Click-clack-clack!
Bathed again in the stares from the crowded hall, York watched the elevator doors slide open and stepped out.
"Father Yorkes!"
Todd, the Black man who kept watch by the checkout, bowed his head.
York nodded back, snatched a few loaves from the shelf, walked over and dropped them on the counter.
"Todd, anything new?"
Under the fluorescent glare that made his dark skin even darker, Todd swept the barcode reader across the bread and thought for a moment.
"Father Yorkes, we're seeing more and more unfamiliar faces."
"Is that so." York's face stayed calm, but his mind flashed to the news that satan was looking for him; compared with the past, supernatural incidents were indeed on the rise.
"Yes," Todd said, bagging the bread and handing it over with quiet dignity.
"Comes to one dollar, Father."
"Mm." York took the bag, tossed a fifty onto the counter and strode out.
"Keep the change, Todd—your tip."
Todd picked up the bill, eyes on the tall figure already outside, and still bowed.
"Thank you, Father. Safe travels."
York waved, found his Ford Raptor, slung his backpack onto the passenger seat and climbed in.
Bang!
Door shut. Though he felt no fatigue, he rubbed his face and tore into a loaf.
"Begin debrief…"
Muttering, he ate, using the moment to replay every scrap of information and map his next move.
A habit from his past life: as a doctor he always debriefed, reviewing cases to sharpen his skill—an instinct drilled in after years of driving himself.
"If the Frenchman's contact happened off home ground, its power can't be that strong yet.
Otherwise the taint on Loraine wouldn't be so slight.
But at this rate its strength will grow as time slips by."
York slowly tore off another piece of bread; tying Ronnie Defeo into the picture, he sensed the demon's intense interest in Loraine would soon push it to act again.
When the loaf was gone he had boiled it down to two priorities: wait for word from Old Mike and from Loraine.
He stuffed the wrapper into the dash slot, glanced at the silent back seat, started the Raptor and pulled away, New York–bound.
He was seeing this through—not just for the mission rewards but because a man needs a purpose. Stanford, Connecticut, only fifty-eight miles from the city, so in forty minutes he was home.
He carried the vessels Ed had given him straight to the underground storeroom.
For once the arsenal of holy hardware shared space with what looked like collectibles—objects now cages to hostile Spirits.
He looped a rosary of Crosses around them and paused, smiling at the motionless annabelle doll.
His cellar was no spare bedroom like Ed's; beside the glass case stood racks of Crosses he'd gathered, their sacred weight enough to crush any stirrings of malice.
"So make yourselves at home. I don't mind."
Feeling the Spirits reduced to near silence, he tapped the case, killed the lights and headed upstairs to sleep.
Before turning in he logged the day's experiment: one hour per point of Spirit spent on audio, and he assigned the 0.5 stat gain to Health.
[Health 124 → 124.5]
[…]
The night passed without incident.
At dawn York woke refreshed;
even without sleep he stayed at peak condition, yet sleeping let him feel time move.
[10:21 AM]
After tidying up he drove to Pluto Church. With Robert now on staff little had changed: familiar parishioners, petty squabbles, no random quest—though a butterfly's wings can whip up storms far away.
The first day's visible shifts were two:
One: the pack of kids tearing round the yard—Robert's daughters—whose shrieks tested even his inhuman ears, though their vigor made him smile.
Two: the lunch Robert's wife Beth brought him.
He eyed the colorful, balanced meal, glanced at the laughing family and remembered he had saved them.
"Feels… pretty good," he murmured, tasting; it suited him well.
Half-way through, his phone rang. He paused, sensing, and answered.
"Ed? That fast?"
His hunch proved right: Ed too had dreamed of the nun—clearer even than Loraine's vision.
"Father Yorkes! I sketched Her. Want to see?"
He rose with his cutlery, heading into the nave.
"Send it."
"Yes, Father."
[…]
Call ended. Moments after he sat, the sketch arrived: classic nun's habit, skin corpse-white as if pulled from a pond, eyes and mouth ink-black, malevolence leaping off the page.
Seeing the nun at last, York felt the first stir of real unease.
"Looks like a tough one."