Posted by PK on May 25, 2004 at 18:46:37:
"What do you know about Satanists?" the Professor asked, with the slightly furtive and
confidential air of a character in an episode of the X-Files inquiring about government
conspiracies with aliens.
It made Trish want to laugh, but she kept a straight face, merely lifting her eyebrows. She
wished she could raise just one, like Spock, and look impressively aloof and superior.
"About the same as anybody knows," she said. "Bunch of plonkers."
"Seriously, Miss Holm..."
The Prof looked a bit miffed, so Trish shrugged. "What sort? The ones who got all the way
through a book by Anton LaVey once and go around in black, smirking like they know it all?
Or the ones who sacrifice goats and torture the odd black cat and think Satan will make them
rich and powerful? All they usually get is an unfriendly visit from the RSPCA. Unless they're
in Congress..." The Prof looked blank so she added, "That's ASPCA here, isn't it?" Old
Steadman wasn't long on humour or, apparently, cultural nuances.
Trish had wondered why she had been summoned to the Prof's office. Well, not 'summoned'
exactly. Nobody did that to her, at least not twice. She had been invited to a meeting, by e-
mail, to discuss 'matters of some urgency'. Not having anything better to do at the time, she
had turned up.
Steadman looked uncomfortable. "I'm talking about the use of human sacrifice to summon
demons," he said.
"In theory or practice?" Suddenly, Patricia could guess where this was going. As an author of
a textbook on Goetics, he had to know the basics of the theory. Was he asking her if she'd
put it into practice?
"For real," Steadman said, his lapse into the vernacular betraying his tension.
Bloody Hell, he's serious. "Why ask me?" Might as well get it out in the open. Ever since that
incident in the gym with the muffins, she'd had a certain reputation. The Prof looked even
more uncomfortable, and Trish couldn't help deriving a certain satisfaction from that. She
decided to add to it by fingering her ring.
"The..ahh..banishing you performed...."
Trish nodded, not helping.
"Very good job it was, too, but as I mentioned at the time..."
Trish tried raising one eyebrow. Steadman had hinted that he'd guessed that she'd raised the
demon in the first place. This was fun. The fact was that most of the faculty knew the theory
but few of them had done it. "You really think that I...?" she exclaimed with mock horror.
"Oh, for God's sake, did you or didn't you?" Steadman demanded. "This is serious."
Trish shook her head. "There are some things...." The Prof was about to go postal, she noted.
He was starting to wave his hands the way he did when called on a bit of dodgy theory.
"Look," she said, "Are you going to tell me what this is about or not, because I've got better
things to do than play guessing games." In fact, all she had to do was her laundry but she
wasn't about to tell him that. This was a lot more fun than watching what passed for TV in the
USA. Things had been boring since Ali left.
It was odd how much she missed the silly muffin. When they first met, she'd have thought
she'd be glad to see the back of her. Now, since Ali had graduated and moved out, her rooms
seemed oddly empty. She'd moved out of the accommodation they'd shared into one of the
older parts of the University. Old by American standards, anyway. Back in Cambridge, she'd
occupied rooms that were centuries older than the whole country while pursuing her BA
degree in mathematics, with a particular interest in General Topology that had somehow
connected with her private dabblings in the arcane. Her new, old sanctum comprised a semi-
ruined and partly rebuilt tower at the edge of the campus that was unoccupied because it was
supposed to be haunted. Rumour, or folklore, had it that a previous student had gone too far
in his researches and disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Nobody could supply any
precise details, and there were no records of the supposed event. The faculty refused to
discuss the matter, apart from the standard story that the tower had been struck by lightning.
Despite the fact that it had been refurbished and modern power lines put in, nobody wanted
to live there.
That suited Trish well enough. Her computer worked well enough too, nobody bothered her,
and so far she hadn't heard any ultradimensional rats scurrying in the walls. She preferred to
be left alone. Making a virtue of a necessity? Perhaps. Trish never had found it easy making
friends. People tended to think that she was weird and scary. Fair enough, she thought. She
was.
Steadman ignored the fact that Trish hadn't answered his question. Or rather, he gave up
trying to challenge her on it, as she had expected and intended. Magic is the Art and Science
of causing change in conformity with Will.
"I believe we may have a case of Satanic cultism on campus."
Trish bit back the obvious retort (Thank God, I was getting sick of that bloody Benedictine)
and said "On what evidence?"
"The disappearance of certain people in uncertain circumstances...."
"Which people? What circumstances?" This sounded too much like an episode of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer to Trish.
"Cheerleaders," Steadman said.
Normally, Trish would have laughed, but the Prof looked serious. Besides...
Ali had been a cheerleader before she did her Spit Muffin degree.
'Details,' Trish snapped.
'Maybe I should just show you,' Steadman said.
It wasn't a long walk to the scene of the disappearance, or at least one of them. The room of
the last missing girl was completely ordinary. There were no signs of violence or struggle, the
occupant might as well have gone out on any ordinary occasion, except for the fact that she
had never returned. That, and the sign on the wall. An Inverted pentagram, in what appeared
to be dried blood.
Steadman said nothing for a while as Trish took it in. Then: 'What do you think?'
Trish shrugged. 'The obvious. Anyone who ever watched a horror movie knows how to draw
a pentagram. Variously attributed to werewolves, witches, Satanists, vampires, whatever...'
'Anything else?'
'Nothing you haven't thought of yourself. Did the missing girl have any interest in the occult?
I don't see any signs of it, and I'm sure you checked her books for anything like 'How to sell
your soul to Satan in twelve easy steps.' You must have checked if the blood's human, and
I'm guessing it's not.'
'Do you....um...' Steadman looked uneasy, 'Sense anything?'
'I'm not a psychic,' Trish said. 'I don't read auras.' It didn't take a psychic to sense
Steadman's impatience and she relented a little. In fact, most practitioners of what the
uninitiates call magic do develop a nose for it. She sensed nothing Unbanished lurking about.
Which could mean one of two things. 'Either the operation was properly closed or there was
no operation. Not here, anyway.'
Steadman nodded, apparently halfway mollified. 'That's what I thought.'
'The blood?' Trish reminded him.
'Pig's,' Steadman said. 'We had the med department's forensic team check the DNA. Not
human.'
'Which means,' Trish said, feeling like a character from a noir detective film, 'That the perps
- assuming there are any - had access to pig's blood, which you can get from any butcher,
and a novice's aquaintance with pop occultism. Why call me in?'
'This,' Steadman said. He handed her a piece of paper, crumpled up. 'The campus police
found it in the waste bin.'
Trish unfolded it. She barely recognised the sigil, but the 'I should have known' light went on
in her head. 'It's drawn wrongly,' she said.
'But?'
Another one of the demons from the grimoires attributed to Solomon.
"That was the word," Trish said. She smiled lightly. "Just say 'No', as one of your luminaries
has it".
The attack stopped as quickly as it had started. Steadman's first reaction was embarrassment
and shame, leading to anger. How DARE she challenge him like that? On the other hand, did
he dare call her on it? She was dangerous, even more than he had suspected. He paused for
a moment, allowing his visceral reactions to subside as he regained his mental balance. "You
do realise I could have you expelled for that?" he said evenly.
Trish nodded, a wry smile indication both agreement and approval of his sang froid. She
didn't bother to point out that he couldn't prove anything; they both knew he wouldn't have to.
"Sorry," she said. "I was out of order." It was as much of an apology as she was ever likely to
give, so Steadman accepted it, albeit grudgingly, with a brief nod. "It couldn't be Marchosias
because I know where he is. I haven't invoked any of the others here. If somebody really did
call Astaroth - which, frankly, I doubt - it wasn't me. The Clue of the Sloppy Sigil..."
Steadman nodded, taking the point. Holm's precision on matters of arcane geometry was a
talking point with the staff. Of course, she could have faked the false clue herself, but
thinking that way led down the slippery path to conspiracy theory and paranoia.
"So, who do you think it was?"
"No idea," Trish said. It wasn't exactly a lie. She did have an idea, but it was far from
substantial. Steadman might be right. She wasn't about to admit it aloud, but the incident in
the gym could have inspired some half-baked dyslexic demonolater wannabee to sell his soul
to Santa. That would get her labelled a 'bad influence'. That, she could do without. All she
wanted now was to complete her studies here peacefully and go back to a civilised country
where drinking beer and smoking weren't automatically ascribed to the influence of the Devil.
"I'll think about it," she said.
Steadman was still looking at her.
"Seriously," she said. "I will give it some thought."
Steadman seemed content to leave it at that, or at least unwilling to press the point. Back in
her rooms, Trish was disturbed. The whole affair seemed ludicrous. A few girls had
disappeared. Badly drawn sigils left as if to say "I'm a CLUE, look at me." No bodies. No
human blood, no proof that anyone had died. It had all the hallmarks of a hoax; a prank of
some kind.
Or a vendetta.