Chapter Text
Lochridge Village, Scottish Highlands
1972
Lately, Satan hadn’t that many weapons left to use against Erdem. So he took his revenge in ensuring that all her most interesting jobs occurred in dying fucking podunks where the cheapest of televisions were too much to ask for.
Proving her theory, she now found herself in a ugly little valley somewhere between two green hills, peaking so close together they resembled the breasts of Mother Nature herself. There couldn’t be more than eighty or a hundred souls in this place, which meant that everyone likely knew one another by name. That was already a nuisance in itself, but it also implied that before long everyone would know her name as well – which was a far greater nuisance.
“Miss, do you know if demons snot?”
A child, seemingly no older than eight or nine, with disheveled hair and two prominent rabbit teeth, pressed himself against Erdem’s table in search of answers.
“My brother said you’d know if they did,” he quickly added.
For a fact, Erdem had been trying to get that blabbering thing off her feet ever since arriving at the pub, without success. So she went on with it, something brewing upon her face.
“That’s right. Nasty blokes, they are,” she said. “But it does your insides some good if you take it. Makes shitting easy work.”
“That’s foul,” the child replied. “I wish I could test it, though.”
Erdem cracked a filthy grin, then flipped her pint forward. “You’d be surprised to know what’s in there.”
The child’s eyes went wide. “Is it demon snot?”
“Aren’t you a smartie,” Erdem said. “Try it.”
The child leaned closer, utterly fascinated by the supposed demonic mucus, and made a dreadful face once he finally tasted the bitter alcohol.
“This is awful!” he cried, outraged.
“So are you,” Erdem muttered back. “Now get lost.”
The child soon vanished among the other bodies packed tightly into the hall, but not without spitting a string of curses at her. Erdem took their leave to finally study what she’d got at this bumfuck nowhere.
She knew this was, most likely, the only true gathering place in the village, and it seemed to be nothing more than a low, weathered building of old grey stone. The wooden sign above the door bore its name in nearly faded letters Erdem could barely decipher, despite being written at both sides. It was called Black Bothy.
True to the premise, the Black Bothy’s insides were indeed dark and claustrophobic, lit only by yellowed bulbs and the ever-burning fire in the stone hearth. Behind the bar, a middle-aged man with a heavy Gaelic accent poured pints of ale and cheap drams of whisky into thick glasses. The shelves behind him displayed only a few bottles – which made a very far step from the pleasant variety Erdem would find in Glasgow or Edinburgh, thanks to her damned lack of luck.
Taking a look at the faces around, she had soon noticed that the patrons were mostly the men of the village: there were some fishermen, shepherds, quarry workers and their children. From time to time someone would start a traditional song, half out of tune, and the others would join in with a hoarse chorus that bordered on unbearable. Women appeared rarely, and only to fetch someone or deliver a message.
Erdem, for her part, had come to get drunk and wait for Father Angus, who had nearly refused to pass along the details of her work in a place like this. But necessity shapes a man, and Erdem seldom worked on anyone else’s terms but her own.
She was on her third cup when he finally showed up.
Crawling into the pub, Father Angus looked as if his skin might peel off his bones, and the sneering looks from the regulars made it plain he was dead out of his depth. Even if the job came to nothing, Erdem reckoned that vision alone had made the trip to this dump worthwhile.
“I haven’t set foot in here for years,” Father Angus said as he approached. “I suppose I was properly warned about your… unorthodox ways, Mrs. Halstein.”
“Erdem,” she corrected him. “May your God bless you as well, Father. Fancy a pint?”
“Please, do not speak His name in vain. And no.”
“What a pity.”
He cast her a suspicious glance. “My source was spot-on about your recommendation. I trust you’ll live up to your reputation.”
“We’ll see what can be done,” she said. “Go on, Father. Which of your chaps’ yard is the Devil blowing up?”
Father Angus shifted uneasily, glancing around at the other patrons as if they might jump the bar at any second.
“This is no simple infestation, I warn you. The people… the more devout are so terribly scared they won’t leave their homes. I’ve never seen anything of the sort across these lands.”
Erdem took a slow swig of her beer. “I’ll need more than some peasant frights, you see. I’ve had my fair share of old ma’s pointing fingers at Hell for some rotten cabbages.”
“This is no such case, I assure you,” Father Angus said firmly. “Many strange symbols are to appear in our chapel time and again, and no man can tell their origin. Those who go near swear they hear ceaseless cries and smell a stench fit to turn the stomach. Cattle kept close by are often found dead come morning, leaving the shepherds without a single answer.” He paused. “I put faith in their word. You might know little from my people, but these are honest folk.”
“The chapel, you say? That’s an unusual spot for hauntings,” she pointed out. It was generic scholar knowledge that most demons would hardly step into holy grounds, for they lacked authority over the sacred. “Mhm. If your description is to be true, it seems to relate to a vengeful spirit, and a strong one at that. Did Lochridge happen to burn any woman or chop any bloke’s head for the past century, by any chance?”
Father Angus pursed his lips tensely. “I’m afraid it doesn’t date back to such times.” He leaned slightly closer. “There is something dark lurking in this village, but it’s no ancient evil. Only a few years past, you see, another priest served in our grounds. His name was Lachlan MacBride. A prodigy he was, and well-respected in his faith, yes… but he was soon revealed to be meddling in things no man should touch. Dark rites, texts of forbidden nature… some daresay he once tried to bargain with the Devil himself.”
Erdem raised an eyebrow. “Bargaining directly with the Big Bad is no small feat. What became of MacBride then?”
“One night, in God may he rest, he hanged himself in the vestry. Left nothing but a cryptic note behind. Since that day, Lochridge has not known peace.”
Erdem set her glass down with a soft thud, eyes glinting. Her last few cases had been, for the most part, frauds or plain misunderstandings. Kids walking in their sleep at night, old folks forgetting their keys in some drawer and swearing it was the Devil’s doing. She’d blame Paimon or Beelzebub, draw a few salt circles on the floor, then gather easy money by the end of the day. There was never any real story to tell except her own, an estranged Fräulein banished by the Vatican that lined her pockets off a bunch of fools.
But Father Angus, on the other hand, seemed to be onto something out of the ordinary. It wasn’t every day a priest went and took his own life inside his chapel, in some village out of nowhere, for whatever the fucking reason. And if the signs he spoke of were true, they matched the classic signs of a haunting.
Before she got into the messy parts, however, Erdem had to know her cards fully.
“Your chapel’s recognized by the Church,” she noted. “No Bishop hanging around to deal with that?”
“He passed away a few years back,” Father Angus said. “So we’re sede vacante. It has been this rough with replacements since WWII.”
“I’ve heard the Archdiocese of Aberdeen ain’t that far off, though.”
“They’re pragmatic men. The exorcists they sent here couldn’t really stomach the rites,” he hurried to explain. “Some reported sickness, others accused a growing madness. So they decided not to waste further resources.”
“So they’d rather abandon you?” Erdem tilted her head with a dry smile. “I see. Your bloody Church throws you into the wolves and now you’re left with no soul to do the dirty work.”
Father Angus shrank back, as though the words themselves had given him a bruise.
“We need help,” he said. “Any help. Your presence here means a great deal to us.”
Erdem smirked carelessly at him. “Oh, I didn’t have you as a flatterer, Father. Do you know what else means a great deal?”
He shook his head, and Erdem flashed a toothy grin at his face.
“Cash,” she said. “And a good amount of it.”
At her words, Father Angus’ eyes trembled on their orbits. He seemed suddenly scandalised by the very idea of them.
“My source did not inform me you charged monetary fees for your work,” he blurted out.
Erdem barked a laugh.
“Who’s your source, Jesus fucking Christ? I won’t pay for shit with some thank-you’s.”
“It’s sacred work. It should be freely given,” he insisted, brows knotted with disappointment. “What you ask for is utterly shameful!”
Erdem could’ve let out another laugh if she wasn’t becoming so bored by this sight. Priests certainly could pout worse than monks, and she’d seen her fair share of both.
“Call it what you want, I don’t care.” She replied tediously, taking a sip of her pint. “I’ll ask again: how many pennies is your lads’ souls worth, Father Angus?”
He didn’t say a bloody word at first. Then he fished something out of his coat pocket and tossed it on the table.
A bag of coins.
Erdem grinned, feeling like Judas back from the grave.
“See? That wasn’t so hard,” she said, reaching out to grab the lot before he changed his mind.
Father Angus was quicker though, catching her hand on his own. Erdem’s eyes slit, glaring at him suspiciously.
“Just one thing,” he warned, voice firm as stone. “I know what you do, witch. Try any of your tricks and you’ll regret it. I’ll not have the Devil’s work in my parish.”
Erdem yanked her hand free in a single, truculent move.
“The Devil’s already here, Father,” she said. “And you shall be grateful when I’m the only thing left standing between you and him.”
Father Angus merely straightened his overcoat and rose from the table without another word, walking among the drunkards without touching them. He vanished into the crowd, and soon Erdem could hear the wooden door of the pub give a low creak.
She finished her beer in silence, feeling suddenly miserable. Took the damned bag and left without tipping, but no one seemed to notice.
Upon leaving the pub, she found herself back where she had started. Outside that cramped warmth, there were a handful of stone cottages crouched along a single winding road, their chimneys breathing faint trails of peat smoke into the cold Highland air. Erdem caught sight of a few villagers who spoke little and kept to themselves. Many doors were shuttered now, many windows dark. She supposed Father Angus hadn’t been lying about the terror spreading through those homes.
The path narrowed as Erdem drew nearer to the infamous chapel, her heels crunching over the gravel and frost-bitten moss. The air grew heavier with each step; not colder, exactly, but considerably denser, as though the moor itself were holding its breath. The faint whisper of the wind seemed to falter when she looked up at the building.
Up close, the chapel was smaller than it had appeared from the road. It was plain, weather-beaten, its stones darkened by age and rain. There was no sound but the creak of the old sign swaying weakly on its hinge.
She stopped before the door. The wood was warped and pale, veined with cracks like old skin. And there, carved roughly into the grain, were words. The letters were uneven, almost gouged rather than written, as if whoever had made them had done so in a frenzy or trance.
THE FIRE IS MY SHEPHERD
I SHALL ALWAYS WANT
I SHALL ALWAYS WANT
I SHALL ALWAYS WANT
I SHALL ALWAYS WANT
Her stomach turned. She knew that verse, she fucking knew it by heart. The true versicle rose in her mind unbidden, steady as a prayer she’d learned too young to forget.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
But here the promise had been inverted, twisted into something hollow and hungry, and Erdem could read it infinitely, for it repeated itself ten times over, down to the edge of the door near the ground, where the letters turned into violent, illegible scratches on the wood.
She reached out, fingertips hovering just short of the carving. Before she could touch the door, it shuddered. The latch clicked once, and the door eased open on its own, a breath of stale, cold air spilling out from the dark within.
Above her, at the top of the chapel, the bell rang. But she knew it was not the hour.
Erdem turned from the door and saw nothing on the rocky path she had come by, nor on the dense, frozen hillside around her.
When she turned back, however, she finally saw it.
At first, it seemed nothing more than a darker patch among the shadows, easy to mistake for a trick of the eye. But as she blinked, the shape held itself tall and still, barely human.
It stood near the far end of the chapel, just beside the altar rail, half-concealed by the broken light filtering through a narrow stained-glass window. No face, no movement; only the faint outline of shoulders and a head bowed slightly forward. It hung from the ceiling, but there was no rope.
Before she could take a single step, the door slammed shut with a dull, violent thud. There was a metallic click, and the chapel locked on its own.
That night, in the cramped room of an abandoned shepherd’s hut, Erdem dreamed of priests shuffling through narrow streets and crowds pressing in. Bells tolled erratically, mocking and distant, filling the chilled air.
At the edge of the dream, the dark silhouette waited. Its gaze met hers, unblinking, and it called to her by name.
It vanished before she could answer, and did not return until morning broke.