“Vielen Danke,” Apollo said. The florist handed him the bundle of lilies. He looked over the flowers and inspected each one, some red, some white, all them bulbous and without bloom, with nothing so much as a few strands that stuck out.

"What are we doing here?" Dion asked. "We have something to deal with and it's getting late."

"Good," Apollo said. "We'll meet her there then when no one is around to get hurt."

"But how are you sure she’s there? At the graveyard."

"Possessed people don't stray far from their emotional attachments. Think of the demon or spirit as an influencer, not necessarily a total body control.”

"That still doesn't excuse the fact that we're wasting time buying flowers."

"Stop being so hasty," Apollo said. "We're doing an exorcism. Exorcisms require patience, preparation. You've studied them before, right?"

"Sure. I have a bottle of holy water with me too." Dion brandished his glass flask.

"Holy water won’t do shit," Apollo said. "That’s Hollywood shit. We’re dealing with Asmodai, with one of her followers and we need to come prepared.."

"So..." Dion repeated. "We’re buying flowers?"

“Yes, that’s right.” Apollo brushed people aside. He held the dozen in his bosom, the flowers half-asleep, half-open and lazy and dead this late in the year. “Lillies are a symbol of chastity. And they’ll make a powerful conductor for the ceremony, a means to seal away or separate the two.”

He handed them to Dion.

“I need you to bless these. You remember how to do that, right?”

"It's been a while," Dion said.

“I know it’s not really fair asking this of you. You’re the least chaste person I know. You always manage to stick your dick into something, you’re a horny bastard. But please, please, at least pretend to be celibate and make sure you get the prayers and the holiness and all that light of God shit sorted out. I really need you to bless these flowers, you hear me?”

He rolled his eyes at the words. But stopped, perhaps he really was that bad. He clenched the stems of the flowers, ruffled the plastic and nearly broke the stems.

“This would be a lot easier if you could trust me.” He said, rather bitter.

"Now's not the time to act like a drama queen."

"I'm just asking because it’s really hard for me to follow orders and to do my job when you criticise me at every move. I need you to trust me."

"I trust you enough," Apollo said. "That's as good as it's going to get. Don't push it."

He sighed.

“And here’s how it’s going to get…” He leaned into his ear, they waded through the crowds who looked at them curiously, for in their faces was the look of schemers.

•

They made it to the graveyard a few minutes before midnight. The metal gates were blocked off, and they jumped past the pointed, black metal tops, onto the cold, icy floor. Midget pine trees, no larger than five feet were sparse across the winding path. An angel loomed over their wings, to their rear, immediately from the entrance. Some trees, with dead leaves, pattered as if in conversation with their other dead leaved neighbors. Whispering about the two trespassers, about the strange dark night.

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It felt like the ghosts were here, upon the cool and calm breezes, upon the low mist of the path in front of them. Ghosts, who draped them with the spectral white, who tried to stop them from continuing onto the path with intermittent gusts of winter wind.

They walked ahead, towards the grave that Apollo had informed Dion about on. They noticed no one, it was late after all, but not even a groundskeeper. Dion, who kept his lips shut until now, whose low face was focused upon the flowers in his hands now loose and shaky.

"Are you done?" Apollo asked.

"Sort of," Dion opened his eyes, a bead slipped from his hand. "I lost count of how many I've done. It's been a while,"

"It’s as good as it’s going to get" Apollo undid his sleeve instinctively. "God, I wished I had my gadgets. Not even a fucking sword."

They stopped at the grave. A tall coating of white snow had covered the top. The writing on the slab was fresh, next to it, three marks like the scratching of long-nailed beasts. On the floor below, the snow had been tossed and shoveled with bare hands. The stones were turned over, still rolling left and right like a tortoiseshell. Apollo knelt down to inspect the area.

"You stay here and prepare the seal. I'm going to go find her."

"Hey," Dion grabbed his shoulder. "Don't kill her."

"Weren’t you just complaining about our trust issues? I’ve got this, don’t worry." Apollo smiled. Was it even his own smile though? "I won't kill her."

He started walking.

"Don't hurt her either," Dion screamed.

"Can’t promise that." He waved away.

He skirted along the path, past the drooping and slanted tombstones. Bumping into statues and lids and small pantheons for the long dead. It wasn't a large graveyard, thankfully. But he kept thinking, as the cold and darkness encroached, as the lights flashed and flickered, he thought, where is the gravekeeper. He went past a wooden bench. Lights were set along the feet of the paths like small tikis. He must have taken three out with his clumsy gait.

The graveyard darkened. The electricity died. The little lamps low to the floor strobed. He looked down, to the fluctuation of fluorescence. To lights, shutting on and off, like a warning for shipwreck. The bulbs popped. He leaned back, instinctively. Though, no one came. To repair the fixtures, or to witness.

Apollo turned on his cellphone and began to dial. He heard a dead beep.

He stopped walking. The cold seemed bitter here, like water even with the way it infiltrated every crevice of his clothes and made a layer of thin cold around him. It was numbing. Maybe worse, as if the cold was in itself a conscious entity. A cold, living, short-breathed astral entity. There was rustling in the woods. A bush began to shake. His first instinct, a flash of his red eyes. His second voice in his head, screaming at him, kill, kill, kill. Ready. Ready?

"Shut up," He had to audibly tell it, the voice of Astyanax. He walked closer. His feet tiptoeing to the source of the rustling. Snow went up his pants. He straightened and tightened his bomber jacket. He fitted his black hat firmly on his head. He breathed once, then out. The long cloud of white came out of him. With it, all comfortable warmth. He moved his hand towards the branches. Hesitated. He pushed them aside.

A man laid there, squirming, in pain. He held his shoulder that bled and froze midway down to his stomach, a large gush. His pants were undone, his penis lay flaccid and...worsened than his shoulder.

"What happened here?" The man was half-blinded, with a cut on his left eye and the other skidding aimlessly in his skull out of confusion. His arms flailed about like an infant, trying to find a face to attach the voice too. He cried like one too, not that Apollo blamed him. He couldn't stop shaking, coughing, fidgeting. His sweat and blood coalescing to a thin, pink shower across his neck and face.

"Geist. Geist!" He screamed.

Apollo understood it, at least the fear behind the words. The voice in his head again spoke, kill him, he won't survive. He knows your voice. And Apollo, shaking his head, ripped a piece of his jacket and wrapped it around his shoulder. He looked down, to where he was nude. Circumstance had killed his disgust or shame, he had to see if he was injured. The man was dying after all. He inspected the wound with calculated patience. He sighed, it was just a lesion on his thigh. Thinking, grateful, thank god it wasn’t his dick. As if a kind of small victory in itself.

Again, he ripped some cloth and began to form his small knot around the thigh. The man gasped, squirmed in pain and slapped his chest.

"Hold on, you idiot," Apollo said. "I'm trying to be a nice guy here."

He kept slapping his shoulder. Screaming, foaming, "Geist! Geist!"

“Huh?” Apollo thought. His neck became sensitive. His pores exposed.

He realized it that instant, staring at the reflection on the gravekeeper’s eyes, what he meant with those words, geist. For in those eyes he saw the figure, fast approaching him. The puss-filled face of the ‘Geist’, reflected from the innocent blue eyes of the gravekeeper. He turned around. Saw her, only for an instant, like a thin monster. He put his hand up. Air escaped him. The pain surged through his body and he looked to its source: three nails shot straight through his elbow.