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.”The satyr raised his hand to his lips, and it was then that I noticed he had a pipe.He started to play, and the music was beautiful.I reckoned this was how he worked his blessing.Played a song and the drought wouldn’t happen.I stood there, kind of swaying to the music.Something started happening down below in my pants, something better suited for the bedroom.Embarrassed, I looked over at Patricia and saw she was feeling it, too.She took a step forward and licked her lips.The satyr stopped his playing.“Come.”He motioned to her.She took another step.I started to shout, but it was too late.Her right foot broke the circle.Smudged the salt and lime.There was a flash of bright light as the barrier went down.The satyr moved fast as lightning.He grabbed Patricia, bent her over, tore off her clothes, and…Need another drink.Bottle is getting low.Be empty soon.That’s okay.Got some cough syrup around here somewhere.I can drink that.She enjoyed it.It took her right there in the circle.No foreplay.Just like the horses and cows do out in the field.He slid into her with a grunt and she slammed her hips back to meet him.They rutted in the middle of the hollow, right there in the dirt in the middle of the summoning circle, and Patricia smiled at me while they did it.Blood was running down her thighs, but she didn’t seem to mind.I thought I might be sick, but I wasn’t.It looked at me.“Will you join us? Will you celebrate the season?”I daresay I wouldn’t.I tried then to send it back, using the words from the Daemonolateria, just like O’Connor had told me to do, but it was no good.Nothing happened.O’Connor give me the wrong words.The satyr must have realized what I was about because it laughed.Then it laid my wife down on the ground and stepped toward me.Stepped out of the circle.Dropped the pipe and reached for me.Its breath stank like a pigsty.Claws tore into my skin, right above my heart, and drew blood.The wound burned.I stepped back and hit it with the sign of the cross.Said, “Dullx, ix, ux.Yea, you can’t come over Pontio; Pontio is above Pilato.” The Book says that’s to prevent wicked or malicious persons from doing you an injury, and it’s always worked for me before.But it didn’t this time, maybe because that thing weren’t no person.The spell had no effect.The satyr kept coming, and I kept walking backward, staying out of reach.Tree limbs rustled above me, and at the time I didn’t think nothing of it, but now I know.They were waking up.Patricia lay there on the ground, her legs spread out and her womanhood showing.I’d loved that place.Watched my children be born from it.Now I almost didn’t recognize it.She looked ruined, and the satisfied expression on her face turned my stomach.Wanted to scream, but instead I kept trying.Using what I’d memorized from the Book, I tried to bind it, charm it, turn it, and slow it.I used every prayer, spell, and benediction I could think of, but nothing worked.The satyr kept coming at me.I hollered at Patricia to run, but she just laughed at me.Said she’d found someone who could finally satisfy her.That hurt in ways I never imagined.The whole time she said it she was playing with herself.Both hands.Her fingers were wet and red.When I reached the edge of the hollow I’d gotten a good lead on the satyr.It hung back, then turned and loped off to my wife.Reckon it figured on getting me later.It had other things on its mind, and Patricia seemed willing enough.I thought about going after it, but that was foolish.It pained me to leave her, but there was no help for it.I run back to the house instead.First thing I did was stop the bleeding.I’d lost a good bit.Felt woozy.Took four different charms from the Book before I could get the blood flow stopped.Even then my skin still burned.Went to the medicine cabinet and poured peroxide over the wound.Watched the bubbles and tried not to pass out.Felt a little better after that, so then I charmed the house against evil spirits and all manner of witchcraft.Took a white piece of paper, as the Book says to do, and wrote:I.N.I.R.I.SANCTUS SPIRITUSI.N.I.R.I.That’s the only Latin I know; what’s in the Book, and what O’Connor give me.Wish I knew more.Said the benediction over the paper, “All this be guarded, here in time, and there in eternity.Amen.” Then I taped the paper up over the front door and made another one for the back door.That way the satyr couldn’t get in the house.All I had to do was get Patricia back inside.It was pretty plain that she was under its spell.Get her back here to the house, where that thing couldn’t tread, I could undo that charm.It got into my head that silver might hurt it.Silver’s good for hurting things of that kind.But I didn’t have no silver bullets, and no time to make them, either.Had a silver knife that I used in some powwows, and I tucked that down into my belt.Then I went back to the hollow.The trees kept me out.They’d grown closer together while I was gone, and they made a wall around the hollow with their trunks.Each time I tried to get between them they’d groan and their limbs would grasp at me, or fall off, aimed at my head.I tried several charms from the Book, but they weren’t no good.Whatever was inside those trees was because of the Daemonolateria, and spells from the Book were useless against them.I needed their names and their banishing rituals.I had both, but they were in Latin.I hollered for Patricia, but she didn’t answer me.All afternoon I edged my way around that hollow, and the trees kept me out.Sometimes I’d hear my wife inside, laughing with that thing, and making other sounds that I don’t want to write about.Sounds she ain’t never made with me in all our years of marriage.She cried out its name over and over again.Hylinus.That’s what she called it.Listening to them I got angrier and angrier.Tried to shove my way through the tree line, but the branches tore at me, raking my skin [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]