PRACTICAL
DEMONKEEPING

A Comedy of Horrors

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

FOR THE DEMONKEEPERS:
KARLENE, KATHY, AND HEATHER

CONTENTS

Part 1 SATURDAY NIGHT

1 THE BREEZE

Part 2 SUNDAY

2 PINE COVE

3 TRAVIS

4 ROBERT

5 AUGUSTUS BRINE

6 THE DJINN’S STORY

7 ARRIVAL

8 ROBERT

9 THE HEAD OF THE SLUG

10 AUGUSTUS BRINE

11 EFFROM

12 JENNIFER

Part 3 SUNDAY NIGHT

13 NIGHTFALL

14 DINNER

15 RACHEL

16 HOWARD

17 BILLY

18 RACHEL

19 JENNY’S HOUSE

20 EFFROM

21 AUGUSTUS BRINE

22 TRAVIS AND JENNY

Part 4 MONDAY

23 RIVERA

24 AUGUSTUS BRINE

25 AMANDA

26 TRAVIS’S STORY

27 AUGUSTUS

28 EFFROM

29 RIVERA

30 JENNY

31 GOOD GUYS

32 THE HEAD OF THE SLUG

33 RIVERA

34 U-PICK-EM

35 BAD GUYS, GOOD GUYS

36 JENNY, ROBERT, RIVERA, AMANDA, TRAVIS, HOWARD, AND THE SPIDER

37 GOOD GUYS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PRAISE

OTHER BOOKS BY CHRISTOPHER MOORE

CREDITS

COVER

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Part 1

SATURDAY NIGHT

Like one that on that lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,

And no more turns his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

THE BREEZE

The Breeze blew into San Junipero in the shotgun seat of Billy Winston’s Pinto wagon. The Pinto lurched dangerously from shoulder to centerline, the result of Billy trying to roll a joint one-handed while balancing a Coors tallboy and bopping to the Bob Marley song that crackled through the stereo.

“We be jammin’ now, mon!” Billy said, toasting The Breeze with a slosh of the Coors.

The Breeze shook his head balefully. “Keep the can down, watch the road, let me roll the doobie,” he said.

“Sorry, Breeze,” Billy said. “I’m just stoked that we’re on the road.”

Billy’s admiration for The Breeze was boundless. The Breeze was truly cool, a party renaissance man. He spent his days at the beach and his nights in a cloud of sinsemilla. The Breeze could smoke all night, polish off a bottle of tequila, maintain well enough to drive the forty miles back to Pine Cove without arousing the suspicion of a single cop, and be on the beach by nine the next morning acting as if the term hangover were too abstract to be considered. On Billy Winston’s private list of personal heroes The Breeze ranked second only to David Bowie.

The Breeze twisted the joint, lit it, and handed it to Billy for the first hit.

“What are we celebrating?” Billy croaked, trying to hold in the smoke.

The Breeze held up a finger to mark the question, while he dug the Dionysian Book of Days: An Occasion for Every Party from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. He flipped through the pages until he found the correct date. “Nambian Independence Day,” he announced.

“Bitchin’,” Billy said. “Party down for Nambian Independence.”