I'm not on any active cases at the moment, so I might as well tell you about one from the past. I could hardly tell you about one from the future! Or could I? I could make some guesses... maybe I'll do that if I don't have anything new to tell you about by the time I'm done telling you about all of the old.

Before I begin, let me assure you-- these are real exorcisms. This is not going to turn out to be some lewd excuse for murder, where I end up merely claiming she was "possessed" when clearly I am the sicko. No, nothing like that. No one has died. No has been even very badly injured. Father Wrackenbush sprained his ankle once, but that was after an exorcism, when everything was normal, and he twisted his foot walking down an icy step. It didn't even pain him that much.

That case, though, was a fine one. A fine one indeed. We'd been called into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Laurelleaf, who had one daughter, Tracey, thirteen, clearly possessed. I was nineteen at the time. I was covered with acne. That has nothing to do with anything; I'm just going for verisimilitude.

It seems that one day, about three months before we were called in, Tracey had been hanging a crucifix on the wall next to her bed. And none of your self-righteous nonsense about how it's only ever Catholics who wind up possessed. That's just coincidence. Tracey when to drive in the nail, but dropped the crucifix. It landed upside down, and at that exact moment, a cup fell over on her desk. She saw the whole thing.

Since then she'd been moody, temperamental. She'd experience a loss of appetite, only to be followed by ravenous hunger. When her monthlies came, they were accompanied by cramping and sometimes nausea. It got so bad, according to her mother, that at one point she said something very rude. Her mother wouldn't repeat it, but her father did confide in us, later, that she had called her mother's lasagna "horrid." I have sampled Mrs. Laurelleaf's lasagna, and while it was a little underdone in places, the noodles too al-dente and the ricotta a bit cold, I wouldn't call it horrid at all. Especially not to the woman's face. Clearly, we were dealing with Beelzebub.

Myself and my partner, James Killinbranch, consulted our guide books and ritual tracts, and determined we'd need a professional, so we contacted Father Wrackenbush. We'd had success with him in the past, chiefly because he is a raging alcoholic, and the risk of demonic transference was minimal. Devils do not like inebriates, despite what you might read on the internet.

Father Wrackenbush came to the Laurelleaf's house, and immediately sensed the demonic presence, which he indicated by pulling a flask from his coat pocket and draining the contents. Then he ask me to refill it for him, Glenfiddich he said, and I duly gave the task to James, who duly gave the task to Mrs. Laurelleaf, who gave it to her husband, who had never heard of Glenfiddich. We were off to a terrible start.

But we rallied. We had Tracey sit in an armchair, and ceremonially tied her to it, by draping some soft silk cords over her wrists. I sprinkled water, some of it holy, on her forehead, and muttered Latin phrases under my breath. James knelt in prayer, while Mr. and Mrs. Laurelleaf stood in the doorway, holding one another and sobbing. Then Father Wrackenbush shouted "In The Name of The Father and The Son and The Most Holy Ghost I Compel Thee Beelzebub, Vacate This Child!" You could hear all those capital letters. James stood up, and flicked the lights on and off in a spooky manner, while Tracey graced us with a theatrical moan.

Things quieted down immediately, and Tracey stood up "Am I cured?"

"A test," said Father Wrackenbush. "Mrs. Laurelleaf, a cup, if you please?" She nudged her husband, who fetched a plastic cup from the kitchen. He handed it to Father Wrackenbush, who placed it on the desk. Then he handed Tracey a crucifix, and asked her to hold it against the wall as if she was going to hang it there.

She obliged him, and then he said "Now, drop it!"

She did, and the crucifix hit the floor, splitting in two. Tracey arched her back, feet and head on the ground, arms wrapped backwards and around her in impossible angles. The lights began to turn on an off of their own accord, the window was blown out by a sudden gale, and the shriek coming from Tracey's throat was unworldly. Blood gushed from her eyes in massive torrents, and black ichor began to run down the walls. The temperature in the room dropped to ice cold, Tracey began to skitter up the walls and across the ceiling, shouting terrible things about anatomy and animal acts with deceased loved ones, until finally she fell onto the bed and began to claw great rents in her own skin with fiercely sharp talons sprouted from her fingertips. Father Wrackenbush never took his eyes off the cup, and in a moment, all was still again. The cup had never moved.

"Cured!" he shouted, and Mrs. Laurelleaf fainted dead away in relief.

We left the relieved family to clean up, heading outside. Father Wrackenbush was clearly too drunk to drive, but we let him anyway, as James and I only had bus fare for two.

We check in on Tracey a few years later. Things were much improved. She had a few unfortunate tattoos and piercings, her parents were getting a divorce, and none of them had been in church for a long time. But no more demonic possession. It made me feel really good about the work we do.

Which was why I was a bit disappointed with that movie. Such a sad ending.