Banishment and Nibbles
It seemed like every bowl in Brian’s home must have been on display and in use. From cheese savouries to hummus, cucumber to crisps, and even the rarely-spotted garlic and liquorice chews, the frightening variety of snacks on offer had necessitated the requisitioning of every vessel and container in the kitchen. That was what first roused the suspicion of his guests.
An erratic host at best, Brian could hardly be relied upon to remember that anyone was coming over in the first place, let alone get enough chairs ready, have a film prepared, wash the curtains or not be in the middle of an argument with his neighbour, Derrick, about all the pinecones in the guttering. Trepidation was, consequently, the name of the game when it came to knocking on Brian’s door when it was his turn to host film night, and so often had his friends been burned that seeing evidence of both preparation and execution of snacks only deepened that feeling.
Several comments had been made as his friends, the ones he’d had since his school days, crossed the threshold and witnessed everything set up and ready in the living room. Many of those comments took the form of sarcastic surprise or accusations of being someone else, and a couple were genuine expressions of concern that something might be the matter. Naturally he brushed them aside as if they were all the same water that flowed under a bridge, over a duck’s back, and into a well of inconsequentiality. It was only when everyone had made it in and got themselves settled down with the light foodstuffs they preferred that any answers came clear.
“What are we watching then, if you’re so excited to get this ready for it?” Asked Sandra. She was sat on one of the dining room chairs that Brian had dragged in, her large handbag tucked partially underneath it and a bag of lightly apple-flavoured corn chips on her lap.
“Yeah, what’s got you this worked up? You’ve never even been out of the shower when I arrive, let alone been waiting with all the crisps laid out.” Seconded Theresa from her position of power on the sofa. Although there was no snack immediately about her person, the sofa did give her prime access to the whole coffee table, which was laden with the lion’s share of options.
“We’re not watching anything.” He answered with a simple smile. The alarm bells which had been ringing all evening were now starting to find understanding among their audience.
“Oh no…” Theresa muttered.
“There’s something much more important for us to do tonight. I’ve thought long and hard about it gang, and I think it’s high time we took action. He’s had it too good for too long; we need to banish Derrick.”
The cheese savouries showered the carpet like broken dreams crashing into reality while shocked gasps expelled their way into the air. Mouthfuls of off-brand lemonade and diet-cola-zero-plus-extreme were sprayed outwards as if from a leaky hose pipe to cascade onto guest and floor alike. A pair of glasses snapped in two at the bridge of the nose, but that was entirely unrelated the other carnage and more to do with years of poor care.
“Banish Derrick?”
“As in your neighbour Derrick?”
“Yes. As in my neighbour Derrick. It’s high time that his tyranny was brought to an end, and I cannot rely on simple requests to change his behaviour. He has proven himself at every step not to care about what I think or ask of him, and his disdain for courtesy is near-legendary at this stage as I’m sure you all agree.” There were awkward nods and grunts of agreement around the living room, as well as some tutting over the deconstructed eyepieces. “While we could take some form of action to cause Derrick to move from his house and into a new area I would feel absolutely dreadful about inflicting him on anyone else. They don’t deserve him. Banishment is, therefore the only way.”
“Bold usage of ‘only’.” Observed Theresa from sofa, which was threatening to subsume her entire body in its overabundance of cushion. “There are probably several other courses of action that don’t involve banishing someone, and where would you banish them to? The Pennines?”
“Nope. No other ways.” He confirmed, ignoring the second half of her question.
“Not like getting the Council involved, or issuing cease and desist orders for throwing his old fence panels onto your roof?”
“Worthless attempts at diplomacy that wouldn’t be worth the paper they’re written on.”
“You don’t know that until you try. It worked when you got the fire brigade to make him stop holding bonfires on top of the gas main.” Theresa persisted.
“He still does that from time to time, I’m afraid. I just didn’t want to mention it to you in case you were scared to come and visit. You know, on account of the serious risk of a devastating gas explosion that tears my home apart and does you a serious injury.”
“I can see why you’d rather let us run the risk unknowingly than allow us to make that decision for ourselves.” Accepted Frankie, feet up on the coffee table. A puddle of shock-expelled lemonade had formed around his heels but he didn’t seem to mind too much. Judging by the general state of his clothing it was perfectly likely that he laundered his attire in soft drinks anyway.
“Hm. If the fire brigade’s warnings about home detonation fell on apathetic ears then it does seem difficult to believe he’ll listen to a cease and desist, to be fair. But how would you banish him without him listening to some government body or other? Can the queen still send people into exile? I feel like Mrs Hubbit from Maths back in Year 10 would have been exiled long ago if that were an option.”
“She was a total hag and definitely committed treason, so I think you’re right there.” Katherine agreed from her vantage point atop the dining table. She’d taken refuge up there when her chair had been overrun by jackets.
“I’m not relying on the kind of diplomatic banishment that failed to see Mrs Hubbit cast out of society. She was an open and shut case by any high court’s book and still her evil has been allowed to persist to this day, when instead she should have been cast into a life of scavenging among the wastelands of a lawless society long ago. No, I’m proposing that we take a far more direct approach. An approach that is totally within our control and that will deliver us from the despotic reign of Derrick once and for all. We’re going to perform one of those rituals you see on TV and in films and things to send demons back to where they belong. Candles and blood and pentagrams and stuff like that.”
There was a secondary snack shower, principally comprising the quantity of cheese savouries which had been successfully scooped back up into the bowl.
“Oh for goodness sake, Brian.” Theresa snapped. “You can’t just solve every problem in your life with a demonic ritual, or a Gregorian chant, or an appeal to the gods of old. Sometimes you just need to pick up a sponge and put some effort in to get the tiles clean. It’s really not that hard.”
“And there’ll be plenty of that when it comes time to clean up after the ritual. I’ve got loads of cleaning supplies to sort the kitchen floor out after we’ve banished Derrick. I’m only using a demonic ritual to solve a problem that can’t be fixed any other way.”
Theresa’s eyes narrowed at him and her mouth tightened.
“Well… alright then. But if I catch you trying to use this supposed banishing ritual to instead clean up the house then you’ll get an earful, I promise you. We’ve been through this.”
“Duly noted.”
There was a brief pause, punctuated only by Sandra’s disappointment at the flavour of lemonade-soaked breadsticks.
“Do you even know how to perform a banishing ritual?” Frankie asked.
“I would have thought the bigger issue is that demons and blood rituals aren’t real.” Theresa interjected. “Hence why I’m desperate for Brian to commit to cleaning his kitchen the old fashioned way.”
“I’ve already said that I will! And no, I don’t necessarily know off the top of my head, but either it works or it doesn’t so there’s no harm in trying either way, is there.” Noted the host with a cheeky smile.
“I guess not.” Accepted Theresa with a shrug.
“Especially in the sense that Brian’s already got all the cleaning supplies ready. And it’s not like we’ve got a real banger lined up for movie night, so a ritual’ll be a bit different…”
“That’s the spirit!” He beamed with a happy clap of his hands. “It’ll be a bit more interesting and you’ll get to help out a friend who just desperately need to banish his awful, awful neighbour.”
“Feels a bit like emotional blackmail, Brian.” Noted Sandra. There was no disdain in her voice; in fact, she sounded sincerely impressed.
“Yep! That’s what friends are for. But it’s going to be great. I have a list of everything we need, I’ve got diagrams of how to lay stuff out, and who should be chanting what from where; we’ll be like proper cultists doing something eldritch and spooky.” As he was speaking Brian took a sheaf of papers from a shelving unit against the wall and dropped them onto the table. A few curious hands, probably connected to inquisitive arms, took a sheet here and there.
“Except we’ll be doing the world a service by purging a dreadful Derrick from this plane of existence.” Clarified Sandra through a mouthful of soggy breadsticks, not looking dissimilar to a high-gluten vampire. It seemed that she’d grown accustomed to their new flavour.
“The absolute worst Derrick, yeah.” Agreed Frankie. “Let’s not forget the fire on a gas main scenario that Brian has finally revealed to us, nor the time he posted all his rubbish up my exhaust pipe for parking outside his house.”
“But, to be fair, we also shouldn’t neglect how much fun it was to push the car up to his letterbox and then rev the rubbish back out of it.” Observed Theresa, a staunch proponent of retaining sources of entertainment wherever they might be found. Brian looked into her face and saw nothing but an earnest desire make the right decision here. Trading their long-standing rivalry for a shot at the arcane unknown carried risks, he conceded, but she didn’t have to live with him as a neighbour; he would not be swayed so easily.
“It’ll be just as fun to do things we actually like, rather than trading silent-film tier attacks with someone whose garden adjoins mine. And we might well like an evening of eldritch mystery. It could become a regular thing!”
“Do you really have all the stuff on this list, Bri? It sounds a bit… specialist?” Asked Frankie, who was frowning down at one of Brian’s notes. It read a bit like the shopping list of someone who has absolutely no business doing their own shopping, and while that didn’t offer Frankie any comfort it also didn’t bring about much by way of surprise.
“Yeah of course. I got these candles from the charity shop up the road so they’re definitely going to have soaked up something occult from there.” Following Brian’s excitedly pointed finger Frankie’s attention was brought to the collection of variously coloured, half-melted candles on the mantelpiece. A few of them claimed to be scented with honeydew and aspic, and one was clearly an advent candle which had been abandoned around the time that the Lords began a-leaping, probably to reduce the fire risk.
“What about the blood?”
“I know someone who works at the hospital.” Brian winked. He looked at Sandra expectantly.
“Hm?” A light turned on behind her eyes. “Oh! So that’s why you wanted me to bring all this!” Sandra said, pulling out five blood bags from her own shoulder bag and tossing them, much as one would toss a coaster or old newspaper running a feature about coasters, onto the coffee table. They almost landed in the crisps. “You weren’t ‘just curious about giving a transfusion a go’ at all!”
“Well, I mean, I am still a bit curious about that, so if you’re up for it and there’s blood left over then we’ll have another chat. But yeah, I guess I am guilty of misleading you a bit.”
“Sandra... it’s probably not OK to steal blood from a hospital.” Theresa observed with narrowed eyes. She rescued the bowl of crisps from the haemoglobin zone.
“Yeah, seems like a dick move. You’d have been better off taking it from some friends and relatives while they’re sleeping.” Agreed Katherine, although Theresa may have taken exception to the implication that she’d been suggesting that.
“Oh it’s expired. Totally not allowed to put it in people so no-one’ll miss it.” Sandra explained, to assuage their fears of medical misappropriation.
“I’m still up for it going in me.” Brian said with an affable shrug. “My milk always lasts well beyond the sell-by date so blood’s probably the same.”
“Er, is that a reasonable comparison to make?”
“Of course it is, T. Milk comes from animals, blood comes from animals; it’s all basically the same stuff except for colour and taste and what it’s made of.” Katherine asserted. She’d employed a couple of wicker placemats as padding between her buttocks and the hard, varnished surface of the dining table and was much more comfortable there than she’d ever been on one of the chairs. She resolved quietly to herself to make this her new default seating solution, table space be damned.
“That’s a hard disagree from me.”
“Noted.” Brian said with the kind of bold, confident dismissal that left no doubt as to his intention to definitely still have a transfusion later. “Anyway, it’ll be good enough for this ritual as long as we can draw with it so no need to worry there. What else is on the list, Frankie? Let everyone know.”
“Uh… salt?”
“Loads of that in the kitchen. Rock and low sodium.”
“Human skulls ‘if possible’ or a collection of miscellaneous animal bones if not.”
“Please no.” Theresa interjected immediately. “Please tell me that Sandra didn’t go looting for bones in the hospital as well.”
“Of course not!” Sandra cried back, shocked at the accusation. “I steal expired fluids and medicines only, never anything solid.”
“And none of you joined Brian for a spot of spontaneous grave-robbing in the last fortnight?”
“In the last fortnight?” Said Katherine, drifting off into deep thought while shovelling nachos into her mouth. “No.” She finally decided. “Nor before it.” She added in response to one of Theresa’s more barbed looks.
“We’re not monsters and vagabonds, T! We’re your friends so it’d be nice for you to trust us once in a while. I couldn’t get hold of a lot of bones very easily but I reckon there’s a loophole to be exploited here.” Brian said with a mischievous wiggle of the eyebrows. “Have you heard of our little friends the marshmallows?”
A sea of blank faces stared back at Brian following his cunning revelation, and among them there was only one eye-roll that turned to laughter.
“Bloody gelatine?” Surmised Frankie.
“Gelatine! It’s made from bones and hooves and stuff isn’t it! So we scatter a few bags of marshmallows about the place wherever the diagrams specify and bam; we’re good to go for piles of bone and no-one needs to exhume anybody. A victimless crime.”
“Except for all the owners of those bones in their pre-gelatine days.” Said Katherine.
“Well yes, but that crime was committed by somebody else and we’re just not letting it go to waste, right?”
“Hm.”
“Anyway, what’s left Frankie?”
“That’s it, I think, for the weird stuff. Candles, blood, salt and bones. Other than that it’s paper, pens, a few dice for some reason… oregano, knives, and something of the target’s. Do you have some of Derrick’s stuff?”
“Yeah. I’ve got lots of crap that he’s thrown over the fence and, just in case that doesn’t count, I’ve nabbed his letterbox as well. Unscrewed it from the door when he was out at work last week.”
“Nice. Solid choice.” Sandra congratulated. There were nods of agreement from all round.
“I thought so. I’ll grab the rest of the stuff together now. I was thinking we should probably do the ritual in the kitchen so that the blood can just be wiped up from the tiles.”
“It’ll stain your grout, mate.” Warned Sandra. She’d found that out to her own cost.
“Ah, nuts. Yeah it will won’t it. Erm… do I have anything else I could put down that won’t soak through… there’s a lot of blood to pour out…”
“Just butter up the grout. It’ll stop the blood soaking through and then you can wipe it off afterwards.” Suggested Katherine. There was no sign of her slowing down on the nachos, and a second bag had been drawn close to tag in when the first failed.
“I guess that does make sense, in a ‘my kitchen might end up smelling of old butter’ kind of way.”
“It’s the only way I ever think.” She smiled back, broadly.
“Alright, fine. Well if any of you don’t want to run the risk of dairy-rich socks then slip them off before going into the kitchen or you can borrow a pair of mine. A lot of them have spread on them already for the usual reasons so that’s not an issue.”
“I’ll do the buttering.” Offered Theresa, standing up from the almost prone position that the sofa forced and stretching out her back. A cascade of peanut crumbs and salt flowed off her and into the carpet, but no-one showed any intention of clearing it up; they were about to make a much bigger mess anyway.
“Cheers, T. Glad you’re fully on board now.”
“This isn’t really how you dress for a ritual; no-one has ever banished anyone or anything in jeans and a strappy top.” Observed Sandra, looking down at herself. Certainly if the media was to be believed her outfit didn’t really scream occult ritualist or demon banisher. It was more on the ‘quiet night with a film’ track, which was appropriate for the evening as advertised. Surprise activities were all well and good but it was always a pain when you ended up not being dressed correctly through no fault of your own. She resolved to have a quiet word with Brian when there was less to keep in mind.
“Ah! I’ve got you covered there, worry not!” Brian cried excitedly, vindicating her decision not to question him openly immediately. “One second.”
As he dashed off up the stairs like a puppy that’s just heard something inedible being spilled on the floor, Theresa scratched her head pensively.
“Surely we get to decide what people who perform banishing rituals wear because we are about to perform one right now. We can take some ownership of this.”
“Not an unfair point, but it feels a bit arrogant of us to strut into the ritual world and just decide how it should be done. Maybe there’s logic in the whole ‘long black robes’ look.” Countered Frankie. He’d stood up and brushed the breaded-mushroom crumbs off his trousers onto Brian’s floor in preparation for the big move to the kitchen.
“Like what? Awful visibility? Always accidentally dangling your sleeves into the blood or across the candles so that you’ve got a filthy and partially burned garment for next time?”
“I’m not saying that I know what the reasons are, just that there might be some.”
“Here you go everyone!” Brian’s voice called as he thundered back down the staircase. If it was a representative example of how heavily he normally descended then it was fairly likely that the whole house would collapse in six to eight weeks. “Put these on and we’ll look the part.”
“What have you go-“ was as far as Theresa made it before a luxurious dressing gown in the most diabolically clashing colours was flung in her direction. She caught it awkwardly and stared down.
“Towelling robes! They’re the closest thing I could get to proper nutjob cult robes at short notice but they’ll do the part. Got hoods and everything!” He said proudly.
“… you know what? Fair enough. I love it. We’re going to look like idiots and I’m OK with that.”
“That’s the spirit! And if we spill the blood or something then it won’t get on your nice evening clothes.”
“See! I knew there’d be a good reason for dressing like an idiot while doing this. They’re basically just overalls for the occult community.” Celebrated a triumphant Frankie, pulling on his paisley garment and tying it tight around his waist. Such was his over-enthusiasm that he immediately took on the shape of the hourglass, with just as much blood flow as a normal timepiece. “Cosy.” He wheezed, styling it out.
“Feel free to bring the nibbles into the kitchen as well if you want to; there’s nothing in the instructions for performing the ritual that rules out the consumption of snacks while invoking otherworldly powers. It’s probably best to keep them out of the ritual area itself, and maybe don’t chant with your mouth full, but otherwise there’s probably no real harm that a breadstick can do when banishing a Derrick.”
“Probably, Brian? Based on what? You have no idea what you’re doing and no idea what would impact it.” Fired the eternally critical Theresa, using her vile powers of ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ to undermine Brian’s noble efforts at every turn. At least, that’s how it seemed to Sandra.
“Probably because if it was that big of a deal then the instructions would have mentioned it. Everything’s been thought through, T. Please stop worrying about it and learn to love the banishment. I thought we’d won you over with the dressing gowns and the sense of community.” Brian replied, the signs of distress starting to appear on his normally placid face.
“You… you know what, you’re right. I need to give this a chance and trust you. I’m sorry Brian, and I’m thrilled to be in this dressing gown in preparation to cover your kitchen in slightly expired human blood.”
Katherine patted Theresa on the back as she passed into the kitchen. Wounds could be mended after all, it seemed, but there would be no such chance for the gaping chasm of lacerations, broken bones and bruises that separated Brian from Derrick. With bowls and bags in hand the group of long-term friends and first-time cultists gathered into Brian’s surprisingly spacious kitchen. It was complete with a breakfast bar, downlights fitted to the underside of the upper cabinets, a built-in microwave that was sunk into the floor to avoid taking up valuable wall space, and over four sinks. His kitchen designer had advised against them at the time, but was forced to concede that washing up at four times the rate of a normal kitchen whilst leaving a sink free to fill the kettle would make for increased resale value.
“Alright, where do we start then Bri? What am I drawing with all this blood?” Sandra asked. She’d gravitated back over to the bags as soon as they’d been put down, possibly from some sort of professional attachment to the supplies she’d stolen or possibly because her inner artist could hear the calling of a bold new medium. “Is it a pentagram on the floor? A goat’s head? A bear’s arse?”
“Bear’s arse’d be good. Very appropriate for Derrick.”
“The ancient texts call for an octagon with crosses just inside each corner and a pony in the centre.” Brian read from his sheet of notes. He’d used the reverse of a leaflet for a local pizzeria to copy down the instructions and couldn’t help wondering whether the ritual would benefit from an additional helping of red peppers. “So if you could just sling that down on the floor then it’d be great.”
With aplomb Sandra grabbed for some scissors to open the blood bag.
“Wait, hang on!” Theresa shouted, throwing her hands up in front of herself. “We’ve not buttered up the floor yet!”
A wave of revelatory ooh-ing filled the kitchen, all the way from the doorway to the corner with the tall cabinet.
“Well remembered. It’d be a shame for Brian to have to re-grout after all this.”
“That would just be typical of Derrick though; can’t even be banished without causing grief.” Grumbled Brian.
“I’m even more eager to get this going now.” Sandra said, clenching her jaw and chopping at the top of the bag. “Get buttering up that floor before this blood hits it.”
Having witnessed Sandra’s famous blood-frenzies before on many an occasion, Theresa wasted no time in yanking open the fridge door, snatching out the first tub of spread she saw, and slathering handfuls of it on to the grout.
“I’ll give you a hand.” Katherine offered magnanimously as she dropped into a crouch. Such was the urgency of her movement, however, that the crouch overbalanced into an honest to goodness kneel, one which delivered her knees into a fresh glob of butter. “Oh…”
“You do know where your hands are, right Katherine?” Was about as much sympathy as she got through the laughter.
“At least I’m helping. Old blood-lust over there won’t be hanging on for long.”
“Accurate.” Came the immediate confirmation from Sandra. “I will be going absolutely ham with this stuff very shortly, whether or not you and the floor are ready.”
Spurred on by the threats of being in the splash zone Katherine made efficient use of her additional buttered limbs, applying barrier grease to with both hand and knee along the regular grid pattern of the grout. It was an impressive sight to behold, definitely more so than the last film they’d watched together, so it was hard to argue against Brian’s trend-bucking selection of evening entertainment.
“Alright, that’ll probably do. It doesn’t need to be a massive octagon just sort of… big enough? A metre or two?” Brian confirmed to the butterspeople, consulting his pizza notes and keeping a wary eye on Sandra’s rapidly dwindling self-control.
“I’m just getting the hang of it though!” Theresa protested. “I could get your microwave done just in case.”
“Yeah. We could do your units and the sinks as well. Or maybe the carpets?”
“No!”
“Are you su-“
“There’ll be no additional buttering, please and thank you. I’ve got to use the rest of that for my toast and no, I can’t re-use the floor butter for that. It’ll be all bloody. Or least grouty. Only Derrick deserves that sort of thing.”
There could be no argument there. It really was only Derrick who deserved that sort of thing. A grunting, of the sort that implied one was tearing an impractically large portion of a blood bag away, echoed through the kitchen.
“Clear the gangway!” Bellowed Sandra. Katherine slid away expertly on her greased knees and Theresa backward-rolled clumsily into the washing machine, her feet and shins posting themselves neatly into the open door, as Sandra upended a blood bag in the dead centre of the butter zone. There was a horrifying wet splat, much like one would imagine at the interface between dairy products and vital human fluids. Spits and flecks of red surrounded a many-pointed star of suspiciously viscous crimson that lingered on the tiles like a friend who’s outstayed their welcome.
“Ugh. That’s put me off my strawberry gummies.” Cringed Frankie, placing a bowl down on the side. He picked up the completely un-blood-like salt and asparagus crisps instead.
“It’s only what’s inside you.” Dismissed Sandra, who was already cutting open a second bag. “We’ll make that into the pony, and now I’ll get the octagon down.” She continued gleefully, squirting an expertly controlled jet from the bag and tracing a wobbly octagon around the kitchen. Her socks, covered in butter as they were, slid around and made her lines even less straight than they otherwise would have been, but she kept her balance. Something in the back of Katherine’s mind made her think that Sandra had committed exactly this atrocity several times before.
With directions from Theresa, who’d taken the instructions from Brian on account of him retching at the sight of his requested floor-art, Sandra squirted pint after pint of blood onto the white tile in the required ritualistic manner, working with the fury of a consultant whose consultations are booked, waited for, argued with, and summarily ignored. With nothing more than the stiff edges of the bag itself she carved and shaped the hideously coagulating mass of blood at the centre into an impressive pony, painted crosses on the tiles, and tidied up the lines of her enclosing polygon. Panting for breath, revelling in the catharsis, and grateful that her towelling robe had taken the brunt of the staining, she stood up and smiled dumbly at her friends.
“There. Finished.”
Faces of equal parts respect and horror looked between her blood-soaked visage and the defilement she’d wrought upon solid porcelain.
“You er… you did a nice job with that Sandra.” Theresa complimented, for want of any other vocabulary to frame what she’d just witnessed. Many years ago she and Sandra had taken notes in English lessons together and worked on interpretations of poetry. At no stage had she mentioned a furious propensity for blood art.
“I thought octagons had eight sides…” Observed Katherine.
“And no curves…” Added Frankie.
“Why is the pony smiling at us?” Katherine continued.
“It’s a happy pony.” Was the only response that they garnered between them. For fear of their bodies being used to correct the mistakes, they held their silence.
“Oh, don’t criticise her! It’s great work.” Declared Brian, a little too late to be of any real protective use. “It’s close enough and none of us could do better. Let’s get the rest of the ritual set up before the blood can soak into anything else.”
“Can I do the salt?” Asked Theresa. Everyone else in the room agreed that she was generally the saltiest among them, so there was no reason to protest.
“It’s there, behind Katherine on the unit. It’s got to be spread outside the octagon to protect us from whatever goes on in the middle, and we should all have a handful of it in our pocket to-“ Brian started, but he was interrupted with a fistful of salt slapped him in the throat. Katherine tossed the bag of salt at Theresa hurriedly and pulled her most innocent smile. “- to use just in case we see a gap.” He finished slowly.
“I’m all buttery, Sandra’s all bloody, Theresa’s as salty as always. You’ve got to be messy too since it’s your ritual and your neighbour we’re getting rid of.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” Agreed the afore-mentioned bloodied Sandra. Her dressing gown was dripping slightly but she’d been careful to position herself away from the absorbent cheese savouries and corn chips.
Sensing a lost battle before he’d even started to fight it, Brian brushed what salt he could off his gown and into his pocket while Theresa diligently poured a salt circle around the octagon. It was a tricky business with the accumulation of slipping hazards on the kitchen floor as well as the number of people trying desperately to stay outside of it, and became more of an exercise in human mountaineering than circle tracing. Frankie was already lighting the array of mismatched candles when she completed the ring, sending unwanted drips of wax all over Brian’s kitchen floor and several of the other guests. Quite why he’d chosen to carry them as high as he could above their heads and already lit, rather than putting them in place before setting them ablaze, was unclear to anyone. That included Frankie, as was made clear when he was questioned via yelps of pain.
“Alright, just stick one in each corner, please.” Brian instructed, rubbing at the burned stripe that melted wax had left on his forehead. It was additionally annoying because Frankie had flicked the candle at him to achieve it. Apparently that was part of normal walking for him. “Each one represents… ‘An indefatigable facet of the demonic nature, which shall surely be possessed by the evil spirit with which one seeks to commune in their pursuit of ultimate dominion’ apparently.”
“Dominion? I thought we were banishing Derrick not taking control of his weekly vegetable delivery.”
“I took control of that years ago by waking up sooner than he does.” Brian explained. There were a few nods of approval at depriving the devil of his dinner. “It turns out that banishment, as an occult spell, is just a kind of domination spell. You open up a portal to wherever it is that they get sent, and then you compel them to go through it using your dominion magic. It makes sense when you think about it.”
“Yes, makes sense is exactly how I’d describe the action of the demonic ritual you’re describing.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Theresa.” Brain said, raising his nose theatrically. The rest of his face followed, which mercifully prevented the evening from turning into a harrowing nightmare of facial reattachment surgery. It did lead to him stepping on a candle because he wasn’t looking where he was walking, but that was deemed to be an acceptable addition to the evening.
“Right. What we need now is the bones to be scattered in lines from each corner to the pony.” Brian said, once he’d stopped hopping around and clutching at his burned sole.
“Marshmallows ahoy!” Cried Katherine, tearing open the bag in mid-air and sending a shower of bone-based confection onto the kitchen floor. The pony ended up with sugary saddlebags.
“Extravagantly done, Katherine. I see you’re in a very ‘projectile’ mood this evening.” Observed Brian as he pulled a marshmallow out of his collar and placed it neatly in line with one of the corners. He began to align other marshmallows with the designs of the drawing while he was down there in the butter and blood area.
“Should we turn the lights off so that we really get the benefit of the candles?” Sandra asked excitedly, while Theresa was attempting to keep the salt safe from Katherine. She had the ‘I’m going to pour this whole bag down Brian’s back’ look in her eyes, and Brian had lost enough evenings to a heavy salting already.
“Maybe wait until I’m done with this, eh? I’d quite like to avoid putting my hands into a pony made of blood.” The host requested.
“Some of it might be in you before I go home, remember. No use in being squeamish about it now.”
“I just don’t want to ruin it.”
“I’ll give you a hand, Bri. That way we can get the lights off sooner and finally be rid of that wretched Derrick once and for all. Or at least once and for now. Anything is better than never!”
“Thanks, Frankie.” Brian praised, as a fistful of salt sailed over his head and slammed into the crockery cupboard with an aggrieved rattling of plates. He snapped his head up to see Theresa in a headlock and Katherine smirking with one hand in a bag of salt. “Just plugging a gap were you?” She nodded with a mischievous grin and then let go of Theresa. There wasn’t much choice given the handful of marshmallows suddenly being pressed into her face.
“Call it a truce now?” Asked the mallow assailant.
“Fine. Until the ritual’s done at least.” Acquiesced the salty bandit. Both bags of ammunition were set down onto the counter and the combatants finally helped with aligning the bone substitute.
In almost no time at all, but at least a little bit of time because none of the powers of the occult were being harnessed yet, the grand and foul preparations in Brian’s kitchen were complete. The glorious octagon of power was drawn as straight as a slightly sociopathic medical professional could manage, the pony in its centre could at least be parsed as such in a slightly abstract manner, the salt ring was, if anything, too complete thanks to Katherine’s ballistics, and although stained by butter and blood the marshmallow bone proxies were aligned in the candlelight. Sandra had wasted no time in getting the room lights switched off once the bones were in play and so the perfect atmosphere had very nearly been achieved.
“Do we need some spooky music or chanting or something?” Asked Theresa, settling into the exercise and applying her analytical abilities as best she could to this new occult space.
“There was nothing about music in the texts… and there’s a verbal element to the ritual so I don’t know if chanting would be the greatest idea…” Brian thought out loud, scanning across his notes just in case he’d missed something. Although most of the ritual was fairly intuitive, to within a certain definition of the word, there was an outside chance that he’d overlooked one detail or another in his first attempt at banishment.
“We need some mood music surely? Even just for ourselves! It’ll hardly interfere with the ritual any more than the traffic noise, unless the texts say you must perform the banishment within audible distance of the A126 on a busy Friday evening?”
“They do not.”
“And it’ll help to drown out those bloody foxes. Granted it sounds a bit like human screaming but that’s not going to help us keep the otherworldly powers focused is it?”
Once again everyone’s attention was pulled to the sounds of vulpine hegemony outside. While it appeared for all intents and purposes to be a normal suburban garden, experience had taught Brian and his friends that the enclosed patch of grass was, in fact, some kind of fox colosseum. Every night and some days the foxes would gather solemnly within Brian’s fence line and form an honest to goodness ring, inside which two of their number would do battle until an inscrutable victory was declared. Many a film night had been derailed into a spectacle of watching the mammalian combat with open mouths and peaked eyebrows, marvelling out how little actual contact was made between the two competitors. Instead, the battles seemed to be won or lost on the strength of their bone jarring shrieks; the louder and more pained the better. As a consequence Brian’s television was normally turned up to full volume.
“You know what, you’re right. I can’t be concentrating on speaking the ritual words with that going through my head.”
“I’ve got the perfect track!” Sandra announced excitedly, clamouring for her phone in the pocket of her jeans, which was itself buried beneath the masses of bloody towelling robe.
“OK, cool. I think we’ll be set then.” Brian smiled, excitedly. “It’ll be time for the ritual to begin so, er, could you all stand in rough circle around the salt circle? There’ll be a few words I speak that I need you to repeat, I think, so I’ll give you a nice thumbs up on those ones.”
“Very occult, the nice thumbs up.”
“Would you prefer an obscene gesture?” Brian asked, offering a different example with each hand. Both choices were declined. “The thumbs up it is then. It’s not a long chant, only a few lines, so with any luck Derrick’ll be gone in time for us to watch something afterwards.”
Through the kitchen, over the shuffling of feet carefully placing themselves out of butter and blood to stand around a salty circle, drifted the distorted and deafening sounds of an ice-cream van’s low-quality speaker. Each noted dragged itself through the ears like broken glass. Brian nodded solemnly at the choice, and they were all set to begin.
“Wait! The letterbox!” Katherine shouted, as usual.
“Good call, K. Brian said, fumbling around on the darkened kitchen counter until he felt a satisfying chunk of metal which had, up to the previous day, been a part of Derrick’s front door. He gently slid it over to himself. “It gets used in a bit but good to have it on hand. Did we forget anything else?”
“There were pens, paper and dice, right? And oregano?” Frankie recalled.
“Oh that stuff was just in case we wanted to make things a bit more fun, but it was all fun enough on its own, I think.” Brian explained. There were no arguments. “OK then, let’s see… By blood and bone was the demon brought to this place!” Bellowed out the host of the ritual, driving his voice to lower pitches than usual. “And by blood and bone shall they be sent back.” He gave a pointed look around the circle with his thumb up.
“Back!” Cried Frankie and Katherine.
“Sent back!” Theresa sang over the top.
“Be sent back!” Sandra said flatly, a good two seconds after everyone else.
“Ok, so it’s just the last word you need.” The host clarified. “It’s probably helpful to be in time, too.”
“Fine. Shall we start again?” Suggested Theresa.
“Yeah, OK.” Brian cleared his throat, despite it not sounding full of anything but air. “By blood and bone was the demon brought to this place! And by blood and bone shall they be sent back.”
“Back!” Chorused the cultists.
“Come to us here and now. Grab your infernal saddle and prepare to ride the pony of blood!”
“Blood!”
“Feel the pull of this command! Heed the call of viscera and candlelight. Be under my dominion and be away from me!” Brian’s voice rose in volume, and it sounded a little like there was another, very quiet voice speaking along with him from the back of his throat.
“Me!” Boomed the choir, narcissistically.
“With this token of your corporeal horror I compel you to stand in front of me!” Brian grabbed the letterbox with a creaking of old metal hinges and flung into the centre of the octagon. With surprising precision it landed just next to the pony like a trapdoor ready for some very disrespectful jousting.
“Me!” The choir said yet again, in a manner that probably made it more confusing for Derrick to know who to stand in front of.
There was a fiery flash within the octagon, sending up a plume of thick black smoke that rose to the ceiling and swirled around the smoke detector. Below it was revealed the unmistakable form of Derrick from next door, seated as if he had been in the process of purposefully mixing his landfill waste with his recycling.
“What in the- what’s happening?” He cried.
“We compel you, foul construct of evil’s design. Begone from this plane and return to the circles of unpleasantness to which you truly belong!”
“Belong!” Sandra and Katherine shouted. Theresa stood in dumb silence, and Frankie peered down.
“He’s got cloven hooves!”
“I always told you he was probably a demon. Anyway: Obey and be away from here, Derrick!”
“You were going to try to banish a human?!” Derrick shouted. “Do you even know what would ha-”He tried to stand up straight but instead kicked something hard. “Ow! What wa- is that my bloody letterbox!? What’s the matter with you!?”
“What’s the matter with yourself, you wingnut. I’m compelling you to leave our plane so go on. Off you sod. Obey me! Ride your pony of blood away from here and never return!”
With a series of sickening squelches the blood pony started to stand up. It grew and contorted itself from a wet pile of vaguely equine blood into a full-sized pony of eldritch horror, still dripping with gore and expired medical supplies. Furious though his eyes betrayed him to be, Derrick couldn’t resist the command to mount up.
“You’ve been living next to a real demon all this time…” Muttered Theresa.
“Curse you, Brian! You and your protective pack of ruddy foxes! I’d have ended you if not for their dogged interference in my magic!” He spat from his mounted position, one foot stuck in the slot of the letterbox.
“Wait, what?” Brian blurted, but there was no response from the demon. Instead there was another flash from the octagon below, somehow illuminating the whole room with blackness that the eyes refused to understand. Where once there had been a tiled surface, covered in a number of things which should have been stored more appropriately, there now swirling a vortex of unknowable powers and realms that humanity was not meant to see.
“That… looks like the off-licence’s car park.” Sandra assessed academically.
“Such is the true visage of Avernus!” Cackled Derrick, as he put the heels to the pony. It launched into a gallop but didn’t move an inch forwards, instead lowering down through the floor and portal. “You may have rid yourself of me, but one day those foxes will slip up! One day we’ll claim your soul Brian!” Derrick screamed as his head disappeared from view. No sooner had his stupid gelled hair ceased to blight the kitchen than the portal snapped shut with the exact same sound as a cereal bag being curled over. The black light faded away to the glow of eight candles once more, and the sounds of the ice-cream truck were brought to an end by Sandra poking the pause button on her phone. They were alone once more, underneath a thin cloud of black, abyssal smoke.
“Well, I mean… that’s a revelation.” Frankie mumbled.
“About the foxes? Or do you mean about Derrick being an actual demon? Or demons actively hunting Brian?” Theresa asked, always dedicated to the art of specificity.
“…yes.” Came the reply. It seemed good enough under the circumstances.
“I think it’s more worrying that his smoke alarm doesn’t work.” Said Sandra, watching the smoke cling to it. “I bet Derrick took the batteries out while he was here somehow. I’m so glad we banished him.”
“I’d best start buying some food to put out for the foxes, I suppose.” Conceded the host, ignoring his lack of fire safety measures and the eight burning candles on his floor.
“They might like these marshmallows. Got lots of flavour from the butter and blood.” Sandra suggested.
“Yeah, they might, but I don’t really want to give them a taste for human blood. Call me picky but that’s a slippery slope and would be a strange way to thank them. I’m chucking the floor-butter & blood marshmallows out, and if the foxes raid the bins then, well, that’s their business.”
There was a pensive silence in the kitchen as each of them tried to unpack the various mysteries that film night had held thus far. Katherine was the first to frame her confusion as a question.
“Is blood recyclable?” She asked. She’d washed her hands and was picking at a bowl of crisps, despite the various sights and smells of the kitchen.
“Probably. Let’s go with probably.” Brian decided.
“It gets recycled from one person to another, sort of…” Sandra thought out loud. “Speaking of which, do you fancy giving that transfusion a go now, Bri? We’re yet to clean up and the night is young.”
“You know what? Sure. There’s no sense in dwelling on all this nonsense and I hadn’t planned any further ahead than finishing the ritual. I’ll grab my hosepipe, you get us a chair, and let’s have some fun.”
An erratic host at best, Brian could hardly be relied upon to remember that anyone was coming over in the first place, let alone get enough chairs ready, have a film prepared, wash the curtains or not be in the middle of an argument with his neighbour, Derrick, about all the pinecones in the guttering. Trepidation was, consequently, the name of the game when it came to knocking on Brian’s door when it was his turn to host film night, and so often had his friends been burned that seeing evidence of both preparation and execution of snacks only deepened that feeling.
Several comments had been made as his friends, the ones he’d had since his school days, crossed the threshold and witnessed everything set up and ready in the living room. Many of those comments took the form of sarcastic surprise or accusations of being someone else, and a couple were genuine expressions of concern that something might be the matter. Naturally he brushed them aside as if they were all the same water that flowed under a bridge, over a duck’s back, and into a well of inconsequentiality. It was only when everyone had made it in and got themselves settled down with the light foodstuffs they preferred that any answers came clear.
“What are we watching then, if you’re so excited to get this ready for it?” Asked Sandra. She was sat on one of the dining room chairs that Brian had dragged in, her large handbag tucked partially underneath it and a bag of lightly apple-flavoured corn chips on her lap.
“Yeah, what’s got you this worked up? You’ve never even been out of the shower when I arrive, let alone been waiting with all the crisps laid out.” Seconded Theresa from her position of power on the sofa. Although there was no snack immediately about her person, the sofa did give her prime access to the whole coffee table, which was laden with the lion’s share of options.
“We’re not watching anything.” He answered with a simple smile. The alarm bells which had been ringing all evening were now starting to find understanding among their audience.
“Oh no…” Theresa muttered.
“There’s something much more important for us to do tonight. I’ve thought long and hard about it gang, and I think it’s high time we took action. He’s had it too good for too long; we need to banish Derrick.”
The cheese savouries showered the carpet like broken dreams crashing into reality while shocked gasps expelled their way into the air. Mouthfuls of off-brand lemonade and diet-cola-zero-plus-extreme were sprayed outwards as if from a leaky hose pipe to cascade onto guest and floor alike. A pair of glasses snapped in two at the bridge of the nose, but that was entirely unrelated the other carnage and more to do with years of poor care.
“Banish Derrick?”
“As in your neighbour Derrick?”
“Yes. As in my neighbour Derrick. It’s high time that his tyranny was brought to an end, and I cannot rely on simple requests to change his behaviour. He has proven himself at every step not to care about what I think or ask of him, and his disdain for courtesy is near-legendary at this stage as I’m sure you all agree.” There were awkward nods and grunts of agreement around the living room, as well as some tutting over the deconstructed eyepieces. “While we could take some form of action to cause Derrick to move from his house and into a new area I would feel absolutely dreadful about inflicting him on anyone else. They don’t deserve him. Banishment is, therefore the only way.”
“Bold usage of ‘only’.” Observed Theresa from sofa, which was threatening to subsume her entire body in its overabundance of cushion. “There are probably several other courses of action that don’t involve banishing someone, and where would you banish them to? The Pennines?”
“Nope. No other ways.” He confirmed, ignoring the second half of her question.
“Not like getting the Council involved, or issuing cease and desist orders for throwing his old fence panels onto your roof?”
“Worthless attempts at diplomacy that wouldn’t be worth the paper they’re written on.”
“You don’t know that until you try. It worked when you got the fire brigade to make him stop holding bonfires on top of the gas main.” Theresa persisted.
“He still does that from time to time, I’m afraid. I just didn’t want to mention it to you in case you were scared to come and visit. You know, on account of the serious risk of a devastating gas explosion that tears my home apart and does you a serious injury.”
“I can see why you’d rather let us run the risk unknowingly than allow us to make that decision for ourselves.” Accepted Frankie, feet up on the coffee table. A puddle of shock-expelled lemonade had formed around his heels but he didn’t seem to mind too much. Judging by the general state of his clothing it was perfectly likely that he laundered his attire in soft drinks anyway.
“Hm. If the fire brigade’s warnings about home detonation fell on apathetic ears then it does seem difficult to believe he’ll listen to a cease and desist, to be fair. But how would you banish him without him listening to some government body or other? Can the queen still send people into exile? I feel like Mrs Hubbit from Maths back in Year 10 would have been exiled long ago if that were an option.”
“She was a total hag and definitely committed treason, so I think you’re right there.” Katherine agreed from her vantage point atop the dining table. She’d taken refuge up there when her chair had been overrun by jackets.
“I’m not relying on the kind of diplomatic banishment that failed to see Mrs Hubbit cast out of society. She was an open and shut case by any high court’s book and still her evil has been allowed to persist to this day, when instead she should have been cast into a life of scavenging among the wastelands of a lawless society long ago. No, I’m proposing that we take a far more direct approach. An approach that is totally within our control and that will deliver us from the despotic reign of Derrick once and for all. We’re going to perform one of those rituals you see on TV and in films and things to send demons back to where they belong. Candles and blood and pentagrams and stuff like that.”
There was a secondary snack shower, principally comprising the quantity of cheese savouries which had been successfully scooped back up into the bowl.
“Oh for goodness sake, Brian.” Theresa snapped. “You can’t just solve every problem in your life with a demonic ritual, or a Gregorian chant, or an appeal to the gods of old. Sometimes you just need to pick up a sponge and put some effort in to get the tiles clean. It’s really not that hard.”
“And there’ll be plenty of that when it comes time to clean up after the ritual. I’ve got loads of cleaning supplies to sort the kitchen floor out after we’ve banished Derrick. I’m only using a demonic ritual to solve a problem that can’t be fixed any other way.”
Theresa’s eyes narrowed at him and her mouth tightened.
“Well… alright then. But if I catch you trying to use this supposed banishing ritual to instead clean up the house then you’ll get an earful, I promise you. We’ve been through this.”
“Duly noted.”
There was a brief pause, punctuated only by Sandra’s disappointment at the flavour of lemonade-soaked breadsticks.
“Do you even know how to perform a banishing ritual?” Frankie asked.
“I would have thought the bigger issue is that demons and blood rituals aren’t real.” Theresa interjected. “Hence why I’m desperate for Brian to commit to cleaning his kitchen the old fashioned way.”
“I’ve already said that I will! And no, I don’t necessarily know off the top of my head, but either it works or it doesn’t so there’s no harm in trying either way, is there.” Noted the host with a cheeky smile.
“I guess not.” Accepted Theresa with a shrug.
“Especially in the sense that Brian’s already got all the cleaning supplies ready. And it’s not like we’ve got a real banger lined up for movie night, so a ritual’ll be a bit different…”
“That’s the spirit!” He beamed with a happy clap of his hands. “It’ll be a bit more interesting and you’ll get to help out a friend who just desperately need to banish his awful, awful neighbour.”
“Feels a bit like emotional blackmail, Brian.” Noted Sandra. There was no disdain in her voice; in fact, she sounded sincerely impressed.
“Yep! That’s what friends are for. But it’s going to be great. I have a list of everything we need, I’ve got diagrams of how to lay stuff out, and who should be chanting what from where; we’ll be like proper cultists doing something eldritch and spooky.” As he was speaking Brian took a sheaf of papers from a shelving unit against the wall and dropped them onto the table. A few curious hands, probably connected to inquisitive arms, took a sheet here and there.
“Except we’ll be doing the world a service by purging a dreadful Derrick from this plane of existence.” Clarified Sandra through a mouthful of soggy breadsticks, not looking dissimilar to a high-gluten vampire. It seemed that she’d grown accustomed to their new flavour.
“The absolute worst Derrick, yeah.” Agreed Frankie. “Let’s not forget the fire on a gas main scenario that Brian has finally revealed to us, nor the time he posted all his rubbish up my exhaust pipe for parking outside his house.”
“But, to be fair, we also shouldn’t neglect how much fun it was to push the car up to his letterbox and then rev the rubbish back out of it.” Observed Theresa, a staunch proponent of retaining sources of entertainment wherever they might be found. Brian looked into her face and saw nothing but an earnest desire make the right decision here. Trading their long-standing rivalry for a shot at the arcane unknown carried risks, he conceded, but she didn’t have to live with him as a neighbour; he would not be swayed so easily.
“It’ll be just as fun to do things we actually like, rather than trading silent-film tier attacks with someone whose garden adjoins mine. And we might well like an evening of eldritch mystery. It could become a regular thing!”
“Do you really have all the stuff on this list, Bri? It sounds a bit… specialist?” Asked Frankie, who was frowning down at one of Brian’s notes. It read a bit like the shopping list of someone who has absolutely no business doing their own shopping, and while that didn’t offer Frankie any comfort it also didn’t bring about much by way of surprise.
“Yeah of course. I got these candles from the charity shop up the road so they’re definitely going to have soaked up something occult from there.” Following Brian’s excitedly pointed finger Frankie’s attention was brought to the collection of variously coloured, half-melted candles on the mantelpiece. A few of them claimed to be scented with honeydew and aspic, and one was clearly an advent candle which had been abandoned around the time that the Lords began a-leaping, probably to reduce the fire risk.
“What about the blood?”
“I know someone who works at the hospital.” Brian winked. He looked at Sandra expectantly.
“Hm?” A light turned on behind her eyes. “Oh! So that’s why you wanted me to bring all this!” Sandra said, pulling out five blood bags from her own shoulder bag and tossing them, much as one would toss a coaster or old newspaper running a feature about coasters, onto the coffee table. They almost landed in the crisps. “You weren’t ‘just curious about giving a transfusion a go’ at all!”
“Well, I mean, I am still a bit curious about that, so if you’re up for it and there’s blood left over then we’ll have another chat. But yeah, I guess I am guilty of misleading you a bit.”
“Sandra... it’s probably not OK to steal blood from a hospital.” Theresa observed with narrowed eyes. She rescued the bowl of crisps from the haemoglobin zone.
“Yeah, seems like a dick move. You’d have been better off taking it from some friends and relatives while they’re sleeping.” Agreed Katherine, although Theresa may have taken exception to the implication that she’d been suggesting that.
“Oh it’s expired. Totally not allowed to put it in people so no-one’ll miss it.” Sandra explained, to assuage their fears of medical misappropriation.
“I’m still up for it going in me.” Brian said with an affable shrug. “My milk always lasts well beyond the sell-by date so blood’s probably the same.”
“Er, is that a reasonable comparison to make?”
“Of course it is, T. Milk comes from animals, blood comes from animals; it’s all basically the same stuff except for colour and taste and what it’s made of.” Katherine asserted. She’d employed a couple of wicker placemats as padding between her buttocks and the hard, varnished surface of the dining table and was much more comfortable there than she’d ever been on one of the chairs. She resolved quietly to herself to make this her new default seating solution, table space be damned.
“That’s a hard disagree from me.”
“Noted.” Brian said with the kind of bold, confident dismissal that left no doubt as to his intention to definitely still have a transfusion later. “Anyway, it’ll be good enough for this ritual as long as we can draw with it so no need to worry there. What else is on the list, Frankie? Let everyone know.”
“Uh… salt?”
“Loads of that in the kitchen. Rock and low sodium.”
“Human skulls ‘if possible’ or a collection of miscellaneous animal bones if not.”
“Please no.” Theresa interjected immediately. “Please tell me that Sandra didn’t go looting for bones in the hospital as well.”
“Of course not!” Sandra cried back, shocked at the accusation. “I steal expired fluids and medicines only, never anything solid.”
“And none of you joined Brian for a spot of spontaneous grave-robbing in the last fortnight?”
“In the last fortnight?” Said Katherine, drifting off into deep thought while shovelling nachos into her mouth. “No.” She finally decided. “Nor before it.” She added in response to one of Theresa’s more barbed looks.
“We’re not monsters and vagabonds, T! We’re your friends so it’d be nice for you to trust us once in a while. I couldn’t get hold of a lot of bones very easily but I reckon there’s a loophole to be exploited here.” Brian said with a mischievous wiggle of the eyebrows. “Have you heard of our little friends the marshmallows?”
A sea of blank faces stared back at Brian following his cunning revelation, and among them there was only one eye-roll that turned to laughter.
“Bloody gelatine?” Surmised Frankie.
“Gelatine! It’s made from bones and hooves and stuff isn’t it! So we scatter a few bags of marshmallows about the place wherever the diagrams specify and bam; we’re good to go for piles of bone and no-one needs to exhume anybody. A victimless crime.”
“Except for all the owners of those bones in their pre-gelatine days.” Said Katherine.
“Well yes, but that crime was committed by somebody else and we’re just not letting it go to waste, right?”
“Hm.”
“Anyway, what’s left Frankie?”
“That’s it, I think, for the weird stuff. Candles, blood, salt and bones. Other than that it’s paper, pens, a few dice for some reason… oregano, knives, and something of the target’s. Do you have some of Derrick’s stuff?”
“Yeah. I’ve got lots of crap that he’s thrown over the fence and, just in case that doesn’t count, I’ve nabbed his letterbox as well. Unscrewed it from the door when he was out at work last week.”
“Nice. Solid choice.” Sandra congratulated. There were nods of agreement from all round.
“I thought so. I’ll grab the rest of the stuff together now. I was thinking we should probably do the ritual in the kitchen so that the blood can just be wiped up from the tiles.”
“It’ll stain your grout, mate.” Warned Sandra. She’d found that out to her own cost.
“Ah, nuts. Yeah it will won’t it. Erm… do I have anything else I could put down that won’t soak through… there’s a lot of blood to pour out…”
“Just butter up the grout. It’ll stop the blood soaking through and then you can wipe it off afterwards.” Suggested Katherine. There was no sign of her slowing down on the nachos, and a second bag had been drawn close to tag in when the first failed.
“I guess that does make sense, in a ‘my kitchen might end up smelling of old butter’ kind of way.”
“It’s the only way I ever think.” She smiled back, broadly.
“Alright, fine. Well if any of you don’t want to run the risk of dairy-rich socks then slip them off before going into the kitchen or you can borrow a pair of mine. A lot of them have spread on them already for the usual reasons so that’s not an issue.”
“I’ll do the buttering.” Offered Theresa, standing up from the almost prone position that the sofa forced and stretching out her back. A cascade of peanut crumbs and salt flowed off her and into the carpet, but no-one showed any intention of clearing it up; they were about to make a much bigger mess anyway.
“Cheers, T. Glad you’re fully on board now.”
“This isn’t really how you dress for a ritual; no-one has ever banished anyone or anything in jeans and a strappy top.” Observed Sandra, looking down at herself. Certainly if the media was to be believed her outfit didn’t really scream occult ritualist or demon banisher. It was more on the ‘quiet night with a film’ track, which was appropriate for the evening as advertised. Surprise activities were all well and good but it was always a pain when you ended up not being dressed correctly through no fault of your own. She resolved to have a quiet word with Brian when there was less to keep in mind.
“Ah! I’ve got you covered there, worry not!” Brian cried excitedly, vindicating her decision not to question him openly immediately. “One second.”
As he dashed off up the stairs like a puppy that’s just heard something inedible being spilled on the floor, Theresa scratched her head pensively.
“Surely we get to decide what people who perform banishing rituals wear because we are about to perform one right now. We can take some ownership of this.”
“Not an unfair point, but it feels a bit arrogant of us to strut into the ritual world and just decide how it should be done. Maybe there’s logic in the whole ‘long black robes’ look.” Countered Frankie. He’d stood up and brushed the breaded-mushroom crumbs off his trousers onto Brian’s floor in preparation for the big move to the kitchen.
“Like what? Awful visibility? Always accidentally dangling your sleeves into the blood or across the candles so that you’ve got a filthy and partially burned garment for next time?”
“I’m not saying that I know what the reasons are, just that there might be some.”
“Here you go everyone!” Brian’s voice called as he thundered back down the staircase. If it was a representative example of how heavily he normally descended then it was fairly likely that the whole house would collapse in six to eight weeks. “Put these on and we’ll look the part.”
“What have you go-“ was as far as Theresa made it before a luxurious dressing gown in the most diabolically clashing colours was flung in her direction. She caught it awkwardly and stared down.
“Towelling robes! They’re the closest thing I could get to proper nutjob cult robes at short notice but they’ll do the part. Got hoods and everything!” He said proudly.
“… you know what? Fair enough. I love it. We’re going to look like idiots and I’m OK with that.”
“That’s the spirit! And if we spill the blood or something then it won’t get on your nice evening clothes.”
“See! I knew there’d be a good reason for dressing like an idiot while doing this. They’re basically just overalls for the occult community.” Celebrated a triumphant Frankie, pulling on his paisley garment and tying it tight around his waist. Such was his over-enthusiasm that he immediately took on the shape of the hourglass, with just as much blood flow as a normal timepiece. “Cosy.” He wheezed, styling it out.
“Feel free to bring the nibbles into the kitchen as well if you want to; there’s nothing in the instructions for performing the ritual that rules out the consumption of snacks while invoking otherworldly powers. It’s probably best to keep them out of the ritual area itself, and maybe don’t chant with your mouth full, but otherwise there’s probably no real harm that a breadstick can do when banishing a Derrick.”
“Probably, Brian? Based on what? You have no idea what you’re doing and no idea what would impact it.” Fired the eternally critical Theresa, using her vile powers of ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ to undermine Brian’s noble efforts at every turn. At least, that’s how it seemed to Sandra.
“Probably because if it was that big of a deal then the instructions would have mentioned it. Everything’s been thought through, T. Please stop worrying about it and learn to love the banishment. I thought we’d won you over with the dressing gowns and the sense of community.” Brian replied, the signs of distress starting to appear on his normally placid face.
“You… you know what, you’re right. I need to give this a chance and trust you. I’m sorry Brian, and I’m thrilled to be in this dressing gown in preparation to cover your kitchen in slightly expired human blood.”
Katherine patted Theresa on the back as she passed into the kitchen. Wounds could be mended after all, it seemed, but there would be no such chance for the gaping chasm of lacerations, broken bones and bruises that separated Brian from Derrick. With bowls and bags in hand the group of long-term friends and first-time cultists gathered into Brian’s surprisingly spacious kitchen. It was complete with a breakfast bar, downlights fitted to the underside of the upper cabinets, a built-in microwave that was sunk into the floor to avoid taking up valuable wall space, and over four sinks. His kitchen designer had advised against them at the time, but was forced to concede that washing up at four times the rate of a normal kitchen whilst leaving a sink free to fill the kettle would make for increased resale value.
“Alright, where do we start then Bri? What am I drawing with all this blood?” Sandra asked. She’d gravitated back over to the bags as soon as they’d been put down, possibly from some sort of professional attachment to the supplies she’d stolen or possibly because her inner artist could hear the calling of a bold new medium. “Is it a pentagram on the floor? A goat’s head? A bear’s arse?”
“Bear’s arse’d be good. Very appropriate for Derrick.”
“The ancient texts call for an octagon with crosses just inside each corner and a pony in the centre.” Brian read from his sheet of notes. He’d used the reverse of a leaflet for a local pizzeria to copy down the instructions and couldn’t help wondering whether the ritual would benefit from an additional helping of red peppers. “So if you could just sling that down on the floor then it’d be great.”
With aplomb Sandra grabbed for some scissors to open the blood bag.
“Wait, hang on!” Theresa shouted, throwing her hands up in front of herself. “We’ve not buttered up the floor yet!”
A wave of revelatory ooh-ing filled the kitchen, all the way from the doorway to the corner with the tall cabinet.
“Well remembered. It’d be a shame for Brian to have to re-grout after all this.”
“That would just be typical of Derrick though; can’t even be banished without causing grief.” Grumbled Brian.
“I’m even more eager to get this going now.” Sandra said, clenching her jaw and chopping at the top of the bag. “Get buttering up that floor before this blood hits it.”
Having witnessed Sandra’s famous blood-frenzies before on many an occasion, Theresa wasted no time in yanking open the fridge door, snatching out the first tub of spread she saw, and slathering handfuls of it on to the grout.
“I’ll give you a hand.” Katherine offered magnanimously as she dropped into a crouch. Such was the urgency of her movement, however, that the crouch overbalanced into an honest to goodness kneel, one which delivered her knees into a fresh glob of butter. “Oh…”
“You do know where your hands are, right Katherine?” Was about as much sympathy as she got through the laughter.
“At least I’m helping. Old blood-lust over there won’t be hanging on for long.”
“Accurate.” Came the immediate confirmation from Sandra. “I will be going absolutely ham with this stuff very shortly, whether or not you and the floor are ready.”
Spurred on by the threats of being in the splash zone Katherine made efficient use of her additional buttered limbs, applying barrier grease to with both hand and knee along the regular grid pattern of the grout. It was an impressive sight to behold, definitely more so than the last film they’d watched together, so it was hard to argue against Brian’s trend-bucking selection of evening entertainment.
“Alright, that’ll probably do. It doesn’t need to be a massive octagon just sort of… big enough? A metre or two?” Brian confirmed to the butterspeople, consulting his pizza notes and keeping a wary eye on Sandra’s rapidly dwindling self-control.
“I’m just getting the hang of it though!” Theresa protested. “I could get your microwave done just in case.”
“Yeah. We could do your units and the sinks as well. Or maybe the carpets?”
“No!”
“Are you su-“
“There’ll be no additional buttering, please and thank you. I’ve got to use the rest of that for my toast and no, I can’t re-use the floor butter for that. It’ll be all bloody. Or least grouty. Only Derrick deserves that sort of thing.”
There could be no argument there. It really was only Derrick who deserved that sort of thing. A grunting, of the sort that implied one was tearing an impractically large portion of a blood bag away, echoed through the kitchen.
“Clear the gangway!” Bellowed Sandra. Katherine slid away expertly on her greased knees and Theresa backward-rolled clumsily into the washing machine, her feet and shins posting themselves neatly into the open door, as Sandra upended a blood bag in the dead centre of the butter zone. There was a horrifying wet splat, much like one would imagine at the interface between dairy products and vital human fluids. Spits and flecks of red surrounded a many-pointed star of suspiciously viscous crimson that lingered on the tiles like a friend who’s outstayed their welcome.
“Ugh. That’s put me off my strawberry gummies.” Cringed Frankie, placing a bowl down on the side. He picked up the completely un-blood-like salt and asparagus crisps instead.
“It’s only what’s inside you.” Dismissed Sandra, who was already cutting open a second bag. “We’ll make that into the pony, and now I’ll get the octagon down.” She continued gleefully, squirting an expertly controlled jet from the bag and tracing a wobbly octagon around the kitchen. Her socks, covered in butter as they were, slid around and made her lines even less straight than they otherwise would have been, but she kept her balance. Something in the back of Katherine’s mind made her think that Sandra had committed exactly this atrocity several times before.
With directions from Theresa, who’d taken the instructions from Brian on account of him retching at the sight of his requested floor-art, Sandra squirted pint after pint of blood onto the white tile in the required ritualistic manner, working with the fury of a consultant whose consultations are booked, waited for, argued with, and summarily ignored. With nothing more than the stiff edges of the bag itself she carved and shaped the hideously coagulating mass of blood at the centre into an impressive pony, painted crosses on the tiles, and tidied up the lines of her enclosing polygon. Panting for breath, revelling in the catharsis, and grateful that her towelling robe had taken the brunt of the staining, she stood up and smiled dumbly at her friends.
“There. Finished.”
Faces of equal parts respect and horror looked between her blood-soaked visage and the defilement she’d wrought upon solid porcelain.
“You er… you did a nice job with that Sandra.” Theresa complimented, for want of any other vocabulary to frame what she’d just witnessed. Many years ago she and Sandra had taken notes in English lessons together and worked on interpretations of poetry. At no stage had she mentioned a furious propensity for blood art.
“I thought octagons had eight sides…” Observed Katherine.
“And no curves…” Added Frankie.
“Why is the pony smiling at us?” Katherine continued.
“It’s a happy pony.” Was the only response that they garnered between them. For fear of their bodies being used to correct the mistakes, they held their silence.
“Oh, don’t criticise her! It’s great work.” Declared Brian, a little too late to be of any real protective use. “It’s close enough and none of us could do better. Let’s get the rest of the ritual set up before the blood can soak into anything else.”
“Can I do the salt?” Asked Theresa. Everyone else in the room agreed that she was generally the saltiest among them, so there was no reason to protest.
“It’s there, behind Katherine on the unit. It’s got to be spread outside the octagon to protect us from whatever goes on in the middle, and we should all have a handful of it in our pocket to-“ Brian started, but he was interrupted with a fistful of salt slapped him in the throat. Katherine tossed the bag of salt at Theresa hurriedly and pulled her most innocent smile. “- to use just in case we see a gap.” He finished slowly.
“I’m all buttery, Sandra’s all bloody, Theresa’s as salty as always. You’ve got to be messy too since it’s your ritual and your neighbour we’re getting rid of.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” Agreed the afore-mentioned bloodied Sandra. Her dressing gown was dripping slightly but she’d been careful to position herself away from the absorbent cheese savouries and corn chips.
Sensing a lost battle before he’d even started to fight it, Brian brushed what salt he could off his gown and into his pocket while Theresa diligently poured a salt circle around the octagon. It was a tricky business with the accumulation of slipping hazards on the kitchen floor as well as the number of people trying desperately to stay outside of it, and became more of an exercise in human mountaineering than circle tracing. Frankie was already lighting the array of mismatched candles when she completed the ring, sending unwanted drips of wax all over Brian’s kitchen floor and several of the other guests. Quite why he’d chosen to carry them as high as he could above their heads and already lit, rather than putting them in place before setting them ablaze, was unclear to anyone. That included Frankie, as was made clear when he was questioned via yelps of pain.
“Alright, just stick one in each corner, please.” Brian instructed, rubbing at the burned stripe that melted wax had left on his forehead. It was additionally annoying because Frankie had flicked the candle at him to achieve it. Apparently that was part of normal walking for him. “Each one represents… ‘An indefatigable facet of the demonic nature, which shall surely be possessed by the evil spirit with which one seeks to commune in their pursuit of ultimate dominion’ apparently.”
“Dominion? I thought we were banishing Derrick not taking control of his weekly vegetable delivery.”
“I took control of that years ago by waking up sooner than he does.” Brian explained. There were a few nods of approval at depriving the devil of his dinner. “It turns out that banishment, as an occult spell, is just a kind of domination spell. You open up a portal to wherever it is that they get sent, and then you compel them to go through it using your dominion magic. It makes sense when you think about it.”
“Yes, makes sense is exactly how I’d describe the action of the demonic ritual you’re describing.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Theresa.” Brain said, raising his nose theatrically. The rest of his face followed, which mercifully prevented the evening from turning into a harrowing nightmare of facial reattachment surgery. It did lead to him stepping on a candle because he wasn’t looking where he was walking, but that was deemed to be an acceptable addition to the evening.
“Right. What we need now is the bones to be scattered in lines from each corner to the pony.” Brian said, once he’d stopped hopping around and clutching at his burned sole.
“Marshmallows ahoy!” Cried Katherine, tearing open the bag in mid-air and sending a shower of bone-based confection onto the kitchen floor. The pony ended up with sugary saddlebags.
“Extravagantly done, Katherine. I see you’re in a very ‘projectile’ mood this evening.” Observed Brian as he pulled a marshmallow out of his collar and placed it neatly in line with one of the corners. He began to align other marshmallows with the designs of the drawing while he was down there in the butter and blood area.
“Should we turn the lights off so that we really get the benefit of the candles?” Sandra asked excitedly, while Theresa was attempting to keep the salt safe from Katherine. She had the ‘I’m going to pour this whole bag down Brian’s back’ look in her eyes, and Brian had lost enough evenings to a heavy salting already.
“Maybe wait until I’m done with this, eh? I’d quite like to avoid putting my hands into a pony made of blood.” The host requested.
“Some of it might be in you before I go home, remember. No use in being squeamish about it now.”
“I just don’t want to ruin it.”
“I’ll give you a hand, Bri. That way we can get the lights off sooner and finally be rid of that wretched Derrick once and for all. Or at least once and for now. Anything is better than never!”
“Thanks, Frankie.” Brian praised, as a fistful of salt sailed over his head and slammed into the crockery cupboard with an aggrieved rattling of plates. He snapped his head up to see Theresa in a headlock and Katherine smirking with one hand in a bag of salt. “Just plugging a gap were you?” She nodded with a mischievous grin and then let go of Theresa. There wasn’t much choice given the handful of marshmallows suddenly being pressed into her face.
“Call it a truce now?” Asked the mallow assailant.
“Fine. Until the ritual’s done at least.” Acquiesced the salty bandit. Both bags of ammunition were set down onto the counter and the combatants finally helped with aligning the bone substitute.
In almost no time at all, but at least a little bit of time because none of the powers of the occult were being harnessed yet, the grand and foul preparations in Brian’s kitchen were complete. The glorious octagon of power was drawn as straight as a slightly sociopathic medical professional could manage, the pony in its centre could at least be parsed as such in a slightly abstract manner, the salt ring was, if anything, too complete thanks to Katherine’s ballistics, and although stained by butter and blood the marshmallow bone proxies were aligned in the candlelight. Sandra had wasted no time in getting the room lights switched off once the bones were in play and so the perfect atmosphere had very nearly been achieved.
“Do we need some spooky music or chanting or something?” Asked Theresa, settling into the exercise and applying her analytical abilities as best she could to this new occult space.
“There was nothing about music in the texts… and there’s a verbal element to the ritual so I don’t know if chanting would be the greatest idea…” Brian thought out loud, scanning across his notes just in case he’d missed something. Although most of the ritual was fairly intuitive, to within a certain definition of the word, there was an outside chance that he’d overlooked one detail or another in his first attempt at banishment.
“We need some mood music surely? Even just for ourselves! It’ll hardly interfere with the ritual any more than the traffic noise, unless the texts say you must perform the banishment within audible distance of the A126 on a busy Friday evening?”
“They do not.”
“And it’ll help to drown out those bloody foxes. Granted it sounds a bit like human screaming but that’s not going to help us keep the otherworldly powers focused is it?”
Once again everyone’s attention was pulled to the sounds of vulpine hegemony outside. While it appeared for all intents and purposes to be a normal suburban garden, experience had taught Brian and his friends that the enclosed patch of grass was, in fact, some kind of fox colosseum. Every night and some days the foxes would gather solemnly within Brian’s fence line and form an honest to goodness ring, inside which two of their number would do battle until an inscrutable victory was declared. Many a film night had been derailed into a spectacle of watching the mammalian combat with open mouths and peaked eyebrows, marvelling out how little actual contact was made between the two competitors. Instead, the battles seemed to be won or lost on the strength of their bone jarring shrieks; the louder and more pained the better. As a consequence Brian’s television was normally turned up to full volume.
“You know what, you’re right. I can’t be concentrating on speaking the ritual words with that going through my head.”
“I’ve got the perfect track!” Sandra announced excitedly, clamouring for her phone in the pocket of her jeans, which was itself buried beneath the masses of bloody towelling robe.
“OK, cool. I think we’ll be set then.” Brian smiled, excitedly. “It’ll be time for the ritual to begin so, er, could you all stand in rough circle around the salt circle? There’ll be a few words I speak that I need you to repeat, I think, so I’ll give you a nice thumbs up on those ones.”
“Very occult, the nice thumbs up.”
“Would you prefer an obscene gesture?” Brian asked, offering a different example with each hand. Both choices were declined. “The thumbs up it is then. It’s not a long chant, only a few lines, so with any luck Derrick’ll be gone in time for us to watch something afterwards.”
Through the kitchen, over the shuffling of feet carefully placing themselves out of butter and blood to stand around a salty circle, drifted the distorted and deafening sounds of an ice-cream van’s low-quality speaker. Each noted dragged itself through the ears like broken glass. Brian nodded solemnly at the choice, and they were all set to begin.
“Wait! The letterbox!” Katherine shouted, as usual.
“Good call, K. Brian said, fumbling around on the darkened kitchen counter until he felt a satisfying chunk of metal which had, up to the previous day, been a part of Derrick’s front door. He gently slid it over to himself. “It gets used in a bit but good to have it on hand. Did we forget anything else?”
“There were pens, paper and dice, right? And oregano?” Frankie recalled.
“Oh that stuff was just in case we wanted to make things a bit more fun, but it was all fun enough on its own, I think.” Brian explained. There were no arguments. “OK then, let’s see… By blood and bone was the demon brought to this place!” Bellowed out the host of the ritual, driving his voice to lower pitches than usual. “And by blood and bone shall they be sent back.” He gave a pointed look around the circle with his thumb up.
“Back!” Cried Frankie and Katherine.
“Sent back!” Theresa sang over the top.
“Be sent back!” Sandra said flatly, a good two seconds after everyone else.
“Ok, so it’s just the last word you need.” The host clarified. “It’s probably helpful to be in time, too.”
“Fine. Shall we start again?” Suggested Theresa.
“Yeah, OK.” Brian cleared his throat, despite it not sounding full of anything but air. “By blood and bone was the demon brought to this place! And by blood and bone shall they be sent back.”
“Back!” Chorused the cultists.
“Come to us here and now. Grab your infernal saddle and prepare to ride the pony of blood!”
“Blood!”
“Feel the pull of this command! Heed the call of viscera and candlelight. Be under my dominion and be away from me!” Brian’s voice rose in volume, and it sounded a little like there was another, very quiet voice speaking along with him from the back of his throat.
“Me!” Boomed the choir, narcissistically.
“With this token of your corporeal horror I compel you to stand in front of me!” Brian grabbed the letterbox with a creaking of old metal hinges and flung into the centre of the octagon. With surprising precision it landed just next to the pony like a trapdoor ready for some very disrespectful jousting.
“Me!” The choir said yet again, in a manner that probably made it more confusing for Derrick to know who to stand in front of.
There was a fiery flash within the octagon, sending up a plume of thick black smoke that rose to the ceiling and swirled around the smoke detector. Below it was revealed the unmistakable form of Derrick from next door, seated as if he had been in the process of purposefully mixing his landfill waste with his recycling.
“What in the- what’s happening?” He cried.
“We compel you, foul construct of evil’s design. Begone from this plane and return to the circles of unpleasantness to which you truly belong!”
“Belong!” Sandra and Katherine shouted. Theresa stood in dumb silence, and Frankie peered down.
“He’s got cloven hooves!”
“I always told you he was probably a demon. Anyway: Obey and be away from here, Derrick!”
“You were going to try to banish a human?!” Derrick shouted. “Do you even know what would ha-”He tried to stand up straight but instead kicked something hard. “Ow! What wa- is that my bloody letterbox!? What’s the matter with you!?”
“What’s the matter with yourself, you wingnut. I’m compelling you to leave our plane so go on. Off you sod. Obey me! Ride your pony of blood away from here and never return!”
With a series of sickening squelches the blood pony started to stand up. It grew and contorted itself from a wet pile of vaguely equine blood into a full-sized pony of eldritch horror, still dripping with gore and expired medical supplies. Furious though his eyes betrayed him to be, Derrick couldn’t resist the command to mount up.
“You’ve been living next to a real demon all this time…” Muttered Theresa.
“Curse you, Brian! You and your protective pack of ruddy foxes! I’d have ended you if not for their dogged interference in my magic!” He spat from his mounted position, one foot stuck in the slot of the letterbox.
“Wait, what?” Brian blurted, but there was no response from the demon. Instead there was another flash from the octagon below, somehow illuminating the whole room with blackness that the eyes refused to understand. Where once there had been a tiled surface, covered in a number of things which should have been stored more appropriately, there now swirling a vortex of unknowable powers and realms that humanity was not meant to see.
“That… looks like the off-licence’s car park.” Sandra assessed academically.
“Such is the true visage of Avernus!” Cackled Derrick, as he put the heels to the pony. It launched into a gallop but didn’t move an inch forwards, instead lowering down through the floor and portal. “You may have rid yourself of me, but one day those foxes will slip up! One day we’ll claim your soul Brian!” Derrick screamed as his head disappeared from view. No sooner had his stupid gelled hair ceased to blight the kitchen than the portal snapped shut with the exact same sound as a cereal bag being curled over. The black light faded away to the glow of eight candles once more, and the sounds of the ice-cream truck were brought to an end by Sandra poking the pause button on her phone. They were alone once more, underneath a thin cloud of black, abyssal smoke.
“Well, I mean… that’s a revelation.” Frankie mumbled.
“About the foxes? Or do you mean about Derrick being an actual demon? Or demons actively hunting Brian?” Theresa asked, always dedicated to the art of specificity.
“…yes.” Came the reply. It seemed good enough under the circumstances.
“I think it’s more worrying that his smoke alarm doesn’t work.” Said Sandra, watching the smoke cling to it. “I bet Derrick took the batteries out while he was here somehow. I’m so glad we banished him.”
“I’d best start buying some food to put out for the foxes, I suppose.” Conceded the host, ignoring his lack of fire safety measures and the eight burning candles on his floor.
“They might like these marshmallows. Got lots of flavour from the butter and blood.” Sandra suggested.
“Yeah, they might, but I don’t really want to give them a taste for human blood. Call me picky but that’s a slippery slope and would be a strange way to thank them. I’m chucking the floor-butter & blood marshmallows out, and if the foxes raid the bins then, well, that’s their business.”
There was a pensive silence in the kitchen as each of them tried to unpack the various mysteries that film night had held thus far. Katherine was the first to frame her confusion as a question.
“Is blood recyclable?” She asked. She’d washed her hands and was picking at a bowl of crisps, despite the various sights and smells of the kitchen.
“Probably. Let’s go with probably.” Brian decided.
“It gets recycled from one person to another, sort of…” Sandra thought out loud. “Speaking of which, do you fancy giving that transfusion a go now, Bri? We’re yet to clean up and the night is young.”
“You know what? Sure. There’s no sense in dwelling on all this nonsense and I hadn’t planned any further ahead than finishing the ritual. I’ll grab my hosepipe, you get us a chair, and let’s have some fun.”