Nine Swords

“I will need a freshly pulled human tooth for the portal closing ritual.” The mambo asogwe reclined in her Lazy Boy and smiled. Mellified marvelled she could look so drab - the beige trouser suit did nothing for the majesty of the Voudon High Priestess.

The dentist was easy to find. She shot him in the leg with a crossbow and took the tooth, leaving him chained to a radiator. She might or might not be back in 40 hours. She could not say that this was a job she loved, but sometimes it offered the opportunity for poetic justice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33695872

Windows 10. Ok. So what happened to Windows 9 then? Time for a quick bit of numerology.

23 plus 9 plus 14 plus 4 plus 15 plus 23 plus 19 plus 10 = 117
1 plus 1 plus 7 = 9

Windows 9 = 8

9 = helpful but sentimental
8 = authoritative but cruel

That’s no help - numerology rarely is.

She crosses her fingers and clicks the ‘Install’ button. Even if it opens a window to an unimaginable dimension and strange and violent beings begin to pour through her monitor, it’s Windows. The window won’t be open for long before it goes wrong.

She volunteered for this, but she doesn’t enjoy it. Katelin had explained that it is all part of being a team. Hunkering down in the car seat, she adjusts the rear view mirror and waits. They will be here soon:

Suddenly appearing out of the night in a riot of noise and flailing limbs. Spewing filth from their mouths, babbling, incoherent. Blood dripping from unexplained injuries. The disgusting smell of stale vomit. Sprouting octopus hands that go where they should not.

As a teetotaller, she is always the designated driver on the ‘Let’s go for a quiet drink’ squad nights.

Word up!

Please.

Thank you.

chapel
man purse
corn

'… The Righteous Angel done freed herself from the burning Cross and fell right on down to the Ground. All around her the Scarecrows of the Corn done got themselves ready to give her the Final Revelations and the dark Crows of the Night danced and cawed in an unholy Ruckus. But when her Blue Wings gone got unfolded she flew up to meet the Lord and she done Smited them one and all with a Flash of Heavenly Vengeance.'

"That's one real imaginative story Caleb"

"But it ain't no story Miss"

"Sure it ain’t Caleb, sure it ain’t"

party
away
shadows

In the darkened laboratory she was pretty sure that the man-purse they had obtained from a European magician moved. As a Brit she couldn’t see the point of them - what was wrong with a plastic bag?

Antanahe was currently obsessed with residual Kirlian photography so had set up the lab with the purse and a long exposure gizmo and gone for coffee. There - it moved again ...

As it launched itself at her throat she picked up the closest thing (Antanahe’s hammer) and thwacked the man-purse across the room into the gizmo.

The photos didn’t come out very well.

They crowbar the massive flagstone out from near the font of the chapel - moonlight glinting off their sweat, ancient mortar cracking. As they turn it over, Mellified remembers what had led them here:

The crazed villager screaming “Know thyself” and throwing her a package before self-immolating. Following the clues contained in the small illuminated book to this cliff-top orthodox church and dispatching the werewolves that had made it their lair.

They examine the flagstone with their flickering torches and her blood turns to ice. All the team slowly turn to stare at her. Carved into the stone:

Mellified 1392

Examining the shadows under her eyes, she mused that they had been caused by the things that come out of the shadows. The boundary between dark and light, the limit edge where stuff … happens.

Just as a beach is the boundary in a constant state of flux between sea and land - it is here that chaos, creativity and change begin. The magic ratio 4.669 keeps things interesting and the trick is to keep the dividing line fluid but unchanging - advancing and retreating in a roiling dance of equilibrium.

There couldn’t be shadows without light. Could there?