The monster moved across the room so quickly that Effrom almost fell back on the bed to avoid him. His hopes of making it through the door dissolved in an instant. The monster loomed over him. Effrom could smell his fetid breath.

“He was here for the magic and I want it now, old man, or I’ll hang your entrails from the curtain rods.”

“He wanted to talk to the wife. I don’t know nothin’ about any magic. Maybe you should have landed in Washington. They run things from there.”

The monster picked Effrom up and shook him like a rag doll.

“Where is your wife, old man?”

Effrom could almost hear his brain rattling in his head. The monster’s hand squeezed the breath out of him. He tried to answer, but all he could produce was a pathetic croak.

“Where?” The monster threw him on the bed.

Effrom felt the air burn back into his lungs. “She’s in Monterey, visiting our daughter.”

“When will she be back? Don’t lie. I’ll know if you are lying.”

“How will you know?”

“Try me. Your guts should go well with this decor.”

“She’ll be home in the morning.”

“That’s enough,” the monster said. He grabbed Effrom by the shoulder and dragged him through the door. Effrom felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and a grinding pain flashed across his chest and back. His last thought before passing out was, God help me, I’ve killed the wife.

21

AUGUSTUS BRINE

“I found them. The car is parked in front of Jenny Masterson’s house.” Augustus Brine stormed into the house carrying a grocery bag in each arm.

Gian Hen Gian was in the kitchen pouring salt from a round, blue box into a pitcher of Koolaid.

Brine set the bags down on the hearth. “Help me bring some of this stuff in. There’s more bags in the truck.”

The genie walked to the fireplace and looked in the bags. One was filled with dry-cell batteries and spools of wire. The other was full of brown cardboard cylinders about four inches long and an inch in diameter. Gian Hen Gian took one of the cylinders out of the bag and held it up. A green, waterproof fuse extended from one end.

“What are these?”

“Seal bombs,” Brine said. “The Department of Fish and Game distributes them to fishermen to scare seals away from their lines and nets. I had a bunch at the store.”

“Explosives are useless against the demon.”

“There are five more bags in the truck. Would you bring them in, please?” Brine began to lay the seal bombs out in a line on the hearth. “I don’t know how much time we have.”