“Holy shit. The way you talked to him, I almost had a heart attack.”

Coop shrugged. “He pulled a gun. It was upsetting. This whole place is giving me a rash. Let’s get out of here.”

Morty only had a couple of dollars on him when they got downstairs, so when the jester attendant brought the car around, Coop had to tip him with one of the hundreds. The attendant seemed genuinely confused when Coop asked for change.

EIGHT

IN A WIDE DARK ROOM, TWELVE ROBED FIGURES LIT only by red candles stood around an altar covered in eldritch carvings and ancient runes. A silver tray lay in the middle of the altar with five black triangular hosts arranged in the shape of an inverted pentagram. A robed priest at the head of the altar held up a host he plucked from a nearby bowl, which was also covered in a fearsome scrawl and glyphs of birds with what looked like pig heads. Plus, a kitten sticker someone’s kid had put on it that they’d never been able to completely scrape off.

“Hear me, O Caleximus, thundering archfiend, master of the sky throne, creator and destroyer. Accept this offering of the flesh of your chosen beast. A gift to you from us, your unworthy followers.”

The priest was dressed in a robe so dark that it looked like his head and hands were floating in the blackness.

“Give us your ear, dire Caleximus. We have such tidings to share with you.”

He placed the host on his tongue and swallowed. Or tried to. At first he just coughed. Then he made a gagging sound like he was trying to gargle a porcupine. The priest collapsed to his knees before the altar. A low cry went up around the room. He was down on all fours. Everyone froze, wondering what he’d done wrong to piss off their cantankerous netherworld deity. Some people began edging toward the exit.

Finally, the priest coughed the host onto the floor. He got to his feet slowly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked around at the other robed figures.

He said, “Jerry? Were you in charge of putting together the offerings?”

The room was silent.

“Jerry?”

“Yes?” said someone quietly.

“Were you in charge of the offerings?”

“Yes.”

The priest walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are these the fried flesh of a black boar sacrificed with the eagle-headed blade on a mountaintop in a thunderstorm?”

Jerry shook his head.

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? What are they, then?”

“Blue corn chips.”

An angry murmur went around the room.

“Corn chips. That’s not really even in the same ballpark, is it?”

Jerry shrugged.

“What kind of chips were they?”

“What?”

“What brand of chips?”

“Monsieur Crunchero.”

“Don’t you mean Señor Crunchero?”

“No. Monsieur. They’re Canadian.”