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Chapter Fourteen
Blaze convinced Elijah to bring the
wondrous cat to his apartment, which was not far from this part of town. The sorcerer fully accepted the preacher’s
adoption of his newfound pet and he seemed, as the preacher, himself, to have
its best interest at heart. In Blaze
O’Dare’s apartment they could feed the hungry little cat and allow it to
recuperate, while utilizing Blaze’s library in planning their next move. Despite his acceptance of this situation on
the cat’s behalf, the preacher remained deeply suspicious of both O’Dare’s
motive and profession. He could just
imagine what kind of books were on the sorcerer’s shelves.
As the preacher followed in his Toyota
behind Blaze’s ramshackle station wagon, he was tempted to turn down the very
next street and lose him before he got any deeper into this mystery. For the little cat’s sake and his own
mounting curiosity, however, he could not turn the wheel. He was ashamed to admit it to himself, but
he was, as he suspected earlier, actually excited. Not since his service in Iraq or his honeymoon with Karen had he
felt such an inexplicable rush. He
continued to follow the station wagon until they reached a low rent district
similar to his own. Visions of the
Black Mass, witches covens, and other primitive rites continued to swim in his
head.
By the time he parked his car and was
led by the enthusiastic sorcerer up the stairway to his small, mid-twentieth
century apartment, he had convinced himself that he was walking into a
spiritual trap. Quoting portions of the
Twenty-third Psalm and humming a hymn to himself, he could barely speak as he
followed Blaze into a cluttered, evil smelling room.
“Home sweet home!” The sorcerer seemed
to cackle as he ushered Elijah into his living room and shut the door.
“Praise the Lord!” Elijah gasped,
surveying the walls and floor. There
were, ironically, no visible satanic or occult paraphernalia, charts or symbols
in the living room, and the smell he thought was evil was merely incense mixed
with apparent food odors. Blaze, not
unlike Elijah, himself, was merely a sloppy housekeeper. A sigh of relief escaped his constricted
throat. He felt light-headed and almost
at home.
Even when they entered the kitchen and
he saw jar after jar of ingredients that looked suspiciously like items used
for a witches potion, the preacher couldn’t take it seriously, for alongside of
herbs, dried insects and whatever else he used in his experiments as a
sorcerer, he also saw jars of peanut butter, jam, mixed nuts, and a small
framed picture of Jesus Christ on the kitchen wall. A very normal looking calendar below a setting of children
playing in a park was hung beside a bizarre painting of leprechauns dancing
around a pot of gold to put the finishing touches to this eclectic
setting. There were also boxes of
cereal, cans of food, and unwashed dinnerware in the sink, just like his own
apartment. Perhaps, he thought giddily,
the suspicious looking jars were merely exotic food items, and Mister O’Dare was
really a harmless eccentric dabbling in the occult.
After lifting the drowsy cat out his
jacket and watching O’Dare pour it a bowel of milk and then scrounge around in
his messy kitchen for something for them all to eat, Elijah wondered if his
revised judgment of the sorcerer might be correct. O’Dare might even be a borderline schizophrenic. Elijah had seen enough of them on skid
row. It both disappointed and relieved
him greatly to see this charade. The
disappointment, he wanted to believe, was for the cat’s sake and not his
longing for adventure. The relief was
that he was out of both spiritual and physical danger. Though he was still affronted by Blaze
O’Dare’s profession, he almost felt sorry for him now and found it difficult to
believe he could help the cat.
******
Elijah broke into hysterical giggles
when he realized, after closer inspection, there were, in fact, dried
grasshoppers in one of the jars. To
increase his inexplicable mirth, the sleepy little cat turned her nose up at
bowel of the milk offered to her and looked with disappointment at the salami
Blaze had just shredded onto a plate.
“What is this?” Irma now looked back
at her protector. “I’m starving, and I get salami and milk?”
“Why are you laughing?” Blaze frowned
indignantly at Elijah. “I have nothing else to offer. I thought cats liked milk and meat!”
“Ho-ho, you forget, my dear sorcerer,”
Elijah wiped his eyes and hiccupped, “underneath that fur it’s still human. And this is further
proof!”
“You’re right,” Blaze’s expression
changed, “look at it—the poor thing.
This cat deserves a steak and glass
of beer!”
“That sounds great!” Her mouth dropped
and eyes popped wide.
As she sat up pertly to expose her
tummy, the sorcerer did a double take.
“Hold on a minute,” he cried, reaching
for the cat.
“What are you doing now?” Elijah
asked, watching him lift her up and look between her legs
“I knew it!” Blaze said gleefully.
“She’s a girl! This little cat is
someone’s daughter, sister, or wife!”
“Hey, watch it sorcerer,” she tried to
protest. “Show some respect!”
What came out of Irma’s mouth, as
before, were a series of meows that caused them to laugh that much more. However, when in typical feline reaction
Irma hissed, humped her back, and growled deep in her throat, their laughter
came to an abrupt halt.
“She’s going quickly,” Blaze swallowed
heavily. “I’ll get my stuff. We gotta
get more information from her. We gotta
move fast!”
“Yes-yes, let’s get started,” Elijah
nodded with concern, then, experiencing a double take, himself, called after
the retreating Blaze. “Stuff? What
kind’ve stuff? Exactly, what kind’ve stuff do you mean?”
Elijah’s returning vision of witches
cauldrons and satanic rites was replaced by the amateurish hustle of Blaze
holding an astrological poster, a pot of blue poster paint, and several marking
pens. Immediately, upon recognizing
this equipment, Elijah gave a nod of approval though he was not impressed with
Blaze’s expertise. The cat, he noted,
looked disappointed too.
“This is your big solution?” She
wanted to ask, looking up at the silly man.
The sorcerer stopped thoughtfully,
thinking he understood her reaction, and, with inspiration, ran over to a
cupboard. Pulling out a can, he found a
can-opener, quickly opened the can and dumped its contents into an unused pot
on the stove. Dumping the previous
uneaten salami and its plate into the sink with the other dirty dinnerware, he
exhibited the contents of the pot to her before returning it to the burner as
if he was preparing for her the most elegant casserole.
“Pièce de résistance,” he exclaimed, turning up
the heat. “Corned beef and hash!”
He now went to the refrigerator and
brought out more lunchmeat, condiments, bread, and two cans of coke. The sorcerer moved so quickly now, his hands
were a mess and there were mustard and mayonnaise spots on his coat.
“I’m so easily sidetracked,” he said
apologetically to Elijah. “I know
you’re hungry too. I wish I could give
you both a proper meal, but this is all I have.”
“You’re a very gracious host,” Elijah
quickly replied. “It’s more important that you feed the poor cat.”
After a few moments, in which he
muttered quizzically to himself, searched the empty cupboard for something else
and then salt and peppered the hash, he dumped the pot into a large plate and
presented it to the hungry cat.
“Oh joy,” thought Irma sarcastically,
with a little curtsy, as she looked down at her food, “au gratin potatoes and châteaubriand!” Nevertheless, she turned enthusiastically to her food, purring
loudly and even wagging her tail.
Blaze rinsed his hands off under the
faucet and wiped them off on the kitchen curtain. Setting two plates filled with pastrami and lettuce sandwiches
and potato chips, alongside of two glasses filled with coke, the sorcerer and
preacher joined Irma for a hasty meal.
Elijah rose up from his food, found an empty cup on the sink, rinsed it
out thoroughly and brought water back for Irma’s meal. Irma, however, lapped coke from Elijah’s
glass.
As she gobbled up the corn beef hash
and helped herself to Elijah’s drink, she bristled at the sorcerer’s touch, not
knowing completely what to expect. What
she needed was a laptop or ipad.
O’Dare’s equipment seemed primitive.
As she chewed her last morsel of food, she again bristled at his
touch. He was feeling her bony ribcage
and legs. Having wolfed down his own
food, he then sat there impatiently waiting for Elijah and Irma to finish their
meals. Elijah, who had been famished,
himself, reflected fleetingly upon his chicken-in-the-pot. It would really
be done now, he smiled wryly to himself.
No sooner had he finished his dinner than Blaze was cleaning off the
table and spreading out his gear.
“Now we must find a way for our little
friend to talk!” Blaze announced. As an afterthought, he snapped his fingers and looked around his
cluttered kitchen, biting his lip pensively as he searched the room. “We need a
wash pan,” he declared, “to wash her little paws after we’re through.”
Without a word, Elijah rose up,
spotted a large empty pot on the refrigerator, filled it with water and sat it
on the nearby sink.
Irma sighed with resignation. “All right, let’s get started,” she
brightened, a faint purr returning to her throat, “but I need a computer and a
graphics program to do this right.”
“Is this possible?… How can she
write?” Blaze could hear the preacher mumble over his shoulder as he turned the
chart face down to expose a white surface and set an opened pot of blue poster
paint by her side. With a shrug, he then tossed the marking pens onto the
floor.
“You need a housekeeper,” Elijah
snickered, giving the cat a pat.
“I need a laptop,” Irma looked
with disappointment at the paint.
“Calm down child. He knows what he’s doing,” Elijah now read
her mood, for her fur had begun to bristle again as she contemplated her
task.
Blaze now moved the pot in front of
Irma’s pouting face. Elijah, as Irma,
was beginning to doubt Blaze’s qualifications as a practitioner of the black
arts. The man, did not own a computer,
let alone a typewriter in his cluttered home.
Elijah, who not only owned a notebook computer, himself, but a printer
and advanced software too, couldn’t imagine not having the Internet in his
life. Blaze now explained, for the
cat’s benefit it seemed, that the paint was water based and could be easily
rinsed off her paws. Irma, realizing
the significance of her chore, was growing excited about what she wanted to
say. Pouring a glob of the blue paint
on the corner of the paper and positioning the purring cat, he now forced her
front paws onto the sheet. Irma, who
knew exactly what to do, rose up quickly and began to move her right paw around
until she had written her name. In
large crude letters she scrawled “Irma Fresco.” Unlike Drew and Tom, she spelled it perfectly. In spite of what they knew, both men gasped
with amazement as she placed a large messy exclamation point next to her name.
“Well, we know that she is
right-handed or, should I say, right-pawed!”
The preacher grinned, watching in awe as the last character was finished on the
sheet.
“Irma Fresco. That’s a fine name!” The sorcerer clapped
his hands together and sat down light-headedly in a chair. “Now, as I ask you yes and no questions, please respond with one meow for yes and two meows
for no. As we play this game, please
write down as best you can the name of the person who has bewitched you. If you will, also write down your
address. We must return to the scene as
quickly as possible to begin your cure!”
Irma nodded and licked the sorcerer’s
hand, two very unfeline gestures that gave them more encouragement as the
sorcerer continued.
“Are you losing your memories of the
past?” The sorcerer looked worriedly down at the cat.
“Meow meow,” she looked up pertly.
“Good.” O’Dare sighed with relief.
“Write down the name of the witch and your address as we talk.”
“Meow!” She chirped, struggling with
the task
“Are you a Christian?” Elijah blurted
now.
“Is that really relevant?” Blaze
asked, rolling his dark eyes.
“Meow!” Irma responded, pausing to
scrawl an R and C on the sheet.
By now the back of the astrological
chart was a splotchy mess of paw marks and streaks that the two men could
barely read. Blaze and Elijah whispered
back and forth in an effort to translate the scrawl below.
“Hmmm, so you believe in the powers of
prayer?” Elijah took his turn, the sorcerer shaking his head in dismay. “Have
you asked the Lord to change you back?… You have? Good girl…. Now, I think we’ve translated what you just
wrote. You just give me a nod this time
to verify what I read. I noticed you’re
getting a little hoarse. You must have been
meowing a lot, eh? There-there, stand
back and take a breather. Let’s see
what we have.”
“R and C stand for Roman Catholic,” he
declared, watching her quickly nod. “Good girl; at least you’re a
Christian. You’re halfway there…. The
name of the witch is Indira Cruger…. No,… Indy?… No, not Indy…. India? Yes?…
The last name is not Cruger, though…. It’s rather messy, isn’t it. Would you try writing that part again?”
“That’s a W and that’s an O.” Blaze
offered, pointing at the sheet.
“That letter,” Elijah pointed, “looks
a little like a T.”
“Yes! So far we have India
Crow… Crowley?” The sorcerer now took over, pausing to rub his eyes. “Don’t
remember that in my index. Must be a
new one. Now let’s work on the
address…. Shad…dow…. Is that right?”
“What sort of index?” Elijah asked,
suspicion returning to his eyes.
“Yes, that’s the first part.” Blaze
squinted. “The next part of the name is B… r… o… o… k. Brook!” “Shadowbrook.” He nodded. “Good….
Now the last sequence of letters are A… r… m… s.”
“Shadowbrook Arms.” Elijah cried
excitedly now. “That must be a hotel or apartment complex!”
Irma then wrote with her little blue
paws the address and the name of the city it was in. The two men, having seen certain patterns in her lettering,
recognized the street name more easily now and were able to decipher the
numbers to the address within a few moments to complete the address. All they needed now, Elijah suggested with
mounting interest, was a map to locate Shadowbrook Arms.
At that point, the sorcerer searched
his cluttered office a moment until finding a Thomas Guide and a city map. Quickly now, they were able to search the
index of the guide to find the grid numbers and page numbers of the
street. The latest Thomas Guide had
well established landmarks, including shopping centers and apartment complexes
and they were able to pinpoint Shadowbrook Arms, which lie in the suburbs only
a ten minute drive across town.
Irma had, with all her energy,
communicated what her rescuers felt they needed to know. However, when she attempted to write down
the satanic formula India had used in her circle of lights and also the words
to the spell, itself, she drew a complete blank. She had always thought her excellent memory would save her, but
this time, in her current state of mind and body, her memory had failed. Once more she felt overwhelming
exhaustion. Withdrawing her little paw
from the poster paint masterpiece, she allowed Elijah and Blaze to gently clean
her up and responded with docility as the preacher stroked her fur.
“You’ve been a very helpful kitty,”
Elijah whispered to Irma as he stuck her inside his coat. “Through the power of
the Lord, as our new friend Blaze promises, we’ll have you back in good form!”
“Sure… sure… sure,” Irma thought
groggily as she fell asleep.
******
It was at this point that Blaze O’Dare
unveiled his plan. The preacher was
watching the sorcerer clean up his mess, which amounted to nothing more than
tossing everything, including the poster paints, into the sink. In a matter-of-fact tone, O’Dare said a very
strange thing.
“Well,” he yawned expansively, stretching out his
arms, “it’s time now to bring in the expert!”
“What?” The preacher bolted in his
chair.
Shaken awake by this motion, Irma also
asked “What?” in a sleepy meow, peeking fearfully out of Elijah’s coat.
“The expert,” explained Blaze
matter-of-factly, “the one who can break this spell.”
“But I thought you were the expert!” Elijah shot back angrily. “What kind of game
is this?” He looked down menacingly at him now. “No more bullshit
sorcerer. Do you really know how to
help this cat?”
“Ye-es, I think I know how she can be
helped,” Blaze said less confidently this time.
“You think you know?” Elijah frowned in disbelief. “You think she can be helped? What was all this stuff we were doing, some
kind of sick game Mister O’Dare?”
Clearly, by this latter form of
address Blaze had been demoted in the preacher’s eyes.
“I’m out of my league,” the sorcerer
confessed, lowering his chin to his chest.
“What is that suppose to mean?” asked Elijah, dropping back heavily into his
chair. “Out of your league?… What league
is this?… You can’t mean a witches league or sorcerer’s league!”
“Yes,” Blaze murmured faintly.
“You’re not serious!” Elijah’s mouth
dropped progressively. “…. There’s actually such a thing?… An
honest-to-goodness witches and sorcerer’s league?”
“There are several such
organizations,” Blaze explained motioning to the hall. “I have a library of
them in the other room.”
Irma was not disappointed at all. After considering what Blaze had just said,
she began to purr as a thought took hold.
Unlike the preacher, this admission filled her with hope. Until this moment the sorcerer’s actions had
not given her much encouragement. She
had listened to India enough to have some idea of what Blaze meant now. They needed a powerful wizard or witch who
could break India’s spell. Blaze
obviously wasn’t it.
When the full impact of what Blaze had
just admitted to Elijah had sank in, the preacher was appalled (at least the
self-righteous part of him was).
According to this self-proclaimed sorcerer now, it required the
intervention of a white witch or wizard, much more powerful than himself, who
would perform a counteracting spell.
When the correct formula and magical ingredients and paraphernalia were
used correctly by this agent, the spell would be broken. It was as simple or as difficult as
that. Just exactly what this
counteracting spell was Blaze didn’t know yet, but he planned on finding out
soon.
While the preacher tried to comprehend
what had happened to him tonight it appeared as if he was moving in a dream or
nightmare. He regretted that his faith
didn’t matter to O’Dare and hoped somehow that he could still win with the
power of prayer. The only thing that
seemed to be real at this point was the warm little cat purring on his
chest. If he awakened now in his bed
and it was only a dream, he would miss her greatly. Already, Irma Fresco had become more than just a pet.
“Who knows what we’re going to need
for this caper,” he heard Blaze say in a most cavalier fashion as he rose
shakily to his feet. “We may even need your religion. White witches have been known to consort with God.”
“Forgive my ignorance,” Elijah said
hoarsely, his heart still pounding in his chest, “but you are, whether you call
it that or not, dabbling in the black arts.
I will pray when I deem it necessary, whether your white witch or
whomever-you-call-it likes it or not.”
“Fair enough,” the sorcerer nodded,
reaching inside his coat to give Irma a pat.
Irma hissed and almost bit him
now. Blaze withdrew his hand with
disappointment and stood there deep in thought, as if he was mulling over
another plan. Elijah found himself nodding
off to sleep. It had been a long
day. An irrational fear that he would
awaken and Irma would disappear from his life forever broke his
somnolence. His heard jerked up. Inside his coat the little cat mewed. He looked up then and realized that Blaze
was no longer in the room.
It was as if he had, in fact, awakened
from a bad dream only to wake up in another.
“Where are you?” He called out
fearfully. “What are you up to now Sorcerer?…
Admit it O’Dare, you cannot help her!
For you this is all a game!”
“It’s not a game, preacher… I can help!” the sorcerer announced at the
doorway to the hall. Walking over with
a book under his arm, he said with great conviction, “Whether you like it or not, I’m all you and the cat have. Please trust me. Give me a chance to help!”
The jolt Elijah had given her had once again ended
Irma’s catnap. The little cat stuck her
pert head out and looked up at the preacher as if to protest then climbed out,
stretched on the table and suddenly, inexplicably, leaped from the table to the
sink.
In too many ways, the two men and
Irma, herself, realized she was acting like a cat. One more indication that she was becoming feral came when she
felt compelled to stop by the toaster sitting by the sink. As she looked into the shiny side of the
toaster, she marveled at herself, realizing with some degree of pleasure, that
she was a very pretty little cat. She
had, in fact, owned a black cat when she was a child…. Now, she told herself
dubiously, she was a cat. But, as Elijah and Blaze had noticed
immediately, she was no ordinary black cat.
She had in the midst of her pixie-like face, as she had as a human,
brilliant blue eyes, but also large, fox-like ears that did not seem to match
any cat she had ever seen. For a moment
she admired her reflection, as kittens often do, and then, losing interest,
abstractedly turned her attention to a small scrap of food lying on the
draining board, which she began to bat around playfully as the two men watched.
She was losing her humanity. She was beginning to think, eat, and act
like a cat. The preacher felt great
compassion for her and, in spite of his misgivings, wanted Blaze O’Dare’s help.
“While I look in my library,” the sorcerer directed
gently, “would you like to read my Bible.
We need all the help we can get.
I won’t be long.”
Blaze handed him a large King James Version of the
Holy Bible. The preacher, who was moved
by the sorcerers gesture and surprised he would have such a book, took it
graciously with a nod and, after thumbing through the Scriptures, found a
likely spot in the eighth chapter of Acts:
…. There was a certain man, called Simon, who
bewitched the people of Samaria. To him
they had regard, because he had bewitched them with sorcery.
But the passage, which was a part of New Testament
Scriptures, didn’t seem appropriate now, and it didn’t bring the preacher
justification for how he felt. Like him
or not, Blaze O’Dare, for his own selfish reasons perhaps, was trying to help,
which was more than what Elijah was doing now.
There simply was no prayer in the Bible for breaking the spell of a
witch. Elijah could also find nothing
in the Scriptures about beasts having souls, which made it difficult for him to
have a dialogue with God. The Bible, though
it had become the law of his life, had no answers on this subject. His excitement for the miracle was tempered
by this realization, which caused a crisis in his faith. And the realization grew in the preacher, as
he searched the Bible, as would a glimmer at the end of a long, dark corridor,
that there were forces for fighting evil not covered in this book.