The book of demons

It was one of a series of similar books that caused a great stir in the Church centuries ago. They were confiscated and burned at the time, but there were still copies kept in the Vatican and under lock and key, and probably others that nobody knows about.

However, more recent research has shown that the books were harmless. Written in an unknown language, more like gibberish and none of the 'sayings' in them had ever had any effect. And the church tested it thoroughly. Very thoroughly. For several decades. Different pronunciations, dialects, forwards, backwards. Nothing.

At some point it was realized that it was a hoax, today we would say a fake. We had talked about these books in training. That's why I didn't give it a second thought when I saw the books above in the archive; at most they still have historical value, also because of the high-quality workmanship.

The Book of the Living, the Book of the Dead, the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Angels, the Book of Darkness, the Book of Light and a few more were upstairs, and obviously the Book of Demons belonged there too.

“How did you get hold of this book?” I asked Kendra, trying not to sound reproachful, because she had obviously stolen it.

“A few months ago, after the sermon, you asked for help cleaning out the church archives, remember? I helped out at the time and, in a rash moment, uh, 'borrowed' it.”

I remembered. A letter from an American who was doing genealogical research asked me to confirm a marriage in the 16th century. Johanna (the sexton) showed me the archive under the roof, which was only accessible via a narrow staircase and surprisingly well secured with locks. The old priest hadn't been up here for years, it looked like a mess. I was able to confirm the requested marriage and found some more information about the couple and their family trees, which I sent back to America. However, the state of the archive led me to ask my community for help.

And among the helpers, I now remembered, had been Kendra. So I already knew her.

I explained: “This book is undoubtedly very impressive. It is also genuine and very old. But I can assure you that you can't use it to summon spirits or demons.”

“But it worked!”. This time, all three girls spoke at the same time as if from the same mouth. They looked very serious and I was a little scared.

“Go on.” I said, eager to hear what they had experienced.