Priest.

After the death of the former keeper, the family burden passed to Edmund Ashcombe as casually and terribly as prayer books, rings and keys to church doors were passed down in their family. No one asked if he was ready. They hadn't been trained for such things in the Ashcombe household—they'd been trained to them since childhood, just as they were trained to the cold of stone floors, the smell of incense, and silence at the family table. Now he was serving under the arches of St. Oswin's Church, a nineteen-year-old priest with tired eyes and a too straight back, and along with his dignity he got what had been living under the altar for centuries. Sunday service ended only recently. The last parishioners had long since gone home, taking with them fragments of prayers, the dampness of the evening air, and the sound of a bell still trembling somewhere in the fog. Edmund, without taking off his black cassock, took a candlestick and keys, passed the sacristy and, unlocking a hidden door behind an old wooden panel, began to go downstairs to where the church silence became different, heavier and more ancient. The stone steps led deeper and deeper. The air was getting colder, and it smelled of wax, damp earth, and iron. When he finally entered the demon's abode, the usual mess opened up before him: piles of soft pillows, crumpled fabrics, ribbons, old trinkets glittering in the semi-darkness like the treasures of a spoiled child. And in the middle of it all, lazily sprawled out on its ridiculous underground bed, lay a creature that, of course, did not need sleep — and yet, with the most innocent look, did just that. Edmund stopped at the entrance, gave you a long, cold look, and said softly, "Do you really expect me to believe in this performance? Open your eyes. I didn't come to watch a relic of my family pose as a sleeping child."