* * *
And I, as usual, chose to choose . . . not.
* * *
The primary aim of magicians is to gather knowledg
e, because knowledge—as everyone finds out fairly early, from Schoolhouse Rock on—is power. To that end, we often conjure demons, who we use and dismiss in the same offhand way most people grab the right implement from their kitchen drawer: Fork, cheese-knife, slotted spoon; salt, pepper, sulphur. Keep to the recipe, clean your plate, then walk away quickly once the meal is done.
But even if we pursue this culinary analogy to its most pedantic conclusion, cooking with demons is a bit like trying to run a restaurant specializing in dishes as likely to kill you as they are to nourish you: Deathcap mushroom pasta with a side of ergot-infested rye bread, followed by the all-Fugu special. They’re cruel and unpredictable, mysterious and restless, icily malignant—far less potent than the actual Fallen who spawned them, yet far more fearful than simple elementals of fire, air, water, earth, or the mysterious realms which lie beneath it. Like the dead, demons come when called—or even when not—and envy us our flesh; like the dead, you must feed them blood before they consent to give their names or do your bidding.
Psellus called them lucifugum, those who Fly The Light. I call them a pain in the ass, especially when you’re not entirely sure what *else* to call them.
On the streetcar-ride from College/Yonge to Bathurst/College, I chewed my lip and flipped through my copy of the Grimoire Lemegeton, which lists the names and powers of seventy-two different demons, along with their various functions.
Eleven lesser demons procure the love of women, or (if your time is tight) make lust-objects of either sex show themselves naked. Four can transport people safely from place to place, or change them into other shapes, or gift them with high worldly position, cunning, courage, wit and eloquence. Three produce illusions: Of running water, of musical instruments playing, of birds in flight. One can make you invisible, another turn base metals into gold. Two torment their victims with running sores. One, surprisingly, teaches ethics; I don’t get a whole lot of requests for that one, strangely enough.
Glasyalabolas, who teaches all arts and sciences, yet incites to murder and bloodshed. Raum, who reconciles enemies, when he’s not destroying cities. Flauros, who can either burn your foes alive, or discourse on divinity. Or Fleer himself, indifferently good or bad, who “will do the work of the operator.”
If it actually was Fleer inside Jen, that is. If, if, if.
Practicing the usual injunctions under my breath, while simultaneously trying to decide between potential protective sigils: Verbum Caro Factorem Est, your basic Quadrangelic conjuration, maybe even the ultimate old-school reliability of Solomon’s Triangle—upper point to the north, Anexhexeton to the east, Tetragrammaton to the west, Primematum anchoring. Telling your nameless quarry, as you etch the lines around yourself:
“I conjure and command thee, O spirit N., by Him who spake and it was done; Asar Un-Nefer, Myself Made Perfect, the Bornless One, Ineffable. Come peaceably, visibly, and without delay. Come, fulfil my desires and persist unto the end in accordance to my will. Zazas, Zazas, Nasatanada, Zazas: Exit this vessel as and when I command, or be thrown through the Gate from whence ye came.”
The streetcar slid to a halt, Franz visible on the platform ahead—looking worried, as ever. A shopping bag in either hand testified to his having already filled out my list. Which was good; proved he wanted Jen “cured” enough to throw in from his own pocket, at least.
And: I’ve done this, I thought. Lots of times. I can do it again, Carra or not—and what the fuck had I really thought I needed Carra for, anyway? As she’d (sort of) pointed out, herself.
Easy. Peasy. Easy-peasy.
But none of the above turned out to matter very much at all, really. In the end.
* * *
Stepped off the streetcar at six or so. By midnight I was back at Grandmother Yau’s, sucking back a plate of Glass Noodle Cashew Chicken and washing it back with lots and lots of tea, so much I could practically feel my bladder tensing yet another notch with each additional swig. Starting to itch, and twinge, and . . . ache.
(Ache.)
“So, Jude-ah,” came a soft, Mandarin-accented voice from just behind my shoulder. “Seeing you seem sad, I wonder: How does your liver feel? Is the general of your body’s army sickening, tonight?”
And: Tonight, tonight, I found myself musing. What WAS tonight, at the Khyber? Oh, right . . . open bar. No bullshit restrictions. I could wear that tank-top I’d been saving, the really low-cut one.
Wick-ed.
Grandmother Yau reached in, touching her gilded middle claw to my ear, brief and deft; I jumped at its sting, collecting myself, as she reminded me—
“I am not used to being ignored, little brother.”
Automatically: “Ten thousand pardons, big sister.”
She slit her green-tinged eyes, shrewdly. “One will do.” Then, waving the nearest ghost over to top up my teapot: “My spies tell me you had business, farther east. Is it completed?”
And waaah, but there were so very many ways to answer that particular question, weren’t there? Though I, typically, chose the easiest.
“Wei,” I said, nodding. “Very complete.”
“The possessed girl, ah? Your friend.”