Hughes had Jimmy drive behind him, and they drove to a small church in Brooklyn. It was a very inconspicuous little church, but it looked quite old, and the door was already closed when Hughes and they arrived.
Hughes knocked on the door, and a very low small door opened. Hughes and Jimmy ducked their heads and entered the church. The person behind the door closed it, said nothing, and led them to a lounge at the back of the church.
Inside the lounge sat a middle-aged white man dressed in priestly clothes, holding a Bible in his hands. When he saw Hughes and company come in, the priest put away the Bible and stood up to greet Hughes: "Good evening, Hughes. And who is this?"
Hughes: "Jimmy, our agent, he's the one handling the previous case."
Priest: "Welcome both of you, please take a seat."
Hughes sat next to the priest, and Jimmy sat next to Hughes, not speaking.
Hughes: "Father Harris, can we begin?"
Father Harris nodded: "We have already investigated the previous case, and later we found the same resentful spirits. We completed three exorcisms in total, but in our judgment, the results were not ideal. The situations with those three resentful spirits were very consistent; they all manipulated people to murder and nourish them after possession.
The fact that they appear repeatedly and behave consistently indicates that they originate from the same source, likely somewhere in New York. To eradicate such occurrences and prevent them from recurring, we must find their source.
Moreover, your previous assumptions are likely correct. The resentful spirits may not be complete, as they don't exhibit the frantic assault behavior characteristic of other resentful spirits. Instead, they leave once detached from the human body, much like avatars. Their source is likely a resentful spirit with unique abilities similar to division."
Hughes: "So, how is your investigation going?"
Father Harris: "So far, there hasn't been a discovery. In fact, people possessed by resentful spirits are virtually indistinguishable from normal people. When they don't show up, there's no way to tell them apart, so we must rely on you to investigate."
Hughes looked at Jimmy: "Jimmy?"
Jimmy: "Father Harris, how did you discover the cases you handled?"
Father Harris: "Two of them were reported by followers who noticed abnormal behavior in relatives and friends. However, these affected individuals themselves did not undergo any mutations, but suddenly became indifferent and cold-blooded, almost like a different person."
Jimmy: "Did they merely become indifferent? Was there anything particularly unusual?"
Father Harris: "They all harmed others, but there was no direct evidence."
Jimmy nodded: "Are there any recorded locations? If they originate from the same source, appearances should follow a certain pattern."
Father Harris: "I can give you the addresses."
Jimmy: "One more question, how did you eliminate them?"
Father Harris: "We have an exorcism ceremony."
Jimmy: "So, if you're unsure, you can just perform an exorcism ceremony to be sure, right?"
Father Harris: "No, the exorcism ceremony is quite taxing for us and can't be used frequently; that standard doesn't work."
Jimmy: "Understood, Hughes, I have no more questions."
Father Harris: "I must remind you, after the resentful spirit detaches from the host, it won't actively attack people around it but will flee quickly. Most people can't see it, but we suspect that the main body of that resentful spirit might have offensive capabilities, so you must be careful if you discover it."
Father Harris took out a small bottle from a wooden box nearby, "Applying this high-concentration Holy Water on the eyelids can temporarily reveal the anomalous state of the resentful spirit, but it shouldn't be used for more than five minutes. Please don't use it frequently."
Hughes reached out to take it, "Anything else?"
Father Harris: "This is all we know. In fact, the resentful spirit itself isn't particularly harmful; the main issue is its impact on the host, causing more damage, so we must rely on you to investigate."
Hughes nodded, handed the Holy Water bottle to Jimmy.
Father Harris: "Then I'll take my leave, leaving the rest to you two." Saying that, Father Harris walked out of the lounge.
Hughes stood up, nodded to Jimmy, and they left the church. Standing by the car, Jimmy asked: "Hughes, how should we handle this?"
Hughes: "Just be mindful, no need to specifically investigate."
Jimmy: "Yeah, there's no way to investigate this. There are over 600 homicides in New York each year, over 10,000 gun-related incidents, and more than 150,000 various crime events. There's no way to determine which cases are caused by these resentful spirit hosts."
Hughes nodded: "So don't worry about it, coming over was just to show face. Keep the Holy Water bottle safe, I know you can directly see resentful spirits and don't need this, but this bottle of Holy Water can save your life in special situations."
Jimmy: "Alright, so what do we do now?"
Hughes: "Go back and rest."
Jimmy nodded, got in the car, and left the church, returning to his Manhattan apartment.
Hughes' earlier words implied that calling Jimmy over was merely to give the church an account, likely because something was mentioned during a phone consultation that prompted Hughes to ask Jimmy to be vigilant.
It looked like giving the church face by specially assigning someone to handle their request, but in reality, they didn't intend to do anything, just going through the motions.
Jimmy recalled the previous case during the day and also retrieved the case from the system for a look. He had killed one resentful spirit at the time; a previous one escaped, and later he couldn't write the case report and had to notify Hughes.
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