The Exorcist

    "Plain. Down-to-earth. Unaffected," continued Dyer. "She can help us with my plan for when we both quit the priesthood."

    "Who's quitting the priesthood?"

    "Faggots. In droves. Basic black has gone out. Now, I--- "Joe, I've got a lecture to prepare for tomorrow," said Karras as he set down the books on his desk.

    "Yeah, okay. Now my plan is we go to Chris MacNeil---got the picture?---with this notion that I've got for a screenplay based on the life of Saint Ignatius Loyola. The title is Brave Jesuits Marching, and---"

    "Would you get your ass out of here, Joe?" prodded Karras, tamping out his cigarette butt in an ashtray.

    "Is this boring?"

    "I've got work to do."

    "Who the hell's stopping you?"

    "Come on, now, I mean it." Karras had started to unbutton his shirt. "I'm going to jump in the shower and then I've got to work."

    "Didn't see you at di

    "I didn't"

    "That's foolish. Why diet when you only wear frocks?" He had come to the desk add was smiling at a cigarette. "Stale."

    "Is there a tape recorder here in the hall?"

    'There isn't even a lemon drop here in the hall. Use the language lab."

    "Who's got a key? Father President?"

    "No. Father Janitor. You need it tonight?"

    "Yes, I do," said Karras, as he draped his shirt on the back of the desk chair. "Where do I find him?"

    "Want me to get it for you?"

    "Could you do that? I'm really in a bind."

    "No sweat, Great Beatific Jesuit Witch Doctor. Coming." Dyer opened the door and walked out.

Karras showered and then dressed in a T-shirt and trousers. Sitting down to his desk, he discovered a carton of Camel nonfilters, and beside it a key that was labeled LANGUAGE LAB and another tagged REFECTORY REFRIGERATOR. Appended to the latter was a note: Better you than the rats. Karras smiled at the signature: The Lemon Drop Kid. He put the note aside, then unfastened is wristwatch and plated it in front of him on the desk. The time was 10: 58 P. M. He began to read. Freud. McCasland. Satan. Oesterreich's exhaustive study. And at a little after 4 A. M., he had finished. Was rubbing at his face. At his eyes. They were smarting. He glanced at the ashtray. Ashes and the twisted butts of cigarettes. Smoke hanging thick in the air. He stood up and walked wearily to a window. Slid it open. He gulped at the coolness of the moist morning air and stood there thinking. Regan had the physical syndrome of possession. That much he knew. About that he had no doubt. For in case after case, irrespective of geography or period of history, the symptoms of possession were substantially constant. Some Regan had not evidenced as yet: stigmata; the desire for repugnant foods; the insensitivity to pain; the frequent loud and irrepressible hiccupping. But the others she had manifested clearly: the involuntary motor excitement; foul breath; furred tongue; the wasting away of the frame; the distended stomach; the irritations of the skin and mucous-membrane. And most significantly present were the basic symptoms of the hard core of cases which Oesterreich had characterized as "genuine" possession: the striking change in the voice and in the features, plus the manifestation of a new personality.

    Karras looked up and stared darkly down the street. Through the branches of trees he could see the house and the large bay window of Regan's bedroom. When possession was voluntary, as with mediums, the new personality was often benign. Like Tia, brooded Karras. Spirit of a woman who'd possessed a man. A sculptor. Briefly. An hour at a time. Until a friend of the sculptor fell desperately in love. With Tia. Pleaded with the sculptor to permit her to permanently remain in possession of his body. But in Regan, there's no Tia, Karras reflected grimly. The invading personality was vicious. Malevolent. Typical of cases of demonic possession where the new personality sought the destruction of the body of its host. And frequently achieved it.

    Moodily the Jesuit walked back to his desk, where he picked up a package of cigarettes; lit one. So okay. She's got the syndrome of demonic possession. Now how do you cure it?

    He fa

    Karras rubbed a finger in the crease beside his nose. The indications from Barringer, Chris had told him, were that Reagan's disorder might be caused by suggestion; by something that was somehow related to hysteria. And Karras thought it likely. He believed the majority of the cases he had studied had been caused by precisely these two factors. Sure. For one thing, it mostly hits women. For another, all those outbreaks of possession epidemics. And then those exorcists... Karras frowned. They often themselves became the victims of possession. He thought of Loudun. France. The Ursuline Convent of nuns. Of four of the exorcists sent there to deal with an epidemic of possession, three---Fathers Lucas, Lactance and Tranquille---not only became possessed, but died soon after, apparently of shock. And the fourth, Père Surin, who was thirty-three years old at the time of his possession, became insane for the subsequent twenty-five years of his life.

    He nodded to himself. If Regan's disorder was hysterical; if the onset of possession was the product of suggestion, then the source of the suggestion could only be the chapter in the book on witchcraft. The chapter on possession. Did she read it?