Practical Demonkeeping

23 RIVERA

Rivera came through the trailer door followed by two uniformed officers. Robert sat up on the couch and was immediately rolled over and handcuffed. Rivera read him his Miranda rights before he was completely awake. When Robert’s vision cleared, Rivera was sitting in a chair in front of him, holding a piece of paper in his face.

“Robert, I am Detective Sergeant Alphonse Rivera.” A badge wallet flipped open in Rivera’s other hand. “This is a warrant for your and The Breeze’s arrest. There’s one here to search this trailer as well, which is what I and deputies Deforest and Perez will be doing in just a moment.”

A uniformed officer appeared from the far end of the trailer. “He’s not here, Sergeant.”

“Thanks,” Rivera said to the uniform. To Robert he said: “Things will go easier for you if you tell me right now where I can find The Breeze.”

Robert was starting to get a foggy idea of what was going on.

“So you’re not a dealer?” he asked sleepily.

“You’re quick, Masterson. Where’s The Breeze?”

“The Breeze didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s been gone for two days. I took the suitcase because I wanted to know who the guy was that was with my wife.”

“What suitcase?”

Robert nodded toward the living-room floor. The Haliburton case lay there unopened. Rivera picked it up and tried the latches.

“It’s got a combination lock,” Robert said. “I couldn’t get it open.”

Sheriff’s deputies were riffling through the trailer. From the back bedroom one shouted. “Rivera, we’ve got it.”

“Stay here, Robert. I’ll be right back.”

Rivera rose and started toward the bedroom just as Perez appeared in the kitchen holding another aluminum suitcase.

“That it?” Rivera asked.

Perez, a dark Hispanic who seemed too small to be a deputy, threw the suitcase on the kitchen table and opened the lid. “Jackpot,” he said.

Neat square blocks of plastic-covered green weed lay in even rows across the suitcase. Robert could smell a faint odor like skunk coming from the marijuana.

“I’ll get the testing kit,” Perez said.

Rivera took a deep sniff and looked at Perez quizzically. “Right, it could be just lawn clippings that they weighed out in pounds.”

Perez looked hurt by Rivera’s sarcasm. “But for the record?”

Rivera waved him away, then returned to the couch and sat down next to Robert.

“You are in deep trouble, my friend.”

“You know,” Robert said, “I felt really bad about being so rude to you yesterday when you came by.” He smiled weakly. “I’ve been going through some really hard times.”

“Make it up to me, Robert. Tell me where The Breeze is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you are going to eat shit for all that pot over there on the table.”

“I didn’t even know it was there. I thought you guys were here about the suitcase I took. The other one.”

“Robert, you and I are going to go back to the station and have a really long talk. You can tell me all about the suitcase and all the folks that The Breeze has been keeping company with.”

“Sergeant Rivera, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I wasn’t quite awake when you were telling me the charges… sir.”

Rivera helped Robert to his feet and led him out of the trailer. “Possession of marijuana for sale and conspiracy to sell marijuana. Actually the conspiracy charge is the nastier of the two.”

“So you didn’t even know about the suitcase I took?”

“I couldn’t care less about the suitcase.” Rivera pushed Robert into the cruiser. “Watch your head.”

“You should bring it along just to see who the guy was that it belonged to. Your guys in the lab can open it and…”

Rivera slammed the car door on Robert’s comment. He turned to Deforest, who was coming out of the trailer. “Grab that suitcase out of the living room and tag it.”

“More pot, Sarge?”

“I don’t think so, but the whacko seems to think it’s important.”

24 AUGUSTUS BRINE

Augustus Brine was sitting in his pickup, parked a block away from Jenny’s house. In the morning twilight he could just make out the outline of Jenny’s Toyota and an old Chevy parked in front. The king of the Djinn sat in the passenger seat next to Brine, his rheumy blue eyes just clearing the dashboard.

Brine was sipping from a cup of his special secret roast coffee. The thermos was empty and he was savoring the last full cup. The last cup, perhaps, that he would ever drink. He tried to call up a Zen calm, but it was not forthcoming and he berated himself; trying to think about it pushed it farther from his grasp. “Like trying to bite the teeth,” the Zen proverb went. “There is not only nothing to grasp, but nothing with which to grasp it.” The closest he was going to get to no-mind was to go home and destroy a few million brain cells with a few bottles of wine — not an option.

“You are troubled, Augustus Brine.” The Djinn had been silent for over an hour. At the sound of his voice Brine was startled and almost spilled his coffee.

“It’s the car,” Brine said. “What if the demon is in the car? There’s no way to know.”

“I will go look.”

“Look? You said he was invisible.”

“I will get in the car and feel around. I will sense him if he is that close.”

“And if he’s there?”

“I will come back and tell you. He cannot harm me.”

“No.” Brine stroked his beard. “I don’t want them to know we’re here until the last minute. I’ll risk it.”

“I hope you can move fast, Augustus Brine. If Catch sees you, he will be on you in an instant.”

“I can move,” Brine said with a confidence that he did not feel. He felt like a fat, old man — tired and a little wired from too much coffee and not enough sleep.

“The woman!” The Djinn poked Brine with a bony finger.

Jenny was coming out of the house in her waitress uniform. She made her way down the front steps and across the shallow front yard to her Toyota.

“At least she’s still alive.” Brine was preparing to move. With Jenny out of the house one of their problems was solved, but there would be little time to act. The demonkeeper could come out at any moment. If their trap was not set, all would be lost.

The Toyota turned over twice and died. A cloud of blue smoke coughed out of the exhaust pipe. The engine cranked, caught again, sputtered, and died; blue smoke.

“If she goes back to the house, we have to stop her,” Brine said.

“You will give yourself away. The trap will not work.”

“I can’t let her go back in that house.”

“She is only one woman, Augustus Brine. The demon Catch will kill thousands if he is not stopped.”

“She’s a friend of mine.”

The Toyota cranked again weakly, whining like an injured animal, then fired up. Jenny revved the engine and pulled away leaving a trail of oily smoke.

“That’s it,” Brine said. “Let’s go.” Brine started the truck, pulled forward, and stopped.

“Turn off the engine,” the Djinn said.

“You’re out of your mind. We leave it running.”

“How will you hear the demon if he comes before you are ready?”

Begrudgingly, Brine turned off the key. “Go!” he said.

Brine and the Djinn jumped out of the truck and ran around to the bed. Brine dropped the tailgate. There were twenty ten-pound bags of flour, each with a wire sticking out of the top. Brine grabbed a bag in each hand, ran to the middle of the yard, paying out wire behind him as he went. The Djinn wrestled one bag out of the truck and carried it like a babe in his arms to the far corner of the yard.

With each trip to the truck Brine could feel panic growing inside him. The demon could be anywhere. Behind him the Djinn stepped on a twig and Brine swung around clutching his chest.

“It is only me,” the Djinn said. “If the demon is here, he will come after me first. You may have time to escape.”

“Just get these unloaded,” Brine said.

Ninety seconds after they had started, the front yard was dotted with flour bags, and a spider web of wires led back to the truck. Brine hoisted the Djinn into the bed of the truck and handed him two lead wires. The Djinn took the wires and crouched over a car battery that Brine had secured to the bed of the truck with duct tape.

“Count ten, then touch the wires to the battery,” Brine said. “After they go off, start the truck.”

Brine turned and ran across the yard to the front steps. The small porch was too close to the ground for Brine to crawl under, so he crouched beside it, covering his face with his arms, counting to himself, “seven, eight, nine, ten.” Brine braced himself for the explosion. The seal bombs were not powerful enough to cause injury when detonated one at a time, but twenty at once might produce a considerable shock wave. “Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, shit!” Brine stood up and tried to see into the bed of the truck.

“The wires, Gian Hen Gian!”

“It is done!” Came the answer.

Before Brine could say anything else the explosions began — not a single blast, but a series of blasts like a huge string of firecrackers. For a moment the world turned white with flour. Then storms of flame swirled around the front of the house and mushroomed into the sky as the airborne flour was ignited by successive explosions. The lower branches of the pines were seared and pine needles crackled as they burned.

At the sight of the fire storms, Brine dove to the ground and covered his head. When the explosion subsided, he stood and tried to see through the fog of flour, smoke, and soot that hung in the air. Behind him he heard the front door open. He turned and reached up into the doorway, felt his hand close around the front of a man’s shirt, and yanked back, hoping he was not pulling a demon down off the steps.

“Catch!” the man screamed. “Catch!”

Unable to see though the gritty air, Brine punched blindly at the squirming man. His meaty fist connected with something hard and the man went limp in his arms. Brine heard the truck start. He dragged the unconscious man across the yard toward the sound of the running engine. In the distance a siren began to wail.

He bumped into the truck before he saw it. He opened the door and threw the man onto the front seat, knocking Gian Hen Gian against the opposite door. Brine jumped into the truck, put it into gear, and sped out of the doughy conflagration into the light of morning.

“You did not tell me there would be fire,” the Djinn said.

“I didn’t know.” Brine coughed and wiped flour out of his eyes. “I thought all the charges would go off at once. I forgot that the fuses would burn at different rates. I didn’t know that flour would catch fire — it was just supposed to cover everything so we could see the demon coming.”

“The demon Catch was not there.”

Brine was on the verge of losing control. Covered in flour and soot, he looked like an enraged abominable snowman. “How do you know that? If we didn’t have the cover of the flour, I might be dead now. You didn’t know where he was before. How can you know he wasn’t there? Huh? How do you know?”

“The demonkeeper has lost control of Catch. Otherwise you would not have been able to harm him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before? Why don’t you tell me these things in advance?”

“I forgot.”

“I might have been killed.”

“To die in the service of the great Gian Hen Gian — what an honor. I envy you, Augustus Brine.” The Djinn removed his stocking cap, shook off the flour, and held it to his chest in salute. His bald head was the only part of him that was not covered in flour.

Augustus Brine began to laugh.

“What is funny?” The Djinn asked.

“You look like a worn brown crayon.” Brine was snorting with laughter. “King of the Djinn. Give me a break.”

“What’s so funny?” Travis said, groggily.

Keeping his left hand on the wheel, Augustus Brine snapped out his right fist and coldcocked the demonkeeper.

25 AMANDA

Amanda Elliot told her daughter that she wanted to leave early to beat the Monterey traffic, but the truth was that she didn’t sleep well away from home. The idea of spending another morning in Estelle’s guest room trying to be quiet while waiting for the house to awaken was more than she could stand. She was up at five, dressed and on the road before five-thirty. Estelle stood in the driveway in her nightgown waving as her mother drove away.

Over the last few years Amanda’s visits had been tearful and miserable. Estelle could not resist pointing out that each moment she spent with her mother might be the last. Amanda responded, at first, by comforting her daughter and assuring her that she would be around for many more years to come. But as time passed, Estelle refused to let the subject lie, and Amanda answered her concern with pointed comparisons between her own energy level and that of Estelle’s layabout husband, Herb. “If it weren’t for his finger moving on the remote control you’d never know he was alive at all.”

As much as Amanda was irritated by Effrom marauding around the house like an old tomcat, she needed only to think of Herb, permanently affixed to Estelle’s couch, to put her own husband in a favorable light. Compared to Herb, Effrom was Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks rolled into one: a connubial hero. Amanda missed him.

She drove five miles per hour over the speed limit, changing lanes aggressively, and checking her mirrors for highway patrol cars. She was an old woman, but she refused to drive like one.

She made the hundred miles to Pine Cove in just over an hour and a half. Effrom would be in his workshop now, working on his wood carvings and smoking cigarettes. She wasn’t supposed to know about the cigarettes any more than she was supposed to know that Effrom spent every morning watching the women’s exercise show. Men have to have their secret lives and forbidden pleasures, real or perceived. Cookies snitched from the jar are always sweeter than those served on a plate, and nothing evokes the prurient like puritanism. Amanda played her role for Effrom, staying on his tail, keeping him alert to the possibility of discovery, but never quite catching him in the act.

Today she would pull in the driveway and rev the engine, take a long time getting into the house to make sure that Effrom heard her coming so he could take a shot of breath spray to cover the smell of tobacco on his breath. Didn’t it occur to the old fart that she was the one who bought the breath spray and brought it home with the groceries each week? Silly old man.

When Amanda entered the house, she noticed an acrid, burnt smell in the air. She had never smelled cordite, so she assumed that Effrom had been cooking. She went to the kitchen expecting to see the ruined remains of one of her frying pans, but the kitchen, except for a few cracker crumbs on the counter, was clean. Maybe the smell was coming from the workshop.

Amanda usually avoided going near Effrom’s workshop when he was working, mainly to avoid the sound of the high-speed drills he used for carving, which reminded her of the unpleasantness of the dentist’s office. Today there was no sound coming from the workshop.

She knocked on the door, gently, so as not to startle him. “Effrom, I’m home.” He had to be able to hear her. A chill ran through her. She had imagined finding Effrom cold and stiff a thousand times, but always she was able to push the thought out of her mind.

“Effrom, open this door!” She had never entered the workshop. Except for a few toys that Effrom dragged out at Christmastime to donate to local charities, Amanda never even saw any of the carvings he produced. The workshop was Effrom’s sacred domain.

Amanda paused, her hand on the doorknob. Maybe she should call someone. Maybe she should call her granddaughter, Jennifer, and have her come over. If Effrom were dead she didn’t want to face it alone. But what if he was just hurt, lying there on the floor waiting for help. She opened the door. Effrom was not there. She breathed a sigh of relief, then her anxiety returned. Where was he?

The workshop’s shelves were filled with carved wooden figures, some only a few inches high, some several feet long. Every one of them was a figure of a nude woman. Hundreds of nude women. She studied each figure, fascinated with this new aspect of her husband’s secret life. The figures were running, reclining, crouching, and dancing. Except for a few figures on the workbench that were still in the rough stage, each of the carvings was polished and oiled and incredibly detailed. And they all had something in common: they were studies of Amanda.

Most were of her when she was younger, but they were unmistakably her. Amanda standing, Amanda reclining, Amanda dancing, as if Effrom were trying to preserve her. She felt a scream rising in her chest and tears filling her eyes. She turned away from the carvings and left the workshop. “Effrom! Where are you, you old fart?”

She went from room to room, looking in every corner and closet; no Effrom. Effrom didn’t go for walks. And even if he’d had a car, he didn’t drive anymore. If he had gone somewhere with a friend, he would have left a note. Besides, all his friends were dead: the Pine Cove Poker Club had lost its members, one by one, until solitaire was the only game in town.

She went to the kitchen and stood by the phone. Call who? The police? The hospital? What would they say when she told them she had been home almost five minutes and couldn’t find her husband? They would tell her to wait. They wouldn’t understand that Effrom had to be here. He couldn’t be anywhere else.

She would call her granddaughter. Jenny would know what to do. She would understand.

Amanda took a deep breath and dialed the number. A machine answered the phone. She stood there waiting for the beep. When it came, she tried to keep her voice controlled, “Jenny, honey, this is Grandma, call me. I can’t find your grandfather.” Then she hung up and began sobbing.

The phone rang and Amanda jumped back. She picked it up before the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Oh, good, you’re home.” It was a woman’s voice. “Mrs. Elliot, you’ve probably seen the bullet hole in your bedroom door. Don’t be frightened. If you listen carefully and follow my instructions, everything will be fine.”

26 TRAVIS’S STORY

Augustus Brine sat in one of the big leather chairs in front of his fireplace, drinking red wine from a balloon goblet and puffing away on his meerschaum. He had promised himself that he would have only one glass of wine, just to take the edge off the adrenaline and caffeine jangle he had worked himself into during the kidnapping. Now he was on his third glass and the wine had infused him with a warm, oozy feeling; he let his mind drift in a dreamy vertigo before attacking the task at hand: interrogating the demonkeeper.

The fellow looked harmless enough, propped up and tied to the other wing chair. But if Gian Hen Gian was to be believed, this dark young man was the most dangerous human on Earth.

Brine considered washing up before waking the demonkeeper. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror — his beard and clothing covered with flour and soot, his skin caked with sweat-streaked goo — and decided that he would make a more intimidating impression in his current condition. He had found the smelling salts in the medicine cabinet and sent Gian Hen Gian to the bathroom to bathe while he rested. Actually he wanted the Djinn out of the room while he questioned the demonkeeper. The Djinn’s curses and ravings would only complicate an already difficult task.

Brine set his wineglass and his pipe on the end table and picked up a cotton-wrapped smelling-salt capsule. He leaned over to the demonkeeper and snapped the capsule under his nose. For a moment nothing happened, and Brine feared that he had hit him too hard, then the demonkeeper started coughing, looked at Brine, and screamed.

“Calm down — you’re all right,” Brine said.

“Catch, help me!” The demonkeeper struggled against his bonds. Brine picked up his pipe and lit it, affecting a bored nonchalance. After a moment the demonkeeper settled down.

Brine blew a thin stream of smoke into the air between them. “Catch isn’t here. You’re on your own.”

Travis seemed to forget that he had been beaten, kidnapped, and tied up. His concentration was focused on Brine’s last statement. “What do you mean, Catch isn’t here? You know about Catch?”

Brine considered giving him the I’m-asking-the-questions-here line that he had heard so many times in detective movies, but upon reflection, it seemed silly. He wasn’t a hardass; why play the role? “Yes, I know about the demon. I know that he eats people, and I know you are his master.”

“How do you know all that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brine said. “I also know that you’ve lost control of Catch.”

“I have?” Travis seemed genuinely shaken by this. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you can’t keep me here. If Catch is out of control again, I’m the only one that can stop him. I’m really close to ending all this; you can’t stop me now.”

“Why should you care?”

“What do you mean, why should I care? You might know about Catch, but you can’t imagine what he’s like when he’s out of control.”

“What I mean,” Brine said, “is why should you care about the damage he causes? You called him up, didn’t you? You send him out to kill, don’t you?”

Travis shook his head violently. “You don’t understand. I’m not what you think. I never wanted this, and now I have a chance to stop it. Let me go. I can end it.”

“Why should I trust you? You’re a murderer.”

“No. Catch is.”

“What’s the difference? If I do let you go, it will be because you will have told me what I want to know, and how I can use that information. Now I’ll listen and you’ll talk.”

“I can’t tell you anything. And you don’t want to know anyway, I promise you.”

“I want to know where the Seal of Solomon is. And I want to know the incantation that sends Catch back. Until I know, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Seal of Solomon? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look — what is your name, anyway?”

“Travis.”

“Look, Travis,” Brine said, “my associate wants to use torture. I don’t like the idea, but if you jerk me around, torture might be the only way to go.”

“Don’t you have to have two guys to play good cop, bad cop?”

“My associate is taking a bath. I wanted to see if I could reason with you before I let him near you. I really don’t know what he’s capable of… I’m not even sure what he is. So if we could get on with this, it would be better for the both of us.”

“Where’s Jenny?” Travis asked.

“She’s fine. She’s at work.”

“You won’t hurt her?”

“I’m not some kind of terrorist, Travis. I didn’t ask to be involved in this, but I am. I don’t want to hurt you, and I would never hurt Jenny. She’s a friend of mine.”

“So if I tell you what I know, you’ll let me go?”

“That’s the deal. But I’ll have to make sure that what you tell me is true.” Brine relaxed. This young man didn’t seem to have any of the qualities of a mass murderer. If anything, he seemed a little naive.

“Okay, I’ll tell you everything I know about Catch and the incantations, but I swear to you, I don’t know anything about any Seal of Solomon. It’s a pretty strange story.”

“I guessed that,” Brine said. “Shoot.” He poured himself a glass of wine, relit his pipe, and sat back, propping his feet up on the hearth.

“Like I said, it’s a pretty strange story.”

“Strange is my middle name,” Brine said.

“That must have been difficult for you as a child,” Travis said.

“Would you get on with it.”

“You asked for it.” Travis took a deep breath. “I was born in Clarion, Pennsylvania, in the year nineteen hundred.”

“Bullshit,” Brine interrupted. “You’re not a day over twenty-five.”

“This is going to take a lot more time if I have to keep stopping. Just listen — it’ll all fall into place.”

Brine grumbled and nodded for Travis to continue.

“I was born on a farm. My parents were Irish immigrants, black Irish. I was the oldest of six children, two boys and four girls. My parents were staunch Catholics. My mother wanted me to be a priest. She pushed me to study so I could get into seminary. She was working on the local diocese to recommend me while I was still in the womb. When World War I broke out, she begged the bishop to get me into seminary early. Everybody knew it was just a matter of time before America entered the war. My mother wanted me in seminary before the Army could draft me. Boys from secular colleges were already in Europe, driving ambulances, and some of them had been killed. My mother wasn’t going to lose her chance to have a son become a priest to something as insignificant as a world war. You see, my little brother was a bit slow — mentally, I mean. I was my mother’s only chance.”

“So you went to seminary,” Brine interjected. He was becoming impatient with the progress of the story.

“I went in at sixteen, which made me at least four years younger than the other boys. My mother packed me some sandwiches, and I packed myself into a threadbare black suit that was three sizes too small for me and I was on the train to Illinois.

“You have to understand, I didn’t want any part of this stuff with the demon; I really wanted to be a priest. Of all the people I had known as a child, the priest seemed like the only one who had any control over things. The crops could fail, banks could close, people could get sick and die, but the priest and the church were always there, calm and steadfast. And all that mysticism was pretty nifty, too.”

“What about women?” Brine asked. He had resolved himself to hearing an epic, and it seemed as if Travis needed to tell it. Brine found he liked the strange young man, in spite of himself.

“You don’t miss what you’ve never known. I mean I had these urges, but they were sinful, right? I just had to say, ‘Get thee behind me Satan’, and get on with it.”

“That’s the most incredible thing you’ve told me so far,” Brine said. “When I was sixteen, sex seemed like the only reason to go on living.”

“That’s what they thought at seminary, too. Because I was younger than the others, the prefect of discipline, Father Jasper, took me on as his special project. To keep me from impure thoughts, he made me work constantly. In the evenings, when the others were given time for prayer and meditation, I was sent to the chapel to polish the silver. While the others ate, I worked in the kitchen, serving and washing dishes. For two years the only rest I had from dawn until midnight was during classes and mass. When I fell behind in my studies, Father Jasper rode me even harder.

“The Vatican had given the seminary a set of silver candlesticks for the altar. Supposedly they had been commissioned by one of the early popes and were over six hundred years old. The candlesticks were the most prized possession of the seminary and it was my job to polish them. Father Jasper stood over me, evening after evening, chiding me and berating me for being impure in thought. I polished the silver until my hands were black from the compound, and still Father Jasper found fault with me. If I had impure thoughts it was because he kept reminding me to have them.

“I had no friends in seminary. Father Jasper had put his mark on me, and the other students shunned me for fear of invoking the prefect of discipline’s wrath. I wrote home when I had a chance, but for some reason my letters were never answered. I began to suspect that Father Jasper was keeping my letters from getting to me.

“One evening, while I was polishing the silver on the altar, Father Jasper came to the chapel and started to lecture me on my evil nature.

“‘You are impure in thought and deed, yet you do not confess,’ he said. ‘You are evil, Travis, and it is my duty to drive that evil out!’

“I couldn’t take it any longer. ‘Where are my letters?’ I blurted out. ‘You are keeping me from my family.’

“Father Jasper was furious. ‘Yes, I keep your letters. You are spawned from a womb of evil. How else could you have come here so young. I waited for eight years to come to Saint Anthony’s — waited in the cold of the world while others were taken into the warm bosom of Christ.’

“At last I knew why I had been singled out for punishment. It had nothing to do with my spiritual impurity. It was jealousy. I said, ‘And you, Father Jasper, have you confessed your jealousy and your pride? Have you confessed your cruelty?’

“‘Cruel, am I?’ he said. He laughed at me, and for the first time I was really afraid of him. ‘There is no cruelty in the bosom of Christ, only tests of faith. Your faith is wanting, Travis. I will show you.’

“He told me to lie with arms outstretched on the steps before the altar and pray for strength. He left the chapel for a moment, and when he returned I could hear something whistling through the air. I looked up and saw that he was carrying a thin whip cut from a willow branch.

“‘Have you no humility, Travis? Bow your head before our Lord.’

“I could hear him moving behind me, but I could not see him. Why I didn’t leave right then I don’t know. Perhaps I believed that Father Jasper was actually testing my faith, that he was the cross I had to bear.

“He tore my robe up the back, exposing my bare back and legs. ‘You will not cry out, Travis. After each blow a Hail Mary. Now,’ he said. Then I felt the whip across my back and I thought I would scream, but instead I said a Hail Mary. He threw a rosary in front of me and told me to take it. I held it behind my head, feeling the pain come with every bead.

“‘You are a coward, Travis. You don’t deserve to serve our Lord. You are here to avoid the war, aren’t you, Travis?’

“I didn’t answer him and the whip fell again.

“After a while I heard him laughing with each stroke of the whip. I did not look back for fear he might strike me across the eyes. Before I had finished the rosary, I heard him gasp and drop to the floor behind me. I thought — no, I hoped — he had had a heart attack. But when I looked back he was kneeling behind me, gasping for air, exhausted, but smiling.

“‘Face down, sinner!’ he screamed. He drew back the whip as if he were going to strike me in the face and I covered my head.

“‘You will tell no one of this,’ he said. His voice was low and calm. For some reason that scared me more than his anger. ‘You are to stay the night here, polish the silver, and pray for forgiveness. I will return in the morning with a new robe for you. If you speak of this to anyone, I will see that you are expelled from Saint Anthony’s and, if I can manage it, excommunicated.’

“I hadn’t ever heard excommunication used as a threat. It was something we studied in class. The popes had used it as an instrument of political control, but the reality of being excluded from salvation by someone else had never really occurred to me. I didn’t believe that Father Jasper could really excommunicate me, but I wasn’t going to test it.

“While Father Jasper watched, I began to polish the candlesticks, rubbing furiously to take my mind off the pain in my back and legs, and to try to forget that he was watching. Finally, he left the chapel. When I heard the door close, I threw the candlestick I was holding at the door.

“Father Jasper had tested my faith, and I had failed. I cursed the Trinity, the Virgin, and all the saints I could remember. Eventually my anger subsided and I feared Father Jasper would return and see what I had done.

“I retrieved the candlestick and inspected it to see if I had done any damage. Father Jasper would check them in the morning as he always did, and I would be lost.

“There was a deep scratch across the axis of the candlestick. I rubbed at it, harder and harder, but it only seemed to get worse. Soon I realized that it wasn’t a scratch at all but a seam that had been concealed by the silversmith. The priceless artifact from the Vatican was a sham. It was supposed to be solid silver, but here was evidence that it was hollow. I grabbed both ends of the candlestick and twisted. As I suspected, it unscrewed. There was a sort of triumph in it. I wanted to be holding the two pieces when Father Jasper returned. I wanted to wave them in his face. ‘Here’, I would say, ‘these are as hollow and false as you are. I would expose him, ruin him, and if I was expelled and damned, I didn’t care. But I never got the chance to confront him.

“When I pulled the two pieces apart, a tightly rolled piece of parchment fell out.”

“The invocation,” Brine interrupted.

“Yes, but I didn’t know what it was. I unrolled it and started to read. There was a passage at the top in Latin, which I didn’t have much trouble translating. It said something about calling down help from God to deal with enemies of the Church. It was signed by His Holiness, Pope Leo the Third.

“The second part was written in Greek. As I said, I had fallen behind in my studies, so the Greek was difficult. I started reading it aloud, working on each word as I went. By the time I was through the first passage, it had started to get cold in the chapel. I wasn’t sure what I was reading. Some of the words were mysteries to me. I just read over them, trying to glean what I could from the context. Then something seemed to take over my mind.

“I started reading the Greek as if it were my native language, pronouncing the words perfectly, without having the slightest idea of what they meant.

“A wind whipped up inside the chapel, blowing out all the candles. Except for a little moonlight coming through the windows, it was completely dark, but the words on the parchment began to glow and I kept reading. I was locked into the parchment as if I had grabbed an electric wire and couldn’t let go.

“When I read the last line, I found I was screaming the words. Lightning flashed down from the roof and struck the candlestick, which was lying on the floor in front of me. The wind stopped and smoke filled the chapel.

“Nothing prepares you for something like that. You can spend your life preparing to be the instrument of God. You can read accounts of possession and exorcism and try to imagine yourself in the situation, but when it actually happens, you just shut down. I did, anyway. I sat there trying to figure out what I had done, but my mind wouldn’t work.

“The smoke floated up into the rafters of the chapel and I could make out a huge figure standing at the altar. It was Catch, in his eating form.”

“What’s his eating form?” Brine asked.

“I assume from the deal with the flour that you know Catch is visible to others only when he is in his eating form. Most of the time I see him as a three-foot imp covered with scales. When he feeds or goes out of control, he’s a giant. I’ve seen him cut a man in half with one swipe of his claws. I don’t know why it works that way. I just know that when I saw him for the first time, I had never been so frightened.

“He looked around the chapel, then at me, then at the chapel. I was praying under my breath, begging God for protection.

“‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of everything.’ Then he went down the aisle and through the chapel doors, knocking them off their hinges. He turned and looked back at me. He said: ‘You have to open these things, right? I forgot — it’s been a while.’

“As soon as he was gone I picked up the candlesticks and ran. I got as far as the front gates before I realized that I was still wearing the torn robe.

“I wanted to get away, hide, forget what I had seen, but I had to go back and get my clothes. I ran back to my quarters. Since I was in my third year at seminary, I been given a small private room, so, thankfully, I didn’t have to go through the dormitory ward rooms where the newer students slept. The only clothes I had were the suit I had worn when I came and a pair of overalls I wore when I worked in the seminary fields. I tried to put on the suit, but the pants were just too tight, so I put the overalls on and wore the suit jacket over them to cover my shoulders. I wrapped the candlesticks in a blanket and headed for the gate.

“When I was just outside the gate, I heard a horrible scream from the rectory. There was no mistaking; it was Father Jasper.

“I ran the six miles into town without stopping. The sun was coming up as I reached the train station and a train was pulling away from the platform. I didn’t know where it was going, but I ran after it and managed to swing myself on board before I collapsed.

“I’d like to tell you I had some kind of plan, but I didn’t. My only thought was to get as far away from St. Anthony’s as I could. I don’t know why I took the candlesticks. I wasn’t interested in their value. I guess I didn’t want to leave any evidence of what I’d done. Or maybe it was the influence of the supernatural.

“Anyway, I caught my breath and went into the passenger car to find a seat. The train was nearly full, soldiers and a few civilians here and there. I staggered down the aisle and fell into the first empty seat I could find. It was next to a young woman who was reading a book.

“‘This seat is taken,’ she said.

“‘Please, just let me rest here for a minute,’ I begged. ‘I’ll get up when your companion returns.’

“She looked up from her book and I found myself staring into the biggest, bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I will never forget them. She was young, about my age, and wore her dark hair pinned up under a hat, which was the style in those days. She looked genuinely frightened of me. I guess I was wearing my own fright on my face.

“‘Are you all right? Shall I call the conductor?’ she asked.

“I thanked her but told her that I just needed to rest a moment. She was looking at the strange way I was dressed, trying to be polite, but obviously perplexed. I looked up and noticed that everyone in the car was staring at me. Could they know about what I’d done? I wondered. Then I realized why they were staring. There was a war on and I was obviously the right age for the Army, yet I was dressed in civilian clothes. ‘I’m a seminary student,’ I blurted out to them, causing a breeze of incredulous whispers. The girl blushed.

“‘I’m sorry,’ I said to her. ‘I’ll move on.’ I started to rise, but she put her hand on my shoulder to push me back into my seat and I winced when she touched my injured shoulder.

“‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m traveling alone. I’ve just been saving this seat to ward off the soldiers. You know how they can be sometimes, Father.’

“‘I’m not a priest yet,’ I said.

“‘I don’t know what to call you, then,’ she said.

“‘Call me Travis,’ I said.

“‘I’m Amanda,’ she said. She smiled, and for a moment I completely forgot why I was running. She was an attractive girl, but when she smiled, she was absolutely stunning. It was my turn to blush.

“‘I’m going to New York to stay with my fiancé’s family. He’s in Europe,’ she said.

“‘So this train is going east?’ I asked.

“She was surprised. ‘You don’t even know where the train is going?’ she asked.

“‘I’ve had a bad night,’ I said. Then I started to laugh — I don’t know why. It seemed so unreal. The idea of trying to explain it to her seemed silly.

“She looked away and started digging in her purse. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘You didn’t offend me. I need to have my ticket ready for the conductor.’

“I’d completely forgotten about not having a ticket. I looked up and saw the conductor coming down the aisle. I jumped up and a wave of fatigue hit me. I almost fell into her lap.

“‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

“‘Amanda,’ I said, ‘you have been very kind, but I should find another seat and let you travel in peace.’

“‘You don’t have a ticket, do you?’ she said.

“I shook my head. ‘I’ve been in seminary. I’d forgotten. We don’t have any need for money there and…’

“‘I have some traveling money,’ she said.

“‘I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ I said. Then I remembered the candlesticks. ‘Look, you can have these. They’re worth a lot of money. Hold them and I’ll send you the money for the ticket when I get home,’ I said.

“I unrolled the blanket and dropped the candlesticks in her lap.

“‘That’s not necessary,’ she said. “I’ll loan you the money.’

“‘No, I insist you take them,’ I said, trying to be gallant. I must have looked ridiculous standing there in my overalls and tattered suit jacket.

“‘If you insist,’ she said. ‘I understand. My fiancé is a proud man, too.’

“She gave me the money I needed and I bought a ticket all the way to Clarion, which was only about ten miles from my parent’s farm.

“The train broke down somewhere in Indiana and we were forced to wait in the station while they changed engines. It was midsummer and terribly hot. Without thinking, I took off my jacket and Amanda gasped when she saw my back. She insisted that I see a doctor, but I refused, knowing that I would only have to borrow more money from her to pay for it. We sat on a bench in the station while she cleaned my back with damp napkins from the dining car.

“In those days the sight of a woman bathing a half-naked man in a train station would have been scandalous, but most of the passengers were soldiers and were much more concerned with being AWOL or with their ultimate destination, Europe, so we were ignored for the most part.

“Amanda disappeared for a while and returned just before our train was ready to leave. ‘I’ve reserved a berth in the sleeping car for us,’ she said.

“I was shocked. I started to protest, but she stopped me. She said, ‘You are going to sleep and I am going to watch over you. You are a priest and I’m engaged, so there is nothing wrong with it. Besides, you are in no shape to spend the night sitting up in a train.’

“I think it was then that I realized that I was in love with her. Not that it mattered. It was just that after living so long with Father Jasper’s abuse I wasn’t prepared for the kindness she was showing me. It never occurred to me that I might be putting her in danger.

“As we pulled away from the station, I looked out on the platform, and for the first time I saw Catch in his smaller form. Why it happened then and not before I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t have any strength left, but when I saw him there on the platform, flashing a big razor-toothed grin, I fainted.

“When I came to, I felt like my back was on fire. I was lying in the sleeping berth and Amanda was bathing my back with alcohol.

“‘I told them you’d been wounded in France,’ she said. “The porter helped me get you in here. I think it’s about time you told me who did this to you.’

“I told her what Father Jasper had done, leaving out the parts about the demon. I was in tears when I finished, and she was holding me, rocking me back and forth.

“I’m not sure how it happened — the passion of the moment and all that, I guess — but the next thing I knew, we were kissing, and I was undressing her. Just as we were about to make love she stopped me.

“‘I have to take this off,’ she said. She was wearing a wooden bracelet with the initials E + A burnt into it. ‘We don’t have to do this,’ I said.

“Have you, Mr. Brine, ever said something that you know you will always regret? I have. It was: ‘We don’t have to do this.’

“She said: ‘Oh, then let’s not.’

“She fell asleep holding me while I lay awake, thinking about sex and damnation, which really wasn’t any different from what I’d thought about each night in the seminary — a little more immediate, I guess.

“I was just dozing off when I heard a commotion coming from the opposite end of our sleeping car. I peeked through the curtains of the berth to see what was happening. Catch was coming down the aisle, looking into berths as he went. I didn’t know at the time that Catch was invisible to other people, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t screaming at the sight of him. People were shouting and looking out of their berths, but all they were seeing was empty air.

“I grabbed my overalls and jumped into the aisle, leaving my jacket and the candlesticks in the berth with Amanda. I didn’t even thank her. I ran down the aisle toward the back of the car, away from Catch. As I ran, I could hear him yelling, ‘Why are you running? Don’t you know the rules?’

“I went through the door between the cars and slid it shut behind me. By now people were screaming, not out of fear of Catch, but because a naked man was running through the sleeping car.

“I looked into the next car and saw the conductor coming down the aisle toward me. Catch was almost to the door behind me. Without thinking, or even looking, I opened the door to the outside and leapt off the train, naked, my overalls still in hand.

“The train was on a trestle at the time and it was a long drop to the ground, fifty or sixty feet. By all rights I should have been killed. When I hit, the wind was knocked out of me and I remember thinking that my back was broken, but in seconds I was up and running through a wooden valley. I didn’t realize until later that I had been protected by my pact with the demon, even through he was not under my control at the time. I don’t really know the extent of his protection, but I’ve been in a hundred accidents since then that should have killed me and come out without a scratch.

“I ran through the woods until I came to a dirt road. I had no idea where I was. I just walked until I couldn’t walk anymore and then sat down at the side of the road. Just after sunup a rickety wagon pulled up beside me and the farmer asked me if I was all right. In those days it wasn’t uncommon to see a barefoot kid in overalls by the side of the road.

“The farmer informed me that I was only about twenty miles from home. I told him that I was a student on holiday, trying to hitchhike home, and he offered to drive me. I fell asleep in the wagon. When the farmer woke me, we were stopped at the gate of my parents’ farm. I thanked him and walked up the road toward the house.

“I guess I should have known right away that something was wrong. At that time of the morning everyone should have been out working, but the barnyard was deserted except for a few chickens. I could hear the two dairy cows mooing in the barn when they should have already been milked and put out to pasture.

“I had no idea what I would tell my parents. I hadn’t thought about what I would do when I got home, only that I wanted to get there.

“I ran in the back door expecting to find my mother in the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. My family rarely left the farm, and they certainly wouldn’t have gone anywhere without taking care of the animals first. My first thought was that there had been an accident. Perhaps my father had fallen from the tractor and they had taken him to the hospital in Clarion. I ran to the front of the house. My father’s wagon was tied up out front.

“I bolted through the house, shouting into every room, but there was no one home. I found myself standing on the front porch, wondering what to do next, when I heard his voice from behind me.

“‘You can’t run from me,’ Catch said.

“I turned. He was sitting on the porch swing, dangling his feet in the air. I was afraid, but I was also angry.

“‘Where is my family?!’ I screamed.

“He patted his stomach. ‘Gone,’ he said.

“‘What have you done with them?’ I said.

“‘They’re gone forever,’ he said. ‘I ate them.’

“I was enraged. I grabbed the porch swing and pushed it with everything I had. The swing banged against the porch rail and Catch went over the edge into the dirt.

“My father kept a chopping block and an ax in front of the house for splitting kindling. I jumped off the porch and snatched up the ax. Catch was just picking himself up when I him in the forehead with it. Sparks flew and the ax blade bounced off his head as if it had hit cast iron. Before I knew it I was on my back and Catch was sitting on my chest grinning like the demon in that Fuselli painting, The Nightmare. He didn’t seem at all angry. I flailed under him but could not get up.

“‘Look,’ he said, ‘this is silly. You called me up to do a job and I did it, so what’s all the commotion about? By the way, you would have loved it. I clipped the priest’s hamstrings and watched him crawl around begging for a while. I really like eating priests, they’re always convinced that the Creator is testing them.’

“‘You killed my family!’ I said. I was still trying to free myself.

“‘Well, that sort of thing happens when you run away. It’s all your fault; if you didn’t want the responsibility, you shouldn’t have called me up. You knew what you were getting into when you renounced the Creator.’

“‘But I didn’t,’ I protested. Then I remembered my curses in the chapel. I had renounced God. ‘I didn’t know,’ I said.

“‘Well, if you’re going to be a weenie about it, I’ll fill you in on the rules,’ he said. ‘First, you can’t run away from me. You called me up and I am more or less your servant forever. When I say forever, I mean forever. You are not going to age, and you are not going to be sick. The second thing you need to know is that I am immortal. You whack me with axes all you want and all you’ll get is a dull ax and a sore back, so just save your energy. Third, I am Catch. They call me the destroyer, and that’s what I do. With my help you can rule the world and other really swell stuff. In the past my masters haven’t used me to the best advantage, but you might be the exception, although I doubt it. Fourth, when I’m in this form, you are the only one who can see me. When I take on my destroyer form, I am visible to everyone. It’s stupid, and why it’s that way is a long story, but that’s the way it is. In the past they decided to keep me a secret, but there’s no rule about it.’

“He paused and climbed off my chest. I got to my feet and dusted myself off. My head was spinning with what Catch had told me. I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth, but I had nothing else to go on. When you encounter the supernatural, your mind searches for an explanation. I’d had the explanation laid in my lap, but I didn’t want to believe it.

“I said, ‘So you’re from hell?’ I know it was a stupid question, but even a seminary education doesn’t prepare you for a conversation with a demon.

“‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m from Paradise.’

“‘You’re lying,’ I said. It was the beginning of a string of lies and misdirections that have gone on for seventy years.

“He said, ‘No, really, I’m from Paradise. It’s a little town about thirty miles outside of Newark.’ Then he started laughing and rolling around in the dirt holding his sides.

“‘How can I get rid of you?’ I asked.

“‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’ve told you everything that I have to.’

“At the time I didn’t know how dangerous Catch was. Somehow I realized that I was in no immediate danger, so I tried to come up with some sort of plan to get rid of him. I didn’t want to stay there at the farm, and I didn’t have anywhere I could go.

“My first instinct was to turn to the Church. If I could get to a priest, perhaps I could have the demon exorcised.

“I led Catch into town, where I asked the local priest to perform an exorcism. Before I could convince him of Catch’s existence, the demon became visible and ate the priest, piece by piece, before my eyes. I realized then that Catch’s power was beyond the comprehension of any normal priest, perhaps the entire Church.

“Christians are supposed to believe in evil as an active force. If you deny evil, you deny good and therefore God. But belief in evil is as much an act of faith as belief in God, and here I was faced with evil as a reality, not an abstraction. My faith was gone. It was no longer required. There was indeed evil in the world and that evil was me. It was my responsibility, I reasoned, to not let that evil become manifest to other people and thereby steal their faith. I had to keep Catch’s existence a secret. I might not be able to stop him from taking lives, but I could keep him from taking souls.

“I decided to remove him to a safe place where there were no people for him to feed on. We hopped a freight and rode it to Colorado, where I led Catch high into the mountains. There I found a remote cabin where I thought he would be without victims. Weeks passed and I found that I had some control over the demon. I could make him fetch water and wood sometimes, but other times he defied me. I’ve never understood the inconsistency of his obedience.

“Once I had accepted the fact that I couldn’t run away from Catch, I questioned him constantly, looking for some clue that might send him back to hell. He was vague, to say the least, giving me little to go on except that he had been on Earth before and that someone had sent him back.

“After we had been in the mountains for two months, a search party came to the cabin. It seemed that hunters in the area of the cabin, as well as people in villages as far as twenty miles away, had been disappearing. When I was asleep at night, Catch had been ranging for victims. It was obvious that isolation wasn’t going to keep the demon from killing. I sent the search party away and set myself on coming up with some kind of plan. I knew we would have to move or people would discover that Catch existed.

“I knew there had to be some sort of logic to his presence on Earth. Then, while we were hiking out of the mountains, it occurred to me that the key to sending Catch back must have been concealed in another candlestick. And I had left them on the train with the girl. Jumping off the train to escape Catch may have cost me the only chance I had to get rid of him. I searched my memory for anything that could lead me to the girl. I had never asked where she was going or what her last name was. In trying to recall details of my time with her I kept coming up with the image of those striking blue eyes. They seemed etched into my memory while everything else faded. Could I go around the eastern United States asking anyone if they had seen a young girl with beautiful blue eyes?

“Something nagged at me. There was something that could lead me to the girl; I just had to remember it. Then it hit me — the wooden bracelet she wore. The initials carved inside the heart were E + A. How hard could it be to search service records for a soldier with the first initial E? His service records would have his next of kin, and she was staying with his family. I had a plan.

“I took Catch back East and began checking local draft boards. I told them I had been in Europe and a man whose first name began with E had saved my life and I wanted to find him. They always asked about divisions and stations and where the battle had taken place. I told them I had taken a shell fragment in the head and could remember nothing but the man’s first initial. No one believed me, of course, but they gave me what I asked for — out of pity, I think.

“Meanwhile, Catch kept taking his victims. I tried to point him toward thieves and grifters when I could, reasoning that if he must kill, at least I could protect the innocent.

“I haunted libraries, looking for the oldest books on magic and demonology I could find. Perhaps somewhere I could find an incantation to send the demon back. I performed hundreds of rituals — drawing pentagrams, collecting bizarre talismans, and putting myself through all sorts of physical rigors and diets that were supposed to purify the sorcerer so the magic would work. After repeated failures, I realized that the volumes of magic were nothing more than the work of medieval snake-oil salesmen. They always added the purity of the sorcerer as a condition so they would have an excuse for their customers when the magic did not work.

“During this same time I was still looking for a priest who would perform an exorcism. In Baltimore I finally found one who believed my story. He agreed to perform an exorcism. For his protection, we arranged to have him stand on a balcony while Catch and I remained in the street below. Catch laughed himself silly through the entire ritual, and when it was over, he broke into the building and ate the priest. I knew then that finding the girl was my only hope.

“Catch and I kept moving, never staying in one place longer than two or three days. Fortunately there were no computers in those days that might have tracked the disappearances of Catch’s victims. In each town I collected a list of veterans, then ran leads to the ground by knocking on doors and questioning the families. I’ve been doing that for over seventy years. Yesterday I think I found the man I was looking for. As it turned out, E was his middle initial. His name is J. Effrom Elliot. I thought my luck had finally turned. I mean the fact that the man is still alive is pretty lucky in itself. I thought that I might have to trace the candlesticks through surviving relatives, hoping that someone remembered them, perhaps had kept them as an heirloom.

“I thought it was all over, but now Catch is out of control and you are keeping me from stopping him forever.”

27 AUGUSTUS

Augustus Brine lit his pipe and played back the details of Travis’s story in his mind. He had finished the bottle of wine, but if anything, it had brought clarity to his thoughts by washing away the adrenaline from the morning’s adventure.

“There was a time, Travis, that if someone had told me a story like that, I would have called the mental-health people to come and pick him up, but in the last twenty-four hours reality has been riding the dragon’s back, and I’m just trying to hang on myself.”

“Meaning what?” Travis asked.

“Meaning I believe you.” Brine rose from the chair and began untying the ropes that bound Travis.

There was a scuffling behind them and Brine turned to see Gian Hen Gian coming through the living room wearing a flowered towel around his waist and another around his head. Brine thought he looked like a prune in a Carmen Miranda costume.

“I am refreshed and ready for the torture, Augustus Brine.” The Djinn stopped when he saw Brine untying the demonkeeper. “So, will we hang the beast from a tall building by his heels until he talks?”

“Lighten up, King,” Brine said.

Travis flexed his arms to get the blood flowing. “Who is that?” he asked.

“That,” Brine said, “is Gian Hen Gian, king of the Djinn.”

“As in genie?”

“Correct,” Brine said.

“I don’t believe it.”

“You are not in a position to be incredulous toward the existence of supernatural beings, Travis. Besides, the Djinn was the one who told me how to find you. He knew Catch twenty-five centuries before you were born.”

Gian Hen Gian stepped forward and shook a knotted brown finger in Travis’s face. “Tell us where the Seal of Solomon is hidden or we will have your genitals in a nine-speed reverse action blender with a five-year guarantee before you can say shazam!”

Brine raised an eyebrow toward the Djinn. “You found the Sears catalog in the bathroom.”

The Djinn nodded. “It is filled with many fine instruments of torture.”

“There won’t be any need for that. Travis is trying to find the seal so he can send the demon back.”

“I told you,” Travis said, “I’ve never seen the Seal of Solomon. It’s a myth. I read about it a hundred times in books of magic, but it was always described differently. I think they made it up in the Middle Ages to sell books of magic.”

The Djinn hissed at Travis and there was a wisp of blue damask in the air. “You lie! You could not call up Catch without the seal.”

Brine raised a hand to the Djinn to quiet him. “Travis found the invocation for calling up the demon in a candlestick. He never saw the seal, but I believe it was concealed in the candlestick where he could not see it. Gian Hen Gian, have you ever seen the Seal of Solomon? Would it be possible to conceal it in a candlestick?”

“It was a silver scepter in Solomon’s time,” the Djinn said. “I suppose it could have been made into a candlestick.”

“Well, Travis thinks that the invocation for sending the demon back is concealed in the candlestick he didn’t open. I’d guess that anyone who had that knowledge and the Seal of Solomon would also have an invocation for giving you your power. In fact, I’d bet my life on it.”

“It is possible, but it is also possible that the dark one is misdirecting you.”

“I don’t think so,” Brine said. “I don’t think he wanted to be involved in this any more than I did. In seventy years he’s never figured out that it’s his will that controls Catch.”

“The dark one is retarded, then!”

“Hey!” Travis said.

“Enough!” Brine said. “We have things to do. Gian Hen Gian, go get dressed.”

The Djinn left the room without protest and Brine turned again to Travis. “I think you found the woman you’ve been looking for,” he said. “Amanda and Effrom Elliot were married right after he returned from World War One. They get their picture in the local paper every year on their anniversary — you know, under a caption that reads, ‘And they said it wouldn’t last.’ As soon as the king is ready we’ll go over there and see if we can get the candlesticks — if she still has them. I need your word that I can trust you not to try to escape.”

“You have it,” Travis said. “But I think we should go back to Jenny’s house — be ready when Catch returns.”

Brine said, “I want you to try to put Jenny out of your mind, Travis. That’s the only way you’ll regain control of the demon. But first, there’s something you ought to know about her.”

“I know — she’s married.”

“No. She’s Amanda’s granddaughter.”

28 EFFROM

Never having died before, Effrom was confused about how he should go about it. It didn’t seem fair that a man his age should have to adapt to new and difficult situations. But life was seldom fair, and it was probably safe to assume that death wasn’t fair either. This wasn’t the first time he had been tempted to firmly demand to speak to the person in charge. It had never worked at the post office, the DMV, or return counters at department stores. Perhaps it would work here.

But where was here?

He heard voices; that was a good sign. It didn’t seem uncomfortably warm — a good sign. He sniffed the air — no sulfur fumes (brimstone, the Bible called it); that was a good sign. Perhaps he had done all right. He did a quick inventory of his life: good father, good husband, responsible if not dedicated worker. Okay, so he cheated at cards at the VFW, but eternity seemed like an awfully long sentence for shuffling aces to the bottom of the deck.

He opened his eyes.

He had always imagined heaven to be bigger and brighter. This looked like the inside of a cabin. Then he spotted the woman. She was dressed in an iridescent purple body stocking. Her raven-black hair hung to her waist. Heaven? Effrom thought.

She was talking on the phone. They have phones in heaven? Why not?

He tried to sit up and found that he was tied to the bed. Why was that? Hell?

“Well, which is it?” he demanded.

The woman covered the receiver with her hand and turned to him. “Say something so your wife will know you’re okay,” she said.

“I’m not okay. I’m dead and I don’t know where I am.”

The woman spoke into the phone, “You see, Mrs. Elliot, your husband is safe and will remain so as long as you do exactly as I have instructed.”

The woman covered the mouthpiece again. “She says she doesn’t know about any invocation.”

Effrom heard a gravely male voice answer her, but he couldn’t see anyone else in the cabin. “She’s lying,” the voice said.

“I don’t think so — she’s crying.”

“Ask her about Travis,” the voice said.

Into the phone the woman said: “Mrs. Elliot, do you know someone named Travis?” She listened for a second and held the receiver to her breast. “She says no.”

“It might have been a long time ago,” the voice said. Effrom kept looking for who was talking but could see no one.

“Think,” the woman said into the phone, “it might have been a long time ago.”

The woman listened and nodded with a smile. Effrom looked in the direction of her nod. Who the hell was she nodding to?

“Did he give you anything?” The woman listened. “Candlesticks?”

“Bingo!” the voice said.

“Yes,” said the woman. “Bring the candlesticks here and your husband will be released unharmed. Tell no one, Mrs. Elliot. Fifteen minutes.”

“Or he dies,” the voice said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Elliot,” the woman said. She hung up.

To Effrom she said, “Your wife is on the way to pick you up.”

“Who else is in this room?” Effrom asked. “Who have you been talking to?”

“You met him earlier today,” the woman said.

“The alien? I thought he killed me.”

“Not yet,” the voice said.

“Is she coming?” Catch asked.

Rachel was looking out the cabin window at a cloud of dust rising from the dirt road. “I can’t tell,” she said. “Mr. Elliot, what kind of car does your wife drive?”

“A white Ford,” Effrom said.

“It’s her.” Rachel felt a shiver of excitement run through her. Her sense of wonder had been stretched and tested many times in the last twenty-four hours, leaving her open and raw to every emotion. She was afraid of the power she was about to gain, but at the same time, the myriad possibilities that power created diluted her fear with a breathless giddiness. She felt guilty about abusing the old couple in order to gain the invocation, but perhaps with her newfound power she could repay them. In any case, it would be over soon and they would be going home.

The actual nature of the Earth spirit bothered her as well. Why did it seem… well… so impious? And why did it seem so male?

The Ford pulled up in front of the cabin and stopped. Rachel watched a frail old woman get out of the car holding two ornate candlesticks. The woman clutched the candlesticks to her and stood by the car looking around, waiting. She was obviously terrified and Rachel, feeling a stab of guilt, looked away. “She’s here,” Rachel said.

Catch said, “Tell her to come in.”

Effrom looked up from the bed, but he could not rise enough to see out the window. “What are you going to do to the wife?” he demanded.

“Nothing at all,” Rachel said. “She has something I need. When I get it, you can both go home.”

Rachel went to the door and threw it open as if she were welcoming home a long-lost relative. Amanda stood by the car, thirty feet away. “Mrs. Elliot, you’ll need to bring the candlesticks in so we can inspect them.”

“No.” Amanda stood firm. “Not until I know that Effrom is safe.”

Rachel turned to Effrom. “Say something to your wife, Mr. Elliot.”

“Nope,” Effrom said. “I’m not speaking to her. This is all her fault.”

“Please cooperate, Mr. Elliot, so we can let you go home.” To Amanda, Rachel said, “He doesn’t want to talk, Mrs. Elliot. Why don’t you bring the candlesticks in? I assure you that neither one of you will be harmed.” Rachel couldn’t believe that she was saying these things. She felt as if she were reading the script from a bad gangster movie.

Amanda stood clutching the candlesticks, uncertain of what she should do. Rachel watched the old woman take a tentative step toward the cabin, then, suddenly, the candlesticks were ripped from her grasp and Amanda was thrown to the ground as if she’d been hit by a shotgun blast.

“No!” Rachel screamed.

The candlesticks seemed to float in the air as Catch carried them to her. She ignored them and ran to where Amanda lay on the ground. She cradled the old woman’s head in her arms. Amanda opened her eyes and Rachel breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Elliot? I’m so sorry.”

“Leave her,” Catch said. “I’ll take care of both of them in a second.”

Rachel turned toward Catch’s voice. The candlesticks were shaking in the air. She still found it unsettling to talk to a disembodied voice.

“I don’t want these people hurt, do you understand?”

“But now that we have the invocation, they are insignificant.” The candlesticks turned in the air as Catch examined them. “Come now, I think there’s a seam on one of these, but I can’t grip it. Come open it.”

“In a minute,” Rachel said. She helped Amanda get to her feet. “Let’s go in the house, Mrs. Elliot. It’s all over. You can go home as soon as you feel up to it.”

Rachel led Amanda through the front door, holding her by the shoulders. The old woman seemed dazed and listless. Rachel was afraid she would drop any second, but when Amanda saw Effrom tied to the bed, she shrugged off Rachel’s support and went to him.

“Effrom.” She sat on the bed and stroked his bald head.

“Well, wife,” Effrom said, “I hope you’re happy. You go gallivanting all over the state and you see what happens? I get kidnapped by invisible moon-men. I hope you had a good trip — I can’t even feel my hands anymore. Probably gangrene. They’ll probably have to cut them off.”

“I’m sorry, Effrom.” Amanda turned to Rachel. “Can I untie him, please?”

The pleading in her eyes almost broke Rachel’s heart. She had never felt so cruel. She nodded. “You can go now. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

“Open this,” Catch said. He was tapping a candlestick on Rachel’s shoulder.

While Amanda untied Effrom’s wrists and ankles and rubbed them to restore the circulation, Rachel examined one of the candlesticks. She gave it a quick twist and it unscrewed at the seam. From the weight of it, Rachel would have never guessed that it was hollow. As she unscrewed it, she noticed that the threads were gold. That accounted for the extra weight. Whoever had made the candlesticks had gone to great lengths to conceal the hollow interior.

The two pieces separated. A piece of parchment was tightly rolled inside. Rachel placed the base of the candlestick on the table, slid out the yellow tube of parchment, and slowly began to unroll it. The parchment crackled, and the edges flaked away as it unrolled. Rachel felt her pulse increase as the first few letters appeared. When half the page was revealed, her excitement was replaced with anxiety.

“We may be in trouble,” she said.

“Why?” Catch’s voice emanated from a spot only inches away from her face.

“I can’t read this; it’s in some foreign language — Greek, I think. Can you read Greek?”

“I can’t read at all,” Catch said. “Open the other candlestick. Maybe what we need is in there.

Rachel picked up the other candlestick and turned it in her hands. “There’s no seam on this one.”

“Look for one; it might be hidden,” the demon said.

Rachel went to the kitchen area of the cabin and got a knife from the silverware drawer to scrape away the silver. Amanda was helping Effrom get to his feet, urging him across the room.

Rachel found the seam and worked the knife into it. “I’ve got it.” She unscrewed the candlestick and pulled out a second parchment.

“Can you read this one?” Catch said.

“No. This one’s in Greek, too. We’ll have to get it translated. I don’t even know anyone who reads Greek.”

“Travis,” Catch said.

Amanda had Effrom almost to the door when she heard Travis’s name. “Is he still alive?” she asked.

“For a while,” Catch said.

“Who is this Travis?” Rachel asked. She was supposed to be the one in charge here, yet the old woman and the demon seemed to know more about what was going on than she did.

“They can’t go,” Catch said.

“Why? We have the invocation; we just need to get it translated. Let them go.”

“No,” Catch said. “If they warn Travis, he will find a way to protect the girl.”

“What girl?” Rachel felt as if she had walked into the middle of a plot-heavy mystery movie and no one was going to tell her what was happening.

“We have to get the girl and hold her hostage until Travis translates the invocation.”

“What girl?” Rachel repeated.

“A waitress at the cafe in town. Her name is Jenny.”

“Jenny Masterson? She’s a member of the coven. What does she have to do with this?”

“Travis loves her.”

“Who is Travis?”

There was a pause. Rachel, Amanda, and Effrom all stared at empty air waiting for the answer.

“He is my master,” Catch said.

“This is really weird,” Rachel said.

“You’re a little slow on the uptake, aren’t you, honey?” Effrom said.

29 RIVERA

Right in the middle of the interrogation Detective Sergeant Alphonse Rivera had a vision. He saw himself behind the counter at Seven-Eleven, bagging microwave burritos and pumping Slush-Puppies. It was obvious that the suspect, Robert Masterson, was telling the truth. What was worse was that he not only didn’t have any connection with the marijuana Rivera’s men had found in the trailer, but he didn’t have the slightest idea where The Breeze had gone.

The deputy district attorney, an officious little weasel who was only putting time in at the D.A.’s office until his fangs were sharp enough for private practice, had made the state’s position on the case clear and simple: “You’re fucked, Rivera. Cut him loose.”

Rivera was clinging to a single, micro-thin strand of hope: the second suitcase, the one that Masterson had made such a big deal about back at the trailer. It lay open on Rivera’s desk. A jumble of notebook paper, cocktail napkins, matchbook covers, old business cards, and candy wrappers stared out of the suitcase at him. On each one was written a name, an address, and a date. The dates were obviously bogus, as they went back to the 1920s. Rivera had riffled through the mess a dozen times without making any sort of connection.

Deputy Perez approached Rivera’s desk. He was doing his best to affect an attitude of sympathy, without much success. Everything he had said that morning had carried with it a sideways smirk. Twain had put it succinctly: “Never underestimate the number of people who would love to see you fail.”

“Find anything yet?” Perez asked. The smirk was there.

Rivera looked up from the papers, took out a cigarette, and lit it. A long stream of smoke came out with his sigh.

“I can’t see how any of this connects with The Breeze. The addresses are spread all over the country. The dates run too far back to be real.”

“Maybe it’s a list of connections The Breeze was planning to dump the pot on,” Perez suggested. “You know the Feds estimate that more than ten percent of the drugs in this country move through the postal system.”

“What about the dates?”

“Some kind of code, maybe. Did the handwriting check out?”

Rivera had sent Perez back to the trailer to find a sample of The Breeze’s handwriting. He had returned with a list of engine parts for a Ford truck.

“No match,” Rivera said.

“Maybe the list was written by his connection.”

Rivera blew a blast of smoke in Perez’s face. “Think about it, dipshit. I was his connection.”

“Well, someone blew your cover, and The Breeze ran.”

“Why didn’t he take the pot?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant. I’m just a uniformed deputy. This sounds like detective work to me.” Perez had stopped trying to hide his smirk. “I’d take it to the Spider if I were you.”

That made a consensus. Everyone who had seen or heard about the suitcase had suggested that Rivera take it to the Spider. He sat back in his chair and finished his cigarette, enjoying his last few moments of peace before the inevitable confrontation with the Spider. After a few long drags he stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray on his desk, gathered the papers into the suitcase, closed it, and started down the steps into the bowels of the station and the Spider’s lair.

Throughout his life Rivera had known half a dozen men nicknamed Spider. Most were tall men with angular features and the wiry agility that one associates with a wolf spider. Chief Technical Sergeant Irving Nailsworth was the exception.

Nailsworth stood five feet nine inches tall and weighed over three hundred pounds. When he sat before his consoles in the main computer room of the San Junipero Sheriff Department, he was locked into a matrix that extended not only throughout the county but to every state capital in the nation, as well as to the main computer banks at the FBI and the Justice Department in Washington. The matrix was the Spider’s web and he lorded over it like a fat black widow.

As Rivera opened the steel door that led into the computer room, he was hit with a blast of cold, dry air. Nailsworth insisted the computers functioned better in this environment, so the department had installed a special climate control and filtration system to accommodate him.

Rivera entered and, suppressing a shudder, closed the door behind him. The computer room was dark except for the soft green glow of a dozen computer screens. The Spider sat in the middle of a horseshoe of keyboards and screens, his huge buttocks spilling over the sides of a tiny typist’s chair. Beside him a steel typing table was covered with junk food in various stages of distress, mostly cupcakes covered with marshmallow and pink coconut. While Rivera watched, the Spider peeled the marshmallow cap off a cupcake and popped it in his mouth. He threw the chocolate-cake insides into a wastebasket atop a pile of crumpled tractor-feed paper.

Because of the sedentary nature of the Spider’s job, the department had excused him from the minimum physical fitness standards set for field officers. The department had also created the position of chief technical sergeant in order to feed the Spider’s ego and keep him happily clicking away at the keyboards. The Spider had never gone on patrol, never arrested a suspect, never even qualified on the shooting range, yet after only four years with the department, Nailsworth effectively held the same rank that Rivera had attained in fifteen years on the street. It was criminal.

The Spider looked up. His eyes were sunk so far into his fat face that Rivera could see only a beady green glow.

“You smell of smoke,” the Spider said. “You can’t smoke in here.”

“I’m not here to smoke, I need some help.”

The Spider checked the data spooling across his screens, then turned his full attention to Rivera. Bits of pink coconut phosphoresced on the front of his uniform.

“You’ve been working up in Pine Cove, haven’t you?”

“A narcotics sting.” Rivera held up the suitcase. “We found this. It’s full of names and addresses, but I can’t make any connections. I thought you might…”

“No problem,” the Spider said. “The Nailgun will find an opening where there was none.” The Spider had given himself the nickname “Nailgun.” No one called him the Spider to his face, and no one called him Nailgun unless they needed something.

“Yeah,” Rivera said, “I thought it needed some of the Nailgun’s wizardry.”

The Spider swept the junk food from the top of the typing table into the wastebasket and patted the top of the table. “Let’s see what you have.”

Rivera placed the suitcase on the table and opened it. The Spider immediately began to shuffle through the papers, picking up a piece here or there, reading it, and throwing it back into the pile.

“This is a mess.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“I’ll need to put this into the system to make any sense of it. I can’t use a scanner on handwritten material. You’ll have to read it to me while I input.”

The Spider turned to one of his keyboards and began typing. “Give me a second to set up a data base format.”

As far as Rivera was concerned, the Spider could be speaking Swahili. Despite himself, Rivera admired the man’s efficiency and expertise. His fat fingers were a blur on the keyboard.

After thirty seconds of furious typing the Spider paused. “Okay, read me the names, addresses, and dates, in that order.”

“So you need me to sort them out?”

“No. The machine will do that.”

Rivera began to read the names and addresses from each slip of paper, deliberately pausing so as not to get ahead of the Spider’s typing.

“Faster, Rivera. You won’t get ahead of me.”

Rivera read faster, throwing each paper on the floor as he finished with it.

“Faster,” the Spider demanded.

“I can’t go any faster. At this speed if I mispronounce a name, I could lose control and get a serious tongue injury.”

For the first time since Rivera had known him the Spider laughed.

“Take a break, Rivera. I get so used to working with machines that I forget people have limitations.”

“What’s going on here?” Rivera said. “Is the Nailgun losing his sarcastic edge?”

The Spider looked embarrassed. “No. I wanted to ask you about something.”

Rivera was shocked. The Spider was almost omniscient, or so he pretended. This was a day for firsts. “What do you need?” he said.

The Spider blushed. Rivera had never seen that much flaccid flesh change color. He imagined that it put an incredible strain on the Spider’s heart.

“You’ve been working in Pine Cove, right?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever run into a girl up there named Roxanne?”

Rivera thought for a moment, then said no.

“Are you sure?” The Spider’s voice had taken on a tone of desperation. “It’s probably a nickname. She works at the Rooms-R-Us Motel. I’ve run the name against Social Security records, credit reports, everything. I can’t seem to find her. There are over ten thousand women in California with the name Roxanne, but none of them check out.”

“Why don’t you just drive up to Pine Cove and meet her?”

The Spider’s color deepened. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not? What’s the deal with this woman, anyway? Does it have to do with a case?”

“No, it’s… it’s a personal thing. We’re in love.”

“But you’ve never met her?”

“Well, yes, sort of — we talk by modem every night. Last night she didn’t log on. I’m worried about her.”

“Nailsworth, are you telling me that you are having a love affair with a woman by computer?”

“It’s more than an affair.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well, if you could just check on her. See if she’s all right. But she can’t know I sent you. You mustn’t tell her I sent you.”

“Nailsworth, I’m an undercover cop. Being sneaky is what I do for a living.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“If you can find something in these names that will bail me out, I’ll do it.”

“Thanks, Rivera.”

“Let’s finish this.” Rivera picked up a matchbook and read the name and address. The Spider typed the information, but as Rivera began to read the next name, he heard the Spider pause on the keyboard.

“Is something wrong?” Rivera asked.

“Just one more thing,” Nailsworth said.

“What?”

“Could you find out if she’s modeming someone else?”

“Santa Maria, Nailsworth! You are a real person.”

Three hours later Rivera was sitting at his desk waiting for a call from the Spider. While he was in the computer room, someone had left a dog-eared paperback on his desk. Its title was You Can Have a Career in Private Investigation. Rivera suspected Perez. He had thrown the book in the wastebasket.

Now, with his only suspect back out on the street and nothing forthcoming from the Spider, Rivera considered fishing the book out of the trash.

The phone rang, and Rivera ripped it from its cradle.

“Rivera,” he said.

“Rivera, it’s the Nailgun.”

“Did you find something?” Rivera fumbled for a cigarette from the pack on his desk. He found it impossible to talk on the phone without smoking.

“I think I have a connection, but it doesn’t work out.”

“Don’t be cryptic, Nailsworth. I need something.”

“Well, first I ran the names through the Social Security computer. Most of them are deceased. Then I noticed that they were all vets.”

“Vietnam?”

“World War One.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. They were all World War One vets, and all of them had a first or middle initial E. I should have caught that before I even input it. I tried to run a correlation program on that and came up with nothing. Then I ran the addresses to see if there was a geographical connection.”

“Anything there?”

“No. For a minute I thought you’d found someone’s research project on World War One, but just to be sure, I ran the file through the new data bank set up by the Justice Department in Washington. They use it to find criminal patterns where there aren’t any. In effect it makes the random logical. They use it to track serial killers and psychopaths.”

“And you found nothing?”

“Not exactly. The files at the Justice Department only go back thirty years, so that eliminated about half of the names on your list. But the other ones rang the bell.”

“Nailsworth, please try to get to the point.”

“In each of the cities listed in your file there was at least one unexplained disappearance around the date listed — not the vets; other people. You can eliminate the large cities as coincidence, but hundreds of these disappearances were in small towns.”

“People disappear in small towns too. They run away to the city. They drown. You can’t call that a connection.”

“I thought you’d say that, so I ran a probability program to get the odds on all of this being coincidence.”

“So?” Rivera was getting tired of Nailsworth’s dramatics.

“So the odds of someone having a file of the dates and locations of unexplained disappearances over the last thirty years and it being a coincidence is ten to the power of fifty against.”

“Which means what?”

“Which means, about the same odds as you’d have of dragging the wreck of the Titanic out of a trout stream with a fly rod. Which means, Rivera, you have a serious problem.”

“Are you telling me that this suitcase belongs to a serial killer?”

“A very old serial killer. Most serial killers don’t even start until their thirties. If we assume that this one was cooperative enough to start when the Justice Department’s files start, thirty years ago, he’d be over sixty now.”

“Do you think it goes farther back?”

“I picked some dates and locations randomly, going back as far as 1925. I called the libraries in the towns and had them check the newspapers for stories of disappearances. It checked out. Your man could be in his nineties. Or it could be a son carrying on his father’s work.”

“That’s impossible. There must be another explanation. Come on, Nailsworth, I need a bailout here. I can’t pursue an investigation of a geriatric serial killer.”

“Well, it could be an elaborate research project that someone is doing on missing persons, but that doesn’t explain the World War One vets, and it doesn’t explain why the researcher would write the information on matchbook covers and business cards from places that have been out of business for years.”

“I don’t understand.” Rivera felt as if he were stuck in the Spider’s web and was waiting to be eaten.

“It appears that the notes themselves were written as far back as fifty years ago. I could send them to the lab to confirm it if you want.”

“No. Don’t do that.” Rivera didn’t want it confirmed. He wanted it to go away. “Nailsworth, isn’t possible that the computer is making some impossible connections? I mean, it’s programmed to find patterns — maybe it went overboard and made this one up?”

“You know the odds, Sergeant. The computer can’t make anything up; it can only interpret what’s put into it. If I were you, I’d pull my suspect out of holding and find out where he got the suitcase.”

“I cut him loose. The D.A. said I didn’t have enough to charge him.”

“Find him,” Nailsworth said.

Rivera resented the authoritarian tone in Nailsworth’s voice, but he let it go. “I’m going now.”

“One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“One of your addresses was in Pine Cove. You want it?”

“Of course.”

Nailsworth read the name and address to Rivera, who wrote it down on a memo pad.

“There was no date on this one, Sergeant. Your killer might still be in the area. If you get him, it would be the bailout you’re looking for.”

“It’s too fantastic.”

“And don’t forget to check on Roxanne for me, okay?” The Spider hung up.

30 JENNY

Jenny had arrived at work a half hour late expecting to find Howard waiting behind the counter to reprimand her in his own erudite way. Strangely enough, she didn’t care. Even more strange was the fact that Howard had not shown up at the cafe all morning.

Considering that she had drunk two bottles of wine, eaten a heavy Italian meal and everything in the refrigerator, and stayed up all night making love, she should have been tired, but she wasn’t. She felt wonderful, full of humor and energy, and not a little excited. When she thought of her night with Travis, she grinned and shivered. There should be guilt, she thought. She was, technically, a married woman. Technically, she was having an illicit affair. But she had never been very technically minded. Instead of guilt she felt happy and eager to do it all again.

From the moment she got to work she began counting the hours until she got off after the lunch shift. She was at one hour and counting when the cook announced that there was a call for her in the office.

She quickly refilled her customer’s coffee cups and headed to the back. If it was Robert, she would just act like nothing had happened. She wasn’t exactly in love with someone else as he suspected. It was… it didn’t matter what it was. She didn’t have to explain anything. If it was Travis — she hoped it was Travis.

She picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Jenny?” It was a woman’s voice. “It’s Rachel. Look, I’m having a special ritual this afternoon at the caves. I need you to be there.”

Jennifer did not want to go to a ritual.

“I don’t know, Rachel, I have plans after work.”

“Jennifer, this is the most important thing we’ve ever done, and I need you to be there. What time do you get off?”

“I’m off at two, but I need to go home and change first.”

“No, don’t do that. Come as you are — it’s really important.”

“But I really…”

“Please, Jenny. It will only take a few minutes.”

Jennifer had never heard Rachel sound so adamant. Maybe it really was important.

“Okay. I guess I can make it. Do you need me to call any of the others?”

“No. I’ll do it. You just be at the caves as soon as you can after two.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll be there.”

“And Jenny” — Rachel’s voice had lowered an octave — “don’t tell anyone where you are going.” Rachel hung up.

Jennifer immediately dialed her home phone and got the answering machine. “Travis, if you’re there, pick up.” She waited. He was probably still sleeping. “I’m going to be a little late. I’ll be home later this afternoon.” She almost said, “I love you,” but decided not to. She pushed the thought out of her mind. “Bye,” she said, and hung up.

Now, if she could only avoid Robert until she could think of a way to destroy his hope for their reconciliation. Returning to the floor of the cafe, she realized that somewhere along the way her feeling of well-being had vanished and she felt very tired.

31 GOOD GUYS

Augustus Brine, Travis, and Gian Hen Gian were squeezed into the seat of Brine’s pickup. As they approached Effrom and Amanda’s house, they spotted a beige Dodge parked in the driveway.

“Do you know what kind of car they drive?” Travis asked.

Brine was slowing down. “An old Ford, I think.”

“Don’t slow down. Keep going,” Travis said.

“But why?”

“I’d bet anything that Dodge is a police car. There’s a whip antenna pinned down on the back.”

“So what? You haven’t done anything illegal.” Brine wanted to get it over with and get some sleep.

“Keep going. I don’t want to answer a lot of questions. We don’t know what Catch has been doing. We can come back later, after the police leave.”

The Djinn said, “He has a point, Augustus Brine.”

“All right.” Brine gunned the pickup and sped by.

In a few minutes they were sitting in Jenny’s kitchen listening to the answering machine. They had gone in the back way to avoid the burnt, doughy mess in the front yard.

“Well,” Travis said, resetting the machine, “that buys us a little time before we have to explain it to Jenny.”

“Do you think Catch will come back here?” Brine asked.

“I hope so,” Travis said.

“Can’t you concentrate your will on bringing him back until we can find out if Amanda still has the candlesticks?”

“I’ve been trying. I don’t understand this much more than you do.”

“Well, I need a drink,” Brine said. “Is there anything in the house?”

“I doubt it. Jenny said she couldn’t keep anything in the house or her husband would drink it. She drank all the wine last night.”

“Even some cooking sherry would be fine,” Brine said, feeling a little sleazy as he spoke.

Travis began going through the cupboards.

“Should you find a small quantity of salt, I would be most grateful,” the Djinn said.

Travis found a box of salt among the spices and was handing it to the Djinn when the phone rang.

They all froze and listened as the machine played Jenny’s outgoing message. After the beep there was a pause, then a woman’s voice. “Travis, pick up.” It was not Jenny.

Travis looked to Brine. “No one knows I’m here.”

“They do now. Pick it up.”

Travis picked up the phone, and the answering machine clicked off.

“This is Travis.”

Brine watched the color drain out of the demonkeeper’s face as he listened. “Is she all right?” Travis said into the phone. “Let me talk to her. Who are you? Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

Brine couldn’t imagine what was going on in the conversation.

Suddenly Travis screamed into the phone, “He’s not an Earth spirit — he’s a demon. How can you be so stupid?”

Travis listened for a moment more, then looked at Augustus Brine and covered the receiver with his hand. “Do you know where there are some caves to the north of town?”

“Yes,” Brine said, “the old mushroom farm.”

Travis spoke into the phone, “Yes, I can find it. I’ll be there at four.” He sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs and let the phone fall into its cradle.

“What’s going on?” Brine demanded.

Travis was shaking his head. “Some woman is holding Jennifer and Amanda and her husband hostage. Catch is with her and she has the candlesticks. And you were right, there are three invocations.”

“I don’t understand,” Brine said. “What does she want?”

“She thinks that Catch is some kind of benevolent Earth spirit. She wants his power.”

“Humans are so ignorant,” the Djinn said.

“But what does she want with you?” Brine asked. “She has the candlesticks and the invocations.”

“They’re in Greek. They want me to translate the invocations or they’ll kill Jenny.”

“Let them,” the Djinn said. “Perhaps you can bring Catch under control with the woman dead.”

Travis exploded. “They thought of that, you little troll! If I don’t show up at four, they’ll kill Jenny and destroy the invocation. Then we’ll never be able to send Catch back.”

Augustus Brine checked his watch. “We’ve got exactly an hour and a half to come up with a plan.”

“Let us retire to the saloon and consider our options,” the Djinn said.

32 THE HEAD OF THE SLUG

Augustus Brine led the way into the Head of the Slug. Travis followed, and Gian Hen Gian shuffled in last. The saloon was nearly empty: Robert was sitting at the bar, another man sat in the dark at a table in the back, and Mavis was behind the bar. Robert turned as they entered. When he saw Travis, he jumped off the stool.

“You fucking asshole!” Robert screamed. He stormed toward Travis with his fist cocked for a knockout blow. He got four steps before Augustus Brine threw out a massive forearm that caught him in the forehead. There was a flash of tennis shoes flailing in the air as Robert experienced the full dynamic range of the clothesline effect. A second later he lay on the floor unconscious.

“Who is that?” Travis asked.

“Jenny’s husband,” Brine answered, bending over and inspecting Robert’s neck for any jutting vertebrae. “He’ll be okay.”

“Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

“There isn’t time,” Brine said. “Besides, he might be able to help.”

Mavis Sand was standing on a plastic milk box peering over the bar at Robert’s supine form. “Nice move, Asbestos,” she said. “I like a man that can handle himself.”

Brine ignored the compliment. “Do you have any smelling salts?”

Mavis climbed down from her milk box, rummaged under the bar for a moment, and came up with a gallon bottle of ammonia. “This should do it.” To Travis and the Djinn she said: “You boys want anything?”

Gian Hen Gian stepped up to the bar. “Could I trouble you for a small quantity…”

“A salty dog and a draft, please,” Travis interrupted.

Brine wrapped one arm under Robert’s armpits and dragged him to a table. He propped him up in a chair, retrieved the ammonia bottle from the bar, and waved it under Robert’s nose.

Robert came to, gagging.

“Bring this boy a beer, Mavis,” Brine said.

“He ain’t drinking today. I’ve been pouring him Cokes since noon.”

“A Coke, then.”

Travis and the Djinn took their drinks and joined Brine and Robert at the table, where Robert sat looking around as if he were experiencing reality for the first time. A nasty bump was rising on his forehead. He rubbed it and winced.

“What hit me?”

“I did,” Brine said. “Robert, I know you’re angry at Travis, but you have to put it aside. Jenny’s in trouble.”

Robert started to protest, but Brine raised a hand and he fell silent.

“For once in your life, Robert, do the right thing and listen.”

It took fifteen minutes for Brine to relate the condensed version of the demon’s story, during which time the only interruption was the screeching feedback of Mavis Sand’s hearing aid, which she had cranked up to maximum so she could eavesdrop. When Brine finished, he drained his beer and ordered a pitcher. “Well?” he said.

Robert said, “Gus, you’re the sanest man I know, and I believe that you believe Jenny is in trouble, but I don’t believe this little man is a genie and I don’t believe in demons.”

“I have seen the demon,” came a voice from the dark end of the bar. The figure who had been sitting quietly when they came in stood and walked toward them.

They all turned to see a rumpled and wrinkled Howard Phillips staggering out of the dark, obviously drunk.

“I saw it outside of my house last night. I thought it was one of the slave creatures kept by the Old Ones.”

“What in the hell are you talking about, Howard?” Robert asked.

“It doesn’t matter any longer. What matters is that these men are telling you the truth.”

“So now what?” Robert said. “What do we do now?”

Howard pulled a pocket watch from his vest and checked the time. “You have one hour to plan a course of action. If I can be of any assistance…”

“Sit down, Howard, before you fall down,” Brine said. “Let’s lay it out. I think it’s obvious from what we know that there is no way to hurt the demon.”

“True,” Travis said.

“Therefore,” Brine continued, “the only way to stop him and his new master is to get the invocation from the second candlestick, which will either send Catch back to hell or empower Gian Hen Gian.”

“When Travis meets them, why don’t we just rush them and take it?” Robert said.

Travis shook his head. “Catch would kill Jenny and the Elliotts before we ever got close. Even if we got hold of the invocation, it has to be translated. That takes time. It’s been years since I’ve read any Greek. You would all be killed, and Catch would find another translator.”

“Yes, Robert,” Brine added. “Did we mention that unless Catch is in his eating form, which must have been what Howard saw, no one can see him but Travis?”

“I am fluent in Greek,” Howard said. They all looked at him.

“No,” Brine said. “They expect Travis to be alone. The mouth of the cave is at least fifty yards from any cover. As soon as Howard stepped out, it would be over.”

“Maybe we should let it be over,” Travis said.

“No. Wait a minute,” Robert said. He took a pen from Howard’s pocket and began scribbling figures on a cocktail napkin. “You say there’s cover fifty yards from the caves?” Brine nodded. Robert did some scribbling. “Okay, Travis, exactly how big is the print on the invocation? Can you remember?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters,” Robert insisted. “How big is the print?”

“I don’t know — it’s been a long time. It was handwritten, and the parchment was pretty long. I’d guess the characters were maybe a half-inch tall.”

Robert scribbled furiously on the napkin, then put the pen down. “If you can get them out of the cave and hold up the invocation — tell them you need more light or something — I can set up a telephoto lens on a tripod in the woods and Howard can translate the invocation.”

“I don’t think they’ll let me hold the parchment up long enough for Howard to translate. They’ll suspect something.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Robert pushed the napkin he had been writing on in front of Travis. It was covered with fractions and ratios.

Looking at it, Travis was baffled. “What does this mean?”

“It means that I can put a Polaroid back on one of my Nikons and when you hold up the parchments, I can photograph them, hand the Polaroid to Howard, and thirty seconds later he can start translating. The ratios show that the print will be readable on the Polaroid. I just need enough time to focus and set exposure, maybe three seconds.” Robert looked around the table.

Howard Phillips was the first to speak. “It sounds feasible, although fraught with contingencies.”

Augustus Brine was smiling.

“What do you think, Gus?” Robert asked.

“You know, I always thought you were a lost cause, but I think I’ve changed my mind. Howard’s right, though — there’s lot of ifs involved. But it might work.”

“He is still a lost cause,” the Djinn chimed in. “The invocation is useless without the silver Seal of Solomon, which is part of one of the candlesticks.”

“It’s hopeless,” Travis said.

Brine said, “No, it’s not. It’s just very difficult. We have to get the candlesticks before they know about the seal. We’ll use a diversion.”

“Are you going to explode more flour?” asked Gian Hen Gian.

“No. We’re going to use you as bait. If Catch hates you as much as you say, he’ll come after you and Travis can grab the candlesticks and run.”

“I don’t like it,” Travis said. “Not unless we can get Jenny and the Elliotts clear.”

“I agree,” said Robert.

“Do you have a better idea?” Brine asked.

“Rachel is a bitch,” Robert said, “but I don’t think she’s a killer. Maybe Travis can send Jenny down the hill from the caves with the candlesticks as a condition to translating the invocation.”

“That still leaves the Elliotts,” Brine said. “And besides, we don’t know if the demon knows the seal is in the candlesticks. I think we go for the diversion plan. As soon as Howard has the invocation translated, Gian Hen Gian should step out of the woods and we all go for it.”

Howard Phillips said, “But even if you have the seal and the invocation, you still have to read the words before the demon kills us all.”

“That’s right,” said Travis. “And the process should begin as soon as Rachel starts reading the words I translate, or Catch will know something is up. I can’t bluff on the translation at my end.”

“You don’t have to,” Brine said. “You simply have to be slower than Howard, which doesn’t sound like a problem.”

“Wait a second,” Robert said. He was out of his seat and across the bar to where Mavis was standing. “Mavis, give me your recorder.”

“What recorder?” she said coyly.

“Don’t bullshit me, Mavis. You’ve got a microcassette recorder under the bar so you can listen to people’s conversations.”

Mavis pulled the recorder out from under the bar and reluctantly handed it over to Robert. “This is the solution to the time problem,” Robert said. “We read the invocation into this before the genie comes out of the woods. When and if we get the candlesticks, we play it back. This thing has a high speed for secretaries to use when typing dictation.”

Brine looked at Travis. “Will it work?”

“It’s not any more risky than anything else we’re doing.”

“Who’s voice do we use?” Robert asked. “Who gets the responsibility?”

The Djinn answered, “It must be Augustus Brine. He has been chosen.”

Robert checked his watch. “We’ve got a half hour and I still have to pick up my cameras at The Breeze’s trailer. Let’s meet at the U-PICK-EM sign in fifteen minutes.”

“Wait — we need to go over this again,” Travis said.

“Later,” Brine said. He threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table and headed toward the door. “Robert, use Howard’s car. I don’t want this whole thing depending on your old truck starting. Travis, Gian Hen Gian, you ride with me.”

33 RIVERA

During the drive to Pine Cove, Rivera was nagged by the idea that he had forgotten something. It wasn’t that he hadn’t reported where he was going; he had planned that. Until he had physical evidence that there was a serial killer in the area, he wasn’t saying a word. But when he knocked on the Elliotts’ front door and it swung open, he suddenly remembered that his bullet-proof vest was hanging in his locker back at the station.

He called into the house and waited for an answer. None came.

Only cops and vampires have to have an invitation to enter, he thought. But there is probable cause. The part of his mind that functioned like a district attorney kicked in.

“So, Sergeant Rivera,” the lawyer said, “you entered a private residence based on a computer data base that could have been no more than a mailing list?”

“I believed that Effrom Elliott’s name on the list represented a clear and present danger to a private citizen, so I entered the residence.”

Rivera drew his revolver and held it in his right hand while he held his badge out in his left.

“Mr. and Mrs. Elliott, this is Sergeant Rivera from the Sheriff’s Department. I’m coming in the house.”

He moved from room to room announcing his presence before he entered. The bedroom door was closed. He saw the splintered bullet hole in the door and felt his adrenaline surge.

Should he call for backup?

The D.A. said: “And so you entered the house on what basis?”

Rivera came through the door low and rolled. He lay for a moment on the floor of the empty room, feeling stupid.

What now? He couldn’t call in and report a bullet hole in a residence that he had probably entered illegally, especially when he hadn’t reported that he was in Pine Cove in the first place.

One step at a time, he told himself.

Rivera returned to his unmarked car and reported that he was in Pine Cove.

“Sergeant Rivera,” the dispatcher said, “there is a message for you from Technical Sergeant Nailsworth. He said to tell you that Robert Masterson is married to the granddaughter of Effrom Elliott. He said he doesn’t know what it means, but he thought you should know.”

It meant that he had to find Robert Masterson. He acknowledged the message and signed off.

Fifteen minutes later he was at The Breeze’s trailer. The old pickup was gone and no one answered the door. He radioed the station and requested a direct patch to the Spider.

“Nailgun, can you get me Masterson’s wife’s home address? He gave the trailer as residence when we brought him in. And give me the place where she works.”

“Hold on, it’ll be just a second for her address.” Rivera lit a cigarette while he waited. Before he took the second drag, Nailsworth came back with the address and the shortest route from Rivera’s location.

“It will take a little longer for the employer. I have to access the Social Security files.”

“How long?”

“Five, maybe ten minutes.”

“I’m on my way to the house. Maybe I won’t need it.”

“Rivera, there was a fire call at that address this morning. That mean anything to you?”

“Nothing means anything to me anymore, Nailsworth.”

Five minutes later Rivera pulled up in front of Jenny’s house. Everything was covered with a gummy gray goo, a mix of ashes, flour, and water from the fire hoses. As Rivera climbed out of the car, Nailsworth called back.

“Jennifer Masterson is currently employed at H.P.’s Cafe, off Cypress in Pine Cove. You want the phone number?”

“No,” Rivera said. “If she’s not here, I’ll go over there. It’s just a few doors down from my next stop.”

“You need anything else?” Nailsworth sounded as if he was holding something back.

“No,” Rivera said. “I’ll call if I do.”

“Rivera, don’t forget about that other matter.”

“What matter?”

“Roxanne. Check on her for me.”

“As soon as I can, Nailsworth.”

Rivera threw the radio mike onto the passenger seat. As he walked up to the house, he heard someone come on the radio singing a chorus to the song “Roxanne” in a horrible falsetto. Nailsworth had shown his weakness over an open frequency, and now, Rivera knew, the whole department would ride the fat man’s humiliation into the ground.

When this was over, Rivera promised himself, he would concoct a story to vindicate the Spider’s pride. He owed him that. Of course, that depended on Rivera vindicating himself.

The walk to the door covered his shoes with gray goo. He waited for an answer and returned to the car, cursing in Spanish, his shoes converted to dough balls.

He didn’t get out of the car at H.P.’s Cafe. It was obvious from the darkened windows that no one was inside. His last chance was the Head of the Slug Saloon. If Masterson wasn’t there, he was out of leads, and he would have to report what he knew, or, what was more embarrassing, what he didn’t know, to the captain.

Rivera found a parking place in front of the Slug behind Robert’s truck, and after taking a few minutes to get his right shoe unstuck from the gas pedal, he went in.

34 U-PICK-EM

The Pagan Vegetarians for Peace called them the Sacred Caves because they believed that the caves had once been used by Ohlone Indians for religious ceremonies. This, in fact, was not true, for the Ohlone had avoided the caves as much as possible due to the huge population of bats that lived there, bats that were inextricably locked into the destiny of the caves.

The first human occupation of the caves came in the 1960s, when a down-and-out farmer named Homer Styles decided to use the damp interior of the caves to cultivate mushrooms. Homer started his business with five hundred wooden crates of the sort used for carting soda bottles, and a half-gallon carton of mail-order mushroom spores; total investment: sixteen dollars. Homer had stolen the crates from behind the Thrifty-Mart, a few at a time, over the period of weeks that it took him to read the pamphlet Fungus for Fun and Profit, put out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

After filling the crates with moist peat and laying them out on the cave floor, Homer spread his spores and waited for the money to roll in. What Homer didn’t figure on was the rapid growth rate of the mushrooms (he’d skipped that part of the pamphlet), and within days he found himself sitting in a cave full of mushrooms with no market and no money to pay for help in harvesting.

The solution to Homer’s problem came from another government pamphlet entitled The Consumer-Harvested Farm, which had come, by mistake, in the same envelope with Fungus for Fun. Homer took his last ten dollars and placed an ad in the local paper: Mushrooms, $.50 lb. U-PICK-EM, your container. Old Creek Road. 9–5 daily.

Mushroom-hungry Pine Covers came in droves. As fast as the mushrooms were harvested, they grew back, and the money rolled in.

Homer spent his first profits on a generator and a string of lights for the caves, figuring that by extending his business hours into the evening, his profits would grow in proportion. It would have been a sound business move had the bats not decided to rear their furry heads in protest.

During the day the bats had been content to hang out on the roof of the cave while Homer ran his business below. But on the first night of Homer’s extended hours when the bats woke to find their home invaded by harshly lit mushroom pickers, their tolerance ended.

There were twenty customers in the caves when the lights went on. In an instant the air above them was a maelstrom of screeching, furry, flying rodents. In the rush to exit, one woman fell and broke a hip and another was bitten on the hand while extracting a bat from her hair. The cloud of bats soon disappeared into the night, only to be replaced the next day by an equally dense cloud of landbound vermin: personal-injury lawyers.

The varmints prevailed in court. Homer’s business was destroyed, and once again the bats slept in peace.

A depressed Homer Styles went on a binge in the Head of the Slug. He spent four days in an Irish whiskey haze before his money ran out and Mavis Sand sent him to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. (Mavis could tell when a man had hit bottom, and she felt no need to pump a dry well.)

Homer found himself in the meeting room of the First National Bank, telling his story. It happened that at that same meeting a young surfer who called himself The Breeze was working off a court-ordered sentence he had earned by drunkenly crashing a ’62 Volkswagen into a police cruiser and promptly puking on the arresting officer’s shoes.

The farmer’s story touched off an entrepreneurial spark in the surfer, and after the meeting The Breeze cornered Homer with a proposition.

“Homer, how would you like to make some heavy bread growing magic mushrooms?”

The next day the farmer and the surfer were hauling bags of manure into the caves, spreading it over the peat, and scattering a completely different type of spore.

According to The Breeze their crop would sell for ten to twenty dollars an ounce instead of the fifty cents a pound that Homer received for his last crop. Homer was enraptured with the possibility of becoming rich. And he would have, if not for the bats.

As the day of their first harvest neared, The Breeze had to take his leave of their plantation to serve the weekend in the county jail (the first of fifty — the judge had not been amused at having barf-covered police shoes presented as evidence in his courtroom). Before he left, The Breeze assured Homer that he would return Monday to help with the drying and marketing of the mushrooms.

In the meantime, the woman who had been bitten during the debacle of the bats, came down with rabies. County animal-control agents were ordered to the caves to destroy the bat colony. When the agents arrived, they found Homer Styles crouched over a tray of psychedelic mushrooms.

The agents offered Homer the option of walking away and leaving the mushrooms, but Homer refused, so they radioed the sheriff. Homer was led away in handcuffs, the animal-control agents left with their pockets filled with mushrooms, and the bats were left alone.

When The Breeze was released on Monday, he found himself in search of a new scam.

A few months later, while incarcerated at the state prison in Lompoc, Homer Styles received a letter from The Breeze. The letter was covered with a fine yellow powder and read: “Sorry about your bust. Hope we can bury the hatchet.”

Homer buried the letter in a shoe box he kept under his bunk and spent the next ten years living in relative luxury on the profits he made from selling psychedelic mushrooms to the other inmates. Homer sampled his crop only once, then swore off mushrooms for life when he hallucinated that he was drowning in a sea of bats.

35 BAD GUYS, GOOD GUYS

Rachel was drawing figures in the dirt of the cave floor with a dagger when she heard something flutter by her ear.

“What was that?”

“A bat,” Catch said. He was invisible.

“We are out of here,” Rachel said. “Take them outside.”

Effrom, Amanda, and Jenny were sitting with their backs against the cave wall, tied hand and foot, and gagged.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t have waited at your cabin,” Catch said.

“I have my reasons. Help me get them outside, now.”

“You’re afraid of bats?” Catch asked.

“No, I just feel that this ritual should take place in the open,” Rachel insisted.

“If you have a problem with bats, you’re going to love it when you see me.”

A quarter mile down the road from the cave, Augustus Brine, Travis, and Gian Hen Gian were waiting for Howard and Robert to arrive.

“Do you think we can pull this off?” Travis asked Brine.

“Why ask me? I know less about this than the two of you. Whether we pull it off depends mostly on your powers of persuasion.”

“Can we go over it again?”

Brine checked his watch. “Let’s wait for Robert and Howard. We still have a few minutes. And I don’t think that it will hurt to be a little late. As far as Catch and Rachel are concerned, you are the only game in town.”

Just then they heard a car down-shifting and turned to see Howard’s old black Jag turning onto the dirt road. Howard parked behind Brine’s truck. He and Robert got out and Robert reached into the backseat and began handing things to Brine and Travis: a camera bag, a heavy-duty tripod, a long aluminum lens case, and finally, a hunting rifle with a scope. Brine did not take the rifle from Robert.

“What’s that for?”

Robert stood up, rifle in hand. “If it looks like it isn’t going to work, we use it to take out Rachel before she gets power over Catch.”

“What will that accomplish?” Brine asked.

“It will keep Travis in control of the demon.”

“No,” Travis said. “One way or another it ends here, but we don’t shoot anyone. We’re here to end the killing, not add to it. Who’s to say that Rachel won’t have more control over Catch than I do?”

“But she doesn’t know what she is getting into. You said that yourself.”

“If she gets power over Catch, he has to tell her, just like he told me. At least I will be free of him.”

“And Jenny will be dead,” Robert spat.

Augustus Brine said, “The rifle stays in the car. We are going to do this on the assumption that it will work, period. Normally I’d say that if anyone wants out, they can go now, but the fact is, we all have to be here for it to work.”

Brine looked around the group. They were waiting. “Well, are we going to do this?”

Robert threw the rifle into the backseat of the car. “Let’s do it, then.”

“Good,” Brine said. “Travis, you have to get them out of the cave and into the open. You have to hold the invocation up long enough for Robert to get a picture, and you have to get the candlesticks back to us, preferably by sending them down the hill with Jenny and the Elliotts.”

“They’ll never go for that. Without the hostages, why should I translate the invocation?”

“Then hold it as a condition. Play it the best you can. Maybe you can get one of them down.”

“If I make the candlesticks a condition, they’ll be suspicious.”

“Shit,” Robert said. “This isn’t going to work. I don’t know why I thought it would.”

Through the whole discussion the Djinn had remained in the background. Now he stepped into the circle. “Give them what they want. Once the woman has control of Catch, they will have no need to be suspicious.”

“But Catch will kill the hostages, and probably all of us,” Travis said.

“Wait a minute,” Robert said. “Where is Rachel’s van?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Brine said.

“Well, they didn’t walk here with hostages in tow. And the van isn’t parked here. That means that her van must be up by the cave.”

“So?” Travis said.

“So, it means that if we have to storm them, we can go in Gus’s truck. The road must come out of the woods and loop around the hill to the caves. We already have the recorder, so the invocation can be played back fast. Gus can drive up the hill, Travis can throw the candlesticks into the truck, and all Gus has to do is hit the play button.”

They considered it for a moment, then Brine said, “Everyone in the bed of the truck. We park it in the woods as close to the caves as we can without it being seen. It’s the closest thing to a plan that we have.”

On the grassy hill outside the cave Rachel said, “He’s late.”

“Let’s kill one of them,” the demon said.

Jenny and her grandparents sat on the ground, back to back.

“Once this ritual is over, I won’t have you talking like that,” Rachel said.

“Yes, mistress, I yearn for your guidance.”

Rachel paced the hill, making an effort not to look at her hostages. “What if Travis doesn’t come?”

“He’ll come,” Catch said.

“I think I hear a car.” Rachel watched the point where the road emerged from the woods. When nothing came, she said, “What if you’re wrong? What if he doesn’t come?”

“There he is,” Catch said.

Rachel turned to see Travis walking out of the woods and up the gentle slope toward them.

Robert screwed the tripod into the socket of the telephoto lens, tested its steadiness, then fitted the camera body on the back of the lens and turned it until it clicked into place. From the camera bag at his feet he took a pack of Polaroid film and snapped it into the bottom of the Nikon’s back.

“I’ve never seen a camera like that,” said Augustus Brine.

Robert was focusing the long lens. “The camera’s a regular thirty-five millimeter. I bought the Polaroid back for it to preview results in the studio. I never got around to using it.”

Howard Phillips stood poised with notebook in hand and a fountain pen at ready.

“Check the batteries in that recorder,” Robert said to Brine. “There are some fresh ones in my camera bag if you need them.”

Gian Hen Gian was craning his neck to see over the undergrowth into the clearing where Travis stood. “What is happening? I cannot see what is happening.”

“Nothing yet,” Brine said. “Are you set, Robert?”

“I’m ready,” Robert said without looking up from the camera. “I’m filling the frame with Rachel’s face. The parchment should be easily readable. Are you ready, Howard?”

“Short of the unlikely possibility that I may be stricken with writer’s cramp at the crucial moment, I am prepared.”

Brine snapped four penlight batteries into the recorder and tested the mechanism. “It’s up to Travis now,” he said.

Travis topped halfway up the hill. “Okay, I’m here. Let them go and I’ll translate the invocation for you.”

“I don’t think so,” Rachel said. “Once the ritual has been performed and I’m sure it has worked, then you can all go free.”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Catch will kill us all.”

“I don’t believe you. The Earth spirit will be in my control, and I won’t allow it.”

Travis laughed sarcastically. “You haven’t even seen him, have you? What do you think you have there, the Easter Bunny? He kills people. That’s the reason he’s here.”

“I still don’t believe you.” Rachel was beginning to lose her resolve.

Travis watched Catch move to where the hostages were tied. “Come, do it now, Travis, or the old woman dies.” He raised a clawed hand over Amanda’s head.

Travis trudged up the hill and stood in front of Rachel. Very quietly her said to her, “You know, you deserve what you are going to get. I never thought I could wish Catch on anyone, but you deserve it.” He looked at Jenny, and her eyes pleaded for an explanation. He looked away. “Give me the invocation,” he said to Rachel. “I hope you brought a pencil and paper. I can’t do this from memory.”

Rachel reached into an airline bag that she had brought and pulled out the candlesticks. One at a time she unscrewed them and removed the invocations, then replaced the pieces in the airline bag. She handed Travis the parchments.

“Put the candlesticks over by Jenny,” he said.

“Why?” Rachel asked.

“Because the ritual won’t work if they are too close to the parchments. In fact, you’d be better off if you untied them and sent them away with the candlesticks. Get them out of the area altogether.” The lie seemed so obvious that Travis feared he had ruined everything by putting too much importance on the candlesticks.

Rachel stared at him, trying to make sense of it. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“Neither do I,” Travis said. “But this is mystical stuff. You can’t tell me that taking hostages so you can call up a demon is consistent with the logical world.”

“Earth spirit! Not demon. And I will use this power for good.”

Travis considered trying to convince her of her folly, then decided against it. The lives of Jenny and the Elliotts depended on Catch maintaining his charade as a benevolent Earth spirit until it was too late. He glared at the demon, who grinned back.

“Well?” Travis said.

Rachel picked up the airline bag and took it to a spot a few feet down the hill from the hostages.

“No. Farther away,” Travis said.

She slung the bag over her shoulder and took it another twenty yards down the hill, then turned to Travis for approval.

“What is this about?” Catch asked.

Travis, afraid to push his luck, nodded to Rachel and she set the bag down. Now the candlesticks were twenty yards closer to the road that ran around the back of the hill — the road that Augustus Brine would drive when the shit hit the fan.

Rachel returned to the hilltop.

“I’ll need that pencil and paper now,” he said.

“It’s in the bag.” Rachel went back toward the bag.

While she was retrieving the pencil and paper from the airline bag, Travis held the parchments out before him, one at a time, counting to six before he put the first one down and picked up the next. He hoped he had the angle to Robert’s camera right and that his body was not in the way of the lens.

“Here.” Rachel handed him a pencil and a steno pad.

Travis sat down cross-legged with the parchments out in front of him. “Sit down and relax, this is going to take some time.”

He started on the parchment from the second candlestick, hoping to buy some time. He translated the Greek letter by letter, searching his memory first for each letter, then for the meaning of the words. By the time he finished the first line, he had fallen into a rhythm and had to make an effort to slow down.

“Read what he has written,” Catch said.

“But he’s just done one line-” Rachel said.

“Read it.”

Rachel took the steno pad from Travis and read, “Being in possession of the Power of Solomon I call upon the race that walked before man…” She stopped. “That’s all there is.”

“It’s the wrong paper,” Catch said. “Travis, translate the other one. If it’s not right this time, the girl dies.”

“That’s the last time I buy you a Cookie Monster comic book, you scaly fucker.”

Reluctantly Travis shuffled the parchments and began to translate the invocation he had spoken in Saint Anthony’s chapel seventy years before.

Howard Phillips had two Polaroid prints out on the ground before him. He was writing a translation out on a notepad while Augustus Brine and Gian Hen Gian looked over his shoulder. Robert was looking through the camera.

“They’ve made him change parchments. He must have been translating the wrong one.”

Brine said, “Howard, are you translating the one we need?”

“I am not sure yet. I’ve only translated a few lines of the Greek. This Latin passage at the top appears to be a message rather than an invocation.”

“Can’t you just scan it? We don’t have time for mistakes.”

Howard read what he had written. “No, this is wrong.” He tore the sheet from the notepad and began again, concentrating on the other Polaroid. “This one seems to have two shorter invocations. The first one seems to be the one that empowers the Djinn. It talks about a race that walked before man.”

“That is right. Translate the one with two invocations,” the Djinn said.

“Hurry,” Robert said, “Travis has half a page. Gus, I’m going to ride up the hill in the bed of the truck when you go. I’ll jump out and grab the bag with the candlesticks. They’re still a good thirty yards from the road and I can move faster than you can.”

“I’m finished,” Howard said. He handed his notebook to Brine.

“Record it at normal speed,” Robert said. “Then play it back at high speed.”

Brine held the recorder up to his face, his finger on the record button. “Gian Hen Gian, is this going to work? I mean is a voice on a tape going to have the same effect as speaking the words?”

“It would be best to assume that it will.”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“How would I know?”

“Swell,” Brine said. He pushed the record button and read Howard’s translation into the recorder. When he finished, he rewound the tape and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Police! Don’t anyone move!”

They turned to see Rivera standing in the road behind them, his.38 in hand, panning back and forth to cover them. “Everybody down on the ground, facedown.”

They stood frozen in position.

“On the ground, now!” Rivera cocked his revolver.

“Officer, there must be a mistake,” Brine said, feeling stupid as he said it.

“Down!”

Reluctantly, Brine, Robert, and Howard lay facedown on the ground. Gian Hen Gian remained standing, cursing in Arabic. Rivera’s eyes widened as blue swirls appeared in the air over the Djinn’s head.

“Stop that,” Rivera said.

The Djinn ignored him and continued cursing.

“On your belly, you little fucker.”

Robert pushed himself up on his arms and looked around. “What’s this about, Rivera? We were just out here taking some pictures.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you have a high-powered rifle in your car.”

“That’s nothing,” Robert said.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s more than nothing. And none of you are going anywhere until I get some answers.”

“You’re making a mistake, Officer,” Brine said. “If we don’t continue with what we were doing, people are going to die.”

“First, it’s Sergeant. Second, I’m getting to be a master at making mistakes, so one more is no big deal. And third, the only person who is going to die is this little Arab if he doesn’t get his ass on the ground.”

What was taking them so long? Travis had dragged the translation out as long as he could, stalling on a word here and there, but he could tell that Catch was getting impatient and to delay any long would endanger Jenny.

He tore two sheets from the steno pad and handed them to Rachel. “It’s finished, now you can untie them.” He gestured to Jenny and the Elliotts.

“No,” Catch said. “First we see if it works.”

“Please, Rachel, you have what you want. There’s no reason to keep these people here.”

Rachel took the pages. “I’ll make it up to them once I have the power. It won’t hurt to keep them here a few more minutes.”

Travis fought the urge to look back toward the woods. Instead he cradled his head in his hands and sighed deeply as Rachel began to read the invocation aloud.

Augustus Brine finally convinced Gian Hen Gian to lie down on the ground. It was obvious that Rivera would not listen to anyone until the Djinn relented.

“Now, Masterson, where in the hell did you get that metal suitcase?”

“I told you, I stole it out of the Chevy.”

“Who owns the Chevy?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You can tell me or you can go up on murder charges.”

“Murder? Who was murdered?”

“About a thousand people, it looks like. Where is the owner of that suitcase? Is it one of these guys?”

“Rivera, I will tell you everything I know about everything in about fifteen minutes, but now you’ve got to let us finish what we started.”

“And what was that?”

Brine spoke up, “Sergeant, my name is Augustus Brine. I’m a businessman here in town. I have done nothing wrong, so I have no reason to lie to you.”

“So?” Rivera said.

“So, you are right. There is a killer. We are here to stop him. If we don’t act right now, he will get away, so please, please, let us go.”

“I’m not buying it, Mr. Brine. Where is this killer and why didn’t you call the police about him? Take it nice and slow, and don’t leave anything out.”

“We don’t have time,” Brine insisted.

Just then they heard a loud thump and the sound of a body slumping to the ground. Brine turned around to see Mavis Sand standing over the collapsed detective, her baseball bat in hand.

“Hi, cutie,” she said to Brine.

They all jumped to their feet.

“Mavis, what are you doing here?”

“He threatened to close me down if I didn’t tell him where you went. After he left, I got to feeling like a shit about telling him, so here I am.”

“Thanks, Mavis,” Brine said. “Let’s go. Howard, you stay here. Robert, in the bed of the truck. Whenever you’re ready, King,” he said to the Djinn.

Brine jumped into the truck, fired it up, and engaged the four-wheel drive.

Rachel read the last line of the invocation with a grandiose flourish of her arm. “In the name of Solomon the King, I command thee to appear!”

Rachel said, “Nothing happened.”

Catch said, “Nothing happened, Travis.”

Travis said, “Give it a minute.” He had almost given up hope. Something had gone horribly wrong. Now he was faced with either telling them about the candlesticks or keeping his bond with the demon. Either way, the hostages were doomed.

“Fine, Travis,” Catch said. “The old man is the first to go.”

Catch wrapped one hand around Effrom’s neck. As Travis and Rachel watched, the demon grew into his eating form and lifted Effrom off the ground.

“Oh my God!” Rachel put her fist to her mouth and started backing away from the demon. “Oh no!”

Travis tried to focus his will on the demon. “Put him down, Catch,” he commanded.

From somewhere down the hill came the sound of a truck starting.

Gian Hen Gian stepped out of the woods. “Catch,” he shouted, “will you never give up your toys?” The Djinn started up the hill.

Catch threw Effrom to the side. He landed like a rag doll, ten yards away. Rachel was shaking her head violently, as if trying to shake away the demon’s image. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“So someone let the little fart out of his jar,” Catch said. He stalked down the hill toward the Djinn.

An engine roared and Augustus Brine’s pickup broke out of the tree line and bounced up the dirt road, throwing up a cloud of dust in its wake. Robert stood in the bed, holding onto the roll bar for support.

Travis darted past Catch to Amanda and Jenny.

“Still a coward, King of the Djinn?” Catch said, pausing a second to look at the speeding truck.

“I am still your superior,” the Djinn said.

“Is that why you surrendered your people to the netherworld without a fight?”

“This time you lose, Catch.”

Catch spun to watch the truck slide around the last turn and off the road to bound across the open grass toward the candlesticks.

“Later, Djinn,” Catch said. He began to run toward the truck. Taking five yards at a stride the demon was over the hill and past Travis and the women in seconds.

Augustus Brine saw the demon coming at them. “Hold on, Robert.” He wrenched the wheel to the side to throw the truck into a slide.

Catch lowered his shoulder and rammed into the right front fender of the truck. Robert saw the impact coming and tried to decide whether to brace himself or jump. In an instant the decision was made for him as the fender crumpled under the demon and the truck went up on two wheels, then over onto its roof.

Robert lay on the ground trying to get his wind back. He tried to move, and a searing pain shot through his arm. Broken. A thick cloud of dust hung in the air, obscuring his vision. He could hear the demon roaring behind him and the screeching sound of tearing metal.

As the dust settled, he could just make out the shape of the upside-down truck. The demon was pinned under the hood, ripping at the metal with his claws. Augustus Brine hung by his seat belt. Robert could see him moving.

Robert climbed to his feet, using his good arm to push himself up.

“Gus!” he shouted.

“The candlesticks!” came back.

Robert looked around on the ground. There was the bag. He had almost landed on it. He started to reach for it with both hands and nearly passed out when the pain from his broken arm hit him. From his knees he was able to scoop up the bag, heavy with the candlesticks, in his good arm.

“Hurry,” Brine shouted.

Catch had stopped clawing at the metal. With a great roar he shoved the truck up and off of him. Standing before the truck, he threw his head back and roared with such intensity that Robert nearly dropped the candlesticks.

Every bone in Robert’s body said flee, get the hell out of here. He stood frozen.

“Robert, I’m stuck. Bring them to me.” Brine was struggling with the seat belt. At the sound of his voice the demon leapt to the driver’s side of the truck and clawed at the door. Brine heard the skin of the door go with the first slash. He stared at the door in terror, expecting a claw to come through the window at any second. The demon’s claws raked the support beam inside the door.

“Gus, here. Ouch. Shit.” Robert was lying outside the passenger side window, pushing the bag with the candlesticks across the roof of the truck. “The play button, Gus. Push it.”

Brine felt the pocket of his flannel shirt. Mavis’s recorder was still clipped there. He fumbled for the play button, found it, and pushed, just as a daggerlike claw ripped into his shoulder.

A hundred miles south, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, a radar technician reported a UFO entering restricted air space from over the Pacific. When the aircraft refused to respond to radio warning, four jet fighters were scrambled to intercept. Three of the fighter pilots would report no visual contact. The fourth, upon landing, would be given a urinalysis and confined to quarters until he could be debriefed by an officer from the Air Force Department of Stress Management.

The bogey would be officially explained as radar interference caused by unusually high swell conditions offshore.

Of the thirty-six reports, filed in triplicate with various departments of the military complex, not one would mention an enormous white owl with an eighty-foot wingspan.

However, after some consideration, the Pentagon would award seventeen million dollars to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a secret study on the feasibility of an owl-shaped aircraft. After two years of computer simulations and wind-tunnel prototype tests, the research team would conclude that an owl-shaped aircraft would, indeed, be an effective weapon, but only if the enemy should ever mobilize a corps of field-mouse-shaped tanks.

Augustus Brine realized that he was going to die. In that same moment he realized that he was not afraid and that it did not matter. The monster clawing to get at him didn’t matter. The chipmunk chatter of his voice playing back double-speed on the recorder didn’t matter. The shouting of Robert, and now Travis, outside the truck didn’t matter. He was acutely aware of it all, he was part of it all, but it did not matter. Even the gunfire didn’t matter. He accepted it and let it go.

Rivera came to when Brine had started the truck. Mavis Sand was standing over the policeman with his revolver, but she and Howard were watching what was going on up the hill. Rivera glanced up the hill to see Catch materializing in his eating form, holding Effrom by the throat.

“Santa Maria! What the hell is that?”

Mavis trained the gun on him. “Stay right there.”

Ignoring her, Rivera stood and ran down the road toward his patrol car. At his car he popped the trunk lid and pulled the riot gun out of its bracket. As he ran back past Howard’s Jag, he paused, then opened the back door and grabbed Robert’s hunting rifle.

By the time he was again in view of the hill, the truck was upside down and the monster was clawing at the door. He threw the riot gun to the ground and shouldered the rifle. He braced the barrel against a tree, threw the bolt to jack a shell into the chamber, sighted through the scope, and brought the cross-hairs down on the monster’s face. Resisting the urge to scream, he squeezed the trigger.

The round hit the demon in his open mouth and knocked him back a foot. Rivera quickly jacked another shell into the chamber and fired. Then another. When the firing pin clicked on an empty chamber, the monster had been knocked back from the truck a few feet but was still coming.

“Santa fucking Maria,” Rivera said.

Gian Hen Gian had reached the top of the hill where Travis knelt by Amanda and Jenny.

“It is done,” the Djinn said.

“Then do something!” Travis said. “Help Gus.”

“Without his orders I may carry out only the command of my last master.” Gian Hen Gian pointed to the sky. Travis looked up to see something white coming out of the clouds, but it was too far away to make out what it was.

Catch recovered from the rifle slugs and went forward. He hooked his huge hand behind the reinforcement beam of the truck’s door, ripped it off, and threw it behind him. Inside the truck, still hanging from the seat belt, Augustus Brine turned calmly and looked at the demon. Catch drew back his hand to deliver a blow that would rip Brine’s head from his shoulders.

Brine smiled at him. The demon paused.

“What are you, some kind of wacko?” Catch said.

Brine didn’t have time to answer. The reverberation of the owl’s screech shattered the windshield of the truck. Catch looked up as the talons locked around his body, and he was swept into the air flailing at the owl’s legs.

The owl climbed into the sky so rapidly that in seconds it was nothing more than a tiny silhouette against the sun, which was making its way toward the horizon.

Augustus Brine continued to smile as Travis released the seat belt. He hit the roof of the truck with his injured shoulder and passed out.

When Brine regained consciousness, they were all standing over him. Jenny was holding Amanda’s head to her shoulder. The old woman was sobbing.

Brine looked from face to face. Someone was missing.

Robert spoke first. “Tell Gian Hen Gian to heal your shoulder, Gus. He can’t do it until you tell him. While you’re at it, tell him to fix my arm.”

“Do it,” Brine said. As he said it, the pain was gone from his shoulder. He sat up.

“Where’s Effrom?”

“He didn’t make it, Gus,” Robert said. “His heart gave out when the demon threw him.”

Brine looked to the Djinn. “Bring him back.”

The Djinn shook his head balefully. “This I cannot do.”

Brine said, “I’m sorry, Amanda.” Then to Gian Hen Gian, “What happened to Catch?”

“He is on his way to Jerusalem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have lied to you, Augustus Brine. I am sorry. I was bound to the last command of my last master. Solomon bade me take the demon back to Jerusalem and chain him to a rock outside the great temple.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I thought you would never give me my power if you knew. I am a coward.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It is as Catch said. When the angels came to drive my people into the netherworld, I would not let them fight. There was no battle as I told you. We went like sheep to the slaughter.”

“Gian Hen Gian, you are not a coward. You are a creator — you told me that yourself. It’s not in your nature to destroy, to make war.”

“But I did. So I have tried to vindicate myself by stopping Catch. I wanted to do for the humans what I did not do for my own people.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brine said. “It’s finished.”

“No, it’s not,” Travis said. “You can’t chain Catch to a rock in the middle of Jerusalem. You have to send him back. You have to read the last invocation. Howard translated it while we were waiting for you to wake up.”

“But Travis, you don’t know what will happen to you. You may die on the spot.”

“I’m still bound to him, Gus. That isn’t living anyway. I want to be free.” Travis handed him the invocation and the candlestick with the Seal of Solomon concealed in it. “If you don’t, I will. It has to be done.”

“All right, I’ll do it,” Brine said.

Travis looked up at Jenny. She looked away. “I’m sorry,” Travis said. Robert went to Jenny’s side and held her. Travis walked down the hill, and when he was out of sight, Augustus Brine began reading the words that would send Catch back to hell.

They found Travis slumped in the backseat of Howard’s Jaguar. Augustus Brine was the first to reach the car.

“I did it, Travis. Are you all right?”

As Travis looked up, Brine had to fight the urge to recoil. The demonkeeper’s face was deeply furrowed and shot with broken veins. His dark hair and brows had turned white. But for his eyes, which were still young with intensity, Brine would not have recognized him. Travis smiled. There were still a couple of teeth left in front.

His voice was still young. “It didn’t hurt. I expected one of those wrenching Lon Chaney transformations, but it didn’t happen. Suddenly I was old. That was it.”

“I’m glad it didn’t hurt,” Brine said.

“What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, Travis. I need to think.”

36 JENNY, ROBERT, RIVERA, AMANDA, TRAVIS, HOWARD, AND THE SPIDER

Rivera drove Robert and Jennifer to their house. They sat in the back, holding each other the whole way, not saying a word until they thanked him when he dropped them off. On the drive back to the station Rivera tried to formulate a story that would save his career. Any version of the true story seemed like a sure ticket to a psychological disability retirement. In the end he decided to tell the story as far as the point where The Breeze disappeared.

A month later Rivera was pumping Slush-Puppies at the Seven-Eleven, working undercover for the robbery division. However, with the arrest of a team of robbers that had terrorized convenience stores in the county for six months, he was promoted to lieutenant.

Amanda and Travis rode with Howard. At Amanda’s request, Gian Hen Gian saw that Effrom’s body was turned to stone and placed inside the cave. When Howard stopped in front of Amanda’s house, she invited Travis to come inside. He refused at first, wanting to leave her alone with her grief.

“Have you completely missed the significance of all this, Travis?” she asked.

“I guess so,” he said.

“Did it occur to you that the presence of Catch and Gian Hen Gian proves that Effrom is not gone completely? I will miss him, but he goes on. And I don’t want to be alone right now. I helped you when you needed it,” she said, and she waited.

Travis went in.

Howard went home to work on a new menu for his restaurant.

Chief Technical Sergeant Nailsworth never found out what happened to Roxanne or who she really was, and he was heartbroken. Because of his grief he was unable to eat, lost a hundred and fifty pounds, met a girl at a computer user’s meeting, and married her. He never had computer sex again outside the privacy of his home.

37 GOOD GUYS

Augustus Brine declined offers for a ride home. He wanted to walk. He needed to think. Gian Hen Gian walked at his side.

“I can repair your truck, make it fly if you wish,” the Djinn said.

“I don’t want it,” Brine said. “I’m not even sure I want to go home.”

“You may do as you wish, Augustus Brine.”

“I don’t want to go back to the store either. I think I’ll give the business to Robert and Jenny.”

“Is it wise to put the drunkard in the wine barrel?”

“He won’t drink anymore. I want them to have the house, too. I’ll start the paperwork in the morning.”

“It is done.”

“Just like that?”

“You doubt the word of the King of the Djinn?”

They walked in silence for a while before Brine spoke again.

“It seems wrong that Travis has lived so long without having a life, without love.”

“Like yourself, you mean?”

“No, not like myself. I’ve had a good life.”

“Would you have me make him young again?”

Brine thought for a moment before he answered. “Could you make him age in reverse? For each year that passes he is a year younger?”

“It can be done.”

“And her, too?”

“Her?”

“Amanda. Could you make them grow young together?”

“It can be done, if you command it.”

“I do.”

“It is done. Will you tell them?”

“No, not right away. It will be a nice surprise.”

“And what of yourself, Augustus Brine? What is it you wish?”

“I don’t know. I always thought I’d make a good madam.”

Before the Djinn could say anything else, Rachel’s van sputtered up beside them and stopped. She rolled down the window and said, “Do you need a ride, Gus?”

“He is trying to think,” the Djinn snapped.

“Don’t be rude,” Brine said to the Djinn. “Which way are you going?”

“I don’t know for sure. I don’t feel like going home — maybe ever.”

Brine walked around the front of the van and slid open the cargo door. “Get in, Gian Hen Gian.”

The Djinn got into the van. Brine slammed the cargo door and climbed into the passenger seat next to Rachel.

“Well?” she said.

“East,” Brine said. “Nevada.”

It was called King’s Lake. When it appeared in the desert, it simultaneously appeared on every map of Nevada that had ever been printed. People who had passed through that part of the state swore that they had never seen it before, yet there it was on the map.

Above the tree-lined banks of King’s Lake stood a palace with a hundred rooms. Atop the palace a massive electric sign read, BRINE’S BAIT, TACKLE, AND FINE WOMEN.

Anyone who visited the palace was greeted by a beautiful, dark-haired woman, who took their money and led them to a room. On their way out a tiny brown man in a rumpled suit returned their money and wished them well.

Upon returning home the visitors told of a white-haired man who sat all day in the lotus position at the end of a pier in front of the palace, fishing and smoking a pipe. They said that when evening approached, the dark-haired woman would join the man and together they would watch the sun go down.

The visitors were never quite clear as to what had happened to them while they were at the palace. It didn’t seem to matter. But after a visit they found that they appreciated the simple pleasures that life presented to them and they were happy. And although they recommended Brine’s to their friends, they never returned themselves.

What went on in the rooms is another story altogether.