Jake had watched from the bushes while she was killed, powerless to stop it, clutching the replica Blade sword in his hand and squeezing the hilt until his knuckles turned pale white. Now, when he lit the candles and whispered the chants into the awaiting darkness, he would remember the look in his secret lover’s eyes while her husband Fred beat her to death and how he had stood rooted to the spot crying like a little pansy.
“I hope this works Cuddles,” he said to the stuffed bunny in the corner, “I hope this works.”
Cuddles didn’t answer. He just sat in his little red chair and stared blankly ahead. In fact, that had been all Cuddles had done since Jake’s mom had given him to Jake twenty years ago.
“I can’t stand to lose her Cuddles. She is the love of my life and nothing will get in the way of us. Nothing, you hear me, nothing!” he shouted at Cuddles and then laughed maniacally, his eyes and teeth shining in the darkness. If cuddles had been more than cotten stuffed into a dingy off white cover that was cut to resemble a cartoon bunny, he would have been scared out of his mind. Fortunately, he wasn’t.
Finally, the preparations were complete. A pentagram drawn with chalk used in sodomy seemed to shine with an unholy lunimance from the cold concrete and the candles placed on each point held flames that flickered in the darknesss as if a wind was blowing. The black of the basement below his occult shop pressed in on him like it was trying to crush him or find its way into the crevices of his body and force its way inside of him.
“Oh my Gosh, I think it is working,” Jake said to no one in particular.
“Yeah, I think it is. Congratulations kiddo, no one ever gets these to work,” a deep rumbling voice erupted from the silence after Jake had finished speaking.
“Cuddles…is that you?” Jake asked, his voice getting high and whiny, his hands unconciously moving up to push his glasses up on his nose.
“No, it isn’t Cuddles you idiot. When have you ever heard Cuddles speak to you?”
“He speaks telpathically usually,” replied Jake, his voice trailing off.
“No he doesn’t and you know it as well as I do.”
There were a few minutes of silence as Jake stood fumbling with the bottom of his blue shirt with Pink Floyd written across the chest (he had never heard a song from them by the way) or running his fingers through the greasy mass of brown hair that lived on the top of his head. Finally, he just crossed his hands and started tapping his foot making a soft tap tap tap sound on the concrete.
“I’m still here kid,” the voice said, “just tell me what you want and we will…uh…barter or something.”
