Steady, get a grip; relax. Breathe deeply.

Jasmine began chanting the mantras again as she ran down the hallway, following the numbers that would take her to the relative safety of Adam's room. It also helped to take the edge off her fear.

By the time she reached room 912, she had calmed down.

"Took you long enough."

Jasmine whirled around, ready to kick and scream for help.

"Oh! Damn it John! You scared me to death!" Jasmine covered her face with trembling hands. The sight of John Greer was such a relief to Jasmine that she nearly cried.

"Whoa there, Jasmine! I left you alone for ten minutes! What happened?"

As she related the harrowing escape from the elevator, John's eyes grew incredulous. A short bark of laughter accompanied the news of the knee-in-groin incident, but a deep shadow of concern collected in John's eyes when she finished her story.

"That's the second time to day someone has been tailing and physically threatening you." He frowned.

"Once we figure out what's going on with Adam, I'm going to find a couple of guys to keep an eye on you. I have a feeling it's not going to be the final time these thugs show their asses."

John pushed open the door marked #912.

In the middle of the room on a bed with restraints was a heavily sedated Adam Stuart. The recessed lighting also brought to light the dark shadows under his eyes and the tortured look on his visage even though he was unconscious.

Suddenly, his lids peeled open and his vacant pale blue eyes stared at them with something akin madness. His mouth opened and a raucous laughter spewed forth.

Words that barely made sense began tumbling from his frothing mouth. The voice that uttered those nonsensical words were not Adam's voice.

It was a deep haunting baritone male voice with a Cajun-French accent. He was drawling in a sing-song manner like a native from New Orleans.

"Wooohooo!!! Look who's come a'calling. A fat old man and a chick that is hot to trot! Oh mama. Come to daddy!"

Jasmine stared, aghast. It was obvious that Adam Stuart was still unconscious, but it made no difference to whatever demonic spirit that had taken a hold of his body. It continued spewing noxious ramblings at them, nonstop.

"Hmmmmm hmmmmm. You are so delicious looking, little mama. You making me so damn horny just looking at your sweet ass!"

"Shut the fuck up, Marvin!" A female voice escaped from Adam Stuart's throat. "You nasty old pervert! You ain't even got a body. How you gonna get horny. Just shut your trap."

Suddenly, Adam Stuart's body began bouncing around on the bed, as if there was a fight occurring within his chest cavity.

The snarling and growling was nothing that a human vocal cord could produce. It sounded beastly and inhuman.

The two demonic spirits were fighting inside him!

Adam's face lifted upwards, his eyes rolled back into his head. His mouth opened wide, gasping and gurgling. He was choking to death.

"We gotta call the doctor!" John Greer called out with a panicked voice.

"And then do what?" Jasmine threw out frustrated hands. "What do you think they're gonna do to him?"

"I don't know. Give him more medicine? Put him in a mental institution?"

"John. He's not mad! He's just possessed!" She screamed.

"How do you know???" John howled back.

"Because my family is the latest in a long line of exorcists!!!" She responded, and then snapped shut her mouth.

That was something that should have never been said to anyone outside her family, least of all a cop.

John said nothing.

He hadn't been a cop all these decades without having seen the strangest things. If he had not believed in supernatural things as a young man, he certainly believed in them now!

"So what do we do?"

"We gotta take him to my aunt and grandmother. They can help him."

"But Jasmine, he's been admitted to this hospital. We can't just take him out. That's against the law!"

"John! No one in this hospital is going to be able to help him. No one!!! If we don't get him to my family, he's gonna die just like Blake and Terry and Ray!"

John nodded. He believed that.

"Okay. Let me think about this for a moment. See what we can do."

Adam Stuart chose that moment to bark and howl like a werewolf. Green vomit with specks of blood spewed from his mouth, shooting against the wall.

The smell was horrendous and gagging but it somehow stopped the demonic spirits from hooting and laughing within Adam's body.

One moment, they were howling like banshees and next moment, Adam's body dropped back onto the bed, drenched in sweat, but quiet and breathing normally.

Jasmine grabbed a towel and wiped the gore from his mouth.

"Think a little faster!" She screamed. "He is running out of time!"

"Okay! Let me see what I can do."

To get Adam out, there had to be a way to get his restraints off without sending off alarms and signals running through the system.

Jasmine inspected the system while John searched for a way to pick the locks.

The wiring system used monitors which were hooked onto the body of the patient. Once the wires were cut, alarms would be sent to the nurses' stations to alert them of the patient's internal fluctuations.

The only way that it would not set off the alarm was for the lock to be picked.

"I got this," John muttered.

He procured a sharp pick-like instrument from his back pocket and stuck it into the lock on the side of the bed.

Jasmine heard a click—and the restraints fell away. Thank God he was a lock-picking cop!

"Hurry. Take his feet," John indicated to Jasmine as he opened up a hospital fold-up wheel chair.

Between the two of them, huffing and puffing, they were able to get Adam's slack form seated in the chair. Jasmin averted her eyes as much as she could to Adam's condition.

He was wearing a hospital gown which tended to be open in various places and showed more than it hid. To alleviate her embarrassment, she pulled a sheet from one of the spares on a side table and wrapped it around him.

As the got him to the door, the voices of a gaggle of nurses could be heard coming towards them. John stared at Jasmine, horrified, and pulled the wheelchair into the corner behind the door.

Jasmine hid herself behind the other side, fully expecting to have to confront the nurses.

The voices continued to babble incoherently, pausing for a brief heart-stopping moment in front of Adam's door. But then the muted sounds of the nurses on duty drifted away, down the corridor and finally out of hearing.