writing_shadows

I think of this one as ‘mine’; the way the New Forest is Juniper’s and the brothers Grimm were Alma’s. I’m not saying I called dibs or anything, nor that I’m in charge, just… I was here first, and having the shop next door gives me an investment.

Alma and Juniper are all dolled up to the nines for the abjuration. Juniper looks truly extraordinary in her war paint and white robe; like Kiera Knightley’s Guinevere after seven years of healthy living and grudge-bearing. Alma… looks like Alma, only a little more so. She’s more certain of herself than I’ve ever seen her, which makes a lot of sense now; give it time and she might even manage the L word.

And then there’s me; Wellington boots and waders, industrial-strength rubber gauntlets, my old oilskin coat and sou’wester, and a pair of tinted goggles. Maybe I’m overdoing it, but I have ramped up the voltage on this thing quite a bit and I’m expecting this to be messy.

This thing. The defibrillator fulminata is certainly the most eccentric thing I have ever put together, and I once improvised a wet vac for cleaning brain matter off my intended mother-in-law’s driveway. That was left-field, this is… eccentric? Crazed? Kind of awesome?
The pole was harder than I’d thought. Ten foot of high-strength, rigid, non-conducting material is surprisingly difficult to come by; I had to order it from the DIY place in the end. The workings were actually easier, in part because they had to be crude. I used an actual defibrillator as a base, but I had to rebuild the circuits to manage the power I was planning to use. The batteries comes from a couple of cattle prods and the connectors between the workings are solid copper lines, insulated singly and then all wrapped in rubber and duct tape to hold them to the shaft.

The business end of the fulminata consists of the probes – one iron, made from a coffin nail; one gold, forged from a crucifix and both charged in the lightning of an unseasonal storm; that was a lucky break – and the proper works.

Feathers from about a dozen psychopomps, dead and alive. A crystal chosen and prepared by Juni to absorb the energy which heals this damnable thing each time it gets hurt. Cooling cylinders filled with holy water and clips holding communion wafers. The whole thing is inscribed with prayers for the dead and abjurations against evil. It’s ugly, but it’s the best I have to bring to the table.

Juniper starts her chant, Alma follows her lead and I strike, plunging the fulminate into the abomination before us and squeezing the trigger. Electricity surges into the heart and black bile answers it, unholy energies; the heart screams in pain and defiance. I lean forward, driving the probes deeper, praying that the batteries will hold and then…

The blast is astonishing, knocking us all on our backsides in a spray of gore too great to ever have been contained in a single heart. But at last, the beating is silent. We are tired, exhausted, but victorious.

And then the ghost is there, its form flaring with light as it passes on to whatever reward awaits. We lie there, covered head-to-toe in the gore of an unholy abomination.

This was one of the good days.