by John Ringo
Sharice had been napping on one of the couches in the parlor. Barb had checked on Lazarus, who was out cold on Janea’s chest, then reluctantly woke Sharice up.
“How many blood sacrifices?” Kurt asked.
“Nine for each Wife,” Sharice replied. “Of ‘good station,’ generally meaning innocent of major evils themselves. For Stepfords, the average crack addict is insufficient. Don’t ask why, you’re getting into occult quantum physics. Let me point out that I spent last night in the astral plane, which is not exactly sleeping. Can’t you just Google this?”
“Please, Sharice? I heard you were…involved…?”
“One of my first major cases,” Sharice said, sort of sitting up. “The key was finding Bundy. Bundy was their collector. The sacrifice doesn’t have to take place under the dark of the moon in a temple, simply be a sacrifice by a collector using certain minor rituals. Fortunately, I’m a fairly good Seer and I know Florida.”
“Wait,” Kurt said. “You…?”
“How many girls in this school?” Sharice asked.
“About six hundred,” Barb replied. “And I’ve looked at a few of the ones around town. They’re definitely…something. I’ve never actually seen a Stepford, but their auras are…awful. Not demonic, just awful.”
“Still doesn’t track. Six hundredish girls. Even if a third were Stepfords, you’re talking about the ritualistic killing of more than two thousand women between the ages of puberty and about twenty-five by a single channeler. Then you have to remove the ka of the Wife.”
“Which you do how, exactly?” Kurt asked, continuing, “he asked without really wanting to know the answer.”
“Which is fortunate, because it’s SCAP and you don’t have Level Eight access,” Sharice said.
“Wait…” Barb said. “You do?”
“In general, it can be voluntarily surrendered,” Sharice said, ignoring the question, “but it usually has to be removed by force. Either one is a rather serious ritual that does require the dark of the moon. I don’t see even a third of these girls being…those creatures. There’s not that many serial killers murdering basically decent young women running around. More than are generally recognized, but not that many.”
“Not in the US, anyway,” Kurt said.
“Yes,” Sharice said. “Don’t ask about Congo and Moldova. Fortunately, there’s a group of Asatru covering the Caucasus. Led by a demon-possessed former SEAL. Good story…I could write a book. Too tired.”
“Any real-world terminology you can inject here?” Kurt asked, flailing for the shores of sanity. “Like, what’s the effect of soul-death in…I hate to call it ‘reality,’ but…”
“There are two types,” Sharice said, yawning. “The death of the ba and the death of the ka. The…PCP zombies are ba -dead. True walking dead. The effect of that, with an infilling force is, well, what you’ve seen. Without specific direction, you get homicidal psychosis. Without an infilling force they are, well, dead as a stump. Stepfords are ka -dead. Often diagnosed as sociopaths. There’s more around than just Stepfords, by the way. The only thing they can feel is the pain of others. Generally, psychological pain. So they get off on inflicting pain and dominating everyone around them. They are…soul-suckers. Succubae, sort of.”
“More shit I wish I didn’t know,” Kurt said. “Sorry for the language, ladies.”
“You did ask,” Sharice said, stretching out on the couch. “If there’s nothing else, I need to rest my old bones.”
“Thanks, Sharice,” Barb said. “Get some rest.”
“If you haven’t got your health,” Kurt said.
“Did you just make a Princess Bride reference?” Sharice said, chuckling. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Hey, I can watch movies,” Kurt said. “I didn’t realize till I read the file The Stepford Wives was based on a real event.”
“ The Exorcist,” Barb said. “ House on Haunted Hill…”
“Seriously?”
“ Gilligan’s Island,” Sharice muttered.
“You’re making that up,” Barb snapped.
“Check the secure files at the Foundation,” Sharice said. “There’s a reason they never got off the island. The Harlem Globetrotters story was an in-joke, though. Good night. Afternoon. Morning. Whenever it is…”
“Sharice?” Kurt said, pausing at the parlor door.
“What?!”
“Isn’t the problem with Miss Grisham that she had her ka…Pulled out? Sort of like…”
“Shit,” Sharice said, sitting bolt upright. “There is no fool like an old fool!”
“Let’s think about this,” Barb said, grabbing her head. They’d been going around in circles for nearly an hour.
“Sleep deprived,” Sharice said. “Exhausted. You think.”
“This isn’t possession,” Barb said.
“Wait, what isn’t possession?” Kurt replied. “Let’s get back to the point. We’re investigating the Madness cases. Not Stepfords. If they even are Stepfords.”
“They’re Stepfords,” Barb said. “Or something similar. And the Madness cases are related. Either that, or Janea’s a hell of a coincidence. Sharice, I know you’re tired, but just…tell me about Stepfords.”
“They’re seen as the perfect wives and mothers,” Sharice said, sipping tea. “Perfect homemakers, perfectly dressed, perfect hostesses. Honestly…” she said, then paused.
“They look sort of like me?” Barb said, grinning.
“That, yes,” Sharice said. “The truth is that they wrap their families in a web of control, both mundane and mystical, and slowly suck the life out of them. Husbands tend to get promoted, often well above their ability, because anyone who stands in their way gets run over. Generally personal tragedies, child dies, generally of some lingering fatal disease, often death, suicide. Murder-suicide is a favorite. ‘He was such a nice guy with a great future ahead of him. I don’t know why he killed his whole family and himself. I guess Ron with the bitch wife gets the promotion.’ And woe betide the husband who tries to escape. You do not divorce a Stepford. Death is a blessing when it finally comes. The same goes for their children. Who are almost invariably basket cases for life unless they drink the Kool-Aid themselves.”
“So they’re control freak wives and moms,” Kurt said. “What else is new?”
“And then there’s the secondary effects,” Sharice said. “Leukemia clusters around them. Accidents. The ‘nice guy’ down the street who turns out to be the serial killer who’s been kidnapping and raping girls or boys. Generally, if you find some nice mundane community that suddenly is experiencing tragedy after tragedy, look for a Stepford and you’ll find the source. Only the families of other Stepfords are immune. Specifically, they become cluster points for various malevolent entities.”
“Sounds swell,” Barb said.
“Oh, and they are very hard to kill,” Sharice said. “I’m not into the ‘whole kill them all, God will know his own.’ I prefer things like walking the Moon Paths. The Stepford clearance I would have enjoyed, were it not quite so…So. Turns out they’re pretty much immune to poisons; don’t bother trying tear gas as the seventies version of HRT did. Heal in the blink of an eye, too, which turned out to matter when the only thing that worked was head shots and sometimes not even that. You pretty much have to put a stake through their hearts or cut off their heads to kill the little bitches. And that perfect skin is as thick and tough as a rhino. And if you pull the stake out too soon…Don’t. Just…don’t. Leave it. They sort of wake up…really annoyed.”
“That doesn’t explain the Madness cases,” Kurt pointed out.
“Let me repeat,” Sharice said with a sigh. “ If you find some nice mundane community that suddenly is experiencing tragedy after tragedy, look for a Stepford. They, personally, are all about power and control.”
“Through men, though,” Barb said.
“Remember, the case was at the beginning of the feminist revolution, and up to that point, the po
wer was always through men,” Sharice said. “I’m not sure what a feminist Stepford would be like. I’m a feminist, and the thought makes me sort of shudder. And I’ll repeat. Again. This isn’t Stepfords. This is something else.”
“They’re all about power and control,” Barb said. “More circumstantial. Kurt, the drug cases.”
“GPA alums and attendees are all through the power structure in this area,” Kurt said.
“Common in smaller cities and towns,” Sharice said.
“My point, but there’s something here,” Barb said. “I Looked at some of those girls, Sharice. They’re not possessed but they’re also not…normal. Kurt, known associates of the victims in the Madness cases?”
“No commonality,” Kurt said. “I mean, some overlap but no major common associates.”
“Can you find out how many of their girlfriends or female friends were GPA girls? Not the same girl, the same school?”
“There’s an app for that,” Kurt said, grinning. He pulled out his smart phone and started tapping. He paused, then grinned mirthlessly. “Every single one had dated a GPA girl.”
“Had?” Barb asked.
“If I’m reading this right, they were all ex -girlfriends. Reasoning in advance of data, I think if we poked into it, they’d have all dumped a GPA girl prior to going zomb.”
“You don’t divorce a Stepford,” Barb said. “You especially don’t dump one.”
“Stepfords can do a lot of harm,” Sharice said. “They could not strip a ba without an additional major ritual, which the victim had to be present for, nor could they then infill them. Both you’re talking heavy -duty hoodoo, and animating a corpse is such high necromancy, there’s only a few necromancers who have succeeded. At least succeeded and survived. Oh… crap. I hate to do this…” She pulled out her phone.
“Do what?” Barb asked.
“Phone a friend,” Sharice said. “Augustus, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Very well,” Germaine said. “Go ahead.”
“We’re pursuing a theory that a local girls’ private school is the source of the Madness cases.”
“I take it you’re talking about GPA,” Germaine said.
“You know, it would help if we had a full briefing,” Kurt said.
“Agent Spornberger, a full briefing on the mystical underworld of Chattanooga would take several hours, which…I do not have. Be silent. Go on, Sharice. The last I checked, GPA was simply a dark power center. There are…four in Chattanooga and some seven in Hamilton county.”
“Barb believes they may be Stepfords,” Sharice said. “Or something similar.”
“On what basis?”
“Gut,” Barb said. “And some circumstantial evidence. Item A. Your friend suggested that I bark up the tree.”
“I would not describe her as a friend,” Germaine said. “More of a colleague. And GPA is…Paris to her London. Minas Morgul to Minas Tirith might be a more current referent. Go on.”
“Stepfords are addicted to wealth and power. GPA girls are addicted to wealth and power.”
“A common failing. Go on.”
“All of the victims in the Madness cases, the ba -ripped, were former boyfriends of GPA girls. You don’t dump a Stepford.”
“ All of the victims?”
“Yes, sir,” Kurt said then gulped.
“I see that the evidence builds. And Janea’s ka was functionally stripped, also a Stepford trait. Stepfords do not strip the ba nor infill. They do not create…zombies. Which is why you called me, Ms. Rickels.”
“Yes…sir,” Sharice said.
Barb looked at her quizzically. She had never heard the old witch use the “s” word before.
“My, we tread lightly, do we not,” Germaine replied.
“My after-action analysis was that the Stepford ritual originated somewhere in the Hellenistic region,” Sharice said. “But that is one of the three most common regions. And the best I could do at the time was Persian.”
“You wish to know more about the infill ritual,” Germaine said. “I had deduced that. Yes, it is broadly Persian in origin, as well. Probably earlier. Possibly Assyrian. from some of the oldest texts. Give me a moment.”
Why does Germaine…? Barbara mouthed at Sharice. Sharice just looked at her coldly.
“I support your theory, in general,” Germaine said after what seemed a very long fifteen seconds. “I hypothesize thus. First, for Agent Spornberger. Zombies, as you call them, are not originally houdoun. African witch doctors learned the technique from Arab wizards, who learned them from Persian sorcerers. Among the Persians and those regions Persian-influenced, the Hellenistic regions including Judea, the term you may have heard is ‘golem.’”
Barb slapped her forehead lightly and shook her head. “Golems,” she whispered. “Of course.”
Golems! Why’d it have to be golems? Kurt mouthed, rolling his eyes.
“Golems, zombies if you prefer, are known for their anger and violence. That is because they must be fed. And not upon brains, Agent Spornberger. The necromancer must continually fill their…beings with, not the souls of victims, but the power of the soul. Thus, the necromancer must have a continuous supply of sacrificial victims. And golems are quite perfect for gathering them, if you can control one. Or more. Elsbeth Bathory had at least five in her control at one point or another: the origin of the Frankenstein myth.
“If the necromancer does not so supply the golem, the golem turns upon its creator. And as the golems are very hard to kill, absent strong mystical aid, the creator rarely survives. Your golems do not require such a supply. Thus I had, falsely, struck golems from the list of potential phenomena. They do, otherwise, quite resemble them. However, the most ancient known rituals are…quite clearly hacks of some still-older ritual.”
“Hacks?” Kurt said, then clapped his hand over his mouth.
“If one has studied the occult as thoroughly as I have, you know when someone has been copying and pasting bits of other rituals, Agent Spornberger,” Germaine said. “Hacks. I have read your reports. Given that we appear to be dealing with a prehistoric cult that may be tied to the origin of the Stepford and golem rituals…it is possible that they have found the original rituals. How they create the golems, how they create Stepfords or something similar without the necessary sacrifices…shall wait to be determined. I have calls to make, and you have a girls’ school to check out. Carefully. For both mystic and mundane reasons. They are, as you pointed out, tied into a rather wider-based power structure than you are aware. Tread lightly, absent definite indicators.”
“As long as I don’t have to wear a uniform,” Barb said.
“Ooooo…” Kurt muttered.
“Stop right there.”
CHAPTER NINE
It was sunset by the time that they left the safe house, and traffic was heavy on 27 crossing the river.
“I hate commuters,” Barb said, weaving past a slow-moving vehicle in the left lane. She let out a cry, though, as the traffic suddenly slowed to a halt in a sea of brake lights.
Kurt looked over, a tad nervous since her normally terrifying but flawless driving seemed to be less than flawless, and was surprised to see a look of shock on her face. She was staring wide-eyed at the mass of lights.
“Did we forget something really important?” he asked.
“No,” Barb said in a strained voice. “I just forgot to turn off my Sight.”
“Your…what?” Kurt asked.
“Sight,” Barb said pointedly. “Second Sight. Crazy psychic sh-stuff. Ability to see into the other world. I just started getting the, hah-hah, ‘Gift’ of Second Sight before this mission. Never had to deal with it before. I used to not mind going by graveyards. I’d forgotten to push it back after we were in the safe house. Which, by the way, is a really safe house. Which was why I was using it.”
“So…what?” Kurt asked, unhappily. “Demons?”
“Angels,” Barb said, as the traffic started to move again. “Lots and l
ots and lots of angels spread their wings when the traffic slammed to a halt. Think white light ten times brighter than all the brake lights. Blinding.”
“Seriously?” Kurt asked, peering forward. “It’s just normal evening traffic.”
“To you,” Barb said in an annoyed voice. “In Second Sight it’s cars, people, angels and demons. Lots of angels but plenty of demons as well. In all the readings I did before I got this gig and since, in the list of things about angels, one of the characteristics not listed was being pests. Leave me alone! Yes, I know you’re there! I’ve got a mission to perform! Don’t you?”
“Barb,” Kurt said. “You’re talking to the air.”
“When I reacted I think I started to radiate,” Barb said as a car swerved out of her lane and out of her way. “In fact, now I know I am. All the cars don’t have guardian angels in them. That one got out of my way for another reason.”
“Reason being…?” Kurt said, looking at the Mercedes. The driver was a normal enough looking guy. Lawyer type, one each. On his cell phone, of course.
“Demons,” Barb said. “Lust, greed, envy, a couple I can’t identify. When the angels spread their wings, I sort of let go the cover I was under in surprise. And every demon in the mass wants to get the hell, literally, out of my way. And all the angels who aren’t involved in keeping their charges alive in traffic are swarming over to say hello. Yes, hello, yes, I see you. I’m trying to drive here…Gah. I have got to get this under control.”
“Want me to drive?” Kurt asked. “In fact, I’d really prefer to drive.”
“Once we get off 27, I’ll pull over,” Barb said. “And, yes, until I can get my Sight back under control, you’d better drive.”
“You really see angels and demons?” Kurt asked, looking around. It was bugging him that the consultant “saw” stuff. On one hand, it was making him wonder about her sanity. On the other hand, the whole point of this investigation was making him wonder about his. And the Bureau’s. So far, all he’d really seen was a woman in some kind of coma and what looked like a multinational involved in neurological experiments. There had been a complete lack of visible demons, werewolves or vampires to stake.
