Princess of Wands

by John Ringo

  “Interesting choice,” Barbara said with a laugh. “I lived there once.”

  “Yes, but Westerners are few,” Hjalmar corrected. “They don’t bring… northern European werewolves or vampires with them. Very few people are acolytes of the dark powers and they tend to stay in the U.S. if they’re from the U.S. Ditto Europe. But the immigrants that come to these shores… many of them are from the far places where evil still waits on quiet feet for the unwary. It is not only the workers and the farmers and the hunters that come to these shores, but the various shamans and priests that they support. And the acolytes of the dark powers that hide in their midst. Then there are all the idiots who buy a grimoire in Barnes and Noble and think they’re playing when they try to summon. Little do they know.”

  “You can find summoning spells in Barnes and Noble?” Barb said, aghast.

  “In at least one book that was published there is an accurate method for summoning a Persian daevas. It was a minor daevas, but nonetheless we were busy for a while and Ahriman was reinforced strongly by the souls of many… well, call them innocents. It was called the Green River Slayings.”

  “I thought they caught the guy who did those?” Barbara asked.

  “Well, he was one of the ones who read the spell, wasn’t he?” Janea said. “There have been several mass murders and serial killings driven by that particular daevas.”

  “Fortunately,” the Asatru said, “we were able to get the second printing modified so the spell was wrong. And, of course, the summoner had to do certain rites that guaranteed their soul was tarnished. They also had to have at least a trace of power. But between the acolytes that come from other shores, where they had been in balance with shamans combating them, and the penchant for study that some Americans have-”

  “We’re getting overrun,” Janea said, shrugging. “There simply aren’t enough operatives, especially high level ones. Expect to be busy.”

  “Well, that should go over well with my husband,” Barb said, dryly.

  Chapter Four

  Barbara contemplated the previous evening as she made her way to her first seminar: Introduction to Demonology. The evening had turned into one long free-form discussion. History, mythology, legend, archaeology, particle physics and cooking had all entered in at one time or another. She had talked with the lamas for a time and been mightily impressed. They weren’t just yellow-robed mystics from the back of beyond. The lama had a Ph.D. in physics from Reading University and his apprentice was working on his masters in comparative religion. The lama admitted that he had obtained his degree before it was discovered he was the umpteenth reincarnation of the Kotan Lama. But both of them were well traveled; indeed it was the first time Barb had been able to discuss the Far East with anyone in a long time, let alone with someone remarkably intelligent and, yes, wise.

  She had spoken with some of the Wiccans, who ranged from very down to earth to very… out there. Barbara knew now, beyond belief, that demons roamed the earth in many guises. But she was still pretty sure that crystals couldn’t cure warts, much less fend off demons. She did listen, however, to some of the more… functional members of the group, who gave her a series of small charm tips that could be used for minor household protections. When she wasn’t sure if the use of magic violated her faith, it set off a long discussion of same by people who had, she suspected, far more knowledge of the Christian Faith than the Reverend Dr. Jasper Winton Mulgrew, her minister.

  She had gotten to bed very late, for her, her head reeling. The people had ranged from very strange to fascinating. All had been far more intelligent than the friends she and Mark had made in Jackson. And, generally, wiser. She had found herself having to rev her brain up in a way she hadn’t known since her university days, or before, simply to keep up with the flow of conversation. And she also found herself bewildered by a series of in-jokes that seemed endless. Of course, with a group like the Foundation, with everyone being “in” on the secret, in-jokes were only to be expected. But what in he… heck were space goats and why did they baaa every time Hjalmar opened his mouth?

  * * *

  There was a small group in the room when she arrived, some of whom she recognized from the night before. She took a spot near the front, nodding to a few of the people she recognized, and opened up the portfolio that had been provided. It was embossed with the “People of Faith” symbol and had a pen in the slot already. There were large boxes stacked in one corner of the room and from the labels on them she suspected they were boxes of books. If so, and if they were for them, she was going to need a book bag. There was also a covered easel with a flip chart of some sort. There were quite a few pages to the flip chart.

  The teacher turned out to be Sharice, wearing another brightly colored dress. She bustled to the front of the room, dropped her load of books on the table and turned to the group with a smile.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I don’t usually teach intro demonology so I hope you’ll bear with me while I get up to speed. Generally there’s a joke about now,” she added, smiling, “but I don’t know any jokes about demonology. Except one. How do you know the difference between a demon and an angel? We battle the one and we work for the others.” She looked around at the snorts and nodded.

  “That is essential to keep in mind. Evil is defined by the environment, by the culture. The Mongols slew hundreds of thousands of people and considered that to be a good thing. Might makes right was their way of life. Modern Islamic fundamentalists consider the killing of innocents to be religiously justified in their Holy War. Are the manifestations that they create evil? The Aztecs ritually sacrificed thousands of human beings at a time, many of them volunteers for torture and ritual murder. Was that evil?” She looked around at the group and shrugged.

  “By our modern lights, by our Faith, the answer is: yes. These actions are evil and the entities that support, encourage and revel in them are evil. Our patrons use us to battle those entities upon this plane. They use us to save souls from the clutches of their enemies and our souls are offered to them in return. However, that is what you have to grasp. The essential battle is for souls, for power. Our enemies have a desire to seize souls, through whatever means is available to them. Our patrons also desire to bring souls into their area of control and wish to prevent their enemies from securing them.

  “It is without doubt that at one time many modern demons were gods who were worshipped and sacrificed to within a positive societal context. However, over the years most of them have been displaced by more positive gods, including most especially Yaweh and the White God, and the sacrifices once given to them have dwindled. From the perspective of anyone in this room, this can only be regarded in a positive light; the religions of Baal, of Kali, of Tzetzacoatl were abominations and their surviving acolytes are monsters. But demons and the bloody gods still continue to struggle to capture the souls of the innocent and they come to us in a variety of guises. And using physical sensory cues to identify them is what this class is about. Later, the use of secondary senses, related to your god-bond, will be covered.”

  They were issued four books that, as Sharice put it, were simply primers on the subject, and then Sharice ran through a list of the more common entities they might encounter. Vampires and werewolves Barbara had heard of but some of the most common entities derived from faiths she had never heard of. Many of the demons and devils of Christianity were traced, as individuals or classes, back to Zoroastrianism and even to Babylon.

  Most of the class seemed to consider the information extremely elementary but Barbara was entirely out of her depth. She had never really been interested in the occult and suddenly finding it central to her life was beyond odd. But she persevered, taking copious notes and flipping through pages in The Golden Bough and The Masks of God, trying to keep up.

  By the end of the class she was sure she’d never be able to identify even the simplest manifestation and her head was swimming with names like “selkie” and “bunyip” and “daevas,”
of which there seemed to be legions.

  When the class was over she looked at her schedule and sighed. Next was “The Touch of God: Introductory Channeling.” She’d faced what she now recognized as “an intermediate godling” and channeled heavily to fight it. But right now all she wished was that she was back home, getting lunch ready for the kids.

  She stood up, clutching her books, and stepped to the front to talk to Sharice.

  The instructor finished talking to a mousey woman who nodded at Barb as she walked out and Barbara confronted the witch.

  “You seemed to have left out Allah,” she said, quizzically.

  Sharice paused and then shrugged.

  “Allah is as much on the side of light as The White God,” Sharice said, frowning. “However, the current cultural expression by the majority of the active members of Islam is highly negative and in many cases involves interaction with negative intermediaries. Those who are using the name of Allah for their activities range from dupes to those who know very well the entities are enemies of their God. However… just as there are very few Protestant Christians among our ranks, there are very few members of Islam. Some day, perhaps, Islamics will adjust their culture and quit making pacts with the daevas and djinn. But, until then, I can’t in good conscience put the religion of Islam fully on the side of Light.”

  “Are you sure that Allah is… I guess ‘on our side’ would be the way to put it?” Barb asked, diffidently.

  “Oh, no question,” Sharice said, cautiously. “The fact is… it’s very hard to separate Yaweh, the White God and Allah as entities.” She looked at the expression on the woman’s face and nearly laughed. “Yep, all this horror is, in fact, being done in the name of the White God, whether they realize it or not. Trust me on this one. You’ll find out for sure some day. There is, as far as anyone can tell, not a shred of difference between the three entities. All the Children of the Book worship the same God. The One God if you will. And that One God is mightily pissed at the ‘fundamentalists’ from what we’ve been able to glean.”

  “I see,” Barbara said, unhappily.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Sharice said, “from what we’ve got from history, there are various periods in each of the three major religions of the One God where the adherents, in fact, fell out of favor. The religious wars in Europe, the period in Israel when Jesus appeared, the crusades. All of them had the One God pissed. But…” She paused and frowned. “For some reason direct action on His part has become… almost impossible. The why of that has been a bone of contention in the Foundation for some time. Now all that He can do is work through his earthly supporters,” she finished, waving at Barb. “But when He does, he has a mass of power like none other.”

  “I guess I can accept that,” Barbara said. “It doesn’t change my approach to Him. He is still the God that sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins.”

  “Hold that thought,” Sharice said, seriously. “Faith is our armor. You’ll learn much here and some of it may shake that faith. Don’t let it. You have felt the power of God. That is beyond faith, beyond reason. Know that what you believe, how you act, is what your God is looking for in a believer. Dedicate your soul fully to Him and you will be armored against any evil. But know, too, that we all follow our own paths to Him. Each person’s path is unique to that person.”

  “That takes some getting used to,” Barbara admitted. “My faith tells me that the only path to heaven is through the saving grace of Our Lord Jesus. That where two or more are gathered in His name, that there he resides.”

  “How many names are there for God?” Sharice said, smiling. “When we Wiccans gather in our circle, we call upon the One. Is that some separate entity? Or is it, in fact, another face of the One God? Are four or more gathered in His name?” She nodded at the thoughtful expression on Barb’s face and then gestured at the door. “You have more classes to tax your mind and soul. Go to them. Learn. So that the next time you are called to God’s work you will be better prepared in knowledge. Let the spirit be your own.”

  * * *

  She had arrived on Monday and through the week she attended class after class on every conceivable subject. Some of them, like “Sexual Magic,” made her squirm. Others were so esoteric that she wasn’t sure what connection they might have to her Calling. But, as the week stretched out, the schedule lightened up. She read the various tracts that had been given to her and then dove into the Foundation’s library for more advanced reading. She found that researching the occult was fun in and of itself. And she began to see what Janea had meant by it being a lifetime study.

  She also found out how much she was being paid in a short class called “Administrative Introduction.” If she worked full time, she’d be making more than four times as much as Mark. That took some adjustment. Even the training was being paid for, at her current rate as a “Class Three Adept.” She also found out that the highest rating was Class Five, of which there were only three in the entire group. From a side comment from Sharice she got the impression that if she had been graded purely on the basis of her performance with Almadu, she’d have been immediately promoted to Class Five. And Class Fives made more than twice as much as she was currently earning.

  On Sunday afternoon, after attending divine services at a small Methodist church in the valley, she was sitting in her room, curled up with Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, when there was a tap on her door.

  “This is your welcome wagon,” Julie said, when she opened the door. The woman was, surprisingly, accompanied by Janea, who was dressed simply in jeans and a jacket. “All work and no play and all that. Time to go have some fun.”

  “I am having fun,” Barbara said, holding up the book.

  “Different fun, then,” Janea said, shaking her head. “Shoes you can get dirty. Jeans. Warm shirt and jacket.”

  “That the uniform of the day?” Barb asked, but waved the two in. She had been dressed in sweats, but she changed quickly, shrugging on a jacket.

  “Bring your piece,” Julie said. “We’re leaving the compound.”

  They met James at the parking area, then drove out of the facility and down to the main road. There they turned right and up into the hills.

  “Okay, where are we going?” Barbara asked.

  “There’s a pretty good range up here,” Julie said. “It’s owned by the local NRA club, but the Foundation helps with the maintenance.”

  The crack of firearms was clear from the parking area when they arrived and there were several vehicles she remembered seeing at the Foundation. The parking area was well away from the range and it was a bit of hike up the hill. Barb helped Julie carry the large ballistic nylon bag she was toting while Janea easily hefted a large rucksack. James had another nylon bag.

  “We don’t have a range at the Foundation because of the wimpies,” Julie said, panting, as they reached the top of the slope. There was a gated fence and though the fence Barbara could see a half dozen people she recognized standing at a firing line. Others were to the rear, waiting to fire. There were a variety of targets, paper and metal, set up downrange and a large and solid berm.

  “Good to see you, Barb,” Hjalmar said, walking over to the group. He was wearing a shoulder holster with a Beretta semi-automatic in it. “I understand you can shoot, but how briefed are you on range safety?”

  Barbara hesitated then shrugged. “Well, I’m enough of a range safety nut that seeing a person walking around with a weapon in a shoulder holster, which points the barrel at anyone behind them, is making me nervous.”

  “Oooo-kay,” Hjalmar said, chuckling. “I’ll give you a pass on the range safety briefing, then.”

  Barbara drew her sidearm and cleared it, then set it on the table to the rear. There were boxes of ammunition stacked and she ensured that there was plenty of .45. After that she snagged a pair of earplugs and put them in.

  In the meantime, Julie and James had opened up their bags and were setting out
the contents. They clearly were more “into” weapons than she was. They had brought everything from a small caliber automatic that Barb tagged as an Astra .25 up to three assault rifles, an AK variant, a CAR-15 variant and one she didn’t recognize.

  Most of the shooters she vaguely recognized, after she adjusted for “mundane” clothes, as Asatru. But there were a couple of women she thought were Wiccan and at least one guy who she was pretty sure had been part of Dartho’s group. He was shooting a Colt Python when they arrived and while he was there with everyone else he seemed subtly outcast by the group.

  When the current group of shooters had completed their series, James and Julie waved her forward with Hjalmar following. Barbara noticed that the other stations had shooters, but they seemed to be waiting for her.

  “We’re interested in your shooting,” Hjalmar admitted. “We’d heard about the shooting in Louisiana and…”

  “You want to see if it was exaggerated?” Barb asked, smiling in a friendly and disarming manner.

  “I guess,” Hjalmar said.

  “Well, I got handed this piece on the drive to the Foundation,” Barbara said, setting the unloaded .45 on the shooting table. “And it hasn’t been zeroed. I’d been looking forward to an opportunity.”

  “Go ahead,” Hjalmar said, setting up a five point target on a trolley and running it out to ten meters.

  The target had one large central bull’s-eye and four more at the corners. In addition, there were “dots” running out from the bull’s-eyes in an X pattern. Barb carefully loaded and armed the .45. Then took up a modified Weaver stance, feet spread, one slightly forward of the other, two hands on the weapon with one arm nearly straight and the other cocked slightly. It was her most comfortable shooting stance. She’d tried various others over the years but always come back to the Weaver.

  She carefully targeted one of the dots, rather than the bull’s-eye. The first round hit the outer left corner of the paper. Which looked like really lousy shooting, except she’d been aiming at a dot in the upper left corner.