Practical Demonkeeping pc-1 Page 5

  “Solomon was pleased with the demon’s work and told him so. Catch said that the work would go faster if he didn’t have to work with a Djinn, so I stood by and watched as the temple rose. From time to time great stones dropped from the walls, crushing the slaves below. While the blood ran, I could hear Catch laughing and shouting ‘Whoops’ from the top of the wall.

  “Solomon believed these killings to be accidents, but I knew them to be murder. It was then that I realized that Solomon’s control over the demon was not absolute, and therefore, his control over me must have its limits as well. My first impulse was to try to escape, but if I were wrong, I knew that I would be sent back to the netherworld and all would be lost. Perhaps I could persuade Solomon to set me free by offering him something he could attain only through my power to create.

  “Solomon’s appetite for women was infamous. I offered to bring him the most beautiful woman he had ever seen if he would allow me to remain on Earth. He agreed.

  “I retreated to my quarters and contemplated what sort of woman might most please the idiot king. I had seen his thousand wives and found no common thread among their charms that revealed Solomon’s preferences. In the end I was left to my own creativity.

  “I gave her fair hair and blue eyes and skin as white and smooth as marble. She was all things that men wish of women in body and mind. She was a virgin with a courtesan’s knowledge in the ways of pleasure. She was kind, intelligent, forgiving, and warm with humor.

  “Solomon fell in love with the woman as soon as I presented her to him. ‘She shines like a jewel’, he said. ‘Jewel shall be her name.’ He spent an hour or more just staring at her, captivated with her beauty. When finally his senses returned, he said, ‘We will talk later of your reward, Gian Hen Gian.’ Then he took Jewel by the hand and led her to his bedchamber.

  “I felt a strength return to me the moment I presented Jewel to the king. I was not free to escape, but for the first time I was able to leave the city without being compelled by some invisible bond to return to Solomon. I went into the desert and spent the night enjoying the freedom I had gained. It was not until I returned the next morning that I realized that Solomon’s control over me and the demon depended upon the concentration of his will, as well as the invocations and the seal given to him by Jehovah. The woman, Jewel, had broken his will.

  “I found Solomon in his palace weeping one moment, then screaming with rage the next. While I had been away Catch had come to Solomon’s bedchamber, not in the form that Solomon recognized, but in the form of a huge monster, taller than two men and as wide as a team of horses, and the slaves could see him as well. While Solomon watched in horror, the demon snatched Jewel from the bed with a single, talonlike hand and bit her head off. Then the monster swallowed the girl’s body and reached for Solomon. But some force protected the king, and Solomon commanded the demon to return to his smaller form. Catch laughed in his face and skulked off to the wives’ quarters.

  “Through the night the palace was filled with the screams of terrified women. Solomon ordered his guards to attack the demon. Catch swatted them away as if they were flies. By dawn the palace was littered with the crushed bodies of the guards. Of Solomon’s thousand wives only two hundred remained alive. Catch was gone.

  “During the attack Solomon had called upon the power of the seal and prayed to Jehovah to stop the demon. But the king’s will was broken, and so it did no good.

  “I sensed then that I might escape Solomon’s control altogether, and live free, but even the idiot king would eventually make the connection and my fate would lie in the netherworld.

  “I bade Solomon allow me to bring Catch to justice. I knew my power to be much greater than the demon’s. But Solomon had only the building of the temple by which to judge my powers, and in that example the demon appeared superior. ‘Do what you can,’ he said. ‘If you capture the demon, you may remain on Earth.’

  “I found Catch in the great desert, wantonly slaughtering tribes of nomads. When I bound him with my magic, he protested that he had planned to return, for he was enslaved to Solomon by the invocation and could never really escape. He was only having a little sport with the humans, he said. To quiet him, I filled his mouth with sand for the journey back to Jerusalem.

  “When I brought Catch to Solomon, the king commanded me to devise a punishment to torment the demon, so that the people of Jerusalem might watch him suffer. I chained Catch to a giant stone outside the palace, then I created a huge bird of prey that swooped on the demon and tore at his liver, which grew back at once, for like the Djinn, the demon was immortal.

  “Solomon was pleased with my work. During my absence he had regained his senses somewhat, and thereby his will. I stood before the king awaiting my reward, feeling my powers wane as Solomon’s will returned.

  “‘I have promised that you shall never be returned to the netherworld, and you shall not,’ he said. ‘But this demon has put me off of immortals more than somewhat, and I do not wish that you be allowed to roam free. You shall be imprisoned in a jar and cast into the sea. Should the time come when you are set free to walk the Earth again, you shall have no power over the realm of man except as is commanded by my will, which shall be from now to the end of time the goodwill of all men. By this you shall be bound.’

  “He had a jar fashioned from lead and marked it on all sides with a silver seal. Before he imprisoned me, Solomon promised that Catch would remain chained to the rock until his screams burned into the king’s soul — so that Solomon might never lose his will or his wisdom again. He said he would then send the demon back to hell and destroy the tablets with the invocations, as well as the great seal. He swore these things to me, as if he believed the fate of the demon meant something to me. I didn’t give a camel’s fart about Catch. Then he gave me a last command and sealed the jar. His soldiers cast the jar into the Red Sea.

  “For two thousand years I languished inside the jar, my only comfort a trickle of seawater that seeped in, which I drank with relish, for it tasted of freedom.

  “When the jar was finally pulled from the sea by a fisherman, and I was released, I cared nothing about Solomon or Catch, only about my freedom. I have lived as a man would live these last thousand years, bound by Solomon’s will. Of this Solomon spoke truly, but about the demon, he lied.”

  The little man paused and refilled his cup in the ocean. Augustus Brine was at a loss. It couldn’t possibly be true. There was nothing to corroborate the story.

  “Begging your pardon, Gian Hen Gian, but why is none of this told in the Bible?”

  “Editing,” the Djinn said.

  “But aren’t you confusing Greek myth with Christian myth? The birds eating the demon’s liver sounds an awful lot like the story of Prometheus.”

  “It was my idea. The Greeks were thieves, no better than Solomon.”

  Brine considered this for a moment. He was seeing evidence of the supernatural, wasn’t he? Wasn’t this little Arab drinking seawater as he watched, with no apparent ill effects? And even if some of it could be explained by hallucination, he was pretty sure that he hadn’t been the only one to see the strange blue swirls in the store this morning. What if for a moment — just a moment — he took the Arab’s outrageous story for the truth?…

  “If this is true, then how do you know, after all this time, that Solomon lied to you? And why tell me about it?”

  “Because, Augustus Brine, I knew you would believe. And I know Solomon lied because I can feel the presence of the demon, Catch. And I’m sure that he has come to Pine Cove.”

  “Swell,” Brine said.

  7

  ARRIVAL

  Virgil Long backed out from under the hood of the Impala, wiped his hands on his coveralls, and scratched at his four-day growth of beard. He reminded Travis of a fat weasel with the mange.

  “So you’re thinking it’s the radiator?” Virgil asked.

  “It’s the radiator,” Travis said.

  “It might be the wh
ole engine is gone. You were running pretty quiet when you drove in. Not a good sign. Do you have a charge card?”

  Virgil was unprecedented in his inability to diagnose specific engine problems. When he was dealing with tourists, his strategy was usually to start replacing things and keep replacing them until he solved the problem or reached the limit on the customer’s credit card, whichever came first.

  “It wasn’t running at all when I came in,” Travis protested. “And I don’t have a credit card. It’s the radiator, I promise.”

  “Now, son,” Virgil drawled, “I know you think you know what you’re talking about, but I got a certificate from the Ford factory there on the wall that says I’m a master mechanic.” Virgil pointed a fat finger toward the service station’s office. One wall was covered with framed certificates along with a poster of a nude woman sitting on the hood of a Corvette buffing her private parts with a scarf in order to sell motor oil. Virgil had purchased the Master Mechanic certificates from an outfit in New Hampshire: two for five dollars, six for ten dollars, fifteen for twenty. He had gone for the twenty-dollar package. Those who took the time to read the certificates were somewhat surprised to find out that Pine Cove’s only service station and car wash had its own factory-certified snowmobile mechanic. It had never snowed in Pine Cove.

  “This is a Chevy,” Travis said.

  “Got a certificate for those, too. You probably need new rings. The radiator’s just a symptom, like these broken headlights. You treat the symptom, the disease just gets worse.” Virgil had heard that on a doctor show once and liked the sound of it.

  “What will it cost to just fix the radiator?”

  Virgil stared deep into the grease spots on the garage floor, as if by reading their patterns and by some mystic mode of divination, petrolmancy perhaps, he would arrive at a price that would not alienate the dark young man but would still assure him an exorbitant hourly rate for his labor.

  “Hundred bucks.” It had a nice round ring to it.

  “Fine,” Travis said, “Fix it. When can I have it back?”

  Virgil consulted the grease spots again, then emerged with a good-ol’-boy smile. “How’s noon sound?”

  “Fine,” Travis said. “Is there a pool hall around here — and someplace I can get some breakfast?”

  “No pool hall. The Head of the Slug is open down the street. They got a couple of tables.”

  “And breakfast?”

  “Only thing open this end of town is H.P.’s, a block off Cypress, down from the Slug. But it’s a local’s joint.”

  “Is there a problem getting served?”

  “No. The menu might throw you for a bit. It — well, you’ll see.”

  Travis thanked the mechanic and started off in the direction of H.P.’s, the demon skulking along behind him. As they passed the self-serve car-wash stalls, Travis noticed a tall man of about thirty unloading plastic laundry baskets full of dirty dishes from the bed of an old Ford pickup. He seemed to be having trouble getting quarters to go into the coin box.

  Looking at him, Travis said: “You know, Catch, I’ll bet there’s a lot of incest in this town.”

  “Probably the only entertainment,” the demon agreed.

  The man in the car wash had activated the high-pressure nozzle and was sweeping it back and forth across the baskets of dishes. With each sweep he repeated, “Nobody lives like this. Nobody.”

  Some of the overspray caught on the wind and settled over Travis and Catch. For a moment the demon became visible in the spray. “I’m melt-ing,” Catch whined in perfect Wicked Witch of the West pitch.

  “Let’s go,” Travis said, moving quickly to avoid more spray. “We need a hundred bucks before noon.”

  JENNY

  In the two hours since Jenny Masterson had arrived at the cafe she had managed to drop a tray full of glasses, mix up the orders on three tables, fill the saltshakers with sugar and the sugar dispensers with salt, and pour hot coffee on the hands of two customers who had covered their cups to indicate that they’d had enough — a patently stupid gesture on their part, she thought. The worst of it was not that she normally performed her duties flawlessly, which she did. The worst of it was that everyone was so damned understanding about it.

  “You’re going through a rough time, honey, it’s okay.”

  “Divorce is always hard.”

  Their consolations ranged from “too bad you couldn’t work it out” to “he was a worthless drunk anyway, you’re better off without him.”

  She’d been separated from Robert exactly four days and everybody in Pine Cove knew about it. And they couldn’t just let it lie. Why didn’t they let her go through the process without running this cloying gauntlet of sympathy? It was as if she had a big red D sewed to her clothing, a signal to the townsfolk to close around her like a hungry amoeba.

  When the second tray of glasses hit the floor, she stood amid the shards trying to catch her breath and could not. She had to do something — scream, cry, pass out — but she just stood there, paralyzed, while the busboy cleaned up the glass.

  Two bony hands closed on her shoulders. She heard a voice in her ear that seemed to come from very far away. “You are having an anxiety attack, dear. It shall pass. Relax and breathe deeply.” She felt the hands gently leading her through the kitchen door to the office in the back.

  “Sit down and put your head between your knees.” She let herself be guided into a chair. Her mind went white, and her breath caught in her throat. A bony hand rubbed her back.

  “Breathe, Jennifer. I’ll not have you shuffling off this mortal coil in the middle of the breakfast shift.”

  In a moment her head cleared and she looked up to see Howard Phillips, the owner of H.P.’s, standing over her.

  He was a tall, skeletal man, who always wore a black suit and button shoes that had been fashionable a hundred years ago. Except for the dark depressions on his cheeks, Howard’s skin was as white as a carrion worm. Robert had once said that H.P. looked like the master of ceremonies at a chemotherapy funfest.

  Howard had been born and raised in Maine, yet when he spoke, he affected the accent of an erudite Londoner. “The prospect of change is a many-fanged beast, my dear. It is not, however, appropriate to pay fearful obeisance to that beast by cowering in the ruins of my stemware while you have orders up.”

  “I’m sorry, Howard. Robert called this morning. He sounded so helpless, pathetic.”

  “A tragedy, to be sure. Yet as we sit, ensconced in our grief, two perfectly healthy daily specials languish under the heat lamps metamorphosing into gelatinous invitations to botulism.”

  Jenny was relieved that in his own, cryptically charming way, Howard was not giving her sympathy but telling her to get off her ass and live her life. “I think I’m okay now. Thanks, Howard.” Jenny stood and wiped her eyes with a paper napkin she took from her apron. Then she went off to deliver her orders. Howard, having exhausted his compassion for the day, closed the door of his office and began working on the books.

  When Jenny returned to the floor, she found that the restaurant had cleared except for a few regular customers and a dark young man she didn’t recognize, who was standing by the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign. At least he wouldn’t ask about Robert, thank God. It was a welcome relief.

  Not many tourists found H.P.’s. It was tucked in a tree-lined cul-de-sac off Cypress Street in a remodeled Victorian bungalow. The sign outside, small and tasteful, simply read, CAFE. Howard did not believe in advertising, and though he was an Anglophile at heart — loving all things British and feeling that they were somehow superior to their American counterparts — his restaurant displayed none of the ersatz British decor that might draw in the tourists. The cafe served simple food at fair prices. If the menu exhibited Howard Phillips’s eccentricity in style, it did not discourage the locals from eating at his place. Next to Brine’s Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines, H.P.’s Cafe had the most loyal clientele in Pine Cove.

  “Smoking or no
nsmoking?” Jenny asked the young man. He was very good-looking, but Jenny noticed this only in passing. She was conditioned by years of monogamy not to dwell on such things.

  “Nonsmoking,” he said.

  Jenny led him to a table in the back. Before he sat down, he pulled out the chair across from him, as if he were going to put his feet up.

  “Will someone be joining you?” Jenny asked, handing him a menu. He looked up at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. He stared into her eyes without saying a word.

  Embarrassed, Jenny looked down. “Today’s special is Eggs-Sothoth — a fiendishly toothsome amalgamation of scrumptious ingredients so delicious that the mere description of the palatable gestalt could drive one mad,” she said.

  “You’re joking?”

  “No. The owner insists that we memorize the daily specials verbatim.”

  The dark man kept staring at her. “What does all that mean?” he asked.

  “Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese and a side of toast.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “The owner is a little eccentric. He believes that his daily specials may be the only thing keeping the Old Ones at bay.”

  “The Old Ones?”

  Jenny sighed. The nice thing about regular customers is she didn’t have to keep explaining Howard’s weird menu to them. This guy was obviously from out of town. But why did he have to keep staring at her like that?

  “It’s his religion or something. He believes that the world was once populated by another race. He calls them the Old Ones. For some reason they were banished from Earth, but he believes that they are trying to return and take over.”

  “You’re joking?”

  “Stop saying that. I’m not joking.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked at the menu. “Okay, give me an Eggs-Sothoth with a side order of The Spuds of Madness.”

  “Would you like coffee?”

  “That would be great.”

  Jenny wrote out the ticket and turned to put the order in at the kitchen window.