Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

I was rattled from my sleep by the high pitched buzzing ring of my apartment phone. In a state of delirium I fumbled acrossed the room for the receiver. My obtunded fingers not remembering how to work fiddled with their way up the wall to the wall mounted telephone. The receiver came free from the hook. My hands too numb to hold it; the cold black receiver fell to the floor with a thud.

I heard a man’s voice coming from the receiver on the floor. “Hello? Knighten? Are you there?” The caller sounded urgent. I tried to focus my vision that was still adjusting to the light coming through the large gap in the drapes. I was finally able to pick up the receiver and come out of this sleepy delirium. I put it to my ear.

“Yes, yes! This is Knighten Foraine.” Unfortunately, there was no response. Just a lot of popping noises and then a dial tone. Rats! That could have been my next lead. Or maybe even a date.

Speaking about dates, my last date didn’t go too well at all. I had invited Holly Prichard over for a nice quiet dinner about a week ago. I met her at one of my mom’s fund raisers. Holly and I really hit it off. Our date ended with Ms. Prichard running out my door with a mouse running up her blouse and her hair sparking with smoke. As I reached the door to run to her help, I heard Celena gigglying hysterically behind the ice box. Faerie magic! Double rats! For a week now I had been shunning CG.

Anyway, getting back to me and my apartment with the phone. I was glad the phone rang to wake me up. I had slept through most of the day and I needed to meet the fellas at Benny’s library in about an hour. I showered and got dressed. I jumped into my car. The started wouldn’t start! Triple rats! I took a deep breath and then tried again. My heart leapt to hear her purr like a kitten! As I peeled away towards the Library I made a mental note to take my car into Father’s personal mechanic to see if there were any problems.

When I arrived, I found out that Krzysztof was the one who called this morning. He reported the same popping sound before I hung up. He was calling me to help prepare some holy water for a raid on a demon. Apparently, Henry’s band leader was fiddling with the wrong kind of fiddle. That Irishman had sold his soul to the devil for a few good gigs and the ability to play like a god. Benny said that the band had to go. Henry pled a case for most of the band, but Benny was adamant that the Irish band leader had played his last gig…he had to die so that others would not perish from his accursed actions.

Benny had enlisted the other fellas in completing balloons of holy water before I had arrived. As we were finishing the last preparations to our plan, there was a heavy knock at Benny’s door. It startle everyone. We all turned toward the door, all with the same look on our faces…the “who-could-it-be-at-this-hour-of-the-night look” (even though it was only about 8 at night). Benny yelled through the heavy oak door, “Who’s there?”

“It is I Silas Fugenzo. I am a time mage that is here to help you. Please we do not have too much time, you must let me in so that I may explain.”

“We are not letting you in UNTIL you explain!” Replied Benny confidently.

“Are you not going up against a demon tonight? You are! How do I know that you are thinking? It is because I have seen this future. If I do not help you, I have foreseen your failure and destruction. Please again, let me in.”

Benny let the stranger in. He was an average built man with dark complexion and permanent darkened baggy circles under his eyes as if he were lacking a few decades of sleep. He wore a white cloak, obviously not trying to hide or be secretive. In the crook of his left arm he carried a wooden drum with a streched leather head (after getting to know Silas later, I now wonder if that leather was from human skin). About his body he had other small trinkets that were part of his craft. As he walked into the middle of the room I noticed that he walked on the balls of his feet and bounced slightly in a rhythmic way. He told us his full story.

He then began to tell us what we needed to do to prevent his vision of our destruction from coming true. He and I went to the Red and Blues Club where Henry was supposed to meet the band after midnight. Even though the place was hopping when we got there, no one saw us painting a circle around the building with a bucket of red paint. Once we finished we headed back to the library to pick everyone up. All of this demon stuff was pretty new to me so I just went with what everyone was saying. I knew that my job was to seal that circle we had just made, so that the demon could not get out.

Henry was positioned in front of the building he would enter through the front door to meet the band. The rest of us were positioned on the roof of the adjacent building. We needed to jump the 3 ft alley, then sneak down to the groud floor. We did so without any problems. I was the last over. After I landed on the jazz club roof I turned around and performed a short ritual spell to seal the circle Silas and I had created. This was the first time I had performed this ability. The book that I had learned from warned me that I might get a headache afterward. I did. It made me a little dizzy. I recovered quickly and followed the group downstairs.

We snuck past the band that were all in some kind of trance. We made our way towards the basement where we heard a bone chilling roarish yell. Benny was the first on the seen, followed by Kyle and Krzysztof. Silas, then Henry ran down the stairs. I was last. I could hear Benny struggling with something big. I heard a balloon splash and a blood-curdling scream. Apparently holy water does hurt it. I raced down the steps with a little more courage from that news. I saw the creature. It looked at me straight in the eyes. The demon had an oversized head with black oversized eyes positioned slightly to the sides of the head. Its mouth was not really a mouth. Rather it was a group of four hard sharp plates that came together. Green thick spittle dripped down from where the mouth plates came together. The demon’s body was hulking. It stood on two powerful legs, that were more like tree trunks than legs. The legs had black thick thorny outcrops all over their shell-like skin. They reminded me off the thorax of a lobster, but instead of a delicious red, they were a stale gray-green. Its arms were almost as larger and covered with even more thorns than the legs. At the end of each arm was a massive claw-like hand with three fingers that ended in sharp black bony nails.

It was bleeding a greenish substance from its right shoulder and had a whole in its chest the size…the size of, well, a balloon filled with water. I cast the first spell that popped into my head. I slammed the end of my cane on to the concrete step of the stairs and muttered, “Luzem Borrachem!” Only I saw the magical flash of light. The demon was at that point blinded.

I saw the beast charge Krzysztof blindly. Krzysztof spun around using the demon’s weight and through it up against the wall. This barely phased the demon. It whipped around with its sharp mouth plates open. It bellowed a hideous roar. Krzysztof, now on the ground was trying to put some space between he and the creature.

“Benny, he can’t see!” I shouted. Benny took the cue. He pulled out his ruby-handled pistols, crossed the two hand-over-hand. He then pulled the triggers. The bullets (that I later learned had crosses carved into the tips, Benny’s symbol of conviction) blew through the open hole, tearing through the other side out the creatures back. Blackish green entrals splattered on the wall. The demon’s body slumped down into a dead heap.

It was at that point that we all noticed a quivering man in the corner of the room, Seamus presumably. The rat! The cause of all this suffering that had occurred. Benny had informed us previously that Seamus had plans to give up Henry as a sacrificial offering. This did not put Henry in a agreeable mode. He was now eyeing the pathetic rat of a man. Henry stode over him.

“Please, Henry! I-I-I was going to share with you the power. He promised me that we’d be the best. J-just think about the places we could have seen?”

Henry stood there cold and motionless. Looking on him without pity. “Seamus, your are the demon! You betrayed us all. What about they others in the band? You didn’t want to share that power. And even if you did, I didn’t want it. Its dirty, like the mob’s money. Seamus, we are through.”

At that, Seamus rose up with renewed strength. A sacrificial knife in hand already stained with blood, Seamus’ blood. His other hand was wrapped with a torn piece of his shirt tails. He lifted the knife above his head.

With uncontrolled wrath Seamus lunged shouting, “We are through when I say we are through!”

“Henry look out!” Benny warned tossing one of his pistols at Henry.

Henry in one motion caught the ruby handle and slipped his finger into the trigger. He whirled around and squeezed the trigger. The chamber emptied a cross-tipped bullet into Seamus’ on coming head.

“That’s for kicking me out the band.”

Seamus’ body flew backwards towards the floor from the force of the bullet. A pool of blood quickly formed on th concrete beneath his still lifeless head.

Silas, who seemed unnoticed through the battle, released the circle that had been protect us from the demon creature. Unseen force had been working in our favor. He explained later of the forces of entropy being used against the demon. Each move he made was slowly weakening his hold into the mortal realm…pushing him ever back into the Nevernever. These forces had been wearing him down like how a subtle stream wears away at a stone. This latent information may have pass over the other’s heads, but I was grateful for this stranger. It will be nice having someone else’s magic in the mix.

Benny went of inseclusion for some meditation. He probably met with his higher ups to report his proceedings as well. Benny did not say much after the battle. He seemed to be lost in thought, like a mathematics professor working on a large important calculation.

Krzysztof, I learned afterwards was no longer Officer K___, but Agent K___. Elliot Ness had heard about his work on the dark summoner’s case, and offered him a job.

Henry was now without a band. Even without a band leader, the rest of the band members were too shaken up from their experiences to play any more. Many would probably never recover from what Seamus did to them. Even though we were there for Henry, he seemed once again alone. I felt a sadness in him. I had a strange feeling that when he looked at us, deep down inside he felt that something bad would happen to us as well, like what happened to everyone around him.

The Big Bad Voodoo Daddy? Well, I am glad to say that he is laid to rest…Silas took care of that. Deep in the darkest part of the Nevernever, where his bones are probably being torn apart by something even more frightening then the Darkness inside of Henry.