This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

Up we went, grabbed and yanked into the sky. Clutched around our dangling arms and legs were the strong talons of an enormous beast. It flew silently. I could see brown and white in the feathers. I can’t otherwise see anything. Feathers are on my face. Those silent soaring wings. Mr. Curtis’s legs dangled below me as I watched our street fall away from us and the smoky city leave us behind.

They dropped us. I assumed it was to our deaths. I thought for sure that Mr. Curtis’s legs next to me were lifeless. We landed roughly on a tiled rooftop and rolled.

Mr. Curtis’s hat flopped by. I picked it up and sat up, then turned around quickly as a shadow crossed over me.

“What? Who?”

“It is I.”

It was Arthur, the owl.

Mr. Curtis stood up next to me and took his hat. I gave it to him, forgetting for a moment that I thought him dead just a moment before.

“I uh,” I said.

“No need,” said the owl.

Mr. Curtis reached into his hat and found another fresh outfit and started putting it on.

“Where’d you get…”

“This old thing…”

It looked freshly pressed.

The owl paced. Every few moments a ruffle would send fresh down feathers upon us. I brushed them out of my face.

“You boys,” said the owl. I swear his eyes lit up, but I don’t think they did. “You boys may be in way over your heads here.”

“What are we up against?” said Mr. Curtis, tying his tie.

The owl scraped the roof, sending tiles plummeting down to the ground below.

“I thought it might come to this.” The bird turned around. He was pacing. I thought he was preparing for liftoff.

“The bakery must be closed and cleansed. The tunnel must be closed that leads into the cave, and that will not stop them.”

“What will?” I asked.

“We’ll eventually have to find their lair and storm it. No one is safe, but in the short term, we can keep things under control.”

“How do we cleanse the bakery?”

“Salt. Holy water. Don’t eat the…” he coughed.

“And blocking the…”

“The drain…”

The owl tripped and landed in front of us. One eye was wide, the other tightly shut. He wasn’t breathing well. His beak opened, but it wouldn’t open wide enough for the creature inside to make its way clear. The first two sickly yellow tentacles pushed forth, trying to open his mouth.

I watched them in awe. We felt lost. “The surrounding town, Mrs. Constellation, the bakery, everybody, now this.” Mr. Curtis didn’t flinch.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said to the body of the owl lying before us, the creature inside trying unsuccessfully to take control of his large body. The failing eye winked at him as Mr. Curtis replaced the monocle in his left eye.

He handed me a flask and pulled quickly from his hat. It was a small one, glass with a stopper in the top

“Water?”

I saw the frog had in his hand a small salt cellar. He opened the lid, bidding me to do the same with mine. I popped it open.

“Holy water?”

“I thank you. You’ve told me enough. Now let’s cleanse my friend here.” He sprinkled the tentacles with salt. They retreated into the bird’s beak.

“Quickly friend,” he said to me.

I sprinkled some of the water onto the bird’s face, getting as much as I could on the beast.

“That’s right.” He did some more salt, going around the roof a little too. I did some more, following his lead.

The owl’s body convulsed. It flipped over. It shook. I poured a measure down the owl’s throat. The creature slowly emerged after it choked. It slid out and flopped to the rooftop, but it couldn’t cross the salt sprinkled around.

It was yellow, slimy, and pale. It resembled an octopus, but it had five tentacles instead of eight, and couldn’t easily supply support for its body weight. It blinked, looked around with a single bulbous bright blue eye, and stared us down. The person looked around.

“Looking for a way yet?” said the frog. “I’m onto you.” He faced the creative eye to eye, closing one of his own.

I carefully stepped away from them.

“I want you and your friends to leave,” said Mr. Curtis. “It’s hard enough being a frog or a rat in a world like this.”

“There’s room enough for all.”

“While true, I’m afraid I can’t condone parasites attacking my friends and neighbors.”

“We just… we must…”

“James, can you please?” Arthur was stirring. I ran to see him and helped him up.

“Of course,” I said.

“It’s just…” said the squelching squid.

“Can you live long outside of a host?”

“Yes, but not for long, and not above the surface.”

“Then I’m going to have to kick you out and ask two things.”

“What?”

“No coming above the surface.”

“And?”

“If you do, find a host that at least likes it.”

“Curtis!” I said.

“What? Somebody might.”

“Doubtful.”

“And if we don’t?”

“You may as well come kill me first next time so I won’t get in the way.”

It eyed me, where I was listening to Arthur’s heartbeat, and saw it, the place where we hadn’t sprinkled salt.

“We will come for the surface.”

It slid from me. I tried to climb the owl. Arthur just knocked me to the roof.

“Dr. James! The holy water!”

“Oh, yes!”

I pulled it from my breast pocket and uncorked it with my teeth. It reminded me of tossing grenades during the war. I tossed the bottle where it hit the creature, and mostly bounced off, but not without the contents spilling out all over the creature.

Where it spilled, what was later to be burned into the creature’s skin? It lost a tentacle, dissolving completely, then another one as it tried to run. Mr. Curtis chased it to the edge of the roof with the salt cellar, shaking handfuls of salt at it. It dodged this way and then rolled down the pitch of the roof like a ball. Its tentacles flopped and flapped like fettuccine that hadn’t quite seen enough boiling water and it fell from the roof, landing with a splat on the ground below. It opened its eye and looked up at us and I could hear in my mind. “We’ll be back. There are more.”

I squeezed my head, trying to get him out of there, thinking my body was quickly being taken over when I realized he was gone, squelching in the mud down a drain.

“Thank you, Arthur,” said Mr. Curtis.

“I’m never taking a roll from you again, Mr. Curtis.”

I walked back.

“What do we do?” I said.

“What? Do we?” Said, Arthur. “You, and you know.”

“Holy water and salt?”

“Where do we?”

“Come with me,” said Mr. Curtis. And he jumped down the drainpipe.

“I hate the drainpipe.”

I jumped down it and tried to keep my descent to the ground under control, but I couldn’t manage it. I slid out onto the dirty streets and with all the fluff, closer to the rat I know I am than the gentleman I see myself as. The tweed hid most of the dirt, so I straightened my coat as best I could. At least I’m in the shadows of the building.

“This way,” said the frog.

“What’s this way?”

“St. Albert’s cathedral. Holy water.”

I realized I’d used all I had on the poor thing.

“And salt?”

“The bakery,” said Mr. Curtis. “Besides, I still have some. Where’s the salt? Poor fellow, must I spell everything out for you?”

“No?”

I took off after him. The cathedral was several blocks ahead but faced the corner at one intersection. I could see it. It was the only place nearby where the stained glass was in red with blue and yellow. Skylights swallowed enough light at strategic angles to light the entire building with a certain glow. The morning streets were moving, but he kept on hopping rather than flagging a cab. The closer we got to it, the less I felt like flagging one down, either.

There were massive front steps of Stone, that also had a blue or red tile inserted every so often to keep up the motif, there was no sign for St. Albert’s only a large red cross in a field of yellow glass in the front with a blue letter A on each side. One was upside down, the other right side up.

We climbed the steps. It seemed like there were too many of them.

At the door, this early in the morning, I expected it to be locked. It wasn’t.

Mr. Curtis opened it and swung it wide. Giving me a look to the side. He hopped in and I followed. The door closed quietly behind us.

The tile was immaculate. I walked, hearing my footfalls echo down. “Mr. Curtis, how much exactly do you keep in that hat of yours?”

“I don’t know.”

“You always seem to have what we need in it.”

“I like to be prepared.”

“Unlikely.”

“I’m doing my best here. I was never good at magic.”

“No?”

“Much better doing this. I’d rather not be on stage. What about you?”

“You know, I’d see patients.”

“You’re retired though.”

“Doesn’t Mean I…”

Something clattered ahead of us.

“What was that?”

We ran down and found him on the floor. He was a mole, dressed in a monk’s habit, lying on the floor near a grand basin before three sets of tall solid oak doors that led further into a sanctuary.

We ran up to help him up.

“Thank you, Thank you.”

“Is this the holy water?” I asked.

“It is,” he said. One of the sanctuary doors quietly closed.

“We… need…”

“How much?”

The frog just looked at him, then back at the monk. “All of it?”

“I understand.” He reached under the basin, touched a switch, and brought out two bottles. They looked like vodka bottles, with crosses on them.

“Ah.”

“Take ‘em.”

The frog smiled. I kept one under my arm, and Mr. Curtis slid the other into his hat.

“Come on,” said Mr. Curtis.

“Not here,” said the monk, “don’t disturb him here. Yes, I know he’s here.”

We pushed through into the sanctuary. It was darker than the previous hall. He was sitting there in the front row, breathing and huffing.

We walked down the aisle and sat in front of him on the steps before the altar. His tentacles hung there without touching the floor.

“You can’t just take who you want,” I said.

“I know.” Again, the response was in my mind.

“Just let me rest.”

We sat down.

“Where do you come from?”

“Here? The deep? Depths. It’s been so long. All we know is dark.”

“Do you have a leader?”

“We have. He tells us to break free. We must take the surface back.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s too much trouble.”

“It’s not worth it.”

He perked up. “Oh, it’s worth it. I just don’t know if the cost will simply be too heavy.”

“I’d like it to work out. Is there any other way?” I said, while Mr. Curtis sprinkled salt under him all over the side floor around him and then started hitting the surrounding pew.

“We just get a host. It’s the only way we know.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Curtis.

The frog doused him. I didn’t even see him pour the glass.