Didn’t expect to be back here so soon, didn’t expect to find so much—or so little. Joys of life. Pa Kelsing, the sweet little shriveled Chinaman supposed to meet me last night, decided to leave me a message, instead. Spent half the night tracking the informant and deciding it was good. Just came out of that meeting about half an hour ago and debating on whether or not to do this favor for him. It’s not like I owe him, but it’ll come in handy when I want to put my own questions to him. Let me back up a little, first—I don’t do any “working” around just any old “block” without a lot of micromanagement. And that’s bad for an orange’s turf. You see, Ma Adder and me, we have this arrangement going. I left her laundry out to dry, and she doesn’t hound me through the grave. People go to her for all sorts of favors. But not me. I gave her up a long time ago, stay away from her from now on, and do my own favors now.

Pa Kelsing, on the other thing, is the exact opposite. He offers favors, not the other way around. And I was eager to see him last night, eager enough I cut lose a few Marks for the night and all my Johns to hang at a dive, and pass a few drinks around, listening. Besides, his homemade tea is that good. Thinking about setting his crib as the new monthly chew place we had set up, if he’ll bite. It’s more authentic than the dive we meet up at normally, and it almost made me wish I was born Chinese. Still, good as the herbal was, I treated it like poison because Pa Kelsing did, too. And the backstory he had to tell to set up the peculiars of this favor set me up for a “hang on there,” moment, ‘specially when he brought in another guy almost as shriveled up as he was and as scarred as a sandbaked wallet left out in the tide for a year.

Now I knew why Pa Kelsing had made the tea: the first in a line of bargaining chips. He knew I needed information. And he was willing to provide it, for a fee. There are always fees dealing with the unusual.

I stayed to listen to the story.

“I’m a married man,” the scarred man’s lips puttered grotesquely around the delicate teacup. “But I’m still a man easily swayed by women.”

Sip.

“No more, though.”

Sip.

I held back my snort. By the man’s knowing grimace—a crime of brutal ugliness in most cities—the scarred man knew how ridiculous that statement was as well. Nobody who lives in Ma Adder’s turf ever gives up women, dead or alive. He must have seen my disbelief, because he smiled with hole-gaped teeth, brushing a thin web of pinkish lines that ran contrary to the finely aged wrinkles.

“The woman who did this to me was a demon punishing me for my sins,” if he could speak of his ‘punishable sins’ with such relish, I doubted he had learned his lesson. He set his teacup down and shuddered, clutching at one of the mangy skin stitches at the side of his mouth.

“I should go,” he apologized, getting up. “The tea was delicious. Thank you.”

He paused as surely as if an invisible DVD remote had been taken to him. Pa Kelsing was staring so hard at the other man I wondered when the scars would crack at the seams.

“The woman who gave me this,” Scarslip’s lifted hand shook as if palsied; there was no more relish, only agony. “She came from a little wooden head.”

Then he was gone out the door.

Almost three weeks, and for what? Nothing. Fish heads and dead ends, that’s all that I’ve found. The favor Pa Kelsing wanted done was both humanitarian and directly in line with what I needed: he wanted these wooden heads removed from the streets. It’s what I always wanted, too. But I’ve learned a long time ago that wanting and doing don’t always mesh. Fighting drugs and crime is rather like stomping roach infestations: it can be done, but the swarms of insects always return. Fighting the supernatural, however, is rather like trying to strike at night’s mists: how in the hell do you do that?

I didn’t come here just to rant, though. A few nights ago, a new lead showed up in the form of a nightly gathering that involved college Dicks and Janes, circles, signs, board games, egg rolls, and a confrontation between a demon and a demon’s spawn. I wouldn’t have gone in the first place, but I owed the Jane who invited me several big chatte. And one doesn’t stay in the business of ousting weirds on a walker’s budget without paying the dues, ya know?

The Ouija board was a bust. Don’t know if there were too many people in the circle, the circle we were sitting in, or the borrowed board we were using. Personally, I think it was me. Bad karma follows me around closer than my shadow. Always has. Comes from being born, I guess.

Dinner was a little better. The Dick who ordered the food ordered from that fake Chinese restaurant across the street which tries so hard at being oriental. But it’s kind of like a monkey pretending to be a man: easy to spot no matter what clothes they wear. Don’t think I’m being derogatory, though. Free food is free food, the conversation was actually interesting, and the Jane who invited me offered a few potential job offers to choose from later.

After the eggrolls and the chow mein, we settled into a small den made smaller by the shelves of books taking up most of the space and a large, round table accompanied by comfortable chairs set in a circle to seat us all. The Jane who invited me encouraged us each to take a seat, proclaiming she had a “treat’” for us. Two Johns would have taken my flanks had the Jane who invited me insisted on sitting on my right. The head of the table was empty.

That was when Jane revealed her treat: she had hired a medium for the evening. We were going to be conjuring up dead spirits.

Well, I’ve got to see to a client in a few minutes, so I’ll probably be back in an hour or so.

While everyone joined hands as per the instructions of Jane, I was feeling uncomfortable and maybe even a little nauseous. My motto on the dead has always been “let them lie flat and leave ‘em be.” I find the dead to be more trouble than good. The others, however, were very enthusiastic about it all and began discussing possible spirits to call up, questions to ask, and the spokesperson who would speak for the group. The Jane who invited me encouraged the discussion and didn’t seem to mind that I chose not to be a part of it. I was just sitting in as an observer.

Finally, another Jane was chosen to speak to the spirit. We joined hands again, quieted down, and waited for the medium to show.

When the medium finally opened a door and stepped into the room, I was disappointed: she was nothing of what I had expected. She was an older woman, short, dumpy, and possessed of a bust that solidly proclaimed many enlargement jobs. Her demeanor was patronizing and her garb a simple robe and shawl. The many necklaces, bracelets, and rings were all bejeweled and all fake. Just simple, colored glass topically designed to fool the average tourist. Except for one piece. An egg-shaped ruby, wine-red and pulsing with value.

“Welcome, children,” she bowed prettily before taking the one empty seat. “I am Madame Mofilia, here at your bidding. I have been told you seek the wisdom of the dead. Is this true?”

Crock, I thought. I hoped. I had once heard that it’s harder to summon the dead if there was a skeptic in the group. I was trying my hardest to be a skeptic.

“Yes, it is,” the Jane chosen as spokesperson said.

“Then let us begin,” Madame Mofilia instructed us to dim the lights and joined the circle of hands. It would have been pitch-black but for the softly glowing crystal ball placed in the center of the table, atop a purple pillow. “What is the name of the departed you wish to call?”

“James Cardinal,” Jane Spokesperson replied reverently.

“Look to the crystal ball, my dears,” Madame Mofilia took a deep breath. “It shines with the presence of the dead.”

Then expanding her heavy bosom by a deep intake of breath, Madame Mofilia shut her eyes and chanted the name inside a murmur.

“James Cardinal, James Cardinal,” she whined into the darkness, repeating her instructions. “We beseech a conference with you. Look to the crystal ball, children.”

I spared the crystal ball a brief, cursory glance before turning my attention back to the older lady. Madame Mofilia had sunken in her chair as if asleep—or dead—and the two college kids at her sides were shifting their gazes uneasily back and forth between the crystal ball and the unmoving medium. In the position to see Madame Mofilia in full and the crystal ball out of the corner of my eye, I thought I was ready for anything. But then the crystal ball flared brightly, the Johns and Janes gasped as a face not from the circle flickered across the globe, and Madame Mofilia raised her head and opened her eyes.

A strange thought occurred to me: I was in a three o’clock position to the old lady.

Okay, I’m done for the day. Maybe the week. I’ll see you when I do.

Friday the Thirteenth.

Hate it. With a passion. HATE IT.

Did I mention that I hate it?

Figured the “wooden heads” was ended without my having to act. I certainly wanted it to be. Almost forgot about it too, since nothing came after the séance. Nothing but fish heads and dead ends.

Only, something did come after the séance. Eventually. As in on Friday. First, it was a great game that went sour real quickly. Then the cause of that bruin led me on a chase that brought me about seven-eighths part to nowhere. Lastly, the dream on the night of the thirteenth. It replayed the séance like a bad rerun. A bad rerun that had a surprise ending.

So here it is. The rerun.

I’ll get what happened on Friday itself and the weekend up soon.

Sparks wrote:Well ain't -this- a creepy lil' story...

Wonder what happens.

Me too, Sparky. Still searching round about. Here was my nightmare, replayed:


“Are . . . are you James Cardinal?” Jane Spokesperson found her tongue.

Madame Mofilia nodded her head.

Jane Spokesperson began asking all the normal questions a loved one might ask a deceased acquaintance given momentary life: how did you die, what were the circumstances of your death, and was there any message you wanted to relay. James Cardinal answered through the voice and body of Madame Mofilia, hesitant but truthfully. Janet Spokesperson had almost exhausted her store of questions when things got weird. Well, weirder.

Madame Mofilia went rigid as a victim of seizures, her neck snapping back and her chin thrusting forward. From the confines of the darkness, I could see her eyes glitter. Her chin somehow managed to scour the startled faces of the circle even though her chin was pasted to her shoulder.

—You—

Madame Mofilia’s chin was pointed in my direction, but the voice echoing through the den was well-deep, dark as oil and smooth as river stones. It said some things I’d rather not repeat right now. But it had plenty to say that I don’t mind repeating.

“Just what do you want?” I snapped in exasperation. Jane Spokesperson was cringing back, whimpering. This was more than she had bargained for.

A faint, shimmering image puffed all about Madame Mofilia’s body, perhaps a body and face twisted in some unholy agony, perhaps not. She started rocking back and forth, hard. Whatever was in Madame Mofilia smashed the hag hard against the table’s edge right above her heaving bosom. Most of the Janes—and even many of the Johns—flinched, cringing away from the cracking sound. Lizardlike or insectlike, whatever you find best as a description, Madame Mofilia’s body climbed onto the table, her elbows jutting out and forcing her arms out at a ninety-degree angle. Madame Mofilia’s eyes were weeping, though don’t ask me if she knew what was happening during this séance.

Her body contorted in such a way that her large butt stuck in the air while the side of her face scraped against the floor, Madame Mofilia crawled toward me. Her actions were the same in the dream. Her words weren’t. She wasn’t. Before, she had been decked with false stones, all but one that cost a pretty investment, and endowed with assets so large some men would find her luscious.

Me, I’d just call her fat and gaudy.

In the dream, her pounds melted away. Rich silk robe rotted away, eaten by invisible moths until only a tattered rag covered her gaunt body. Her fake jewels scattered. All save the real one, which was a drop of fire. She skittered for me, face scraping the floor, Dicks and Janes screaming and bolting to the top of their seats. I tried to do the same, but she was too quick, pouncing and grasping my ankles. Tendons stretching, she twisted impossibly wide until her back rested against my shins. Grinding against me with palms glued to my ankles, chin thrust to the ceiling, she rested her forehead on my lap.

Her tongue was wooden. So was her mouth. Her entire head was wooden.

—Did you forget—

It was a little girl’s voice that spoke, magnified and repeated.

—We’re coming; we haven’t forgotten you—

I woke up cradling a little wooden head under my arm.

What happened in the original séance, Chalice?

Sparks wrote:You know, wood burns, and if you need someone to burn the creepy wooden heads...

Well, did I mention I burn things?

Burning it was the first thing I tried, Sparkler. Flared up real nicely too, like someone had dropped the sucker in a vat of gasoline. (Oh wait, I did ) The Wooden Head started to squeal real high-like, a castrated teapot on the boil. I had this sudden urge to rescue the damned thing from the fire, so I covered my ears, took Axel, and fled, leaving the dying head to burn.

Can you explain why I felt like I was killing something?

Before that, the morning of Friday the Thirteenth, I was culling a Mark for an up and coming stock that promised a high investment. Mark seemed golden. Over the course of a week, he gave me all the mince I’d need, which was about ten times the normal John’s net, he was an excellent sleeper, and he took me out to breakfast. We were going to celebrate.

As I was just finishing my egg, the local chew comes on. It starts talking about the dead body of that senator who went missing for an hour or two a few weeks ago had been found. You remember that, right? It was all over the news because some paparazzi thought the senator was with a mistress and ended up being off by several states, and the senator was with his advisors the whole time? Well, at least that’s what the talking heads said. They also said the senator went out of the public eye to avoid any “further embarrassments,” and the mistaken paparazzi apologized, resigned, and went out of the public eye in shame.

Only, that couldn’t’ve happened. See, that paparazzi and I had a deal going. And he never would have made such a big bruin. He was smarter than that. And he never had returned my calls, which is also unlike him.

Well, anyway, the egg gets stuck in my throat. I look sideways, real slowlike, and look at the Mark. He’s watching the TV with a big grin, like he’s enjoying some inside joke.

Either I’ve been secretly dating the senator for a week, or his twin has my number. And since the chew had just said the body had been dead for weeks, I had a few questions for my Mark. And Axel, well, Axel is always on my side, you might say, even if he’s always on my back. Because of that, he’s always got my back. Well, I don’t like playing with a Poe. And Axel, he doesn’t like them at all. So, I can forgive him for lashing out at what had once been a really sweet Mark.

Only, this guy was a Poe, through and through. Dead, posing, or whatever, he ducked Axel’s swing and rolled off the seat and onto his hands like his bones had dissolved. Of course, Axel has normally has the entire brevy staring when he comes out swinging, not that there was much of a brevy in the first place. Plus, Poe had chosen a private booth.

At first, I’d thought we’d have some play time. But, when he came after me on all fours, stomach to the air, I wonder if he had been planning on me being his next meal ticket all along.

Rowan wrote:What happened in the original séance, Chalice?

For the life of me Rowboat, I can't remember. Been trying to so I can at least put it up for comparison.

I really should zip this one up, yeah? School isn’t school without summer in between. One of Pa Kelsey’s sayings. I’m not gonna say much of anything ‘bout the first chase I had with the boneless Poe after he pulled a hat on me.

Now the second one… that was a derby of a different color.

See, I’d pretty much gone on with habitude minus an eye, swapping chew and chatte with the girlfriends, taking on some Jacks, running with the droogs, pulling the steeple with Lupe and her litter, sitting with Legs… it was like the inning darkness had disappeared on me.

If I’d been in first grade, I mighta believed it had.

But then luck hit me. One of my more loquacious girlfriends decided to take out a bit more chatte with me. She owed me big already, and I woulda closed it on her for her own good, but the John she wanted me to see for her worked for the Big Bird himself.

Just a little lesson on the Big Bird, quicklike. I don’t need reasons for his beak, but writing my school without him would be impossible. He may seem like a Fat Cat at first, definitely to those in the schoolyard, but he keeps himself lean and mean. He has a nice little next here in Miami, though, but he doesn’t roost much. He has bigger nests elsewhere. Everybody who knows he’s a Big Bird wants to see his roost.

I’m a curious girl, not an exception. Besides, I had some stock on the penthouse next to it, and wanted to check out the mince. Seeing as how Axel and I had set up a date on the very same night my girlfriend asked me to stunt double for her, well, it felt like the Biteman’s Man was giving me the go ahead.

So, we gussied up and planned to stay out late.

Biteman’s Man deal a lot with insider trading. Least, that’s what all the bitemen say. The same night sure seemed like an inside trade, and the faulty mince seemed like another. I’d freed up the whole night, and here we were, my partner an me, finished with one of my stocks already and it wasn’t even half an hour into the night. It didn’t even hurt my feelings that the mince was a bruin. I always wash my hands, and I wanted to check Big Bird’s nest early.

It was a good thing I did.


An' about that first seance... the same thing, except that Jane Spokespeson ran the hag up to the hospital while I made myself scarce. Why I couldn't remember sucks.

And makes me wonder.