Table of Contents
The Things People Bury
A Deal With the Devil
Careful What You Wish For
Nancy Werlock’s Diary:
A Deal With the Devil
By Julie Ann Dawson
Bards and Sages Publishing
Bellmawr, NJ
www.bardsandsages.com
© 2015 Julie Ann Dawson. All rights reserved.
Episode Eleven of the Nancy Werlock’s Diary Series
Features Three Nancy Werlock Stories:
The Things People Bury
When Steve asks Nancy to investigate a rumor of ghul activity in Bridgeton, she and Houston dig up something other than corpse-eating undead.
A Deal With the Devil
Nancy gets an unexpected customer in the shop looking to trade…nail clippings.
Careful What You Wish For
Nancy learns the fate of the man who killed her mother in a drunken driving accident.
These stories are works of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or undead is coincidental and vaguely disturbing.
Digital License
This digital product is licensed for the enjoyment of the original purchaser. Please do not engage in file-sharing or illegal duplication. While we do not rely on DRM, we do employ DAP (Digital Arcane Protection). Illegal file sharing may result in gremlins or other mystical creatures overtaking your computer or ereader. Such infestations would be considered “acts of gods” and most likely not covered by your warranty. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
The Things People Bury
October 12,
“You still have the lead box, don’t you?” asks Evoker Geoffrey.
“That really isn’t the point,” I reply. “I can’t keep him.”
“As a Rank Two Demonologist, you don’t require any special permission to house a fiend.”
“That isn’t what I meant. I won’t keep him. This isn’t my job.”
“I’m sorry. The situation at the hall is…complicated. With the thought beasts multiplying, we have to contain the current problem before we can inter any other entities, particularly something as powerful as a fiend.”
“You know, I have this vague memory of someone saying ‘we once housed a balor here. We can handle a thought beast.’”
“Sarcasm does not become you, Nancy.”
“Where is the Archmage?”
“He’s in the containment area. He wanted to get a firsthand survey of the situation. You know, if you and your apprentice—”
I hang up before he finishes the sentence.
In July, Houston and I stumbled across a thought beast while performing a routine faux exorcism. This particular thought beast took the form of a creature from the old horror movie Gremlins. We managed to capture it and took it to the Philadelphia Evocation Center for containment and destruction. Well, they should have destroyed it. But then the thought beast morphed into the cute, cuddly version of the Gremlin and they named it Gizmo and decided to keep it for observation.
Now apparently the apprentices responsible for feeding the creature and recording the observations are all too young to remember the movie (or its sequel). Because one of those geniuses decided to give the thought beast a bath! And then when they went to go alert Evoker Geoffrey of the issue, forgot to remove the food dish from the containment area. By the time someone realized what was going on, it was after midnight.
“Shouldn’t we go help them?” asks Houston.
“No,” I reply. “I warned them. I specifically told them to destroy it. I’m not bailing them out of this. And for the record, you remember this the next time we come across something you think would make a nice pet!”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
“Because when we caught it you whined the entire time about taking it to the guild!”
“I wasn’t whining. I just…nevermind. What if they get out? I mean outside the guild out?”
“Even if they get out of the building, they won’t be able to get off the property. Between the wards and Gatekeeper, they aren’t going anywhere.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe they were allowing apprentices to handle a thought beast like it was a puppy! You know who is to blame for this?”
“Er…the Archmage?”
“No. Urban Fantasy.”
“Urban Fantasy? Any book in particular?”
“The whole genre. It is full of protagonists that are more concerned with fashion sense than survival and encourages the infantizing of demonic entities to the point that witches don’t respect the powers they are dealing with.”
“That sounds like an article topic for Demonology Today. You should run with.” Houston picks up the pocket watch out of the lead-lined box and slowly spins it on its chain. “Well, Amy, looks like you’re moving in for a while after all.”
“I will strive to make my stay useful,” replies the demon.
“Yeah, well, the question is, useful to whom?” I say as I collapse on the sofa. I knew…I just knew…I should have taken the possessed pocket watch to the Guild hall the day we found it. Amy is a Rank Four Fiend that took possession of the pocket watch in an attempt to eventually take control of an inexperienced warlock. But the warlock got cold feet and locked the pocket watch behind a wall and magical barrier and it wasn’t until his granddaughter inherited the house that anyone even realized something was wrong.
I should have taken it to the guild hall that day, but we were all tired after spending most of the afternoon investigating the matter and Houston and Eric were complaining that they were hungry. Now on top of everything else going on, I have to babysit a fiend.
Eric calls from the shop to let me know that the last of Vivika’s ritual components arrived via courier. It took some effort to keep Anastasia from opening the box to confirm the contents with the manifest. Not that Eric let her read the actual manifest, but she has gotten very insistent regarding confirming shipment contents after reading some case study of her mother’s business textbooks about proper inventory control and a florist that was fined by the FDA when an erroneous shipment of marijuana was shipped along with some tulip bulbs.
I’m fairly sure there was more to the story, but I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know. She means well, but her meaning well doesn’t make her desire to open boxes filled with expensive ritual components and less problematic.
After confirming with Eric that the box was, in fact, secure and that there was no other issue, I lock Amy in the lead box and Houston and I summon Vivika to discuss her other requirements.
Vivika manifests in a translucent form. Her face bears the usual haughty smile, but the rest of her body language indicates anxiety. Apprentices are often surprised to discover that ghosts have “body language” just like the living. But so much body language is learned behavior that the habits carry over into death.
“Tell me you have good news, Nancy,” says Vivika.
“The last of the components arrived. Everything is stored at the shop.”
“I don’t suppose your friend in the Justicars has learned anything about Brynwolf’s whereabouts?”
“The last I spoke to Steve, they still didn’t have any leads.”
“On the bright side, no leads means he has yet to play his hand,” she says with a nod. “We may yet get the jump on him.”
“So, where do we go from here, Vivika?” asks Houston.
Vivika stares at her son blankly. Even I am a bit surprised that he would call his mother by her name. His aura is flaring a muddy dark blue, which you normally find when someone is afraid for the future. If he was a concerned son worried about his mother’s survival, such an aura would be exp
ected. But I know the truth and realize that flaming aura would be red with anger if not for the fact that the Lord Advocate had taught Houston how to alter his aura.
Vivika looks down at her feet. “In my current form, Nancy, it is impossible for me to naturally summon up the amount of energy required for this ritual. How close can we get to the cairn without attracting attention?”
“You want to tap the cairn?” I ask. “You never mentioned tapping the cairn.”
“I won’t need to tap it, nor would I ask you to allow it to be tapped. But the Veil is already thin and will be at its thinnest during Samhain. There should be enough latent energy leaking naturally from the cairn to power the ritual. And on the bright side, if we channel that latent energy, it should prevent any more cryptids or thought beasts spontaneously forming in the Pine Barrens, yes?”
“Theoretically, yes,” I reply. “And all things considered, I suppose I can arrange for Houston and me to get assigned to watch over the cairn that day under the pretense of preventing anyone from tapping it.”
“I will leave it to you then to mark off a suitable location. We will also need to arrange a decoy. Something to deflect Brynwolf’s attention away from us. Perhaps your mother and grandmother could contrive some false ritual here at the house to draw his attention?”
“I would think you would want their help with the ritual considering that they can easily help you call up as much energy as you might need.”
“And don’t you think Brynwolf would in fact notice such a huge pooling of power?”
“Valid point,” I say. Vivika has never liked my mother or Nanna Morri. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew the truth about her identity, I would chalk it up to professional jealousy. But I realize she just wants my family as far away from her ritual as possible to keep them from interfering.
Vivika still thinks that we believe her tale about how Byrnwolf was dabbling in forbidden magic and had her killed to keep his secret. She thinks we believe her when she says this ritual will trap Brynwolf so that he can be brought to justice before the Nine.
But Houston and I have spoken to Brynwolf and learned the horrible truth. Vivika was never just a gifted psion. This is just the most recent incarnation of Chana Magus, an 18th century Haemomancer who unlocked a path to immortality…if the idea of consuming the souls of other human beings didn’t bother you too much. He showed us the evidence, and I was able to surreptitiously confirm the information without attracting undue attention from the Guild.
So Vivika is setting a trap to capture the Lord Advocate and, we assume, take over his body and identity. But our plan is to turn her trap on her and capture her so that she can be destroyed once and for all.
And despite all of his protests to the contrary, I’m really worried about Houston’s mental state in all of this. Plotting to destroy your mother is sort of a big deal. Even if she really does have it coming.
My phone rings. It’s Steve. “Hey, need a favor,” he says.
“I am not going to the Guild hall!”
“Wait, what happened at the Guild now?”
“Nothing. Nothing they can’t handle, anyway. What’s going on?”
“I’m stuck at the cairn and I just got a call that something is at the Old Broad Street church. Can you run down there and check it out for me?”
“What do you mean by something? And what happened to the cairn now”
“Red Turtle is here. Don’t worry about the cairn. Just the same old, same old bullshit. I just don’t want whatever is going on at the church to go on too long.”
“So what exactly is going on there?”
“Got a report over the app from a Rosalind Jones, I think she’s a local. You know her?”
“She’s a hoodoo priestess. She orders supplies through the shop. I don’t know her well.”
“According to her report, there has been vandalism activity at the church.”
“And in other news, water is wet.”
“Yeah, that was my thought at first, too. But they are also reporting sink holes.”
I drop my arms to my side and sigh. Houston shrugs at me and waits for an explanation. “Why don’t you call the necromancers? This is their specialty.”
“After what happened during the zombie walk I don’t trust them to actually destroy it if it is what I think it is. I need someone I know will kill the damn thing. Call them in for clean up afterwards if you want.”
“Steve, I get that you are still pissed off at them, but you know I’ve been up to my eyeballs in crazy the last few months and—”
“Nancy, I wouldn’t ask you if I had other people I could trust. But I don’t. That cemetery is within walking distance of multiple schools. I don’t want to think about what happens if some kid cuts across the cemetery and falls into a trap.”
“You should be a mother the way you wield guilt.”
“I owe you.”
“Multiple times over.”
* * *
The Old Broad Street Presbyterian Church and Cemetery was built in 1792 and is the final resting place of New Jersey governor Elias P. Seeley. It is on the national register of historic places. And, apparently, is now the home of a ghul.
Undead are not my specialty. With the exception of Chancellor Vianu, I’ve never even talked to a vampire. Well, not knowingly. I might have and not realized it. The Delaware Valley has a fairly large vampire population, after all. But they leave us alone and we leave them alone and therefore we all go about our respective business. There was a blow-up of sorts in Philadelphia a few years ago and from what I understand the Blood Court had called in a favor with the Technomancers to shut down some cell towers temporarily to prevent a breach. But I never did get the full story.
I don’t count the zombies we dealt with at the cairn because those were thought beasts acting like zombies from popular fiction. So they weren’t real zombies per se.
Houston is on his new tablet searching WitchNet for information on ghuls while I drive. “Good news is that ghuls aren’t virulent. So if we get bitten we won’t get zombified,” says Houston.
“That’s reassuring. How do we kill it?”
“Fire or sunlight seems to be the most effective means. Oh God, that’s disgusting!” Houston looks away from the tablet.
“What?”
“We should have picked up some chainmail. Someone posted images of a ghul victim.”
“You and Eric ate an entire pizza during that Walking Dead marathon and now you get squeamish?”
“Walking Dead isn’t real. This could be me in thirty minutes.”
“Talk to me. What do they do? I need to know.”
“According to the article, ghuls prefer decaying flesh to the living flesh. That’s the good news. They burrow under coffins, break them open, and feast on the corpses. The bad news is that they will totally make their own corpse banquet if one isn’t already available. Ghuls attack from below by dragging prey underground, where they then kill the victim and leave it to putrefy in a pool of water until ripe. Yummy!”
“What are the signs of ghul activity?”
“Primary sign are sink holes, which indicate the ghul has broken into a coffin from below and eaten the corpse.”
“Do they even still bury people at that cemetery? I would think all of the old graves are nothing but bone at this point.”
Houston shrugs. “Get this. Apparently ghuls hibernate for years or even decades at a time. Ghuls have been known to go into hibernation when their feeding grounds become dormant, and then awaken at the first introduction of fresh corpses.”
“So this thing could have been there for decades and is just now waking up with the munchies?”
“Any plan here, Boss? How do we find this thing? And if we find it, do you just call down Hellfire on it in the middle of the day?”
“For now, let’s just do the walkthrough and see if we can get a clue where it lairs. We can just try to get a better idea of what we are dealing with, and then come back with a r
eal plan. And maybe bring Lee.”
“Your demonic knight in shiny armor? He has experience saving you from the undead.”
“I hate you sometimes.”
I park the car across the street from the church and we walk around the perimeter taking pictures. The beauty of “historic” towns like Bridgeton is that people don’t get bent out of shape when strangers are taking pictures of buildings. They just assume you are a history or architecture buff.
The gate is unlocked, so we walk onto the property and begin strolling through the graves, continuing to take photos. We come across the first sunken grave. At the second sunken grave, we notice the “vandalism” that was reported. There are long, claw-like markings on the tombstone.
“Houston, what did the file say on ghul physiology.”
“Two to three inch long talons that can cut through hardwood and stone. Razor-like teeth to break open bones to get to the yummy marrow. What you would expect from a monster that eats corpses.”
“I’m going to kill Steve.”
By the time we finish a full walkthrough, it is almost dusk. The last of the sunken graves is so old that the tombstone is missing. I snap the picture and take one last look around. “Something’s not right.”
“You think?” replies Houston.
I roll my eyes. “Look at the ground.” Houston gives me a perplexed look. “This soil was recently disturbed. The surrounding ground is covered in grass.”
“A recent grave…with no tombstone?”
We both kneel down and carefully dig away some of the loose soil with our hands. Six inches down, there is a piece of tarp. “Of crap,” I say.
“Boss, if that is what I think it is, this may be above my pay grade.”
“I gotta call Steve.” I stand up and start dialing my phone. Houston suddenly pushes me aside just as a claw bursts through the soil at my ankles.
nancy werlocks diary s02e11 Page 1