Practical Demonkeeping

 

35

BAD GUYS, GOOD GUYS

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

"What was that?"

"A bat," Catch said. He was invisible.

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

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

"I don't know why we couldn't have waited at your cabin," Catch said.

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

"You're afraid of bats?" Catch asked.

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

"If you have a problem with bats, you're going to love it when you see me."

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

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

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

"Can we go over it again?"

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

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

"What's that for?"

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

"What will that accomplish?" Brine asked.

"It will keep Travis in control of the demon."

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

"But she doesn't know what she is getting into. You said that yourself."

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

"And Jenny will be dead," Robert spat.

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

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

Robert threw the rifle into the backseat of the car. "Let's do it, then."

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

"They'll never go for that. Without the hostages, why should I translate the invocation?"

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

"If I make the candlesticks a condition, they'll be suspicious."

"Shit," Robert said. "This isn't going to work. I don't know why I thought it would."

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

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

"Wait a minute," Robert said. "Where is Rachel's van?"

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

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

"So?" Travis said.

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

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

On the grassy hill outside the cave Rachel said, "He's late."

"Let's kill one of them," the demon said.

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

"Once this ritual is over, I won't have you talking like that," Rachel said.

"Yes, mistress, I yearn for your guidance."

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

"He'll come," Catch said.

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

"There he is," Catch said.

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

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

"I've never seen a camera like that," said Augustus Brine.

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

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

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

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

"Nothing yet," Brine said. "Are you set, Robert?"

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

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

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

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

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

"You don't have any idea what you're talking about. Catch will kill us all."

"I don't believe you. The Earth spirit will be in my control, and I won't allow it."

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

"I still don't believe you." Rachel was beginning to lose her resolve.

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

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

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

"Put the candlesticks over by Jenny," he said.

"Why?" Rachel asked.

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

Rachel stared at him, trying to make sense of it. "I don't understand," she said.

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

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

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

"Well?" Travis said.

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

"No. Farther away," Travis said.

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

"What is this about?" Catch asked.

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

Rachel returned to the hilltop.

"I'll need that pencil and paper now," he said.

"It's in the bag." Rachel went back toward the bag.

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

"Here." Rachel handed him a pencil and a steno pad.

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

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

"Read what he has written," Catch said.

"But he's just done one line-" Rachel said.

"Read it."

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

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

"That's the last time I buy you a Cookie Monster comic book, you scaly fucker."

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

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

"They've made him change parchments. He must have been translating the wrong one."

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

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

"Can't you just scan it? We don't have time for mistakes."

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

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

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

"I'm finished," Howard said. He handed his notebook to Brine.

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

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

"It would be best to assume that it will."

"You mean you don't know?"

"How would I know?"

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

"Police! Don't anyone move!"

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

They stood frozen in position.

"On the ground, now!" Rivera cocked his revolver.

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

"Down!"

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

"Stop that," Rivera said.

The Djinn ignored him and continued cursing.

"On your belly, you little fucker."

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

"Yeah, and that's why you have a high-powered rifle in your car."

"That's nothing," Robert said.

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

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

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

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

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

"No," Catch said. "First we see if it works."

"Please, Rachel, you have what you want. There's no reason to keep these people here."

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

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

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

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

"I told you, I stole it out of the Chevy."

"Who owns the Chevy?"

"I can't tell you that."

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

"Murder? Who was murdered?"

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

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

"And what was that?"

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

"So?" Rivera said.

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

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

"We don't have time," Brine insisted.

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

"Hi, cutie," she said to Brine.

They all jumped to their feet.

"Mavis, what are you doing here?"

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

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

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

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

Rachel said, "Nothing happened."

Catch said, "Nothing happened, Travis."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Travis darted past Catch to Amanda and Jenny.

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

"I am still your superior," the Djinn said.

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

"This time you lose, Catch."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Gus!" he shouted.

"The candlesticks!" came back.

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

"Hurry," Brine shouted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Santa Maria! What the hell is that?"

Mavis trained the gun on him. "Stay right there."

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

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

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

"Santa fucking Maria," Rivera said.

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

"It is done," the Djinn said.

"Then do something!" Travis said. "Help Gus."

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

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

Brine smiled at him. The demon paused.

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

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

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

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

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

Brine looked from face to face. Someone was missing.

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

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

"Where's Effrom?"

"He didn't make it, Gus," Robert said. "His heart gave out when the demon threw him."

Brine looked to the Djinn. "Bring him back."

The Djinn shook his head balefully. "This I cannot do."

Brine said, "I'm sorry, Amanda." Then to Gian Hen Gian, "What happened to Catch?"

"He is on his way to Jerusalem."

"I don't understand."

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

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

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

"Don't be ridiculous."

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

"Gian Hen Gian, you are not a coward. You are a creator  -  you told me that yourself. It's not in your nature to destroy, to make war."

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

"It doesn't matter," Brine said. "It's finished."

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

"But Travis, you don't know what will happen to you. You may die on the spot."

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

"All right, I'll do it," Brine said.

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

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

"I did it, Travis. Are you all right?"

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

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

"I'm glad it didn't hurt," Brine said.

"What am I going to do?"

"I don't know, Travis. I need to think."