Aloha from Hell. Richard Kadrey

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      I ask, “How did the whole thing start?”

      “I guess it started with the migraines,” says K.W. “His head would hurt and he’d get real sensitive to light. He said there were ants eating their way into his brain. I get migraines sometimes, too, so I’d give him some of my Imitrex and put him in a dark room. Sometimes it helped, but other times it made things worse. I’d hear him talking and he said it was to the voices in his head. After a week of that, things got really bad.”

      Jen picks up the story.

      “Hunter stopped sleeping. He said he had horrible dreams. Things were chasing him. Not to hurt him, just to have him. He drank coffee and energy drinks to stay awake, but he’d fall asleep anyway. There would be marks on the walls where he clawed them. His hands would be bleeding. It was like Thomas all over again.”

      Hunter’s bed is just a bare mattress. The scene of the exorcism. All four corners are stained with blood. The kid cut himself on the restraints during the ritual. The rest of the mattress is stained with every fluid a human body can produce. There are deep claw marks by the head of the bed. Even some bite marks.

      “Did he ever take anything more powerful to stay awake? Speed? Amphetamines, I mean.”

      K.W. says, “I know what speed is. And no, not that I’m aware of.”

      Candy stands at the foot of the bed looking. It’s the sigil Julia told us about, which was burned into the ceiling. I can’t place it, but I’m sure I’ve seen it before. I snap a picture with my phone.

      Neither parent has moved from the door. Jen has one hand over her mouth as she watches us ransack her younger son’s room.

      “What you’ve told me so far could be anything from a bad batch of acid to a brain tumor. When did you start thinking it was supernatural?”

      Jen says, “There was the time I found him floating in midair.”

      Vidocq stops pouring his potions.

      “Julia didn’t mention that,” he says.

      Jen turns away so she doesn’t have to look at us.

      “Tell us what you saw,” says Candy. She has a good instinct for this kind of work, for knowing when it’s best for a woman to ask another woman a painful question.

      “It was early in the morning. It was still dark out. I couldn’t sleep, so I came by Hunter’s room to check on him and I saw that.”

      She nods at the scorched symbol on the ceiling.

      “You saw him making it?”

      She nods.

      “He was floating there over his bed, smiling like he was the happiest boy in the world. He was digging that symbol into the ceiling with his fingers. There was blood all over his arms. He looked at me and then back at the ceiling. Then his whole body convulsed like he was going to throw up. He opened his mouth and out came a jet of flame. It spread all across the ceiling. I thought it was going to burn the house down. When he stopped, all that was burned was the symbol. After that he fell onto the bed and lay there like he was asleep. That morning we went looking for someone who could help.”

      K.W. squeezes her shoulder.

      “It smells like coffee is ready. Would you go and bring us some?”

      She nods and disappears down the hall, her arms wrapped around herself.

      When she’s out of earshot K.W. says, “Hunter did take drugs. Jen doesn’t know about it. It was Hunter’s and my secret. We made a deal. I’d pay for rehab and we’d never let his mother know. After Thomas, it would have killed her.”

      “What was he on?”

      “Some new thing. Akira, he called it.”

      “I haven’t heard of it.”

      “I have,” says Candy. “It’s a hallucinogen. Real popular with the Sub Rosa cool kids.”

      Vidocq nods.

      “I’ve heard of it, too. It’s supposed to enhance a user’s psychic ability. However, Akira seems to work on anyone, so it’s moving out into the civilian world.”

      Candy says, “A bunch of kids take it together. The high comes from being able to touch other users’ minds.”

      Brilliant. Teenyboppers use condoms to fuck safe and then they bore psychic holes in their heads so that anyone or anything can get inside.

      “Were you here during the exorcism?” I ask K.W.

      “Jen and I were in the living room. We could hear it, but we didn’t see anything until Father Traven got hurt. He was on the floor. Hunter was already gone.”

      He nods to the boarded-up window.

      “We haven’t seen him since.”

      While I talk to Dad, Vidocq examines the smoking patches some of his potions have left on the floor. They spread out in spider legs, each one a different color. I have no idea what it’s telling him, but it looks impressive.

      I give Candy the last packet of salt and she lays down a line beneath the window.

      K.W. gives us a half smile and shakes his head.

      “Seeing you three reminds me of Tommy’s friends. They were into magic. Claimed to know about these kinds of things. Some of them called themselves Sub Rosas. It just seemed silly at the time. You know, kids dabbling in old stuff no one understands to impress their friends and bug their parents.”

      His smile gets broader, like he’s found a memory that doesn’t hurt.

      “You’re not quite like them, though,” he says. “You look like you might have a clue.”

      “Thanks,” I say.

      I wish we had a fucking clue right now. I go to where K.W. is standing. He’s still in the hall. Hasn’t so much as stuck a toe into Hunter’s room.

      “Let me make sure I have this straight. Thomas, your older son, was heavy into magic with his fashion-victim friends. Did Hunter want to play Merlin, too? Even something small and silly like a Ouija board.”

      K.W. shakes his head.

      “Not after he saw what it did to Tommy. He was just a kid at the time, but he remembers. Hunter’s into sports, Xbox, and girls.”

      “You sure? You didn’t know he was taking drugs.”

      He waves a hand, palm up. A dismissal.

      “That’s different. You can hide drugs. When Tommy was into that stuff, there were magical books, crystals, twigs, and potions all over his damn room. When Jen asked him to clean up, he said his friends were the same way. There’s a picture of him and a bunch of the kids. Would that help you?”

      “You never know.”

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