nancy werlock's diary s01 - episodes 1-7

by Julie Ann Dawson

  “Yes, Greg…wait…you aren’t a reporter, are you?”

  “No! I actually have a shop not far from here. Three Wishes.”

  “That witch place?”

  “We deal in New Age and holistic health products.”

  “I would have figured you saw him in there. He was into that sort of stuff.”

  “What’s Greg’s last name?”

  “Arkham.”

  “Seriously?”

  “That’s the name he used on the lease, anyway.”

  “Damn wannabe idiots,” I mutter. “Do you have a restroom? My car is stuck out there until the police clear the area.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Just go through the door there and it is on the right.”

  I go through the door. To the right is a door that says “RESTROOM.” To the left is a flight of stairs. What are you thinking? I listen at the door. I hear the cashier is talking to someone else. I make my way up the stairs. I can feel the strong magical energy of a summoning ritual still permeating the area. I get to the third floor and the door to the apartment is blown off the hinges. Greg must have messed up the summoning royally to cause that sort of an arcane explosion. I look in the room. The force of the explosion must have thrown him through the window, knocking him out of the protective circle and allowing the demon a chance to possess the body.

  Whatever Greg had done, it hadn’t been potent enough to create any permanent damage to the Veil. The portal he had managed to open was gone now. I hear footsteps coming up the stairs just as I spot the grimoire in the corner of the room.

  What are you thinking! It’s close to the door, so I step into the room quickly, pick it up, and step back out just as an officer comes around the landing.

  “This…is not the restroom,” I say before he can even reprimand me.

  “Ma’am, this is a crime scene. You aren’t supposed to be up here,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. My car is stuck in front of the store. I came in looking for a restroom.”

  “Your car the blue sedan?” he asks. I nod. “Officer Allen is looking for you to get your statement. I’d suggest you get down to your vehicle.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.”

  “Ma’am, did you go into that room?”

  “I stepped in and then realized what it was and stepped out.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “Besides the floor with my shoe?” I swallow my pride and employ the “dumb blonde” face.

  The officer sighs. “Ma’am, I’m going to need your shoes.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I slip off my heels and walk down the stairs barefoot to my car.

  * * *

  Houston can’t contain his laughter as I explain to him what happened.

  “This isn’t funny! There is a rank four, possibly rank three lemure on the loose!” I collapse into my chair. “And I really liked those shoes.”

  “See, this is why you should have studied enchantment more. You could have pulled a little Jedi Mind trick on him.” Houston waves his hand in front of me. “These are not the shoes you are looking for.”

  “You are as bad as my brother.”

  Houston does not appreciate the severity of the situation. The grimoire is a fake. A rather high end fake; but a fake nonetheless. I had Anastasia, under the pretense of wanting to buy additional books for a Halloween promotion, do a search for the manufacturer. She made surprisingly short work of the assignment, identifying the vendor as an artesian book binder out of Vermont who dealt in hand crafted paper and books. The specific grimoire in question had been created as a prop for a low-budget indie film, and then auctioned off on eBay to raise money for film distribution. The person who had bought it had relisted it on eBay as a “genuine” grimoire and sold it to username Warlock666 in New Jersey.

  I hate people who think stupid clichés are clever.

  Apparently poor Greg thought he had a genuine grimoire and proceeded to use it to summon a demon by the name of Balog nad Ipľom, which is not the name of a demon at all but rather a village in Slovakia (Anastasia rather efficiently searched Wikipedia for the name and was rather disappointed with the result). The crafter is of Slovakian descent, so I am sure she thought she was being witty using the village name for the name of a demon. I can see how those not trained in demonology (or Eastern European culture and geography) would think that sounded properly demon-like for a name.

  But Greg Arkham, or whatever his real name was, was an untrained adept with a fake grimoire. This is every demon’s dream. All it takes is an adept with enough raw magical talent and a location where the Veil is thin enough for a demon to use the summoning as a bridge to cross over.

  Many types of demons have what we call personamorphication, the ability to take over a persona and make it real. Essentially, so long as the summoner believes the demon is the entity he thinks he is calling, and the demon agrees to act as the entity in question, the demon can use the identity to bargain with the summoner. The ability has its limits. A demon can’t claim a name that already belongs to another demon, for example. But so long as the name is not already in use, and the summoner thinks the name is real, the demon can assume the persona.

  The higher rank the demon, the more different personas it can claim. And once it claims a persona, it can choose to use it in the future. When a demon reaches its persona limit, however, it has to shed a previously used persona before it can take a new one. Of course when it does this, the persona becomes available for another demon to use if it wants to.

  This all makes things rather complicated for Demonologists, because you never know for sure if the Ashtoreth you are talking to today is the same Ashtoreth that was being discussed in that three hundred year old grimoire, or the same Ashtoreth mentioned in a thousand year old scroll.

  So Greg managed to summon a lemure and then accidentally blow up his summoning ritual and get himself possessed. Because of the nature of the summoning, this lemure is completely unbound and now probably in the possession of an actual body. This is all kinds of bad.

  Lemures are relatively low on the demonic totem pole, with only imps and quasits lower. But they are also the most morphic. Lemures in their natural state are formless masses of shadow. As they gain power, they can actually evolve into a higher demonic form. Most demons technically have this ability, but they have to eat other demons to do it. Lemures can evolve by taking control of human bodies and over time harnessing mortal spirit energies.

  So a free-roaming lemure is a dangerous thing, because as it wears out its host, it will be able to jump to another host. And each host it consumes will make it stronger until it is able to evolve. And then we could end up with a free-roaming succubus or naga or gods know what else.

  The phone rings and Houston answers it. “Good evening, Three Wishes…Yes, this is Houston Vaughn…Yes, she is, may I ask who is calling? Oh, um, hold on.” Houston looks up at me with eyes wide. “Hey, boss. Ah, you want to take this?”

  “Who is it?” I ask as I get up and walk toward him.

  “Justicar Harken?”

  “Oh, Steve!” I take the phone from Houston. “Hey, Steve! How are you?”

  “Enjoying the beautiful Pine Barrens again.”

  “Are you in trouble?” Houston thinks into my head.

  “No, don’t be ridiculous,” I reply back. “Someone try to tap the cairn again?”

  “Yeah, damn kids. I swear I wish the Council would let us properly ward this thing off.”

  “But he’s a Justicar, right? Witch hunters?”

  “Houston, I’ve known Steve since I was 15. We took are Rank Three Trials together.” I return my attention to Steve. “You know they won’t do that because of Red Turtle.”

  “Who’s Red Turtle?”

  “He’s a hierophant with ties to the Ramapough Lenape Nation. He’s a very nice man.”

  “You’d think he’d be just as interested in keeping wannabe wizards away from it.”

  “Is this about the lemure?”

 
“I thought your apprentice was the psion?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Yeah, Council pushed the case out to me since I’m in the area.”

  “If there is anything you need, let me know.”

  “I was hoping you would say that. Think you can handle this one for me?”

  “What!?”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “No.”

  “I’m gonna be tied up here for at least two or three weeks dealing with this. We found cyptids. We have to cull the entire Pine Barrens to see if there are more.”

  “Oh ye gods! The cairn must have been leaking for a while then.”

  “I got an apprentice working on the patient information. As soon as he can get an ID, I told him to get with you on it. You aren’t going to be able to do anything while the guy is in the hospital. You’re gonna have to get to him after he is released.”

  “I haven’t even said I would do it, yet. My certification hasn’t been updated and—”

  “Nancy, you are the only other Rank Three Demonologist in the area. I know you are just getting back in the swing of things. I wouldn’t ask if I had other options. I can’t leave what I am doing now and this thing can’t be allowed a week to get stronger.”

  “What about the Archmage?”

  “He’s an Evoker, not a Demonologist. And you know as well as I do he would just pawn this off on you anyway. I’m just eliminating the middle man.”

  “Couldn’t the Council send someone over if you told them what you were already dealing with?”

  “We’re…we’re stretched a little thin right now. I don’t know how quick we can pull another Justicar out of the field to handle this.”

  “Steve, what’s going on?”

  “We…we aren’t sure yet. We’re just stretched thin and I would really consider this a favor if you could help out with this.”

  “You are going to owe me.”

  “Dinner?”

  “An expensive dinner.”

  “I can expense it. Deal.”

  June 28th

  “Herbalife?” asks Houston as he watches me take the sales kit out of the trunk of the car. “This is your great plan for getting in the house?”

  “You got a better idea?” I say as I adjust my skirt so that the slit strategically reveals a bit of thigh.

  “So, just to recap. Our plan is to knock on the guy’s front door, pretend we’re selling Herbalife, and then if he lets us in…”

  “When he lets us in.”

  “Assuming he lets us in, I tag him in case he makes a run for it and then you do your thing?”

  “Can you try not to make that face? I know what I’m doing.”

  “What’s with the streetwalker outfit?”

  “It’s a distraction. When a demon possesses a body, they become fixated on carnal sensations. They don’t really have good understandings of proper human interaction, so he’ll be distracted by cleavage. It will make it easier to put him in a vulnerable position.”

  “So…wait…so you are going to seduce the demon?”

  “No, not…no. Just flashing a little flesh.” I start walking toward the house.

  “Boss, no offense, but I have seen pornos with better plots than this.”

  “What!?”

  “Come to think of it, I think I saw that exact outfit in one the other night.”

  “We are not having this conversation now!” I get to the front door and see the eviction notice. “That’s not good.”

  Houston tries to look in the front window. “No lights on. No nothing on. I don’t think the guy has electricity.”

  “Shut off, maybe? Gordon said the victim was an attempted suicide.” I walk around the side of the house and peek in the side door window. “Looks like leftovers still sitting on the counter.”

  “So what do we know about this guy? Where did he try to off himself?”

  “He got laid off from his job. Asked to use the bathroom before he left. Then used a box cutter to slit his wrists.”

  “Damn. Power shut off. Eviction notice. Laid off. Failed suicide. Then gets possessed by a demon. Talk about having a bad week.”

  Bad week didn’t cover the half of it. According to Steve’s apprentice, the host was an alcoholic and drug addict who had been in and out of rehab for the last ten years. I suspect he was fired for showing up drunk on the job, and the boss thought he was doing the guy a favor by calling it a layoff so he could collect unemployment. His hours had previously been cut to almost part time status anyway, no doubt accelerating his descent into the financial abyss.

  What didn’t make sense, however, was that he had actually been allowed to sign himself out so quickly. Guys in that condition generally don’t just walk out of the hospital like nothing was wrong. They end up back in court ordered rehab. I can only assume the lemure was able to anchor into the host quickly to make his injuries look less severe than they were, and then convinced the doctors to let him sign out using a little demonic juju. We had assumed that we had a little more time to prepare. Or at least a little more time for me to brush up on binding incantations.

  “He ain’t here,” says a voice from behind us. We turn around to see a woman balancing a baby on one hip and a bag of groceries on the other. She looks me up and down with a scowl. “And even if he was he can’t afford what you’re selling.” The woman stumbles a bit as she tries to juggle her groceries while digging out her keys.

  “Let me help with that,” says Houston as he steps forward and catches her bag before she drops it.

  “Boy Scout,” I think.

  “I’m just being nice,” he thinks back.

  “Did he move out?” I ask. The woman doesn’t respond. She’s too busy ogling Houston. “Did he move out?” I repeat.

  “Oh, dunno,” she finally says. The baby begins to fidget. “Heard he had an accident at work. Might be staying with his mom.”

  “Do you know where his mother lives?”

  “I ain’t got no reason to tell a door to door salesgirl that.” The woman unlocks her door and takes her bag back from Houston. “You guys got a permit to be out here…soliciting.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Lemme handle this,” thinks Houston at me before turning to the neighbor. “We had an appointment, but I think our information is wrong. We were told he was interested in being a rep.”

  “Oh!” she says. “Yeah, he’s been looking for odd jobs to pay the bills. Doug paid him a few times to cut the lawn. You feel bad for people but you know sometimes people have to save themselves.”

  “Well, somebody looks like he needs a nap,” says Houston as he points at the infant. “Sorry we bothered you.”

  “Oh, you weren’t no trouble.”

  “Oakland Park,” he says as we get back into the car.

  “Did you read her thoughts?”

  “Of course I did. We’re demon-hunting, right?”

  “You really shouldn’t do that to people,” I say as I plug Oakland Park into my GPS. “Did she have a house number or anything?”

  “I don’t think she knew exactly. Might not even be the right street. But it’s all we got.”

  “Better than nothing.” I check the directions before starting down the street. “So what did she think…?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”

  “I’m beginning to not like you very much.”

  Oakland Park turns out to be a rather dilapidated string of apartment complexes. I’m not entirely comfortable parking my car in the visitor parking lot.

  I’m not picking up anything immediately with the Third Eye incantation. “You picking up anything?”

  “Yeah, a dozen reasons why we should not be in this neighborhood. Don’t look to your left.”

  “Why?” I ask as I turn my head to see what he is talking about.

  “My God, you are so predictable,” he says as he starts laughing. “
There was actually a drug deal going down on our right,” he thinks to me.

  “Ye gods!” I exclaim and slap him on the forearm. “Then why did you tell me to not look on my left?”

  “Because I knew you would look.”

  “I hate you.”

  Houston stops walking and just starts looking around. “May be a wrong address. Or he’s already left.”

  “Damnit.”

  “If we knew his mom’s name we could find her. See if she knew where he was.”

  “Let’s head back to the office. I’ll call Steve and tell him we’ve hit a wall.”

  “You know, this isn’t our job. You were doing him a favor.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why do you sound so dejected?”

  “I’m a damn rank three Demonologist and I can’t find a goddamn stupid lemure. Mom would have had this done by now.”

  “Your mom didn’t take a twelve year break pursuing a career. And it’s only been four days.”

  “Four days is forever when dealing with an unbound demon, lemure or not. Every day it is free is a day it gets stronger. And there is the risk that it might jump bodies when it wears the current one out.”

  “Wait, I’m not following you. What do you mean wear out the current one?”

  “As a demon pursues its desires, it corrupts the host. The more it gives in to its desires, the faster the host deteriorates. And considering this neighborhood that is a whole lot of corruption over a short period of time.”

  “So this guy is gonna die if we don’t find this thing soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  June 29th

  “Oakland Place. Oakland Park. Six of one. Half dozen of the other,” says Houston as we park in the condominium’s visitor lot.

  “Hardly! We lost valuable time looking for this guy based on your wrong information.”

  “My wrong information? It’s not my fault the neighbor had a bad memory.”

  “Well, maybe if she wasn’t so busy undressing you with her eyes she wouldn’t have had memory problems.”

  “That personal experience talking, boss?”

  “Oh don’t start.”

  Steve’s apprentice was able to get us a good address and some additional information about the target. Apparently Lee Brennon, alcoholic, drug addict, and demonic host, was the errant only son of Monroe and Helen Brennon, owners of Brennon Temporary Staffing Services. The Brennons had tried to do all they could do to help their son until four years ago when he attacked his father during a drug-induced rage. That had been the final straw and they had cut all ties with him.