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wtf_hollowIn the interest of not losing everything in a comment swarm on one prompt post, I'm going to throw this thing up here, where we can prod it to our satisfaction without creating a total mess. Or something. Probably just moving the mess, but that will do for now.
He knows he's cursed. He just does. No one believes him, but what else is he to think, when his phone starts changing his all appointments to "DOOM" (and once, notably, "DOME")? Any alarms he sets (phone, clock radio, oven timer) go off about 10 minutes late, even once he cottons on and starts setting them earlier. Doesn't matter; apparently this thing knows his intentions. Lights burn out at an alarming rate wherever he goes, and if he wasn't responsible for all the floods extinguishing at the baseball field during the night game, he'll eat his hat.
Whatever it is, it isn't terribly smart, he thinks. His texts are mostly unchanged, but they tend to be misspelled and stripped of punctuation. And the message that showed up on his computer in lurid red, pulsing against a seething black backdrop? Yeah, 'CALL YOUR MOTHER' isn't exactly threatening. Especially since she's been dead for six years now.
It's not all bad. Doors won't stay locked around him anymore, so that's been occasionally useful. Maybe he could take up burglary? Except for the damn alarm thing; he'd probably miss his window for escape by ten minutes. It's probably not worth it.
But he's entirely over the whole thing the morning he opens his refrigerator to find that his carton of eggs has hatched, and he now has tiny lizards romping among his coldcuts, and it's just wrong on so many levels. That was when he decided to call in a witch.
The witch-consulting process does not begin favorably. His first attempt to contact the agency results in howling static that near deafens him, and a rancid orange slime oozing out the battery compartment of his mobile. Miraculously, it doesn’t seem to damage the device any, but he decides against trying it again.
Instead, he trudges down to the corner bodega and begs the use of their ancient crusty push-button landline. Somehow in the course of the conversation, the curly receiver cord ends up wrapped around his upper torso and neck, but he still manages to book a consultation.
Not a very helpful consultation, as it turns out. The fellow who turns up looks right enough for the job: black hair sleeked back, long black raincoat with silver buckles and strange sigils all over, silver rings on his fingers, gleaming and thick, like the knuckles on a tree limb.
The witch takes one look at him, though--his plain scruffy face, worn-out brown jumper and wrinkled chinos--and bursts out laughing, right there on the porch.
Then he leaves. That’s it.
The second visit goes a little bit better. A very little bit. Martin opens the door on a woman this time. Hair the color of moonlight on a blank page; sort of pale vaporous blue, shading down to indigo at the ends, like she’d dipped them in an ink pot. Her clothing’s more ordinary; slouchy overalls, and a loose blouse of some nubby fabric, sleeves rolled up to reveal a tapestry of intricate, colorful tattoos from elbows to fingertips. Silver hoop in her nose, several around her ears, and a reassuringly firm, direct gaze.
Straightaway, she sticks out a hand to shake, “How do you do, sir, I’m—.”
She halts. Drops the hand, backs up a half step, frowning.
Martin registers a clammy draft around his ankles, a sinking in his midsection. But he wants to be polite. “Sorry, you’re...?”
The woman fishes a fancy monocle out of her blouse; gray iron rim intricately engraved, silver chain, round lens of pink-stained glass. Up and down, she studies him through it.
“Hm,” she says. Then a snap of her tongue on her upper palate, “Tsk.”
From somewhere in the living room, Martin’s phone makes a noise he’s never heard before, like the entire brass section of an orchestra tumbling down a flight of marble stairs. The draft at his ankle solidifies, feels like a caressing tentacle, slimy. But he refuses to look down.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to—,” he starts, but the woman says, “Nope, don’t think so, uh-huh.”
And to his despair, she turns about and heads back down the steps.
Baffled and desperate, Martin cries out, “Wait, where are you going?” He hurries down to the sidewalk in his ratty old house slippers, shuffling after her. “Please, don’t leave yet, how’m I supposed to pay you, if you lot just keep leaving like this?”
The woman stops. Turns to frown back at him. “Excuse me?” Then she points a stern finger, “No, that’s quite close enough, stay right there. Now, explain what you just said.”
“What?” Martin shrugs helplessly. “There’s a consult fee, right? That’s what the agency said. Only they didn’t say anything about how I’m supposed to pay it. And the first bloke, he just, laughed and took off. And now you’ve come, except now you’re leaving too, and honestly I’m very scared to go back into my house and deal with my refrigerator, and whatever’s gotten into my phone, what if it gets bored and kills me in my sleep tonight, and—”
“Okay, okay, I hear you, just.” The woman pinches the bridge of her nose a moment, sighs forcefully. “Of all the problems you have—and believe me, they are considerable, sir. Are you really that concerned about the payment process?”
Maybe it’s the stress of the situation, but honestly, the question makes him feel a little indignant. “Of course I’m concerned! We all have to get by, don’t we? Most people struggle with it; covering rent, the bills, let alone decent healthcare, my God. And here I am, with this curse. You think I want to make matters worse, by stiffing someone on their rightful compensation?”
The woman gazes at him, straight-faced for an uncomfortable length of time. Then she tips her chin up, taking a long critical survey of the sky overhead.
“All right,” she finally says. “Listen. I need to make some arrangements. Talk with some people. Whatever you’ve got going on here, it’s--” gesturing wide to indicate all of Martin, generally, “--entirely above my pay grade. So just....don’t go anywhere. Stay put, until you hear from me.”
Martin wants so much to believe her. So he stays put, there on the front walk, the autumn afternoon waning toward chilly orange sunset, as the woman walks off. He stands there until his heels start aching, then shuffles morosely back to his porch, and takes a seat on the top step. The front door yawns darkly open behind him, but he tries his best to ignore it.
He’s beginning to get uncomfortably chilled, when the huge black raven swoops down from the sky, wings buffeting the air around Martin’s head. He shies back in alarm, but the great bird merely drops a folded paper note in his lap before wheeling off with loud cracking caws.
Martin pats down his windblown hair and then cautiously, unfolds the note:
Standing Stones Meadow
7am sharp
The words are in dense black Gothic calligraphy. At the bottom, in ordinary cursive, it says: Bring the lizards. —Madame C.
Madame C, as it turns out, is the most Witch of all the witches Martin has ever met, well deserving the capital W, he thinks. She's a tall, solidly built buxom woman in a dark dress of indeterminate color, with a heavy, serious face and black hair pulled back in a tight chignon. She doesn't smile when he approaches where she stands amid the ring of standing stones, merely points at the terrarium he's clutching with a thick, beringed finger and directing him to place it on the ground at the edge of the circle. "And you stay right there," she instructs with a stern look, nodding at another ring, marked out with what appears to be crushed chalk, just a few paces away. He obediently steps in, only for the lines to flare to dazzling life an instant later, and the Witch nods her head in satisfaction.
"Yes, that should do nicely," she states, and crosses her arms over her ample chest. "Now, Mr...?"
"Just Martin is fine."
"Martin, then. What do you seek from the Guild?"
"The curse," Martin begins, only for her to shake her head with a glower.
"It's not a curse."
Martin boggles at her. Not a.... "Of course it is!" he insists. "The lights won't stay on, and my television is bleeding, which makes viewing dreadfully off-putting, and all of my voicemail comes through in Spanish, and I can't even speak-"
Madame C harrumphs. "All of which indicates something other than a curse. Any witch worth their salt can handle a curse. You, Martin, have a whelp."
He blinks. Then blinks again. "Sorry, I have a what?"
"A whelp," she tells him, enunciating the word with a grimace. "Far more difficult than a curse."
"But I don't know what that means!"
She sighs heavily, finally moving forward to lift the terrarium from where he'd placed it on the ground. Examining the lizards within, she says, "A whelp is, essentially, demonic potential. It is too undeveloped to have formed the will or presence of a demon, but it is the essence from which every demon springs. And while it hasn't yet coalesced, it still contains most of the demonic impulses that it's more developed brethren wield. It's a wild, unpredictable entity, Mr. Martin, and it appears that this one has latched onto you."
"Me? But what... why would it?..."
"I'm sure I can't say." Her voice is dry, dismissive, and she shakes the cage ever so slightly, jostling the lizards within.
Martin shakes himself, refocusing. "O-kay," he says slowly. "So can you help me get rid of it?"
"A whelp?" Madame C cuts him a sharp look, incredulous. "No Guild witch will touch a whelp. Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?"
"Yes!" he cries, frustrated and, if he's being honest, a little frightened. "I think have a pretty good idea at this point! That's why I've been calling you lot, but you keep laughing at me, and then just... walking off! No one has even tried to help!"
"Because no witch with any sense wants the attention of proto-demons," Madame C tells him, contempt flashing in her eyes. "If it were to remove itself from you, and attach to one of us, the results would be catastrophic! You, young man, are going to have to learn to live with it. At least, until it gets tired of you."
"But my life!-" Martin begins, and she shakes her head.
"No Guild witch will touch this," she repeats, and Martin, hearing the finality in her voice, sags within the chalk circle. She shakes the terrarium again before lifting the lid, and reaching a thick hand inside to pluck out one of the lizards. Replacing the lid, she holds it up to eye it critically, before tossing it into her mouth and biting down. Martin hears a loud POP, and then she's pursing her lips, looking contemplative. "Mm, spearmint."
He boggles again. "You just ate a lizard. A live lizard!" His stomach gives a queasy twist at the thought.
She waves a hand dismissively. "Not a real lizard. Now if we're done here..."
"Wait!" She pauses, eyebrow lifted expectantly, but he can see the irritation simmering in her gaze and hurries to spit out the rest. "If... if it's like you say, and no Guild witches will help me, is there anyone else who will?
Her lip curls, and the expression on her face is something that, if he were inclined to be generous, he might call a sneer. "If you're determined to confront this entity," she tell him, the words clearly being dragged grudgingly from her lips, "there is only one person I can think of who is foolish and self-destructive enough to consider this fool's errand. But," she lifts a finger, eyes flashing and angry, "she most certainly does not represent the Guild, and I will not be liable for any other misfortunes she may bring into your life. I won't even promise you she can help at all, but I suppose if anyone were inclined to involve themselves in something like this, she would."
There is history here, Martin is sure of it. Madame C's hostility toward this non-Guild witch is blatant, her disdain for Martin's persistence even more so. Hesitantly he inquires, as politely as possible, "Where might I find her?"
Madame C snorts, and pops another lizard in her mouth. "Try the 24 hour diner on Cabot street. I hear she works the overnight shift there." She shakes her head, then fixes him with a hard look. "Do not contact us again." And with a soft implosion and a burst of blue smoke she is gone, the light of the chalk circle fades, and Martin is left with his bewildered anxiety in the now-empty meadow.
He knows he's cursed. He just does. No one believes him, but what else is he to think, when his phone starts changing his all appointments to "DOOM" (and once, notably, "DOME")? Any alarms he sets (phone, clock radio, oven timer) go off about 10 minutes late, even once he cottons on and starts setting them earlier. Doesn't matter; apparently this thing knows his intentions. Lights burn out at an alarming rate wherever he goes, and if he wasn't responsible for all the floods extinguishing at the baseball field during the night game, he'll eat his hat.
Whatever it is, it isn't terribly smart, he thinks. His texts are mostly unchanged, but they tend to be misspelled and stripped of punctuation. And the message that showed up on his computer in lurid red, pulsing against a seething black backdrop? Yeah, 'CALL YOUR MOTHER' isn't exactly threatening. Especially since she's been dead for six years now.
It's not all bad. Doors won't stay locked around him anymore, so that's been occasionally useful. Maybe he could take up burglary? Except for the damn alarm thing; he'd probably miss his window for escape by ten minutes. It's probably not worth it.
But he's entirely over the whole thing the morning he opens his refrigerator to find that his carton of eggs has hatched, and he now has tiny lizards romping among his coldcuts, and it's just wrong on so many levels. That was when he decided to call in a witch.
The witch-consulting process does not begin favorably. His first attempt to contact the agency results in howling static that near deafens him, and a rancid orange slime oozing out the battery compartment of his mobile. Miraculously, it doesn’t seem to damage the device any, but he decides against trying it again.
Instead, he trudges down to the corner bodega and begs the use of their ancient crusty push-button landline. Somehow in the course of the conversation, the curly receiver cord ends up wrapped around his upper torso and neck, but he still manages to book a consultation.
Not a very helpful consultation, as it turns out. The fellow who turns up looks right enough for the job: black hair sleeked back, long black raincoat with silver buckles and strange sigils all over, silver rings on his fingers, gleaming and thick, like the knuckles on a tree limb.
The witch takes one look at him, though--his plain scruffy face, worn-out brown jumper and wrinkled chinos--and bursts out laughing, right there on the porch.
Then he leaves. That’s it.
The second visit goes a little bit better. A very little bit. Martin opens the door on a woman this time. Hair the color of moonlight on a blank page; sort of pale vaporous blue, shading down to indigo at the ends, like she’d dipped them in an ink pot. Her clothing’s more ordinary; slouchy overalls, and a loose blouse of some nubby fabric, sleeves rolled up to reveal a tapestry of intricate, colorful tattoos from elbows to fingertips. Silver hoop in her nose, several around her ears, and a reassuringly firm, direct gaze.
Straightaway, she sticks out a hand to shake, “How do you do, sir, I’m—.”
She halts. Drops the hand, backs up a half step, frowning.
Martin registers a clammy draft around his ankles, a sinking in his midsection. But he wants to be polite. “Sorry, you’re...?”
The woman fishes a fancy monocle out of her blouse; gray iron rim intricately engraved, silver chain, round lens of pink-stained glass. Up and down, she studies him through it.
“Hm,” she says. Then a snap of her tongue on her upper palate, “Tsk.”
From somewhere in the living room, Martin’s phone makes a noise he’s never heard before, like the entire brass section of an orchestra tumbling down a flight of marble stairs. The draft at his ankle solidifies, feels like a caressing tentacle, slimy. But he refuses to look down.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to—,” he starts, but the woman says, “Nope, don’t think so, uh-huh.”
And to his despair, she turns about and heads back down the steps.
Baffled and desperate, Martin cries out, “Wait, where are you going?” He hurries down to the sidewalk in his ratty old house slippers, shuffling after her. “Please, don’t leave yet, how’m I supposed to pay you, if you lot just keep leaving like this?”
The woman stops. Turns to frown back at him. “Excuse me?” Then she points a stern finger, “No, that’s quite close enough, stay right there. Now, explain what you just said.”
“What?” Martin shrugs helplessly. “There’s a consult fee, right? That’s what the agency said. Only they didn’t say anything about how I’m supposed to pay it. And the first bloke, he just, laughed and took off. And now you’ve come, except now you’re leaving too, and honestly I’m very scared to go back into my house and deal with my refrigerator, and whatever’s gotten into my phone, what if it gets bored and kills me in my sleep tonight, and—”
“Okay, okay, I hear you, just.” The woman pinches the bridge of her nose a moment, sighs forcefully. “Of all the problems you have—and believe me, they are considerable, sir. Are you really that concerned about the payment process?”
Maybe it’s the stress of the situation, but honestly, the question makes him feel a little indignant. “Of course I’m concerned! We all have to get by, don’t we? Most people struggle with it; covering rent, the bills, let alone decent healthcare, my God. And here I am, with this curse. You think I want to make matters worse, by stiffing someone on their rightful compensation?”
The woman gazes at him, straight-faced for an uncomfortable length of time. Then she tips her chin up, taking a long critical survey of the sky overhead.
“All right,” she finally says. “Listen. I need to make some arrangements. Talk with some people. Whatever you’ve got going on here, it’s--” gesturing wide to indicate all of Martin, generally, “--entirely above my pay grade. So just....don’t go anywhere. Stay put, until you hear from me.”
Martin wants so much to believe her. So he stays put, there on the front walk, the autumn afternoon waning toward chilly orange sunset, as the woman walks off. He stands there until his heels start aching, then shuffles morosely back to his porch, and takes a seat on the top step. The front door yawns darkly open behind him, but he tries his best to ignore it.
He’s beginning to get uncomfortably chilled, when the huge black raven swoops down from the sky, wings buffeting the air around Martin’s head. He shies back in alarm, but the great bird merely drops a folded paper note in his lap before wheeling off with loud cracking caws.
Martin pats down his windblown hair and then cautiously, unfolds the note:
7am sharp
The words are in dense black Gothic calligraphy. At the bottom, in ordinary cursive, it says: Bring the lizards. —Madame C.
Madame C, as it turns out, is the most Witch of all the witches Martin has ever met, well deserving the capital W, he thinks. She's a tall, solidly built buxom woman in a dark dress of indeterminate color, with a heavy, serious face and black hair pulled back in a tight chignon. She doesn't smile when he approaches where she stands amid the ring of standing stones, merely points at the terrarium he's clutching with a thick, beringed finger and directing him to place it on the ground at the edge of the circle. "And you stay right there," she instructs with a stern look, nodding at another ring, marked out with what appears to be crushed chalk, just a few paces away. He obediently steps in, only for the lines to flare to dazzling life an instant later, and the Witch nods her head in satisfaction.
"Yes, that should do nicely," she states, and crosses her arms over her ample chest. "Now, Mr...?"
"Just Martin is fine."
"Martin, then. What do you seek from the Guild?"
"The curse," Martin begins, only for her to shake her head with a glower.
"It's not a curse."
Martin boggles at her. Not a.... "Of course it is!" he insists. "The lights won't stay on, and my television is bleeding, which makes viewing dreadfully off-putting, and all of my voicemail comes through in Spanish, and I can't even speak-"
Madame C harrumphs. "All of which indicates something other than a curse. Any witch worth their salt can handle a curse. You, Martin, have a whelp."
He blinks. Then blinks again. "Sorry, I have a what?"
"A whelp," she tells him, enunciating the word with a grimace. "Far more difficult than a curse."
"But I don't know what that means!"
She sighs heavily, finally moving forward to lift the terrarium from where he'd placed it on the ground. Examining the lizards within, she says, "A whelp is, essentially, demonic potential. It is too undeveloped to have formed the will or presence of a demon, but it is the essence from which every demon springs. And while it hasn't yet coalesced, it still contains most of the demonic impulses that it's more developed brethren wield. It's a wild, unpredictable entity, Mr. Martin, and it appears that this one has latched onto you."
"Me? But what... why would it?..."
"I'm sure I can't say." Her voice is dry, dismissive, and she shakes the cage ever so slightly, jostling the lizards within.
Martin shakes himself, refocusing. "O-kay," he says slowly. "So can you help me get rid of it?"
"A whelp?" Madame C cuts him a sharp look, incredulous. "No Guild witch will touch a whelp. Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?"
"Yes!" he cries, frustrated and, if he's being honest, a little frightened. "I think have a pretty good idea at this point! That's why I've been calling you lot, but you keep laughing at me, and then just... walking off! No one has even tried to help!"
"Because no witch with any sense wants the attention of proto-demons," Madame C tells him, contempt flashing in her eyes. "If it were to remove itself from you, and attach to one of us, the results would be catastrophic! You, young man, are going to have to learn to live with it. At least, until it gets tired of you."
"But my life!-" Martin begins, and she shakes her head.
"No Guild witch will touch this," she repeats, and Martin, hearing the finality in her voice, sags within the chalk circle. She shakes the terrarium again before lifting the lid, and reaching a thick hand inside to pluck out one of the lizards. Replacing the lid, she holds it up to eye it critically, before tossing it into her mouth and biting down. Martin hears a loud POP, and then she's pursing her lips, looking contemplative. "Mm, spearmint."
He boggles again. "You just ate a lizard. A live lizard!" His stomach gives a queasy twist at the thought.
She waves a hand dismissively. "Not a real lizard. Now if we're done here..."
"Wait!" She pauses, eyebrow lifted expectantly, but he can see the irritation simmering in her gaze and hurries to spit out the rest. "If... if it's like you say, and no Guild witches will help me, is there anyone else who will?
Her lip curls, and the expression on her face is something that, if he were inclined to be generous, he might call a sneer. "If you're determined to confront this entity," she tell him, the words clearly being dragged grudgingly from her lips, "there is only one person I can think of who is foolish and self-destructive enough to consider this fool's errand. But," she lifts a finger, eyes flashing and angry, "she most certainly does not represent the Guild, and I will not be liable for any other misfortunes she may bring into your life. I won't even promise you she can help at all, but I suppose if anyone were inclined to involve themselves in something like this, she would."
There is history here, Martin is sure of it. Madame C's hostility toward this non-Guild witch is blatant, her disdain for Martin's persistence even more so. Hesitantly he inquires, as politely as possible, "Where might I find her?"
Madame C snorts, and pops another lizard in her mouth. "Try the 24 hour diner on Cabot street. I hear she works the overnight shift there." She shakes her head, then fixes him with a hard look. "Do not contact us again." And with a soft implosion and a burst of blue smoke she is gone, the light of the chalk circle fades, and Martin is left with his bewildered anxiety in the now-empty meadow.
