I opened the back door carefully, praying the damned thing wouldn’t squeak. Just like the front of the house, there was yet another screen with a rusty spring holding it shut. Ever so carefully, I nudged it open.

SCREEEAAACCCCHHH

The slower I went the louder the friggin’ door yelled at me. And so, just like a bandaid, I shoved it open with a quick thrust. I waited for the repercussions, to feel whatever was on the roof jump onto my shoulders but nothing did.

I crept out into the backyard, looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t see anything above the house and nothing following me. I found the exact handle hanging on the back fence Father Donovan was talking about and couldn’t help but wonder just what he was so afraid of that he had to have a getaway plan.

I pulled the bar against my chest and planted my first foot on the fence. Just as I was about to take my first step I heard glass shatter from back inside the house followed by a loud yelp from Mickey.

I froze, listening to the rambunctiousness that was going on inside the upstairs room. A few seconds later and everything was quiet. I felt the urge to run back inside and fight side by side with Father, but I’d made a promise to him to run. But when had I ever kept a promise?

This time I better do as he said, I thought to myself, remembering how serious he’d seemed. I’d never seen him look so shaken.

I climbed the fence and jumped over it successfully. I landed in the gravel and made a B-line to the left just as Father had instructed. The muscles in my legs whined, reminding me that I’d been doing a fair amount of running that day. Not only that but now with most of the excitement having been paused my migraine was beginning to flair again.

“Damn the sun,” I said, gasping for air as I neared the church. What I wouldn’t have given for there to be nighttime all of the time.

Just as I turned the last street, the words Father Donovan chose to say stood out to me.

Stuff that could kill your kind with a single prick of the finger.

Your kind, I thought, What did he mean by that? And what’s all this business about gargoyles?

I stood in front of the old church St. Mary’s catching my breath and quickly made my way to the back. It had been such a long time since I’d laid eyes on the building in the daytime. To many, the cathedral must have looked old and run down (which it was), but there was history and magic within the brick. Each stained glass window told a literal history and I would recite these Biblical stories to myself on my late night walks.

I’d never been the best sleeper. Well, that was an understatement. I never slept. Ever since I was little Father Donovan had searched for the best neurologist to figure out what my deal was. I’d been told by dozens of doctors that I suffered from classic insomnia while others guessed it might just be stress. One idiot even prescribed me Xanax. Really? Xanax? To an 8-year-old? Come on.

It went without saying that Father never went with that option. It wasn’t stress. Despite my lack of vision during the day and the way the sun curled my skin like lemon shavings if I stood out beneath it for too long, I had been a relatively happy kid. Sure I got bullied most of my life but thankfully I had a secret weapon, a weapon I had to beg Father to teach me.

No one in their right mind would have expected an ordained Catholic Priest to have a fourth-degree blackbelt in Japanese Judo, a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a Krav Maga teaching certification, and a dedicated knowledge of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s fighting philosophy.

In other words, Father Donovan could not only kick the ass of a demon but also his fellow man as well.

“God wants us to respect our fellow man and turn the other cheek,” Father Donovan once told me while sending me to the ground with an O-Soto-Gari leg sweep. “But Jesus was far from a pushover,” I remember this was seconds before I was put into a chokehold and was forced to tap out.

Jesus wasn’t a pushover, that I knew for sure. In fact, he was a downright savage. He could’ve talked his way out of the crucifixion but instead, he chose to tear into the tyrants and go down the Saviour he was. That cat could scratch and spit.

But, martial arts were never to be in my future. For years Father refused to teach me and finally, I stopped asking. But it was when I came home with my third black eye of the month he decided it was best I learn to defend myself.

Turns out I was the perfect height for Judo. Not to tall and not too short. Sure, I practiced in the other arts as well but nothing felt nearly as satisfying to me as flipping someone over your back using their own strength against them.

But that shit was dangerous. So dangerous in fact that I’d never given myself the pleasure of introducing Paxton’s face to the pavement using the ancient techniques. Turns out a cane to the mouth was just as good though.

I reached the back door and found it locked.

Dammit, I thought. One of the newer nuns must have locked it on her way home. I banged on the door but heard no one on the other side. I took a step back and looked up.

Looks like I was about to do some climbing.

I reached out and grabbed the edge of a brick sticking out and as I raised myself I thanked the lazy bricklayer from over a hundred years ago for doing such a terrible job. I’d been climbing up this side of this church ever since I was around 8 years old. Never did have a fear of heights and Father Donovan never really did chastise me for my dangerous habit of free climbing which freaked out the nuns.

That isn’t to say Mother Monica never tried to stop me. She was always yelling at me for one thing or another but damn did I sure love that woman. We’d had a lot of nuns come in and out of St. Mary’s which was normal for a church that was home to an exorcist. Weird things happened here, but Mother Monica always stayed with us. She had big balls for a woman, so big they jingled like the bell in our church’s tower.

I would always tell Father the reason she stayed was that she was super brave and didn’t fear the devil. However, Father always disagreed and said it was because of me that she stayed, and then I’d come back and say it was because of him.

But who were we kidding? It was for all three of those reasons she stayed. She was like the matriarch of the church. Hopefully, she was still here and I could ask her some questions on this gargoyle crap before Father showed up.

A few minutes later I felt the wind cascade down the shingles and through my hair. I put my hand on the attic’s window seal, grateful to myself for having the habit of always leaving it open. I loved fresh air and was always finding reasons to leave the attic to sleep on the roof hence the sleeping bag, electric lantern, and bags of snacks left everywhere.

I was just about to pull myself up when I felt someone’s ice-cold hand grip my wrist tightly. Not expecting to be grabbed, I shouted and pulled my hand free but in doing so I lost my grip and began to fall to my death.