On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 230, of 240 so far.

Feline Fashion Show

Why is it always nuns? Kearney thought, but she already knew the answer.

It was because most people were far more shocked to see a religious woman crawling up a wall and along the ceiling, clinging there like an outsized spider, than to see a man do the same. Just typical preconceptions about gender.

The nun on the ceiling was Sister Agatha, or used to be. Kearney shook her head before taking out her crossbow, and she didn’t hesitate for a moment before sending a consecrated steel bolt straight through the centre of the wimple’s facial opening, putting the religious woman out of her presumed misery.

It hadn’t been the best week so far. This was her second calling in the past three days, and the morning had began early, with her phone ringing at four in the morning, then a hurried drive into the country, along pitch-black winding backroads bordering fields and thick forests, until Kearney had finally arrived at the modest convent building. She had found it in disarray, without electricity, the few meagre livestock slaughtered, and absolutely no sounds from the night-time animals that should have been audible from everywhere around.

She had felt the presence as soon as she’d stepped from her vehicle, and she also felt the faint heat from the silver crucifix she wore around her neck at all times. It was like the small metal object was a compass of sorts, and it grew warmer and warmer as she got closer to something that shouldn’t be there in the mortal world. It never burned her, though, and she understood that the heat was an illusion; just her mind’s best approximation of something it didn’t have dedicated sensory equipment for, but was still aware of on some dim, ancestral level.

There was sudden movement to her left, and Kearney spun in that direction, barely in time to avoid a shabby old chair experiencing its final moments of utility, this time as a projectile which splintered harmlessly against the far wall. Two points of red were visible in the shadows of the direction it had come from, and Kearney inwardly wondered just how many more of these acolytes she’d have to put down before she found the person she was looking for.

The nun in the corner looked young, and Kearney felt a pang of irritation which she knew was bordering on intolerance. Despite her profession, she privately believed that while the priesthood was clearly necessary, it was a waste of time for otherwise promising and vibrant people to throw away their lives at the very beginning, dedicating themselves to meaningless cloistered servitude without even a congregation to guide or a community to assist. Monastic or convent life was the real abomination, if you asked her — but of course no-one did, and she didn’t volunteer the opinion either.

The nun made a sound as she rushed forward, and Kearney found herself simultaneously wondering what this girl’s future might have been, even as she also brought up the crossbow once more, ending the nun’s life for arguably the second time that day. It was such a tragedy, but the young woman now lying on the floor had lost her future at least three times: when she took her vows, when her body was taken by evil, and when she was released by a bolt of steel a moment ago.

Strenuous, Kearney thought bitterly, remembering the word the cardinal had used when he denied her request, yet again, to participate in one of the larger excursions, for which she was more than qualified.

The College of the Obscure had been founded more than seven hundred years ago, and apparently its attitudes were still rooted in that time period. Demon-hunting was the ultimate expression of faith, and it was an open secret that women were more attuned to the presence of the supernatural, but the first female member of the college hadn’t been admitted until the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-five. And now, here in the 21st century, bias was still rife. Kearney was fobbed off again and again from the most dangerous and important callings, but whenever there was a convent needing purged, or a suspected possession of a female parishioner, or mutterings about a cursed child, she was the one to be dispatched.

Because those jobs are less strenuous, she thought, shaking her head at the ludicrousness of it all. Even a four-year-old, when possessed by a demon, could easily throw the burliest man clear across the room and out of a window. Physical strength didn’t enter into it, and she was plenty strong for that matter, thank you very much.

The corridor ahead smelled of varnish and detergent, with an undertone of brimstone that told Kearney she was getting close to her target. She was in a bad mood, and that was dangerous, but the frustration was omnipresent these days. No doubt the priests would make sniggering remarks about her cycle if she complained, yet again, about the markedly different treatment she received in terms of assignments, seniority, and everything else. They received boons like last year’s already legendary hunt through the caverns below the Vatican itself, for a creature named in the holy book. Meanwhile, here she was, the equivalent of a TV reporter sent to cover a feline fashion show.

The door ahead opened of its own accord, and within was both host and predator, looking through the same eyes. The Mother Superior was resplendent in a dark way, and Kearney could see in her gaze that the person was still trapped in there, kept to witness the carnage wrought through her body by the beast that had taken her as a puppet. Kearney also knew, though, that primary hosts were chosen for a reason, and more often than not it was because of a seed of cruelty that offered a way in for the forces of darkness.

Then I’ll be doing the world two favours today, she thought.

The demon that controlled the woman before her had torn open the habit at the chest, and Kearney suspected that the sight would have distracted the attention of a male hunter for a moment; perhaps a critical one. Once again, though, she didn’t hesitate. This time, the bolt already nocked was of the same silver as her crucifix, its tip made from glass filled with blessed water, and the shaft inlaid with inscriptions in a language unseen by most human beings for centuries.

The demon saw, and screamed as it leapt forward in its stolen body, but Kearney had already pulled the trigger.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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