San…
What’s his name again, Tom?”
“Sancrittle, Tanscrittle… something like that. C’mon, Harry!”
“Sancridoodle, I conquer…”
“Conjure, Harry!”
“Conjure thee! A wake and arise!”
Nothing rose, except the stench from the thurible.
“Nothing happened, Harry.”
“I can see that, Tom!” Harry said, ripping off his robe in disgust. He staggered through the blinding smoke and opened a window, then turned back toward Tom. “I’m telling you, we are two of life’s biggest losers. We can’t even sell our souls to the devil!”
Tom absently pulled at his moustache, and then ran his hand through his thinning blond hair. “Maybe he doesn’t make house calls.”
“Not for us, he doesn’t!”
“I need a drink.”
“Good idea.”
They opened the bedroom door and almost choked on the sulphur fumes in the living room. It took the men a few moments to see the figure sitting in Harry’s best armchair. Its tail was draped decorously over the arm of the chair, and its scaly, webbed feet were propped up on an antique divan. In its right hand was a bottle of liquor. As Tom and Harry watched it lifted the bottle and drained off the contents in one swallow.
“Hey!” Harry yelled. “That’s my best Scotch!”
“Harry,” Tom whispered, tugging at his friend’s sleeve, “I don’t think this is the time. We’ve got ourselves a demon.”
The figure in the chair belched and turned toward them. It smiled. “Hi,” it said. It lifted the bottle. “Great stuff. Great stuff! Booze is only a legend where I come from.”
“A drunken demon,” Harry whispered.
As one, the two men turned and rushed back into the bedroom, slamming shut and locking the door behind them.
“Hurry, Harry!” Tom yelled as Harry struggled to get back into his robe.
“How do we send it back?”
“How do I know? Try saying the spell backwards!”
“Backwards? I can᾿t even remember it forwards!”
“Do something!”
“Dont yell, Tom! You’re making me nervous!”
The demon ended the conversation by coming through the wall, “Excuse me,” it said, extricating a piece of plaster from one of its horns. It waved one of its hands; the Black Altar, books and thurible disappeared. “I know you’re a little upset by all this,” it continued pleasantly, “but there’s no way I’m going back to where I came from. No way. Life in hell is, well, hellish. I want to change my life-style.”
“You talk in stereo,” Tom whispered haltingly. “That’s a pretty good trick.”
“Yes,” it said with a touch of pride. Something flickered in the holes where its eyes should have been. “I have a pretty good singing voice, too. Do you have any favorites?”
“Well, I like…”
“Shut up, Harry!” Tom said sharply. Then, to the demon: “Who are you?”
“My name is Wotzel,” Wotzel said. “You’re Tom and Harry. I’m really happy to meet you. And I want you to know that I appreciate…”
“We’ve never heard of you,” Tom said shortly.
Wotzel’s scales and horns turned a deeper shade of red. “It doesn’t surprise me,” he said with a trace of sadness. “I’m not written up much. As a matter of fact, I’m not written up at all. I’m afraid that I’m considered rather … incompetent. I was just starting to tell you how much I appreciate your efforts on my behalf. In the entire history of mankind nobody else has ever figured out a spell to conjure me up.”
Tom turned to Harry. “It figures,” he said dryly.
“Listen, I’m really sorry about all this,” Wotzel said, gesturing around the room. “Let me see what I can do to tidy things up.”
Wotzel wiggled a horn. The wall materialized back into place; original editions of Alice In Wonderland, Moby Dick, and Superman appeared on the bed.
Tom whistled softly. “I thought you said you were incompetent.”
Wotzel shrugged. “I can’t handle the heavy stuff.”
“What heavy stuff?”
“Evil. I get migraine headaches if I try to do anything evil.” Wotzel shuddered and his scales rustled. “Which brings us to the file question of why you summoned me. I’ll be happy to work some spells, as long as you don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“I need a drink,” Tom said woodenly.
“He drank it all,” Harry replied with a touch of petulance.
Wotzel wiggled his left horn and produced a case of Chi vas Regal and two glasses.
Harry looked at Wotzel suspiciously. “Who’s not drinking?”
“I’ll take mine right from the bottle, if you don’t mind,” Wotzel said.”
Tom poured Harry a drink, then said: “You want to tell him?”
Harry lifted his glass to Wotzel who had already drained off three-fourths of a bottle. The black holes that were Wotzel’s eyes were developing a cloudy appearance, and the demon’s tail was beginning to flop uncontrollably on the floor.
“You’d better tell him quick, Harry,” Tom whispered. “I think he’s getting sloshed.”
“Basically,” Harry said, “the problem is simply that Tom and I are losers.”
“Gotcha,” Wotzel said, breaking wind. “I can understand that: I’m a loser too.”
“I mean,” Harry continued, “we’re such losers that our wives have left us. That’s why we’re living together in my house. Understand, it’s not that our wives don’t love us; it’s just that they’ve forgotten.”
Wotzel belched and broke wind at the same time. “I dig it,” he mumbled. His left channel of stereo sound was beginning to fade.
“Take our boss, Mr. Notbaum,” Harry continued. “Both Tom and I work in an advertising agency, and we’re good. But Notbaum waits until we finish a project, then he takes the credit for it. He steals all our best stuff!”
“And it’s the little things that are so annoying,” Tom interjected. “Harry and I go to Rome for a vacation and we get pinched by fat Italian women!”
“Traffic jams!” Harry cried. “For some reason, Tom and I are always getting stuck in traffic jams. Three o’clock in the morning on a country road and we find ourselves in a traffic jam! It’s gotten to the point where we always leave for work three hours early!”
“We don’t want to do anything evil,” Tom said plaintively. “We just want a little luck for a change. We think we’re entitled to it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Wotzel mumbled, and then passed out.
“I’m a failure,” Wotzel blubbered.
Mary Spanik knelt down beside Wotzel while Virginia Hodges caressed his forehead. Harry and Tom anchored his tail; they were used to Wotzel’s fits of depression after drinking bouts and they were sure he would get over it.
“You’re not a failure,” Virginia said, her large brown eyes flashing with indignation. “You’ve brought us all back together again.”
“A simple love spell,” Wotzel moaned. “Kindergarten demon stuff. It doesn’t even work unless the people love each other to begin with.”
“C’mon Wotzel,” Tom said, obviously embarrassed. “I cant stand to see a grown demon cry.”
Wotzel shook his head and reached for the bottle Mary had taken away from him. Mary pulled it away from him again.
“What about the traffic jams?” Mary said, pulling back her shoulders and ignoring Tom’s warning gesture. “You got Harry and Tom out of a traffic jam.”
Wotzel moaned loudly, his stereo carrying and reverberating around the house until the walls shook. “I stopped the whole world!” he cried. “For half an hour I stopped the whole world, and I was too drunk to remember how to get it started again! If it hadn’t been for Harry and Tom and their magic potion…”
“It was a gallon of black coffee, Wotzel,” Harry said wryly.
“A mere trifle.” Virginia sniffed.
“Don’t cry. Wotzel,”
Mary murmured. “We love you and you know we love you.”
“The race track.” Wotzel wailed.
“The army had no business sending four battalions of troops to guard one little race track. They were overreacting.”
Harry coughed. “The troops are still there. And the army has twenty thousand people who swear they saw a horse sprout wings and fly across the finish line. Not only that, they’ve got the horse, wings and all.”
“I shouldn’t have bet on him,” Tom sighed.
“Don’t blame yourself, Tom,” Mary said. “You couldn’t have known that horse had never won a race. There was a misprint in the program; it read ‘Secretariat’ when it should have read ‘Caesarian.’ The important thing is that Wotzel tried to help.”
“How’s the jockey?” Virginia asked.
“They’ve got a dozen Army psychiatrists working on him.” Harry said. “He’ll be all right” Suddenly he snapped his fingers. “Notbaum! That was a success! Wotzel certainly got Notbaum off our backs!”
Tom laughed. “Right. That was ingenious, Wotzel, making Notbaum forget to zipper up his fly every time he went to the toilet. It gave him something else to think about besides stealing our work.”
Wotzel’s tail twitched. “I don’t want to go back!” he cried. “I don’t want to go back!”
“You don’t have to go back,” Virginia said. “We’re all going to stay together for the time being, and, if anyone asks, remember that you’re our butler.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Harry and Tom pulled Wotzel to his feet while Mary and Virginia straightened his wig, gloves and dark glasses.
“C’mon, buddy,” Tom said, slapping Wotzel on the back, “shape up. You’ve got to answer the door.”
Wotzel weaved toward the door while Harry performed the finishing touches on his appearance by tucking the demon’s tail into his trousers.
Wotzel opened the door and promptly fainted. The man standing in the doorway was tall and wore dark glasses and gloves, as well as what appeared to be an ill-fitting wig. Mary and Virginia exchanged glances; they recognized the man as the one who had moved into the house next door the previous day while Tom, Harry and Wotzel were at the racetrack.
Harry and Tom dragged Wotzel over into a corner as the man, unbidden, stepped through the doorway.
“Uh, pardon our butler,” Mary said. “He hasn’t been well lately.”
“No need to apologize,” the man said in a voice that sounded suspiciously stereophonic. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am Mr. Amodeus. I’ve come to discuss a matter of mutual concern.”
Virginia stepped forward. “What matter would that be?”
“Your butler.”
Wotzel was awake now, moaning. “Amodeus,” he cried. “Don’t hurt them! Please don’t hurt them!”
“Look, pal,” Harry said in what he hoped was a threatening tone, “are you a friend of Wotzel’s?”
“‘Friend’ is not the word I would use,” Amodeus said in a deep, rich stereo. “‘Guardian’ would be more accurate. Wotzel is, well, backwards. He’s a retarded demon.”
“Well,” Virginia said archly. “I don’t think you have any right to talk that way about our butler!”
“Now, Mrs. Hodges, do you really want a butler who breaks wind all the time?”
“He doesn’t do that anymore!” Virginia said defensively. “He’s a perfectly capable butler!”
“Well, I’m afraid he’s going to have to come back with me now.”
Wotzel began to cry.
Harry stepped forward and grabbed Amodeus by the front of the shirt. Amodeus wrinkled his brow and Harry turned to stone. Virginia screamed.
“Please leave them alone!” Wotzel cried. “I’ll come back with you!”
Amodeus almost smiled. “You’ll come voluntarily?”
Wotzel nodded his head, dislodging his wig and exposing one trembling horn.
“Now wait just a minute!” Mary said sternly. “Wotzel, you don’t want to go back to that nasty place, do you?”
Wotzel hung his head. Something that sounded like electronic feedback issued from his lips.
“Uh, Mary,” Virginia said, tugging at her friend’s sleeve, “what about Harry?”
Mary shook her head obstinately. “We’ll pray!”
“Now wait just a minute!” Amodeus said. But he was already backing away as Mary fell to her knees. “You shouldn’t be too hasty! Let’s talk this over!”
Mary continued to pray. Virginia and Tom dropped to their knees and joined Mary in prayer. Amodeus suddenly turned and sprinted across the lawn, leaping a hedge and rushing into his house, slamming the door behind him.
“Amen,” Mary said, rising and turning to Wotzel.
Wotzel was clutching his stomach, and his red scales had taken on a sickly greenish-orange hue. “All that praying,” he mumbled. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Tom and Virginia had risen to their feet. “Don’t throw up now!” Virginia said. “Can’t you do something about Harry?”
Wotzel glanced at the statue that had been Harry. “Xrcmslpm,” he said.
The flesh tones came back into Harry’s limbs and he crumpled to the floor. Virginia brought him a drink, which he downed quickly.
“Damn,” Harry said. “I mean, damn!”
Wotzel beamed with pleasure. “It isn’t true what Amodeus said about me being backwards,” he said with more than a touch of pride. “They’re all the same down there: they think anyone who can’t do evil is backwards.”
“Wotzel,” Mary said thoughtfully, “if you’re so good, why does praying make you sick?”
“I don’t know,” Wotzel said distantly. “I suppose a demon is judged by the company he’s kept.” He paused, then added: “I suppose I have to go.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Harry said weakly.
“That is not a good idea,” Virginia said quickly. “Harry, where’s your gratitude? Wotzel has every right to stay here if he wants to! We all love him and we want him to stay. We’ll just tell that Amodeus where he can go!”
Wotzel coughed. “Harry’s right.” he said. “Amodeus is much more powerful than I am. He’ll try to hurt you, and I won’t be able to stop him. That stone thing with Harry was just a warning, a minor spelling exercise. He doesn’t want you; he wants me. I don’t know what he’ll do now.”
“Well, whatever he does, we’ll just fight!” Mary said determinedly.
“Right on!” Tom yelled. “Wotzel, the only thing you lack is self-confidence. If we stick together we can lick this Amodeus creep!”
The four humans began boarding up the windows while Wotzel sat on the floor, holding his head in his hands.
The attack began an hour later. It was a double-flank operation, with a horde of Black Widow spiders descending from the second floor and dozens of King Cobras crawling up from the cellar. Wotzel took up a position in the middle of the floor and began a series of disappearing spells while Tom, Harry, Virginia and Mary took cover behind a chair in the corner of the living room. The snakes and spiders seemed to come in a never-ending stream. Still, Wotzel seemed to be holding his own.
It was Harry who first noticed that the corner of the living room in which they were hiding had turned into a quicksand bog. Within a matter of seconds the four of them had sunk into the mud up to their hips.
“Wotzel!” Harry screamed. “We’ve got a problem over here!”
Wotzel turned in their direction and blanched a deep purple. His hands and horns seemed to be moving in all directions at once, “I … I can’t,” he stammered. “Amodeus is too strong!”
“Things don’t look too good, do they?” Tom said wistfully. The quicksand was now up to their armpits.
Virginia was staring off into space. “See if you can reach the telephone,” she said to Tom.
“The telephone?” Harry cried in exasperation. “Virginia, this is no time to be calling your friends!”
“I need a telephone,” Virginia repeated
calmly. “Tom, the stand is on the other side of the chair. Can you reach it?”
Tom reached out and jerked the telephone stand. The phone and directory fell toward them and Virginia plucked them out of the mud.
“Virginia,” Harry said, struggling to keep his chin above the mud, “just who do you plan to call?”
“Not who, what. Churches, synagogues and mosques.”
“Churches, synagogues and mosques?”
But Virginia had already found the listings she wanted in the Yellow Pages and was dialing a number.
“Hello?” The voice at the other end of the line was soft and well modulated.
“Hello,” Virginia said. “Are you a priest?”
“Father McCarey.”
“I’d like to report a miracle.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line, then: “A miracle?”
“Yes. A big one.”
“Well, Madam, uh, just what kind of a miracle is this?”
“It’s not the kind of thing you want to discuss over the telephone.” She gave Amodeus’ address. “You’d better get over there right away. And bring any assistants you may have. This is going to need some documentation.”
“Wotzel!” Tom shouted. “You’re going to have to give us a boost!”
Wotzel half-turned and wiggled his right horn. That brought the four humans back up to waist level, but then Wotzel was forced to turn his attention back to the snakes and spiders. Virginia continued making her calls, repeating the same message. When she had finished she had completed calls to ten churches, seven synagogues and a mosque. But the army of spiders and snakes was advancing, and Wotzel had been forced back almost to the brink of the quicksand bog.
“What do we do now?” Tom said.
“Pray again, I suppose,” Mary said wistfully.
“Don’t pray!” Wotzel said. “You’ll make me throw up! I’ve got all the problems I can handle!”
Mary squirmed around in the bog until she could see out the half-open door to her right. There was the sound of police and fire sirens in the distance. “Hey!” Mary said. “I can see across the way. There are a couple of priests wandering around Amodeus’ yard.”
“Priests?” Wotzel cried in a strangled voice. A pair of cobras slithered between his legs and sniffed at Tom’s face.
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