The Peace Keeper

“So…” Bella’s voice chimed through the early morning silence. “Does she always do this before an exorcism?”

Edward, Bella, and Alice stared down at Emma-Kate, joined with Quil, Embry, Jacob, Ed, and Bec.

“Nope,” Bec answered Bella’s question, plopping down on the couch adjacent to Emma, “Normally she does Budokon.”

“So… This isn’t anything unusual, then?” Edward spoke, an eyebrow raised at the girl on the floor.

Emma sat in her meditation pose, legs crossed, back straight, hands on her knees. Her attire consisted of black yoga pants with a light blue waist band, a white camisole, and a light blue hoodie, left unzipped.

She peeked on dark hazel eye open, “Will you guys shut up? I’m trying to concentrate.”

Cautiously, a curious Alice sat next to the peacekeeper, imitating her pose. Emma again opened one eye to look at the vampire girl, but shrugged it off to stand at the edge of her green yoga mat.

Ed sighed from the couch next to Bec, “Yoga’s so boring. It’s a lot more fun when she does martial arts stuff.”

The two short girls now transferred from “Tree” to the “Dancer” position.

It was at this time, Victor Dawson decided to step through the front door. He was holding a bag of what looked to be dinner rolls, and stopped when he saw the crowd in the living room. “Didn’t think we’d have an audience today.” He commented before going to put the bread in the kitchen.

Emma watched Alice duplicate every pose perfectly, and finally chose to step up the difficulty level, transitioning from “Tripod” to “Crow” to “Side Crow” and finally the “Eight-Angel” pose.

“Now, that’s just inhuman.” Quil commented, tilting his head to the side as he watched the two girls.

“Well, technically,” Victor spoke as he returned to the room, “Neither of them are really humans.”

Frowning at Alice, Emma swung back into a handstand, then brought her legs forward into the “Firefly” pose. Alice followed the move flawlessly.

“So, why is she doing this again?” Jake asked to the room, eyes never leaving the girl in front of him.

Victor was the only one who could come up with a good answer, “Peacekeepers must be in a proper state of mind whenever dealing with otherworldly lives. By focusing her mind like this, she’s preparing her body and mental state for the exorcism.”

The werewolves and vampires nodded their heads.

Emma switched into the “Child” pose before lifting her hands straight up, and bending backwards into “King Pigeon.”

“Em, would you quit that?” Her brother requested of her, “You’ll hurt your leg.”

Emma-Kate contorted her body back up, legs still folded beneath her.

“Fine.” She huffed, returning to her meditation pose.

~~~

I took another couple minutes for myself, clearing my mind, breathing deeply and all that bull.

But, before long, I stood, drew in another long sigh, and grinned at the group of people who insisted on staring at me. “Well!” I declared with unnecessary volume, “Let’s get started!”

“You’re going to wear that?” Embry asked, eyeing my clothes.

I shrugged, “Well, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Cause I’m comfortable…?”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing, like, ceremonial robes or something?” Quil asked, standing beside his cohort.

I looked down at my outfit, then over to Vic, Ed, and Bec. They all shrugged.

“Not really,” I answered. “That would be weird. Now,” I clapped my hands together, “Where’s that chicken blood?”

~~~

“So,” Jake retaliated, looking at the scene before him, “She just walks into the circle and… poof? She’s gone?”

I nodded, looking down at the simple circle of chicken’s blood. That’s all it was, a circle. No elaborate symbols or words, just four Portuguese rolls set at four points of equal length from each other, each the point of a diamond shape.

My audience was scattered about the empty bedroom, bare with the exception of a few boxes that had been placed in here for storage. I had marked the wood floor in front of the walk-in closet of the room, supposedly where my ghost, Eliza, hung herself.

To my right, Victor yawned. “So why’d you chose this exorcism again? There’s much simpler ways…”

“I know,” I scoffed, kicking the toes of my right foot against the floor lightly. “But I don’t like her, and just sending her away seems like the best idea. I don’t want to ‘communicate’ or any of that other crap.”

“So how will we know when the ghost is gone?” Alice asked from the other side of the room.

“You guys won’t.” My brother answered for me. “Only the peacekeepers will know.”

“Although,” I furthered the answer, “If you’re at all spiritually sensitive, then you might feel her leave.”

“Let’s get this over with!” Ed shouted in exasperation, startling the rest of the group, including myself. “I’m starting to get crow’s feet for fuck’s sake!”

I sighed at my friend’s impatience. “Yeah, yeah, just chill out.”

Victor made the motion for everyone to take a few steps back. Together, my twin and I kneeled on the ground in front of our circle. He went down with ease, while I fell somewhat awkwardly due to the brace still on my leg.

Simultaneously, his baritone voice mixing with my soprano one, we chanted: “Chamo-o…” Our voices trailed off together, fading to silence for exactly four beats. Then we followed with, “Expeço-o…” Again fading for four beats, then repeating the two words again.

“What are they saying?” Quil asked Ed and Bec.

Bec, crossed her arms, “Basically all they’re saying is ‘I call you,’ then, ‘I send you away,’ or ‘I dispatch you.” Ed nodded in concurrence.

My twin and I repeated the process a few more times. At some point during our mantra, we opened our eyes, seeing the fading figure of Eliza in our circle. She looked calm, but confused. A warm light that could only be seen by us peacekeepers surrounded her in a warm glow. Eliza wasn’t afraid, if anything, she was exuberant.

And all in a rush, the light swallowed her whole, disappearing into the floor.

A calm atmosphere filled the room like a comforting breeze.

The group of people behind me held silent for a tense moment, but relaxed when they saw Victor and I slouch back down.

“Is that it?” Bella was the first to ask.

“Yep.” Bec answered her, being one of the few who witnessed what really just happened. “How bout lunch now?”

~~~

My guests had stayed until mid-afternoon. We ate a quick lunch after the exorcism, gathering at my dinning room table for the meal, four toasted Portuguese rolls laying in a basket at the middle of the table. Nobody bothered to touch those, though. After the meal, we stayed together, chatting with one another, werewolves, vampires, humans, and peacekeepers alike.

Eventually, though, they all left, each for their own reason.

Edward and Bella had plans to go to the movies.

Alice promised Esme she’d help with gathering furniture and décor for my new upstairs office.

Ed and Bec both left… Well, I don’t really know why the left. More than likely, that actually had somewhere to go, though.

All three wolves booked it out of my house, saying that if they didn’t leave soon, Sam would kill them for being late to patrol. I bid them farewell at the parlor, Jake giving me a sweet peck on the lips, which I frowned at. He wasn’t supposed to do that…

Now, don’t get me wrong, if it were up to me, I’d kiss him all day, flaunting our relationship wherever I go, like any other girl in love. But… I was a peacekeeper. In a way, we were kind of like the superheroes you see in comic books. We couldn’t sustain romantic relationships with supernaturals, due to the fact that they were supposed to be what we were guarding against. It was hard enough for our kind to keep up relationships between other peacekeepers and humans, but supernaturals were supposed to be forbidden… I learned that the hard way.

With a heart-heavy heave, I returned to my brother in the living room. “And then there were two…”

He shrugged, turning on the TV.

The two of us sat around for another hour, flipping through channels, like when we were kids, arguing over which shows to watch.

“Emma, I’m not watching frickin’ Lifetime.” Victor growled when I successfully wrestled the remote from his hands.

“Yes, yes we are.” I argued back matter-of-factly. “Project Runway’s on. It’s the new season, I want to watch it.”

He dove for the remote again, “Well, I don’t.”

Again, we managed to get ourselves into a tussle, each attempting to rip the small device from each other’s hands. But, as always, I won with a swift knuckle-punch to the kidneys. I sat with a triumphant grin, cross-legged on the couch, whilst Victor groaned in pain, clutching his side on the floor in front of me.

Just as I had gotten into the episode, my doorbell rang. I softly kicked Victor, who remained on the floor, “Get that.”

“No way,” He spat back, “It’s your house, anyway.”

Grumbling under my breath, I warned him not to change the channel, and left my relaxing seat to answer the door.

“Hello?” I opened the door…

Only to be greeted with a horrifying sight before me. With a shocked, choking gasp, my hands clasped over my mouth to hide my screams. I fell to my knees, eyes nearly popping out of my head in alarm.

“V-Victor!” I called over my shoulder to my brother, distressed, “I need your help!”