Hour of the Tiger

It was the hour of the tiger, which was that bewitching hour between three and five in the morning, when Marvin was finally expelled from Adam's braincase.

The extraction was done with as much finesse as could be managed under the circumstance.

Four monks sat on the floor with Adam, positioned at each of the four directions and began chanting a single phrase over and over again.

With palms flat, extended outward, they placed their hands on his head and began to firmly push. They kept up the chanting even as they applied equal amounts of pressure on his skull.

The pressure created gently undulating vibrations with enough pressure to nudge the hairball from its lodged hiding place and began moving it through tissues until it reached his throat.

With increasing pressure, their voices began to rise in volume, increasing the vibrations.

"Gaaag!" Adam Stuart choked and gagged. He dry heaved for a few minutes and suddenly spat out a small black furry hairball.

The monks ended their chanting and slowly withdrew their palms.

One of the waiting monks caught Adam's body as he fainted from the effort of the exorcism while another took a clear glass jar and scooped up the black spongy hairball.

He capped the jar and handed it to a waiting nun. She took the glass jar and made her way to the inner sanctum of the courtyard garden where she placed it on top of a stone pedestal in front of a gentle-faced female buddha.

As she left, Blake and Louis edged nearer to the jar.

"You think he's still alive?" Blake wondered as he peered into the jar at the hairball.

"Oh yeah. The monks and nuns don't even kill ants that crawl on their toes man. Even low-life like Marvin is given chance after chance for redemption."

Blake nudged the jar. It rocked slightly.

"Aren't you supposed to conserve your poltergeist energy so you can kill if you need to?" Louis muttered.

Blake shook his head.

"It's super strange. If I use rage and anger to trigger the poltergeist activity, it uses up the green passive energy that's donated to me."

Louis' eyes bugged out.

"Is there another energy indicator?"

"Yes!" Blake laughed. "Every time I hit and cause damage to a human, I get some red energy. If I kill a human, I get a full ten points!"

Louis chuckled.

"You just killed three guys who were after Jazzie. That's thirty points right there!"

"Yeah. Plus a few other small hits added up to quite a bit. I was concerned about Marvin and I used that concern to tap into the red energy so I could nudge the jar. It didn't even use up one point, just a fraction."

Louis shook his head.

"Man, this system is messed up." He laughed. "But I guess that's why it's called the Demon System."

"Yeah. I think you have to kill a lot to increase the red energy to grow the demon power. At least that's what it feels like to me. " Blake speculated.

"So if you get too soft and use positive energy for all that happy happy joy joy stuff, you're actually draining the red power and making yourself weaker within the Demon System."

Blake waggled a finger.

"No no. I prefer to think of it as preserving the green energy that you, Maysie, Marvin, and all the little sprites have given me."

"So what's the end point? What are you supposed to win?" Louis asked without expecting an answer.

Blake shrugged and reached out to unscrew the jar.

"I don't know Louis. I didn't get an instruction manual when I was born into this world, and I sure didn't get one when I died and got slapped on the head with this Demon System. We just have to figure it out as we go along."

He reached in and pulled Hairball Marvin out.

"Come on, old guy. Let's get you back into the bag."

In seconds, the hairball disappeared to reappear within Blake's bag.

"Aww man! Why you put him back in the bag next to me? Now I gotta put up with his stanky ass shit." Louis grumbled as they moved away from the courtyard and up into the trees.

In the corner of the courtyard, the nun watched as the jar was nudged and then the top opened. The hairball was removed, disappearing from their realm.

She turned back inside to report her observations to the old nun Su Dai Tu Liem.

The shadow realm was strange but not that strange. It was unexpected, but once the unexpected happened over and over with alarming regularity, it was not that unexpected.

Blake and Louis moved away from the temple, heading north towards the police department. They had overheard Jazzie talking to the cop about wanting to remain with him while all this craziness was going down so Blake wanted to check on her and make sure she was okay.

Along the way, they passed by a candy shop and on a whim, Blake landed on the roof top and poke his head down into the interior of the shop.

"Put gummy bears into pouch."

A large bag of gummy bears disappeared into his drawstring bag. Another number popped up. 5/50.

Louis stuck his head in and saw Blake stealing the gummy bear bag.

"Dude, why?" He shook his head. "You don't have a lot of space in your bag. You shouldn't be filling it with all this junk."

"What's wrong?" Blake laughed. "You don't like gummy bears?"

Louis shook his head in disgust and withdrew from the ceiling leaving Blake to feel a bit like a loser.

They continued onward to the police station without further incident and then hung around to wait for Jazzie and the cop to show up.

It was four in the morning, and other than the skeleton crew that was there to handle the nightly duties, no one else was around. Jazzie and the cop was not at the police station so obviously, they had gone elsewhere after the first exorcism.

They slipped into the deserted waiting area and took up vigil in one of the corners of the front office.

Since they did not know where to go to search for the two, Louis suggested they stay at the police station and wait for John to come in to work at daylight.

They knew that things were going down fast, but they didn't think it would be that fast.