All attention was suddenly focused on the small, frightened feline, clutching the talisman between his teeth. Tobias edged cautiously closer to the lavatory bowl.
Ahriman lunged for him. Reverend Phullaposi hurled himself at the Demon.
Ahriman casually side-swiped the Reverend out of the way, with as little effort as he’d make shooing off a bothersome gnat on a Summer’s evening.
The Reverend was knocked out, cold. He slumped, unquestionably unconscious, to the damp, cold, concrete floor of the privy.
Tobias leapt from Ahriman’s grasping claws and into Ruby’s arms.
The Demon twisted and spat. He coiled himself up and, in one and the same move, sprang at Ruby.
Tobias leapt again, tossing the accursed talisman into the air. It was caught by Magpie Jack, even as Alice Nutter and Liz Devizes both scrambled, clawing at the empty air after it.
Ahriman was hurtling towards Ruby when he noticed that she was aiming her newly-consecrated athame straight at his chest.
He stopped, just short of being a Demon kebab, seething and smoking, hissing with rage.
The blade glowed angrily.
Devizes and Nutter were still trying to flail down Magpie Jack. He was holding on tightly to the talisman for all he was worth, but was finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the evil hags in the confined space of the privy. He flapped his wings, beating and blinding the old crones with them. They cursed and shrieked in their anger and frustration, threatening all manner of unpleasantness should they ever lay hands on him.
Ahriman feigned a second lunge and Ruby sliced fruitlessly at the air. He sprang again to the left, and then again, to the right. Ruby’s blade slashed nothing but the dank, cloying atmosphere within the outhouse.
On the next attempt, Ruby parried Ahriman’s attack – and as she did so he viciously slapped the blade from her hand.
'Cling!'
It bounced harmlessly off the walls and off to the left of them, scattering its bluish light this way and that, making all of the shadows in the room lurch drunkenly and violently, one way and then the other.
Ahriman seized his chance of victory, clutching Ruby about the throat, trying to choke the very life from her, his evil amber lizard eyes staring directly into hers.
“Die! Die! Die! Troublesome bane!”
His claws closed tighter and tighter around Ruby’s frail old neck, while Pearl struggled frantically to beat him back and to drag Ruby away from his merciless attentions.
Dave continued to watch with interest, fear and excitement from the shadows.
Magpie Jack had now succeeded in flinging the Talisman back to Tobias, who in turn was trying to get to the lavatory bowl so he could deposit the hateful object back where it belonged as quickly as possible. Screaming in rage, Devizes and Nutter dived after the darting, dodging cat, and Magpie Jack flew directly into their faces, slashing at them with his clawed feet, pecking at them with his sharp, bony, black beak, beating at them with his wings; anything to buy Tobias a further few precious seconds to complete his appointed task.
‘Splosh!’
Down went the talisman into the bowl. Tobias flopped off the cistern and grabbed at the handle, which caused a cascade of water to flush it straight into the murky water of the toilet – causing it to disappear down and around the U-bend away into who knew where.
“Nooooooo!” screamed Ahriman, and the whole room vibrated at the same pitch. He let go of Ruby and lunged towards Tobias and the lavatory in some insane hope of retrieving the talisman.
The scream awoke Reverend Phullaposi, who scratched around groggily and picked the athame from the floor, where it had lain, discarded and ignored, throughout the melee.
The Reverend scrambled to his feet and advanced upon the Demon with a sense of determination and purpose that he had only ever read about in some of the more violent sections of the Bible. In his mind, a bit of the ‘old righteous smiting’ was in order. He approached Ahriman from behind and with both hands gripped tight around it, raised the athame as high as he could, so that his blow would have some force. Just as he was about to plunge the blade down into Ahriman's spine, however, Dave finally decided to act, and rugby tackled the clergyman from the rear.
Despite all of Ruby's attempts at forward-planning, the confrontation had quickly descended into chaos. Now she, Pearl, and Ahriman were tangled up in a desperate scrum; Magpie Jack and Nutter and Devizes were flapping and flailing, hopeless and clueless, around the room; the Reverend and Dave were rolling about on the floor each trying to gain possession of Ruby’s athame. There was a lot of noise and cursing coming from all of them, and no real progress being made by any.
Finally, Ruby managed to bite Ahriman on the thumb. He howled in pain, and released his grip. She seized her chance and was lucky enough to commando-roll free – quite a feat for an aging and rheumatic witch. She stumbled quickly to her feet, gulped down some desperately needed air, and from the pouch around her neck produced the small, silver topped Communion vial she had earlier ‘borrowed’ from the church.
Above all of the mayhem and the pounding noise Ruby drew a pentagram in the air using her index finger. She drew the star in the manner that invoked the spirit of the air and spoke the words of invocation:
“Yeh-hoh-wah! Ah-don-eye. 'Eh-ee-yay. Ah-goo-la!”
Ruby outstretched her arms. Knowing that this was the point of no return, that these next few seconds would decide whether she or Ahriman had the upper hand, or the Higher Magick, she shouted:
“Before me Raphael! Behind me Gabriel! On my right Michael! On my left Uriel! Above me, the Father! Below me the Mother! Within me, the Eternal Flame! In the name of the ONE. The Almighty Creator of all. I invoke you great angel Lahabiel. As angel of protection. To watch over us and deliver us from all evil. That I may walk the Path of Love, unscathed and unharmed. For
