The Sinner

“The shot glass on the mantle will do,” Cas said. He drew a YES and NO on two corners of the paper, the alphabet, and the numbers zero through nine. Below that, he wrote GOODBYE. Then he knelt on the floor at the end of the coffee table so that each of us had a side of the “board.”

Guy placed the shot glass on the paper. “This is wild. What do we do next?”

Now Cas’s smirk was of the don’t-be-an-idiot variety. “We each lay our fingertips to the glass and ask the spirits to make themselves known.”

“Oh my God, have you done this before?” Abby asked. “You’re totally giving me the shivers. Not that I’m complaining…”

I had to admit, Abby was right. The low timbre of Casziel’s voice and his dark, otherworldly charisma made it obvious to me that we were already in the presence of the supernatural. I worried the others were going to get suspicious.

“Touch the glass, please,” he commanded.

We reached to touch the shot glass and the lights in the apartment flickered again, three times. But for Cas, we all jerked our hands back.

“Holy shit.” Guy laughed nervously.

“Holy shit is right,” Abby said, glancing around.

Cas smiled. “An auspicious start.”

I cringed and silently begged him not to get carried away. We all gingerly touched our fingers on the glass, like startled birds resettling.

“Let us begin,” Cas intoned. “Spirits in this domain, are you with us?”

Nothing happened and then the glass slid to YES.

“Eeep,” Abby screeched. “This is so creepy.”

“What is your name?” Guy asked.

The glass slid to Z then U.

Abby wrinkled her nose. “Your name is Zu?”

The glass rushed to YES.

“Have you lived here long?” Guy asked.

The glass went to three.

“Weird. I moved here three years ago.”

“Did you follow Guy to this house?” Cas asked, and the glass raced to YES.

Guy chuckled. “Okay, so that’s not totally disturbing. Go ahead, Luce. Ask a question.”

I decided to take this conversation to lighter ground. “Okay, um…what is your favorite color?”

“Oh my God, Luce, so boring,” Abby drawled.

But the planchette was racing across the board to spell RED LIKE BLOOD

That wiped the smirk off Abby’s face. “Ummm…I don’t think I want to play this anymore.”

“Me either,” I said, mutely begging Cas to behave himself.

He gave me a brief nod of understanding. “Are you a benevolent entity?”

The planchette raced to YES.