Expect a touch of the supernatural, malefic colleagues and plenty of eccentricity.

Sergeant Hicks said in a malefic whisper that seemed to hiss out of his bowels.

Like a malefic kitten with a ball of string, she would tangle his emotions until he lost all distinction between love and hate, joy and sorrow.

Photograph: EPA For Stone, the US has, ever since those two fateful days in August 1945, been in the malefic grip of the military and hegemonic delusions.

In Peel’s world, malefic forces in the U.S. government and corporations prey on unsuspecting patients by rummaging through their history/physical.