The Kingdom (Berkeley Blackfriars Book 1) Page 7

  “I was looking for the Holy Apocrypha Friary.”

  “You found it.”

  “You don’t look like a friar,” she said, noticing with not a little awe the prodigious inkwork covering his arms. “Not that I’m all that clear on what, exactly, a friar is in the first place.”

  “I’m a novice, here, actually,” he said. “I’ll be a friar next month, Frith willing.”

  “Frith?”

  “Never read Watership Down?”

  She had, actually, a long time ago. What an odd guy, she thought. “I need to talk to you guys,” she said but then looked a little scared. “But for some reason, I can’t seem to cross the street.”

  “We figured. The house is warded.” Oddly, the young man sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk and pulled a large abalone shell and what looked like a midget-size hockey puck out of a shoulder bag.

  “Warded? Like, as in magick? Warded against what?”

  “Demons, of course.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly, she was a little taken aback. But she knew he was right. “It’s my brother. I think he was doing demon magick. I found this.” She pulled out the little paper triangle with the strange symbol on it.

  Mikael studied it closely for a few long seconds. “That’s a sigil, all right,” he said. “Put it away, now. And don’t pull it out again. If your brother was doing what I think he was doing with that thing, we’re both in danger, now.”

  “What? I’m not doing magick. Not demon magick, anyway.”

  “No, but there’s magick associated with that thing, and it could put us all in danger.” He struck a lighter and held the flame to the side of the hockey puck. Then Kat recognized the object—a brick of self-lighting charcoal, the kind some of the women in her coven used for incense.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “We’re going to separate you from that beastie so that you can cross the street.”

  “Your warding works pretty damn well.”

  “It’s not us; it’s angelic warding, actually. And it does work pretty well.” He pulled out a plastic bag that looked like it was filled with the bloody entrails of an animal. Mikael blew on the charcoal to speed it along. “But we are pretty good at what we do, if I do say so myself. Everyone here has a specialty. Terry’s thing is the angel magick, you know, Enochian stuff. You’d be surprised how many thieves and homeless people are possessed or oppressed. The warding keeps the house pretty safe from petty thieves and opportunists. Kind of a positive side effect.”

  He was too chatty, she thought. Perhaps he’s nervous. Perhaps, she dared to allow herself to think it, he’s as smitten with me as I am with him. She told herself she was being silly and tried to suppress the thought.

  Then, with gross fascination, she watched as he pulled some nameless, bloody organ from the plastic bag and placed it on the charcoal. It fizzled and spat, and a noxious cloud of smoke erupted into the air. Mikael jumped to his feet and began waving the abalone shell around in front of her.

  She had been smudged many times, especially before coven rituals. But she had always found sage a pleasant, cleansing odor. This was ghastly. She screwed up her face and went into automatic, holding her arms up and cooperating with the smudging in due form despite the acrid and obnoxious stench.

  “You’ve done this before!” Mikael said, delighted. She turned, and he began smudging her back.

  “Yes, but it was never so unpleasant.”

  “Unpleasant beasties require unpleasant means, I’m afraid.”

  He shot a glance toward the window, caught Terry’s eye, and gave an exaggerated shrug, a question: Is it safe?

  Terry nodded vigorously and waved his hand for Mikael to hurry.

  “Let’s go,” he said and waved her in front of him. He held the smoking abalone shell at her back all the way to the front door. He placed the shell on the porch and held the door shut as he yelled through it. “Dudes, sigil alert! I need a warded envelope, pronto!”

  He heard scrambling from within, and in a few seconds a dark brown envelope was fed through the mail slot. He turned to Kat and held open the envelope. “Okay, put the sigil in here.”

  “The paper-triangle-thingy?”

  “Yeah, quick! Before the gall burns up.”

  She nodded and dug in her jeans pocket for the paper. She dropped it into the envelope, and Mikael sealed it fast. He then dropped it in the mailbox. “You can pick it up on your way out,” he said, “but I don’t recommend opening it again.” He pushed open the door, then, and waved her inside.

  Tobias greeted her first, his tail moving in quick, happy circles. And then suddenly she was surrounded by a gaggle of men, most of whom looked like they would have felt right at home at a science fiction convention or a Pink Floyd reunion concert. Kat noted that most of the men were in their late thirties or early forties and balding—except for Mikael, who was younger with a head of insanely wild hair.

  “Tobias is our guest master,” Mikael said, in what seemed a kind of apology for the dog’s exuberance. “His hospitality is unparalleled.”

  Richard emerged from the front staircase, and Mikael proceeded to make further introductions. He then led Kat to the big table in the kitchen where the friars sat while Dylan put the kettle on and grabbed mugs for them all.

  “How can we help?” asked Terry.

  This wasn’t at all what Kat had been expecting. Except for the black robes, there was nothing even remotely monkish about the men seated around the table. Nor was there an air of saintliness hanging over the place. Indeed, it seemed like at any time they might grab a big bowl of potato chips and gather around the TV for a football game.

  Hesitantly at first, and then in great gushes of emotion, she described the condition in which she had found her brother. They hung on every word, and one of them, the small, effeminate guy, took notes on a laptop. She was grateful for their attention and felt better just talking about it to someone—someone who wouldn’t think she was crazy, that is.

  “Where is your brother now?” asked Dylan, pouring hot water into the mugs.

  “In the hospital. They say that there’s nothing physically wrong with him, but they’re going to hold him overnight for observation.” Despite her best efforts, she started to cry. “What happened to him? Is he going to be okay?”

  The friars looked at each other, and back at her with concern.

  Richard spoke first. “I don’t know. But we’re going to find out. If there is anything we can do to return your brother to you, we will. We promise.” He offered her a grim smile that betrayed more determination than certainty. “The first thing we need to do is inspect the ritual site. Do you still have the key to your brother’s house?”

  She nodded.

  “Dylan, Terry, let’s go.”

  A throat cleared behind him. In the doorway to the kitchen stood Susan and Brian, arms crossed over their chests.

  “Oh,” Richard said thinly, like the sound of air being emitted from a tire. He looked at his watch. “It’s almost 9:30, and we’ve all had a long day. Why don’t we investigate at your brother’s house first thing in the morning? We’ll all be fresh.”

  Everyone smiled knowingly and nodded, pushing their chairs back.

  “Except…” she began, and they all rested their elbows once more on the table. “Well, I’m a little freaked out. I don’t really want to go home. Not alone.”

  “We have a guest room. You’re welcome to stay there,” Mikael offered. “In fact, it’s a really good idea, what with the sigil thingy and all. You’ll be safe here. The house is wa—”

  “I know, the house is warded,” she smiled at him. “I know how well that works. Are you sure it won’t be any trouble?”

  “Sure, it’s trouble,” Richard said, getting up and carrying his tea with him. “Guests are always trouble. People are always trouble.” But before she could suspect a spirit of misanthropy, he winked at her. “But they’re almost always worth it.”

  “Come on
,” Mikael said, “I’ll show you to your room.”

  She was secretly delighted to be staying in this enormous and unusual house, and longed to see more of it. She followed Mikael out the back door of the kitchen to a narrow set of stairs. At the top, they walked past several bedrooms that must have belonged to the friars. At the end of the hall, they turned left and entered a small room with a large picture window. A single bed was there, made up and inviting. “That’s just the bedspread,” said Mikael. “I’ll get some fresh linens.”

  While he was out, she took in the rest of the room. A small desk was set against the far wall, and a single low bookcase was set near the door. Above it hung a large mirror in a rough wooden frame. There were several hooks in the wall but no closet.

  In a moment, he was back, and together they set to making the bed. “Can I ask you a question?” Her voice was soft, tentative.

  “Sure.”

  “What was that all about? About starting tomorrow? Because if it was really about getting a good night’s rest, I’ll eat my pointed witch’s cap.”

  Mikael laughed a hearty, throaty laugh. “You don’t miss a thing, do you?”

  He straddled the desk’s chair backward and leaned his arms on its back while she settled in on the freshly made bed.

  “Well, it’s shabbat.”

  “Isn’t that a Jewish thing?”

  “Yes, and since Terry’s partner is Jewish, we have adopted some of his tradition. Partly to accommodate him, and partly because it just makes good sense.”

  “So, what’s the significance of Shabbat? Not working? I thought we were going to go over there tomorrow. Doesn’t the Sabbath extend to sundown the next day?”

  “Yeah, but we’re not that strict. We try to take Saturdays off, but when something major is up, we do what we need to do. After all, Jesus said, ‘When your ass falls into a hole on the sabbath, don’t you pull it out?’”

  “Great, so I’m an ass you’re pulling out of a hole.” She mock-pouted.

  “We’re all asses, and we all have holes,” he grinned.

  “So, what’s it really about? The sabbath thing?”

  “Well, see, Old Catholics like ourselves are not required to be celibate, and some of us are partnered. Like Dylan and Terry…”

  “Oh.” She smiled, and her eyes grew large with comprehension. “Friday night is nooky night.”

  “Bingo.”

  SATURDAY

  15

  KAT AWOKE to the inviting smell of frying bacon. She slipped on her jeans and headed to the bathroom. There was someone in it, of course. What did I expect, she thought, in a house with so many people? She padded down the back stairs in search of another, which she found just off the kitchen.

  When she finished, Brian greeted her with a warm mug of coffee. “Hi, Sweetie,” he said without even a hint of impropriety to his familiar address. “Catch Susan in the shower up there?”

  She nodded, and he rolled his eyes. “We tease her that she should just move a bed into the bathroom. How do you like your eggs?”

  “Um…just fried, I guess.”

  He nodded. “Yolks hard or runny?”

  She smiled. “Runny, please.”

  “Coming right up.”

  She watched him as he worked. He was assembled with fine, bony parts that didn’t quite fit together right. He had a slight hunch in his back, and he moved with more pain than she had noticed last night. She wanted to ask him about it but didn’t know how to do it without being rude. She mentally put it on her list of things to ask Mikael about the next time they were alone.

  “I need to check in on my brother…” she began.

  He waved toward the phone on the wall with his spatula, but she had already pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. Her fingers shook slightly as she dialed, and she sipped at the coffee as a conscious gesture of normalcy. She was connected to the nurses’ station quickly, and asked for an update on Randall Webber’s condition.

  “No change,” a nurse told her, matter-of-factly. “He’s stable, but he’s not conscious.”

  She thanked the nurse and fought back twin waves of panic and depression. “Where is everyone?” she asked Brian.

  “Chapel—morning prayer. Why don’t you go in and see? They’ll be done soon, and I’ll serve you all together.”

  “Can I take my coffee?”

  He smiled big at her. “Why not? I hear Jesus loves coffee.”

  She furrowed her brow at this silliness and tentatively walked out of the kitchen. A plaque beside the door announced that she was entering the Montague Summers Memorial Chapel. She gasped. Last night, it had been dark, and she had not noticed it at all. But with the sun streaming through the window above the altar, she was almost paralyzed by its gaudy glory. Just below the window was what appeared to be a community altar, with more candles and sacred objects than she could count: crucifixes, scrolls, icons of saints as varied as Saint John of the Cross and Harvey Milk, a framed Rolling Stone cover of Jimi Hendrix, statues of Shiva and Ganesha, and even a posable figurine of Homer Simpson were positioned lovingly on the deep-blue altar cloth.

  Just in front of this was a freestanding altar, dressed but uncluttered except for two candles on its right and left sides. The friars were seated in chairs lining the walls to her right and left, facing each other, fully vested in albs, with some in stoles as well.

  She slipped into one of the empty chairs on her left and raised her head at Mikael’s nod of greeting. The friars were singing a chant in what seemed to be Latin. She found the music relaxing and was surprised to find she felt warm and at home.

  On the wall that faced her she noticed an enormous collage that almost dominated the room. It was the face of Jesus, looking odd and almost deformed. As she looked closer, she saw that his face was an impressionistic collage of many photos, most of them, it seemed, cut from magazines. His left eye was definitely the dark and almond shape of someone from the East; his nose, exaggeratedly Semitic, was made up of a sandy beach scene; his mouth was framed by a dark and curly beard made out of a picture of a large black poodle. His right ear was lily-white and delicate, like a child’s or that of a petite woman. A hundred scenes, creatures, and faces seemed to have been pilfered to form this one face.

  Kat couldn’t decide if the Frankensteinian icon was horrible or beautiful, but then she noted with a start the words that hung above it. Cut from large capital letters of many different fonts, the banner read, “THIS MAN EATS WITH FUCKUPS AND SINNERS.”

  In spite of herself, a sob arose from deep within her and threatened to spill out into the quiet air. She choked it back and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. What was that all about? she thought, embarrassed, hoping none of the friars had noticed her rush of emotion. If they had, they didn’t show it. They kept up their chant until it trailed to a natural end.

  Then Mikael rose, reverenced the altar with a brief bow, and removing a snuffer from its hook at the side of the altar, extinguished the candles.

  “God is great, God is neat. Good God! Let’s eat!” announced Dylan, heading for the kitchen.

  “Dylan, that doesn’t even work as a poem,” said Terry, shaking his head.

  “In magick, as in religion, it’s the intention that counts, not the execution.”

  “Do not listen to this man,” Richard protested, catching Mikael’s eye. “That kind of talk will make you demon fodder, and he knows it.”

  “Ah know Ah’m hungry, that’s what Ah know.”

  “Maybe it’s true in shamanism,” Terry offered, ever the conciliator.

  “Good morning, Kat,” said Mikael, sitting down next to her. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did.” The words caught in her throat, and she felt another rush of unwelcome emotion. “That was really beautiful,” she finally managed. “Your singing.”

  “That’s how we pray here. ‘He who sings, prays twice,’ said Augustine. He’s not my favorite saint by a long shot, but he did have a few good one-liners.” He noti
ced the blush in her cheeks and the wetness in the corners of her eyes. “You okay?”

  “Yes…well, I think so. I’m…moved. I just need a moment.”

  “Okay, well, I’m going to disrobe, and I’ll see you in the kitchen. Let me know if you need to talk, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He left the room, and she fished in her pocket for a tissue. As she blew her nose, her gaze returned to the face of the patchwork Christ. His black mouth was open as if he were about to speak.

  She stood and shoved the tissue into her back pocket. Then she went and stood directly in front of the collage. In spite of herself, she spoke to it aloud. “You’re weird, but I’m listening,” she said and then went in for breakfast.

  Brian had managed to keep everyone’s eggs warm without ruining them, and even Susan had emerged from the bathroom in time to get hers while still hot. Everyone tucked in but Richard, who leaned on his elbows and felt at his beard nervously.

  “Dude, you doin’ okay?” Dylan leaned into Richard affectionately.

  Mikael whispered to Kat, a little too loudly, “His boyfriend dumped him yesterday.”

  Richard drilled Mikael with an evil eye and ignored the subject altogether. “Okay, this isn’t going to be a popular suggestion,” he said, “but we need to deal with the whole sigil situation.”

  Mikael’s shoulders sagged. He had been afraid of this.

  “What?” asked Kat, “Do you mean that paper-thingy with the symbol on it?”

  “Yes,” Richard said. “It’s a sigil that has been demonically empowered. Whatever the demon was called up to do is mystically connected with that piece of paper. And whoever has seen it, besides the operating magickian—that’s your brother, Kat—is susceptible to attack. That’s why you couldn’t approach the house last night.”

  “Because there was a demon…”

  “Riding your ass. Yes.”

  “Well, what can we do about it? Isn’t there some spell—”