Patrol Time

My tiny, silver ring did not quite appear like the nebulous green and blue rings on the demons who visited often our bar, but it still came in useful; most demons would not naturally come near a practising magician with a ten-foot pole, much less frequent a bar owned by one, but my different ring bestowed me a safe trust.

I scanned the clock. Virtually time for our weekly TV obsession.

After I prepared a couple of Fog Cutters for another direction, I maim my hair into a knot on top of my head and clasped it in place with a plastic swizzle stick. Then I switched off the tropic exotica tavern music—classic Martin Denny—stood on a chair at the end of the tavern, and tugged down my snug 1982 Iron Maiden performance T-shirt, a victorious two-dollar record from the Goodwill down the block.

"Listen up," I screamed across the room as eighty-plus pairs of eyes twirled toward me.

"It is eleven o'clock. Most of you understand what that implies here on Thursdays at Vinculus."

"PATROL TIME!" The group answer echoed around the tavern, commemorated by a procession of whoops and cheers.

"That is true," I said with a smirk after they had settled.

"It is Paranormal Patrol time. For those of you who are not customary to Vinculus's weekly TV tradition, you might like to get out while the getting's good. Because it is practical to be wild in here—" Two whistles and a couple of inaudible shouts suspended me.

"Yeah, like that, just worse, and with lots extra obscenity. If you want a calm drink, go across the lane to the Sunset Tavern. You have now been warned officially."

A decent round of cheering finished up my speech. The lone table of Warrens started assembling their handbags and left a bonus on their table.

Laboured every time. As they headed out the entrance, I ascended down from the bar stool, readied the DVR, and launched the show.

When the Paranormal Patrol logo walked across the screen, Vinculus's frequenters began singing onward with the harmony music, swapping an alternate, a rude bunch of lyrics.

I sighted Linda and the table busser gleefully singing along and laughing as I cleared away a couple of bare Star mugs and wiped down the tavern. Linda's cheerful couple at the high-top was earning a bit rowdy. Maybe she was good after all; I maintained my eye on them.

This week's event of Patrol took place in Charleston, where the courageous crew of experienced hunters—all Warrens— were examining the hundred-year-old fantasy of a nun.

After they set up their appliance, the so-called specialist began his preambles to the so-called ghost:

"Hello? I am trying to communicate to the spirit of Mary—can you understand me? Give me an indication if you can. I come in peace."

So foolish that humans waste cash on ion counters, night image cameras, and all the rest of the trash that purports to "detect" the paranormal.

Because rings and other supernatural monuments show up simply as a day on most recent cameras if you have the right sights … and Vinculus's supporters did.

So when a tiny sparkling head poked up over the shoulder of the ghost hunter, our consumers began their call-and-answer contest and all screamed in unison, "Look behind you, asshole!" Around the tavern, everyone gulped a drink in applause to the first on-screen imp impression.

Rocky Horror lovers had nothing on us.

The ghost seeker's sights soaked as he sat down on an aged bed where the mysterious nun was assassinated years ago.

"Oh, God … I believe I feel something," he moaned into the camera.

He felt something all good; it was the exact imp they filmed the previous week in Chicago. Seems like they had themselves a hitchhiker.

Even Warrens who ignore most paranormal manifestations love to introduce the probability that ghosts breathe; too awful they don't. Sorry to spurt your bubble, but if you feel your house is plagued, it is most inclined just everyday, run-of-the-mill imps: minor transparent demons that humans can not detect.

Imps are very much harmless, but they are fond of generating slight confusion. Wailing, switching the lights on and off, decreasing the conditions of a room, and this was actually why imps had given rise to the Earth-bounds who generated Paranormal Patrol extremely wealthy. Sending a group of uninformed and susceptible humans down in houses known to be swarmed with imps? Seriously, fine TV.

Everyone in Vinculus was celebrating the imp in this week's event until the second commercial lull; that is when I heard a breaking tumbler. Linda's cheerful couple at the high-top was now smooching.

Not them, then. My eyes darted to the table with the dosed Scorpion Bowl, but they were all gazing at the booth behind them. Linda and I had both been mistaken.

"Oh, holy Slut of Babylon." I toned down the TV and lunged for my caduceus, a carved wooden staff entangled with two snakes and annexes at the top.

It was not some magical ceremonial item; it was created in China, like, last year. Despite this, it does have a natural graphite basis that administers energy, and that was the significant part.

The only ceremonious items I use are logical ones. Gowns and candles and spiritual temple areas? Forget it. Just foolish, bullshit trappings.

Caduceus in hand, I vacated my post behind the tavern and walked to the location of the offenders. But before I could reach there, a soft gasp disperse through the populace and everyone in front of me started backing up.

"Move it." I shoved people out of my route until I made it to the danger table.

A broken tumbler scraped beneath my low-top lurkers as I reached.

There stood three Earthbounds at the booth: Kara and her boyfriend, both frequenters, and some other dude I did not know in a red flannel shirt … whom Kara was strangling.

Well, not strangling so much as frosting the skin around his neck. Beneath her hands, a system of blue strands formed on his skin as she cried out, "Motherfucking liar!"

"Did you sleep with him, Kara?" her boyfriend inquired, crouching at her side.

His face was stroke-red. For calling out loud, no emergencies tonight, I imagined to myself as the choking patient hit a ceramic coconut-shaped cup on the slab with his flailing arm. It smashed into dishevelled snow as it hit the ground.

The populace behind me leapt back as an irregular ceramic fragment bounced and pegged me on the arm. It pricked like hell.

"Hey!" I screamed, stroking my injury.

"That is handmade. We have only got a few of those cups left in stock. You are reimbursing for that."