by J. R. Mabry
“Wow,” Richard said before he caught himself. “Okay, Teddy, let me tell you what happened. First, you did everything right, which is the only reason you are alive.”
Mrs. Barker’s hand went to her mouth.
“Second, your dog is not alive again.”
“He’s outside walking around,” Teddy objected.
“But he’s not alive,” Richard said. “He’s still dead. You just called a demon—a demon named Tenalphador, by the way—”
“Third level, Tenalpier’s host,” Terry said mechanically.
“—and now that demon is wearing Barney’s body, the same way you wear a coat. Barney’s body is walking around out there, but it’s not Barney.”
The child nodded then looked at his shoes. “He doesn’t act like Barney.”
“No. My guess is that he wants to rip your throat out.”
“He tried.”
“So you know you almost died twice today, right?”
“Oh my God!” Mrs. Barker nearly shrieked.
“Are you catching all this?” Tapper whispered to the sound man. He nodded.
“Teddy, this is our dog, Toby. He has a spirit in him, too. An angel.”
“Is he dead, too?”
“No. He and the angel are kind of…buddies. They’re sharing the body.”
Teddy made a face but brightened up when he saw the dog approach him. Richard noted Terry behind Tobias whispering instructions, no doubt in Enochian.
“The angel in Toby is as powerful as the demon in Barney. So Toby is going to stick to you like glue and he’s not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Teddy is not going back there,” Mrs. Barker said emphatically.
“Except that he kind of needs to,” Richard said. “We may need answers about the ritual, or the demon’s behavior that only Teddy here is going to know.” He turned and faced the boy again. “What do you say, Teddy? Can you be brave and face Barney again?”
“Do I have to watch him die again?” Suddenly all the teenage bluster was gone. Teddy looked like he might cry.
“You’ll see him return to peace. He’s not very peaceful right now, is he?”
Teddy shook his head. Richard placed a hand on his shoulder. “Okay, let’s go then.”
Teddy nodded curtly, squared his shoulders, and headed for the door at the rear of the garage. It led directly to the backyard, and Richard heard the snarls as soon as it was opened.
“Kat, why don’t you take point on this one?” Richard said.
Kat looked surprised.
“Gotta happen sometime, baby,” Mikael said. She, too, squared her shoulders and headed out the door.
Richard followed closely after and saw the dog. When he had tried to picture a Dachshund-Beagle mix in his head, the result was slightly comical—a large, tubby sausage-dog with a ridiculous name. And in life, he might have indeed been amusing.
Not anymore.
Fortunately for everyone involved, he was locked in a chain-link dog run, roughly six feet by nine feet, with a small dog house resting on a cement slab. “Teddy, tell me how you got Barney from the garage to the dog run.”
“The website said it could take a few minutes for it to take effect. Mom was calling me for dinner. So I put him out in the run and went to eat.”
“Do you always padlock the run?”
“Not if we’re home. I kind of did that on autopilot.”
Richard turned to the boy. “Your mom calling you for dinner? That saved your life. Your reflex to padlock the run? That saved your life. You do understand how close you came to dying today, right?”
The boy nodded, his eyes wide. “Are you getting how dangerous magick is?” Teddy nodded again. “Let me give you a bit of advice, Teddy,” Richard said. “I have known a lot of magickians in my time. Some of them are nice guys, good friends, and they do okay in life. But they’re the exception. Most magickians end up crazy or sick or dead. Do you understand why that might be?”
Teddy nodded.
“There are other ways to be powerful,” Richard said. “Ways that are much, much safer. And more productive, too.” He looked back at Barney. The dog was drooling, and his eyes were cloudy and wild. He growled aggressively, and every now and then he released a barrage of barking so loud and raw that it must have hurt.
“If he’s really dead, how is he moving?” Teddy asked.
“The demon you summoned is manipulating his body, just like a puppeteer does when he pulls the strings of a puppet. You’ve seen that kind of puppet, right?”
“Yeah, but it seems like it’s more like the kind you put your hand into. The demon is inside Barney, right?”
“Barney is gone,” Richard said. “What we have to do will be a lot easier for you if you remember that. The demon is inside the corpse.”
Dylan leaned over and whispered, “That’s harsh.” Richard ignored him.
Kat had opened her kit bag and was setting items out on the grass.
“What is your first move, Kat?”
“I think there’s two ways I could approach this,” she said, wiping a lock of hair out of her eyes.
“We could do the full-on frontal, ‘I-command-you-in-the-name-of-Jesus’ assault,” she started.
“Now yore talkin’!” Dylan said. “Ah’m all about that.”
“And it works great for you,” Kat smiled. “But I’d like to try something else. Something more…subtle.”
“Let me guess, something involving angels?” Richard asked.
“Yeah.”
“It’s not going to be great for the cameras,” Richard noted. Tapper frowned.
“I’m not terribly concerned about that,” Kat said. “I’m concerned with getting the demon out of the dog body without anyone else getting hurt—or possessed.”
“I am behind you one hundred percent,” Richard said. “Go for it.”
Kat nodded. Reaching into her kit bag, she pulled forth a hand-held censer and charcoal. She lit the charcoal and, as it was warming up, took a small box of salt and made a circle in the dirt around the dog run.
“What’s she doing?” Tapper edged in close to Richard.
“She’s making a salt line. Evil spirits don’t like salt.”
“You mean, the demon can’t cross over?”
“Can’t is a strong word. He could, but it won’t be pleasant for him. He’ll avoid it if he can.”
“So where will he go?”
“Two options,” Richard said. “Up or down.”
“Is this all normal?”
Richard shrugged. “It’s a particular way of working. It’s not our M.O., but I respect the form, which has its origins in British occult circles. I am particularly interested in seeing if Kat has mastered its minutiae.”
“How is it different from what you usually do?”
“Uh…our way of working is like a sledgehammer. This method is more like surgery.”
Kat sprinkled a few grains of frankincense on the charcoal and properly censed the corners of the yard. Barney watched intently, but without apparent alarm. Richard noted that he was beginning to list to the left, evidence that rigor was setting in and the demon was losing motor control.
Kat raised her hands into the orans position and prayed loudly and from memory: “In the name which is above every other name, and in the power of the Almighty, I exorcise all influences and seeds of evil from this yard. I exorcise all demons, parasites, ghosts, curses, spells, and bindings from this yard. I exorcise all thought forms, magical spirits, and bound angels from this yard. I cast upon them the spell chains and cast them into the outer darkness of the Abyss where they will not trouble the servants of God. Amen.”
Satisfied with this, she walked over to Terry and whispered in his ear. He nodded and knelt down to whisper to Tobias. Kat stepped over to Richard and said, “Get everyone on the east side of the yard, as far away from the run as possible. I need them to either be still and quiet, or to go back in the house now. And for God’s sake, don’t let an
yone make eye contact with Barney.”
“Why not?” Tapper asked. She was almost spooning Richard.
“Entry point. The demon could leap from the dog into you.”
Her eyes went wide. “Even over the salt?”
“Even over the salt. Just don’t look him in the eye.” Richard turned and passed Kat’s instructions along. Then, silently, he waved them all over to the east side of the yard. Barney began to follow them to the east side of the dog run, when Tobias let loose with a deafening barrage of barking. Running back and forth along the west edge of the dog run, Tobias drew Barney’s attention, and soon the two were snapping at each other, snarling aggressively.
Content that Tobias had things well in hand, Kat sat cross-legged about three yards from the dog run and closed her eyes. She saw the black wedge shimmering before her and stepped up and into it. On the other side, she stepped down into the Void. It was warm and desert-like, dimmer than the bright California afternoon she’d just stepped out of. A few tumbleweeds blew by, which Kat knew were not tumbleweeds at all but bound spirits. She saw mountains in the distance in one direction and knew it was just a short journey to the Abyss in the other. She looked around for Sandalphon but didn’t see any. “Aunt Beast!” she shouted. Mere moments later, she heard the rumble of large, heavy feet.
Tobias and Barney’s barking and snarling continued unabated.
“What’s she doing?” Tapper asked Richard. “She’s just sitting there with her eyes closed.”
“Hard to tell. My guess is that she’s just stepped into the Void and is enlisting the help of some Sandalphon.”
“What the fuck is a Sandal…whatsit?”
“It’s a creature—an angel of sorts. It helps.”
“That’s fucking weird, and I’ll take your word for it. But this is not good television.”
“Maybe later I can do a voice-over explaining what’s going on. Or you could insert a cartoon of what is actually happening in her head.”
Tapper blinked and started to chew on her lower lip, and Richard could almost see the wheels spinning in her brain.
Kat smothered her face in Aunt Beast’s fur, feeling her soft solidity, delighting in the smell of her otherworldly musk. She felt the great beast lower her head affectionately. Emerging from her hug, she saw that there were four of the beings surrounding her like the points of a compass. The Sandalphon were tall, nearly nine feet as close as Kat could estimate. Their bodies were curved, and they seemed to loom and sway above her in time to some lugubrious music she could not hear. They appeared to have no arms, and their heavy feet were elephantine. Their fur was dark brown, soft and prodigious. “Are you here to protect me?” she asked, but she knew the answer. The Sandalphon did not speak, but they certainly communicated. Feeling supported, empowered—certainly encouraged—Kat cried out again with authority. “I call out to the Angel of the Air. Come quickly, I beg you. I need your help!”
The answer to her plea was swift. The air around her whipped up into a whirlwind. She felt herself being bolstered by Aunt Beast behind her, and she clutched at a handful of fur to steady herself against the buffeting air. She forced her eyes open and saw a being emerge from the tempest—a being composed of a thousand eyes, a corona of radiant hair extending in every direction, and a thousand swords held aloft and ready to strike in every conceivable direction. The Angel was breathtaking, and the air around it crackled with energy. Despite knowing what to expect, Kat felt terrified, and she took an involuntary step backwards. Aunt Beast pressed gently against her back and nudged her toward the shining being. Kat understood her encouragement. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, screwed up her courage, and stepped forward. She strode directly toward the angel, ignoring the shimmering, flashing swords swishing perilously close to her. Then she took a final step forward, directly into the angel, merging with it, appropriating it into herself—or perhaps losing herself in it. She felt a great inrushing of energy and experienced several moments of vertigo. She was both small and inconceivably large, ancient yet young, many but one.
Opening her eyes, she saw the landscape of the Void and the Sandalphon shimmering with light that seemed to come from within rather than reflected out—radiating from them and yet somehow from beyond them. “That is glory,” she breathed. She realized that now she was seeing not just through two human eyes, but through a thousand angelic eyes—and the view was kaleidoscopic, even psychedelic. She wondered if perhaps what she was seeing was closer to what God sees.
Looking down she saw that she and the Angel of the Air were indeed one, and yet smaller versions of the Angel were buzzing all around her, preparing her. A breastplate was fastened to her chest by a flock of them. Gauntlets were fastened to her forearms and greaves to her shins. Several others brought to her hand a sword. She wondered if these were metaphorical or real. Then she wondered if it mattered. The hilt of the sword was solid in her hand, the grip was sure and firm. It was heavy but felt well-balanced in her grip, as if it had been crafted specifically for her height and weight. It didn’t bother her at all that she didn’t know how to use a sword—she instinctively knew how to use this one.
Having fully equipped her, the smaller angels dissipated. Kat turned to Aunt Beast and her companions. “Wait for me, please. I should be coming right back.”
Aunt Beast bowed. Kat squared her shoulders and strode confidently toward the portal that led in and out of the Void.
In the outer world, Kat leaped from her seated position to her feet. The motion was so sudden, so unexpected, that several people jumped. Kat looked at everyone assembled in the yard and saw Mrs. Barker clutching at her son’s shoulders, staring at her anxiously. She saw Richard looking uncertain and even a little frightened. She saw Terry, who smiled at her and winked. He sees, she thought. Terry had always been the most sensitive of all the Blackfriars. If anyone could see what I’ve become, he can. She smiled and winked back. “Give ’em hell,” Terry shouted. She bowed briefly in his direction, then turned toward the dog run.
Her eyes went wide, because now she could see the dog clearly; not just the puppet corpse that had once been Barney, but the demon coiled up inside him, as well. Kat cocked her head, trying to see it from different angles. She realized this was easier to do if she moved her sight from one set of eyes to another, rather than simply moving her head. The demon had taken the shape of what looked like a large shrimp living inside the dog, sending out feelers like the many feet of a crawdad into its body, connecting with spine and nerves and arteries, bludgeoning it from the inside into something pretending to be life.
She held her arm up, the one with the sword. She wondered if anyone else could see the sword. Terry can, she thought. Then she heard Terry’s voice, snapping a command in Enochian. Tobias stood down, ceasing his barking. He laid down instantly in the grass, panting and watching with interest. Barney gave Tobias a few more aggressive retorts then looked around as if confused.
“I call upon the demon Tenalphador,” Kat announced. “You will answer me.”
Barney froze, then slowly turned his head to look at Kat with one mad and ferocious eye.
“Tenalphador, are you willing to leave of your own accord?”
The dog’s lips pulled back into a black, malevolent grin. “Hades is coming,” the dog breathed in raspy but intelligible English. “And Hell and death are with him.”
Kat turned to face Mrs. Barker. “Open the run,” she ordered.
Mrs. Barker, eyes wide, turned to face her son. “Stay right here,” she commanded. He did not object. She stumbled as she approached the dog run, and her hands shook as she took up the lock. The fur on Barney’s haunches stood straight up, and a low growl began again in his throat. Mrs. Barker removed the lock but did not undo the catch. She stepped back toward her son and stood behind him, placing her arm around his chest protectively.
Richard made to intercept Kat, but she held up her gauntleted hand and he stopped. She strode to the door of the run and slid open the catch.
The door swung inside, and she moved to fill the doorway before the dog could escape. She swung the door behind her.
Snarling, drooling, and back hunched, Barney backed away from her, poised to spring. Calmly, she fastened the latch and turned toward the dog. She narrowed her eyes. “Last chance, asshole,” she said. “Are you willing to leave of your own free will?”
In answer, the dog sprang at her. She raised her left arm protectively, and Barney’s teeth sunk themselves into the meat of her arm. With her other hand, she brought the sword to bear, neatly severing the silver cord that tied the demon to the host body of the dog. Tossing the sword aside, she snatched at the crustaceous body of the demon, wresting it free of the dog’s spine and nervous system, dragging it backwards…and up…and out.
The body of the dog fell to the ground like a bag of meat, all semblance of life shorn from it in an instant. Holding the demon’s body aloft and away from her person, Kat sat down cross-legged, closed her eyes, and leaped through the portal into the Void. Aunt Beast was waiting for her. “To the Abyss,” she announced. “Let’s toss this motherfucker back to the level of hell where he belongs.”
Monday
Surrendering to total depravity,
they corrupted, murdered,
or cannibalized each other
and in their madness
prepared for war with God…
trying to fortify earth against heaven
and, in their delirium,
to do battle with the supreme Ruler himself.
—Eusebius, The Church History,
translated by Paul L. Maier
18
Richard was still groggy after morning prayer. “Coffee,” he said, stumbling into the kitchen. Brian wasn’t there with coffee ready, however. Instead, he saw Marco, once again in his underwear, wrestling with something on the stove that was beginning to burn. Tobias was at rapt attention, sniffing up at the stove. “Good God, Marco, whoever informed you that you could cook?”