“This was all I could find,” said Irene as she came back into her bedroom. She laid two outfits onto her bed that looked like they were straight from the 1980’s. One was a pair of jeans with a denim jacket, and the other was a neon red sweatshirt with matching sweatpants.

Damian shrugged and said, “I guess that’ll have to do. At least it’s still Halloween so it’ll look like a costume.” He took off his torn polo, grabbed the red sweatshirt, and started to put it on.

Irene tried not to stare at his upper body, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t believe he was here, alive again, and in her bedroom.

After he finished changing, he looked over at Irene and gasped.

“What!” said Irene, her eyes widened, “Are you okay?”

“Sorry, I’m fine,” said Damian, “I just noticed… how beautiful you are.” He smiled.

Irene blushed. “Really?” she asked, and she moved a little closer to the figure she believed was her formerly dead friend.

Irene did not realize that Damian’s dead body had actually become possessed by the evil spirit who caused his untimely death. In the adjacent spiritual realm, the real Damian’s soul was sitting beside his guardian angel, Steve, as they watched the events transpire in Irene’s house.

They were sitting in the front seats of Steve’s angelic ambulance as they tried to come up with a viable plan to foil the agenda of the evil spirit.

The real Damian turned to Steve and said, “Seeing this is making me sick. Why can’t you just use that sword of yours to expel that spirit from my body?”

Steve replied, “My current angelic license only allows me to use my sword on purely non-physical creatures. To use it on a human body would require explicit permission from the Divine Council, and that could take a couple weeks to process. And we don’t have a minute to lose if this spirit is trying to do what I think it’s trying to do.”

“What is it trying to do?” asked Damian.

“It wants to reproduce,” said Steve.

“That’s disgusting!” said Damian, “So how can we stop it?”

“The best way to deal with a physical problem is a physical solution. We need a living human being to intervene,” said Steve.

“Okay,” said Damian, thinking quickly, “What about Irene’s Mom? She seemed pretty alive.” He pointed over at the master bedroom of the house, where they could see both parents sleeping.

The angel considered the suggestion, thinking for a moment before responding, “Normally, for an exorcism like this, a person needs to spend several days in preparation, praying and fasting before they have any chance of success. But at this point, we’ll have to make due with what we’ve got.” As he spoke, an alarm began to go off on the angel’s wristwatch.

“What’s that for?” asked Damian.

The angel looked at his watch and smiled as he deactivated the sound. “It’s midnight,” he said, “We might be able to get some assistance.”

“What’s special about midnight?” asked Damian.

“Did you ever learn why this holiday is called Halloween?” asked Steve.

“I thought that’s just what it was called,” said Damian, “I always heard it was like the Devil’s birthday or something.”

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“The day used to belong to the pagan deities, but in AD 731, the Church conquered it and dedicated it to all the saints in the western world. Halloween is an abbreviation for All Hallow’s Evening, the night before All Saints’ Day,” said Steve, “I was invited to a spiritual party happening nearby that just started, where there should be some saints who can help us out. I was hoping to be done with this job by now, but this spirit is more cunning than I expected.”

“Okay,” said Damian, “So we need to recruit those saints, get Irene’s Mom on board, and then we can stop the spirit?”

“Yeah, I can talk to Irene’s Mom,” said Steve, “And you can take my car to go to the saint party and explain the situation to them. I’ll give you the address. They’re really nice, so it shouldn’t be a problem. The only other thing is we need to stall those two lovebirds over there.” Steve pointed at Irene’s bedroom, where it looked like she and the Damian-imposter were sitting awfully close to each other on top of her bed.

The angel grabbed a crossbow from his glove compartment and aimed it at a water bottle that Irene had left on her desk. He fired a spiritual bolt at the bottle, which knocked water all over Irene’s papers and her laptop.

Irene cursed when she noticed this and quickly ran out of the room to grab some towels. “I really hope my computer is okay!” she said.

The Damian-imposter turned its head to where Steve would’ve been, and it scowled indignantly. When Irene returned and started putting the towel out to soak up all the water, the spirit-possessed Damian casually told her, “I think there are some spirits who really didn’t like what you did by resurrecting me, since we’re going against nature by reversing death.”

Irene nodded and said, “Yeah, I thought it was really odd how the water bottle just suddenly spilled like that.”

Damian replied, “After you clean that up, I think you ought to cast some protection spells on me and on your room. To keep us safe.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Irene. But she noticed as she started to dry her desk, the water spilled onto the floor and started soaking into the carpet. The towel quickly became saturated with water, so she needed to get another towel. “The water just never seems to end!” Irene said to Damian. She grabbed her spell book to see if there was anything she could do to dry up the miraculous water.

Meanwhile, Steve had already sent the real Damian in his ambulance with the coordinates to the All Saints’ Day party. And Steve had flown over to the master bedroom to have a conversation with Mrs. Groves. She was in the dream realm, adjacent to the physical and spiritual realms, the key difference being everything in a dream is imagined by a creature, while everything in reality is imagined by the Creator.

When Steve entered the dream, he found himself in a gothic city landscape, with streets covered with filth. Then, in the air, he saw a blur go across the moon. He knew it was Irene’s mother. The angel flew up to intercept her.

“Maria Groves,” called out Steve.

The blur stopped, confirming that it was Mrs. Groves, wearing her superhero outfit she used for Halloween. “Hello there,” said Mrs. Groves.

Steve expanded his wings and revealed his true form to her. With a blinding flash of light, the woman saw an unfiltered glimpse of the interdimensional being that had entered into her dream. She realized what this was, not from her subconscious since she couldn’t have imagined this on her own. It was a magnificent yet terrifying creature matching descriptions she had only read described in apocalyptic biblical prophecies. At this, Mrs. Groves weakened and began to fall down to the ground.

“I can’t have her wake up yet,” Steve said to himself. He flew down, caught her, and landed them both on the roof of a building.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Groves, “So what are you doing here in my dream? I’m guessing you’re an angel from God?”

“I am,” said Steve, “And I’m here because there’s a rather complex situation involving your daughter, Irene.”

Mrs. Groves did not look surprised.

Meanwhile, Damian had just arrived at the All Saints’ Day party, which was taking place in the spiritual realm adjacent to a nearby church. When he arrived, the saints kindly stopped their music so they could all listen to him. He tried to concisely explain all the details of the situation regarding his body.

After he finished, Saint Nicholas said, “So basically, you could use a few extra hands to help deal with this demon at your friend’s house?”

Damian nodded.

“One demon working alone? That should be pretty doable,” said Saint Nicholas, “Patrick, Valentine, would you go lend them a hand? It shouldn’t take very long.”

“I’d be happy to,” said Saint Patrick. He gave his beverage to another saint to hold for him while he was gone.

“It’d be my pleasure,” said Saint Valentine.

The two saints hopped into Steve’s ambulance, and Damian drove them back to Irene’s house.