Philnensia

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We arrived at the store, alert for any violent resistance or apparition. We came in and the storekeeper was calmly peeling a banana astride a stool near one of the shelves to our right.
“Where is it?” Clayton asked me.
“It’s at the back, the stock room”, nonchalantly the storekeeper informed.
“There’s no time to waste”, waving the axe like a Viking wife on testosteroids, I charged, heading for the door leading toward the back. The shopkeeper adroitly dropped the banana peel on my instep. It was then I wished I had J.Lo’s butt when I slipped and mine met the scratched parquet floor hard. I accidentally threw the axe in the air. Clayton caught it like a good midfielder. The guy ran outside like a screaming banshee.
“My contract’s done!” he shouted.
“Do it, Clayton! You’re our only hope! My ass’s hurting, the cheek’s dislocated,” I groaned in pain.
“You can count on me, Stephanie!”
“Huh?” He disappeared into the gloom. So deep into the dark he did not know where the light switch lay. The more vocal charms and amulets were kept there to prevent the freak outs of customers and window shoppers.
“Buy me, and you’ll dance to the championship at ‘Dancing with the Stars’, purred a sultry voiced pair of tight formfitting glitter pants hung from a hanger.
“I’m a toupée that never gets pulled, sire”, a British gent.
“Wear me, you’ll be invisible in the boys’ locker room, you flaming queen!” spieled something that sounded like Carson Kressley of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
“What?” Clayton spat. Suddenly a blinding light shone on him directly in front of him, and it took him several second to understand that the backdoor had opened to intense sunshine and a vertical trunk like wood totem with a large carved head was bouncing on the pavement of the back parking lot. A bass voice issued from it as it tried to make some distance between it and Clayton.
“Mercy, don’t chop me, mercy, just trying to defeat death…mercy!” The thick wood of the idol thumped as if filled and heavy with contents.
“It’s you!!!” Clayton roared. As fast as his legs could carry him, he gained at the cumbersome Toltec like graven image, “Timber!” he swung the axe over his head and it arched down at furious speed,” for Aunt Maylene!”
“Oh dear…” was all it could say, in the English words that emanated from it, among others. It cracked cleanly down the middle, the halves falling in opposite directions. Unseen by Clayton, refuge destroyed, the dark spirit within sunk under the pavement while the life forces streaked in all directions, to return to their rightful owners.

Epilogue

After so much haggling we finally settled on a $500 professional fee, and it’s not simony. I have to pay the salaries of researchers, informants, shamans, consultants, white witches, and janitors. I had to maintain the mausoleums and gardens of the deceased who had lent their ethereal hands time and again, and that costs money. Clayton’s back all by his lonesome in Florida, and among other projects, he’s rushing a graphic novel of my exploits. Doesn’t hurt to advertise, if you ask me.

Aunt Maylene, to both our relief, wasn’t visited upon by the nefarious consequences of her nephew’s indiscretion. She advised, a prayer a day keeps arthritis away. I take her word for it.

Tammy Torrid returned to the adult entertainment biz, but she promised to retire early once she earns a bundle and to film “normal” sex scenes only. When I asked her about him, all she could remember was being a “prisoner of love”.

A lot of people susceptible to Tammy’s attractiveness got sick and gone schizo-spooked, but they recovered afterward. Jarrod thought it was a bad dream, but Doyle wasn’t so lucky. We attended his funeral some two weeks ago. He died in an auto accident. Apparently his visions had stopped, but he picked up a hitchhiking spirit of a Japanese girl that had a propensity to lead drivers to crash. And that, is another story.