by Hunt, S. A.
The polished cement floor was as cold as a well-digger’s ass under Joel’s bare feet. He went to the nearest stack of kennels—this one only three cages high—and laced his fingers into the bars, lifting it up. The fluffy cat inside reached out and pinned his hand with a paw, pleading in a smoky voice. “Yowwwww. Yowwwww.”
Joel glanced at Bowker. The LT tucked the corners of his mouth back in a mean, imperative smile. Go on now, do what you’re told.
24
KENWAY MADE BURRITOS FOR lunch while the two witch-hunters talked shop at the kitchen table. The GoPro sat on the table, dark and deactivated, staring straight up at the ceiling as everybody talked over it.
Leon wanted to save room for the steak, so he passed on lunch. “No point spending that much money on something and not be starving when you dig into it.” So he sat in the living room getting ready for the coming week, going over lesson plans and grading a pop test he’d given Friday. He hadn’t gotten around to it with Wayne’s emergency hospital visit. “Witches and monsters can’t make your job disappear,” he said, and dived into his homework.
There was something else eating at Dad, that much Wayne could tell, at least, and it wasn’t the sauce. Leon didn’t seem amenable to talking about it, though. Wayne left him to his own devices and sat in the kitchen, eavesdropping on the conversation.
The table was piled with a dozen old books, bound in choppy chunks of thick, yellowed pages. Titles in obscure Latin and insignia that looked like geometry diagrams were etched on their covers in faded gold. The ones in English had pretentious or boring titles like Chronology of Cabbalistic Philosophy, Essential Demonic Taxonomy, Invisible Science, Western Applied Invocation. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think they were college textbooks. They certainly sounded like the ones Dad had stacks of, boxed away in his bedroom.
Robin told Heinrich about her plan to use Wayne’s ring to get upstairs to the fourth witch without Cutty seeing her.
“Dangerous,” he said. “But I guess it’s our only choice.”
She’d put on a heavy-looking hoodie and now sat slumped back in a chair, one hand bundled into a pocket and the other flipping aimlessly through the contents of her cellphone. It struck Wayne that this was the first time he’d seen her behave so much like your average young woman, and to be honest it looked rather strange on her. He had grown accustomed to seeing her pacing around with restless energy, explaining things to the GoPro.
“You look like you’re only really alive when you’re on camera talkin about paranormal stuff,” Wayne told her in a conversational lull.
She regarded him with those tired, ancient eyes. “What do you mean?”
“When you’re not on camera, you’re quiet. Shy, I guess. Like, when your internet camera is rolling, that’s when you come alive.”
“Yeah?”
The corner of Heinrich’s mouth twitched. “You do, actually. As soon as that red light comes on, you start talkin your ass off and gettin yourself into trouble. The rest of the time your head is in the clouds. You’re in your own little world.”
“One of the nurses at the hospital used to call me an attention whore.” She shucked up one of her sleeves to show Heinrich the cut on her wrist. “She said that’s why I did this. And why I was faking schizophrenia and asking for medication.”
“Sounds like you’re not so much an ‘attention whore’ as you got acting in your blood. Maybe you missed your calling in Hollywood.”
Robin laughed. “I couldn’t act my way out of a wet paper bag.”
“That’s true. You don’t even act like you give a shit half the time.” Heinrich drummed a jaunty rimshot on the table.
She snorted.
“At least you know it’s not schizophrenia.” He squinted in annoyed disbelief. “Besides, who the hell joneses for anti-psychotics?”
“I don’t know what it is, schizophrenia or not. Or how it involves the demon my mother summoned.” Opening one of the books on the table, she flipped through page after page of demonic drawings and handwritten text. “I’ve been researching this thing. Wayne here calls it Owlhead.”
The left-hand page had a detailed but primitive drawing of a man with a bird-head and huge staring eyes. His right hand clenched a broadsword, and his left hand was up in the air as if trying to get someone’s attention. It didn’t quite look like the thing in the Darkhouse, but Wayne could see how somebody could extrapolate this drawing from what he’d seen in there.
“This guy right here is the closest I can find to what we’re dealing with,” she said, holding up the book so they could all see it. “He’s a killer spirit, a chaos-maker.”
“A cacodemon,” said Heinrich.
On the right-hand side was a long passage, preceded by a circle full of lines and symbols. “‘The sixty-third spirit is Andras,’” she said, reading from the book. “‘He is a great Marquis of Hell, appearing in the form of an angel with a head like a wood-owl, riding upon a strong black wolf, and having a sharp and bright sword flourished aloft in his hand.’” She paused, her lip curled in disgust. “If that was the body of an angel, angels are freakin hairy. ‘His office is to sow discord. If the exorcist have not a care, he will slay both him and his fellows. He governeth thirty legions of spirits, and this is his seal.’”
Heinrich was meticulously folding a piece of paper into some elaborate shape. “The Ars Goetia.”
“What’s that?” asked Wayne.
“One part of a very old spellbook called The Lesser Key of Solomon. Basically a demonic encyclopedia.”
The boy’s face flashed cold. “Ah.”
“Not the original, of course. This one is four transcriptions removed from that one.” The old man put the paper on top of the pile of books. He had folded it into the rough shape of a dog, or perhaps it was a horse.
“So Owlhead’s real name is Andras?”
“I don’t know,” said Robin. “Maybe.”
She stared meaningfully at the corner of the kitchen next to the back door. Heinrich shifted in his seat to look, and a thrill of adrenaline buzzed through Wayne’s system. “Is he there?” asked the boy, his voice barely above a whisper. “Can you see him?”
“No, but I can feel him. You know when we were in the bathroom? I could feel him in the house. Like a sort of mental radar. Like heat coming off an oven.”
“I have a theory,” said Heinrich.
“Lay it on me.”
“It explains why Cutty used a familiar to murder your mother, and why they haven’t preemptively attacked you.” As if to illustrate his point, he thumped the paper dog across the room. It landed in the sink. “They’re afraid of the demon.”
“Weaver came into the house, though. She wasn’t afraid of him. And I could feel him here, looking at her like she was a cheap piece of meat.”
He gathered up a fist with an elaborate gesture. “Demons eat their energy. They’re psychic vampires. Like a poltergeist feeds on emotional energy, demons feed on paranormal will.”
“They don’t eat the witch herself?”
“Not that I can tell. I would have to see what Andras would do if he and the witches were in the same space, but he can’t get to her from where he is.” Heinrich picked up a book and studied the cover. “Which I’m calling the Dreamlands, by the way. From the old H. P. Lovecraft books.”
“You’re finally getting into something even I’m familiar with,” said Kenway, pointing a spatula. He was stirring a pan of ground beef, filling the kitchen with the smell of taco meat. “When I was in high school, I read a lot of Lovecraft stuff. ‘Colour Out of Space’, Cthulhu, ‘Cold Air’, all that jazz.”
“Cthulhu.” Wayne smiled. That he had heard of, being a horror fan—the giant green octopus-faced monster from the ocean.
“Anyway,” continued Heinrich, “the demon is accidentally keepin us safe. I don’t think Andras can see us on this side—he can only find you if you’re expending spectral energy, like some kinda magic-seeking bloodhound. I think if any of the
m bitches up there try to use their power here in the house, Andras will tear into em. And they know it.”
“If only we could get Andras out of there.” Kenway tore open a bag of tortillas and laid them out on a plate. “Maybe we could lead him up to their house and let him go to town on em. Sic him on em like a dog.”
Robin smirked. “You want to let a ‘Marquis of Hell’ loose in the material world?”
He paused. “…Yeah, now that you put it that way, maybe it’s not such a good idea after all.” Opening the fridge, he took out sour cream and pico de gallo, then opened a can of refried beans and put them in the microwave to heat up. “Maybe we could trick the witch into going into one of Wayne’s doorways.”
She eyed Heinrich. “There’s a thought.”
“Maybe.” An absent look came over his eyes, and then he nodded. “That’d be a better plan than trying to nail her down with the Osdathregar.”
“What’s the Oz—thad—garerer?” asked Wayne.
“The dagger I showed you.” Robin made a fist and thrust it forward as if stabbing something. “It’s called the ‘Osdathregar’ after the ancient Zoroastrian priests that used to wield similar daggers in purification ceremonies. People at the Vatican call it the Godsdagger.”
“Is it really made with the nails from Jesus’s cross?”
Heinrich sat back and laughed. “It’s made outta the shoenails from John Wayne’s horse. Who the hell knows what’s in it? All I know is that it does what it’s supposed to, and that’s all that matters to me.”
Letting out a frustrated sigh, Robin got out of her chair and paced around the table, her hands in her pockets. “I’m thinking of contacting Andras again.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“I need to know what happened to my mother. In the vision from Andras, I saw him climb out of the well she opened with the ritual and drag her back into the cellar.”
“She must have escaped like Wayne did.”
“Maybe. I doubt it. I think the demon let her go for some reason. I want to find out what that reason was.”
Heinrich shook his head, his voice hardening. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. The last time you had a seizure. A bad one. Exposing yourself to the demon that way again might give you more brain damage than you already have.”
She huffed in derision.
“I agree.” Kenway turned off the stove and ran hot water over the steaks to speed up their thawing. His eyes were furtive, bashful, as he told her he’d rather not see her that way again. “That scared the hell out of me, Robin.” The look on his face said if not for you, then do it for me, so obvious that even Wayne could see it.
Robin stood at the door and stared out into the hallway. “Why am I so sensitive to this thing? Why can I feel it when you guys can’t? Why is it sending me visions?” She looked over her shoulder. “Am I a witch? Did my mom sacrifice my heart when I was a baby?”
“That would be the ultimate irony,” said Heinrich. “A witch hunting witches. And economical, to boot—a two-for-one ceremony. But no…that’s not how it works. For starters, if you’d been initiated when you were a baby, you’d still be a baby. Witches grow old, but they don’t grow up. They die inside, remember? The power of Ereshkigal is what keeps them alive. Besides, you have a heartbeat. A pulse. You have a heart. And I assume you have monthlies, something witches don’t.”
Robin barked nervous laughter. “Yeah, that’s true.” She ruffled a hand through her wavy mohawk and leaned against the doorframe. “Boy, that’s a load off my mind.”
“Andras has haunted this house your entire life.” Heinrich got up from the table, tapping out one of his coconut cigars and sauntering toward the back door. He took out his lighter. “I can’t imagine you would grow up with that ugly bastard and not acclimate to his presence to some degree,” he said, lighting the cigar and heading out to the back stoop to sit and smoke.
While he was gone, Robin put together Wayne’s burrito and the three of them sat down to eat. “I really like you guys,” Wayne told them. “I’m glad we moved in here and met you.”
“Yeah?” Robin smiled. “I like you too.”
There was a faint bruise in the corner of Kenway’s mouth, as if he’d wiped at it with dirty hands. “Your dad’s got a hell of a haymaker, too. Can’t hate a guy that can throw a punch worth a damn at a guy with fifty or sixty pounds on him.”
❂
Robin spent the afternoon editing footage, sitting in the cupola with Kenway and Wayne while they riddled each other with bullets in Halo. Heinrich had convinced her not to upload any more video since they were aware that Karen Weaver watched them, and he didn’t want to advertise their plans. “That’s how a lot of units got their asses kicked in the Civil War,” he told them. “Their tactics and plans got published in the newspapers. 114th So-and-so Regiment Marching to Antietam Monday. Stuff like that. Loose lips sink ships.”
“I’ll save it up and make a feature-length entry out of it next weekend, then,” she said.
“Assuming we make it to next weekend.”
“Ye of little faith.”
Around four, Kenway went down to prepare the steaks. He covered both sides in a layer of sea-salt and seasonings, then lay them on plates in the fridge to rest. “The salt breaks down the proteins and draws out the water. The seasonings take the water’s place in the meat. You let it sit for an hour or two, then take it out, rinse off the salt, pat it dry, and there you go—dry-aged steak, just like you’d get in a fancy restaurant.”
“How’d you get so good at cooking?” asked Leon. “I thought you were in the Army. Were you a cook?”
“No. I was stationed with an Italian unit. Every weekend, or every other weekend, we would buy some cheap steaks off the civilian dining-facility contractors in Camp Stone and grill them on this big piece of wire mesh laid across stacks of cinder blocks. This Italian fella Sergeant Querini showed me how to salt a steak to dry-age it.”
As six o’clock drew nearer and nearer, the house seemed to tighten around them. Wayne could feel the clock ticking like a man on the morning of his execution, a slow dreadful stretching of time. Nothing on TV could hold his attention for long, and a book was out of the question. All he could focus on was the mission-house at the top of the hill.
“I want to go with you,” he finally told Robin, tearing his gaze away. The two of them were playing Halo against Kenway, and they were losing because Wayne kept staring out the window.
“Go where?” She jumped into a jeep and tore across a virtual landscape. “With me and Heinrich?”
“Yeah.”
“Nooooo. Even if the witches didn’t expect you at dinner, your dad would never agree to that.”
Kenway came out of nowhere on a flying purple jet-thing, slamming into Robin’s jeep and flipping it over. She fell out of it and lobbed plasma grenades at him, but he was already too high, corkscrewing through the sky. “What do you mean, ‘me and Heinrich’?” he asked, firing blasts of energy. “I’m going too. We agreed: I’m your sidekick now.”
She sighed, running into a cave, dirt pluming up behind her from his volley of gunfire. A rocket-launcher lay on the cave floor. “That I did. But I need you outside, watching the house. You’re my lookout.”
“Lookout?” He crammed the Banshee jet into the cave opening and ejected from the back, trapping her inside.
“Yeah. We’ll plug hands-free earbuds into our cellphones and use them as tactical radios. I bought a couple of em this morning.” She blew the jet to pieces with a rocket, loaded another, and came charging out, firing at Kenway. He sprayed her with a hail of rifle bullets, but the rocket hit the ground at his feet and blasted him into the air. “You take up position outside the garden wall where you can see through the dining room windows.”
Kenway’s soldier tumbled against a boulder and collapsed in a lifeless heap. He materialized on the other side of the area behind a massive stone monolith, standing next to another jeep. He snatched up a nearby
rifle and took off, driving through a grove of trees.
“I’m assuming all three of them are going to be at dinner, and the fourth will stay upstairs as usual,” said Robin, trading the empty rocket launcher for the rifle off of Kenway’s body. “As far as I know, she’s bedridden. Or disfigured.”
“Or maybe they keep her up there to keep her safe.” Wayne came trundling over the hill in a tank, driving down into a valley as Robin came along.
“Or that.”
Pride lifted the corner of Wayne’s lips in a crooked smile.
“If you see any of the other three behave strangely, as if they’re aware I’m in there, or if you see them head upstairs, I want you to alert me.” The jeep burst out of the foliage at the top of the river bed, heading straight for Robin’s face.
Wayne fired a tank shell into the jeep’s passenger side, exploding it in midair, and the flaming vehicle sailed over her head. Kenway’s armored corpse flopped into the brook at Robin’s feet in a shower of discarded weapons and grenades.
He elbowed Wayne in the ribs, grinning for the first time since they’d met. “All right now, kid…you’re gonna make me go into Beast Mode here.” Kenway leaned forward in concentration, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Climbing out of the tank, Wayne switched to his sniper rifle and ran away, throwing a grenade underneath. He was already crouching at the top of the river bed looking through his scope at Kenway when the tank exploded.
“Bring it, old man.”
25
A COUPLE OF HOURS later (without his cell Joel couldn’t tell, as though constant access to his iPhone had damaged his perception of time), the two brothers wedged the final kennel into place.
Surprisingly, all but three of the cages fit in the back of the truck. Euchiss took two of them and put them in the cab up front. Bowker urged Joel and Fisher into the cargo hold with the cats and pulled the rolldown shut on them.