“Tell us one more time what happened.”
“Oh. Sure.” He had a Texas drawl like the sheriff’s, helping me get the cadence down for later use. “Well, that feller over there—the one that smells real bad—he came in a little while ago and started winnin’ big on the faro table. So big, in fact, he’d drawn himself a crowd, and there were side bets goin’ on and all manner of stuff. All I knew was that he was cleanin’ me out and we were gonna go bust if he kept goin’ on. Had my man Collins go over and say all nice ’n’ polite that he oughtta take that amazing luck of his somewhere else because we couldn’t afford him no more. An’ that’s when things got violent. He pushed Collins and told him to go spit, Collins pushed back, and then that man just picked Collins up and threw him across the room like he was a rag doll. Collins crashed into a poker game, and those men all got up to tell the guy who threw him a thing or two. Then there were guns out, and the lucky man wasn’t a smart man. It was four against one, and he shoots one dead and the others unload on him. But even though he had three bullets in him and got some more besides, he kept firing, one shot in the heart to each poker player, and only then did he fall down and die.”
“I see. And the other people in the bar?” I asked.
“They all ran out when the shooting started. I notice they took a bunch of money with them.”
“When did it start to smell in here?”
Stafford frowned. “I think it was when the faro player died.”
“And who was the last to leave?”
“Collins.”
The sheriff spoke up. “Your man who got thrown across the room and crashed into a table?”
“Yeah. Thought he was unconscious or maybe even dead, but he kinda jerked awake and staggered out, laughing like it was all funny. Didn’t say a word to me. I guess he quit. Wouldn’t blame him for wanting a new job after that.”
“That’s him, Sheriff,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow at me. “We need to find this Collins. That’s who we want.”
“He didn’t do nothin’ except what I told him to,” Bill Stafford said.
“What does Collins look like, Bill?” the sheriff asked. “We just want to ask him some questions.”
“Tall. Six foot. Green waistcoat, brown hair, blue eyes, and one o’ them funny Irish caps, you know the kind I mean? The ones that are flat on top.”
“Does he have a gun?”
“Naw. He’d move in close if he had to throw somebody out, then punch him out cold before he could draw.”
“Did he go right or left out of the door?”
“Left, I think.”
“All right.” The sheriff turned to Kasey Princell. “Deputy, I’d appreciate it if you could round up some help and get these people sorted so Mr. Stafford can get his business going again as soon as possible. I’m going to look for Mr. Collins with Mr. Percy here.”
We found Mr. Collins in an alley not one block away, moaning and vomiting in a sulfurous miasma.
“Ah, Lord a’mighty,” he said, his Irish accent plain as he dragged himself to a sitting position. “I feel terrible. What’s that fecking smell?”
I checked his aura: no demonic presence, just that lingering smell. He’d jumped into someone else already.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked him, squatting by his side.
“Sailing across the saloon when some cheeky bastard threw me. He didn’t look that strong. Ugh, me back feels like shite. D’ye know where I am and how I got here?”
“A block away from the saloon,” I told him, deciding it best not to tell him he’d been briefly possessed. “I don’t suppose you remember seeing anyone after you got thrown?”
“No, I don’t.”
“All right,” Sheriff Hays said, “let’s get you back to the saloon.” We helped Collins up and walked him back, which took some effort because he really wasn’t in good shape. He’d need some rest and maybe a doctor, though doctors at that time were often more harm than help. I let the sheriff do most of the talking and wondered if the demon had abandoned Collins because of his injuries or if he was really smart enough to switch hosts while no one was looking. If he was, then Pastore hadn’t summoned some low-level imp anxious for destruction but something truly dangerous. Which fit perfectly with Sequoia’s alarm, but it still gave me pause.
Once we had a moment to speak freely outside, I told the sheriff, “We will most likely suffer through a few more of these imbroglios before we catch up with the beast.”
He squinted at me. “Are you talkin’ ’bout fights and usin’ a five-dollar word?”
“Apologies. Yes. Dead people accompanied by the smell of sulfur nearby.”
“Huh.” Hays grimaced and spat into the street. “Somethin’s been botherin’ me, Mr. Percy. Still not sure I believe in all this, but just in case: Say we catch up to this demon. Then whadda we do? ’Specially if it can give a man super strength and jump from person to person?”
“We bind it and exorcise it.”
“Exorcise, not exercise? You mean like with a priest?”
“No, there are other methods I’ll employ.”
“Am I gonna get to use these methods?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Shootin’ it won’t do anything?”
“As the testimony of Mr. Stafford revealed, it will do plenty to the person it’s possessed, but the demon will simply choose a new host like Mr. Collins.”
“Well, how are you gonna do anything to it?”
“I’ll use the utmost caution to protect others, Sheriff, but will otherwise need to keep the process a secret.”
“Figured you’d say that. Mystery and unknowable crap. It’s like goin’ to church.”
“Ha! Yes, I see what you mean. Except I won’t ask you for a donation, Sheriff.”
“Yeah, you’d better not. What are you going to do next?”
“I’m going to take in the city, I think. Search for the beast in some other saloons. Now that he’s caused the death of five souls, he’ll be hungry for more.”
“I’ll let you get to it, then. Let me know if you find anything.”
He ducked back into the saloon to help Bill and his deputy with the crime scene, and I spun on my heel to look for new saloons. My plan was to stroll the streets and poke my head into each saloon to survey the auras of the crowd, in hopes of finding something unusual. It wasn’t much of a drain on my reserves and at least I’d get to know the town that way.
Unfortunately, I found something unusual in the very first place I visited, which was so packed that I had to step inside to do a thorough job: Across the room, a faery wearing the glamour of a surly, dusty miner glowered at the other patrons, doing the same thing as I was: Searching for someone. Searching for me.