Practical Demonkeeping Read Online Free PDF Page A

righted the car, then threw it into drive and screeched toward the demon, keeping the wheels out of the ditch until the moment of impact. The Impala’s headlights shattered against Catch’s chest. The corner of the bumper caught him in the waist and drove him deep into the mud of the ditch. The engine sputtered to a stop and the damaged radiator hissed a rusty cloud of steam into Catch’s face.
    The driver’s side door was jammed against the ditch, so Traviscrawled out the window and ran around the car to see what damage he had done. Catch was lying in the ditch with the bumper against his chest.
    â€œNice driving, A.J.,” Catch said. “You going to try for Indy next year?”
    Travis was disappointed. He hadn’t really expected to hurt Catch, he knew from experience that the demon was virtually indestructible, but he had hoped at least to piss him off. “Just trying to keep you on your toes,” he said. “A little test to see how you hold up under stress.”
    Catch lifted the car, crawled out, and stood next to Travis in the ditch. “What’s the verdict? Did I pass?”
    â€œAre you dead?”
    â€œNope, I feel great.”
    â€œThen you have failed miserably. I’m sorry but I’ll have to run you over again.”
    â€œNot with this car,” the demon said, shaking his head.
    Travis surveyed the steam rising from the radiator and wondered whether he might not have been a little hasty in giving way to his anger. “Can you get it out of the ditch?”
    â€œPiece of cake.” The demon hoisted the front of the car and began to walk it up onto the berm. “But you’re not going to get far without a new radiator.”
    â€œOh, you’re all of a sudden an expert mechanic. Mr. help-me-I-can’t-change-the-channel-while-the-magic-fingers-is-on all of a sudden has a degree in automotive diagnostics?”
    â€œWell, what do you think?”
    â€œI think there’s a town just ahead where we can get it fixed. Didn’t you read that sign you bounced off of?” It was a dig. Travis knew the demon couldn’t read; in fact, he often watched subtitled movies with the sound off just to irritate Catch.
    â€œWhat’s it say?”
    â€œIt says, ‘Pine Cove, five miles.’ That’s where we’re going. I think we can limp the car five miles with a bad radiator. If not, you can push.”
    â€œYou run over me and wreck the car and I get to push?”
    â€œCorrect,” Travis said, crawling back through the car window.
    â€œAt your command, master,” Catch said sarcastically.
    Travis tried the ignition. The car whined and died. “It won’t start. Get behind and push.”
    â€œOkay,” Catch said. He went around to the back of the car, put his shoulder to the bumper, and began pushing it the rest of the way out of the ditch. “But pushing cars is very hungry work.”

4
ROBERT
    Robert Masterson had drunk a gallon of red wine, most of a five-liter Coors minikeg, and a half-pint of tequila, and still the dream came.
    A desert. A big, bright, sandy bastard. The Sahara. He is naked, tied to a chair with barbed wire. Before him is a great canopied bed covered in black satin. Under the cool shade of the canopy his wife, Jennifer, is making love to a stranger—a young, muscular, dark-haired man. Tears run down Robert’s cheeks and crystallize into salt. He cannot close his eyes or turn away. He tries to scream, but every time he opens his mouth a squat, lizardlike monster, the size of a chimpanzee, shoves a saltine cracker into his mouth. The heat and the pain in his chest are agonizing. The lovers are oblivious to his pain. The little reptile man tightens the barbed wire around his chest by twisting a stick. Every time he sobs, the wire cuts deeper. The lovers turn to him in slow motion, maintaining their embrace. They wave to him, a big home-movie wave, postcard smiles.