The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Twenty-three

What horrors can a dragon dream? A creature who has, in his own way, ruled the planet for millions of years, a creature for whom the mingy man mammals have built temples, a creature who has known no predator but time—what could he possibly dream that would frighten him? Call it the knowing?

Under a stand of oak trees, sexually satisfied and with a bellyful of drug dealers, the dragon dreamed a vision of time past. The eternal now that he had always known suddenly had history. In the dream he saw himself as a larva, tucked into the protective pouch under his mother’s tongue until it was safe to venture out under her watchful eye. He saw the hunting and the mating, the forms he had learned to mimic as his mercurial DNA evolved not through generations, but through regeneration of cells. He saw the mates he had eaten, the three young he had borne as a female, the last killed by a warmblood who sang the Blues. He remembered the changing, not so long ago, from female to male, and he remembered all of it in pictures, not in mere instinctual patterns and conditioned responses.

He saw these pictures in the dream, brought on by the strange mating with the warmblood, and he wondered why. For the first time in his five thousand years, he asked, Why? And the dream answered with a picture of all the oceans and swamps, the rivers and bogs and trenches and mountains beneath the sea, and they were all empty of his kind. As sure as if he were floating through the cold black at the end of the universe, where light gives up hope and time chases its tail until it dies from exhaustion, he was alone.

Sex does that to some guys.

“Oh my God, the rat brains!” Gabe shouted.

It was a different response to lovemaking. Val wasn’t sure that she might not be hurt, feeling vulnerable as she was, with her knees in the vicinity of her ears, a biologist on top of her, and her panty hose waving off one foot like a tattered battle flag.

Gabe collapsed into her arms and she looked over his shoulder to the coffee table to check that they hadn’t kicked the wineglasses off onto the carpet.

“Are you okay?” she asked, a little breathless.

“I’m sorry, but I just realized what’s going on with this creature.”

“That’s what you were thinking about?” Yes, her feelings were definitely hurt.

“No, not during. It came to me in a flash right after. Somehow the creature can attract mammals with lower than normal serotonin levels. And you’ve got, what, a third of the population running around in antidepressant withdrawal?”

She was pissed now, not hurt. She dumped him off her onto the floor, stood up, pulled her skirt down, and stepped away. He scrambled into his pants and looked around for his shirt, which lay in shreds behind the couch.

He had a tan that ended at the neckline and just below the shoulders; the rest of him was milk white. He looked up at her from the gap between the couch and the coffee table with a pleading in his eyes, as if he were looking up from a coffin in which he was about to be buried alive.

“Sorry,” he said.

He wasn’t looking her in the eye, and Val suddenly realized that he was talking to her exposed breasts. She pulled her blouse closed, and a battery of insults rose in her mind, ready to be fired, but all of them were mean-spirited and would serve to do nothing but make them both feel ashamed. He was who he was, and he was honest and real, and she knew that he hadn’t meant to hurt her. So she cried. Thinking, Great, crying is what got me into this in the first place.

She plopped down on the couch with her face in her hands. Gabe moved to her side and put his arm around her. “I’m really sorry. I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

“You’re fine. It’s just too much.”

“I should go.” He started to stand.

She caught his arm in a death grip. “You go and I’ll hunt you down and kill you like a rabid dog.”

“I’ll stay.”

“No go,” she said. “I understand.”

“Okay, I’ll go.”

“Don’t you dare.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him hard, pulling him back down onto the couch, and within seconds they were all over each other again.

That’s it, she thought, no more crying. It’s the crying that does it. This guy is aroused by my pain.

But soon they lay in a panting sweaty pile on the floor and the idea of crying was light-years away.

And this time Gabe said, “That was wonderful.”

Val noticed a wineglass overturned by her head, a cabernet stain bleeding over the carpet. “Is it salt or club soda?”

Gabe pulled away far enough to look into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the stained carpet. “Salt and cold water, I think. Or is that blood?” A drop of sweat dripped off his forehead onto her lips.

She looked at him. “You weren’t thinking about that creature that doesn’t exist, were you?”

“Just you.”

She smiled. “Really?”

“And a weed-whacker, for some reason.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Uh, yes, I’m kidding. I was only thinking of you.”

“So you don’t think I’m a horrible person for what I’ve done?”

“You were trying to do what you thought was right. How could that be horrible?”

“I feel horrible.”

“It’s been a long time. I’m out of practice.”

“No, not about this. About my patients. You really think something could be preying on them?”

“It’s just a theory. There may not even be a creature.”

“But what if there is? Shouldn’t we call the National Guard or something?”

“I was thinking of calling Theo.”

“Theo isn’t even a real cop.”

“He deserves to know.”

They lay there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the spreading stain on the carpet, feeling the sweat run down their ribs, and listening to the beat of each other’s hearts.

“Gabe?” Val whispered.

“Yes.”

“Maybe we should go to couples’ counseling.”

“Should we get dressed first?”

“You were serious about the weed-whacker, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know where that image came from.”

“There’s supposed to be a good couples’ guy in San Junipero, unless you’d rather go to a woman counselor.”

“I thought we were going to call the National Guard.”

“Only if it comes to that,” Val said. Thinking, When we tell the shrink about this, I’m leaving out the part about the wine spilling.

Is there anything more irritating than people who have just been laid? Especially when you have not. Not for a long time.

Oh, it was obvious as soon as they came through Molly’s front door, waking Theo for the second time that night: Gabe’s grin looking like the oversized grill on an old Chrysler, Val Riordan wearing jeans and almost no makeup; the both of them giddy and giggling and blushing like children. Theo wanted to puke. He was happy for them, but he wanted to puke.

“What?” Theo said.

Gabe was obviously amped and trying not to show it. He put his hands in his pockets to keep from waving them around. “I”—he looked at Val and smiled—“we think that this creature, if it exists, may be attracted to prey with low serum serotonin levels.”

Gabe bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for his statement to sink in. Theo sat there, staring at him, with no discernible change in expression from the weariness he’d worn since they came through the door. He guessed that he was supposed to say something now.

“Molly was here,” Theo said. “The creature exists. It ate Mikey Plotznik, and Joseph Leander, and who knows who else? She said it’s a dragon.”

Gabe’s grin dropped. “That’s great. I mean, that’s horrible, but it’s great from a scientific point of view. I have another theory about this species. I think it has some specialized mechanism to affect its prey. Have you been horny lately?”

“There’s no need to be arrogant, Gabe. I’m glad you two had a good time, but there’s no need to rub it in.”

“No no, you don’t get it.” Gabe went on to explain about Val Riordan’s decision to take her patients off antidepressants and how the lowering of serotonin levels could lead to increased libido. “So Pine Cove has been full of horny people.”

“Right,” Theo said. “And I still can’t get a date.”

Val Riordan laughed and Theo glared at her. Gabe said, “The rats I found alive near this trailer, where we think the creature might have been, were mating when I found them. There are some species of carnivorous plants that give off a sex pheromone that attracts their prey. In some species, the behavior of the male—a display, a dance, a scent—will stimulate the ovaries in the female of the species without any physical contact. I think that’s what’s happened to us.”

“Our ovaries are being stimulated?” Theo rubbed sleep from his eyes. “I gotta be honest with you, Gabe. I’m not feeling it.”

Val turned to Gabe. “That’s not very romantic.”

“It’s incredibly exciting. This may be the most elegant predator that the world has ever seen.”

Theo shook his head. “I have no home, no job, no car, there’s probably a warrant out for my arrest, and you want me to be excited over the fact that we have a monster in town that makes you horny so he can eat you? Sorry, Gabe, I’m missing the positive side of this.”

Val chimed in, “It may be the reason that you’ve been able to quit smoking pot so easily.”

“Pardon me? Easily?” Theo wanted to jump off the couch and bitch-slap them both.

“Were you ever able to go this long before?”

“She could be right, Theo,” Gabe said. “If this thing affects serotonin, it could affect other neurotransmitters.”

“Oh good,” Theo said. “Let’s open a detox clinic. We’ll feed half of the patients to the monster and the other half will recover. I can’t wait.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Gabe said. “We’re just trying to help.”

“Help? Help with what? Bar fight? I can handle it. Skateboard theft? I’m on it. But my law enforcement experience hasn’t prepared me for dealing with this.”

“That’s true, Gabe,” Val said. “Theo’s little more than a rent-a-cop. Maybe we should call the sheriff or the FBI or the National Guard.”

“And tell them what?” Theo asked. Rent-a-cop? I’m not even that now, he thought.

“He has a point.” Gabe said. “We haven’t seen anything.”

“That old Blues singer has,” Val said.

Theo nodded. “We need to find him. Maybe he’ll…”

“He’s living with Estelle Boyet,” Val said. “I have her address in my office.”

Twenty-four

Sheriff John Burton stood by the ruins of Theo’s Volvo, pounding the keys of his cell phone. He could smell the cow shit he’d stepped in coming off his Guccis and the damp wind was blowing cowlicks in his gelled silver hair. His black Armani suit was smudged with the ashes he’d poked through at Theo’s cabin, thinking there might be a burned body underneath. He was not happy.

Didn’t anybody answer their goddamn phone anymore? He’d called Joseph Leander, Theophilus Crowe, and Jim Beer, the man who owned the ranch, and no one was answering. Which is what had brought him to Pine Cove in the middle of the night in a state of near panic in the first place. The second shift of crank cookers should be working in the lab right now, but there was no one around. His world was falling down around him, all because of the meddling of a pothead constable who had forgotten that he was supposed to be incompetent.

Crowe’s line was ringing. Burton heard a click, then was immediately disconnected. “Fuck!” He slammed the cell phone shut and dropped it into the pocket of his suit jacket. Someone was answering Crowe’s phone. Either he was still alive or Leander had killed him, taken his phone, and was fucking with him. But Leander’s van had been parked at Crowe’s cabin? So where was he? Not at home, Burton had already checked, finding nothing but a sleepy baby-sitter and two groggy little girls in nightgowns. Would Leander run and not take his daughters?

Burton pulled out the phone and dialed the data offices at the department. The Spider answered.

“Nailsworth,” the Spider said. Burton could hear him chewing.

“Put down that Twinkie, you fucking tub of lard, I need you to find me a name and an address.”

“It’s a Sno Ball. Pink. I only eat the marshmallow covers.”

Burton could feel his pulse rising in his temples and made an effort to control his rage. In the rush to get to Pine Cove, he’d forgotten to take his blood pressure medication. “The name is Betsy Butler. I need a Pine Cove address.”

“Joseph Leander’s girlfriend?” the Spider asked.

“How do you know that?”

“Please, Sheriff,” the Spider said with a snort. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

“Just get me the address.” Burton could hear Nailsworth typing. The Spider was dangerous, a constant threat to his operation, and Burton couldn’t figure out how to get to him. He was immune to bribes or threats of any kind and seemed content with his lot in life as long as he could make others squirm. And Burton was too afraid of what the corpulent information officer might really know to fire him. Maybe some of that foxglove tea that Leander had used on his wife. Certainly, no one would question heart failure in a man who got winded unwrapping a Snickers.

“No address,” Nailsworth said. “Just a P.O. box. I checked DMV, TRW, and Social Security. She works at H.P.‘s Cafe in Pine Cove. You want the address?”

“It’s five in the morning, Nailsworth. I need to find this woman now.”

The Spider sighed. “They open for breakfast at six. Do you want the address?”

Burton was seething again. “Give it to me,” he said through gritted teeth.

The Spider gave him an address on Cypress Street and said, “Try the Eggs-Sothoth, they’re supposed to be great.”

“How would you know? You never leave the goddamn office.”

“Ah, what fools these mortals be,” the Spider said in a very bad British accent. “I know everything, Sheriff. Everything.” Then he hung up.

Burton took a deep breath and checked his Rolex. He had enough time to make a little visit to Jim Beer’s ranch house before the restaurant opened. The old shit kicker was probably already up and punching doggies, or whatever the fuck ranchers did at this hour. He certainly wasn’t answering his phone. Burton climbed into the black Eldorado and roared across the rutted ranch road toward the gate by Theo’s cabin.

As he headed out to the Coast Highway to loop back to the front of the ranch (he’d be damned if he’d take his Caddy across two miles of cow trails), someone stepped into his headlights and he slammed on the brakes. The antilocks throbbed and the Caddy stopped just short of running over a woman in a white choir robe. There was a whole line of them, making their way down the Coast Highway, shielding candles against the wind. They didn’t even look up, but walked past the front of his car as if in a trance.

Burton rolled down the window and stuck his head out.

“What are you people doing? It’s five in the morning.”

A balding man whose choir robe was three sizes too small looked up with a beatific smile and said, “We’ve been called by the Holy Spirit. We’ve been called.” Then he walked on.

“Yeah, well, you almost got to see him early!” Burton yelled, but no one paid attention. He fell back into the seat and waited as the procession passed. It wasn’t just people in choir robes, but aging hippies in jeans and Birkenstocks, half a dozen Gen X’ers dressed in their Sunday best, and one skinny guy who was wearing the saffron robes of a Buddhist monk.

Burton wrenched his briefcase off the passenger seat and popped it open. False passport, driver’s license, Social Security card, stick-on beard, and a ticket to the Caymans: the platinum parachute kit he kept with him at all times. Maybe it was time to bail.

Well, the Food Guy finally got a female, Skinner thought. Probably because he had the scent of those mashed cows on him. Skinner had been tempted to roll in the goo himself, but was afraid the Food Guy would yell at him. (He hated that.) But this was even better: riding in the different car with the Food Guy and his female and the Tall Guy who always smelled of burning weeds and sometimes gave him hamburgers. He looked out the window and wagged his tail, which repeatedly smacked Theo in the face.

They were stopping. Oh boy, maybe they would leave him in the car. That would be good; the seats were chewy and tasted of cow. But no, they let him out, told him to come along with them to the small house. An Old Guy answered the door and Skinner said hi with a nose to the crotch. The Old Guy scratched his ears. Skinner liked him. He smelled like a dog who’d been howling all night.

Being near him made Skinner want to howl and he did, one time, enjoying the sad sound of his own voice.

The Food Guy told him to shut up.

The Old Guy said, “I guess I know how you feel.”

They all went inside and left Skinner there on the steps. They were all nervous, Skinner could smell it, and they probably wouldn’t be inside long. He had work to do. It was a big yard with a lot of shrubs where other dogs had left him messages. He needed to reply to them all, so each could only get a short spray. Dog e-mail.

He was only half-finished when they came back out.

The Tall Guy said, “Well, Mr. Jefferson, we’re going to find the monster and we’d like your help. You’re the only one who has seen it.”

“Oh, I think you’ll know him when you see him,” said the old guy. “Y’all don’t need my help.”

Everyone smelled sad and afraid and Skinner couldn’t help himself. He let loose a forlorn howl that he held until the Food Guy grabbed his collar and dragged him to the car. Skinner had a bad feeling that they might be going to the place where there was danger.

Danger, Food Guy, he warned. His barking was deafening in the confines of the Mercedes.

Estelle was fuming as she cleared the teacups from the table and threw them into the sink. Two broke and she swore to herself, then turned to Catfish, who was sitting on the bed picking out a soft version of “Walkin‘ Man’s Blues” on the National steel guitar.

“You could have helped them,” Estelle said.

Catfish looked at the guitar and sang, “Got a mean old woman, Lawd, stay angry all the time.”

“There’s nothing noble in using your art to escape life. You should have helped them.”

“Got a mean old woman, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd. She just stay angry all the time.”

“Don’t you ignore me, Catfish Jefferson. I’m talking to you. People in this town have been good to you. You should help them.”

Catfish threw back his head and sang to the ceiling, “She gots no idea, Lawd, what’s hers and what’s mine.”

Estelle snagged a skillet out of the dish rack, crossed the room, and raised it for a rocketing forehand shot to Catfish’s head. “Go ahead, sing another verse about your ‘mean old woman,’ Catfish. I’m curious, what rhymes with ‘clobbered’?”

Catfish put the guitar aside and slipped on his sunglasses. “You know, they say a woman was the one poisoned Robert Johnson?”

“Do you know what she used?” Estelle wasn’t smiling. “I’m making my shopping list.”

“Dang, woman, why you talk like that? I ain’t been nothin but good to you.”

“And me to you. That’s why you keep singing that mean old woman song, right?”

“Don’t sound right singin ‘sweet old woman.’”

Estelle lowered the pan. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“You can help them and when it’s over you can stay here. You can play your music, I can paint. People in Pine Cove love your music.”

“People here sayin hello to me on the street, puttin too much money in the tip jar, buying me drinks—I ain’t got the Blues on me no more.”

“So you have to go wreck your car, or pick cotton, or shoot a man in Memphis, or whatever it is that you have to do to put the Blues on you? For what?”

“It’s what I do. I don’t know nothin else.”

“You’ve never tried anything else. I’m here, I’m real.

Is it so bad to know that you have a warm bed to sleep in with someone who loves you? There’s nothing out there, Catfish.“

“That dragon out there. He always be out there.”

“So face it. You got away from it before.”

“Why you care?”

“Because it took a lot for me to open my heart to you after what I’ve been through, and I don’t have much tolerance for cowards anymore.”

“Call it like you sees it, Mama.”

Estelle turned and went back to the kitchen. “Then maybe you better go.”

“I’ll get my hat,” Catfish said. He snapped the National back into its case, grabbed his hat from the table, and in a moment he was gone.

Estelle turned and stared at the door. When she heard his station wagon start, she fell to the floor and felt a once warm future bleed a black stain around her.

The cave lay under a hillside, less than a mile from the ranch road at Theo’s cabin. The narrow mouth looked down over a wide, grassy marine terrace to the Pacific, and the interior, which opened into a huge cathedral chamber, echoed with the sound of crashing waves. Fossilized starfish and trilobites peppered the walls and the rocky floor was covered with a patina of bat guano and crystallized sea salt. The last time Steve had visited the cave it had been underwater, and he had spent a pleasant autumn there feeding on the gray whales that migrated down the coast to Baja to bear their young. He didn’t remember the cave consciously, of course, but when he sensed that Molly was searching for a hiding place, the map in his mind that had long ago gone to instinct led them there.

Since they’d arrived at the cave, a dark mood had fallen on Steve and, in turn, over Molly. She’d used the weed-whacker on the Sea Beast several times to try to cheer him up, but now the sex machine was out of gas and Molly was developing a heat rash on the inside of her thighs from repeated tongue lashings. It had been two days since she had eaten, and even Steve refused to touch his cows (Black Angus steers, now that Molly knew he couldn’t tolerate dairy).

Since the coming of the Sea Beast, Molly had been in a state of controlled euphoria. Worries about her sanity had melted away and she had joined him in the Zen moment that is the life of an animal, but since the dream and the horrible self-consciousness that had descended on Steve, the notion of their incompatibility had begun to rise in Molly’s mind like a trout to a fly.

“Steve,” she said, leaning on her broadsword and staring him squarely in one of his basketball eyes, “your breath could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.”

The Sea Beast, rather than go on the defensive (which was fortunate for Molly, because the only defense he could think of was to bite her legs off), let out a pathetic whimper and tried to tuck his huge head under a forelimb. Molly immediately regretted her comment and tried to patch the damage.

“Oh, I know, it’s not your fault. Maybe someone sells Tic Tacs the size of easy chairs. We’ll get through it.” But she didn’t mean it, and Steve could sense her insincerity. “Maybe we need to get out more,” she added.

Dawn had broken outside and a beam of sunlight was streaming into the cathedral like a cop’s flashlight in a smoky bar. “Maybe a swim,” Molly said. “Your gills seem to be healing.” How she knew the treelike growths on his neck were gills, she wasn’t sure—perhaps more of the unspoken communication that passes between lovers.

Steve lifted his head and Molly thought that she might have gotten his attention, but then she noticed that a shadow had come over the entrance to the cave. She looked up to see half a dozen people in choir robes standing at the opening of the cathedral.

“We’ve come to offer sacrifice,” one woman managed to say.

“And not a breath mint among you, I’ll bet,” Molly said.

Twenty-five

H.P.‘s Cafe was crowded with early morning old guys drinking coffee. Theo downed three cups of coffee quickly, which only served to make him anxious. Val and Gabe had ordered a cinnamon roll to share, and now Val was feeding a piece of it to Gabe as if the man had somehow managed to reach middle age and earn two Ph.D.s without ever having learned to feed himself. Theo just wanted to blow the bitter chunks of indignation.

Val said, “I certainly hope that the presence of this creature isn’t responsible for how I feel right now.” She licked icing from her fingers.

Right, Theo thought, the fact that you’ve fucked up all the previously fucked-up people in town and committed a string of felonies in the process shouldn’t be the rain on your little love parade. However, Theo did subscribe to the “honest mistake” school of law enforcement, and he honestly believed that she was trying to right a wrong by taking her patients off their medication. So although Val was currently irritating him like a porcupine suppository, he was honest enough to realize that he was merely jealous of what she had found with Gabe. That realized, Gabe started to irritate him as well.

“What do we do, Gabe? Tranquilize this thing? Shoot it? What?”

“Assuming it exists.”

“Assume it,” Theo spat. “I’m afraid if you wait for enough evidence to be sure, we’ll have to find you an ass donor, because this creature will have bitten yours off.”

“No need to be snotty, Theo. I’m just being sensibly skeptical, as any researcher would.”

“Theo,” Val said, “I can write you a scrip for some Valium. Might take the edge off your withdrawal symptoms.”

Theo scoffed. He didn’t scoff often, so he wasn’t good at it, and it appeared to Gabe and Val that he might be gacking up a hair ball.

“You all right?” Gabe asked.

“I’m fine. I was scoffing.”

“At what?”

“At Dr. Feelgood here wanting to give me a prescription for Valium so Winston Krauss can fill it with M&Ms.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” Val said. “Sorry.”

“It would appear that we have multifarious problems with which to deal, and I don’t have a clue where to start,” Theo said.

“Multifarious?” Gabe said.

“A shitload,” said Theo.

“I know what it means, Theo. I just can’t believe it came out of your mouth.”

Val laughed gaily at Gabe’s kinda-sorta humor. Theo glared at her.

Jenny, who was almost as cranky as Theo for having had to close H.P.‘s the night before and then open the restaurant in the morning when the morning girl called in sick, came by to refill their coffees.

“That’s your boss pulling up, isn’t it, Theo?” she asked, nodding toward the front. Out the window Theo could see Sheriff John Burton crawling out of his black Eldorado.

“Back door?” Theo said, urgent pleading in his eyes.

“Sure, through the kitchen and Howard’s office.”

Theo was up in a second and halfway to the kitchen when he noticed that Val and Gabe had missed the entire exchange and were staring into each other’s eyes. He ran back and slapped the table with his open palm. They looked at him as if they’d been dragged out of a dream.

“Attention,” Theo said, trying not to raise his voice. “Sheriff coming in? My boss? Deadly drug dealer? We’re criminals. We’ll be making a break for the back door? Now? Hello?”

“I’m not a criminal,” Gabe said. “I’m a biologist.”

Theo grabbed him by the front of the shirt and made for the kitchen, dragging the biologist behind him. The criminal shrink brought up the rear.

“I’m looking for Betsy Butler,” Burton said, flipping open a badge wallet as if everyone in the county didn’t immediately recognize his white Stetson-over-Armani look.

“What’s she done?” Jenny asked, putting herself between the sheriff and the door to the kitchen.

“That’s not your affair. I just need to talk to her.”

“Well, I’m on the floor alone, so you have to follow me if you want to talk or I’ll get behind.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Fine.” Jenny turned her back on the sheriff and went to the waitress station behind the counter to start a fresh pot of coffee.

Burton followed her, suppressing the urge to put her in a choke hold. “Do you know where she lives?”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “But she’s not home.” Jenny glanced back through the kitchen window to make sure that Theo and his bunch had made it through to Howard’s office.

Burton’s face was going red now. “Please. Could you tell me where she is?”

Jenny thought she could jerk this guy around for another ten minutes or so, but it didn’t look as if it was necessary. Besides, she was pissed at Betsy for calling in anyway. “She called in this morning with a spiritual emergency. Her words, by the way. The flu I can understand, but I’m working a double after closing last night over her spiritual emergency—”

“Where is Betsy Butler?” the sheriff barked.

Jenny jumped back a step. The man looked as if he might go for his gun any second. No wonder Theo had bolted out the back. “She said she was going with a group up to the Beer Bar Ranch. That they were being called by the spirit to make a sacrifice. Pretty weird, huh?”

“Was Joseph Leander going with her?”

“No one’s supposed to know about Betsy and Joseph.”

“I know about them. Was he going with her?”

“She didn’t say. She sounded a little spaced out.”

“Does Theo Crowe come in here?”

“Sometimes.” Jenny wasn’t volunteering anything to this creep. He was rude, he was mean, and he was wearing enough Aramis to choke a skunk.

“Has he been in here today?”

“No, haven’t seen him.”

Without a word, Burton turned and stormed out the door to his Cadillac. Jenny went back to the kitchen, where Gabe, Val, and Theo were standing by the fryers, trying to stay out of the way of the two cooks, who were flipping eggs and thrashing hash browns.

Gabe pointed to the back door. “It’s locked.”

“He’s gone,” Jenny said. “He was looking for Betsy and Joseph, but he asked about you, Theo. I think he’s going up to the Beer Bar to find Betsy.”

“What’s Betsy doing at the ranch?” Theo asked.

“Something about making a sacrifice. That girl needs help.”

Theo turned to Val. “Give me the keys to your car. I’m going after him.”

“I don’t think so,” the psychiatrist said, holding her purse away from him.

“Please, Val. I’ve got to see what he’s up to. This is my life here.”

“And that’s my Mercedes, and you’re not taking it.”

“I have guns, Val.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have a Mercedes. It’s mine.”

Gabe looked at her as if she’d squirted a grapefruit in his eyes. “You really won’t let Theo use your car?” His voice was flat with disappointment. “It’s just a car.”

They all stared at her, even the two cooks, burly Hispanic men who had until now refused to acknowledge their existence. Val reached into her purse, brought out the keys, and handed them to Theo as if she were giving up a child for sacrifice.

“How will we get home?” Gabe asked.

“Go to the Head of the Slug and wait. I’ll either pick you up or call you from my cell phone and let you know what’s going on. It shouldn’t take long.” With that, Theo ran out of the kitchen.

A few seconds later Valerie Riordan cringed at the sound of squealing tires as Theo pulled out of the restaurant parking lot.

Skinner liked chasing cars as much as the next dog, and they didn’t get away as easily when you chased them in another car, but despite the excitement of the chase, Skinner was anxious. When he had seen the Tall Guy come out to the car, he thought that the Food Guy was coming too. But now they were driving away from the Food Guy and toward the danger. Skinner could feel it. He whined and ran back and forth across the backseat of the Mercedes, leaving nose prints on the window, then jumped into the front seat and stuck his head out the passenger window. There was no joy to the turbo-charged smells or the wind in his ears, only danger. He barked and scratched at the door handle to warn the Tall Guy, but all he got for his efforts was a perfunctory ear scratching, so he crawled into the Tall Guy’s lap, where it felt at least a little safer.

Burton first noticed the Mercedes behind him when he turned onto the access road to the Coast Highway. A week ago he might not have thought twice about it, but now he was seeing an enemy in every tree. DEA wouldn’t use a Mercedes, and neither would FBI, but the Mexican Mafia could. Except for his operation, they ran the meth trade out of the West; perhaps they’d decided that they wanted the whole trade. That would explain the disappearance of Leander, Crowe, and the guys at the lab, except that it had been a little too clean. They would have left bodies as a warning, and they would have burned down all of Crowe’s cabin, not just the pot patch.

He pulled his Beretta 9 mm. out of its holster and placed it on the seat next to him. He had a shotgun in the trunk, but it might as well be in Canada for all the good it would do him. if there were two or less in the car, he might take them. If more, they probably had Uzis or Mac 10 machine guns and he would run. The Mexicans liked to have a crowd in on their hits. Burton made a quick right off the highway and stopped a block up a side street.

Why hadn’t he let Skinner out at the cafe? He hadn’t been able to figure out the electric seat adjustment on the Mercedes, so he was driving with his knees up around the wheel anyway, but now he had an eighty-pound dog in his lap and he had to whip his head from side to side to keep Burton’s Caddy in sight.

The Caddy made an abrupt turn off the highway and it was all Theo could do to get the Mercedes around the corner without screeching the tires. By the time he could see around Skinner’s head again, the Caddy was stopped only fifty yards ahead. Theo ducked quickly onto the passenger seat and tried to call on THE FORCE to steer as they passed the Caddy.

Sheriff John Burton was prepared for a confrontation with DEA agents, he was prepared for a high-speed escape, he was even prepared for a shoot-out with Mexican drug dealers, if it came to that. He prided himself on being tough and adaptable and thought himself superior to other men because of his cool response to pressure. He was, however, not prepared to see a Mercedes cruise by with a Labrador retriever at the wheel. His Ubermensch arrogance shriveled as he stared gape-jawed at the passing Mercedes. It made an erratic turn at the next corner, bouncing off a curb before disappearing behind a hedge.

He wasn’t the sort of man who doubted his own perceptions—if he saw it, he saw it—so his mind dropped into politician mode to file the experience. “That right there,” he said aloud, “is why I will never support a bill to license dogs to drive.”

Still, political certainties weren’t going to count for much if he didn’t get to Betsy Butler and find out what had happened to his prized drug mule. He pulled a U-turn and headed back to the Coast Highway, where he found himself looking a little more closely than usual at the drivers in oncoming cars.

There were thirty of them all together. Six stood side by side at the cave entrance; the rest crowded behind them, trying to get a look inside. Molly recognized the one doing the talking, she was the ditzy waitress from H.P.‘s cafe. She was in her mid-twenties, with short blonde hair and a figure that promised to go pear-shaped by the time she hit forty. She wore a white choir robe over jeans and aerobics shoes.

“You’re Betsy from H.P.‘s, right?” Molly asked, leaning on her broadsword.

Betsy seemed to recognize Molly for the first time, “You’re the craz—”

Molly held up her sword to hush the girl. “Be nice.”

“Sorry,” said Betsy. “We’ve been called. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

Two women stepped up beside Betsy, the pastel church ladies that Molly had chased away from the dragon trailer. “Remember us?”

Molly shook her head. “What exactly do you all think you are doing here?”

They looked to each other, as if the question hadn’t occurred to them before this. They craned their necks and squinted into the cathedral chamber to see what was behind Molly. Steve lay curled up in the dark at the back of the chamber, sulking.

Molly turned and spoke to the back of the chamber. “Steve, did you bring these people here? What were you thinking?”

A loud and low-pitched whimper came out of the dark. The crowd at the entrance murmured among themselves. Suddenly a man stepped forward and pushed Betsy aside. He was in his forties and wore an African dashiki over khakis and Birkenstocks, his long hair held out of his face with a beaded headband. “Look, man, you can’t stop us. There’s something very special and very spiritual happening here, and we’re not going to let some crazy woman keep us from being part of it. So just back off.”

Molly smiled. “You want to be a part of this, do you?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” the man said. The others nodded behind him.

“Fine, I want you all to empty your pockets before you come in here. Leave your keys, wallets, money, everything outside.”

“We don’t have to do that,” Betsy said.

Molly stepped up and thrust her sword into the ground between the girl’s feet. “Okay then, naked.” Molly said.

“What?”

“No one comes in here unless they are naked. Now get to it.”

Protests arose until a short Asian man with a shaved head shrugged off his saffron robes, stepped forward, and bowed to Molly, thus mooning the rest of the group.

Molly shook her head dolefully at the monk. “I thought you guys had more sense.” Then she turned to the back of the cave and shouted, “Hey, Steve, cheer up, I brought home Chinese for lunch.”

Twenty-six

Val and Gabe entered the bar, then stepped out of the doorway and stood by the blinking pinball machine while their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Val wrinkled her nose at the hangover smell of stale beer and cigarettes; Gabe squinted at the sticky floor, looking for signs of interesting wild life.

Morning was the darkest part of a day at the Head of the Slug Saloon. It was so dark that the dingy confines of the bar seemed to suck light in from the street every time someone opened the door, causing the daytime regulars to cringe and hiss as if a touch of sunshine might vaporize them on their stools. Mavis moved behind the bar with a grim, if wobbly, determination, drinking coffee from a gargoyle-green mug while a Tarryton extra long dangled from her lips, dropping long ashes down the front of her sweater like the smoking turds of tiny ghost poodles. She went about setting up shots of cheap bourbon at the empty curve of the bar, lining them up like soldiers before a firing squad. Every two or three minutes an old man would enter the bar, bent over and wearing baggy pants—leaning on a four-point cane or the last hope of a painless death—and climb onto one of the empty stools to wrap an arthritic claw around a shot glass and raise it to his lips. The shots were nursed, not tossed back, and by the time Mavis had finished her first cup of coffee, the curve of the bar looked like the queue to hell: crooked, wheezing geezers all in a row.

Refreshments while you wait? The Reaper will see you now.

Occasionally, one of the shots would sit untouched, the stool empty, and Mavis would let an hour pass before sliding the shot down to the next daytime regular and calling Theo to track down her truant. Most often, the ambulance would slide in and out of town as quiet as a vulture riding a thermal, and Mavis would get the news when Theo cracked the door, shook his head, and moved on.

“Hey, cheer up,” Mavis would say. “You got a free drink out of it, didn’t you? That stool won’t be empty for long.”

There had always been daytime regulars, there always would be. Her new crop started coming in around 9 A.M., younger men who bathed and shaved every third day and spent their days around her snooker table, drinking cheap drafts and keeping a laser focus on the green felt lest they get a glimpse of their lives. Where once were wives and jobs, now were dreams of glorious shots and clever strategies. When their dreams and eyesight faded, they filled the stools at the end of the bar with the day-time regulars.

Ironically, the aura of despair that hung over the day-time regulars gave Mavis the closest thing to a thrill she’d felt since she last whacked a cop with her Louisville Slugger. As she pulled the bottle of Old Tennis Shoes from the well and poured it down the bar to refill their shot glasses, a bolt of electric loathing would shoot up her spine and she would scamper back to the other end of the bar and stand there breathless until her stereo pacemakers brought her heartbeat back down from redline. It was like tweaking death’s nose, sticking a KICK ME sign on the head of a cobra and getting away with it.

Gabe and Val watched this ritual without moving from their spot by the pinball machine. Val was cautious, just waiting for the right moment to move to the bar and ask if Theo had called. Gabe was, as usual, just being socially awkward.

Mavis retreated to her spot by the coffeepot, presumably out of death’s reach, and called down to the couple. “You two want something to drink, or you just window-shopping?”

Gabe led them down the bar. “Two coffees please.” He looked quickly to Val for her approval, but she was fixated on Catfish, who was seated across from Mavis near the end of the bar. Just beyond him was another man, an incredibly gaunt gentleman whose skin was so white it appeared translucent under the haze of Mavis’s cigarette smoke.

“Hello, uh, Mr. Fish,” Val said.

Catfish, who was staring at the bottom of a shot glass, looked up and forced a smile through a face betraying hangdog sorrow. “It’s Jefferson,” he said. “Catfish is my first name.”

“Sorry,” Val said.

Mavis made a mental note of the new couple. She recognized Gabe, he’d been in with Theophilus Crowe a number of times, but the woman was a new face to her. She put the two coffees in front of Gabe and Val. “Mavis Sand,” Mavis said, but she didn’t offer her hand. For years she’d avoided shaking hands because the grip often hurt her arthritis. Now, with her new titanium joints and levers, she had to be careful not to crush the delicate phalanges of her customers.

“I’m sorry,” Gabe said. “Mavis, this is Dr. Valerie Riordan. She has a psychiatric practice here in town.”

Mavis stepped back and Val could see the apparatus in the woman’s eye focusing—when the light from over the snooker table caught it right, the eye appeared to glow red.

“Pleased,” Mavis said. “You know Howard Phillips?” Mavis nodded to the gaunt man at the end of the bar.

“H.P.,” Gabe added, nodding to Howard. “Of H.P.‘s Cafe.”

Howard Phillips might have been forty, or sixty, or seventy, or he might have died young for all the animation in his face. He wore a black suit out of the nineteenth century, right down to the button shoes, and he was nursing a glass of Guinness Stout, although he didn’t look as if he’d had any caloric intake for months.

Val said, “We just came from your restaurant. Lovely place.”

Without changing expression, Howard said, “As a psychiatrist, does it bother you that Jung was a Nazi sympathizer?” He had a flat, upper-class British accent, and Val felt vaguely as if she’d just been spat upon.

“Ray of sunshine, Howard is,” Mavis said. “Looks like death, don’t he?”

Howard cleared his throat and said, “Mavis has come to mock death, since most of her mortal parts have been replaced with machinery.”

Mavis leaned into Gabe and Val as if guarding a secret, even as she raised her voice to make sure Howard could hear. “He’s been cranky for some ten years now—and drunk most of that time.”

“I had hoped to develop a laudanum habit in the tradition of Byron and Shelley,” Howard said, “but procurement of the substance is, to say the least, difficult.”

“Yeah, that month you drank Nyquil on the rocks didn’t help either. He’d drop off at the bar stool sittin‘ straight up, sit there asleep sometimes for four hours, then wake up and finish his drink. I have to say, though, Howard, you never coughed once.” Again Mavis leaned into the bar. “He pretends to have consumption sometimes.”

“I’m sure the good doctor is not interested in the particulars of my substance abuse, Mavis.”

“Actually,” Gabe said, “we’re just waiting for a call from Theo.”

“And I think I’d prefer a Bloody Mary to coffee,” Val said.

“Ya’ll ain’t goin to talk me into chasin no monster, so don’t even try,” Catfish said. “I got the Blues on me and I got some drinkin to do.”

“Don’t be a wuss, Catfish,” Mavis said as she mixed Val’s cocktail. “Monsters are no big deal. Howard and me got one, huh, Howard?”

“Walk in the proverbial park,” Howard said.

Catfish, Val, and Gabe just stared at Howard, waiting.

Mavis said, “Course your drinking started right after the last one, didn’t it?”

“Nonstop,” Howard said.

It occurred to Theo, as he tried to keep a safe distance from the sheriff’s Caddy turning into the ranch, that he had never been trained in the proper procedure for tailing someone. He’d never really followed anyone. Well, there was a sixth-month period in the seventies when he had followed the Grateful Dead around the country but with them, you just followed the trail of tie-dye and didn’t have to worry about them killing you if they found out you were behind them. He also realized that he had no idea why, exactly, he was following Burton, except that it seemed more aggressive than curling into a ball and dying of worry.

The black Caddy turned through a cattle gate onto the section of the ranch adjacent the ocean. Theo slowed to a stop under a line of eucalyptus trees beside the ranch road, keeping the sheriff in sight between the tree trunks. The grassy marine terrace that dropped to the shoreline was too open to go onto without Burton noticing. He would have to let the Caddy pass over the next hill, nearly half a mile off the road, before he dared follow. Theo watched the Caddy bump over the deep ruts in the road, the front wheels throwing up mud as it climbed the hill, and suddenly he regretted not having driven the red four-wheel-drive truck. The rear-wheel-drive Mercedes might not be able to follow much farther.

When the Caddy topped the hill, Theo pulled out and gunned the Mercedes through the cattle gate and into the field. Tall grass thrashed at the underside of the big German car as rocks and holes jarred Theo and threw Skinner around like a toy. Momentum carried them up the side of the first hill. As they approached the crest, Theo let off the gas. The Mercedes settled to a stop. When he applied the gas again, the back wheels of the Mercedes dug into the mud, stuck.

Theo left Skinner and the keys in the car and ran to the top of the hill. He could see more than a mile in every direction, east to some rock outcroppings by the tree line, west to the ocean, and across the marine terrace to the north, which curved around the coastline and out of sight. South, well, he’d come from the south. Nothing there but his cabin and beyond that the crank lab. What he could not see was the black Cadillac.

He checked the battery in his cell phone and both pistols to see that they were loaded, then he set out on foot toward the rocks. It was the only place the Caddy could have gotten out of sight. Burton had to be there.

Twenty minutes later he stood at the base of the rock outcroppings, sweating and trying to catch his breath. At least maybe he’d get some lung capacity back, now that he wasn’t smoking pot anymore. He bent over with his hands on his knees and scanned the rocks for any movement. These were no gentle sedimentary rocks formed over centuries of settling seas. These craggy bastards looked like gray teeth that had been thrust up through the earth’s crust by the violent burp of a volcano and the rasping shift of a fault line. Lichen and seagull crap covered their surfaces and here and there a creosote bush or cypress tried to gain a foothold in the cracks.

There was supposed to be a cave around here somewhere, but Theo had never seen it, and he doubted that it was big enough to park a Cadillac in. He stayed low, moving around the edge of the rocks, expecting to see the flash of a black fender at every turn. He drew his service revolver and led around each turn with the barrel of the gun, then changed his strategy. That was like broadcasting a warning. He bent over double before peeking around the next corner, figuring that if Burton heard him or was waiting, he would be aiming high. The vastness of what Theo didn’t know about surveillance and combat techniques seemed to be expanding with every step. He just wasn’t a sneaky guy.

He skirted a narrow path between two fanglike towers of rock. As he prepared to take a quick peek around the next turn, his foot slipped, sending a pile of rocks skittering down the hill like broken glass. He stopped and held his breath, listening for the sound of a reaction somewhere in the rocks. There was only the crashing surf in the distance and a low whistle of coastal wind. He ventured a quick glance around the rock and before he could pull back, the metallic click of a gun cocking behind his head sounded like icicles being driven into his spine.

Molly was sorting through the piles of clothing the pilgrims had left by the cave entrance. She had come up with two hundred and fifty-eight dollars in cash, a stack of Gold Cards, and more than a dozen vials of antidepressants.

A voice in her head said, “You haven’t seen this many meds since you were on the lock-down ward. They have a lot of gall calling you crazy.” The narrator was back, and Molly wasn’t at all happy about it. For the last few days, her thinking had been incredibly clear.

“Yeah, you’re helping a lot with my mental health self-image,” she said to the narrator. “I liked it better when it was just me and Steve.”

None of the pilgrims seemed to notice that Molly was talking to herself. They were all in some trancelike state, stark naked, seated in a semicircle around Steve, who lay in the back of the cave, where it was dark, with his head tucked under his forelegs, flashing sullen colors across his flanks: olive drab, rust, and blue so dark that it appeared more like an afterimage on the back of the eyelid than an actual color.

“Oh yeah, you and Steve,” the narrator said snidely. “There’s a healthy couple—the two greatest has-beens of all time. He’s sulking, and you’re robbing people who are even nuttier than you are. Now you’re going to feed them to old lizard lick over there.”

“Am not.”

“Looks like none of these people has had any sun or exercise since high school gym class. Except for that guy who came in Birkenstocks, and he has that Gandhi-tan vegetarian starvation stare that looks like he’d slaughter a whole kindergarten for a Pink’s foot-long with sauerkraut. You feel okay about making them strip and prostrate themselves before the big guy?”

“I thought it would make them go away.”

“The lizard is using you.”

“We care about each other. Now just shut up. I’m trying to think.”

“Oh, like you’ve been thinking so far.”

Molly shook her head violently to try and dislodge the narrator from her mind. Her hair whipped about her face and shoulders and stood out in a wild mess. The narrator was quiet. Molly pulled a compact out of one of the pilgrims’ purses and looked at herself in the mirror. She certainly couldn’t have looked much crazier. She braced for the narrator’s comment, but it didn’t come.

She tried to get in touch with the warm feeling that had been running through her since Steve had appeared, but it just wasn’t there. Maybe the pilgrims were using up his energy. Maybe the magic had just passed.

She remembered sitting on a deck in Malibu, waiting for a producer who had just made love to her, only to have his Hispanic maid show up with a glass of wine and an apology that “The mister had to go to the studio, he very sorry, you call him next week please.” Molly had really liked the guy. She’d broken her foot kicking his spare Ferrari as she left and had to eat painkillers through the filming of her next movie, which eventually put her in detox. She never heard from the producer again.

That was being used. This was different.

“Right,” said the narrator sarcastically.

“Shhhhh,” Molly said. She heard someone scuffling on the rocks outside the cave. She snatched up the assault rifle and waited just inside the cave mouth.

Twenty-seven

Val was wishing she had a video recorder to preserve the gargantuan lie that Mavis Sand and Howard Phillips had been telling over the last hour. According to them, ten years ago the village of Pine Cove had been visited by a demon from hell, and only through the combined effort of a handful of drunks were they able to banish the demon whence it came. It was a magnificent delusion, and Val thought that she could at least get an academic paper on shared psychosis out of it. Being around Gabe had ignited her enthusiasm for research.

When Mavis and Howard wrapped up their story, Catfish started in with his tale of being pursued through the bayou by a sea monster. Soon Gabe and Val were spouting the details of Gabe’s theory that the monster had evolved the ability to affect the brain chemistry of its prey. Tipsy after a few Bloody Marys and taken by the momentum of the tale, Val confessed her replacement of Pine Cove’s supply of antidepressants with placebos. Even as she unburdened herself, Val realized that her and Gabe’s stories were no more credible than the fairy tale Mavis and Howard had just told.

“That Winston Krauss is a weasel,” Mavis said. “Comes in here every day acting like his shit don’t stink, then overcharges the whole town for something they ain’t even gettin. Should’a known he was a fish-fucker.”

“That’s in strictest confidence,” Val said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Mavis cackled. “Well, it ain’t like I’m gonna run tell Sheriff Burton on you. He’s weasel with a capital Weas. Besides, girl, you increased my business by eighty percent when you took the wackos off their drugs. And I thought it was old Mopey down there.” Mavis shot a bionic thumb toward Catfish.

The Bluesman put down his drink. “Hey!”

Gabe said, “So you believe that there really is a sea monster on that ranch?”

“What reason would you have to lie?” said Howard. “It would seem that Mr. Fish is an eyewitness as well.”

“Jefferson,” Catfish said. “Catfish Jefferson.”

“Shut up, you chickenshit,” Mavis spat. “You could have helped Theo when he asked you. What’s that boy think he’s doing following that sheriff out to the ranch anyway? It’s not like he can do anything.”

Gabe said, “We don’t know. He just left and told us to come here and wait for his call.”

“Ya’ll some heartless souls,” Catfish said. “I lost me a good woman because of all this.”

“She’s smarter than she looks,” Mavis said.

“Theo has my Mercedes,” Val added, feeling out of place even as she said it. Suddenly she felt more ashamed of looking down on these people than she did about all of her professional indiscretions.

“I’m getting worried,” said Gabe. “It’s been over an hour.”

“I don’t suppose you thought about calling him?” Mavis asked.

“You have his cell phone number?” Gabe asked.

“He’s the constable. It’s not like he’s unlisted.”

“I suppose I should have thought of that,” said Howard.

Mavis shook her head and one of her false eyelashes sprung up like a snare trap. “What, you three got thirty years of college between you and not enough smarts to dial a phone without a blueprint?”

“Astute observation,” Howard said.

“I ain’t got no college,” Catfish said.

“Well, cheers to you for being just naturally stupid,” Mavis said, picking up the phone.

The daytime regulars at the end of the bar had snapped out of their malaise to have a laugh at Catfish. There’s nothing quite so satisfying to the desperate as having someone to look down on.

The gun barrel was pushed so hard into the spot behind Theo’s ear that he thought he could hear bone cracking. Burton reached around and took the .357 and tossed it aside, then he took the automatic from Theo’s waistband and did the same.

“On the ground, facedown.” Burton kicked Theo’s feet out from under him, then put his knee in the constable’s back and handcuffed him. Theo could taste blood where his lip had split hitting the rock. He turned his head to the side, raking his cheek on some lichen. He was terrified. Every muscle in his body ached with the need to run.

Burton smacked him across the back of the head with his pistol, not hard enough to knock him out, but when the white-hot light of the blow faded, Theo could feel blood oozing into his right ear.

“You fucking stoner. How dare you fuck with my business?”

“What business?” Theo said, hoping ignorance might buy his life.

“I saw your car at the lab, Crowe. The last time I talked to Leander he was on his way to see you. Now where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

The pistol smacked Theo on the other side of the head.

“I don’t fucking know!” Theo shrieked. “He was at the lab, then he was gone. I didn’t see him leave.”

“I don’t care if he’s alive or dead, Crowe. And it doesn’t make any difference to you either. But I need to know. Did you kill him? Did he run? What?”

“I think he’s dead.”

“You think?”

Theo could feel Burton rearing back to hit him again.

“No! He’s dead. He’s dead. I know it.”

“What happened?”

Theo tried to think of a plausible explanation, something that would buy him a minute, a few more seconds even, but he couldn’t clear his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I–I heard gunfire. I was in the shed. When I came out, he was gone.”

“Then how do you know he’s dead?”

Theo couldn’t see any advantage to telling Burton that Molly had told him. Burton would track her down and put her in the same shallow grave that he was going to end up in.

“Fuck you,” Theo said. “Figure it out.”

The pistol whipped across the back of Theo’s head and he nearly passed out this time. He heard a ringing in his ears, but a second later he realized that it wasn’t in his ears at all. His cell phone was ringing in his shirt pocket. Burton rolled him over and put the barrel of the gun on Theo’s right eyelid.

“We’re going to answer this, Crowe. And if you fuck up, the calling party is going to hear a very loud disconnect.” The sheriff bent down until his face was almost touching Theo’s and reached for the phone.

Suddenly a series of deafening explosions went off a few feet away and bullets whined off the rocks like angry wasps. Burton rolled off Theo and into a shallow crevice just below them. Theo felt someone grab his collar and pull him to his feet. Before he could see who it was, a dozen hands closed on him and dragged him out of the sun. He fell hard on his back and the gunfire stopped. His phone was still ringing. A cloud of bats was swirling above him.

He looked up to see Molly Michon standing over him with a smoking assault rifle, and in that second, she looked like what he had always imagined an avenging angel might look like, except for the six naked white guys standing behind her.

“Hi, Theo,” she said.

“Hi, Molly.”

Molly pointed to the phone in his shirt pocket with the barrel of her rifle. “You want me to get that?”

“Yeah, it might be important,” Theo said.

There was a gunshot and a bullet whined off the edge of the cave entrance and ricocheted into the darkness. Theo could feel the roar that rose up out of the back of the cave vibrating in his ribs.

Burton reached over the edge of the crevice and fired a shot in the general direction of the cave, then braced himself for return fire from the AK-47, but instead he heard a roaring that sounded like someone had dropped the entire cast of The Lion King in a deep fryer. Burton was not a coward, not by any means, but a man would have to be insane not to be frightened by that noise. Too much weirdness, too fast. A woman in a leather bikini and thigh-high boots firing an AK-47 while six naked guys dragged Crowe into a cave. He needed time to regroup, call in backup, drink a fifth of Glenlivet.

It seemed safe here for the time being. As long as he didn’t move, no one could get a firing angle on him without making a target of himself. He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket, then paused, trying to figure out who to call. A general officer-in-trouble call could bring anyone, and the last thing he needed was television helicopters hovering around. Besides, his goal wasn’t to arrest the suspects, he needed them silenced for good. He could call in the guys from the crank lab, if he could get hold of them, but the vision of a bunch of untrained illegal immigrants running around on this hill with automatic weapons didn’t seem like the best strategy either. He had to call SWAT, but only his guys. Eight of the twenty men on the SWAT team were in his pocket. Again, he couldn’t go through dispatch. They’d have to be called in on private lines. He dialed the number that rang into the information center deep in the basement of the county justice building. The Spider picked up on the first ring.

“Nailsworth.”

“It’s Burton. Listen, don’t talk. Call Lopez, Sheridan, Miller, Morales, O’Hara, Crumb, Connelly, and LeMay. Tell them to come in full SWAT to the Beer Bar Ranch north of Pine Cove, the northern access road. There’s a cave here. Pull up whatever maps you need and give them directions. Do not use open channels. They are not to log in or report to anyone where they are going. There are at least two suspects in the cave with automatic weapons. I’m pinned down about ten yards from the west-facing entrance. Have them meet south of the rocks, they’ll see them, then have Sheridan call me. No aircraft. Find out if there’s another entrance to this cave. I need everyone in place ASAP. Can you do it?”

“Of course,” the Spider said. “It’s going to take them a minimum of forty minutes, maybe more if I can’t find them all.”

Burton could hear the Spider’s fat fingers blazing on his keyboard already. “Send whoever you can find. Tell them to come in separate cars. Tell them to avoid sirens if possible on the way up, definitely once they hit the ranch.”

“Do you have descriptions of the suspects?”

“It’s Theophilus Crowe and a woman, five-eight, one twenty, twenty-five to forty years old, gray hair, wearing a leather bikini.”

“Twenty-five to forty? Pretty specific,” the Spider said sarcastically.

“Fuck you, Nailsworth. How many women do you think are running around these hills wearing a leather bikini and shooting an AK? Call me when they are on the way.” Burton disconnected and checked the battery on the phone. It would last.

Since the roaring sound had come from the cave, it had been quiet, but he didn’t dare peek over the edge of the crevice. “Crowe!” he shouted. “It’s not too late to work this out!”

The naked guys were standing over Theo, wearing dazed smiles, as if they’d all just shared a big pipe of opium. “Jesus, was that it?” Theo asked, Steve’s roar still ringing in his ears.

“Him,” Molly corrected, holding up a finger to shush Theo as she pressed the answer button on his phone. “Hello,” she said into the phone. “None of your business. Who is this?” She covered the mouthpiece and said, “It’s Gabe.”

“Tell him I’m okay. Ask him where he is.”

“Theo says he’s okay. Where are you?” She listened for a second, then covered the mouthpiece again. “He’s at the Slug.”

“Tell him I’ll call him right back.”

“He’ll call you back.” She disconnected and tossed the phone in the pile of clothing by the door.

Theo looked up at the naked guys. He thought he recognized a couple of them, but didn’t want to acknowledge that he did. “Would you guys back off a little?” Theo said. They didn’t move. Theo looked at Molly. “Can you tell them to go somewhere? They’re making me nervous.”

“Why?”

“Molly, I don’t know if you’ve notice, but all these guys are in a—a state of arousal.”

“Maybe they’re just glad to see you.”

“Would you tell them to back off, please?”

Molly motioned for the naked guys to move away. “Go. Go. Back to the back of the cave, guys. Go. Go. Go.” She poked at a couple of them with the assault rifle. Slowly they turned and ambled farther back into the cave.

“What in the hell is wrong with them?”

“What do you mean, wrong? They’re acting like all guys do, they’re just being more honest about it.”

“Molly, seriously, what did you do to them?”

“I didn’t do anything. That’s how they’ve been acting since they saw Steve back there.”

Theo looked to the back of the cave, but could only see the partially lit backs of a group of people sitting on the cave floor. “It’s like they’re in a trance or something.”

“Yeah, isn’t it cool? They came to help me get you when I asked, though. So they’re not total zombies. I’m, like, in charge.”

Blood was dripping out of Theo’s scalp, matting his hair and leaving spots on his shirt. “That’s great, Molly. Could you get these handcuffs off me?”

“I was going to ask you about those. Every time I see you, you’re in handcuffs. Do you have a fetish or something?”

“Please, Molly, there’s a key in my front pocket.”

“He gave you the key?”

“It’s my key.”

“I see,” Molly said with a knowing smile.

“Handcuffs all use the same key, Molly. Please help me get out of these.”

She knelt and reached into his pocket, keeping her eyes locked on his through the process. His head throbbed when he rolled over so she could get to the cuffs.

As she pulled them off, they heard Burton call from outside. “Crowe! It’s not too late to work this out!”

Once his hands were free, Theo threw his arms around Molly and pulled her close. She dropped her rifle and returned his embrace. Another roar emanated from the back of the cave. A couple of the pilgrims shrieked and Molly let go of Theo and stood up, gazing back into the darkness.

“It’s okay, Steve,” she said.

“What in the hell was that?” Burton shouted from outside.

“That was Steve,” Molly shouted back. “You were asking what happened to Joseph Leander. Well, that was it. Steve ate him.”

“How many of you are in there?” Burton asked.

Molly looked around. “A bunch.”

“Who in the hell are you?”

“I am Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland.” She shot a silly grin at Theo, who was trying to follow what was going on up here, while listening to some disturbing stirring noises going on in the back of the cave.

“What do you want?” Burton asked.

Without a beat, Molly said, “Ten percent of the gross on all my films, retroactive fifteen years, an industrial-strength weed-whacker with gas, and world peace.”

“Seriously. We can work this out.”

“Okay. I want sixty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a couple of gallons of Diet Coke, and…” She turned to Theo, “You want anything?”

Theo shrugged. Hell, as long as they were stalling. “A new Volvo station wagon.”

“And a new Volvo station wagon,” Molly shouted. “And we want it with two cup holders, you bastard, or the deal’s off.” She turned and beamed at Theo.

“Nice touch.”

“You deserve it,” Molly said. Suddenly her eyes went wide as she looked past Theo. “No, Steve!” she screamed.

Theo rolled over to see a huge pair of jaws descending over him.

Twenty-eight

To Burton, it sounded like there could be thirty or forty people wailing in the cave, let alone whatever was making the roaring noise. It might not be as easy to get rid of witnesses as he’d thought. If all the people he’d passed on the road earlier were in the cave, the SWAT snipers were going to have their work cut out for them. One thing was for sure, he couldn’t let Crowe and this woman, whoever she was, leave the ranch alive.

His cell phone rang and he pushed the answer button. “What?” He set his gun down and covered his ear to shut out the noise from the cave.

“Nailsworth here,” the Spider said. “They’re on the way. Give it forty minutes. And there’s no other entrance to that cave.”

Burton was not happy, having to lie in this crevice for another forty minutes, but once the SWAT team arrived, it would be over. “Nailsworth, shot in the dark here, but have you ever heard of someone calling themselves Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Wasteland?”

“The Outland,” the Spider corrected. “Warrior Babe of the Outland. Of course, only the finest series of nuked-out future movies ever made. Kendra’s a huge star. Was a huge star. Molly Michon was the actress’s name. Why?”

“Never mind. One of the suspects thinks she’s a comedian.”

“If you want some of the cassettes, I can let you have some copies for twenty bucks apiece. I’ve got almost the whole collection.”

“Nailsworth, you’re a pathetic piece of shit.” Burton disconnected. The wailing was still coming from the cave and the woman was screaming something he couldn’t make out.

Theo’s sneakers were still showing, sticking out between Steve’s teeth. Molly grabbed her broadsword, ran up the Sea Beast’s foreleg, and leapt onto his broad neck. She brought the broadsword down hard between his eyes and the impact made her hands go numb. “Spit him out! Spit him out!”

Steve tossed his head, trying to throw her off, but she gripped him with her thighs and hacked away at his head. Chunks of his scales flew off and the blade sparked. “Spit him out! Spit him out!” Molly screamed, punctuating the panicked chant with blows from the sword. She’d seen this before. She knew that if she heard a crunch, Theo was finished.

The Sea Beast opened his jaws to deliver the coup de grace and Molly could hear a gurgling scream come from Theo. She leapt to her feet on Steve’s forehead, put the tip of the broadsword in the corner of his eye, and prepared to leap on the hilt to drive it into his eye socket. “Spit him out! Now!”

Steve went cross-eyed trying to see his attacker, then made a grunting noise and hacked the constable out on the cave floor. He whipped his head and Molly went flying, hitting her back hard on the cave wall ten feet away and sliding down.

The pilgrims’ wails turned to sobs as Steve slunk to the back of the cave.

Theo, mired in a puddle of blood, bat guano, and dragon spit, pushed himself up on his hands and knees and looked to Molly. “You okay?” he gasped.

She nodded. “I think so. You?”

Theo nodded and looked down to make sure his legs were still there. “Yeah.” He crawled over to her and sat back against the cave wall beside her, still heaving to get his breath back. “Nice friends you have. Why’d he stop?”

“I think his feelings are hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“He’ll get over it. He’s a big boy.”

Despite himself, Theo started laughing, and before long he and Molly were leaning against each other, giggling uncontrollably.

“Steve, huh?” Theo said.

“He looks like a Steve, don’t you think?” Molly said.

Theo wiped the dragon spit from his mouth and leaned over to kiss her. She caught his chin in her hand and pushed him away. “Bad idea.”

Another roar rose from the back of the cave, this one less angry and more sad than the last.

“I guess so,” Theo said.

“What in the hell is going on in there, Crowe?” Burton called from outside. “You don’t have a lot of time to dick around here. There’s a SWAT team on the way. What do you want?”

“I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about,” Theo shouted.

“What do you want to walk away from this? Leave the state. Forget everything. How much? Give me a figure.”

Theo looked at Molly as if she might have the answer. She said, “I thought we made our demands pretty clear.”

“He’s not going to let me go, Molly. And now he’s not going to let you go either. If there’s a SWAT team on the way, we’re in big trouble.”

“I need to go talk to Steve.” Molly stood and walked between the sobbing pilgrims to the back of the cave. Theo watched her fade into the dark where the Sea Beast was pulsing with dim spots of green and blue. Theo rubbed his eyes to try to clear his vision.

“Well, Crowe? What’ll it be?”

“Make me an offer,” Theo said, trying to figure out some kind of insurance. Something that would keep him alive more than two seconds after he stepped out of the cave.

“I’ll give you a hundred thousand. It’s a fair offer, Crowe. You can’t prove anything anyway, not if Leander is dead. Take the money and walk away.”

“I’m dead,” Theo said to himself. The size of the bluff offer itself betrayed Burton’s seriousness. There was no way he was letting Theo get away alive. “We’ll talk it over!” Theo shouted. His head was throbbing from the pistol whipping he’d taken and the vision in his left eye was blurry. His cell phone chirped from within the pile of pilgrims’ clothing and he scrambled through the clothes and pill bottles to find it. His vision went black with the movement and he had to steady himself until it cleared. He found the phone nestled in a pair of panty hose and hit the answer button.

He knew an enemy when he saw one. He could sense waves of aggression and fear coming from them, and he had felt those things coming from his warmblood lover. He could feel the fear even now as she approached him through the feeder people. Why, if she was going to find another mate, did she go to the trouble of unwrapping the feeder people for him?

He didn’t mind being hit with the sharp thing, that felt good, he thought she wanted to mate again, but when she put it in his eye, he knew she would have killed him. He felt it. She had turned her loyalties to another. He considered biting off her head to show her how badly he felt.

He tucked his head under his foreleg as she approached. She rubbed his gill tree and he sent a bolt of scarlet over his back to tell her to stop.

“I’m sorry, Steve. I don’t have many friends. I couldn’t let you eat Theo.”

He could sense benevolence in her tone, but he didn’t trust her now. Maybe he would just bite off an arm as a test. His back pulsed magenta and blue.

“You have to go, Steve. There’s a SWAT team coming. You can get past that guy outside without a problem. In fact, you can eat that guy outside if you want. In fact, I’d really appreciate it if you’d eat that guy outside.”

She stepped back from him. “Steve, you have to get out of here or they’re going to kill you.”

He pulsed a dull olive drab to her and tucked his head farther under his foreleg. She wanted him to go away, he could feel it. And he wanted to go away, but he didn’t want her to want him to go away. He knew she could never be what he wanted, and he understood never now, but he didn’t want the warmblood to have her either. Colors ran like sorrow over his scales.

“I’m not rejecting you,” Molly said. “I’m trying to save your life.”

She pushed through the pilgrims, who were all on their knees sobbing, and one woman, a thirtyish redhead with gravity-defying fake breasts, grabbed her arm. “I can sacrifice,” the woman said. “I can.”

Molly pulled her arm away from the woman. “Fuck off, lady,” Molly said, “Martyrdom’s easy, it comes with the plumbing.”

It was only when he answered the cell phone that Theo realized one of Burton’s blows had caught him on the ear. “Ouch! Goddamn it. Ouch!” Theo limped around in a circle, despite the fact that his limbs weren’t injured at all.

“Theo?” Gabe said, his voice tinny in the receiver.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Theo changed the phone to his other ear, but still held it a few inches away, now that it had bitten him once.

“Where are you? Who answered your phone?”

“That was Molly Michon. We’re in that cave up on the ranch where the mushroom farm used to be. Burton has us pinned in here and he’s called in a SWAT team.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it, Gabe. I think you were right about the brain chemistry thing. There’s a bunch of people here all tranced out, saying they were called to give sacrifice. They all have prescriptions written by Val.”

“Wow,” Gabe said. “Wow. What’s it look like?”

“It’s large, Gabe.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Look, Gabe, we need some help. Burton is going to kill us. I need witnesses up here so he can’t claim that we fired on his men. Call the TV station and the paper. Get a news helicopter up here.”

Theo felt Molly grab his shoulder. He turned to see her shaking her head. “Just a second, Gabe.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

“No reporters, Theo.”

“Why not?”

“Because if they find out about Steve, they’ll put him in a cage or kill him. No reporters. No cameras.” She gripped his shoulder until it hurt and tears welled up in her eyes. “Please.”

Theo nodded. “Gabe,” he said into the phone, “Forget the reporters. No news people. No cameras. You guys come, though. I need witnesses here that don’t work for Burton.”

“You said there were a bunch of people there?”

“They’re all out of it, I don’t think they’re worth a damn. Besides, they’re naked.”

There was a pause. Gabe said, “Why are they naked?”

Theo looked to Molly, “Why are they naked?”

“To deter them from coming into the cave.”

“To deter them from coming into the cave,” Theo said into the phone.

“Well, that didn’t work very well, did it?” Gabe said. “Why didn’t she scare them off with the creature?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Gabe. They’re here to be with the creature.”

“Fascinating. And Molly has control over him?”

Theo looked at the dragon spit running down his jeans. “Not exactly. Gabe, please, bring Val and get your ass up here. You can claim to be here for scientific reasons or something. Val can say she’s a trained hostage negotiator. These people are her patients; that should help her credibility. Bring as many people as you can.”

Molly grabbed Theo’s arm again and shook her head. “Just the people who already know.”

Theo cursed under his breath. “Scratch that, Gabe. Just you and Val. Don’t tell anyone else.”

“Mavis and Howard and Catfish know already.”

“Just them. Please, Gabe, borrow Mavis’s car and get up here.”

“Theo, this isn’t going to help you much. We might keep you from getting killed, but Burton is still going to arrest you guys. You know it. And once he gets you in his jail, well, you know.”

“One thing at a time.”

“Theo, we’ve got to preserve that creature. This is the greatest…”

“Gabe,” Theo interrupted. “I’m trying to preserve my ass. Get going, please.”

“You’ve got to get that creature out of there, Theo. They might not shoot you if there are witnesses, but they won’t let the creature go.”

“He won’t move. He’s in the back of the cave, sulking.”

“Sulking?”

“I don’t know, Gabe. Just come, okay.” Theo disconnected and sat down. To Molly he said, “Gabe’s right. We may just be delaying the inevitable by bringing in witnesses. Maybe we should rush Burton before SWAT gets here.”

Molly picked up the AK-47 from the floor, released the clip and tilted it so Theo could see it was empty. “Bad idea.”

“Hostage negotiator?” Val Riordan said. “I did my residency in eating disorders. The closest I’ve ever come to a hostage negotiation is talking a sugar-jagged actress out of purging fourteen quarts of Ben & Jerry’s Monkey Chunks after she lost her part on ‘Baywatch.’”

“That counts,” said Gabe. He’d related everything that Theo had told him and was ready to run to the rescue, but Val was reluctant.

“I believe the flavor is Chunky Monkey,” H.P. said.

“Whatever,” said Val. “I don’t see why Theo needs us if he’s got a whole cave full of my patients.”

Gabe was trying to be patient, but he could feel a clock ticking in the back of his brain, each tick taking away his chance to save his friend and lay eyes on a living specimen from the Cretaceous period. “I told you, Theo says they’re out of it.”

“Perfectly logical,” said H.P.

“How so?” asked Val, obviously irritated at the stuffy restaurateur’s tone.

“The tradition of making sacrifice is as old as man. It may be more than just a tradition. The Babylonians sacrificed to the serpent, Tiamet, the Aztecs and Mayans sacrificed to serpent gods. Perhaps this creature was the serpent to which they sacrificed.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Val said. “This thing eats people.”

H.P. chuckled, “People have been loving vengeful gods for thousands of years. Who’s to say it isn’t the vengeance that inspires that love? Perhaps, as Dr. Fenton has pointed out, there is some symbiotic relationship between the hunting habits of this creature and the brain chemistry of its prey. Perhaps it inspires love as well as sexual stimulation. That feeling needn’t be reciprocal, you know. He could be as oblivious to his worshippers as any other god. He takes the sacrifices as his due, with no responsibility on his part.”

“That’s a steamin bag of dog snot if I ever heard it,” Catfish spouted. “I been near this thing and it ain’t never done nothin but scare the daylights out of me.”

“Is that right, Mr. Fish?” H.P. said. “Isn’t it true that your fear of this creature has inspired a lifelong career in music? Perhaps you owe thanks to this beast.”

“I owe ya’ll a ride to the booby hatch, thass what I owe.”

“Enough!” Gabe shouted. “I’m going. You can come or you can stay, but I’m going to help Theo and see if I can keep that creature alive. Mavis, can I borrow your car?”

Mavis threw her keys on the bar. “Wish I was going with you, kid.”

“May I join you?” H.P. asked.

Gabe nodded and looked at Val. “They are your patients.”

She pressed her back against the bar. “This is all going to blow up, and when it all comes out, I’m going to go to jail. I should help with that?“

“Yes,” said Gabe. “Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do, and because it’s important to me and you love me.” Val stared at him, then dragged her purse off the bar. “I’ll go, but you will all be getting hate mail from me when I’m in jail.” Mavis looked at Catfish. “Well?”

“Ya’ll go on. I got the Blues on me.” They started out the door. “Don’t you worry, honey,” Mavis called after them. “You’re not going to jail. Mavis will see to it.”

Twenty-nine

Up until the time that Steve had come to town, the most fearsome prehistoric beast on the Central Coast was Mavis Sand’s 1956 Cadillac convertible. It was lemon-pie yellow with a great chrome grill that seemed to slurp at the road as it passed and gold-plated curb feelers that vibrated in the wind like spring-loaded whiskers. The daytime regulars called it the “Banana” and in a fit of ambition had once even fashioned a giant blue Chiquita emblem, which they stuck on the trunk lid while Mavis was working. “Well,” Mavis said, more than somewhat surprised by their efforts, “it ain’t the first banana I’ve rode, but it takes the size record by at least a foot.”

Even in his youth, Gabe had never driven anything like the Banana before. It steered like a barge and it rocked and lurched over dips and potholes like a foundering scow. Gabe had activated the electric top when they’d first climbed in and hadn’t figured out how to put it back up.

Gabe spotted Val’s Mercedes parked on the side of a hill off the main ranch road. There were six other vehicles parked next to it, all four-wheel-drive sport utility vehicles: two Blazers and two larger Suburbans. A group of men in black jumpsuits were standing by the vehicles, the tallest watching them through binoculars and talking on a radio or cell phone.

“Maybe we should have taken a more inconspicuous vehicle,” Gabe said.

“Why didn’t we take your car, Howard?” Val asked. She was slouched in the passenger seat.

Howard sat in the back, as stiff as a mannequin, squinting as if this was his first exposure ever to sunlight. “I own a Jaguar. Superior coach works, none like them in the world outside of Bentley and Rolls. Walnut burl on all the interior surfaces.”

“Doesn’t run, huh?”

“Sorry,” said Howard.

Gabe stopped the Banana at the cattle gate. “What should I do? They’re watching us.”

“Go on up there,” Val said. “That’s why we’re here.” She had gotten brave all of a sudden.

Gabe wasn’t quite so self-assured. “Someone tell me again why the sheriff won’t just shoot us along with Theo and Molly?”

Val was getting into the spirit of the thing, realizing that this might be the only way to atone for what she’d done to her patients. “I’m a psychiatrist, Gabe, and you have a Ph.D. The police don’t shoot people like us.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Howard said, “Does one require an advanced degree to be immune to gunfire, or does a life of scholarship count as well?”

“Go, Gabe,” Val said. “We’ll be fine.”

Gabe looked over at her and she smiled at him. He smiled back, sort of, and pulled the Banana into the pasture toward five heavily armed men who did not look happy to see them.

Theo had searched the rest of the cave, using the disposable lighter he’d forgotten to abandon with the rest of his pot habit. The cathedral chamber was closed, except for the entrance where Burton waited. Theo gave the Sea Beast a wide clearance on his way back to Molly, who stood just inside the cave mouth.

Burton shouted from outside, “Crowe, we’ve got your friends locked up! This is your last chance to make a deal! I’ll give you five minutes, then we’re using gas!”

Theo turned to Molly in a panic. “We’ve got to get these people out of here, Molly. As soon as the first gas grenade comes in, it’s all over.”

“Don’t we need hostages?”

“For what? He’s not going to negotiate. The only thing he wants is me—and probably you—dead.”

“Why don’t you call someone and tell them what you know? Then Burton won’t have a reason to kill us.”

“All I know is what I’ve seen. With Leander dead, there’s no one to connect him to the labs. I’ve already told Val and Gabe. Now he’s got them. I was an idiot to bring them into this.”

“Sorry,” Molly said.

“Wait.” Theo flipped open his phone and dialed. The phone rang eight times and Theo was glancing at the battery gauge, which showed only a quarter-charge, when a man answered.

“Nailsworth,” the Spider said, leaving the caller to guess that they had contacted the Sheriff’s Department’s information officer.

“Nailsworth, it’s Theo Crowe. I need your help.”

“Having a bad day, Theo?”

What a prick, Theo thought. “Listen, I’m trapped…”

“I know where you are, Theo. Remember, I know everything. Actually, I’m glad you called. I had something I wanted to ask you about.”

Theo fought the urge to scream at the megalomaniacal geek. “Please, Nailsworth, I don’t know how long this battery is going to hold out. I need you to do me a favor.”

“Me first.”

“Go,” Theo barked.

“Well, when Burton called me, he mentioned that your accomplice said she was Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland. So I started looking around. Turns out there was a Molly Michon admitted to county psychiatric a few times. She left a Pine Cove address. I wondered if…”

“It’s her,” Theo said.

“Wow, you’re kidding! No way!”

“She’s right here.” Theo looked at Molly and shrugged. “Look, you warned me not to go on the ranch. You know about Burton’s crank network.”

“I might,” Nailsworth said.

“Don’t be coy. You know everything. But what I need to know is do you have access to information that could be used as evidence—money transfers, checks, offshore accounts, phone records, and such—stuff you could give to the state attorney?”

“Why, Theo, you’re starting to sound like a cop.”

“Can you get it?”

“Theo, Theo, Theo, don’t be silly. Not only can I get it, but I’ve had it. I’ve been compiling a file for years.”

“Can you get it to the attorney general’s office right now?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Nailsworth, he’s going to kill us.”

“Kendra is right there with you, huh? I can’t believe it.”

Theo shuddered, halfway between panic and anger. He held the phone out to Molly. “Say something Kendra-like.”

Molly cleared her throat and said, “Die, you scum-sucking mutant pig. The only thing of mine you’ll feel is cold steel!”

“Oh my God! It’s her!” the Spider said.

“Yeah, it is,” Theo said. “Now will you help?”

“I want a copy of the Norwegian Battle Babes. Can I get one?”

Theo covered the receiver and looked at Molly. “Norwegian Battle Babes?”

Molly smiled. “Kendra VI: Battle Babes in the Hot Oil Arena. The Norwegian version is the only version that has full nudity in all the arena scenes. It’s very rare.”

Theo’s mouth had dropped open. His survival had come down to this? “So do you have a copy?”

“Sure.”

“You got it,” Theo said into the phone. “I’ll bring Kendra naked and in person to your office if you get moving now.”

“I don’t think so,” said Molly.

“I’ll send the file to Sacramento,” the Spider said, “but that won’t do you any good. Even if you tell Burton about it, he’s got you in a perfect situation to kill you anyway. You need media.”

“Media? Helicopters? We’re too far north to get anyone here in time,” Theo said.

“No!” Molly shouted.

“I’ll call them,” the Spider said. “Hold them off for twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five.”

“We don’t have anything but naked people and a jealous sea monster to hold them off with.”

“Is that more of your drug nomenclature?” the Spider asked.

“It’s what it is. If they use gas, we won’t have twenty minutes.”

“They won’t.”

“How do…”

“Twenty-five minutes. And Battle Babes better be in the original box.” The Spider hung up. Theo clicked his phone closed.

“I said no helicopters, Theo,” Molly said. “Even if we get out, you know they’ll hurt Steve. You need to call him and tell him no helicopters.”

Theo felt he was close to losing it. He clenched his fists and tried very hard not to scream in her face. His voice went to a whisper. “Molly, even with a warrant out for Burton, he will kill us. If you want your dragon to live, then you’ve got to get him out of here before they get here.”

“He won’t leave. He won’t listen to me. Look at him. He doesn’t care about anything anymore.”

Sergeant Rich Sheridan was six-three, two-thirty, with dark hair, a mustache, and a long, hooked nose that had been broken several times. Like the other men on the hill, he was wearing body armor and a radio headset, as well as a weapons belt. He was the only one not holding his M-16. Instead he was talking on a cell phone. He had been a cop for ten years and working for Burton on the side for eight. If this had been an official activation of Special Weapons and Tactics he would have been second in command, but as the real commander wasn’t in Burton’s pocket, Sheridan was in charge.

He let the binoculars dangle around his neck and waited while his men got firing angles on all of the yellow Cadillac’s passengers before he approached. Sheriff Burton was screaming at him on the cell phone.

“I’m pinned down up here, Sheridan. Handle this and get your ass up here. Now!”

“Yes, sir. What do you want me to do with them?”

“Find out who they are, then cuff them and leave them there. And hurry.”

Sheridan hung up. “Get out of the car. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

The two men and a woman did as they were told and submitted to pat-downs from Sheridan’s men. When they were handcuffed, Sheridan spun the younger man around.

“Who are you?”

“Gabe Fenton. I’m a biologist.” Gabe smiled weakly. “Nice headsets. You guys could all be standing by to take my subscription order for Corruption Weekly.”

Sheridan didn’t react. “What are you doing here?”

“Endangered species protection. There’s a very rare creature in that cave up there.”

Val winced. “Were you supposed to tell him that?” she whispered.

“How did you know to come here?” Sheridan asked.

“This is the habitat of the California red-legged frog, very endangered. I saw your SWAT vehicle go by and the driver had that ‘I want to kill some rare frogs’ look in his eye.” Gabe looked at one of the other SWAT guys, a stocky Hispanic man who was glaring at him over the sights of his M-16. “See, there’s that look right there.”

“We didn’t bring the SWAT vehicle,” Sheridan said flatly.

“Actually,” Val jumped in, “I’m a clinical psychologist. I have experience in hostage negotiation. I heard the SWAT team being dispatched on my scanner at home, and since you’re so far north, I thought you might need some help. Dr. Fenton agreed to ride along with me.”

“We weren’t dispatched over the radio,” Sheridan said, dismissing Val as if she were an insect. He looked at Howard. “And you?”

“Howard Phillips. I’m merely here to observe a hideous ancient creature that has arisen from the darkest Stygian depths to wreak havoc on civilization and feast on human flesh.” Howard smiled (the smile of an undertaker at the news of a big bus crash, but a smile nonetheless).

Sheridan stared blankly at H.P., saying nothing.

“He’s the caterer,” Gabe said quickly. “We brought him along to get your order. I’ll bet none of you guys remembered to pack a lunch, did you?”

“Who did you tell you were coming here?”

Gabe looked at Val and Howard for some clue as to the right answer. “No one,” he said.

Sheridan nodded. “We are going to put you in the back of that truck over there for your own safety,” he said. Then to the others he said, “Lock them in the K-9 unit. We’ve got to go.”

Thirty

“Listen,” Theo said, cocking his ear toward the cave mouth. “Vehicles. The SWAT team is here.”

Molly glanced to the back of the cave. From the light of the colors Steve was flashing she could see that the pilgrims had surrounded the Sea Beast and were stroking his scales. She turned back to Theo. “You’ve got to stop the helicopters. Call them and stop it.”

“Molly, it’s not the news helicopters that will hurt him, or us. It’s those guys who just pulled up.” Theo peeked out the mouth of the cave and saw two four-wheel-drives parking down on the marine terrace, about a hundred yards from the cave mouth. Of course, he thought, they still think they need cover.

Molly brandished her broadsword, holding it only inches from Theo’s stomach. “If he’s hurt, I’ll never forgive you, Theo Crowe. I’ll track you down to the ends of the earth and kill you like the radioactive scum that you are.”

“That Kendra or Molly talking?”

“I mean it,” she screamed, almost hysterical now. Steve roared from the back of the cave.

“Don’t go nuts on me, Molly. I’m doing my best. But the only thing your pal seems likely to do is eat me. He doesn’t seemed real motivated by anything else.”

Molly slumped to her knees and hung her head as if someone had sucked the energy out of her through a valve in her boot. Theo fought the urge to comfort her, afraid that if he even touched her shoulder the Sea Beast might attack him.

Then it hit him. He flipped open his cell phone and dialed the Head of the Slug.

Mavis Sand had spent a lifetime making mistakes and learning from them, and that perspective made her feel as if she knew what was good for people better than they knew themselves. Consequently, Mavis was a meddler. Most of the time she was content to use information as her tool of choice and rumor as her means of delivery. What someone knew—and when they knew it—controlled what they did. (The Spider, pulling digital strings from his basement web, had exactly the same philosophy.) Today she’d had a heap of problems dumped on her, none of them directly hers, and she had been pondering them all morning without much luck in coming up with a way to manipulate the information to solve them. Then the call came from Theo, and it all clicked: Theo was right, they could use the monster’s instincts to get them out of the cave, but if she played the mix right, she could solve a couple of other problems as well.

She put down the phone and Catfish said, “Who that?”

“It was Theo.”

“That ol‘ dragon ain’t et him yet? Boy must be livin a charmed life.”

Mavis leaned over the bar, close to Catfish, took his hand in hers, and began squeezing. “Sweetie, put on your friendly persuasion hat. I need you to run down to the pharmacy and pick up something for me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Catfish said, wincing as the bones in his fingers compressed under her grip.

When the Bluesman was gone, Mavis made a quick phone call, then went to the back room and dug through boxes and filling cabinets until she came up with what she was looking for: a small black box attached to a long cord with a cigarette lighter plug on the end. “Don’t worry, Theo,” she said to herself. “I put my life in the hands of machinery a long time ago, and I’m doing just fine.” She giggled and it came out sounding like the starter cranking on a fuel dry Ford.

A Bluesman hates to be told what to do. Authority rankles him, inspires his rebellion, and plays to his need to self-destruct. A Bluesman doesn’t take to having a boss unless he’s on a chain gang (for the chain gang boss ranks below only a mean old woman and a sweet young thing in the hierarchy of the Blues Muse, followed closely by bad liquor, a dead dog, and the Man). Catfish had a boss who was a mean old woman: a distinct and disconcerting turn of the Blues screw that might have driven a lesser Bluesman to shoot hisself, get shot, get hold of some bad liquor, or bust up his guitar and take a job down to the mill. But Catfish hadn’t taken nigh unto eighty trips around that cruel, cruel sun without gaining some perspective, so he would go to the pharmacy as he was told. He would talk to the fish-fucking white boy with the combed-over hair that waved in the air like the sprung lid on a bean can. And when he was done, he would pick up his pay from the mean old woman who was holding it hostage and he would get his wrinkly Black ass out of this town and go nurse his heartbreak on the moving trap that was, is, and always shall be the road.

So Catfish strolled a rolling Delta moonwalk of a stroll (redolent of sassafras and jive) into Pine Cove Drug and Gift, and the four blue-haired chicken women behind the counter nearly tumbled over each other trying to get to the back room. Imagine it: a person of the Dark persuasion in their midst. What if he should ask for a vial of Afro-Sheen or some other ethnically oriented product with which they were totally unfamiliar? Why, the smoke alarms would melt, screaming like dying witches, when their collective minds steamed to a stop. Do we look like thrill-seekers? Wasn’t it enough that we had to put up that sign reading NO HABLA ESPANOL and acknowledge the existence of thirty percent of the population, even in the negative? No, we shall err on the side of safety, thank you, and in lieu of sand in which to bury our heads, we shall head into the back room.

Winston Krauss, who was counting fake Zolofts behind his glass wall, looked up and saw Catfish coming down the aisle toward the counter and immediately regretted that he hadn’t installed bulletproof glass. Still, Winston was a man of the world, and you don’t indulge the fantasy of molesting dolphins without becoming familiar with the ways of people of color, for that is who dolphins prefer to hang out with, when they aren’t hanging out with the Cousteaus, or so it appeared on the Discovery Channel. He stepped out of his booth and met Catfish as he reached the counter.

“Good day, me brother-mon, ye,” Winston said in his best island dialect. “What can I be gettin for ye?” And there was that welcoming smile, only a dreadlock and a white sand beach short of a travel poster.

Catfish squinted, removed his fedora, ran a hand over his shining scalp, stepped back, turned his head to the side and studied the pharmacist for a moment, then said, “I will slap the shit out of you. You know that?”

“Sorry,” Winston said, coughing somewhat, as if trying to dislodge the errant Jamaican from his throat. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Mavis down to the Slug sent me up to ax you somethin.”

“I’m familiar with her medical records,” Winston said, “You can have her call me if she has a question.”

“Yeah, she don’t want to call you. She want you to come down to see her.”

Winston adjusted his bolo tie. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to have her call me. I can’t leave the store.”

Catfish nodded. “That what she thought you’d say. She say to ax you if she can have a big jar of them sugar pills you selling instead medicine.”

Winston glanced at the back room where his staff was huddled like Anne Frank and family, peering out through the crack in the door. “Tell her I’ll be right over,” Winston said.

“She said to wait and come with you.”

Winston was visibly sweating now; oily beads rose on his scalp. “Let me tell the staff where I’ll be.”

“Hurry up, Flipper. I ain’t got all day,” Catfish said.

Winston Krauss shuddered, hitched up his double knits, and waddled around the counter. “Ladies, I’ll be back in few minutes,” he called over his shoulder.

Catfish leaned over the counter to where he could see the row of eyes peering out of the crack and said, “I be back in a few minutes my own self, ladies. I needs some medicine what can help me with this huge black dick I have to carry around. The weight of it like to break my back.”

There was a collective intake of breath so abrupt that the drop in pressure sprung the barometer on the wall and made Catfish’s ears pop.

Winston Krauss turned and scowled at Catfish. “Was that really necessary?”

“Man’s got to look after his reputation,” Catfish said.

Burton had them cover him while he moved down through the rocks and across the marine terrace to the Blazers. He found Sheridan crouched behind the fender, his M-16 trained on the cave entrance.

“Rough morning, Sheriff?” Sheridan said, showing a hint of a smile at Burton’s disheveled suit.

Burton looked around at the other team members, who were all staring through rifle scopes at the cave entrance. “So we only have five?”

“Morales is coaching Pee-Wee Football today. The others are on regular duty. We couldn’t pull them off.”

Burton scowled. “As far as I know, they only have the one weapon, but it’s a fully automatic AK. I want two men on either side of the cave mouth, one down in that crevice where I was pinned down can deliver the gas, followed by concussion grenades. I’ll stay here with a sniper rifle to take out anyone who gets past the entry crew. Shoot anything that moves. Let’s go, five minutes. On my mark.”

“No gas,” Sheridan said.

“What?”

“No gas and no concussion. You wanted us here without checking in. That stuff is kept in the locker at County Justice. We just have the body armor and our own personal weapons.”

Burton looked around at the other men again. “You guys all have your own personal M-16s, but no grenades?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I have a standoff? I had a standoff before, Sheridan. A standoff doesn’t do me any good. Come with me.” He pushed a fresh clip into his 9 mm. and turned to the others. “Cover us.”

Burton led the SWAT commander to a spot in the rocks just below the cave mouth. “Crowe?” Burton called. “You’ve had enough time to consider my offer!”

“Offer?” Sheridan asked.

Burton shushed him.

“I haven’t decided yet!” Theo shouted. “We’ve got thirty people in here to discuss it with and they’re not being cooperative.”

Sheridan looked at Burton. “Thirty people? We can’t shoot thirty people. I’m not shooting any thirty people.”

“Five minutes, Crowe,” Burton said. “Then you have no more options.”

“What’s the offer?” Sheridan whispered to the sheriff.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just trying to get the subject separated from the hostages so we can take him out.”

“Then we’d better have a description of the suspect, don’t you think?”

“He’s the one in handcuffs,” Burton said.

“Well, aren’t you the fucking hero?” Sheridan shot back.

Skinner watched from the front seat of the Mercedes as the Food Guy was loaded into the back of the Suburban with the cage in it. The Bad Guys hadn’t even left the windows cracked. How would the Food Guy breathe? He wouldn’t be able to sit in the front seat and put his head out the window either. Skinner was sad for the Food Guy.

He crawled in the backseat of the Mercedes and lay down to nap away his anxiety.

The first thing Catfish saw when he came through the doors of the Head of the Slug was Estelle standing at the bar, and he could feel the crust peeling off his heart like old paint. Her hair was down. Brushed out, it hung to her waist. She was wearing a pair of pink overalls that had been splattered with paint over a man’s white T-shirt—his T-shirt, he realized. She looked to him like what he always thought home was supposed to look like, but as a Bluesman, he was bound by tradition to be cool.

“Hey, girl, what you doin‘ here?”

“I called her,” Mavis said. “This is your driver.”

“What I need a driver for?”

“I’ll tell you.” Estelle took his hand and led him to a booth in the corner.

Winston Krauss came through the door a second later and Mavis waved him over to the bar. “Son, I’m about to make you the happiest man in the whole world.”

“You are? Why?”

“Because I like to see people get what they want. And I have what you want.”

“You do?”

Mavis stepped up to the bar and in low, conspiratorial tones, began telling Winston Krauss the most titillating, outrageously erotic tale that she had ever told, trying the whole time to remember that the man she was talking to wanted to have sex with marine animals.

Over in the corner booth, Catfish’s modicum of cool had melted. Estelle was smiling, even as tears welled up in her eyes. “I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I thought it would put you in danger. Really.”

“I know that,” Catfish said, a gentleness in his voice that he usually reserved for kittens and traffic cops. “It just that I been runnin from this my whole life.”

“I don’t think so,” Estelle said. “I think you’ve been running to this.”

Catfish grinned. “You gonna take them old Blues off me for good, ain’t you?”

“You know it.”

“Then let’s go.” Catfish stood up and turned to where Mavis and Winston stood.

“We ready? Y’all ready?” He noticed that the front of Winston’s trousers had become overly tight. “Yeah, you ready. You sick, but you ready.”

Mavis nodded, a slight mechanical ratcheting noise coming from her neck, “Take the second turn out, not the first,” Mavis said to Estelle. “From there it hugs the coast, so there’s no hills.”

“I have to go get my mask and fins,” wailed Winston.

Thirty-one

“Has it been five minutes yet?” Molly was sitting cross-legged, her sword held across her knees. Theo jumped as if he’d been poked with an ice pick, then checked his watch. He crouched by the cave mouth, listening for the sound of either salvation or death.

“About a minute left. Where the hell are they? Molly, maybe you should find some cover.”

“What cover?” She looked around the cave. It was an open chamber; the only cover would be the darkness in the back of the chamber.

“Get behind Steve.”

“No,” Molly said. “I won’t do that.” She heard a voice come from the back of her mind. “Get to cover, you daffy broad. What, do you have a death wish?”

“I have abandonment issues. I’m not going to turn around and abandon someone else,” Molly said.

“What?” Theo said.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Fine, die. What do I care?” said the narrator.

“Bastard,” Molly said.

“What?” said Theo.

“Not you!”

“Molly, how did you get those guys to come out and drag me into the cave before?”

“I just told them to.”

“Well, take their clothes back to them and tell them to get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. And tell them to hang on to Steve’s sides and not let go, no matter what he does.”

“Now who’s nuts?”

“Molly, please, I’m trying to save him.”

Burton checked his watch. “That’s it. Get into position. We’re going in.”

Sergeant Sheridan wasn’t so sure. “They have thirty hostages and we don’t have any recon of their positions and we don’t have a full team. You want to take this guy out with thirty witnesses?”

“Goddamn it, Sheridan, get your men in position. We go on my signal.”

“Sheriff Burton.” Theo’s voice from the cave.

“What?”

“I’ll take your offer,” Theo said. “Give me five more minutes and I’ll come out. We can all leave together. The others will come out after you’re gone.”

“You just want him anyway, right?” Sheridan said. “He’s the only one that can hurt the operation.”

Burton turned it over in his mind. He’d been determined to take out the constable and the woman, but now he had to rethink things. If he could get Crowe away from the others, he could dispose of him with no witnesses.

Burton’s cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Burton,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have made disparaging comments about my weight, Sheriff,” the Spider said.

“Nailsworth, you piece of sh—” The line went dead.

Suddenly the sound of a wailing Blues guitar came screaming over the marine terrace. Burton and the SWAT team turned to see an old white station wagon driving along the edge of the terrace, next to where it dropped to the beach.

An inhuman roar rose up out of the cave, and when Burton looked back to the cave all he saw was a huge reptilian face coming at him.

Winston sat in the back of the station wagon, steadying the Marshall amplifier that was screaming out the notes from Catfish’s Stratocaster. The amp was plugged into Mavis’s black box and a cord ran over the seats into the cigarette lighter, next to where Catfish was playing. After the first few notes, Winston’s hearing had shut down due to temporary deafness, but he didn’t care. He could hardly believe his luck. Mavis had promised him the biggest sexual thrill of his life, and he had doubted her. But now he saw it. It was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen.

The feelings of self-pity, jealousy, and heartbreak were new to him, but the response that welled up in him when he heard the sound of his enemy was more deeply imprinted on his lizard brain and it displaced all the newer feelings with rage and the imperative to attack.

He stormed out of the cave with pilgrims hanging on his back by the ridge of armored plates that ran down his spine. Two layers of protective covering slid over his eyes, shortening his vision, but it was the sound that guided him anyway, the sound that carried the strongest association with the enemy. He flashed bright crimson and yellow as he charged over the rocks, kicking aside the vehicles and shedding pilgrims as he made his way to his enemy at the shore.

Molly stood in the cave entrance, screaming for Steve to stop. Theo grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away just as the Sea Beast, dangling pilgrims, charged past them. She elbowed Theo in the forehead, stunning him for a second, and she made for the cave entrance. Theo caught her outside on the rocks and held her.

“No!”

Theo wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side, and lifted her off the ground, then held her kicking as he braced for gunfire. But none came.

Burton was climbing to his feet just below them, focused on the Sea Beast as it passed. “Shoot that thing! Shoot it! Shoot it!”

The SWAT commander had rolled out of the way and come up with his weapon ready, but with people hanging all over the beast, he didn’t know where to shoot, so instead let his weapon fall to his side as he stared in amazement.

Burton drew a pistol and began running after the Sea Beast. Below, two of the SWAT team had already broken into a run from behind the Blazers just as the Sea Beast bowled them over. The other two were pinned underneath one of the crushed vehicles. As they fell, each pilgrim jumped to his feet and ran after the Sea Beast, who was making a beeline across the grassy terrace toward the white station wagon.

Theo watched as the car stopped, Blues slide notes still screaming out of the back, and Estelle Boyet crawled out of the driver’s seat and ran around to the back. The guitar playing stopped for a second as the passenger side opened, and out stepped Catfish Jefferson, holding a Fender Stratocaster.

“Let me go!” Molly screamed. “I’ve got to save him! I’ve got to save him!”

Theo yanked her back toward the cave. When he was able to look again, someone he didn’t immediately recognize had crawled out of the station wagon, and Catfish handed him the guitar.

Sheriff Burton was running after the Sea Beast, waving his weapon around, trying to get an angle to shoot without hitting one of the pilgrims. He stopped, dropped to one knee, steadied his aim, and fired. The Sea Beast roared and whipped around, throwing the last of the pilgrims into a tumble in the grass.

Molly whipped her head back into Theo’s chin at the same time she drove a heel into his knee. Theo let go of her and she rushed over the rocks and down toward the monster.

Estelle had brought the car right to the edge of the drop-off to the rocky beach. Catfish looked at the surf beating on the rocks below, then at his guitar cords coiled in the front seat, then at the rocks again. They just might be long enough. But the dragon was going to get to them before he could find out.

“Hurry!” Estelle shouted.

Catfish stood mesmerized by the charging monster, not a hundred yards away.

“Go,” he said weakly, “get yourself out of here.”

“No!” said Winston Krauss. “You promised.”

There was a gunshot and the Sea Beast whipped around in his tracks, bringing Catfish to his senses. “Let’s go,” he said to Winston. Then he looked at Estelle over the top of the car and winked. “You go on. This ain’t your time.”

Catfish played a few notes on the Stratocaster and then ambled after Winston to the surf. The pharmacist ran into the water up to his knees, then turned around. Catfish was having trouble climbing over the rocks to the water while keeping the guitar cord from catching.

“That’s far enough,” Catfish said. He walked into the surf and stood next to Winston, keeping the guitar high to keep any spray off of it.

“Give it,” Winston demanded.

“You ain’t got a lick a sense, do you?”

“Give it,” Winston repeated.

Catfish played four bars of “Green Onions” on the Strat, the notes still blaring out of the amp in the station wagon, then draped the strap around Winston’s neck and handed him a guitar pick. “Have fun,” Catfish said.

“Oh, I will,” Winston said, a lascivious grin crossing his face. “You know I will.”

“Play!” Catfish said as he turned and ran up the beach. He saw Estelle already making her way away down the shore away from the commotion. Behind him, the sour, rattling notes began to emanate from the amp in the station wagon as gunshots filled the air.

The sheriff fired three more times as he backed away from the Sea Beast, missing not only the monster but the entire North American continent. Molly threw herself sideways from a full run into the back of Burton’s knees and cut his legs out from under him. She came up in a crouch, putting herself between Burton and the Sea Beast. The sheriff thought he heard the song “Green Onions” and shook his head to clear a hallucination. The Sea Beast roared again and the sheriff vaulted into a crouch, ready to fire, but instead of a sea monster in front of him, he saw a woman in a leather bikini. He looked over his shoulder and watched the Sea Beast snap up the white station wagon in its jaws and toss it aside. The guitar sounds stopped and the Sea Beast slid over the bluff to the beach. Seeing that the danger was gone, he trained his sights on the woman. People were streaming by him on either side after the monster, wailing like a crowd of banshees.

Molly looked over her shoulder and saw Steve going into the water, then turned back to Burton. “Go ahead, you prick. I don’t care.”

“You got it,” Burton said.

He was just beating on the guitar strings now, but it didn’t matter. The amplifier wasn’t working anymore and this beautiful creature was coming to him. Winston was so turned on he thought he’d explode. She was coming to him, his dream lover, and he yanked the guitar from around his neck, ready to receive her.

“Oh, come on, baby. Come to papa,” he said.

The Sea Beast charged into the water, throwing spray fifty feet in the air, then snapped his jaws over Winston, severing the pharmacist’s body into two sleazy pieces. The Sea Beast swallowed Winston’s legs and roared, then snapped up the remaining piece and dove under the sea.

“I don’t think so, Sheriff,” Sheridan said.

Burton looked over his shoulder without taking the gun off Molly. Sheridan had his M-16 trained on the sheriff’s back. “Don’t fuck with me, Sheridan. You’re in this with me.”

“I’m not in this. Lower your weapon, sir.”

Burton lowered the pistol and turned toward Sheridan. Molly started to leap forward and the SWAT commander pointed the M-16 at her. “Right there,” he said. She stopped.

The pilgrims were all standing at the shore now, wailing as they looked out. Molly gestured in that direction and Sheridan nodded. She ran toward the shoreline.

“What now?” Burton asked.

“I don’t know,” said Sheridan, “but no one has been shot here, and I have a feeling that there’s going to be a lot of attention around this event, so no one is going to get shot.”

“You wimp.”

“Whatever,” Sheridan said.

“Hey, Burton!” Theo Crowe was running down the hill toward them. “You hear that?”

When they looked up, Theo ducked behind one of the wrecked Blazers and pointed toward the southern sky. “Film at eleven.”

Burton could hear them now: helicopters. He looked to the south and saw the two dots coming over the horizon. Two of the SWAT team members were topping the next hill. They had started running when the monster first came out of the cave. The other two were still pinned under one of the overturned Blazers. He turned back to Sheridan. The big cop was watching the approaching helicopters. “Game over,” Sheridan said. “Guess it’s time to start thinking about my deal with the D.A.”

Burton shot him in the face, then broke for the far side of the rocks to his Eldorado before the others had time to figure out what had happened.

Theo came up behind Molly and touched her lightly on the shoulder. When she turned, he could see tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she returned to staring out to sea with the others. She said, “All I ever wanted is to feel special. To feel like something set me apart.”

Theo put his arm around her. “Everyone wants that.”

“But I had it, Theo. More by having Steve in my life than when I was making movies. These people felt it, but not like me.”

The two helicopters were coming in close now and Theo had to speak right into her ear to be heard over the thumping blades. “No one’s like you.”

There was a stirring in the water just past the surf line, and something was rising in the kelp bed. Theo could see the purple gill trees standing out on the Sea Beast’s neck. He was heading toward shore. Theo tried to pull Molly closer, but she broke loose from him, jumped off the bluff, and ran into the surf, scooping up two baseball-sized rocks as she went.

Theo went after her and was halfway across the beach when she turned and looked at him with eyes filled with such pleading and desperation that it stopped him in his tracks. The helicopters were hovering only a hundred feet over the beach now. The wash from the blades kicked up sand in the faces of the onlookers.

As the Sea Beast approached shore, only his eyes and gills above the water, Molly threw one of the stones. “No, go away! Go!” The second stone hit the Sea Beast’s eye, and he stopped. “Don’t come back!” Molly screamed.

Slowly the Sea Beast sank below the surface.

The speedometer on the Eldorado was approaching sixty when Burton topped the last hill before the cattle guard. He had to get to the airport and use the open ticket in his briefcase to join his money in the Caymans before anyone could figure out where he had gone. He’d planned for this all along, knowing he might have to make a run for it at some point, but what he hadn’t planned was that there would be two Suburbans and a Mercedes parked just over the top of the hill.

Before he could stop himself, he hit the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the left. The tires dug into the pasture and sent the Eldorado up on two wheels, then over. There was none of the slowing of time or compression of events that often happens in accidents. He saw light and dark, felt his body being beaten around the Caddy, and then the crash of smashing metal and breaking glass. Then there was a pause.

He lay on the ceiling of the overturned Eldorado, peppered with pieces of safety glass, trying to feel if any of his limbs were broken. He seemed okay, he could feel his feet, and it didn’t hurt when he breathed. But he smelled gas. It was enough to remind him to move.

He grabbed the briefcase with his escape kit and slithered out the broken back window to find the Eldorado half-perched, half-smashed over the front of a white Suburban. He climbed to his feet and ran to the truck. It was locked. Sheridan, you prick, you would lock your truck, he thought. He didn’t notice the people handcuffed inside the K-9 cage in the back.

The Mercedes was his last chance. He ran around it and yanked opened the driver’s side door. The keys were in the ignition. He climbed in and took a deep breath. He had to calm down now. No more mistakes, he told himself. He started the Mercedes and was turning to back it down the hill when the dog hit him.

Thirty-two

“That was a good guitar,” Catfish said. He had his arms around Estelle, who had pressed her face to his chest when the monster attacked Winston Krauss.

“I didn’t realize,” Estelle said. “I didn’t think it would do that.”

Catfish stroked her hair. “That was a good car too. That car never broke.”

Estelle pushed Catfish away and looked in his eyes. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“What I knew is that boy wanted to get up close to a sea monster and that’s what he got. Case you didn’t notice, he was happy when it happened.”

“What now?”

“I think we ought to get you home, girl. You got some paintings gonna come out of this.”

“Home? Are you coming with me?”

“I ain’t got no car to go anywhere. I guess I am.”

“You’re going to stay? You’re not afraid of losing the Blues and getting content?”

Catfish grinned, and there was that gold tooth with the eighth note cut in it, glistening in the morning sunshine. “Dragon done ate my car, my guitar, my amp—girl, I got me enough Blues to last a good long time. I’m thinkin I’ll write me some new songs while you makin your paintings.”

“I’d like that,” Estelle said. “I’d like to paint the Blues.”

“Long as you don’t go cuttin your ear off like old Vincent. A man finds a one-eared woman stone unattractive.”

Estelle pulled him tight. “I’ll do my best.”

“Course, there was a woman I knowed down Memphis way, name of Sally, had only one leg. Called her One Leg Sally…”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“What you wanna hear?”

“I want to hear the door closing behind us, the fire crackling in the stove, and the tea kettle just coming to a whistle while my lovin man picks out ‘Walkin’ Man’s Blues’ on a National steel guitar.”

“You easy,” Catfish said.

“I thought you liked that,” she said, and she took his spidery hand in hers and led him up over the bluff to find a ride home.

Theo had never felt quite so overwhelmed in his entire life. He sensed that the excitement and the danger of it all was over, but he still felt as if a beast every bit as intimidating as the one that had just sunk into the sea was looming over him. He didn’t know if he had a job, or for that matter a home, since his cabin had been part of his pay. He didn’t even have his bong collection and victory garden to crawl into. He was confused and horrified by what had just happened, but not relieved that it was over. He stood there, not ten feet from where Molly Michon was standing in the surf, and he had no idea what the rest of his life had to offer him.

“Hey,” he called. “You okay?”

He watched her nod without turning around. The waves were breaking in front of her and foam and sea-weed was splashing up over her thighs, yet she stood there solid, staring out to sea.

“You going to be okay?”

Without turning, she said, “I haven’t been okay for years. Ask anybody.”

“Matter of opinion. I think you’re okay.”

Now she looked over her shoulder at him, her hair in a tangle from the wind, tear tracks down her face. “Really?”

“I’m a huge fan.”

“You had never heard of my movies until you came to my trailer, had you?”

“Nope. I’m a huge fan, though.”

She turned and walked out of the surf toward him, and a smile was breaking there on her face. A smile with too much history to it, but a smile nonetheless.

“The narrator says you did good,” she said.

“The narrator?” Theo found himself smiling too, as close to crying as he had come since his father had died, but smiling nonetheless.

“Yeah, it’s this voice I hear when I don’t take my meds for a while. He’s kind of a prick, but he’s got a better sense of judgment than I do.”

She was right there in front of him now—looking up at him, a hand on her hip, a challenge in that movie-star smile—looking more like Kendra the Warrior Babe than she ever had in the posters, the five-inch-long scar standing glorious over her left breast, seawater and grime streaking her body, a look in her eyes that comes from watching your future get nuked—repeatedly. She took his breath away.

“Do you think the three of us could go out to dinner sometime?”

“I’m on the rebound, you know?”

His heart sank. “I understand.”

She walked around him and started up the bluff. He followed her, understanding for the first time how the pilgrims had felt following the Sea Beast to the cave.

“I didn’t say no,” Molly said. “I just thought you ought to know. The narrator is warning me not to talk about my ex over dinner.”

His heart soared. “I think a lot of people are going to be talking about your ex.”

“You’re not intimidated?”

“Of course. But not by him.”

“The narrator says it’s a bad idea. Says the two of us put together might make one good loser.”

“Wow, he is a prick.”

“I’ll get some meds from Dr. Val and he’ll go away.”

“You’re sure that’s good idea?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning back to him again before climbing up to where the pilgrims waited. “I’d like to be alone with you.”

What the man in the driver’s seat didn’t seem to understand was that as far as this Mercedes was concerned, Skinner was the alpha male. The man smelled of fear and anger and aggression, as well as gunpowder and sweat, and Skinner didn’t like him from the moment he got into the car: Skinner’s new mobile territory. So Skinner had to show him, and he did so in the traditional way, by clamping his jaws over the Challenger’s throat and waiting for him to take a submissive posture. The man had struggled and even hit Skinner, but hadn’t said bad-dog, bad-dog, so Skinner just growled and tightened his jaws until he tasted blood and the man was still.

Skinner was still waiting for the Challenger to submit when the Tall Guy opened the car door.

“Good dog, Skinner. Good dog,” Theo said.

“Get this fucking animal off me,” the Challenger said.

Skinner wagged his tail and tightened his jaws until the Challenger made a gurgling sound. The Tall Guy scratched his ears and put some metal on the Challenger’s paws.

“Let go now, Skinner,” the Tall Guy said. “I’ve got him.”

Skinner let go and licked Theo’s face before the constable dragged the sheriff out onto the ground and stood on the back of his neck with one foot.

The Tall Guy tasted like lizard spit. That was strange. Skinner considered it a moment, then his doggie attention span ran out and he bounded out of the car to go see what the Food Guy was doing in the back of the truck. The Tall Guy’s female was breaking out the back window of the truck with a metal stick. Skinner barked at her, trying to tell her not to hurt the Food Guy.

“Is the creature still there?” Gabe asked Molly as he climbed out of the back of the Suburban. Skinner was frisking and jumping on him, and with the handcuffs he couldn’t ward off the damp affection. “Down, boy. Down.”

“No, he’s gone,” Molly said as she helped Val and Howard out of the Suburban. She nodded to Val. “Hi, Doc. I think I’ve had an episode or something. You’ll have to debrief me in session or something.”

Valerie Riordan nodded. “I’ll check my calendar.”

Theo came around the back of the Mercedes. “You guys okay?”

“You have your key?” Gabe asked, turning his back to Theo to show the handcuffs.

“We heard shots,” Val said. “Did…?”

“One of the SWAT team is dead. Burton shot him. A few of your patients are scraped and bruised, but they’ll be okay. Winston Krauss was eaten.”

“Eaten?” The color ran out of Val’s face.

“Long story, Val,” Theo said. “Mavis set it all up after you guys left. Catfish and Estelle came in and drew the monster out. Winston was sort of the bait.”

“Oh my god!” Val said. “She said something about my not being in trouble.”

Theo held his finger to his lips to shush her, then nodded to where Sheriff Burton lay on the ground. “It never happened, Val. None of it. I don’t know a thing.” He spun her around and unlocked her handcuffs. Then did the same for Gabe and Howard.

The gaunt restaurateur seemed more morose than usual. “I had really hoped to lay eyes on the creature.”

“Me too,” said Gabe, putting his arm around Valerie.

“Sorry,” Theo said. To Val he said, “The reporters from those helicopters are going to be here in a few minutes. If I were you, I’d get out of here.” He handed her the keys to the Mercedes. “The district attorney is sending a deputy to pick up Burton, so I’m going to stay here. Will you give Molly a ride back into town?”

“Of course,” Val said. “What are you going to tell the reporters?”

“I don’t know,” Theo said. “Deny everything, I guess. It depends on what they ask and what they got on tape. Having lived most my life in denial, I may be perfectly suited for dealing with them.”

“I’m sorry I was—I’m sorry I doubted your abilities, Theo.”

“So did I, Val. I’ll call you guys and let you know what’s going on.”

Gabe called Skinner and they loaded into the Mercedes, leaving Theo and Molly facing each other. Theo looked at his shoes. “I guess I’ll be seeing you.”

She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. Then without a word she crawled into the back of the Mercedes with Howard and Skinner and closed the door.

Theo watched them back away, then turn and head across the pasture and out of the cattle gate.

“You’re going down with me, Crowe!” Burton screamed from the ground.

Theo spotted something shiny lying in the grass near the back of the Suburban and went over to it. It was Molly’s broadsword. He felt a smile breaking out as he picked it up and went over to where Burton was lying.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Theo said. “I suggest you exercise that right. Immediately.” Theo plunged the sword into the ground half an inch from Burton’s face and watched the sheriff’s eyes go wide.

Thirty-three

Winter in Pine Cove is a pause, a timeout, an extended coffee break. A slowness comes over the town and people stop their cars in the street to talk with a passing neighbor without worrying about a tourist honking his horn so he can get on with his relaxing vacation (damn it!). Waiters and hotel clerks go to part-time shifts and money slows to a creep. Couples spend their nights at home in front of the fireplace as the smell of rain-washed wood smoke fills the air, and single people resolve to move somewhere where life is a full-time sport.

Winter near the shore is cold. The wind kicks up a salty mist and elephant seals come to shore to trumpet and rut and birth their pups. Retired people put sweaters on their lap dogs and drag them down the street on retractable leashes in a nightly parade of doggie humiliation. Surfers don their wetsuits against the chill of storm waves and white sharks adjust their diets to include shrink-wrapped dude-snacks on fiberglass crackers. But the chill is crisp and forgiving and settles in a way so that the town’s collective metabolism can slow into semihibernation without a shock.

At least that’s the way it is most winters.

After the coming of the Sea Beast, winter was a juggernaut, a party, an irritation and a windfall. News footage from the helicopters was beamed out over satellites and Pine Cove displaced Roswell, New Mexico, as the number one crackpot travel destination. There wasn’t much on the tapes, just a crowd of people gathered on the shore and the fuzzy image of something large in the water, but with the footprints and the eyewitness accounts, it was enough. Shops filled with cheesy serpent souvenirs and H.P.‘s Cafe added to the menu a sandwich called the Theosaurus, which was the official scientific name of the Sea Beast (coined by biologist Gabriel Fenton). The hotels filled, the streets congested, and Mavis Sand actually had to hire a second bartender to help serve the imported wackos.

Estelle Boyet opened her own gallery on Cypress Street where she sold her new series of paintings enigmatically entitled Steve, as well as the new Catfish Jefferson CD entitled 'The What Do I Do Now That I’m Happy? Blues.'

As the story of the Sea Beast spread and was sensationalized, interest rose in an obscure B-movie actress named Molly Michon. Discs and videocassettes of the Warrior Babe series were remastered and rereleased to an enthusiastic audience, and the Screen Actors Guild came down on the producers like an avenging accountant angel to capture a piece of the profits for Molly.

Valerie Riordan’s practice stabilized as she struck a balance between therapy and medication and she was able to schedule a sabbatical to join her fiancé, Gabe Fenton, on an oceanographic expedition aboard a Scripps vessel to look for evidence of the Theosaurus in the deep trenches off California.

After he testified against John Burton, putting him away for life, winter settled on Theophilus Crowe like a warm blessing. In the second month of his recovery, he realized that his addiction to marijuana had been nothing more than a response to boredom. Like the child who whines away a summer day because there’s nothing to do, but makes no effort to actually do anything, Theo had simply lacked the ambition to entertain himself. Sharing his life with Molly solved the problem, and Theo found that although he was often exhausted by the demands of his job and his lover, he was never bored. Molly’s trailer was moved to the edge of the ranch by his cabin. Every morning they shared a hearty breakfast pizza at her place. In the evening, they ate dinner on his cable spool table. She answered his calls while he was at work, and he ran interference with the geeky fans who were rabid enough to seek her out at the ranch. Not a day passed that he did not tell Molly how special she was to him, and as time passed, the narrator in her head fell silent and never spoke again.

There was no winter in the deep submarine trench off California, two miles down. Everything was as it had been: a dark pressurized sameness where the Sea Beast lay by his black smoker, grieving for love lost. He stopped grazing on deep water worms that grew on the rocks and his great body began to waste away under the weight of the water and the years. He had resolved never to move again—to lie there until his great heart stopped and with it the throb of heartbreak—when sensor cells along his flanks picked up a signal. Something he had not felt for half a century, the signature of a creature he thought he would never feel again. He flipped his tail and shook off the crust of loneliness that had settled over him, and that organ buried deep beneath his reptile brain picked up a message coming from the female. Roughly translated, it said, “Hey, sailor, want to get lucky?”