The Power

by J. R. Mabry

  Across from him was the desk of the bishop’s secretary. She was in young middle age, with short-cropped hair and glasses that hung from straps—but the way she dressed, they were definitely in the sexy-retro-chic category. There was nothing school-marmy about her.

  Terry remembered back to the last time he had been in this office. The previous Bishop of California had called the friars in to consult with them on a possession case. Terry counted back and realized that it was about three years ago, though that hardly seemed possible. In his mind’s eye, he surveyed the bishop’s office as he remembered it—the high ceiling, the spaciousness, the enormous oak desk in the middle of the room. He recalled the bookshelves lining the walls to the left of the desk, and the mirror hanging on the wall to the right next to two small oil paintings from the workshop of Cranach the Elder.

  A phone buzzed on the secretary’s desk. She picked it up, listened, and said, “Right away.” She placed the phone back in the cradle and looked up at Terry with a tight, professional smile. “You can go right in,” she said, waving toward the door. Terry stood, exhaled deeply, and picked up the portfolio. In a couple of strides, he was at the door. He turned the knob and swung it open.

  A great wave of relief washed over him when he saw the room. Everything was exactly as he remembered. He was sure that the books on the shelves had changed, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that the desk was where it was, a computer was on it, and the mirror hung right where it was supposed to be. A thrill of confidence arose in him, and in his head he said a short prayer. Okay, Jesus. Help me lie like I’ve never lied before.

  The bishop looked up from his desk. He seemed unimpressed by what he saw and looked back down at his papers. “Please have a seat,” he said, his Southern drawl immediately apparent. “You’re a friend of Reverend Dunne’s, I hear? She was quite insistent that I see you today.”

  “Yes, your grace,” Terry said, making his way over to one of the low chairs positioned just in front of the desk. He set the art portfolio down so that it leaned against the chair.

  “Well, sit down, sit down,” the bishop said with a slightly irritated edge to his voice. “I don’t have much time. I’m speaking at the Republican National Convention. Did you know that?” He looked up at Terry, his smile every bit like the cat that ate the canary.

  Terry filed this away as useful information. The good bishop had a sizeable ego—that was clear. “No, I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “Not surprised. It was just announced this morning,” Preston said. “So, I’m scrambling to get my speech together.” He put his papers aside and sat back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t know how much Felicia told you, but I’m with the Old Catholic Order of Saint Raphael. We’re the exorcists.”

  “You say that as if I should have heard of you,” the bishop scowled.

  “Well…I’m sorry, I know you’re new to the Diocese of California.” Terry pulled out the manila folder, flipped past the Rule, and placed a stack of papers on the bishop’s desk. “Those are invoices for the last fifty exorcisms that we’ve performed on behalf of the diocese. We’ve got another stack for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, and in fact, every Roman and Episcopal diocese in California, Nevada, and Oregon.”

  The bishop picked up the invoices and flipped through them. “You’ve been busy,” he said, sounding impressed.

  Terry nodded. “The Enemy is busy, so we’re busy.”

  “Hmph…that’s not a popular position in the Episcopal Church these days,” the bishop noted.

  “No…” agreed Terry. “We don’t get invited to Christmas parties much. But when one of your rectors has a parishioner on their hands that’s levitating and throwing up pea soup, they don’t usually hesitate to call us.”

  “I like your style…” Bishop Preston searched his memory.

  “Father Milne. Terry,” Terry supplied his name.

  “Father Milne. I like your style.” The bishop threw the stack of papers back within Terry’s reach. “I still have no idea why you’re here. And I have a speech to write.”

  “Of course,” Terry said, scooting forward on his seat, his feet barely able to touch the floor. “About a week ago our bishop died. Car accident.”

  “I’m sorry, young man.” Preston’s eyebrows lowered sympathetically.

  “I’m sure you can see where this is going. No bishop, no connection to the apostolic succession. No power over demons.”

  “Ah…” Preston leaned forward on his desk.

  “I’ve come to request emergency oversight until we can find a new bishop. As you know, there’s always been a history of fruitful collaboration between Anglicans and Old Catholics. I’m here to beg your grace to honor that long tradition of collaboration now, as a temporary measure until we can, well, sort things out.”

  Bishop Preston leaned back in his chair and tapped his sideburn with his index finger as he rocked back and forth. His face drew up in a scowl as he considered. But before he could speak, what sounded like a fire alarm painfully pierced the air.

  Terry glanced at the clock—10:45 a.m., right on target. The slightest curl of a smile played on his lips as the bishop’s secretary burst through the door. “Bishop, there’s been a bomb threat. This way, quickly!”

  Looking momentarily flustered, Preston snatched at the legal pads in front of him—the notes for his precious speech, Terry was sure—and raced toward the door. Suddenly, Terry was invisible, which was just fine with him. If Terry was right, the secretary would escort Preston down the stairs to the street where a limo would arrive in mere moments to whisk him off to safety.

  Terry knew that soon a security guard would sweep through the building to make sure everyone was out, so as soon as the bishop and his secretary were out of sight, he sprang into action. As quick as a cat, Terry snatched open the art portfolio and pulled forth the ornamental mirror in which Kat’s brother Randy was resident. Racing to the wall on the right side of the room, he removed the mirror hanging there and hung Randy’s mirror in its place. He noted that the mirror itself was smaller than the one he removed, but the frame was larger, and it hung in felicitous relation to the Cranach paintings much as the other had done.

  He quickly placed the bishop’s mirror in the art portfolio, waved a quick goodbye to Randy, and, picking up the portfolio, strode confidently toward the waiting room, the stairs, and the street below.

  68

  Richard passed the morning in dread. The shackle attached to his ankle didn’t allow him access to a chair, so the dusty floor of the barn was his only option. His bones creaked, and his spine was sore. Worse yet, the shackle had worn through the skin, and a crusty, swollen ring had formed around his ankle, oozing a sticky yellow pus.

  He looked over to the workbench against the far wall where his wallet and his phone sat, far out of reach. He willed them to jump to his hands. They didn’t. “Duunel, make them fly over here,” he whispered.

  You have far too high an opinion of my abilities. I can make them fly, all right, but aim is quite another matter, Duunel said, sounding bored. I can try, but the great likelihood is that your phone will just end up smashed, in another corner of the room, but equally out of reach.

  Richard blinked back self-pity. He bit back on panic. And he nearly jumped through his skin when he heard the chain on the outside of the door rattle. Gabe ambled in, his eyes wide. He seemed to be drooling. He was also carrying a tire iron, which he swung from his primatial arm in a suggestive, menacing way.

  Once inside, the giant closed the barn door and turned back to face Richard. “I wanna see you naked,” he said. He was leering. He was also sporting a boner that was clearly visible through his overalls.

  “I love Sarah, but she’s not fair. She keeps all the fellers for herself. But today I am a lucky boy ’cause I always liked you best,” Gabe said, coming closer, grinning in a weirdly obsessive way, unable to take his
eyes off Richard.

  “Duunel, throw him,” Richard whispered. But there was no reply. “Duunel!” Silence. “Duunel, you asshole, don’t you dare skip out on me!”

  “Who’s Dunnel?” Gabe asked, looking around. “Is there someone else here?”

  “Apparently not,” Richard said, seething and tipping over into despair.

  “Good, ’cause I want you a-a-a-a-a-a-ll to myself. You gonna take your pants off, now. I wanna see your bottom,” Gabe slipped one shoulder out from under an overall strap. Then he pulled the other strap off his shoulder and dropped his overalls altogether.

  Richard stared, his eyes widening in disbelief. Gabe wore no underwear, and clad only in an extra-large T-shirt bearing the logo of Disney’s Mighty Ducks, he advanced. Swaying like a giant bobble-head in painfully slow motion, Gabe’s cock protruded a full fifteen inches beyond his drooping belly, thick as Richard’s wrist, and twisted midway at what looked like a painful angle.

  “Gabe, have you ever done this before?” Richard asked, clutching at any stray strand of thought that might help. “’Cause I have, and you can get diseases from people who do this a lot.”

  “Sarah said you’d try to talk me out of it,” Gabe said. “Sarah is smart. How did she know you’d try to talk me out of it?” It was rhetorical. His face was shining with lust and anticipation. “Show me your bottom. Show me your bottom, now.” It was a command that brooked no dissent.

  The row of corpses on the bench seemed to be leering at him with their eye sockets, their skeletal grins vaguely mocking. Clearly, they were enjoying the show. Slowly, with hesitant, deliberate motions, Richard opened the flaps on his cassock and laid it aside. Then he undid his belt, and dropped his black jeans around his ankles.

  “Now do your unnerwear,” Gabe said, unable to take his eyes off Richard’s ass.

  “Do you have any lube?” Richard asked. If I have to bend over for this monstrosity, so be it, he thought to himself. But the best-case scenario here is an anal fissure, while the worst is a septic tear in my intestines. Minimize the damage.

  “What’s loob?” Gabe asked. “Is this a trick?”

  “No, it makes it feel better. For both of us.” Well, that was true, he thought. “Your dick is way too big for my little hole. If you try to stick it in without any grease, you’ll get hurt.” So will I, but I don’t need to tell him that.

  “Is that for real?” Gabe asked, his massive boner still impossibly indicating true north.

  “Look, I’ve done this before. Lots. You haven’t. I’m trying to help you out. Really.” And strangely, that was true. “Do you have any grease in this garage?”

  Gabe looked around. “Yeah. Fer workin’ on engines and such.”

  “That’ll do just fine,” Richard said. “Just grease up your pole good and thick before you stick it in.”

  Gabe shuffled over to a workbench against one wall, and looked under several piles of detritus. Finally, he turned away from the bench, a soiled can in one hand. His cock bobbed in slow motion as he walked back toward him.

  “Goddammit, Duunel,” Richard whispered through his teeth. “Now. Goddammit now!” But nothing happened. Gabe came near, raised the crowbar, and Richard lowered his briefs.

  He watched with mounting panic as Gabe greased up his impossibly long cock with a brown, grainy engine grease. He raised the crowbar again, and Richard got on all fours, willing himself not to whimper at the thought of the pain that was about to hit him.

  Through his legs, just below his own dangling junk, Richard saw Gabe’s cock cut through the air like a cruel smile—no, a cruel smirk. A drop of pre-cum was already beading at its tip.

  A frantic prayer to Duunel flashed through his mind, My demon, my demon, why have you abandoned me? Richard squeezed his eyes closed as he felt Gabe’s rough hand paw at his butt. Gabe was shaking with excitement and anticipation as he fondled his testicles and grabbed at Richard’s penis, limp as a salamander.

  Richard gritted his teeth, waiting for the white-hot pain of penetration when he heard a groan behind him, and felt wet, hot spurts of cum lighting on his rump and running down his leg.

  Richard laughed with relief and offered up a wordless prayer of grateful thanks. Rolling onto his side, he looked up at the panting giant still poised above him. “Don’t worry about it, sport,” Richard said, trying to sound comforting and casual; trying not to sound like he was about to break down into a sobbing, humiliated mass. “You just got too excited. You’ll do better next time. It happens to the best of us.”

  69

  Kat sat back with a feeling of triumph. Terry had asked for an untraceable bomb threat, and she had delivered it right on time. But she had taken liberties. She assumed that Terry had meant “untraceable back to us.” He didn’t say anything about it being traceable to anyone else—like, for instance, a lodge of black magickians in San Francisco. She wondered how quickly the SFPD would decode her web of misdirection, and at what time they would be pounding on the door of the Lodge of the Hawk and Serpent. She couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. She didn’t try.

  She cracked her fingers and wheeled in a circle in her chair, looking out the tiny window that graced the office. She momentarily worried about Randy. He had impressed her with his willingness to cooperate with Terry’s plan. She was proud of him. She thought back to their childhood together, how he had begun retreating into himself after their father had died. Her mother, working so hard that she nearly collapsed, didn’t notice. And they had both turned to magick.

  Her daydreaming was interrupted by the ding of an email alert. She swung around to the computer and clicked on the incoming message. It was from Randy.

  “In like Flynn,” he wrote tersely. “All according to plan. Nice office. Sucky computer.”

  Kat let out a huge sigh. She felt the tension drain out of her arms and took a few deep breaths. Good news. Very, very good news.

  She grabbed her teacup and made her way back to the kitchen to heat the kettle. While waiting for it to boil, she stood in the doorway gazing into the Montague Summers Memorial Chapel. Looking at the spot where Terry had so recently taught her and Charlie, she felt a heaviness come over her that cancelled out her elation. That was the spot where Charlie had entered Hell.

  She walked into the chapel and sat down in the choir, facing the patchwork Jesus icon. Made up of hundreds of photos clipped from magazines, it was a beautiful monstrosity. “Does he have to stay there?” she asked Jesus. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  The lips of the patchwork Jesus looked like they wanted to move. They also looked like they needed a good shave. He looks like Chia Jesus, she thought. But if she let her eyes go a little out of focus, he seemed to get clearer. Very strange.

  “You scare the shit out of me,” she said. “And partly it’s because you aren’t scary. And I don’t really understand that. If you were scary, it would make sense, and in a way, you’d be less scary. But the fact that you aren’t scary is scary. Does that make any sense?” She unfocused her eyes and moved her head up and down, so that it looked like Jesus was nodding.

  “I know you didn’t send Charlie to Hell,” she continued. “In fact, I think it’s really, really cool how you went there and ripped down the gates, and broke all the locks, and led all those people to freedom…” A feeling of deep love welled up in her, and she blinked back tears. “Wow. Okay, that was huge. That’s why you let yourself be killed, isn’t it? You didn’t die to send anyone to Hell but to bust the place up, to break everyone out.” She nodded through her tears. The patchwork Jesus became even blurrier, and paradoxically, more clear. “Charlie isn’t there because of you. He’s there because of him. Because he likes it there. Because he’s…happy.” Her chest filled up with—what? Pity? Sadness? Remorse? She wasn’t sure. “Why am I not okay with that?” she asked, but the patchwork Jesus didn’t answer.

  She sighed, not quite ready to give up on Charlie. To abandon him to Hell would feel an awful lot like failure. But
something else was nagging at her, something on the very edge of her consciousness. What was it?

  Charlie was a magickian, but she didn’t feel a lot of shame about that. It was Charlie’s shame, not hers. But Randy was her brother. He was a magickian, too, and she did feel shame about that. Somehow, his stupidity reflected poorly on her. On the other hand, she knew Randy thought she had turned into a religious lunatic. She knew that wasn’t true, but she understood how it might seem so to him. There was the possibility that she understood him imperfectly, too. In fact, it was likely. Were they somehow even?

  She wouldn’t have thought that magickians were shameful before she joined the order. She hadn’t seen them as being very different from witches. Since then, however, she had come face to face with the dark forces that magickians summon and presume to control—often to their own destruction. The magnitude of their stupidity simply baffled her. What they were doing seemed like kids playing with roadside bomb materials—they have no idea what they’re doing, but they’re playing nonetheless with powers of almost limitless destruction. She shuddered at the thought of it.

  She felt responsible for Randy. She felt that it was somehow her duty to make his wrong right; to make up for his bad karma with good karma of her own—even though she knew that karma was not really a Christian thing. Just then, the connection that had been hovering just out of consciousness popped into view. She sat up straight as a rod.

  Her connection to Randy was like Preston’s connection to Prester John. She cocked her head and considered the two relationships. Prester John hadn’t finished his job of destroying the Moors. He inspired Preston, but he had also failed. Just as it was her job to make good on Randy’s failure, she saw that Bishop Preston felt compelled to make good on his relative’s. For a moment, she felt a fleeting sense of kinship with the bishop. She understood him in a way that, mere moments before, had been mysterious to her.