“Oh, God!” Kurt swore. “Not them! Please, not them!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Okay, other than about the ugliest uniforms I’ve ever seen in my life,” Barb said, “I’m not really seeing anything different about this school compared to, well, any number of all girls’ schools. Been there, left with scars.”
“Didn’t get along?” Kurt asked.
“Not particularly,” Barb said. “Japanese ones were the worst. There is no more arrogant, stuck-up bitch than a billionaire’s granddaughter who can trace her lineage back to the founding of the Empire of the Sun.”
“That would be…?” Kurt said.
“Two thousand years.”
“Ah. Talk about old money.”
“Akio considered the Medici nouveau riche,” Barb said, distractedly. “We compromised. She didn’t piss me off, I didn’t break her arm by accident. Again.”
“Very Christian of you.”
“It’s actually when I truly found Christ,” Barb said. “He was…”
“Behind the couch the whole time?”
“Exactly. Actually, on the couch. Took me a while to notice. But being the only Christian in a school made me realize I could be the ugly American or witness for Christ. Witnessing, as in being the nice girl and showing them how a Christian ought to act. Turned out Jesus was right there waiting the whole time. Nothing special here. Okay, their internal network is called ‘bruisernet.’ That’s not so good. Their colors are, you can’t make this stuff up, black and blue.”
“Hey,” Kurt said.
“Found something?”
“Sort of. Girls’ Preparatory Academy. GPA. Grade point average, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s lower than Bluff View, so that would be low GPA.”
“Kurt…”
“Returning to work. Really high rate of busts for cocaine possession.”
“Inverse rates of successful prosecutions.”
“Might have something to do with…hello. DA’s wife went to GPA. Daughter goes to GPA. So do daughters or granddaughters of half of the city council and county commission. Court judges either graduates or family attending or graduates…”
“That doesn’t spell Special Circumstances,” Barb pointed out. “You’re just talking about a small town that’s turned into a medium city. I’m not exactly seeing the Kabala or pentagrams.”
“I’m starting to agree,” Kurt said. “I’m looking at the website and just not seeing Satanic cult here.”
Barb pulled up the website and paused.
“Okay, we’ve got a problem,” she said.
“What?” Kurt asked, rolling over.
“Look at them,” Barb said.
“I have been,” Kurt said. “Other than the uniforms…”
“No, I mean look at them,” Barb said. “This is not normal.”
“Rich girls. Prep school…”
“They’re all smiling,” Barb said. “In perfect unison. Mechanically. Like…You ever hear about that case in Connecticut…?”
“I read the report in background prep. Holy…”
“Not…”
“ Stepfords,” they both said, simultaneously.
“Stepfords and zombies?” Kurt said. “Houston, we have a problem.”
“It can’t be a Stepford cult,” Sharice said, wearily. “Okay, they look like Stepfords. But there’s too many of them. A Stepford ritual requires very high-end magics, powerful channels and multiple blood sacrifices. Find me the Ted Bundy, times ten, and I’ll agree that it’s a Stepford cult.”
Sharice had been napping on one of the couches in the parlor. Barb had checked on Lazarus, who was out cold on Janea’s chest, then reluctantly woke Sharice up.
“How many blood sacrifices?” Kurt asked.
“Nine for each Wife,” Sharice replied. “Of ‘good station,’ generally meaning innocent of major evils themselves. For Stepfords, the average crack addict is insufficient. Don’t ask why, you’re getting into occult quantum physics. Let me point out that I spent last night in the astral plane, which is not exactly sleeping. Can’t you just Google this?”
“Please, Sharice? I heard you were…involved…?”
“One of my first major cases,” Sharice said, sort of sitting up. “The key was finding Bundy. Bundy was their collector. The sacrifice doesn’t have to take place under the dark of the moon in a temple, simply be a sacrifice by a collector using certain minor rituals. Fortunately, I’m a fairly good Seer and I know Florida.”
“Wait,” Kurt said. “You…?”
“How many girls in this school?” Sharice asked.
“About six hundred,” Barb replied. “And I’ve looked at a few of the ones around town. They’re definitely… something. I’ve never actually seen a Stepford, but their auras are…awful. Not demonic, just awful.”
“Still doesn’t track. Six hundredish girls. Even if a third were Stepfords, you’re talking about the ritualistic killing of more than two thousand women between the ages of puberty and about twenty-five by a single channeler. Then you have to remove the ka of the Wife.”
“Which you do how, exactly?” Kurt asked, continuing, “he asked without really wanting to know the answer.”
“Which is fortunate, because it’s SCAP and you don’t have Level Eight access,” Sharice said.
“Wait…” Barb said. “You do?”
“In general, it can be voluntarily surrendered,” Sharice said, ignoring the question, “but it usually has to be removed by force. Either one is a rather serious ritual that does require the dark of the moon. I don’t see even a third of these girls being…those creatures. There’s not that many serial killers murdering basically decent young women running around. More than are generally recognized, but not that many.”
“Not in the US, anyway,” Kurt said.
“Yes,” Sharice said. “Don’t ask about Congo and Moldova. Fortunately, there’s a group of Asatru covering the Caucasus. Led by a demon-possessed former SEAL. Good story…I could write a book. Too tired.”
“Any real-world terminology you can inject here?” Kurt asked, flailing for the shores of sanity. “Like, what’s the effect of soul-death in…I hate to call it ‘reality,’ but…”
“There are two types,” Sharice said, yawning. “The death of the ba and the death of the ka. The…PCP zombies are ba -dead. True walking dead. The effect of that, with an infilling force is, well, what you’ve seen. Without specific direction, you get homicidal psychosis. Without an infilling force they are, well, dead as a stump. Stepfords are ka -dead. Often diagnosed as sociopaths. There’s more around than just Stepfords, by the way. The only thing they can feel is the pain of others. Generally, psychological pain. So they get off on inflicting pain and dominating everyone around them. They are…soul-suckers. Succubae, sort of.”
“More shit I wish I didn’t know,” Kurt said. “Sorry for the language, ladies.”
“You did ask,” Sharice said, stretching out on the couch. “If there’s nothing else, I need to rest my old bones.”
“Thanks, Sharice,” Barb said. “Get some rest.”
“If you haven’t got your health,” Kurt said.
“Did you just make a Princess Bride reference?” Sharice said, chuckling. “I didn’t know you had it in
