“If you don’t want to know what happened, don’t ask,” Mavis snapped.

What did they expect? Slick McCall was an institution, a hero, in his own greasy way. The story of his defeat should be an epic, not an obituary.

Even that good-looking fellow who owned the general store had rushed her through the story. What was his name, Asbestos Wine? No, Augustus Brine. That was it. Now, there was a man she could spend some time under. But he, too, had been impatient, and had rushed out of the bar without even buying a drink. It had pissed her off.

Mavis watched her own mood changes like the needle on a barometer. Given her current crankiness, the social climate in the Slug tonight would be stormy; she predicted fights. The liquor she stocked into the well that evening was diluted to half strength with distilled water. If people were going to get drunk and break up her place, it was going to cost them.

In her heart of hearts, she hoped she would get an opportunity to whack someone with her baseball bat.

AUGUSTUS

As darkness fell on Pine Cove that evening, Augustus Brine was filled with an uncharacteristic feeling of dread. In the past he had always seen sunset as a promise, a beginning. As a young man sunset had been a call to romance and excitement, more recently it signaled a time of rest and contemplation. Tonight it was not sunset, the promise, but sundown, the threat. With nightfall the full weight of his responsibility fell across his back like a leaden yoke, and try as he might, Brine could not shrug it off.

Gian Hen Gian had convinced him that he must find the one that commanded the demon. Brine had driven to the Head of the Slug, and after enduring a barrage of lewd advances from Mavis Sand, he was able to pry out of her the direction the dark stranger had gone when he left the bar. Virgil Long, the mechanic, gave him a description of the car and tried to convince him that his truck needed a tune-up.

Brine had then returned home to discuss a course of action with the king of the Djinn, who was engrossed in his fourth Marx Brothers movie.

“But how did you know he was coming here?” Brine asked.

“It was a feeling.”

“Then why can’t you get a feeling of where he is now?”

“You must find him, Augustus Brine.”

“And do what?”

“Get the Seal of Solomon and send Catch back to hell.”

“Or get eaten.”

“Yes, there is that possibility.”

“Why don’t you do it? He can’t hurt you.”

“If the dark one has the Seal of Solomon, then I too could become his slave. This would not be good. You must do it.”