Page 72 of Sigils & Spells

Merle nodded.

I pulled out my messenger bag and laid out the revised orientation of everything. The last poem actually fit somewhere in the middle.

Merle reached out and started to shuffle the papers around. I put my hand on his arm to stop him.

“No wait. Look.” I pointed as I recited a few lines. “See how they fit together now? But there’s more.”

The door closed behind Ramsey.

I pulled out the scroll and held it up to the light.

“Look.”

Merle’s finger followed over the lines of the cuneiform, but when he saw the pattern the light made through the vellum, his jaw dropped open.

“It’s a reversal. This line should be chanted in the other direction.” He looked at me with bright eyes. And then ran for the door. Flinging it open, he shouted, “Ramsey, she’s done it!”

He stopped and looked down. Bending over, he picked something up and clenched his fist. “Fuck.”

He was down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

I was still staring at the floor of the landing where he had picked something up. There were fresh drops of blood.

A strangled scream sounded above us.

Merle stopped, turned and began running up the stairs. A trail of blood drops guided us to the third floor and to the door of a vacant apartment. I followed, only stopping at the top of the stairs when he held out his arm like a gate, keeping me from rushing past him.

“What did you find?” I whispered.

“Amulet.” He held out a tarnished #1Mom pendant. “It’s the only thing that was keeping him contained the past few weeks.”

“Is he… was he the thing that’s been tearing up the chickens around the county?”

“Unfortunately.”

There was another garbled scream.

Merle didn’t hesitate. He followed the trail of blood drops, practically anticipating where the next one would turn into a different room. He stopped short and put his arm out again, keeping me behind him.

There was more blood on the floor, and now feathers. In the corner, hunched over, shoulders rounded, facing away from us was Ramsey. He made gnashing and snarling noises.

“Ramsey,” Merle said. His voice had an over tone of magic to it, rounding out the sound, resonating it through the floorboards. It was a command with a lot of push to it.

Ramsey rotated, twisting so that he faced us. He was hunched over, and consuming one of the small fluffy chickens.

I wanted to gag, I also wanted to sigh with relief. It wasn’t the big sweet cock that strutted around the front, but the nasty little attitude bird. Not that it deserved to have its heart ripped out by Ramsey and whatever was happening to him.

“Drop it.” Merle’s command sounded like he was talking to a dog, and not the man who for the past two years I associated as Merle’s self-appointed groupie.

Ramsey dropped what was left of the bird. He hissed, showing off a row of needle sharp teeth in a snarling lip-less mouth.

“Ramsey,” Merle said again. This time I understood it to be a command for the man to supersede the demon that was possessing him.

Ramsey began twitching. He clawed at his neck as if he wanted to climb out of his skin. And then, he did.

I clutched the back of Merle’s shirt, untucking the tail from his waistband in the process. This had officially gone way past my pay grade. I couldn’t decide if I was a badass frozen in place by fear, or determination. Was I just too stupid to run, or did I really think I could help Merle?

The trench coat— that was never quite right— that Ramsey typically wore slipped from the thing’s shoulders. It was naked, I couldn’t call it a man, thought it was male, but it didn’t resemble a human. The demon didn’t resemble much of anything that I could think of so much as a shaved bear, or a horror movie rendition of a werewolf. There were odd areas of skin that were too tight and showed off all the muscle and tendon that lay beneath, and at the same time there were pockets of saggy flesh that hung and flopped around. All of it was a sickly dead gray color, with darker areas that were almost black in hue.

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