by J. R. Mabry
“I’ve been cooking for myself since I was seven,” he said.
“That is a lack of sufficient modelin’, if you ask me,” Dylan said, close behind Richard.
“Breakfast will be served in five minutes,” Marco announced.
“Whether it’s edible or not,” Richard warned. He wandered to the back door and looked out the window at the cottage. Dark clouds were starting to gather. “I get worried when Terry isn’t at prayer.”
“Ah hear ya,” Dylan agreed, reaching past Marco to turn on the stove under the kettle. “No one loves prayin’ much as the li’l guy.”
“Should I check on him?” Richard asked.
“You know, when people are depressed, they sleep,” Marco offered.
Richard nodded. “But it’s situational, not clinical.”
“He’s just got to go through it. You gotta let him go through it.”
“I don’t have to like it.”
“I don’t think any of us do.”
“Ah certainly don’t. The meals around here are suffrin’ somethin’ terrible,” Dylan opined. He held a piece of bacon out to Tobias, who snatched it up greedily.
“Hey!” Marco objected. “And thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Richard noted that his underwear had Chewbacca on the crotch. “Is all of your underwear Star Wars-themed?” he asked.
“Everyone’s entitled to their religious denomination,” Marco turned back to the stove. “I expect you have Jesus winking out of your pecker-hole.”
“I am proud to say that I do not have even one pair of Jesus-themed underwear.”
“So you’re just jealous,” Marco announced.
“Morning,” Kat said, emerging from the back stairs. No sooner had she stepped down than she held her hands up to block her own vision. “Holy Christ, Marco, could you put on a bathrobe or something?”
“It’s a sin to be ashamed of the glory of man,” Marco said, striking a pose that, ironically, accentuated his pronounced beer-belly.
“It’s a sin to pretend to represent the glory of man,” Kat retorted.
“That’s cold, sister,” Marco pointed his spatula at her.
“Keep that thing in your underoos, Mister.”
They considered each other for a few seconds, which might have gone on longer had Dylan not announced, “Uh, dude, smoke.”
Marco turned and rescued what was left of the eggs.
“They’d burn less if you didn’t fry the cheese,” Dylan pointed out.
“I don’t need cooking tips from you.”
“Ah’m just sayin’,” Dylan poured himself a cup of hot water and snatched a tea bag from one of the containers on the counter. Tobias scuttled under the table.
“You get a pass,” Marco said to Kat over his shoulder. “But only because you kicked ass so phenomenally yesterday. Where the fuck did you learn that trick?”
She shrugged. “One reads.”
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Richard asked, clearly proud of her.
“Let’s just say there was a lesser banishing ritual with my name on it when I got home,” Marco shuddered. “Scared the bejeezus out of me.”
“You see, that’s what I don’t get,” Kat said. “You’re a magickian, and you’re afraid of demons?”
“I’m not a fucking Goetic magickian,” Marco objected. “I’m just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Thelemite. We might traffic in spirits or elementals, but demons? No, no, no. No thank you. I have enough problems without handcuffing myself to pure evil.”
“That’s actually a pretty apt description,” Richard said, his eyebrows bouncing high on his forehead.
“What’s burning?” Mikael asked, crouching to clear the ceiling as he came down the back stairs. “Smells like charcoal…and cheese.”
“You two can go without,” Marco pronounced to Dylan and Mikael.
“What?” Mikael objected. “All I said was—”
“Hey, where’s Randy?” Kat asked, looking in the mirror. She turned up the guitar amplifier. “Randy!” She called.
“Maybe he’s not up yet,” Mikael suggested.
“He’s up,” Marco said. “He snagged some bacon, so I know.” Marco wiped his hands on his apron and leaned over, shoulder-to-shoulder with Kat, staring into the mirror. “See? He’s right there—” he pointed at a ghostly, translucent image that was barely visible.
Kat’s hand leaped to her mouth. “Oh, God!” she exclaimed. “He’s fading!”
“He’s been fading fer some time now,” Dylan agreed. “Everyone’s noticed. Ah think you noticed, too. Ah think you just didn’t want to notice.”
Kat looked at Dylan and blinked back tears.
“It happens,” Richard said, his voice soft. “Spirits aren’t supposed to be disembodied. The ectoplasm dissipates over time.”
“Did you know this was going to happen?”
Richard moved his head back and forth, “I hoped the mirror would serve as a body of sorts, that it would stabilize him. But I suspected that this might happen. I just…I didn’t want to alarm you.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Randy, can you hear me?”
“Course I can hear you,” came a thin response. Kat turned the speaker all the way up, filling the air with static and a sixty-cycle hum.
“Do you know what’s happening to you?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to figure out the best way to stab my eyes out so I don’t have to watch this fat naked black guy cook my breakfast.”
“No, Randy. What does it feel like to be fading out?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look at your hand,” she said. She could barely see him raise it up.
“It’s an off day,” he dismissed her. “Everyone has an off day.”
“Randy, I think you’re fooling yourself. I think you’re…dying.”
“I gotta tell you, little sister, living in this mirror is not really living.”
Kat turned and her face contorted as she fought back tears. She looked at Richard. “What will happen to him?”
“He’ll just fade out,” Richard said. “What happens when smoke gets dissipated in the air?”
“And then he’ll just be gone? He won’t go anywhere else, like heaven or hell?”
“Spirits need bodies,” Richard explained. “Even spiritual bodies. Randy gave up his body to enter an angel’s body, remember? And then he left the angel’s body. There’s no other body for him to enter. Thank God the angels put him in that mirror, or you wouldn’t have had the time with him that you have.”
“Can he enter another human body, or a dog’s body—like the angel that’s in Toby?”
“Like who? And you’d need a person’s permission.”
“I’d give him mine,” she said.
“I don’t know,” Richard said. “At one time, that might have worked. But I think he’s too far gone. If we even attempted a transfer, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t make it.”
“Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?” Randy asked, his voice strong and loud now, although filled with buzzing and crackling.
“Randy, we’re not sure it would work, but do you want to share my body?”
“Does it mean having sex with him?” the ghostly image pointed vaguely at Mikael.
“Uh…yeah, it would.”
“Kill me right fucking now.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“He’s not putting his dick in my mouth.”
Kat put her head in her hands. “Randy…do you always have to be so mean? We’re trying to help you.”
“I think you’ve helped enough,” his image wandered through the mirror-image kitchen, into the office hallway. “I’m going to go surf some porn.”
Kat blew air through her cheeks and pushed the hair out of her eyes.
Richard put a hand on her shoulder. “You can’t help everyone. You know that.”
“But I want to help him.”
“He’s ne
ver made that easy.”
“No.”
“Uh, folks, you have to see something,” Susan’s head poked around the corner.
“Can it wait?” Marco asked, brandishing a plate full of eggs. “Breakfast is served.”
“Why are the eggs black?” Mikael asked.
“Et tu, homie?” Marco asked. “I’ve had it up to here with the racist bullshit around this place.”
“I think you need to see this now,” Susan said, her voice trailing off as she returned to her computer.
They trotted after her, Marco included, and hovered over her shoulder as she pointed to her computer screen. “Okay, so just for a lark, I decided to check the Oakland Crime Watch Map for the time when our nuns were murdered. Lookie here.”
Richard whistled. In a radius of about four blocks, there were seven gray circles with “H” in the middle of them.
“What’s the ‘H’ for?” Marco asked.
“I’m guessing ‘H’ is for homicide,” Richard suggested.
“You would be guessing correctly,” Susan said, tapping some keys. The view zoomed out. Although there were numerous multi-colored crime icons, there were only seven gray “H’s” in the entire city.
“That’s not a coincidence,” Richard said.
“No,” Susan said. “Your sigil might have been directed toward specific targets, but it wasn’t contained.”
“It has a sphere of influence,” Dylan said, moving his finger around the four-block circle.
“Now look at this,” Susan moved her mouse around, and a whole new set of crime icons popped up over the Oakland map.
“What are we seeing now?” Richard asked.
“This is from this time yesterday,” she said. About a hundred different-colored crime icons dotted the map, seemingly at random. “See any patterns?”
“Not really,” Mikael answered.
“So now let’s see what the map has to say about now,” Susan said. “This is being updated in real time. Notice anything different?”
Richard straightened up. “Criminey shit,” he breathed.
This time there were about twenty clusters of particular colors, heavy concentrations of crimes of like variety, each centered on a different neighborhood.
“That’s not normal,” Marco breathed.
“No,” Susan agreed.
“We’ve gotta find out what’s causing those,” Dylan said.
“Yeah,” Richard said, running his hand through his thinning hair. “Let’s get our gear. We’ll go out in teams. Unless my guess is off, we’ve got about twenty demons loose on the Oakland public.”
19
Richard glanced over at Terry in the passenger seat. The elfin friar was staring straight ahead, looking at nothing. “Are you mad at me,” Richard asked, “because I dragged you out of the cottage and wouldn’t let you sulk?”
Terry looked away from him, out the passenger window.
“Fuck you,” Richard said. “You know what? We’ve got demons popping up all over Oakland. Your wallowing in self-pity is a luxury we can’t afford right now. So snap the fuck out of it.” That wasn’t good, he thought to himself. You can’t lose your temper like that.
Terry turned and glared at him. “I did a bad thing. I admit that. How long do I have to be punished for it?”
Richard pursed his lips, thinking of a diplomatic way to respond. “Uh, Terry, it’s been about twenty-four hours. How long do you think you should be punished for it?”
Terry looked down. “Huh, okay. I guess longer than that.”
“There will be plenty of time for you and Brian to make up. You just need to give him some space. He has to miss you enough to forgive you.” Richard offered a reassuring smile.
“You want to know what bothers me?” Terry asked, looking out the window again.
“What’s that?” Richard pulled onto the on-ramp to Highway 24, positioning the car for a quick transfer to the 980 toward San Leandro.
“That it’s somehow all my fault.”
“Um…you did fuck the Ryde driver,” Richard said.
“But I wouldn’t have if…if I’d been getting any,” Terry slouched. “I mean, it’s all fun fun fun ’til daddy takes the penis away.”
Richard glanced over and blinked. “Meaning?”
“When we were having sex, like twice a day, it was just fine. I didn’t need to look anywhere else. I love Brian. He’s the best top-dog I’ve ever had.”
“Terry, surely you know that that level of sexual activity is super-human. I can see twice a day when you’re in your early twenties and just starting a relationship. But you’re both past forty now, and you’ve been together almost ten years. You know what’s normal? Once a week is normal.”
“Normal for who? Heteronormative research scientists? Glamour magazine reporters?”
“What are you even talking about?”
“It’s not normal for me! I get horny.”
“We all get horny. Susan and Kat get horny.”
“But I’m…different.”
“Special?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Newsflash—”
“Nobody likes it when people say, ‘Newsflash.’ So just don’t.”
“You are not special. You’re normal.”
“I have super-normal libido levels!”
“And very normal relationships. And commitments. Your libido doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t suspend the laws of physics. It doesn’t exempt you from the ethical standards that we expect of each other.”
“I’m not accountable to you.”
“The fuck you’re not.” Keeping only one eye on the road, Richard turned and shook his finger in Terry’s face. “You are fucking accountable to every member of this Order. You are accountable to your partner. You are accountable to every person you are in relationship with, to everyone who counts on you, to everyone who fucking cares about you.”
“So I’ll go off to live in a cave.”
“You do that. I’ll pack you a Bunsen burner and a can opener. Oh, and a teddy bear, so you’ll have someone to watch you pout.”
“Fuck you,” Terry said.
Richard exited at Hegenberger and turned left toward the Coliseum.
“I love you,” Richard said. “Even if you are being a prick.”
“Fuck you.”
“I love you.”
“FUCK FUCK FUCK you!”
Richard couldn’t stop the smile curling up one lip. “Love you,” he said as quickly as he could.
Terry stared hard out the passenger window, arms folded.
“Any guesses about who we’re dealing with, here?” Richard asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Susan saw a spike in shooting in the Havenscourt/Coliseum neighborhood.”
“Shooting?”
“Don’t worry, I brought vests.”
“They don’t fit me very well. Too big.”
“You’ll make do. Just think, they’ll cover your naughty-bits too. Think of it as insurance.” Richard turned left at the KFC on International Boulevard. Then he tried again. “Who are we likely to be dealing with?”
“Shooting? Gotta be a wrath demon. Could be Tispis again, but I don’t think so. I don’t think it will even be in Nuudjal’s host.”
“Why?”
“Guns are another order of wrath. I think it’s more likely to be someone in Efrinick’s host, or Ludgemin’s.”
“Care to lay odds on any particular demon, then?”
Terry shook his head. “I can think of about twelve who would be good candidates, and about twenty others who are possible.”
“So who do we ask for research on this?”
Terry looked at him for the first time. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Brian was usually their go-to research person. “Do you think…”
“I think Brian needs space.”
“Susan?”
“Susan doesn’t have the expertise.”
Terry
whipped out his phone and his thumbs started flying. “There’s an app for sigils,” he said. “I just read about it…here it is. Downloading now.” He shrugged. “Not as good as Brian, but let’s see if it helps.”
Richard nodded. “Shoot Dylan a link to that, will you?” Terry nodded.
Richard slowed down and glanced at the address Susan had written down for him. 6249 International. He found it and pulled over. It seemed to be the epicenter for the shooting incidents, or close enough. It was a busy commercial area, although Richard could see residences down one of the side streets.
“All right, let’s suit up,” Richard said. He reached into the back seat and grabbed the bulletproof vests he’d stowed earlier. He handed the smaller one to Terry and began fastening his own velcro. The vests were black, so they didn’t really stand out much over their black cassocks. Mostly they just made their Western clerical garb look exotic, even vaguely Japanese. Richard got out of the car and listened. Sure enough, he heard gunfire.
That wasn’t unusual in Oakland. This neighborhood was gritty—a perfect example of the urban blight that had plagued Oakland for decades. Any resident would tell you that they heard gunfire daily, often several times a day. Richard heard another burst, this one coming from another direction and sounding like an automatic weapon. Richard heard screams and waved for Terry to follow. Terry closed the door of the beat up Corolla and jogged after Richard.
“Okay, this is a big neighborhood, and the pattern Susan pulled up was pretty broad. Let’s split up and see if we can find a sigil. I’ll take the side streets that way,” he pointed west, “you take them this way,” he said, pointing east. “Call my cell if you find anything. If you don’t, let’s meet back here in a half hour. Okay?”
Terry nodded and scrambled away from him, perhaps a little too eagerly. Well, I was pretty tough on him, Richard thought. He crossed the busy traffic and headed toward one of the side streets. Then he felt a sudden, stinging pain on his ear. He reached up, wondering if he’d been stung by a bee, but when he drew his hand back, he saw it was drenched with blood. It took him a moment to realize what had happened. When he did, Richard dove for the sidewalk. Spread-eagled and faced down, he raised his head and took a look around just in time to see a telephone pole splinter in front of him, torn apart by a barrage of bullets. He strained to catch sight of the shooters. Surely these can’t just be disembodied bullets, he thought. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of magick could produce such an effect. But no, a car zipped past, with a young Hispanic man leaning out the window, firing behind him at a black SUV that had seen better days. Just as it roared out of Richard’s sight, he saw a passenger lean out and return fire. He heard another bullet zing over his head. The sound of arguing came from the direction of the residential street just to his left. He had to be close to the sigil—he felt it in his bones, and there was just too much gunplay for it to be otherwise. He rose up into a crouch and, clinging to the cinder-block wall of the mini-mart close by, he inched toward the houses. He ducked into the alley behind the mini-mart and leaned against the wall next to a dumpster, its broad metal side providing decent cover from the street.
