by J. R. Mabry
Richard smiled. “I’m a close second, I’ll grant you. But what do you think?”
Dylan scratched his head. “It could be an intersection of gluttony, sloth, and wrath.”
“But you found a sigil at ground zero,” Richard pointed out. “It’s not an intersection.”
“Right.” Dylan looked down at his sizable stomach. “It’s a kind of wrath. It’s self-wrath, isn’t it?”
Terry pointed to the sigil square in the middle of Montclair on the map. “It’s Allianatnefar—a hard name to say. A duke primarily associated with suicide and the murder of close relatives.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Dylan conceded. “Addiction is slow suicide, after all.”
“Good work, Susan. Everyone, this is great stuff,” Richard said. Susan gave him a proud but curt nod.
“Terry, you and Susan do what you can to fill these out,” Richard continued. “Get us as close as you can to a map of the jurisdictions of the classical sins and their intersections. It’ll help us navigate if nothing else. It’ll also give us a better sense of who and what we’re dealing with. I’m going to go find a list of demonic dukes and the demons in their hosts.” He sat up straighter than he had all morning. “We might be on the verge of figuring this out.”
“But here’s what I don’t understand,” Mikael asked. “One sigil summons one demon. Even if some wackjob magickian did summon a duke, why would the whole host be set loose? Also, the rules are all wrong. There was no pentagram in front of McGills. What stopped the demon—especially a duke—from scarfing up the soul of the magickian as soon as he activated it? There was no way to contain him, no protection.”
Richard sat back again, thinking.
“I think I might have an idea,” Marco said. They turned to face him. He was leaning against the counter, his bulky arms crossed in front of him and his dark eyebrows knitted in concentration.
“What are you thinking?” Richard asked.
“I’m thinking of the time I was living with you, Dylan, back before you and Susan got married. I was going to the Lutheran seminary at the time—”
“You went to the Lutheran seminary?” Terry asked. “What the fuck?”
“I was doing my doctoral work in the history of magickal theory at the seminary consortium, but you still had to be affiliated with a particular school,” Marco said, waving the complication away. “Anyway, Dylan, do you remember that time I came home from the BART station with two black eyes?”
“Yeah, you got mugged!” Dylan said. “That really sucked.”
“It did suck, but I only had myself to blame for it.”
“How so?” Richard asked.
“Because all day I had been playing with a yo-yo.”
Richard narrowed his eyes. “I’m waiting for this to make sense.”
“See, I took this yo-yo—I got it from the games store on Shattuck—and I painted the sigil of Mars on both sides of it. I did this in the morning, and all day I played with it. So all day…”
“All day you were summoning Mars? Are you fucking nuts?” Terry asked.
“Eh, you live, you learn,” Marco shrugged. “The point is, it wasn’t a formal summoning. It was a…I don’t know…a luring of influence.”
“Right,” Richard said, nodding slowly. “You didn’t formally summon a particular demon. You invited the energy of Mars—of violence, aggression—and by the end of the day, it had caught up to you.”
“That’s pretty much what happened.”
“So these aren’t so much summonings as they are…what?” Mikael asked.
“Richard used the word ‘jurisdictions’ just a few minutes ago,” Susan said. “What if it’s more like those ‘Win a dream house’ ads we get in the mail?”
“Huh?” Dylan said. “Ah do not know why you waste yore time on those.”
“You won’t say that when we win one of them,” she countered. “You’ll just move right in.”
“You betcha! Uh…what’cher point?”
“I’m saying that if you set up a pleasant situation for folks, they don’t hesitate to migrate there.”
“Ah still don’t see where yer steerin’ this pickup.”
“I think what Susan is saying is that these demons weren’t summoned, they were invited.” Richard was nodding. “They’re not being forced or compelled to be here, so they’re not wreaking this havoc grudgingly. They were invited, so they came in willingly and started…well, I guess they just started enjoying themselves.”
“It’s like when you have a party, you bring all your friends. So, it isn’t just one demon—” Susan continued.
“It’s the whole host coming to the party,” Richard agreed.
“I think that’s a useful analogy,” Terry said. “But I think it’s more complicated than that. I think it’s more like the sigils create a thin place where certain energies can come through more easily.”
“This is some deadly clever magick,” Richard said. “Who in the world would know how to do this?”
“I read an article about a year ago in an online chaos magick journal,” Terry said, staring at the ceiling, obviously trying to remember something. “It talked about creating thin places through the use of hierarch sigils. Small stuff, but it’s not a huge jump from what the author was suggesting to what we’re seeing here.”
“Do you remember who it was by?”
Terry shook his head. “No, but I can see if I can find it again.”
“Let’s put Mikael on that.”
Mikael nodded. “Will do.”
Just then the doorbell sounded.
“I’ll get it,” Mikael said, disappearing through the door to the chapel.
A few moments later, he returned, with several people in tow. Richard recognized them—the coven that Mikael and Kat often celebrated sabbats with. But whereas in the past, they had always been a gregarious lot, this morning they were withdrawn. Jimmy stared at his shoes, clearly cowed, Julia had her arm draped over his shoulder protectively, and Luna hovered near them, as if concerned either of them might topple over if she wasn’t there to catch them.
“They picked up Jimmy again last night, the bastards,” Luna said.
Mikael made quick introductions, as none of them had met Marco before, and the inventor made sure that each of them had a steaming cup of coffee in front of them in quick order. “Tell us what happened,” Richard said.
“The detectives came to our house yesterday afternoon,” Julia said, holding Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy stared at the table. “And they just took him away. No explanation. They just…took him.” She shook her head slowly. “There was something strange, though. The man, Detective Cain, I think? He looked straight at me and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ as if he knew it was bullshit.”
“Jimmy, what happened? At the police station, I mean?” Mikael asked.
Jimmy’s gaze didn’t leave the table. “They just asked me the same questions all over again,” he said. “Only this time, they started asking me about sigils. I don’t know shit about sigils. I’m not a fucking magickian.”
“I heard something about sigils on the news,” Luna said, playing with the end of her ponytail nervously. “But we don’t do sigils.” She shuddered.
Smart girl, Richard thought. He was uncomfortable with any form of magick, even the relatively innocuous spells that Wiccans employed, but he didn’t often voice this opinion, especially in the company of Wiccans. “We’re working on another case involving sigils,” Richard explained. “And I’m sure the police are going crazy because they haven’t got a clue what’s going on.”
“Well, they might ask you to tutor them,” Jimmy looked up at Richard for the first time.
“What makes you say that?” Richard asked.
“I…kind of gave them your card,” Jimmy said, looking away.
Richard’s face softened. “Jimmy, are you ashamed that you referred the police to us?”
Jimmy didn’t answer but returned his gaze to the table.
“Y
ou don’t need to feel bad about that. You didn’t rat us out. We like working with the police. Helping the authorities with cases they don’t understand is part of how we make our living,” Richard said. “I’m surprised these detectives weren’t banging on our door before this.”
“Yeah, you’d think they would have clued in, when they interviewed us,” Mikael said.
Richard shrugged. “I’m sure the brass is uncomfortable about using us, and it’s not something they’d broadcast. Still, if the police show up here, we’ll be glad to help out. We’ve found out quite a bit about the sigil business already.” He cocked his head. “But how can we help you?”
“We think we’re the victims of a magickal attack,” Luna said.
“Shit keeps happening,” Julia said.
“And you’re scared,” Susan nodded.
“And shit keeps happening,” Julia repeated.
“You want the shit to stop happening,” Susan clarified.
“Yes, please,” Julia answered. Jimmy put his head on the table and started to cry. Julia rested her own head on his shoulder blade and just hugged his body until he stopped.
The room was silent, and Richard could see the tension on everyone’s faces melt into compassion.
“Jimmy, we promise to do what we can,” Richard said. “But my guess is that you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, not the victims of a sustained attack. Getting picked up again, I think this is just the ripples of that initial violation, when your energy got stolen.”
“How could we check to make sure there’s no sustained attack?” Mikael asked.
“We could make sure there’s no negative energy attached to their house,” Marco offered. “I mean, it’s easy to tell if it’s truly a safe place to be.”
“How would you do that?” Susan asked.
“I’ve got a working narometer.”
“A narometer is a device that measures…nar?” Susan screwed up her face in a question.
“Yeah. Nar. Negative energy,” Marco said, as if it was something everyone should know. “It’s an old cyberpunk term. It works on the same principle as the Christometer I was working up for you guys, but it’s way easier to calibrate. This place is so well-warded, I’ll just set it to zero before we leave. So long as I don’t point it at Terry, it should be pretty accurate.”
Terry scowled at him.
“Terry, why don’t you and Marco go check it out?” Richard said.
“Me? With him?” Terry asked, slightly dismayed.
“He can do a reading…and you can do a subtle reading of your own,” Richard explained. “And then you can set some wards.”
Terry’s shoulders deflated. “Yeah. I guess I can do that.”
“Good,” he turned to the Wiccans. “There’s a lot going on right now. I think the best we can do at the moment is just to make sure you have a safe place to retreat to. But that we can do. And we will.”
“Thank you,” Jimmy said, grabbing Richard’s hands and squeezing them. “And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Richard said.
Susan pulled out her phone. “Getting a message,” she said. She looked up quickly. “The CNN report. It’s on.”
27
Larch’s hands shook as he sat up. Khams knocked on his door. “Babylon, are you all right?” He peeked in, and then fully entered the room once he saw that Larch was awake. “Uh…you look a little green in the gills.”
“Water,” Larch said, his voice cracking. The wind tugged at the curtains, causing them to ripple slightly in the morning light. Larch studied his own hands like they were novel alien appendages.
“What did you see?” Khams called over his shoulder as he exited, heading for the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a full glass of water. Larch gulped at it eagerly. Then he handed it back. “Another.”
Khams dutifully retrieved another glass. “Thank you,” Larch said, and took his time with this one.
“Well, what was it like up in Yesod?”
Larch didn’t answer at first. Instead, he flinched as if he just remembered something that frightened him. He lurched toward the window and slid it further up on its frame. He stuck his head out and looked at the sky. Then he relaxed. “Thank gods,” he said, his shoulders falling. He laid back on the bed, relaxing.
“Babylon, whatever is the matter with you?” Khams’ voice was pitched high with worry.
“I…it wasn’t what I thought,” Larch confessed.
“How so?” Khams sat next to him on the bed, his eyes shining with wonder.
He didn’t look at Khams. But then again, he rarely did. “It isn’t a place you would want to go. It was…complete chaos.”
Khams frowned. “But I thought…it’s up.”
“Yes, I thought it would be more orderly than…than this place. I thought it was going to be some rarified spiritual environment, where I would transcend the limitations of the mortal world. But instead, those limitations seemed to be strangely…magnified.”
“You’re revealing the lie,” Khams said, pointing a finger at him. “That’s what’s happening. We always thought that the earth was the lowest place, the place of the most heaviness, the most disorder, the furthest from the divine order. But what if it’s just the opposite? Maybe the further up in the Tree of Life you go, the more obvious the tyranny becomes, and the more chaotic his rule!” Khams’ eyes were wide and his hands went to his mouth.
“I won’t know that until I ascend further,” Larch said, swinging his feet to the floor. “But you could well be right. It certainly appears that way so far.”
Khams rushed to steady him as he tried to stand. “Careful!” he warned, but it wasn’t needed. Larch sat again on the bed.
“I think…a little more time is in order.”
“That seems like a good idea.”
“I think I’m still slightly intoxicated by the ointment. I need to give it a little time before trying the second ascent.”
“If it was this bad, do you think it’s a good idea to go further?” Khams wondered aloud.
“It’s the only idea. And if I have to sacrifice myself for the good of all creatures, so be it,” Larch said, lying back. “Tell me what is happening with our little diversion.”
“Oakland is burning. Emeryville is exploding.” Khams grinned, his eyes shining, his hands mimicking fireworks bursting in air. “And Berkeley is just now catching fire.”
“Very poetic. Can you be more specific?”
“We’ve posted twenty-seven sigils in key neighborhoods across Oakland, and they’re all working even better than expected. I’ve been monitoring cable news, East Bay websites, and police radio, and everything is at a dead standstill over there. You want to talk about chaos? That’s chaos.”
“Go on.”
“We’ve posted fourteen sigils in Emeryville, and those are really swinging into action, now. There’s still traffic over the Bay Bridge—but freeways aren’t blocked or anything—and on the ground, we’ve got riots.”
“And Berkeley?”
“Nine sigils up, seventeen to go. They take time, though. We don’t expect them to be in full swing until tomorrow.”
“And any signs of our meddling friars?”
“CNN is advertising an exposé on them,” Khams said, smiling.
“Are they?” Larch nodded, a grin tugging at one side of his mouth.
“It’s supposed to start…oh, about now,” Khams said looking at his watch.
28
In seconds, the kitchen emptied, as everyone streamed past the chapel, past the front door, and into the living room. Richard plopped himself in the easy chair, while Susan and Dylan took the couch. Mikael and Marco hovered behind the couch, leaning their elbows on its back. Terry walked in and squeezed in next to Dylan, while Tobias presided over the gathering from his dog bed in the corner, panting audibly.
Susan grabbed the remote and punched at it. The flat screen faded from black to brilliant color and the sound engaged with a pop. �
�—police are at a loss to explain what is turning out to be the largest crime spree in Oakland history, a crime spree that seems to be spreading now to nearby communities. San Leandro has already erected barriers and are allowing nothing but foot traffic across their border with Oakland, including the controversial move to shut down the 580 freeway.”
Images flashed in quick succession across the screen as the woman’s voice spoke: cars on fire, masked drivers speeding through residential streets brandishing semi-automatic weapons, housewives and business people dancing in the street, removing their clothes, seemingly lost in bliss. The camera switched to the on-scene reporter, a pretty blond woman with a pageboy haircut. A house fire raged behind her, and no emergency vehicles were in sight. “The East Bay’s gateway-to-the-bay, Emeryville, however, seems to have caught whatever virus is infecting Oakland, as their own crime spree is spinning out of control.”
“Annette,” said the newscaster, “local news blogs are circulating a rumor about an alleged occult connection. Can you tell us anything about that?”
“Only that people are grasping at straws to explain the sudden and intense outbreak of criminal activity in the city, Chet. In times of heightened stress, people often resort to superstition and religion to make sense of a world that is often scary and chaotic.”
The camera cut back to Chet Swanson behind his desk. “Thank you, Annette Chandler, for that on-the-scene report. We will be keeping an eye on events in California’s East Bay, and will interrupt with any breaking news there.” Chet shifted to face a different camera. “In the meantime, the East Bay is still home to some of the most colorful characters to erupt onto the public stage in recent memory. We’re talking, of course, about the Berkeley Blackfriars. Arlene Chin has this report.”
Suddenly, the television showed their own house, and a small Chinese woman with a bright smile stepped into view. “This is the Holy Apocrypha Abbey in what is called the Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood of Berkeley, California, where the Berkeley Blackfriars live and—to hear them tell it—fight evil. Just a few months ago, no one had ever heard of this small religious Order, but they became a national headline when they crashed the Republican Convention earlier this year—stealing the spotlight from Governor David Ivory and bringing friends to the party that resulted in the brutal murder of the Episcopal Bishop of California, John Preston, live on nationwide television.”
