"It might make you think I’m crazy."
"Well, we’d like to avoid that, wouldn’t we?" she says.
I laugh. "Right," I reply. I don’t look at either of my colleagues before I answer; I don’t want their opinion here, though I’m sure they would let me know if I overstepped. They’ve never been shy about sharing their opinions. "The political answer is that this is what I do best, and I like to help people."
"I told you that wasn’t the answer I wanted," she says, her voice wavering a little. I think I’m scaring her–because she wanted me to admit this is a farce, that none of it is real. She’s coming to the realization that I truly believe she was possessed.
That would scare anyone.
A waiter comes over and pours wine into my cup, a hand on their back and another one gripping the bottle.
I wait until the waiter has left before I answer her. "Well, that’s the start of the real answer," I say. "I’m good at it and I want to help people."
"Okay…"
"This is about the Church, unfortunately," I say. "It is an institution; an old one, at that. They know that we’re in a spiritual war, but what they don’t seem to realize is that we’re losing. I could wait for edicts from Rome, or I could, instead, take things into my hands. Even if it comes at great personal cost to me."
"Like, if they found you, they’d fire you?"
I hold back a smile. "Like if they found out," I say, purposefully mirroring her language despite how foreign it sounds in my own mouth. "They would ex-communicate me. And my soul would be doomed."