Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

288 :: JOHN R. MABRY
Larch looked at his own feet, and shifted uncomfortably.
“We didn’t want to do it.”
“I thought it was part of your grand scheme to overthrow
heaven,” Richard accused snidely. “I just wasn’t aware that
canines were such an important part of the celestial
infantry.”
“They’re not,” Larch said quietly, for some reason dignifying
Richard’s jab with an answer.
“No shit,” Richard said.
“Look, the avocado thing, yes. We...we wanted to see if
we could do it. We’d been talking about it for weeks, we
even had a running bet with the guys at the Evil Eye that we
could pull it off.”
Richard knew the shop. It was a hole-in-the-wall occult
arts store on Divisidero in San Francisco. The place held regular
salons for serious ceremonial magicians. Terry had even
been engaged to lecture there on Enochian Magick more
than once.
“So let me guess: Dane is there, wearing his smoking jacket
and drinking Earl Grey, overhears your bragging, and
makes you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Larch nodded. “No, he wasn’t there. Maybe he heard
about it there, who knows? I don’t know how he found out
about it, but that’s beside the point. The Lodge roof is on its
last legs, so to speak. It was either take his offer or let the
place go. I, for one, am all for a ‘new-paradigm’ magickal
order that meets mostly in Second Life, but there’s a couple
of our brothers that have a deep sentimental attachment to
the place.”
Richard wondered how off a person would have to be to
have a sentimental attachment to a rat’s nest like their
Victorian on Haight, but he held his tongue.
“So you made a deal with the Devil—oh, excuse me, that’s
what you do, isn’t it?” Richard jabbed.