Practical Demonkeeping (15 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you know all that?”

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

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

“Why should you care?”

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

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

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

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

“No. Catch is.”

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

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

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

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

“Look—what is your name, anyway?”

“Travis.”

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

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

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

“Where's Jenny?” Travis asked.

“She's fine. She's at work.”

“You won't hurt her?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Strange is my middle name,” Brine said.

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

“Would you get on with it.”

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

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

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

Brine grumbled and nodded for Travis to continue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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