Why don’t you draw little ponies?

“Are you sure you’re a professional?”

Okay. Shaggy male onmyôji waiting at your door wearing sweatshirt and tattered denims may look very suspicious. Especially when a woman had answered your phone call with a perfect and ridiculously pompous Japanese, telling you something like “The Master will come out to your place”. Aforesaid Master (including myself, my ragged denim trousers, my eyes ringed and my have-seen-better-days sweatshirt) knowing nothing about teleportation in spite of his great powers is actually two hours late. Well, in fact, master was crashing out after he had the hell of a masochist day, and he really didn’t like to be pulled out of his bed.

I make myself into a smile to my “client”.

“I am the best.”

It always amazes me how much I do appear persuasive telling people things I’m well aware of, without boasting about. I find this whole onmyôji ego-tripping is only useful when I want to look more serious at work, if not I don’t give a rat’s ass about being the best of exorcists. And I can’t give any shit less about it either with a three-hours-and-twenty-two-minutes-long night of sleep.

“Is your daughter upstairs?”

It was a panic-stricken call from a family mother. She found out little Akane darling drooling and clawing the walls of her bedroom, scratching deep with her nails, and a not very healthy-looking black ichors pouring out of her eyes. She didn’t send for the doctor, because she thought that being only eight years old, chances were quite scarce for bad trip and hallucinogenic mushroom abuse. On the phone, I wanted to retort to my aunt that this kid probably had the worst case of cataract I ever knew of, but she was so icy that I felt my sense of humor was allowed to go back to bed (lucky him).

“Yes, I locked her door… She’s frightening me, she tried to attack me…”

I bet you are, looking at the symptoms.

“You did well. Stay here.”

I’m halfway through the stairs when a strong, sweet nauseating smell hit me in the face… totally odorless to anybody but an onmyôji. I refer to my personal scale when I need to estimate a job difficulty level. D-level: easily tossed off, C-level: a few band-aid and headache pill expected, B-level: I wonder if the family doctor would threaten me again to quit his job, A-level: looks like the minister’s counsellor will loose his hair when he gets medical fees and material damages bills.

That smells like a C-level. How the hell a kid so young has been able to attract such a piece of shit in her bedroom? Well, the answer is proudly pinned up on the fridge, scribbled with a greasy wax pencil, looking like a pentacle. I freeze and ask firmly:

“Do you practise esotericism?”

Mommy answers positively, and here she goes babbling: thanks to her practice, as soon as she became aware of Akane-chan’s condition she thought she has to call the Kondo clan, because she read something about the clan somewhere in a newspaper and because she has our phone number hanging on the fridge just in case. I retort it seems a better idea to me for her to stop letting aforesaid magazines close to Akane-chan, who seems to be very fond of drawing these so-called incantation pentacles instead of flashy little ponies. Might as well advertise for a yôkai picnic area.

“Why are you saying such things? Akane doesn’t read any of my esoteric books.”

I nudge at the door with the end of my foot and the wood literally explodes, forcing me to cast a small whirlwind in order to save my skin.

“Let me guess, she has a lot of imagination.”

Looking to cute little Akane coming to me, with her neck bent to a weird angle, I bet that the yôkai possessing her is very happy to see me. I smile and draw my fuda.

“Do you know I was pulled out of my bed just for you?”

I send him three fuda in the face and it starts screaming, while the swaying floor under my feet forces me to back off.

“And I didn’t even have time enough for a coffee?”

Shit, it’s running at me… I’d rather not hitting a girl aged less than ten years, so I leap back throwing another fuda at her back. Moving behind her, I put my hand between her shoulder blades - still intoning- and my hand sink wrist deep through her. Another scream pierces my ears.

Needless to say, the mother climbs up the stairs, wondering what by the gods am I doing to her daughter. Hard cheese, the kid will have bruises and the mother too. I pull out my hand and the yôkai hiding inside the girl’s body begins to come out, slashing at my fingers, tearing up my fuda. I use my free hand to knock down a bookcase shelf before the stairs in order to prevent mother from stepping into the room.

Come on, I’m nearly done... Walls are trembling around us and screaming turns to shrieking. Biting the bullet, I tug my hand, yanking the whole demon out of Akane. It tries to snatch my face as I seize him by the neck and I punch him, all the way going on intoning my mantras. On the floor, Akane is trembling, crying and calling for her mother.

Finally, the yôkai bursts into flames, disappearing in my hands. I take a deep breath, make out a big “everything is all right” smile on my face and try to remove the collapsed shelves with my hands bleeding everywhere and the kid howling in the background. The mother starts to give me a bollocking when she realises her daughter is not drooling anymore on the carpet, and she quickly tone it down. Instead, she spreads slimy thankyous all over me–of the exasperating kind, as if gratitude needed to be repeated over and over- before taking her daughter in her arms.

All snot and tears, Akane is staring at me with her black eyes, still wondering in which case she has to file me. I prevent her by politely asking loudly for band-aid, as I’m leaving blood trails everywhere on the already hopeless floor. The mother runs for the bathroom and helps me with disinfecting while Akane is still staring at me from a closer place. Crouching, I pick up the torn pieces of the pentacle drawing scattered among door wood shards, and hand them over to Akane’s mommy.

“Next time, why don’t you try reading Playboy?”

Well, that will certainly be retold to my mother, who will get me a good telling off –warrant of Japan’s spiritual stability, keeper of morals, sort of- about so inconceivable it is, me giving such an image of the clan, behaving the way I am.

Meanwhile, if you please, the keeper of morals will have a coffee and two aspirins. All this screaming cursed me with a headache.