I’d like to find your inner child and kick its little ass!

Again I say, well shit. What the hell are you supposed to do in this situation? I mean, is it ok to wrap your arms around a crying woman and try to comfort her in this day and age? I really should run for the hills. Of course, I really don’t have very good self preservation instincts, but I still decided to hedge my bets, so I just opened my arms, making sure the offer was obvious without giving off too much of the creepy old man vibe.

Well she glomped on to me pretty quickly, and then spent the next ten minutes ugly crying on my shoulder and getting makeup all over my suit. I, meanwhile, could only hold her, make soothing noises, and argue with my lizard brain that now was a horrible time to get a boner. I just stood there and let her go on until the waterworks finally petered out before I said anything other than ‘there, there’.

“All done?”

She snorted up a glob of snot that had formed at the tip of her cute little nose. “Um. Thanks.” She sounded sheepish as all get out.

Time to not make this awkward. “So. Next steps. You’re going to fix your face while you explain to me exactly what you need me to do. You can explain the why’s and how’s later. Just give me what I need to know to get through tonight so we can decide if I continue working with you.”

She looked at me, stunned, running mascara giving her a streaked raccoon mask around eyes that I now realized were a pale grey, then nodded slowly, rapidly regaining her composure. “Yeah. That’s what we’re going to do. Ok.”

We then repaired to the van where she pulled out a makeup case that didn’t look like it would fit in her Nightmare Before Christmas backpack, and as she reapplied her face, gave me the lowdown on what exactly would be required of me this evening.

“So think of the wards like a computer program. They’re dumb, so they have to have a specific set of variables that doesn’t change in order to function. Like rules that can’t be broken. In this case, it looks like River skimped on the potential variables and left one of them at the default which is that the bedroom is only ever occupied by one person at a time. That’s the main thing we need to update.” Throughout this, for her, extremely verbose speech she skillfully stripped the makeup from her face, showing me that she did not, indeed, require it to look good. In fact without it she looked downright ethereal, her pale skin utterly flawless.

“So tonight we’ll need to perform a ritual at midnight so we can go in and service the wards. It’s pretty simple really as far as these things go. I’ll be the one doing most of the work, and I’ll just need you to be there for support.” She quickly applied layers of foundation, powder, and other things that I don’t have names for restoring her makeup to its previous state. “You don’t need any special knowledge or anything like that, and I’ll be able to give you specific details on the fly. There. How do I look?”

She turned to me, all her makeup applied in such a way as to seem that there was very little present. In fact, I now realized that if anything the makeup actually hid how utterly inhumanly beautiful she really was. “Amazing…”

She smirked and shoved the makeup case back into her black hole backpack. “Good. Now grab your jaw and let’s get going inside.”

SMASH
I ducked my head behind the couch as yet another glass flew across the room to crash into the wall. “You’d think if she’s been dealing with this shit for a while now, she would have switched to Solo cups or something…”

“Just be glad this is a residence and not a machine shop.”

I shuddered at the very thought of a possessed drill press and then dodged into a judo breakfall that took me to the kitchen door, slamming it shut just in time to stop a very expensive set of very aggressive steak knives. “So how long do these manifestations usually last?”

Anwyn took advantage of the stopped knives (which were trying to saw their way through the door) and started dumping salt on the floor. “It varies from spirit to spirit. Get inside the circle!”

“Seriously? The salt thing from Supernatural works?” I hopped across the line. I’m not in the best shape these days and dodging plates and cutlery is far more draining than playing golf, so I just stood there waiting for a response while breathing heavily.

Her black lips curled into a smirk. “They did a surprising amount of research into old traditions for that show.” She sat down and took a hit from her vape. “We should be safe in here for now. Let it wear itself out. It’ll run out of energy eventually. Now I need to center myself for the ritual tonight so you just chill out. Listen to a podcast or something. I recommend Lore.”

So I took her advice and did just that. Aaron Mahnke has a surprisingly soporific effect and I must have dozed off because the next thing I recall was Anwyn shaking my shoulder and whispering in my ear. “Miles, wake up.”

My eyes fluttered open to a room lit only by about fifty candles. A circular canvas tarp with the center cut out was laid over the salt circle, and had a different circle painted on it in red with silvery runes and sigils all along its exterior.

I wake fairly quickly when the adrenaline is pumping and it was, so I sat up. “Ok. What do you need me to do?”

“Only some of the heavy lifting. Get naked. I need you to fuck me.”

(Title: “Get Over It” by The Eagles)