Worth His Salt

[vveritasv]

Hello everyone!  I am a new member, and I have an offering.

Title: Worth His Salt
Category: Humor, one-shot, 3800 words.
Fandom: Comic
Characters: John and his "bit o'strange" , Iris,
Rating: R for Language
Disclaimer:  Characters belong to DC (except Iris.  She's mine)
Summary:  John gets in some sulfur-scented trouble, Chas and Rich ring up the only person on his speed-dial who will come over to help.

Special thanks to DrayceVixen for her Cockney coaching and Beta work.

Her mobile rang.  She rolled over, her hand flailing about the bedside table to stop the noise.  She connected with the small phone and brought it to her eyes.  The blue screen told her it was 2:30 AM.  The number told her it was John.  What could he want at 2:30 in the morning?  God.  Not that.  I haven’t showered.  Ugh. And I had a rough day at work.  She flipped the cover and put the phone to her ear.  “John, it is Iris.  What is it?”

There was a pause at the other end.  She heard voices, not John’s.  She pressed the phone harder against her ear and sat up.

A slurred voice grated into her ear. “’s this the bint John’s been shaggin’?”

Another voice, “’And it over, pillock.  Yer pissed.”  Iris listened, frowning as a third voice came in, louder and more distinct.

“Naw...Give’ it ter me.  Yeah.  You the Crankshaft Pub girl?”

Iris stared at the phone, incredulous. She replied carefully. “Where is John?  Why do you have his mobile?”

“Bollocks to that, girl.  Tell me...” he was interrupted and Iris heard the drunk man shout in the background, “Arsk ‘er if  she’s John’s bit a strange! That’s the bint we’re arfter.”

Iris frowned.  John must be in trouble if these people have his phone.  She heard some kind of scuffle.  It sounded like the men were fighting over the mobile.  She heard grunts and snorts and some muffled curses. The man with the clear voice must have been victorious, for his voice returned, breathless.

“Are you ’er? Answer me, girl.”

“Yes,” she blurted out.  “What is going on?”

“Well now, John’s in sum kind a trouble.  Looks bad.  I dunno who else ta ring.  Y’ might be able to do sumfink for ‘im.”

“What...exactly did you have in mind?”  Iris was out of bed and moving to the closet, her phone against her ear.  She pulled down a sweater and yanked her jeans from the back of a chair.  The voice on the phone mumbled something and she could hear the three men having a drunken discussion in the background.  “What?” she repeated louder.

“Chas’ll pick you up.  ‘E’s a cabbie. Where d’ya live?”

Iris thought about it for one second, certain she was not going to give out her address to these blokes.  “I will meet you in front of the Crankshaft, “she countered.

“You gotta motor then?”

“Yes.”

“You comin’ now?”

“I’m on my way now.”

“Bring yer stuff.”

“My...’stuff’?”  Iris stopped on the stairs.  My stuff? “What stuff?”

“Y’ know,” the voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “Yer stuff.  Y’ know, what you and John muck about wif.”

Uh oh.  Iris stopped, and returned to her room.  Her stuff was in a bag in the closet.  This wasn’t about visiting John in jail, taking him to hospital, talking him out of a business deal, being his second at skittles, or even holding his head over the toilet.  She shouldered the bag and headed for her door.  “I’ve got it,” she said to the voice on her phone.  “Are you going to tell me what you’re on about?”

“Nah.  Just get ‘ere.”  The phone went dead.

Iris saw the cab as she pulled into the empty car park.  It was idling, illegally parked in front of the darkened pub.  She turned off her engine and waited.  She felt none of the dread or even the prickles she had come to recognize as danger warnings.  The cab is safe.  What about John?  She reached out a tendril toward John and felt it blocked.  But no terror.  I am safe.  She opened the door and stepped out, then turned around for her bag.  Let’s see what this is about.

The cab ride was awkward.  The driver kept looking at her in the review mirror.  He didn’t appear to be drunk, didn’t appear to have much to say, but his cheek twitched every time he looked at her.  He would clear his throat, like he was going to speak, then shake his head and remain silent.  Iris looked out the window.  This is not a very nice neighborhood.  The ride was mercifully short.  Apparently the Crankshaft was a local haunt.

She was greeted by a cacophony of voices as the cabbie opened the door for her.  Iris counted three men, two women and a boy of about six.  All were in a state of agitation, except the child who merely looked up at her with unrestrained curiosity.  His comment reached her ears first.  “So yer the lady John’s been shaggin’.”

Iris blinked.  “Shouldn’t you be in bed at this hour?” She asked him.

“Naw.  Mum said I could watch.”

The group was quiet now.  Everyone stared at her expectantly. One of the women, bottle-blonde with a weathered face pointed at the ceiling.  “’e’s up there.”

“I’ll show her.”  The cabbie touched her elbow and pointed toward the stairs.  Iris followed him up, the stomping footsteps of the rest of the horde behind her.  She was led to a small bedroom, sparse, wood boards, no carpet.  A small metal bedstead was pushed against the far wall.  Then she saw was John’s body, prone, in the middle of the floor.  He lay unmoving, his face slack, his eyes...blinking.  She approached, letting her shoulder bag slide off her arm to the floor.  He was lying in the center of a chalk pentagram, candles burning down low at the five points, dribbling in rivers of white wax.  She stopped at the edge of the salt circle that surrounded him.

Iris went down on one knee, the toe of her shoe inches from the line of salt on the floor.  She was careful not to lean too far in.  She rubbed her chin, then turned to her audience.  “How long has he been like this?”

The fat man in glasses snorted.  “’Is whole soddin’ life.”

“Shut yer gob, yer pissed,” spat the man with the orange hair.  He turned to Iris.  “Three ‘ours.  I think.  When d’you ‘ear that thump?” he asked the other woman, the one with the green hair.

She answered, “I sent the kid orf t’ bed at eleven.  ‘E ran down around midnight, said John was in trouble.  So, three hours, give or take.”

“Followed ‘im up, smelled sulfur in the hall somfin’ chronic.  Knew that bloody git was at it ag’in.”

“Thought about pokin’ ‘im wif me brolly.” The fat man pointed to the umbrella leaning against the bedstead. “But I knew not ter cross that salt.”

“Has he said anything?”  Iris could see that he looked like he couldn’t move. Maybe he could make a sound.  Perhaps earlier he did.

“Nah.  Just blinks.  One fer ‘yes’ and two fer ‘no’.”

“You stupid bugger.  It’s one for ‘no’ and two for ‘yes’.”

“So did he say ‘yes’ to send for the bint or not?”

“’Ow many times did ‘e blink when yer arsked ‘im?”

“Three.”

“Christ.”

Iris interrupted them.  “So you heard a thump, smelled sulfur, came upstairs and found him thus.”

“’Found him thus’” the men laughed, choked and slapped and punched each other.  The cabbie laughed.  “John’s movin’ up in t’world, shaggin above ‘is station.”

Iris sighed.  “So no one saw what was happening before the thud?”

“I did.”  The little boy came forward and bent down level with her eyes. “I was watchin’ ‘im through that hole there.”  He pointed to a small hole in the wall.

“What did you see?”  Iris asked quietly.

“’E drew the star, lit candles, made the salt circle.  ‘E made a smaller one over there.  I saw ‘im sit in the middle.  ‘E said some stuff, there was light, some stinkin’ smoke and ‘e went over like...that.”  The little boy made a gesture with his hands to imply that after the flash John was felled like a tree.

Iris looked across the salt at John.  Only his eyelids moved as he blinked.  What was he summoning? Inside the circle was a lighter, a pack of cigs, some incense, a brazier.  She sniffed, trying to detect what kind.  Copal.  Okay.  A minor demon, then.  He must have made a mistake.  She looked around the room.  There.  An empty glass on the bureau.  She turned to the green-haired woman, who appeared to be the boy’s mum.  “Had he been drinking?”

“Me name’s 'Chelle.   “Gin.  ‘E’d been going on about sumfink.  Gettin’ right pissed.  Said ‘e was going to ‘get ter the bottom of ‘t’.”

Iris took a deep breath.  Well then.  She opened her bag and took out her athame and touched the salt with the tip.  Nothing.  She frowned.  There should have been a vibrational warning, a slight shock.  But there was nothing.  She pushed the tip over the salt and felt nothing pushing back.  Not a thing.  Puzzled, she turned the knife on its side and scraped the salt away, opening the circle wide enough to allow her body to pass through.  She entered and knelt beside John, careful not to touch him just yet.

She bent over him so he could see her.  His icy blue eyes blinked at her.  She smiled reassuringly.  “Once for ‘yes’, and twice for ‘no’, John,” she whispered.  “Are you in pain?” The eyes blinked once.  He looked at her with such desperation she felt a bit of it herself. “There’s nothing here, John.  I sense nothing.”

He blinked twice, disagreeing.

Iris held her hands six inches over his body, feeling the air for anything that might be poking him or touching him.  Nothing.  She moved them up and down his legs, then his arms, coming to rest at the end of his hands.  There lay his lighter.  His lighter.  Iris sat up straight.  “How long did you say?”

“’Bout three ‘ours, give or take.”

“Oh god.  I know what hurts.”  Iris crossed her legs and sat down beside him.  “Why did you wait so long to get help?  He can’t go this long without a cigarette. You should know that.”

“We didn’t wait,” the woman answered. “We rung everyone we could fink orf. Billy no mates here. You’re the only one oo’d come.”

Iris lifted John’s shoulders onto her knees so his head was in her lap.  She picked up his cigarettes and the lighter, then put one of the cigarettes in her mouth and lit it.  She took it out and grabbed his chin, but before she could get the filter end between his lips, the cigarette leapt away from her, hovered in the air before her eyes, and disintegrated with a pop in a tiny explosion of tobacco and paper.  As the shredded tobacco fluttered down all around them Iris saw a big tear drip from the corner of John’s eye and splash on her knee.  Iris muttered, “That’s how it is going to be, then.”  She turned to the cabbie.  “Get to the all-night Chemist and bring back some nicotine patches.”

“You daft cow.  That’s more than thirty quid.  Not bloody likely.”

Iris rolled her eyes.  “I have cash in the bag.  I’ll pay for it.  Get it out and hurry, this is killing him.”

“Not really.”

“Nah.”

“E’s not dyin’”

The blonde haired woman snorted, “Serves ‘im right.  Rich told ‘im to quit wankin’ about wif demons in ‘is house.  Takes hours to get rid of the smell.”

“Please,” Iris nodded toward her bag. “Just get the money and go.”  The cabbie fumbled around in her bag, pulled out her wallet and counted out the cash.  He set the bag down and went out.  Everyone else had taken a seat on the floor to watch the show.  Rich  indicated her athame.

“I seen ‘im use one of those.  You gonna skewer some demon?”

“No.  There are no demons here.  He made a mistake somehow.  I wish I knew what he was trying to do before it all went wrong.”

“’Ee was goin’ on about sumfink someone had taken from ‘im.  ‘E wanted it back.” The little boy sat just outside the circle, watching her.

“Do you know what it was?”

The boy looked uncomfortable, glanced at his mother.

“Please, tell me.”  Iris squeezed John’s shoulders.

“’E said it was ‘is ‘mojo’.  Dunno wot that is,” He lowered his eyes.  “Sounds like sumfink me mum would wallop me for.”

Iris laughed.  No demon, only nicotine fits, and a silly summoning gone bad.  Mojo, indeed. This will be easy to fix.  She lay John back on the floor and reached for her athame.

As her finger touched the handle, the room lights flicked off, a freezing blast blew out the candles and the heavy smell of sulfur choked her next breath.

Iris noticed her audience lost some of their bravado with the icy blast.  She lifted John’s shoulders back onto her lap.  The demon would think twice before tormenting him any further.  At least she hoped so.  In the dark, she relied on her other senses to tell her what the demon was doing.  She picked up her athame and drew a circle around herself, including John in the ring of blue sparks.  One of John’s friends brought in a lantern from another room and its golden glow illuminated the room.

“There y’ go, girl. There it is. Knew it was a demon.   Get it, Miss.”

Iris looked at the orange-haired man.  That’s right.  I am the “bint”, when all is well.  As soon as some demon appears I am “girl”, I am “Miss”.  Iris gave him a wry smile.  “I will.  You stay back.  And make the boy sit with his mum.”  She waited until the boy was on his mother’s knees before pointed her knife around the room.  There was an explosion of sparks under the small window.  She followed the sparks with the blade until it paused over the other smaller chalk pentagram.

“Stay back,” she said unnecessarily.   “I command thee to speak!” she used the Voice on the demon, expecting it to quiver in fear.  Instead it glowed, grew larger and took the form of a twisted monkey.   “Speak!” she repeated.

“Iris,” it said.  “Release him.  He is mine.”

“No.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “I have him now.”

“You don’t want him,” the demon laughed.  “He is damaged goods.”

“Yeah, but he knows some good tricks...”

The demon laughed again.  “I know what you like, too, but I don’t see you inviting me over in the wee hours.”

Iris frowned.  “What do you mean, you ‘know what I like’?”

“Oh, I have been there.   I heard the pillow talk, the little secrets.  The bits about technique, some names were traded about.  You give as good as you get.  He can’t give you any more.  Not any new secrets, not any more techniques, and certainly he has exhausted his bag of tricks.  Rumpy Bumpy is about to get very dull.  Give him to me.  I’ll make it worth your while.”

Iris looked sideways at the monkey, suspicious.  She changed the subject.  “You shouldn’t be there.  You shouldn’t be in a position to bargain.  This salt...”

“What salt?”  The demon burst into great peals pf laughter, holding his monkey sides with monkey hands.  “He called me, I came.  You can’t possibly be surprised.”

Iris looked down at the blue eyes.  “How’d you fuck this up, John?”  His eyes closed and she heard a heavy sigh.  Iris turned her head to the door as the cabbie came up the stairs into the room, stopping with his paper bag at the threshold.  His friends greeted him.

“Chas, the demon’s a fuckin’ monkey this time.”

“Look ‘ere, Chas, John’s really buggered it up this time.  Bloody twit.   I’ve got ten quid on her Ladyship.  Rich got ‘is money on the chimp.”

Iris opened the circle between the cabbie and her hand.  The cabbie opened the bag and tossed Iris the box of patches.   “There you are.”  He took his place, sitting down next to the blonde woman.  Iris caught the box, closed to the circle behind it, tore open the foil inside and took out a patch.  She loosened John’s tie and unbuttoned his shirt, then peeled the backing off the patch while the demon chuckled merrily from his own tiny circle.

A mere fraction of an inch separated the adhesive from John’s skin.  But it was not to be.  The patch whipped itself out from between her fingers, flipped up through the air and burst into an explosion of silver and white.  Iris could have sworn she heard a whimper from the man in her lap.  The monkey rolled on his little pentagram, his little monkey-voice filled the room with hysterical laughter.

“Keep trying, you will never appease him.  Waste your time.  Go ahead.  Every moment makes me stronger.”  The monkey’s dark eyes were not so merry now.  The golden glow from the lantern made sinister reflections in their depths.  Iris lay John back on his pentacle and examined the demon closer, getting up and approaching him inside his circle.  He jumped up and made a show of dancing on the salt circle with his ugly monkey feet.

“How is it that the salt does not stop you?”  Iris did not expect an answer, but bought some time with her question.  The monkey demon seemed delighted.

“Ha! There is no salt!”  He leaped from his circle, high over her head and landed on John’s chest, where he danced a jig.  “No salt!  No salt!  No salt!”

Iris touched a finger to the salt circle and put her finger to her tongue.  No.  Something is wrong.  The monkey is right.  This isn’t salt.

She stepped right over the circle and reached for the box on the bureau.  Empty, of course.  She read the words, “Iodized Salt.”  Iris shook the box.  A bit was left in the bottom.  She turned to the green-haired woman.  “'Chelle, what was in the salt box?”

“Not bloody salt, that’s for certain.  Doctor told me Rich’s blood pressure is too ‘igh.  Put ‘im on no salt.  That’s just the bloody box.  It’s got that substitute in it. If Rich knew, ‘e wouldn’t touch it. ‘e would a gone out and bought more.”

Iris tasted the circle again.  Potassium Chloride.  So.  John was blinking up a storm, flat on his back, paralyzed by a minor demon because he didn’t have any salt.  The monkey demon was still laughing.  Iris set the box down.  “Can someone get me some salt?  Real salt?”

“There’s none in this ‘ouse.  None,” said 'Chelle.

Rich gagged, “So that’s why me bangers an’ mash taste like utter shit, woman.”

“I got a packet wif me fish an’ chips,” said the fat man.

“Get it.”  Iris said to him, then approached the demon.  “And what is it you want?  What was he about to offer you?”

“Some smokes.  His comic books.  You.”

“What?” Iris turned around and shoved John’s ribs none-so-gently with the toe of her shoe.  “Is that true?”

The blue eyes blinked once.

Right.  Can’t trust a monkey to tell the truth.  Or a demon either. Iris opened her bag and pulled out her wand and her salt.  “He may have promised, but he will not deliver.”  She took a handful of her sea salt and began to walk widdershins around the circle, sprinkling the salt through her fingers as she went.  Behind her the fat man returned with his packet from the fish shop.

“’Ere” he said, holding it up over his head.

Iris nodded to him.  “Just sprinkle it over the lot of you.”  She approached the closure of the circle, then paused.  She said to the monkey demon, “You know what to do.”

The black monkey grimaced, stomped one more time on John’s chest, then leaped through the open space of the circle and landed back on his own.  Iris closed her circle, then raised her wand.

“Wait!”  The demon raised a furry fist.  “We can still make a deal.”

“For what?  His ‘mojo’?”  Iris laughed and began her incantation.

“No! His Silkies.  Give them to me.”

Iris stopped, thought a moment, then bent down to pick up the package of cigarettes.  She looked inside.  Only three left.  “What do you want them for?”

“Bragging rights.  I can show them around Hell.  They are worth a stiff bit of swagger.”

“And what do I get?”

“I’ll revive him.”

“I can do that without you.”

“Fine.  I’ll give him his mojo back.”

“No.  You can’t.  You don’t have it.”

“Cheeky bitch, aren’t you,” the monkey danced a little on his pentagram.  “How about...next week’s lottery numbers?”

There was a cheer from the gallery.  Iris silenced them with a look. “Don’t insult me,” she said to the demon.  She raised the wand again.

The demon jumped up and down. “Wait! I will tell you the truth.  I can tell you what he really thinks about you.”

Iris paused, glanced down at John’s face.  The blue eyes looked worried.  Well. She weighed the pack in her hands, eyed the monkey.  “Talk.”

The demon’s monkey face split ear to ear with a grin. “He thinks you have nice legs. He likes the soft mattress cover on your bed.  He thinks you give the best blow jobs he’s had in a year.  He would rather you not talk so much.  He hates the pink in the bathroom.  He wants you to hurry up and come out with the bit you know about Crowley’s testicles, and he is just fucking you for a chance to nick the charged crystals you keep in your top bureau drawer.   He was running out of tricks to string you along...lost his mojo.  Now toss me the Silkies.”

Iris set her teeth, pointed her at the circle between her body and the demon and tossed the cigarettes through the hole, then followed it with a stab of the wand.  There was a flash of light, a puff of sulfur and the monkey demon was gone.  A cheer rose from the Gallery, she heard one voice complain, “What about the lottery?”  And another voice: “I win. Ten quid.”

She knelt down by John’s side, “So you don’t like the pink in the bathroom?”  The blue eyes were filled with apprehension.  “I see.” She showed him the nicotine patches.   “I paid for these. And I’m keeping them.”  She tucked them in her bag. The blue eyes widened with panic.  She opened the circle and stepped through.  “Take me to my car,” she said to the cabbie.

“What about John?”

“The demon is gone.  The paralysis will wear off in an hour or so.  Maybe two.”

“Poor John...”

Iris looked back at the man lying on the floor.  “Yes, indeed.  Poor John.  He surely has a monkey on his back, now, doesn’t he?  It’s a shame, innit?”