Practical Demonkeeping (Pine Cove 1)

"I ran the six miles into town without stopping. The sun was coming up as I reached the train station and a train was pulling away from the platform. I didn't know where it was going, but I ran after it and managed to swing myself on board before I collapsed.

"I'd like to tell you I had some kind of plan, but I didn't. My only thought was to get as far away from St. Anthony's as I could. I don't know why I took the candlesticks. I wasn't interested in their value. I guess I didn't want to leave any evidence of what I'd done. Or maybe it was the influence of the supernatural.

"Anyway, I caught my breath and went into the passenger car to find a seat. The train was nearly full, soldiers and a few civilians here and there. I staggered down the aisle and fell into the first empty seat I could find. It was next to a young woman who was reading a book.

"'This seat is taken,' she said.

"'Please, just let me rest here for a minute,' I begged. 'I'll get up when your companion returns. '

"She looked up from her book and I found myself staring into the biggest, bluest eyes I'd ever seen. I will never forget them. She was young, about my age, and wore her dark hair pinned up under a hat, which was the style in those days. She looked genuinely frightened of me. I guess I was wearing my own fright on my face.

"'Are you all right? Shall I call the conductor?' she asked.

"I thanked her but told her that I just needed to rest a moment. She was looking at the strange way I was dressed, trying to be polite, but obviously perplexed. I looked up and noticed that everyone in the car was staring at me. Could they know about what I'd done? I wondered. Then I realized why they were staring. There was a war on and I was obviously the right age for the Army, yet I was dressed in civilian clothes. 'I'm a seminary student,' I blurted out to them, causing a breeze of incredulous whispers. The girl blushed.

"'I'm sorry,' I said to her. 'I'll move on. ' I started to rise, but she put her hand on my shoulder to push me back into my seat and I winced when she touched my injured shoulder.

"'No,' she said, 'I'm traveling alone. I've just been saving this seat to ward off the soldiers. You know how they can be sometimes, Father. '

"'I'm not a priest yet,' I said.

"'I don't know what to call you, then,' she said.

"'Call me Travis,' I said.

"'I'm Amanda,' she said. She smiled, and for a moment I completely forgot why I was running. She was an attractive girl, but when she smiled, she was absolutely stunning. It was my turn to blush.

"'I'm going to New York to stay with my fianc??'s family. He's in Europe,' she said.

"'So this train is going east?' I asked.

"She was surprised. 'You don't even know where the train is going?' she asked.

"'I've had a bad night,' I said. Then I started to laugh  -  I don't know why. It seemed so unreal. The idea of trying to explain it to her seemed silly.

"She looked away and started digging in her purse. 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'I didn't mean to offend you. '

'You didn't offend me. I need to have my ticket ready for the conductor. '

"I'd completely forgotten about not having a ticket. I looked up and saw the conductor coming down the aisle. I jumped up and a wave of fatigue hit me. I almost fell into her lap.

"'Is something wrong?' she asked.

"'Amanda,' I said, 'you have been very kind, but I should find another seat and let you travel in peace. '

"'You don't have a ticket, do you?' she said.

"I shook my head. 'I've been in seminary. I'd forgotten. We don't have any need for money there and. . . '

"'I have some traveling money,' she said.

"'I couldn't ask you to do that,' I said. Then I remembered the candlesticks. 'Look, you can have these. They're worth a lot of money. Hold them and I'll send you the money for the ticket when I get home,' I said.

"I unrolled the blanket and dropped the candlesticks in her lap.

"'That's not necessary,' she said. "I'll loan you the money. '

"'No, I insist you take them,' I said, trying to be gallant. I must have looked ridiculous standing there in my overalls and tattered suit jacket.

"'If you insist,' she said. 'I understand. My fianc?? is a proud man, too. '

"She gave me the money I needed and I bought a ticket all the way to Clarion, which was only about ten miles from my parent's farm.

"The train broke down somewhere in Indiana and we were forced to wait in the station while they changed engines. It was midsummer and terribly hot. Without thinking, I took off my jacket and Amanda gasped when she saw my back. She insisted that I see a doctor, but I refused, knowing that I would only have to borrow more money from her to pay for it. We sat on a bench in the station while she cleaned my back with damp napkins from the dining car.

"In those days the sight of a woman bathing a half-naked man in a train station would have been scandalous, but most of the passengers were soldiers and were much more concerned with being AWOL or with their ultimate destination, Europe, so we were ignored for the most part.

"Amanda disappeared for a while and returned just before our train was ready to leave. 'I've reserved a berth in the sleeping car for us,' she said.

"I was shocked. I started to protest, but she stopped me. She said, 'You are going to sleep and I am going to watch over you. You are a priest and I'm engaged, so there is nothing wrong with it. Besides, you are in no shape to spend the night sitting up in a train. '

"I think it was then that I realized that I was in love with her. Not that it mattered. It was just that after living so long with Father Jasper's abuse I wasn't prepared for the kindness she was showing me. It never occurred to me that I might be putting her in danger.

"As we pulled away from the station, I looked out on the platform, and for the first time I saw Catch in his smaller form. Why it happened then and not before I don't know. Maybe I didn't have any strength left, but when I saw hi

m there on the platform, flashing a big razor-toothed grin, I fainted.

"When I came to, I felt like my back was on fire. I was lying in the sleeping berth and Amanda was bathing my back with alcohol.

"'I told them you'd been wounded in France,' she said. "The porter helped me get you in here. I think it's about time you told me who did this to you. '

"I told her what Father Jasper had done, leaving out the parts about the demon. I was in tears when I finished, and she was holding me, rocking me back and forth.

"I'm not sure how it happened  -  the passion of the moment and all that, I guess  -  but the next thing I knew, we were kissing, and I was undressing her. Just as we were about to make love she stopped me.

"'I have to take this off,' she said. She was wearing a wooden bracelet with the initials E + A burnt into it. 'We don't have to do this,' I said.

"Have you, Mr. Brine, ever said something that you know you will always regret? I have. It was: 'We don't have to do this. '

"She said: 'Oh, then let's not. '

"She fell asleep holding me while I lay awake, thinking about sex and damnation, which really wasn't any different from what I'd thought about each night in the seminary  -  a little more immediate, I guess.

"I was just dozing off when I heard a commotion coming from the opposite end of our sleeping car. I peeked through the curtains of the berth to see what was happening. Catch was coming down the aisle, looking into berths as he went. I didn't know at the time that Catch was invisible to other people, and I couldn't understand why they weren't screaming at the sight of him. People were shouting and looking out of their berths, but all they were seeing was empty air.

"I grabbed my overalls and jumped into the aisle, leaving my jacket and the candlesticks in the berth with Amanda. I didn't even thank her. I ran down the aisle toward the back of the car, away from Catch. As I ran, I could hear him yelling, 'Why are you running? Don't you know the rules?'

"I went through the door between the cars and slid it shut behind me. By now people were screaming, not out of fear of Catch, but because a naked man was running through the sleeping car.

"I looked into the next car and saw the conductor coming down the aisle toward me. Catch was almost to the door behind me. Without thinking, or even looking, I opened the door to the outside and leapt off the train, naked, my overalls still in hand.

"The train was on a trestle at the time and it was a long drop to the ground, fifty or sixty feet. By all rights I should have been killed. When I hit, the wind was knocked out of me and I remember thinking that my back was broken, but in seconds I was up and running through a wooden valley. I didn't realize until later that I had been protected by my pact with the demon, even through he was not under my control at the time. I don't really know the extent of his protection, but I've been in a hundred accidents since then that should have killed me and come out without a scratch.

"I ran through the woods until I came to a dirt road. I had no idea where I was. I just walked until I couldn't walk anymore and then sat down at the side of the road. Just after sunup a rickety wagon pulled up beside me and the farmer asked me if I was all right. In those days it wasn't uncommon to see a barefoot kid in overalls by the side of the road.

"The farmer informed me that I was only about twenty miles from home. I told him that I was a student on holiday, trying to hitchhike home, and he offered to drive me. I fell asleep in the wagon. When the farmer woke me, we were stopped at the gate of my parents' farm. I thanked him and walked up the road toward the house.

"I guess I should have known right away that something was wrong. At that time of the morning everyone should have been out working, but the barnyard was deserted except for a few chickens. I could hear the two dairy cows mooing in the barn when they should have already been milked and put out to pasture.

"I had no idea what I would tell my parents. I hadn't thought about what I would do when I got home, only that I wanted to get there.

"I ran in the back door expecting to find my mother in the kitchen, but she wasn't there. My family rarely left the farm, and they certainly wouldn't have gone anywhere without taking care of the animals first. My first thought was that there had been an accident. Perhaps my father had fallen from the tractor and they had taken him to the hospital in Clarion. I ran to the front of the house. My father's wagon was tied up out front.

"I bolted through the house, shouting into every room, but there was no one home. I found myself standing on the front porch, wondering what to do next, when I heard his voice from behind me.

"'You can't run from me,' Catch said.

"I turned. He was sitting on the porch swing, dangling his feet in the air. I was afraid, but I was also angry.

"'Where is my family?!' I screamed.

"He patted his stomach. 'Gone,' he said.

"'What have you done with them?' I said.

"'They're gone forever,' he said. 'I ate them. '

"I was enraged. I grabbed the porch swing and pushed it with everything I had. The swing banged against the porch rail and Catch went over the edge into the dirt.

"My father kept a chopping block and an ax in front of the house for splitting kindling. I jumped off the porch and snatched up the ax. Catch was just picking himself up when I him in the forehead with it. Sparks flew and the ax blade bounced off his head as if it had hit cast iron. Before I knew it I was on my back and Catch was sitting on my chest grinning like the demon in that Fuselli painting, The Nightmare. He didn't seem at all angry. I flailed under him but could not get up.

"'Look,' he said, 'this is silly. You called me up to do a job and I did it, so what's all the commotion about? By the way, you would have loved it. I clipped the priest's hamstrings and watched him crawl around begging for a while. I really like eating priests, they're always convinced that the Creator is testing them. '

"'You killed my family!' I said. I was still trying to free myself.

"'Well, that sort of thing happens when you run away. It's all your fault; if you didn't want the responsibility, you shouldn't have called me up. You knew what you were getting into when you renounced the Creator. '

"'But I didn't,' I protested. Then I remembered my curses in the chapel. I had renounced God. 'I didn't know,' I said.

"'Well, if you're going to be a weenie about it, I'll fill you in on the rules,' he said. 'First, you can't run away from me. You called me up and I am more or less your servant forever. When I say forever, I mean forever. You are not going to age, and you are not going to be sick. The second thing you need to know is that I am immortal. You whack me with axes all you want and all you'll get is a dull ax and a sore back, so just save your energy. Third, I am Catch. They call me the destroyer, and that's what I do. With my help you can rule the world and other really swell stuff. In the past my masters haven't used me to the best advantage, but you might be the exception, although I doubt it. Fourth, when I'm in this form, you are the only one who can see me. When I take on my destroyer form, I am visible to everyone. It's stupid, and why it's that way is a long story, but that's the way it is. In the past they decided to keep me a secret, but there's no rule about it. '

"He paused and climbed off my chest. I got to my feet and dusted myself off. My head was spinning with what Catch had told me. I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth, but I had nothing else to go on. When you encounter the supernatural, your mind searches for an explanation. I'd had the explanation laid in my lap, but I didn't want to believe it.

"I said, 'So you're from hell?' I know it was a stupid question, but even a seminary education doesn't prepare you for a conversation with a demon.

"'No,' he said, 'I'm from Paradise. '

"'You're lying,' I said. It was the beginning of a string of lies and misdirections that have gone

on for seventy years.

"He said, 'No, really, I'm from Paradise. It's a little town about thirty miles outside of Newark. ' Then he started laughing and rolling around in the dirt holding his sides.

"'How can I get rid of you?' I asked.

"'Sorry,' he said, 'I've told you everything that I have to. '

"At the time I didn't know how dangerous Catch was. Somehow I realized that I was in no immediate danger, so I tried to come up with some sort of plan to get rid of him. I didn't want to stay there at the farm, and I didn't have anywhere I could go.

"My first instinct was to turn to the Church. If I could get to a priest, perhaps I could have the demon exorcised.

"I led Catch into town, where I asked the local priest to perform an exorcism. Before I could convince him of Catch's existence, the demon became visible and ate the priest, piece by piece, before my eyes. I realized then that Catch's power was beyond the comprehension of any normal priest, perhaps the entire Church.

"Christians are supposed to believe in evil as an active force. If you deny evil, you deny good and therefore God. But belief in evil is as much an act of faith as belief in God, and here I was faced with evil as a reality, not an abstraction. My faith was gone. It was no longer required. There was indeed evil in the world and that evil was me. It was my responsibility, I reasoned, to not let that evil become manifest to other people and thereby steal their faith. I had to keep Catch's existence a secret. I might not be able to stop him from taking lives, but I could keep him from taking souls.

"I decided to remove him to a safe place where there were no people for him to feed on. We hopped a freight and rode it to Colorado, where I led Catch high into the mountains. There I found a remote cabin where I thought he would be without victims. Weeks passed and I found that I had some control over the demon. I could make him fetch water and wood sometimes, but other times he defied me. I've never understood the inconsistency of his obedience.

"Once I had accepted the fact that I couldn't run away from Catch, I questioned him constantly, looking for some clue that might send him back to hell. He was vague, to say the least, giving me little to go on except that he had been on Earth before and that someone had sent him back.

"After we had been in the mountains for two months, a search party came to the cabin. It seemed that hunters in the area of the cabin, as well as people in villages as far as twenty miles away, had been disappearing. When I was asleep at night, Catch had been ranging for victims. It was obvious that isolation wasn't going to keep the demon from killing. I sent the search party away and set myself on coming up with some kind of plan. I knew we would have to move or people would discover that Catch existed.

"I knew there had to be some sort of logic to his presence on Earth. Then, while we were hiking out of the mountains, it occurred to me that the key to sending Catch back must have been concealed in another candlestick. And I had left them on the train with the girl. Jumping off the train to escape Catch may have cost me the only chance I had to get rid of him. I searched my memory for anything that could lead me to the girl. I had never asked where she was going or what her last name was. In trying to recall details of my time with her I kept coming up with the image of those striking blue eyes. They seemed etched into my memory while everything else faded. Could I go around the eastern United States asking anyone if they had seen a young girl with beautiful blue eyes?

"Something nagged at me. There was something that could lead me to the girl; I just had to remember it. Then it hit me  -  the wooden bracelet she wore. The initials carved inside the heart were E + A. How hard could it be to search service records for a soldier with the first initial E? His service records would have his next of kin, and she was staying with his family. I had a plan.

"I took Catch back East and began checking local draft boards. I told them I had been in Europe and a man whose first name began with E had saved my life and I wanted to find him. They always asked about divisions and stations and where the battle had taken place. I told them I had taken a shell fragment in the head and could remember nothing but the man's first initial. No one believed me, of course, but they gave me what I asked for  -  out of pity, I think.

"Meanwhile, Catch kept taking his victims. I tried to point him toward thieves and grifters when I could, reasoning that if he must kill, at least I could protect the innocent.

"I haunted libraries, looking for the oldest books on magic and demonology I could find. Perhaps somewhere I could find an incantation to send the demon back. I performed hundreds of rituals  -  drawing pentagrams, collecting bizarre talismans, and putting myself through all sorts of physical rigors and diets that were supposed to purify the sorcerer so the magic would work. After repeated failures, I realized that the volumes of magic were nothing more than the work of medieval snake-oil salesmen. They always added the purity of the sorcerer as a condition so they would have an excuse for their customers when the magic did not work.

"During this same time I was still looking for a priest who would perform an exorcism. In Baltimore I finally found one who believed my story. He agreed to perform an exorcism. For his protection, we arranged to have him stand on a balcony while Catch and I remained in the street below. Catch laughed himself silly through the entire ritual, and when it was over, he broke into the building and ate the priest. I knew then that finding the girl was my only hope.

"Catch and I kept moving, never staying in one place longer than two or three days. Fortunately there were no computers in those days that might have tracked the disappearances of Catch's victims. In each town I collected a list of veterans, then ran leads to the ground by knocking on doors and questioning the families. I've been doing that for over seventy years. Yesterday I think I found the man I was looking for. As it turned out, E was his middle initial. His name is J. Effrom Elliot. I thought my luck had finally turned. I mean the fact that the man is still alive is pretty lucky in itself. I thought that I might have to trace the candlesticks through surviving relatives, hoping that someone remembered them, perhaps had kept them as an heirloom.

"I thought it was all over, but now Catch is out of control and you are keeping me from stopping him forever. "