Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

72 :: JOHN R. MABRY
He didn’t seem to notice. “What’cha doing out here? I
mean, other than looking at our house?” He realized how
that might sound, and added. “Not that we mind—it’s a cool
old house. One of the oldest in Berkeley. Maybe the oldest.
But, I guess, I mean, is there a reason you’re looking at our
house?”
“I was looking for the Holy Apocrypha Friary.”
“You found it.”
“You don’t look like a friar,” she said, noticing with not a
little awe the prodigious inkwork covering his arms. “Not
that I’m all that clear on what, exactly, a friar is in the first
place.”
“I’m a novice, here, actually,” he said. “I’ll be a friar next
month, Frith willing.”
“Frith?”
“Never read Watership Down?”
She had, actually, a long time ago. What an odd guy, she
thought. “I need to talk to you guys,” she said, but then
looked a little scared. “But for some reason, I can’t seem to
cross the street.”
“We figured. The house is warded.” Oddly, the young man
sat down on the sidewalk cross-legged, and pulled out of a
shoulder bag a large abalone shell, and what looked like a
midget-sized hockey puck.
“Warded? Like, as in magick? Warded against what?”
“Demons, of course.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, she was a little taken aback.
But she knew he was right. “It’s my brother. I think he was
doing demon-magick. I found this,” she pulled out the little
paper triangle with the strange symbol on it.
Mikael studied it closely for a few long seconds. “That’s a
sigil, all right,” he said. “Put it away, now. And don’t pull it
out again. If your brother was doing what I think he was
doing with that thing, we’re both in danger, now.”