Jeremy Bushnell - The Weirdness

“I remember,” Billy says. “You were gone for a month. You told me you were doing audio engineering for some power electronics band.”

“And that was true. But on that trip I also did research. I found people who had some information about a thing, a type of being, called Fenrissonr .”

“Can you spell that?” says Elisa. She’s sitting at the desk and she’s jotting things down into a little Moleskine notebook. Jørgen assents to the request.

“ Fenrissonr are creatures talked about in Norway, Sweden, Finland. But they are not animals. They are not organisms. They are not a thing that belongs on earth.”

Elisa pauses in her scribbling. “What the fuck are they, then?”

“They are demons.”

“Demons?” Billy says.

“Wolf-demons.”

“Hell-wolves,” Elisa says.

“If you like,” Jørgen says. “And on my trip I spoke to some people, old men, part of the Scandinavian occult underground. They claimed to be eyewitnesses to a ritual that occurred sometime in the early eighties. A sex magic ritual.”

“A sex magic ritual?” Billy says.

“Sex, magic, ritual,” Elisa says, copying down the phrase. Billy can hear her put a period at the end of it.

“A sex magic ritual,” Jørgen says, “presided over by Lucifer himself. And in this ritual, these old men said, three witches were impregnated by three Fenrissonr . They say that Lucifer was trying to breed a new race of creature. Not ordinary wolves. Wolves with powers. Wolves that could serve as an elite guard for the Devil himself. I think that we, the three of us, were the result of that ritual.”

Something starts to spin wildly in Billy’s head at this. “But wait a second,” he says. “We weren’t raised by witches. I mean — we have parents. Real parents.”

“I was adopted,” Elisa volunteers. Billy whirls, looks at her with wild accusation in his eyes. She lifts her palms and gives him a what-do-you-want-from-me expression.

“It is — hard to determine what happened next,” Jørgen says.

“From what I pieced together, it seems like the operation was sabotaged by mystic operatives who had infiltrated the coven. The three infants were taken from their witch-mothers, and put under the protection of—”

“Don’t say wards ,” Billy says.

“Yes,” Jørgen says. “Wards.”

“Motherfuck it,” Billy says.

“Powerful wards, designed to both contain the wolf part — the Fenrissonr part — and to keep Lucifer away from the infants. And then I think the infants were smuggled away, and raised by the operatives, who tried to raise them normally. As normal children.”

“And here we are,” Elisa says. “Normal as blueberry pie.”

“Bullshit,” Billy says, his voice going wild and high. He says this less because he’s certain it’s bullshit and more because it’s just too much, finally too much, he can’t take on one more world-shattering revelation after every other thing that’s happened this week. “I mean, you could test this theory , right? Just ask your parents ?”

“I cannot,” Jørgen says. “My parents are gone. Their house burned in an accident, five years ago.”

“Shit,” Billy says. “I knew that. I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologize,” Jørgen says, shrugging. “But I should tell you this detail. The first time I ever turned into a wolf was less than one month after they died.”

Billy has nothing to say to that, really. He turns to Elisa. “What do you think?”

Elisa claps her notebook shut. “I don’t know,” she says. “It’s pretty fucked up, but some of it fits. I was adopted, like I said. Also, my parents are both dead. They both contracted viral myocarditis two years ago, in Thailand. Aaand, the first time I turned into a wolf? Less than one month after they died. That’s a close fucking match.”

Billy takes in this information.

“So I might be adopted ? My mother and father might have been — fucking — mystical secret agents or some shit?”

“That is what I am proposing,” Jørgen says.

Billy remembers his mother’s swords and his father’s books. He remembers all the voice mails he never listened to this week. “I should … call my dad,” Billy says, slowly, trying to remain as calm as possible. “Do either of you have a phone?”

“Well, yeah,” says Elisa, “but signal sucks here.”

They all sit there for a second in silence.

“I want a cigarette,” Elisa says.

“I want a drink,” Billy says. He wonders if there’s a minibar in this room somewhere. He figures, wearily, that there probably is, only each drink comes with a terrible cost.

“There is one last thing I can’t figure out,” Jørgen says, to Elisa. “You and I turned into wolves after our parents died. This suggests that our parents were probably maintaining the wards on us, secretly, throughout our lives. But”—he turns to Billy—“your father is still alive — and yet—”

“Yeah, no, the Devil tricked me,” Billy says. “He got the ward off me a different way. He — he used Ollard to do it. Which reminds me. Did the Devil fill you in on that whole part of the story? The deal with this guy Ollard? The guy who wants to, whatever it is, destroy the world?”

“I’m glad that you mention that, Billy,” says Lucifer, who is standing there, in the doorway, watching them. They all jolt and look at him. He’s a little dressier than Billy’s seen him before: he’s wearing a white tuxedo shirt, with French cuffs. Must be a big day. He has a garment bag slung casually over his shoulder.

“It’s good to see all three of you together,” Lucifer says, “and we’ll have ample time to enjoy one another’s company later. I hope you’ll forgive me for cutting the niceties short for the moment, however, as Mr. Timothy Ollard is still very much a pressing concern. He has dispelled the fifth of the seals that separate the Neko from this world, faster than I expected, and I can feel that he’s close to dispelling the sixth. By my sense of things, I would guess that we have less than a day left.”

“Fuck,” Billy says.

“Fortunately, my little cubs, we don’t need a day. We don’t need twenty-four hours; we don’t need twelve. We simply need to go to Ollard’s tower—”

“I can’t go back in there,” Billy says. “The last time I went in there I got tortured. He could have killed me.”

“Billy,” Lucifer says. “With all due respect, I would hope that you can see the difference between the last time you went in there, and this forthcoming time. Before you were a scared little man, with your potential tamped down deep within you, jammed in a box you’d never opened. But now — now you are something very different.”

“I don’t want to be different,” Billy says, but Lucifer ignores this, throwing Billy the garment bag.

Billy unzips the bag. Inside is a single-piece jumpsuit, high-visibility orange. Billy half expects to turn it over and see PROPERTY OF HELL stenciled on the back.

“I’m not wearing this,” he says, pulling his bedsheet tighter around him.

Lucifer gives Billy a beseeching look, holds it for a good five seconds while Billy watches it impassively. Eventually he drops it.

“Jørgen’s van is parked in Lower Manhattan,” Lucifer says.

“I’m going to take you to the van, and you will drive to Ollard’s tower, go into the tower, and do what is expected of you. By doing so, you will save the world. Are we understood?”

“Absolutely not,” Billy says.

“Remember, Billy. You no longer have a choice.” He raises his hand and snaps his fingers, only instead of the old-timey flashbulb noise there is instead a noise like a peal of thunder, followed by a sharp feedbacking whine that causes everyone except Lucifer to clap their hands over their ears.