And now Red Bear was trying to make good on his promise. I put a hand on my grandfather’s arm and said, “Don’t worry, Pops. I’m gonna fix this.”

I just had no idea how. Though, it was times like the present that I liked to ask myself one very simple question:

What would Buffy do?

The next morning, I made my way down to the Quarter were I eventually located Hex, which was the best retail magic outlet in the city according to Yelp. I knew I was out of my depth the moment I entered and saw the large African man weighing a pile of tiny bones against a large quartz crystal while softly chanting under his breath.

From behind me came a high-pitched female voice asking, “Can I help you?”

I turned to find a tiny blond woman of no discernable age smiling up at me. I started to reply, “Well… Uh… Maybe? I don’t really… I’m not…”

The woman gave a knowing nod and held up her hand to quiet me as she said, “Just start at the beginning.”

So I did, telling the shopkeeper a condensed version of Pops’s story and when I was done, she nodded again and said, “You’ve got an unwanted soul-debt. We’ve got a take-home kit for that.”

The woman gestured for me to follow her and I wanted to cry. It all seemed too good to be true and I was still half convinced that I’d become an unwitting pawn in some snake oil salesman’s elaborate ruse. Then the shopkeeper told me what the ritual would entail and that’s when I did start to cry.

There was no way my family was going to let me attempt any of this, which meant I had to approach the whole thing guerilla warfare style. The shopkeeper, whose name was Wendy, offered to assist with the ritual free of charge (probably just to get me to stop crying in the middle of her store but I wasn’t in any position to turn down help).

Just as she finished ringing me up, my phone chimed, alerting me to a text message from my cousin Jon which simply read:

Pops is asking for you. I don’t think he has long.

“Shit,” I muttered and looked up at Wendy. “Any chance we could schedule that home-visit for IMMEDIATELY?”

With what Jon had texted me, I was expecting to find half of my extended family at my grandfather’s by the time Wendy and I got there, but it was still just Jon, sitting beside Pops’s bed and holding his hand. My grandfather was unconscious and breathing irregularly. Jon said, “He’s been like this for the past two hours. My dad and Jude are on their way and so is Aunt Jenneane. Who’s this?”

I nodded back over my shoulder and said, “Wendy. She worked for Papa at New Orleans Shrimp and just wanted to come pay her respects.”

“Yeah?” Jon replied and then craned his neck so that he was looking directly at Wendy. “Now’s really not the time, lady.”

“JON… When was the last time you had a smoke break?”

“…Good idea.” He said and slowly stood while continuing to glare at Wendy, who returned the gesture with a polite nod that seemed to immediately disarm him. Jon’s expression softened and he hurried out of the room. Maybe this woman WAS a witch after all…

I waited until Jon exited the house to close and lock the bedroom door. Wendy saw this and nodded at me as she said, “We good to go?”

“Good as we’re gonna be. How long does this usually take, ballpark?” I asked.

Wendy shrugged and said, “It depends. Maybe an hour. Maybe two days.”

“Okay, well we have about 10 minutes before the pack of crazed Micks I call my family starts kicking that door in… Just so you know.”

“Noted,” Wendy replied with a nod as she began to light a small bushel of sage. “You still have that sheet of paper I gave you?”

“I do,” I said and held up the folded printout.

Wendy began to fan the now-smoldering sage bushel in her hand as she paced across the bedroom while continuing to relay instructions. “Take your grandfather’s hand and start reading that aloud, over and over until I say stop.”

I did as I was told and began to chant. “Jim Farrelly is pure of heart. His soul is not bound to you or anyone… Jim Farrelly is pure of heart. His soul is not bound to you or anyone… Jim Farrelly is-”

Wendy finished “smudging” the room and came to stand next to me beside the bed. I unbuttoned Pop’s pajama top and Wendy used red paint to draw a pentagram over his heart while I continued my chant. Wendy retrieved several white candles from her purse and set them around the room. She was just starting to light the first one when we heard the bedroom doorknob rattle and realized Jon was trying to re-enter the room.

He knocked loudly and shouted, “Joel, what the fuck?! Why is the door locked?”

I signaled for Wendy to ignore him and started up my chant again as she resumed lighting the candles. Jon continued to yell at me through the door and about a minute later, I heard my cousin Jude asking what was going on. I paused in my chant and Wendy, who had been muttering a string of prayers in time with my words, suddenly yelled, “You can’t lose focus now! It’s here with us!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, something yanked me off of my feet and before I knew what was happening, I was lying on my side and face-to-face with the shiny-eyed figure from the night before. It bared its pointy teeth at me and said in a vile inhuman tone, “Your Pops is going to be my bitch-boy for all eternity!”

The figure stretched its fang-lined mouth open wide enough to fit my entire head inside and then that’s exactly what it did.

The vivid hallucination I had been experiencing suddenly dropped away and I found myself still standing beside Pops’s bed with Wendy’s hand squeezing my arm as she said, “You need to keep going.”

I started up my chant again and the pentagram on Pops’s chest began to glow. Just then, the bedroom door was kicked in and Jude stepped aside to let my Aunt Jenneane enter. She started to scream, “JOEL, what do…”

And then she actually took in the scene before her and whatever Aunt Jenneane had been about to say, she never got it out. Pops’s eyes fluttered open and he barely acknowledged the glowing pentagram on his chest before saying in the most forceful tone he could muster, “Jen… Relax. I asked the boy to do this for me.”

“And what is THIS exactly?” Jenneane almost shouted in response and then suddenly her eyes went wide and she fell silent. Then, she began to scream.

Wendy said, “We can’t worry about her right now. Your grandfather doesn’t have much time.”

Jude, who had remained surprisingly quiet up until this point, entered the room and asked, “What can I do?”

Wendy turned to me and said, “Your grandfather is Catholic, right?”

“Very much so.”

Wendy turned to address Jude as she replied, “Start saying the rosary. You know what that is?”

Jude said, “After 11 years of Catholic school, I’d better.”

He and Jon began to say the rosary while I continued my chant and Aunt Jenneane screamed over all of it. The din of our combined voices began to take on an almost ethereal quality and eventually the room’s atmosphere started to change. Black tendrils sprouted from the floorboards and dragged the lanky silhouette from beneath Pops’s bed.

My grandfather opened his eyes to watch as the tendrils began to consume the figure and Pops slowly raised a middle finger to the silhouette as it was completely swallowed in darkness. And then, just like that, it was over and Pops’s bedroom which had felt so gloomy a moment ago now seemed to be radiating sunlight.

Aunt Jenneane stopped screaming and awkwardly cleared her throat as she glanced around the room, seemingly unaware of what had just happened. Then her eyes fell on Pops and she muttered a solemn, “Daddy?”

My grandfather’s eyes were once again closed and his jaw was hanging slack. His chest was still. He wasn’t breathing. Pops was dead.