SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

I shook my head. I strode to the coffee table in front of him and with Gomer’s help, pushed it aside. I knelt in front of Everett and checked his vitals. They appeared to be normal. His eyes remained unfocused.

I got up and looked around the room. It was clearly a bachelor’s pad. Nowhere could a woman’s touch be seen. A picture of a stream hung above the fireplace. Two other chairs along with a floor lamp completed the room. The mantel held a dozen knick-knacks. A table against the back wall held dozens more. It looked as if he liked to collect things from his travels. I saw pieces from Asia, Africa, and Central America.

I stood in the middle of the room with my eyes closed. The problem was it could be any one of the room’s objects. I just couldn’t figure out which one. I opened my eyes and saw Burgess picking up a vase.

“Put that down! Don’t touch anything.”

He looked hurt but put the vase down.

“What are you thinking, boss?” Gomer asked.

I shook my head. “I could be wrong, but something feels off in this room. It’s like something’s here in the space that shouldn’t be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What do you know about demon possession?”

Gomer Pyle shook his head. “Nothing, really.”

“So here’s what I know. Demons can’t just walk around in this world. There’s some rule, call it God, call it whatever you want, but they just can’t do it. Good thing, too, or else we’d have thousands of possessed people on the streets doing the devil knows what. They can only exist within a pentacle or in an object or in a person.”

He glanced at Everett. “You think there’s a demon in there?”

“I do. And I think he’s locked in combat as we speak.”

“What can we do?”

“Two things.” I pulled out a piece of paper and made out a list, then handed it to Burgess. “See if you can find these around the house, then bring them to me.”

“Is it okay to touch them when I find them?” he said in complete seriousness.

“It’s only this room where something’s wrong, so yes.”

“What about me?” Gomer asked.

“Get on the phone and contact the officer on duty.”

“The Licking Boy won’t work,” he said. “Not if you don’t want things touched.”

“Which is why we need The Singing Girl. Do we know where she is?”

“No idea, but we’ll track her down.” He glanced at Everett. “How long do we have?”

I shrugged. “For all I know we’re already too late.”

“Then I better move,” Gomer said. He reached out for the phone in the room, then halted at the last moment. He grinned sheepishly. “I’ll see if there’s one in the kitchen.”

“Best you do that.”

* * *

The next three hours were filled with preparations. We removed the coffee table and the couch to clear necessary space. Someone turned on the television and we worked as it played through first a rerun of Hogan’s Heroes, then an episode of Lassie, then the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. We stopped and listened when President Nixon spoke before Congress, outlining that Native American Self-Determination was now considered U.S. Policy. The significance of this wasn’t missed and for the first time since American Indians had been placed on reservations, it was looking like they might be able to govern themselves. Burgess watched with heightened attention.

During this period I drew heptagrams on the floor and ceiling. Called ‘Devil’s Traps,’ heptagrams are more powerful than mere salt and cannot only bind and trap demons, but also force them to do one’s will. The two heptagrams I chose were ones I’d memorized from The Lesser Key of Solomon, or the Lemegeton, an anonymous grimoire that was discovered by a Franciscan Order in Spain five hundred years ago.

The one I’d painted on the ceiling in pig’s blood — provided by the local butcher — was the Grand Pentacle and was a summoning and binding heptagram. The symbol was actually three dimensional with two interlocking symbols. Written on the outside were the words THTOCX ORABALAIIA TISCAL GAONOSV TAHIIGEKSP TII OMEMARE NVGAREIA TEDATOlVONAOIO TLA, whose pronunciation and meaning had long been lost to time. Not knowing what they meant had little effect on their power however.

The heptagram on the floor, in which Everett Duncan now sat, was an amalgam of the Grand Pentacle with a Zoastrian magic circle at its center. Dating back to the seventh century, this too eventually found its way into the Lemegeton. Some of the Knights Templars dutifully recorded it in a cave in what is now Iraq, then brought it back to France. Inside the Zoastrian circle was the figure of a scorpion. Around it were the words in ancient Assyrian, “It is terrible unto the demons, and at its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its presence.” Called The Fifth Pentacle of Mars, it had the power to make demons obey.

I could only hope they were helping.

I delayed my incantations for an hour in the hopes that The Singing Girl would arrive. I was about to give up when lights lit up the front windows.