by J. R. Mabry
She leaned in until her red and pudgy face was almost touching his. “You can choose to love yourself as God loves you, or you can suffer. Your choice. But as long as you fight your demons, you. Will. Be. Fighting.”
“Okay,” he said, trying to back even farther into his chair, “that’s obvious.”
“Not really. Lots of people think if they just ignore their demons, they’ll go away. But they never do,” she leaned back and sat comfortably in her own chair again, restoring the comfort of Richard’s personal space.
“So, if I can’t ignore them and I can’t fight them, what do I do?” he asked her.
She hummed to herself and gave him a wicked little grin. “As soon as you embrace them, you know, they’ll stop tormenting you.” She leaned over and whispered, “Just like you, they only want to be loved. Why don’t you invite them to dinner?”
58
Richard opened the door of the friary uncertainly. He dared not hope. He removed his rain gear and rounded the corner into the kitchen. The sour faces at the table brought the news before any words were said.
Dylan, Susan, and Kat sat with the collective energy of deflated balloons. They stared at the table and didn’t even bother to look up when Richard entered the room. “Okay, I’m guessing not much movement on the Mikael front?”
Dylan shook his head, obviously lost in thought. Terry, at least, kissed Richard on the cheek, and then turned to resume his sandwich-making activity. For several minutes no one spoke.
“So, what happened?” Richard asked as Terry set a platter of sandwiches on the lazy Susan before them.
“Well, we went to see the Grandfathers and Grandmothers, to ask their advice,” Dylan said, reaching for a sandwich.
Terry slapped at his hand. “Grace,” he said. “Just because it’s a hard day doesn’t mean we have nothing to be grateful for. You’re the offender; you can say it.”
Dylan scowled at him. He had tried to be the hero, not the offender. But he realized Terry was just channeling Brian in his partner’s absence.
“All right. Let us pray. O Lord, we give you thanks fer this food, and fer the pesky hand what made it. Amen.”
“Thank you. I think,” said Terry, placing a jug of apple cider on the table and sitting down.
“And what did they say—the Grandfathers and Grandmothers?” Richard asked, reaching for a sandwich of his own.
“They said, ‘He is safe, doing what he loves. Go there.’ Wherever the fuck there is. Where he feels the most safe. Damned if Ah know where that would be.”
Terry and Richard locked eyes, and Richard sat up straight as if he were hit by lightning. He thought back to the elder Dane’s unsuccessful exorcism. Mikael had been nervous, and Terry asked him about the place where he felt the most safe.
“Dyl, hey,” he laughed. Everyone at the table—except Terry—looked at him like he had suddenly turned into cream cheese.
“We know where that is,” Terry said.
Just then the doorbell rang. “Ah, shit, they’re early!” Dylan whined. “Hold that thought, dude!” he said, pointing at Terry. He rose from the table like a man propelled. “And bag a couple o’ them sandwiches fer me, will ya, Ter?”
“Who is it?” Kat asked.
“It’s the Swansons, here for the baptismal rehearsal. Five minutes, that’s all Ah ask, five minutes for a fuckin’ sandwich…” But then he was at the door and swinging it wide with a broad smile. “Come in! Welcome!” The Swansons entered, little Jamie in her daddy’s arms. “Hello, Boopsi!” Dylan touched her nose. She wrinkled it and turned a sad face into her father’s shoulder.
“Uh-oh, li’l Darlin’, what’s the matter?”
Her father set her on the floor, and she looked at her shoes. Dylan held his hand out to her, and finally she spoke, barely audible. “Sammy went to Heaven.”
Dylan looked up at her parents, who were themselves looking pretty sad. “Is Sammy your puppy?” Dylan asked. The little girl nodded. Dylan sat on the floor next to her, cross-legged, and without prompting she sat in his lap and threw her arms around his neck. Surprised, Dylan took a moment to adjust to the sudden outburst of affection and smiled, hugging the little girl to him and rocking. “Oh, Ah know, Darlin’, Ah know. Ah lost mah puppy, too. His name was Tobias—remember him? Ah miss him so much I feel like dyin’.” He did, too, and tears sprang to his eyes thinking about him.
She drew back and looked at his face. She reached out a finger and touched one of the tears on Dylan’s broad cheek. “I didn’t know grown-ups could cry,” she said, amazed.
“Ah’m not really a grown-up,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Ah’m just a little kid pretendin’ to be a grown-up.” She looked at him in awe. “You pray for Sammy, okay? ’Cause God can do amazing things, an’ ya never know.”
“Will God make Sammy come back?”
Dylan put on his serious face. “Well, ordinarily Ah’d say no, but this is a pretty special case. Now sometimes puppies die, and they can’t come back. But Sammy and Toby, they’re not dead. So, it’s hard to say. All Ah’m sayin’ is, it don’t hurt to pray, okay?”
She nodded. “Do I have to take a bath?”
Dylan laughed. “Not exactly, li’l one. We’re gonna put some water on your head, but it’s not as icky as taking a bath. It’s kind of like a play, so it’s a lot of fun. What do you think? Do you wanna be in a play?” He nodded excitedly and was relieved when she nodded back.
Dylan scooped her up and, standing, shook her father’s hand, then her mother’s, and took their coats. Mrs. Swanson gazed through the door into the kitchen, and they all waved at her. “Oh, I’m sorry to have interrupted your meal,” Connie said.
“S’no problem,” Dylan said. “Sandwiches keep. Now, let’s all have a seat here in the chapel and talk through the ceremony.”
Terry shut the swinging door to keep the kitchen talk from spilling out into the chapel. But no sooner had he resumed his place than the doorbell rang again.
“Grand Fucking Central!” he threw down his napkin again.
“I’ll get it,” Richard said and pushed past the kitchen door. He caught Dylan’s eye as he passed through the chapel, and pointed at the door.
Dylan mouthed, “Thank you,” and turned his attention back to the rehearsal.
Richard opened the door partway to see who it was. The face that met him was badly bruised and swollen, and it took him a moment to realize who it was.
“Larch?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s fucking Larch. I need to speak to you.”
Richard shot a worried glance back at Dylan, but the rotund friar wasn’t looking. Richard stepped out onto the porch and bade Larch sit.
He didn’t protest but painfully lowered himself into one of the lawn chairs at the far end of the porch. Richard watched him grimace, and he felt a pang of compassion for him.
“What happened to you? Demon get you by the scruff of the neck?”
Larch relaxed, and some of the pain eased from his face. In a moment, it was replaced by contempt. “Did you send a band of Latino thugs to beat us up?”
Richard froze. He had forgotten all about that little stroke of genius. And in the moment, he didn’t know how he should respond. He decided to deflect. “Did you make our dog disappear? For that matter, did you make every dog on earth disappear?”
Larch looked at his own feet, and shifted uncomfortably. “We didn’t want to do it.”
“I thought it was part of your grand scheme to overthrow Heaven,” Richard accused snidely. “I just wasn’t aware that canines were such an important part of the celestial infantry.”
“They’re not,” Larch said quietly, for some reason dignifying Richard’s jab with an answer.
“No shit,” Richard said.
“Look, the avocado thing, yes. We…we wanted to see if we could do it. We’d been talking about it for weeks; we even had a running bet with the guys at the Evil Eye that we could pull it off.”
Richard knew the shop.
It was a hole-in-the-wall occult arts store on Divisidero in San Francisco. The place held regular salons for serious ceremonial magickians. Terry had even been engaged to lecture there on Enochian magick more than once.
“So, let me guess: Dane is there, wearing his smoking jacket and drinking Earl Grey, overhears your bragging, and makes you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Larch nodded. “No, he wasn’t there. Maybe he heard about it there, who knows? I don’t know how he found out about it, but that’s beside the point. The lodge roof is on its last legs, so to speak. It was either take his offer or let the place go. I, for one, am all for a ‘new-paradigm’ magickal lodge that meets mostly in Second Life, but there’s a couple of our brothers that have a deep sentimental attachment to the place.”
Richard wondered how off a person would have to be to have a sentimental attachment to a rat’s nest like their Victorian on Haight, but he held his tongue.
“So, you made a deal with the Devil—oh, excuse me, that’s what you do, isn’t it?” Richard jabbed.
“I wish we hadn’t. Now we’ve got two of our brothers in a coma—”
“One,” said Richard.
“What?”
“You’ve only got one Lodge brother in a coma. Randall Webber died.”
Richard watched as the horror descended on Larch’s features. His mouth was agape, and his lower lip trembled. “Oh God, no…”
“I’m sorry. But I’m mostly sorry for Kat, his sister. And I mostly blame you and your ‘brothers.’ Dane’s a force of nature—he’s going to do whatever will serve his greed. But you’re smarter than that, Larch. I know you are.”
Larch did not reply but only stared at his hands, still in shock. “Is there no way to save him?”
Richard wasn’t sure whether Larch meant Webber or the magickian still in a coma, but it didn’t really matter. He waited until Larch could speak again.
“Kinney, I beg you; you’ve got to stop him.”
“Who?”
“Dane.”
“You stop him. Or better yet, just stop working for him.”
“You don’t understand. We…don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice, man.”
Larch looked him in the eye. “No. No, we don’t. He’s going to make us do it again. He’s going to put another one of our brothers into a coma. You’ve got to help us.”
“I don’t see how your cowardice translates into my problem.”
“It’s not going to be dogs this time,” Larch snapped.
“That would be hard given that there are no dogs to make disappear anymore. So, what’s it going to be?”
“I don’t know. I won’t know until tonight.” He stared at his shoes again. “The ritual will be tonight. Midnight. Please. You have to stop him…us.”
Richard was moved. It took a lot of courage to come here, to be so vulnerable, and he could see the man’s desperation. He weighed whether to break the news that he had stolen Solomon’s Ring. Surely, that was the power Dane was holding over his head. But he hesitated. Maybe Dane had not revealed the source of his power. Perhaps it was something else he was holding over their heads. And besides, with all that was going on, the last thing Richard needed was a pack of desperate magickians plotting to steal the thing from him. He decided to keep quiet about it.
When he looked at him again, Larch’s eyes were locked on something across the street. Richard followed his gaze and saw a black limousine rolling to a halt near the park entrance.
“I’d better be going…” he said and rose to his feet, a little shakily. “Say you’ll help us.” He met Richard’s eyes again.
“I won’t help you. But we sure as shit are gonna stop you.”
“Good enough,” he said and limped off the porch.
“Wait—” Richard said. Something else was nagging at him—he had to find a way to get the demons to back off. If Kat and Mikael were ever going to find a way to have a normal life—assuming they could get Mikael back safe, that was—then they’d have to break the power of that sigil somehow. Something Maggie said in their session tugged at him. Why didn’t he invite his demons to dinner? “I need a favor from you first.” he said.
59
Dane noted with a grim, satisfied grin that Larch had seen him and was walking toward him, though apparently not without some pain and difficulty.
There was no humor in that grin, though. He felt at the empty pocket of his jacket, where the ring had previously been, and fumed. He had originally thought these friars to be a humorous diversion, a bunch of bumbling incompetents that would add comic relief to his drama, but they were turning out to be a royal pain in his ass. The Ring of Solomon had taken him years to locate, and was the only power he had over demons and magickians alike. He panicked at the thought that they might tell Larch they had taken it, but he willed himself to be calm and cross that bridge if he came to it. Until then, he must pretend that all was normal. No one had ever needed to be persuaded by the ring’s power, after all. The mere sight of it—the threat of it—had been enough. Only half a day until the final ritual brought his heroic plans to fruition—he could bluff that long, surely.
All he needed now was a child. One child to be the ransom for many. One lucky little boy or girl to save all children everywhere from the evil that he himself had known all too well.
As Larch approached, the demon who was acting as chauffeur got out and opened the door for him. The magickian nervously slid into the car, facing Dane. He seemed pale and shaken.
“What’s the matter, Larch? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Webber died, damn you.”
“Don’t blame me; the avocado experiment was your idea.”
“Yes, but you—” he looked away and mastered his anger. “Two more of us wouldn’t have to.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Dane said, silkily. “You had a pretty ambitious program planned before we started…working together. There’s no telling what your ambition might have driven you to.”
“Yes, okay, we have plans, but you’re the one pushing us forward before we have the kinks worked out of them. We would never have tried another eradication before getting Webber back, safe and sound. If you hadn’t strong-armed us, we would’ve, too, dammit.”
“Too bad your friar friends couldn’t save him, eh?”
Larch’s eyes narrowed, and he fumed silently for a minute. “They don’t know the demons intimately as we do. They don’t make contracts with them, and they don’t know how to control them. Not really.”
“So I’ve gathered,” Larch said, remembering the lack of success they had had with his own father. Something approaching a real smile touched his lips at the thought of it.
“Can you tell me, Larch, what in hell you are doing here?”
Larch froze. He had been expecting this question from the moment he saw the car across the street. He tried to appear more relaxed than he really was. “I wanted to see Webber. I didn’t know that he was…dead.”
Dane nodded, apparently satisfied with this answer. “After tonight, I will release you from your…obligations. You may devote yourselves to retrieving your fellows without molestation—from me, anyway.”
Larch felt slightly relieved at this news, though he wasn’t sure he could trust him. He also shuddered at the prospect of eradicating another species, be it plant or animal. “What is the…target?” he asked, finally.
Dane stared at the friary, and watched as the front door opened and Father Dylan walked out. He shook hands with a young couple and knelt down to shake hands with their little girl. He smiled to see the little girl grab at the husky priest’s neck and give him a squeeze.
“Her.” Dane said simply. Even from a distance the little girl exuded joyous innocence. And Dane was damned if he were going to stand by and let life tarnish that innocence. “The target is her.”
60
After lunch, Dylan and Susan consulted with Richard and Terry and decided not to waste an
other moment. Susan began drumming, and Dylan went deep, and fast. He headed for the Middle World, and Jaguar came almost immediately upon his arrival there. Wordlessly, the companions walked side by side.
It seemed to Dylan that they had been walking for nearly a mile through nothing but fog. Jaguar padded silently beside him, but he could see little. Then, the glow of a yellow streetlamp passed overhead, reflecting a radiant gold off Jaguar’s mottled black fur. Dylan admired the taut, bunched muscles moving with silky efficiency beneath the cat’s skin, and he shuddered at its power. Thank God he’s on mah side, he thought to himself.
Another streetlamp passed, and the fog began to thin. It was clear they were on a street in industrial West Berkeley.
They crossed the street, and Dylan stepped over trash gathered against the gutter. Their approach seemed to startle an apparently homeless man picking through a public trash receptacle, hoping to add empties to his collection piled high in a shopping cart. He stared at them with barely restrained ferocity, perhaps daunted by the sight of an enormous black jaguar.
Dylan wondered for a moment about the objective reality of such people. Were those who populated his journeys aspects of himself? Where they manifestations of universal archetypes? Were they real souls—or portions of souls—that had somehow “gotten lost” and were awaiting a shaman such as himself to intercede on their behalf and reintegrate them?
No matter how long he studied the occult arts, including his own specialty, he never came close to having his questions answered. For no matter how much he knew, the information only brought with it more questions. Religion was a bottomless pit of mystery, and better men than he had gone crazy trying to plumb its depths.
A train whistle cut the air in the distance, and straining, Dylan could hear its passage. He headed toward the sound instinctively, and before long, another sound arose.
It was faint at first, but as Dylan and Jaguar walked the rain-soaked streets in perpetual twilight, it gradually became clearer.
