when Mom had turned up at home, there was that same cat. Seeing God’s power manifest tended to change a person, and it had changed Allison immensely.
“I mean, ‘Lazarus’ is a little obvious, isn’t it, Mom?” Allison continued.
“It seemed appropriate,” Barb said, realizing that she was for the first time admitting she had been the battle-armored figure in the night. “What on earth got you to bring that up now, of all times?”
“I think it took me this long to work up the courage,” Allison said.
“What I do on these trips is not open for discussion,” Barbara said and then held up a hand to forestall a reply. “It’s simply not. Among other things, there are aspects that are really and truly legally classified. And there are things I just don’t want you to know. There are things I don’t want to know. But the current problem is… complicated. I’m not going to discuss it with you, but I am going to get help. Okay?”
“Okay,” Allison said, biting her lip. “You are going to be okay, right?”
Barb stopped considering blouses and decided to get it over with. Digging into the back of the closet, she finally found the Black Bag.
The bag had at first resided in the back of the Honda. But as she came to accept that her place was in Algomo, not slaying demons, it had crept slowly through the house and eventually been covered by shoes in the back of the closet. Pulling it out was a wrench, the final statement that it was time to go be Other Barb.
She didn’t like that side of her. It was more than the fear of pride, one of the deadliest sins. It was that that side of her awoke an anger she fought every day. She had tagged that side of her Bad Barb and, at first, she had mentally translated Bad as Evil.
Over time she had come to realize that the words were right, but the meaning wrong.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” Barb said, pulling the bag out and setting it by the bed.
“Because He comforts you?” Alison asked, tearing up. “Because that’s not a comfort to me, Mom.”
Barb reached down and slid open the zipper of the bag, throwing back the cover.
Only the top layer of the materials in the bag were revealed but that was enough. One side of the bag held a katana, a long, curved, Japanese sword that had already slain one demon. The other side held an AR-10 carbine that had helped slay another. Between the two were a cluster of stakes, knives, bottles of holy water and a King James Bible.
“No, sweety,” Barbara said, kissing her on the head. “Because I am the baddest bitch in the valley.”
“Sharice,” Barbara said, hugging the woman.
Coming to the Foundation had been a good choice. Apparently the mystical barriers that protected the fortress of the Foundation were proof even against the voices. They’d stopped the moment she drove through the gates.
The Center for the Foundation was located in the western North Carolina hills, not far from Asheville. A collection of buildings from several different architectural styles, it rambled through a fifteen-acre wooded park.
The main parking area was by the administrative building, which was a Chinese pagoda. It was flanked by the Asatru House, a mostly traditional Norse longhouse. There were Swiss chalets, Japanese teahouses, a small Gothic chapel and still more buildings on the rambling walkways.
Sharice Rickels was a plump, bright-eyed, silver-haired woman in her late sixties. She was dressed for work in a paisley patterned dress and wearing her normal collection of gobs of silver jewelry; the woman lugged around at least ten pounds of metal. One of the most notable Wiccan High Priestesses in the United States, she had been a field agent for FLUF for over thirty years before going into semi-retirement. Given that the normal lifespan of a field agent was less then ten years, she was both a survivor and a powerful and fey mystical fighter. She hugged Barbara back then looked her in the eye.
“You are a mass of energy, girl,” the witch said, frowning. “Your aura is out of control. What have you done to yourself?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Barb said, almost crying. The relief at finally having the voices stop, and being able to talk about it with someone who wouldn’t think she was crazy, was almost overwhelming.
“You need tea,” Sharice said, nodding firmly. “Everything else will wait.”
“You’re not crazy,” Sharice said after Barbara’s, to her own ears, unintelligible report of the recent events. “You’re just getting new Gifts.”
“Gifts,” Barbara said with a snort, sipping the herbal tea. “Gifts.”
“Gifts,” Sharice replied, nodding. “Gifts aren’t easy, girl. That’s why the All doesn’t give them to everyone. You already had Channeling and Projection, which is so rare it’s almost unheard of. I had to look it up in some really obscure tomes.”
“Projection?” Barbara said.
“When you shot The Dark One in Louisiana,” Sharice said, refusing to use the demon’s name. “You Projected your White God’s power into the bullets. Very rare.”
“And the sword in Roanoke,” Barbara said, nodding. “But this is…”
“Oh, these are normal Gifts, dear,” Sharice said, chuckling. “I think you might have gotten more than your fair measure, as usual, but they’re quite normal. Sight and The Ear.”
“Sight?” Barbara said. “I don’t see…” She paused and realized that she could see a glimmer around Sharice. She shook her head and it went away. “At least I don’t think I see auras.”
“You’re able to suppress that one, I see,” Sharice said, dryly. “But, yes, you’ve got the Sight. I’ve heard its common for the White God’s acolytes to see the lesser infestations. That’s what you’re seeing.”
“The…things on people?” Barb said. She’d seen even more in the trip to North Carolina. In one restaurant they seemed to be on every shoulder.
“Lesser demons,” Sharice said. “Ever heard the term ‘I’ve been wrestling with my demons’?”
“But that’s…”
“Not always a metaphor, dear,” Sharice continued. “In far too many cases it’s quite real. They are drakni, the lesser demons that possess people all the time. They come in a variety of flavors and can be a real nuisance. They can even be deadly if they work through humans. Ted Bundy was covered with the things, what your people refer to as a Legion. And more had sunk into him. Most serial killers are their playthings. But drakni have to have something to latch onto in the first place. There must be the psychological and mystical equivalent of a shoulder. Most people have them, but for drakni, it needs to be…broad. They can’t work with nothing.”
“And they can’t be stopped?” Barb said, aghast. “I saw dozens of them just in this one trip! Are you saying…”
“Thousands, millions of people who are possessed?” Sharice said, sadly. “Yes. I am. And, no, there is nothing we have found to wipe them out short of killing them one by one. And that requires something that’s very hard to get; full Belief and agreement on the part of the possessed. Try going up to one of those people you saw and saying, ‘You have a demon on your shoulder and it’s getting into your soul. I can get rid of it, but only if you give your soul to the Good Lord Jesus…’”
“Ouch,” Barb said. She was not a proselytizer. She believed in the doctrine of Witnessing, being the best Christian you could be every single day and converting by example.
“I’d suspect that more than one of your Christian screamers truly has the Sight,” Sharice said, sighing. “They are quite serious in their intentions if they do. The problem is separating them from the ones that simply use it as a metaphor. But that is your one new Gift.”
“That I can see demons and not be able to do anything about them?” Barb said. “How is that a Gift?”
“Well, you can see demons, even if they’re not manifest,” Sharice pointed out. “Remolus would have left a visual clue to someone with Sight. You would have been able to detect him in Krake the first time you saw him.”
One of her previous investigations had involved a serial killer who was stalking science fiction conventions. She had had to deduce who it was at one convention by a process of elimination. When the killer decided that she was closing in, the elimination had been of lives.
