Chapter Six~
Mayberry took another casual sip from her can of soda. Setting it aside, she perused her open textbook while she worked on grading the pile of test papers that spread out on the dining nook's table.
She worked more on auto-pilot than anything, absently checking her students' answers and missteps while barely paying attention to the early evening 666 News.
What did play around in her head were the ramifications of her rescue last night. She told her guests that she wouldn't have time to help them with their crusade. But was she feeling like a hypocrite because she was now in the beginnings of her own?
Would it have been so wrong if word had spread about what she did? Suppose she was supported by others, even in secret. Wouldn't that give her more inspiration, incentive, and justification to continue this?
Justification?
Why did she think that? What was there to justify? She saved a child from harm. She acted, decisively, and a child could still live. What was she afraid of? Rebuke? Censure? Retribution?
Or perhaps something even more terrifying.
Success.
And, in the end, what would such success bring? Something she presently didn't know what to do with?
The positive buzz of her good deed and growing expectations from others, via The Lesser Crown, might snowball until it crushed her like an avalanche or drowned her like a flash flood.
Mayberry shook the pessimism away. She was no hero, she reasoned. She just did the right thing and was lucky to survive it. That was all.
She stretched and took a break from her work, or at least told herself this, as moral pride and caution fought tooth and claw within her.
Katie Killjoy's overheard mention of a motel ended the battle, as Mayberry's attention was now focused on the news.
"An unidentified demon was found dead this morning at the Hell's Bells Motel by a housekeeper who looks suspiciously like one of mine," the Sinner anchordemoness said.
She then addressed someone in the viewership, specifically, with cruel bemusement. "Dora, if that is you, then it's good that you're moonlighting with how little I pay your ass."
With a tight, false smile, she switched back to anchor mode and segued, "Our reporter, Rod Row, is on the scene."
A jump-cut revealed a male Imp in an average suit standing next to a short, portly female Imp in a janitorial livery in the motel's parking lot. Behind them, Mayberry recognized the room's open door loosely laced with police tape.
"Thanks, Katie. I'm here with Miss Dora Dour, who saw the body in the room when she entered to clean it."
"Can you tell the viewers what you discovered inside, Miss Dour?" Rod asked the witness.
Dora shook her head in dismay. "The place was a mess. Bag of white powder on the floor, beds unmade, tv smashed, and a body lying in the middle of the room. I've seen all of this before."
"From other crime scenes?"
The housekeeper shrugged. "Nah, from Miss Killjoy's bedroom on the weekends. The only difference was that here, I smelled something...Satan, it was bad. Like shit, but worse. Like a porta-potty in a heatwave or the panties of a bag lady."
"Thank yo-"
"Or a trunkful of dead raccoons. Or an Abrams script. Or a-"
"Police discovered that the bag of powder belonged to Wally Wackford's Joke and Sex Shop," Rod interrupted. "When asked, Mister Wackford denied any involvement with the murder. However, he did ask if 666 News could continue mentioning his shop in future news segments because it could help drum up business."
Another jump-cut returned viewers back to the anchor desk with Katie nodding. "Thanks, Rob." Then, she added, "And just so you know, Dora, your son's never gonna see college in his lifetime 'cuz you're fucking fired, bitch. Tom?"
"Good thing I was wearing gloves," Mayberry said thoughtfully. "No claw marks or fingerprints."
So far, nothing tied her to her visit, but why was the kidnapper killed? True, she almost threw him through a tv set, but even in the throes of her rage, she had the semblance of mind not to kill him. It was a rescue, not an assassination.
"Another child abduction happened in town today," Tom reported.
Mayberry sighed. "Another one?" Despite her amateur standing as a closet vigilante, she mentally prepared for the hunt.
And the fact that she now readily thought of acting instead of worrying surprised her.
Admittedly, her misgivings were being stamped out by the stark truth that, with The Mirror, she had the means to help. She could not knowingly choose to leave another child in danger. Leverage or no.
Resigned to her moral compass and a reminder to be more careful, she gave a sharp whistle in the direction of her bedroom. The Full Moon Mirror soon glided out and hovered beside the nook table.
"All right, it works," she chuckled before focusing on Tom again.
"Eleven-year-old Torchester McIll was the latest victim," said the anchordemon. "Last seen, earlier this afternoon, with his family in Perdition Park. His family released this photo of the boy."
The image of a demon boy appeared off to the side of Tom. At the same time, Mayberry poured her full attention into it, glancing at the Mirror with all of her senses locked on to the slightest hint of distress.
"Police are combing the city," Tom continued. "But, leads are scarce."
"Well, of course, they're scarce, Tom," Katie interjected jokingly. "How can you comb a city? It's got no hair!"
Mayberry tuned out the laughing hosts, fixating only on the memory of the boy's face as she stared into the glass. "Okay, they said that I can find anyone through the Mirror. I just need to concentrate."
She shut her eyes tight to the world, studying his face in the darkness. "C'mon, girl. You can do this. This is crazy, but you can do it."
Risking to check her progress, she peeked in time to see her reflection swallowed by the mists of the Mirror's transition from her apartment to what now looked like a dimly-lit interior.
In the scrying glass, she could see a boy sitting on a stool in a dark corner of the room.
"Gotcha! Hell-o! Hell-o!" Mayberry shouted into the Mirror's surface. "Torchester! Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?"
The child didn't respond, but then he lifted his head.
"Can I go home, now?" the boy asked aloud, looking up and around him. It didn't seem like he was answering Mayberry, but complaining to whoever spirited him there.
"Damn, he probably doesn't know I see him. Must be no mirror on his end," Mayberry mused. "Gotta find out where he is."
She willed the POV of The Mirror to swing around like a remote camera. However, her control had gotten away from her, and the sweep quickly became a twitchy, haphazard blur.
"Whoa! Wait! Too fast! Too fast!" she told herself. "Slow-Slow it down. Slow it...down."
Deliberately, she thought of slow-motion scenes in movies and tv shows, compelling the magic of the Mirror to obey her command. Surprisingly, The Mirror finally responded, and the room began to creep along reasonably.
"Okay," Mayberry coached herself calmly. "We're just looking around."
The room's shelved walls, cabinets, a broad desk, and tables laden with glassware, centrifuges, notebooks, and a laptop, slowly rotated past her sight. Still, she could see no mirror hanging anywhere.
"Where is he?" she groused. "In a lab?"
The desk moved gradually across her field of vision. Ignoring the reference books on its surface, she spotted a yellow notepad with a block of dark text stamped.
"Stationary? Yes! Okay, give me an address."
Her immediate need to read it clearly translated into a command for The Mirror to zoom in on the pad.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this," the teacher mused. It wasn't mastery yet, but the more she worked with the artifact, the better it worked for her. "Got it!"
She scribbled the address on some open space on a page in her textbook. Then, she shifted her vision back to the seated boy with a quick thought.
"I'm coming," she told him before remembering the communications gap. "Oh, yeah. He can't hear me."
"Hang in there, anyway," she bade him, not caring over the technicalities, as she went into her bedroom.
Foraging through her tiny closet, anxiety and excitement for the deepening night's excursion was becoming an intoxicant that made her breath catch in her chest.
This was a rescue, Mayberry cautioned herself, as was the other. Still, she took the lessons from the fading scar above her breasts and, ironically, thanked God for demonic fast healing.
With that hard-won experience, she understood that knowing a child's location wouldn't make this any easier.
Finding her ensemble for the evening, Mayberry tossed a navy blue dress suit with black, silky accents, the old fedora, and the party mask on her bed.
"Well, it's official," she sighed, looking at the weirdest chapter of her afterlife thus far. "I'm out of my fucking mind."