by J. R. Mabry
“At your beck and call,” he answered.
“He’s jerking off.”
“Okay, there’s no context there, but you have my attention.”
“The bunny. The teenage son came home. And in proximity to the bunny, the goddam bunny is flogging the bishop.”
“Huh.”
“That’s all you got? ‘Huh?’?”
There were several seconds of silence. Brian must be thinking, Kat thought. Since she’d done plenty of that herself, she didn’t object.
After nearly a minute, Brian asked, “How old is the kid?”
“He’s about thirteen.”
“Hm. You know, when I was thirteen, I jerked off about five times a day.”
“TMI, Brian.”
“Okay, fine. John Lennon is on record as having said that when he was thirteen, he jerked off about five times a day.”
“Celebrity TMI.”
“I’m just saying. The demon we’re dealing with is a mimicry demon. If the kid is normal, he probably feels guilty about masturbating. Which makes it—”
“Sin.” Kat spat out the word like a mouthful of sour milk.
“Right.”
“If he didn’t think it was wrong…” Kat began.
“It wouldn’t be sin,” Brian finished. “But he does, so it is.”
“That’s amazingly relativistic,” Kat said.
“It isn’t absolute. It only works with things that aren’t actually sin-in-themselves.”
“I’m getting that this whole sin thing is more complicated than it appears on the surface.”
“You have no idea,” Brian agreed.
“Are all the rabbit’s responses about sin?” Kat wondered aloud.
“Of course. Well…not the rabbit himself. But the demon is being triggered by sin. It’s his fuel, it’s what excites him, it’s what he feeds on.”
“Oh. That makes sense. He’s a demon.”
“He loves that shit.”
Kat considered the cage, cocking her head and pursing her lips.
“What?” asked Jason, his color returning.
She ignored him. “So if the rabbit—sorry, the demon—is always reacting to sin…and it’s a mimicry demon…” A light bulb came on in her head. She straightened, and her mouth dropped open. “Brian, could this goddam bunny be mimicking the sins that are most up for each of us?”
“It’s a pretty good theory. And, I’d say, a pretty good bet.”
“That would mean that Dephna’s operative sin is cowardice. The bunny cowers and trembles whenever Dephna comes near.”
“Makes sense.”
It also made sense of the fact that Dephna had let her into the house at all. Kat’s attire lent her authority, and her demeanor had been assertive, even forceful. Someone who was really timid—sinfully timid—might have been cowed by her. Especially given the aggression toward Richard she’d been siphoning off when she first approached the house. The poor woman hadn’t stood a chance.
“And Jason…” Kat said. The kid looked up, stung at the very mention of his name.
“Jason’s a thirteen-year-old boy. He’s beating off every time there’s a closed door between him and anyone else, all day every day,” Brian continued. “And because he feels guilty about it, it’s sin. So the bunny jerks off when the kid comes near him…so to speak.”
Jason hadn’t heard what Brian was saying, but he was still staring daggers at her for merely mentioning his name. What the hell is wrong with this family? She wondered. Maybe what’s wrong with every family, she heard Richard’s voice say in her head. And all at once, she saw how the effects of sin could coil and snake around the lives of parents, passing to their children, influencing and warping them, passing that twistedness on to their own children in time, creating a möbius strip of woundedness and neuroses spanning generations…spanning history.
In that moment, she saw how her own parents’ fucked-up-ed-ness had contributed to her brother Randy’s destruction—how the worm of his soul had turned inward on itself, seeking out dark magick in order to gain some sense of power and control over his life. She saw how their petty evils had given birth to her own—to her stubbornness, her kneejerk rejection of authority, her…
She stopped. She felt dizzy. She reached out to grab the desk to steady herself. Then the thought concluded, manifesting in words that burned in her brain like fire: My anger.
“Kat?” Brian’s voice was choppy, but she could still understand him.
“I’m here,” she managed.
The thoughts were coming almost too quickly to assimilate. Suddenly, she understood that sin wasn’t an accusation, as she had thought. It’s a sickness, she thought. It was a virus, passed from parent to child, a virus latent in human society, which no one could escape, and to which the proper response was not judgment or condemnation, but pity and compassion. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, no more than getting a cold is anyone’s fault. It just is. It’s sad, but it just is.
It wasn’t news. She’d heard the other Blackfriars talk about it before, but she had never gotten it before. Not until now.
“I’m angry,” she said out loud.
“You sure the hell are,” Brian said. “Good call.”
“Anger isn’t always sinful,” she reasoned.
“Nope. Anger is healthy and good,” Brian answered.
“So why is my anger sinful?” she sat down on the edge of the bed. Jason was looking at her like she was out of her mind.
“Sin doesn’t really exist,” Brian answered. “It’s an academic category—like Hinduism or Gnosticism—it’s an umbrella term we made up for convenience, to help us talk about a whole range of activities that have common attributes or qualities.”
“Like what?” Kat asked.
“Can’t you guess?” Brian returned.
Kat’s brain raced, spinning around her own sin, teasing out the implications. “Sin is anything that…hurts people?”
“Oh, good guess, but no.” Brian’s voice sounded like a game show host breaking bad news about an erroneous contest answer. “Pain is actually useful to us. There are lots of varieties of pain that have good results. Try again.”
“Just tell me, asshole,” Kat snapped.
“Sin destroys relationships,” he said simply.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“Pretty much. It’s anything that twists or distorts or threatens right relationship—between ourselves and God, between each other, between us and the natural world, or even between us and our deepest selves. You know, that’s what religion means—re-ligion, to connect again, to repair the relationships that have been threatened or severed.”
“Just…stop. You’re scaring me.”
“Why?”
“Because that makes too much damned sense.” She still felt dizzy.
“It is kind of hiding in plain sight, I’ll give you that,” Brian agreed.
“How come I never saw this before?” she asked. But she didn’t need an answer. The answer, now, was obvious. “Thanks, Brian.” She clicked off the phone and put it back in her pocket.
Everything seemed different now. She saw the sunlight passing through the slit in the curtains, creating ribbons of radiance as it struck the dust motes hovering in the air. She heard the rapid breathing of the rabbit.
She realized that she now felt differently about the rabbit. It didn’t seem to her to be a problem to be eradicated, or an annoyance to be dispatched. It was a sick bunny that needed healing.
She felt her heart move toward it, the first such movement she had felt toward the little beast. Certainly this was not an unfamiliar feeling to her—Kat considered herself to be compassionate by nature—but it was the first time she had felt it for this particular creature. The fact that this was true made her feel sad.
Guilty, she thought. That’s what I’m feeling. I’m feeling guilty. It occurred to her that it wasn’t a wrong feeling. It seemed an appropriate feeling. It was telling her something
true about herself. Not a pleasant truth, perhaps, but a true truth. It was good information, useful information. She could use information like that. It would make her a better person. Her mouth turned up in a sad smile.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked, still staring at her.
She felt differently about him, too. Her smile broadened as she took him in—the unkempt hair, the gangly limbs, the handsomeness of his face, temporarily marred by acne. He was just a kid, feeling his oats, trying to assess his power, stretching his wings.
“You have plenty of power, you know,” she said. “You don’t need the demons.”
He looked at his shoes.
She cocked her head at him. “Let me tell you something about demons. You think you’re playing with a firecracker, but instead, you’re playing with a stick of dynamite. One false move and it doesn’t just take a finger off. You’re just hamburger soaring into the stratosphere.”
He was looking at her again. She saw him nod slowly. “What happened to Sniffers here? That’s pretty mild. Let’s make sure it doesn’t get any worse than that. Now, I need you to tell me what these sigils have to do with that bunny.”
Jason shrugged.
“Have you done any spells?”
The boy shook his head.
“Have you performed any rituals?”
Again, no.
“Are you lying to me?” She wished she had Mikael’s Talisman of Amitiel right now to be sure he was telling the truth, but she’d just have to trust her instincts.
“No ma’am,” the boy said firmly.
Kat sat up straighter, surprised by the formality of his answer. She’d expected more petulance. Maybe I’m getting somewhere with this kid after all, she thought. God, what a jerk I’ve been to my own parents.
Kat heard a door open. She stood and left Jason with the rabbit, making her way to the living room. There, a much younger boy was heading to the kitchen for a hug from his mother. Dephna already had a jar of jam out and was in the process of spreading some of it on a piece of toast, which she handed to the boy. She noticed Kat and smiled. “This is Ben.”
“Hey, Ben,” Kat said. “How old are you?”
Ben had on baggy blue jeans and a stained t-shirt. His dirty blond hair was cut in ragged bangs—obviously a home job, and not a good one. The boy’s mouth was full of toast and jam, but he held up five fingers.
“Five!” Kat said. “That’s a lot of fingers.”
The boy nodded emphatically. Kat smiled and sat down. “Ben, I’m Kat.”
“You’re not a cat,” he said, still chewing. “You’re a lady.”
“I am definitely not a lady.” In truth, Kat still thought of herself as a girl. Technically, she knew she was a woman, but even that word made her feel awkward. It was something you would call your mom, not yourself. “It’s a nickname. Like yours. I’ll bet Ben is short for Benjamin. Am I right?”
More nods.
“Kat is short for Katherine.”
He seemed to think this over. Then he said, “Can I have some milk?”
His mother rose and crossed to the refrigerator.
“Ben, I’m a…” Kat hesitated. How should she explain herself? The kid wouldn’t know what a deacon was. “I’m like a doctor. For the soul. I’m a soul doctor.”
“What’s that?”
“Um…when people’s souls get hurt, or when bad spirits attack people, they get sick. And I make them better.”
His eyes moved back and forth, as if thinking this over. Apparently he didn’t think too much of it, because he took another bite of his sandwich without replying.
“I’m here because Sniffers is sick.”
“In his soul?”
“Yep. Exactly.”
He nodded. It was making sense to him.
“So I’m trying to figure out how he got sick.” She pulled her phone out through the slit in her cassock and called up her photo app. She held the phone where Ben could see it. “Have you ever seen this before?”
Ben took one look at the sigil and froze, mid-chew. He put what was left of the toast back on the plate. There was a smear of jam on his cheek. Kat found the kid utterly adorable.
“So you have seen it. Where did you see it?”
Just then Jason walked in. Ben’s eyes grew wide and he seemed to sink in his chair.
Kat pointed to the bedroom. “Mind the bunny,” she commanded.
“But—”
“Mind. The. Bunny.”
Jason blinked, but turned without further protest and retreated down the hall.
“And shut the door!” Kat shouted. She waited until she heard the door shut, then turned back to Ben. “Ben, listen, I’m going to make you a deal, okay?”
The boy’s eyes were still huge. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
“You tell me everything you know about this sigil,” she pointed to her phone, “And I promise you won’t get into any trouble. I also promise not to tell Jason anything that you told me. Deal?”
The boy’s eyes were darting, his hands frozen in mid-reach for the rest of his toast. Then he nodded emphatically.
“Okay. Where did you see this sigil before?”
“In a book.”
“A book book, or Jason’s notebook?”
“Notebook.”
“Okay. What were you doing looking at Jason’s notebook?”
He looked at his mom, then down at his shoes. He shrank again. “Snoopin’.”
“You were snooping in Jason’s things?”
The boy nodded.
“Why?”
“I was…” then he shrugged.
“Go ahead. You were about to say something really important to me.”
“Jason used to play with me. He used to be my friend. Now he’s too cool.” Ben looked almost impossibly sad. His face twisted about, and Kat wondered if he was going to cry, but the little man mastered himself.
“Were you mad?” Kat asked. “Because I’d be mad.”
“A little.”
“Were you hurt? Because I’d be hurt, too.”
He looked at his shoes again and nodded. Then came the tears.
Kat sat back. So that was the truth of it. “I noticed that one of the pages in Jason’s notebook was ripped out,” she said gently, calmly, without any hint of accusation.
Ben nodded.
“Did you do that?”
Ben kept nodding. And crying.
“Then what did you do?”
“I gave it to….to Sniffers.”
“You gave the page you ripped out to Sniffers? Why?”
“So he’d eat it.”
Kat cocked her head, trying to understand the boy’s logic. “Why did you want Sniffers to eat it?”
“’Cause I’m not s’posed to start a fire.”
“You wanted to burn Jason’s drawing…to get back at him?”
Ben nodded.
“Why didn’t you just rip it up?”
“”Cause he’d find it.”
“Oh. So instead of ripping it up or burning it, you just…fed it to Sniffers?”
Ben nodded. Kat nodded. Looking over at Dephna, Kat saw her nodding too. Good, she thought, we’re all nodding. Lovely.
Kat stood up. “Jason!” she shouted. A few moments later, Jason appeared, sulking down the hallway. Kat put her hands on her hips. “When did you become too much of an asshole to spend quality time with your brother?”
Jason looked stung.
“I mean it. When was the exact second you thought to yourself, ‘Today, I will become an asshole’?”
“Um…” Dephna began to object. Kat held a hand up at her, as if directing traffic.
Jason stammered, but no intelligible words came out.
“Okay, my investigation is complete,” Kat announced. “Here’s the score. First, you started acting like an asshole,” she pointed to Jason, “and you hurt your brother’s feelings. You owe him an apology, but more than that, you owe him some love and time.”
Jason blinked
, his mouth open, but no sound came out.
“Second, Sniffers is being oppressed by a demon, and do you know why?”
Jason shook his head. “Because you were messing with demons, which, if it doesn’t make you a dumfuck, it is definitely dumfuck-like behavior.”
Jason looked at his shoes. “You don’t like me, do you?”
Kat softened. She crossed the kitchen floor and planted a kiss on Jason’s cheek. “I think you’re cute as shit. But you did some dumb things and almost got the people you love most hurt. Do you understand that?”
Jason looked confused, but nodded nevertheless.
“Now, like a doctor, I’m going to give you a prescription,” Kat continued. She was enjoying being the expert. “Take every single drawing of a sigil, or a demon, or anything else occult-related, and give them to your mother. Every single one. Don’t miss any. Do you hear?”
“There’s a page missing from my notebook—”
“I took that for my investigation,” Kat lied. She turned to Dephna. “Once he gives you all those, burn them. Can you do that?”
Dephna nodded, looking grave. Kat had no doubts that she would do as instructed. “Now, about Sniffers.” Kat thought a moment. No demons were raised, nor bound by oaths to a magickian, or even to a teenage dabbler. There was no possession, just oppression. It was temporary. It would pass.
Pass. Kat’s head snapped up. That was it. “Castor oil,” she said.
“What?”
“Give Sniffers a half-teaspoon of castor oil three times a day. In a dropper.”
Dephna nodded.
“Just…make sure you’re not angry when you give it to him.”
Dephna nodded again. “Will he be okay?”
“Sniffers will be fine. He just has some icky stuff that needs to…clear his system.” Kat was surprised by her own words. She could say the same for herself.
She stood up and picked her kit bag up from the kitchen floor where she had put it. She hadn’t even cracked it. She held her hand out to Ben. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Ben.”
Ben shook it awkwardly. She then held her hand out to Dephna.
“How…how much do we owe you?” Dephna asked, clearly worried.
Kat shook her head. “It’s a gift.” She might have asked for gas money for the trip out and back, but…what the hell? “Feel free to call me if Sniffers doesn’t start acting like his old self, okay?”
