boogeyman exorcism

THE NEXT EVENING, the children went to bed at nine. They stopped asking for drinks, searching for the next day’s clothing, waving glow-in-the-dark light sabers in the air, and otherwise acting like children by nine thirty. They were all sleeping by nine thirty-five.
Megan, a surly Yardly, and I immediately got ready to ambush the boogeyman.
While Megan collected clipped hairs from her childrens’ heads, Yardly and I cleared off enough carpet for me to take a container of salt and pour it out into a circle. You can use just about anything to make a magic circle, but salt is often the most practical. It’s a symbol of the earth and of purity, and it doesn’t draw ants. You use sugar to make a circle on the carpet only once. Let me tell you.
Meg returned and I nodded toward the circle. “In there.”
She went over to the circle, being careful not to disturb it, and dropped the locks of hair from her children, bound together by long strands of her own coppery curls, into the center. “Right,” I said. “Meg, stand in the circle with them.” She took a deep breath and then did it, turning to face the open, darkened closet. Her breathing was slow but not steady. She was smart enough to be scared. “Remember what I said,” I told her quietly. “When you feel it on you, close that circle and think of your children.” She nodded tightly.
“I’m right here,” I told her. “It gets bad, I’ll step in. You can do this.”
“Right,” she said, in a very thin voice.
I nodded to her, trying to look calm and confident. She needed that. Then I stepped back out into the hallway. Yardly came with me and closed the door behind him, leaving Megan and her children in the dark.
“I don’t get it,” he said in a low, quiet voice. “How’s it supposed to help the kids if they’re asleep?”
I gave him a look. “By destroying the creature that’s attacking them?”
His lips twisted sourly. “It’s a prophylactic-effect thing, right?”
“Placebo effect,” I sighed. “And no, it isn’t.”
“Because there’s a real monster,” he said.
I nodded. “Sure.”
He eyed me for a while. “You’re serious. You believe it.”
“Yep.”
Yardly looked like he wanted to sidle a few more feet away from me. He didn’t.
“How’s this supposed to work?” he asked.
“The kids’ hair is going to substitute for them,” I said. “As far as the boogeyman is concerned, the hairs are the children. Like using a set of clothes you’ve worn to leave a false trail for something following your scent.”
Yardly frowned. “Okay.” “Your sister’s hair is bound around them,” I said. “Binding her to the kids. She’s close to them, obviously loves them. That’s got a kind of power in it. She’s going to be indistinguishable from the children to the boogeyman.”
“She’s a decoy?”
“She’s a damned land mine,” I said. “Boogeymen go after children because they’re weak. Too weak to stand up to an adult mind and will. So once this thing gets into the circle, she closes it and tears it to shreds.”
“Then why is she afraid?” he asked.
“Because the boogeyman has power. It’s going to tear at her mind. It’ll hurt. If she falters, it might be able to hurt her bad.”

Brief Cases, AAAA Wizardry, Page 75-77


He nodded again, and we went silent once more. Sometime between eleven thirty and midnight, a scream erupted from the older child’s room. Yardly and I both looked up, blinking.
“Kat,” he said.
“What the hell,” I muttered.
A few seconds later, the little girl started screaming, that same painfully high-pitched tone I’d heard the night before.
And then Megan started screaming, too.
“Dammit!” Yardly said. He drew his gun and was a step behind me as I pushed open the door to Joey and Tamara’s room.
Megan was crouched in the circle of salt, swaying. The lights were flickering on and off. As I came in, Joey sat up with a wail, obviously tired and frightened.
I could see something in the circle with Megan, a shadow that fled an instant after the lights came up, slower than the rest. It was about the size of a chimpanzee and it clung to her shoulders and waist with indistinct limbs, its head moving as if ripping with fangs at her face.
Megan’s expression was twisted in pain and fear. I didn’t blame her. Holy crap, that was the biggest boogeyman I’d ever seen. They usually weren’t much bigger than a raccoon.
“Meg!” Yardly screamed, and started forward.
I caught his arm. “Don’t break the circle!” I shouted. “Get the kids out of here! Get the kids!”
He hesitated for only a second before he seized Tamara and Joey and hauled them out of the room, one under each arm.
I went to the edge of the circle and debated what to do. Dammit, what had this thing been eating? If I broke the circle, it would be free to escape—and it was freaking supercharged on the dark-spiritual equivalent of adrenaline. It would fight like hell to escape and come back the next night, bigger and hungrier than ever.
Nasty as the thing was, Megan still ought to be able to beat it. She was a sensitive, feeling the emotions and pieces of the thoughts of others thanks to a naturally developed talent, something that would manifest as simple intuition. It would mean that she would have developed a certain amount of defensive ability, just to keep from going nuts in a crowd.
“Megan!” I said. “You can beat this thing! Think of your kids!”
“They’re hurting!” she screamed. “I can feel them!”
“Your brother has them—they’re fine!” I called back. “That’s a lie it’s trying to push on you! Don’t let it trick you!”
Megan glanced up at me, desperate, and I saw her face harden. She turned her face back into the shadowy assault of the flailing boggart and her lips peeled back from her teeth with a snarl.
“They’re mine,” she spat, the words sizzling with vitriol. “My babies. And you can’t touch them anymore!”
“Begone!” I called to her. “Tell it to begone!”
“Begone!” Megan screamed. “Begone! BEGONE!”
There was a surge of sound, a thunderous nonexplosion, as if all the air in the room had suddenly rushed into a ball just in front of Megan’s pain-twisted face. Then there was a flash of light and a hollow-sounding scream, and a shock wave lashed out, scattering the salt of the circle, rattling toys, and pushing against my chest. I staggered back against the wall and turned my face away as a fine cloud of salt blasted out and rattled against the walls with a hiss.
Megan fell to her knees and started sobbing. I reached out around me with my senses, but felt no inexplicable absence in the aura of the house. The boogeyman was gone.


Brief Cases, AAAA Wizardry, Page 78-80