When Deegie returned to the brothers’ house later that evening, she was relieved to see that Gilbert had not come home yet. She would need his help, certainly, and soon, but she relished the chance to speak, uninterrupted, to Zach about what she had read so far in the journal. He met her at the door, and the smile died on his lips when he saw the look on her face.
“Guess you heard about old Shit Storm, huh?” He took her coat for her and hung it in the foyer closet.
“Yeah, I saw it in the paper this morning. Poor old drunk. I kind of feel bad about the wisecrack I made yesterday. This is even worse, though.” She held up the shopping bag with the two old books inside. “I took these to work with me and did a little reading. I found out who the ‘bad men’ were, and—oh, Zach, it’s just awful! You’re not going to believe this!”
“Hey, hey, easy now.” Zach put an arm around her and led her to the couch. “Let’s get you warmed up and settled in, and you can tell me all about it.”
She declined his offer of warmed-over chicken nuggets, and with Bast wrapped safely in her arms, she told him what she had read about Lisbet’s cats. “It gets even worse, I’m sure,” she said, trailing a fingertip over the newspaper clippings that had been tucked inside the journal. “Those men killed Lisbet, Zach. I know they did. I just couldn’t bring myself to read about it.”
He picked up the journal almost reverently, flipped through the pages, and began to read while Deegie sat quietly and stared at the Book of Shadows, still wrapped in plastic and sitting on the coffee table. After a few minutes of reading, Zach cleared his throat repeatedly; his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down under his red beard. He closed the book with his finger marking his place and said, “Well, then.”
“Something?” She knew he had just read a particularly distressing entry, but she waited for him to explain anyway.
“Uh, well ... yeah. I’m sorry Deeg.” He opened the journal and handed it to her. “Here,” he said. “Just read.”
Deegie lowered her eyes to the cramped, black-ink handwriting, and steeled herself for what she was about to learn.
November 5, 1927
Something has gone wrong, but Edwin refuses to admit it. What good is wealth when you cannot enjoy it? It screams down there, all night, and during the day, the raised demon Chul breathes down my neck and whispers the most awful things in my ear. Black, stinking, hellish thing! No amount of money is worth this. Edwin will not send it back, but he must or I fear we will both go mad. The old woman is oblivious to the situation. She does not even realize what we have done. Bless her ignorant soul, for she is most fortunate.
November 7, 1927
Edwin understands now. The thing screamed in his room all night long. It must be sent back to the depths of hell! We must reverse the spell before it is too late. Chul is full of false promises. I should have known. I should never have strayed from the church. Edwin says we need a sacrifice again, and I’m sure he doesn’t mean a couple of mangy cats. God help us.
November 10, 1927
It is done, but Edwin did a messy job. I cleaned all afternoon. How were we to know that it would kill her? We hadn’t planned on that. We just needed a little blood, a bit of flesh. She has no family, he says. No one will know. God knows, though. He knows what we did. That glass must never break. God help the person who breaks that glass.
“So they did kill her. She wasn’t lost in a snowstorm! Those idiots killed her, just like she said!” Deegie closed the book with a slap and tossed it onto the coffee table. She had no desire to read the rest of it. “They buried her in the backyard, where she’d started a little cemetery for her cats. If we dug there, we would find her.”
“Do you think we should?”
“No. I offered, and she got very upset. She wants to be with her cats. Besides, what good would it do? Everyone involved is long dead. There’s no one left to punish. I want her to stay where she is, and I’ll plant new rosebushes over the spot.” She swallowed hard against the lump rising in her throat; hot tears of sadness and rage coursed down her cheeks. “Those were her fingers in that jar, weren’t they?”
“Yeah. Edwin and his brother, Johnathan, set a trap. They did a spell with a jar or something. He explains it more in his next entry. They used her fingers as bait. I don’t think they meant to kill her, but I guess, well, she was old, and the shock ... Anyway, that thing’s been trapped in that jar since 1927.”
Deegie made a fist with the hand that wasn’t holding Bast. “Assholes,” she said. Although the men who’d killed Lisbet were, in all probability, dust in their graves by now, she wished she could somehow resurrect them and bring them to justice herself, preferably piece by piece.
Gilbert burst noisily through the front door, stomping snow off his boots and shaking more out of his hair. Under his arm was a brown paper bag folded around something that looked suspiciously like a liquor bottle. He tossed it to Zach, saying, “I thought we could use a little liquid courage before we go demon-busting. Hello, Deegie. Nice to see you this evening.”
She returned his greeting, hoping he wouldn’t notice her tears and fake smile. How Zach managed to put up with his arrogant, condescending brother was beyond her. “We’ve discovered some pretty tragic stuff in the journal,” she said, and she moved to the far end of the couch so he could sit down. “Lisbet was murdered by those men and used as bait to trap the demon. Those were her fingers in the jar. They killed her cats, too.”
“Sounds like some sort of trapping spell with a human flesh and blood sacrifice,” Gilbert said, and he sat between Deegie and Zach, bringing a dwindling pocket of cold outdoor air with him. “You have to bring out the good stuff if you want to trap them. Human blood is a delicacy to demons; they can’t resist it. But we don’t want to just trap this guy, do we?”
Deegie cringed and stared at the floor.
“Yeah, something like that.” Zach scowled at the journal sitting on the coffee table. “That’s messed up, man. Poor old lady. I think they just wanted her fingers and some blood, but ...” he left the sentence unfinished, and Deegie could tell he was trying not to upset her any more than she already was.
“Well, we won’t need to do anything like that, I’m sure.”
“No. We won’t.” Deegie’s words came out much harsher than she had intended, but she made no apology. She nudged the Book of Shadows closer to Gilbert, using the side of her hand and wishing she didn’t have to touch it at all. “Here. Open this and look at it. Find their spell for raising demons, and we’ll start from there.”
“Alright then.” Gilbert sniffed loudly and stripped the plastic bag from the antique tome. “Gah, it’s cold!”
“It’s evil,” Deegie said.
While Gilbert pored over the Book of Shadows, Zach went to the kitchen and returned with three plastic cups. He lined them up on the table and poured into each a generous shot of the whiskey that Gilbert had brought. Deegie downed hers immediately, hoping it would take the edge off the fierce anger she still felt. The liquor burned all the way down, and she tried not to gag.
“I made protection powder today, by the way.” she said. “A lot of it.” She produced the jar of powdered herbs from her purse and set it next to the bottle of whiskey. “We’re going to need it.”
Gilbert glanced up from the book in his lap. “Did you use asafetida and bay leaf?” He tapped the side of the jar of powdered herbs and shook his head. “This doesn’t look right to me.”
Deegie really wanted to stick the jar of powder in Gilbert’s mouth to keep him from talking any more, but she drew a deep breath and willed herself to endure Zach’s brother with grace and style. “Asafetida, mullein, and Scotch broom. There is more than one recipe for protection powder, you know. Read the book, please.”
Gilbert squinted at the jar of powder again, wisely keeping his mouth shut, and returned to the Book of Shadows. Zach and Deegie remained silent while he read, and Bast frolicked on the carpet with the cap from a beer bottle. Outside, the snow started falling again, in hard, hail-like pebbles that ticked against the windowpanes. Although she was safe now, in her head Deegie still heard the horrifying shrieks and wails of the demon Chul.
After ten minutes of reading, Gilbert closed the Book of Shadows and cleared his throat importantly. “I think I’ve got it,” he said. “I’m surprised these two inexperienced Normal Ones were able to raise an actual demon by using such a crude spell. Definitely not a professional spell, not something I would use anyway.” He sniffed in distain. “But somehow they were able to do it. It’s a good thing this isn’t a sophisticated spell, actually. I think all we need to do is a simple reversal.”
“A reversal? What’s that, like just saying the spell backwards or something?” Zach gulped down his whiskey then poured another shot into his empty plastic cup.
“Pretty much,” said Gilbert. “With a few minor adjustments, we should be able to send it back to the Underworld with no trouble.” He winked at Deegie and added, “I’m kinda surprised you haven’t tried that already, Deeg.”
With that statement, Deegie reached her limit, and her voice rose along with her ire. “Are you joking? You saw that damn thing! Do you really think I would abandon all common sense and take it on all by myself without even knowing what I was dealing with? And with my handicap? Are you crazy?”
He infuriated her even further by laughing at her outrage. “Lesser demons will sometimes puff themselves up, you know, to make themselves look more intimidating.” He snorted and picked up his cup. “Besides, what are the chances that a couple of Normal Ones could raise a full demon?”
“Damn it, Gilbert!” Deegie stood up abruptly, her pale blue eyes alight with anger. “This is not a lesser demon! They raised Chul! You know who he is, don’t you? You should, since you know everything! They sacrificed a harmless old woman and some of her pets to do it! This isn’t just some mischievous imp!” She slapped her hands together for emphasis and sat down again, her cheeks blazing with color and her lips trembling.
“Uh, Deeg?” Zach said, as gently as he could. “To be fair, Gil didn’t know that. He didn’t read the journal, remember?”
She nodded and buried her face in her hands. “I know. I’m sorry, Gilbert, it’s just—you don’t know everything, okay? You don’t.”
“Been trying to tell him that his entire life,” Zach muttered.
“Okay,” Gilbert relented. “I can be kind of an ass, I know. I’m the one who should be apologizing. Sorry, Deeg. And no, I’ve never heard of Chul.” Embarrassed, he lowered his head and fiddled with the cap to the whiskey bottle.
“I’ll be damned,” said Zach. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard ol’ Gil apologize for anything!”
Gilbert’s blush deepened, and he nodded and shrugged. “She’s right, I admit it. I don’t know everything. I’ve just never had a pretty girl call me out on it before.” He offered Deegie his hand. “Truce?”
Truce? She wanted to smack him. She wished they were back in her own house so she could have the satisfaction of ordering him out. Yet despite Gilbert’s infuriating, condescending manner, she knew she needed him; she couldn’t do this on her own. Not that she would ever tell him that.
“Of course, Gilbert,” she said hastily. “Let’s just forget it.” She gave his hand a brief shake, then tapped her nails against the jar of Protection Powder. “Can we get back to this now?”
“Why don’t you tell us what you think we should do, Deegie?” Gilbert leaned forward attentively, and his humbled smile was sincere this time. “I really do want to know, I promise.”
“Alright then.” She resettled herself on the couch cushions and folded her hands on her knees. “First I’ll tell you what I think we shouldn’t do: the spell reversal. They summoned Chul with a blood sacrifice, then they shut him down the same way. If we try to reverse the spell to banish him for good, wouldn’t we need to start the same way? With a blood sacrifice of some sort?”
Gilbert tented his fingers under his chin as he pondered this. “That could be,” he said. “I never considered that.”
“Well, I refuse to sacrifice anything to any demon for any reason. It’s murder. Besides, my mother taught me better than that. My father ... well ... that’s a story for another time.”
“What do you suggest, then? Tell me.”
Deegie’s solution was more ethical, but potentially deadly. “We open a hell portal,” she said, “and we shove the sucker back through.”
The Altman brothers gaped in silent astonishment, and Deegie, not at all surprised by their reaction, leaned back in her seat and waited for them to process her suggestion.
“Is that, ah, is that safe?” Zach finally asked.
“No, not at all,” Deegie replied calmly. “But neither is living in a house with a demon trapped in the basement.”
Gilbert coughed nervously into his fist. “Do you know how to do this, Deegie? Because if you do, then I have most definitely underestimated you.”
“I’ve never actually done it before, but yes, I know the basics. My dad had an entire shelf of books dedicated to the dark arts. I read every one of them. Even took notes.”
“You mean your father was a ...”
“A dark witch, yes.” Deegie finished Zach’s sentence for him, then changed the subject. She would tell them another time, perhaps when this nightmare was over. “We will need black candles, of course. I have an entire box of them at the shop. And red paint. And, naturally, we’ll need some live bait. The Gatekeepers of the Underworld aren’t going to open the door for nothing, you know.”
“Live bait?” Zach chuckled nervously. “Damn, that’s pretty hardcore. What are you going to use for that?”
“You,” Deegie said.