#v;ghost

@fullofdisgrace

“No!” The scream broke out of his throat as he watched the woman--the t h i n g--advance towards him. He remembered it very well, had seen its face before. He had watched that face vanish from sight as Lorraine sent it back to Hell, as it erupted into a spit of fire and left without a trace. All signs of activity ceased and fell to the floor while he still struggled to keep Janet from toppling onto the broken tree trunk below. He felt Lorraine pull them back inside, pull them to safety, and he never clung to her harder than he had that night. It was over, Valak was in Hell. 

          Only it wasn’t.

The woman before him began as a nun and slowly transformed into the demon that was supposedly dead, gone and out of their lives and never able to hurt another living soul again...or even a dead one for that matter. But the older woman’s face slowly transformed, changed from the evilly smiling face of a nun into the monstrous demon that had tried to end their lives not even a year ago. He had seen it in his nightmares before, but never like that, never changing from a human to a monster. It was something he never even considered, that it could take human form and hide amongst people. 

And now this thing had Lorraine, was making her scream. And beg. And cry. Screaming screaming screaming... His name, prayers to a god that wasn’t listening, for their daughter who lay dead on the floor. He watched in horror as life poured out of her eyes, watched as the screaming slowly stopped, as the blood pooled around her feet  more than it did in her veins. 

“No! NO! Lorraine, no! You get away from her! Don’t touch her, bring her back! You’re dead, you’re supposed to stay gone! Get away!” All it did was laugh and laugh and laugh, coming closer and closer to him--

He woke up in the middle of a scream, sweat pouring off his face and the sheets twisted around him in a damp mess. He could hear his wife and daughter talking in the other room and luckily he didn’t startle them. Running a hand down his face, he shook his head and tried to shake away the feeling of impending doom. Because it made no sense, Valak couldn’t be back, it was sent to Hell, he saw it. It couldn’t hurt anybody, not his family, not him, not anyone. Taking a deep breath, he swiped his face again, and detangled himself from the sheets to get around for his day. They had a meeting with a priest about a new case in Massachusetts at a place called Briarcliff. 

@brokenragdoll

It had been a long time since Ed and Lorraine got to investigate a hotel. Most of the places they investigated were single family dwellings with a spirit or entity that was giving them trouble. It was their specialty, going in and cleansing if needed or just to help the family deal with what was happening and that that particular spirit wasn’t there to harm them. It was rare that families didn’t want the spirit completely gone, but it happened, especially if the spirit was someone from their family that they loved. But from the sounds of it, the entities there at the hotel they were called to weren’t loved ones and needed a possible exorcism. 

Iris and Liz were the women who called them in and the Warrens met them in the lobby. As usual, they were planning on staying there to be at the heart of all the activity. They wanted to be there first hand to experience what guests and staff alike were experiencing, to validate everything and Lorraine could put out her feelers to try and detect a presence. She could feel even the smallest or weakest of entities so if there was anything there, good or bad, it usually showed itself to her. Mostly because they knew she could see them, so they gravitated towards her. 

Walking in the lobby, one of Ed’s hands with their bags the other on Lorraine’s back, he guided her inside and immediately took in his surroundings. There were some other people standing there, but nobody behind the counter so he waited just a couple moments before he went towards one of the women standing there, curly blonde hair and dark eyes. “Hi, I’m here to see Iris or Liz, are you one of them? Or do you know where they are?” he wondered.