by J. R. Mabry
Dephna picked her way through the piles of discarded clothes, books, and cardboard boxes on the floor, straight toward a large, boxy structure in the corner. Upon closer examination, Kat saw that it was a wire cage covered with a fitted canvas drape. Dephna turned and looked in her eyes. She pointed to the cage.
For the first time, Kat felt a stab of fear. Caution was appropriate, even if she hadn’t given it its due yet in this case. She nodded and motioned for the woman to come back toward the door. Kat set her kit bag down and picked her way through the obstacle course on the floor toward the cage. Gingerly she lifted one corner of the drape, and pulled it aside.
Instantly, a large rabbit threw itself against the wire mesh of the cage with such fury that the whole thing nearly toppled off the table it sat on. Kat jumped back, and the drape slid to the floor. The rabbit’s eyes were red, and it bit aggressively at the wire, trying to get through it, trying to get to her. Its back legs were scrambling, pressing its face forward against the wire until it dug into the soft part of its nose. Its jaws were snapping and spitting foam, teeth locked and tangled in the wire, trying obsessively and maniacally to connect with her flesh.
All Kat could see was a furry ball of fury, scrambling, biting, spitting, doing everything in its power to attack. She realized her hand was on her chest and she’d backed up several steps. She reached down and grabbed the drape. Steeling herself, she shook it out and threw it over the cage. The spitting and rocking did not cease until Kat had backed up to the door.
“That’s one angry fucking rabbit,” Kat noted.
“That’s odd,” the woman said. “When I go near him, he just kind of quivers and cowers.”
“Huh.” Kat stared at the cage. She pursed her lips and put one hand on her hip.
“What are you going to do?” Dephna asked.
Kat turned and faced Dephna, her eyes darting back and forth as she thought. “I have no idea.”
They blinked at each other for a few moments. Then Kat said, “What can you tell me about…dark influences?”
Dephna’s head cocked sideways. “Dark influences? What does that mean?”
Is this woman really this thick, or is she damaged in some way? Kat thought. She put on her patient face. “Well, it can mean a number of things…any of them can be significant. Has your son—the one who lives in this room—”
“Jason.”
“Okay. Has Jason been…dabbling in magick? Has he been listening to any Black Metal bands? Has he been hanging out with friends who are into some of the sketchier occult schools?” She realized she was probably getting close to talking over Dephna’s head, so she stopped there.
Dephna shook her head.
“Where is Jason now?”
“He’s at school.” She said it with a rise at the end of the sentence, as if she were about to add, “of course” but thought better of it.
Kat nodded. She looked at her watch. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, which meant there was about an hour before he would be heading home. “Mrs. Parks, do you mind if I sniff around in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d like to…well, I’ll just say it. I’d like to go through your son’s stuff. Whatever’s happening with this rabbit”—she pointed at the cage—“the answer to it is probably in this room. I just have to find it.”
“We could just ask Jason.”
“Jason is how old?”
“He’s thirteen.”
“Thirteen. And you expect him to give you a straight answer?”
Dephna looked at her feet. That was all the answer Kat needed. “If you want your bunny back, Dephna, you need to give me permission to snoop. That’s just the fact of it.”
Dephna shuffled her feet. In a low voice, Kat heard her say, “Okay.” She looked up. “But…try not to…I don’t want him to…”
Kat held her hand up. “I’ll put everything back just as I found it,” she reassured her. “If we don’t find anything, he doesn’t need to know I was here at all.”
Dephna nodded.
“Do you want to…supervise?” Kat asked, thinking, Say no, say no, say no.
“Um…no, it’s okay. I have some housework to do. Just…call me if you need anything.”
“Will do.” Kat gave her a reassuring smile.
Dephna left the room, and Kat turned around, making sure to keep a wide berth between her and the rabbit. “There’s a lot of shit in this room,” she muttered under her breath. She sighed.
Best to be systematic, she reasoned. She began at the door, and began scanning counter-clockwise with her eyes. Widdershins, she said to herself, to undo the damage here. There was a light switch and a wastebasket overflowing with detritus. She stepped over to it and turned it over.
Piece by piece, she examined its contents and put them back in the basket once she’d looked at them. A wadded up piece of paper, math homework…used q-tips. “Ew,” Kat said, careful to handle them by the unstained middles. A plastic bag—empty. A couple receipts, one from a comic book store—no title for the purchase was indicated, however. “That’s too bad,” she said aloud.
She righted the wastebasket and continued her visual surveillance of the room, moving to her left. There was a desk against the wall, overflowing with papers. She lifted some of them up, saw a laptop, a Dell. Probably password protected, she thought. I’ll deal with that later.
She opened the bottom drawer and found a ream of printer paper and a few file folders, none of them labeled, but all of them stuffed with paper that looked like it had previously been wadded. She flipped through them. Short stories, she thought. Good for him.
She had an inspiration. Settling herself solidly on both knees, she lifted the large bottom drawer up, off its track, and slid it out. With a groan, she put it to the side and peered into the dark cavity it left behind. “Bingo,” she said, lifting whatever Jason had been hiding under the drawer.
Magazines—specifically porn. Do kids these days actually look at porn on paper? she wondered. This one did. She bunched her face up, looking at the impossibly enormous breasts of the women adorning the cover of Juggs. She looked at the next magazine in the stack and saw a handsome hunk stroking his own schlong on the cover of Honcho. Jason, you poor kid, Kat thought. I hope you figure out your sexuality some day. It occurred to her that someone like Richard might still have a stash with this kind of diversity. She shrugged. Or don’t figure it out, she added, tossing the magazines back onto the carpet inside the drawer’s well. Then she replaced the drawer, and made sure it was rolling properly on its track.
The two smaller drawers above it were filled with the normal desk stuff—pens, glue sticks, thumb drives, post-its. She turned her attention to the top of the desk and began to sort through the papers, being careful to replace them in a way that resembled how she had found them.
On one paper was a string of numbers…no clue what those were. Some history homework, an outline for an essay on the Spanish American war. The kid is organized, she thought, but this room sure isn’t. She wondered at the paradox for a moment until she noted the class name scrawled on the top right corner of the paper—English. This isn’t a history paper, he’s learning how to outline an essay in English class, she thought. That explained it.
Underneath that paper was a composition book, its cardboard covers printed to look like the colorings on a cow—splotches of black and white. She flipped it open, and her mouth dropped.
“Bingo.” She took out her phone and snapped an image, texting it to Brian. Less than a minute later he called.
“What do we got?” she asked.
“It’s a sigil, all right,” he said. She noted the sound of crinkling in the background.
“What’s that sound?”
“Bacon. I’m frying up a whole pound for a dish I’m preparing tonight. It also involves maple frosting. Too bad you’re going to miss it.”
“Jerk. Make sure to save me some.”
“No problem.”
�
�So whose sigil is this?”
“Low level mimicry demon in Peranuuthon’s host, Cthamulon. Interestingly, he’s not listed in the Clavicula Salomonis. He’s in Stormhausen’s grimoire synthesis, though. I don’t know the original provenance—”
“I don’t really care about the fucking provenance. That’s academic. I have a bunny threatening to chew through the wire here and eat my head.”
“Is it trying to get at you now?”
“No, it’s covered. It’s quiet as a mouse. But if I lift the cover off—yowsa moom-bowsa. The thing goes crazy.”
“Of course. It’s a mimicry demon.”
“But what is it mimicking?” Kat asked. “No one around here is trying to eat anyone.”
“I’m not sure. I’ll do some more research and get back to you. Where did you find the sigil?”
“In a notebook in a teenager’s room.”
“Oh, lord. A dabbler. That’s the most dangerous kind. No idea what he’s dealing with.”
“Exactly. He’s been practicing, too. He’s drawn several sigils here, but this one—the one I sent you—he’s drawn that one, like, eighteen times. He’s getting better, too.” Kat flipped through the pages, noting how Jason’s style improved as the sigils went on.
After the last of the sigils, a page had been torn out. Kat frowned. The pages after that were blank.
“Kat? You still there?”
“I’m here. Thanks for this, Brian.”
“No sweat. I’ll call you back if I find something.”
“Awesome.” She pocketed her phone and studied the sigil again, turning first one way, then the other. Then she shut the book. No need to burn it into my retinas, she thought. That wouldn’t be good for anyone.
She heard a door slam, and scurried to put everything back the way it was. She speedwalked out the door into the hall and tried to appear nonchalant as she entered the kitchen.
Dephna was there with a teenage boy. They had been arguing, but stopped when Kat entered the room. “Deacon Webber, this is my son Jason. He’s just back from school.”
Kat put her hand out to shake his, but the boy looked troubled—a mixture of angry, guilty, and scared. Kat kept her hand there for several awkward moments until the boy gave it a limp shake.
Kat sat and smiled up at the kid. “Jason, I wonder if we can have a private conversation?” She looked at Dephna. “Would that be all right? I think I can get to the bottom of this more easily if Jason feels free to talk. I never wanted to share anything with my parents when I was his age.” Still don’t, she thought, but she didn’t say it.
“Oh. Uh…of course,” Dephna said, looking chastened and uncertain. “I’ll just…I’ll go to my room.” She scurried out of the kitchen.
Kat patted the table next to another of the chairs. “Sit,” she half-ordered and half-invited.
The kid looked as uncertain as his mother. He was tall for thirteen—obviously he’d been on a growth spurt, a fact attested to by the space between the ground and his trouser cuffs. He had dirty blond hair and freckles on his cheeks. He was cute. He was, in fact, just the sort of boy Kat had had crushes on when she was in middle school, except for playing sports. That would have ruined it.
Kat sat back and tried to get him to look her in the eye. “Do you know why I’m here, Jason?”
“Mom said you’re here about Sniffers.”
“Yes. I’m an exorcist.”
His eyes went wide. Then he looked down at his feet. Then he looked away. Kat could see the gears locking into place in his head. “It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?” she asked.
He didn’t respond. “Your mother probably would have called a vet, but the problem with Sniffers isn’t medical. I’m here because the problem with Sniffers is demonic. And I’m guessing that’s not entirely a surprise to you.”
He seemed inordinately interested in a spot directly in the middle of the refrigerator.
“Jason, I’m talking to you,” Kat said, slapping her hand hard on the table.
Jason jumped and looked at her. He even held her eye for a second.
“That’s better. I’m here because someone has been messing with demons. I think that someone is you.”
He shook his head, once again looking away.
Was I this aggravating when I was this age? Kat wondered. Probably worse. She reached through the slit in her cassock and dug her phone out of her pocket. She opened the photo app and held it up to him. “Look familiar?”
He looked. His eyes got big, then narrowed in anger. “You went through my stuff!” he shouted.
“You’re damn right I did, you little shit,” Kat said.
Jason recoiled. He wasn’t used to language like this from an adult. Or maybe it was that he wasn’t used to it from a woman, or from a clergy person. That was more likely. She had him off balance now and she didn’t want to waste it.
“Let’s do a little thought experiment, shall we?” Kat said, putting her elbows on the table and steepling her fingers. “Imagine that someone blindfolds you and leads you on a short walk. Then they tell you to dance. Imagine that this is a game you like, so you start dancing. Then when you take off your blindfold, you see that only about three feet away is a steep cliff, over which is a fatal drop to the rocks below. Can you imagine it?”
The boy nodded.
“That’s you. That’s what you’re doing right now. This stuff you’re doing with sigils, it seems fun and exciting—a little naughty and a little dangerous. But the fact is you are dancing blind at the edge of a cliff. You can’t see the danger—but it’s there. And it’s way, way more dangerous than a cliff.”
Kat let that sink in. “Where are you getting these sigils?”
“My friend Kevin.”
“And where is he getting them?”
“His Dad.”
“And his dad is what? A magickian?”
Jason shrugged. “He doesn’t do tricks.”
“I’m talking about a real magickian, shithead,” Kat said, scowling. “Is he a member of a lodge or an occult order?”
“Yeah. But I don’t remember what it’s called.”
Kat grunted. “What are you trying to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not just drawing sigils because they’re cool. Why are you drawing them? What are you trying to accomplish?”
The boy shrugged. Kat wanted to punch him. “What do you think Kevin is trying to accomplish?”
Jason shrugged. Kat sat on her hands. “Look, people don’t do things for no reason. I saw your notebook. You drew that sigil more than twenty times. What does it mean to you?”
“Kevin said it was like a business card for a being of power.”
“Did he?”
“And I thought he might be able to…”
“He? He who?”
“The being of power. I thought he could…I don’t know…get me out of this hell hole.”
He had her there. Ipswich was definitely a hellhole. She sighed. “Listen, Jason, I sympathize with you. This is a lousy place to be a kid. But it seems like your mom really loves you, and she’s doing her best.”
He looked away.
“This being of power you’re asking for help? It’s a demon. It doesn’t want to help you—it wants to eat your soul for lunch.”
“What does that have to do with Sniffers?”
“I don’t know that yet. Have you done anything with Sniffers? I mean, anything unusual? Have you been…experimenting on him? With…demon stuff?”
He gave Kat a look like she was out of her mind. Obviously she was talking over his head now. That was a relief.
She had an idea. “Let’s go see Sniffers,” she said.
“I don’t really want to.”
“Tough shit. Let’s go.” Why hadn’t he wanted to? She didn’t know, but she was curious.
She corralled him like a sheepdog to his room. He hung his head and went, however unwillingly. Kat walked over to the cage and threw back the cover. Ins
tantly, the cage rocked with the explosive fury of teeth, blood, and fur—all of it directed at her. Were it not for the sharp, solid wire of the cage, that rabbit would have ripped out her throat. She steeled herself and forced her breath to be calm and regular as the aggressive bundle of fur threw itself repeatedly against the confines of the cage, spitting and snarling, gnashing its tiny, crooked teeth.
Jason’s eyes were wide with terror. So Dephna had been telling the truth. This reaction was not what they had been seeing. This case is becoming more compelling all the time, she thought. Suddenly she felt less angry for being sent out here.
The snarling stopped.
Kat looked over at the bunny, who was still foaming at the mouth, but no longer attacking. There was a crosshatch of blood on its pink, twitching nose where the wire of the cage had bit into it. It shuddered and trembled and leveled its pink eyes at her, but that was all.
“Huh,” she said. She drew the covering over the cage again. She moved to the other side of the room where Jason was still standing, stock-still. “You try.”
“What?” The boy’s voice trembled.
“You lift up the drape, the tarp, the cover-thingy, whatever it is. Go on.”
Jason stared at her for a moment, open-mouthed. He shook his head.
“Do it, you little shit, before I drag you over there.”
Kat would have laid even odds that he’d bolt from the room or flat-out deny her. But instead, he edged over to the cage using baby steps. Eventually he reached the cage and, with his fingers poised like pinchers as if he was removing a dead frog, he lifted the edge of the cage drape to reveal a flurry of activity.
Kat cocked her head as she tried to interpret what she was seeing. Sniffers was employing one of his paws to rub frantically, obsessively at his groin. Tiny squeaks emitted from the cage, and the whole table rattled with the vibration.
“He’s beating off,” she said out loud. Glancing at Jason, she saw him flush a crimson so bright he was almost incandescent.
Kat chewed on her lip, her eyes flashing back and forth as she thought. She came up empty. “Cover him,” she said, putting her hand through the slit in her cassock and jerking her phone from the pocket of her jeans. She speed-dialed Brian.