Prologue
She was on her hands and knees, next to the candle. Her white nightie had ridden up. Jeez, he thought. He could see her knickers, he actually could. His ears burned with embarrassment. He knew he shouldn’t stare.
“Fuck, where is it?” she said, she turned the pages of the book splayed open on the carpet.
He stared as shadows moved across her thighs. The knife was in his hand, the blade black.
“That’s it, that’s it,” she said. She shuffled over to the altar. She picked up the saltcellar, shook salt into a bowl of water and held the bowl above her head. “Blessings be upon this creature of salt, err,” she reached for the book. “Fuck, I can’t see nothing.” He passed her a candle and she held it over the book. If they opened the Tunnel, he thought, if they actually did it, they could actually let things into this world that don’t belong. Aiwass The Great Demon could speak to them like It did to Crowley, it could, it probably would if this spell worked.
“Right,” she said, she held up the bowl again. “Let all good enter here in. I bless thee that you may-est aid me, in the name of Aradia the Great Mother.” She put the bowl down. “Pass me the athame, go on then.”
He gave her the knife and she dipped the blade into the water.
“What you doing, you’ve got to kneel down, go on then.” She narrowed her eyes at him. He knelt beside her. He could smell her sweat. It smelled like walnuts. He liked the smell of walnuts. Walnuts had a nice smell. Her safety-pin earring glinted in the moving light. She drew a circle in the air with the knife around them both.
“In the name of the Old Ones, the Radiant Kings I conjure the Circle of Power,” she said and glanced at the book. “Thou be a shield against all wickedness and evil, a boundary between this world and other realms.”
He looked at the shape of her ear. It was perfect, it was a Fibonacci spiral. Other worlds, he thought as he followed the shadowy spiral of her ear around and around, they did exist, he knew they did because it was a scientific fact. Schrödinger’s cat proved it. String theory. Einstein. That was the genius of Crowley, using Magik to mine other dimensions to help the Nazis get Scarler technology so they could kill everyone that didn’t look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jeez, he thought, if the Nazis had won the war, everyone would probably look like Schwarzenegger, they probably would.
“What the fuck you staring at?” she said. “Come on dude.”
“What?” He blinked at her. The candle light moved on her face.
“You’ve got to do the fivefold kiss.” She grinned at him.
His stomach clenched. His face burned with embarrassment again. “What?”, he said.
“Come on.” She stuck her tongue out a little between her teeth. She stood up and waggled her bare foot at him. “I’m serious, don’t fuck this up right, you’ve got to kiss my feet.”
He honked. He swallowed his laugh, he must not laugh because he sounded like a dork when he laughed. She pushed the book at him. He read the page and choked, he couldn’t breathe he was laughing so hard.
“Wot? Wot?” She squeaked, she cackled, she laughed like a witch, she did, she did. “Kiss my feet, then, go on!” She kicked her foot up into his face, he ducked backwards. “Come on, you got to, you got to, it says you got to.”
“It, it,” he honked. He had to stop laughing. He pointed at the book. “Says, I’ve got to kiss your tits.” He doubled over. His face hurt with laughing. She was on her back, rolling around, cackling. The smell of burning. A candle, on its side, the silk cloth covering the altar in flames.
“Jeez,” he shouted. “Fire!”
Wave Davis
Collier Street Fiction Group 