“The police thought the killings were human sacrifices, that it was tied to the occult. One of the victims survived. They found her half dead in the frozen Chicago River. She told the police that the four men who attacked her wore crimson cloaks. They placed her on an altar, beside a large ivory statue of what looked like the Angel of Death—a skeleton in a white robe, with soaring wings and black tears, holding a skull-engraved torch with its flame smothered.”

“That’s it,” Vera sputtered.

That’s exactly it.

“The church wanted me to interview the woman—they thought I could get a sense of what happened.” Her mom drew a slow breath and exhaled with the control of a yogi. “What I saw wasn’t just demonic, it was one of the darkest spirits I’ve ever felt. A cult leader managed to convince the four others that they were praying to a deity. He said the women were ‘sinners,’ and his followers believed him, without question. They left…parts of the victims…as offerings at the base of a shrine that they called the Angel of Tears.”

“No, no, no.” Vera wrapped an arm around her stomach, ready to heave. She rolled on her side, curling her legs. If her parents vanquished this demon twelve years ago, that meant there was only one plausible reason it was now festering here, in Roaring Creek.

“You didn’t mention the shrine before!” Mom defended, as if seeing Vera’s reaction.

“I forgot! There’s so much going on, and the last time we spoke, it was only one patient. It wasn’t connected to Maxwell’s mom. But now it is. And it’s in my dreams. It’s all over the hospital.” Vera looked toward the bedroom door, and for a moment she swore she felt the pulse of the basement reaching through the house and into her chest.

“I know, that’s what we realized in Chicago. This demon has the power to influence many. When we walked in, all four men were collapsed in front of the altar, lips smeared red, with their leader clutching a chalice of blood mixed with poison.”

“A crystal chalice with gold trim.” Vera didn’t need to wait for an answer. That cup still haunted her nightmares. She knew exactly when it broke and where. “We’re the reason Maxwell’s mom is afflicted. The hurricane, the demon, it was in the chalice.”

“No. Well, yes, but not exactly. We trapped it in the chalice, but demons don’t want to possess things, they want to possess people. That’s why we’re able to contain it in an object, if the object belonged to the person doing the demon’s bidding. The chalice was in the leader’s dead hand, and I could still feel the evil attached to it. It called to me. So we performed the binding prayers right there at the altar. Then we brought it home to ensure its protection,” Mom explained. “When Tilda told us that the chalice broke during the hurricane, and she performed the ritual, we thought we were okay. Even when we got home and realized she had missed some of the prayers, we still thought it was all right. The room and the object had been blessed as recently as a few days prior. But as a precaution we performed the ritual again, and we waited. Nothing happened.”