Case Three: Mindbreakers of Glendale. Chapter One.
After getting in over their heads, Vibes Detectives' Agency finds themselves chased by a demon, and in Glendale. Which is more dangerous?
Vibes is a serialized supernatural comedy. New chapters come out every week. This is the first chapter of the third case.
Each case can be read independently, but if you’d like to start with the first case, click the button below for the table of contents:
“What do we do?” I hissed to Santi.
“Stop asking me that like I’m supposed to know,” he hissed. “On top of everything else today I’d rather not add imposter syndrome.”
We were crammed together uncomfortably under the kitchen island. Santi’s bony elbow was digging into my left ribs and my right ribs were digging into the joint where the marble sides met the heavy inbuilt cutting board. The island was open parallel to the stovetop so all we could see from our vantage was the bottom of the fridge and the oven— all of which were the height of style. I wanted to remark to Santi, even in my fear, that this was the type of kitchen I’d like to have one day, but realistically that would never happen. Mathematicians were not typically highly paid. “Push me out a little so I can see over the top,” I said instead.
All of us are unique and ineffable, impossible to pin down. I truly believe this. Yet, in some ways we are all our own stereotypes. I am an anxious Jew with a bad stomach, for instance. Santi is, unsurprisingly, very good at acroyoga. With unflinching ease he piloted me around from my fetal position into a crouched sit and pressed me out just far enough for my head to clear the wood.
“It is very impressive how good you are at this,” I whispered.
“You should see me slack line. OK, I’m going to push you up so you can see over.”
He pressed lightly with his legs and my eyes cleared the top of the kitchen island, giving me an unobstructed view of the open plan, heavily marbled kitchen, and past the sliding glass doors to a view of the Glendale hills. It also gave me an unobstructed view of the thing we’d released into the world.
“Let me peel your mind open to the cosmos,” our client’s mother howled, or rather the demon that was in quantum superposition with her1. It leaned over the island, and lashed out a spectral, fractal tongue. Had Santi been slower on the draw, or less good at acroyoga, it could have gotten me and I shudder to think what that would have done— to my body sure but to my mind most of all. Dripping mucus and tongues disgust me on a deep brain stem level.
We hit the marble floor with a sprint and ran from the thing out of the kitchen. We turned the corner and drifted wide on the slick stone. Our client had asked us not to wear shoes in the house, which I respect as a general rule—shoes are for outside—but in this instance I wish I’d been less gracious. “Don’t you know any spells,” I asked Santi.
“Do I know any spells?” Somehow, mid-slide, he was still able to convey disbelief.
I grimaced apologetically. We ran back into the tastefully Mediterranean salon with its high windows, amber lamp light, and low couches. Nothing had changed since we’d run from here thirty minutes ago save the dripping, psychedelic mucus coating everything—which was a fairly massive change depending on how you look at it.
I peeked around the corner and for the moment at least we weren’t be followed.
“This day just keeps getting worse,” Santi said.
I looked over to where he stood, picking through what we’d left on the glass coffee table. We’d set up a little station when we’d arrived, prepping all the items we might need. We’d been doing this ‘spirit hunting2’ thing for five months now and while we were still mostly going off vibes we’d started to figure out a thing or two. I had brought my Alienware laptop for 3d graphing, a tablet for notation, a calculator and a Jonathan Ames novel in case there was any downtime3. Santi had brought his singing bowls, a few crystals, a deck of professional wrestler themed tarot cards, and his Nintendo Switch. All of these were covered in various degrees of glowing muck that hurt one’s mind if you stared too long.
“It got the Macho Man,” Santi huffed, nudging the tarot cards with his foot. I felt for him but felt we had more pressing matters.
“Let’s take stock,” I said, and was surprised by how professional it sounded.
“Look at you, Mr. Professional.”
“I know,” I chirped, grabbing my only slightly gooey tablet. “Ok, so the demon—“
“—for the sake of argument—”
“Thank you—was speaking through the little old lady.” I marked this down on the tablet, making a crude diagram.
“But quietly,” Santi added, pacing. “So quietly we could barely hear it.”
“You could barely hear it,” I corrected. “I have as much sensitivity to these things as a rusty nail.”
“Don’t put yourself down,” Santi said. “We have enough to deal with right now without self-effacement.”
“Fair enough. Yes, we could barely hear it so we tried to open a portal.” I drew the contours of a hyperboloid over the stick figure old lady, masterfully illustrating in R space 3. In undergrad I’d had a very finicky professor for multivariable calculus who wouldn’t let us out of her class without being able to draw passable 3d graphs freehand. Even though I’d resented her—and still do—I appreciate the party trick. “Why did we think opening a portal would be a good idea?”
“Vibes,” Santi said. “It’s gotten us this far.”
“So why, then, did it go wrong this time?”
“Can I ask you a serious question, Iz?” Santi picked up a psychedelically splattered Charlotte Flair Queen of Pentacles with pinched fingers. “Does it seem like it’s all getting crazier and crazier with each case?”
“Wow,” I said, “Quite the question. I wish I had any idea what to say to this.”
“Because it wants you to see without your skin.”
Santi fell hard onto one of the low couches. I jumped over the coffee table and fell into Santi, who caught me on extended legs, rotated me in a smooth summersault, and placed me lightly down onto the cushions.
“You’re so good at that,” I whispered, terrified.
“I’m even better at fire poi,” he whispered, equally terrified.
“I think we’re going to die!” I whispered.
“But what even is death, man?”
“Again with the hard hitting questions, Santi.”
The spectral thing in the same place as the old woman opened its jaws to swallow the room. A hyperbolic hellscape unfolded within its maw in more dimensions than I typically had access to. Santi screamed, I screamed, the demon exploded, showering everything in a spray of psychedelic quicksilver.
“Oh god, it’s warm! I didn’t think it would be warm!”
Standing where the demon thing had been, holding the unconscious old lady in her arms, was a middle-aged woman who you just knew was a yoga teacher. She wore the sort of loose-fitting pants that somehow still showed off leg definition, and about her neck was not one but three strings of prayer beads. “What did you two do?” She asked in an Irish brogue that took the mind to green pastures, sending it on horseback along beautiful highlands to the sound of flute.
“We… investigated.” My voice cracked when I said this and I wasn’t so shocked as to not feel slightly humiliated.
“How did the mindbreaker get through, you dunderhead?”
“Oh,” Santi said, combative and with a bit of a teenage whine—he was not a fan of authority though this rarely manifested as anything more than a mope. “We opened a portal.”
“How?” She demanded, setting the old woman down on a low, plush armchair that looked old, yet still classy.
“Well,” I cleared as much of the ever shifting iridescent goo off my laptop as I could and turned the screen to her. “I ran an analysis on the connection between our clients mother and the—for the sake of argument—“
“For the sake of argument,” Santi added.
“Spirit world, while Santi held it stable with a tarot reading—“
“Why that worked I don’t know,” Santi said, “but vibes, I guess.”
“Then we used the singing bowls to enlarge the size of the opening and then that thing came through and chased us around the house.”
“It was all very Scooby-Doo, until it wasn’t.”
“Are you Scooby in this relationship,” I asked, “or Shaggy?”
“Both,” Santi said, “you’re Velma.”
I thought on it for a moment, but ultimately I couldn’t argue with the logic.
The yoga teacher-esque woman looked aghast. “You’re telling me you two nerds manifested a connection with a laptop and Hulk Hogan themed tarot cards.”
“Not just Hulk Hogan. The ‘Warriors Of The Rope Ring’ deck is very inclusive in its breadth and history. It has wrestlers from all the way back to wrestling’s golden era—The Iron Sheik, Andre The Giant—while still making space for some of professional wrestling’s rising stars.” Santi said. “But to answer your question, yes. That about sums it up.”
The woman glared at us. I tried to take up as little space as possible and noted with some shame that I was hiding behind Santi. “That’s actually pretty impressive.” She helped Santi up, but not me, which hurt just slightly but I tried not to be too bothered by it. “I’m Ashleigh4,” she said. “Things are happening in the cosmos right now. Dangerous things. You two have no idea what you’ve been messing with.”
“Oh, that’s beyond fair,” I said.
“Right on the nose,” Santi agreed. “We’re both pretty amazed we’ve made it this far.”
“We’ve had some real success, purely by accident. I killed a ghost, Santi saved someone’s soul, we helped get a cat out of tree, which isn’t supernatural but it was still rather fulfilling, and…”
“A little less of this, please.” Ashleigh waved vaguely at our personalities. “Sit.” Santi and I sat like scolded children. “If I hadn’t been in the area the two of you would be tripping your faces off in this high pile carpet while a mindbreaker ate your thoughts. You need to think about what it is you’re dealing with.”
“Excellent point,” I said. “Only, we have no idea what is is we’re dealing with.”
“Clueless,” Santi added.
Ashleigh produced a card as if from nowhere and handed it to Santi which, again, hurt my feelings but I tried not to make a thing of it5. “Meet me here tomorrow,” she said. “Noon.”
“Oh,” Santi said. “I can’t tomorrow. I have an audition.”
“Yeah,” I added. “Nether can I. Even though much of my research is self-directed I try to hold fairly typical hours. I think it’s important for my colleagues to know they can find me if they need my input or even just a friendly chat. Besides, as much as I hate to admit it, I need structure. I wish I could be a dance-between-the-raindrops kind of guy like Santi—“
“Iz,” Santi interrupted. “I have structure, it’s just a different kind of structure and I have to admit it bothers me that you don’t recognize it.”
“Hmm…” I said, “I suppose I am projecting my own insecurities on you.”
“Tom and I have both brought this to your attention,” Santi said. “And—“
“Get to the point,” Ashleigh snapped.
“Oh, right,” I said. “I can only do this ‘ghost hunting’ stuff on nights and weekends.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “Saturday, at noon.”
“That works.”
“Yeah, for me too,” Santi said.
“Ok. Be prompt and come with an open—“
“Oh, wait,” Santi grimaced. “ I actually can’t Saturday. I just remembered I made brunch plans.”
“Oh, who are you having brunch with?” I asked.
“Martine. My friend from Miami. We wanted to catch up.”
“Oh, she’s very nice. Tell her I say hello and if you—.”
“Sunday,” Ashleigh interrupted “1:15. Open mind.” She took a deep breath and performed a series yoga finger moves that reminded me of Naruto6. A portal opened behind her. My jaw dropped.
“Shlom Alechem, Haverte,” The portal said, to my mind at least.
“Don’t be late.”
Ashleigh fell backwards and the portal closed behind her.
“A lot has happened tonight,” I said after a long moment.
“Yes,” Santi agreed. “It’s been a very full day.”
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I am not a quantum physicist, and though I understand some of the mathematical underpinnings of the subject, that still gives me no excuse to act as though I’m an expert. Sometimes, however, its words are cool and I like to use them.
For the sake of argument.
The calculator was unnecessary— any computations I couldn’t fudge in my head I could do on my cellphone—but sometimes it was just nice to have some objects around.
She said it like Ashley but it was obvious she spelled it with a ‘Leigh’.
I’ve been really working on not taking things personally with Tom, who, if you’re don’t remember, is my therapist.
Which is an excellent series. A lot of filler, but the emotional depth in what seems like a silly children’s show is startling at times. Also it’s just very fun.
The Alienware reference had me rolling! 🤣