, I sometimes needed to have him close to feel that I breathe well, that everything is going its natural course. There was no Y/N Y/L without a Jeff Atkins, it couldn’t, and there was no consistency. It was like going against nature. My heart sped up and I hid my face again between the pages.

"Clay. What is wrong with me?" I had a gasp, only a few verbal rejects, at no time I distanced myself from him, after my negatives we were as normal as ever. Nothing had changed. I had the need to jump and give him a zap, Nothing was wrong with you, Atkins, you're amazing, the best guy I've ever met! But I stood still with the lump in my throat.

"Nothing, dude. Let's go back to your history essay, you need to distract your mind"

I listened as he agreed to the idea and I moved from shelf to the place where they didn’t see me. I put my hand to my chest and inhaled deep breaths. Why did i feel like crying? Maybe because Jeff didn’t notice the way I did, what could be wrong with him? He was a committed boy, especially now that his position in the team depended on his qualifications, attentive, pleasant, he isn’t of those who believed in rumors ... and above all, he was an excellent friend of Clay and mine. How could there be anything wrong with that? Why cann’t you see yourself as I see you? I bit my lip.

"I saw you" Jessica came out of nowhere and gave me the shock of my life. She started laughing "Spying on people's conversations? That's too much for you”

I rolled my eyes.

"I guess I couldn’t help it," I murmured.

"I heard them, too. I've never seen Jeff that way; he always has a smile on his face."I nodded to the cheerleader's words. Suddenly, she started to laugh "Don’t you realize, Y/N?" I looked at her strangely "He's in love with you! The whole institute knows this, obviously everyone, except you"

"We are good friends"

"So? That doesn’t take away the feelings, the question here is, Are you in love with him? "

I was silent, I opened my mouth to answer her but I couldn’t, Why couldn’t I? I should deny it, but why didn’t i? Jessica Davis smiled.

"Do I confess something?" I waited quietly. "The way you look at Jeff, is the same way I look at Justin. Think about it. "She winked at me before leaving.

If my best friend's words had left me frozen, Jessica's words hit me. I looked over my shoulder toward the boys' table, was I in love with my best friend? As I would know, I had never fallen in love with anyone in my life.

 I ran as if my life depended on it to the baseball field, simply because my friend's fool had forgotten his bat in the car and I as a good person i was, and because I knew the combination of his locker to get the keys, I did him the favor. Anyway, at home I was expecting some of those Mom’s smooth naturist, I wasn’t very excited to return soon. Before giving me sight in front of the team, I heard the boys howling and booing. I stopped and looked out, Jeff was in front of them, pretending to have difficulty raising the zipper of his sweatshirt. As I perceived quickly, they were making fun of him.

"Give it up at once, Atkins." One of them said. I frowned. "You're losing your good reputation for just one girl"

Not again, please. I pressed the bat in my hands.

"Let go and pass her, I assure you that I get an appointment with her long before you," another of his classmates boasted. I was getting angry.

How could it be that they messed with him for some nonsense? I was nothing special, why did they all talk as if I were some sort of trophy? I looked at Jeff, he was still focused on his feigned task, but the gesture on his lips told me that he was having a bad time, so I got sick, it couldn’t be that my fear of losing him by spoiling everything with a label, So much harm to him. My eyes filled with tears, but I didn’t cry, instead, I smiled and walked resolutely towards them.

"Eh!" Shouted one of them with joy.

I didn’t look at any of them, my eyes were on my best friend's, wanting to pretend he was more than okay. I didn’t stop until I felt my lips against his. I dropped the bat to our side and wrapped my fingers in his hair pulling him closer to me. His response, in the first place, was that his mouth was sealed by surprise, when he caught what was happening, he joined the same rhythm as me, bringing his hands to my waist. I didn’t part until the shouts of joy of his companions became present.

"Damn!" I recognized the voice of the one who at the beginning bet that I would go out with him.

I looked into Jeff's eyes and smiled broadly. This kiss, which at first wanted to taste something, simply felt good. I began to feel that I was complete, even though I thought I had been before.

"I thought better, why wait until Saturday? Let's have a date now." My best friend's eyes shone, I felt an extreme happiness inside, not for him, for me. "Oh, better, did you tell me that your parents are not going to be home all day? How about a bit of Netflix and chill? "

His friends laughed, he too, but a little more shy.

"Come on." He took my hand firmly.

"Boys" I gave a single glance at their companions, they began to cheer and push, like vile apes.

I laughed and looked back. When we lost sight of the team, Jeff stopped and looked at me even in shock.

"You were serious?"

"About the kiss or Netflix and chill?" I couldn’t stop smiling.

"Both of them"

"Now I know that I'm sure of the kiss" I bit my lip "Of the other, of course I was serious, a little more seriously in the chill part"

Jeff's smile was the biggest i had ever seen. My heart skipped a beat.

"Then I drive. Later we'll get back for your car"

[studyprayersnotesthings]

Spiritual Warfare Prayer

January 14, 2016; by Evangelist Jonathan V. Hill 

Father I thank you for all things. I thank you God for health and strength, and peace and mercy and grace. I thank you Lord that you are a shield around me, my glory, and the lifter up of my head. Father God I ask that you cover me with your feathers and that I find trust under your wings. God let your Truth by my shield and buckler. Lord I know the Weapons of my warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. God I pray in the name of Jesus, you help me to pull-down every stronghold that hinders me and my family today. Strengthen me each day to pull-down more strongholds and  help those who are bound and oppressed under its power to go free by your power and your precious blood in the name of Jesus. You have given me power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt me! I thank you Lord. I pray the works of the devil that is at work against me and my love ones be trampled under our feet right now in the name of Jesus! We are the head and not the tail. We are above and not beneath.  

Lord I submit myself to you and resist the devil so he may flee from me. Lord please make every crooked path straight. I close every negative spiritual door that may be opened to attack me, my family, and my home in the name of Jesus. Lord cover us in your blood in the name of Jesus; make us whole and spiritually complete and protected by you in the name of Jesus. No devil has power over us in the name of Jesus.  

When I am afraid I will trust in you! I rebuke fear in the name of Jesus! I remove fear from me and my loved ones in the name of Jesus and replace it with peace! For God did not give me the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Fear will never have dominion over me. I will always have a sound mind, be in my right mind, and have a powerful mind - Me, my family, and those around me will always have peace of mind and the mind of Christ in the name of Jesus!  We will keep our mind stayed on you and You will keep us in perfect peace.                                  

No weapon that is formed against me ��shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against me in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

I bind every strongman that wants to hinder me, my family, my home, my friends, and loved ones. I loose peace, strength, God’s protection and providence upon us in the name of Jesus.

I pray against anything that wants to destroy, cripple, subtract, degrade, reduce, and set-back me, my family, my church, my home, and everything around me by the blood of Jesus in the name of Jesus.    

I pray against, overthrow and over turn any spirit and circumstance that brings lies, confusion, falsehood, weakness, drought, lack, poverty, and ungodly frustration, against me, my family, my home, and everything around me by the  blood of Jesus in the name of Jesus.  

God I pray my enemies will be at peace with me as they become my footstool forever in the name of Jesus.

I revoke and cancel all curses, spells, enchantments, demonic predictions, incantations, cycles, satanic projections and pronouncements, and demonic attacks made against me, my family, my home, and everything around me by the  blood of Jesus in the name of Jesus.  

I overturn all demonic prayers from the regions of second heaven, the forest kingdom, the animal kingdom, the underworld kingdom, the water kingdom, and the regions of the sea made against me, my family,  my home, and everyone I pray for by the  blood of Jesus in the name of Jesus.  

I rebuke and cancel any and all death wishes, death projections, invocations hoping for death, any plans of untimely death, and all unknown perils  made against me, my family, my church and my home. I replace it with longevity, peace, hope, love, faith, honor, victory, prosperity, and God’s protection and strength.  

I am protected by the holy armor of God listed in Ephesians 6:                           I have my loins girt about with truth, and I have on the breastplate of righteousness; my  feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;         Above all, I take the shield of faith, where I am able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. I take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:  I Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

I declare all demonic strongholds against me, my family, my home, and the church pulled-down with by spiritual weapons and with the power of life and death in my tongue in the name of Jesus. Psalm 91 is active in my life, the life of my family, my friends and loved ones at all times by the power of God in the name of Jesus.

I ask you for and thank you God for stronger discernment in every situation that I may see the tricks of the enemy before they are made active in the name of Jesus and I will rely on Godly wisdom in every situation, and that you grant me more wisdom in the name of Jesus.

Lord please heal the sick today. I believe the prayer of faith will heal the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. I believe by the Lord’s stripes we are healed. I pray this for myself, my family, my friends, the church and the stranger among us. I thank you for healing us Lord by your blood in the name of Jesus.  

Lord help me to not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of my mind that I may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Bless me to not walk according to the flesh, but walk and be led by the Spirit at all times in the name of Jesus.

Deliver me from past hurts and pains and leave those things behind that have no spiritual profitability in the name of Jesus. Bless me to always be a new creation fit and ready for every good work. Lord help me that, Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, that I think on these things.

Lord bless me that your love will always prevail in my heart no matter the situation.

Psalm 23 is a blessing and will be a banner for me:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Order the steps of my family, my loved ones, and me everyday in the name of Jesus.

God I pray that me, my family, and the church will always prosper and be in good health even as our soul prospers in the name of Jesus.

I pray this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.

[ultralifehackerguru-blog]

New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/48-celebrities-no-idea-related/

48 celebrities you had no idea were related

You likely already know about the Olsen twins and their younger sister Elizabeth, as well as Dave and James Franco or Luke and Owen Wilson. And you’ve already learned about all the celebrity pairs that are best friends, but there are quite a few famous faces that you probably didn’t know were all in the same family.

Keep reading to see the 48 celebrities you probably never knew were related.

Amy Daire contributed to a previous version of this article.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer is cousins with comedian and actress Amy Schumer.

Chuck (left) and Amy Schumer (right) in 2015.

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Senator Schumer is a first cousin to Amy Schumer’s father, making them first cousins once-removed. They don’t make a ton of appearances together, but they do use their joint star power every now and again.

The two Schumers spoke at a joint press conference for gun reform in 2015 after a fatal shooting which happened during a screening of Amy’s movie “Trainwreck.”

Then in 2017, Amy publicly defended Senator Schumer after President Donald Trump called him “Fake Tears Chuck Schumer” in a tweet.

Emily Blunt is Stanley Tucci’s sister-in-law, which means John Krasinski is Tucci’s brother-in-law.

Emily Blunt (left) and Stanley Tucci (right) in 2010.

Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Emily Blunt inadvertently played matchmaker when her “Devil Wears Prada” co-star Stanley Tucci met her sister, Felicity, at Emily Blunt and John Krasinski’s wedding in 2010.

Tucci married Felicity Blunt two years later, and the happy couple have two children together (just like Emily Blunt and Krasinski). All four siblings-in-law recently walked the red carpet during the premiere of Krasinski and Emily Blunt’s new hit movie “A Quiet Place.”

Singers Ray J and Brandy are siblings, but they are also cousins to rapper Snoop Dogg.

Siblings Ray J (left) and Brandy (center), and their cousin Snoop Dogg (right).

Jemal Countess/Getty Images and Jag Gundu/Getty Images

Singers and siblings Brandy and Ray J have made their typical brother-sister relationship pretty public. Like most siblings, they post pictures of one another to their social media accounts, walk the red carpets together, and sometimes they even talk or argue over Twitter.

Meanwhile, the pair are also close with their cousin Snoop Dogg. Snoop has collaborated with Brandy and used her in a music video, and he had Ray J as a guest on his YouTube show where he introduced him as “my cousin, my family, my familia.”

Singer Lily and “Game of Thrones” actor Alfie Allen are brother and sister.

Siblings Lily (left) and Alfie Allen (right) in 2007.

Claire Greenway/Getty Images

Talent clearly runs in the family seeing as she’s a famous singer and he’s made waves as Theon Greyjoy on “Game of Thrones.” Like most siblings, they seem to have a love-hate relationship.

The singer once wrote a song about her brother needing to get a job and several years later slammed “Game of Thrones” during a Reddit AMA saying that she was offered a incestuous cameo to play his sister on screen. Alfie then denied that fact.

“The only thing I’m going to say on that is that it’s not true,” he said to Vulture. “And also that Gemma Whalen was always their first choice for the part. And she’s fantastic. And that’s the one thing I’m going to say about that.”

Since then he’s “banned” her from discussing the show at all.

Jason Momoa is the stepfather of Zoë Kravitz.

Jason Momoa (left) and Zoë Kravitz (right) became family members in October.

Neilson Barnard/Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Momoa has been with Kravitz’s mother, Lisa Bonet, for 12 years. The happy couple got married in a quiet ceremony this October, making Momoa the official stepfather of Kravitz. The new family members have shared sweet Instagram photos of themselves together, including one where Kravitz called Momoa “papa bear.”

Momoa and Bonet also have two other children together — Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa and Lola Iolani Momoa.

Speaking of the Kravitz family, TV personality Al Roker and singer Lenny Kravitz are distant cousins.

Al Roker (left) and Lenny Kravitz (right).

Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images and Mike Windle/Getty Images

On an episode of “Today,” Roker and Kravitz discussed that they both have the Roker genes in them. This led Roker to do some investigating, and he later revealed that their grandfathers were actually cousins. They have quite a few people between them a far as the family tree goes, but blood is blood.

“All I know is I’m going with it,” Roker said on the show. “Kids think it’s cool.”

The Coppolas and Schwartzmans are all related to Nicolas Cage.

Francis Ford Coppola (right), Jason Schwartzman (center), and Nicolas Cage (left).

Getty Images

This is one famous family. Francis Ford Coppola, who directed “The Godfather” among other films, is the uncle of the Schwartzmans. Jason Schwartzman earned his fame in movies like “Rushmore” and “Moonrise Kingdom,” but his younger brother is also recognizable. Robert Schwartzman was in “The Princess Diaries,” though he’s given up acting since.

Francis is also the father to Sofia Coppola, who directed “Lost in Translation” and “The Bling Ring.”

All of these people are also related to actor Nicolas Cage, who changed his name from Coppola to avoid any nepotism in the industry. Francis is Nic’s uncle, making the Schwartzmans are his cousins.

Jenny and Melissa McCarthy are cousins.

Cousins Jenny (left) and Melissa McCarthy (right).

Jason Merritt/Getty Images and Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

The famous actresses may share a last name, but many never made the connection. Jenny has even shared a throwback picture of the two of them when they were children.

The actresses might be in the same business, but their careers haven’t overlapped and the two don’t seem to be very close. Melissa, for example, didn’t attend Jenny’s wedding back in 2014. That might have something to do with a report claiming that Jenny thought her cousin needed to lose weight to make it in Hollywood, even though Jenny firmly denies it.

“There is a crazy story going around that I once told my cousin, Melissa, that she would have to lose weight in order to get into show business. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Jenny told PEOPLE.

Joan and John Cusack are siblings.

John (left) and Joan Cusack (right) in 2013.

Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images

John and Joan Cusack have both made names for themselves in the movie industry and have been in 10 movies together. Yet many don’t realize that they’re brother and sister.

Joan gives credit to her brother for encouraging her throughout her career in the hectic industry.

“I think it helps to know another person in the business, because everything is such an illusion, so it’s great to be able to go, ‘Oh, my God! This is how it really is!’ or ‘This is how it happens there!'” she told AV Club. “You know, ’cause nobody knows any of it. People know more now in general, I think. So I think it was helpful to have each other.”

Actors Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are siblings as well.

Warren Beatty (left) and Shirley MacLaine (right) at the 36th AFI Life Achievement Award which honored Beatty.

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

These actors don’t share a last name because Shirley uses her middle name MacLaine. The two also don’t share any movie credits and MacLaine recently noted that they likely never will.

“Oh, I don’t think we’d be a good team,” she once told Closer at the TMA Heller Awards.

As for Beatty? He doesn’t think so poorly of the idea.

“Not a bad idea,” he said on “CBS Sunday Morning,” with one exception: “I think we shouldn’t play man and wife.”

“Grey’s Anatomy” actress Jessica Capshaw is director Steven Spielberg’s stepdaughter.

Jessica Capshaw (left) and Steven Spielberg (right) in 2012.

Michael Buckner/Getty Images

The “Grey’s Anatomy” actress didn’t exactly grow up with Steven Spielberg, but since her mother married him in 1991, they’ve gotten close. With such a big name in the industry, you’d think that he was to thank for her start, but according to her, it wasn’t so easy.

“In a lot of ways it was actually not helpful to have famous parents because there is definitely a very human feeling of, ‘Well, when you come from all that, who wants to see that girl succeed.’ You want to see the underdog succeed, the girl who spent her last two dollars on the bus ticket,” she said in an interview with USA Today.

Actors Hallie and Jesse Eisenberg are brother and sister.

Hallie (left) and Jesse Eisenberg (right).

Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images and Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Hallie Eisenberg had one of the most recognizable faces in the world in the late ’90s. She was practically the face of Pepsi, not to mention she landed leading roles in movies like “Bicentennial Man” and “The Miracle Worker.”

She’s taken a leave from acting since then, but her older brother is still making the family name known in Hollywood. He’s Oscar-nominated and famous for roles in several movies, including “Batman v Superman” and “The Social Network.”

Jesse recently revealed on “The Tonight Show” that they’re living together. Jimmy Fallon asked him about his sister’s boyfriend Owen Danoff, who was fighting for fame on season 11 of “The Voice,” and Jesse told him that they’re all roommates.

“He is my sister’s boyfriend, but also my roommates, ’cause, I mean, they live with me,” he explained. “We have separate rooms but essentially he’s a roommate.”

Actor Martin Sheen is father to actors Charlie Sheen and Emilio Esteves.

Emilio Esteves (left), Charlie Sheen (center), and Martin Sheen (right) in 1996.

Getty Images

It’s known pretty far and wide that Charlie Sheen is Martin Sheen’s son. After all, they share both a name and a striking resemblance to one another. However, many people might not known that Martin Sheen has another famous son, Emilio Esteves.

The trio of Sheens have had their ups and downs. Many speculate that it’s a battle between brothers, but their dad is proud of them both.

“This morning, as I watched him alone, reveal his deepest, darkest secret, I couldn’t believe the level of courage I was witnessing, and that it was my son,” he said after Charlie revealed that was HIV-positive to Matt Lauer. “I left him a message, and I said that if I had that much courage, I would change the world.”

He also worked side-by-side with Emilio on 2012’s “The Way,” and claims that there’s no one better to work with,

“From my point of view there’s nothing better,” he said in an interview with The Guardian. “I’d work with him for the rest of my life, frankly.”

Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård is father to Bill and Alexander Skarsgård.

Alexander Skarsgård (left) and his father, Stellan Skarsgård (right).

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Stellan Skarsgård has several credits under his belt. He’s been in “Good Will Hunting” and “Mamma Mia!” as well as Marvel’s “Thor” and “Avengers” films. His son Alexander is stealthy competition though. He hit fame with his steamy role in “True Blood” and has starred in “The Giver” and HBO’s “Big Little Lies.”

Stellan and Alexander went head-to-head on Fourth of July weekend in 2016 when Stellan’s movie “Our Kind of Traitor” opened against Alexander’s “The Legend of Tarzan.” According to Los Angeles Daily News, Stellan was pretty thrilled about the competition.

“I think he’s got more backing and more screens,” he said in the interview. “Still, it’s fun.”

In the end, Alexander got the bragging rights.

Then Alexander’s younger brother, Bill, had a breakout role in 2017’s reboot of “It” where he played Pennywise the Clown. The movie became one of the highest grossing horror films of all time.

Actresses Blake and Robyn Lively are half-sisters.

Blake (left) and Robin Lively (right) at the 2017 People’s Choice Awards.

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Serena van der Woodsen and the Teen Witch herself are truly sister goals. They’re often seen together at award shows and fashion shows, and Robyn is the godmother to Blake’s kids.

Robyn and Blake even joke about whose kids are whose.

“She has my children and I have her children, [and] we’re like, ‘No, those are my children!’ She’s like, ‘No, your children are my children.’ We always argue about it. She’s the best,” she recently said to ET.

“Fantastic Beasts” actress Katherine Waterston is the daughter of actor Sam Waterston.

Katherine Waterston (left) and her father, Sam Waterston (right).

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

You probably recognize Sam from his roles in hit shows like “Law & Order” and “The Newsroom.” His daughter became an actor, too, but she’s usually seen on the big screen. Most recently she played Tina Goldstein in the “Harry Potter” spin-off “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.”

Despite this huge success, her acting career wasn’t as easy as you’d think it would be for the daughter of a famous actor.

“When you are the kid of an actor, it’s always a very inviting world,” Waterston said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald. “Everyone is nice to you, the hair and make-up people braid your hair and play with you, and the costume department makes outfits for your teddy bears. It’s really misleading, because then when you actually go to pursue a career in acting, you realize that people aren’t so friendly.”

In fact, she couldn’t even land a role on her dad’s “Law & Order,” a show that “every actor in New York” can get a credit for.

Superstar Tom Cruise and “Lost” actor William Mapother are cousins.

Cousins Tom Cruise (left) and William Mapother (right).

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images and Ken Ishii/Getty Images

Tom Cruise is one of the biggest international movie stars, but he’s not the only actor in the family. His cousin William Mapother has starred in shows like “The Mentalist” and “Lost.” Mapother has also had cameos in three of Cruise’s movies and small roles in two others.

Unfortunately, Mapother doesn’t discuss his cousin very often.

“I’m not answering any questions about him because I’ve learned that unfortunately, nearly anything I write/say about him gets taken out of context,” he wrote in a Reddit AMA two years ago. “So it’s easier and safer to say nothing.”

Actor Antonio Banderas used to be actress Dakota Johnson’s stepfather.

Dakota Johnson (left) with Antonio Banderas (right) and their family as he was honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images

The “Fifty Shades of Grey” actress is no newbie in the film industry. She grew up with Antonio Banderas after he married her mother actress Melanie Griffith when she was just a child (her dad is none other than actor Don Johnson).

With a family like that, it’s almost impossible not to get into acting.

Griffith and Banderas were together until 2015, but despite the split, he has nothing but kind words and admiration for his former stepdaughter and her career.

“Dakota didn’t want our help. Every time that she was called for a movie [she said] ‘I don’t want you guys to be there, I don’t want them to know that you are my mother’ or who [is] her real father, her biological father Don [Don Johnson]. She didn’t want help. She has been very honest in that aspect,” he said during a guest appearance on ITV’s “Loose Women.”

Actor Christian Bale also had a famous stepparent — he used to be feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s stepson.

Christian Bale (left) and activist Gloria Steinem (right).

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images and Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

He’s an actor with a rumored anger problem and she’s a feminist icon and hero. You probably wouldn’t have suspected that their paths had ever crossed, but she’s actually his stepmother.

Steinem married Bale’s father David when Christian was well into his twenties. They were married for three years before David passed away in 2003.

Steinem still thinks of Christian affectionately though.

“He is a very good person, a great lover of animals, and an immensely talented actor. He’s married with two children and lives in California,” she said in a piece for Daily Life. “I don’t see him that often, but we’re in touch from time to time.”

Actress Julia Roberts is actress Emma Roberts’ aunt.

Julia Roberts (left) and Emma Roberts (right) arrive at the premiere of “Valentine’s Day.”

Kevin Winter/Getty Image

These leading ladies have been very public about their familial ties. They speak about each other in interviews, post heartwarming pictures of each other, and according to Julia, spend lots of time together.

“She’s so lovely,” Julia said during an interview with Allure. “We spend a lot of time together. Emma is a remarkable girl.”

Even though they spend so much time together, there’s one thing Julia will never do: take a part in or watch Emma on “American Horror Story.”

“I can’t even get though the commercials,” Julia once said to E! News. “I am the most fitful scaredy cat.”

Actress Bryce Dallas Howard is filmmaker Ron Howard’s daughter.

Bryce Dallas Howard (left) with Ron Howard (right) as he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Ron’s face might not be quite as recognizable as his daughter’s these days, but only because he spends his time behind the camera rather than in front of it. After acting in “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Happy Days,” Ron switched over to directing. His work includes “Apollo 13,” the Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind,” and “The Da Vinci Code.”

His daughter stayed in the family business, but took a different route. She’s acted in “The Village” and “Jurassic World.” But despite their different roles in the industry, he’s still an inspiration to her.

“He’s a dad, but also this extremely impressive individual. I really look up to him,” she said during an interview with UK’s Express. “It was a wonderful gift, growing up having a beautiful relationship with my dad.”

Actors Liev and Pablo Schreiber are half-brothers.

Liev (left) and Pablo Schreiber (right) circa 2006.

Brad Barket/Getty Images

Pablo Schreiber is easier to place if you imagine him with a big mustache. He plays Mendez on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” and he’s the half-brother of Liev Schreiber, who’s starred in “Defiance” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”

They’ve only acted in one movie together, but they spend time together off-screen. Liev recently tweeted a picture of one of their family outings.

(C)

[gaylemccoy972-blog]

When exorcists need help, they call him

(CNN)A small group of nuns and priests met the woman in the chapel of a house one June evening. Though it was warm outside, a palpable chill settled over the room.

Leave her alone, you f***ing priests, the guttural voice shouted. Stop, you whores. You'll be sorry.

You've probably seen this before: a soul corrupted by Satan, a priest waving a crucifix at a snarling woman. Movies and books have mimicked exorcisms so often, they've become clichs.

But this was an actual exorcism - and included a character not normally seen in the traditional drive-out-the-devil script.

Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman.

Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale. He knew about biblical accounts of demonic possession but thought they were an ancient culture's attempt to grapple with mental disorders like epilepsy. He proudly calls himself a man of science.

Yet today, Gallagher has become something else: the go-to guy for a sprawling network of exorcists in the United States. He says demonic possession is real. He's seen the evidence: victims suddenly speaking perfect Latin; sacred objects flying off shelves; people displaying hidden knowledge or secrets about people that they could not have possibly have known.

There was one woman who was like 90 pounds soaking wet. She threw a Lutheran deacon who was about 200 pounds across the room, he says. That's not psychiatry. That's beyond psychiatry.

Gallagher calls himself a consultant on demonic possessions. For the past 25 years, he has helped clergy distinguish between mental illness and what he calls the real thing. He estimates that he's seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.

Whenever I need help, I call on him, says the Rev. Gary Thomas, one of the most famous exorcists in the United States. The movie The Rite was based on Thomas' work.

He's so respected in the field, Thomas says. He's not like most therapists, who are either atheists or agnostics.

Gallagher is a big man - 6-foot-5 - who once played semipro basketball in Europe. He has a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. When he talks about possession, it sounds as if he's describing the growth of algae; his tone is dry, clinical, matter-of-fact.

Possession, he says, is rare - but real.

I spend more time convincing people that they're not possessed than they are, he wrote in an essay for The Washington Post.

Some critics, though, say Gallagher has become possessed by his own delusions. They say all he's witnessed are cheap parlor tricks by people who might need therapy but certainly not exorcism. And, they argue, there's no empirical evidence that proves possession is real.

Still, one of the biggest mysteries about Gallagher's work isn't what he's seen. It's how he's evolved.

How does a man of science get pulled into the world of demonic possession?

His short answer: He met a queen of Satan.

A 'creepy' encounter with evil

She was a middle-age woman who wore flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow. She could be charming and engaging. She was also part of a satanic cult.

She called herself the queen of the cult, but Gallagher would refer to her as Julia, the pseudonym he gave her.

The woman had approached her local priest, convinced she was being attacked by a demon. The priest referred her to an exorcist, who reached out to Gallagher for a mental health evaluation.

Why, though, would a devil worshipper want to be free of the devil?

She was conflicted, Gallagher says. There was a part of her that wanted to be relieved of the possession.

She ended up relieving Gallagher of his doubts. It was one of the first cases he took, and it changed him. Gallagher helped assemble an exorcism team that met Julia in the chapel of a house.

Objects would fly off shelves around her. She somehow knew personal details about Gallagher's life: how his mother had died of ovarian cancer; the fact that two cats in his house went berserk fighting each other the night before one of her sessions.

Julia found a way to reach him even when she wasn't with him, he says.

He was talking on the phone with Julia's priest one night, he says, when both men heard one of the demonic voices that came from Julia during her trances - even though she was nowhere near a phone and thousands of miles away.

He says he was never afraid.

It's creepy, he says. But I believe I'm on the winning side.

How a scientist believes in demons

He also insists that he's on the side of science.

He says he's a stickler for the scientific method, that it teaches people to follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Long Island, he didn't think much about stories of possession. But when he kept seeing cases like Julia's as a professional, he says, his views had to evolve.

I don't believe in this stuff because I'm Catholic, he says. I try to follow the evidence.

Being Catholic, though, may help.

Gallagher grew up in a home where faith was taken seriously. His younger brother, Mark, says Gallagher was an academic prodigy with a photographic memory who wanted to use his faith to help people.

We had a sensational childhood, Mark Gallagher says. My mother and father were great about always helping neighbors or relatives out. Their mother was a homemaker, and their father was a lawyer who'd fought in World War II. My father used to walk us proudly into church. He taught us to give back.

Gallagher's two ways of giving back - helping the mentally ill as well as the possessed - may seem at odds. But not necessarily for those in the Catholic Church.

Contemporary Catholicism doesn't see faith and science as contradictory. Its leaders insist that possession, miracles and angels exist. But global warming is real, so is evolution, and miracles must be documented with scientific rigor.

Some stories blur the lines between science, spirituality and the supernatural. These stories are from The Other Side.

Where do coincidences come from? Synchronicity is familiar to many people, yet few understand how it works. Are our lives are shaped by unseen hands? Or are we victims of psychological narcissm?

Beyond Goodbye Some people not only share their life but their moment of death with loved ones. Are these shared-death experiences real or a mirage?

Why Bigfoot is getting nervous Monster stories have been around for millennia. Now hunters are hot on the trail, armed with cameras, drones and night-vision goggles. Can they catch one?

Ghost hunters haunted by competition We've heard of ghosts that harass the living. Now people are starting to harass the ghosts. Across America, teams are creeping through people's homes, trying to get rid of their paranormal pests.

Heaven popular, except with the church Popular culture is filled with accounts from people who claim to have near-death experiences. So why doesn't the church talk about heaven anymore?

Bidding farewell from beyond the grave? Although visits by the spirits of the recently departed can be chilling, they are also comforting, say those who've seen these crisis apparitions. Can bonds between loved ones defy death?

One of Gallagher's favorite sources of inspiration is Pope John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio (On Faith and Reason). The Pope writes that there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason.

The church's emphasis on faith and reason can even been seen in the birth of its exorcism ritual.

The Rite of Exorcism was first published in 1614 by Pope Paul V to quell a trend of laypeople and priests hastily performing exorcisms on people they presumed were possessed, such as victims of the bubonic plague, says the Rev. Mike Driscoll, author of Demons, Deliverance, Discernment: Separating Fact from Fiction about the Spirit World.

A line (in the rite) said that the exorcist should be careful to distinguish between demon possession and melancholy, which was a catchall for mental illness, Driscoll says. The church knew back then that there were mental problems. It said the exorcist should not have anything to do with medicine. Leave that to the doctors.

Learn about the true story that inspired the movie The Exorcist

Doctors, perhaps, like Gallagher.

Gallagher says the concept of possession by spirit isn't limited to Catholicism. Muslim, Jewish and other Christian traditions regard possession by spirits - holy or benign - as possible.

This is not quite as esoteric as some people make it out to be, Gallagher says. I know quite a few psychiatrists and mental health professionals who believe in this stuff.

Dr. Mark Albanese is among them. A friend of Gallagher's, Albanese studied medicine at Cornell and has been practicing psychiatry for decades. In a letter to the New Oxford Review, a Catholic magazine, he defended Gallagher's belief in possession.

He also says there is a growing belief among health professionals that a patient's spiritual dimension should be accounted for in treatment, whether their provider agrees with those beliefs or not. Some psychiatrists have even talked of adding a trance and possession disorder diagnosis to the DSM, the premier diagnostic manual of disorders used by mental health professionals in the US.

There's still so much about the human mind that psychiatrists don't know, Albanese says. Doctors used to be widely skeptical of people who claimed to suffer from multiple personalities, but now it's a legitimate disorder (dissociative identity disorder). Many are still dumbfounded by the power of placebos, a harmless pill or medical procedure that produces healing in some cases.

There's a certain openness to experiences that are happening that are beyond what we can explain by MRI scans, neurobiology or even psychological theories, Albanese says.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia, arrived at a similar conclusion after he had an unnerving experience with a patient.

Lieberman was asked to examine the videotape of an exorcism that he subsequently dismissed as unconvincing.

Then he met a woman who, he said, freaked me out.

Lieberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, says he and a family therapist were asked to examine a young woman who some thought was possessed. He and his colleague tried to treat the woman for several months but gave up because they had no success.

Something happened during the treatment, though, that he still can't explain. After sessions with the woman, he says, he'd go home in the evenings, and the lights in his house would go off by themselves, photographs and artwork would fall or slide off shelves, and he'd experience a piercing headache.

When he mentioned to this to his colleague one day, her response stunned him: She'd been having the exact same experiences.

I had to sort of admit that I didn't really know what was going on, Lieberman says. Because of the bizarre things that occurred, I wouldn't say that (demonic possession) is impossible or categorically rule it out although I have very limited empirical evidence to verify its existence.

The tragic case of the real 'Emily Rose'

If you want to know why so many scientists and doctors like Lieberman are cautious about legitimizing demonic possession, consider one name: Anneliese Michel.

Michel was a victim in one of the most notorious cases of contemporary exorcism. If you have the stomach for it, go online and listen to audiotapes and watch videos of her exorcisms. The images and sounds will burn themselves into your brain. It sounds like somebody dropped a microphone into hell.

Michel was a German Catholic woman who died of starvation in 1976 after 67 exorcisms over a period of nine months. She was diagnosed with epilepsy but believed she was possessed. So did her devout Roman Catholic parents. She reportedly displayed some of the classic signs of possession: abnormal strength, aversion to sacred objects, speaking different languages.

Learn about Anneliese Michel

But authorities later determined that it was Michel's parents and two priests who were responsible for her death. German authorities put them on trial for murder, and they were found guilty of negligent homicide. The 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose was based on Michel's ordeal and the subsequent trial.

One of the leading skeptics of exorcism - and one of Gallagher's chief critics - is Steven Novella, a neurologist and professor at Yale School of Medicine.

He wrote a lengthy blog post dissecting Gallagher's experience with Julia, the satanic priestess. It could be read as a takedown of exorcisms everywhere.

He says Julia probably performed a cold reading on Gallagher. It's an old trick of fortune tellers and mediums in which they use vague, probing statements to make canny guesses about someone. (Fortune teller: I see a recent tragedy in your family. Client: You mean my sister who got hurt in a car accident? How did you know?)

Or take the case of a person speaking an unfamiliar language like Latin during a possession.

A patient might memorize Latin phrases to throw out during one of their possessions, Novella wrote. Were they having a conversation in Latin? Did they understand Latin spoken to them? Or did they just speak Latin?

Learn why Novella thinks exorcisms are fake

Novella says it's noteworthy that no one has filmed any paranormal event such as levitation or sacred objects flying across the room during an exorcism. He's seen exorcism tapes posted online and in documentaries and says they're not scary.

They're boring, he says. Nothing exciting happens. The most you get is some really bad play-acting by the person who is being exorcised.

In an interview, Novella went further and criticized any therapist who believes his patient's delusions.

The worst thing you can do to a patient who is delusional is to confirm their delusions, says Novella, who founded the New England Skeptical Society.

The primary goal of therapy is to reorient them to reality. Telling a patient who is struggling that maybe they're possessed by a demon is the worst thing you can do. It's only distracting them from addressing what the real problem is.

Driscoll, the Catholic priest who wrote a book about possession, is not a skeptic like Novella. Still, he says, it's not unusual for people on drugs or during psychotic episodes to display abnormal strength.

I have seen it take four grown guys to hold one small woman down, says Driscoll, a chaplain at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa, Illinois. When a person has no fear and is not in their right mind and they don't care about hurting themselves or hurting others, you can see heartbreaking things.

That doesn't mean he thinks possession isn't real. He says the New Testament is full of accounts of Jesus confronting demons.

Do I still believe it happens? Yes, I do, he says. It happened then. I don't know why it would be totally eradicated now.

Gallagher agrees and has answers for skeptics like Novella.

He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics.

Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor.

In a passage from a book he is working on about demonic possession in America, he says that it is the duty of a physician to help people in great distress without concern whether they have debatable or controversial conditions.

Gallagher isn't the first psychiatrist to feel such duty. Dr. M. Scott Peck, the late author of The Road Less Traveled, conducted two exorcisms himself - something Gallagher considers unwise and dangerous for any psychiatrist.

I didn't go volunteering for this, he says. I went into this because different people over the last few decades realized that I was open to this sort of thing. The referrals are almost invariably from priests. It's not like someone is walking into my office and I say, 'You must be possessed.'

What happened to Satan's queen

He may not have asked to join the hidden world of exorcism, but he is an integral part of that community today. He's been featured in stories and documentaries about exorcism and is on the governing board of the Rome-based International Association of Exorcists.

It's deepened my faith, he says of the exorcisms he's witnessed. It didn't radically change it, but it validated my faith.

He says he's received thanks from many people he's helped over the years. Some wept, grateful to him for not dismissing them as delusional. As for letting a journalist talk to any of these people, Gallagher says he zealously guards their privacy.

Julia, though, gave him permission to tell her story. But it didn't have a happy ending.

He and a team of exorcists continued to see her, but eventually, she called a halt to the sessions. She was too ambivalent. She relished some of the abilities she displayed during her trances. She was playing both sides.

Exorcism is not some kind of magical incantation, Gallagher says. Normally, a person has to make their own sincere spiritual efforts, too.

About a year after she dropped out, Gallagher says, he heard Julia's voice on the phone again. This time, she had called to tell him she was dying of cancer.

Gallagher says he offered to try to help her with a team of priests while she was still physically able, but her response was terse:

Well, I'll give it some thought.

He says he never heard from her again.

Inevitably, there will be others. His phone will ring. A priest will tell him a story. A team of clergy and nuns will be summoned. And the man of science will enter the hidden world of exorcism again.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

The critics, the souls that aren't saved, the creepy encounters - they don't seem to deter him.

Truly informed exorcists don't tend to get discouraged, he says, because they know it is our Lord who delivers the person, not themselves.

Is Gallagher doing God's work, or does he need deliverance from his own delusions?

Perhaps only God - and Satan - knows for sure.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/health/exorcism-doctor/index.html

[bradporter65-blog]

When exorcists need help, they call him

(CNN)A small group of nuns and priests met the woman in the chapel of a house one June evening. Though it was warm outside, a palpable chill settled over the room.

Leave her alone, you f***ing priests, the guttural voice shouted. Stop, you whores. You'll be sorry.

You've probably seen this before: a soul corrupted by Satan, a priest waving a crucifix at a snarling woman. Movies and books have mimicked exorcisms so often, they've become clichs.

But this was an actual exorcism - and included a character not normally seen in the traditional drive-out-the-devil script.

Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman.

Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale. He knew about biblical accounts of demonic possession but thought they were an ancient culture's attempt to grapple with mental disorders like epilepsy. He proudly calls himself a man of science.

Yet today, Gallagher has become something else: the go-to guy for a sprawling network of exorcists in the United States. He says demonic possession is real. He's seen the evidence: victims suddenly speaking perfect Latin; sacred objects flying off shelves; people displaying hidden knowledge or secrets about people that they could not have possibly have known.

There was one woman who was like 90 pounds soaking wet. She threw a Lutheran deacon who was about 200 pounds across the room, he says. That's not psychiatry. That's beyond psychiatry.

Gallagher calls himself a consultant on demonic possessions. For the past 25 years, he has helped clergy distinguish between mental illness and what he calls the real thing. He estimates that he's seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.

Whenever I need help, I call on him, says the Rev. Gary Thomas, one of the most famous exorcists in the United States. The movie The Rite was based on Thomas' work.

He's so respected in the field, Thomas says. He's not like most therapists, who are either atheists or agnostics.

Gallagher is a big man - 6-foot-5 - who once played semipro basketball in Europe. He has a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. When he talks about possession, it sounds as if he's describing the growth of algae; his tone is dry, clinical, matter-of-fact.

Possession, he says, is rare - but real.

I spend more time convincing people that they're not possessed than they are, he wrote in an essay for The Washington Post.

Some critics, though, say Gallagher has become possessed by his own delusions. They say all he's witnessed are cheap parlor tricks by people who might need therapy but certainly not exorcism. And, they argue, there's no empirical evidence that proves possession is real.

Still, one of the biggest mysteries about Gallagher's work isn't what he's seen. It's how he's evolved.

How does a man of science get pulled into the world of demonic possession?

His short answer: He met a queen of Satan.

A 'creepy' encounter with evil

She was a middle-age woman who wore flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow. She could be charming and engaging. She was also part of a satanic cult.

She called herself the queen of the cult, but Gallagher would refer to her as Julia, the pseudonym he gave her.

The woman had approached her local priest, convinced she was being attacked by a demon. The priest referred her to an exorcist, who reached out to Gallagher for a mental health evaluation.

Why, though, would a devil worshipper want to be free of the devil?

She was conflicted, Gallagher says. There was a part of her that wanted to be relieved of the possession.

She ended up relieving Gallagher of his doubts. It was one of the first cases he took, and it changed him. Gallagher helped assemble an exorcism team that met Julia in the chapel of a house.

Objects would fly off shelves around her. She somehow knew personal details about Gallagher's life: how his mother had died of ovarian cancer; the fact that two cats in his house went berserk fighting each other the night before one of her sessions.

Julia found a way to reach him even when she wasn't with him, he says.

He was talking on the phone with Julia's priest one night, he says, when both men heard one of the demonic voices that came from Julia during her trances - even though she was nowhere near a phone and thousands of miles away.

He says he was never afraid.

It's creepy, he says. But I believe I'm on the winning side.

How a scientist believes in demons

He also insists that he's on the side of science.

He says he's a stickler for the scientific method, that it teaches people to follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Long Island, he didn't think much about stories of possession. But when he kept seeing cases like Julia's as a professional, he says, his views had to evolve.

I don't believe in this stuff because I'm Catholic, he says. I try to follow the evidence.

Being Catholic, though, may help.

Gallagher grew up in a home where faith was taken seriously. His younger brother, Mark, says Gallagher was an academic prodigy with a photographic memory who wanted to use his faith to help people.

We had a sensational childhood, Mark Gallagher says. My mother and father were great about always helping neighbors or relatives out. Their mother was a homemaker, and their father was a lawyer who'd fought in World War II. My father used to walk us proudly into church. He taught us to give back.

Gallagher's two ways of giving back - helping the mentally ill as well as the possessed - may seem at odds. But not necessarily for those in the Catholic Church.

Contemporary Catholicism doesn't see faith and science as contradictory. Its leaders insist that possession, miracles and angels exist. But global warming is real, so is evolution, and miracles must be documented with scientific rigor.

Some stories blur the lines between science, spirituality and the supernatural. These stories are from The Other Side.

Where do coincidences come from? Synchronicity is familiar to many people, yet few understand how it works. Are our lives are shaped by unseen hands? Or are we victims of psychological narcissm?

Beyond Goodbye Some people not only share their life but their moment of death with loved ones. Are these shared-death experiences real or a mirage?

Why Bigfoot is getting nervous Monster stories have been around for millennia. Now hunters are hot on the trail, armed with cameras, drones and night-vision goggles. Can they catch one?

Ghost hunters haunted by competition We've heard of ghosts that harass the living. Now people are starting to harass the ghosts. Across America, teams are creeping through people's homes, trying to get rid of their paranormal pests.

Heaven popular, except with the church Popular culture is filled with accounts from people who claim to have near-death experiences. So why doesn't the church talk about heaven anymore?

Bidding farewell from beyond the grave? Although visits by the spirits of the recently departed can be chilling, they are also comforting, say those who've seen these crisis apparitions. Can bonds between loved ones defy death?

One of Gallagher's favorite sources of inspiration is Pope John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio (On Faith and Reason). The Pope writes that there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason.

The church's emphasis on faith and reason can even been seen in the birth of its exorcism ritual.

The Rite of Exorcism was first published in 1614 by Pope Paul V to quell a trend of laypeople and priests hastily performing exorcisms on people they presumed were possessed, such as victims of the bubonic plague, says the Rev. Mike Driscoll, author of Demons, Deliverance, Discernment: Separating Fact from Fiction about the Spirit World.

A line (in the rite) said that the exorcist should be careful to distinguish between demon possession and melancholy, which was a catchall for mental illness, Driscoll says. The church knew back then that there were mental problems. It said the exorcist should not have anything to do with medicine. Leave that to the doctors.

Learn about the true story that inspired the movie The Exorcist

Doctors, perhaps, like Gallagher.

Gallagher says the concept of possession by spirit isn't limited to Catholicism. Muslim, Jewish and other Christian traditions regard possession by spirits - holy or benign - as possible.

This is not quite as esoteric as some people make it out to be, Gallagher says. I know quite a few psychiatrists and mental health professionals who believe in this stuff.

Dr. Mark Albanese is among them. A friend of Gallagher's, Albanese studied medicine at Cornell and has been practicing psychiatry for decades. In a letter to the New Oxford Review, a Catholic magazine, he defended Gallagher's belief in possession.

He also says there is a growing belief among health professionals that a patient's spiritual dimension should be accounted for in treatment, whether their provider agrees with those beliefs or not. Some psychiatrists have even talked of adding a trance and possession disorder diagnosis to the DSM, the premier diagnostic manual of disorders used by mental health professionals in the US.

There's still so much about the human mind that psychiatrists don't know, Albanese says. Doctors used to be widely skeptical of people who claimed to suffer from multiple personalities, but now it's a legitimate disorder (dissociative identity disorder). Many are still dumbfounded by the power of placebos, a harmless pill or medical procedure that produces healing in some cases.

There's a certain openness to experiences that are happening that are beyond what we can explain by MRI scans, neurobiology or even psychological theories, Albanese says.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia, arrived at a similar conclusion after he had an unnerving experience with a patient.

Lieberman was asked to examine the videotape of an exorcism that he subsequently dismissed as unconvincing.

Then he met a woman who, he said, freaked me out.

Lieberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, says he and a family therapist were asked to examine a young woman who some thought was possessed. He and his colleague tried to treat the woman for several months but gave up because they had no success.

Something happened during the treatment, though, that he still can't explain. After sessions with the woman, he says, he'd go home in the evenings, and the lights in his house would go off by themselves, photographs and artwork would fall or slide off shelves, and he'd experience a piercing headache.

When he mentioned to this to his colleague one day, her response stunned him: She'd been having the exact same experiences.

I had to sort of admit that I didn't really know what was going on, Lieberman says. Because of the bizarre things that occurred, I wouldn't say that (demonic possession) is impossible or categorically rule it out although I have very limited empirical evidence to verify its existence.

The tragic case of the real 'Emily Rose'

If you want to know why so many scientists and doctors like Lieberman are cautious about legitimizing demonic possession, consider one name: Anneliese Michel.

Michel was a victim in one of the most notorious cases of contemporary exorcism. If you have the stomach for it, go online and listen to audiotapes and watch videos of her exorcisms. The images and sounds will burn themselves into your brain. It sounds like somebody dropped a microphone into hell.

Michel was a German Catholic woman who died of starvation in 1976 after 67 exorcisms over a period of nine months. She was diagnosed with epilepsy but believed she was possessed. So did her devout Roman Catholic parents. She reportedly displayed some of the classic signs of possession: abnormal strength, aversion to sacred objects, speaking different languages.

Learn about Anneliese Michel

But authorities later determined that it was Michel's parents and two priests who were responsible for her death. German authorities put them on trial for murder, and they were found guilty of negligent homicide. The 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose was based on Michel's ordeal and the subsequent trial.

One of the leading skeptics of exorcism - and one of Gallagher's chief critics - is Steven Novella, a neurologist and professor at Yale School of Medicine.

He wrote a lengthy blog post dissecting Gallagher's experience with Julia, the satanic priestess. It could be read as a takedown of exorcisms everywhere.

He says Julia probably performed a cold reading on Gallagher. It's an old trick of fortune tellers and mediums in which they use vague, probing statements to make canny guesses about someone. (Fortune teller: I see a recent tragedy in your family. Client: You mean my sister who got hurt in a car accident? How did you know?)

Or take the case of a person speaking an unfamiliar language like Latin during a possession.

A patient might memorize Latin phrases to throw out during one of their possessions, Novella wrote. Were they having a conversation in Latin? Did they understand Latin spoken to them? Or did they just speak Latin?

Learn why Novella thinks exorcisms are fake

Novella says it's noteworthy that no one has filmed any paranormal event such as levitation or sacred objects flying across the room during an exorcism. He's seen exorcism tapes posted online and in documentaries and says they're not scary.

They're boring, he says. Nothing exciting happens. The most you get is some really bad play-acting by the person who is being exorcised.

In an interview, Novella went further and criticized any therapist who believes his patient's delusions.

The worst thing you can do to a patient who is delusional is to confirm their delusions, says Novella, who founded the New England Skeptical Society.

The primary goal of therapy is to reorient them to reality. Telling a patient who is struggling that maybe they're possessed by a demon is the worst thing you can do. It's only distracting them from addressing what the real problem is.

Driscoll, the Catholic priest who wrote a book about possession, is not a skeptic like Novella. Still, he says, it's not unusual for people on drugs or during psychotic episodes to display abnormal strength.

I have seen it take four grown guys to hold one small woman down, says Driscoll, a chaplain at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa, Illinois. When a person has no fear and is not in their right mind and they don't care about hurting themselves or hurting others, you can see heartbreaking things.

That doesn't mean he thinks possession isn't real. He says the New Testament is full of accounts of Jesus confronting demons.

Do I still believe it happens? Yes, I do, he says. It happened then. I don't know why it would be totally eradicated now.

Gallagher agrees and has answers for skeptics like Novella.

He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics.

Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor.

In a passage from a book he is working on about demonic possession in America, he says that it is the duty of a physician to help people in great distress without concern whether they have debatable or controversial conditions.

Gallagher isn't the first psychiatrist to feel such duty. Dr. M. Scott Peck, the late author of The Road Less Traveled, conducted two exorcisms himself - something Gallagher considers unwise and dangerous for any psychiatrist.

I didn't go volunteering for this, he says. I went into this because different people over the last few decades realized that I was open to this sort of thing. The referrals are almost invariably from priests. It's not like someone is walking into my office and I say, 'You must be possessed.'

What happened to Satan's queen

He may not have asked to join the hidden world of exorcism, but he is an integral part of that community today. He's been featured in stories and documentaries about exorcism and is on the governing board of the Rome-based International Association of Exorcists.

It's deepened my faith, he says of the exorcisms he's witnessed. It didn't radically change it, but it validated my faith.

He says he's received thanks from many people he's helped over the years. Some wept, grateful to him for not dismissing them as delusional. As for letting a journalist talk to any of these people, Gallagher says he zealously guards their privacy.

Julia, though, gave him permission to tell her story. But it didn't have a happy ending.

He and a team of exorcists continued to see her, but eventually, she called a halt to the sessions. She was too ambivalent. She relished some of the abilities she displayed during her trances. She was playing both sides.

Exorcism is not some kind of magical incantation, Gallagher says. Normally, a person has to make their own sincere spiritual efforts, too.

About a year after she dropped out, Gallagher says, he heard Julia's voice on the phone again. This time, she had called to tell him she was dying of cancer.

Gallagher says he offered to try to help her with a team of priests while she was still physically able, but her response was terse:

Well, I'll give it some thought.

He says he never heard from her again.

Inevitably, there will be others. His phone will ring. A priest will tell him a story. A team of clergy and nuns will be summoned. And the man of science will enter the hidden world of exorcism again.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

The critics, the souls that aren't saved, the creepy encounters - they don't seem to deter him.

Truly informed exorcists don't tend to get discouraged, he says, because they know it is our Lord who delivers the person, not themselves.

Is Gallagher doing God's work, or does he need deliverance from his own delusions?

Perhaps only God - and Satan - knows for sure.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/health/exorcism-doctor/index.html

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 24: Divergence

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Twenty Four: Divergence

Note: Hi, everyone! Check out the notes at the end of the chapter! I have some cool stuff for you! As for me, everything is fine! Yup! I totally didn’t break my brand new phone that I just got in january by dropping it on the sidewalk. The screen protector totally did it’s job and didn’t somehow manage to not get a scratch on it while my phone shattered like my hopes and dreams. That would be silly… anyway… SO HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND?! BETTER THAN MINE, I HOPE?! Hahahaha… hahaha… ha. *Sobs.*

(-~-)

Situations this dire normally didn’t occur in something as unassuming and generally benign as a grocery store. But then again, normal wasn’t a term that people generally associated with devil hunters, and even among the ranks of those that fought against the creatures of the netherworld, the Dark Knight Sparda’s family was especially cursed in regards to finding new and unlikely ways to imperil themselves. They generally weren’t trying to get themselves into these kinds of situations, but that didn’t exactly mean that they were actively trying not to, either.

Both of them were still coming to grips with the unique and possibly deadly situation that they had found themselves in as they stood by the front counter, unsure as to what they could do to combat their current situation. It was admittedly dubious, and it was far from the sort of thing that V could say he was used to, but there was something uncomfortably familiar about it. He just wasn’t sure what his past experiences could teach him about something like this.

It occurred to Sirrus that he probably looked somewhat suspicious after everything that had happened that day, and that was something that he didn’t need in a situation like this. Trust was something that he needed to foster between himself and V if they were to have any hope of escaping this place with their lives. Both of them needed one thing from another in order to proceed. V needed Sirrus’s instruction, and Sirrus needed V to help combat their unseen opponent. After all, they were mutually damned if they didn’t put aside any misgivings they might have developed that evening. They needed to put their heads together and come up with a plan. Neither of them was unintelligent.

“Using as few of your abilities as you can is imperative in a situation like this. It is best that we keep our true capabilities to ourselves.” The man in the black and purple coat said calmly, concealing his apprehension towards the situation as best as he could. On paper, he understood what was going on very well. But in action, well… 

“Agreed. I have the distinct feeling that we are being watched. I have decided to air on the side of caution and not use them,” V said to Sirrus, knowing that his unwilling companion would know who and what he was referring to. “Perhaps it would have been best if I had access to my full repertoire of companions before getting into this situation. It’s truly regrettable, but I suppose there is nothing I can do about it now aside from working with what I have.”

Griffon chimed in quietly from the recesses of V’s mind, seemingly agreeing with him, but still slightly miffed. “You mean the big guy, V? Do ya really think that you have what it takes to get control of him all over again? He almost killed you the first time, don’t you remember?! I don’t think you can handle going through all of that again, pall. Not right now, at least.”

Leave it to the mouthy bird to only whisper during the appropriate time on the one occasion he couldn’t actually be heard out loud… 

V wasn’t surprised by Griffon’s nervous tone. He hadn’t wanted V to attempt to gain control over the monstrous demon from the moment that he had originally suggested it, and he had been worried every time that he had used him after that, constantly pointing out the toll that it took on him. Griffon didn’t doubt his abilities or his strength. He wouldn’t serve him so loyally if he did, even if that wasn’t the reason that they had originally been pressganged together. But what he didn’t trust were unpredictable factors, and there were few things more unpredictable than Nightmare. His very creation had proved that. But in truth, what surprised him was the fact that he was still attempting to warn him away from the idea. “From what I understand, that is no longer an option. I have no idea how I would regain control over Nightmare, even if I knew where he was. But regardless, I am stronger than I was then. Better equipped. My odds are favorable in contrast to what they were before, and it would be on my terms. I refuse to allow my choices to be a direct result of my opponent’s pressure.”

“Well, you’ve got a fair point, V. Probably shouldn’t have brought it up, hu?” Griffon said almost nervously as he quieted down, seemingly eager to escape the uncomfortable conversation. There was a certain shudder to the way that he spoke that actually made V apprehensive for a moment. Was his avian companion concealing something?

“... Do you know something important that you’re not telling me, Griffon?” He asked calmly, more curious than upset. It made perfect sense that his friend had secrets of his own, but the young summoner hadn’t considered the possibility that Griffon might be keeping something important from him before. If he was, then he was sure that his intentions were pure, but he could only speculate as to what his companion might be concealing. Perhaps he was protecting him from something? Or at the very least, it was something that he didn’t think that V would benefit from knowing? Perhaps it was harmful to him in some way? They would discuss this later under better circumstances.

The wacky bird answered hesitantly, probably chastising himself for being careless in his approach. V was good at reading him, even if he couldn’t physically see him. He had to be more thoughtful in the future. “I mean, isn’t everyone, V? But this isn’t the best time to talk about it anyway. I mean, that Belial guy got in your head for a little bit before when we were on that island with that girl you like, and your walking his turf right now, right? Might want to be careful what you think. He might be able to hear you, or whatever.”

Somewhat surprised by the honesty and relatable understandability of that statement, V decided to secede defeat and just drop the matter until they were able to get out of there. Sometimes he forgot the fact that Griffon was very intelligent, and just had a generally sarcastic and funny personality. “That makes sense… and also… what did you say about me liking her?”

A moment later V was brought back to reality by Sirrus, the other man seemingly working on some sort of plan. Or at least, that was what he thought he was doing. Sirrus was headed somewhere in a hurry, and V wasn’t entirely sure where, but he was eager to find out. The less time they spent in the clutches of their enemies, the better.

“You used to possess more of them? That is quite impressive, actually.” Sirrus asked, seemingly surprised. He leaned over, speaking quietly as he looked V in the eyes momentarily, indicating in some unmistakable yet uncertain way that he understood what he was implying. V couldn’t tell what it was about Sirrus’s body language that told him that, but it was clear nonetheless. “That takes quite a bit of strength. A weak will does not obedient servants make.”

V nodded, concurring with the statement as they rounded the next corner, seemingly headed towards the back of the store. He had considered once or twice in his youth what the back of the store held within it, especially the freezer compartment, but he had been too horrified by the potential options to actually ask someone, especially after witnessing a butcher carve chunks of meat off of something he couldn’t identify and then cart it through the back doors, never to be seen again. It seemed that now he was going to find out. “While I would not consider them as such, your point stands. When I returned from… where I was before all of this began, I was only able to reclaim two of them. The last of my companions is currently unaccounted for.

“Please do not mistake my intentions. It was purely a figure of speech.” Sirrus said casually as he peaked his head into the back of the store. There was no light coming from that sector, a yawning black abyss stretching out as far as the eye could see. The only details were a wall and a large double door at the back. “They are far more than that, especially to you. From what I understand, their power is based on how close you are personally to them, not just how powerful they were to start with. Your bond is everything. The more time you spend together and how often you utilize them are both factors that strengthen your bond with them. But that does not mean that they are not unrecoverable after being lost, as you have demonstrated… how did you lose them?”

“Of that, I am not sure. They are not exactly normal. Let’s just say they are remnants of a sort, artificially created in some capacity, but their origin is far from inorganic. I won’t pretend to fully understand how it happened, but we can discuss that later under less… pressing circumstances.” V kept his voice low, opting to instead stand nearer to Sirrus than he would normally like to. But he had no way of knowing if their opponent could hear them, and he didn’t need him knowing any of this information. Working under the assumption that everything he said could be heard by their host helped. “In regards to how I lost them… Well, I died. More specifically, I knew that I was going to die, so I released them. They had done their best, and I refused to force my fate upon them, even if I knew that they themselves were not long for this world without me. But I refuse to take the option to choose away from someone the way that it has been taken from me by other people my entire life, especially for something like that. That is not right.”

Sympathy washed over Sirrus’s face as he considered the ramifications of what V had just revealed to him. He had clearly been through much in the short time that he had been alive. Too much. And to have died and come back with his sanity still in tack? Such an imposing thing to face at such a young age… he didn’t envy that experience in the slightest. “I’ve clearly overstepped. Forgive me. I can’t imagine what you went through. I remember something being said about you having died back at your house… I’m sorry.”

Inching forward, they cautiously approached the distant door, noting that it was seemingly as far away from them as they were from the front counter by this point. V nodded in recognition of Sirrus’s apology, but it wasn’t needed. He had come to terms with that reality long before it had even become one. It was inevitable and unwelcome, but there was little that one could do to counter it, if there was anything that could be done about death at all. That was what made it so petrifying, as far as he was concerned. 

Neither of them needed to have worked in a grocery store before to be able to tell that this was probably the result of their host stretching his own limits as far as they would go, having no point of reference for something that V had not seen before. The building itself wasn’t long enough to even accommodate a hallway of this size. But they had to press forward either way. This could be their only means of escape. As much as they didn’t like it, they had to go down this path.

From the moment that they opened the door and stepped into the hallway, V could feel his stomach knot up as an uncontrollable wave of anxiety crawled up the base of his spine. It was a potent kind of fear that was hard to place the source of, primeval in the sense that he could not understand what had caused it, but he felt its powerful influence regardless. His pulse quickened and he felt slightly lightheaded, but he attempted to regain control of himself in spite of his fight or flight system’s insistence on making him a sitting duck. “This isn’t real. It can’t hurt you… can it? Oh no, can it?”

“What is the nature of an illusion like this? Are we working against a sort of time limit, or is there a way to circumvent this situation?” V asked uncomfortably as he tried to remain relatively calm. He wasn’t normally so easily shaken, but something about this place filled him with unbridled terror with every step that he took. His breath shuttered slightly as they approached a second door in the distance, frost and white mist seeping from underneath the door and through the cracks provided by the hinges and the door’s center split. Through the circular windows, there was only blackness, ice shards forming webs of blistering cold that spread upwards across the plexiglass and towards the ceiling, out of their line of view.’

Noticing the change in V’s demeanor, Sirrus stopped, gently gripping the edge of V’s long sleeve shirt in order to pull him to a slow stop. The white-haired summoner went completely rigid, his muscles refusing to so much as entertain the idea of retracting his wrist from Sirrus’s light grip. He just stood there, reeling from the colliding conflictions caused by the fact that his neanderthal brain wanted to run for the hills, but was too paralyzed by fear to do anything, and his logical brain still hadn’t located the source of the terror that he felt in the first place. He had never felt so utterly confused and afraid in his entire life. Well, perhaps one other time, but it wasn’t quite like this.

Stepping around in front of him, Sirrus gave V a calm, questioning look as he took in the fact that he was shuddering slightly. Looking down at his sleeve, he noticed that the summoner’s hand was clenched sightly, more than likely out of reflex in response to the fear and anxiety that was plastered across his face. It wasn’t so much that he looked afraid or panicked as it was that he seemed… anxious. His brow was furrowed slightly and he was blinking considerably more than he probably needed to in quick bursts, his eyes looking in every direction but directly at Sirrus. He seemed distracted, almost distant as if his thoughts were elsewhere. It reminded him of the way that V had looked back when they had been on Vie de Marli when Belial had managed to sneak his way into his mind, only this time he seemed far too coherent for that to actually be the case. Everything about his body language said that he was extraordinarily uncomfortable, and Sirrus immediately realized what was probably causing it.

He used his free hand to carefully unclench V’s fingers, silently hoping that doing so might help snap him out of his current state and bring him back to… whatever reality they were currently in. It seemed to work slightly as the moment that he managed to straighten his hand out slightly, V unclenched somewhat and gave him a look as if to ask what was happening. Sirrus nodded, a slight smile on his face in spite of the horrible circumstances that they were both in. “I was hoping that might do the trick. Telling someone who is upset to calm down rarely does anything more than piss them off despite the fact that it’s arguably the most logical answer.”

“Do… Do you have any idea why this is happening to me?” V asked calmly, removing his hand from Sirrus’s light grip slowly and using it to rub the side of his neck. This was perhaps the strangest reaction that he had ever had to seemingly nothing, and he was at his wit’s end. Common sense told him that it had something to do with the place that they were currently in, but that didn’t change the fact that the very sight of that door was enough to send him spiraling down a rabbit hole of terror, and why that was was totally beyond him.

Casually shrugging, Sirrus nodded. “I’d imagine that Belial searched the deepest recesses of your mind until he found something that he knew you’d find inescapably horrifying, and decided to utilize it. It’s more than likely part of the effect of this place. He’s filling in any blanks with what little he can grasp as to what scared you at one point or another. And sometimes, if something scared you bad enough in the past, it doesn’t matter if you’re still afraid of it now. It’s the residual terror that you still feel that’s the problem. That’s why things that we found frightening as children but we know are silly now still get to us.” Sirrus gestured towards the door, shivering slightly from the bitter cold. He didn’t particularly know what was through that door, but he just knew he would find out soon enough. “He can draw upon that fear and make it as real now as it was back then. The only difference is that this time whatever imaginary fear you used to have might actually be real. It depends on how good of a grip he has on this reality. And if I was willing to make a guess, I’d say that he’s very much in control of this place if he’d manifesting subliminal horrors. This is what I meant when I said he likes to play games. Whatever is on the other side of that door is a horror manifested by your own subconscious, and he knows that nothing he can come up with is more terrifying than what dwells in the depths of our own minds.”

V sighed heavily, looking down at the ground for a moment as he composed himself. That made far too much sense. Sirrus was right, his own subconscious was certainly worse than the majority of the demons he’d faced in his lifetime. Maybe all of them. He just hoped that it wouldn’t prove to be the end of them both. While he wasn’t sure what was on the other side of that door, he knew that knowing that it originated from within his mind made it both more bearable, and even more difficult to face. No one should have to physically witness the abominations of their own subconscious, and he was not eager to see what his subconscious could cook up if it tried hard enough. Hell, it might not have to try at all. Simply twisting one of his many negative life experiences would probably be enough to cause everything to come crashing down around him.

But facing his “demons” was the only way that they could get out of there, and V wasn’t going to back down without putting up a fight. Even if it pushed him to his limit, he was going to do everything that he could to combat this threat. He just hoped that they wouldn’t have to reveal too much to their adversary to accomplish that goal.

Peering down the hallway towards the looming door, V exhaled softly before taking a step in the direction of the door. At the very least, he wanted to know what he was up against, even if he somehow knew in the pit of his stomach that he would regret it in the long run. Enough was enough. They needed to get out of here, and if this was the only way that they might be able to do that, then that was what they would do.

(-~-)

I used a text to speech application to help me edit this chapter. Let me know if that helped. I find that hearing my writing out loud is helpful, but my brain just puts together the gaps in the words that I missed when editing, so I can’t really do it myself.

So remember that thing I was excited to share with you?! Here it is! I found an editor for Soliloquy, so they will be updating and editing everything this week! I have also commissioned someone very well known in the dmc art community on Tumblr to do the cover art, so I can’t wait to get the first prints of the book to show to you all!

Below I have included a link to an interest check form that helps me figure out everything from pricing and shipping costs, to accessories like posters and stickers, all the way to the type of binding type to print, the fit and finish, and the charity that we would be donating the proceeds to. It would only take about five minuets to fill out, and it would be hugely helpful to me. It’s not an obligation to buy, just a useful tool for me to use as I move forward. Sorry for the number of forms lately! Hopefully that isn’t annoying… I guess I’m just excited! If you don’t check it out, that’s fine, but I would love it if you did. Feel free to skip any questions that you don’t want to answer, and share the link if you’d like to. The more, the merrier!

Have a wonderful day!

Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jlbp1GLFEu5reGlxNPzK50c4t5841gWAOdjQPNYremk/edit?usp=sharing

[pedrowells24-blog]

When exorcists need help, they call him

(CNN)A small group of nuns and priests met the woman in the chapel of a house one June evening. Though it was warm outside, a palpable chill settled over the room.

Leave her alone, you f***ing priests, the guttural voice shouted. Stop, you whores. You'll be sorry.

You've probably seen this before: a soul corrupted by Satan, a priest waving a crucifix at a snarling woman. Movies and books have mimicked exorcisms so often, they've become clichs.

But this was an actual exorcism - and included a character not normally seen in the traditional drive-out-the-devil script.

Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman.

Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale. He knew about biblical accounts of demonic possession but thought they were an ancient culture's attempt to grapple with mental disorders like epilepsy. He proudly calls himself a man of science.

Yet today, Gallagher has become something else: the go-to guy for a sprawling network of exorcists in the United States. He says demonic possession is real. He's seen the evidence: victims suddenly speaking perfect Latin; sacred objects flying off shelves; people displaying hidden knowledge or secrets about people that they could not have possibly have known.

There was one woman who was like 90 pounds soaking wet. She threw a Lutheran deacon who was about 200 pounds across the room, he says. That's not psychiatry. That's beyond psychiatry.

Gallagher calls himself a consultant on demonic possessions. For the past 25 years, he has helped clergy distinguish between mental illness and what he calls the real thing. He estimates that he's seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.

Whenever I need help, I call on him, says the Rev. Gary Thomas, one of the most famous exorcists in the United States. The movie The Rite was based on Thomas' work.

He's so respected in the field, Thomas says. He's not like most therapists, who are either atheists or agnostics.

Gallagher is a big man - 6-foot-5 - who once played semipro basketball in Europe. He has a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. When he talks about possession, it sounds as if he's describing the growth of algae; his tone is dry, clinical, matter-of-fact.

Possession, he says, is rare - but real.

I spend more time convincing people that they're not possessed than they are, he wrote in an essay for The Washington Post.

Some critics, though, say Gallagher has become possessed by his own delusions. They say all he's witnessed are cheap parlor tricks by people who might need therapy but certainly not exorcism. And, they argue, there's no empirical evidence that proves possession is real.

Still, one of the biggest mysteries about Gallagher's work isn't what he's seen. It's how he's evolved.

How does a man of science get pulled into the world of demonic possession?

His short answer: He met a queen of Satan.

A 'creepy' encounter with evil

She was a middle-age woman who wore flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow. She could be charming and engaging. She was also part of a satanic cult.

She called herself the queen of the cult, but Gallagher would refer to her as Julia, the pseudonym he gave her.

The woman had approached her local priest, convinced she was being attacked by a demon. The priest referred her to an exorcist, who reached out to Gallagher for a mental health evaluation.

Why, though, would a devil worshipper want to be free of the devil?

She was conflicted, Gallagher says. There was a part of her that wanted to be relieved of the possession.

She ended up relieving Gallagher of his doubts. It was one of the first cases he took, and it changed him. Gallagher helped assemble an exorcism team that met Julia in the chapel of a house.

Objects would fly off shelves around her. She somehow knew personal details about Gallagher's life: how his mother had died of ovarian cancer; the fact that two cats in his house went berserk fighting each other the night before one of her sessions.

Julia found a way to reach him even when she wasn't with him, he says.

He was talking on the phone with Julia's priest one night, he says, when both men heard one of the demonic voices that came from Julia during her trances - even though she was nowhere near a phone and thousands of miles away.

He says he was never afraid.

It's creepy, he says. But I believe I'm on the winning side.

How a scientist believes in demons

He also insists that he's on the side of science.

He says he's a stickler for the scientific method, that it teaches people to follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Long Island, he didn't think much about stories of possession. But when he kept seeing cases like Julia's as a professional, he says, his views had to evolve.

I don't believe in this stuff because I'm Catholic, he says. I try to follow the evidence.

Being Catholic, though, may help.

Gallagher grew up in a home where faith was taken seriously. His younger brother, Mark, says Gallagher was an academic prodigy with a photographic memory who wanted to use his faith to help people.

We had a sensational childhood, Mark Gallagher says. My mother and father were great about always helping neighbors or relatives out. Their mother was a homemaker, and their father was a lawyer who'd fought in World War II. My father used to walk us proudly into church. He taught us to give back.

Gallagher's two ways of giving back - helping the mentally ill as well as the possessed - may seem at odds. But not necessarily for those in the Catholic Church.

Contemporary Catholicism doesn't see faith and science as contradictory. Its leaders insist that possession, miracles and angels exist. But global warming is real, so is evolution, and miracles must be documented with scientific rigor.

Some stories blur the lines between science, spirituality and the supernatural. These stories are from The Other Side.

Where do coincidences come from? Synchronicity is familiar to many people, yet few understand how it works. Are our lives are shaped by unseen hands? Or are we victims of psychological narcissm?

Beyond Goodbye Some people not only share their life but their moment of death with loved ones. Are these shared-death experiences real or a mirage?

Why Bigfoot is getting nervous Monster stories have been around for millennia. Now hunters are hot on the trail, armed with cameras, drones and night-vision goggles. Can they catch one?

Ghost hunters haunted by competition We've heard of ghosts that harass the living. Now people are starting to harass the ghosts. Across America, teams are creeping through people's homes, trying to get rid of their paranormal pests.

Heaven popular, except with the church Popular culture is filled with accounts from people who claim to have near-death experiences. So why doesn't the church talk about heaven anymore?

Bidding farewell from beyond the grave? Although visits by the spirits of the recently departed can be chilling, they are also comforting, say those who've seen these crisis apparitions. Can bonds between loved ones defy death?

One of Gallagher's favorite sources of inspiration is Pope John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio (On Faith and Reason). The Pope writes that there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason.

The church's emphasis on faith and reason can even been seen in the birth of its exorcism ritual.

The Rite of Exorcism was first published in 1614 by Pope Paul V to quell a trend of laypeople and priests hastily performing exorcisms on people they presumed were possessed, such as victims of the bubonic plague, says the Rev. Mike Driscoll, author of Demons, Deliverance, Discernment: Separating Fact from Fiction about the Spirit World.

A line (in the rite) said that the exorcist should be careful to distinguish between demon possession and melancholy, which was a catchall for mental illness, Driscoll says. The church knew back then that there were mental problems. It said the exorcist should not have anything to do with medicine. Leave that to the doctors.

Learn about the true story that inspired the movie The Exorcist

Doctors, perhaps, like Gallagher.

Gallagher says the concept of possession by spirit isn't limited to Catholicism. Muslim, Jewish and other Christian traditions regard possession by spirits - holy or benign - as possible.

This is not quite as esoteric as some people make it out to be, Gallagher says. I know quite a few psychiatrists and mental health professionals who believe in this stuff.

Dr. Mark Albanese is among them. A friend of Gallagher's, Albanese studied medicine at Cornell and has been practicing psychiatry for decades. In a letter to the New Oxford Review, a Catholic magazine, he defended Gallagher's belief in possession.

He also says there is a growing belief among health professionals that a patient's spiritual dimension should be accounted for in treatment, whether their provider agrees with those beliefs or not. Some psychiatrists have even talked of adding a trance and possession disorder diagnosis to the DSM, the premier diagnostic manual of disorders used by mental health professionals in the US.

There's still so much about the human mind that psychiatrists don't know, Albanese says. Doctors used to be widely skeptical of people who claimed to suffer from multiple personalities, but now it's a legitimate disorder (dissociative identity disorder). Many are still dumbfounded by the power of placebos, a harmless pill or medical procedure that produces healing in some cases.

There's a certain openness to experiences that are happening that are beyond what we can explain by MRI scans, neurobiology or even psychological theories, Albanese says.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia, arrived at a similar conclusion after he had an unnerving experience with a patient.

Lieberman was asked to examine the videotape of an exorcism that he subsequently dismissed as unconvincing.

Then he met a woman who, he said, freaked me out.

Lieberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, says he and a family therapist were asked to examine a young woman who some thought was possessed. He and his colleague tried to treat the woman for several months but gave up because they had no success.

Something happened during the treatment, though, that he still can't explain. After sessions with the woman, he says, he'd go home in the evenings, and the lights in his house would go off by themselves, photographs and artwork would fall or slide off shelves, and he'd experience a piercing headache.

When he mentioned to this to his colleague one day, her response stunned him: She'd been having the exact same experiences.

I had to sort of admit that I didn't really know what was going on, Lieberman says. Because of the bizarre things that occurred, I wouldn't say that (demonic possession) is impossible or categorically rule it out although I have very limited empirical evidence to verify its existence.

The tragic case of the real 'Emily Rose'

If you want to know why so many scientists and doctors like Lieberman are cautious about legitimizing demonic possession, consider one name: Anneliese Michel.

Michel was a victim in one of the most notorious cases of contemporary exorcism. If you have the stomach for it, go online and listen to audiotapes and watch videos of her exorcisms. The images and sounds will burn themselves into your brain. It sounds like somebody dropped a microphone into hell.

Michel was a German Catholic woman who died of starvation in 1976 after 67 exorcisms over a period of nine months. She was diagnosed with epilepsy but believed she was possessed. So did her devout Roman Catholic parents. She reportedly displayed some of the classic signs of possession: abnormal strength, aversion to sacred objects, speaking different languages.

Learn about Anneliese Michel

But authorities later determined that it was Michel's parents and two priests who were responsible for her death. German authorities put them on trial for murder, and they were found guilty of negligent homicide. The 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose was based on Michel's ordeal and the subsequent trial.

One of the leading skeptics of exorcism - and one of Gallagher's chief critics - is Steven Novella, a neurologist and professor at Yale School of Medicine.

He wrote a lengthy blog post dissecting Gallagher's experience with Julia, the satanic priestess. It could be read as a takedown of exorcisms everywhere.

He says Julia probably performed a cold reading on Gallagher. It's an old trick of fortune tellers and mediums in which they use vague, probing statements to make canny guesses about someone. (Fortune teller: I see a recent tragedy in your family. Client: You mean my sister who got hurt in a car accident? How did you know?)

Or take the case of a person speaking an unfamiliar language like Latin during a possession.

A patient might memorize Latin phrases to throw out during one of their possessions, Novella wrote. Were they having a conversation in Latin? Did they understand Latin spoken to them? Or did they just speak Latin?

Learn why Novella thinks exorcisms are fake

Novella says it's noteworthy that no one has filmed any paranormal event such as levitation or sacred objects flying across the room during an exorcism. He's seen exorcism tapes posted online and in documentaries and says they're not scary.

They're boring, he says. Nothing exciting happens. The most you get is some really bad play-acting by the person who is being exorcised.

In an interview, Novella went further and criticized any therapist who believes his patient's delusions.

The worst thing you can do to a patient who is delusional is to confirm their delusions, says Novella, who founded the New England Skeptical Society.

The primary goal of therapy is to reorient them to reality. Telling a patient who is struggling that maybe they're possessed by a demon is the worst thing you can do. It's only distracting them from addressing what the real problem is.

Driscoll, the Catholic priest who wrote a book about possession, is not a skeptic like Novella. Still, he says, it's not unusual for people on drugs or during psychotic episodes to display abnormal strength.

I have seen it take four grown guys to hold one small woman down, says Driscoll, a chaplain at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa, Illinois. When a person has no fear and is not in their right mind and they don't care about hurting themselves or hurting others, you can see heartbreaking things.

That doesn't mean he thinks possession isn't real. He says the New Testament is full of accounts of Jesus confronting demons.

Do I still believe it happens? Yes, I do, he says. It happened then. I don't know why it would be totally eradicated now.

Gallagher agrees and has answers for skeptics like Novella.

He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics.

Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor.

In a passage from a book he is working on about demonic possession in America, he says that it is the duty of a physician to help people in great distress without concern whether they have debatable or controversial conditions.

Gallagher isn't the first psychiatrist to feel such duty. Dr. M. Scott Peck, the late author of The Road Less Traveled, conducted two exorcisms himself - something Gallagher considers unwise and dangerous for any psychiatrist.

I didn't go volunteering for this, he says. I went into this because different people over the last few decades realized that I was open to this sort of thing. The referrals are almost invariably from priests. It's not like someone is walking into my office and I say, 'You must be possessed.'

What happened to Satan's queen

He may not have asked to join the hidden world of exorcism, but he is an integral part of that community today. He's been featured in stories and documentaries about exorcism and is on the governing board of the Rome-based International Association of Exorcists.

It's deepened my faith, he says of the exorcisms he's witnessed. It didn't radically change it, but it validated my faith.

He says he's received thanks from many people he's helped over the years. Some wept, grateful to him for not dismissing them as delusional. As for letting a journalist talk to any of these people, Gallagher says he zealously guards their privacy.

Julia, though, gave him permission to tell her story. But it didn't have a happy ending.

He and a team of exorcists continued to see her, but eventually, she called a halt to the sessions. She was too ambivalent. She relished some of the abilities she displayed during her trances. She was playing both sides.

Exorcism is not some kind of magical incantation, Gallagher says. Normally, a person has to make their own sincere spiritual efforts, too.

About a year after she dropped out, Gallagher says, he heard Julia's voice on the phone again. This time, she had called to tell him she was dying of cancer.

Gallagher says he offered to try to help her with a team of priests while she was still physically able, but her response was terse:

Well, I'll give it some thought.

He says he never heard from her again.

Inevitably, there will be others. His phone will ring. A priest will tell him a story. A team of clergy and nuns will be summoned. And the man of science will enter the hidden world of exorcism again.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

The critics, the souls that aren't saved, the creepy encounters - they don't seem to deter him.

Truly informed exorcists don't tend to get discouraged, he says, because they know it is our Lord who delivers the person, not themselves.

Is Gallagher doing God's work, or does he need deliverance from his own delusions?

Perhaps only God - and Satan - knows for sure.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/health/exorcism-doctor/index.html

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

When exorcists need help, they call him

(CNN)A small group of nuns and priests met the woman in the chapel of a house one June evening. Though it was warm outside, a palpable chill settled over the room.

"Leave her alone, you f***ing priests," the guttural voice shouted. "Stop, you whores. ... You'll be sorry."

You've probably seen this before: a soul corrupted by Satan, a priest waving a crucifix at a snarling woman. Movies and books have mimicked exorcisms so often, they've become clichs.

But this was an actual exorcism -- and included a character not normally seen in the traditional drive-out-the-devil script.

Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman.

Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale. He knew about biblical accounts of demonic possession but thought they were an ancient culture's attempt to grapple with mental disorders like epilepsy. He proudly calls himself a "man of science."

Yet today, Gallagher has become something else: the go-to guy for a sprawling network of exorcists in the United States. He says demonic possession is real. He's seen the evidence: victims suddenly speaking perfect Latin; sacred objects flying off shelves; people displaying "hidden knowledge" or secrets about people that they could not have possibly have known.

"There was one woman who was like 90 pounds soaking wet. She threw a Lutheran deacon who was about 200 pounds across the room," he says. "That's not psychiatry. That's beyond psychiatry."

Gallagher calls himself a "consultant" on demonic possessions. For the past 25 years, he has helped clergy distinguish between mental illness and what he calls "the real thing." He estimates that he's seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.

"Whenever I need help, I call on him," says the Rev. Gary Thomas, one of the most famous exorcists in the United States. The movie "The Rite" was based on Thomas' work.

"He's so respected in the field," Thomas says. "He's not like most therapists, who are either atheists or agnostics."

Gallagher is a big man -- 6-foot-5 -- who once played semipro basketball in Europe. He has a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. When he talks about possession, it sounds as if he's describing the growth of algae; his tone is dry, clinical, matter-of-fact.

Possession, he says, is rare -- but real.

"I spend more time convincing people that they're not possessed than they are," he wrote in an essay for The Washington Post.

Some critics, though, say Gallagher has become possessed by his own delusions. They say all he's witnessed are cheap parlor tricks by people who might need therapy but certainly not exorcism. And, they argue, there's no empirical evidence that proves possession is real.

Still, one of the biggest mysteries about Gallagher's work isn't what he's seen. It's how he's evolved.

How does a "man of science" get pulled into the world of demonic possession?

His short answer: He met a queen of Satan.

A 'creepy' encounter with evil

She was a middle-age woman who wore flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow. She could be charming and engaging. She was also part of a satanic cult.

She called herself the queen of the cult, but Gallagher would refer to her as "Julia," the pseudonym he gave her.

The woman had approached her local priest, convinced she was being attacked by a demon. The priest referred her to an exorcist, who reached out to Gallagher for a mental health evaluation.

Why, though, would a devil worshipper want to be free of the devil?

"She was conflicted," Gallagher says. "There was a part of her that wanted to be relieved of the possession."

She ended up relieving Gallagher of his doubts. It was one of the first cases he took, and it changed him. Gallagher helped assemble an exorcism team that met Julia in the chapel of a house.

Objects would fly off shelves around her. She somehow knew personal details about Gallagher's life: how his mother had died of ovarian cancer; the fact that two cats in his house went berserk fighting each other the night before one of her sessions.

Julia found a way to reach him even when she wasn't with him, he says.

He was talking on the phone with Julia's priest one night, he says, when both men heard one of the demonic voices that came from Julia during her trances -- even though she was nowhere near a phone and thousands of miles away.

He says he was never afraid.

"It's creepy," he says. "But I believe I'm on the winning side."

How a scientist believes in demons

He also insists that he's on the side of science.

He says he's a stickler for the scientific method, that it teaches people to follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Long Island, he didn't think much about stories of possession. But when he kept seeing cases like Julia's as a professional, he says, his views had to evolve.

"I don't believe in this stuff because I'm Catholic," he says. "I try to follow the evidence."

Being Catholic, though, may help.

Gallagher grew up in a home where faith was taken seriously. His younger brother, Mark, says Gallagher was an academic prodigy with a photographic memory who wanted to use his faith to help people.

"We had a sensational childhood," Mark Gallagher says. "My mother and father were great about always helping neighbors or relatives out." Their mother was a homemaker, and their father was a lawyer who'd fought in World War II. "My father used to walk us proudly into church. He taught us to give back."

Gallagher's two ways of giving back -- helping the mentally ill as well as the possessed -- may seem at odds. But not necessarily for those in the Catholic Church.

Contemporary Catholicism doesn't see faith and science as contradictory. Its leaders insist that possession, miracles and angels exist. But global warming is real, so is evolution, and miracles must be documented with scientific rigor.

Some stories blur the lines between science, spirituality and the supernatural. These stories are from "The Other Side."

Where do coincidences come from? Synchronicity is familiar to many people, yet few understand how it works. Are our lives are shaped by unseen hands? Or are we victims of psychological narcissm?

Beyond Goodbye Some people not only share their life but their moment of death with loved ones. Are these "shared-death experiences" real or a mirage?

Why Bigfoot is getting nervous Monster stories have been around for millennia. Now hunters are hot on the trail, armed with cameras, drones and night-vision goggles. Can they catch one?

Ghost hunters haunted by competition We've heard of ghosts that harass the living. Now people are starting to harass the ghosts. Across America, teams are creeping through people's homes, trying to get rid of their paranormal pests.

Heaven popular, except with the church Popular culture is filled with accounts from people who claim to have near-death experiences. So why doesn't the church talk about heaven anymore?

Bidding farewell from beyond the grave? Although visits by the spirits of the recently departed can be chilling, they are also comforting, say those who've seen these "crisis apparitions." Can bonds between loved ones defy death?

One of Gallagher's favorite sources of inspiration is Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Fides et Ratio" ("On Faith and Reason"). The Pope writes that "there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason."

The church's emphasis on faith and reason can even been seen in the birth of its exorcism ritual.

The Rite of Exorcism was first published in 1614 by Pope Paul V to quell a trend of laypeople and priests hastily performing exorcisms on people they presumed were possessed, such as victims of the bubonic plague, says the Rev. Mike Driscoll, author of "Demons, Deliverance, Discernment: Separating Fact from Fiction about the Spirit World."

"A line (in the rite) said that the exorcist should be careful to distinguish between demon possession and melancholy, which was a catchall for mental illness," Driscoll says. "The church knew back then that there were mental problems. It said the exorcist should not have anything to do with medicine. Leave that to the doctors."

Learn about the true story that inspired the movie "The Exorcist"

Doctors, perhaps, like Gallagher.

Gallagher says the concept of possession by spirit isn't limited to Catholicism. Muslim, Jewish and other Christian traditions regard possession by spirits -- holy or benign -- as possible.

"This is not quite as esoteric as some people make it out to be," Gallagher says. "I know quite a few psychiatrists and mental health professionals who believe in this stuff."

Dr. Mark Albanese is among them. A friend of Gallagher's, Albanese studied medicine at Cornell and has been practicing psychiatry for decades. In a letter to the New Oxford Review, a Catholic magazine, he defended Gallagher's belief in possession.

He also says there is a growing belief among health professionals that a patient's spiritual dimension should be accounted for in treatment, whether their provider agrees with those beliefs or not. Some psychiatrists have even talked of adding a "trance and possession disorder" diagnosis to the DSM, the premier diagnostic manual of disorders used by mental health professionals in the US.

There's still so much about the human mind that psychiatrists don't know, Albanese says. Doctors used to be widely skeptical of people who claimed to suffer from multiple personalities, but now it's a legitimate disorder (dissociative identity disorder). Many are still dumbfounded by the power of placebos, a harmless pill or medical procedure that produces healing in some cases.

"There's a certain openness to experiences that are happening that are beyond what we can explain by MRI scans, neurobiology or even psychological theories," Albanese says.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia, arrived at a similar conclusion after he had an unnerving experience with a patient.

Lieberman was asked to examine the videotape of an exorcism that he subsequently dismissed as unconvincing.

Then he met a woman who, he said, "freaked me out."

Lieberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, says he and a family therapist were asked to examine a young woman who some thought was possessed. He and his colleague tried to treat the woman for several months but gave up because they had no success.

Something happened during the treatment, though, that he still can't explain. After sessions with the woman, he says, he'd go home in the evenings, and the lights in his house would go off by themselves, photographs and artwork would fall or slide off shelves, and he'd experience a piercing headache.

When he mentioned to this to his colleague one day, her response stunned him: She'd been having the exact same experiences.

"I had to sort of admit that I didn't really know what was going on," Lieberman says. "Because of the bizarre things that occurred, I wouldn't say that (demonic possession) is impossible or categorically rule it out ... although I have very limited empirical evidence to verify its existence."

The tragic case of the real 'Emily Rose'

If you want to know why so many scientists and doctors like Lieberman are cautious about legitimizing demonic possession, consider one name: Anneliese Michel.

Michel was a victim in one of the most notorious cases of contemporary exorcism. If you have the stomach for it, go online and listen to audiotapes and watch videos of her exorcisms. The images and sounds will burn themselves into your brain. It sounds like somebody dropped a microphone into hell.

Michel was a German Catholic woman who died of starvation in 1976 after 67 exorcisms over a period of nine months. She was diagnosed with epilepsy but believed she was possessed. So did her devout Roman Catholic parents. She reportedly displayed some of the classic signs of possession: abnormal strength, aversion to sacred objects, speaking different languages.

Learn about Anneliese Michel

But authorities later determined that it was Michel's parents and two priests who were responsible for her death. German authorities put them on trial for murder, and they were found guilty of negligent homicide. The 2005 film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was based on Michel's ordeal and the subsequent trial.

One of the leading skeptics of exorcism -- and one of Gallagher's chief critics -- is Steven Novella, a neurologist and professor at Yale School of Medicine.

He wrote a lengthy blog post dissecting Gallagher's experience with Julia, the satanic priestess. It could be read as a takedown of exorcisms everywhere.

He says Julia probably performed a "cold reading" on Gallagher. It's an old trick of fortune tellers and mediums in which they use vague, probing statements to make canny guesses about someone. (Fortune teller: "I see a recent tragedy in your family." Client: "You mean my sister who got hurt in a car accident? How did you know?")

Or take the case of a person speaking an unfamiliar language like Latin during a possession.

"A patient might memorize Latin phrases to throw out during one of their possessions," Novella wrote. "Were they having a conversation in Latin? Did they understand Latin spoken to them? Or did they just speak Latin?"

Learn why Novella thinks exorcisms are fake

Novella says it's noteworthy that no one has filmed any paranormal event such as levitation or sacred objects flying across the room during an exorcism. He's seen exorcism tapes posted online and in documentaries and says they're not scary.

"They're boring," he says. "Nothing exciting happens. The most you get is some really bad play-acting by the person who is being exorcised."

In an interview, Novella went further and criticized any therapist who believes his patient's delusions.

"The worst thing you can do to a patient who is delusional is to confirm their delusions," says Novella, who founded the New England Skeptical Society.

"The primary goal of therapy is to reorient them to reality. Telling a patient who is struggling that maybe they're possessed by a demon is the worst thing you can do. It's only distracting them from addressing what the real problem is."

Driscoll, the Catholic priest who wrote a book about possession, is not a skeptic like Novella. Still, he says, it's not unusual for people on drugs or during psychotic episodes to display abnormal strength.

"I have seen it take four grown guys to hold one small woman down," says Driscoll, a chaplain at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa, Illinois. "When a person has no fear and is not in their right mind and they don't care about hurting themselves or hurting others, you can see heartbreaking things."

That doesn't mean he thinks possession isn't real. He says the New Testament is full of accounts of Jesus confronting demons.

"Do I still believe it happens? Yes, I do," he says. "It happened then. I don't know why it would be totally eradicated now."

Gallagher agrees and has answers for skeptics like Novella.

He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics.

Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor.

In a passage from a book he is working on about demonic possession in America, he says that it is the duty of a physician to help people in great distress "without concern whether they have debatable or controversial conditions."

Gallagher isn't the first psychiatrist to feel such duty. Dr. M. Scott Peck, the late author of "The Road Less Traveled," conducted two exorcisms himself -- something Gallagher considers unwise and dangerous for any psychiatrist.

"I didn't go volunteering for this," he says. "I went into this because different people over the last few decades realized that I was open to this sort of thing. The referrals are almost invariably from priests. It's not like someone is walking into my office and I say, 'You must be possessed.' "

What happened to Satan's queen

He may not have asked to join the "hidden" world of exorcism, but he is an integral part of that community today. He's been featured in stories and documentaries about exorcism and is on the governing board of the Rome-based International Association of Exorcists.

"It's deepened my faith," he says of the exorcisms he's witnessed. "It didn't radically change it, but it validated my faith."

He says he's received thanks from many people he's helped over the years. Some wept, grateful to him for not dismissing them as delusional. As for letting a journalist talk to any of these people, Gallagher says he zealously guards their privacy.

Julia, though, gave him permission to tell her story. But it didn't have a happy ending.

He and a team of exorcists continued to see her, but eventually, she called a halt to the sessions. She was too ambivalent. She relished some of the abilities she displayed during her trances. She was "playing both sides."

"Exorcism is not some kind of magical incantation," Gallagher says. "Normally, a person has to make their own sincere spiritual efforts, too."

About a year after she dropped out, Gallagher says, he heard Julia's voice on the phone again. This time, she had called to tell him she was dying of cancer.

Gallagher says he offered to try to help her with a team of priests while she was still physically able, but her response was terse:

"Well, I'll give it some thought."

He says he never heard from her again.

Inevitably, there will be others. His phone will ring. A priest will tell him a story. A team of clergy and nuns will be summoned. And the man of science will enter the hidden world of exorcism again.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

The critics, the souls that aren't saved, the creepy encounters -- they don't seem to deter him.

"Truly informed exorcists don't tend to get discouraged," he says, "because they know it is our Lord who delivers the person, not themselves."

Is Gallagher doing God's work, or does he need deliverance from his own delusions?

Perhaps only God -- and Satan -- knows for sure.

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