#excerptsfromNaNo

#excerptsfromNaNo

Nov 12

[Every November, Jeff attempts to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo); he has never successfully finished. This year, he’s trying again, and you are about to read a little bit of it. Enjoy (hopefully)!]

***

You never end up taking the money for exorcisms.

It’s a moral thing, right? Like how could you not save this poor little girl’s life, or how could you keep this boring middle manager from going home to play with his kids, especially over something as banal as cash?

Worse than a zero-sum game, it’s a losing game – putting on the whole Baby Jesus Light Show isn’t cheap, and you also get knocked the fuck around in the process more often than not and, a line of work like this, you don’t get stellar fucking benefits. Late night trips to the urgent care clinic add up.

Fuck it, you say, I’m doing ghost tours from now on. The income is more stable, the risks are nonexistent. But you never do, because you can’t feel good about the work and you’re not the cynic you play you are.

But you tell everyone that you’re retired from exorcisms. Of course, all that does is make people more convinced that you’re the right person for the job, right? The word ‘no’ is the most powerful marketing tactic in the fucking universe.

And just like you never end up taking the money, you never end up saying no, either. You know about a demon, you let it run around, that’s irresponsible, one, and shitty karma, two.

And that’s why I’m currently being drowned in a toilet bowl by a seven year old boy in footie pajamas. Happy birthday to me.

***

Four days ago, Trip Parker’s father told a stranger in a bar that he would do “anything” for the chance to stay home from the office for a few days. The next day, Blaine Parker II called off sick because his namesake, age seven, was running an aggressive fever and vomiting. He called off the next day because his son broke into his bedroom at three in the morning and tried to murder him with a mandoline slicer while ranting either at or about something called ‘Sariel’; his breath stank of sulphur and Blaine swore, once he could be convinced that Kit wouldn’t think he was a lunatic, that Trip’s eyes glowed red.

Right now, Blaine Parker II was hiding in the back of his walk-in closet and trying desperately to ignore the voice in his head. It sounded like his stepmother, and it kept telling him to hang himself with one of his YSL ties, which hung enticingly in front of his eyes as he pressed himself as close to the back wall of the tiny room as he was able.

If she were able to scream underwater, Kit would have shouted at him to grow a pair and help to clean up his goddamn mess.

She thought a cantrip – a minor spell – in the direction of the flush handle. Normally, magic required focus, but rage could be a potent substitute in a pinch, especially if the magician didn’t care about collateral damage. The handle pulled, then wrenched itself free and flew wildly across the room, ricocheting off the tile and finally landing in the sink.

The water drained out of the bowl quickly and Kit could breathe again. She breathed deeply, elbowed the little boy in what she hoped was a kidney, and silently thanked her stylist for the pixie cut that she had originally protested: longer hair probably would have meant the end of her when the toilet flushed.

Trip gave out an ‘Oof!’ and slid off Kit’s back, dazed and babbling. Dragging herself to her feet, Kit caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror – half-drenched, makeup running, the start of a bruise on her jaw. And, she thought, there was still a birthday dinner tonight to look forward to. Here’s to seventeen more blissful years of this bullshit, she thought. Then she gave the child at her feet a kick in the ribs. It made her feel better.

It was also the wrong thing to do. Instantly, Trip skittered straight up the bathroom wall on backward-bent arms and legs. Above his bloody – Kit’s blood – Handy Manny pajamas, the possessed eyes glowed red again. The boy’s mouth hung open and a chorus of low voices chanting Aramaic poured out.

Kit was very rusty with dead languages, but she thought she picked up ‘sacrifice’ and ‘disembowel’.

Trip’s dad had found Kit through Craigslist. Six months ago, she’d dated a college freshman, and he was charming, cute and knew enough about the occult that he could keep up with her most of the time when she got roped into the inevitable crazy bullshit. She’d dumped him when she caught him enchanting weapons for the campus fraternity’s annual bum fight. He had responded by taking out an add on Craigslist once a month in Kit’s name. This not only pissed her off, but it also made her more findable on the web, and Kit Marlowe took online anonymity very seriously. Nearly everyone in her world did. She thought very long and very hard about just changing her contact info completely, but decided in the end that she didn’t want to capitulate to the asshole, so she endured the annoyances it brought her way.

Grabbing the porcelain lid of the toilet tank, she flung it two-handed at the demon kid and immediately bolted for the bathroom door, not looking back. As she leapt into the bedroom and rolled behind the bed, she heard a vomiting sound followed by the shattering of porcelain. Her mind’s eye decided to hate her a bit and pictured several scenarios for what just happened, all of them revolting.

“Asshole!” she shouted at the closet door, “Get out here now, or I will punch you in the head until you forget the hell-toddler’s middle name!”